Old Time Religion?

 

Tribalism and religion have had their day. Both have become serious threats to humanity. Keep your religion if it makes you a better person. Keep your tribal identity if you must. Just leave the rest of us out of it, please. Separation of church and state has always been a good idea.

Today is the third anniversary of the savage October 7th attack by Hamas terrorists, in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken captive to Gaza. 

Israel’s government responded to the attack by launching a war on Gaza, during which at least 74,243 people have been killed. 

It seems Netanyahu had other priorities over having the hostages released:

“We later found out that Hamas had offered on October 9 or 10 to release all the civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering the Strip, but the government rejected the offer.”

Are they even yet?

As I have previously mentioned, there are no good guys in charge over there. The same is true for Russia, Iran, and the US. Hamas and the Netanyahu Regime along with much of its IDF are bloodthirsty monsters. (Yes, I know Zionist extremists will howl about my “antisemitism” for suggesting the obvious.)

Evidence is trending towards Israel being warned in advance of the attack:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally warned about a potential Hamas attack, and his security agencies were notified repeatedly, in the weeks and days leading up to Oct. 7, 2023, four people in the Middle East with direct knowledge of the warnings told NPR.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, The New York Times and The Atlantic first reported about the warnings.

Then there is other disturbing question about the “Hannibal Directive”. How many Israelis, including hostages, were killed by the IDF? American corporate media hasn’t shown much interest in the matter for some reason.

"Documents obtained by Haaretz, along with testimonies from senior and middle-ranking soldiers and officers in the [Israeli army], reveal a series of orders and procedures received by the Gaza Division, the Southern Command, and the General Staff until the afternoon of October 7; details that reveal how extensive the use of the Hannibal procedure was during the first hours of the Hamas attack and at various points in the surrounding area," the paper wrote.

Haaretz added that on 7 October, when the Gaza-based resistance movements, including Hamas, launched their operation, "Israeli forces opened fire on their own military bases, [and] settlements ... using heavy weapons from attack helicopters, drones, and tanks. They wished to eliminate the Hamas fighters attacking Israel from Gaza, even if it meant also killing the Israelis."

Americans are also largely kept in the dark about Netanyahu’s “Greater Israel” ambition for territorial expansion. (Just don’t compare that to the “Lebensraum” sought by Germany in the 1930s. That is also “antisemitic”)

And the madness continues:

Israeli settlers beat press photographer as soldiers watch in West Bank

Jaafar Ashtiyeh was covering violence against olive farmers when settlers set upon him with the butts of their rifles

Armed Israeli settlers beat a photographer in the presence of Israeli soldiers, sending him to the hospital, as he covered worsening settler violence against olive farmers in the occupied West Bank. Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a 58-year-old veteran photographer for Agence France-Presse in Palestine, was beaten with the butts of rifles, despite him being marked as press, in view of about a dozen armed Israeli soldiers.

 Israel was the world’s leading killer of journalists in 2025, and has killed at least 225 journalists in Lebanon and Gaza, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

Violence has flared in recent months in the West Bank with near-daily attacks, thefts or vandalism by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

There have also been attacks against Israelis, with a Palestinian shooting dead a settler last month.

Extremist Israeli settlers have been seizing olive groves owned by Palestinians, who consider the trees a cultural symbol.

About 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank – which Israel captured in 1967 – among 3 million Palestinians. Settlements in occupied territory are illegal under international law.

Thanks to Trump’s megalomaniacal quest for glory by joining Netanyahu’s war, the American people are now paying higher prices for food and fuel, in addition to the bombs that have killed tens of thousands of Gazan children. The deaths of innocent Iranian schoolgirls are also on Trump’s hands, as he threatens to "annihilate" Iran. 

Careful about what you say, people. Opposing this war might mean you’re “antisemitic”, just like opposing Trump means you “hate America”.

 

Are we great yet?