Over the weekend, all eyes were turned toward Israel after it was brutally attacked by the terrorist group Hamas. We’ll look behind the news to see how something like this comes about and if it could happen here, 22 years after the 9/11 attacks. We’ll look into the past to help make sense of the senseless in today’s Analysis Behind the News.
You’ve seen the brutal footage of what Hamas has done to innocent Israeli civilians, especially the genocide that occurred at the rave concert and the reported death squads going door-to-door killing men, women, children, and infants. The footage posted by these barbarians is unforgettable, and as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described, the worst that has been done to Jews since the Holocaust.
Coincidentally, Monday was the 49th anniversary of the death of Oskar Schindler, a gentleman who saved about 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, and who the award-winning movie Schindler’s List is based upon.
As of Wednesday morning, the official count of dead Israelis at the hands of Hamas is 1,200.
Much like what we experienced during the attack on Pearl Harbor and during 9/11, most citizens in Israel were taken by surprise. While some government officials knew ahead of time that Pearl Harbor and 9/11 would happen, we wonder if a similar situation occurred in Israel.
Knowing that this can happen in one of the most secured areas of the world, we ask the uncomfortable questions, “How easily could terrorism happen here?” and “What causes this to happen?”
The Founding Fathers were students of history and so must we be. For their experiment of self-governance to be successful long-term, they assembled a system of governance that provided a common defense and general welfare of the United States.
They finely balanced freedom with government, knowing that too much government can bring tyranny and too little government would bring anarchy.
They also understood how powerful government could get when loosed from its Constitutional moorings, including how damaging foreign entangling alliances could be. President George Washington said in his Farewell Address of 1796, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible…. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.”
There is great wisdom in what he said, and yet it’s been one of the hardest to uphold, as the growth of government is built upon an accumulation of power. Recall what Lord Acton said of power: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
In an example of this, The New American pointed out in its September 3, 2007, issue, the Islamic prophet “Muhammad became a military dictator, attacking, killing and taking plunder to finance his empire” and developed the Islamic state, “a political entity [built] on a religious foundation.”
While we recognize that not all followers conform to this extreme version of Islam, the article points out that “failure to examine the aggressive elements of Islam and to put them into proper historical perspective is to make a perilous mistake at a time when those elements are increasingly at the center of the world’s conflicts.”
Absolutely. And when we learn about the origins of Hamas, it opens our eyes as to how terrorism is government-sponsored.
Back in 2009, former Congressman Ron Paul explained to the House of Representatives the blowback of foreign policy specifically involving Hamas.
He said, “You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat.” Recall that Arafat was the long-time leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
“You say, Well, yeah, it was better then and served its purpose, but we didn’t want Hamas to do this. So then we, as Americans, say, Well, we have such a good system; we’re going to impose this on the world. We’re going to invade Iraq and teach people how to be democrats. We want free elections. So we encouraged the Palestinians to have a free election. They do, and they elect Hamas,” he said.
“So we first, indirectly and directly through Israel, helped establish Hamas. Then we have an election where Hamas becomes dominant, then we have to kill them. It just doesn’t make sense. During the 80s, we were allied with Osama bin Laden and we were contending with the Soviets. It was at that time our CIA thought it was good if we radicalize the Muslim world. So we finance the Madrassas school to radicalize the Muslims in order to compete with the Soviets. There is too much blowback,” he said.
While the time will come later for Israelis to reckon their government actions, the U.S. government has much blood on its hands. Foreign aid, for instance, is not the tool you might think it is.
Founder of The John Birch Society Robert Welch wrote in the August 1966 JBS Bulletin, “The American ‘foreign aid’ program was conceived by Communists, started and nourished along by Communists, and built eventually by Communist influences and propaganda into gigantic proportions, as a means of helping the Communists and their socialist forerunners everywhere in taking over their respective countries. But it was sold to the American people, of course, as exactly the opposite; as a means of preventing the Communist advance.”
During World War II, the Lend-Lease Act supposedly brought “foreign aid” to countries for the “defense” of the United States. Instead, this act gave the Soviets all the materials and know-how for an atomic weapon as evidenced in the book we printed many years ago called From Major Jordan’s Diaries.
