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Samizdata quote of the day Warsi dismissively described Osborne as “a good friend of the Israeli government”. The more subtle truth is that Osborne, along with a handful of other senior politicians, is prepared to step back historically and geographically, and to remember that the state of Israel was founded by a people that had heard the approaching silence of absolute extinction, and resolved never again to face that void.
Israel is bigger than Gaza and the West Bank, but it is smaller than almost everywhere else. Less than a century old, it is a democracy surrounded by hostile nations and under permanent attack by terrorists who wish to see it wiped from the surface of the Earth. What is a “proportionate” response to a hydra-like enemy who sees the Final Solution as work in progress? All terrorism aimed at Israel is genocidal in spirit. What would a “proportionate” response to that ambition look like?
– Matthew d’Ancona
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“Proportionate” would be a missile-for-missile exchange. By my count, Israel is “owed” about a thousand missile strikes into Gaza.
Proportionate response is organized stalemate. Disproportionate response is also known as “winning”.
To quote a reply I made on the topic of Gaza on another site:
Indeed, most of the Hamas rockets fired represent attempted murder rather than successful murder.
There is a post on Conservative Home (sorry I do not do links) saying that the Conservative Party should adopt more anti Israel (pro Islamist) candidates and so on. The Conservative party (so the utter swine who wrote the post argues) is being “out campaigned on Palestine” by Labour and the Lib Dems and should correct this…
A lot of people ask me “I know you are a tribal Tory – born into the Tory tribe in your home town (a rather tribally divided place), but there must be something that would make you resign”.
There is – and the above is something that I (and many others) would respond to with resignation.
A “Conservative” party that followed the line of “Baroness” Warsi would lose what is left of its membership (as it would no longer have any connection to being the party of such people as Winston Churchill and the Sir Walter Scott who wrote “Ivanhoe”) and, yes, I would go.
In the 19th century the conservative Bishop of Peterborough said “I would rather see men voluntarily drunk that compulsorily sober” (in response to the licensing proposes of the liberals) the party of the Squires and Spires (of churchmen and landowners – and those who faithfully followed them and buried them when the fell, for they always led from the front) has never been an intellectual party (although it was not “stupid” either), but it did have certain attitudes.
Attitudes common to Whig and Tory alike (for the Conservative party contained many Whigs whom radicals pushed out of the Liberal party, once the home of the Whigs, – especially in the late 19th century). If the modern party turns its back on such attitudes (such as perhaps not living well – but always dying well) there is no point in any connection with it.
Of course there are already strong signs of that.
For example my own county (Northamptonshire) was once (unofficially) as the county of “squires and spires” – now the road signs read “Let Yourself Grow” (perhaps a reference to all the corporate welfare, roads drainage and so on, for the endless new housing estates – the “growth agenda”).
The motto (and all it stands for) makes me want to vomit.
Both honest Whigs and honest Tories in the novels of Sir Walter Scott (and in real life) would have felt the same.
Throwing the Jews to the wolves, in order to seek the votes of the mob?
Even people who did not like Jews (not at all) would have responded to such a suggestion by breaking the jaw of the man who made it.
I wonder if the good Progressives of Islington would think differently if an Islamist State of Tower Hamlets was firing missiles indiscriminately into their borough.
Isn’t one of your Princes rather Islamic friendly?
Paul, here is the piece.
Would it not be better to say ‘this is f all to do with us’ and ‘it’s not worth the bones of a single British Grenadier’ and ‘Sorry for giving Warsi a peerage and a place in the Cabinet even though she refused to condemn the killing of British troops on Iraq’?
I don’t have any Princes.
Statistics from IDF that would never appear in so called “Information world” of BBC, Guardian, The Telegraph etc etc… in fact they are in “Desinformation world”
3,356 rockets fired at Israel
2,303 hit Israel
356 intended at IDF forces operating in Gaza
116 of which hit populated areas (3.45%)
578 were intercepted by Iron Dome
475 landed within the Gaza Strip
Prior to the operation, the IDF estimated the Gaza rockets arsenal at =
approximately 10,000 rockets. 1/3 of which were fired at Israel, and an =
additional 1/3 was demolished by the IDF.
