Hamas and Its Lethal Games

This is a snip from the most recent essay of Colonel Richard Kemp (ret.), taken from his website. The note says it appeared today in The Daily Telegraph but this excerpt is from his own website.

Thanks to reader and contributor, Mark H., for mentioning the colonel’s name in our comments. I quickly went looking; quite a fellow is Richard Kemp, and a rara avis: an English Catholic. [He was taken to task for referring to Catholics in Northern Ireland as “taigs”. He said since it was a term he’d often heard used to refer to him, he didn’t realize it was problematic.]

HAMAS ARE USING THEIR OWN PEOPLE AS EXPENDABLE TOOLS. DON’T FALL FOR THEIR GAMES

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 16 May 2018. © Richard Kemp

On Monday the Iran-backed terrorist organisation Hamas achieved its baleful objective when more than 50 people were killed. This is what it had hoped for when it dispatched thousands of Gazans, including women and children, to the border with Israel under orders to break through the fence. This carefully planned operation – which continued on Tuesday – had nothing to do with protest or the so-called right of return of Palestinians to Israel. It was only about grabbing headlines and creating a situation that the Israel Defence Force had to deal with by lethal force.

Knowing they cannot defeat the IDF by military means, this has been Hamas’s long-term strategy: to cause international outrage aimed at isolating Israel. Previously it has fired rockets and dug attack tunnels, both intended to murder Israeli civilians, leaving the IDF with no option other than to defend its people with force. Hamas’s use of human shields in each of these situations guaranteed civilian deaths.

Hamas has brought these tactics to a new and sickening low in recent weeks, making its human shields the actual weapons of war, with inevitably bloody consequences. This is the first government in history that has deliberately sought to compel its enemy to kill its own people…

[…]

Read the rest at his site. I also recommend his sidebar, particularly for his analysis of the nerve gas attack in April. Given his background in intelligence, his view seems cogent.

There are a number of videos featuring Richard Kemp on YouTube. I may feature more in the future, but here is a short one from a talk he gave in 2016. Plus ça change…

By the way, when the Palestinian representative began to speak at the UN today, the American ambassador to the U.N. walked out. She gave that stormy move some feminine flounce as she made her way to the door.

And here’s an American point of view on the situation in Jerusalem from a retired foreign service officer – Jerusalem: Reality as a Foreign Policy.

Yay, team!

P.S. It seems that Richard Kemp likes Trump. Oh, the horror!

18 thoughts on “Hamas and Its Lethal Games

  1. Yes, it has been noisy recently, 3 explosions just after midnight last night, the road was closed about a hundred yards from our house, spent machine gun bullets had landed in somebody’s yard.

    What happens if Pally Muggins breaks out en masse?
    Many hundreds of Israeli women and children get their throats slit in the name of Allah that’s what. But we are used to that.

    What makes my blood boil is smarmy European politicians and their once-removed anti-Semitism; refusing to see Hamas as the terrorist entity and criticizing Jewish Israel for not showing ‘restraint’. Their Muslim masters will pat them on the head and feed them some more dead presidents for their efforts. Good doggies that they are.

    I too pity the Pallys, they really are an oppressed people, but not by Israel. They have a wonderful opportunity to make Gaza, Judea and Samaria work, but no, it is much too important to ‘win’ back Jewish Israel and destroy it again.

    • MC, can you place the accent of the colonel? There are other videos – I almost put up his moral outrage at the way his country dragged its feet on the Balfour Declaration. Very powerful; as a military man, his words have moral weight.

      But the accent? The B thought maybe he was Australian, but he trained for the military from grammar school on, not going to Sandhurst until after infantry training:

      Richard Kemp was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School. He then served as a soldier and officer in the Royal Anglian Regiment from 1977 to 2006.

      That’s from his wiki. He seems to travel to Israel frequently.

      Yeah, I’m fascinated with him. Our stellar military graduates include John McCain the Mean, and General Petraeus, the social climber sans pants. We do have some good guys, but they were largely wiped out by Obama. Kemp is a welcome change for us.

