Skip to main content

Israel, Hamas, Iran. When enough is enough.

Netanyahu and Biden -- Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government, via Associated Press

Consider the following brief news story from The Hill, a publication most would consider either non-partisan or discreetly partisan: “Biden says Netanyahu isn’t doing enough to get hostage deal.”

According to the lede, “President Biden on Monday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to secure a hostage deal, adding pressure on the Israeli leader to reach a cease-fire agreement after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza over the weekend.’

There is no argument here. The Hill notes, “Biden was asked by reporters outside the White House on Monday if Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a hostage release agreement, to which he said, ‘No.’”

Well then, are those mediating the so called “two state solution” to the war in Gaza, and Lebanon, and Yemen, and, derivatively, Iran satisfied that they have put together an agreement that will appease both Israel and assorted terrorists, mostly Shia Arabs?

The answer to this question is – No. The Hill notes, “When asked if mediators are prepared to present a final hostage deal this week to both Israel and Hamas, Biden said, ‘We are very close to that,’ adding, ‘Hope springs eternal.’”

“Eternal” may be the right word. The mediators have been constructing their “two state solution” agreement, it seems, for the entire length of the Hamas-Israeli war. Hamas, under the direction of Iran, has refused any and all peace overtures. And Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu said, following the execution at close range of four hostages held in a Rafah tunnel for nearly a year, “We will not rest, nor will we be silent. We will pursue you, we will find you and we will settle accounts with you. Whoever murders hostages does not want a deal.”

 It appears there has been a war in progress between Israel and Hamas ever since Hamas attacked peaceful Israeli citizens enjoying a concert. The four hostages murdered by Hamas were captured during that concert on Oct 7, 2023. Hamas killed about 1,200 people and, The Hill reports, “Roughly 250 hostages were taken captive during Hamas’s surprise assault…  About 100 of the hostages were released late last year during a week-long cease-fire.”

The Biden administration, dripping with empathy for the victims, is even now insisting on what appears to be a political point, almost an academic point: Netanyahu is “not doing enough” to bring Hamas, and Hezbollah and the Houthis to the negotiating table. Netanyahu has pledged to rid Israel of continuing assaults by three terrorists groups financed by Iran.

Negotiation, some hands-on political negotiators might insist, is war by other means. But what matters in such negotiations is – who wins the war? As a general rule, the party that wins the war determines the peace in post war negotiations.

The Biden-Harris administration regards any negotiation as an end in itself. This view of things is historically shortsighted but politically opportune. Netanyahu clearly is not interested in his own political salvation and likely will be voted out of office at the conclusion of a successful wider war against Iran supported terrorist agents.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill never survived the political assaults launched against him following the successful prosecution – with the aid of the United States -- of both World War II and the ensuing Cold War against communist domination of Eastern Europe. Churchill lost the political battles, but he won both struggles through sheer force of character.

In the end, those who successfully prosecuted both hot and cold wars advanced the cause of peace for generations. And in the end, peace always secured at a great cost, they were dispensable.

Looking back at the bloodiest century in world history, French philosopher Julian Benda closed his much read book, La Trahison des Clercs (English translation: The Treason of the Intellectuals) with a dreadful prediction. The impulse towards domination of the material world, materialism itself, would produce an all-encompassing species-wide civilization that would completely cease "to situate the good outside the real world." The lust for power as an end in itself would become the primary pursuit of society.

Benda concludes his work with these words: “And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died."

Sometimes it is necessary to wade through blood so that the spiritual nature of the human species will not be lost in vanity and material or political progress alone. Neither Socrates nor Christ gave up their lives so that materialism – a vacuous pursuit of power – should suppress the human drive for honor and the rights of God.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The PURA soap opera continues in Connecticut: Business eyeing the exit signs

The trouble at PURA and the two energy companies it oversees began – ages ago, it now seems – with the elevation of Marissa Gillett to the chairpersonship of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulation Authority.   Connecticut Commentary has previously weighed in on the controversy: PURA Pulls The Plug on November 20, 2019; The High Cost of Energy, Three Strikes and You’re Out? on December 21, 2024; PURA Head Butts the Economic Marketplace on January 3, 2025; Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA on February 3, 2025; and Lamont’s Pillow Talk on February 22, 2025:   The melodrama full of pratfalls continues to unfold awkwardly.   It should come as no surprise that Gillett has changed the nature and practice of the state agency. She has targeted two of Connecticut’s energy facilitators – Eversource and Avangrid -- as having in the past overcharged the state for services rendered. Thanks to the Democrat controlled General Assembly, Connecticut is no l...

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post , and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.”   The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress.   Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump.   Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...

Lamont Surprised at Suit Brought Against PURA

Marissa P. Gillett, the state's chief utility regulator, watches Gov. Ned Lamont field questions about a new approach to regulation in April 2023. Credit: MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR.ORG Concerning a suit brought by Eversource and Avangrid, Connecticut’s energy delivery agents, against Connecticut’s Public Utility Regulatory Agency (PURA), Governor Ned Lamont surprised most of the state’s political watchers by affecting surprise.   “Look,” Lamont told a Hartford Courant reporter shortly after the suit was filed, “I think it is incredibly unhelpful,” Lamont said. “Everyone is getting mad at the umpires.   Eversource is not getting everything they want and they are bringing suit. It was a surprise to me. Nobody notified me. I think we have to do a better job of working together.”   Lamont’s claim is far less plausible than the legal claim made by Eversource and Avangrid. The contretemps between Connecticut’s energy distributors and Marissa Gillett , Gov. Ned Lamont’s ...