On the anniversary of the worst outbreak of anti-Jew violence since the Holocaust, Mandani devoted 39 words to the massacre and 141 attacking the nation that was forced to retaliate and ensure its future survival. The mendacity of the statement is masterful. “Hamas” carried out the terrorist attack, but Israel retaliated against “Palestinians.” Attacking a region that has engaged in an unconscionable act of war is “genocide,” a favorite rhetorical and factual falsehood embraced by today’s unethical Left, though Gaza had the power to end Israel’s warfare at any time. The remedy is known as “unconditional surrender.”
Children are killed in every war, and the nation responsible for those deaths is the nation that starts the conflict. This has never been more true than in the case of Gaza, where Hamas uses its citizens, young and old, as human shields, placing soldiers and arms in and under hospitals, schools, and other civilian structures. The narrative that Israel has targeted journalists, ambulances, or hospitals is pro-Hamas propaganda, and well established as such.
War is not a war crime: Israel is being accused of war crimes—like training dogs to rape Hamas prisoners; I’m surprised that didn’t make it into the message—because the anti-Zionist aka. anti-Semitic voices around the world, like Hamas, like the so-called Palestinians, believe Israel has no right to exist at all.
“Occupation” and “apartheid,” both false characterizations, are watermarks of the purveyors of anti-Israel motives. In warfare, one side does not facilitate aid of any kind to its enemy. All that accomplishes is extending the war, and that makes such conduct unethical, or if you prefer, stupid.
I’ve seen some examples of what social media wits regard as equivalents of Mamdani’s remarks, such as a faux statement of mourning for the victims of the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor while condemning the U.S. “war crimes” of dropping atom bombs on Japan. I invite readers to submit their own.
From the El Sayed post:
And happy anniversary of October 7! A short while after the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11. The Islamists didn’t need to attack with airplanes or even assault rifles. All they had to do was run for office to take over the country. Bin Laden wanted the U.S. out of the Middle East. Now we will have Islamist American legislators implementing his policies from within, in plain sight. Who needs martyrs?
I’ll have to default to: What is wrong with these people? New York Jews allowed this guy to get elected mayor of Hymie Town? Bernie Sanders endorsed him?
One thing I take away from October 7th is that it is the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorating the victory of the fleet of the Holy League over the Ottoman Turks at the Bay of Lepanto in 1571. The victory was attributed to Mary’s intercession, for when the two fleets — about equal in size and strength — first started to engage, the wind favored the Ottomans, giving them an advantage. But then the wind shifted 180 degrees, forcing the Turks to strike their sails and use their slave oarsmen to maneuver. The headwinds made it difficult for the Turks to maintain formation and use their speedy corsairs effectively. In contrast, the Holy League, with the wind at their backs, kept formation and were able to perform tactical maneuvers with precision. Under Don John of Austria’s command, the Holy League annihilated the Ottoman fleet while taking relatively few losses themselves. The one-sidedness of the battle was completely unexpected, given the military prowess and naval experience of the Turks. At the time, a European dread was that the Ottoman Turks were unstoppable in their advance, and that eventually even Rome would fall to the Muslims, and St. Peter’s Basilica transformed into a mosque. The naval victory gave heart to Europe that the Turks could be defeated, and indeed, they were finally defeated in a major battle at the gates of Vienna in 1683 that ended the Ottoman threat and sent the Ottoman empire into decline.
I find it very odd that Hamas launched their attack on October 7th. Maybe they were unaware of the Catholic significance of the date, but it seems to me that their strike triggered the reprisal that would prove to be their ultimate undoing. It seems fitting, given the date’s history.
The Muslims can be defeated. Europe does not have to fall to Islam, nor does the United States have to cower before Muslim threats. The foothold they have gained in Michigan and New York does not imply the inexorable advance of Islam through our country. But we have to be willing to fight. Half of Europe was utterly indifferent to the Ottoman fleet’s advance through Cyprus and the year-long siege of Famagusta. But those who did respond to the Pope’s call — the Spanish, the Venetians, the Genoese — were able to save Europe when they finally did unite to confront the Muslim threat.
Here’s G.K. Chesterton’s ballad of Lepanto, courtesy of The Society of G.K. Chesterton:
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the in most sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half-attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain – hurrah! Death-light of Africa!
Don John of AustriaIs riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,
–They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk may hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces – four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still – hurrah!Bolt from Iberia!Don John of AustriaIs gone by Alcalar.
St. Michael’s on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed –
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in a man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stairways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign –
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria!Don John of Austria Has set his people free!
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade. . .
“The Muslims can be defeated. Europe does not have to fall to Islam, nor does the United States have to cower before Muslim threats.”
Doesn’t have to, but it will. Europe has no convictional ethos. It’s courage has been hollowed out by materialist post-modernism. It gave up any semblance of believing in anything enough to fight for it after it demoralized itself in the cataclysm of WW1&2.
A demoralized people won’t fight for anything.
The challenge will be in remoralizing them – not in convincing them they need to fight. Good luck.
Certainly the weenie elites at the top are not going to fight, but I think there’s growing public awareness that the Islamification of Europe is going to have severe consequences that people really don’t want. Maybe that shift in public sentiment will see a shift in who gets power (Marine le Pen?), and that will start to galvanize the continent against further encroachment.
And all it takes is a decent Pope who calls the faithful to a new Crusade…