        • Funny about that. His career was military and I’d bet I’d be able to tell the accent of our military. It’s often subtly different, especially now that there is no draft. I exempt the military/naval academy grads from that group, but not all the officer class.

      • His accent is standard lower middle class southern British English, like mine.

        • Okay, that’s interesting info since it provides us with the basis for the eventual American accent. But to our ears he sounds Australian, so perhaps the many English who were off-loaded to Oz were also from southern Britain.

          • Indeed; many were convicted criminals from London, so had “cockney” accents (ie working class- think Eliza Doolittle or, God help us, Dick van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”); Australians don’t always like to be reminded of this origin of their speech.

            I understand that Southern English people used to have what is now a West Country accent, with an unrolled “r”, which is now common among Americans; the more languid speech of the southern US derives from the many English aristocrats who became plantation owners.

          • Thomas Sowell wrote a fascinating account of the accents/language in the Deep South in his collections of essays entitled Black Rednecks and White Liberals

            Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture, which is claimed to be “authentic black culture”, is actually a highly dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which existed during the antebellum South. This culture came, in turn, from the “Cracker culture” of the North Britons and Scots-Irish who migrated from the generally lawless border regions of Britain.

            Sowell gives a number of examples that he regards as supporting the lineage, e.g.,

            an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship,… and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery.

            https://amzn.to/2Lbt0S3

            This book also contains an intriguing essay, “Generic Jews”.

      • In 2016 Richard Kemp, discussing the ongoing venal witch-hunt against British troops who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, reported that: ‘General Lord Richards, former Chief of the Defence Staff and the UK’s most senior military officer, made an extraordinary allegation. Speaking on the BBC, he said that elements of the British establishment in Whitehall think their own soldiers are “bad,” and terrorists are “freedom fighters.”‘
        https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9181/british-military

        It’s bitterly ironic to note the announcement today that more British soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan,
        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/islamic-state-threat-sees-britain-prepare-send-hundreds-troops/
        will mean there’s roughly the same number of British soldiers fighting Isil in Afghanistan, as that of jihadists returning from Syria, most who will have fought for Isil but who are being appeased and even bribed, with jobs and council houses to return to a ‘normal’ life.

    • Well I don’t buy this line, not because I have any praise for the Arab groups, or because I have any particular dislike of Jews.

      The Jewish/Israeli state established itself by own force, displacing the long time previous inhabitants. There were Western errors and influence that helped permit that, but I think most Israelis will claim that it was ultimately own venture. True ?

      So maybe you could explain me what beef the west has in Israel’s circumstance ? The anti Arab rhetoric is a low shot, not least because western/Israeli alliance has helped destabilise the middle east causing the mass exodus of refugees, and enough of a moral outrage to provide an excuse to allow them and fellow travellers into Europe.

      I mean, you must really take people for stupid here,using bringing the conflict to Europe as a reason to be involved in fighting for Israel, or as a reason to concede sympathy or approval for its actions and decisions.

      Israel is in it alone, with few international friends except those highly placed that share a wish for strategic influence and military spending or ambition.

      International approval, not just European, is not on its side. It is also conceited and arrogant to say Palestinians had their opportunity, and antagonistic .

      What you are left with in fact, is a lot of war and misery, Israel sat in the middle of a now very hostile people, with borders that have crept outwards since an inception that was never recognised by the Arab world, borders that are not recognised internationally.

      And you want the average person’s sympathy?

      And you want to blame those who fight you, in whatever way they do, for the bloodshed?

      I can tell you – a vast majority of western people aren’t with Israel, and likely will never be, on this.

      As a compact state rebuilt on reconciliatory concession is no longer a likely reality or viable, we will be left with the duality of people agreeing to a Jewish homeland, and the reality they are confronted with as a result, until the whole western levant goes to hell, possibly Europe as well.

