The late, great Sunday Times writer Marie Colvin said it best:  war correspondents send back the first draft of history.

Colvin was assassinated by the Syrian regime in 2012. She, more than most, knew how difficult it is to ascertain the truth in the chaos and wreckage of wartime. The first casualty of war is indeed truth, as everyone knows.

During Israel’s overdue and righteous war against the murderous cult that is Hamas, many re-learned this lesson the hard way.  Remember that hospital in Gaza, the one that Israel supposedly destroyed back in October, purportedly killing 500 innocent Palestinians in the process?

Well, they didn’t. Destroy the hospital or kill 500 people. The hospital is still standing, and 500 bodies have yet to be produced by the Hamas-controlled health authority. However, no less than The New York Times blamed Israel on its front page, under a screaming headline.

And they were wrong. As the Times was subsequently forced to admit: “[Our] coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.”

“Incorrect” is a bit of an understatement. When you wrongly accuse a country of a massive war crime in your front page, you need to clearly and unambiguously apologize.

You also need to do something else: not ever take the word of Hamas. In particular, don’t take the word of Hamas, or its agencies, when assessing what is happening in the war in Gaza.

Edward N. Luttwak didn’t. Luttwak has been a war correspondent and soldier himself. In a piece published this week in Tablet magazine, Luttwak carefully analyzed Israel’s conduct of the war so far. His conclusion:

“Israel’s very innovative methods to surveil, penetrate, and destroy Hamas tunnels have been markedly and unexpectedly successful. But the constraints placed on Israel’s combat operations have been very severe, and a major impediment to its fight.”

Among those constraints, of course, is that Israel is always held to a different standard. The aforementioned Syrian regime can slaughter 110,000 Muslims in 2015, many of them children, and the keffiyah-clad Gen Z protestors in the West won’t chant a thing. About Israel, of course, they’ll scream bloody murder.

And that’s even when murder has not taken place. As Luttwak writes, “The Israeli army remains wedded to the British method of intensive and prolonged individual instruction for its soldiers before their in-unit training, so that nobody enters Gaza without at least a full year’s worth of combat instruction, much more than their American counterparts had in Vietnam.”

That has kept Israeli troop casualties to a shockingly small number: less than 300. Says Luttwak: “Not in the thousands suggested by the beribboned skeptics who were gleefully echoed by the malevolent, but under 300 as of this writing. In other words, only a very, very small number, given the magnitude of the forces involved on both sides, and the exceptional complexity of the battlefield.”

Nor does Luttwak accept the wild numbers coming out of Hamas when calculating civilian deaths: “Contrary to accusations that only expensively educated U.S. college students could possibly believe, Israeli soldiers do not deliberately kill innocent civilians going about their business.”

Meanwhile, he says, thousands of trained Hamas fighters have been slain. The Israeli battlefield victories have been “exceptional,” he says.

How has Israel accomplished all of this? Three ways, he says.

One, Israeli troops did not simply charge into the maze of Hamas tunnels, which are reportedly longer than the London tube system.  Before these Israelis enter the tunnels, they are under orders to await the go-ahead of the Yahalom combat engineer unit, who are experts in tunnel warfare.

Two, the Israelis have been making use of technology that has protected them and civilians in a crowded urban environment. Their combat vehicles, for example, are nimble and more protective than any in history. Meanwhile, their drones – “remotely piloted vehicles, “as the Israelis first called them, and which the Israelis essentially invented 60 years ago – ensure that they target only Hamas, and not civilians.

Three, there is the culture and mindset of the troops themselves. To a one, Luttwak says, they have been trained to keep “fighting as hard and as long as necessary to grind down Hamas until nothing is left of its fighting strength.”

So, is victory at hand? Is the the war, which has cost the lives of many on both sides, almost over?

For the answer to that, my colleague Brian Lilley interviewed Eylon Levy, an official spokesman for the Israeli government. (Their encounter will be on this week’s Postmedia podcast.)

Asked how the war is going, Levy was succinct:

“For us, from day one, it has been very clear why we are fighting. We are fighting to bring the Hamas terror regime to justice, so that it can never again perpetrate again an atrocity like October 7, and to bring back the hostages” he says.

“We are fighting for humanity. And anything less than a total victory will be a terrible danger to the whole free world.”

And that is the truth.

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By now, all of you have received the pre-release report of Robert K. Hur, the Special Counsel who was appointed by the United States Attorney General to investigate how classified documents were found in the Delaware home of the President.

We have two days to develop a war room response to the report. That is all.

It should be said the report contains one helpful result. It concludes that no charges should be brought against President Biden: “We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” Hur wrote.

But that will not be the focus of the media and the Trump campaign. Their focus will be these words in Hur’s report:

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

And: that the President could not recall when his son Beau died, that he has “limited memory” about key events, and could not recall the years he was Vice-President in the Obama administration.

These characterizations of the President are an unmitigated disaster. We have been given two days. If we do not use those two days to our advantage, we will have legitimized the main weakness of our campaign, which has always been the President’s mental fitness for the job.

There are five things we must do, now.

One, destroy the Special Counsel’s credibility. Robert K. Hur is a registered Republican. He is not a medical doctor, nor does he have any experience whatsoever in diagnosing for mental deficiencies. He is, in fact, a long-time donor to multiple Republican candidates. In addition, he was active in the Trump White House, even appearing at Trump-era events.

As a lawyer, Hur clerked for a Ninth Circuit judge who sexually harassed and abused more than a dozen female law clerks and staffers. Right now, we need to depict him as a Republican hack, one who worked in the Trump White House, and one who worked alongside GOP creeps.

Two: the Special Counsel violated the rules. With his report, Hur has practiced medicine without a licence to do so. The Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers in America are clear: a lawyer is not permitted to engage in “deceit or misrepresentation” – here, pretending to be a doctor.

That is not all: the Goldwater Rule. Sixty years ago, Democratic operatives attacked the mental stability of the Republican presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Thereafter, the American Psychological Association said: “It is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.” If it is unethical for a psychologist to pronounce on a politician’s mental acuity, it is even worse for an unqualified partisan hack to do so.

Three: we need to provide clear evidence Hur is wrong. The allegation about his deceased son will enrage the President, and understandably so. It is disgusting for anyone to say that to a father about a son who predeceased him.

But we cannot let the President do any press encounters when he is angry. We cannot let any verbal mishaps between now and November. There is no room for error. And it is not enough to say that Trump is also mentally deficient, and regularly makes mistakes: his vote base hold him to a lower standard in every way. Saying that Trump is worse will make no difference.

Four: saturate the airwaves with our messaging. In the main, we need to (a) rally the troops, who will be understandably dispirited by Hur’s report, and (b) attack, attack, attack. We must be relentless, pointing out to Independents Trump’s many mistakes – getting wrong world leaders, getting countries wrong – and leave no breathing room for Republican proxies to push Hur’s narrative.

We may not win, but we need to turn this mess into a wash.

Five: we need to prepare for none of the above to happen. If we do not take advantage of the advance warning we have been given, we will have likely torpedoed victory in November. If the Republicans do not argue for removal of the President under the 25th Amendment, it’ll be a miracle.

If we do not move fast, the President will have been mortally wounded. And we will need to start considering succession.

Now.

[Kinsella ran multiple successful war rooms for Jean Chretien, Dalton McGuinty and others. He also volunteered on the 2020 Biden campaign.]

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BELLEVILLE – Brian Orford is a Belleville native, age 44. He looks a lot older than that. He looks profoundly sad, like he’s seen it all.

He probably has.

Brian knows the streets, here, and he knows the people who live on the streets. He knows, too, all of the 17 people who overdosed over a 24-hour period this week.

People figure they all overdosed on the same batch of opiate – but possibly with GHB mixed in. The date rape drug. There’s talk of tranq dope heading this way, too. That’s the scary one, the one that causes addicts to lose fingers and toes.

“A lot of people here have switched to those other drugs,” he says. “It’s pretty dangerous.”

It is. Nine had to be rushed to the Belleville hospital Tuesday night, to literally save their lives. They overdosed right out front, Brian says, along the grimy wall at the John Howard Society drop-in centre in the bottom of the United Church on Bridge Street. They are all his friends, he says.

When that happened, the city of Belleville issued an extraordinary warning to the public. They actually warned people to stay away from Belleville’s downtown core. For safety reasons.

Like it was a war zone. Which, these days, it kind of is.

Brian Orford says that big cities are sending the homeless and the drug-addicted to smaller towns like Belleville. To make them someone else’s problem. He’s not the only one saying it, either.

“There’s been two or three buses,” Brian says. “They get offered a free lunch and the bus takes them here.”

It’s happened two or three times in the past few months that he knows about, he says. “It’s people other places can’t handle,” he says. “But there’s so many people here already. And there’s no resources.”

Staff who work with the homeless in Belleville – staff who don’t want to be named – confirm what Brian says. They nod their heads. They’ve heard it too: big cities like Toronto are dumping their homeless and drug-addiction problems on smaller cities like Belleville.

There’s the talk of blue buses slipping into town at night, and dropping off bewildered people on cold and lonely sidewalks.

“We’ve all heard that,” says one. “The buses are coming from other places, like Toronto and Ottawa.”

Down the block from where the overdoses happened, the city’s mayor and chief of police – and a posse of other officials – are holding a press conference. The mayor is Neil Ellis, an affable straight-shooter who used to be a Member of Parliament.

Asked about the rumors about big cities dropping off homeless and addicted people in Belleville, Ellis doesn’t dodge or weave. About 66 per cent of the homeless in the area are from the area, he says. “But the homeless don’t vote,” he cautions. So they’re not entirely sure.

Ellis doesn’t confirm that people are being dumped here. But he doesn’t deny it, either. “This problem is front and centre for every community in Canada,” he says. And the federal and provincial governments need to do a lot more, he adds.

His chief of police, Mike Callaghan, nods his head vigorously. He, too, says Ottawa and Queen’s Park have been mostly AWOL. Callaghan hasn’t been able to hire new police officers for years – while Belleville has been growing by leaps and bounds.

A few blocks North of City Hall, the Grace Inn is one of the few places around that can offer a bed to a homeless person. And it’s been completely full since it opened, just before the pandemic – there’s only a couple dozen beds, while Belleville has a homeless population of at least 200. (And full disclosure: this writer has donated to the Grace Inn in the past.)

Jodie Jenkins, the impressive chair of the Grace Inn, says he has heard “for a while now” that homeless and addicted people are being dumped in Belleville. But, he says, “based on our data specific to the shelter, it doesn’t line up. Almost 80 per cent of our guests at the shelter are from the immediate and surrounding area.”

So, stories about mysterious blue buses dropping broken people onto Belleville’s sidewalks at night will remain that for now – stories. And, when you think about it, it doesn’t matter.

Because, as Mayor Neil Ellis says, the problem is everywhere. And moving it from one city to another doesn’t change the reality.

And the reality is this: the problem keeps coming back, everywhere.

And it keeps getting worse.

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Cancelled: there’s much talk about cancel culture, since October 7. It’s everywhere.

So, too, one of the oldest anti-Semitic tropes – which is that Jews control Hollywood and the media. And, because they have so much power, they “cancel” and “censor” those with pro-Palestine (read: anti-Israel) views.

But that’s not really true, is it? Everywhere you look, these days, a Palestinian flag or a keffiyah is being waved in someone’s face – including at the NHL All-Star game, no less, where the no-name singer of the U.S. anthem was permitted to appear, even after posting online: “if you’re a Zionist, feel free to stay your ass at home.”

Or, a few days ago, they’re outside the doors at Yuk Yuk’s, the fabled comedy club in Toronto, screaming at people trying to get inside, and assaulting patrons. As club owner Mark Breslin texted to friends: “Almost a riot outside. They tried to rip off my clothing and tip [my wife’s] car over. Fifteen police cars. Madness.”

Or, anti-Israel/pro-Hamas types are showing up on university campuses, and screaming at Jewish kids, and pushing them around. Or they’re swarming pro-Israeli voices online, hurling threats and abuse. Or – most visibly – they’re showing up in neighbourhoods where Jews are found, or outside businesses owned by Jews, to intimidate and defame.

The objective, in every single case, is to shut down the pro-Israel side. To shut it up. To cancel it.

The notion that Jews are “cancelling” the other side is therefore laughable. The reverse is true, and the evidence is found in cases big and small.

Recently, for example, Leah Goldstein experienced anti-Israel cancel culture in a way that was up close and personal. Goldstein is a feminist, author and former world kickboxing champion – and, years ago, trained commandos in the Israeli military.

Because of that, it seems, Goldstein – whose feminist credentials are impeccable – was cancelled by a group called Inspire, scheduled to hold an International Women’s Day event in early March in Peterborough. Goldstein was removed as keynote speaker, without even being asked first for her side of the story.

In their newsletter, Inspire wrote: “In recognition of the current situation and the sensitivity of the conflict in the Middle East, the board of Inspire will be changing our keynote speaker.”

In internal emails, Inspire whinges that sponsors were “becoming hesitant” after hearing from anti-Israeli types. They claimed that “the decision to cancel Leah was not made lightly.” But they cancelled her, to use their own word, nonetheless. They did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Goldstein says she was “hurt, angry and heartbroken” about being erased by Inspire. “It seems they gave in to threats and hate – and that is the saddest part,” she says.

Goldstein’s shocking story just one recent example of the sort of anti-Israel cancel culture now running rampant. The most notorious example of anti-Jewish cancel culture, of course, is a big one: the BDS gang – meaning “Boycott, Divest, Sanction.” All aimed at Jews and the Jewish state, on a huge scale.

As American professor and author Gary Wexler reminded this writer last week, the global movement that is BDS literally got its start in Toronto. BDS kicked off in Toronto in 2005, after some University of Toronto students launched another pro-cancellation tactic, Israeli Apartheid Week. After the Canadian Union of Public Employees endorsed both, BDS and the “apartheid” obscenity spread globally, like wildfire.

As its very name implies, BDS is literally a vehicle – now worldwide – to cancel and censor Israel, and those people and entities that support Israel, or somehow linked to Israel. Relying on a network of campus groups, churches, unions and others, BDS tries to delegitimize and isolate Israel and pro-Israeli voices. It is now mainly headquartered in the Middle East.

As the Anti-Defamation League says about BDS: “BDS campaigns, which portray Israel as a pariah state and advocate that it be singularly targeted, are unfair, one-sided and disproportionate.

“In fact, the BDS campaign does not support constructive measures to build Israeli-Palestinian engagement, nor does it promote peace negotiations or a mutually negotiated two-state solution to the conflict.  Rather, BDS presents a biased and simplistic approach to the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The goals of this Canadian-founded group, if implemented, would wipe out Israel, says the ADL. It is therefore deeply anti-Semitic, the ADL concludes.

And what of those who attempt to cancel and censor Jews – like Leah Goldstein, or Mark Breslin – or just anyone who supports Israel in its just and overdue war against the homicidal subhumans who make up Hamas?

That all feels pretty anti-Semitic, too.

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