October 12, 2023

"I truly believe were there no Israel, no Jew in the world would be ultimately safe. It's the only ultimate guarantee."

 Said Joe Biden, yesterday, quoted in "White House clarifies Biden's claim he saw photos of terrorists beheading children in Israel-Hamas war/After the comments, the White House clarified that Biden had read news reports" (NBC News).

The clarification is that when he said "I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children," he was referring to hearing about these things, no literally seeing them.

68 comments:

The Crack Emcee said...

I just read that the Jews purchased a bunch of land in North or South Carolina. Why didn't they move there? Why would you possibly move to live right in the center of all your enemies? Oh yeah: because God gave you that place.

That's the dumbest story in the history of dumb stories.

rehajm said...

The old man did good with the brief statement yesterday. Should have quit and shut up. Guess you have to be with it for that...

Critter said...

Pathetic. Ruins the impact of the statement of support. Of course, when he’s still trying to appease the leading state sponsor of terrorism, that may have been intentional.

Goldenpause said...

“Clarifying” Biden’s statements has got to be a full time job for at least several White House staffers.

RideSpaceMountain said...

In pelagic shark fishing, charter fishing boat captains will often advise against or caution sport fishermen against "over-chumming" the water. I.E. there's no need to motivate the sharks, or anything for that matter, once the appropriate amount of blood is in the water.

Thousands are dead. Children are dead. Lots of them. Nobody needs to "over-chum" the water with stories - real or not - of beheaded children to motivate the necessary response. Is it real? The distinct possibility exists. Does it's topicality make it suspect? You betcha. It reminds me of stories of children's hospitals being leveled with M1 Abrams tank fire during the drive on Baghdad. Those stories were a total fabrication and were 100% believed by everyone we spoke to when the Sunni uprisings started in '06.

Bad enough that it might be true without us wishing it. Definitely a trust but absolutely verify sort of intelligence nugget...treat with prejudice.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Biden helped fund it all ... with the Obama-Biden Iran billions.

Sebastian said...

Joe has improved on the subject. But no one and no group is "ultimately safe," and in its neighborhood Israel offers no "ultimate guarantee."

There are more Muslims than Jews. They have infiltrated the West. Rich-country support for Israel was always shaky; now it is definitely not "guaranteed."

For now, Jews and Israel get a little sympathy. But the overt sympathy for Hamas in many places sends a signal. And hey, Joe: if you are so concerned about Israel, why not stop coddling its mortal enemy Iran?

MikeR said...

I love Israel but I have no idea why he thinks that Israel helps Jews to be safe. We thought it would, true - but since its creation it's been the major target of antisemitism the world over, and attempts at genocide from its neighbors.

The Crack Emcee said...

"I truly believe" are not words that move me.

technochitlin said...

"You have my word as a Biden"- implied but not spoken.

I used to be just tired of this man and those around him, and could not wait until he was gone. Now, I actively despise him and his fellow travelers. They have made common cause with the most outrageously animalistic barbarians because their 'feels' tell them to. It is un-Christian of me, but I wish that terror and ruin falls upon all their heads- and if I can help make it happen, I will.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I accept Bibi’s word as confirmed by CNN.

The Crack Emcee said...

US confirms Egypt warned Israel ‘three days’ before Hamas attack

robother said...

So, Biden is admitting that no Jew is ultimately safe in the USA? If true, it is because of his Party's embrace of tribalist identity poltics and Open Borders.

Bob Boyd said...

Biden got mixed up. The pictures he saw were at John Podesta's house.

Balfegor said...

I think the whole "were the babies beheaded or not?" kerfuffle is really beside the point. Hamas apologists on twitter are out there denying there were decapitated babies, stressing that only some of the babies were decapitated, not forty babies, etc. Like it matters.

Hamas are deliberately going into houses and killing babies, not just incidentally hitting them with gunfire or grenades. And their gunfire and grenades are often deliberately targeted at civilian targets, not incidentally hitting civilians who are close to military targets. I don't think this is seriously disputed. It's depraved enough without babies being decapitated, and excessive focus on decapitatation makes it seem like "well, as long as the infants weren't decapitated, maybe it's okay." No!

On a different note, Biden is a well-known, habitual fabulist so while it's certainly possible there were photographs he'd seen, I didn't assign much weight to his claim. It's pretty dog bites man at this point for the White House to "clarify" (contradict) what Biden said, at this point.

cassandra lite said...

