In which the reptiles' jihad, their crusade, their holy war continues, forcing the pond to maintain its alternative reading habit ...

 

The reptiles at the lizard Oz are currently in a jihad, a crusade, call it what you will, a holy war ...

The pond doesn't like it, is well over it, and would love to offer the sort of stern rebuttal recently featured in Mediaite.com:

Now that's a rebuttal.

But no matter what trinkets are offered, no matter what pearls are paraded before the reptile swine, they can't be distracted from their jihad.

Once upon a time, this sort of story featured in the Graudian would have had the reptiles up in arms, outraged, roaring and ranting in raging refutation:

The news that the Nine rags - how ragged they are these days - had also taken up the story (soft paywall) would have just added to the reptile frenzy:

Instead here we are, with the reptiles stuck in the middle east, or the western east if you will (only click on to enlarge if you must):

It's the commentary on the extreme far right that's a reminder of the jihad, the holy war. 

Forget Dame Slap trying a little distraction with a bog standard rant about the law in the ACT, look at what follows below her:

The Major, Yoni formerly of the AJN (a detail scrubbed from LinkedIn, but remembered here), and the Caterist were all at it, and it was with a sense of dread that the pond knew what would follow.

The reptiles would have their say, and the pond would feel forced to slip in a few stories from Haaretz as a little balance ...

Tedious beyond words, and yet what can the pond do? It's dedicated to the ratbag warriors of the far right, and they set the topics and the pace, and a holy war, a jihad, a crusade it is, all designed to seize on a criminal act for political purposes ...

So came the Caterist ... PM’s moral vacuum fuels Jew hatred and Iran’s propaganda war, Donald Trump’s “hell to pay” rhetoric signals the decisive action against anti-Semitism that has been missing for four years

The reptiles have a standard visual format for this sort of jihad. 

First, if the tangerine tyrant or Benji has been overdone, there's often a snap of outrageous and unseemly protestors daring to raise the matter of genocide, Pro-Palestinian protesters near the Ronald McDonald float were dragged away from the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City on November 28. Picture: AFP

That sets the tone for the Caterist jihad to follow:

On the eve of New York’s Thanksgiving Parade, the city’s police warned “malicious actors” any attempt to disrupt the procession would be dealt with firmly. They were backed by Mayor Eric Adams who, despite strong woke tendencies, understands the theory of zero-tolerance policing. “We are going to be on top of those who attempt to interrupt the parade in any way possible,” he said.
Nevertheless, a dozen or so pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanced their luck, plonking themselves in front of the Ronald McDonald float. The NYPD was true to its word, dragging them away without hesitation.
“Anti-Israel bozos block clown at Macy’s Parade,” ran the headline in the New York Post.
“It’s exactly the type of language we were missing,” Ruby Chen, father of Hamas captive Itay Chen, told Fox News.
If NSW police had acted as decisively on October 9 last year it would have sent a message that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated. Instead, they stood by impassively as our own Palestinian bozos lobbed flares over their heads.

The reptiles interrupted the Caterist with another snap of protestors daring to note ethnic cleansing, Pro-Palestine supporters rush at the police line at Sydney’s Circular Quay Station on October 9 last year. Picture: David Swift

The Caterist didn't need that sort of visual prodding to maintain his crusade:

With Donald Trump’s inauguration barely six weeks away, a similar kind of backbone is about to be restored to US foreign policy. President-elect Trump fired an opening salvo at Iran and its proxy, Hamas, last week, saying there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released by inauguration day.
It’s exactly the type of language that has been missing for the past four years.
The Trump administration promises a return to clear-eyed foreign policy with Marco Rubio nominated for secretary of state. China’s People’s Daily labelled him a troublemaker who spews garbage from his mouth. Clearly, he’s off to a good start. Rubio will be supported by Mike Waltz, Trump’s designated national security adviser and the first Green Beret to be elected to the US congress.

Ah, the tangerine tyrant. Speaking of jihads, he's already off to a good start, per WaPo (paywall):

...This is not the first time Trump has threatened members of the committee. In March 2023, he posted on Truth Social that they “should be prosecuted for their lies and, quite frankly, TREASON!”
He has repeatedly expressed interest in jailing Cheney — a longtime Republican who lost her seat in Congress after refusing to excuse Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Cheney endorsed and campaigned with Vice President Kamala Harris this election cycle, further infuriating Trump.

