This is a blog dedicated to a personal interpretation of political news of the day. I attempt to be as knowledgeable as possible before commenting and committing my thoughts to a day's communication.
"[Hamas] built this underground city to operate out of our sight. These tunnels will become death traps in the next war. My advice to them is, stay out of the tunnels."
"In officer-training courses, commanders are taught to make decisions on the battlefield based on the situation at hand -- to go left or right, forwards or backwards. But if you dig a tunnel, once you enter it, you can only move in one direction. You can only decide to go forwards or not to go forward. The route is set."
"And I'm telling them, do not go in. Those who enter tunnels will not come out. The tunnels will either collapse with the people inside, or they will collapse empty."
IDF Southern Command, 2017
Israeli troops gather at Gaza border before entering, 23 October, AFP/Getty
It was in 2004 that the Israel Defense Forces first became aware of the Hamas tunnel threats, when the 'military wing' of the Islamist movement began digging tunnels directly beneath IDF positions within Gaza, then blowing them up. Hard not to notice under those circumstances. The IDF Engineering Corps was then prompted to set up a tunnels team to operate under the command of the Gaza Division.
Since then the capacity of Israel to map out what has been known as the Gaza "metro" has improved substantially, at the very same period when the underground city comprised of a vast network of tunnels has grown in leaps and bounds. There was enough cement entering Gaza between 2014 and 2019 to build tunnels whose total cement use would be sufficient to erect sixteen of Dubai's Burj Khalifa skyscrapers; the tallest building in the world 16 times over.
2016 photo showing tunnel exit from the Israeli side. Jack Guez, AFP/Getty
Diggers made rapid progress, given the soft sandstone comprising Gaza's geology during the peak days of tunnel-building. These are sophisticated tunnels, comparable to the subway systems in technologically advanced and wealthy world metropolisis, complete with rails, electricity, ventilation, communication lines and even oxygen tanks -- the latter sent to Gaza for humanitarian use in hospitals.
The tunnel network and bunkers are estimated to comprise hundreds of kilometres in length, embedded in heavily-populated civilian areas. They have emerged as a defining feature of the terrorist group's ease in moving their operatives and weapons beneath ground in the Gaza Strip, enabling the terrorists to launch strikes while remaining out of the bombsights of the Israel Air Force. Bomb a tunnel and you bomb a civilian site as well; another trademark of Hamas.
Israeli army officer tours journalists through a Hamas tunnel 2014, Jack Guez/AFP
The tunnels provide hiding places for Hamas operatives and their commanders. Of late, they are also where Hamas keeps the valuable hostages; Israeli infants to teens, soldiers, women and the elderly and infirm they captured and took as bartering assets into Gaza. And now, the critical mission of the Israel Defense Forces by air bombardment and ground operations is the destruction of the underground city while maintaining sensitivity to the hoped-for rescue of the Israeli abductees.
Aerial bombardment of the tunnels, after warning residents above to evacuate has been taking place for weeks. Hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, tunnels included, were struck by the Israel Air Force on several days of the past week. The schematic for the attacks represent the fruit of intelligence gathering in locating tunnels and their shafts then converting data to air power.
For advancing ground troops committed to destroying Hamas and its apparatus as an ongoing deathly threat to Israel, the threat of the tunnels cannot be minimized. Given that the tunnels allow terrorists to pop up, fire, then vanish back underground in hit-and-run techniques. Israel has tunnel-detection capabilities including teams of specialists who sift through intelligence to map the network.
Once the full ground offensive is underway specialized units from the IDF Engineering Corps and its elite Yahalom commando unit will spearhead the mission with the use of special explosives, bulldozers and robots to destroy the tunnels and shafts. And then there is the issue of fuel availability in Gaza rendering entire areas of the underground structures uninhabitable for lack of fuel when electricity and air ventilation in the tunnels will force operatives and their leaders to abandon these subterranean havens.
A black cloud of smoke rises from Gaza, 29 October, AfP/Gaza
"As a university, we are committed to fostering an environment where all members of our community can feel safe, welcomed, heard, and supported."
"This commitment is jeopardized when our leaders, even those in volunteer positions, make divisive statements."
Western University statement
Western University's statement says it is looking for a new Muslim chaplain in consultation with Muslim community leaders.Photo Derek Ruttan/London Free Press
"In 2015 PM Harper [former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper] tried to make it a crime to glorify and promote terrorism. [Justin] Trudeau blocked his efforts and here we are."
"There exists no law in Canada to prevent this orgy of celebration for the beheading of babies and the rape and execution of little girls."
"Time for a new PM."
Former Senator Linda Frum
"Stop spreading lies of beheading babies or rape of little girls. It's been debunked."
"No one is celebrating the murder of Israeli babies."
"Palestinians are mourning the death of their babies. It's incredible how Israel sympathizers simultaneously are the oppressor and the victim."
Aarij Anwer, Muslim chaplain, Western University, London, Ontario
A crowd estimated to be in the thousands marches through the streets of
downtown Toronto calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. (Mike Walker)
The statement issued by Western University explained its dismissal of a volunteer Muslim chaplain following comments he placed on line that "do not align with Western's commitment to peaceful and respectful dialogue". The university's statement did not include the wording of the statements issued by the chaplain, but there was a recent exchange online with former Conservative senator Linda Frum respecting her comments on a Toronto vigil that was titled "Glory to our Martyrs".
The martyrs, needless to say represented by Hamas terrorists who have met death at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces following the atrocities committed by those terrorists during their invasion from Gaza into Israel when mass rapes, torture, mutilation, slaughter and hostage-taking of over 200 children, women, men and soldiers took place on October 7. The vigil emphasized that these 'martyrs' were glorious and of course luxuriating in Paradise, each with their 72 virgins.
Western University is now searching for a new Muslim chaplain, in consultation with Muslim community leaders "to seek their advice. We will ensure our Muslim and Palestinian community members feel our support and can share their thoughts".
