Scroll down to read this post.

 

Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


You can’t negotiate with someone who wants to kill you

Gaza and Israel

The horrors that occurred in Israel this past weekend when Hamas terrorists committed an organized attack on innocent civilians living near the Gaza Strip should finally put an end to demands that Israel negotiate with these people. Such negotiations are as pointless as the endless negotiations seen in the 1930s with Hitler. All you will do each time is to give up ground that is then used by these villians to continue waging war against you.

I say this with utter confidence for two reasons:

1. For decades the founding documents of both the Palestinian Authority (in control of the West Bank) and Hamas (in control of Gaza Strip) have made it very clear that they do not recognize the existence of Israel, and that their eventual goal is its utter destruction, including the elimination of all its citizens. Hamas this weekend demonstrated how these thugs intend to achieve that elimination, by killing every Israeli Jew they can find.

2. Repeatedly Israel has demonstrated forcefully its willingness to live in peace with the Palestinians, and each time has been met with hate and murder. In Gaza specifically Israel unilaterially exited in 2005, actually forcing Israelis who had settled there to give up their property so that Gaza could be handed in its entirety to the Palestinians as their own independent nation. At that moment the Palestinians had an opportunity to prove they wanted to live in peace. Instead, they elected a terrorist organization to run Gaza, and have spent the last two decades using it as a base for attacking and killing Israelis.

The attack this past weekend simply underlined these two fundamental facts. There can be no peace as long as Hamas and its genocidal leaders control Gaza. They must be eliminated without mercy, even if that means the death of thousands. Nor should we feel much sympathy for the many Palestinians who will die. They had a opportunity to elect someone else. Instead, they chose Hamas in 2006 to rule them, knowing full well its intended genocidal goals, and have in the ensuing two decades done nothing to oppose it. It is time for they themselves to pay for that support.

History can always teach us something. In 1944, as it was becoming very clear that Germany was about to lose the war, Dwight Eisenhower, the American general in charge of the war in Germany, was asked how he saw Germany’s future. He answered bluntly.

These things are for someone else to decide, but my personal opinion is that, following the conclusion of hostilities, there must be no room for doubt as to who won the war. Germany must be occupied. More than this, the German people must not be allowed to escape a sense of guilt, of complicity in the tragedy that has engulfed the world. Prominent Nazis, along with certain industrialists, must be tried and punished. Membership in the Gestapo and in the SS should be taken as prima facie evidence of guilt. The General Staff [of Germany’s military] must be broken up, all its archives confiscated, and members suspected of complicity in starting the war or in any war crimes should be tried. The German nation should be responsible for reparations to such countries as Belgium, Holland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, and Russia. The warmaking power of the country should be eliminated.

Eisenhower added that “The Germans should be permitted and required to make their own living, and should not be supported by America. Therefore choking off natural resources would be folly.”

Eisenhower was merely expressing what every Allied leader believed and intended to do. There were be no mercy to Germany until retribution was served, but then it would be allowed to rejoin the world as a nation on more or less equal terms.

The result of such merciless “tough love” was that for the next three-quarters of a century there was unprecedented peace and prosperity in Europe and Germany. While this tough policy might seem brutal, in the end its implacable implementation did Germany the most good.

For three quarters of a century we have refused to do the same for the Palestinians in the Middle East. Repeatedly we have instead treated them with kid gloves. We have provided them billions in aid, while treating them as victims who need this financial and emotional support. We have let even them choose terrorists as leaders, and to support the violence and murder these terrorists advocated, in the hope that by looking the other way and making excuses for their bad behavior we might win their good will and cooperation. Sadly, all it has won us is hate and violence.

Hamas's goal
Hamas’s long time and well publicized goal.

It is time for this weak policy to stop.

It is time to treat the Palestinians in Gaza as the Germans in Nazi Germany were treated. Eisenhower’s recommendations are a perfect blueprint for what must be done there. The Israelis must follow it, and resist any effort by its western allies to pull back. If anything, America and Europe should join in enthusiastically. The people that have been poisoning the Palestinian world from within must be removed, root and branch.

Only then might there be a chance for real peace and prosperity in the Middle East, not simply for the Israelis but the Palestinians themselves.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

37 comments

  • Related:

    AFGHANISTAN MAKE SENSE TO YOU NOW?

    “Gateway: “The Taliban Asks Iran for Passage Across Country to Assist Hamas in Annihilation of Israel – After Joe Biden Armed Taliban with $80 Billion in US Weapons and Supplies”

    Do you remember those not so many months ago when President Joe Biden via his radical Leftist anti-Israel / anti America handlers in the White House ordered all of American military forces and civilians out of Afghanistan? ”

    Read the rest and share on Facebook.