That's the strong Beria-style attitude the reptiles have been missing:

To its credit, the Biden administration has continued to support Israel. Yet it has shown a disturbing ambivalence toward Iran, the font of so much evil in the Middle East Democrats since president Barack Obama have tried to appease.
The fall of the shah in 1979, followed by Ayatollah Khomeini’s consolidation of power, marked the arrival of a malicious force in the region steeped in revolutionary ideology and harbouring regional hegemonic ambitions.
Iran’s primary export is barbarism. It drove the implosion of Iraq, and the 16-year civil war in Syria. It perpetuates instability in Lebanon through its proxy, Hezbollah. It disrupts shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden through its proxy, Ansar Allah, aka the Houthis.
The slogan on their flag, “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam”, spells out their intent.
Beyond the region, Iran aligns itself with the enemies of freedom everywhere: China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela.

At this point the reptiles interrupted with another still, Iran is conscious of the superior strength of Israel, waging its war by funding proxy militias. Picture: AFP

Desperate stuff, sublimely silly, but the sight of the gun spurred the Caterist on to fresh jihadist heights:

At the heart of Iranian ambitions lies the elimination of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. It opposes a two-state solution because it opposes the existence of Israel in any form. It poisoned the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the peace process at the Camp David Summit in 2000, funding Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to attack Israel.
Conscious of the superior strength of Israel, it has been careful to wage its war by funding proxy militias, notwithstanding limited ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October this year to save face after Israel’s devastating assassinations of senior Iranians and leaders of its proxy militia.
Iran’s propaganda war has been more successful persuading useful idiots in the West that the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East is Zionist imperialism. Trump’s Abraham Accords demonstrated that this was false, bypassing Iran and the Palestinians to normalise relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.
Iran’s surge in oil exports under Joe Biden unlocked more than $30bn, which funded Hamas’ October 7, 2023, atrocities in Israel. Iran’s culpability was ignored by Western media, which instead framed rape, murder, kidnap and infanticide as legitimate if regrettable “resistance”. The Hamas-Israel war scuppered the entry of Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, a victory for Iran.
Iran scored another victory when the Albanese government abandoned Israel to join the herd at the United Nations supporting an “irreversible pathway” to Palestinian statehood. Anthony Albanese voiced support for a two-state solution that cannot happen while Iran is in the driving seat.
The arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne is the icing on the cake for Iran’s Khamenei and his theocratic henchmen, crowning the anti-Semitic hatred unleashed in Australia by October 7.

That criminal act has certainly been the icing on the cake for the reptiles at the lizard Oz, providing supreme devotional scribbling to their heroes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President-elect Donald Trump will be keen to isolate Iran. Pictures: AFP

Those reptiles heroes, in full smugness, set off a final Caterist holy war burst:

Trump returns to office determined to revive the Abraham Accords and isolate Iran. He is surrounded by a team who have no difficulty identifying our enemies in the new Cold War: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and their acolytes.
Meanwhile, Albanese stumbles around in a fog. His undergraduate worldview cannot see beyond the sideshow of Palestine. He has put Australia at odds with its most important ally, refusing America’s request to send a ship to the Gulf to join an axis of the willing to counter the Houthi threat. He was conspicuously absent from the NATO summit in Washington in July, to the delight of China.
Critically, he is unable to recognise the gravity of the escalating anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, seemingly scouring the thesaurus for the weakest words of condemnation. The foul graffiti and vandalism of Jewish property in Sydney’s eastern suburbs last month was merely “deeply troubling”.
On Friday, after the arson attack on the Adass synagogue, Albanese went ahead with a press conference in Western Australia spruiking his Future Made in Australia plan, rattling on for more than 10 minutes about what he called “a cracker of the announcement”, an additional $475m of corporate welfare to promote rare earth mining.
Finally, a journalist asked him to comment on the synagogue attack. It was “a shocking incident”, the PM said. “Anti-Semitism is something that has been around for a long period of time.”
No, Prime Minister, it hasn’t. Not in a country that was a haven for Jewish people from the 1930s fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe. Not in a country where Jewish migrants and their descendants have been the most loyal, civilised and community-minded cohorts that ever came here. Their example and contribution have made it easy for the vast majority of Australians to know on which side they stand in Israel’s fight for survival as the only liberal democracy in the region.
Albanese’s belated recognition on Sunday that firebombing the Adass synagogue was an act of terrorism only highlights the woeful weakness of his first comment, revealing him as a Prime Minister with feeble moral judgment and an impoverished grasp of history, prepared to sacrifice principle to hang on to Muslim votes in a miserable handful of seats.
Nick Cater is a senior fellow at Menzies Research Centre

At this point, the pond knew what it had to do. A cartoon would not suffice:

Instead in the usual way, the pond turned to Haaretz for a reading: Expulsion and Talk of Depopulating Gaza? That's Exactly What Ethnic Cleansing Looks Like, When Israeli commanders' reports about what is happening in northern Gaza reached me, I knew what I must do, writes former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon

