The leaders of Hamas do not live in Gaza, they live in Doha, Qatar….  So, it comes as no surprise the Qatari government, the official sponsors and finance operators of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is one subsidiary, will act as the negotiators for the release of captured Israeli hostages.

{Go Deep on Qatar}  👀

Of course, the Qatar negotiations will be for an exchange of Hamas prisoners in Israel, in exchange for Israeli women and children held hostage.  See how that works?

Sorry, I forgot, we are not allowed to talk of these things.  We must pretend not to know them.

DOHA/GAZA (Reuters) -Qatari mediators have held urgent calls to try to negotiate freedom for Israeli women and children seized by the militant group and held in Gaza in exchange for the release of 36 Palestinian women and children from Israel’s prisons, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters.

Qatar’s foreign ministry confirmed to Reuters its involvement in mediation talks with Hamas and Israeli officials, including over a possible prisoner swap.

The ongoing negotiations, which Qatar has been conducting in coordination with the United States since Saturday night, are “moving positively” said the source, who has been briefed on them.

“We are in constant contact with all sides at the moment. Our priorities are to end the bloodshed, release the prisoners and make sure the conflict is contained with no regional spillover,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari told Reuters, without elaborating.

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The coverage of the attacks by Hamas against the Israeli people is extensive, but have you paused to notice a very peculiar dynamic?

As familiar to most news consumers, various media war correspondents are embedded throughout the Israel and Gaza region.  Flak jackets and helmets are worn by CNN, BBC, Fox News and all the international agencies who are covering the Israeli War.  All of that footage is common and familiar.

Television streams are lit up with the continuing coverage and the audience is brought in live to the fight, despite the dangers and the military combat that is taking place throughout the area.  Brave war correspondents are doing what they do, showing the public exactly what is happening on the ground as the fighting continues.

Yet, the extensive footage triggers a reminder of something….

The war in Ukraine has been raging for 20 months, and not once, not even one single time, did we see simultaneous international war correspondents delivering their reporting, showing action on the front lines, donning their protective gear and taking the audience toward the battles in a similar fashion.

The contrast between the War in Israel and the “War” in Ukraine could not be starker when viewed through the prism of what a real combat war looks like.

Why is that?

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You want to go deep weeds, let’s go deep weeds.  Almost all of the conversations about the $6 billion given back to Iran have focused on the fungible aspect of money.  While true, that focus misses the key and essential point, where the money was delivered.

The captured $6 billion was held in a South Korean bank, the result of sanctions violations.  What the Biden/Blinken crew did, was move the money from South Korea to a bank in Qatar.

Now, many people may not at first understand the nature of how that makes such a significant difference.  The lack of understanding is the result of people not fully grasping what Qatar does in the Middle East.   Qatar is the financial center for Islamic extremist operations.  Qatar is the banking center for the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Brotherhood is the political umbrella for a host of Islamic extremist groups.

Qatar is well known to CTH readers and those who follow the deep weeds of geopolitics.  Qatar has historically been the financial center and funding mechanism of the Muslim Brotherhood.  In many ways Qatar is to the U.S. State Dept, CIA and political elements of the Intelligence Community in the Middle East, as Ukraine is to those same entities in Europe.

We have outlined the long history of Qatar as it pertains to a myriad of U.S. interests.

EXAMPLES: •When the Obama/Clinton State Dept wanted to fund the covert weapons to the Benghazi rebels, they used Qatar. •When President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expelled the radical leaders of The Brotherhood from Egypt, they went to Qatar.  •When President Donald Trump asked the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to confront radical Islamic extremism, the Arab nations confronted Qatar.  •When Qatar was forced to expel the five most radical leaders of The Brotherhood, they went to Turkey.  [Turkish President Recep Erdogan is aligned in common principle with The Brotherhood.]  •When the U.S. released captured Islamic extremists from Gitmo (al-Qaeda in Afghanistan), they were transferred to Qatar.  •When the Taliban took back control over Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leaders from Qatar went back to Afghanistan.

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This guy is beyond shameless.  After coordinating an appeasement policy toward Iran that included the return of $6 billion in sanctioned money, the current occupant of the Secretary of State’s office, Anthony Blinken, says the administration is unsure of the Hamas motive attacking Israel.  This might sound like a crazy thing to say, until you realize it is a necessary pretending game in order to maintain the policy for preferring a two-state solution.

If Blinken or Biden were to admit that Hamas has a fundamental purpose to kill the people of Israel, they would have to admit there’s no possibility of the Palestinians and Israeli’s cohabitating the same landscape; thus, their ‘two-state’ solution would be moot.  So, they must maintain the flawed premise and pretend not to know the motivations of Hamas.  It really is a shameless exhibition in ideology, as advanced. WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We now go to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who joins us from the State Department here in Washington. Good to have you with us. Mr. Secretary, I know you have been working–

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: Thanks Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN:  Straight through on this. Can you answer the question yet of whether the Hamas assault is over? Are there more attacks to come?

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Following reports of U.S. casualties and hostages taken in Israel, the U.S. Aircraft Carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), as well as the other Ships in Carrier Strike Group 12 which includes Ticonderoga-Class Cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60), as well as Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyers USS Ramage (DDG-61), USS McFaul (DDG-74), and USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), are reportedly heading towards the Eastern Mediterranean.

