Hamas and the murder of hostages, Part I: the background

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I plan for this to be a two- or three- part series, sparked by the terrible news of Hamas’ murder of six Israeli hostages who had survived almost a year in captivity.]

First, a bit of background on the early post-10/7 days.

When the enormous carnage and torment (as well as kidnappings) wrought by Hamas on ordinary Israeli citizens (plus a fair number of resident non-citizens, such as workers from Thailand) was revealed, the reaction in Israel was intense grief and rage. Some of the rage was against Hamas, of course. But a great deal was also against the government and the military that had failed to protect its people. That reaction got even more intense when it was learned that there had been multiple prior warnings about what was about to happen, and those warnings were brushed away, although they later turned out to have been spot on.

Not long after 10/7, Hamas threatened to execute hostages. This possibility was always part of the equation, as with any kidnapping by a violent (and in this case sadistic and fanatic) group. It’s easy to forget these threats – after all, so much has happened since. But I remember them, and here’s a refresher in case you’ve forgotten. The dateline of the story is October 9, 2023, two days after the attack:

On Monday, Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, the terrorist group’s military arm, chillingly declared it would begin killing its prisoners if the Israeli government continues bombing Palestinian lands.

“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced [sic] to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a Qassam Brigades spokesman.

“We regret [sic] this decision, but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership responsible for this.”

That statement brought into sobering view one of the main reasons Hamas seemed so intent on capturing innocent civilians: the leverage it could provide.

“The cruel reality is Hamas took hostages as an insurance policy against Israeli retaliatory action, particularly a massive ground attack and to trade for Palestinian prisoners,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The only reluctance Hamas has had to killing the hostages is the need to parade them as well as to use them as negotiation leverage against Israel, and for the latter purpose live hostages are better than dead ones, although dead ones will do in a pinch.

I bring all of this up to remind us all that in the early days it was reasonable to assume that we’d be seeing these televised executions, and that the abductors would be taking a leaf out of the book of Daniel Pearl’s killers. After all, inherent in kidnapping and hostage-taking is always a good possibility of murder if the abductors’ demands are not met. But in this case those public executions never happened, because Hamas is smarter than that. They are playing a public relations game, and so far they are winning. So in the post-10/7 phase of the conflict, Hamas has been careful to walk a tightrope of pretend magnanimity versus bloodthirstiness.

The pretend magnanimity came last fall during the hostage-for-prisoners exchanges, in which Hamas gave up the hostages seen as most vulnerable, the ones most likely to garner worldwide sympathy: mothers and children, and older women. In return Hamas got a great many prisoners.

But that’s not all Hamas got. It also was able to give the impression that future negotiations with Hamas (through its proxies such as Qatar) would bring Israel even greater dividends, as time went on, and that all the hostages might be released alive if only Israel gave up more and more. Hamas had every reason to believe that over time the pressure from the Israeli public and the world (including of course the present US administration) would increase to the point where Israel would be pressed to give up just about everything. And in fact, the metrics of the 2011 Shalit deal, in which Israel released 1027 prisoners for one Israeli soldier who’d been held for five years (including 280 prisoners with life sentences, who altogether were responsible for the murders of 569 Israelis) would lead them to believe that. It’s no accident that among those released prisoners was Sinwar, future mastermind of 10/7. If Israel had been willing to agree to a deal so lopsided for one Israeli – and a soldier at that – what might it give up now? It’s easy to understand why Hamas was motivated to take as many hostages as possible on October 7.

Over time – and as I write this post, it’s been about a month short of a year since 10/7 – many hostages have died. We don’t know the exact number, but Israeli intelligence has learned a lot. Even prior to the recent murder of six of the young adult hostages (I’ll be writing more about that in Part II), the dead bodies of some hostages had been found and taken back to Israel for burial. Some were known to have been murdered on October 7 in Israel and Hamas operatives had ghoulishly brought their bodies to Gaza to be used as negotiating currency. Some had died more recently, and Hamas claimed – of course – that they’d been killed by Israeli bombs, although the autopsy evidence and condition of the bodies didn’t indicate that. Then there was the terrible case of three hostages mistakenly killed by Israeli forces during a firefight. And always there was the threat of Hamas murdering more hostages.

