Sleeping With The Enemy

Advocates for a cease-fire in Gaza might be well-intentioned, but they are doing Hamas's bidding. Also, Speaker Johnson is a problem for Republicans and the rising tide of global antisemitism.

I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.

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About That Cease-Fire…

This video is one of the most instructive pieces of evidence on why there should be no cease-fire in Gaza.

In this interview, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad says Israel must be removed, and it has no place in the Middle East. He says there will be more terrorist attacks and that Hamas is “proud to sacrifice martyrs.” He also falsely denies that Hamas planned to harm civilians, “but there were complications on the ground.” When asked if ending the occupation means Israel’s annihilation, he says, “Of course.” And, in a perfect example of the sociopathy that defines Hamas’s ideology, he says that Palestinians are only victims, “everything we do is justified,” and “nobody should blame us for the things we do.”

I don’t know what more evidence one needs to see that Hamas is only interested in a cease-fire insofar as it will give them breathing space to plan new attacks against Israel. Indeed, in the two years before October 7 — when there was a cease-fire in place — that’s what Hamas did, even as Israel relaxed the restrictions on Gaza and let more Palestinians enter Israel to work.

Western calls for a cease-fire, however well-meaning, are not only divorced from reality, but they are doing Hamas's bidding. In the meantime, Hamas is purposely sacrificing Palestinian civilians -- and putting them in harm's way -- because they know that doing so provides them strategic benefit.

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(It’s also important to point out that if groups are calling for a cease-fire and not also demanding the unconditional release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza, they are sending a clear and unfortunate signal that Jewish lives are not a major priority).

There is a perverse, sadistic exercise underway right now in Gaza. Hamas unleashed a depraved, barbaric attack on Israeli civilians that they knew would lead to an immediate and overwhelming Israeli military response. No effort was made to stockpile humanitarian relief or prepare and protect those in Gaza from the onslaught that Hamas knew was coming.

Hamas has purposely placed its weaponry in civilian areas. It has constructed miles of tunnels underneath hospitals and apartment buildings (though, quite notably, none of these underground lairs include civilian bomb shelters). Unlike the idiots accusing Israel of genocide or “carpet bombing” Gaza, Hamas’s military leaders know that Israel has a professional army that does not purposely target civilians. That's why Hamas puts its military capabilities in civilian settings. It makes it harder for Israel to strike them because, unlike Hamas, Israel generally tries to avoid killing civilians.

In effect, Hamas is using Gaza residents as human shields.

But they are also propaganda tools, especially if they are killed. When civilians inevitably die, Hamas’s apologists in the West will immediately criticize Israel and demand a cessation of hostilities. Indeed, the more Palestinians are killed, the more the calls will increase for Israel to end the fighting. Hamas isn’t just obscenely unbothered by the deaths of Palestinians; they rely on them. It’s integral to their political and military strategy.

What has changed in this conflict is that Israel, while still seeking to avoid civilian casualties, has decided that they are willing to tolerate far higher levels of civilian deaths to defeat Hamas and end the cycle of violence between Gaza and Israel.

So, while many of those calling for a cease-fire are well-intended, they are, in effect, doing Hamas’s bidding. There is only one way for this war to end — with Hamas’s defeat. After that happens, we can and should talk about the need for a real two-state solution to this unending conflict.

Poisoned Johnson

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My MSNBC piece this week looks at the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson’s liabilities for vulnerable Republicans.

Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker of the House, is not exactly a well-known figure. When his GOP colleagues made him second in line to the presidency last week, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, was so unfamiliar with him that she told a reporter she would have to Google him.

All that will likely change between now and next November. 

Johnson is a Trump-loving, election-denying, abortion ban-supporting, gay rights-opposing, climate change-rejecting, and conspiracy-believing conservative. If House Democrats are smart, they will turn Mike Johnson into a household name — though not in a good way.

This is a riff off the brief piece I wrote last week on Mike Johnson’s long list of toxic political positions — and the argument is pretty straightforward. Johnson is a political extremist on everything from abortion and same-sex marriage to guns and election denying, and Democrats will likely spend the next year linking the 18 House Republicans in districts won by Biden to him.

(Since publishing this piece, CNN revealed that Johnson previously worked with a group advocating “conversion therapy,” a long-discredited practice that sought to convert gay people back to heterosexuality. It also appears that he lives paycheck-to-paycheck, which, I guess, makes him more relatable).

I’ve reached the point where I think the odds of Democratic reclaiming the House might be higher than Biden winning reelection. That doesn’t mean I think Biden will lose (though there’s no denying the fact that recent presidential polling is not great). It’s just that the situation in the House looks slightly more positive right now for Democrats.

And I was going to print today; I noticed that the Cook Report’s Dave Wasserman is slightly bullish on the Dems ‘ chances of taking the House (he thinks they have a better chance of taking the House than holding the Senate). A lot still depends on court challenges in Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida that could add 2-3 black majority districts (which favors Democrats) and redistricting efforts in New York and North Carolina. Still, even without those, Republicans are in a tough spot to hold the House in 2024.

Can We At Least Agree On This?

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