The Left and Human Shields

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What do Hamas and illegal immigration activists have in common?  Both hide behind human shields.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked innocent civilians.  Not soldiers, not the Israeli Defense Force.  They went after men, women, and children in adjacent towns and villages, raping, kidnapping, and killing.

When Prime Minister Netanyahu launched raids to rescue hostages taken on October 7, Hamas put human shields between themselves and rescuers to create casualties.  Throughout the Gaza war, Hamas terrorists hide behind UNRWA schools and hospitals to shield themselves.  It dares Israel to come after them, hoping human shields provide kinetic vetoes.  Hamas doesn’t care about innocent civilians; it cares about the propaganda it generates by casualties that are the result of its immoral battle tactics.

Hamas cares about that propaganda because, in the topsy-turvy morality of the world today, Israel gets blamed for fighting back.  For defending itself.  For rescuing hostages.  For exposing its own troops to greater harm to minimize collateral damage to civilian because of Hamas’s immoral fighting tactics.  The horrific casualties of Gaza could be avoided if Hamas surrendered or at least came out in the open rather than hiding behind women and children.

But we have the International Criminal Court issuing warrants for Israel’s leadership.  Sure, they included one Hamas figure.  They didn’t have others to include because Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies have already dispatched most of them to another judgment seat. 

I mention the Hamas human shield strategy because one hears its eerie echoes on the American left  intending to interfere with immigration law enforcement.  They’re not just threatening noncooperation with federal authorities.  These modern-day George Wallaces are promising active interference and obstruction.  And one way they seem to be planning that is by using human shields.

George Wallace at least put himself in the schoolroom door.  These guys want to put civilians in harm’s way.  Denver mayor Mike Johnston threatens civil resistance.  He says that if the feds try to round up illegals in the Mile High City, civil opposition will swell into a “Tiananmen Square” uprising.  (Maybe Tim Walz can arrange to be there so he can attend a Tiananmen uprising.)  Mike Johnston isn’t saying he plans to tell people to stay out of it and stay home.

The “social justice” activist group Truthout is calling on the U.S. military to disobey orders if told to round up illegals.  Their post is invidious in two ways.  The straightforward way is to claim that soldiers need not obey unlawful orders, thus undermining chain of command and military discipline.

The devious way is to be found in the responses of commentators.  It’s clear that many want civilians in sanctuary jurisdictions to place themselves between the illegals and any military force executing the Immigration and Nationality Act.  In other words, like Hamas, they want to use Americans as human shields to obstruct federal law enforcement.  Like Hamas, they probably wouldn’t be upset if some of those Americans are injured or even killed.  It gives them talking points to divert public attention.  As the Soviet communists used to say, “you’ve got to break some eggs to make an omelet” — and, like today’s left using human shields, they never cared if some of those broken shells were useful idiots.

In other words, to protect the “rights” of people who have no right to be here, they are willing to use Americans as shields to interfere with federal law enforcement and score propaganda points.  The former sounds like insurrection, the latter like the callous disregard for their fellow Americans so characteristic of leftist pieties.

Consider, after all, how MSNBC initially headlined the verdict on the conviction of Jose Ibarra, Laken Riley’s convicted murderer.  Before changing it, MSNBC initially titled the story, “Laken Riley’s Killer Never Stood a Chance.”  As bizarre as the headline is (what chance did Laken Riley have?) the real question is, what motivated it?  Most likely, it was the left’s objection to the speed at which Georgia showed that it could try and convict Ibarra.  Presumably, an open-and-shut case should have been dragged out and spend the next 30 years on appeal. 

What’s clear here is disregard for the rights and interests of American citizens in favor of preferred causes.  And the same disregard will likely be operating in any case to use Americans as shields for illegals.

Shields will be called “peaceful protesters.”  (No insurrection to see here, folks.)  They’ll be said to be defending their “community’s values.”  (They’ll ignore the fact they’re using the same slogan as Southern segregationists.)  They’ll be defending “states’ rights” and “civil rights” — even though, by their own lawfare (Arizona v. United States), it’s clear that states cannot pre-empt federal jurisdiction in immigration cases and that illegal aliens’ “rights” are rather limited.  And they’ll egg on such “peaceful protests” in defense of “rights” and “values” not because they believe any of those things, but because they are useful deflection points while setting up people as shields to become “victims” for their cause.

Local jurisdictions can, indeed should cooperate with federal law enforcement on illegal immigration — e.g., holding illegals for handover.  We should even incentivize them to do so and exact financial costs from them if they don’t.  But even if they don’t cooperate, they certainly cannot affirmatively obstruct federal law enforcement.  At that point, officials ordering such policies expose themselves to arrest for obstructing federal immigration law enforcement and their forces to federalization. 

What I fear is not so much Mike Johnston leading the Denver Police to cordon off parts of the city inhabited densely by illegal aliens as much as the wink-and-nod approach of blue-state officials egging civilian “protesters” into the streets and then doing nothing about it.  Like Hamas, they want human shields to deter enforcement and create “victims” to generate sympathy for their cause and rewrite the narrative. 

As in the case of Hamas, we can’t let the story be hijacked by those using human shields.

Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).

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Image via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).