17 Mar 2025

Some Spine is Nice

Back when it was funny—that is to say, the first five years—Saturday Night Live was host to a very funny skit from Gilda Radner and Bill Murry. They played high school nerd sweethearts, Todd and Lisa. It was all leisure suits and big hair, and the cast members’ hilarious exchanges and awkward exchanges took place in Lisa’s house. One of the running gags is that her father was never seen, only the mother. “Lisa’s father was born without a spine…!”

That has been the condition of American foreign policy since the close of World War 2. We don’t fight wars to win, because (as Donald Trump’s rise has shown us) the warmongers have been getting rich. They are also terrible at worldview. I remember attending a pro-Israel event on Capitol Hill in the 90s. One White House staffer told me that no more than 10 percent of Congress was authentically pro-Israel. That means about 53 members of Congress.

Out of 535.

Trump though has grown some spine in Washington, at least among the few Republicans that aren’t as compromised as their Democrat counterparts. This week’s statement by Marco Rubio illustrates that.

“Hamas is a sick organization, and this is not a normal negotiation; these deals are crazy; look at the conditions in which the hostages are being held. The world is running as if it makes sense to kidnap babies, teenagers, and people who have nothing to do with the war and put them in a tunnel for a year and a half.”

In fairness to the new secretary of state, Rubio has been pro-Israel his whole time in Congress, first as a senator from Florida. But I’ve noticed others have begun to talk tough, such as Tom Cotton.

I don’t think we’ll fully understand in this life just how evil the previous corrupt Regime really was. Biden was a degenerate from the time he arrived in Washington in 1972. The holdover foreign policy shills like Jake Sullivan and Susan Rice did great damage to Israel and to the U.S. by coddling the demons in the Middle East.

From a report with the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, here’s a non-starter for “peace”:

“The Egyptian plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, valued at more than $50 billion without the evacuation of Gazans, was approved at the Arab emergency summit and by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The Palestinian Authority said it would manage the Strip, while Hamas continued to call for the establishment of a management committee that would receive broad Palestinian consensus.”

Same garbage, 1000th verse.

At the same time the useless Arab Emergency Summit was going on, “Terrorists shot at an IDF force at a checkpoint in Samaria; no casualties were reported. Israeli security forces continued extensive counterterrorism operations in northern Samaria and eliminated the head of a Hamas cell in Jenin.”

This is just one example of what I maintain is as big a threat to Israel as terror states like Iran. It is this “low-grade,” ongoing Palestinian terrorism within Israel that gives a dismal prognosis on the future. The Arabs of that area have been doing this for more than 100 years. In the 1920s and 1930s, separate pogroms erupted when the chief imam Husseini incited violence. Then, without warning, Arab neighbors of Jews charged with axes, knives, clubs…any weapon that could be used to exterminate Jews.

Some Jewish leaders of that era understood that this problem would not be solved so long as the Arab population remained.

Trump now sees this and agrees in principle. That’s why he has suggested population transfer. Clear out the Gaza Strip of the 1.7 million radicalized killers that still hold and torture Jewish hostages.

“On March 4, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire at an IDF force at the Homesh checkpoint near the village of Burqa in Samaria; he was shot and killed. No casualties were reported. The terrorist was identified as Ahmed Mufid al-Kilani from the village of Silat al-Zahar in the Jenin District.

“This past week Israeli security forces continued Operation Iron Wall in northern Samaria and expanded it to additional areas in Jenin. The forces eliminated terrorist operatives, including the head of a Hamas cell in Jenin, detained dozens of wanted Palestinians, and located explosives, weapons and additional terrorist facilities, including a site for the manufacture of drones. Israeli security forces also continued routine operations throughout Judea and Samaria, detaining wanted Palestinians and exposing and confiscating weapons and funds intended for financing terrorist activities. The forces also demolished the homes of two terrorists responsible for a shooting and stabbing in Jaffa in which seven Israelis were killed in October 2024, as well as the home of the terrorist who carried out a vehicle ramming on Route 60, killing an IDF soldier in September 2024. Nihad Shawish, head of the Popular Committee in the Nur Shams refugee camp, claimed that approximately 11,300 camp residents had been displaced due to ‘occupation’ activity.”

Do you see? Any kind of moderate era of peace will not break out so long as this Islamist ideology persists. Judea and Samaria belong to the Jews.

