From Gaza to Washington, all things Palestinian are unhinged from reality.
Imagine Germany in the Spring of 1945. The Russians were on the outskirts of Berlin. The Americans and British were charging from the West. In a final bid to stop the Allies and offer an alternative to the unconditional surrender they demanded, Germany presented its own document for cessation of hostilities. It demanded all non-German troops out of the Reich, the continuation of Hitler’s government, a form of Marshall Plan for Nazi Germany’s economic recovery, and a return to life as it had been on August 31, 1939, the day before the invasion of Poland. The Allies would have answered such a ridiculous document with endless bombing runs and Russian artillery.
The fantasy document described above is pretty close to Hamas’ demands to end the current war in Gaza. After they murdered 1,200 people, wounded a few thousand more and took 250 hostages back to Gaza, they are now demanding that we return to October 6, 2023. All Israeli troops out. Hamas remaining as the power in the strip. The Rafah freight and human terminals in their hands. A thousand trucks a day with food and building material. The key provisions of Hamas’ response to Joe Biden’s fake Israeli peace offer include the removal of all Israeli troops as well as an ironclad promise that there will be no more fighting. Just as elections have consequences, so do wars. Ask the British about those pesky former colonies or maybe see if the Japanese have recovered Sakhalin Island lost to Stalin at the very end of World War II.
Israel has paid a dear price in soldiers and treasure to conquer Gaza. Hamas, after having destroyed 20 Israeli communities, wants a “permanent cease fire”—exactly like the ones that they always violated with rocket fire, incendiary balloons and finally a full-scale pogrom. Maybe Israel killed all of the psychiatrists in the Gaza Strip, because the Hamas leadership in the spas of Qatar or in the rat-infested tunnels of Gaza is completely delusional. Israelis want the hostages home, but not at any price. Most Israelis want this war won, meaning that they want a different Gaza calculus than existed during the post-withdrawal 20 years prior. The only card that Hamas has to play is the hostages, and again with all of the love and concern that Israelis feel for them, they do not want things to return to the way they were.
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While nobody seems to know what Gaza will look like four months from now or four years from now, there are certain contours that seem inevitable. Israeli leaders may be foolish enough to give over the Rafah crossing to the Palestinian Authority or some other body that will ignore gun and people running. Most people would think that Israel needs to control all crossings. Period. Most Israelis would expect that there will be a military footprint in Gaza, however much they do not like having their kids in high-risk areas. One of the main reasons Israel fled south Lebanon was due to soldiers being terrified serving there after so many were killed in ambushes or IED attacks. Israelis’ vision of Gazastan is one in which an enemy population is not allowed to arm itself or take steps to once again attack Israel. That will mean boots on the ground and limits as to what goes into the area. Hamas’ fantasies of control of the Egyptian border, the removal of all troops, and endless trucks with building supplies to make better tunnels are the stuff of Hitler in his bunker commanding vast armies that no longer existed except in his mind. If Gazans have to live in tents with electricity every other day so that Israeli farmers can safely plow their fields next to the border fence, then so be it. As we said, wars have consequences, especially when the losing side starts them.
The extreme delusions of the Palestinians are somehow communicable to their rabid supporters in the West. How else to explain the myriad videos of people being asked “Which river and which sea?” or “What does intifada mean?” and having no credible answer—after they were screaming the same for days on end? New York, home to the largest population of Jews outside of Israel, can have a guy lamenting that Hitler was not around to get rid of the Jews. Meanwhile, another guy enters a New York subway with a Hezbollah shirt and PFLP headband. Elsewhere, also on a subway car, “Zionists” were told to get out of the car—being given “their last chance”. The hatred is intense against Jews who have expressed no opinion on the war, Israel, or their relationship to Judaism. It does not matter, all are guilty by association, such as the Brooklyn Museum trustees whose houses were vandalized and painted red, with the standard catchphrases on “Palestine.”
The people screaming about Gaza never gave the Palestinians a thought before October of last year. They live fact-free lives and accept whatever their new Muslim friends feed them. It is a cult, and as people leave organized religions, it is only natural that they turn some cause into a religious crusade. We have seen the same with the climate nuts who interrupt sports and cultural events, attack priceless art, stop traffic, and demand that we all play along with their psychoses that have no real support in scientific research (the Department of Energy clearly states that natural sources produce more carbon dioxide than do humans). The enthusiasm, the belief in something bigger than the individual, the acceptance of ideas that cannot be questioned—all that had been previously directed towards religious growth is now used for leftwing shibboleths. Just as the masked-up pro-Hamas crowd cannot find Gaza on a map, the climate clowns still fly, own gas-guzzling or coal-powered electric cars, and will not downsize their homes to reduce heating/cooling requirements. Add in trans and its demand that we accept a 6’2” guy as a girl as he pummels the competition, and the religious experience is once again directed towards a lefty concept that people choose their gender like they pick out their clothes.
Israelis are not interested in Hamas’ fantasies and if recent polling in Donald Trump’s favor is correct, Americans are also tired of the left’s psychodramas. People want reality, and they want a reality that works for them.
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