Police Pandering to aggressive crowds

Consider this. There are two demonstrations in town at the same time. One is a rather aggressive, large group of protestors threatening violence against citizens; they should shout slogans and carry signs that incite violence. The other is a smaller group of ordinary citizens, walking quietly; they, too, carry flags and some signs, but none incite violence. There are no speeches or chants, just a quiet demonstration.

Which would you prefer in your city? If you went to the city and happened to pass by one of these demonstrations, would you want to be confronted by a screaming mob or a quiet group of peaceful demonstrators?  

Yes, I have loaded the question to absurdity. No one who is not part of the screaming mob or strongly aligned with their motivation would want their peaceful city taken over by loud, aggressive mobs. No matter the cause.

And what would you want the police to do if the two demonstrations converged on each other?  I guess that would be more difficult, as it would depend on police resources at the time and the size of the two demonstrations. You would not want to have them merge, as we know what would happen. But, and this is important, if a demonstration was planned and authorised at a specific location, then the Police should ensure that that demonstration had the priority at that location. Moreover, the Police should ensure they have sufficient resources to protect the demonstrators from aggressors.

Unfortunately, for many Western Cities, aggressive and unseemly demonstrations have become a weekly occurrence. They have been called pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but in practice, they would be better characterised as anti-Israel or pro-Hamas demonstrations. No matter the justification, no one would have cared had they been peaceful. But no, their marches were provocative, specifically targeting synagogues and Jewish-dominated areas. The chants were genocidal and anti-Semitic. It was not just Israel they demonised, but Jews. Also, they incited violence against Jews, and they were themselves violent. 

What did the police do to ensure the many laws against hate speech, incitement to violence, and to protect the rights of non-demonstrators to use public roads and parks? In Australia, they did nothing.  They allowed the demonstrators to take over the streets. They allowed racist anti-Semitism and genocidal chants to continue. They allowed the flags of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation, contrary to the law. They only acted when there was property damage and seemed reluctant even then. When pro-Israel demonstrators happened to be in the same areas, the police invariably forced the peaceful demonstrators to leave. Why? They were afraid they could not enforce their will on the aggressive mob. That is the epitome of police failure. 

No society can survive if those charged with protecting the rights of all citizens simply abandon their jobs when they are needed most. 

A recent episode was recorded by Rebel News' Avi Yemini and is well worth a view.

Iran's collapse frightens Russia

Israel has pulled off a spectacular pre-emptive assault on saber-rattling, terrorist-supporting, theocratic dictatorship. It has managed in just a few days to win dominance in the air, and is in the cleaning-up stages. This includes further attacks on nuclear-related sites, the IRGC assets, and some infrastructure. The latter is specifically to discourage Iran from using its ballistic missiles against civilian targets.

The war has not been all one-way. Iran showed a surprising lack of resistance to Israel's air attack. More on this later. On the other hand, it has launched multiple waves of drones and ballistic missiles against Israel's largest cities. Despite a highly efficient protective dome, destroying some 80-90% of such missiles, the remainder do penetrate, and we have seen substantial damage to buildings, and some casualties. The number of civilians who have lost their lives is relatively small, especially given the size of the onslaught. It was only possible due to Israel's defensive infrastructure, with shelters built in or near virtually every building.

Iran has targeted a few strategic sites, Israel's defence departments' building and an Oil Refinery in Haifa, but its primary targets have been residential areas. I expect that we will soon have the ICC issue warrants for the Iranian military leaders and the Ayatollah for such war crimes. And of course, the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway will put sanctions on these people. SO that will teach them. Of course, I don't really expect any such actions. But it does show the hypocrisy of the ICC and those virtue-signalling morally blind leaders of the UK, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and shamefully Australia.

