Far from the Hamas killers, who stormed into Israel on October 7, beheading babies, burning children alive, raping and murdering young girls, torturing — eyes gouged out, tongues cut off — and then decapitating IDF soldiers and mutilating their bodies, others who have not experienced such horrors presume to lecture Israel on how it should respond. The ones who are indifferent to Israel’s fight for its survival call for an “immediate ceasefire,” which if carried out would prevent Israel from completing its indispensable task of destroying Hamas as a military force. Those who support Israel, but do not fully understand the nature and effect of the atrocities visited upon the people of Israel, now call for the Jewish state to exercise “restraint.” One of those well-meaning souls is U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who rightly thinks of himself as sympathetic to Israel, but he still does not comprehend the nature of the threat Hamas poses to the Jewish state, nor does he realize that Israel is already exercising as much restraint as, under the circumstances, is humanly possible.
More on Cleverly’s advice to Israel can be found here: “UK Foreign Minister Cleverly Calls for Restraint from Israeli Military,” Algemeiner, October 21, 2023:
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Saturday he had spoken to the Israeli government about its duty to respect international law and to preserve civilian lives in Gaza, and for its military to show restraint.
“The UK is clear and has been consistently clear that Israel has the right to self defence and the right to secure the release of those who are kidnapped on Oct. 7,” Cleverly told the Cairo Peace Summit hosted by Egypt.
“We are also clear that we must work and they must work to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and that their actions are in accordance with international law.
When has Israel, In all of the many wars and campaigns it has been forced to fight, ever failed to respect international law, or failed to minimize civilian casualties? Israel needs no lessons in how to fight wars humanely, even against the most inhumane of enemies.
“Despite the incredibly difficult circumstances, I have called for discipline and professionalism and restraint from the Israeli military,” he added.
Discipline? Professionalism? Restraint? Don’t those define the men and women of the IDF?
Cleverly said the international community needed to work to prevent the situation in Gaza provoking a regional conflict, saying it was what Hamas wanted….
It is the Americans and Israelis who are preventing the current war in Gaza from becoming a “regional conflict.” Israel does it by responding, always with greater force, whenever Iran’s proxy Hezbollah launches rockets into Israel. The IDF has made clear that if Hezbollah tries to open a second front with Israel, by attempting an invasion of Galilee, then Lebanon itself, now under Hezbollah’s control, “will be flattened.” Israel’s highly successful bombing campaign in Gaza, where many hundreds of Hamas targets — weapons warehouses, rocket launching pads, command-and-control centers, bunkers — have been destroyed so far, is a warning to Hezbollah that, despite the initial disaster that struck the Jewish state on October 7, the IDF has regained its equilibrium and is systematically demolishing Hamas’ ability to wage war, or. to launch terrorist attacks. This lesson is not lost on Hezbollah, which has limited itself to intermittent lobbying of a handful of rockets into the northern Galilee.
The American ships in the Red Sea and off the coast of Lebanon are also being factored into Hezbollah’s — and Iran’s — thinking. The Americans have already destroyed cruise missiles and drones fired at Israel from Yemen by the Iran-backed Houthis, and American ships remain in the Red Sea to continue protecting Israel from missile attacks coming from the south. The Americans have also stationed two Navy Carrier Strike Groups just off the coast of Lebanon, a move that Hezbollah — with which the Americans have an old score to settle, for it was Hezbollah that blew up the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 Marines — must deeply fear. For it turns out that instead of opening a second front against Israel, Hezbollah has so far remained relatively quiet — the handful of rockets it has launched into Israel doing little damage. An the IDF troops on the border with Lebanon can now count on the support of two American Navy Strike Groups in the eastern Mediterranean, whose presence constitutes another front — the first being at the border between Israel and Lebanon — against Hezbollah and its backer Iran.
“We must, therefore, ensure that Hamas does not win. Rather, we must ensure the peaceful coexistence wins.”
On the one hand, Cleverly counsels Israel to exercise “restraint.” On the other, “we must ensure that Hamas does not win.” But in order to make sure Hamas does not win — that is, will no longer be a viable military force — is for the IDF to relentlessly apply a maximum of force, until every military target in Gaza has been demolished. No one has the moral right to tell Israel to exercise “restraint” after what its people have suffered. Cleverly may wish to cast his mind back to World War II, when Arthur “Bomber” Harris, head of the RAF’s Bomber Command, ordered the firebombing of Cologne and Dresden, mainly to destroy enemy morale. He was not wrong to do so. But in any case, right now — without being told by anyone — Israel does exercise “restraint.” It does that every time it warns inhabitants of buildings that it is about to target to leave; it does this by SMS messaging, telephoning, leafletting, and use of the “knock-on-the-roof” technique. It knows that Hamas hides weapons and men inside or near civilian structures, such as schools, apartment houses, mosques, and it does everything it can to persuade civilians to leave targeted areas. In fact, it has been trying to persuade civilians to move from the north to the south of Gaza, because the north is where most of the fighting that is inevitably to come will take place. Israel always tries to minimize, while Hamas always tries to maximize, the number of civilian casualties. Every attack that Israeli pilots call off at the last minute, because they have detected the presence of too many civilians in the targeted area, is another example of Israeli “restraint.” And of course, Israel has carefully refrained from hitting any of the network of tunnels as long as Hamas is still holding 200 civilian hostages, many of whom are believed to be in those tunnels. That, too, is “restraint.” Foreign Secretary Cleverly need not lecture the Israelis; the IDF is already, as British Colonel Richard Kemp keeps reminding us, “the most moral army in the world.”
