Trish- so much of your writing inspires me but I would love to understand why you think Bari Weiss is not a truth seeker as well? I love you both... here’s an example of why:
I have the utmost respect for your adherence to high journalistic standards. You are one of the very few journalists for whom the truth is more important than an agenda. Your high moral character and empathy for all people regardless of their religion or race sets an example to all. No one is perfect but for the past three odd years since I began following you, I have never been disappointed.
This is a very belated comment! Sorry about that. I don't know whether you read NYU prof Mark Crispin Miller's Substack. I recommend it - even if you only skim some of the titles of his frequent posts about "died suddenly." But there are 2 I really recommend you read. First is 'Gaza is a huge distraction from the fact that Netanyahu has been managing TWO genocides' <Oct. 26/23> https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/gaza-is-a-huge-distraction-from-the The 2nd is from the other day & includes a link to a recent interview he did, in which one learns a good deal about eugenics & its long & sordid history. The picture he describes is very dark - maybe too dark for you. I feel I learned a lot from it. 'On the killing propaganda of these last 4 years: MCM in conversation with Greg Hunter' <Dec. 17/23> https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/on-the-killing-propaganda-of-these Apologies for this very un-Christmas-y message...
Like many, I am deeply disturbed by the actions of Hamas and those who support Hamas. There is open and blatant hate being shouted at our Jewish Canadians in our streets, in public spaces like malls. I'm frightened by this escalation of hate.
While my heart breaks for the suffering of the innocent people in Gaza. If my sister was brutally assaulted, killed, then dragged through the streets and body beaten while Gaza civilians cheered and took part ...what would I do? I don't pass judgement to Israel. This conflict is too complicated for me to even be naive enough to offer a peaceful solution. There is so much pain of both sides.
Trish, in a comment on this post you said "Anyway -- hold your loved ones tight. Make your world small and manageable. And do what you can to make it better for all you know." Those are words I needed to hear - thank you. I keep appreciating you more & more as time goes on!
I am wondering what Israel should do to protect its citizens. I know a little bit about the topic. I've been to Israel, visiting Jewish friends and we stayed with Arab friends in Jerusalem. Best time of my life. I lived in Luxor, Egypt for 3 years (helped a woman get away from a mob of men during the pandemic) and saw the mask come off and the hatred to the West. My family escaped out of Egypt right before the 6 Day War (I was 11) and I will never Nassar's voice screaming on loudspeakers in the streets of Cairo, "Death to America and its stooge Israel". That hatred has not changed.
Here is Hamas’s Senior Leader, Ghazi Hamad: “We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims - On October 7th, on October 10th, on October 1,000,000th, Everything We Do Is Justified.”
All Hamas has to do is surrender, return the hostages and the war will end. Hamas is the monster here. Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people. They care about exterminating every Jew on the planet. This is a religious war, as I know firsthand. Btw, Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet. Since when did you ever encounter a proselytizing Jew?
Since Israel WITHDREW from the Gaza strip in August 2005, almost 20,000 rockets have hit southern Israel. I wrote a piece about all of this, citing sources: Hard Facts: From the River to the Sea: https://khmezek.substack.com/p/hard-facts-from-the-river-to-the In my essay, you can read the entire factual history of Yassar Arafat's life of terror that Israel (and the world) has endured, from the late 1950s up until the present, bombs, suicide bombings, no end. I encourage people to read it, the list is very long, and the media would rather you forget it.
Here are some facts that every Arab knows who lives in the region:
One of the Arabs' best-kept secrets, skillfully obscured over the years, is the true reason behind their refusal of the 1947 UN partition plan:
For those less familiar, here's a quick summary:
After WWII, the British, looking to exit the complicated situation they found themselves in in the Middle East, planned to hand back the mandate they had received from the UN.
The UN dispatched the UNSCOP committee to determine the region's future. The committee proposed several plans, with the well-known Partition Plan eventually being accepted by the majority of its members.
The Jewish community accepted this plan, and a majority of UN members voted in favor of it.
However, the Arabs rejected it, similarly to their earlier refusal of the Peel Commission's recommendations (a topic for another post).
So, why then did the Arabs reject the partition proposal?
Primarily, they were confident in their ability to swiftly defeat the Jews, eliminate them, and seize the entire territory.