"CUPE Local 3906 asked their colleagues to show support for Palestinians after the mass murder of innocent Israelis, claiming Palestinians are righteously taking back their land."
"Seriously? Israelis have over 3,000 years of history on that land. The State of Israel, even with notable flaws, is one of the greatest examples of indigenous reclamation in the world. In fact, it is known that the Jews are indigenous to the lands, having been there since at least 1,000 BC, nearly two millennia before the Arab occupation of Syria and Palestine in the mid 600s AD. The Jews were there long before the Arabs and Muslims. Jerusalem is their capital and has been for 3,000 years. The Jews are not colonizers, nor are they occupiers. Canadian professors and academic support staff need to get their history right."
"The Israelis left Gaza in 2005, ceding control to the Palestinian people. There are over two million Arabs living in Israel, the vast majority of whom are citizens who are entitled to the same rights as their Jewish neighbours. Canadian professors and academic support staff need to get their history right."
"There are Arabs in he Israel Defense Forces. Arab Israelis are also police officers, belong to political parties [including the Joint Arab List] and participate in government as members of the Knesset. This is not to say that they face no discrimination, but Arabs in Israel arguably enjoy greater democratic rights and civil liberties than they do anywhere else in the region."
"By contrast, there are signs on the road to the Palestinian-controlled West Bank that warn Jewish people not to enter the area. Today, no Jewish people live in Gaza."
Chris Sankey, former councillor, Lax Kw Alaams Band, businessman, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
"[The Canadian government] is providing cover for atrocities."
"Saying Israel has the right to defend itself is complicity in the genocide that is taking place right now."
"You do not get to tell a colonized people how to fight for their liberation."
"If anything, this exposes your white liberal guilt and fragility, and even supremacy. So, please, spare us."
Hassan Husseini, Public Service Alliance of Canada negotiator, member, Labour for Palestine
Pro-Palestine demonstrators march through downtown Ottawa, as seen at
Rideau and Sussex. Oct. 29, 2023. (City of Ottawa traffic camera)
Out in full force on Canadian streets, labour activists and Palestinian groups calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip while they held a downtown 'solidarity rally', at the human rights monument in Ottawa. To the 200 people who gathered, Hussein spoke of the bombs that continued to fall on the people of Gaza. He must have forgotten that Hamas rockets too continue to fall in Israel, as far as central Israel. The terrorist group that has raided UNRWA storehouses for food and fuel to stockpile in their tunnels has energy and to spare, given what it takes to launch rockets.
This government of Canada employee is faulting the Canadian government for failing to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Untroubled by evidence of Hamas terrorists' savagery in torturing and mutilating Israelis as they entered from Gaza, to slaughter families in their houses located in the southern Israel, Gaza-bordering towns and villages and kibbutzim, filming their grotesque escapades of unlimited atrocities in a pride of accomplishment, this man upbraids the government that allows him and his Jew-hating cohorts to gather in public to chant "gas the Jews" and other love messages.
The very verbiage used by this hate-instigator comes straight out of the government's own playbook on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, along with Critical Race Theory espoused widely and wildly by government departments, unions and academia. An all-inclusive agenda touted by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau that encourages the Palestinian Youth Movement organized in Canada to arrange and orchestrate 'pro-Palestinian' events calling for Israel's demise.
"All over the world, there have been active and relentless attempts to suppress the voices that advocate for the freedom of Palestinians", charged Aseel Munir, a member of the movement's Ottawa chapter. When, in fact, few governments the world have taken steps to restore order and disallow these events over where these Jew-hate-charged violent mobs of uncivil rioters have wreaked havoc calling for Jews to be gassed in a proposed new attempt at annihilation. Germany's was the sole effort to impose a blanket ban on Palestinian-support protests.
Another uncivil but progressive woke adherent, an organizing officer for the Canadian Association of University Teachers, stated that the labour movement had no option but to join the battle for Palestinian liberation: "It's very clear we need to end the brutal -- I'm not going to say war -- I'm going to say genocide and war crimes against Palestinians", huffed James Hutt yet another committed Jew-hater who can find it in him to overlook any level of atrocity perpetrated against Jews.
With the death of over 1,400 Israeli citizens and hapless foreigners caught up in the Hamas slaughter of October 7, and the abduction of 220 infants, children, the elderly, families and Israeli soldiers, the rape of girls and women, and apart from the 15,000 Israelis wounded in the barbaric Hamas invasion details of which relating to the inhumanity of the terrorists' atrocities committed against helpless people, committed Israel in response to impose a blockade of all supplies, food and fuel from entering Gaza.
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment on Gaza City, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)The Associated Press
Despite that Israel had completely withdrawn from the Gaza Strip in a unilateral decision meant to leave that parcel of land entirely to the Gazans that call themselves Palestinians in the hope that peace might result, in 2005, the raging lunacy of Hamas and Fatah in conflict over the competition to determine which of them would rule the strip ended in Hamas's favour. Instead of building a forward-looking infrastructure for future prosperity, Hamas milked the international community's generosity in aid to the 'refugees', building a vast infrastructure of underground tunnels.
Hamas, whose founding charter promises the elimination of Israel, and the reunification of the land in question into a geographic unity that would be an Islamist theocratic state, in conflict with the plans of the secular Fatah movement represented by the Palestinian Authority, the needs of Palestinians in both territories have been subordinate to the perceived needs of their leaders whose focus has always been -- from their individual perspectives -- the destruction of Israel.
From highjacking planes and ocean liners to message the world at large that Palestinians were prepared to take by force what they could have had in peace had they accepted the 1947 offer of Partition by the United Nations, to developing the death cult of martyrdom in training Palestinian youth to become suicide bombers, the stealth incursion of Palestinians into Israel for the direct purpose of killing Jews has never ended.