All right, so NOW the news media insist on fact-checking Biden.

By this time next week, the same sources (LAT, NYT, NPR, Guardian, Reuters, etc.) who are so assiduously pursuing verification of the baby beheadings will be credulously reporting every claim by Hamas about who's dead and suffering.

The Crack Emcee said...

Playboy fires Mia Khalifa after porn star expressed support for Hamas - and free speech in this country is seriously taking a hit.

The Crack Emcee said...

So much concern: Operation Paperclip: How the USA helped Nazi criminals from WWII evade justice to advance its own military ambitions

Really: the impulse to vomit over our hypocrisy is STRONG.

Alexander said...

Get yourself a president who believes in the concept of American people as a distinct, defined people who deserve a secure homeland the way the current one believes in Israel and the Jewish people.

Radical idea I know.

The Crack Emcee said...

The United States brought 1600 Nazis here, to live out their lives in comfort and fame, and now they wanna pose as arbiters of right and wrong in the world. It just boggles the fucking mind.

rcocean said...

I haven't read it, but I assume after pictures of dead Jewish babies, and constant talk of poor innocents being murdered by Arabs, we'll go back to the abstract 30,000 foot view that the MSM usually takes when talking about Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages in Gaza.

Its a fact of human nature that if you drop a bomb on someone and kill an entire family people just shrug their shoulders, while if you burst into their home and cut them up with a machete people get all upset. But dead is dead.

US Pilots in WW II felt no guilt over firebombing german cities, but if you'd asked them to parachute down and personally gun down 50 German women and children they'd have refused. Distance and abstraction makes the atrocity much less vivid.

Dave Begley said...

Biden needs to STFU.

He created this war by allowing Iran to sell something like $30b in oil to China. And, of course, Barack sent Iran pallets of cash.

Watch what this corrupt idiot does; not what he says.

People need to start asking about Barack's and Joe's bitcoin accounts.

Biden is personally responsible for at least 800k dead now. His fucking weakness created the conditions for way.

Fuck Joe Biden.

Lilly, a dog said...

Biden "confirmed" some very effective propaganda. Walking it back does nothing.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Zavier Onasses said...

On my word as a Biden [blah blah blah].

GingerBeer said...

Give it a week and he'll have Beau dying there.

planetgeo said...

"I truly believe were there no Israel, no Jew in the world would be ultimately safe."

That's actually a brilliant observation and honest response to the question: "Why carve out and allocate a nation/state to the Jewish people?" In a very real way, it's like a designated reservation and world court-level restraining order against those trying to exterminate every Jew.

Contrary to the assertion of our own Crack Emcee, among others, the Jews didn't steal any land. In fact, the Jews lived throughout the area for hundreds of years before Islam was even founded. But after a couple of millennia of being attacked and persecuted, the rest of the civilized world came to the conclusion that the best way to confirm that the Jews had a right to exist was to give them sovereignty within a physical state in the area they had always lived in - thus, Israel. Real borders and the right to protect themselves within those borders.

And within those borders they have allowed and peacefully accommodated Arabs and other non-Jews. But still, there are those who continue to persecute them and attack them from across those borders, regardless of what they do. Plainly, their enemies want to totally exterminate them no matter where they exist, and they have openly said so repeatedly. So this tiny chunk of desert land, Israel, is their last stand. And they are fully in the right to protect it.

Quaestor said...

American Jews have tried to buy safety by embracing "liberation" politics. Witness the "freedom riders" who promoted civil rights in the South, some of them paying the ultimate price for their devotion to a just cause not their own. One would think African-Americans (Is that the identity de jour? I tend to lose track.) would return the favor and promote the Jews' right to exist. But that never became a thing, did it?

Crack has frequently complained about American society encouraging blacks to forget, but do really need encouragement?

rcocean said...

Didn't Joe Biden fight with the Israeli Army in October 1973? Maybe he's getting that war mixed up with this one.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

You know the thing!

Humperdink said...

I'm Cracked out.

tim maguire said...

While I support Israel's right to exist and their right to do what needs to be done in a hostile neighborhood, the real guarantor of Judaism's safety in the world is the United States of America. And Joe Biden has not been a proper caretaker of America's role in ensuring Never Again.

JAORE said...

POTUS: Corn Pop assured me babes were beheaded....

Flunky [whispering]: Mr. President, Corn Pop is dead!