Sure, it's long, but the Caterist had his say, and now it's time to hear from someone else with an interest in the region and insights to offer:

David Ben-Gurion laid the foundation for Israel's success at the dawn of our independence, after two millennia in exile, when he declared: "The fate of Israel depends on two things – its strength and its righteousness." During the toughest of wars, the War of Independence, he recited before the People's Council, which later became the Knesset, a poem by his friend Natan Alterman that described war crimes committed by one of our soldiers. Ben-Gurion ordered that the poem, titled "About This," be distributed among all units of the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel's first prime minister and defense minister knew how to leverage the Jews' legitimacy after the Holocaust to recruit a global majority in support of establishment of a Jewish state. He knew how to create alliances with Western states. Thanks to these alliances, Israel was victorious in the Sinai Campaign, developed its so-called "strategic capabilities" (according to foreign sources) and created the Israeli miracle.

All of Israel's leaders followed in Ben-Gurion's footsteps, including Netanyahu during his era of sanity, until the current government came along. A government of messianism, draft-dodging and corruption. A government that has gone in the absolute opposite direction as that of its predecessors, and has brought down upon us a series of disasters and failures. The government's twisted values are acting against Israel and its strength like an "autoimmune disease," as Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilead eloquently put it.

Out of Ben-Gurion's assertion about "strength and righteousness," six iron-clad principles emerged. All of them are being destroyed by the current government of ruin, and this is the reason for all the failures and disasters.

The first principle is democracy. Only a democracy allows all parts of our diverse society to thrive. Only democracy contains the spirit of volunteerism that allows the people's army to exist. Only democracy can facilitate the alliance with world Jewry and with Western states, led by the United States. Democracy encompasses internal criticism, a free press and an independent judicial system. All of these have always protected us from external criticism.

The second principle is leadership by honest, capable people with values in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence – pragmatic, not messianic or apocalyptic. Leadership that is devoted to its people, and not to itself.

The third principle is freedom of thought among members of our defense forces and all of the state's institutions. Thanks to this principle, even junior officers in the elite pre-state Palmach force, in the Sayeret Matkal special-operations unit, in Military Intelligence and in the Mossad and Shin Bet may make constructive suggestions to the leadership.

The fourth principle is the "Iron Wall," a concept created by Revisionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky and adopted by Ben-Gurion. Its operational meaning is that we cannot ever destroy all of our enemies (i.e., achieve "total victory"), which is why we must fight the extremists until relatively moderate leaders arise, with whom alliances can be forged. This is how all of our peace agreements were reached. This is how Israel thrived.

The fifth principle is to strive to keep our wars short, to allow the citizenry extended periods of prosperity.

The sixth principle is to create a strong sense of solidarity between all sectors of society.

The current government of failure has violated all six of these principles, bringing about a series of catastrophes during the last two years – catastrophes that endanger our very existence here.

The destruction of democracy has dramatically weakened Israel in terms of both its defense and its economy; it has undermined the foundations of our alliance with the West, led by the United States; and it has damaged our social solidarity. I warned some time ago against the possibility of the Israel Defense Forces turning into a dismal army like that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing it as an example of how antidemocratic leadership – even that of a powerful state – can weaken its military might.

The absence of honesty and principled values within Israel's leadership has contributed to this existential decline. From the Knesset to the top ranks of the cabinet, serial convicts, including those accused of racist incitement or of supporting a terrorist organization, are serving alongside others who face criminal indictments.

Incitement against the security forces and the crushing of freedom of thought and expression has contributed dramatically to this decline. When a defense minister is threatened with dismissal just because he warned about the possibility of war breaking out, and he is ultimately fired due to political considerations, and when the IDF chief and senior intelligence officers are slammed because they cautioned about a looming conflict – the culture of the defense establishment is threatened. This is how yes-men are promoted, and how weakness is created, like that of Putin's army, where generals who express their opinions risk dismissal – or worse.

Turning the "Iron Wall" principle on its head has undermined our immune system as well, and brought the October 7 massacre upon us. That's what happens when you create a defective strategy, according to which "Hamas is an asset." That's how terrible suitcases of cash fell straight into the arms of Hamas' military wing. No leadership in the history of the world ever transferred billions to enemies who vowed to murder its citizens.

The destruction of Israeli solidarity; the incitement against sizable communities among our people; the rift with the United States; the provocations staged by extremists, spurred on by government ministers, on the Temple Mount and in the West Bank; the fact that Israel has been dragged into a prolonged war instead of striving toward an immediate resolution – all these have wrought additional, serious damage on our society and economy. As a result, we are witnessing the demise of everything that has been built here over the past 76 years.