Meanwhile, the IDF and/or Israel’s intelligence forces managed to rescue some hostages unharmed. This was cause for great celebration in Israel, and probably a great deal of anger and chagrin on the part of Hamas. There was a basic pattern to the successful rescues, however: nearly all the hostages whom Israel had managed to free previously were in above ground houses, which made it easier to surprise their captors and easier to get intelligence on the hostages’ whereabouts because neighbors might inform or unknowingly give information. The only hostage found alive in a tunnel was the recent case of Farhan al-Qadi, an Israeli Bedouin grandfather who was found alone and apparently had been abandoned by his minders as the IDF closed in – although we don’t know for sure. It doesn’t appear that the IDF knew of his exact whereabouts to begin with, and my guess is that he was guarded by less fanatical Hamas members compared to those guarding the six Israeli captives who were later murdered in the tunnels as the IDF approached.

Unlike many hostage situations, the one that began on 10/7/2023 is apparently somewhat decentralized. Some of the hostage-takers were originally what I call free-lancers, meaning that they were not Hamas regulars but rather Hamas sympathizers trying to cash in on the deal. Not only that, but the hostages have not been kept in one place, and one reason for that was that it guaranteed that at no point could Israel do something heroic to rescue them all or even most of them. All the rescues have been bit by bit by bit. And it is my belief that, at present, the vast majority or maybe all of the living hostages are in the tunnels being guarded by the most coldblooded of minders, because Hamas has learned that rescue is almost impossible under such circumstances – because not only can Hamas kill them as the IDF approaches, but the hostage guards can get out alive afterwards through the warren of tunnels that Hamas has constructed over the years.

Therefore I don’t think we’ll see any more rescues of living hostages, although I hope I’m wrong. And I think we’ll learn of more hostage murders, much like the ones we learned about over the weekend.

Hamas murdered the hostages to further psychologically torment Israelis and their sympathizers, as well because it knew that another result would be that the pressure on the Netanyahu government to surrender to Hamas and/or resign would increase to a fever pitch. That is exactly what has happened. There was a general strike (it’s over now), and the anti-Netanyahu forces have strengthened their protests and machinations. I plan to deal with that phenomenon in more depth in Part II, but till then I suggest you watch the following video by Caroline Glick (especially around minute thirty and after, although the whole thing is well worth watching):

Or if you prefer, please read this very informative article of Glick’s that covers much the same territory.

Happy Labor Day

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]

Labor Day is the bookend standing at the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day.

July Fourth is summer’s early peak, with the promise of long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the moment I dreaded as a child because it marked the end of vacation and the start of the school year. Spiffy new clothes, a shiny bookbag, freshly sharpened pencils, and the promise of the beautiful autumn leaves’ arrival were nice. But they couldn’t make up for the fact that a new school year was beginning. Where oh where had the summer gone?

And it goes even more quickly these days.

Here’s wishing you all a Happy Labor Day, despite the difficult times. Barbecues, picnics, the beach, just hanging out in your yard, whatever you desire and whatever you decide. And for the historically-minded among you, here’s some information on the origins of the holiday.

Playing right field

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a comment by “Rufus T. Firefly”:

“[Kamala Harris] seems like the kid playing right-field in baseball, who just stands out there daydreaming, hoping the ball doesn’t come her way.”

Also a great line.*

(*from a kid who played right field often)

That immediately brought up a song association for me. You might enjoy this:

Here’s an article about the guy who wrote it:

As a kid, Welch played right field, so he knows of what he sings.

Thirty-five years ago, Welch’s fortunes were altered when the folk group Peter, Paul & Mary recorded his song for their 1987 album “No Easy Walk to Freedom.”…

“My life actually changed radically,” Welch said from his home in South Egremont. Songwriting royalties allowed Welch “to quit my day job and to have a down payment on a house.” At the time, his day job involved “typing briefs and trying to write computer programs” for a law firm. …

Welch “wrote the song one afternoon in 1982 or ‘83.” He said he had no idea anyone would like it until he performed it at a New York City cafe in 1983. “I played it and the crowd went nuts,” he said; “You never know, really, it turns out.”

Ohio voting fraud

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a disturbing although unsurprising situation:

Election integrity issues involving employees of a leftist company [called Black Fork] committed to “Building Long-Term Progressive Power,” have been popping up all over Ohio.

Earlier this month, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced he had had referred evidence of suspected election law violations to 20 county prosecutors “for review and possible criminal prosecution.” … LaRose is also asking the local prosecutors to investigate allegations of fraudulent voter registration forms like those submitted in Hamilton County.