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/afghanistan-make-sense-to-you-now

  • The governments of the U.S. and Western Europe plus some other countries do not have spine nor “intestinal fortitude” to stand with Israel against Hamas and the other terrorist organizations. Our government, U.S., even sympathizes with the Arab terrorists. They have even called on Israel to not retaliate.

    Gaza deserves a Biblical Old Testament treatment that was given to some city-states during the time of the Judges.

  • David Eastman

    The only actual effective solution to this problem is “Palestine delenda est.” Unfortunately that’s simply not in the cards, there are too many people who, even now, will keep the blinders firmly over their eyes and believe that there could be peace if only the Israelis would just stop being racist and stop oppressing those poor Palestinians.

  • pzatchok

    I can feel for the Palestinians living inside the Gaza Strip. Basically wanted by no one. On the Libyan side they are free to travel and move around Libya plus the world.

    But they are nuts.

    This whole move is just stupid on every sense. It will gain them nothing not even sympathy for any cause they have. Short term they personally get a cheer among their friends but long term it will be forgotten except as an act of terrorism to the rest of the world.
    Its almost like their own form of birth control. If you have to many males go to war and die.

    Come on guys its been almost 80 years since you lost the land. Let it go, move someplace peaceful and live a good life. Your Arab brothers sold you out back then. Talk to them about it.

  • Jeff Wright

    It is all very sad.

    I am turning into an old woman—all watching the news does is make me want to cry.

  • James Street

    I wondered how Israel got run over so fast.

    “Why Were Israelis so Defenseless Against Hamas Terrorists Going House-to-House Killing and Raping?”
    “According to my sources, the Israeli government makes its citizens jump through so many hoops that less than 2 percent of Israeli citizens are licensed to own a pistol. And it’s virtually impossible to own a rifle. If you are among the ranks of retired military, you are allowed to own a rifle but you cannot store it in your house unless you are among the top elite commandos.”
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/leo-hohmann-why-were-israelis-so-defenseless-against/

  • wayne

    US Occupation Force Training Film

    “Your Job in Germany” (1945)
    Frank Capra and Theodor Geisel
    https://youtu.be/821R0lGUL6A
    (14:24)

  • Andrew_W

    The whole situation, the horrific deaths . . . There are no words that describe the indescribable.
    Lasting peace cannot be achieved through oppression and violence, that’s never worked, unless genocide is seen as an acceptable final solution.

  • wayne

    Timeghost History; The Great War in Real Time
    Week 92
    “Dividing Up The Middle East – The Sykes-Picot Agreement”
    https://youtu.be/JOuA2_oww9Q
    (10:22)

  • Andrew_W

    Wayne, Germany appears to not have returned to the fascist state the film suggests it repeatedly had prior to 1945.
    How was this change in the German mindset achieved? Did the allies confiscate and settle most German lands? The film mentions something about respecting property rights.

  • Andrew Winter

    Be forewarned.

    I am of the belief that after that 2000 years of genocide that began with the Emperor Hadrian, (oh there was more before that, yes.) after which “The Wandering Jew” became a thing when he scattered the Jewish population of his new “Syria Palestina” to the four corners of the Roman empire, the Jewish People embodied by the State of Israel, has no obligation to play by any rules of “The Civilized World” other than those of tactical or strategic necessity.

    I can easily envision a moment, possibly soon, where Israel sees that resistence in The Gaza Strip has been degraded to the point where they can, with relative safety, deploy their bulldozers and simply time consuming and difficult yes, but simply bulldoze the whole of the Gaza Strip into the sea.

    All the, and I am going to say, “Whiners” in the Gaza Strip should understand NOW that elections have consequences.

    You see most “Terrorist” organizations hide behind the sovereign flags of “host” nations. (Yes sometimes the “Host” nation is not a “Host” voluntarily but their sovereignty is a powerful shield.)

    In The War on Terror the United States tried to get the world to rethink that calculus, and failed. But HAMAs Screwed UP By The Numbers. HAMAS won an election and became the government of a sovereign nation. This means that they can be legitimately LEGALLY, ETHICALLY, SPIRITUALLY retaliated against, just, …. like, …. any,…. other, … NATION. They have no third party flag to hide behind anymore.

    To take that step and then conduct this kind of “Pearl Harbor” attack? Well the last time some fool nation played that card it ended up with the first use of Atomic Bombs.

    Is there anyone on this Earth who does not understand that Israel is more enraged by this attack that the Body Politic of America was by the attack on Pearl Harbor?

    Israel know how to bring the Apocalypse down on the heads of their neighbors. The Jewish People have had that done to them so many times, since Hadrian, that they know the procedure and the COST better than any other people on Earth.

