This discussion with Besner and Harper was the least enlightening podcast in Glenn's long admirable history of bringing great, even classic ideas to his listeners. I could not believe what I was hearing. The false moral equivalencies, the disgracefully tepid acknowledgements of Hamas's brutality followed by "but explicable', ... words fail me.
Here is reality, and it has *nothing* to do with 50 years of impossibly complex intervals of warfare and peace attempts between Israel and the Arab world. What Hamas did on October 7 stands alone - it was a deliberate, obscenely criminal attack by a military organization on innocent unarmed civilians, not just killing them but perpetrating grotesque acts of torture, sexual rapaciousness, , humiliation, mutilation of children while forcing helpless parents to watch, degradation of living bodies while parading them through streets lined with Palestinians, forcible capture of hundreds of hostages,... and all of it done with no expectations or manifestations of, nor attempt to achieve , any rational goals toward either peace or military success that would benefit the Palestinians or advance their interests. "Terrorism" fits but it went far far beyond, to one of the worst sustained acts of pure evil this world has ever witnessed.
And some people were immediately demanding a "ceasefire"?? How is it possible to demand a proportional or a measured response to hours upon hours of sustained evil perpetrated by Hamas on a people that Hamas has openly admitted it wants to eradicate utterly - and on a people who have seen literally centuries if not millennia of similar attempts to wipe them off the earth?
No "ceasefire" is going to accomplish anything. The Palestinian people are suffering horribly from the effects of Israel's response, but ALL of this is on Hamas and only Hamas, which deliberately chose to use them as shields knowing that Israel could not retaliate without taking innocent lives. The suffering of the Palestinians is not a crime by Israel, it is part of the plan that Hamas has been carrying out from its beginning, a plan that *counts on* the basic decency toward innocent lives that Hamas itself does not possess. Hamas is pure evil, and the only solution is its eradication.
This discussion with Besner and Harper was the least enlightening podcast in Glenn's long admirable history of bringing great, even classic ideas to his listeners. I could not believe what I was hearing. The false moral equivalencies, the disgracefully tepid acknowledgements of Hamas's brutality followed by "but explicable', ... words fail me.
Here is reality, and it has *nothing* to do with 50 years of impossibly complex intervals of warfare and peace attempts between Israel and the Arab world. What Hamas did on October 7 stands alone - it was a deliberate, obscenely criminal attack by a military organization on innocent unarmed civilians, not just killing them but perpetrating grotesque acts of torture, sexual rapaciousness, , humiliation, mutilation of children while forcing helpless parents to watch, degradation of living bodies while parading them through streets lined with Palestinians, forcible capture of hundreds of hostages,... and all of it done with no expectations or manifestations of, nor attempt to achieve , any rational goals toward either peace or military success that would benefit the Palestinians or advance their interests. "Terrorism" fits but it went far far beyond, to one of the worst sustained acts of pure evil this world has ever witnessed.
And some people were immediately demanding a "ceasefire"?? How is it possible to demand a proportional or a measured response to hours upon hours of sustained evil perpetrated by Hamas on a people that Hamas has openly admitted it wants to eradicate utterly - and on a people who have seen literally centuries if not millennia of similar attempts to wipe them off the earth?
No "ceasefire" is going to accomplish anything. The Palestinian people are suffering horribly from the effects of Israel's response, but ALL of this is on Hamas and only Hamas, which deliberately chose to use them as shields knowing that Israel could not retaliate without taking innocent lives. The suffering of the Palestinians is not a crime by Israel, it is part of the plan that Hamas has been carrying out from its beginning, a plan that *counts on* the basic decency toward innocent lives that Hamas itself does not possess. Hamas is pure evil, and the only solution is its eradication.