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Julie Hartman, a 24-year-old woman with whom I do a weekly podcast (“Dennis & Julie”), described the anti-Israel world perfectly: A vast number of people suffer from Israel Derangement Syndrome.
The description is, of course, based on the widely cited “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” which supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party deride as nonsense. Though I voted for former President Donald Trump and thought he was a very good, at times excellent, president, I never used that term during the four years of the Trump presidency. I did not regard opposition to Trump as necessarily an expression of psychological pathology.
Eventually, however, I changed my mind. I came to believe that much Trump hatred was rooted in psychology, not moral reasoning. This was particularly so regarding conservatives who became “Never Trumpers.” Given that the Left had taken over the once largely liberal Democratic Party, and given that the Left is the greatest threat to freedom and the entire American experiment since the Civil War, the only explanation for why a conservative would vote for a leftist rather than for Trump had to be a psychological one.
Whether or not one subscribes to the existence of a Trump Derangement Syndrome, “derangement syndrome” perfectly explains support for Hamas and the Palestinians (at this time, the two are largely the same, just as “Nazis” and “Germans” were largely the same, and therefore used interchangeably, during World War II).
On Sept. 21, The New York Times provided a perfect example of Israel Derangement Syndrome in a column written by Michael Walzer, a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, titled “Israel’s Pager Bombs Have No Place in a Just War.”
As is well known, last week, pagers used by Hezbollah terrorists exploded, killing a handful of them and wounding hundreds more. Amazingly accurate, the exploding pagers killed very few noncombatants.
Hezbollah is the Shiite and Lebanese equivalent of the Gaza-based Sunni Hamas. Like Hamas, Hezbollah has one purpose: to kill as many Israelis as possible and eradicate the Jewish state. Hezbollah has fired more than 8,000 rockets into Israel in an attempt to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled their homes in northern Israel and have not returned in nearly a year.
That Israel is being attacked for killing Hezbollah terrorists is proof that, according to the vast array of Israel-haters — the political, media and academic left, and Muslims in the Western world — Israel is not allowed to defend itself. It should now be obvious that the current hatred of Israel is not a result of Israel’s bombing of Gaza. When Israel targets Hezbollah terrorists — and only Hezbollah terrorists — it is equally condemned.
Which brings me to the Times column by Walzer.
Walzer writes: “The explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday were very likely war crimes — terrorist attacks by a state that has consistently condemned terrorist attacks on its own citizens.
“Yes, the devices most probably were being used by Hezbollah operatives for military purposes. This might make them a legitimate target in the continuous cross-border battles between Israel and Hezbollah. But the attacks … came when the operatives were not operating; they had not been mobilized and they were not militarily engaged. … It is important for friends of Israel to say: This was not right.”
According to Professor Walzer, terrorists can only be killed when they are “operating,” “mobilized” or “militarily engaged.” If they are not doing so, it is a “war crime” to kill them. Furthermore, the mere fact that these members of Hezbollah had those pagers — devices the professor admits “probably were being used by Hezbollah operatives for military purposes” — means these terrorists were “operating.” That’s why they had them: to plan and carry out operations against Israel.
That, dear reader, is derangement.
I wonder if the Israeli citizens were “operating” when Hezbollah launched 8,000 missiles at them? What kind of “operations” were the 1200 Israelis killed on October 7 involved in? Where was his outrage then? Walzer’s column is just another illustration that Leftism is just intellectual rationalization for supporting evil.
All,
“Is it a war crime to create terrorists”?
Some would make it a crime to shoot Burglars Robbers and Home Invaders they would want us to Copy the same mistake made by the UK and Mainland Europe
Sadly, some states have very strict gun laws when it comes to defending our homes. If someone invades my home without permission, you’re darned right I’m going to feel my life is in imminent danger.
The 2nd is under lawfare attack in every single state, but most prominently in blue ones, where I’m unfortunate enough to live. Last summer, a drug addict held 3 or 4 ppl who were leaving local churches at gunpoint to rob them. Thank God our sheriffs caught him! (Our local sheriffs rock).
The guy’s lucky he didn’t come to my church, because he would have been met with what he brought.
It is a war crime NOT to kill terrorists when the opportunity presents itself.
Pedophiles are not actually physically abusing children when they’re caught so they should be protected too.
“ Michael Walzer, a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study”
Says it all really.
advance propaganda and the devil’s lies
Sadly, that was the same part of Princeton that Albert Einstein was invited to when he left Germany to avoid the Nazis. He remained there until his death, I believe. What a change.
🎶🎶Got my keffiyah and my long white smock.
Goin’ to the Jihad Rock! 🎶🎶
the operatives were not operating; they had not been mobilized and they were not militarily engaged.
I suppose these same operators are not “operating” as they squat to relieve themselves somewhere out in the desert as they are moving toward their next assigned target, or heading off to programme more rockets to rain down upon non-combatant Israeli citizens in their home towns….
No bias whatever from this clown.. nope, not a nanogramme pf bias at all.
This guy has not read their book of satanic verses, else he would know all moozies are combatants at all times and in all places.
Ah, but then, what’s a little bias between “friends”. eh?
I have, over my sort of long life, read many thousands of pages of history, particularly of war and military operations as a “genre”, starting with Julius Caesar’s “Gallic Wars”, which I read in his original latin many decades back.
In ALL of that reading I have yet to come across any military action so brilliant, effective, surgically precise, and effective, as this pager attack. Utterly brilliant in every regard. Surgically accurate in that it ONLY targeted the guilty combatants bent upon destroying their target, Israel. Yes, a few innocents sadly happened to be near one of the targeted combatants.. but how many of those “accidentally” killed were totally innocent? Did they not know that person with the rigged pager was a combatant in the war to destroy Israel for no reason other than that they ARE Israel?
Choose your friends wisely and you will find less trouble.
No, Mr. Prager, in the case of Israel, it is “merely” the age-old and omnipresent ANTISEMITISM, rather than the Trump derangement – or any psychiatric syndrome!
The worst demonstration of this age-old and omnipresent ANTISEMITISM was the world reaction on the October 7, 2023 catastrophe, the world’s sympathy to the Gazan cannibals rather than to the Israeli victims.
“Is it a “war crime” to kill terrorists?” The curt answer is no. It is, however, a crime against the civilized people of this world to “not” kill them.
Terrorists are 2-legged vermin. At some point you have to deal with vermin in the only known effective way: complete and utter extermination. And you do it in such a way that they don’t grow back….!!
Is it terrorism to terrorize terrorists?
Dennis stop being polite. What you call Israel derangement syndrome is nothing more than Jew hate. When the world say Israel is entitle to defend itself but ———-. Means Israel is not allowed to win. The world loves dead Jews and hate living Jews who fight back.