WHAT is war like? “Hell” is the best description.
The worst thing human beings can do. But when you are attacked it is a necessary evil.
Commentators around the world, many themselves probably sitting in their underwear, screamed that stopping Hamas terrorists to underwear was an atrocityTwitter
The real-world conflict going on in Israel and GazaReuters
Yet we live in an era which can now view that evil like never before.
Today, many battlefield encounters can be watched on GoPro video, like an advanced reality game. Except this is reality. And it’s not a game.
While covering the Israel-Hamas war in recent months I have been repeatedly struck by the gap between the real world and the virtual one.
In the real world, soldiers have to make split-second decisions. In the online world, people get to linger over these decisions, judge them and literally replay them.
In the real world, things have to be done which don’t look nice when you’re sitting at home scrolling through the morning’s news.
There are few clearer examples of this divide than the outrage this week at pictures of suspected Hamas terrorists being rounded up by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Some photos of this went viral online. And they showed scores of Palestinian men of fighting age stripped down to their underwear.
Commentators around the world, many themselves probably sitting in their underwear, screamed that this was an atrocity happening in front of their eyes.
It was no such thing. It is the sort of thing which happens in a war zone.
Hamas keep claiming that the people of Gaza are running out of every supply. Water. Electricity. Food.
So how come the one thing they never run out of is rockets? The Israeli army is searching for Hamas terrorists as it makes its way through Gaza.
And it just so happens that the cowards of Hamas don’t wear military uniforms. They prefer to wear civilian clothes, blending in among the population they use to protect themselves.
Because in reality the terrorists of Hamas use all the citizens of Gaza as human shields. They have done this for years by using schools and hospitals as command centres, torture chambers and weapons stores.
Hamas has done it ever since they seized control of Gaza in 2007 — murdering their fellow Palestinians as they did so. With the billions in foreign aid handed to them by UK governments and others, the leadership enriched themselves. Yet even while they seized the foreign aid, Hamas leaders chose to build — to use all the money and resources they were given to build an elaborate underground network to protect themselves.
They used the people of Gaza above as protection, knowing that the Israelis — like the British — try to minimize civilian casualties in conflict.
But the result is that the IDF have to clear Gaza tunnel by tunnel.
They are losing many good men in the process. They are looking not only for the leadership of Hamas but the Israeli civilians Hamas stole on October 7.
This means every civilian of fighting age has to be considered a potential combatant. These were the rules Hamas decided to play by.
So it is hardly surprising the Israelis have to check for themselves who they are dealing with. They also have to watch out for suicide bombers, who of course hide explosives under their clothing.
This means the IDF have to demand that some suspects strip to their under-wear, in order that the IDF can make sure they are not facing either armed Hamas terrorists or suicide bombers.
It might not look nice in a photo.
But I can tell you it looks a lot nicer than the results of a suicide bomber de- tonating among a group of soldiers and civilians.
But, gosh, how the armchair generals of Twitter/X and other mediums have raved. How the BBC and other media have revelled in showing these photos and implying some war crime.
One left-wing commentator was especially outraged.
This was someone who cast doubt on the October 7 atrocities because he himself hadn’t seen videos of Hamas actually raping women.
Yet he claimed the photos from Gaza showed some outrageous breach of human rights.
I wonder how other battles would have looked it they had occurred in the age of social media?
D-Day could have been covered from the point of view of occupied France.
People could have seen the terrible damage done to French farmland by the invading Allied forces.
Round-ups of Nazi soldiers might have struck some people as unduly harsh over their morning cappuccino.
Well, that’s what war is like.
I’m just amazed by the number of people who think they know how they’d prosecute a war when they’ve never been near one.
CONTAIN your excitement. The role of First Minister of Wales is available. Which non-entity will it be? An excitable BBC report says two early frontrunners are Vaughan Gething and Jeremy Miles. I know, me neither.
Excitement, the BBC says, comes from the fact “Mr Gething would be the first black politician to lead the country, while Mr Miles would be its first openly gay First Minister”.
Whoop-a-dee-doo-dah! Maybe if Welsh voters push, they can get their first black openly gay leader by 2025.
It is so boring, this “identity” game. We’re a tolerant country but it isn’t clear we are better run than ever.
There are plenty of minority people in power but the cost-of-living and housing crises aren’t solved. Concentrate on that. On how competent someone is.
Not how many minority boxes they tick.
Good on you, Oprah, if this is thanks to magic slimming pill
OPRAH WINFREY has finally admitted her big secret – she is on a fat-loss wonderdrug.
GettyOprah Winfrey has admitted using an Ozempic-style weight loss drug[/caption]
Having lost a noticeable amount of weight in recent months, she finally confirmed it.
In a statement yesterday she said she didn’t want to be “shamed” any more about using the Ozempic-style drug. Personally, I can’t see why anyone should feel shame about taking it. Ozempic is said to cure some people of alcoholism.
Nobody would shame anyone for taking something to help them get off booze.
So why should anyone feel shame for taking a drug to get them off the doughnuts?
Trump hiding in wait
GET ready for Trump, round two.
The Republican Party has finished a round of debates for the party’s presidential nomination and one person was noticeable by his absence.
ReutersTrump is not known for having a forgiving attitude towards his enemies[/caption]
The front-runner. Donald Trump.
It turns out to have been a canny decision by him. The other candidates knocked lumps out of each other while he sat back, with the rest of America, and watched.
The party has some exceptionally talented candidates. In any normal season Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis would have stood out.
But the elephant in the room lurked. And now the season is effectively over, he remains the staunch lead among Republican primary voters.
It is a disaster for the party. Because among other things, Trump is not known for having a forgiving attitude towards his enemies. If he gets the nomination, he will use it to knock every other Republican.
But if you think that’s going to be crazy, wait till you consider the real possibility that he could beat Joe Biden next year.
With the economy in the US teetering on recession, it only needs a bit of a swing for disgruntled voters to chuck Biden out of the White House. And at the moment it seems like the most likely candidate to replace him is Trump.
If you didn’t like him the first time around then just wait for Trump: The Sequel. He’s back. And this time, wow, does he have a grudge.
Trans: The wig debate
“TRANS” issues really don’t interest me that much.
FacebookThe problem is that Melissa Poulton does indeed look like a man in a wig[/caption]
It affects less than one per cent of the population. And we’ve all got bigger things to worry about.
If some bloke thinks he’s a woman then good luck to him. The problem comes when it is demanded that everyone else agrees.
This week it was a candidate for the Green Party claiming to be outraged that people didn’t take him seriously as a woman.
Melissa Poulton was especially outraged by a Conservative MP suggesting that he is just “a man in a wig”.
The problem is that Poulton does indeed look like a man in a wig. And that is because he is, in fact, a man in a wig.
Nothing wrong with that in itself. I’ve known many fine men who’ve worn wigs.
But when it’s a great, unconvincing mop and the person says we have to agree that they’re a lesbian because of it then, sorry, but no.
“Live and let live” is one thing. “Live and do what I say” is something completely different.
And there’s no reason anyone should be forced to go along with it.
What a cheek
FAT pride remains in full flight in the US.
Southwest Airlines has been praised this week for introducing a new fat-friendly policy.
It has caved in to pressure from overweight customers to be given more wiggle room.
Passengers of a larger build will benefit from a new “customer of size” policy. It will allow passengers to request a complimentary extra seat even if it means kicking others off the flight.
One influencer praising the policy said as a size 20 she often feels “the anxiety of flying”, but that the new policy will alleviate that “a lot”.
I don’t know about her anxiety, but I don’t think I could contain my rage if I got bumped off a flight because of someone else’s very personal excess luggage.
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