At al Shifa hospital: the value of a surprise attack

The New Neo Posted on by

When the post-October 7 Israeli operation in Gaza began, the IDF gave the Gazans a lot of warning. This was primarily to allow Gazan civilians to evacuate. But it also had the effect of warning the Hamas terrorists and allowing many of them to keep moving around ahead of the IDF, aided by the extremely extensive tunnel system.

It was an incredible challenge: not only urban warfare, but urban warfare with an unusual ability for the fighters to hide out underground as well as to keep hostages there and move them around as well. Nevertheless, the Israeli forces made inroads, killing, wounding, and also capturing many Hamas fighters. But not enough.

Which brings us to the recent operation in al Shifa Hospital, about which we’re getting even more information. It has been a very successful raid:

The IDF troops have retaken most of the complex, with Israeli troops engaged in isolated firefights with well dug-in terrorists, reports suggest. “Hamas and PIJ leaders are among 600 apprehended at the central Gazan hospital, after Israeli intelligence indicated the compound was retaken,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported Thursday evening. “The arrested terrorists were transferred to the ISA [Shin Bet] to be interrogated, and the IDF continued the operation in the Shifa hospital compound, saying firefights were ongoing.”

The IDF previously raided Shifa hospital in mid-November, uncovering and destroying the terror tunnels beneath the hospital. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists crawled back into the complex, using Gaza’s largest medical facility to hoard weapons and direct attacks against the Israeli troops.

This is a large number of operatives falling into Israeli hands in one fell swoop and probably able to provide significant intelligence:

This is highly significant:

While Israel gave prior warnings during the November operation, this time the military carried out a surprise raid on Hamas-infested hospital — catching the terrorists off-guard. …

The surprise raid on Shifa marks a shift in the Israeli military strategy. “These IDF sources said that the paradigm for IDF action in Gaza has shifted, and it is now ready to act anywhere and anytime,” the JPost noted.

My hunch is that another very important factor was the previous destruction of tunnels under the hospital. The Hamas fighters probably had to take refuge in the above-ground hospital facilities instead, and when the Israeli attack came they couldn’t escape through the tunnels as they had before. Thus, the large number of casualties and even larger number of surrenders.

The entire episode very much underlines the price Israel has been paying for its efforts to placate the international community and to spare Gazan civilians.

Lawfare against Trump: all that matters are results

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve had a number of interesting – although short – conversations with friends about the lawfare cases against Trump. A pattern has emerged: they’re upset that the cases have been stalled, and they perceive the courts and prosecutors as going too easy on Trump.

I find this extraordinary. But when I really think about it, it’s not so very extraordinary at all. For starters, they probably read and hear plenty of information in the MSM from “legal experts” about how valid and righteous these cases are. In addition, most people are unfamiliar with the details of law and why they protect both sides if followed scrupulously. That part of our education has been either neglected in the first place or forgotten by most people if once learned. Lawyers remember, but so many lawyers are activists (and on the left) these days that they mostly employ their knowledge and skills in sophistry to help the left.

So what most people understand are results. If Trump is evil, then he should be stopped by any means necessary, including prison. It’s the old Roper from A Man For All Seasons attitude:

In that clip, at least the people arguing to “cut a great road through the law” realized what they were advocating, and why (after all, think about how More met his end). The people I’ve been talking to don’t think that the cases against Trump involve any such thing. In wanting him convicted – and soon – they believe they are promoting the rule of law rather than flouting it.

Gazans’ perceptions of Hamas and October 7

The New Neo Posted on by

First, we have this from a recent poll of Palestinians:

More than five months after Hamas-led savage marauders slaughtered more than 1200 Israeli men, women and children, support for the October 7 massacre is at an all-time high among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

“Despite the ensuing war, the humanitarian crisis and the atrocities committed against Israelis, the vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank (71 percent) and the Gaza Strip (71 percent) still viewed the October 7 “offensive”,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported Thursday citing a poll released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).

The poll also indicated that Palestinians would like Hamas to continue in power, with 64% of those in the West Bank preferring it and 52% of Gazans preferring it.

Of course, there’s always the caveat that Palestinians in opposition to these pro-October 7 and pro-Hamas positions might just refuse to answer the poll questions, or they might lie. But from what I’ve seen, there is indeed a great deal of support among Palestinians for the pro-jihadi positions, and for eliminating Israel entirely.

Second, we have this finding, from what I believe is the same poll:

Ninety-three percent of Palestinians say they believe Hamas did not commit atrocities during its mass invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7 …

Notably, among Palestinians who watched videos of the atrocities filmed by the perpetrators themselves, 81% still did not believe they were committed.

