29 October—On the subject of Gaza, what could those Hamas idiots have been thinking when they started making plans, getting their act together, conniving, colluding, marshaling forces to invade Israel? You don’t have to be a Zionist or even approve of anything about the state of Israel to know—admit—that her armed forces are as good as they come. Invincible comes to mind, but invincible doesn’t exist in the real world. (Case in point, America’s armed forces; though, truth be told, they’ve long been compromised by purely politically motivated nincompoops in Washington.)

Israel’s intelligence services were also the best. But, as I wrote three weeks ago, Hamas caught them with their gatkes down. (Gatkes is Latin for underpants.) Israel’s legendary defense and intelligence establishments certainly have never been complacent, given the embattled little country’s precarious geographic location and rather insecure status in a largely antisemitic world. So what the hell happened to allow Hamas on the west coast and Hezbollah in the north to stage a successful blitz on two fronts?

Spilled milk? In all events, expect some heads in Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to roll—perhaps including Bibi’s—after the Tzahal (Israel Defense Forces) decisively defeat the country’s pernicious enemies yet again.

Meanwhile, we read now that cell-phone and broadband service have (finally?) been restored in the Gaza Strip. And probably cable television. Amazing how we were able to live without any of them in antediluvian times. There are parts of Litchfield County that still don’t have decent cell-phone, broadband, or cable TV service. Nor Hamas and Hezbollah.

Evidently the media were complaining about the lack of cell-phone service because they weren’t able to get all their human interest stories out to fill column-inches and air time. Don’t they all have satellite phones? Remember how war correspondents way back when actually wrote their stories and managed to get them out, including through horrendous combat conditions?

And remember how, when Hamas invaded Israel three weeks ago and took hostages and used some of them—and other innocents—as human shields, among other abuses and atrocities, the media invariably referred to Hamas as terrorists? Well, now the terrorists have been downgraded, upgraded, or just euphemized to combatants and militants. How long before Hamas becomes freedom fighters and revolutionary heroes?

And remember how race riots in places like Minneapolis provided a convenient excuse for criminals to loot and pillage shops and businesses? Well, now that’s happening in the Gaza Strip. It’s not unlikely the Gazans got the idea from American police not even trying to catch the criminals during and after what’s being called the breakdown of civil order.

And don’t forget Abdelnasser Rashid. Of Palestinian descent, he’s a freshman Democratic member of the Illinois House of Representatives. Interviewed last week on National Public Radio, he calmly and casually referred to “Israel’s march towards genocide.” No problem with Rashid expressing an opinion, to be sure. But the interviewer didn’t bother to ask him to defend or even explain his accusation . . .