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In this mailing:
* Pete Hoekstra: Israel's Long War for the West
* Daniel Greenfield: Israel's War on Hamas is the Least Deadly War in the Region
* Amir Taheri: Iran: Risky Elections Ahead


** Israel's Long War for the West ([link removed])
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by Pete Hoekstra • February 4, 2024 at 5:00 am
* The common thread weaving Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shia militias together is the significant funding and support each receives from Iran, which has in turn received it from the Obama and Biden administrations. When the Biden administration came in, Iran had $6 billion of reserves; it now has, according to former US Army Gen. Jack Keane, more than $100 billion-- which is presumably what it used to finance its proxies and its nuclear program.
* The Biden administration now appears about to compound the problem with another catastrophic retreat: there are reported to be discussions about the US pulling its troops out of oil-rich Iraq – just as the Iranian regime has been trying to force the US to do since Iran's Islamic Revolution of 1979.
* "Israel didn't start this war. Israel didn't want this war.... In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself.... While Israel is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way, Hamas is doing everything to keep Palestinian civilians in harm's way. Israel urges Palestinian civilians to leave the areas of armed conflict, while Hamas prevents those civilians from leaving those areas at gunpoint." — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Wall Street Journal.
* Iran's former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi recently confirmed that the "the confrontation between Iran and Israel will continue as long as [Israel] exists... even if a Palestinian state is established."
* Israel is actually well on its way to winning. The least we can do is to enable it to have whatever it needs to complete its mission, and the time in which to do it.
* [P]rotecting our borders and protecting our allies is not an either-or choice.... America's outstanding troops are fighting abroad not because the US is irresponsibly gallant, and not recklessly to fund the military-industrial complex, but to defend us here at home better.
* If you have a strong military, you will not have to use it: no one will test you.
* In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought that a "deal" with Hitler would bring peace and stability. It brought the opposite. Hitler, not surprisingly, used the opportunity of the illusion of peace to enlarge his invasions. By the time they became intolerable, it was clear to everyone that it would have been far less costly in life and treasure to have stopped Hitler before his army crossed the Rhine.
* [A]s the journalist Daniel Greenfield pointed out, did anyone ever ask during World War II if there were too many German casualties, and if there were, that the fighting should stop?
* The Biden administration would probably prefer to work with an Israeli prime minister, who was more compliant, one who would be happy to see a Palestinian state next to Israel, and not worry so much if it was genocidal; a prime minister who would be happy to see an Iran armed with nuclear weapons, and not get all squeamish every time the mullahs called for "Death to Israel" and said Israel is a "one-bomb" nation. The Biden administration might even be wondering, "Why can't there be a reasonable Israeli prime minister who would just sign off on these plans without giving everyone such a hard time?"
* "Iran wants to erase the Jewish state from the map, but the main obstacle Mr. Blinken sees to his plan is Israel." — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2024.
* Others have mentioned that if this is what Iran is doing without a nuclear weapon, just think of what it will do with one.
* Not all wars are "forever" or "pointless," or the United States would not be here. Regrettably, there seems to be... a commitment to losing.
* The Biden administration has so far been immensely supportive of Israel in many ways, which is most welcome. It is sincerely hoped that its wholehearted support will stay the distance.
* Iran itself has been exempt from paying any price for all the devastation it is causing, not to mention the devastation it could cause if it is allowed to have nuclear weapons. Diplomacy will not stop it, and a "deal" will not stop it.
* It is time to confront the Iran challenge seriously, eliminate Iran's ability to fund and provide weapons to its proxies that pose multiple threats in this fight, and bring an end to its nuclear program before it is too late.

(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

On January 17, 2024, the Council for a Secure America (CSA) released the latest update to its "Israel-Hamas War" report, marking 100 days since the start of the war. The update is the third in a series following CSA's 50- and 70-day war reports. From the outset of these reports, the real question was how long they would need to be issued.

Historically, wars involving Israel have been relatively short. The "Six Day War" in 1967 derived its name from the length of the war that saw Israel defeat the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in that time. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, which started with a surprise attack on Israel led by Syria and Egypt, lasted just short of three weeks before an Israeli victory. In between, there have been continual attacks, to which Israel has responded by "cleaning up" the immediate sources of the attacks, which the Israelis dryly called "mowing the lawn."

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** Israel's War on Hamas is the Least Deadly War in the Region ([link removed])
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by Daniel Greenfield • February 4, 2024 at 4:30 am
* The moral calculus between the Allies and the Nazis in WWII did not change based on how many German civilians were killed in the bombings and artillery shelling on the road to Berlin. The morality of the American Civil War was not measured in civilian deaths, and neither is any other.
* A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war: only one of the two sides was engaged in a total war of extermination.
* On October 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. The number games are meant to be a distraction from that simple fact.
* Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.

Pictured: The funeral of Israel Defense Forces Capt. Harel Itach, who fell in battle against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, on December 31, 2023 in Netanya, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas "sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history" and was even worse than "the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II".

The Washington Post argued that "Israel has waged one of this century's most destructive wars in Gaza" while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was "generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record."

That's all the more impressive since, even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.

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** Iran: Risky Elections Ahead ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • February 4, 2024 at 4:00 am
* [T]hose wishing to stand for a seat in the Majlis must be approved by the Council of the Guardians whose members are named by the "Supreme Guide".
* Those elected won't be considered elected unless the "Supreme Guide" approves.
* In an arrangement that might have amused Alice [in Wonderland], candidates are not allowed to criticize the leadership or to offer programs that contradict choices already made by the ruling elite.
* The Fundamentalists have never made it clear what their fundamentals are, and the Reformists have always shied away from suggesting any concrete reform.
* The "Supreme Guide" has repeatedly said he prefers the Fundamentalists who praise his "Looking East" strategy.

(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a visual perversion deforms people and objects so that they look like what they are meant to be but are not quite the same.

The fantasy device used by the English poet in his comic tale has given its name to a neurological condition known as the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS) which causes an incorrect perception of external reality.

The four decades' long experiment that Iran has had with the Khomeinist ideology is a big-sized illustration of that syndrome.

To start with, you call yourself Islamic but end up as a regime that directly or indirectly has attacked all of Iran's Muslim neighbors, sparing the only two that are not Muslims: Armenia and Russia.

Then you call yourself a republic but insist that an elected president cannot be installed unless endorsed by the "Supreme Guide" who could also veto all of the president's decisions or even sack him with a nod.

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