This conviction also had a significant contribution to the Nakba as it led them to advise many Arabs to temporarily vacate their homes during the conflicts, expecting to return post-victory - a victory that, of course, never materialized.
Yet, this is not the core reason.
Pay close attention now:
The primary reason Arab leaders rejected the UN's partition proposal was their own disbelief in the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. In fact, they were opposed to it! Indeed, that's exactly as it sounds.
Arab leaders never recognized Palestinians as an ethnic group with self-determination rights, but rather as a part of the larger Arab nation.
As those knowledgeable in history (and not propaganda) understand, there were originally no 'Palestinians', only Arabs.
The Arabs' national goal was to create Greater Syria, covering today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, a vision outlined in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915-1916.
Therefore, they rejected any proposal that independently defined the Palestinians, as such a distinction simply did not exist.
(Interestingly, this truth is widely recognized in the Arab world. While not often acknowledged publicly, it occasionally surfaces, as seen in a video I'll share in the comments)
So next time Palestinian history, culture, or their right to self-determination is discussed, remember that while the world, Jews included, were willing to acknowledge this, the refusal came from the Arabs themselves, who recognized the idea of a Palestinian nation as a UN fabrication. -- Oren Barsky
As further proof of the disinterest Arabs have for Palestinians, here’s a list of the many opportunities Arabs had to create a Palestinian state since the early 1900s and that they rejected.
The Arabs said “no” to the 1937 Peel Commission that proposed a partition plan and the creation of an Arab state.
They said “no” again to the 1939 British White Paper that Proposed an Arab state.
It was “no” again to a 1947 United Nations plan that would have created an even larger Arab state as part of an overall partition plan.
(In the nearly two decades from 1948 to 1967, when Israel did not control the West Bank, the Arabs could have, again, demanded an independent state from Jordan, which did not control it, but they never did.)
In 1979, during the Israel-Egypt peace negotiations, Palestinians were again offered autonomy, but again, they refused.
1993 there was, and technically still is, the OSLO Agreement, but it was never followed, much less implemented.
And in 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack offered to create a Palestinian state, but then-Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Yassar Arafat rejected it.
In 2005 Israel gave up all of its settlements in the Gaza Strip and several more in the northern part of Samaria, a “land of peace” deal that produced nothing but Hamas terror attacks in return.
In 2008, Israel offered to give up nearly 94% percent of the so-called “West Bank”, but the Palestinian leadership rejected that, too.
With this war, deep rooted hatred of Jews as risen to the surface all over the world, It's as if suddenly it's okay and people are loving it. X is a cesspool of hatred now, I have to mentally prepare myself to go on there. The question we need to ask is, why.
It's was a pleasure to find your essay all the way down here at the end of the trail—cogent, compelling and richly detailed. It led me to your site which I will be exploring. My one and only visit to Luxor was in 1972, and I'm curious to catch up a bit on what been happening over the past 50 years... I was quite surprised to discover that you feature an endorsement from Trish on your homepage. Your perspective (and mine) as featured in this post seems to be at the opposite end of universe from Trish's current coverage of the Gaza war. I look forward to seeing how the cognitive dissonance might resolve itself.
Trish Wood and I go back a bit. She was the first person to interview me when I just started writing on Substack and there is a lot we agree on. Since taking a stand for Israel I have lost many subscribers and some friends--not to say that is surprising, I expected it, but it is still disheartening. However, I have gained others! I am a free speech advocate so I would rather discuss than shut people off, as long as the conversation remains civil. What is happening now is really tragic.
I figured it the connection must be from days gone by. Hopefully it can withstand the storms of present day.
I just finished reading your essay on the women of Luxor. How utterly depressing to be reminded of what misery so many poor souls find themselves trapped in. Thanks for shining a light on what's happening in one of the many dark corners of our world. I am pleased to have discovered your work and I will be subscribing.
And then Chrystia Freeland is on X talking about Islamophobia. Where the hell is any? I haven’t seen any reports. Is it real or are they just gaslighting and pandering as usual?!