Only one in five Palestinians has seen such videos, according to the survey.

Denial is rife, and is encouraged by news sources in the Palestinian press and leadership. I’m not saying that a great many Palestinians wouldn’t support October 7 even if they knew the entire story, but I suspect that the numbers approving would at least be somewhat lower.

[NOTE: Also see this about the mindset of someone like Sinwar. Here’s an excerpt, which describes Sinwar when he was in an Israeli prison during the first decade of the 21st century, how he got there, and how he got released:

Sinwar studied his enemy assiduously. He read Israeli newspapers, took classes in Jewish history through the prison’s “open university,” and spoke to Bitton about Hamas’ goals—the expulsion of all Jews from Palestine, the duty to implement God’s laws as given to Muhammad on all sacred Muslim soil. Numerous efforts to recruit him in prison failed. “The struggle continued inside the prison,” Bitton said. Sinwar was not married then, and he had few visitors. “Hamas and the struggle were his life.” …

Having initially been arrested in 1982 for what Israel termed subversive activities, he was rearrested in 1985. Released again, he and Mushtaha founded Munazzamat al Jihad w’al-Dawa (MAJD), an organization responsible for rooting out Palestinian collaborators with Israel and other rival factions. Sinwar excelled at his job, earning himself the nickname “Butcher of Khan Yunis.” In 1988 he was arrested again for planning the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians he considered collaborators. According to Israeli press accounts, he had acknowledged during his interrogation having strangled two of the Palestinians, inadvertently killing another during his interrogation, and shooting the fourth who had tried to escape. He was said to have led investigators to the orchard where the bodies were buried. In 1989, Israel sentenced him to four life sentences.

Under normal circumstances, a man with such a violent resume would not have been released. But after Israeli Staff Sergeant (then-Corporal) Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in 2006, negotiations with Hamas inside and outside of prisons began. Bitton himself was involved in the talks with Sinwar and other Hamas negotiators. Brokered by German and Egyptian mediators and signed in Cairo in 2011, the deal agreed to Shalit’s return in exchange for the phased release of 1,027 Israeli-held prisoners, including some 315 Palestinians who were serving life sentences for having been convicted of the worst crimes. Among them were Sinwar and his two lieutenants.

Hamas’ leaders considered Israel’s willingness to release over 1,000 Palestinians for a single Israeli soldier a victory. Most of the prisoners were ecstatic about their release. But Sinwar denounced the trade. “He was furious, even though he was among those scheduled to be released,” Bitton recalled. He told me that releasing Shalit for a thousand Palestinian prisoners was “not enough.” All of the Palestinians in Israeli jails had to be released.

Much more at the link.]

The new RNC and election integrity

The New Neo Posted on by

I hope the shakeups at the RNC described here aren’t a case of “too little, too late.”

The following is from an interview with Lara Trump on “The Benny Show”:

We have the first-ever election integrity division.

First ever? It’s extraordinary that it took this long. There certainly have been efforts before, but apparently they’ve not been coordinated by the RNC.

More from Lara Trump:

We have, in 23 states, 78 lawsuits single-handedly to address this issue, to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat in 2024. …

In addition, we now have the ability to train poll workers. These are not just poll watchers, people who physically stand in a polling location and kinda look around and maybe might be able to see something. These are people who get to handle a ballot, who can count the ballots coming in and the ballots going out, so they know what the numbers should be at the end of the day.

On top of that, we are also hiring and we are asking for volunteer attorneys all across this country. We want you in a polling location near you every single minute that there is voting going on because we want to be able to address a problem immediately, in real-time. We cannot wait until it’s too late.

Good point. In terms of voting fraud, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than a pound of cure, because it is virtually impossible to do much after the fact to prove the existence of the type of fraud made possible by widespread mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and voting machines.

More:

But we also have to start thinking about things like legal ballot harvesting, something we’ve never embraced as a party. We’re going to start doing it now. …

We also have to embrace early voting. I know we want one day of voting in this country. It doesn’t exist right now. We’ve got to bank enough votes going into November 5th that we’re not playing catch-up on election day.

These all sound like excellent ideas. They need to be implemented pronto.

Is the universe twice as old as previously thought?

The New Neo Posted on by

This guy certainly thinks so:

Last year, theoretical physicist Rajendra Gupta from the University of Ottawa in Canada published a rather extraordinary proposal that the Universe’s currently accepted age is a trick of the light, one that masks its truly ancient state while also ridding us of the need to explain hidden forces.

Gupta’s latest analysis suggests oscillations from the earliest moments in time preserved in large-scale cosmic structures support his claims.

“The study’s findings confirm that our previous work about the age of the Universe being 26.7 billion years has allowed us to discover that the Universe does not require dark matter to exist,” says Gupta.