(Military) – […] Along with the Ford the U.S. is sending the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt and the U.S. is augmenting Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

“The U.S. maintains ready forces globally to further reinforce this deterrence posture if required,” Austin said in a statement.

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Appearing on CBS, Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., tells “Face the Nation” that after the unprecedented attack in Gaza that left at least 600 dead, “we have to destroy the Hamas war machine.” “This is war,” he said.  Additionally, Ambassador Herzog confirms that Americans were taken as hostages back into Gaza.   WATCH:

MARGARET BRENNAN: Are there Americans among those hostages?

AMBASSADOR HERZOG: I understand there are, but I don’t have details.

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re joined now by the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog. Mr. Ambassador, first, I want to offer you our condolences.

AMBASSADOR MICHAEL HERZOG: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We know that your Prime Minister is promising a sustained campaign. Do you have any sense of how Israel will define success?

AMBASSADOR HERZOG: Well, Israel is at war. Yesterday, we were attacked by a terror organization. They infiltrated Israeli territory and killed hundreds of Israelis. At least 600 were butchered yesterday, including whole families, elderly, women, children, babies were taken out of the mothers laps and murdered. This is war and we have to fight that war and win it. We have to destroy the Hamas war machine. You know, in war- back in war- we have to fight it.

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Caroline Glick provides a somber rundown of what has happened in Israel, and starting at 06:00 of the video below, shares some pragmatic thoughts on the meaning of the war and the only way that it can end with Israel and its people safe.

Given the nature of what has been happening in Israeli politics, and the coordination Saturday in the Hamas attack, as Mrs. Glick aptly notes, all prior metrics for a regional Israeli control and defend policy has failed.

In very somber tones, Caroline Glick deconstructs the pretending model and cuts to the heart of the issue.  Regardless of diplomatic costs, the strategic killing of every element of Hamas must begin immediately, with extreme prejudice and without regard for collateral damage. WATCH (Prompted):

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(Via Daily Mail) –  The Hamas gunmen who launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel have taken babies and elderly women hostage, according to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Bennett revealed the sickening details of the ongoing assault in an interview with CNN on Saturday night, as running gun battles continued in the streets of Israel more than 24 hours after the assault began. (more)

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Victor Davis Hanson is a man not known for short-term thinking.  Indeed, while his analysis does not always contain the same scope of datapoints reviewed here, his opinions are generally rooted in accepting things as they are, not as he would pretend them to be.

Recently during an interview with Tucker Carlson, as he contrasts the targeting of President Donald Trump, VDH was far more distraught than previously noted in his analysis. He increasingly sees our American options for a peaceful approach to retain our constitutional republic, diminishing.

Today, VDH takes the overall geopolitical landscape and outlines his thoughts below on the Hamas terror attack against the nation state of Israel.  Victor Davis Hanson:

A 50th Anniversary War?

Why did Hamas stage a long-planned, carefully executed and multifaceted attack on Israeli towns, soldiers, and civilians—one designed to instill terror by executing noncombatants, taking hostages, and desecrating the bodies of the dead?

And how were the killers able to enter Israeli proper in enough numbers to kill what could be hundreds and perhaps eventually wound what could be thousands?

a) Ostensibly, radical Palestinians wanted to stop any rumored rapprochement between the Gulf monarchies—the traditional source of much of their cash—and Israel, by forcing the issue of Arab solidarity in times of “war”, especially through waging a gruesome attack aimed at civilians and encompassing executions and hostage taking. Iran likely was the driving force to prompt the war—given its greatest fear is a Sunni Arab-Israeli rapprochement.

b) Arab forces have had only success against Israel through surprise attacks during Israeli holidays, as in the Yom Kippur War (i.e., was it any accident that the present attack began 50-years almost to the day after the October 6, 1973 beginning of the Yom Kippur War?). And so they struck again this Saturday during Simchat Torah, coming at the end of a weeklong Jewish celebration of Sukkot—in hopes that others will join in as happened in 1973. (So much for the Arab warnings not for Westerners to conduct war during Ramadan).

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The reports from the ground in Israel are horrific.  Israeli citizens have been targeted by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated the border – with families killed and multiple kidnappings, as the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) rapidly deploys into several areas.  Hundreds have been killed in a well-coordinated attack from the air, land and sea.

(FOX NEWS) – […] Israeli media reported that at least 100 people have so far been killed in the wide-ranging assault, while Gaza health officials say that 198 Palestinians have died in Israeli air strikes made in response to the Hamas attack. Hospitals are treating at least 561 wounded people, including 77 who were in critical condition, the Associated Press reported based on public statements and calls to hospitals. (read more)

[Source – Source]

GROUND REPORT – (Long Time Treeper, David)

My American friends,

Today is a very sad day for Israel. We had a surprise attack with terrorists from gliders from the sky, boats and ground. The situation is not fully understood yet and there is a lot of media confusion.

Not all is published but there are over 40 dead (probably a lot more), over 750 injured and citizens are donating blood as there is scarcity. And there are hostages. I don’t know how many, Hamas is claiming 35.

They managed to occupy about 7 towns and army bases or a base and at this time about 3 towns are still in heavy combat. I saw footage of terrorists shooting at Israeli vehicles and killing families with children. There are thousands of rockets fired at Israel. I saw a footage of Israeli national counter terror unit negotiating and preparing and assault at a hostage situation in a town.

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