The Israel Question

Ayatollah Ali Khameini praising the attack on Israel -- Zuma Press

The day after a deadly attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli citizens, both within and outside the Golan Heights, the Associated Press (AP) reported: “There was still some fighting underway more than 24 hours after an unprecedented surprise attack from Gaza, in which Hamas militants, backed by a volley of thousands of rockets, broke through Israel's security barrier and rampaged through nearby communities.”

Everyone expects a retaliatory response from the Israeli government. How long will the non-retaliatory mainstream media in the United States and Europe “cover” the unfolding events?

It usually takes a few days for important Front Page stories to migrate to the back pages. This one might take a bit longer, depending upon Israel’s response.

Israelis, it seems, are determined, perversely some reckon, to defend the Israeli state against thug terrorist organizations financed chiefly by Iran. Hamas and Hezbollah would be far less murderous were they not supported militarily with Iranian cash and poorly disguised anti-Semitic propaganda. Parts of Europe and President of the United States Joe Biden already are beginning to weep crocodile tears over the terrorist assault on Israeli citizens.

“At least 600 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades,” the AP reported, “and more than 300 have been killed in Gaza.” The figures likely are much higher. All the corpses have yet to be counted. Doing the math on our fingers, we may conclude that 300 Israeli citizens have been murdered by Iran sponsored terrorists outside of Gaza.

One reliable Middle East analyst, Avi Issacharoff, told the Times of Israel that the well-coordinated, “unprecedented assault on Israel by land, sea and air is an inadvertent benchmark for the Israel-Hamas relations, as significant as the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.”

A real peace effort underway between Israel and significant Arab states such as Saudi Arabia threatened to collapse the Iranian supported terrorist groups harassing Israel. “I think that they wanted to kidnap a few people, to negotiate over them, and not to get into the threat of their collapse — of their ending,” Issacharoff said.

Kidnapping and consequent ransoms finance Iran’s two terrorism arms, Hamas and Hezbollah.

The United States has traveled this well-worn terrorist appeasement trap before, with predictable results.

The Barack Obama administration shipped to Iran secret planeloads of cash at midnight -- without consulting the U.S. Congress -- in the hope of convincing Iran’s increasingly unpopular government to release hostages and cease the production of nuclear grade uranium necessary for the production of nuclear arms. The cash led to the release of a few captured Americans and only encouraged Iran to hasten its production of weapon grade uranium.

The Biden administration recently withdrew impositions on cash withheld from Iran. The politically inept administration attempted to answer assertions that the released funds would be used by Iran to purchase terrorist activity, principally against Israel, by Hamas and Hezbollah. The administration pointed out the dollars showered upon Iran would be used for charitable activities. Biden was instantly rebuked by the increasingly unpopular Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who asserted that since the funds were Iran’s, the government of Iran would decide how the cash would be used.

Part of the cash may be used to quell the populist discontent that arose recently when an Iranian woman was abused for fashion crimes. Or the Biden bequest may be used to defray the cost of imprisoning Narges Mohammadi, whose “most recent arrest, CBS News tells us, “came in the wake of nationwide protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old who died after she was detained by the country's morality police.”

One the most courageous woman in the Middle East, the imprisoned Mohammadi was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who noted, “This year's peace prize also recognizes the hundreds of thousands of people [in Iran] who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime's policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women."

Issacharoff, asked whether Hezbollah might join Hamas in future concerted attacks on Israel, said the most recent Iran supported attack is “9/11 [for Israel], and if this doesn’t go into a major ground operation, it’s the end of this government’s [i.e. Israel’s] political life… Starting another front with Israel may bring more [Israeli] casualties… but at the end of the day, we might end up with the end of Hamas and Hezbollah” – God and the Biden administration willing.