      European leaders – well it suits them to speak out of both sides, for reasons that have been discussed here and elsewhere already, most notably revolving around their quest for EU at a larger scale.

      • Not sure what you are trying to say here, is it that Israel should be disbanded because the rest of the world is uncomfortable with it?

        Suggest you listen to the video to discover some counter arguments.

        • Seconded; the video doesn’t mention that when East Jerusalem and the “West Bank” were (illegally) occupied by Jordan in 1948-67, the Jews were ethnically cleansed (killed in some cases), including people whose ancestors had been there for centuries, if not millenia. The same would surely happen if Israel became minority Jewish.

          • Sure, there is lot of hate and resentment, very deep seated – put the two sides together and they will start killing each other.

            For now Israel is showing the upper hand, but just blaming “them” is not going to resolve this conflict, nor justify the current killings – not for one side or the other.

            But if you kill innocents, well that is on your head no matter how you want to paint it.

            Otherwise you are justifying massacring people for the benefit of a majority – and Jews should know where that way of thinking leads.

            Israel has taken very pre-emptive approach, it lives now by the rules of the region it belongs to.

            Does not mean we should join it.

        • Well I watched the video, and again this is a very biased post-Iraq scenario he is elaborating on. Even if we take a completely pragmatic view and ignore the origin of that conflict, his analysis focuses solely on official narrative of IS, a view that is so isolated and prefabricated as to be near worthless in the wider context of Arab relations, and Arab Israeli relations.

          I won’t emphasise my own background or knowledge beyond that it stretches directly from the Iraq Iran war, and indirectly further back by acquaintance, through to present.

          That makes me knowledgeable, I don’t pretend expertise, my view is based on the ground sentiment of populations as well as a wider than average political understanding of Europe and the various elitist factions that reside within it, especially in UK – not just technically but also where these people are coming from.

          So the views presented by the article, and in general by gov, on Israel, I will challenge them. It is not that I do not understand the pov and approach, nor that it is better or worse than any other, I just happen to have my own pov and intuition and knowledge, which is what I speak.

          What I am saying counters the above narrative to a certain degree obviously, but the main point I am making is not that Israel shoud be disbanded – it will remain a country as long as it does – but that we in the west should not be drawn into its circumstance.

          Why should we?

          As per refugee flows, our own governments are part responsible for much of the conflict in the ME as well as for (not) guaranteeing our borders – and now we are to trust them? Why?

          Apart that, I am just very pessimistic on the eventual result in the near east as a whole, using parameters such as economics or demographics or anti Israel depth of sentiment over a long span the picture is not good at all, for example…but hey, I might be wrong.

  2. What’s very strange is that a lot of immigration patriots, as Vdare puts it, are in favor of shutting down US immigration, but consider the Palestinians an oppressed people.

    The objectives of the bureaucracies such as the UN and EU (immigration is a human right) and bodies like the European Court of Human Rights, is to make it impossible for a coherent country, region, or society, to defend its security, identity or the safety of its citizens. Against a determined, organized, and ruthless enemy, you have to use lethal force. And women and children will be killed.

    Having said that, giving Israel a pass on killing every would-be invader who approaches its border, men, women and children, I would say the killing balance would be shifted far in the direction of fewer innocents killed, if the US would keep its hands off Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Libya, and Syria. To the extent that Israel drove US interventions, and I’m not at all convinced of it, I condemn that influence of Israel. If Israel considers it vital to its security that the government of Iraq, Libya, or Syria be taken out, I have no objection to Israel’s doing so. I just don’t want the US, or my tax dollars, to be a part of it.

    I’m not being cynical about it either. I figure Israel has a modern, prosperous economy. So, Israel should make the choice as to the best way to use its own resources. It may be with Israel totally on its own militarily, they may figure it best to make a deal with Syria concerning the Golan. But, Israel should not be able to leverage its options with US military or financial aid. I do support the placement of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the support of the US for Israel in the UN, which obviously serves as a force-multiplier for leftist, totalitarian and Islamic regimes determined to destroy Israel because it is Jewish, Western, free, nationalist and prosperous.

