America as Santa Claus | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    It hasn't been long ago when Hamas in the Gaza Strip was bombarding Israel mercilessly with their rockets - not terribly effectively, but mercilessly. They weren't terribly effective because Israel had the so called "Iron Dome" to ward off incoming rockets, and they had a lot of bomb shelters were the public could retreat for protection from the bombardment...

    The Israeli response to the unprovoked attacks by Hamas, was considerably more effective. The one thing that really hampered the Israeli response to being attacked was their efforts to avoid civilian casualties.

    One of the Hamas strategies was to locate their launch sites among the civilian population, near (or in) schools and other heavily populated public places. Israel spent a lot of effort warning the civilian population ahead of any bombing raids and suggesting they avoid the target areas. In the meantime, Hamas was encouraging them to stay. A lot of them stayed. The result was that a lot of civilians including children were injured by the Israeli retribution for the Hamas rocket attacks. In spite of the Israelis "tipping their hand" before launching attacks, the Hamas casualties grossly outnumbered those of Israel.

    It wasn't long before the pro Hamas "statisticians" around the world were using the disparity in casualties as "proof" that Israel was behaving badly. The propaganda worked well - at least among the anti-Israel crowd at the UN (which seems to be almost all). That would be the same tactic that Eric Holder, Jessse Jackson, and Al Sharpton - and a lot of other skin merchants - use to "prove" that minorities continue to be discriminated against. (I don't suppose it ever occurred to anyone that having more minorities incarcerated than whites could have something to do with the fact that more of them commit crimes.) The disparate treatment drumbeat was even heard coming from our own government (which maybe we don't "own" after all.) I don't recall the exact numbers but there were almost 2000 Palestinian deaths compared with fewer than 100 Israeli deaths. One would think that the Palestinians would think twice before initiating any more rocket attacks against Israel. Most of the casualties were expendable civilians (at least in the minds of the Palestinian propaganda machine). Seeing civilian casualties stacked up like cordwood makes for good propaganda - especially when children are included. It would seem that Hamas doesn't care much about the civilian casualties other than for their propaganda value

    To anyone who was giving the Israeli response to the unprovoked attacks even a little attention, it should be clear that the aggressor was the Islamic backed Hamas. Bad enough that so many believed the Hamas propaganda about the "disparate treatment", but now the AP is reporting that our renowned military strategist, John Kerry (surely with the approval of the Anointed One) announced that the US is sending funds to the Palestinians (think Islamic backed Hamas) in the Gaza Strip to support their rebuilding efforts. It isn't a great deal of money (reportedly $212M) but it's surely money that could have been used in the US for something worthwhile. Using US taxpayer money to help pay for the Palestinians to rebuild sounds like a great idea - if you are a Palestinian, (or a "rebuilding contractor") that is.. Even though they don't seem to care much for Christ or anything even remotely Christian they certainly accept the US handout. We should insist that they "harden" all the new construction so that next time the Israelis retaliate for unprovoked Palestinian rocket attacks, they won't do so much damage. I don't suppose it has occurred to anyone that if we let 'em suffer the consequences of their unprovoked attacks on Israel by letting them do their own rebuilding they may get a little more interested in living peacefully along side their neighbors...

    We can only wonder whose side the US is really on. Well, at least some of you can wonder. Others of us are already pretty sure. It's like they say, "If it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it looks like a duck, it's a duck. We seem to be working both sides of the street. If we had any integrity we would be supporting our friends. But then, maybe we are and the American public hasn't been told. or figured it out. Sooner or later you would think that the American Jews would figure out whose side the Anointed One is on and quit voting for him and his party.

    D'ya Think??