Black Fork is also under a dark cloud in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, where the local board of elections reported at least 18 suspicious voter registration cards. Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Director Anthony Perlatti told members at a June 21, 2023 meeting that “multiple counties have encountered issues with potential registration cards being submitted from deceased individuals,” according to minutes from a June 21, 2023 Cuyahoga County Board of Elections meeting.

Butler County Prosecuting Attorney Mike Gmoser this week told me that his office has received a referral from the secretary of state.

“It does involve a document with [suspect] signatures and we are seeking the verifications of all the signatures that were harvested and submitted to the Board of Elections,” he said in a phone interview.

Cuyahoga County elections officials asked LaRose’s Public Integrity Division to investigate the suspicious voter registration cards in July 2023. … Election integrity advocates have criticized LaRose for, in their estimation, moving too slowly on the complaints. …

The concerned citizen letter also asks LaRose to take immediate steps “to address the threat of noncitizen registration and voting in the 2024 elections.”

“Ohio’s election eligibility verification procedures permit third-party advocacy groups in the state to register thousands, if not tens of thousands, of ineligible individuals who then become eligible to vote in Ohio elections. The Biden Administration has exacerbated the problem by aiding and abetting the importation of untold numbers of noncitizens … ”

LaRose has taken issue with some of the changes election integrity advocates have sought, insisting that the legislature would have to pass laws to do so. …

“So to the extent that there’s any press watching, voter fraud is real, it does happen. It happens oftentimes in the form of phony registrations all in the same handwriting,” Triantafilou, the Hamilton County Board of Elections members said at the July meeting.

If the government of a state is red or purple, there’s some hope of restoring election integrity, although it depends on the officials and on the state. Otherwise, this stuff goes undetected and/or uncorrected. It’s all very similar to things we heard may have happened in many swing states in the 2020 election. But after that election, courts for the most part said the issue was moot or impossible to prove or disprove.

I think Harris is temperamentally unsuited to be president and she knows it

The New Neo Posted on by

That won’t necessarily stop her from being elected, of course. But I really wonder why she decided to become a politician. Among other things, although she lies and lies and lies, she – unlike most politicians – seems somewhat uncomfortable doing so. That discomfort gets transmitted in awkward body language and stress in her voice, as well as a lack of emotional match to the content of what she’s saying. That’s why the awkward forced laugh comes out sometimes; I think it’s nervous laughter.

And that is why Walz was part of her interview with CNN and why people joke that he’s her emotional support animal. And I don’t think Walz has any discomfort whatsoever with lying.

But this uneasiness of Harris’ is not her only difficulty when she’s playing the role of a politician (and on her it really does seem to be a role). Most politicians are verbally fluent. They may be lying through their teeth, but the listener has no trouble understanding what they’re actually saying. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, generates a lot of near-meaningless words in the process of trying to find her way to an answer that doesn’t implicate her. She is, to be blunt, BS-ing and stalling, and in the process leaves the listener scratching his or her head. Again, this is something most or all politicians do, but they ordinarily accomplish it with smoothness and finesse.

For some reason, Harris has trouble doing that.

I’ve seen pundits and commenters say that she did much better in her DNC speech than in her interview. Well, d-uuhh. Reading a speech off a teleprompter is a whole different activity than responding – even with canned answers – in an interview. In an interview, there’s always the chance of the unexpected. In a speech, the speaker is in control – especially when in front of a friendly audience lacking hecklers – and in an interview the control is partially ceded to the interviewer. In a speech, the task is simple: to read. In an interview, the person has to think on his or her feet (or while seated, as in Harris’ interview with Bash).

Many people describe Harris as stupid. I don’t think that’s it at all. She’s not brilliant by any means, but no one gets through law school being stupid. But most lawyers are far more verbally adept than Harris, I think that something else is going on with her. Yes, it’s possible she has some sort of problem with alcohol or other substances. But I think that deep down she lacks confidence and isn’t as good as most politicians at hiding that fact.

More interesting is why the Democrats have nominated two people in a row who aren’t good speakers and seem to have some challenges, whether cognitive or emotional or both. After all, it’s not as though the Democrats lack glib talkers. With Biden, who wasn’t doing well in the primaries in 2020 until everyone else was “encouraged” to drop out, he was chosen by the Democrat powers that be because he could be promoted as a moderate, a “nice” guy, and someone experienced. With Harris, as VP she was the obvious heir to Biden, and getting rid of a black woman would ruffle too many voters’ feathers. So, once Biden imploded, the Democrats were pretty much stuck with Harris and they are now deeply engaged in trying to make the best of it by pretending she’s something she’s not. But that only increases the emotional pressure on her, in my opinion.