The crowds of protesters that gather now that Israel is finally confronting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists directly and with a purpose to finally exterminate their agenda along with themselves, who shout in cities the world over for the liberation of Palestine and "from the river to the sea" (Jordan to the Mediterranean) advocates for the destruction of Israel and a Palestinian state incorporating the West Bank, Gaza and Israel into one body exclusively for Arab Muslims.
It is Israel's right and it is Israel's duty -- and international law upholds both -- to ensure that this never happens, that the Jewish state established on a portion of the ancient ancestral lands of Judaea, and that now exists for the singular purpose of protecting Jewish human rights and their very existence remains strong and intact, even while as a democracy, there is acceptance of non-Jews as citizens comprised of Christians, Arab Muslims, Druze, Bedouin, Kurds, Circassians, Baha'i and many others.
"[Israel’s upcoming ground offensive
in the Gaza Strip] may last three months, but it will be the very last
one [if Israel succeeds in eliminating the Hamas terror group]."
"This needs to be the last [ground] maneuver in Gaza, for the simple
reason that after it there will be no Hamas. It will take a month, two
months, three, but in the end, there will be no Hamas."
"Before the enemy meets the armored and infantry forces, it will meet the bombs of the Air Force."
"I am under the impression that you know [IAF] how to do it in a lethal,
precise, and very high-quality way, as it has been proven until now."
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (center) is seen at the IAF's command
center in Tel Aviv, October 22, 2023. (Ariel Hermoni/ Defense Ministry)
Bluntly, in addressing top IAF commanders, Defense Minister Gallant spoke of a ground campaign meant to undertake the highly dangerous work of dismantling the vast network of tunnels that reflect the most vital strategic advantage of the Hamas terrorist group in supplying and re-supplying its military needs, in reconnaissance, in weapons storage, in sheltering Hamas operatives from the missiles their rockets invite to rain down on Gaza, and as exits into newly-formulated plans for guerrilla invasions into Israel.
The new phase of Israel's war against Hamas is on the cusp of fully unfolding; it is expected to be gruelling and open-ended following on the savagely bloody incursion by Hamas into southern Israel and the relentless rocket bombardment from Gaza accompanying and following the mass slaughter of Israeli families from children to the elderly, alongside the gang rapes of Israeli girls and women, and the hostage-taking of 222 Israelis to barter them for criminal Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.
Israel expanding Gaza ground operation, communications cut off. Still from video, CBCNews
Later, the Defense Minister spoke to a group of foreign reporters of the invasion that "will take a long time", to be followed by a lengthy phase of lower intensity fighting as Israel gets on with destroying "pockets of resistance". Its aim is to crush the rule of Hamas in Gaza and its future capacity to again turn to threatening Israel. Israel has no intention of ruling the territory despite the description of a long-term insurgency.
There are allied issues also at play with American warplanes striking eastern Syria targets the Pentagon identified as linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard group following a number of attacks on American forces. The military on Friday stated that ground forces backed by fighter jets and drones raided within Gaza, striking dozens of terrorist targets in 24 hours. A similar raid to Thursday's took place on Friday. And by Saturday the full-scale invasion was put into action.
Israeli soldier at tunnel on Israeli side Gaza border
On each of these incursions on the outskirts of Gaza City, reports were that Israeli servicemen exited without sustaining casualties. The Gazan Health Ministry -- part of the Hamas administrative apparatus -- released a list of names and identification numbers of Gazans killed, among them over 3,000 minors and more than 1,500 women. Men are in short numbers, as are terrorists; the population seems comprised in its majority of children and women.
Thousands of rockets have been and continue to be fired into Israel, inclusive of one that hit a Tel Aviv residential building Friday wounding four. The expectation is that a full ground invasion will result in a marked increase of civilian casualties as well as military while Israeli forces and Hamas face one another in battle in close confines of residential areas. Even as desperate messages of energy shortages fuelling a shut-down of vital hospital services ring out, Hamas uses enormous energy assets for its rockets.
Israel, explained Gallant, is of the opinion based on experience that should fuel be provided for Gaza hospitals, it would find its way into the hands of Hamas, not the emergency generators to power incubators and life-saving medical equipment. Such acts of commandeering food and energy supplies for Hamas needs, taking humanitarian supplies meant for the besieged population has generally seen agreement on the part of Western observers.
As for the sacrosanct protection of hospitals, reporters were shown Hamas weapons depots and Hamas command installations on the grounds in and around al-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest. The Israeli army released photographs a week earlier showing Hamas installations. And clarification was made of Hamas use of generators to pump air into hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, originating in areas of civilian density. One tunnel shaft was shown built adjacent a hospital.
Hamas terrorists guarding tunnels on the Gaza-Israeli border earlier this year.Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
"Entering tunnels presents unique tactical
challenges, many of which cannot be addressed without specialized
equipment. In some cases it can be impossible to
breathe without oxygen tanks in tunnels, depending on their depth and
air ventilation."
"It can also be impossible
simply to see. Most military night-vision goggles rely on some ambient
light and cannot function when it is entirely absent. Any military
navigation and communication equipment that relies on satellite or
line-of-sight signals will not work underground."
"A
weapon fired in compact spaces of tunnels, even a rifle, can produce a
concussive effect that can physically harm the firer. A single defender
can hold a narrow tunnel against a much superior force."
Modern War Institute at West Point, John Spencer, chair, urban warfare studies
"To say otherwise is to accept and endorse colonialism in all its forms. [To say otherwise is not allowed]."
"We condemn any statement that denies or shifts away from the narrative of colonialism."
"Palestinians are the subjects of Israel's colonization and genocide."
Metropolitan University Lincoln Alexander law school, Toronto
"There are any number of sobering lessons that might be drawn from the obscene celebrations of mass murder that have erupted across Canada in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres in Israel, when "special forces" units of the Hamas terrorist organization carried out the bloodiest pogrom in Jewish history since the Holocaust.
