There are many who are horrified at what has been happening in Israel. How could anyone kill women and children, they ask. Everyone who asks that doesn’t understand warfare. For too long in the west, people have viewed war as if it were some kind of sporting event where a score is kept and there is a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. That isn’t how reality works.
In war, there are no rules. There are no good guys or even bad guys. There is simply your people, opposed by their people. The winners are both the ones who are left, and the ones who get to write the historical account of what happened. That’s why the bad guys never win the war, because they are the ones who get to write the history books.
The conflict in Israel is a complex one. I try to put myself in the mind of both sides, and this is how I view it:
On the one hand, you have the Palestinians who think that Israel is sitting on stolen land. Imagine if one day, a group of people was resettled on your land, and you were told that you just had to live with it. On the other side, you have the Israelis, who think that they are fighting against animals that are killing their children. Depending on your perspective, they are both right. And both wrong. It’s a war, and war is like that.
As far as killing noncombatants, that’s how war works. The side that is willing to be the most violent is the one that will win. This applies to us here in the US as well. Imagine the coming conflict here in this country. Do you think for a moment that the left would hesitate to kill you and your kids? Would they use DCF to take your children away from you, simply because of your political beliefs? If you say no, look at these two photos and tell me if you still believe that.
War is an ugly business. The supposed rule that noncombatants are off limits is nonsense. Ask the residents of Dresden, Hiroshima, Nanking, or the Confederate populations that were starved and killed in the first civil war. You either have the fortitude to use every tool, tactic, and weapon at your disposal, or you take the chance of losing when the other side doesn’t follow the rules that you have decided to hamstring yourself with.
War isn’t a sporting event with rules, referees, and a scorekeeper. It’s a bloody fight for survival. The side that is willing to do whatever it takes to win is the side that has an advantage. That is why war is not to be entered into lightly. We here in this country have been the exception- war hasn’t come to our shores in more than a century. That is about to change.
What are you willing to do in order to defend yourself and your family. Think about it now, so you will know the answer when the time comes to either do what needs to be done, or calmly climb into the boxcars to be reeducated.
38 Comments
D · October 11, 2023 at 9:28 am
I think there’s an easy way to look at this to find out who is “right” and who is “wrong”.
Rewind a few weeks to before the current situation happened.
If every last person in Gaza threw their weapons into the ocean, what would Israel do? Would they roll in and start murdering everyone? Their previous behavior suggests the answer is “no”.
Now imagine the opposite. Every single person in Israel grinds their weapons into dust and the Iron Dome is shut down. How long before people from Gaza start trying to murder every last Israeli?
Statistically there are a significant number of evil pieces of crap in Gaza. If they are removed, the world becomes a better place. Someone should run the numbers. I’m sure it’s 15% of the Gaza population is responsible for 80% of the atrocities.
Divemedic · October 11, 2023 at 9:44 am
So what would you do if the UN declared that the state where you live was going to be given to another country. Then that other country declared that the land that has been in your family for generations now belonged to “settlers” and they would be building houses on it?
There are two sides to every story.
D · October 11, 2023 at 11:11 am
I don’t give a crap what the UN says because Israel has been there for thousands of years of documented history.
It would be like the UN suddenly saying that Vancouver Canada belongs to US Citizens now.
*If* I decided to go into Vancouver Canada after that announcement *by force* and start murdering Canadian women and children who have lived their for hundreds of years so I could “take back my land” (that was never mine)….I would expect a violent response from the inhabitants.
I would expect the same violent response if I moved in peacefully for 3 generations, built houses, and settled things…and then decided to start murdering women and children.
Like I said before, there’s one side that tries to be peaceful and has lived in Israel for thousands of years–and another side that is violent with genocidal thoughts.
JaimeInTexas · October 12, 2023 at 8:20 am
D, you are ready to return the Kingdom of Hawaii?
I wonder on whose land you reside?
The modern pains of Israel/Palestine is only about 90 years old. Go to the Romans to solve the issue – they expelled the Israelis over 1900 years ago.
My family and relatives lost property to eminent domain several decades ago, supposedly because of flood plane. Well, public housing for built on It and, after some years, the g’ment have them the title to the property.
I can tell you it still riles me up some to think about it.
D · October 12, 2023 at 8:45 am
> The modern pains of Israel/Palestine is only about 90 years old. Go to the Romans to solve the issue – they expelled the Israelis over 1900 years ago.
That’s completely disingenuous.
Sure, the UN “created” Israel 90 years ago. The stupid graphic going around the internet pretends that that’s the start of history.
Israel has been inhabited since “biblical times” (not making it a biblical discussion, just showing length of time).
