Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program

Wow. This is a serious escalation - but it works to Israel’s advantage. Strengthening Israel without engendering sufficiently potent blowback.

I think there are three points to make.

1) The Israelis have every right and responsibility to defend their citizens from a deranged enemy that has unequivocally declared their wish is to wipe the Jewish state from the face of the earth. Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions are Israel’s problem. As the Holocaust taught, Jews have to to take seriously those intent on the Jewish extermination. Hitler’s intent was made plain from the start in his Mein Kampf. The Ayatollahs have made the destruction of Israel their major foreign policy goal. Israel must believe them.

2) I think Israel is right to say that a preemptive strike was necessary and that it had to take this threat very seriously. No-one can seriously believe that Iran’s nuclear program is for purely for civil purposes. There is no lack of oil in Iran for production of electricity, and there is no commercial reason for enriching uranium to the levels they have. Plenty of countries operate commercial nuclear reactors without Uranium enrichment. The Trump negotiations in Rome failed. The US was the carrot side of these negotiations, and Israel was the stick. I can’t see how these talks can possibly end in half measures, (like the 2015 deal). It’s either no enrichment and dump the centrifuges, or out comes the stick. As Akhtar Makoii reporting recently in “Iran risks US fury after increasing uranium stockpile” (Telegraph):

A new report from the UN nuclear watchdog revealed that Iran had added 133.8kg of uranium in the last three months, which, if enriched to 90 per cent, would be enough for three nuclear bombs. (Recent increase in uranium extraction)

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Islamic Republic had increased its stockpile of 60 per cent enriched uranium to 408.6kg from 274.8kg in early February. (Doubling the uranium enrichment to 60% which is the weapons-grade uranium)

Tehran now has enough fissile material for 10 nuclear weapons, and the US estimates that it could be converted in less than two weeks. (Only 2 weeks to make 10 nuclear weapons) The accumulation has accelerated despite talks between the two aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for the potential lifting of sanctions.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has warned that any potential nuclear deal with the Trump administration could trigger a revolt within the elite military force, (probably explains why the IRGC commander was executed by Israel) The Telegraph understands. One senior official said: “The commanders have warned the leader that striking a deal with the current American government would risk losing support from a significant segment of society and provoke deep anger among IRGC commanders.”

3) Iran is definitely weakened. Israel has already breached Iranian air space with targeted strikes and Iran has only responded with hundreds of drone/strike ballistic missiles at Israel which could not penetrate the joint air defenses of Israel and the US. None of the Arab nations agree with Iran and many are set to join the Trump Accords. No more al-Assad, the Iranian proxies are debilitated. There’s no reason why negotiations can’t continue. Trump’s bargaining position just got a lot stronger.

Air India Crash

Christ.

Sympathies and condolences to the families who have lost a loved one.

Horrific ball of fire. I can’t even imagine the few moments before it crashed. 

Israel’s moral strength against Hamas

I really wanted to post about this earlier this week, but I was too busy.

There are 3 things worth noting:

1. Another Hamas chief (Mohammed Sinwar) has been sent to meet his 72 virgins. 

2. Hamas communication centre was under a hospital in Khan Younis. He was hiding under sick people.

3. It proves - once again - just how exemplary the IDF is. They set a serious bombs to detonate causing the Hamas’ communication centre to collapse on itself without harming or destroying the hospital and the patients. It’s an incredible feat of engineering, intelligence and moral decency and principles in fighting their enemy. According to the jpost:

The bombs, each weighing about a ton, were designed so that two points within the hospital would be bombed, causing the sand to collapse inward and block the tunnel in such a way that anyone inside couldn’t escape. Simultaneously, aircraft attacked the tunnel at additional points, with the strikes so precise that dozens of bombs landed just centimeters apart, each deepening the penetration for the next bomb. Amazingly, despite dozens of tons of bombs hitting the tunnel, no hospital wing or building was damaged, and only the tunnel was destroyed in a way that trapped the gases from the bombs inside, creating a lethal gas space.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer. 

One side is discerning, careful, high-principled and humane .... and the other hides behind sick people and pregnant mums.

The Israeli military is the archetypal army of the Western world - as careful, meticulous and humane as can possibly be.

The Israeli aid plan in Gaza and deceptive reporting on IDF

The new aid-plan has proved to be a nightmare. I wish there was an easy solution – I can’t think of one. The aid distribution has become nasty and horrible traps for poor, vulnerable and hungry Gazans. You have to walk long distances, and there isn’t any protection that the IDF have installed from the mobs and the mania that can set in. Maybe that is something that Israel could have organised. Maybe. Maybe not.

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Look at the headline below.

Looking at the headline you’d think that the IDF randomly shot at innocent & hungry Gazans – for the sheer heck of it … (and according to “Gaza Officials” = aka: Hamas!)

However, in an IDF statement:

IDF: We are currently unaware of IDF fire during daylight hours that corresponds with the footage circulated in the media. The details are under review.

Overnight (Wednesday), IDF troops fired warning shots toward suspects who were advancing while posing a threat to the troops, in the area of the Netzarim Corridor. 

This is despite warnings that the area is an active combat zone. The IDF is aware of reports regarding individuals injured, the details are under review.

The question here is which is more likely?

That the IDF randomly shot at tired and hungry Palestinians begging for food or that the Hamas brutality and rivalry (over control) led to the Palestinian deaths?

