Israel, Hostages, and Hamas

On Monday, I linked to a tweet by Mehdi Hasan, which had linked to a tweet by Aaron Rupar, who had posted a clip of ABC's Martha Raddatz. The correspondent had asked New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu about Donald Trump's remark that if enough of his supporters voted in the upcoming presidential election, they wouldn't have to vote again.

Sununu made light of the question, Raddatz responding "O.K." and immediately changed the subject. Hasan remarked "if you want to understand the failure of U.S. journalism, especially the complete inadequacy of political interviews in this country," the exchange provided a great example. I remarked "as Hasan observed, that is how it's done all too often on broadcast news."

It was an excellent catch by Hasan (and Rupar) and this tweet of his is also very helpful. That is not because Hasan is insightful but because it brings to light excellent commentary provided by NewsNation's Chris Cuomo on Monday night, which Hasan should take to heart but obviously won't. The entire piece is very valuable, this portion beginning at 4:28:

The most frustrating thing for me is that you can have it both ways. Israel's attacks have gone on much too long. There's too much death, especially to non-Hamas women and children. Hamas must return the hostages. Over 300 days, including the Americans, that this country barely pays lip service to- a little bit at the RNC, maybe you get a little bit at the DNC. Maybe not.

The eight American hostages- whether still alive or deceased- are reportedly not able to dribble a basketball. Cuomo emphasized their plight. There is no indication that Hasan ever has referred to them. The NewsNation anchor continued

And all those other people- military, non-military, male, female, where are they? When do they get given back? Then you negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas being replaced by a regional consortium of protection and facilitated elections of non-terror actors who don't campaign on eradicating the Jews.

When are the hostages to be returned? Most of us in the west thought that they should have been returned oh, 10 or 11 months ago. At present, it appears that Benjamin Netanyahu has little or no plan for the day after- for what would become of Gaza if and when Hamas is destroyed, which obviously is his goal. 

Were Hamas to agree, Israel could now sign a temporary ceasefire in return for Hamas releasing the hostages, though surely some of them have died in captivity.  Moreover, probably not all would be returned, lest Hamas lose its primary bargaining chip. (That's the way terrorists do it, Mehdi.) Israel would be setting its war aim- destruction of Hamas- back but the world, which loves (only) dead Jews and has seemingly lost interest in having Hamas eliminated, would rejoice. (The exception would be many Islamist extremists because an insufficient number of Jews would have been killed.)

The ceasefire would serve the cause of justice and stability only if, as Cuomo suggests, there is a regional consortium of powers which would facilitate elections which would not yield a victory for terrorists, as it did for Hamas in Gaza in 2005. He adds

If this happened, God forbid, if we got hit like that in America the way they got hit in the Golan Heights on Saturday, we would level Lebanon. You know it and I know it.

It is shocking that he have been so passive about our hostages. Don't we care about our own anymore?

No, we do not. We cared enough about Britney Griner to consummate an agreement after which 

Former White House national security advisor John Bolton condemned the deal as a not a swap but a surrender by the Biden administration.

"Terrorists and rogue states all around the world will take note of this and it endangers other Americans in the future," he said.

The deal was also criticised by Robert Zachariasiewicz, a former agent with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, who helped lead the team that arrested Viktor Bout.

"Today's actions just placed a target on back of every United States citizen travelling throughout the world and they just became a commodity," he told the BBC's World Tonight.

"I think we just sent the message that it's really good business to illegally detain and if not kidnap American citizens, and it's really great to have one in your back pocket if you need them for a trade at some point."

That's what Hamas has- not only many Israelis but also several Americans in their back pocket. Imagine the USA attacked attacked, whether with the ferocity Israel was on 10/7/23 or even as it was on 7/27/24. As Cuomo repeatedly has noted, the response by our nation would be fierce and  overwhelming, and heaven help Code Pink when it would stand as the lone objector. 

The Biden Administration has been pushing the ceasefire which has been on the table for many weeks now. Both the President and his understudy and would-be successor realize that continuation, and especially escalation, of the war would be vey harmful to heading off the extraordinary danger posed by Donald Trump's candidacy.  Regrettably an outlier, Chris Cuomo understands clearly what is going on in Gaza.

Sorry Chris, those of us who want a ceasefire condemn the killing of kids anywhere and by anyone and want a ceasefire to protect all kids, on all sides.