Regardless, this isn’t really about “what period of time should we use to justify who gets what chunk of dirt”….it’s more about “this is the way it’s currently laid out and also fairly similarly historically laid out, and one side just decided to murder a bunch of people”.
If your family lost property to public domain, I condemn it. It’s one of the few areas of the US Constitution I rabidly disagree with. But you know what I’d condemn even more? If today you suddenly decided to go to that public housing and murder everyone.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 10:08 am
Go in and murder everyone? Didn’t you just describe pretty much all of recorded history? The concept that war is only one army attacking another is a relatively new concept that, curiously enough, coincides with the complete lack of victory. This is because Americans view war as some sort of sporting competition with rules, referees, and a scorecard.
Real war is fought by completely destroying your enemy’s will to continue the fight. It’s much easier and more effective to damage a country’s war making machine than it is to destroy its army in the field.
It’s the same error that was made in Vietnam and Afghanistan. We were trying to kill belligerents instead of going after the economic and manufacturing base of the enemy. You will note that in Vietnam, the war effort began to fail when the US stopped bombing the north’s infrastructure. We failed in Afghanistan because we were treating the war as if we were police looking to arrest criminals, instead of a military power trying to defeat a foe.
It’s a weakness that our enemies have learned to exploit, and is a key reason why the US military hasn’t had such a great win/loss record over the past 70 years.
Make the excuses you want, but the US firebombing Tokyo and nuking the civilian populations of two different cities is what won WW2 in the Pacific theater. The fights leading up to that (Naval and island hopping) were a means to an end, not the objective.
The same happened in the European theater. The US conducted massive bombing raids over Germany that involved hundreds of bombers, day after day. The Allies dropped over 2 million tons of explosives on German cities during the war. THAT is what wins wars- you destroy the enemy’s ability to fight back. It’s far more effective to destroy the factory that makes the tanks than it is to engage and destroy those tanks in the field. The same applies to other war materiel- aircraft, ships, ammo. Destroy the factory, cripple the enemy.
With that being said, does that mean that the factory worker who builds the war materiel is any less of a valid target than is the soldier who wields it?
JaimeInTexas · October 12, 2023 at 12:48 pm
Ignored the Roman period which expelled most Jews and called the area Palestine. How long does it take for a people to be THE people.I
We only been in North America as these USA for barely over 200 years. Palestinians? Hebrews before them? Philistines, Egyptians, Sea People, Babylonians, Poenicians? Caananites?I
At least let’s be honest. 1948 is the beginning of the expulsion of Palestinians.
Is it anti-semitic to point out Jewish terrorism back in those days?
If my family expropriations had happened through an invasion/occupation … who knows.I
Does it matter whether many murder occur in a day versus slowly and quietly over several years?
We stay out and work to fix our problems.
And that include amending our Constitution to disallow dual citizenship, defining natural born, closing our Southern border, getting rid off the 17th, etc etc etc long list of freaking etc
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 2:49 pm
Look, I am not claiming that one side is “right” or “wrong” in this. All I am saying is that each side perceives that they have justification in fighting for what they believe is rightfully theirs, no different than what any people do when fighting for any other resources. All of you are getting tied up in the minutiae of trying to pick a side. That’s irrelevant.
What is relevant is who wins. The side that wins is the side that is most effective at using force. It’s a war. There are no other rules. To think otherwise is to be engaging in childish wishes.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 8:26 am
I don’t think either side has tried to be peaceful. That’s war.
D · October 12, 2023 at 8:50 am
Oh please. When was the last time the United States texted everyone and announced “we’re about to level your country because you guys 9/11’d us, civilians have 48 hours to evacuate and then we’re coming in”?
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 9:58 am
How is that relevant to what I said? I said that neither Israel or the Palestinians have attempted to be peaceful. The US and their behavior wasn’t even mentioned.
D · October 12, 2023 at 12:31 pm
And like I said….if everyone in Gaza laid down all their weapons, you aren’t going to see a genocide. But if Israel laid down all their weapons, you’d see the extinction of the Jewish people.
Once side wants to be left alone, the other doesn’t want to leave anyone alone.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 2:39 pm
Looking at it from the Palestinian side, Israel wants to be left alone to live on Palestine’s land without contest.
It’s important to be able to see any conflict from both points of view, if for no other reason than to understand what your opponent wants so that you can either deny it to him, or use it to defeat him.
D · October 12, 2023 at 8:32 pm
Ok…so Palestine wants “their” land back in your example.
What time periods are you willing to cherry-pick to make it “their land”?
The first settlers in the area were Hebrews in biblical times, so you can’t choose the time period of “first inhabitants”.