The fact that polls indicate that Harris is basically tied in the race for the presidency reflects several things, the first being the strength of Trump Derangement Syndrome. For a great many people, all the Democrats need is a placeholder, and Harris or anyone else would do the trick. The second is the strength of identity politics: for many voters, the fact that she’s a black woman is enough to get their vote. The third is the role of the press and pundits in telling people that Harris is the best thing since sliced bread.

Once you look at the Harris interview, it’s more obvious than ever why she has been avoiding non-scripted events like interviews and press conferences, and probably will continue to do so for the most part. She’s trying to run out the clock.

Right now we don’t even seem to have a working president. Biden acts like he’s retired, and Harris is out campaigning. Someone or some group (I think the latter) is running the country, and already has been for quite some time. Biden did have some input, but for the most part he deferred to this group. Although Kamala is a lot younger than Biden, I think she’s okay with continuing the process if she’s elected, and with governing mostly as a figurehead who gives speeches now and then as the country continues on its present terrible trajectory.

Germany’s war on knives

The New Neo Posted on by

Germany is planning to curb the number of knife attacks in that country by a new law:

After laying a white rose at the site of the Diversity Festival slashing that left three dead and eight wounded, Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised rapid action would be taken against knives.

Right now, people in Germany can carry knives up to 4.7 inches long. The law will be modified so that they can only carry knives up to 2.4 inches long. No one appears to have considered the possibility that Muslim terrorists on the way to killing as many infidels as possible might violate the law and carry a concealed knife of 4 inches or longer. Such thoughts are unthinkable.

Knives are ubiquitous; they are not the problem. And of course a murderer won’t hesitate to carry such a knife, which will be easily obtainable. Then again, maybe the next step for the authorities is to give us all plastic utensils and make all knives contraband, like in prisons.

More:

The ISIS terrorist [who attacked people at the Diversity Festival] was one of over a million migrants who had invaded Germany while claiming to be “refugees”. The migrant was also one of the many scheduled to be deported, but was not.

All that the Muslim terrorist had to do to evade deportation was leave government housing when the authorities came looking for him. And then when the military-age Arab Muslim migrant came back, the deportation order had expired and he couldn’t be deported. Undeported Muslim refugees have been one of the largest sources of terrorism, crime and violence in Europe.

Some statistics:

The mostly Muslim migrants were responsible for over 1 in 10 sexual assaults in just one year. They have carried out around 7,000 sexual assaults since the beginning of the migrant crisis. Half of gang rapists are foreigners, and there are on average almost two gang rapes committed in Germany every single day.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, the state where the latest Muslim terrorist attack took place, 1 in 3 sex offenders, half of shoplifters and burglars, and 4 out of 5 pickpockets were foreigners.

Typical of this kind of violence was an altercation between two Arab Muslims, which ended with one of them stabbed in Magdeburg, migrants fighting with knives in a refugee center in Bavaria, and a litany of young foreign men confronting and stabbing each other all across Germany.

But locating the source of the problem is probably “not a very helpful insight,” [the quote is from a German criminologist] … In the UK, people sharing such insights are being locked up even as Islamic terrorists are being freed.

Free speech is dead in Britain.

NOTE: While writing this post, the phrase “long knives” came to me, because Germany is aiming to ban the carrying of long knives. That in turn brought to mind the famous Nazi “Night of the Long Knives,” which took place in 1934 and was a mechanism for Hitler’s consolidation of power by eliminating the group in his own party known as the Brownshirts, as well as many others he considered enemies or rivals and expendable. I doubt that knives were the mechanism by which they died; I’m almost certain everyone was summarily shot. So whence comes the name? When I did a Google search, the AI function initially said the people were killed by knives, which I strongly suspect is one of those things AI makes up because it sounds good. A second Google search for the same thing had the AI function saying they were primarily shot, and the name “Long Knives” was symbolic. Make up your non-mind, AI!

This site says the name was given by Hitler himself, and that it was a phrase from a popular Nazi song. He explained after the fact in a speech: “In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I become the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason.”

California bans local governments from requiring IDs in local elections

The New Neo Posted on by

Voters in the city of Huntington Beach, California passed an amendment to the city charter that would require ID in order to vote in municipal elections. Also:

The measure is slated to take effect in 2026 and would also allow Huntington Beach officials to “provide more in-person voting locations” and “monitor ballot drop-boxes.”