POTUS [Stares into space for several seconds]: We will not stand by while those bastards kill fine people like Corn Pop!

Funky: Somebody wake up the transcript team. We have another Clean-UP On Aisle Joe emergency.

Mark said...

Just go down to your local Planned Parenthood, Joe, and see plenty of decapitated babies.

Mary Beth said...

The Crack Emcee said...

Playboy fires Mia Khalifa after porn star expressed support for Hamas - and free speech in this country is seriously taking a hit.

10/12/23, 8:40 AM


But freedom of association - or not to associate - is reinforced.

Jupiter said...

So, I'm not getting it. When did all you filthy, stinking baby-murdering feminists discover that baby-killing is a bad thing? A week ago you were calling it "health care", and demanding that I pay for it.

Joe Smith said...

They need to give him an electrical shock when he goes off-script.

It would save everyone a lot of grief.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

The Crack Emcee,

I read the same story you did. It was South Carolina, decades before the Founding of the US. Someone wanted to form a refuge for Sephardim (= non-Ashkenazi Jews, as a very rough shorthand), and for some time it flourished. Your assumption that South Carolina was then a hostile environment is just untrue.

Quaestor said...

Crack writes, "I just read that the Jews purchased a bunch of land in North or South Carolina. Why didn't they move there?"

"The Jews", depending on the context the use of this all-inclusive formulation betrays a latent antisemitism as if all Jews are somehow united in a grand conspiracy. Some facts: the land in South Carolina backwoods was purchased by a single Jew, Joseph Salvador, a Sephardic Jew who fled to London to escape persecution in Portugal. If Crack had bothered to read more than a few paragraphs he'd know why "they didn't move there". ("They" did, a few hundred, but hardly "The Jews".) However, Cherokees and Tories did a Hamas-style attack on their settlement, killing and scalping several. The survivors moved to the coast where their descendants live today.

The Jews. When I hear or read "The Jews" I smell racism of the most vile and murderous sort. (BTW, Quaestor is not a Jew, so purge your assumptions.) The Jews are the most disunited minority group in the world. There's an old adage, "Two Jews, three opinions." The history of that people documents fragmentation, disunity, and schism from the Iron Age until today. The worldwide Jewish population is 16.5 million persons, consequently, that represents 24,750,000 opinions on any subject, so don't speak of "The Jews" if you want any respect for your point of view from me.

wendybar said...

Bob Boyd said...
Biden got mixed up. The pictures he saw were at John Podesta's house.

10/12/23, 8:40 AM

HA!! Now that IS believable, no matter what the left says!!

Kakistocracy said...

Biden: "We stand with Israel"
Trump: “Netanyahu let us down”

Pretty much all you need to know about the two of them.

John henry said...

Crack,

I think what you are referring to is that in the 1600s two wealthy Jewish English families bought a huge section of South Carolina to be a Jewish homeland.

I think they bought it from the king rather than the folks already there

I don't know how the folks already there felt about it.


John Henry

Jamie said...

Biden is personally responsible for at least 800k dead now. His fucking weakness created the conditions for way.

Don't get ahead of yourself, cowboy. I yield to no one in my disdain for this president's cravenness and weakness. But the murderers are the ones personally responsible for the dead; at worst one can only say Biden's policies facilitated their evil.

Maybe The Science will ultimately Prove-with-a-capital-P that all free will is just an illusion, but until that day, I'm going with free will.

tommyesq said...

Why would they go out of their way to make that correction? Are they walking back that Biden saw, first-hand, the photographs or that the beheadings actually happened?

Rocco said...

Quaestor said...
“One would think African-Americans (Is that the identity de jour? I tend to lose track.) would return the favor and promote the Jews' right to exist. But that never became a thing, did it?”

“The American Negro is anti-Semitic because he is anti-White.”
- James Baldwin, 1967

hombre said...

Biden, however unintelligible, may get some points for what appears to be unequivocal support for Israel.

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel reports Trump running off at the mouth about how Netanyahu "let him down," Gallant is a "jerk" and Hezbollah is "smart." Israeli officials responded appropriately.

God help us.

madAsHell said...

That's the dumbest story in the history of dumb stories.

When do you stop running?.......at some point you must conclude "This will shall defend!"

n.n said...

An emanation from the penumbra of leverage. How em-pathetic.

Oligonicella said...

The Crack Emcee said...

Playboy fires Mia Khalifa after porn star expressed support for Hamas - and free speech in this country is seriously taking a hit.