“In standard cosmology, the accelerated expansion of the Universe is said to be caused by dark energy but is in fact due to the weakening forces of nature as it expands, not due to dark energy.” …

To replace existing models with CCC+TL, Gupta would need to convince cosmologists his model does a better job of explaining what we see at large. His latest paper attempts to do that by using CCC+TL to explain fluctuations in the spread of visible matter across space caused by sound waves in a newborn Universe, and the glow of ancient dawn known as the cosmic microwave background.

While his analysis concludes his hybrid tired light theory can play nicely with certain features of the Universe’s residual echoes of light and sound, it does so only if we also ditch the idea that dark matter is also a thing.

I don’t pretend for even a moment to be able to evaluate the competing theories, but wouldn’t the jettisoning of dark matter be a feature rather than a bug?

Calling all astrophysicists and cosmologists!

Another roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

Sometimes there’s just too much news to do justice to it all. Thus, another roundup.

(1) Tony Bobulinksi address the House:

Brave man.

(2) Apparently we will finally get to see the Nashville shooter’s manifesto.

(3) If you’re confused by the various court rulings about the Texas law on detaining illegal aliens, reading this LI post but in particular this comment in response to the post should help.

(4) Trump might let Letitia James seize Trump Tower:

As Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a $454 million bond in the civil fraud case against him in New York, insiders said he may be weighing a little-discussed option: Doing nothing.

The ex-president reportedly has been struggling to raise the cash for the bond — either from banks or wealthy friends — with his lawyers claiming on Monday that it was a “practical impossibility.”

While some reports have raised speculation that Trump may “go nuclear” with a Chapter 11 filing to protect his prize real estate assets across Manhattan, experts said bankruptcy would create unwelcome complications as the 2024 election season comes to a head. …

A third possibility, however, is to let the deadline pass, leaving it to New York Attorney General Letitia James to seize Trump’s bank accounts or buildings — including Trump Tower, from which he declared his 2016 presidential run, and which famously includes his personal penthouse.

It’s an option Trump appears to have considered – partly because he believes the chances are good that he could recover the assets on appeal, even if he is forced to take his case to the US Supreme Court, according to friends.

The NY case has great potential to hurt the economy of New York by scaring off real estate investors, and such a taking of real estate assets would only further that perception and that reacion. It also will further the perception of Trump as a victim of injustice – a perception I believe is quite correct.

In the NY court system, Trump can’t appeal unless he posts the money. But if James seizes the assets, I assume that would give him the right of appeal, because it would be the equivalent? If not, I’m pretty sure he still could appeal on an emergency basis to a higher federal court.

(5) Trump is suing ABC and Stephanopoulos for saying he’d been convicted of rape:

“Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw, ” Stephanopoulos asked during the interview.

But because both defendants are part of the news media, actual malice and/or reckless disregard for the truth must be proved in order to win a judgment. It’s certainly been alleged, but proving it is often very very difficult, which is why the MSM feels free to issue such defamations for political purposes. From the complaint:

“These statements were and remain false, and were made by Defendant Stephanopoulos with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth given that Defendant Stephanopoulos knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false,” Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, wrote in the 20-page complaint.

I predict that Trump won’t win this case, because of Sullivan and the resultant high burden of proof.

More IDF operations at al Shifa Hospital

The New Neo Posted on by

The IDF continues to conduct operations at al Shifa Hospital:

The IDF said that hundreds of terror suspects had so far been questioned at the hospital complex by field interrogators of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 504 and the Shin Bet security agency.

In a video statement from the hospital on Wednesday, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said troops had detained between 250 and 300 terror operatives at the medical center during the ongoing operation.

He said another 300 suspects were also being questioned.

“We are talking about many [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] operatives, including battalion commanders, Hamas operatives, including political officials,” Hagari said.

“We will reach all the terrorists in this area. Our goal is to arrest the senior officials alive and bring them in for interrogation. Whoever fights against us will be killed,” he continued. …

Hagari, in his statement, said the IDF was also providing food and water to the civilians sheltering at the hospital and brought in generators for Shifa’s ER.

You may recall that al Shifa is in an area of Gaza that was already dealt with – supposedly – by the IDF. But of course, terrorists can move around, and it’s logical to assume that they felt safe going back there, thinking the IDF wasn’t going to return any time soon. Apparently the IDF received intelligence that this had occurred, launched a raid, and found a substantial number of terrorists who had taken up residence there (probably mainly but not entirely underground).

