Israel/Hamas War

Where to start in commenting on the Israel/Hamas war? A lifetime could be taken up in reading everything that has been written on the Israel question.

A disclosure: We don’t do anti-Semitism in our house. On my wife’s family tree there is, a couple of generations back, a very strong Polish-Jewish connection. We don’t forget those connections.

For how much longer must Israel live with the threat of Hamas, Hezbollah and radical Islam? By radical Islam I mean Iran. From what I have read here and there Iran and its radical supporters will not rest until Israel is done away with, or put it another way, until a second Holocaust is complete. This time around Jewish people (i.e. Israel) have the means of defending themselves supported by an uncompromising ally in the form of the United States. Americans have long memories – see paragraph further on.

A few comments about New Zealand’s official position on the conflict. The best words I have are that New Zealand’s statements so far are outright embarrassing. We are being made to look like a nation of wimps. We have Hipkins prevaricating with weasel words obviously fed to him from within our foreign affairs department. Luxon for National is prevaricating to the same tune and telling us just what sort of Prime Minister he will be – keep it all very quiet, run with the hares, hunt with the hounds, don’t frighten the horses. Just in passing, I don’t think Luxon will last as Prime Minister.

Today (1st Nov) Luxon silenced one of his MPs, Chris Bishop, for echoing what has been out there on some news sites for the past week or so. Luxon is trying to be all things to all men by chastising Bishop for using strong language. To the matter of Chris Bishop making Holocaust comparisons. He simply repeated that the number of deaths on October 7th was the highest number SINCE the Holocaust. The rest of his email words were basically derived from reputable news sources. Strong language? It is required on occasions like this. Time for Luxon to get in touch with reality.

Chris Bishop’s email can be read here on The Spinoff:   Chris Bishop

About reputable news sources. One of the Sky News Oz shows tonight (1st Nov) interviewed a journalist from The Australian newspaper out of Canberra. He had been invited to the Israeli embassy to view the video referred to in Chris Bishop’s email. The journalist confirmed for us that the very worst things did in fact occur. He was profoundly disturbed by much of what he saw. The Hamas video footage was retrieved by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli diplomatic service decided to show the video only to selected media, and declined requests to circulate copies.

I mentioned above that my reading took me here and there. One commentary included the following reminder:

“The same voices that cheer when Jews are hurt or killed also cheer when Americans are hurt or killed. This was true in 1983, almost exactly forty years ago, when some of bloody Hamas’s likeminded bloody terrorist friends invaded a barracks in Beirut where America and other countries had sent a peacekeeping force. Those terrorists killed 307 people, most in their sleep, including over 200 United States Marines. This point about common enemies was also true in 2001, when haters of America and Israel flooded streets around the world, exulting in the deaths of American citizens. And it is true today, as the enemies of both Israel and the United States once again high-five the slaughter of innocents.”    Link:  First Things

There are posts worth attention on the Breaking Views site.

David Robinson

Chris Trotter

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