On the Gaza tunnels

The New Neo Posted on by

The Gazans are adept at three things: propaganda, killing, and digging elaborate and extensive tunnels. In fact, their tunnel system is almost certainly the most elaborate in the world. But in that, they are helped along by geography/geology.

Here’s an in-depth (pun intended, I guess) look at the tunnels and why they are so easy to build and difficult to eradicate:

The unique conditions of the Gaza Strip in this context are also well known: its soft sandstone allows for relatively easy subterranean digging, in contrast to the hard limestone terrain in Lebanon and the West Bank. As a result, the IDF’s operations in these areas have had a very different character.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s use of subterranean infrastructure was substantially more limited. … [M]ost of Hezbollah’s “strategic” subterranean systems were limited in location and scope, and were largely known to Israeli intelligence. As a result, when the offensive phase of the campaign against Hezbollah began in September 2024, the Israeli Air Force destroyed most of these systems within hours, days, and a few weeks. … Thus, in the Lebanese arena, a decisive victory was achieved relatively quickly, primarily through the combination of air power and intelligence, against an adversary widely regarded as stronger and more dangerous than Hamas.

Indeed, the prolonged campaign in the Gaza Strip, now approaching two years, stems decisively from the challenge of the underground domain. Beyond the issue of the hostages, which significantly restricts IDF operations, the vast underground space in the Gaza Strip enables Hamas to shelter, hide, and disappear. From there, small guerrilla units of the organization emerge from concealed shafts embedded within the built or ruined urban landscape, set up ambushes, launch RPG rockets, and deploy or attach explosive devices. Despite all the experience and skills the IDF has acquired on the subject, there is currently no simple, practical way to neutralize this mode of warfare. Moreover, not only the prolonged nature of the fighting in the Gaza Strip reflects the challenge but also the difficulty in achieving a decisive outcome and the massive scale of forces required—including both regular and reserve brigades and divisions. These stem directly from the limited ability to contend with the subterranean threat. Lacking an effective solution, the IDF is left with little choice but to flood the area with a large number of forces and advance slowly and methodically as the default course of action.

Thus, the long duration of the campaign in the Gaza Strip, the difficulty in achieving a decisive outcome, and the immense scale of forces involved all stem directly from the underground challenge. …

The Viet Cong were the first to use subterranean networks extensively against the United States, which struggled to find an effective response. However, the Viet Cong’s tunnel system was likely only half the length of Gaza’s and ran mainly through uninhabited jungle terrain and not dense urban areas. In this sense, Gaza’s network is unique in both scale and implications—not only compared to Lebanon and the West Bank, but also globally.

Much more at the link.

Since the post-10/7 war began, the nature and extent of the Gazan tunnel system has been discussed a great deal. But I think many people are nevertheless unaware of how exceptionally extensive it is, and how it continues to be used by Hamas as above-ground Gaza becomes rubble. It remains a huge problem in Gaza and an enormous factor in the duration and difficulty of this war, and the author believes that it would probably be a threat to any group that would take over postwar.

Britain’s growing “migrant” crisis

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s interesting how there are harmonic resonances in much of the Western world for problems concerning illegal aliens (called “migrants” by the left) and those who ask for asylum and are not true asylum seekers. In the US – for now, with Trump as president – the situation has gotten better in terms of new arrivals, although those who are already here remain here for the most part. In Eastern Europe, many of the leaders have taken a hard line. But in most of Western Europe the opposite is true.

In Britain, Keir Starmer can thank the fact that the Tories were no better on this than the left has been; that failure of the right is what was mainly responsible for his own election as Prime Minister. It’s a poor solution to the problem – in fact, it’s no solution at all – but it’s understandable that frustrated voters didn’t want to reward the right for doing nothing constructive. However, as could easily have been predicted, rewarding the left turns out to have been a very bad idea.

Brendan O’Neill of Spiked explains in the following video what’s been happening lately. The entire video is of interest, but I’ve cued up a small section of about two minutes that deals with just this issue:

Here’s an article describing those recent protest demonstrations in Britain over this issue. Although it’s from the leftist BBC, its content is more fair than one might expect. An excerpt:

Lorraine Cavanagh, who works for charities on the Isle of Dogs, echoes the concerns in Epping. “I don’t know who they are.

“They are unidentified men who can walk around and do what they want to do with no consequences,” she says.

That comment, “I don’t know who they are”, lies at the heart of the opposition to asylum seekers in these communities.

It can be very hard to establish basic facts about the young men in the hotels, the system that put them there, or the impact they might have on locals. …

We know how many hotel places are being used in each region – the vast majority are in the south of England. They cost £5.77m a day for the government to provide. The estimated cost over the decade to 2029 has spiralled from £4.5bn in 2019 to £15.3bn.

But there are no specific figures for the age and sex of hotel occupants, no details about their countries of origin, or their claim for sanctuary in the UK.

