The Moral Imperative of October 7

Also: The theocrats of Qatar. Scapegoating Biden. Dems and the rule of law.

To begin, I reviewed 'On Democracies and Death Cults' by Douglas Murray for Commentary this month. The book is a formidable work of journalism. I think many casual detractors of Murray would be surprised by the content if they bothered reading the book – which most have not. But it’s not a fun read. Murray brings us back to the Nova music festival and the Nir Oz kibbutz in the northwestern Negev desert where barbarism shattered the peace. And it reminds us again that October 7 didn’t rally the world around the Jewish cause, but the opposite:

Before the bodies of the dead had even been identified, a flood of anti-Semitism was unleashed by Islamists and progressive activists prowling for a new cause. “Palestine” soon metastasized into the cause of marchers at elite college campuses across the nation. “Queers for Palestine.” “Novelists for Palestine.” “BLM for Palestine.” It was an arms race in moral idiocy. Murray notes that in his home of Manhattan, a protest broke out in Times Square as Israelis were still fighting the remnants of Hamas in southern Israel. These crowds were festooned with genocidal slogans like “From the river to the sea,” “Resistance is justified,” and “Resistance is not terrorism.”

Incidentally, not one Israeli soldier was in Gaza proper on the morning of October 7.

Since that day, attacks on Jews have proliferated, not only in obvious places like France and Germany and Harvard, but on the Upper West Side and in Brooklyn. Murray does more than document the alliance between domestic Islamists and spoiled campus ignoramuses. He also exposes the rot within “nearly every elite educational institution in the country,” where professors regularly justify and celebrate the death cult in Gaza.

You can read the whole thing here.

Beware of third-rate, Islamist terrorist-loving petrostates offering gifts, Mr. President

Donald Trump is preparing to accept a repurposed luxury jet from Qatar, a nation he once correctly referred to as the world’s leading “funder of terrorism” and “radical ideology,” to replace an aging Air Force One. Qatar, the president says, will bequeath him the palatial jet “free of charge.” Well, there’s no such thing as a free plane. A typical no-frills Boeing 747-800 costs somewhere around $400 million. If this one weren’t so luxurious, the president wouldn’t want it. I wrote about the many other reasons the United States should not to accept such a gift from the terror-supporting state:

This all makes complete sense if you think of the sheikhdom as one might the Mafia. It’s in the protection racket.

Qatar has emerged as a leading mediator of hostage releases between Islamist groups and the West because it facilitates the ability of terrorists to take hostages in the first place. Since it invents nothing, designs nothing, and builds nothing (its workforce is 95% foreign), the only thing it can do is buy influence.

Qatar has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Hamas’s cause. Doha is where those vile Palestinian terrorist leaders, worth a collective $11 billion, sit in five-star luxury suites while Palestinian children in Gaza are sacrificed as fodder. Let’s remember that Hamas needs to survive for Qatar to remain relevant as a negotiator. If it wanted to pressure Palestinians to release hostages (and their bodies), it could have done it any time after Oct. 7, 2023. Yet nearly every Qatari-brokered Gaza ceasefire or hostage deal either involves Israel releasing large groups of terrorists to replenish the enemy or allows Hamas to regroup. Every deal Qatar pushes facilitates more war.

More here.

Scapegoating Joe Biden isn’t going to solve the Democratic Party’s problems

On this week’s podcast, Mollie and I discuss Qatar, debate the power of “neocons,” and talk about Jake Tapper's attempt to cover up his cover-up of Joe Biden's mental decline.

On that note, I also wrote on how the Democrats have been scapegoating Joe Biden for all the left’s considerable political problems. In many ways it is self-delusional. There’s a reason the Democratic Party’s polling is at historic lows right now, and it’s not just Biden’s memory problems:

One of the big criticisms of Biden is that he failed to make room for another candidate earlier. Almost surely, Kamala Harris would have been the nominee regardless of when Biden dropped out. Does anyone really believe a hyperambitious politician ensconced in the White House was going to step aside or let some middling governor wrest the nomination from her? The only Democrat who consistently outperformed Harris in most polls after Biden’s debate debacle was Michelle Obama. It was going to be Harris.

What makes anyone think that Harris would have experienced more success had she enjoyed more time? After an initial jolt up, the vice president’s popularity steadily declined. Harris needed less time, not more. The more the public heard from her, the more they disliked her.

Harris, like any other possible Democratic candidate, was compelled to run on the president’s record. And that record, championed by virtually every Democrat, was unpopular long before the media were compelled to acknowledge the president’s declining mental state.

The rest here.

Democrats think they are above the law

“For my friends, everything, for my enemies, the law,” Peru’s former dictator, Oscar Benavides, allegedly told his functionaries. This apocryphal quote illustrates how authoritarian regimes can reward allies while demanding that their opponents live by the letter of the law. It’s an outlook that was adopted by the modern Left. Democrats contend that President Donald Trump has destroyed the rule of law. Even if it were so, I’m afraid their protestations are hollow and fraudulent. Indeed, it takes a preternatural shamelessness for the Left to act as defenders of blind justice.

Even now, in many of the biggest alleged cases of Trump abuse, Democrats are putting their friends above the law.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is accused of helping an illegal immigrant evade arrest by federal authorities. Who knows, maybe she’ll beat the charges. If you listen to the Left, though, you would think the Trump administration detained Gandhi.

After Trump voluntarily surrendered himself to authorities at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on racketeering charges, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) held that Trump should be treated “exactly like everybody else.” Raskin is now saying Dugan’s arrest is a “drastic escalation and dangerous new front in Trump’s authoritarian campaign of trying to bully, intimidate, and impeach judges who won’t follow his dictates.”

Dugan, who was indicted by a grand jury, isn’t above the law. Nor, incidentally, are the laws that govern illegal immigration “dictates” from the president. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, the man Dugan allegedly hid from authorities, is facing charges of battery, domestic abuse, and infliction of physical pain or injury. He is not above the law, either.

Nor is Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka, or the three lawmakers who rushed through the gates and past security at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Civil disobedience may or may not be an effective way to protest, but it isn’t a shield from consequences.

The rest.

See you next week.