Townhall Review | Commentaries

Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel doesn’t have enough “credit” to completely dismantle Hamas.  This weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris said too many civilians are being killed and Israel must respect international law.

Of course, civilians must be protected and international law respected, as they were by Israel on October 6th of this year and last year and the year before that.  Of course, too, Hamas, which has been hiding armaments in civilian outposts like schools and hospitals, and civilians in front of military targets, is violating international law. This was true on October 6th of this year and last year and the year before that.  Hamas attacks on Israel were the most radical violations of humanitarian and international law we’ve seen. This is how terrorists always operate.

What is new is that U.S. officials now are complicitly aiding and abetting terrorist war manuals and rules of engagement.  This is the precise path to more civilian death, not less.  Blinken and Harris should be ashamed of themselves.

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The reservoir of sympathy for Israel in the wake of the October 7th attack has turned out to be shockingly shallow.

We're seeing gleeful bloodlust in the streets of capital cities, among the students at elite universities. Murderers celebrated instead of condemned.

What has happened to our world?

Israelis have no illusions about what is intended by the now-commonplace chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." The message is simple in that phrase: Erase the Jews. I am hardly alone in believing it is a call for genocide, for another holocaust.

Do you wonder at how ferociously Israel defends itself? Consider how the United States and Britain responded when the Axis powers sought to destroy them in World War II.

America and her allies' aim was the enemy's unconditional surrender, or its leaders' deaths and the destruction of their war machine. Total war.

And America succeeded.

As will Israel, where "never again" still means "never again."

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After the tragic death of George Floyd,  virtually every blue chip company in America leapt into the fray pledging fealty and shareholder dollars to BLM. Now, after the horrific massacres by Hamas, that decision has not aged well. The BLM movement, including one of its co-founders and various affiliates, have come out publicly against Israel and in favor of the “liberation of Palestine.” 

One of the co-founders has been on the record as of eight years ago explicitly identifying herself with the ending of the “colonial experiment” Israel. That’s flat out genocidal. 

American business utterly failed in its due diligence when it associated its brand, brands owned by us, the investors, with a movement whose anti-Semitism was obvious to anyone who bothered to look. 

It's time for the customers, employees and especially the shareholders of these companies to speak up and urge these companies to disavow their association with the pro-Hamas BLM movement. Basic decency requires nothing less.

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When Joe Biden announced that he’d brokered an operational pause in Gaza, he proclaimed his effort showed his determination to “bring Americans home.” But, Biden’s deal didn’t actually include any guarantees that Hamas would release any of the ten American hostages. At the end of the negotiated period, only one had been freed.

So what did Biden really want from the ‘pause’? As many suspected, the White House began using the inertia from five days of a truce to push an end to the war—and on the terms of Hamas.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the ‘brokers’ of the hostage-for-prisoners deal have begun pressuring Israel to accept yet another cease-fire from Hamas, in exchange for possibly ‘thousands’ of Palestinian prisoners. The IDF would be forced to exit Gaza with an agreement of ‘demilitarization’ from the terrorist group that just pledged to repeat the atrocities of October 7 until Israel is annihilated.

This is not just weakness. It is an utter moral collapse.

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In just the last week, there have been two disquieting accounts of the persecution of Jews in New York City. In one, a pro-Hamas mob smashed the window of a kosher restaurant. In the other, a high school teacher had to take shelter as hundreds of students rampaged through the halls and threatened violence. All because she had attended a pro-Israel rally.

This isn’t the America I grew up in. It’s shocking and sad. 

But it’s predictable when young people and immigrants have been taught to treat traditional American values—like open mindedness and color blindness—with disdain. The diversity, equity and inclusion curricula adopted by schools nationwide has put group identity above all else and substitutes emotion for reasoned disagreement.  

It's time that we insist on tolerance and respect for all who embrace America and our time-honored way of life.

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After an unprecedented terrorist attack that can only be called a slaughter, committed by Hamas—a designated terrorist organization. Hamas also took over two hundred innocents as hostage.  Among those killed and taken hostage, dozens of Americans.

The American president then dispatched two aircraft carrier groups to the Middle East, carriers that can unleash holy Hell.  Then the President pressured our ally, who was attacked by the terrorists, to cease fire and engage a prisoner/hostage swap. Israel was to release violent criminals and terrorists supportive of Hamas, stop hunting down terrorists,’ and Hamas would release some of the hostages they took.

Several tranches of hostages have now been released by Hamas, only one an American.  One.

This is a thumb in the eye of America and Americans, resultant from weak and mis-prioritized American leadership.  We’re heading down a road that leads, very clearly, to the loss of more innocent life.

It is, bluntly speaking, a posture of weakness.

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You may remember when professional “feminists” insisted that an uncorroborated allegation of attempted rape should keep Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court. “Women’s experiences matter,” they insisted.

Oh my, times have changed.

Reports coming out of Israel about the October 7 attacks are shocking. Systematic sexual violence inflicted on women and even children — much so horrifying and graphic that it can’t be repeated here. Some were literally raped to death.

Yet feminists remain silent. And their silence speaks volumes.

It’s the same lesson we learned when professional feminists turned on Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton impeachment. Their “feminism” has nothing to do with the well-being of actual women.

It’s all about grasping — and holding — power for left-wing causes. Period.

The women they claim to “care about” are just convenient pawns in an amoral, deeply cynical game. Ladies, we’ve been warned.

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The origin of Thanksgiving goes back to the Plymouth plantation, founded by the Pilgrims in 1620. You may have learned that in school, but I bet you didn't learn this in school: the original Thanksgiving came after the settlement abandoned socialism in favor of capitalism.

It appears that the original charter adopted a form of communal ownership and required equality of income. You're probably not surprised that this led to starvation and, as a consequence, plague. After two years, the colonists did something which few socialists since have ever done since—they learned from their mistake, and instituted private ownership. The starving times ended, the colonists traded their surpluses with the Natives and the new abundance was celebrated with a day of Thanksgiving.

It's not just about food, it's about freedom. Socialism is en vogue again today, but maybe this time around we can learn from history before we repeat its errors.

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As Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, it's a good time to be reminded about the true history of the holiday.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that in an increasingly secular America, there's confusion about the origins of Thanksgiving. Some kids are now actually taught that the Pilgrims held a feast to thank the Indians. Afraid of appearing too religious, some are now calling it "Turkey Day," as if it all comes down to poultry.

The facts speak for themselves: In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated what they called "the goodness of God" as they feasted with local Indians. In 1789 President Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving—asking Americans to "unite in most humbly offering our prayer and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations."

So much for a secular holiday. These Americans knew to whom they were praying.

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China exerts a strange power over America’s leftist elites. Increasingly, it seems like the allure of the communist power causes them to check all ethics at the door.

After visiting China to talk climate change, Gavin Newsom has strengthened ties with Chinese Communist Party-linked climate groups. Newsom won’t criticize China for building six times more coal plants than other countries. And in his meetings with Xi Jinping, Newsom refused to discuss China’s genocide against the Uyghurs.

CEOs of some of America’s most powerful corporations are similarly deferential. Apple CEO Tim Cook pulled Apple’s advertising on X because of Elon Musk’s alleged antisemitic words. Yet the same week, he happily dined next to Xi, a communist dictator guilty of human rights abuses—head of a country that threatens Taiwan, steals our trade secrets, and views America as an adversary.  

The priorities of the leftist elite on China are out of step with everyday Americans.

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