Hi again and welcome to this week's edition of Laura's Links. Once again, I'd like to thank those of you who have sent such heartwarming and touching letters of support. I am very grateful for the kind words and your prayers. It means a great deal.

You know, every creative person that I am acquainted with has their achilles heel about their art and I certainly have mine. As a writer, there's nothing that I both love and hate more than when someone beats me to the punch on something that I have been either slowly and quietly stewing about and then they put the essay or phrase together before me and I see "IT" in print before clicking away at my keyboard.

I do, on one level, love seeing "IT" in writing but hate that I didn't get there first. As I have mentioned previously, I have a long list (a "bulging file" as my beloved friend Kathy would have called it) of "Things I Wish I Had Thought of First". This brings me to Mark's post this week: "La Grande Décivilisation" from French Prime Minister Macron's phrase "un processus de décivilisation" and Mark's own previous phrase "re-primitivisation". Now, M. Macron beat me to that phrase "de-civilization", and Mark to "re-premitivisation" but I kid you not – on my draft for this week's column I have this phrase, which I was saving for my lede here:

"What de-colonization means."

That's what I had in my head.

And you know why I started riffing on that? Because I want everyone to understand what it means.

"De-colonization" means having to use forensic archeologists to sift through the burned and charred remains of the members of your family to get a tiny piece of a body with identifiable DNA or a fraction of a tooth or bone in order to find something for your grieving family to bury and "gain closure".

You get it?

You, and all of us suckers in the West whose countries are being destroyed in the name of diversity and multiculturalism and tolerance, all of us Saturday people and all of the Sunday people and all the other miscellaneous people are going to be pooling our last few bucks together and hiring forensic archeologists to find bone fragments in order to bury our dead when the savages – imported and homegrown – repeat October 7 in all of our hometowns again, as they have so many times previously already.

"De-colonization" of course means de-civilizing. It means de-Westernizing. Listen to Caroline Glick and Douglas Murray discuss here. It means de-Christianizing and de-Judaising the Western world. It means re-barbarizing and re-savaging our world. We shouldn't let anyone use the word "de-colonizing". Not ever. At the very least, we need courage about the words and the vocabulary – more truth-telling, less fear.

Lastly, the hostage deal is on my mind. I can't get into the whole thing now, but my overall feeling is that it is and will be a disaster, but that Israel is in a lose-lose situation on this issue. It's an asymmetrical war and the families of hostages are, rightly, a force to be reckoned with. There is no Israeli politician that could possibly do a "right" move. The release of terrorists will cause more terror. Yet, some hostages – and especially the children are alive. As I said – it is an asymmetrical hellish nightmare. I felt quite despondent about it until I saw this but we need to wait and see.

Please continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and certainly for the health and well being of my gracious host Mark Steyn and godspeed on his legal travails.

See you in the comments as I'm able.

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North America:

This is the way.

How Harvard Befriended Hamas

Priorities of our moral superiors.

If the Biden administration was not rooting for Iran, what exactly would they be doing differently?

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The Great Walkbackening:

"The COVID Wars."

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Jews and Israel

SEEMS NICE. Again, this may seem like a Jewish problem, but it's a civilization problem.

RELATED. When people tell you who they are and what they are going to do, you should listen.

After Gaza, The Great Sorting Begins

Sneak peek.

"The Paradox of Jewish Liberalism"

JOOOOOOZ!

More here.

Very interesting interview-Professor Gad Saad with Yemenite Swede (yes, I know why is there even such a thing as a Yemenite Swede you ask, but don't get me started mmmkay) Luai Ahmad (who was in Israel this week).

Christians should be mad about this. I'm mad and I'm not Christian. It's so bad.

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Jewish Wisdom:

Can the Hebrew word for intimacy save your relationship?

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The Formerly Great Britain:

The BBC is spinning the following as good news: "Ten years ago researchers studying the health of more than 30,000 people in Bradford found that about 60% of babies in the Pakistani community had parents who were first or second cousins, but a new follow-up study of mothers in three inner-city wards finds the figure has dropped to 46%." OH YAY!! ONLY 46%.

This is fine.

British hospitals and courts dig killing babies. I sure hope everyone in the UK that banged a pot for the NHS or clapped for carers is really, really happy with themselves.

THIS IS THE WAY

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Europe:

"We are appalled and dismayed to see 'Mein Kampf' prominently displayed in Arabic at the public library of Malmö, Sweden." But are you surprised? I mean seriously, guys?!??!

The Jihad on Churches in France

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Kooks and Reverts:

They won't stop till you stop them.

The Oooh Oooh Mahmoud factor strikes again.

This guy again. Geez. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

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Human Grace:

Wise man. As Kathy Shaidle used to say, with a lot of these weirdos, you really just need to ask "What happened to you?". There are so many broken human souls out there.

I cried.

Love this.

The Cavalry Arrived (and no, they are not missionaries guys).

Friday, while perusing the archives of Life Magazine, I encountered an unbelievable story...

"I'm a Ganesh guy..."

It's open thread time! Log into SteynOnline and let Laura know what you think of these stories or other happenings from week that was. Commenting privileges are among the many perks of membership in The Mark Steyn Club. While going off topic is permitted on Laura's Links, do stick to the other rules as you engage: no URLs, no profanity, and no ad hominem attacks.