The U.S. State Department used all tools at its disposal to help the Chinese Communists take over free China from Chiang Kai-shek. That disastrous decision led to millions of dead Chinese. And Communist China repays us by decimating our manufacturing and mining sectors.
But yet, had we followed the advice of the Founding Founders, we would not have to contend with the consequences of such a reckless foreign policy that continues to bite us time and again.
As Iran comes under much scrutiny for its part in the Hamas attack, let’s point out that there are bigger partners here.
The September 3, 2007 issue of The New American reported, “Syria and Iran are scorned in much of the Western world for supporting terrorism, but neither one is the puppeteer directing the worldwide terror network — Russia is.”
The article continues, “Evidence for the existence of an ongoing Soviet/Russian strategic plan to foment and use Islamic extremism is very extensive and goes far to explain the inordinate hatred of Muslim fundamentalists for America and the West. Not only is al-Qaeda aligned with the Kremlin, so are the other major ‘Islamist’ terror groups including PLO/al-Fatah, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Of course, none of those groups would amount to much if not for the immense assistance they receive from Iran and Syria, regimes that were primary client-state terror sponsors for the Soviets and continue in that role for Russia under Putin.”
Enter stage left, Putin’s reaction to the Hamas attack. Who does he blame for it? According to Yahoo News, he blames “the U.S. for failing to seek compromises in the region before the conflict unfolded. Putin said he was in contact with both sides, adding that the U.S. had not taken the interests of the Palestinian people into account.”
Russian TV news also mocked Israel and the U.S. for sleeping while Hamas planned and carried out its attack.
Who else is siding with Russian Communists, the historical paymasters of terror?
Black Lives Matter, dozens of leftist student groups in Harvard, and the Democratic Socialists who held a rally in support of Hamas in New York City. Many other cities also hosted rallies attended by leftists.
Also, while demonstrating just one more reason that the United States must get out of the United Nations, the UN’s Human Rights Council released a statement blasting Israel and held a moment of silence for those killed in “occupied Palestine.”
The New American gives us some additional background on Hamas. It reported in 2007 that Hamas, which is “the Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement,” “is a Palestinian Sunni terrorist organization founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. One of Hamas’ claims to infamy is its popularization of suicide bombing as a terror weapon, pioneering in recruiting females and children as suicide killers.”
This is who the UN chooses to empathize with.
We’d rather cheer for the Jewish heroes that have emerged during this attack. Stories of heroism are just starting to come out, including an astute, young woman who assembled and armed a security team that saved many lives in her community. Their team defensively killed around 20 terrorists, as reported by Breitbart.
And we wonder why governments want to disarm citizens.
If indeed the Hamas attack was a surprise to American intelligence, then it should not be too surprising. Look at the current focus on these agencies. They are directed to focus on political opposition and demonizing law-abiding, pro-life, and pro-Second Amendment patriots.
Plus, the reorientation of the Department of Justice to actively violate the God-given rights of its citizens is repugnant. The DOJ has put grandmothers into prison for essentially trespassing violations. It has sent SWAT teams after conservative Catholics and other pro-life advocates. It has built and supported the false narrative that American patriots who love the Constitution are domestic terrorists. Instead it supports the evil chaos that the Left has brought to our schools, our places of business, and our places of worship.
Needless to say, all that the Founding Fathers put into place to safeguard freedom for generations is under attack.
Terrorism is meant to keep people fearful, but government has an obligation to adhere to its constitutional limitations, and protect its people. Given how porous our borders are, our irresponsible and meddling foreign policy, and our wanting to spread democracy abroad, just how long will it be before such terrorism that Israel has just seen visits us?
Out of the 10 million over the last several years, who knows the type of individuals that have come through our borders illegally?
Frank Delano Roosevelt was purported to have said, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
The erosion of the self-governing experiment of freedom has been planned from long ago. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Fight back with education, just as the Founding Fathers suggested. An educated electorate can ensure Constitutional protections that can keep this country free and safe.
Join The John Birch Society, and we’ll show you how. Members may already be working in your community.
I’m Bill Hahn for The John Birch Society, and until next time, learn more and take action!