Good point Trish. It’s an easy sentiment for me to say “ do something “ because I feel utterly helpless. I read about the attacks on the Vancouver transit a week or two ago and the Toronto malls this weekend and a few people on X speak out, a few politicians speak out but the police don’t want to “ escalate”. Maybe the double standard of a peaceful protest that went on for a few weeks against these demonstrations, mobs sometimes going on every weekend for months. Nothing is done. I live in a rural area. I bought a menorah to put in my window. My MP is conservative. His voice means nothing. I just feel helpless and am worried “never again” really is now and they won’t stop with Jews, as the Santa protest shows. All the white oppressors will have to go
It's such shame that this all had to happen. More than 10,000 workers were entering Israel from Gaza every day to work as gardeners, builders, laborers. It seemed like such positive step toward building friendly relations between neighbors and advancing the cause of peace. The Gazans were happy to be earning a living wage; the Israelis were pleased to have an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to peaceful coexistence and to working side-by-side. And then what happened? Did the Israelis suddenly fly jet planes over Gaza and start blowing up everything in sight?
No, early one morning while the Israelis were sleeping peacefully in their beds, thousands of armed intruders crossed over from Gaza and began to kill everyone they could find. They murdered families in their beds, they murdered young and old, children, toddlers and infants. And they didn't just kill their victims: they tortured them mercilessly. They tied parents together and made them watch as they gouged out their children's eyes and cut them to pieces before they set the parents on fire and burned them alive. They gang raped, tortured and butchered more than a thousand people all morning and afternoon, and they filmed themselves joyously carrying out these atrocities.
And then they took a couple hundred prisoners with them and went back down into their subterranean warren of tunnels with a thousand hidden entrances and exits. And they taunted the Israelis to try to do something about it. After 10 weeks they still haven't been able to locate the captives. Hamas could have ended the bombing weeks ago by releasing the prisoners, but they prefer to see Israel buried under waves of negative publicity.
Meanwhile, the Israelis move heaven and earth to get civilians out of conflict areas using leaflets, loudspeakers, and broadcasts—something no other military has ever done in the history of warfare. And still they are accused of "indiscriminant bombing" and "callous disregard for human life" and "moral collapse." Young Israeli soldiers are dying every day, being picked off by snipers who pop out of their holes and then scurry back down. And instead of being honored for its fundamental decency in confronting a bestial enemy who has none, the IDF is slandered relentlessly.
It's unfortunate that a handful of decent people living in the midst of collapsing buildings is being made to suffer. But it's Israel who is the aggrieved party here. And it's Hamas who is wholly responsible for every innocent civilian death.
Thank you. It's hard to believe that nearly six months have passed since I wrote that post, and there are still hostages being tormented in the Gaza underworld.
And, also, I had forgotten that Trish's response to my post was indignation that Israel wasn't dropping enough QR code leaflets.
Quite honestly, I'm stunned by your comment. After reading through the previous paragraphs describing Hamas' unprovoked acts of horrific savagery, your response is to focus on the failure of the Jews to continue distributing QR leaflets. OMG! How dreadful! How is it that you can't bring yourself to find even an ounce of compassion for the ordeals that the Israelis have endured? All of your efforts appear to be directed to having your audience empathize with the poor Gazans while passing over the plain truth that they brought this upon themselves by committing mass murder.
In your telling of the story, the Israelis are simply brutes who kill wantonly and deserve only condemnation. It's deeply disappointing to me to discover that you seem to be incapable of being a fair witness in your coverage of the Gaza war. I was drawn to follow your work based on your compelling coverage of the Covid deception and the Plandemic. I wish I hadn't discovered this other side of you for whom Jewish lives have so little meaning or value. I sincerely hope that you come to recognize that and that you work your way through it. Absent that, your coverage of these events will remain indistinguishable from Al-Jazeera and others who carry water for Islamic terrorists.
I was responding to you saying they are moving heaven and earth. That is bullshit. Plus where are they to go. Rafah is closed to them. They moved South and the bombs fell there. Please at least be honest. And don't put word in my mouth. I don't make generalizations about Israelis -- but I do think Bibi and his cabinet are dangerous and were on the way out for corruption before this happened. Jewish lives have value for me. But so do Palestinian lives. I guess they don't for you. Twenty thousand. More under the rubble. Endless suffering without proper medical care. Thousands of amputations. Food and water inadequate. For civilians. This makes me a terrorist supporter? What a cheap and ill-informed take. October 7th happened and the hostages need to come home. Bombing them to death is also not a good idea. History will judge. But at this point, I doubt history will continue.
Throughout the final decades of the last century, from the Munich Olympic massacre to the airplane highjackings and suicide bombings, Palestinian terrorists did their best to terrorize and murder their targeted victims. Starting in 2000, the gameplan shifted to the "dead baby strategy." Rockets would be shot at Israel's civilian communities, and when Israel responded to the source of the rocket fire, Palestinian photographers would be waiting to snap heart-rending photos of an elderly grandmother sitting amidst the rubble of her home or a distraught father carrying a wounded child in his arms. This worked like a charm to show the world what evil monsters the Israelis were. It served to demonize Israel and metastasize jew-hatred worldwide to the point where ignorant little snots on US campuses rushed to cheer the massacres of Oct 7th before Israel had even begun to respond.
Journalists who strive to provide fair coverage don't focus on civilian casualties that tug at our heart-strings without explaining who was the aggressor, without pointing out that Hamas has built miles of tunnels underground but not a single bomb shelter, without informing their readers that Hamas deliberately uses its civilians to serve as human shields to become sacrificial victims and fuel the Jihad. If you fail to do these things, ask yourself how your coverage differs from Al-Jazeera's dead-baby strategy?
Indeed! This was the most savage pogrom in modern history. However, for some, we need further evidence of 40 beheaded babies. The massacres in the Kibbutzims & musical festival & Zikim Beach where not enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
Your interview with Dr. Michael Nehls (author "The Indoctrinated Brain") hit a "neurve" with me. As applies to Covid mania, also applies elsewhere. There is so much propaganda it is seriously almost impossible to know what is true. What I do know to be true is that Ukraine and Israel share the same enemies.
Thanks, Trish. I don't have much more to say that is tectonic or insightful. Yes we're being dehumanized. It's a theme these days it seems. But I'll leave you with this - a quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut - who experienced the exterminating conflagration of the firebombing of Dresden.
“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?”
Andrew, Do you have any other examples of such catastrophic controlled demolition style collapse (due to ocean water rust impact) from any other country, city or time in history?
No problem. Can you find one example of comparable controlled demolition style collapse of a building into its footprint resulting from saltwater corrosion? There are so many cities built up along shorelines all around the world.
Trish, the "better days ahead" will only happen when people in the West strike, flood the streets and shout BASTA...= NO MORE! This is the most evil government on the planet that has ever existed, aka AmeriKa.
If you look at the original maps showing what was taken from the inhabitants and given to the Jews by the western world WHO didn't want them before the War or after the War you can easily see the game plan play out which is occupying the entire Levant. Que Bono. Essentially outside Gaza it's another S Africa set of "Bantustans" of Arab people's. The Zionists are so confident in their power over the Arab untermenchen and the government's of the Western world it's breathtaking to watch the massecure of defenseless civilians in real time "they're doing a good job killing off the journalists trying to report on it though". The relentless agitprop and lying of the MSM is loosing it's hold, at least on the young. Thanks to the COVID 1984 Lies, BIG Pharma is having a hard time getting customers for their toxins. Hopefully some of that can transfer in the acceptance of War. Pretty poetry doesn't help, millions in the streets do but I see no sign of that. China has proven to be much less warlike than other nations, hopefully they can bring humanity to humans, we have failed.
"China has proven to be much less warlike than other nations, hopefully they can bring humanity to humans, we have failed."
Robert Hunter - SERIOUSLY? You need to catch up. China is at the root of all the rot in our society right now. It's a Marxist tactic. I'm old enough to remember when Pierre Elliot Trudeau spent 3 months with Mao Zedong in the 1960s. For those too young to remember, research Mao's cultural revolution (1966-76). War with China looks just like what we are seeing now. It's a psychological war.
Trish- so much of your writing inspires me but I would love to understand why you think Bari Weiss is not a truth seeker as well? I love you both... here’s an example of why:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/honestly-with-bari-weiss/id1570872415?i=1000639234929
Trish,
I have the utmost respect for your adherence to high journalistic standards. You are one of the very few journalists for whom the truth is more important than an agenda. Your high moral character and empathy for all people regardless of their religion or race sets an example to all. No one is perfect but for the past three odd years since I began following you, I have never been disappointed.
