October 13 – With the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, calling for a global Day of Rage today on Friday the 13th, a number of governments around the world have been on the lookout for potential terrorist attacks.
Some have come in the form of knife attacks in France and China, as well as protests in Iraq, Iran and Yemen, where people burned both Israeli and American flags.
The issue is while Israel plans to go after Hamas after the surprise attack over the weekend, the fear is if they do, it could cost thousands of civilian lives.
For those who want Hamas taken care of, others don’t want to see innocent people killed in the process. So what’s the answer?
The debate has been sparked worldwide and even on college campuses here in the US and has gone all the way back to the beginning of the crisis decades ago.
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “I think what’s really interesting is that we don’t realize there’s more going on here than anti-semitism, because you have Judith Butler, who was one of the founding philosophers of the third wave of feminism and queer theory. She actually years ago, is quoted as understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left. They are part of the global left and are extremely important. You wonder why you see all these college students coming out across the country supporting Palestine with that stupid meme of the paraglider holding the flag, of course, so many of the things that they support otherwise, including queer theory would never be accepted by these people. They would kill you if you were trying to push that ideology on them. But we have to understand it in a bigger context than anti-semitism. Yes, it’s anti-semitism, but right now the whole world and especially college students and young people, the reason they keep saying that this is resistance. It’s not terrorism. It’s a resistance. Israel gets lumped in, Jews get lumped in as the oppressors just like white western culture. They’re seeing the same way. Unfortunately, that ideology is in a lot of our young people’s heads. You won’t be able to get through to them when you try to explain the difference.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “It’s been interesting to me on this issue, the pushback you’ve seen this week from Wall Street law firms. There were offers by law firms made to some people then they revoked the offers because these students signed on to these pro-Palestinian letters. Bill Ackman, the billionaire that runs that Pershing Square hedge fund, wants the names of everyone signing those letters on college campuses circulated among Wall Street firms to blacklist them, saying to firm’s don’t hire these people. We need to respond in a strong way to this. That’s a very interesting dynamic that’s happening in the background.”
A board member at Harvard resigned yesterday over the president’s lack of support for Israel.
A big donor at the University of Pennsylvania said don’t make any more donations to this university until they get a better position in support of Israel.
Barkdoll said, “So there’s all that stuff happening in the background that really makes this more complicated.”
Pennsylvania Muslim groups have been admonishing Governor Josh Shapiro for not speaking on behalf of Gazan civilians.
Barkdoll said, “Shapiro, like governors and officials in both parties, are pledging full support for Israel and for Netanyahu and what Israel needs to do to defend itself, not only from what happened last week but going forward into the future. The reality is based on that warning that was issued yesterday, we’re probably going to see major events this weekend, major casualties. The UN is pointing out that we’ve got 2 million people that are basically trapped in Gaza, there’s no way they can evacuate a million people in 24 hours. No other countries at this point are agreeing to take those people even if they could get out. So there’s no doubt it’s a very unfortunate situation. But Israel, Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense are saying we need to do what we need to do to make sure that Hamas is crushed and I think that’s what you’re going to see unfold here shortly.”
Reporting has suggested there is going to likely be a ground incursion in Gaza, the likes of which has never been seen in world history, probably starting tomorrow.
There are 300,000 troops positioned, including tanks and bulldozers.
Barkdoll predicted, “Likely sometime tomorrow you’re just going to see a mass Israeli troop deployment into northern Gaza. Unclear where those million people go. The UN is saying there’s no way we can evacuate a million people in 24 hours. So it’s going to be a really volatile situation over there the next one to two days.”
At the same time, the US has blocked $6 billion that was earmarked for Iran, a country that many insiders know is backing the attacks on Israel.
Jansen wondered, “Are they going to put the sanctions back on oil? Because that’s where they’re really making the money. This 6 billion is nothing compared to that.”
Barkdoll said, “The sanctions are in place, but Biden has not been enforcing them. There are calls again, to re-implement those sanctions. I do see that the US brought some enforcement actions yesterday on some oil tankers out in the ocean. The $6 billion was the right move. Janet Yellen said it needed to be done. We had that bipartisan group of US senators saying they were ready to go and I think what happened here is that they wanted to do this legislatively and when it became apparent yesterday that the House could still not get a speaker installed, the administration, through executive action, froze the money. Whether it’s legal or not, is another question, but I’m sure part of the discussion was, well, no one in the US government is going to challenge this. This money is complicated. It was in a South Korean bank, and now it’s been transferred to a Middle Eastern country, but the US has oversight of it. It’s not tax money, but the US government somehow has oversight of it, but in any event, it’s refrozen. It’s not being released to Iran.”
Jansen said, “As far as the sanctions, it has to start being enforced. It’s just ridiculous. We are responsible for Iran having the ability to fund all this stuff. Are they going to acknowledge that?”
Barkdoll agreed, “Iran is making a fortune on oil and we talk about this $6 billion, that is a lot of money. It’s not much in the grand scheme of the Iranian economy and the Iranian budget. It’s this oil that’s funding everything. Of course, the suggestion is it’s the oil wealth that Iran is then using to fund groups like Hamas that did what they did last weekend in Israel. There’s actually coverage in today’s Wall Street Journal about the seizure, the sanctions on these two oil tankers in the ocean. It’s likely going to create price pressure on global oil prices. It’s a global market and I think that’s what the public needs to be prepared for. Let’s reimpose the sanctions, but you’re likely going to see gas prices then go even higher. Maybe everyone needs to be prepared for some short term pain in exchange, for really clamping down on the Iranian oil pipeline.”
Ryan suggested, “Maybe people would get it through their thick skulls that it was energy independence, it was the Keystone pipeline. It was this green nonsense. It was all of these policies that are going through whatever’s left between the ears of Joe Biden that we were exporting. We were energy independent, and then all of a sudden, now it’s Venezuela, it’s the Middle East that we’re going and we’re begging for. We’re on our knees. We’re on our knees kissing the fanny of people we don’t need to. At least we have control over some of the stuff here in the states. It’s ridiculous and yet, you continue to vote for Democrats.”
