There was not, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, any agitation for a ceasefire by Canada or other allies
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s call on Tuesday for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was mindless, reflexive, imitative nonsense. It appears reasonable when hostilities exist between a country and another armed entity to suggest that the hostilities should stop. But this is not simply a magnification of a brawl, a public disorder or an occasion when an argument between two individuals degenerates into reciprocal efforts to inflict physical harm on each other. This was the legitimate reaction of a sovereign nation-state to a brutal sneak attack upon civilians that violated an existing ceasefire. It was even more outrageous than the Japanese attack on the United States in 1941, which was only against military targets, and which began hours before the Japanese ambassador called upon the U.S. secretary of state to say that there appeared to be no good reason to continue negotiations towards assuring peace in the Pacific. The secretary of state, Cordell Hull, on instruction from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave no hint that he was aware that war was already underway. U.S. President Joe Biden is waffling because that is what he does, and he has allowed his party to be undermined by woke, Americophobia fanatics; Trudeau has no such excuses, inadequate as they are.
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On Oct. 7, Hamas penetrated the Israeli-Gaza border and murdered 1,200 Israelis. The overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians, including women, children and the elderly. There is ample film and photographic evidence to prove that a very large number of these murders were of a horribly barbarous nature, including the decapitation of babies and the discharge of firearms into the genitals of women after they had been raped. Israel declared war on its adversary, formed a unity government and is conducting a war that its adversary alone provoked. There is not one iota of evidence that Israel is not doing all it reasonably can to spare civilians in Gaza, to warn inhabitants of areas about to be attacked and permit them to evacuate, and to try conscientiously to frustrate Hamas efforts to hide amongst civilians, in order to assure the highest possible collateral damage to Gazan civilians and falsely blame it on Israel. Hamas is an enemy guilty not only of starting an aggressive war and committing savage, barbarous acts, but also of profound cowardice and disregard for the population it claims to represent. There has never been a more just war than the one now being waged by Israel. There was not, after the Japanese attack in the Pacific in 1941, any agitation for a ceasefire by the countries that Japan attacked, including Canada as the defender of Hong Kong, as well as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines, the Netherlands, as the governing power in what is now Indonesia, and New Zealand. War having been initiated in the most lawless manner, it was understood by everyone, and certainly by the Japanese themselves, that the only possible end of the conflict was the defeat of one side by the other.
Any attempt at moral relativism in these circumstances is just spineless truckling to the elements trying to pretend that it is just another regrettable episode in the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. Almost none of those demonstrating against Israel have any concept of what is at stake, apart from those pro-Palestinian elements that believe Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, even though it was explicitly as a Jewish state that Israel was established as a country, with the blessing of the United Nations, in 1948. Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank of the Jordan River during the 1967 Six-Day War, which the Arab powers initiated and lost. Israel voluntarily vacated Gaza as an ex-gratia gesture in 2005, in what it hoped would be a “land for peace” swap. Instead, Gaza has consistently been used as a staging area for attacks on Israel. Nothing could be clearer than the fact that the only chance for an enduring peace in the region is a division of the entire territory — including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — that recognizes the legitimacy of Israel and creates a Palestinian state beside it; and that this can only be negotiated with a Palestinian leadership that acknowledges Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. There would be hard negotiation about the exact frontiers, but the only method of creating these circumstances is to eliminate Hamas as a terrorist force and as the government of Gaza. Fortuitously, the infamous criminality of Hamas has handed Israel a full right to fulfill that condition and all parties who are legitimately in favour of peace in the Middle East should encourage Israel to do what’s necessary to destroy the terrorist apparatus of Hamas as humanely as possible, it being understood that Hamas is a rigorously anti-humanitarian enterprise.
As far as can be judged, the great majority of those who demonstrate against Israel in the West are either supporters of Islamist Palestinian claims against Israel, or credulous and trendy sophomoric addicts of the western self-hate routinely propagated in our universities by our intellectually corrupt academic personnel, at immense fiscal and behavioural cost to the societies that fund them. Practically all sensible people support freedom of religion, including the freedom not to be religious at all. But Islam can present particular challenges. In his book “Slavery, Terrorism and Islam,” Peter Hammond writes: “Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form it is a complete, total, 100 per cent system of life, with religious, legal, political, economic, social and military components. When politically correct, tolerant and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well.” He observes that Muslim-majority countries — Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, Syria — are often burdened by terrorism, jihadist activities, state-enforced religious doctrines and ethnic cleansing.
As it has in so many fields, France is now leading the way in retaining religious liberty for all, while taking the steps necessary to prevent a pernicious and belligerent minority of Islamist fanatics from denying the entire French population its right to enjoy all the pleasures of that magnificent country and civilization. We must all be vigilant as well as tolerant, and fatuous homilies to Israel at this time are part of the problem and not of the solution.
National Post
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There was not, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, any agitation for a ceasefire by Canada or other allies
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s call on Tuesday for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was mindless, reflexive, imitative nonsense. It appears reasonable when hostilities exist between a country and another armed entity to suggest that the hostilities should stop. But this is not simply a magnification of a brawl, a public disorder or an occasion when an argument between two individuals degenerates into reciprocal efforts to inflict physical harm on each other. This was the legitimate reaction of a sovereign nation-state to a brutal sneak attack upon civilians that violated an existing ceasefire. It was even more outrageous than the Japanese attack on the United States in 1941, which was only against military targets, and which began hours before the Japanese ambassador called upon the U.S. secretary of state to say that there appeared to be no good reason to continue negotiations towards assuring peace in the Pacific. The secretary of state, Cordell Hull, on instruction from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave no hint that he was aware that war was already underway. U.S. President Joe Biden is waffling because that is what he does, and he has allowed his party to be undermined by woke, Americophobia fanatics; Trudeau has no such excuses, inadequate as they are.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.
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On Oct. 7, Hamas penetrated the Israeli-Gaza border and murdered 1,200 Israelis. The overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians, including women, children and the elderly. There is ample film and photographic evidence to prove that a very large number of these murders were of a horribly........
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