I hope you have a wonderful joyful holiday.
This is a very belated comment! Sorry about that. I don't know whether you read NYU prof Mark Crispin Miller's Substack. I recommend it - even if you only skim some of the titles of his frequent posts about "died suddenly." But there are 2 I really recommend you read. First is 'Gaza is a huge distraction from the fact that Netanyahu has been managing TWO genocides' <Oct. 26/23> https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/gaza-is-a-huge-distraction-from-the The 2nd is from the other day & includes a link to a recent interview he did, in which one learns a good deal about eugenics & its long & sordid history. The picture he describes is very dark - maybe too dark for you. I feel I learned a lot from it. 'On the killing propaganda of these last 4 years: MCM in conversation with Greg Hunter' <Dec. 17/23> https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/on-the-killing-propaganda-of-these Apologies for this very un-Christmas-y message...
Like many, I am deeply disturbed by the actions of Hamas and those who support Hamas. There is open and blatant hate being shouted at our Jewish Canadians in our streets, in public spaces like malls. I'm frightened by this escalation of hate.
While my heart breaks for the suffering of the innocent people in Gaza. If my sister was brutally assaulted, killed, then dragged through the streets and body beaten while Gaza civilians cheered and took part ...what would I do? I don't pass judgement to Israel. This conflict is too complicated for me to even be naive enough to offer a peaceful solution. There is so much pain of both sides.
Trish, in a comment on this post you said "Anyway -- hold your loved ones tight. Make your world small and manageable. And do what you can to make it better for all you know." Those are words I needed to hear - thank you. I keep appreciating you more & more as time goes on!
Stunning post, Trish. Phew. Thank you so much for your heartfelt words & deep compassion.
I am wondering what Israel should do to protect its citizens. I know a little bit about the topic. I've been to Israel, visiting Jewish friends and we stayed with Arab friends in Jerusalem. Best time of my life. I lived in Luxor, Egypt for 3 years (helped a woman get away from a mob of men during the pandemic) and saw the mask come off and the hatred to the West. My family escaped out of Egypt right before the 6 Day War (I was 11) and I will never Nassar's voice screaming on loudspeakers in the streets of Cairo, "Death to America and its stooge Israel". That hatred has not changed.
Here is Hamas’s Senior Leader, Ghazi Hamad: “We Will Repeat the October 7 Attack Time and Again Until Israel Is Annihilated; We Are Victims - On October 7th, on October 10th, on October 1,000,000th, Everything We Do Is Justified.”
All Hamas has to do is surrender, return the hostages and the war will end. Hamas is the monster here. Hamas does not care about the Palestinian people. They care about exterminating every Jew on the planet. This is a religious war, as I know firsthand. Btw, Islam is the fastest growing religion on the planet. Since when did you ever encounter a proselytizing Jew?
Since Israel WITHDREW from the Gaza strip in August 2005, almost 20,000 rockets have hit southern Israel. I wrote a piece about all of this, citing sources: Hard Facts: From the River to the Sea: https://khmezek.substack.com/p/hard-facts-from-the-river-to-the In my essay, you can read the entire factual history of Yassar Arafat's life of terror that Israel (and the world) has endured, from the late 1950s up until the present, bombs, suicide bombings, no end. I encourage people to read it, the list is very long, and the media would rather you forget it.
Here are some facts that every Arab knows who lives in the region:
One of the Arabs' best-kept secrets, skillfully obscured over the years, is the true reason behind their refusal of the 1947 UN partition plan:
For those less familiar, here's a quick summary:
After WWII, the British, looking to exit the complicated situation they found themselves in in the Middle East, planned to hand back the mandate they had received from the UN.
The UN dispatched the UNSCOP committee to determine the region's future. The committee proposed several plans, with the well-known Partition Plan eventually being accepted by the majority of its members.
The Jewish community accepted this plan, and a majority of UN members voted in favor of it.
However, the Arabs rejected it, similarly to their earlier refusal of the Peel Commission's recommendations (a topic for another post).
So, why then did the Arabs reject the partition proposal?
Primarily, they were confident in their ability to swiftly defeat the Jews, eliminate them, and seize the entire territory.