  3. At the risk of monopolising this thread, Dymphna, thanks for the hat tip re Colonel Kemp. I was alerted to the danger of Islam some years back when my brother sent me a link to Pat Condell’s Twitter feed, which led me to Jihad Watch (informative, but I can’t warm to Robert Spencer), Gatestone and above all your congenial selves. Pat sometimes carries Kemp’s Tweets, but even such dedicated people as you and the Baron can’t always follow everything relevant!

  4. Just how is the information about the Israeli conflict processed in the media?

    MATTI FRIEDMAN NOV 30, 2014 (have things changed?)

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/

    …. editorial decisions that appeared to be driven by ideological considerations rather than journalistic ones…..
    ……. a kind of modern morality play in which the Jews of Israel are displayed more than any other people on earth as examples of moral failure. This is a thought pattern with deep roots in Western civilization……

    ……. a kind of modern morality play in which the Jews of Israel are displayed more than any other people on earth as examples of moral failure. This is a thought pattern with deep roots in Western civilization. ………

    …“Too often the press represents humanitarians with unquestioning admiration,”…
    …..Why should our coverage of them look so much like their own self-representation in fund-raising appeals? Why should we (as many photojournalists and print reporters do) work for humanitarian agencies between journalism jobs, helping them with their official reports and institutional appeals, in a way that we would never consider doing for corporations, political parties, or government agencies?”…..
    ……….This alliance consists of activists and international staffers from the UN and the NGOs; the Western diplomatic corps, particularly in East Jerusalem; and foreign reporters. (There is also a local component, consisting of a small number of Israeli human-rights activists who are themselves largely funded by European governments, and Palestinian staffers from the Palestinian Authority, the NGOs, and the UN.) …….

    ………a belief that to some extent the Jews of Israel are a symbol of the world’s ills, particularly those connected to nationalism, militarism, colonialism, and racism—an idea quickly becoming one of the central elements of the “progressive” Western zeitgeist, spreading from the European left to American college campuses and intellectuals, including journalists. ….

    ………The current spokesman at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, for example, is a former BBC man. A Palestinian woman who participated in protests against Israel and tweeted furiously about Israel a few years ago served at the same time as a spokesperson for a UN office, and was close friends with a few reporters ……

    ….. Hamas spokesmen have taken to confiding to Western journalists, ……. —eager to believe the confession, and sometimes unwilling to credit locals with the smarts necessary to deceive them—have taken it as a scoop instead of as spin. ….

    ………one of the challenges for anyone taking pictures is keeping colleagues out of the frame ……. Hamas’s strategy is to provoke a response from Israel by attacking from behind the cover of Palestinian civilians, …… ruthless strategy, and an effective one. It is predicated on the cooperation of journalists. …. What exactly is the relationship between the media and Hamas? And has this relationship corrupted the media? It is easier just to leave the other photographers out of the frame and let the picture tell the story: Here are dead people, and Israel killed them. …. press could be trusted to play its role in the Hamas script, …..
    …… intelligent and generally well-meaning professionals ceased to be reliable observers and became instead an amplifier for the propaganda of one of the most intolerant and aggressive forces on earth. And that, as they say, is the story.

    A long article, that lays how many examples and how it is come to be.
    Just how influenced are we?

    • From the same author, MATTI FRIEDMAN and written May 16th 2018 and again questioning media ties and presentation.
      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/hamas-israel-media-protests.html

      The sicknesses of the social media age — the disdain for expertise and the idea that other people are not just wrong but villainous — have crept into the worldview of people who should know better.

      For someone looking out from here, that’s the real split-screen effect: On one side, a complicated human tragedy in a corner of a region spinning out of control. On the other, a venomous and simplistic story, a symptom of these venomous and simplistic times.

      He raises some good points of reason.

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