The terror of the barbaric

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been covering the Hamas massacre since it happened, and it touches on something very deep that goes back to childhood terrors. When I see or hear the suffering it is sickening. I wish it were fiction, but it’s not.

I have always been sensitive to horror films and don’t watch them. But on TV I once almost accidentally saw the end part of a horror film that I had trouble shaking for a long time because it was so sadistic. The Hamas attacks remind me of that feeling. We see people who are helpless in the face of unspeakable horror, as the bright happy everyday world of a bunch of young festival-goers, or of modern couples with beautiful infants and toddlers, was without warning invaded and overtaken by the most evil of evils.

History tells us this happens again and again, but we try to tune it out because it is so deeply frightening. 9/11 brought it to our attention, the Rwandan massacres by the Hutu brought it to our attention (although much further away and in the third world), every terrorist attack brings it to our attention. And now this. There is a special horror in the fear of being at the mercy of evil and sadistic people who delight in the suffering of their victims.

Civilized behavior is a precious achievement that has taken millennia to achieve. But it is one we all too often have taken for granted. We should not; it is fragile and tenuous.

Not only Hamas but those who support and justify the sort of behavior exhibited by Hamas have gone beyond the pale of civilized behavior. Whether they do so through ignorance or stupidity or pathology of the mind and spirit, that is what they have done.

Over the years I’ve been blogging, I have written many many posts on Israel and Palestine: the history and the moral differences between the two sides. But I believe most people remain ignorant of all or most of this. The MSM has been a big factor in amplifying Palestinian propaganda in the past. Much of the MSM will probably do so even now, which shows how bankrupt they are. But I’m not sure; I detect a slight change of sorts, at least for the moment. It might not last.

One of the things I’ve noticed among those who defend what Hamas does is a failure to understand the difference between a child dying as collateral damage when a military target in Gaza is struck by Israelis after a terrorist attack by Palestinians – a target that was placed by Hamas in vulnerable residential areas and places such as hospitals and schools where children will sometimes be killed even though the Israelis warn the population and even give time for people to leave – and the deliberate, sadistic, purposeful murder of Israeli children by Hamas. It’s all dead children, right? Children should never be killed in an ideal world. But although in war it happens, civilized nations try to avoid it. In contrast, terrorists seek it out and revel in it when they do it. And their sympathizers think those two approaches are equivalent – or pretend to think it. Or, they think the Israelis are worse, because they are modern and successful and the Gazas are poor and “oppressed” (mainly by other Arabs and Palestinians, but that’s ignored as well).

Is this inability to tell the difference between the actions of the two sides a cognitive failing, a moral failing, a spiritual failing, or what? I don’t have the answer. But I know it’s a widespread failing, and is especially common among the intelligent. Propaganda is certainly part of it, but plenty of people are resistant to such propaganda. Why do some succumb?

And so we see photos and videos of children as hostages, being tortured psychologically and physically. Some of them saw their parents deliberately murdered in front of them. We hear of dead babies in cribs – not collateral damage, but murdered in a frenzy of homicidal rage and now justified by college students and even some members of Congress.

At least when the Nazis dashed out the brains of Jewish babies against brick walls they didn’t take photos and disseminate them around the world in order to gain support. They knew, or thought they knew, that most of the civilized world would highly disapprove if they saw those photos (even though much of the civilized world cooperated with rounding up their own Jews and sending them away, as long as they didn’t have to face what ultimately happened to them). Now, Hamas thinks photos of the horrors they perpetrate will enhance their status in the eyes of many people. And they are correct.

[NOTE: Years ago I wrote many articles for PJ Media. They are gone from that site now, but I made copies of them before that happened. Two of them in particular were on the subject of why the barbarity of Arab terrorists appeals to so many people. I plan to republish those essays some time in the not-too-distant future, as well as maybe one or two old blog posts relevant to the subject.]

More thoughts and links on Hamas’ massacre in Israel

The New Neo Posted on by

It has been described variously as Israel’s Pearl Harbor and 9/11, or both combined. And that is at least somewhat the case. The Hamas massacre was Pearl Harbor in the sense of a huge wakeup call that was not anticipated by intelligence. But Pearl Harbor was an attack by members of the Japanese military on military men and material at a military target, so in that sense it was more like a conventional war although war had not been declared.

And the Hamas massacre resembled 9/11 in that it was a massive surprise attack on civilians. But unlike 9/11, in the Hamas attack women and children and old people were specifically targeted, torture and desecration of bodies was common, and hostages were taken in order to use as torture bargaining chips. So Saturday’s horror was worse than 9/11 in that sense. Plus, adjusted for population, the number of people killed and wounded was greater.

