Chuck Colson was a political advisor to President Richard Nixon.\u00a0\u00a0Colson was a former Green Beret, and part of the \u201ctake no prisoners\u201d attitude of the Nixon Presidency that led to the excesses of Watergate, and the downfall of the Administration.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon is the only President to resign from office.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Colson served time in Federal prison for his actions during that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanging on his office wall in the Nixon years was a sign, \u201cIf you have then by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow\u201d. It was a \u201cdemonstration\u201d and a warning about Colson\u2019s determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s a phrase that Prime Minister Netanyahu is putting into practice in the Middle East, with a genocidal turn. While Colson used the phrase to show how \u201ctough a conservative\u201d he was, Netanyahu is actually doing it in Gaza, with a slight difference. His sign would say, \u201cIf you got them by the stomach, their hearts and minds will follow.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s simple: Israel is starving the Palestinians in Gaza. Here\u2019s the \u201cstats\u201d: there are 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. The United Nations, responsible for getting food aid into the area, states they are delivering 250,000 meals a day. The math is simple, one meal a day for about a tenth of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What little other food is available costs extraordinary prices and is in questionable condition. But for the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, starvation is real, and it\u2019s now. And Israel is responsible for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the \u201cfinal solution\u201d to the \u201cHamas Problem\u201d for Israel. Hamas is the terrorist group that was the governing authority in Gaza for over a decade. They were terrorists, but they also were the police, ran the hospitals, and controlled all of the supply to the population. And Hamas launched the October 7th<\/sup> attack on Israel, killing 1200 mostly civilians, many tortured and abused. Israel, justifiably, responded with an all-out attack on Hamas. But caught in the middle of this ongoing battle are the Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza, the most densely populated area in the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel refuses to take control of the \u201cgoverning\u201d duties in Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, they continue their military operations designed to unearth the last vestiges of Hamas.\u00a0\u00a0In order to strangle supplies to those \u201cvestiges\u201d, Israel has decided to allow the starvation of the entire population.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The United Nations, and many individual nations in the world, protest, but nothing is really being done.\u00a0\u00a0The nation that has the greatest influence over Israel is the United States.\u00a0\u00a0But Israel virtually ignored the Biden Administration attempts to curb their brutality.\u00a0\u00a0Israel bet on the 2024 election to change American leadership.\u00a0\u00a0Their bet paid off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump Administration seems fully committed to Trump\u2019s close friend \u201cBebe\u201d Netanyahu (the godfather of Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner).\u00a0\u00a0So the manmade food crisis in Gaza grows even worse. And here in the United States, the impact of ICE intimidation is that there are few protests against Israeli actions.\u00a0\u00a0The risk of being abducted off of the streets and whisked away to a facility in Louisiana keeps students at bay.\u00a0\u00a0And the extortion of US universities, with Federal funding threatened each time there\u2019s a protest, adds to the blanket of silence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The irony, of course, is that the Nation founded in response to the Holocaust, to the genocide of the Jewish people by Hitler during World War II, is now doing the same to the Palestinian people. The Israeli slogan of \u201cNever Again\u201d must only apply to actions against Jews, but not Israeli actions against others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, there\u2019s a clear political reason for Netanyahu to extend the Gaza military operations. He faces judicial action in Israel, only staved off by the \u201cwartime conditions\u201d. As for the few hostages that remain alive after the October 7th<\/sup> attack: they seem to be more of an impediment to Netanyahu\u2019s ultimate plan, rather than a goal to return them to freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel has the Palestinians by the stomach. They don\u2019t particularly care about their \u201chearts and minds\u201d, they simply want to punish everyone in Gaza for the actions of Hamas. The human suffering is unacceptable, the irony unbelievable, and the rest of the world\u2019s passive acceptance of genocide revolting. And the one other nation that could do something about it, the United States, just becomes more complicit in the what in other times we would call \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But don\u2019t hold your breath. Reminiscent of Chuck Colson and the Nixon era, the folks around Donald Trump like Stephen Miller, are determined to prove their \u201cconservative ideological toughness\u201d. You hear it in almost every statement they make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And besides, there\u2019s money to be made from the Israelis, and newly \u201ccleared\u201d land in Gaza.\u00a0\u00a0Why, there\u2019s a beautiful beaches just right for a new \u201cTrump Hotel\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Ask Jared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irony<\/h3>\n\n\n\n