Anyone who has studied the Hamas documents found in the tunnels in Khan Yunis knows that these facts are the reason why the terror organization decided to go through with the "big project" when it did, on October 7, 2023 – even though the plan had been ready and many were aware of it (including Israel's prime minister) for years.

The serial attacks on the centers of Israel's strength have caused two other disasters. First, the terrible inability to wind up the war with diplomatic achievements. The ability to produce such achievements is dependent on two factors: the measure of the defense forces' success, and the measure of Israel's international legitimacy.

After the initial shock, the defense forces made dramatic achievements on the battlefield, thanks to the heroism of combat troops and the wisdom of their commanders. Hamas had been crushed by last January, nearly a year ago.

In the north, Israel carried out a threefold strike that included the pager operation, the assassination of Hezbollah leaders and the attacks on thousands of targets based on precise intelligence. That plan was brilliantly prepared over the course of more than a decade, and I had the privilege of being one of its first architects, as defense minister. It dealt a decisive blow, but one that should have been delivered many months ago. The foot-dragging by the government of ruin resulted in many casualties and caused great suffering among scores of Israelis.

And on the legitimacy front – can there be greater international legitimacy than the one we achieved following Hamas' horrible massacre and Hezbollah's uninstigated attacks? And yet: How can it be that we now have zero diplomatic achievements to our name? Why didn't the government seize the American proposal for helping to create a moderate leadership in Gaza that would replace the murderous Hamas – an excellent proposal that was made a year ago. How can it be that the hostages aren't home yet? How did we end up reverting to United Nations Resolution 1701 from 2006, instead of taking advantage of achievements on the battlefield in Lebanon and the initial legitimacy we had to disarm Hezbollah? All of these negative outcomes are the price we are paying for having fanatical figures in the government, and a prime minster who is busy worrying about his own personal benefit.

The second disaster is the one at The Hague. A democratic state has never been dragged to the International Criminal Court, with its leaders being subjected to international arrest warrants. Warrants whose implications will hurt us badly. Such an "honor" is more commonly bestowed on the likes of Gadhafi, Milošević, Putin and other antidemocratic rulers.

Open gallery view

Gazans leaving the Jabalya refugee camp to go south, last month. As long as senior government officials keep talking about permanent expulsion, they are precipitating the carrying out of messianic war crimes.

Gazans leaving the Jabalya refugee camp to go south, last month. As long as senior government officials keep talking about permanent expulsion, they are precipitating the carrying out of messianic war crimes.Credit: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters

The government's response to the ICC is to cry "antisemitism." True, antisemitism has always existed, and yet, under Israeli leaders who upheld democratic values, we became the state that received the most aid from the United States and Germany. And we always managed to preserve our powerful status in the world.

Two reasons led to the debacle at The Hague: The first is the government's regime coup, which crushed the protection normally afforded us by our democracy and an independent judiciary. The second is the use by senior government ministers of the language of war crimes. This includes Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who spoke about "thinning out Gaza's population by more than half" and posited how "maybe it's justified and moral" to let "two million Gazans starve to death." We must also recall that more than one-third of the MKs and ministers in the coalition participated in a conference led by settler leader Daniella Weiss, who declared that all the Arabs in Gaza should be replaced by messianic settlers. This is, after all, the dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, IDF troops have been sent in recent weeks to expel Gazans from the northern part of the Strip. If this is a temporary move that serves justified defense needs, it can be allowed under certain circumstances. But if this is a permanent attempt at expulsion that will result in settlers moving in – it's ethnic cleansing. As long as senior government officials keep talking about the second option, they are precipitating the carrying out of messianic war crimes.

What can be done to pull Israel out of the serial failures and disasters brought upon us by the government – disasters that could lead to the destruction of the "Third Temple," as some have described to the creation of modern Israel? We must return to the foundations of the Zionist miracle, to Ben-Gurion's "strength and righteousness," and immediately restore the six pillars of our power.

First, we must greatly strengthen our democracy. We must demand a complete stop to the attempt to effect a regime coup, a halt to the threats being leveled at gatekeepers, and the creation of a state commission of inquiry into the war. Then we must see to the firing of all government ministers who use language that can be interpreted as calls for ethnic cleansing, chief among them the man convicted of supporting a terror organization, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his partner in leading the homophobic "Beast Parade," Smotrich. Any additional minute that these two and their ilk are part of the government only prolongs the slander that is targeting us.

And if the government of ruin doesn't have a majority without these extremists? Then we should immediately hold an election, and the people, who are the sovereign, will decide if they prefer a Jewish, democratic and liberal state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, or a theocracy/messianic dictatorship that is racist, fascist, homophobic, misogynist, backward, corrupt and an international pariah. The people will also weigh in on the possibility of renewing and continuing the process of separation from our Palestinian neighbors (with no illusions, and while understanding that the longest way is sometimes the shortest), or instead either an occupation, annexation, expulsion of a population and its replacement with Jewish settlers, or an apartheid/binational state.

Third, we must restore the freedom of thought and willingness to accept criticism in all the defense agencies and in society in general. Fourth, there's an existential strategic imperative to restore the winning principle of the "Iron Wall": working with moderates on the other side and striking down the extremists. Extremists on the outside, as well as the ones on the inside. Fifth, we must restore solidarity within our society, freeing it of the incitement and division sown by the government.

Sixth, we must revert to the principle of short wars. This is why we must end the war in Gaza. It is a war that from a military point of view, according to the dismissed defense minister Yoav Gallant, ended months ago. We must allow for a moderate leadership in the Strip, as suggested by the Americans and backed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and the rest of the moderate states in the region. And of course, we must secure the immediate return of our tortured hostages.

My whole life I have been open about expressing my professional and ethical opinons. As head of Military Intelligence during the Oslo period, I recognized the danger of the terror wave that broke out in September 2000. I realized the mistake of disengaging from Gaza without an agreement, an act that would only strengthen the extremists. I was against the Shalit hostage exchange deal. I threw myself with all my might into the protest against turning Israel from a thriving state in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence into a backward messianic dictatorship.

I have had to face Israel's enemies, and had to kill many of them, more than any other Knesset member, and certainly more than the many draft-dodgers among them. I did this for the sake of Israel's security, for which I will always fight. When commanders' reports about what's happening in northern Gaza reached me, alongside the concerns of principled officers whom extremist politicians are dragging into acts that may evolve into war crimes, I knew what I must do. Certainly when it comes to politicians who only care about themselves in the sickest way, to the point where they don't have a problem making dangerous concessions to Hezbollah just so they can save their own skin, while knowing – and not caring – that officers on the ground will pay the price at The Hague.

In the face of all this, my role was clear. To protect our officers and soldiers. To preserve the IDF's values, which are based on Jewish morality, upon which I was raised and on the basis of which I raised my children. To prevent war crimes against innocent Palestinians, to protect Israel, to preserve our strength and righteousness. This is why I have sounded a warning about ethnic cleansing. I know that the vast majority of Israelis want a democracy based on the Declaration of Independence, and not a messianic dictatorship that embroils us in war crimes. They prefer to continue the process of separating from the Palestinians, achieved in a responsible way – not to annex, expel and settle in their place.

Twice in history, messianic fanatics brought destruction upon us. We won't let their successors do it a third time. I know that the majority that supports democracy will win. All we need is courage, and to do the right thing.

At this point, the pond would usually cry out 'enough already', but the Major certainly isn't interested in doing the right thing, he's rabbiting on this day in his usual way, about How pundits got the Israel war so wrong, The media slipped into automatic acceptance of claims by Palestinian officials and automatic rejection of evidence from the Israel Defence Force.

It was a hagiographic snap, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Picture: Reuters, that set the Major off on his holy war:

Only the Major knows, only the Major understands, please allow the Major Mitchell to explain, interminable and tedious though he might be with his parrot squawking:

Western journalists, academics and politicians have got much of their analysis of Israel wrong since the October 7 massacre last year.
Academics here who have received public grants have even denied video evidence of Hamas’s massacre of 1200 innocent women, children and old people in their homes and at a dance party for peace that Sabbath morning.
Most worrying in media terms was the easy way commentary slipped into automatic acceptance of claims by Palestinian officials, all employed by Hamas, and automatic rejection of evidence from the Israel Defence Forces, operated by a democratically elected government.
This started on October 17, only 10 days after the massacre, with media claims Israel had attacked the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital killing 500 innocents.
In fact, a misfired rocket in the hospital car park launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group based in Gaza, killed fewer than 50.
Journalists who had no clue the Palestinians had been offered and had rejected a two-state solution many times warned the Middle East would be engulfed by a war Israel could not win when Hezbollah finally attacked.
They were utterly wrong. Just as tiny Israel beat its Arab attackers in 1948, 1967 and 1973 it has destroyed Hamas in Gaza and humiliated Hezbollah in only a couple of months of limited action inside Lebanon.
It has also destroyed much of Iran’s missile attack capability and most of its air defences.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is still threatening retaliation against the “Zionist Satan”, and various former generals still appear regularly on Iranian TV spouting nonsense taken straight from the discredited tsarist fraud, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But Iran is too weak to send its own forces into a ground war.
Iran’s economy is soft. With 85 million people and enormous oil deposits, its GDP is less than Israel’s and its citizens are restless for the sort of freedom they once enjoyed under the Shah of Persia.
Western feminist intellectuals and journalists don’t stand with their brave sisters marching in Iran’s “Woman Life Freedom” movement for the right to appear in public without the veil, just as they refused to speak up for the young women raped and murdered at the Nova music festival.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad can barely defend his country from the Islamists who have taken control of the city of Aleppo (near Russia’s only naval access to the Mediterranean). His Iranian and Russian allies are overstretched.
Russian interest rates sit above 20 per cent and a quarter of its economy is now committed to the war effort in Ukraine. With 150 million people, its GDP is about the same as Australia’s.
The Axis of Resistance has been humiliated by a country a tenth the size of Victoria with only 11 million people. Strength has worked in Israel’s favour but President Joe Biden in the US – the world’s richest and most powerful country – has been too weak to stand up to Iran or Russia.