    If you don’t like genocide, they you should close your eyes. I am pretty sure the gloves have come off now. this will not be a war of annihilation. I believe it is already a war of extermination, and Israel didn’t start it. This man did.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini. Amin al-Husseini.
    When he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the era of The British Mandate. He began this mess. Hamas follows is Fatwah, as does Iran and their little puppets Hizb-u-llah.

    Gawd help them all if Israel really does have nukes. The U.S. used them. CAN Israel follow suite? Hope not.

  • Andrew Winter, to your point:

    ” *Remember, the radical Leftists within the current American administration (D) in power right now as well as the Globalists despise Israel and if that paradigm power model continues to be the trend in America where will Israel be in the coming decades? Question asked, question answered.”

    Such things beginning say over the last 20 or so years due to technology are becoming more and more difficult to keep in the shadows.

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/how-do-things-happen-when-they-need-to-happen

  • Jay

    Andrew Winter,
    Israel does not admit it, but it does have nuclear weapons. I do not know how many, but many believe they have at least fifty low yield devices. They have the reactors and the know how. There are many stories that they conducted a joint test with South Africa in 1979, known as the “Vela Incident”.
    I do not see Israel using the devices for this current conflict and it would be political suicide to use them. I do see them using them if another country, like Iran, used them first.

  • wayne

    Jay–
    Look up “amimut,” which roughly translates to opacity or ambiguity, and is the hallmark of Israeli nuclear policy. (if they had a policy….)

  • pzatchok

    After 45 years if being politically informed I no longer care about the radical Palestinians and the radical Muslims.

    As far as I can tell its pretty much the last warring religion and its time for it to go.

    Those who want peace and safety should be allowed to leave the Gaza strip alive. all others need to neutralized. Not necessarily killed but at least imprisoned.
    Let the peaceful ones go to Egypt right now.
    But never back in Gaza.

    Gaza could have been a rich state just perfect for tourism and vacationers. High rent apartments.
    Well now its Israels.

  • pzatchok

    I guess the only place they can be shipped is Iran or Libya now.

    https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/11/egypt-fortifies-border-possible-exodus-palestinians/

    It shouldn’t take long if you let them walk over the boarders like they do in the US. A few million come over the US boarder every year without the motivation of a war and sure death.

  • Questioner

    Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom:

    “Origins of Hamas/Israeli War w/ John J. Mearsheimer”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtkCbQpw-0

  • wayne

    “Families have been notified.”
    Substantial Truth Films (2015)
    https://youtu.be/WDsd-efYil4
    (3:43)

    “We are launching an operation against Hamas in Gaza
    in order to protect the citizens of Israel.
    The Nation of Israel is behind you.
    In the front there are terrorists from the Hamas and Jihad.
    Everyone has full trust in your abilities to protect the Nation.
    Go on the attack.
    Good luck. End.”

  • Trent Castanaveras

    Making the foolhardy mistake of thinking any part of this conflict is about land or land rights is what got us in the West to this point.

    The terrorists are telling you to your face what they want, just as they always have.

    https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/1712505003124932828?s=19

    We should believe them.

    And act accordingly.

  • Trent Castanaveras

    Hamas boasted about how they repurposed water pipes installed to give the Gazan civilians a reliable water source into rockets to fire upon Isreal.

    They even made a video.

    https://youtu.be/MvvqBcA-9yA?si=oT73uAEO-dlNiwb_

  • Trent Castanaveras

    Also, Hamas leadership has called today a Jihad day of action worldwide.

    https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1712840194192187625?s=19

    Stay strapped. Be alert. Be prepared.

  • Trent Castanaveras

    Hamas and Iran also have the icing on the cake: the collapse of the Abraham Accords. At this time, nearly every Muslim country has declared support for Palestine and dropped out of the negotiations, even Saudi Arabia.

    The repercussions from this will propagate in powerful ways.

  • In the real world, not this “Civilized” world we live in, and I mean deeper in history, Hamas and similar would have long ago been made irrelevant and nonexistent.

    But our “Compassion”, our charity and our “civility” allows such individuals to continue to exist and terrorize the world.

    These are the kind of times where leadership by an actual real leader, not our Potemkin leadership, is required.

    You want peace?

    Then have strong, rational, benevolent but ruthless when necessary real leadership.

    We are our own worst enemies.

    Afghanistan make sense to you now?

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/afghanistan-make-sense-to-you-now

  • Questioner

    How Israel Was Created

    This year, Israel is celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1948. But how exactly was that country born on land that was already called Palestine?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6foH3Zc82ZQ

  • pzatchok

    I do not believe it was called Palestine then.