But to me, the massacre by Hamas was also like a much smaller version of the medieval Jew-killings that almost eliminated the Jews of Europe, or the Nazi Holocaust. That’s the impulse I see operating, and I have no doubt that the killings would be of everyone in Israel if Hamas had the power.

I won’t watch the videos. The descriptive words are enough. Mark Steyn details the horror in this article, and I’m sure you can find videos all around the internet if you’re so inclined. As I write this, the most recent death toll in Israel is 1200 (9 Americans so far), and I’m inclined to think it will rise further (among other things, many of the wounded are near death and will probably die).

In the aftermath of the attack, Israel has somewhat relaxed its strict gun possession rules, but only somewhat. In addition, there is this:

Energy Minister Israel Katz announces that he has instructed authorities to cut off water to the Gaza Strip.

“I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately,” Katz says in a statement, adding that the flow of power and fuel was ceased two days ago.

How much of Gaza’s power does this affect? This Guardian article says 80%. That same article manages to barely mention the killings by Hamas in Israel, and certainly leaves out all the important details: the torture and horror, the sneak attack element, and the puposeful targeting of women and children, while it focuses on civilian casualties from the retaliatory raids (raids which are not a surprise at all, by the way).

Here’s an interesting quote:

Ghalayini said Palestinians were awed by the unprecedented nature of Hamas’s incursion into Israeli territory.

But, he added, this was not without widespread fear. “People are also very fearful of what’s to come. But Palestinians, especially in Gaza, have suffered so much over the past 15 years of blockade and attack after attack from Israel, so they feel they have nothing left to lose,” he said.

“Awed” – as in “celebrating the massacre, rape, and torture of helpless women and children.” The entire Guardian article talks about the Palestinians as victims of Israel, as befits a leftist media publication. But the Palestinians’ suffering is actually at the hands of Hamas, whom many support, and who really could not care less how many Palestinians die – even purposely locating military targets in civilian areas such as hospitals in order to use the civilian casualties as propaganda in the Western world.

I doubt that the Palestinians actually feel “they have nothing left to lose,” as quoted in the Guardian. I think most of them know full well they can lose a lot more, and that Hamas has unleashed a response from Israel that might have that result.

[NOTE: I’m not sure where to put this piece of news about certain Harvard groups supporting the Palestinians, so I’ll place it in this post.]

According to Hamas (and their sympathizers), Israelis must submit without retaliating

The New Neo Posted on by

Hamas has stated the following:

“We announce that every targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning, we will regretfully meet with the execution of our enemy’s civilian hostages,” Obeida said. He said the executions would be broadcast “in audio and video.”

Note that the broadcasting of the horror is an integral part of it. This is the ISIS philosophy and it is intended to do three things. The first is to maximize the suffering for the hostages, their families, and any viewer who isn’t already a Palestinian partisan. The second is to show the world what mean m-fers are the men of Hamas; this makes psychopathic sadists feel macho and strong. The third is to spark a prisoner exchange by Israel to free the hostages, which unfortunately has been Israel’s policy until now. I don’t think Israel will do that, but I guess the world will find out.

At the same time, another Hamas official has said that Hamas is “open to mediations,” having achieved its goal of humiliating Israel. I also doubt such negotiations will be taking place.

Iran’s influence: Obama and Biden

The New Neo Posted on by

The Iranian mullahs came to power in 1979 and immediately revealed their true colors. Until the Obama administration, every president after that seemed to understand that it was not in our interests to give them concessions. But Obama was different, and a pillar of his foreign policy was the so-called Iran Deal.

The deal seemed either insane or traitorous or fatally naive, or some combination of those things. Obama pursued it relentlessly, and Biden went on to follow in his footsteps, either with full or partial awareness of what he was doing. And by the way, because Biden was not senile when he was VP and yet he didn’t resign in protest at the Iran Deal, I am going to assume he agreed with it and continues to agree with it with whatever part of his brain still functions these days.

I have written a great many posts on the Iran Deal and Obama, but here I’ll quote someone else who summarizes the theories around Obama’s position:

The situation unfolding in Israel is precisely the one for which Obama laid the foundation during the eight years of his presidency. The Iran deal, in whose name the administration twisted itself into a moral pretzel, was forced into policy not because Obama has any great passion for the mullahs in Tehran, but because it was predicated on a wholesale restructuring of the Middle East.