The Major didn't need much to stimulate him, there was just one more snap, featuring his hero, the tangerine tyrant, aka (FILES) US President-elect Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

The sight of all that toner inspired the Major with a lengthy fit of holy war triumphalism:

Israel has killed the entire Hezbollah leadership in Lebanon. Its Mossad intelligence service eliminated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in his bed in a military guesthouse in central Tehran on July 31 after he and Khamenei attended the inauguration of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Israel’s intelligence services, pilloried for not foreseeing the Iranian-inspired October 7 “Al Aqsa flood”, booby-trapped Hezbollah fighters’ mobile pagers which exploded in their pants on September 18. The western media exploded with outrage at the tactic – the kind of outrage it failed to show on October 7 last year.
Nor have most journalists shown the slightest concern that Hezbollah had been rocketing civilian communities across northern Israel for more than a year, forcing 60,000 people to flee their homes for shelter in the south.
President Donald Trump’s election could end this war, give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a much-needed political victory, force Iran back into its box in the face of the potential reintroduction of oil sanctions Trump imposed in 2019, and rejuvenate the Abraham Accords – separate bilateral arrangements signed in 2020 between Israel and Bahrain, and Israel and the UAE, under Trump’s auspices.
It could also end the needless suffering of Palestinians used by Hamas fighters hiding in tunnels under schools and hospitals to twist western opinion against Israel.
The Gulf Co-operation Council annual summit in Kuwait on December 1 stood by its usual criticisms of Israel but reiterated a 2022 financial offer to Lebanon, called on Iran to stop arming Syrian militias and offered Assad aid conditional on his abandonment of Iran and expulsion of Hezbollah.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants peace in Gaza and a two- state solution.
The Washington Institute for Near East Peace on December 2 published a piece by leading US former bureaucrats Dennis Ross and Stuart Eizenstat under the headline “How to end the War in Gaza: Lessons from Lebanon”.
They write: “The first lesson is the crucial importance of backing diplomacy with decisive military power and accurate intelligence.”
Negotiations for a deal with Hezbollah worked “because Israel had clear, limited and achievable political objectives”.
They say Israel, having achieved most of its objectives in Gaza, “must avoid either a vacuum, in which Hamas could re-emerge, or an indefinite stay, which would guarantee an insurgency”.
“The most viable alternative is a mixed interim administration. The UAE is prepared to be part of a stabilisation force in Gaza, and Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Bahrain might also participate,” Ross and Eizenstat write.
“President-elect Donald Trump has great credibility with the Israeli government, and with the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia.
“Peace in Gaza would … create an opportunity for Trump to expand the Abraham Accords to include normalisation of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
While neither country was ready today, if Trump moved quickly, “a Saudi-Israeli breakthrough would transform the Middle East”.
This is exactly the outcome Iran feared when it gave Hamas the green light for the October 7 attacks.
And Trump is moving fast. The Jerusalem Post on December 4 reported his Middle East adviser Massad Boulos confirming what Trump had said on social media: “The president believes that the hostages must be released immediately and there must be no further delay.”
The Jerusalem Post’s Daniel Goldman on December 1 suggested whatever the extreme right of Netanyahu’s government is saying about annexing Judea and Samaria, a broad Middle East coalition building on the Abraham Accords would be the best way for Netanyahu and Trump to secure their places in history.
Remember, Trump formally proposed a two-state solution in 2020. His appointment of hardline Israel backer Mike Huckabee as ambassador is likely a bargaining chip.
Should such a scenario play out, how will the useful fools in the West who saw Palestinians as natural allies of our Aborigines, of homosexuals worldwide and to prosperous middle class Western university students, explain their embrace of a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, Islamist death cult?
How will history judge Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong for selling out Labor’s 50-year relationship with Israel for a few Muslim votes in the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne?