This conviction also had a significant contribution to the Nakba as it led them to advise many Arabs to temporarily vacate their homes during the conflicts, expecting to return post-victory - a victory that, of course, never materialized.
Yet, this is not the core reason.
Pay close attention now:
The primary reason Arab leaders rejected the UN's partition proposal was their own disbelief in the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. In fact, they were opposed to it! Indeed, that's exactly as it sounds.
Arab leaders never recognized Palestinians as an ethnic group with self-determination rights, but rather as a part of the larger Arab nation.
As those knowledgeable in history (and not propaganda) understand, there were originally no 'Palestinians', only Arabs.
The Arabs' national goal was to create Greater Syria, covering today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, a vision outlined in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915-1916.
Therefore, they rejected any proposal that independently defined the Palestinians, as such a distinction simply did not exist.
(Interestingly, this truth is widely recognized in the Arab world. While not often acknowledged publicly, it occasionally surfaces, as seen in a video I'll share in the comments)
So next time Palestinian history, culture, or their right to self-determination is discussed, remember that while the world, Jews included, were willing to acknowledge this, the refusal came from the Arabs themselves, who recognized the idea of a Palestinian nation as a UN fabrication. -- Oren Barsky
As further proof of the disinterest Arabs have for Palestinians, here’s a list of the many opportunities Arabs had to create a Palestinian state since the early 1900s and that they rejected.
The Arabs said “no” to the 1937 Peel Commission that proposed a partition plan and the creation of an Arab state.
They said “no” again to the 1939 British White Paper that Proposed an Arab state.
It was “no” again to a 1947 United Nations plan that would have created an even larger Arab state as part of an overall partition plan.
(In the nearly two decades from 1948 to 1967, when Israel did not control the West Bank, the Arabs could have, again, demanded an independent state from Jordan, which did not control it, but they never did.)
In 1979, during the Israel-Egypt peace negotiations, Palestinians were again offered autonomy, but again, they refused.
1993 there was, and technically still is, the OSLO Agreement, but it was never followed, much less implemented.
And in 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack offered to create a Palestinian state, but then-Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Yassar Arafat rejected it.
In 2005 Israel gave up all of its settlements in the Gaza Strip and several more in the northern part of Samaria, a “land of peace” deal that produced nothing but Hamas terror attacks in return.
In 2008, Israel offered to give up nearly 94% percent of the so-called “West Bank”, but the Palestinian leadership rejected that, too.
With this war, deep rooted hatred of Jews as risen to the surface all over the world, It's as if suddenly it's okay and people are loving it. X is a cesspool of hatred now, I have to mentally prepare myself to go on there. The question we need to ask is, why.
Love the detailed history of the conflict Karen … thanks
It's was a pleasure to find your essay all the way down here at the end of the trail—cogent, compelling and richly detailed. It led me to your site which I will be exploring. My one and only visit to Luxor was in 1972, and I'm curious to catch up a bit on what been happening over the past 50 years... I was quite surprised to discover that you feature an endorsement from Trish on your homepage. Your perspective (and mine) as featured in this post seems to be at the opposite end of universe from Trish's current coverage of the Gaza war. I look forward to seeing how the cognitive dissonance might resolve itself.
Trish Wood and I go back a bit. She was the first person to interview me when I just started writing on Substack and there is a lot we agree on. Since taking a stand for Israel I have lost many subscribers and some friends--not to say that is surprising, I expected it, but it is still disheartening. However, I have gained others! I am a free speech advocate so I would rather discuss than shut people off, as long as the conversation remains civil. What is happening now is really tragic.
I figured it the connection must be from days gone by. Hopefully it can withstand the storms of present day.
I just finished reading your essay on the women of Luxor. How utterly depressing to be reminded of what misery so many poor souls find themselves trapped in. Thanks for shining a light on what's happening in one of the many dark corners of our world. I am pleased to have discovered your work and I will be subscribing.
Thank you!
So really, you probably can’t do anything either. It’s just very awful.
And then Chrystia Freeland is on X talking about Islamophobia. Where the hell is any? I haven’t seen any reports. Is it real or are they just gaslighting and pandering as usual?!