While all freedom-loving people will applaud the success of Israel, and indeed thank them for taking the action against Iran. While Israel has done this as it faced an existential threat in Iran's moves to develop nuclear weapons after they had threatened Israel's destruction often enough. They had even boasted that Israel was a one bomb state. So they only had to make sure they managed to get one through, and Israel would be destroyed. So Israel had little choice, and they took the brave steps to protect their country. Yet, we have to accept that they have done us all a favour. The Islamists who rule, perhaps I will soon be saying ruled, but not yet, have threatened not only Israel but the West in general. A nuclear-armed Iran would have perpetuated a regime that had already supported terrorism around the world, through proxies, it had fought civil wars in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. It was a force for evil and should never have been accepted in the community of nations. The world could isolate such rogue states, but I will leave that for another day.

While the West celebrates Iran's now-likely fall, its allies, China & Russia, have a lesson to learn. Iran's inability to prevent Israel's air superiority despite anti-aircraft defence systems provided by Russia is sobering. While Russia did not supply many batteries of its best system, the SU-400, it had provided the SU-300. They turned out to be totally ineffective against Israel. To our knowledge, after 5 days, Israel has not lost a single aeroplane. That is remarkable.

So Russia's confidence in its ability to defend itself has taken a blow. Equally important, Iran was a major source of the drones that Russia had been using against Ukraine. That supply line has now been broken. Israel's success against Iran has dealt several blows to Russia.

Here is a video providing far more detail on the impact of Iran's failure on Russia.

Weekly Roundup – Top Articles & Commentary (Week 25, 2025)

 Here are links to some selected articles of interest and our posts from this week.

• Lies, Damn Lies & our MSM 
  
• Net Zero must go. Hear Matt Ridley's comments about the farce that is the quest for net zero. This is a rather long one, but worth the investment.

• Iran's failure frightens Russia
• Police pandering to aggressive crowds
  

We welcome all feedback, so please feel free to submit your comments or communicate with me via email at grappysb@gmail.com or @grappysb on X.

Lies, Damn Lies and our MSM

I almost feel guilty pointing out the same issues post after post. Yes, I am criticising the MSM (Main Stream Media) again. No surprise that much of the MSM is left-leaning. Sometimes we can adjust for the known bias. If we see any article about Israel in the NY Times, we can completely discount what they say. They not only always take a view that is critical of Israel, but also, too often, they simply print lies. Even when this is pointed out later, they will take no steps to correct the lies. 

Consider the case where a misdirected rocket fired from Gaza towards Israel fell short onto a hospital parking lot, killing many people. Hamas claimed Israel had bombed the hospital, killing some 500 people. All are simply anti-Israel propaganda. You guessed it, most MSM printed the propaganda as fact. When the truth was discovered, most of the media printed retractions, pretty weak ones, but of course not the NY Times.

But that is not my focus today. Today it is about the LA riots. The anti-Trump MSM, together with the Democrats, have tried to portray these riots as 'mainly peaceful'. That description is, of course, now infamous after we experienced the summer of love in 2020 with mainly peaceful demonstrations, causing the destruction of billions in property, looting, fires, and even deaths. All mainly peaceful.

Thankfully the LA riots have not been allowed to get out of hand. After what happened in 2020 Donald Trump was not going to allow these riots to continue without direct and forecful action. He called out the National Guard and sure enough the LA police also started doing their jobs. 

The media, however, was once again at their worst. Instead of reporting the facts, they acted like cheerleaders for the rioters.  If only there could be some way to punish the media for inciting illegality. But I note that with some hesitation, as I know what would happen if Congress were tasked with framing such a law. No, the better way is to enforce the laws as they stand. 

Dr Phil presents an enlightening perspective on how the media handled the LA Riots.

 

Dancing Dogs, sort of.

In the "now for something completely different" file, I have included this video clip of the appearance of Boston Dynamics' robotic dogs in America's Got Talent reality show. They made quite a splash and were certainly a popular act. These types of casual, friendly introductions of robots are important. They serve to demystify the machines that will no doubt integrate ever more completely into our daily lives. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptYDWP9uTis&pp=4gcMEgpzdXBlcmh1bWFu