Do you believe in freedom of association?

Richard said...

“My first girlfriend was a Jew”

I think that explains Crack’s antipathy towards Jews. :)

“And many of my past roommates have been Jews”

I am not antisemitic. Some of my best friends were Jews.

Crack, how many times are you going to post the Normal Finkelstein video? He has always been an unrelenting anti-Semite. Just because you found a video that supports your position on Israel, does not make it valid. If someone were to post links to David Duke videos, would you accept that as a valid commentary on Blacks?

Your antipathy towards Jews, reminds me of the expression, no good deed goes unpunished. Jews have been in the forefront of the civil rights movement. They have been strongest supporters of the black community. The more that the Jews supported and continue to support equal rights for blacks, the more you hate them.

You appear to have no knowledge of the history of Israel and the Arab states. During WWII, the Arabs supported Hitler’s genocide of the Jews. Do you not know that the Arab states immediately attacked Israel when it was founded in 1948, in an attempt to finish what Hitler had started - the genocide of the Jewish people?. Do you know that from 1948 to 1967, the Arab states refused to let the Palestinians have self-determination in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Israel only took over these territories when they once again had to fight for their lives during the 6 day war. Twice Israel offered to give the Palestinians their own state and they turned it down. Israel unilaterally pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005. Hamas took over that land by force from the PA and rather than become a peaceful state, their charter called for the destruction of Israel. There have been no elections in Gaza once Hamas took over and the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, also seems to have forgotten to hold elections. The Palestinians have been their own worst enemy. If Israel were to disappear today, the Palestinians would be ruled by undemocratic regimes. Is that the freedom you want for them, or is it just the annihilation of Israel that you desire.

Oligonicella said...

rcocean said...

US Pilots in WW II felt no guilt over firebombing german cities, ...

There are autobiographies available to all that put lie to that.

Rory said...

""I truly believe were there no Israel, no Jew in the world would be ultimately safe. It's the only ultimate guarantee."

Anyone think this was really a Biden musing?

Buckwheathikes said...

So Biden was lying, then. No big surprise.

The story about babies is ludicrous but also very well thought out.

If you demand proof, you're clearly an anti-Semite denier. They're never going to show you proof and they don't have to.

See how circular this is?

You're beginning to see how it all works.

The Palestinians aren't smart enough to defeat Israel or they would have beheaded their own kids and blamed it on Israel with photos and videos.

Buckwheathikes said...

So Biden was lying, then. No big surprise.

The story about babies is ludicrous but also very well thought out.

If you demand proof, you're clearly an anti-Semite denier. They're never going to show you proof and they don't have to.

See how circular this is?

You're beginning to see how it all works.

The Palestinians aren't smart enough to defeat Israel or they would have beheaded their own kids and blamed it on Israel with photos and videos.

Tacitus said...

Does Biden not get briefings from people whose job it is to actually know things? I mean, the way it is supposed to work is the Spooks and the guys ( and gals and nonbinaries) with lots of brass on their shirts (and blouses, and pilfered designer gowns) tell their boss what really happened. If there was documentation of atrocities, show it. If nobody knows exactly what is happening, tell the Big Guy that so he does not stand up and look like a fool.

The idea that Biden gets his world view in the manner of most 80 year olds, by checking his facebook and half watching The View, horrifies me.

Tacitus

Josephbleau said...

So Joe “saw” what he heard and “heard” what he saw. That sounds like what happens when you drop acid. Joe has some weird sensory issues, does he see the walls breathe too?

Dave Begley said...

Jamie:

Obama and Biden paid Iran the cash. The worst thing was lifting oil sanctions. I saw the number of $33b for Iran's gross revenue; probably netted $6b.

I just wrote a brief about proximate cause for the NE S. Ct. The cash to Iran was the proximate cause that allowed Hamas to make the attacks. I doubt Hamas had the cash to spend on that attack.

For me, it's all about proximate cause and the money. It always starts with the money.

And when Obama sent the cash to Iran, I wrote here (or somewhere) that Val and Barack got a kickback to a Swiss bank.

People need to fully appreciate the immorality and criminality of the Dems.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"The Crack Emcee said...
I just read that the Jews purchased a bunch of land in North or South Carolina. Why didn't they move there? Why would you possibly move to live right in the center of all your enemies?"

Crack has made it abundantly clear that he hates America because it's systemically racist. Why would he possibly want to live right in the center of all his enemies?