Bexarkat says
The only way possible for Gazans to feel safe and secure is to help the IDF rid them of Hamas. The same holds true in the West Bank with the PA. Gaza can be a virtual Beirut as it was in 1980.
somehistory says
Did the terrorists show “restraint,” and did they abide by “international law”?
It’s a terrible thing to hear of wars…it seems that as Revelation says, one of the four horses was carrying “war”, taking “peace away from the earth”…and know that innocent lives are lost along with the lives of the guilty.
Calls for “proportionate” have been made by those not directly affected by the slaughter in Israel.
proportional “corresponding in size, degree, or intensity
having the same or a constant ratio”
However, Israel will not go into Gaza and target babies, little kids and their parents. The Jews will not be using kindergartens for their bases, nor will they fire on, or set fire to, the homes of those where they know no hamas leaders are to be found.
It’s so very easy for those who oppose Israel to make the important decisions about what the Jews should do; when Israel wants to prevent another attack in a few months.
People like this guy, don’t give a hoot for what hamas may do in the future. And in his photo, he looks like a mozlum.
Westman says
Appearance can be deceiving:
“In the three-minute interview, Cleverly said he did not believe in God and that he would vote to leave the EU if the referendum was tomorrow.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/01/james-cleverly-tory-mp-braintree-marijuana-online-porn
Westman says
Cleverly(double meaning): “We must, therefore, ensure that Hamas does not win. Rather, we must ensure the peaceful coexistence wins.”
These are mutually exclusive goals due to the demands of Allah in the Quran and Hadith. Secretary Cleverly and his spiritually dead ilk have no weapons to defeat nor even believe the religious zeal of Hamas. He doesn’t recognize the real enemy and that it will never allow peaceful coexistence with Jews, anywhere in the world.
Was Cleverly blind to the London celebrations for the recent massacre in Israel of anyone who might have been a Jew? Those cheers for bloody mayhem must be what he means by, “peaceful coexistence”. By the time Cleverly’s great-grandchildren are in their 20s Islam will be exercising “peaceful coexistence” in the UK, on steroids – his legacy.
Antisemitism is far too passive and broad(some non-Jews are Semites) to describe the specific bloodlust of Islam for Jews. A self-defining term that requires no familiarity is needed. Muslims commonly shout things like “Itbach el Yahud” (kill the Jews) in demonstrations. The word Yahud is Arabic and, interestingly, acknowledges the Jews historic homeland since it also has a geographical meaning. “AntiYahud” is a weak but specific possibility. “Yahudophobia” could be a response to Islamophobia.
https://www.israellycool.com/2014/02/17/yahud-the-arabic-word-for-jew/
somehistory says
I watched a movie from the 80’s based on fact and it had more Truth than so many news and pol people this day….way after so many more terror attacks. It was about a plane hijacked by two mozlums…there was a third who missed the plane…and the flight purser, Uli Derickson who helped save the hostages. One passenger was murdered…a young American Navy guy…Robert Stethem.
If one reads today about that terrorism, say on the wiki pages, it doesn’t come right out with the whole Truth. ” June 14, 1985, hijacking of TWA Flight 847 ”
The murderers are called “militants.”
In the movie, they clearly are identified and their hatred for Jews is made apparent.
The “progressives” don’t always ‘progress.’
Westman says
True SH, Progressives don’t progress when it comes to thinking for themselves, for certain.
They are also too lazy and too imbedded in hedonism to desire understanding anything serious, in depth. It’s ok to ignore the Prophet Of Doom unless you don’t see the hood and scythe.
James Lincoln says
somehistory,
I think that “progressives” is an Orwellian term.
I think of them as “regressives”.
Walter Sieruk says
The folly of the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom of showing “restraint’ towards Hamas is in great contrast, the wisdom spoken by a genuine US President, Thomas Jefferson, who had rightly said “With every barbarous people….force is law.”
It should also be added that the jihadists who make up Hamas cannot and will not take heed of reason or logic. The only language that they are capable of understanding is that of the language of the might of a strong brutal military might. Therefore, they should be dealt with that way.
Walter Sieruk says
That awful message of that Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom of showing “restraint” towards Hamas is complete nonsense and total 100 % balderdash.
In contrast to the words of folly given by that UK official t is the wisdom that was spoken by a real US President, James Monroe, who declared in a speech “The right of self -defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and individuals.”
For the right way to defeat the jihadists of Hamas, once and for all, is to hit hard hit them long to the extent that they don’t raise up again with their murderous jihad.
Lisel Sipes says
That guy is full of Bulls…