"That a genteel, faculty-lounge variety of antisemitism has gone unchallenged for too long is certainly one lesson. Another is that Canada's official toleration of the propaganda, recruitment and fundraising arms of terrorist organizations is bad policy that free-speech rights cannot be allowed to excuse."
Terry Glavin, journalist, National Post
Israeli forces extracting dead bodies of Israeli residents from a
destroyed house in Kfar Aza, Israel, on October 10. Ilia
Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
To be perfectly clear here, Palestinian Gaza's Hamas rulers committed unspeakable acts of inhumanity against thousands of infants, teens, girls and women, elderly and Israeli soldiers in their brazen demonstration of savagery unlike anything the world can imagine perpetrated by trained killers purporting to be liberators of Palestine. So proud of their inhumanity that they recorded for posterity in real time the atrocities they committed against helpless people. Crimes that will join the annals of the world's evil excesses in barbarity.
Perhaps even more shocking is that hordes of ordinary Palestinian men and teens flooded into Israel after the Hamas operatives to take joy and pleasure in the circumstances that allowed them to commit violence similar to what the terrorists themselves were perpetrating in an orgy of blood-letting and merciless mutilations. These are the people who support Hamas, these are the people who emulate Hamas, and for whom inflicting terror and vicious pain on people they've been instructed and taught to hate is entertainment.
The prime minister of Canada himself, in full knowledge of the extent of the excruciatingly dreadful acts committed by the terrorist group chose to instantly believe what their 'Health Authority' claimed in charging that Israeli forces bombed a hospital and that 500 innocent Palestinians were killed, as a result. Israel's immediate rejoinder explaining that it was Palestinian Islamic Jihad which was firing rockets off from nearby grounds and that one of the rockets exploded and fell onto the hospital parking lot was rejected 'until proof could be found' their explanation reflected reality.
"I'm horrified by the loss of life at Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. My thoughts are with those who lost loved ones."
"It is imperative that innocent civilians be protected and international law upheld."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
The prime minister's insinuation that Israel was responsible for bombing the hospital and must be held to account was belied when days later Defence Minister Bill Blair made the announcement that the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command's independent analyses indicated "with a high degree of confidence" that it was not Israel that struck the hospital; that "the more likely scenario is that the strike was caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza". Trudeau has not since apologized.
And nor was the hospital destroyed, much less hit. It was vehicles parked in the hospital parking lot that took the brunt of the damage. No doubt there were casualties; the hospital director himself some days later minimized the total afflicted. But to critics and haters of Israel, the guilt will remain with the original accusations that also blame it for the rampage by Hamas terrorists for the slaughter of families in their homes and streets of the towns and kibbutzim and the music festival at Re'im.
In Canada, since the horrors of October 7, dozens of demonstrations have taken place, rallying protesters around the fiction that Israel is intent on carrying out a "genocide" of Palestinians in Gaza. Organizers exhort Canadians to support a "resistance" that legitimates terrorism that sees nothing amiss when proof is provided, courtesy of Hamas operatives themselves, of dismembered babies and families burned alive in their homes after being tortured.
Now, there are universal calls for a "ceasefire" in Gaza based on the narrative that the "root cause" of the horrors that took place in Gaza can be attributed to "Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory", which just happens to be a Biblical-era-forward geography of ancestral Judaean land reclaimed by its rightful indigenous inheritors.
People attend a vigil for Israeli victims at the
Stephen Wise Temple, October 8, 2023,
after the terrorist group Hamas launched an attack on Israel.Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP
Palestinian opportunists transporting an injured Israeli into Gaza as a hostage October 7
"I have no expectation that a terrorist organization would respect any international law or any call for a ceasefire."
"We are discussing ways in which we can make sure that humanitarian aid gets to those innocent civilians who are in a very difficult situation but at the same time, and we've been very clear, we support Israel's right to defend itself."
"[Israel was the victim of a] horrific [terrorist attack; that threat still exists for the Jewish state]."
"I think they have a right to defend themselves against a terrorist threat, and quite frankly, Hamas has to be eliminated as a threat, not just to Israel but to the world."
Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair
"Any organization like this has to be destroyed."
"And no one should condone or excuse or underplay or deny."
"Dealing with it will require determination and strategy."
Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae
Israel's Iron Dome air defence system is shown during an attempted
intercept of an incoming rocket, fired from the Gaza Strip, on Thursday. (Oded Balilty/The Associated Press)
Minister Blair is the sole cabinet minister in Canada's Liberal government to state that the terrorist group Hamas must be "eliminated". Hamas has been listed as a terrorist entity in Canada for years. Despite this, since the Hamas violent incursion into Israel and its attacks on border villages and kibbutzim that took 1,400 lives, with countless others injured, and well over 200 infants, teens, seniors, women and soldiers taken hostage, huge groups of 'pro-Palestinian' celebrants have publicly praised Hamas, raising its flag in Canadian cities.
Clear manifestations of hatred accompanied by shouts of "kill the Jews", "gas the Jews" and "Palestine will be free", rend the air, yet the federal government has done absolutely nothing to stop these events. And nor would Prime Minister Justin Trudeau state his agreement that Hamas must be destroyed. He noted, rather, that Canada has long considered Hamas as a terrorist organization.
On October 21, Canada's prime minister visited a mosque to later express his opinion that "As members of the Palestinian, Arab and Black Muslim communities gathered for prayer yesterday, I wanted them to know this: We know you're worried and hurting. We're here for you. We will not stop advocating for civilians to be protected and for international law to be upheld".
Defence Minister Blair on the other hand, dismissed growing calls from within his own Liberal caucus, for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire. Two dozen Liberal Members of Parliament co-signed a letter along with NDP and Green MPs calling on Canada to join international calls for an "immediate ceasefire". What those international calls are comprised of, wasn't made clear, but none of Canada's collegial Western partners have called for anything similar to an 'immediate ceasefire'.