Geographic Breakdown
69.4% fired from the northern Gaza Strip
12.9% fired from the central Gaza Strip
17.3% fired from the southern Gaza Strip
597 rockets were launched from civilian facilities abused by terrorists =
(18%)
Approx. 260 launched from educational facilities (schools)
Approx. 127 launched from cemeteries
Approx. 160 launched from religious sites
Approx. 50 launched from hospitals
4,762 terror sites struck across the Gaza Strip:
1,678 rockets launching capabilities
977 command and control centers
237 militant wing government faculties
191 weapon storage and manufacturing facilities
144 training and militant compounds
1,535 additional terror sites
Eliminating Mission – Gaza tunnel network
32 Terror tunnels neutralized
14 crossed into Israel
2 tunnels had shafts located 300-500 Meters from Israel
750- 1,000 militants targeted
At least 253 Hamas operatives
At least 147 Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives
At least 65 operatives of various organizations
At least 603 operatives whose affiliation is unknown
In addition, 159 suspected terrorists have been questioned by Israeli =
security forces, 25 of which are currently imprisoned.
Israeli Casualties
3 civilians killed
64 IDF soldiers killed in combat
83 Israeli civilians wounded
463 IDF soldiers wounded
Warsi is gravely underestimating most British feelings about Israel.
In this period of remembrance, and next year’s D-Day anniversaries, there are many native Britons who are still acutely aware of the price paid fighting those who wished us or our allies wiped out. Together with the sympathy of Holocaust perpetrated by Western Europeans, most will ultimately side with Israel because they know a fascist enemy when they see one.
Let’s remember that Hamas was cut from the same cloth as the Arab Nationalists of the 1930s who collaborated with Nazi Germany in their implementation of genocide, many today are quite open about finishing the job (whilst simultaneously denying the original never took place), even the non-intellectual can see this.
Warsi comes from a culture that has never experienced the threat of foreign domination nor fought against a genocidal enemy, her parents’ host country is barely as old as Israel and has never been threatened with invasion, in fact, her ethnic background is one that has consistently doled out aggression and desired dominance over others, as her co-religionists frequently brag in Gaza.
Anti-semitism is the canary in the coalmine, you don’t even have to like Judiasm to know this, Niemöller’s words still ring true today, Warsi is deliberately ignorant of all this because of her cultural bias, which has been her selling point throughout her political career, so she blindly accepts that people will happily chuck Israel under the bus, but it just isn’t so.
Following the “related story” links attached to d’Ancona’s piece, I came upon this.
I had been reluctantly warming towards BoJo, on the basis of his baby Alan Clark act (not to mention displacing Red Ken) but, if true, the following suggests that my first impression of him, as an insufferable tosser, was correct.
Luckylucky ; Interesting and impressively detailed figures. The ‘603 operatives whose affiliation is unknown’ , though ? Hmm…
It’s a pity the Israelis can’t see their way to using a trebuchet to throw stink bombs into the neighborhoods surrounding their embassies.
Mr Ed.
It is Mr Goodman’s third point that is really vile (the first two points are basically meaningless).
The third suggestion is both vile and cowardly.
Cowardly because it is about supporting the destruction of Israel – without openly saying so.
For that is what “sympathetic to the Palestinians” means in practice – and Mr Goodman knows it.
As the chant goes (the chant Mr Goodman must have heard) “free Palestine from the river to the sea”.
That is what this is about.
And that is not all it is about. For the forces of Islam (who he calls “Palestinians”) do not want to just conquer Israel – they wish to conquer ALL other countries (including Britain).
Again Mr Goodman knows this – but he is too dishonest to mention it.
After all telling the truth might offend “voters in marginal seats”.
If this is the attitude of the leaders of the West – then the West is doomed.