Who Writes This S*!&–“Netanyahu’s lethal bombs will turn Lebanon into another Gaza. He must be brought down now” Simon Tisdall

This is our third installment of Who Writes This S*!& and for those of you who may not have read our other articles, in this series one of our writers critiques an article they come across that they disagree with. I promise this column was not meant to turn into a Simon Tisdall of the Guardian exclusive column but he has struck once again so let’s get into it.

Terrorists die and Tisdall cries.

Simon Tisdall of the Guardian continues his lamentations for terrorists in a new article “Netanyahu’s lethal mobs will turn Lebanon into another Gaza. He must be brought down now.” Having become unfortunately familiar with his work, probably too much so, at this point it is clear Tisdall has a radical agenda against Israel. While he wrote his article before the Hezbollah HQ bombing, if it turns out Hassan Nasrallah has been killed expect him to embrace a prolonged mourning period. Likely longer than he mourned his own mother. (Editors note: He has been confirmed to be killed)

“Benjamin Netanyahu must be stopped…..How many more innocents is this man going to kill before he’s out of office?” Interestingly, he never poses this question to the actual terrorists that he supports. In fact, if you go through this article, he has sympathy for the leaders of Iran and the leaders of Hezbollah. They want to live in peace if only Israel would allow them to.

He complains that Netanyahu has ordered Lebanese citizens to evacuate certain neighborhoods, something almost no modern army does in warfare since it allows your enemy to know your plans, yet then complains when civilians die as unfortunately happens in every war. So which is it, if you want to minimize civilian casualties isn’t the logical thing to do to give people time to evacuate? Except in Tisdall’s world, there is nothing Israel can do that is enough.

I am not advocating for anyone to be pro-Netanyahu or anti-Netanyahu. Internal Israeli politics is not my concern. My issue with his whole piece is it’s based on a false premise that Netanyahu and Netanyahu alone is a warmonger who is pushing Israel into conflicts. Simon Tisdall lacks any knowledge or historical sense of the situation because if he knew anything he would know that Netanyahu is extremely hesitant to use force and is overwhelmingly cautious.

The moderate opposition leader Yair Lapid, who the democrats in Washington would love to see in power, agrees with nearly all aspects of Netanyahu’s handling of the war even though he hates him domestically. Regarding the bombing of Lebanon, he said, “The time has come” and supported Netanyahu’s “siege” of Gaza saying “The endgame is no Hamas in Gaza.”

Tisdall’s Love for Iran, Hezbollah ,and Hamas

Simon Tisdall lays the blame on Netanyahu because then he can claim he isn’t anti-Israel, he’s anti-Netanyahu but in reality, his whole premise is flawed as this isn’t Netanyahu’s war as much as it is a fight of civilization against barbarians. Except that Tisdall sees the civilized as Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the barbarians as Israel.

We see Tisdall applaud Iran as he says, “Iran, which despite its threats has exercised unexpected restraint” and praises Hezbollah saying “Hezbollah has been clear along. It says it will stop firing missiles when a Gaza ceasefire deal is reached, not before.” Why of course, what a reasonable demand we’ll stop launching the hundreds of thousands of rockets we have when Israel stops going after a terror group that massacred 1,200 people in cold blood.

By this logic hasn’t Putin been clear all along as well, he will end the Russia-Ukraine war if he can have twenty-five percent of the country with no NATO membership for the rest? So anyone that’s clear is correct? It shows the incredibly weak argument put forward by Simon Tisdall, he seems to be arguing that because a group or person states a clear goal that makes their demands reasonable. Putin and Hezbollah are both clear on what they want so that makes them right?

Tisdall treats this demand with seriousness as if they are a rational, democratic, enlightened country such as France, Germany maybe Italy, or Canada rather than a barbaric terror group. Why not listen to the terror group’s demands even though they have killed thousands over the years and were founded by Iran’s revolutionary guard? In Simon Tisdall’s view, the world would be such a better place if these were the groups we took our orders from.

However, here he grossly displays his simple-minded naiveté also. Tisdall unable to reason on a more complex level uses his caveman-like simplistic thinking to conclude: Gaza war stop, Hezbollah war stop, all good, me hungry now, me leave cave go eat. However, this has never been the case, once again, if he were a student of history, he would know Hezbollah has been launching missiles at Israel for decades. This isn’t something that just sprang up post-October 7th.

It was an untenable situation that everyone knew was going to explode at some point. Hezbollah being the largest and most well-armed non-state actor in the world had thousands of missiles firing indiscriminately for years and had been plotting an October 7th-style attack until Hamas ended up acting first.

Tisdall’s Push for Negotiation

I would like Simon Tisdall to answer the basic question of what country in the world would let another country (or group) fire rockets into it for years without repercussions. No other nation on earth would have allowed this for the past year, let alone the past twenty years. Hypothetically, if Mexico had been firing rockets into Texas and Arizona unless the US pulled out of Afghanistan how long would that go on for?