    The Palestinians were obviously not their own leaders.

  • This to me is a faulty argument: “But how exactly was that country born on land that was already called Palestine?”

    It is power that determines ownership not “I was here firsties”.

    These kinds of arguments are arguments used by those “progressives” and lawyers who have no power who want to dominate.

    It is illogical.

    There is really only one way, other than subservience and acquiescence, that ownership or control of land is determined, and that process is underway right now. How far will it go? Who knows?

    Terrible things are going to happen, they have happened before and will happen again.

    History unfortunately is replete with such events. From Darius, to Alexander, to Genghis Khan, to the Roman empire, to the British empire, to the American empire, to the Incas, the Toltecs, to many to list because it is thousands of years old.

    It is a human condition that is brought about by real or perceived weakness or just plain old hatred.

    Everything ongoing in America and the world right now are all connected, and we are all now at risk and it is because we have projected weakness, chaos and confusion. And that is by design IMO in order to bring about the “Great Reset”. Its all related.

    “One strategic opportunity leads to another. Why? Because you have encouraged it.”

    https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/one-strategic-opportunity-leads-to-another

  • wayne

    Question:
    Who owns all this land in Gaza? Do these people Rent or Own?
    What is It, with all the soviet-minimalist architecture going on? Looks like some commie ‘model-city’ stuff straight out of 1955.

    Trent–
    saw that video about turning water pipe into rockets. I’m just a psych-major but….. it doesn’t ring quite true.
    If these mofos dig up water supply pipe, I don’t ever want to hear how deprived they are.

  • wayne

    The Aloof
    “Never Get Out Of The Boat” (2010)
    https://youtu.be/2GR4Qz3-PNo
    (4:49)

    “Never get out of the boat….unless you were going all the way.”

  • wayne

    Hans Hermann-Hoppe
    “Physical Removal”
    https://youtu.be/gRPqldySY3Q
    (0:55)

  • pzatchok

    Israel is now providing safe passage to any who want to leave Gaza but it seems like Hamas is stopping the people from leaving.

    This will only last as long as Israel is willing to let them do it. In a few days Israel will just move in and shoot the Hamas members who try to stop the people from leaving.

    For Hamas the war is over. They are going to be dead or they are going away. Either way Israel will have the land back and the Palestinians will be gone.

    If they really thought that dying for their cause was a way to glory they would all strap a bomb on themselves and run into Israel making this a very short war and getting rid of Hamas all in one move.

  • wayne

    pzatchok-
    pretty much agree with you….. unless the obamunoids that actually run our Country, tie Israels hands.

  • Questioner

    A Close Look at Some Key Evidence in the Gaza Hospital Blast

    A widely cited missile video does not shed light on what happened, a Times analysis concludes.

    https://archive.ph/5YXTE

    “…. Numerous media outlets have aired the video footage and several have cited it as evidence that a Palestinian rocket hit the hospital.
    But the Times concluded that the missile in the video was never near the hospital. It was launched from Israel, not Gaza, and appears to have exploded above the Israeli-Gaza border, at least two miles away from the hospital.

    To trace the object in the sky back to Israeli territory, The Times synchronized the Al Jazeera footage with five other videos filmed at the same time, including footage from an Israeli television station, Channel 12, and a CCTV camera in Tel Aviv. These different videos provided a view of the missile from north, south, east and west. Using satellite imagery to triangulate the launch point in those videos, The Times determined that the projectile was fired toward Gaza from near the Israeli town of Nahal Oz shortly before the deadly hospital blast. The findings match the conclusion reached by some online researchers.
    In addition, the videos show that the projectile in the Al Jazeera footage was launched after the barrage of Palestinian rockets Israeli officials assessed was responsible for the hospital explosion. …”

  • Cotour

    Questioner, IT DOES NOT MATTER. (It matters that innocent people were killed or injured and every rational human being cares very much about that fact. But it does not matter)

    Just minutia.

    Why do you seek to be mired in minutia?

    The hospital bombing issue is just a Hamas and radical American Democrats talking point that serves to diminish the Israeli moral authority to take care of their business.

    What will soon arrive? The Israelis will be accused of war crimes by the likes of the U.N.

    You are being used IMO, you are being, probably unconsciously, a tool of the radical Left.

  • Cotour: Questioner is not an unconscious tool of the radical left. He has shown repeatedly that he is a willing and eager tool, quite aware of what he is doing.

    I continue to allow his posts (under moderation), because they illustrate that bankrupt thinking quite starkly. Useful knowledge for understanding the enemy.

  • Cotour

    A dog with a juicy bone can only see the juicy bone and not much else.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *