Brutal Hamas terror attack - thank you George Bush!

By Middle East Correspondent Rebecca Bell
with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

The horrific news coming in from Israel of a multi-faceted bloody Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians and villages inside Israel's 1967 borders is still being digested.  The prospect of thousands of more deaths, Israeli and Palestinian alike, seems likely.  Hamas rockets have reached Tel Aviv. and Hamas terrorists wantonly and happily slaughtered hundreds of Israelis who dared to attend a dance party inside the state's pre-1967 borders.

With the grave situation still in flux and all Americans ready to unite behind President Biden's support of Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas, Republicans joined this bipartisan response to emphasize American unity and resolve in this crisis.

Actually, we're just s***in' you.  

Of course the Republicans didn't.  

Apparently they have been texted a few idiotic points blaming Biden because he negotiated the release of detained Americans in Iran by in part letting Iran have access to its own money for humanitarian purposes.  And Iran does support Hamas. So by the transitive property of Republican ratf***ery, it's all Joe Biden's fault.

Here's corrupt Republican Senator Rick Scott, setting aside his love of the Fifth Amendment for a minute and weighing in thusly:

.@JoeBiden funded this attack when he bowed to Iran and gave $6 BILLION to this evil regime that starts every day plotting to destroy Israel.

While Biden is silent, his appeasement of Iran and Hamas terrorists is heard in every siren blaring across Israel. https://t.co/4UKHEvVMfk

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 7, 2023

Of course the Republicans' favorite bloodthirsty dictator, Vladimir Putin, also supports Hamas but you haven't heard any of his Republican apparatchiks saying boo about him. 

As long as we're ignoring the real issue of what America should be doing to both support Israel while limiting human suffering, let's follow Rick Scott's lead and try to make some partisan political hay of the unfolding disaster.

How is it that Gaza, a relatively rich, educated, well-located city-state of 1,500,000 fell into the hands of Hamas butchers?

Funny story, but it all goes back to this f***in' guy:

Although we are aware that none of you care about history unless it's Taylor Swift's exes, let's go back to the ancient Middle East, in 2005 to be exact.

In the summer of 2005, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom no one ever described as dovish on Palestine, decided after 38 years of occupation to withdraw all Israeli citizens and troops from Gaza:

He began Gaza as a unilateral move while Mr. Arafat was alive and insists on it now because Mr. Sharon does not really believe in negotiations....He decided to leave Gaza for many reasons: demographic, political, financial, diplomatic, his aides say, adding that Palestinian violence was not an important factor, especially after the Israeli Army defeated the Palestinians at the height of the last intifada, in spring 2002.

Still, the anti-pullout movement in Israel, which includes much of Mr. Sharon's own Likud Party, is, like Hamas, accusing the old soldier of capitulating to violence.

Observers at the time noted that Gaza was poised on a knife's edge between Fatah, which showed some interest in building a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Hamas, which favored killing all the Jews.

There were some hopes that Fatah could build a successful city-state in Gaza that might serve as a springboard to a true Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, although they were voiced by the likes of Iraq War stooge Six Months Tom Friedman:

Condi to the rescue!

The other hugely important fact is that Israel is going to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in mid-August. In a courageous move to shrink Israeli control of Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is risking his life, and defying all the schemers and backstabbers in his party trying to topple him, to unilaterally uproot the Jewish settlers in Gaza.

This pending withdrawal and the eruption of a pent-up desire for normalcy among both Israelis and Palestinians together form the foundation for rebuilding the crumbled peace process. That's the good news. The bad news is that although this Israeli withdrawal is unilateral, for it to provide the peace and prosperity that both sides want from it requires a series of complicated agreements about how Gaza will relate to Israel and the rest of the world. Many key details are still not fully baked -- at all....

Finally, if this Gaza withdrawal is going to happen in a way that lays the foundation for a wider settlement, which it can, it will in the end require a U.S. broker, guarantor and arm-twister -- at the highest level.

So far, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just breezed in and out. Bad call. Not only will she not escape failure, but she is also missing how emotionally important and helpful a high-level U.S. embrace of the Israeli majority's desire to get out of Gaza would be right now. Also, helping to knit together all the unresolved issues would not only bring off the withdrawal in the right way, but would also bolster America's standing in this region at a key time.

God created American secretaries of state for this kind of moment.

Then God laughed the Eternal One's ass off.

To provide a rationale for the continuing bloody stalemate in Iraq after the original ones were shown to be, ahem, lies, Bush and his stooges, including well-known moderate mainstream intellectual and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, orchestrated a series of elections to justify the preposterous claim that the Iraq War was in defense of democracy:

 

Congressional Research Service report, January 29, 2008.

A few weak American clients succumbed to this pressure, including Fatah Leader Mohammad Abbas, who had avoided holding elections for years because he knew he'd lose to Hamas.

He did lose.  Hamas won.  Abbas, with American and Israeli support, ignored the election results.  Not long thereafter, Hamas simply seized power in Gaza, with the results now before us.

It's possible that Hamas might have seized power in Gaza anyway, but the elections gave them the legitimacy to proclaim themselves the true Palestinian government.  Their reign of terror in Gaza has continued without meaningful interruption since 2007, and exploded into Israel yesterday.

Bush's willingness to sacrifice the delicate peace between Israel and the Palestinians for a f***ing stupid talking point intended to make his Iraq War disaster look other than a pointless effusion of blood and treasure marked another highlight of his disastrous foreign policy that left the United States weaker and the world an infinitely more dangerous place.

Does that mean that Bush and his Republican enablers, many of whom have reopened for business as our Wonderful Allies, are as evil as Hamas?  Of course not.

But it's a reminder that Republicans have been busily undermining US national security for the past 23 years.  It's something to keep in mind when you hear Republicans trying to blame Joe Biden for the outrages of Hamas.

If you want to learn more about the most sensitive details of US foreign policy and national security, you could dig into the Internet archives for yourself.  Or if you're too busy, just swing by the omelette bar at Mar-a-Lago.  Your gracious host will be only too glad to tell you everything he knows.