In this view, an ascendant Iran would be a counter-balance to Israel. It would force Israel’s hand in dealing the Palestinian situation in the way that Obama and his foreign policy circle believed was the only way. It would counter Saudi Arabian power as well, creating a sort of triangle of tension to maintain balance. But the key to it was to speed up Iran’s march to power by allowing the country to remain at the edge of nuclear breakout, which is what — explicitly — the Iran deal did.

There’s also Obama’s belief in his wondrous self:

Obama always fancied himself a great agent of change, a figure upon whom the presidency was virtually bestowed, who would master the world’s greatest problems with his intellect alone, and collect all the rich rewards, prizes, praise and of course the wild jubilation he knew he deserved.

Some people believe that Obama is actually a Muslim and that’s the origin of his policy. I disagree; I actually think Obama is not religious at all. He definitely was raised in a Muslim-friendly environment, and that probably factors into all of this, but he is not a Muslim IMHO. For those who quote his “my Muslim faith” statement in support of the idea that he is a Muslim, please see this for the way in which they are misinterpreting his statement.

Biden recently released to Iran six billion dollars in previously frozen assets, but that was done so recently that it’s more likely that Hamas’ barbaric massacre of Israeli civilians was financed by the 1.7 billion dollars Obama had released to Iran in 2016; see this:

The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.

A fifth American man was released by Iran separately.

Details of the cash delivery drew fresh condemnation of the Iran deal from Republicans. They charged that the administration had empowered a major sponsor of terrorism because the nuclear agreement enables Tehran to re-enter the international economy and gives it access long-frozen funds.

Those pesky Republicans. Of course, they were correct, because Iran is Hamas’ backer, and its sponsorship has borne horrific fruit in Saturday’s massive attack on Israelis.

And this news came out recently, about another development regarding Iran during Obama’s second term:

In the spring of 2014, senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials initiated a quiet effort to bolster Tehran’s image and positions on global security issues — particularly its nuclear program — by building ties with a network of influential overseas academics and researchers. They called it the Iran Experts Initiative. …

The communications reveal the access Rouhani’s diplomats have had to Washington’s and Europe’s policy circles, particularly during the final years of the Obama administration, through this network.

They wouldn’t have had such influence, however, if the ground hadn’t already been prepared to receive their point of view.

And here’s Caroline Glick’s take on this aspect of things:

Although alarming, the depth and breadth of Iran’s infiltration of Washington’s foreign-policy and media establishments exposed in this week’s reports isn’t surprising. Over the past two decades, reports of Iranian infiltration of Washington policymaking circles have come out in a near continuous stream. But rather than clean house, the Washington establishment has castigated those warning of Iran’s penetration as bigoted, and not infrequently, as pro-Israel agents.

Obama certainly did fundamentally change things, just as he promised.

What Kipling knew

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re back. Or actually, they never left:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The damage inflicted by Hamas on innocents is not the least bit collateral

The New Neo Posted on by

It is the purposeful targeting of the most vulnerable and innocent, the purposeful subjection of those human beings to atrocities and humiliation, the purposeful recording of the actions, the purposeful dissemination of those videos on the internet, and the purposeful demonstration of the jubilation of the Palestinian crowds at the barbarism.

This sort of violence conjures up plenty of historical precedents, among them Mongol invasions, Iroquois raids – and more recently Isis beheadings that also featured videos watched around the world. What is Hamas’ aim? Here’s what Haviv Rettig Gur has to say:

Families were butchered in cold blood. In one home, a terrorist shot the parents dead, took a child’s cellphone and started broadcasting it all in a livestream on their Facebook account. Grandmothers were pulled in wheelchairs to waiting vehicles ready to carry them as hostages into Gaza. Then came the mothers carrying babies. Footage circulated on social media, put there by Hamas, of an Israeli child asking his mother if the gunmen that surrounded them were going to kill them. “They said they won’t,” the mother replied as they were taken outside to some unknown fate.

The stream of videos didn’t stop. An IDF soldier’s body was paraded in Gaza. A young woman, bleeding, was pulled by the hair from a car after being kidnapped and taken into the Strip. And all of it was broadcast by Hamas to the world in joyful pride, sparking celebrations in Tehran, Ramallah and no small part of the online pro-Palestinian activist world.

Until Saturday, Israelis believed they were strong and safe. On Saturday, they started to believe that they were neither.

In that simple shift, the Hamas attack was massively successful.

As Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza put it while the attack was still underway: “This powerful enemy is an illusion made of dust and capable of being defeated and broken. Our heroes made the enemy small and humiliated, feeling death everywhere.”

