NewsNation’s Leland Vittert provides his expert analysis and perspective on the Israel-Hamas war in the Nov. 3 edition of his War Notes column.
Breaking: Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, stays in his bunker. His “major speech” was more of a whimper than a bang and left the Palestinians/Hamas on their own.
The dirty secret of the Middle East: Nobody wants to die for the Palestinians.
We’ll spare you the victory lap of our predictions but the Israeli battlefield violence of action leading to big successes appears to have put Iran and its proxies on their heels.
Keep going: Israel’s defense minister says no “pause,” much less no ceasefire, while there are still hostages. The statement to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Israeli soil proves Israel views this conflict as “blue and white,” as in Israel against the world.
Let’s be honest: Calls for humanitarian pauses are more about Democrats’ American domestic political considerations, not a military or humanitarian reality.
The military reality: After Oct. 7, the IAFs use of combined arms is extraordinarily impressive, and for all the talk of massive casualties during urban warfare, they’ve lost less than 30 since the ground counter offensive began. Tactical momentum leads to strategic victories. The IDF won’t give that up to satisfy Democrats in America.
Watch: Israel’s 669 Unit, the rough equivalent to Air Force PJs, in action.
Watch: Hamas police (allegedly) shooting at their own residents as they try to flee. Certainly, the UNRWA will investigate swiftly.
Read this line twice: “(Hamas) roasted babies in ovens.”
New testimony from Israeli first responders should make anyone gasp and feel ill. Journalists and others have seen a 47-minute video that is not public with video evidence of Hamas’s worst atrocities.
We predict: As public pressure increases for a ceasefire because of the plight of civilians, Israel will release some of the unseen video — additional evidence of atrocities.
Be fair: The civilian hostages held below ground in Gaza have it a lot worse than the civilian Palestinians suffering above ground. After all, approximately 240 men, women and children will spend the weekend held captive by terrorists who “roasted babies in ovens.”
The other side: Hamas’s fighters prove brutally effective in butchering unarmed civilians, but crumble against an actual army. What did Iran exactly train them in?
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy spoke on CNN about his plan for a humanitarian “pause.”
These are a few questions for the senator that CNN did not ask: How short will it be? Will Hamas pause? And what does a more “proportional” response mean? Does that mean Israeli soldiers should start baking Palestinian babies in ovens to ensure things are truly “proportional”? “Civilian casualties are too high.” Is he taking Hamas’s numbers at face value?
And, we are still waiting for information about “Mr. Pallywood.” For all the fear about misinformation and disinformation, wouldn’t it be nice if big news organizations had someone to get to the bottom of “Mr. FAFO” and this six-fingered child in Gaza.
Campus craziness
To be fair, it appears there is truth to the argument that many claiming they support Hamas have no idea what Hamas stands for, as a social experiment from Facts for Peace suggests.
My good friend and former Associated Press executive Dan Perry is out with an excellent piece about this: “Progressives rallying for Hamas on U.S. campuses are missing something simple – Hamas is the enemy of Palestine, and a genuine scourge to all humanity.”
The problem: When people are chanting they want to kill you, history tells Jews to take them seriously.
The dangerous world is getting more dangerous
President Biden is getting a lot of praise for how he’s handling the conflicts since they started in Ukraine and Israel. Wouldn’t it have been easier if his team could have prevented them?
An opinion in the Wall Street Journal says, “Biden needs a new foreign policy team.”
Foreign policy failures have become a domestic headache.The Democrats local problem is branding. Politico wants to know how Democrats regain the moral high ground with working class (traditional values) voters.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.