From San Bernardino to Gaza

“On Oct. 7, Hamas committed a brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent people and abducted 250 hostages,” Vice President Kamala Harris told the Michigan Democratic Party on Saturday.  “Thankfully, four of those hostages were reunited with their families tonight. And we mourn all of the innocent lives that have been lost in Gaza, including those tragically killed today.”

Harris did not name hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Shlomi Ziv, and Andrey Kozlov. A unit of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) rescued the hostages but for Harris they were somehow “reunited” with their families. Hamas still holds American hostages Edan Alexander, Itay Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Gadi Haggai, Judi Weinstein Haggai, Omer Neutra, and Keith Siegel, ranging in age from 19 to 73. Vice president Harris mentioned not a single American hostage, and that was something of a repeat performance from her days as attorney general of California.

On December 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Ngyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel. In a December 17 statement, attorney general Harris mentioned “those who lost their lives,” but failed to name a single victim or condemn the terrorists.

In a statement one year later, Harris recalled “those who lost their lives and the loved ones they left behind,” but again named not a single victim. The dead and wounded included blacks, Hispanics, Asians and immigrants but Harris failed to call the mass murder a hate crime or even gun violence. Vice President Harris now finds it hard to distinguish Hamas terrorists from their innocent victims. Such confusion was not evident during an Israeli hostage rescue on a much larger scale.

On July 4, 1976 at Entebbe airport in Uganda, the Israelis rescued 102 hostages taken captive by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Israelis killed all seven PFLP terrorists and 45 Ugandan soldiers perished in the firefight. President Gerald Ford said:

Our own Bicentennial Independence Day was enhanced by an event that day at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.  That action of liberation freed our own hearts to fuller understanding of the universal meaning of independence – and the courageous action sometimes required to preserve it.

Joe Biden welcomed the rescue of the four Israelis but at this writing the Delaware Democrat has not sent an elite unit to rescue the American hostages. Maybe he recalls a previous attempt.

On April 24, 1980, president Jimmy Carter approved “Operation Eagle Claw” to rescue 53 Americans held captive by Iran since November 4, 1979. The operation ended in disaster and the hostages were not freed until January 20, 1981, “minutes after the inauguration of new U.S. President Ronald Reagan.”

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