Scene of horror as Israelis try to escape death while being attacked by Hamas terrorists at music festival, October 7
On the other hand, opposition Conservatives and a handful of Liberals maintain that Israel has the right to defend itself after the October 7 terrorist attack that revealed the unbelievable extent of Hamas's contempt for human life. In itself recording the atrocities they committed, leaving those who have viewed the videos aghast at the unimaginable brutality they proved capable of committing. No one was immune from a grotesque death, often after having been mutilated. Brutal gang rapes and wanton slaughter the Hamas perpetrators were proud of.
Many of the Members of Parliament stated that Hamas must be destroyed before the possibility of a regional ceasefire can be contemplated in the realization that a pause in hostilities before the complete extirpation of the Hamas apparatus and its operatives, will only allow the terrorist organization to regroup and repeat its threat to Israeli existence.
In the 1990s when it seemed that a peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians could be achievable, Hamas pursued violence as the method of liberating Palestinian territories which included the land that Israel sits on rather than have an independent Palestine emerge and a situation leading to both it and Israel sharing land both lay claim to in what was being touted as the "two-state" solution. No one any longer believes in the feasibility of the 'two-state' solution; neither Israelis nor Palestinians, only those in the West.
Image from bodycam of Hamas terrorist invading an Israeli home
A video of Israeli officials succumbing to emotion while describing a family found murdered in their home during the Hamas attack, father and mother and two children, all showing signs of torture before they were finally killed by the terrorists. It was assumed, with good reason, that the parents and the children, firmly bound and seated opposite one another, were forced to witness the agonies the others suffered while being mutilated, before they were finally killed.
Black smoke rises from eastern Gaza City on Thursday in the wake of Israeli airstrikes. (Abed Khaled/The Associated Press)
Still from video: IDF soldiers collecting bodies of slaughtered Israelis
"It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation."
"They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced; and their homes demolished."
"Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
"Mr. Secretary-General, in what world do you live? Definitely, this is not our world."
"I
will not meet the UN secretary-general. After October 7, there is no
place for a balanced approach. Hamas must be erased from the world."
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen
"The shocking speech by the UN secretary-general at the Security Council meeting ... proved conclusively, beyond any doubt, that the secretary-general is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner."
"His statement that 'the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum', expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It's really unfathomable. It's truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views."
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan
Screenshot of Hamas body cam footage as terrorists fire on an Israeli
vehicle during the terror organization’s October 7 attack in southern
Israel, released by the IDF and GPO. (Screenshot)
The 'Palestinians' are Arabs who have migrated from all over the Arab-Muslim world over a period under a century to settle in a land where they saw opportunity for themselves to prosper, where they could not in their countries of origin, primarily Egypt and Syria. The very identifying designation of 'Palestine' was one used by the Roman Occupation of 63BCE to denote Judaean heritage lands. These diverse-origin Arabs now identifying themselves as Palestinians took that identity from Jews, just as they're determined to take Jewish ancestral land for their own, claiming indigeneity.
To be clear, Arab Palestinians were offered a state of their own, first by the United Nations, then countless times by Israel, and each time they refused. Their leaders convinced them that the entire area was theirs, not merely the half assigned to them with a split when made, TransJordan taking much of the original area and what was left divided between Israel and a potential Palestinian state. The Palestinians preferred to wait in 1948 while combined Arab armies marched into Israel to destroy the fledgling state. They lost, and so did the Palestinians.
Israelis evacuate a site struck by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, southern Israel, on Monday. (Ohad Zwigenberg/The Associated Press)
Ever since, their leaders have led them astray. The Palestinian public has been exploited endlessly by their leaders, who milk the sympathy of the wider world of the West by characterizing themselves as victims of Israeli aggression. The 'occupation' that Israel is accused of, is an existential necessity given the penchant of the 'victims' constantly staging deadly attacks against Israeli Jews by Palestinians who have been nursed from childhood on tropes of a Jewish death-wish against Arabs.
The public relations war waged by the Palestinian Authority (Fatah) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza has succeeded hugely in its efforts to isolate, punish and demonize Israel and Jews for the plight of the Palestinians many of whom live in poverty, where unemployment is high and opportunities are few because their leaders focus on instilling hatred and a death-cult among their people rather than establishing the infrastructure required for independence and prosperity. The wider world financially supports the Palestinian 'refugees', destined to clasp their refugee victimhood in perpetuity.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East was established for the express purpose of aiding and supporting Palestinian 'refugees' in perpetuity. As a body of the United Nations, UNRWA is partially responsible for the school curricula replete with lessons of Jewish hatred and violence toward Palestinians, as well as permitting Hamas to store weapons within UNRWA schools. Gaza Palestinians are used as pawns by Hamas, human shields the terrorists hide behind as they send volleys of rockets into Israel.
Image shows Palestinian militants riding an Israeli military vehicle
that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel on
October 7, 2023. (Photograph:(Reuters)
The vast network of underground tunnels which Hamas and its sister terrorist group Islamic Jihad use to store weapons, to practise attack strategies, to shelter from Israeli reprisals and from which to mount attacks, are intersecting underground corridors built under Gaza's crowded enclaves; when the tunnels are bombed, those living over them are in danger. For the time being some of those tunnels now house the hundreds of Jewish Israelis and others that Hamas terrorists abducted on October 7 along with their barbaric atrocities that slaughtered 1,400 Israelis and wounded almost five thousand more.
"Terror apologists cannot speak on behalf of the world."
"Days when the United Nations secretary-general supports terrorism are dark days for the world." "Absolutely nothing can justify the slaughter of innocent civilians. Now is the time to stand on the right side of history, or be judged by it."