How will history judge the reptiles of the lizard Oz for selling out Palestine and Palestinians for a few Jewish votes for the mutton Dutton?

Who knows, likely there won't be many Palestinians around to care. 

Yes, it's time to cue another Haaretz reading, this one by Rachel Fink, a few weeks old, but still relevant: Show and Tell: Why Israeli Settlers Are Happy to Reveal Their Plans for Gaza, An Israeli journalist didn't need to set up an elaborate sting operation to get Daniella Weiss talking about the return of Jewish settlers to Gaza. He just needed to switch the camera on and ask some questions

It's an angle you'll never read in the lizard Oz, never see featured by the Major or the Caterist, and so worth the telling, though again it's long:

Over the past year, a string of high-profile reports has uncovered widespread corruption within the top levels of the Israeli government.
Two were produced by journalist (and Haaretz columnist) Raviv Drucker, who first took down Transportation Minister Miri Regev before setting his sights on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as part of his "Hamakor" ("The Source") series for Channel 13.

If you followed the link above, you'd find other relevant Haaretz stories:

• At the 'Prepare to Resettle Gaza' conference, wishful thinking made way to concrete plans
• Netanyahu said Israel won't resettle Gaza. His own ministers tell a different story
• Israeli settler leader claims she scouted location for settlements inside northern Gaza

The pond could go on quoting them endlessly, but perforce must settle for Fink:

On the international stage, meanwhile, director Alexis Bloom exposed the legal entanglements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with his wife Sara and son Yair in her soon-to-be-released explosive documentary "The Bibi Files."
In those exposés, the public's suspicions are seemingly confirmed via leaked documents and private text messages, and hidden camera footage.
So when Kan reporter Avi Amit described "The Reengagement Plan" – his latest story for "Zman Emet" ("Real Time") – as perhaps the most important investigation he has ever done, I assumed the show would rely on similarly unearthed evidence to shine a light on the show's subject: Veteran settler Daniella Weiss' plans to take the success of her Jewish expansion efforts in the West Bank and replicate them in Gaza.

For authenticity, Fink included a few tweets:

Avi Amit@AviAmit26 Follow
זה אולי התחקיר הכי חשוב שעשיתי. 
רגע לפני שקרעי נועל את התאגיד ומחליף את שיטת המשטר - הזדמנות, אולי אחרונה, לקבל הצצה למה שהוא וחבריו מתכננים, לתוכנית הסדורה שבשמה יקריבו את הדם של חיילנו, יפקירו את חטופינו וינסו להשתיק כל מי שרק יעז לבקר>

Then she settled down to explain the point of the ethnic cleansing, the plan:

I was wrong.
Other than one very short conversation between Weiss and fellow ideologue, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, which they do not realize is being filmed, every single piece of information in "The Reengagement Plan" (the title a play on 2005's forced "disengagement" of settlers from Gaza) is happily handed over to producers by those featured in the show.
In lieu of disgruntled former employees whose faces and voices are distorted for their protection, one of Amit's "key witnesses" is a young girl, her beaming mother standing next to her as she explains that the Arab children living in Gaza will need to go somewhere else because "this is our land."
Whereas Drucker and Bloom enraged their targets by investigating them without consent, Amit's work is the opposite. The bulk of the program involves a one-on-one interview with Weiss herself, proudly and passionately narrating her own story.
Fear not, though, as "The Reengagement Plan" is still revelatory in its own right. Because it turns out that when Weiss promised a group of foreign journalists back in October that all of them would witness "Jews going into Gaza and Arabs disappearing from Gaza" within a year, this wasn't just a provocative soundbite designed to generate clicks on social media.
Behind the reckless rhetoric is a well-funded, government-supported plan of action, one that Weiss and her ilk have long since set in motion. That isn't just shocking – it's downright scary.
The five-stage plan
Amit has broken down the Gaza resettlement plan into five phases, though that word is a slight misnomer as they are not sequential. Rather, he lays out a set of concurrent campaigns, each one implemented by its own platoon of loyal foot soldiers under the command of Maj. Gen. (unreserved) Weiss.
Phase 1: It takes a village … of believers
Weiss often speaks about the 750 families she has recruited for her "settlement nuclei" – the ones who are prepared to pack up their lives and move to Gaza at a moment's notice.
But now we learn that these families have been divided into six subgroups, each assigned a special name, and its leaders have divvied up the map of Gaza among themselves. The groups meet regularly for planning sessions.
Phase 2: Show me the money
Despite the manic energy Weiss tends to give off when talking about her passion project, she is clearly incredibly savvy. Having realized long ago that accepting public funds would make her beholden to the whims of the government, she made the tactical decision to finance her vision solely from private donations. These are then funneled through her legally questionable nongovernmental organizations.
Government sanctions stand between her and North America's megadonors, but that hasn't slowed her down. Weiss once sweet-talked a South African man into buying her an actual road, and recently raised a cool 15 million shekels ($4.1 million) in just one visit to San Paulo.
Phase 3: This is only a drill – for now