Good point Trish. It’s an easy sentiment for me to say “ do something “ because I feel utterly helpless. I read about the attacks on the Vancouver transit a week or two ago and the Toronto malls this weekend and a few people on X speak out, a few politicians speak out but the police don’t want to “ escalate”. Maybe the double standard of a peaceful protest that went on for a few weeks against these demonstrations, mobs sometimes going on every weekend for months. Nothing is done. I live in a rural area. I bought a menorah to put in my window. My MP is conservative. His voice means nothing. I just feel helpless and am worried “never again” really is now and they won’t stop with Jews, as the Santa protest shows. All the white oppressors will have to go
It's such shame that this all had to happen. More than 10,000 workers were entering Israel from Gaza every day to work as gardeners, builders, laborers. It seemed like such positive step toward building friendly relations between neighbors and advancing the cause of peace. The Gazans were happy to be earning a living wage; the Israelis were pleased to have an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to peaceful coexistence and to working side-by-side. And then what happened? Did the Israelis suddenly fly jet planes over Gaza and start blowing up everything in sight?
No, early one morning while the Israelis were sleeping peacefully in their beds, thousands of armed intruders crossed over from Gaza and began to kill everyone they could find. They murdered families in their beds, they murdered young and old, children, toddlers and infants. And they didn't just kill their victims: they tortured them mercilessly. They tied parents together and made them watch as they gouged out their children's eyes and cut them to pieces before they set the parents on fire and burned them alive. They gang raped, tortured and butchered more than a thousand people all morning and afternoon, and they filmed themselves joyously carrying out these atrocities.
And then they took a couple hundred prisoners with them and went back down into their subterranean warren of tunnels with a thousand hidden entrances and exits. And they taunted the Israelis to try to do something about it. After 10 weeks they still haven't been able to locate the captives. Hamas could have ended the bombing weeks ago by releasing the prisoners, but they prefer to see Israel buried under waves of negative publicity.
Meanwhile, the Israelis move heaven and earth to get civilians out of conflict areas using leaflets, loudspeakers, and broadcasts—something no other military has ever done in the history of warfare. And still they are accused of "indiscriminant bombing" and "callous disregard for human life" and "moral collapse." Young Israeli soldiers are dying every day, being picked off by snipers who pop out of their holes and then scurry back down. And instead of being honored for its fundamental decency in confronting a bestial enemy who has none, the IDF is slandered relentlessly.
It's unfortunate that a handful of decent people living in the midst of collapsing buildings is being made to suffer. But it's Israel who is the aggrieved party here. And it's Hamas who is wholly responsible for every innocent civilian death.
Very well put Sam
Thank you. It's hard to believe that nearly six months have passed since I wrote that post, and there are still hostages being tormented in the Gaza underworld.
And, also, I had forgotten that Trish's response to my post was indignation that Israel wasn't dropping enough QR code leaflets.
How are they moving heaven and earth. They aren't even dropping the QR code leaflets anymore.
Quite honestly, I'm stunned by your comment. After reading through the previous paragraphs describing Hamas' unprovoked acts of horrific savagery, your response is to focus on the failure of the Jews to continue distributing QR leaflets. OMG! How dreadful! How is it that you can't bring yourself to find even an ounce of compassion for the ordeals that the Israelis have endured? All of your efforts appear to be directed to having your audience empathize with the poor Gazans while passing over the plain truth that they brought this upon themselves by committing mass murder.
In your telling of the story, the Israelis are simply brutes who kill wantonly and deserve only condemnation. It's deeply disappointing to me to discover that you seem to be incapable of being a fair witness in your coverage of the Gaza war. I was drawn to follow your work based on your compelling coverage of the Covid deception and the Plandemic. I wish I hadn't discovered this other side of you for whom Jewish lives have so little meaning or value. I sincerely hope that you come to recognize that and that you work your way through it. Absent that, your coverage of these events will remain indistinguishable from Al-Jazeera and others who carry water for Islamic terrorists.
