'Sunny with Light Missile Cover Here in Tel Aviv'

“I awoke to muffled thuds in the distance, Iron Dome shooting down Syrian-made missiles launched from Gaza, according to news reports,” David P. Goldman notes in his latest column, written on location:

I attended the obligatory morning mixer for hotel guests at the bomb shelter, which fortunately lasted only five minutes before the all-clear sounded. I’ll write something more comprehensive on this soon — Tablet is scheduled to run my essay next Monday — but the thumbnail version is that Hamas is making a demonstration out of weakness. Money is tight, 44,000 Gaza civil servants haven’t been paid for weeks, and the IDF did significant damage to its infrastructure on the West Bank after the kidnapping-murder of the three yeshiva boys. Netanyahu will look indecisive and confused, because he has to deal with an openly hostile U.S. administration on one side and his nationalist camp on the other. Time, though, is on Israel’s side: economically, demographically, strategically. The proportion of Jewish births continues to soar. The fruits of a decade of venture capital investing are ripening into high-valuation companies. And the Arab world is disintegrating all around Israel’s borders.

David’s longtime nom de pixel has been “Spengler,” and the synchronicity of Israel’s border crisis alongside our own is a reminder that his namesake’s Decline of the West is certainly proceeding apace. Or as Roger L. Simon, our Maximum Pajamahadeen emeritus notes today, “Bibi, it’s up to you.  Western civilization’s last stand:”

Let’s hope Netanyahu does not fall prey to pressure and keeps on keeping on because someone sometime has to stand up to Islamofacism or it will continue its unstopped march across the Middle East and beyond.  It certainly won’t be Obama, who has allowed violent jihadists to flourish across Iraq, Syria and Iran — not to mention North Africa, Nigeria, the Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines and now the Islamic State (aka ISIS) installing their own caliphate.  Obama previously tried to help shore up Islamofascism in Egypt (Morsi) and Turkey (Erdogan). And all the while he  has been chasing a nuclear deal with the monstrous mullahs of Iran who want nothing more than the extinction of the West and a caliphate of their own to compete with the Sunnis of ISIS.

I’m confused. Weren’t “progressives” supposed to be for religious freedom and opposed to misogyny,  homophobia and theocracy? Oh, well.  Maybe I was misinformed.

Enough already.  Bibi, it’s up to you.  Western civilization’s last stand.

We should all be encouraging Netanyahu now, lining up behind him, no matter what our smaller biases. He needs friends at home and abroad.  So do the Israeli soldiers. Even though I am not religious, I will be praying for them.

To put it all into perspective, sometimes a Tweet really is worth a thousand words:

See this map to understand the impact of Hamas missiles on a border #IsraelUnderFire pic.twitter.com/TjQ73krS1M

— Steve Israel (@RepSteveIsrael) July 10, 2014

Update: “Two Videos, Two Different Universes.”