Those who oppose a ceasefire are the ones who don’t care about 14,000 plus Palestinian kids murdered by Israel. https://t.co/15pJotB6PZ

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 30, 2024

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Unserious Senator

I don't subscribe to the modern instinct, especially popular on the left, to demand everyone with whom there is a disagreement to "resign." However, if I did, my nominee would be Delaware senator Chris Coons, closely allied with Joe Biden. He appeared Valentine's Day on 'This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, at which time

"So you don't believe that a full trial, more witnesses, more documents giving us a sense of what was going on in the inside the White House, would have better served the cause of justice and accountability?" Stephanopoulos asked Coons.

Coons said he was impressed with the 57 votes that Democrats managed to get, the most bipartisan impeachment in the history of the country.

"They could have had 500 more witnesses, it wasn't going to change the outcome. Once Mitch McConnell made it clear he intended to acquit even despite the compelling evidence, what the House managers needed wasn't more witnesses or more evidence, what we all needed was more Republican courage," Coons said. "I, frankly, at that time did not think that spending months fighting over additional witnesses would have changed the outcome of this trial one bit."

Sen. Chris Coons defends decision to not have more witness testimony at Trump's impeachment trial: "What we needed was more Republican courage." pic.twitter.com/MdWwSivkNe

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 14, 2021

Senators need not have spent months fighting over additional witnesses.  Even if Republicans had demanded a hundred or more to slow the process, Democrats could have balked. That's what control of the Senate means- or at least does when Republicans control it, as they did when Mitch McConnell decided at President Trump's first impeachment that there would be no witnesses.

Moreover, the rough consensus going into Saturday morning was that there would be five (though possibly even fewer) Republicans voting to convict Trump. Instead, there were seven, suggesting that Democratic senators could not be certain that with the personal, passionate and emotional testimony of witnesses there would have been an acquittal. (That's apart from any other reasons to call witnesses.)

However, that was Coons' explanation for the decision of Democrats to unfurl the white flag of surrender. Or at least it was on Sunday morning after he got his lines straight because on Saturday morning

Frustrations rose among Senate Democrats. One Democrat familiar with the internal discussions said “it was clear the managers had no plan” and “didn’t know what their next step was.”

Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Biden’s, visited the managers’ room off the Senate floor, according to a House aide. He told the managers any delay would cost Republican votes to convict — and potentially Democratic votes, too.

“The jury is ready to vote,” he told them. “People want to get home for Valentine’s Day.”

The Senate could have put off trial-related work till Tuesday, especially because Valentine's Day, 2021 is a Sunday, a fortuitous fact which seems to have escaped Coon's attention.

Valentine's Day is a swell day for an elite group- a mere 100 individuals entrusted with the work of governing the nation- to be home with their "significant others." So, too, would the wife of Howard Liebengood, of Jeffrey Smith, or of Brian Sicknick prefer to be with her husband on this occasion. However, due to the deaths of those law enforcement officers, closely related to the insurrection of January 6, they will be denied the privilege enjoyed by United States Senators.

 

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Terrible Idea

It has been over fifteen years since initial publication of Thomas Frank's near-classic, What's The Matter With Kansas, and it may be time to ask "what's the matter with Delaware?"

Of course, it's the center of the credit card industry, which convinced Delaware senator "Middle Class Joe" to assume the role of a major defender of the entire financial services industry. But now it has given us Senator Chris Coons. May God help us.

I understand, I understand; President Trump was annoyed about the growing realization that Judge Brett Kavanaugh arrogantly, enthusiastically, and repeatedly lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he tweeted

Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2019

But dear Lord, Senator Coons, are you daft, man? On "Fox and Friends" on Monday, Senator Coons stated "This may well be the thing that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports."

Riyadh also has been carrying out against Houthi rebels in Yemen airstrikes which, The New York Times notes, have "devastated the impoverished country and exacerbated the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Yet "we," the President explained, "are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to... under what terms we would proceed." 

In his recurring effort trying to make Americans understand just who he is, the President has told us that it's not the USA, but Saudi Arabia, on whose behalf he'd be acting. Undermining America's sovereignty is terrible; doing so behalf of the nation that sliced and diced an American citizen, probably on orders of the Saudi Crown Prince, and is a monarchy based on Sharia law, is terrible, immoral, and dangerous.

That is the Kingdom which President Trump has thrown America's lot in with.  It is no defense for the Senator from Delaware that Trump is being Trump, possibly only blowing off steam or diverting voters' attention from Brett Kavanaugh. That is not a President worthy of supporting, nor a President whose presentation, and interpretation, of intelligence can be trusted.  The Gulf of Tonkin beckons.

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