With those Brazilian reals burning a hole in her pocket, Weiss splurged on 40 camping trailers – which are currently sitting on the Gaza border, inhabited by the movement's most committed members. These families have traded in access to reliable electricity and indoor plumbing for a first crack at Gaza's real estate plots the second they are given the green light.

Ah the real estate, funny that the reptiles never mention the sea views, but on with the plan:

Phase 4: Who's in charge here?
Two weeks ago, Weiss made headlines when she coyly suggested during a television interview that she had taken an illegal tour inside northern Gaza. Despite the Israel Defense Forces' awkwardly worded non-denial, at the time it seemed implausible that a civilian would be granted access to a live war zone.
Now, having spent an hour getting to know her, the idea that Weiss bulldozed her way into an army-sanctioned field trip to Gaza no longer seems that far-fetched. Indeed, Amit casually confirms Weiss' claims. Yes, she was in Gaza. Yes, with the army's permission. And no, she wasn't alone.
Phase 5: It's my party and I'll annex if I want to
This last phase is the most enlightening because it finally answers the question reporters love to ask the pro-settlement crowd: What about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence that Israel does not plan to annex Gaza?
Weiss has an uncanny way of minimizing the difficulty of any obstacle standing in her way and this one is no different. How will she get around the prime minister's reticence? Simple: Infiltrate his party with a bloc of pro-settlement voters, get all other Likud ministers on board with her mission, and shift public perception away from the idea that Jewish sovereignty is only supported by far-right extremists. If the sea of Likud flags being waved at the resettlement conference in October is any indication, Weiss can check this one off her to-do list.
It is Weiss' ironclad insistence that she be allowed to operate with impunity that makes her equal parts intriguing and galling. But, at least in this instance, Labor MK Gilad Kariv isn't willing to stay silent. After the show premiered, he sent an urgent message to recently installed Defense Minister Israel Katz, demanding that he investigate Weiss' entry into Gaza.

There was another tweet for authenticity:

גלעד קריב @KarivGilad
הכתבה ששודרה אתמול בכאן 11 בה מתועדת כניסה לא מורשית של דניאלה וייס למסדרון נצרים (ששטחו כשטח תל אביב), בחסות גורמים צבאיים, מלמדת לאיזה כיוון זולגת המערכה בעזה.
מתחילת הפעולה בצפון הרצועה, ראש הממשלה לא התייצב לפני התקשורת. גם צה"ל אינו מציג תמונה ברורה בפני הציבור. הפיקוח… 

Then Fink offered a chance to view the plan in Hebrew, but the pond had already shown a complete inability to understand the language and so was forced to pass on the offer:

In a statement, Kariv lambasted the very idea of resettlement, saying it risks the lives of Israeli hostages and soldiers, and further deepens the humanitarian disaster for Palestinians. "These settlements will be established not in the mud of Gaza but in its blood," he asserted.
This show might not have the salaciousness of Miri Regev's private group chat or the absurdity of Sara Netanyahu's previously unseen police testimony. But that is exactly what makes "The Reengagement Plan" so powerful. The only bombshell being dropped here is that Weiss and her growing legion of followers have absolutely nothing to hide.
"The Reengagement Plan" is available now (in Hebrew) on the Kan website.

More than enough already.

Hopefully tomorrow Dame Groan will offer some groaning about migrants or renewables. Heck, she might even explain why it's necessary to nuke the country to save the planet.

Anything but more reptile devotion to the ethnic cleansing and the plan ...

Whatever, the pond does hope that the reptiles get over their holy war jihad soon. The genocide is already almost complete, the ethnic cleansing well advanced...

If they were just satisfied with the results to date, they could devote even more time to their beloved gargoyle, fresh from arm wrestling in Paris:

Finally, it would be remiss of the pond not to note that the opening reference to Monty Python had in fact been preceded by a first page full of sarcasm:

It reminded the pond of that ancient Italian proverb, a genocidal jihad is a fruit-tree planted in a lizard Oz columnist's garden ...