One of my favorite movies is Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, which tells the story of a slave held in chains who is purchased by a bounty hunter seeking his help. The movie graphically depicts the violence required for Django to earn his freedom, but the first step was the removal of his chains.
I was reminded of Django when Israel struck Hezbollah’s headquarters, killing many terrorists in leadership positions, including the second in command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and, most importantly, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. To call this remarkable and stunning would be accurate but would minimize the miraculous assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran several weeks ago, the brilliant use of pagers and walkie-talkies to decimate Hezbollah terrorists and their ability to communicate, and the other strikes over the past month that destroyed the leadership of Hezbollah’s Radwan forces, including Ibrahim Aqil who was responsible for the 1983 terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. service members.
An eye for an eye? Revenge is sweet? I’d call it schadenfreude, but “karma’s a bitch” also works. No matter how one looks at this, everyone in the West should be thanking Israel and cheering her on while wishing her great success in this next phase of Iran’s decades-long war to rid the Middle East of all Jews. Instead, we see much of the Arab street, including in Syria and Iraq, celebrating Nasrallah’s death while Western anti-Israel activists, journalists and politicians lionize the terrorist responsible for untold numbers of deaths of Arabs, Americans and Israelis over decades. Insanely, while Israel is on the frontlines of Western civilization, much of Western civilization has nonetheless been singularly focused on her demonization and cheering on the terrorists while doing everything possible to ensure that Israel loses the wars.
Though the United States had a $7 million bounty on Aqil, I have yet to see the Biden administration thank Israel for doing what the United States was unable to do for 40 years. Instead, the policy of the Obama/Biden/Harris administrations has been daylight inserted in the U.S.-Israel relationship coupled with appeasing, empowering and enriching the Islamic Republic and its terror proxies.
These policymakers fail to understand that a strong and secure Israel actually strengthens U.S. national security and helps free the Middle East from Islamist terror and free them from the true occupation of the Arab countries Iran has invaded to sow violence and mayhem. They have had Israel in chains, including since Oct. 7.
Thus, Iran and its proxies have surrounded Israel in a “ring of fire” intended to destroy her. The unprecedented barbarism of Oct. 7 should have been the last straw for the United States as well as Israel. It should have been a wake-up call that a strong U.S.-Israel relationship helps to maintain peace and stability in the region, but a weak one leads to terror and war. Instead, panic set in as U.S. President Joe Biden’s foreign-policy incompetents turned their ire towards Israel, lest there be an “escalation” of violence and regional war.
The attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters was not an escalation since team Biden-Harris has been calling Israel’s military operations since the Oct. 7 massacre. This was a pre-emptive strike on an internationally recognized terrorist organization that has been raining more than 8,000 missiles, rockets and drones on Israel on a daily basis since the Hamas butchery. This was Israel defending its citizens from Iranian threats of its annihilation, Hezbollah’s promises to repeat Oct. 7 on Israel’s northern border, Yemen’s latest attack on Tel Aviv and what remains of Hamas’s continued threats in Gaza. No civilized nation would have endured what Israel has endured without striking back.
The Biden-Harris administration entered office with a mandate to reverse all of former President Donald Trump’s successes, including those in the region. Thus, they ostracized Saudi Arabia just as it was on the cusp of signing onto the Abraham Accords and reverted to the Obama-Biden policy of empowering Iran and its proxies. Thus, when President Biden flew to Israel in the days following Hamas’s attack, he spent his time on the ground dictating to Israel that he would not abide by Israel pre-emptively attacking Hezbollah to stop a second front from opening up. Israel has been facing Hezbollah missiles ever since, forcing over 60,000 Israelis to evacuate their homes in the north. Biden helped Hezbollah achieve something that no other enemy of the Jewish state has ever been able to do—voluntarily ceding territory to the enemy.
Biden then planted U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Israel’s war cabinet meetings to advise what the United States would and would not tolerate in Israel’s existential battle. The Biden-Harris administration took to the national and international stage to denounce Israeli aggression while morally equivocating on right from wrong good versus evil. Biden et al, threatened repercussions if Israel didn’t provide the Jew-haters with humanitarian aid and agree to a ceasefire; each time Hamas turned down a deal, they blamed Israel.
The chains remained on throughout. Israel was prohibited from attacking Hezbollah in the north even as Israeli soldiers were wounded and killed, property damage was amassed, and 12 Israeli children in a northern village were killed by a Hezbollah missile. After Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone barrage in April, the Biden team warned Israel not to retaliate. For the past year, the administration has been warning Israel to cease fighting in Gaza, with Vice President Kamala Harris threatening that there would be “consequences” if the IDF moved into Rafah. That caused a two-month delay during which Hamas was able to fortify itself, hide the hostages and booby trap the area resulting in the deaths of both Israeli soldiers and hostages. The administration has Jewish blood on its hands.
Our “leaders” are scared to death of war and fearful of our enemies. Peace through strength is anathema to them, and now Israel finds itself surrounded by heavily armed terrorists on all sides. The daylight they inserted into the U.S.-Israel relationship and the chains in which they shackled Israel is what led to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7; Hezbollah’s arsenal of some 150,000 to 200,000 ballistic missiles; Houthis now terrorizing the Red Sea and interrupting the flow of international shipping and commerce; and the ultimate prize, a nuclear Iran.
It’s absurd to think that the greatest military power in the world has allowed this to happen, with Israel on the frontlines paying the price. But whether the antisemites who encompass the United Nations, European Union and the Democrat Party are willing to admit it, Israel remains the David in this battle, fighting the Goliath behemoth built by Iran and funded by the United States. The United States under Obama, Biden and Harris ignorantly turned to Iran to empower while ignoring that Israel is our strongest national security asset in the region. Instead of unchaining Israel from its dangerous restraints, they opted for war that will certainly envelop the United States unless Israel can finish the job, which means ultimately cutting off the head of the octopus. Israel can only do that with the necessary armaments. But the United States is shackling her by withholding the 2,000-pound bombs and other munitions she needs to finish the job.
While Django’s violent onslaught to free his wife from slavery in the final scene of the movie can arguably be described as his ultimate revenge, he was simply surviving. That’s exactly what Israel is doing—seeking to survive in a jungle of terrorism, surrounded by enemies wishing to destroy her.
Despite Biden’s latest demand that war with Hezbollah must be avoided, Israel’s ground invasion in Lebanon nonetheless has begun. The administration has been warning Israel not to “escalate,” repeating the word “ceasefire” like a parrot that mimes but doesn’t understand what it’s saying. These people know what they are saying; they fail to understand that Israelis are survivors who can no longer afford to remain chained to the demands of people who want terrorists to win.
On Sunday, Israel attacked Iranian assets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The Jewish state is doing what the United States is refusing to do—defend its borders, citizens and future security. It would be a lot easier if America had a commander-in-chief and foreign-policy team that stood by its ally, militarily and diplomatically. Until then, Israel, like Django, will be on her own in her fight for freedom and survival. And an unchained Israel will win. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at the United Nations, “Enough is enough.”