I have little doubt that these statistics could be compiled – at least, based on what the “migrants” say – and I assume it’s no accident that such figures are not available.

Update on my ex-husband

The New Neo Posted on by

He’s definitely made some progress, but they’re sending him home tomorrow and I don’t feel that he’s ready. It’s a long long story, too long and involved to tell here (and I don’t want to violate his privacy). But suffice to say there are no simple solutions, and I’m mega-stressed.

I’ll update as things develop. Hopefully, he’ll do better than I fear. That would be by far the best outcome.

Trump sends Guard to DC to control crime

The New Neo Posted on by

This was expected (I had written a previous post on the prospect). Today, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in DC and issued some EOs:

Pursuant to my authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States and the District of Columbia, I direct the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital. The mobilization and duration of duty shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia. Further, I direct the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with State Governors and authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.

There also will be an effort to remove homeless camps, some of which are in traffic circles which are federal park property.

Of course, Democrats don’t like this, and they are saying that crime in DC isn’t bad and is in fact down. However:

In a report published in July, it was revealed that a D.C. police commander was recently suspended for falsifying data to improve the city’s crime statistics. …

According to sources, the conspiracy is widespread and essentially an unstated policy. The D.C. police union, which has been working to expose all this, says that multiple supervisors have been reclassifying crimes so that they don’t show up in the reports.

What a mess.

Sympathy for the terrorists: as the UK, France, and Canada go, so goes Australia …

The New Neo Posted on by

… and probably New Zealand, in preparing to recognize Palestine as a reward for its rape, murder, and torture of Jews; the sacrifice of Gazans to that cause; and the mendacious production of anti-Israel propaganda in order to play the victim card:

“Australia will recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own. We will work with the international community to make this right a reality,” Albanese told reporters in Canberra.

Albanese claimed that a two-state solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict is “humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” AFP reported.

The two-state solution or a magic wand, whichever comes first. Albanese is a fool and a knave, but he’s got a lot of company. Most of the English-speaking world seems determined to go down that path, except Trump. It occurs to me, however, that if Kamala Harris had been elected, the US probably would be following in their footsteps right about now.

And the hostages? What of them? It would be obvious to a second-grader that these promises to recognize a state would end any pressure on Gaza to release them in a deal. Why agree to a deal and give up the precious hostages, when the West is already promising to reward the Palestinians?

This concession by Australia represents a change:

The decision “undermines Israel’s security, derails hostage negotiations and hands a victory to those who oppose coexistence,” added the [Israeli ambassador to Australia], noting that Albanese’s government previously set strict conditions for it to recognize a Palestinian state, including “renouncing violence, freeing hostages and establishing credible, accountable governance.

“However, the Australian government has abandoned those conditions and proceeded with recognition for symbolic reasons rather than genuine progress toward peace,” Maimon wrote in an X post.

I think the word “symbolic” there is accurate. After all, what does this “recognition” mean in practical terms? I’m not sure, but it is morally repugnant and quite obviously rewards some of the worst terrorists and Jew-haters the world has ever known. Yes, these nations getting ready to do the recognition also say that Hamas has got to go, but in the meantime they are helping them and causing a prolongation of the war – without a single suggestion or even thought of how it is that Hamas will indeed go, or any proof whatsoever that the PA would be any better.

The quest to prove Einstein right

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an entertaining documentary on Einstein. It focuses on the efforts of others to prove whether Einstein’s general theory of relativity was correct by photographing the sun during an eclipse in order to see whether it bends the light of stars. It wasn’t easy.

Give it a go, if that interests you:

The experts bet against Trump’s tariff policy and lost …

The New Neo Posted on by

… says Matt Margolis in this PJ article. But the vast majority will never admit it.

But it occurs to me that it’s not just that they thought his tariff policy would be disastrous and they were wrong (at least so far). After all, I certainly thought his tariff policy might be disastrous or at least considerably worse than it’s turned out to be. However, I realized – because it was apparent from Trump’s history – that his tariff policy would feature opening moves in a chess game in which he would pressure other countries initially and then make a deal that aimed at a result that was quite different from what it had initially appeared to be. I respected that about him and still do, and have observed that his endgame virtually always includes a goal that would benefit the US, and that he often achieved it despite what looked like powerful odds against it.

But so many “experts” ignore that history of Trump’s successes, because they despise him. They continually bet against Trump and they often lose. And yet that doesn’t deter them from doing it again the next time and yet again and again, so strong is their dislike for him and their contempt for his style of negotiating. And to top it all off, there usually isn’t any penalty for their having been wrong, or any demand for accountability. So they persist, and their audience seems to lap it up.

CDC shooter

The New Neo Posted on by

Shots were fired toward CDC headquarters on the campus of Emory, a police officer has been killed, and the shooter is also dead either from police fire or a self-inflicted wound. Some details:

The deranged man who fatally shot a cop at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters has been identified by Georgia authorities as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White.