Tisdall and others foolishly pushing for negotiation do not understand there is nothing to negotiate. Hezobllah’s historically stated goal was the destruction and to push Israel out of Lebanon which in what I’m sure is a newsflash to Simon Tisdall since he appears to lack any knowledge of history, they left Lebanon completely in 2000!! There is no international border dispute between Israel and Lebanon, there is no occupation by settlers, and no disputed holy sites so what is there to negotiate? Tisdall and especially the politicians foolishly pushing negotiation fail to realize there is nothing to negotiate because Hezbollah exists solely as an arm of Iran to aid in Israel’s destruction.

I’m sure Simon Tisdall would love to negotiate away Israel’s existence. The reality is though, there is no actual demands to negotiate since they are a terror organization existing just so that Iran can have a forward operating base with thousands of missiles pointing at Israeli cities. Many Syrians as well as Lebanese in particular Christians, hate Hezbollah as well since they bring nothing but destruction and death to their own countries.

So we also get to a common theme here, Israel leaves south Lebanon, and rather than it turning into a beautiful landscape with farming and factories and building it up it turns into a terrorist haven with thousands of miles of tunnels weapons caches, and cruise missiles fired from people’s homes.

Israel also left Gaza completely, leaving greenhouses intact so that Palestinians could have a head start on cultivating agriculture and building the economy. Instead, they turned it into a terrorist haven with tunnels, and weapons factories in schools, hospitals, and mosques

Is Netanyahu as Dangerous as Tisdall Claims

“Netanyahu must be stopped.” Why doesn’t Simon Tisdall take such a strong stand against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran? Does he think these players are not a threat to world peace? Is Netanyahu really the gravest threat to humanity that he can conjure up? His coziness with Iran is especially baffling considering his love affair with Ukraine, which has been the liberal cause du jour for the past two and a half years. Meanwhile, this is the same Iran that has been supplying Russia with drones, ballistic missiles, and other material support. I guess his hatred for Israel trumps his love of Ukraine.

This joke of a supposed writer sums up his article by saying “The UN should ban Netanyahu from its premises and if he shows up he should be arrested by the NYPD and FBI and preferably charged. Netanyahu is dangerous.”

This guy has now certifiably gone off the deep end, this is the type of writing and simplistic thinking I expect from that of a fifth-grader. Are you smarter than a fifth greater? No.

Simon Tisdall is so desperate to stop Netanyahu yet spills tears when Ismail Haniyeh is killed. He cries when two high-level Hezbollah commanders who had five million dollar bounties from the US on their heads due to their bombing of the US marine barracks killing nearly 300 marines are blown away in Beirut. I’d like to be wrong but somehow I think he would have rather had Netanyahu blown away than Haniyeh or Nasrallah.

In the forty-five laws of power law number fifteen says “Crush your enemy totally, and it cost him his power. You need to crush your enemy totally—don’t go halfway with them or give them any options whatsover. Don’t negotiate—negotiation will undercut your victory. For your security, you must crush them.”

Throughout the twenty-first century this is something Israel has never been allowed to do. Every round of fighting has been undercut by the United Nations, Europe, and world opinion, putting pressure on Israel to stop after the world arbitrarily felt it had gone on long enough. In retrospect that policy was a disaster as it let the wound fester resulting in the catastrophic situation you see today.

That is not to say negotiation and compromise are never good, look at the compromises with Egypt and Jordan, which led to lasting peace and a stable border. However, negotiation was only possible after their ideology changed to accept Israel’s existence. With the terror groups that Tisdall defends they will never recognize this right thereby making negotiation fruitless and leaving the only option of total destruction.

Takeaways

Again this article is not meant as a defense of Netanyahu. Simon Tisdall’s argument is so deeply flawed it may come off that way as he tries to say that the wars in Gaza and Lebanon are solely due to Netanyahu. In reality, many politicians across the political spectrum support the military activities of the IDF.

For example, Isaac Herzog of the liberal Labour Party, whose appearance is more of the scholarly weak Jew that the world is more comfortable with. He could pass for your friendly neighborhood accountant, doctor, or Shul President. Even he says regarding Lebanon “We have the inherent right to live in peace and quiet and there will be much more on the way if they want to continue going.”

Hence, why Simon Tisdall’s argument is so flawed as he pins the blame solely on Netanyahu for the continuation of violence when in reality, there is no Israeli politician and possibly no politician on Earth who would not respond in a likely even more forcefully way than Netanyahu has.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said “Jewish blood is not cheap. The days when it could be spilled without consequence are over.” To Simon Tisdall of the Guardian though it belongs in the ninety-nine-cent store.

Do you agree with our author or are you a fan of Simon Tisdall’s work? If you liked this article check out our prior Who Writes This S*!& article critiquing another piece of Simon Tisdall’s “Israel has all but declared war in the Middle East-a conflict it cannot hope to win,”