Horrible People Respond To Horrible Israel Attack Just As You’d Expect

It was too much to hope they’d wait a few days.

Saturday morning, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, launched a vicious attack on Israel. Thousands of rockets were fired and struck targets in Tel Aviv and the outskirts of Jerusalem. Not long afterward, Hamas militants invaded Israel by land, sea, and air, resulting in some of the first pitched battles between Israeli and Arab forces on Israeli soil in decades.

The New York Times reports:

The militants infiltrated 22 Israeli towns and army bases and took civilians and soldiers hostages, many of whom they brought back to Gaza. At least 250 Israelis had been reported dead by officials as of late Saturday, and more than 1,400 were wounded.

The death toll had risen to 600 by Sunday.

Israel is fighting back, as it has every right to do. Nothing — yes, nothing — justifies wanton destruction and the deliberate murder of innocent civilians, including teenagers at a rave. That’s not righteous. It’s “sick, twisted, brutal dumb ass murder.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that Israel is at war, and he warned Israelis that the war will be “long and difficult.” This is sadly true of almost all wars that aren’t outright massacres.

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Juliette Kayyem, faculty chair of the homeland-security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, writes in The Atlantic:

One aspect of this needs little analysis, but a lot of explanation: How did Israel’s extensive counterterrorism efforts fail to pick up an attack waged by land, sea, and air? How did its defenses fail so extensively? This wasn’t just an intelligence failure. It was an everything failure. Israeli and Americancommentators are already describing this as Israel’s 9/11, but that comparison is a crutch—9/11 was about, in the words of the commission that reviewed it, a “failure of imagination” to understand what could happen in America, a nation that had not encountered foreign terror threats of any significant magnitude. Israel has existed, still exists, with that very imaginable prospect as part of its national being.

These are serious questions for serious people to discuss at the proper time. Right now, honorable people are expressing their support for Israel.

Here’s President Joe Biden:

And here’s Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

Less serious, less honorable people chose to blame America or Joe Biden and Democrats, who they don’t consider “true” Americans. Their concept of patriotism and unity is remarkably small and self-serving. Some disappointing people on the Left chose to blame Israel for the attack, as if individuals — especially children — are responsible for their government’s worst actions.

Mike Pence declared Saturday, “This is what happens when @POTUS projects weakness on the world stage, kowtows to the mullahs in Iran with a $6 Billion ransom, and leaders in the Republican Party signal American retreat as Leader of the Free World. Weakness arouses Evil.”

Yes, Pence calls out Republicans who would abandon Ukraine to Putin’s Russia, but his criticism of Biden is based in outright lies. He even acknowledges that it’s Republicans not Biden who are retreating “as Leader of the Free World” (Pence shares his former boss’s issue with random capitalization.)

Republicans have long believed that peace is attained only through dominance, and effective leaders project “strength” and cowboy bluster. It is a simplistic view of the world, and it continually frustrates Republicans that mainstream Democratic leaders aren’t strawman appeasers to bad actors.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel claimed the Hamas attack on Israel was a “great opportunity” for Republicans politically and indeed, the emerging right-wing talking point is that Iran funded Hamas with $6 billion that Biden presumably surrendered in an oversized novelty check — a theory so idiotic even Rep. Lauren Boebert has mastered it. Sen. Tim Scott shamelessly said that Biden’s “weakness invited the attack” and his “negotiation funded the attack.” Gov. Ron DeSantis has also worked this new repulsive Biden slander into the stump speech for his failing presidential campaign.

In August, the Biden administration freed approximately $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenue funds in exchange for five American hostages. Indicted presidential candidate Donald Trump lied, as usual, at a Saturday hate rally that this financial boon directly led to the Israel attack.

Jennifer Griffin, national security correspondent at Fox News, explained why this is bullshit.

The $6 billion is still currently held in a Qatari bank account with U.S. Treasury oversight, I’m told. The money came from Iranian oil sales to South Korea and did not include U.S. taxpayer dollars. NK spokesperson Adrian Watson said in a statement, “Not a single cent from these funds has been spent and when it is spent it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people. These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.” In fact, the US has pre-positioned $2 billion worth of weapons stored in Israel. I’m told the US will likely release some of these pre-positioned weapons to assist Israel in the coming days.

Facts don’t matter much to Republicans, who understand the art of propaganda involves repeating the same lies until your grandparents start talking about their tax dollars funding Hamas attacks. It’s why Republicans, including dime store Goebbels Stephen Miller, push the boundaries of the absurd and insist Trump personally “brought us an unprecedented era of global harmony” thanks to “his clear-eyed realism, raw projection of national strength, and his rejection of ideology in favor of pragmatism and national interest.

The reality in Israel is too harsh and difficult for us to waste time with the delusional fantasies of cult members. Reasonable people who regret the mounting loss of life are grateful that Trump is nowhere near the levers of power right now. Partisan hacks lash out at Biden and Democrats because they have nothing else.

[The Atlantic / New York Times]

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