So apparently that was the idea. And although I don’t think most people would call brutal kidnappers preying on women and children “heroes,” apparently the Palestinians feel that they are.

The consensus of opinion right now is that Hamas has miscalculated and that their obvious brutality has alienated even some of their previous friends, especially in the West, and that will justify whatever retaliation Israel chooses. The Palestinians have long relied on the fact that the Israelis are not barbaric – although Palestinian propaganda is based on getting the world to think they are – and to expect a moderate Israeli response, with the Western world pressuring the Israelis to hold back.

This time? According to Gur:

Where [prior to this attack] Hamas had always seemed an implacable but ultimately containable enemy, it had now proven it could bring the danger into Israeli homes, could slaughter children and kidnap grandmothers while all the vaunted power of the Israel Defense Forces was helpless to stop it. …

Israelis can handle humiliation; they are less moved by the politics of honor than are their enemies. But these heirs of a collective memory forged in the fires of the 20th century cannot handle the experience of defenselessness Hamas has imposed on them. Hamas seemed to do everything possible to shift Israeli psychology from a comfortable faith in their own strength to a sense of dire vulnerability.

And it will soon learn the scale of that miscalculation. A strong Israel may tolerate a belligerent Hamas on its border; a weaker one cannot. A safe Israel can spend much time and resources worrying about the humanitarian fallout from a Gaza ground war; a more vulnerable Israel cannot.

A wounded, weakened Israel is a fiercer Israel.

Hamas was once a tolerable threat. It just made itself an intolerable one, all while convincing Israelis they are too vulnerable and weak to respond with the old restraint.

Here’s another go-round about ideas for Gerard’s book cover

The New Neo Posted on by

Wow! What a lot of suggestions, much appreciated. However, I realize on reading them that I have more ‘splaining to do. Thus, this post.

(1) I originally thought of course I’d use a photo of the monument on the cover. But I ran into lots of problems, and blurriness was only one of them. I’ve been to the monument, and I’ve also seen many photos of it. The monument and the name can be photographed from a distance that allows you to see it’s a monument by the shape of it, but that distance leads to a problem and the problem is either blurriness or faintness of the letters of the name. These of which can be somewhat corrected, although years ago I visited there with a friend who had a very good camera and lens, and the photos still weren’t very good.

What can’t be corrected, and what is true of all the images I’ve seen of the actual name in the stone, is that visually it’s a rather dull photo with a dull color if the color is true (gray). Unless someone has already read Gerard’s essay “The Name in the Stone” and is already familiar with the story it tells, I don’t think a photo of the monument is all that arresting. It’s kind of bland and colorless, and the color is in a sort of middling range. What’s more, there’s the problem – and believe me, it’s a real problem – of putting letters on top of letters when designing a book cover. That is, when superimposing the text of the title and author on a bunch of other names on gray stone, a cover is created that can be visually confusing. And it’s surprisingly hard to make the letters “pop” against the gray unless you make them chartreuse or something equally Day-Glo, which I don’t find attractive.

And then there’s the whole idea of having a cover with a photo that literally illustrates the meaning of the title. I found, when I actually designed cover after cover of this type, that it started to feel limiting. There are almost 50 essays in the book. Only one – the title essay – is about the name in the stone. But it’s not really about the monument itself, although it most definitely touches on that. It’s more about Gerard’s attitude towards seeing his own name in the stone, his relationship with his family and their memories of his late uncle who died in the war, and his growth as a person from college student to the man writing the essay. And that’s just one essay of so many. Therefore, putting the photo of the monument or other parts of the park such as the eagle sculpture on the book cover started to seem to me as though it would be misleading about the nature of the book’s contents.

As for my going down to New York again and taking photos, it’s not happening. That’s a big trip for me, and as I said, I’ve actually been there before and tried to get good photos, unsuccessfully. Also, such photos probably would have the drawbacks I mentioned. But if any of you want to go there in the next week or two and try to take photos and then send them to me – please, by all means, do so. But I’ll caution you by quoting no less an authority than Gerard’s essay itself, 2007 version. Gerard was a good photographer with excellent cameras. He published the essay many times after that and never indicated that the situation had changed [emphasis mine]:

[The name is] on the far left column on the third stone in on the right side of the monument looking towards the sea. The name is usually in shadow and almost impossible to photograph. …

Note: Since this essay was first written in May, 2003, several thoughtful people have supplied me with photographs. As you can see, the name still remains difficult to photograph.