Former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz
"By saying this, he [Guterres] is wrongfully legitimizing and justifying the gruesome massacre of men, women, children and babies, and the savage kidnapping of over 222 innocent babies, children and civilians who are still being held by Hamas."
"The UN secretary-general should be ashamed of himself. I call upon him to retract his abhorrent statement or step down now."
Former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon
"I had to leave after 35 minutes because I’d seen enough."
"I knew this
had happened, but because of the severe backlash—especially on social
media by people who refuse to believe this had taken place despite
overwhelming evidence—I felt I had to go [to the theater] so I could
tell people that I saw it with my own eyes."
"So, if they don’t believe
the eyewitnesses, they can believe me."
Danish journalist Jotam Confino
Large pools of blood stain a child's bunk bed and sheets, inside a safe
room, as seen through the window, after Hamas terrorists attacked days
earlier, on Oct. 19, 2023 in Nir Oz, Israel. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty
Images)
"In
terms of the operational aspects of manoeuvring, at the end of the day,
nothing will stop the IDF. It is a combination of two things: Our
aerial capabilities and ground manoeuvring."
"This should be our last manoeuvring operation in Gaza, for the simple reason that afterwards there will be no more Hamas."
"It
may take a month, two or three, but at the end there will be no more
Hamas. Prior to meeting our armed forces on the ground, the enemy [Hamas
terrorists], will be faced with IAF strikes."
Israeli Defense Minister Yaov Gallant
Rockets (l) are seen in the night sky fired towards Israel from Beit
Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 14, 2021, while Iron Dome
interceptors rise to meet them (Photo by ANAS BABA / AFP)
Hundreds
of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets were struck by the
Israeli Air Force in Gaza on Monday. The strikes targeted tunnels with
Hamas terrorists known to be within, while infantry and armoured corps
conducted raids on the ground in preparation for a wider ground
offensive in the enclave.
According
to Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari,
dozens of operational command centres that housed Hamas and PIJ
operatives were hit as well. Targets that posed a threat to forces in
the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, including dozens of mortar and
antitank missile launch sites were also hit.
Armoured
and infantry units are engaged and raids being conducted into Gaza for
the purpose of hitting terror cells in what is described as "preparing for our next stage"
and simultaneously probing for information on the several hundred
Israeli citizens taken hostage by Hamas. Those considered to be
'missing' and possibly dead whose bodies have not yet been recovered are
also part of the information-gathering process.
Anti-tank
missile attacks on Sunday killed one Israeli soldier, injuring three;
every casualty considered a catastrophe in the Israeli mentality of the
sacredness of human life - all human life. In contrast to the
oft-declared position of the Islamist terrorist groups who boast of
their love for death; as martyrs devoted to the demands of Islam and
adhering to those same precepts, in delivering death to Jews. The tank
and engineering vehicles were struck during a raid inside Gaza.
All
of the activity represents part of the effort by the Israeli military
to clearly establish the reality of Israel's pledge to destroy Hamas,
its infrastructure and weaponry and to include the PIJ for the very same
reasons linked to Israel's security and the safety of its citizens.
Dismantling the terror infrastructure in its entirety cannot come soon
enough for a population weary of continuous threats against its very
existence.
The
current goal is to clear the area of terrorists while dismantling their
infrastructure and weapons. And of great urgency, to locate missing
people and bodies. Since the October 7 deadly assault on southern
Israel, the military recovered over one thousand bodies of terrorists,
aside from the numbers it has captured alive. "This testifies to the courage of the security forces and civilian (security) teams who fought in the opening stages" before the IDF was fully deployed, explained spokesperson Daniel Hagari.
The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, Oct. 21, 2023.Flash90 / Abed Rahim Khatib
"Any other supplies, fuels, are not entering Gaza and we are supervising
to ensure that Hamas is not taking UNRWA supplies. We watch this aerially and if needed we will take action."
"Our operational readiness is improving. Even as we
speak, there is an air campaign underway, hitting terrorists that are
preparing for the next stage."
"Hence we are taking advantage of [the]
time to improve our readiness to enable [the] ground manoeuver."
Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari
"Critical Race Theory simplistically erases the uniqueness of the Jewish experience and identifies Jews as 'white', CRT's oppressor class."
"In fact, CRT often considers Jews to be the epitome of white privilege and supremacy."
Israeli lawyer Russell A. Shalev
"[Racism against white people is non-existent since as principals of] Eurocentric cultural power [they cannot be oppressed. Traits such as] perfectionism [and] worship of the written word [are identified as markers of white supremacy]."
"For those residing in what we now call Canada, it is critical to know the work of ... Black Lives Matter Canada."
"[Jews have opted to] become white [in order to benefit from white supremacy]. Becoming white involves giving up parts of your original culture in order to get the advantages and privileges of belonging to the white group."
Global Affairs Canada document for federal anti-racism workshop use
"Jews, just two percent of the population of Canada, have succeeded in White Christian society."
"They don't fit CRT theory. CRT theorists and anti-Semites have therefore included them in the class of White Christian oppressors."
TheJ.ca
McMaster University associate professor Ameil Joseph wrote that "postcolonial anticolonial, and decolonial are not just words you heard in your DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) workshop." Diversity, Equity and Inclusion represents an ideology in support of anti-racism and decolonization in which the current Zeitgeist has seen Canadian academia swept up in its far left woke religion of victimhood finding its salvation through isolating all but the historical 'oppressed, exploited and colonialism-harmed' from being included in a new world order where the underdog has become the top dog.
It is an ideology that feels entirely justified in smirking over the deaths in Israel of the 'oppressors' and 'occupiers' of Palestinian patrimony. Of course history is dismissed in this new interpretation of indingeneity, as it must be, for to inconveniently point out that the land in question has been well recorded through the millennia as being ancestral Jewish land, and that there has never been an absent Jewish presence, is to diminish the neat little occupation theory the woke left is so reliant on.