White, of Kennesaw, Georgia, unleashed a barrage of bullets on the health agency before storming into a CVS located on the Emory University campus in Atlanta around 4:50 p.m. Friday, the police department said.

Dekalb County police officer David Rose, 33, was reportedly struck and killed while responding to reports of the active shooter at the Clifton Road drugstore, which is located across the street from the CDC’s main campus.

Rose – a heroic officer who joined the department in September 2024 – was rushed to Emory University Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

The gunman was also found shot at the scene, though authorities have not said if his fatal wound was self-inflicted.

RIP Officer Rose.

It’s reported that the killer was despondent over an illness or supposed illness he ascribed to the COVID vaccine. It occurs to me that this shooting motive is somewhat similar to the recent murders in New York in which the killer supposedly felt he’d been injured by playing football, and tried to target NFL headquarters (although he got off the elevator at the wrong floor). Is this a new pattern?

In both cases there appears to have been some history of mental troubles, if this report (in, of all places, the Hindustan Times) is correct. It says the following:

The shooter who opened fire at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday afternoon was suicidal, the father of the suspect revealed to law enforcement. CNN reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement official, that the suspect’s father said he alerted law enforcement about his son’s condition a day before the shooting.

There’s no link to CNN provided, and I can’t find the original article or interview.

NOTE: I’ve written many many times about the COVID vaccine; you can find my most recent post on the subject here.

Palestinian exceptionalism: the art of propaganda

The New Neo Posted on by

The Palestinians have made quite a name for themselves.

They’re not good at creating a viable economy. But they’re very good at getting others to give them financial assistance.

They’re good at tunnel-building. They’re good at ghoulish mayhem and murder. But what they’re best at is propaganda. At that, they excel.

As Gerard Baker writes: “If there were a Goebbels prize for propaganda, Hamas would win it every year.”

And this despite their habit of stirring up trouble wherever they go. As commenter “Unwillin’ Barkis” has written on this blog:

I cannot think of another group of people – short of gypsies – that are more unwanted than Palestinians. They’re unwanted even among their own religious brethren, that being much of their own fault. I can’t think of another ethnic group in modern history that have done more to destroy humanitarian goodwill than they have, and they’re quickly on track to become the transnational refuse of Earth by the end of the century.

Palestinians have managed to attempt to overthrow government after government of their host countries in order to take over if they can, get more power for themselves, and/or spread the word of their Cause. Their host countries have said “no thanks” in no uncertain terms – for example, Black September in Jordan:

After the 1967 Six-Day War [with Israel], Palestinian fedayeen guerrillas relocated to Jordan and stepped up their attacks against Israel and what had become the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The PLO’s strength grew, and by early 1970, leftist groups within the PLO began calling for the overthrow of Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy, leading to violent clashes in June 1970. Hussein hesitated to oust them from the country, but continued PLO activities in Jordan culminated in the Dawson’s Field hijackings of 6 September 1970. This involved the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) seizing three civilian passenger flights and forcing their landing in the Jordanian city of Zarqa, where they took foreign nationals as hostages and blew up the planes in front of international press. Hussein saw this as the last straw and ordered the Jordanian Army to take action.

… [T]he Jordanian military attacked again in January 1971, and the fedayeen were driven out of the cities, one by one, until 2,000 surrendered after they were encircled during the Ajlun offensive on 23 July, formally marking the end of the conflict.

Jordan allowed the fedayeen to relocate to Lebanon via Syria, where they later became involved in the Lebanese Civil War. The Palestinian Black September Organization was founded after the conflict to carry out attacks against Jordanian authorities in response to the fedayeen’s expulsion; their most notable attack was the assassination of Jordanian prime minister Wasfi Tal in 1971, as he had commanded parts of the military operations against the fedayeen.

“Became involved in the Lebanese Civil War” can be translated from WikiSpeak as “played an enormous role in sparking the war.” At any rate, the history of the particular Arabs known as “Palestinians” explains why Egypt has not allowed any refugees into its country during the present post-10/7 conflict.

Another very important thing about the Palestinians which accounts for their status as victims favored above all others by leftists and the international community is that aiding them is big business for the UN and NGOs.

But I think the greatest fortune the Palestinians have had is that their designated enemy is Jewish. If it were some other Arab country, the world would yawn and look the other way. A good analogy for this in the US is when a white person kills a black person versus black-on-black crime; it’s the latter that gets so little publicity. So Palestinians have an ideal built-in situation for their message, which uses the antiquity, ubiquity, and intensity of anti-Semitism to enhance the appeal of Palestinian propaganda.

The Palestinians are smart, too, especially about creating the proper propaganda to match the audience and the target. The Holocaust is deliberately evoked through Palestinian imagery and rhetoric in order to accuse the Jews of perpetrating one. The blood libel, of even greater antiquity, is also frequently and knowingly employed. It is especially painful to Jews who are aware of Jewish history, and especially effective with the wider population of the world because of its harmonic resonances.