Whose Side Are We On

     I can’t help but wonder:

     The Biden administration’s intensive public and private campaign to forestall Israel’s assault on Rafah has become its toughest test to date with its Middle East ally.
     Hours after President Biden on Monday warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against a full-scale assault on Rafah, Israel’s military conducted what it called targeted airstrikes in the eastern part of the city and sent in tanks as it seized the enclave’s border crossing with Egypt.
     The Israeli attack signaled the wide gulf between Biden and Netanyahu over a strategy for securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and ultimately bringing the fighting to an end.

     The language in the above is more significant than it might appear at first. The “Biden administration,” which I prefer to call the Usurper Regime, has made plain that its near-term objective in this matter is to prevent Israel from assaulting HAMAS’s stronghold in Rafah. Why? Usurper Regime spokesvermin would probably say that “it would impede the chances for a lasting peace in the region,” or some such. But there is no peace in the region. There cannot be peace as long as HAMAS exists, for the aim of its existence is the elimination of Israel.

     A thorough Israeli victory in Rafah would bring about the end of HAMAS. That, given not only the October 7 assault on Israel but innumerable terror attacks previous to that one, would give Israel a real chance to pacify the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, the Figurehead-in-Chief “warned” Israel not to assault Rafah. What’s the “or else” in that warning? What negative consequences do Washinton’s foreign-policy Usurpers have in mind should Israel not knuckle under?

     The only ones Washington can inflict, as far as I can tell, are the cessation of foreign aid to Israel and the halting of ammunition shipments to Israel. The foreign aid mostly becomes purchases from American munitions makers – goods that would be delivered in the future – but the ammo shipments have a more immediate value. There have been reports that the Usurpers have suspended those ammo shipments…while they continue to send many millions of dollars of “humanitarian aid” to HAMAS.

     I doubt that many Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch harbor any illusions about the dealings and doings of nation-states, but I’ll say this anyway: If Smith and Jones are locked in mortal combat, and Davis provides aid and / or weapons to Smith, then Jones is correct in classifying Davis as his enemy, quite as much as is Smith. No matter what pieties Washington may mouth, if it supports HAMAS while denying Israel the ammo it needs, the federal government of the United States has allied itself with HAMAS.

     Caroline Glick comments:

According to all of the media reports, CIA Director Bill Burns gave Hamas a guarantee that the U.S. will force Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire.
This means that the Biden administration has totally abandoned Israel. It’s using the hostage talks to force Israel to surrender…

— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) May 4, 2024

     The most prominent of those pieties are about the “harm to innocents” that will arise from the continuation of Israel’s war drive. But HAMAS could forestall any such harm in an instant by surrendering. For Israel to agree to a cessation of its drive would condone HAMAS’s murder of approximately 1400 Israeli citizens last October 7. HAMAS would continue to prosecute its own terror-war against Israel. There’s also the little matter of HAMAS’s continued retention of some number of Israeli captives.

     But nevertheless, the cry is “Peace! Peace! We must have peace!” Peace is not sacred, Gentle Reader. On that subject, have a few bits of wisdom from other sources:

     “Peace means something different than ‘no fighting.’…Peace is an active and complex thing, and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it.” – Jo Walton

     We love peace, but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive of his body. Chains are worse than bayonets. – Douglas Jerrold

     Once you know a man deserves to die, you have to kill him. If you don’t, you’re committing a crime against everyone who doesn’t deserve to die. If you get him down but can’t bring yourself to do it, and he gets up off the mat and kills you instead, you’re only getting what you deserve yourself. – Christine M. D’Alessandro

     As with men, so also with groups and polities. Verbum sat sapienti.