I say we do him a favor by creating a GoFundMe page for the expressed purpose of sending him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The weather is always great this time of year and the fishing on Lake Tanganyika is unparalleled.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"does he see the walls breathe too?"

I've seen that! And a little later, I had the profound realization that I knew absolutely every single person at the Dairy Queen. Good times.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"For now, Jews and Israel get a little sympathy. But the overt sympathy for Hamas in many places sends a signal."

Rachel Corey was unavailable for comment.

The Left is so tone-deaf that they once held a Rachel Cory pancake breakfast fundraiser for Palestine. True story. The world's greatest comedians couldn't make that up no matter how hard they tried.

Hubert the Infant said...

I am a free speech absolutist. However, just because you have the right to say something, that does not mean that you should say it -- or that you should say it right now. So, I am wondering why our two resident anti-Semites -- rocean and The Crack Emcee -- find it necessary to write such tasteless comments right now. Aren't normal people concerned about the effects their actions might have on others? Trump is similarly beclowning himself by making the slaughter about himself.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"The idea that Biden gets his world view in the manner of most 80 year olds, by checking his facebook and half watching The View, horrifies me."

Heard in the Oval Office:

"What?! AOL is down AGAIN?"

minnesota farm guy said...

There is no question in my mind that Israel is justified in taking about any step to ensure its survival. hamas opened this can of worms and they should pay the price. In attacking Israel as they did they clearly understood that they were putting their own people at risk. Still they proceeded.

We also have no one to blame but ourselves for electing an incompetent as our leader. What really concerns me - and is pointed out today in the WSJ - is our lack of seriousness about our own defense. We are supplying arms to Ukraine, and will be supplying arms to Israel out of finite supplies that we don't seem in any real hurry to replace. I suspect that any preparedness analysis of the US military establishment would show that we have inadequate supplies of trained troops, as well as bullets and beans. If we, as a people, don't somehow get serious about our own defense ( and our own borders ) spurious concern about climate change will be the last the least of our worries.

rcocean said...

"There are autobiographies available to all that put lie to that."

Which of course, you don't name. And just to spell it out for the midwits. Short comments on the intertubes rely on something called "Generalizations". That means if I write, say "men are taller than women" its implied that I'm saying "In general" "mostly" etc.

I am NOT saying ALL women are shorter than ALL men.

But midwits always go "Um, I have a few examples. My Aunt Gertie is 6 ft. So that proves you wrong" Normally, they just say that because they are too low-energy or too dumb to really respond to your post. Which they disagree with.

The Crack Emcee said...

madAsHell said...
That's the dumbest story in the history of dumb stories.

When do you stop running?.......at some point you must conclude "This will shall defend!"

Of course. But then they moved right in the middle of all their enemies? They could've bought land in the United States. Some did from what I understand. Why would they move to the Middle East, unless it's a messianic, racist move - because God GAVE them that land? It's insanity.

And they're dragging the whole world down over it.

The Crack Emcee said...

Hubert the Infant said...

"Why our two resident anti-Semites -- rocean and The Crack Emcee -- find it necessary to write such tasteless comments right now."

You say you are a free-speech absolutist, but then you turn around and say "not now"? And, of course, you have to go and label us antisemites on top of it. That's why I'm speaking out. You guys have gotten hysterical because a war has started, and now you are just crossing every line you could possibly cross. That's the danger of war.

You seem to forget, I complain most every day. About something. I don't like the status quo. So for me to say that this is a fucked up situation is not something out of the ordinary. You calling me an antisemite - that's out of the ordinary. You have lost your head. I haven't said one word in support of Hamas.

As far as you fascists are concerned, everyone should be jumping up and grabbing a rifle because somebody jumped up and grabbed a rifle. Martin Luther King said "an eye for an eye makes everyone blind," but you wouldn't know that because all you guys know is one line about character in one speech, that you use to batter everybody with, just like you're using the word "antisemite" now.

I'm an American. And my job is to protect our values, not Israel's or the Palestinians, but ours. The unfortunate part is that we fail our own selves. Just as you guys are doing now, trying to bully everybody into saying something they don't want to say. I don't know if I'm the only person here who has lived in Alsace, France, and heard Germans chanting Nazi slogans at night, while sitting in a house with a bunch of Jews, but I probably am. This is not academic to me. It is affecting me greatly. I'm a foster child and Jews. Give tons of money to foster care. That doesn't mean I have to agree with Israel.