I was responding to you saying they are moving heaven and earth. That is bullshit. Plus where are they to go. Rafah is closed to them. They moved South and the bombs fell there. Please at least be honest. And don't put word in my mouth. I don't make generalizations about Israelis -- but I do think Bibi and his cabinet are dangerous and were on the way out for corruption before this happened. Jewish lives have value for me. But so do Palestinian lives. I guess they don't for you. Twenty thousand. More under the rubble. Endless suffering without proper medical care. Thousands of amputations. Food and water inadequate. For civilians. This makes me a terrorist supporter? What a cheap and ill-informed take. October 7th happened and the hostages need to come home. Bombing them to death is also not a good idea. History will judge. But at this point, I doubt history will continue.
Throughout the final decades of the last century, from the Munich Olympic massacre to the airplane highjackings and suicide bombings, Palestinian terrorists did their best to terrorize and murder their targeted victims. Starting in 2000, the gameplan shifted to the "dead baby strategy." Rockets would be shot at Israel's civilian communities, and when Israel responded to the source of the rocket fire, Palestinian photographers would be waiting to snap heart-rending photos of an elderly grandmother sitting amidst the rubble of her home or a distraught father carrying a wounded child in his arms. This worked like a charm to show the world what evil monsters the Israelis were. It served to demonize Israel and metastasize jew-hatred worldwide to the point where ignorant little snots on US campuses rushed to cheer the massacres of Oct 7th before Israel had even begun to respond.
Journalists who strive to provide fair coverage don't focus on civilian casualties that tug at our heart-strings without explaining who was the aggressor, without pointing out that Hamas has built miles of tunnels underground but not a single bomb shelter, without informing their readers that Hamas deliberately uses its civilians to serve as human shields to become sacrificial victims and fuel the Jihad. If you fail to do these things, ask yourself how your coverage differs from Al-Jazeera's dead-baby strategy?
Indeed! This was the most savage pogrom in modern history. However, for some, we need further evidence of 40 beheaded babies. The massacres in the Kibbutzims & musical festival & Zikim Beach where not enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
“Were not enough”...not where lol!
Your interview with Dr. Michael Nehls (author "The Indoctrinated Brain") hit a "neurve" with me. As applies to Covid mania, also applies elsewhere. There is so much propaganda it is seriously almost impossible to know what is true. What I do know to be true is that Ukraine and Israel share the same enemies.
Thanks, Trish. I don't have much more to say that is tectonic or insightful. Yes we're being dehumanized. It's a theme these days it seems. But I'll leave you with this - a quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut - who experienced the exterminating conflagration of the firebombing of Dresden.
“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
"When an aging Surfside, Florida apartment block collapsed..."
Whether aging or not, buildings only collapse like that with explosives properly targeted or installed.
Andrew, Do you have any other examples of such catastrophic controlled demolition style collapse (due to ocean water rust impact) from any other country, city or time in history?
No problem. Can you find one example of comparable controlled demolition style collapse of a building into its footprint resulting from saltwater corrosion? There are so many cities built up along shorelines all around the world.
Trish, the "better days ahead" will only happen when people in the West strike, flood the streets and shout BASTA...= NO MORE! This is the most evil government on the planet that has ever existed, aka AmeriKa.
If you look at the original maps showing what was taken from the inhabitants and given to the Jews by the western world WHO didn't want them before the War or after the War you can easily see the game plan play out which is occupying the entire Levant. Que Bono. Essentially outside Gaza it's another S Africa set of "Bantustans" of Arab people's. The Zionists are so confident in their power over the Arab untermenchen and the government's of the Western world it's breathtaking to watch the massecure of defenseless civilians in real time "they're doing a good job killing off the journalists trying to report on it though". The relentless agitprop and lying of the MSM is loosing it's hold, at least on the young. Thanks to the COVID 1984 Lies, BIG Pharma is having a hard time getting customers for their toxins. Hopefully some of that can transfer in the acceptance of War. Pretty poetry doesn't help, millions in the streets do but I see no sign of that. China has proven to be much less warlike than other nations, hopefully they can bring humanity to humans, we have failed.
"China has proven to be much less warlike than other nations, hopefully they can bring humanity to humans, we have failed."
Robert Hunter - SERIOUSLY? You need to catch up. China is at the root of all the rot in our society right now. It's a Marxist tactic. I'm old enough to remember when Pierre Elliot Trudeau spent 3 months with Mao Zedong in the 1960s. For those too young to remember, research Mao's cultural revolution (1966-76). War with China looks just like what we are seeing now. It's a psychological war.