A sign reading "Decolonization is not just a theory" was seen at a recent Ottawa rally in celebration of the October 7 barbarism perpetrated by Palestinian Hamas in border villages and kibbutzim in southern Israel when the terrorist group blew up the protective fence separating Israel from Gaza at dawn when groups of hundreds of terrorists entered Israel to conduct a bloodbath, killing Jews wherever they were; on the streets, in their cars, in their homes, sheltering in safe rooms.
A law professor at University of Toronto, Mohammad Fadel, circulated posts that cheered Hamas terrorists who had entered "into their colonizer's territory". Of course those freedom fighters politely asked Jewish civilians to exit their homes and their towns to make way for Palestinians to carry on living in areas they claim are historically theirs, and an orderly march of chastised Jews left their homes, their possessions and their future to accommodate the Hamas 'fighters' who wouldn't ever dream of massacring entire populations.
A book display with works on critical race theory. (Photo: CC BY 2.0 flickr.com/photos/collegelibrary)
Black Lives Matter Canada, endorsed by the federal government as a "racial equity" source, issued their own statement with no mention of the bloody massacres, asserting Israel to be an apartheid oppressor state guilty of the "torture and murder" of Palestinians. The Justin Trudeau government has committed over the past five years to a project to transit government branches through "anti-racism", to become a more just society. Reliant on the discipline courtesy of the U.S. of "critical race theory", anti-racism is separated from tolerance, multiculturalism and equal treatment once characterizing Canada's federal approach to race.
According to anti-racism theory, Canada's structures are irredeemably racist to the extent that it can be defeated only with "deliberate systems and supports" that favour marginalized groups. To that purpose Canada has a federal Anti-Racism Secretariat on which $45 million was showered for an official "Anti-Racism Strategy". "Anti-racism initiatives" proliferate now in every government department; every diplomat, judge, civil servant and soldier undergoes mandatory training to become familiar on how to treat their own "unearned privilege" working for a nation shot through with systemic oppression.
Anti-racism, alert Jewish groups have been pointing out for some time, appears to have a blind spot for Jews; they're omitted as though antisemitism doesn't exist, or they are identified as colonialist oppressors. Amply demonstrated more latterly as the bastions of "anti-racism", academia and unions in particular, now openly cheer terrorism while calling for Israel to be destroyed.
Recently the Canadian Armed Forces adopted an "anti-racism lexicon" downplaying antisemitism where the military focuses on detailed definitions on "anti-Black", "anti-Indigenous and "anti-Asian" racism where Anti-Black racism is described as foundational to the very existence of the country; a structure that is "either functionally normalized or rendered invisible to the larger white society".
Antisemitism is addressed, in the glossary that describes it as "a certain perception of Jewish people, which may be expressed as hatred or lame, stereotypes, myths ... and conspiracy theories". Over $500,000 was contracted with an anti-racism contractor with a history of virulently antisemitic comments; Laith Marouf whose racism thrived in an ecosystem where social media posts decried Israelis as "little castrated b---hes and "European garbage", accessible to anyone, and known to many, who merely overlooked it.
The workbook Dismantling Racism, a seminal work of the Critical Race Theory movement is cited heavily within Canadian anti-racism materials. Canadian DEI workshops end with a recommendation to read How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi who mentions that any group persevering within the current "systemically racist" system is of necessity a collaborator. "One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities", he writes.
Refugees aboard the St. Louis wait to hear whether they will be granted entry. June, 1939. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD
Critical race theory was destined to blame Jews in time, since they don't happen to fit the narrative as victims of the Canadian system, irrespective of the fact that during the Second World War, it was the official government position that Canada would take in no Jewish refugees under the rubric that "one is too many", just as the German passenger liner the MS St.Louis with its passenger list of Jewish refugees hoping to escape death was refused entry to Canada.
'Canada is Back' Has Morphed Into Canada's Descent Into Hell
"[There is a] distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of hate."
"I don't think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada. [It is perfectly fine [if people feel strongly about support for Palestinians]."
"The only issue is, I think that we, as democracies, should look at ... when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks."
"That's very, very important."
Iddo Moed, Israeli Ambassador to Canada
"To all those who saw fit to promote genocide, glorify terrorism and mock the murder of Jewish people, including women and babies -- the police are coming for you."
U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman
"Let me be clear about Hamas. Its members are not freedom fighters. They are not a resistance. They are terrorists."
"There are so many people in Canada who are afraid of the escalating tension here at home. We must not let worry, suspicion and mistrust divide us."
"We must remember that it is a short path from mistrusting one's neighbour to entrenching division. A peaceful society does not happen by accident and will not continue without effort."
"Canadians' liberty is not about taking away the freedoms of others but living in a way that expands and strengthens freedom for everyone."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
"People are free to state their own opinions, even opinions that I find abhorrent."
"That said, I’m free to state my opinion, which is that Hamas is a
sadistic, terrorist death cult and it must be defeated, and I find it
abhorrent that anyone in Canada or anywhere else would show their
support for Hamas."
"Hamas is not a militant organization. It is not a government. It is not an activist group; Hamas is a sadistic criminal terrorist death cult, and it must be defeated."
"This kind of peace between Muslims and Jews, between Israelis and Arabs [the signatories to the Abraham Accords], would be a nightmare for Hamas and for the dictatorship in Iran, which seek to perpetuate the conflict and the divisions as a source of power. They need to perpetuate the hatred in order to justify their dictatorships."
"It is unthinkable that the IRGC can operate legally in Canada. It can raise funds. It can prepare logistics. It can recruit new followers. Some of the people attached to the highest levels of the IRGC live in Canada today, their very presence terrorizing peaceful Canadians of Iranian descent who desperately want to kick these terrorists out of our country. They are right."
"The terrorists must be kicked out. This organization must be made a criminal entity."
Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre
Hundreds of people attend a pro-Palestinian rally in Mississauga, Ont. The rally was one of many taking place across North America
and around the world this weekend. (Alexis Raymon/Radio-Canada)
Canada's prime minister speaks of unity and division among people. He fails to address the scandalous fact that disunity and division runs rampant in Canada. It begins with his own actions, in alienating Canada's western provinces from its eastern provinces. It carries on when protesters arrive in convoys of dissenters to legally express their indignation over an autocratic government that issues diktats and when people object he names them as scum, homophobes, racists.
The most recent examples carrying on from years of hate-mongering, are the crowds of Canadian Arab and Muslim citizens and their followers, including those illegally in Canada, who gather in numbers to decry and foment hatred against Israel and Jews. The most recent propellant of which is the horrendous slaughter of Israelis in villages and kibbutzim by Hamas terrorists invading from Gaza, causing Israel to launch a defensive/offensive conflict into Gaza to extirpate Hamas and its sibling organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both offshoots of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
In Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, among other Western collegial democracies, these hate-filled, incitement-to-violence rallies have seen remedial responses from authorities. Canada's prime minister prefers to daintily deplore them, but will do nothing to forcefully put a stop to them. Protesters who last winter arrived in Ottawa demanding he resign merited the calling of the Emergencies Act and police dispersal and trials. That was personal to him, going so far as to freeze their bank accounts.
Pro-Palestinian supporters during a demonstration in Toronto on October 9, 2023.Photo by Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images
Arab Muslims in Canada who promote violence against Jews and Israel, leaving the Canadian Jewish community in fear, and necessitating that precautions against violence be undertaken with a police presence and guards around Jewish institutions fail to reflect the idealized Canadian unity that Justin Trudeau hypocritically promotes, but does nothing to ensure actually exists. Even welcoming into Canadian society people from cultures that nurse ancient tribal and religious antipathies toward others, incapable of adopting Canadian values, is an act of national destruction.
Pierre Poilievre, Justin Trudeau's political opposition in Parliament, calls for Canada to take action on criminalizing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- the acknowledged financial supporter of Hamas -- listing them as a terrorist entity. Hamas is on that terror list, yet Hamas flags and even the black flag of the Islamic State appear prominently in the anti-Israel Palestinian mobs that scream 'gas the Jews', suggesting another try at a 'final solution' and other vile imprecations and threats against fellow Canadian citizens.
Palestinian groups in Canada came out immediately following the grisly news out of Israel that an invasion of terrorist death-cult operatives from Hamas had invaded border villages, towns and kibbutzes under cover of emerging dawn on October 7 to massacre families in their homes, people waiting at bus stops, stopping cars to kill motorists and passengers, raping women beside the dead bodies of their friends at a music festival, abducting babies, infants, teens, women, the elderly to use them as hostages in exchange for criminal Palestinians in Israeli prisons. A time of wild celebration for Palestinians.
This proved to be a week of many
revelations for Canadians, prompting many to question the character of
our country and its citizenry. Pictured: Pro-Palestinian protestors take
to the streets of Montreal on Oct. 8, 2023, mere hours after Hamas
launched its initial assault on Israel. Photo credit: The Canadian
Press/Graham Hughes
The scale of the butchery, the evidence of torture, including forcing parents and children to witness the mutilation each was undergoing before delivering the death blows, was beyond mere inhumanity. In Gaza, Palestinians rejoiced and celebrated over the slaughter. Palestinian men and teens used the opportunity of the protective fence that had been smashed through to enter those same villages to not only loot possessions of the dead, but to commit murder themselves, some of them the very Gazans who were permitted employment in Israel.
Palestinians in the West Bank joined the congratulatory celebrations at the great victory achieved by Hamas in murdering over a thousand civilian Israelis. Those celebrations spread throughout the Middle East. That such butchery is inconceivable to a civilized society merely emphasizes that Middle Eastern countries in general, but certainly not all, are firmly anchored in societal dysfunction, emotional and enlightened stagnation of a heritage dating back millennia of tribal and sectarian hatreds.
And that very same syndrome is seen now throughout the world wherever Arabs and Muslims have penetrated, shifting their presence in a great diaspora of migration and bringing with them their heritage and cultural values of Islamist dominance, detestation of social enlightenment as they adhere to the precepts of Sharia, refusing to integrate themselves with the laws and social mores of the countries they now prosper in while spreading the fiction of colonialist victimhood of a people returned to their ancestral home.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie
Joly listen to Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley during
a working session at the Canada CARICOM Summit, in Ottawa, Wednesday,
Oct. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
In Justin Trudeau's Canada, disunity and division, hatred and incitement to violence has been normalized. He speaks of justice and fairness, of adherence to the law, of equality and security yet he has allowed Canada to be manipulated by China, he has accepted the presence of people who connive to disrupt life and security for other segments of the Canadian population that they target for eradication and censure. His focus on 'feminism' of a type known only to himself; on the virtues of celebrating the uniqueness of the trans community disruptive in their infantile circus of theatrics further divides parental rights from children's welfare.
There is a vast litany of national failures in Canada now, thanks to the Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau who boasts of a once-proud nation's post-national state of freedom, liberation, equality, diversity and inclusion. Delusional myths of hatefully bickering disunity in a country whose vast natural resources may no longer be exploited in favour of achieving environmental balance which fails to meet the demands of a global society capable of harnessing itself to respect for nature and the environment while responsibly harvesting its resources.
The most recent riots of celebrations over the barbaric murders of innocent people, the torture of helpless civilians, the anguish over the fate of hundreds of children, women and men of all ages and health conditions in the hands of a remorseless murderous sect of religious fanatics whose public relations enterprise seems to attract the world's population of social deviants and psychopaths viewing the apathy in reaction of other segments of society against the horrors of terrorism sending us into a Dark Age of nihilism.