I’m glad that some leaders in Washington now see the problem and seem willing to offer actual solutions. This week, it was reported that the Americans and Israelis had been talking with three countries in east Africa, including Somalia, about taking in the Gazans. I hope it happens, but we know that wherever they go, short of the next life, the jihadists will corrode whatever society they land in. That’s just the way it is.

Men like Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Yitzhak Shamir understood the problem 100 years ago. Now let’s see their solutions implemented.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Jimfletcher761@gmail.com

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10 Mar 2025

Misunderstanding the Middle East

 What is Trump doing?

The question must be asked.

After enduring perhaps the most vicious, mendacious, craven American “president” in history (and the company is crowded with the likes of Obama, LBJ, etc.), our country and our allies like Israel are thrilled that Donald Trump overcame all odds and won the presidency again. Thank God, literally.

And it is also worth noting that we have to give a new president some time before we do a postmortem on his efforts.

Yet the President’s Middle East policy is a little confusing right now. I actually think he doesn’t thoroughly understand the region, and some of his advisors are, unfortunately, a warmed-over version of the dolts that served Clinton, the Bush family, and Obama. Really, all the way back to Truman and Roosevelt.

For decades, we’ve had foreign policy “experts” that are expert from Cambridge or Harvard. Policy wonks and theoretical political science junkies. Jack Kennedy is probably the only modern president that visited Israel long before he became president. So did his brother, Bobby. JFK visited Palestine in 1939 and wrote long letters back home with his impressions. He was generally very supportive of the Jewish state once he entered the Oval Office.

Trump is no doubt sincere in his warm views of Israel and Jews. He is genuine.

And his bold policy proposals (such as the very correct concept of moving the Arabs out of the Gaza Strip) are stunning in their brilliance. It has been obvious to everyone for decades that Oslo was a devilish proposal that only led to the murder of more Jews. The new American policy is as different from the evil Biden Regime as it could get. The U.S. is virtually giving Israel a greenlight to do whatever they want, including attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. That should have happened long ago but it isn’t too late.

But by my count, Trump has now threatened Hamas with destruction four times. Each ultimatum that passes sends a signal to the primitive-thinking terrorists.

Much of the problem is that he is not on the same page regarding the hostages. In this I have to side with Trump. Jewish value of human life is extraordinarily high. But it is handicapping Israel’s ability to totally destroy Hamas, which is necessary.

Benjamin Netanyahu is the consummate politician. I believe he’s a Zionist, but he’s also a pragmatic one. His chief accomplishment in the last 30 years is pushing-off a Palestinian state. He is himself held hostage right now though by leftist forces in his own country, along with the families of the hostages. The West for a long time has fought wars not to win them, but to contain the enemy. It doesn’t work. It is kicking the can down the road.

Trump seems to be fairly open about giving Israel every greenlight imaginable. Yet Israel is hesitating to go finish-off Hamas. If there are 59 hostages left, with perhaps half of them alive, Hamas is allowed to control the narrative. It is incredible to me that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is sitting down with Hamas in Qatar. This is unconscionable.

It doesn’t help that political commentators like Tucker Carlson are apologists for Qatar. There is an anti-Israel element within the Trump orbit (there always is in Washington, regardless of the administration). While the Man is a white knight, there are always others in the Deep State that hate Jews and hate Israel for existing.

Every week now, we are hearing that Hamas doesn’t have long to live. We can pray for an Entebbe-style hostage rescue, but the first priority must be totally eradicating the enemy. Trump’s promise to bring hell on them must be implemented.

Problems in the ME are mushrooming. Syria is now taken over by jihadists. Jordan and Egypt are pushing-back against Trump’s plan to relocate Arabs out of Gaza. Notice just a few bullet points from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

  • Iran condemned the continued Israeli attacks in Syria and called for international intervention to stop Israel’s activity. Israel’s threats to retaliate in the event of an attack by the Syrian regime on the Druze aroused interest from the Iranian media, which accused Israel of trying to divide the Syrian state for its own interests.
  • The Houthis threatened that if fighting between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip resumed, they would resume attacking Israel and also threatened to strike American bases in the Middle East. The US administration officially added the Houthis to the list of terrorist organizations.
  • The pro-Iranian militias in Iraq refused the Baghdad government’s proposals to disarm and merge with the security forces.

Wow! That’s just right now. Trump has his work cut out for him. A huge help going forward would be to follow-through on threats.

Jimfletcher761@gmail.com

www.patreon.com/TheGodThatAnswers