It’s currently inhabited by Israelis (descendants of those original Hebrews), so you can’t use the time period “now” (or any time in the last ~85 years).
You basically have to pick out of the ranges:
* A short few years around 50 BC when Rome conquered Israel.
* A short time around 11 AD when the Turks conquered Israel
* The 1500s through the early 1900s when the Ottoman Empire ruled a large area that included Israel and the unofficially called it “Palestine” before the “Jews” decided to reclaim their land.
So if you can’t use “who is there now?” and you can’t use “who was there originally?”, what time period would you use and what makes it more important and “right” when compared with the other time periods?
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 8:49 pm
It doesn’t matter. What’s important is what each side perceives with enough conviction to fight for.
This isn’t a debate or a discussionwhere one side can be declared as being the winner- it’s a war where each side sees themselves as having a legitimate religious claim to that land.
What makes one side “right” is winning the war. To the victors go not only the spoils, but the ability to tell the story in the history books as viewed through their own lens.
Rick T · October 11, 2023 at 11:39 am
What did they do? The Arab world (Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Iraq) went to war against the new Israeli state and lost. Lose the war, lose your lands. That has been the rule of history since it was recorded.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 8:27 am
It’s a war. The Arabs aren’t ready to admit that the war is over and that they have lost. The argument here is that some people claim that there are “rules” to how a war is to be fought.
Jonathan · October 11, 2023 at 6:21 pm
In this case, the problem is even more complex than that.
In 1948, neighboring Arab countries were confident they’d destroy Israel quickly. They told the locals to leave so they wouldn’t be killed by accident. Those who didn’t leave were the foundation of the million plus Israeli Arabs who are the freest Arabs in the Middle East.
Those governments lost, but the refugees in their country were intentionally kept poor and separate for propoganda purposes. Those millions are now an unwanted threat to everyone in the region, which is why you don’t see Egypt or Jordan helping them anymore.
There is lots of blame to go around, and much of that placed on Israel’s shoulders shouldn’t be.
ModernDayJeremiah · October 11, 2023 at 7:05 pm
Here’s another perspective for you. What would you do if a racist homicidal maniac plunged the entire world into war and stated as one of his goals to wipe all of your relatives from the face of the Earth? And then he made substantial progress toward that goal?
Do you think that you might want to have a country of your own, where your own people would have a place to call your own? What would you do if your neighbors, who outnumbered you 100 to 1, invaded your new country (which wasn’t really new, your people had lived there thousands of years ago before being invaded and dispersed) and attempted to push your people into the sea? After they failed the first time, they tried twice more, the last time attacking without provocation on your religion’s holiest day of the year when your people were in church praying?
Sorry, I have no sympathy for the “oppressed Palestinians”. Hamas started this round. Bibi Netanyahu is going to finish it, by whatever means necessary.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 9:04 pm
Look from the other point of view:
Imagine that you and your family have lived in your home for several generations. The UN comes in and declares that, as reparations for slavery, the entire state is to be turned over to the new nation of Wakanda, which will be completely governed by black people. You, not being black, have no say in the new government. They will, however, allow you to stay in reservations, the location of which they get to choose.
Your property is taken, and new villages are built on what was your land.
Under what authority was this done?
At what point do you fight? Or do you meekly give in?
Mike · October 11, 2023 at 7:18 pm
However, the UN didn’t give their land away or push any of them out of Israel. The Palestinian refugees are the ones who left in 1948 to clear the way for the genocide of the Jews when the Arabs left, expecting to be back in a couple weeks. That didn’t work out for them, but the Israelis didn’t make them leave. There are still Arab towns all through Israel mixed with Jewish and Christian ones. The Arabs are free to work, move, etc. The Arab villages usually have better restaurants in my opinion. I visit Israel for work several times a year. That country is an island of sanity in the area.
EN2 SS · October 11, 2023 at 7:21 pm
So what would you do if the UN declared that the state where you live was going to be given to another country. Then that other country declared that the land that has been in your family for generations now belonged to “settlers” and they would be building houses on it?
Isn’t that what’s been done to the Jews for thousands of years? Didn’t God give the land of Israel to the Jews over four thousand years ago? And when did the pedo start up the Muslime doctrine of worldwide domination or death?
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 8:28 am
Don’t the Muslims make the same claims about their God giving them the land?
JaimeInTexaz · October 13, 2023 at 6:45 am
If you go the Bible route, search/study possession of the land. Or similar terms.
TCK · October 11, 2023 at 7:22 pm
If its ok for muslims to take Jewish land by force, then its ok for that land to be returned to the Jews with force. End of story.