Jupiter said...

"Its a fact of human nature that if you drop a bomb on someone and kill an entire family people just shrug their shoulders, while if you burst into their home and cut them up with a machete people get all upset."

Yeah. And if you rape them, then kill them, then publish videos of you and your friends riding around in a pickup truck amusing your selves with their broken bodies, that really gets folks riled up. Wasn't that the plan?

Rosalyn C. said...

I was surprised by Biden’s initial honesty. Then I cringed when he started to embellish. As much as we trust the US will “always” be a safe harbor for Jews there is no guarantee that the US will exist in another hundred years.

Although Jews have a long history of diaspora they have lived in the Holy Land continuously for four thousand years (at times in small numbers). They are not foreigners. The Land of Israel has always been central to Judaism and the Jewish people, regardless of all the other places Jews have lived. We Never Left: The Jews' Continuous Presence in the Land of Israel One of my pet peeves in the media is how people describe with reverence how sacred the Aqsa mosque is to Muslims, the third most holy spot in Islam! Jews shouldn't even be allowed to walk there. But I never hear mentioned that the mosque was deliberately built as a sign of military conquest on the top of the Jews' most holy place. The most holy place for Jews is less significant than the third most important place for Muslims. Get it? It's okay to disrespect Judaism, but never Islam. Get it?

Those who hate or simply dislike Jews invent "reasons"why Jews shouldn't be allowed to live in Israel. Why didn’t the Jews create a state in S. Carolina or Uganda? A: Because they have no deep belonging or desire to be in those places. You don't make those kinds of decisions based on what is easiest but on what is right.

Here's some rationality: Why don’t Blacks move back to Africa already? They never belonged here, were brought here under horrible circumstances, and still aren’t liked. For the good of all concerned Blacks should move back to Africa. Sounds nice, huh? No one would say that and I never even thought that until Crack's continuous invalidation of Jews living in their homeland. I don’t believe that but Crack sure seems to advance that logic. Blacks will always be a minority and there will always be prejudice. Race relations aren't really improving that quickly. Is it time for Blacks to pack up and leave or better to stay and we all deal with the challenges?

Furthermore, I don’t see him or any other supporters of the Palestinians questioning the absurdity of the UN calling certain people (and their descendants) “Palestinian refugees” even though many of those Arabs actually came from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, etc. The UN decided that if these migrant Arabs lived/worked in the area of Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and left, they and their descendants are now officially Palestinian refugees for all time. That makes them more legit than Jews who have been born and live in Israel now?

The fact is that today 80% of contemporary Israeli Jews are native born and there has been intermarriage between the European and Middle Eastern Jews. So there is no more majority of European Jews returning to where they came from.

I wish he would quit that nonsense.

Jamie said...

You seem to forget, I complain most every day.

This made me laugh, at a time when laughter had been hard to come by. Thank you!

Martin Luther King said "an eye for an eye makes everyone blind,"

Yes, he did, which is one reason that his version and vision of civil rights and race relations rightly won the fight in the '60s, and why many of us who, growing up in the couple of decades after that, are bewildered and angry about the switch that's taken place since the 2010s: we thought we had all gotten somewhere, only to be repeatedly battered with the idea that not only haven't we all gotten anywhere, it is impossible to get anywhere.

I'm an American. And my job is to protect our values, not Israel's or the Palestinians, but ours. The unfortunate part is that we fail our own selves. Just as you guys are doing now, trying to bully everybody into saying something they don't want to say.

Fair enough. Don't say anything you don't want to say, and don't feel any compulsion to change your avatar or any of that - I certainly have never changed my avatar to anything, for anything. And I think there are a lot of people here who agree that for us Americans, American needs must be served first and American values must be preserved throughout.

But one reason for our (as a nation) staunch support of Israel must surely be that it's the most "American" enclave in the Middle East, and we see how mass migration of very un-westernized Muslims is going in Europe. Plus, of course, that region for all its terrible problems is very important to the world. We have to pay attention. I hope we can finesse a Woodrow Wilson, but certainly I'm not going to rule out more intervention from the West, because given modern mass migration, what's happening in Israel could easily be a bellwether for what can happen here next: the Jews are the historical enemy next door, but there are a lot of infidels to be dealt with, and those who believe the way to do that is through barbaric violence have gotten scary good at asymmetric warfare in the past twenty-odd years.