Chris Trotter: The Right Move Against Hamas Was Not To Make One.

Israel's legal right to strike back at Hamas is unchallengeable. No nation, having suffered the sort of horrific attack unleashed upon Israel by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023, is ever going to be convicted in an international court of law for defending itself. It is the nature of Israel’s retaliation that is challengeable. In war, doing precisely what your enemy expects you to do is never a good idea. By responding to the 7 October attack in precisely the way Hamas anticipated, Israel has allowed the terrorists’ long-planned (and far some important) propaganda offensive to build and strengthen the pro-Palestinian Cause.

David Robinson: A modern day pogrom

* Pogrom: “An organized, often officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority group, especially one conducted against Jews”. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.)

On Saturday, 7 October 2023, on Shabbat and the celebration of Simchas Torah (Rejoicing of the Law), and 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, over 1000 Hamas terrorists broke through the border between Gaza and Israel. In a very carefully planned attack they tortured, raped, burned alive, beheaded and in other brutal ways murdered all they encountered. About 200 including the aged, infirm, handicapped, children and babies were kidnapped and dragged to Gaza to be hostages. One of the lucky four hostages to be released to date, a woman in her eighties, described how she was beaten by her captors when being dragged to Gaza. Young people attending an open air concert were not spared. 260 were murdered in cold blood.

Chris Trotter: Failing The “Leftist” Litmus Test.

Like the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza is serving as a remarkable litmus test for the Left. It is testing its moral compass, its understanding of international law, its grasp of geopolitical realities and, not least, its awareness of what the PR mavens call “the optics”. A substantial portion, even, perhaps, a majority, of the Left is failing all of these tests – badly. That this should be the case points to what would appear to be a dangerous cognitive weakness in contemporary progressivism – and to a West under siege.

Chris Trotter: Reaping The Whirlwind.

Had it not been for the intervention of the Queen Mother, Arthur “Bomber” Harris would never have got his statue. While all the other great British commanders of the Second World War were showered with honours and had their likenesses cast in bronze, Air Marshall Harris became someone the British Establishment found it expedient to overlook. Why? Because Harris was responsible – at least in terms of his strategic decision-making – for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.