Grumpy51 · October 11, 2023 at 6:29 pm
Over the decades, I’ve learned a few things….. If you can’t point to at least one good thing and one bad thing a person or group of persons says or does (and yes, that includes Hitler and Stalin), then you’re blinded by ideology.
Sarin · October 11, 2023 at 10:48 am
DM,
You’re right about there being no rules in war. I also understand the juxtaposition of the differing sentiments between both parties that you’re painting that led to the conflict.
I’d like to challenge your logic on a separate point. You state, “On the one hand, you have the Palestinians who think that Israel is sitting on stolen land. Imagine if one day, a group of people was resettled on your land, and you were told that you just had to live with it.”
Forgive me if I misunderstood; it appears that you’re claiming the Palestinians are the indigenous people to the area.
Per Dictionary.com the definition of indigenous is, “ relating to or being a people who are the original, earliest known inhabitants of a region, or are their descendants.”
I’d contend that historically the Jews are the indigenous. I’ll avoid using biblical or other poor/biased sources, such as Wikipedia. That will leave a large gap in the timeline that I don’t have time to fill at the moment.
Many people believe that Rome expelled the Jews in 70 A.D. after the destruction on the second temple. The Bar Kochba Revolt occurred between 132 and 135 A.D. Brittanica states, “Jewish rebellion against Roman rule in Judea. The revolt was preceded by years of clashes between Jews and Romans in the area.” (Brittanica.com/event/Second-Jewish-Revolt)
Also, the Romans used to call the area Judea, and later renamed it to “Syria Palaestina”. It is believed that Rome chose the moniker Palestine as an insult to the Jews; the name was derived from a historical Jewish enemy, the Philistines.
If Islam was founded around 613 A.D. (when Muhammad started preaching), how does that reconcile with their claim to being indigenous?
While I don’t have a source photo, when I visited it long ago, the Beit Alpha synagogue has a dedication (written in Aramaic) indicating it was built between 518 and 527 A.D.
Parliamentary Papers and Command (1874) (written by British Consuls) “The population of the city of Jerusalem is estimated at 21,000, of whom 5,000 are Moslems, 5,500 Christians of various denominations, mostly of the Greek rite, 10,000 Jews, and about 500 European (not being Jews), mostly Germans. (Books.google.com/books?/id=5jTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA992#v=onepage&q&f=false)
When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1917, world powers decided to create a two-state solution. The Arab state was Jordan and the Jewish state was meant to include all of modern Israel (including the disputed territories of Gaza and the West Bank). At that time, there was no Palestinian state, that was to be Jordan.
Yes, I left out the crusades (200 year period ending in 1291) as well as the Ottoman Empire (beginning in 1516). I’ll have to find links to valid sources. There are numerous archaeological finds that date back at least 2600 years with Hebrew inscriptions.
You also mention that the winners write the history books. Setting aside history, what about taking the land by force? One could argue that the Jews did so in 1948 and then again during the Six Day war in 1967. By the logic you shared in the post, Mexico has a valid claim to a wide swath of the southwestern US and Texas.
Divemedic · October 12, 2023 at 8:30 am
People who have been dispossessed of their homes aren’t going to search through history books before fighting for their land. They are going to fight. In their minds, both sides believe that they are the ones who deserve to live there, and are willing to fight, kill, and die over that belief.
The rest is just each side trying to justify the violence that follows.
JaimeInTexas · October 12, 2023 at 8:32 am
Were not the Caananites the indigenous people of that land?
JaimeInTexas · October 11, 2023 at 10:58 am
We are similar in thinking this issue.
Not our circus, not our monkeys.
I want to stay relatively sane and cannot go around worrying about the world, trying to fix/solve atrocities that seem to be a constant.
So much needing fixing here at home.
Andrew · October 11, 2023 at 11:45 am
Remember the Brits were shipping munitions in the Lusitania and other ships that weren’t supposed to be hauling war cargo.
It worked, the Germans were in “lose-lose” mode.
Let the cargo flow, the Brits stay in the war longer.
Sink the cargo…anger the world, risk others joining the fight.
I imagine a timeline where that “war crime” was called out, instead of allowed.
Either the US declines to join the war, or allies with the Germans, or just tells US citizens “setting foot on a ship is on you, not us, sorry.”
Jonesy · October 11, 2023 at 12:41 pm
Whatever the cause for war, civilians are always a casualty. They get bombed, shot, burned and starved among other horrors. Usually, and I say *usually* in general, they are not primary targets. Hiroshima, Nagasaki are exceptions where a decision was made that ultimately prevented a larger loss of life predicated on a ground invasion and extended duration to the war.
