October 16 – After the surprise attacks last weekend by Hamas against the Gaza Strip, Israel is ready to go after the militants.
Almost 300 civilians were killed at an outdoor music festival when armed militants attacked, leaving the event-goers nowhere to run.
Children are being slaughtered in their homes. Hostages are being taken by Hamas.
Israel wants retribution.
But the issue is the Gaza Strip is arguably the most densely populated area on earth. It’s rather small geographically, but there are more than 2 million Palestinians in that area.
While Israel wants to strike back at Hamas, the true victims here would be the civilians.
That’s why a number of governments around the world, including the United Nations, asked Israel to hold off on the planned attacks until the people can be evacuated.
On Friday, there was talk of a massive ground incursion that was planned by Israel that included 300,000 troops, tanks, bulldozers, airplanes and warships.
It didn’t happen.
The plan is very much still in place, but hopefully some evacuations can happen before then.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “There’s over a million people that need to be evacuated. This can’t be done in 24 hours. Reportedly there’s 500 to 600 Americans trapped in Gaza. So there’s big efforts to get those people out of there. That exit on the Egyptian border is open. There’s people passing through there as we speak.”
The UN is saying on the ground this is a massive humanitarian crisis.
Barkdoll noted, “They’re out of water, they’re out of food, the electricity is off. The generators are going to stop today that are running the medical clinics. So they’ve got a real problem over there. But that said it still looks like Israeli forces will be going into Gaza any time, maybe today, maybe tomorrow once these evacuations are completed.”
US President Joe Biden appeared on 60 Minutes last night for an interview.
Barkdoll said, “He did not really make any new news. He again warned Iran and Hezbollah about getting involved in this. There is reporting this morning that Biden may be making a trip to Israel this week. That is not confirmed, but it sounds like that is in the works. He’s talking with Netanyahu about making a personal visit over there. But I think the big takeaway, this thing is far, far from over.”
Total casualties as of now are about 3,000 – both Israelis and Palestinians – and the number increases by the hundreds every day.
Barkdoll said, “As soon as Israel starts this ground invasion any day now, you’re going to see those numbers spike significantly. The other narrative you’re starting to see emerge is we all assume that Israel, they’re going to get in there and they’re going to retake Gaza, but it’s not clear then what happens? Those questions kept coming up yesterday on all of the Sunday shows. It’s not clear what the plan is, as we would get into another week or two, assuming that Israel recaptures or retakes the rest of the territory.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM added, “The 60 Minutes interview was pretty soft ball, I thought. I’m going to talk about what’s happened here in this country because his comments that he made with no sense of irony or apology, were appalling to me. He said that I had a meeting with Homeland Security and with the FBI this morning. We had to discuss making sure that we prevent a lone wolf or any coordinated effort to attack things. That border’s been wide open. We don’t know who’s come through there. We know for a fact that we’ve had people from Iran, different Middle Eastern countries, if any of them are radical, you could certainly see lone wolf attacks, but again, no apology for allowing at least 1.5 million is the conservative estimate of got-aways, meaning people who were not vetted. The other issue is all these protests we’ve seen across the country, supporting Palestine, even supporting Hamas, many of them. People like Biden don’t understand and others in the Biden administration who’ve been supporting an ideology about the oppressed versus the oppressor. You can see it. A New York High School city teacher, he says the so-called Israel is a settler colony that was invented and only continues to exist through terrorism, dispossession, ethnic cleansing and ongoing incremental genocide. To support Israel is to support white supremacist terror. That’s a high school teacher. We know this nonsense is being taught across the country in many universities. You see it. You see these student protests. I was in Kansas City, there was a big protest there. People were riding around with Palestinian flags out their windows. The left has no one to blame but themselves for this. To see some like Rob Reiner coming out and saying I don’t care whether you support Israel or the Palestinians, Hamas is just evil. Well, guess what? They don’t see it this way, these college students, because they’ve been taught the colonizers, the white supremacist, the privileged include the Jews.”
Barkdoll said, “This is a huge growing problem, I think, on the political landscape in America. You’re seeing all of these pro-Palestinian rallies, protests, whatever we want to call them in cities around the country. You’re also seeing some divisions on this politically. Trump’s getting a lot of criticism. Last week he praised Hezbollah about how smart they were. He was very critical of Netanyahu in one of his speeches last week. Some are saying was this an opening, politically, for people to just feel more free to be critical of Israel? I thought over the weekend, some of the Senators on the Sunday shows I thought made some good points that not all Palestinians are the same, that it’s one thing that everyone agrees that Hamas needs to be eliminated, all of the awful things they’ve done, but at the same time, there can be humanitarian aid for the Palestinians that are just trapped there that necessarily are not supporting Hamas. There’s where the dilemma is, but unfortunately, some of these protests and rallies you’re describing, they seem to be actually pro-Hamas and you wonder, are they just misinformed? Do they not understand what Hamas has done not only a couple of weekends ago, but just historically? But it doesn’t seem like it’s going away. You’re seeing these things pop up all over the country right now.”
