Not Possible

Qatar and Egypt are, supposedly, working with Hamas to get 15 of Hamas’ 240 and more kidnap victims released in return for a 48-hour “cease” fire.

This shouldn’t be possible. Hamas refuses even to tell these two nations—or anyone else—how many kidnappees they’re holding, much less who they are or what their condition is.

Beyond that, any cease fire won’t involve the terrorist Hamas ending its attacks. Such a foolishness would only enable the terrorists to rest, regroup, and refit to continue fighting from replenished fortifications and from renewed positions behind Gazan human shields.

Such a foolishness also would enable the terrorists to relocate the kidnappees they’re holding, making it more difficult to locate and free them.

There can be no cease fire until there are no more of Hamas at which to fire.

Full stop.

“Backlash”

The Wall Street Journal opened one of its Friday editorials with this immoral bit of misapprehension:

President Biden has been stalwart in backing Israel’s right to destroy Hamas after the October 7 massacre. But a political backlash is growing, in the Democratic Party and abroad, to rein in Israel before it can achieve its military objectives.

No, it’s not a political backlash that’s growing in the Progressive-Democratic Party and “abroad.” It’s overt political support for Hamas and the terrorist mayhem this terrorist gang is, and has been for decades, committing.

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s hand-picked Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is shamefully uncertain about the terrorism of Hamas. As paraphrased by WSJ:

Mr Blinken presented “humanitarian pauses” as critical to protecting Gazans, getting them aid, and freeing Israeli and US hostages.

On the contrary, Gazans are best protected by Hamas stopping their use of Gazans as shields in the fighting and their use of Gazans’ residences, schools, and hospitals as weapons storage caches and as rocket launching facilities.

When the Hamas terrorists (excuse the redundancy, but the emphasis is too badly needed) stop stealing the aid that is coming in, then Gazans will start getting it.

Israel already has offered to discuss a ceasefire—for which Blinken’s humanitarian pauses are just a disingenuous euphemism—after the Hamas terrorists release all of those hostages. Hamas has refused the offer.

On the flip side, all any ceasefire—regardless of duration or geographic scope or label—will do is give Hamas time to regroup and refit along with space to relocate and re-hide the hostages. It’s disgusting that anyone in the Biden administration supports such succor for the terrorists, much less that our President and SecState so overtly do.

“The humanitarian situation…is dire”

That’s the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s “clarification” after Canada so timidly refused to take a stand on a UN resolution calling for a “humanitarian” ceasefire truce in Gaza.

She added,

What is unfolding in Gaza is also a human tragedy.

It certainly is. But any sort of ceasefire would only give the Hamas terrorist gang time to reset its defenses, move it terrorists and weapons and ammunition around, and relocate the hostages the terrorists have seized. Any ceasefire now, of any duration, would only tell the terrorists and their Iranian overlords that what they’re doing works, and the terrorists will continue, if not presently, then some time in the future. Thinking any sort of agreement with terrorists can have civilized results is dangerously naïve.

No.

The optimal way—the only long-term way—to protect and recover those hostages that the terrorists haven’t already murdered is for Israel’s allies—us and Great Britain—to step up arms and ammunition aid to Israel, and for Israel’s pretend allies—e.g., Canada, and France, which actually voted for the UN “ceasefire”—to remain where they are now, in their safety on the sidelines, but do so quietly.

Israel must be able to completely destroy Hamas and its ability to commit further terrorism. When that’s done, terrorist hostage-taking in the future will be greatly reduced, as well as those current hostages still alive rescued.

We Will Respond

That’s what Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden said through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his NSC spokesman John Kirby regarding Iran’s attacks, through its terrorist surrogates, on our military facilities in the Middle East. “Boy, oh boy, when I get you,” goes the 2nd grade recess playground taunt.

Then, after 14 such attacks, Biden ordered a couple of bombs lobbed at a couple of trivial terrorist sites in Syria.

That “response” was so powerful, so message-sending, that Iran’s proxies have continued—and apparently increased—their attacks on our facilities.

Biden is so desperate to get back into a nuclear weapons development deal with Iran that, far from deterring Iran, the mullahs are successfully deterring Biden.

“What New Catastrophe?”

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors wrote about the lack of Iran sanction enforcement, with particular regard to Iran’s ballistic missile development program. The editors wrote of a number of failures to enforce despite Iran’s repeated violations.

They closed their editorial with this question:

What new catastrophe would cause President Biden to rethink his Iran policy?

Here is what that catastrophe will look like, but Biden’s “rethinking” will be too late.

If one day, he [Rafsanjani] said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel’s possession [meaning nuclear weapons]—on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.

Biden’s current “thinking” has him desperate to reenter the agreement with Iran whereby Iran is allowed (even were it to honor such an agreement) to finish its nuclear weapons development after some small period of time.