The photo someone sent him is the one I used in that first book cover in Saturday’s post.

It’s also harder than you might think to get something that would work on a book cover in terms of size, shape, sharpness, contrast, and visual attractiveness. I actually already have access to some clearer photos that are neither mine nor Gerard’s, and I didn’t think they’re very successful when I tried designing covers with them just as an experiment. For example, here’s one with a photo from Google Street View. I can put it in this blog post and attribute it (which I just did), but it is not allowed on book covers at all, even with attribution. However, I’m offering it as an illustration of what’s possible if someone went down there and took such a photo (by the way, these cover photos are screenshots of prototype covers but the real covers would have text that looks sharper than this, and the diagonal lines and the words “Book Brush” wouldn’t be there on a real cover, of course):

Here are some book cover examples that use a closeup photo from another site. I would also probably need permission if I used this photo on a book cover, and I may or may not be able to obtain that permission. The photo is very clear, but I think it doesn’t integrate all that well into a cover. I’ve tried many composition ideas, as well as fonts and colors, and it just seems dull to me. I think this might be the best of the lot:

A similar effort of mine; whether better or worse I’m not sure:

This next one uses the same photo but blows it up to be the background for the entire cover, and then superimposes the title, etc., on it. I think it’s visually confusing. Plus, only part of the name is on the front (right) and part on the back (left). I didn’t bother to finish the back cover on this one, but it would be similar to the others where I’ve put some words and a photo on the back. The letters here are red and somewhat 3-D in an effort to make them more visible. I’m not sure I like red, but I discovered that other colors are really hard to see (except the aforementioned Day-Glo ones):

(2) I can find copyrighted photos of the eagle statue at the monument site. But in that case I’d have to pay major bucks to use a photo like that on a cover. The eagle is visually dramatic, and using the eagle would be okay if the book were about war heroes or something like that, but it’s really not for the most part. And, unlike the covers with a photo of the actual name in the stone, the eagle statue doesn’t explain the title unless the reader happens to already know that the sculpture is in the same park as the monument. So using the eagle doesn’t make sense to me. The essays are very varied in nature, as I’ve said and as Gerard’s regular readers are aware – philosophical, humorous, sarcastic, personal stories, spiritual, and expressing awe at nature and the universe. I hope the book appeals to his readers, but I hope to reach a wider audience, too, if possible.

(3) The back of the book as I’ve done it on these book cover ideas is incomplete. The big space between the quote from the book (on the top of the page) and Gerard’s photo and bio (on the page bottom) is for blurbs from other authors, which I plan to try to get. That’s another one of the tasks involved.

(4) The reason the book is subtitled “and other essays,” rather than something like “and other works” or “collected works” is because it is composed only of essays. That’s how Gerard had planned it. As for his poetry, I’m planning to edit a second book containing just his poetry.

(5) There are plenty of fonts and colors available; these are just some ideas. I probably will have a book cover designer help with that. But yes, to answer a question some people had: these days, book covers often mix fonts, including using block print in one part and script in another. Go to any site that has templates and you’ll see (for example, this). I own quite a few older books that do it, too; it’s not just a new fad.

(6) Here’s the other style book cover that quite a few people preferred from the previous post. I really don’t know whether I’ll end up using a monument names photo or something else like this. I go back and forth with it. But I think this one has the advantage of being bold and simple, as well as conceptually open-ended. The photo is also free for use. By “open-ended” I mean that this photo could conjure up almost anything in the mind of the reader: strength, endurance, nature, rock of ages, and probably other things. It’s not THE name in THE stone, of course. But Gerard’s name is on the stone on this cover, if only as an artistic device. So it is at least slightly illustrative of the title without being a literal demonstration of it. Inside the book there will be a photo of the monument with the name, the blurry one, but it won’t be as blurry in the book because it will be considerably smaller. So it’s not as though a photo of the monument won’t be somewhere connected with the book.

(7) All of the photos of covers I’ve posted so far have been for the traditional book version. But here’s a cover idea for an ebook version. What do you think?:

ADDENDUM: For anyone who likes the covers with the “name” photos of the monuments – as I said, there are copyright issues with the first one that are insurmountable; it cannot be used on a cover, period. And there are possible issues with the second, the closeup one. I included them here as examples of what might be done with the right photos, but I have neither the time nor the equipment nor the skill to take any. I hope to get the book out within the next couple of weeks, before the holidays. So really, if anyone is in or near NYC and is a good photographer and wants to give it a try and send me the photo, please do!

The ebook cover, however, has no copyright problems.