I won’t comment on the Jews vs Palestinians, and their longstanding conflict. Take nationalities and ethnicities out of the equation. If you have any group that targets civilians as a priority, women and children, and commits not just murder, but kidnapping, rape and torture, including beheading children and babies……you aren’t at war, you are perpetrating evil. You’ve lost any moral high ground on the pursuit of your objective, and honestly, deserve to be eradicted.
If the left in this country thinks what is happening right now is justified, and to your point DM, is willing to behave similarly against its political opponents here, everyone should prepare accordingly. If no quarter is offered, then none will be given in return.
Oldude · October 11, 2023 at 1:23 pm
Agreed, 100% as too you post AND Comment to D.
Thats why it should be the last resort.
But if your gonna, then.. Hard, Fast and Violent. Get it Done.
“Rules of War.”
What a Deceitful combination of 3 words.
Will · October 11, 2023 at 3:39 pm
And that’s the reason we haven’t won one lately.
Mike in Canada · October 11, 2023 at 5:53 pm
Sir,
This post is rather close to conclusions I came to many years ago. I do not mean to suggest I am some sort of super-genius or anything; more that, the writing has been on the wall my entire adult life, and as of about two years ago that writing became clearer than ever.
I am at a point where further analysis is redundant. The situation has clarified, if one but possess the courage to face it squarely, and the time is now to decide only one thing: Your comportment when the situation finally comes to your door.
In point of fact, it has been this time for some time. Nothing more to puzzle over. Just to make those decisions now, such that when the time comes, one executes a set of plans rather than parsing how one should feel as they come through the door…
I hope everyone is ready. I hope everyone had the time and the resources to do what they could. I hope everyone took the opportunities given them. I hope everyone made their peace, set their resolve, and now only lie in wait.
IFF will be simplified, on the plus side, given whom the opfor seems to be.
Until further notice, then. Thank you for your attention.
Grumpy51 · October 11, 2023 at 6:38 pm
Most (>90%) have NO clue of what’s coming. There’s a meme out there that states “I just wanted to be left alone”.
Marxists are good at running the dial – turn up the heat, turn it down, repeat ad nauseam.
Then there’s those who don’t have a thermostat – they have switches. It stays off as long as possible…… because when it gets flipped, pure violence becomes the norm. There is nothing else to lose, the old person is murdered and a totally different unrecognizable person takes the place…… and it doesn’t stop until the switch gets thrown again.
Elrod · October 12, 2023 at 1:23 am
“The side that is willing to be the most violent is the one that will win. This applies to us here in the US as well. Imagine the coming conflict here in this country. Do you think for a moment that the left would hesitate to kill you and your kids? “
If one does not already have Their Head In The Game, RFN would be a good time to start.
Jester · October 14, 2023 at 7:41 pm
I’ve thought about this post for a couple of days. While I understand the idea DM you posed with this and also understand the fact of why people would chime in on the current conflict it is somewhat a side note.
War. Is. Hell.
You can be an atheist and still know or have a understanding of what Hell is, not even including biblical terms.
War is Hell. I would bet most of the commmenters here have not been to a combat zone either as an active participant or a field worker.
I think everyone should perhaps have an understanding that most of the political critters involved in sending people to war (Be you an elected type of shall we say.. a insurgent) actually see or deal with the conciquences of those actions. Pretty easy to send off a group of people to die when you are at a much lower risk than they are for death right?
Pretty easy to give some salutes to the troops when your ass sits in some stadium seat instead of the seat of a combat vehicle.
Before this turns in to me being told I don’t support X, Y or Z I fully endores that if say the US was going to war on some justified basis that they should unleash nothing short of obliteration. While trying to avoid civilian causalties is a possible goal let’s face it if we are in deep somewhere, the civilians are part of the foes. They are likely aiding, abeting and sheltering.
In all reality most people in the US/Canada are so far removed from conflict they have not one bit of understanding of what war really is. You have some Vets on the war on Terror, a shade from the Gulf War, a bit in the US from Nam still left (Mind you most those guys are in the minimum of 70s and are older)
A tiny portion of Korea Vets and a ever dwindling amount of WW 2 vets.
The talk of war and war knowelge is pretty slim in relation to the actual population.
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssstttt Wanna know a even dirtier little secret? There’s a ton of Republicans (Who love the troops no less) that won’t let their own children or family serve with the risk of being sent to war. Looking at those with family ties on either side of the fence that actually do serve.. far far far few of even that tiny miniority actually serve in a capacity that would pull them in to the possiblity of being in an engagement. There’s some yes but that’s perhaps counted on one, or two hands with the WH, Senate and House..
War is hell kids.
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