Israel’s 9/11: Netanyahu declares war

(Photo credit: Benjamin Netanyahu, X account

A brutal surprise attack by the terrorist organization Hamas, backed by Iran, and likely with the joyous behind-the-scenes approval of both China and Russia, has led to the deaths of a mounting number of mostly Israeli civilians.

Not many military targets were hit. The aim for this attack was clearly to destroy civilian lives first and foremost. There really cannot be a realistic military goal for Hamas --- it is terrorism in its definitive form.

We must also recognize this is an assault on Judaism.

Victor Davis Hanson, writing on his X feed, made the point emphatically:

“Here we are 78 years after the end of the Holocaust and once against thuggish killers dressed in black are pulling Jewish elderly, women, and children out of their homes and executing them, and then throwing their bodies into the street,” Hanson wrote. “But in 1945 we were fighting the SS murderers, now we are sending millions in subsidies to their modern Hamas killer squad counterparts. We the American people should demand not one more American cent to these Gestapo and SS killers.”

Moving forward, nations providing financial support to Palestine and related causes must halt such actions now, and completely. Supporting terrorists that have not only murderous thoughts, but who have now taken such a major action must be believed when they say they want to destroy Israel.

President Donald Trump virtually ended project money to Palestine, correctly assessing that the money aid would not go as intended.

President Joe Biden, apparently wed to the notion that any action undertaken by Trump must be wrong, restored “more than $200 million” to Palestinians in 2021, according to reporting at the time.

U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken wrote that the “United States is pleased to announce that, working with Congress, we plan to restart U.S. economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” in the 2021 announcement.

We have to wonder how that money was actually used.

The left, especially in America, must also reevaluate and end any of its romantic notions about the Palestinian state and liberals’ bitter, dominating hatred of all things conservative no matter in which country they appear.

Almost at the instant of the attack, American liberals wondered aloud whether it was all real and not some kind of ploy on the part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Writing on X, noted leftist attorney Laurence Tribe, posted, “Is Netanyahu wagging the dog of war to take attention away from his own war on the independent judiciary? Can anyone put it past him? His mindset is that Netanyahu, far too conservative for his taste, must have something up his sleeve. Naturally, he later deleted the posting after being criticized.

Speaking on the leftist MSNBC liberal Matt Bradley stated that he “couldn’t think of a better gift for Benjamin Netanyahu right now than this kind of incursion.” He cannot apparently even consider that perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu sees this brutal attack as anything other than a political win for himself.

Former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs (and notably Undersecretary of Defense) Robert Wilkie sharply pointed out the thinking that needs to change.

“The Biden Administration with its typical faculty lounge lunacy persuaded itself and most of Europe that UN style deal-making and billion-dollar cash transfers could tame Tehran’s theocratic fanatics,” he wrote in a message to the author.  “This is a perilous moment for the west thanks to Biden’s weakness.”

As Israel contemplates as very necessary combat response to this vicious terrorist attack, now is not the time for half measures or the calling for cooler heads. It did not work with Adolf Hitler or Vladimir Putin and it will not work with the crazed Hamas killers or their benefactors in Tehran.

The terrorists see themselves on a mission and they must be physically confronted and destroyed.

Netanyahu and Israel have declared war for the first time since 1973.

Negotiation and conciliation will come much, much later.

Defeating the enemy is the priority for now.

James Hutton is a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. Follow him on Twitter @jehutton