We can’t have that, can we? Let’s hear it for DEMOCRACY!! – that is, for the Democrat Party. Those Huntington Beach voters need to get in line with the Democratic Party, which immediately began legal action to stop the law from taking effect and presented the now-familiar argument that it is a form of voter suppression. You’ve heard that claim before – it’s become a foundation of the Democrats’ efforts to suppress voting security and voting integrity.

And then, when so many voters begin to doubt the validity of voting results, Democrats accuse them of crazy conspiracy theories.

And now the state of California has passed its own state law forbidding municipalities from doing what Huntington Beach tried to do, even for local elections and not state elections. Democrats in California are so dominant in the state legislature that it passed overwhelmingly:

SB 1174 stipulates that local governments “shall not enact or enforce any charter provision, ordinance, or regulation requiring a person to present identification for the purpose of voting or submitting a ballot at any polling place, vote center, or other location where ballots are cast or submitted, unless required by state or federal law.” The measure cleared the State Assembly (57-16) on Tuesday and was previously passed by the state Senate (30-8) in May.

Now the question is whether Newsom will sign it into law.

The Harris and Walz interview was a lackluster and awkward affair

The New Neo Posted on by

In last night’s CNN interview with Dana Bash, Kamala Harris exhibited problems on two levels: content and process. Content is what a person says, and process is just about everything else, including tone of voice, facial expression, and posture.

It seems to me that, even objectively speaking, this interview wasn’t the sort of thing that would convince anyone not already a Harris voter to support her. Much of the content of the interview involved Harris trying to explain her past statements that are at variance with what she’s saying now, and her failure to do anything about so many of the country’s problems even though she’s been vice president for three and a half years. Although a very effective speaker might be able to give some sort of convincing explanations and/or excuses for those things despite the fact that it’s difficult to think of any, Kamala is not that speaker.

Which brings us to the second problem: process. Last night Kamala Harris transmitted a lackluster energy, a hesitancy, and a problem with what many pundits evaluating her performance called authenticity. Her words, and in particular her tone of voice and facial expressions, seemed manufactured and mismatched – not in the slick and practiced way of Hillary Clinton, for example, but in an awkward way that was unsettling to watch.

It didn’t help that Tim Walz was part of the equation, leading to the almost inevitable mockery of Harris as needing her Dad there for emotional support. The taunting boiled down to the idea that, if she’s such a strong woman, why would he be there at all for this interview? Good question, and to make things worse there was another problem: the seating and perspective. Harris was in the center of the three participants, but she looked somewhat shrunken not only because Walz is a much larger person, but also because she was further back from the camera than either Walz or Bash. Her position made it even more difficult to convey power, and only fed the perception of lack of force on her part. Here’s an article at RedState that gives many examples of people pointing that out.

As for the content of Harris’ message, here’s some fact-checking that shows that even CNN was at least somewhat critical:

When Bash again noted that Harris said in 2019 that she supported a ban on fracking, and asked Harris if she changed her mind during that campaign (which Harris ended in December 2019), Harris said, “In 2020, I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024 and I’ve not changed that position, nor will I going forward.”

Facts First: This is misleading. Harris did not make her position on fracking clear during her only debate in 2020, the general election’s vice presidential debate against then-Vice President Mike Pence; Harris never explicitly stated a personal position on fracking during that debate. Rather, she said that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would not ban fracking if he was elected president.

Harris has another built-in content problem when asked about her support of Joe Biden. She was a loyal VP who pooh-poohed any talk of him being cognitively challenged, and now she’s the current nominee because everyone saw how seriously cognitively challenged he actually is. But to turn on him now would be to exhibit disloyalty, as well as implicating her in the obvious coverup. Threading that needle is beyond her, and what she did in the Dana Bash interview was to reiterate her support of Biden – the person whose record has also been one from which she desperately wants to distance herself.

The Trump War Room quickly made use of a clip of that moment:

I had originally thought that Harris’ and Walz’s decision to appear together for this interview was an attempt to spark a perception in the viewer of a genial Mom and Dad taking care of America and Americans. They may have thought that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts, but I don’t think they succeeded.

Or maybe they just wanted to get it over with. How many interviews will Harris give in the next two months? Or will she try to continue to convey a lukewarm version of Obama’s “hope and change” in 2008 while simultaneously hiding out like Joe Biden in 2020?