While accidents do happen, the IDF does NOT have a policy of opening fire at random civilians. It does NOT have a motive to “make” mistakes or shoot at non-combatants. I say this acknowledging that the IDF have sometimes appeared to have covered-up its mistakes. No army is perfect, and those incidents are the exception: not the rule.

Instead, the so-called “support” that Hamas “enjoy” is never earned. It is taken by force and oppression. They have impoverished and exploited the inhabitants through their brutality, control of food and aid distribution, civilian infrastructure, prevention of civilian evacuation, never mind so much as a protest.

I argued in a previous blogpost that the quondam UNWRA food distribution was one of Hamas’ major weapons in this conflict (both for PR purposes and to enslave its people). Israel removed that weapon. Ergo, now Hamas sabotage efforts to feed its own people to get that weapon back. It’s insane that NGOs, aid groups and the international community are otherwise implicitly supporting Hamas.

The GHF issued a statement saying that their humanitarian staff were violently attacked by Hamas as they were travelling to an aid distribution centre in Gaza. 5 of their members killed. 

And thus, the absolute of depravity that leads one to attack people providing food for your own people is breathtaking ... while Israel is framed as the nasty party.

The Trump-Musk divorce

So, the romance has died – in such open nastiness and bickering. 

As I always said, Trump is not a conservative. No fiscal hawk. Cutting spending was merely a pretext to do away with programs he disliked and people he distrusted. And, now they’re gone: he’s perfectly happy to spend the savings (and then some) on stuff he wants.

Musk was naive. He bought into the notion that Trump actually wanted to get spending under control. I honestly think he was taken in with the hype of MAGA. Thus, he felt used and stupid with the tariffs and when the budget bill coming out. Musk torched his career thinking he was rescuing America just to find out he got suckered.

We all knew it would end this way. And, as always with Trump, taking the low road with insults and pettiness. This time, they both went to the gutter. Nothing more than a national embarrassment. Musk had a nasty side too. I remember him using the pedo accusation against someone who attacked him. Musk, this time, uses Epstein.

We have another 3.5 years of this embarrassment to end.

Nothing is serious anymore

The “bigly beautiful bill”.

Is everything a slogan?

Photo: the yellow door

Westminster Bridge and Big Ben

After the restoration.

The cover-up of Biden’s decline

This is a scandal. 

I watched this interview by Channel 4 with Tapper on his new book “Original Sin”.

It shows that the Democrats were willing to put the nation at risk to hold onto power.  They covered up for a man whose cognitive decline would disqualify him from any ordinary job.

Tapper would have us believe that the American journalistic community were not aware of the senility of President Biden because his inner circle kept a “tight lid” on the situation. 

The omerta-like attitude among the Democrats and the bullying by the Biden administration is interesting … but I’m just a blogger who reads the news, and it was v. clear to me that Biden was losing the plot. He looked like a confused old man most of the time last year, trying to find his words, forgetting names, trying to spit out 2-3 thoughts all at the same time resulting in garballed sentences, wandering around looking confused, falling over. Some people believed his decline was “fake news” until that disastrous debate. Since the mainstream media covered for him.

The truth is that America’s “establishment” journalists, for the most part, knew, or tried to avoid full knowledge of, the situation because (1) Biden was a Democrat, and (2) it could be “justified” because they wanted to avoid a Trump redux.

The scandal is not only about who ran the White House – but how the White House and the Democrat establishments deceived the American people, but how the mainstream media went along with it.

Samson and Delilah by Peter Paul Rubens

Stunning.

There are 2 paintings at the National Gallery by the 17th century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens which are breathtaking. Truly incredible works which stop you in your tracks. This one is “Samson and Delilah” painted in 1609. The next one to follow.

It depicts the Old Testament tale of Samson and Delilah – a tale of lust, deception, betrayal, and revenge. Delilah was bribed by the Philistines (origin of the word “Palestine”) to seduce Samson and discover the secret of his great strength. God gave him great strength because of his vow to never cut his hair. Delilah kept on pestering him, and eventually he gave in and told her his secret. As he slept in her lap, she beckoned soldiers and an assistant to cut his hair.

In Rubens’s painting, Samson’s crimson dress is incredible. Especially its crevices and folds, on top of a golden shimmering fabric. You can almost feel its sikliness. Dramatic lighting is a nod to Caravaggio. The painting has so many vivid and powerful colours to match the power and drama of the story.

The lust is powerfully depicted. Delilah’s bosoms exposed & Samons is half-dressed.

It’s interesting just how beautifully curly & short Samson’s hair already is!! And I love the curvature of the fingers and the arms. The heel of the foot appears to stick out of the painting (over an exquisitely decorated rug).

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There were interesting articles a few months ago about this painting being a potential forgery. See Dalya Alberge writing in “Fresh doubt cast on authenticity of Rubens painting in National Gallery” (Guardian) and Abigail Buchanan writing in “The National Gallery ‘masterpiece’ that’s probably a fake” (Telegraph). I am persuaded by the NG’s belief it is a genuine painting by Rubens. They examined the painting’s materials and concluded it was consistent with that period. The spokesman said: 

“Samson and Delilah has long been accepted by leading Rubens scholars as a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens. Painted on wood panel in oil shortly after his return to Antwerp in 1608 and demonstrating all that the artist had learned in Italy, it is a work of the highest aesthetic quality. A technical examination of the picture was presented in an article in the National Gallery’s Technical Bulletin in 1983. The findings remain valid.”