Hamas seems to have a special affinity for hospitals, because if the IDF tries to kill or apprehend them there Hamas can count on MSM headlines saying that the big bad Israelis are attacking HOSPITALS!! The propaganda value is immense. It is, among other things, a violation of international law to attack hospitals – unless, of course, military operations are being conducted from there. A lot of pro-Hamas propagandists leave out that last little bit.

Note also that the Israelis are helping the hospital continue actual medical and humanitarian care.

Biden is thinking about (or his aides are thinking about) pulling the weapons plug on Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

[Hat tip: commenter “sdferr”]

The Gaza War is one in which good and evil are quite clearly delineated. The Palestinian side features the October 7 atrocities and murders purposely targeting Israeli civilians when there was supposed to be a ceasefire in place, the desire of Hamas to obliterate Israel and Israelis and Jews, Hamas’ use of civilian locations such as hospitals in order to maximize its own civilian casualties and to lie about and inflate their numbers still further, and the enormous amount of support for Hamas and October 7 that the civilian population of Gaza has shown. This is in contrast to Israel’s efforts to reduce the number of Gazan civilian casualties while still defending itself and trying to eliminate Hamas, the willingness of Israelis to live and let live if only the Palestinians would stop trying to destroy Israel and Israelis, and Israel’s own two million Arab citizens.

The propaganda coming from the Arab world and the left about all of this represents not just lies, but Orwellian inversions of the truth. And one of the worst things about it is that some in the west are either believing those lies and preparing to act on them, or are cynically going along with the lies for the partisan political benefit of pleasing their own pro-Hamas left wings and their own Arab populations.

In Canada:

Canada will end arms exports to Israel, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told the Toronto Star today (Tuesday).

“It is a real thing,” Joly said.

The announcement follows the approval by Canada’s parliament on Monday of a motion submitted by the New Democratic Party (NDP) on Palestinian statehood. The motion included calls for an immediate ceasefire to end Israel’s military operations in Gaza and to end arms sales to Israel.

The motion was non-binding. Nevertheless, the Trudeau government intends to comply with it.

And then there’s Euopre. Here’s an article from about a month ago:

A court in the Netherlands on Monday told the Dutch government it must stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing a “clear risk” that Israel’s fleet was being used to commit serious violations of international law in the Gaza Strip.

Three human rights groups, including Oxfam, brought the case to The Hague Court of Appeal, seeking to overturn a previous court decision that allowed the Dutch government to continue exporting F-35 parts to Israel. In Monday’s ruling, the court ordered the government to stop such exports within seven days.

The ruling came after the Italian and Spanish foreign ministers said recently that their countries had stopped all arms sales to Israel since the war began in Gaza more than four months ago, after Hamas’ attack on Israel. A regional government in Belgium also said it had suspended two licenses for gunpowder exports to Israel.

And from the Biden administration:

But growing doubts have been raised over the reliability of this supply, with a senior Israeli official telling ABC News, in a report published on March 15, that Washington has begun “slow-walking” some military aid to Israel. This comes amid increasingly harsh criticism by the Biden administration of Israel’s war effort.

Despite denials by American officials, the report cited the Israeli official as noting a major slow-down in the rate of arms deliveries. The official reportedly raised concerns over the availability of 155mm artillery shells and 120mm tank shells. “The United States had been supplying similar munitions to Ukraine, which also reports specifically running low on 155mm artillery shells,” the report said. …

Other observers noted that from the moment the Americans removed these armaments from Israel, Israeli decision-makers should have looked to pre-position hundreds of thousands of shells as a replacement and wondered how long it took for Israel’s Defense Ministry to sign a contract with Israeli defense firm Elbit to produce substitute shells.

The entire article is worth reading. It describe the armament situation in Israel and what might be done about it.

One of the many goals of Hamas and the Palestinians is to isolate Israel, and they know how to use propaganda to do it. It’s something they’ve been successfully accomplishing since at least the 1960s, and it has reached critical mass in the west during the last decade or two.

More on the spread of the “bloodbath” hoax

The New Neo Posted on by

I bring you Hillary Clinton:

Such a useful truncated quote to spread around.

I was listening to a podcast made yesterday by the Ayn Rand Center, and the people speaking – who are definitely not on the left, but who also do not like Donald Trump – were repeating the “bloodbath” meme as though it were true. Even though they are people who are usually quite alert to propaganda and quite good at rejecting and even debunking it, it was shocking that they had bought into the propaganda. But the truth about that particular quote from Trump hadn’t reached them even by yesterday. That brought home to me (once more, with feeling) the power and reach of a lie, and how entrenched it can become despite evidence that ought to invalidate it in everyone’s minds.

I wonder how many people who think they hate Trump are basing their opinions almost solely on lies told about him over the years?

And speaking of bloodbaths: