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Wednesday, October 11, 2023

10/11 Links Pt2: When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them; Mainstream media sanitizes Hamas terror attacks; The women-hating women who support Hamas

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them
At the end of the Second World War, it took the Allies months, if not years, to uncover the full scale of Germany’s war crimes. That’s because the Nazis tried to hide them.

In October 2023, Hamas broadcast what they did—what they are doing—in real time.

They took horrific videos to document and share it all. Videos of naked women; of a captured six-year-old-boy; of beheaded soldiers.

This young woman—her name is Mor—learned that her grandmother had been slaughtered because a terrorist took her grandmother’s cell phone, filmed her murder, and then uploaded the video to the grandmother’s own Facebook page, ensuring her family would see it.

Now they are threatening to execute the hostages they have captured on live television. Parents across the country have been told to delete apps like Instagram from their children’s phones so they do not see the carnage.

It’s as if the Cossacks had TikTok.

On the one hand I think: surely this will be sufficient. Surely this amount of blood will be enough to shake the world awake. Surely no one can equivocate or justify this. As my friend Sarah Haider wrote, “How easy is it to simply condemn targeted violence against civilians? Can there be a lower bar?”

And yet, across the world, people have sunk below it.
The Moral Challenge of the Current War
Natan Sharansky, who played a role in founding Human Rights Watch when it was involved in noble causes like defending Soviet dissidents, recalls realizing decades ago that this once-great organization had “become an aid to dictators and terrorists.” And that recollection brings Sharansky to the dangers of moral confusion, and the moral issue at the heart of the present war:

Israel has no choice but to wage a war for its survival. . . . Today, the world seems to understand this. World leaders have denounced Hamas’s barbarism and affirmed the legitimacy of Israel’s right to self-defense. But what about tomorrow? What will happen as the Palestinian death toll rises? At that point, I fear, the same leaders will forget that Israel and Hamas are fighting on radically different terms and focus their efforts on restraining Israel instead of condemning Hamas.

The reason this will happen—as it always does—is that Hamas has a powerful unconventional weapon, one far more sophisticated and effective than missiles and drones: Palestinian civilians, used as human shields. The more Palestinians who die because Hamas terrorists cynically hide behind them, the more the free world will turn against Israel.

It is only a matter of weeks, or days, or even hours, until articles will appear in major publications depicting the Israeli government as indiscriminately targeting innocent Palestinians. Human Rights Watch will yet again vilify Israel as an international outlaw, and the United Nations will pass resolutions demanding that we cease our war of self-defense.

The only way to help neutralize this despicable unconventional weapon in the coming days would be for leaders of Western democracies and responsible Arab rulers to make this message absolutely clear: every innocent Palestinian killed in this conflagration is the victim of Hamas.
Stephen Miller: Mainstream media sanitizes Hamas terror attacks
What began as breaking news reporting by American outlets quickly shifted to the default position of sympathizing with Palestinians, and focusing almost solely on Israel’s retaliation, as has usually been the case with this conflict. National news outlets such as CBS and NBC have already decided on language that presents this as a Palestinian humanitarian crisis enacted by Israel’s overbearing and heavy-handed response.

They’ve defaulted to language such as “Hamas militants,” “conflict,” “crisis,” “escalation” and “both sides.” You might even surmise from early coverage that our media believes there are “very fine people on both sides.” Many of the actual events from this weekend’s mass terror attack have been sanitized out of mainstream outlets who are ignoring the brutal details of Hamas rocket attacks into civilian neighborhoods, or roaming death squads going door to door to kidnap or execute in summary fashion.

Pro-Hamas rallies this week were framed as “small rallies” by NBC, who also defaulted to images and stories of Palestinians grieving their own losses. A Stop Antisemitism organization on Twitter/X obtained what they call a leaked email with specific sanitization of language concerning Hamas and the attack, directing employees to remove the word terrorist, among other things.

The tone of the coverage thus far has been so blatantly one-sided that Anti-Defamation League president Jonathan Greenblatt ripped MSNBC while appearing on the network’s flagship program Morning Joe, while Al Sharpton of all people looked on. “Who is writing the scripts?… The people who did this are not fighters… they are not militants… they are terrorists.” Greenblatt asserted. Later on that same network, a guest suggested Israel make concessions by redrawing its borders to receive hostages back.

This is how the national media coverage of this attack will proceed. The nature of the original terror attack, the innocent music festival goers massacred and sexually assaulted, the hostages — will all be sterilized out of the coverage, and the onus will then be put on Israel’s response. This, of course, only empowers Hamas to continue their attacks and threats on civilians. It will be the fault, in the eyes of the news media, of Israel for escalating a response, and not for Hamas terrorists perpetrating the conflict to begin with.

This is the kind of “both sidesism” our journalists and media critics have decried over the years when it has come to the topic of former president Donald Trump, that Trump is a destabilizing threat to our institutions and the very Republic itself, and therefore must be presented that way at all costs. Now, with a cause they sympathize with, they are struggling to rationalize the brutality of Hamas’s actions, and instead are attempting to justify them away.
Phyllis Chesler: The women-hating women who support Hamas
Interestingly, the ISIS women continued to terrorize and torture other Muslim women, mainly Syrians and Iraqis, in the al-Hol refugee camp.

Hamas is ISIS on steroids.

And yet, these American (and European) women are cheering for the rape, torture, public humiliation and murder of Israeli women, children and the elderly by Islamist terrorists and for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli male civilians of all ages.

There is absolutely no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists who purposely target innocent civilians and the Israel army that now needs to utterly destroy, once and for all, Hamas’s rule over Gazan civilians, whom they’ve used as human shields, just as they’ve embedded their bombs, rockets and command posts in mosques, hospitals, ambulances, schools and residential buildings as so much potential civilian fodder for the sake of propaganda.

And the world media and other elites keep falling for it.

These Western women demonstrators—and their many left-wing feminist allies—have been carefully indoctrinated into believing Very Big Lies: Namely, that Israel is a Nazi, apartheid state of “colonial settlers” who have stolen the land and imprisoned an indigenous people. This is the mantra that is meant to justify the destruction of the Jewish state.

This must never happen. Israel must do whatever it takes, no matter the cost, to rid both Israel and non-Hamas Palestinians of Hamas.

How can women, presumably the more compassionate sex, support such cruelty, such ferocious barbarism?

As the author of Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, internalized sexism among women and female-female cruelty does not surprise me. In tribal cultures, women murder their daughters-in-law, try to murder their co-wives, support and carry out the genital mutilation and the honor killing of their daughters. Some women in the West vote for “macho” male tyrants, compete viciously against other women, steal their jobs and their spouses.

Most women do not automatically embrace freedom and truth any more than most men do.


Hamas attack on Israel was 'barbaric act of terrorism', says King Charles
King Charles has said he is "appalled" after an attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists last week.

The King also described the invasion of southern Israel by the terror group as a “barbaric act of terrorism”.

Israel has vowed unprecedented retaliation against Hamas after they stormed through the Gaza border fence on Saturday and shot hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Buckingham Palace went on to say that Charles was said to be "extremely concerned" about the situation.

The spokesman added: “His thoughts and prayers are with all of those suffering, particularly those who have lost loved ones, but also those actively involved as we speak.”


Scottish Parliament sparks anger after rejecting plan to fly Israeli flag
The Scottish Parliament has sparked anger after rejecting a request to fly the Israeli flag outside its building.

Holyrood’s corporate body rejected the proposal which was aimed to show the devolved parliament’s solidarity with Israel after last week’s Hamas terror attack.

The decision, the JC understands, was partially down to MSP Maggie Chapman, the Greens' representative on the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB), who claimed the attack was the fault of the Jewish state.

The SPCB, which makes Holyrood’s administrative decisions, consists of an MSP from each of the four largest parties in the Scottish Parliament which include the SNP, Tories, Labour and the Greens alongside presiding officer Alison Johnstone.

The corporate body turned down the proposal, tabled by Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane, on Monday.

Scottish Conservative external affairs spokesperson Donald Cameron said: “It's perhaps not surprising the parliament's corporate body rejected the reasonable proposal of my colleague, given that Maggie Chapman herself sits on that very body.
The Specter Of Barack Obama’s Deeply Held Anti-Israel Ideology Hovers Over Israeli Attacks
Iran, of course, was actively involved in funding and coordinating Hamas’ atrocities this past weekend. At the same time this was all being planned, the apparently traitorous Malley was working on Iran issues in an administration that made the questionable decision to give Iran billions of dollars in a desperate attempt to jumpstart Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

Indeed, many have observed that Iran’s role in the attack seems motivated by a desire to force Israel to aggressively defend itself. A violent response from Israel would then be exploited to drive a wedge between Israel and the Sunni gulf states that had engaged in reproachment under the successful Abraham Accords of the Trump administration. That the Biden administration, which is essentially functioning as Obama’s third term and involves many of the same personnel, also had the same goal of blowing up the Abraham Accords to focus on empowering Iran as the regional hegemon, threatening Israel, is not a coincidence.

Speaking of coincidences, did I mention that America’s feckless secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is an old high school pal of Robert Malley? On Sunday, Blinken tweeted out that he was pushing a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas before deleting it. The idea that Iran would be behind the most successful attack on Israel in history and the U.S. would be against Israel fighting back… weird how everything keeps breaking Tehran’s way, huh?

Indeed, Obama is hardly the only tenured radical in our political establishment that shares these radical left-wing foreign policy views, a toxic combination of self-righteousness and self-loathing, that views our national interests and America’s relationship with Israel as inherently suspicious.

“The sheer amount of political capital and focus Obama put into achieving the [Iran nuclear deal] during his second term, to the near-exclusion of other goals, suggests that the deal was central to his politics. It also carries more than a whiff of the kind of politics in which the American Empire is seen not just as unexceptional, but also, in some ways, as actively evil,” observed Samuels. “It was a politics born out of the confluence of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, which saw a racist war abroad being used to protect a racist power structure at home. That old alliance of civil rights, anti-imperialism, and identity politics made the Democratic Party that Obama positioned himself to lead — college-educated, corporate-controlled — seem cool, allowing it to use post-1960s radical ideology as a language to sell stuff.”

I hardly believe Obama is such a monster he secretly roots for atrocities in Israel, even if it seems he’s never met an antisemite he would willingly disown. Regardless, there’s no doubt that these horrifying nationwide terror attacks in Israel are Obama’s legacy, a result of his arrogant anti-American ideology put into practice. But after the weekend, even Democratic partisans are scrambling to distance themselves from the Biden and Obama administrations’ ill-advised cozying up to Iran. Now we need to follow through and make sure the Obama-Biden foreign policy legacy, and the dangerous ideology that motivated it, is rejected and held up for the failure that it is.
Biden admin sent $730M to UN group despite calls for anti-Jew violence: ‘Rotten to the core’
The Biden administration has funneled more than $730 million to a United Nations organization for refugee assistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that harbored personnel who have incited violence against the Jewish people, The Post has learned.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has been accused in recent years of employing educators who “regularly call to murder Jews” and teach from textbooks “that glorify terrorism, encourage martyrdom, demonize Israelis and incite antisemitism,” according to a March joint report by the non-governmental organization UN Watch and the Israeli non-profit Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.

The US can’t legally provide money directly to the Palestinian Authority or the terror group Hamas, which last weekend carried out the worst civilian massacre in the state of Israel’s 75-year history.

The State Department has nevertheless provided grants and other funding to organizations in the area, despite experts bemoaning the lack of “guardrails” and internal documents noting “a high risk” that Hamas could benefit from the money dump.

The State Department, which has yet to pause any funding to groups in the Palestinian territories, did not respond to a request for comment. The US Office of Palestinian Affairs also did not respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration ended funding to UNRWA in 2018, calling it an “irredeemably flawed operation.” President Biden reversed that decision and the US is currently the agency’s largest funder.

Enia Krivine, Senior Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) Israel Program, told The Post Tuesday that UNRWA contributes to violence towards Israelis and the US should immediately review its support.
When Hamas Tells You Who They Are, Believe Them
For centuries, Jews have been blamed for causing the anti-Semitism directed against them. The new Hamas charter perpetuates this libel, arguing, “It is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity” and who are therefore responsible for the conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

The Zionist project, according to Article 14, is a “racist, aggressive, colonial and expansionist project based on seizing the properties of others; it is hostile to the Palestinian people and to their aspiration for freedom, liberation, return and self-determination. The Israeli entity is the plaything of the Zionist project and its base of aggression.” Article 15 goes on to claim that Zionism is the enemy not just of the Palestinian people but of all Muslims, and that it poses “a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.” The following article then attempts to thread the needle between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism: “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion.”

Although the new charter lacks the febrile denunciations of “initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences” of its predecessor, it makes Hamas’s position on Israel’s existence abundantly clear. “The establishment of ‘Israel’ is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people,” Article 18 states, “and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah.” Driving home this point, the new Article 19 proclaims, “There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, judaisation [sic] or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate. Rights never lapse.”

As for the promise of peace between Israel and Palestine expressed in the 1993 Oslo Accords, Article 21 is explicit in stating Hamas’s rejection of that landmark agreement: “Hamas affirms that the Oslo Accords and their addenda contravene the governing rules of international law in that they generate commitments that violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Therefore, the Movement rejects these agreements and all that flows from them.”

Hamas affirms, instead, its commitment to liberating Palestine by force. “Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws,” the document states. “At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Perhaps the most astonishing statement in the entire new document—issued by a terrorist group that has forbade elections in Gaza since 2007—is the fatuous claim in Article 29 that “Hamas believes in, and adheres to, managing its Palestinian relations on the basis of pluralism, democracy, national partnership, acceptance of the other and the adoption of dialogue.”

Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose
In the British historian Richard J. Evans’ magisterial account of the Third Reich, he recounts the reflections of a young German woman who’d read Mein Kampf in 1933: “Like many of her upper-middle-class friends, she discounted the violence and antisemitism of the National Socialists as passing excesses which would soon disappear.” Until October 7, 2023, many in Palestine, Israel, and elsewhere may similarly have dismissed or discounted the acuity of Hamas’s aims and ambitions, its true objectives, and its as-yet-unfulfilled master plan as stated in both the 1988 and 2017 documents. Few are as ignorant or uncomprehending now.


The Commentary Magazine Podcast: As Biden Calls Out Evil, the Left Celebrates
Today’s podcast commends Joe Biden’s speech about Israel and Hamas, worries over the durability of his commitment, and cites the astonishing level of pro-Hamas support from places like…MSNBC, owned by Comcast, a multibillion-dollar cable company that seems to be OK with a network it owns providing propagandistic emotional support for Jew-killers. Give a listen.
Call Me Back: The history of Hamas, and its likely grim future – with Jonathan Schanzer
We have been getting a lot of questions about the history of Hamas, its ideological roots and objectives, its allies and rivalries, how it wound up in charge of Gaza, the origins of this war, and whether there could actually be a post-Hamas Gaza. For this tutorial, our guest is Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jon’s latest book is “Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War”. His other books include: “State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State”, and “Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine”, which is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war.

Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.




We must confront the new anti-Semitism
The world’s oldest hatred has made a grotesque comeback. In Israel, bodies are still being found following Hamas’s barbaric incursion into its southern territory. More than 260 corpses have been recovered from the now infamous music festival where young people were gunned down, raped and kidnapped. In the tiny farming community of Beeri, 100 bodies have been found: 10 per cent of its population. It’s been revealed that a Holocaust survivor is among those kidnapped by Hamas. Nine-hundred people, the vast majority of them Israeli-Jewish civilians, have been killed. Saturday is already believed to be the most deadly day for Jewry since the Holocaust. We have witnessed evil.

Now, on the streets of London, we are witnessing the celebration of that evil. Last night, thousands gathered near the Israeli embassy on Kensington High Street. An apparent mix of Islamists, SWP types and Goldsmiths first-years waved Palestine flags, set off fireworks, danced and chanted. ‘Sometimes you have to fight, freedom isn’t won just by words’, said one protester, when asked by the Mail about Hamas’s acts of barbarism. Another, handing out ‘Free Palestine’ merchandise, plainly told the reporter the attack was ‘justified’. ‘I do feel it’s something the Palestinians support’, he added. Chants of ‘Allahu Akbar’ rang out. As did ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. I can only hope some of them were just ignorant of what this slogan really means: which is the destruction of Israel, the ethnic cleansing of Jews. That’s certainly what Hamas – whose founding charter fantasises about the murder of Jews and whose leading lights call for Jews to be beheaded – means by it. And last night, British citizens gathered in our capital city to mark that genocidal outfit’s murderous spree through Israel, even squaring off against small groups of Jews who bravely went along to oppose them.

Just across London, in Golders Green, a kosher restaurant was smashed up and robbed on Sunday night. The police – in a statement that has raised eyebrows – have said they are not treating it as a hate crime. Perhaps it was also one big coincidence that someone sprayed the words ‘Free Palestine’ over the railway bridge in Golders Green that same weekend – a racist taunt masquerading as a liberation slogan. The most quietly heartbreaking story from recent days was a short email sent to the parents of pupils at the Jewish Free School in Kenton, telling them their children do not need to wear their blazers to school, bearing their school’s badge, if it makes them feel safer, and reassuring them that school security measures have been ramped up.

Jewish schools already, as a matter of course, maintain a level of security that would surprise much of the population. It’s a reminder that anti-Semitism remains among the most pervasive forms of racism to blight Britain, and yet it is among the least discussed or understood. Jews account for 0.5 per cent of the British population, but are the victims of a quarter of all religiously motivated hate crimes. Google ‘Jewish graves desecrated UK’ and you’ll see reams of cases you’ve probably never heard of. Earlier this year, a Jewish cemetery in Rochester, Kent was vandalised for the eighth time in 10 years. Last year, 30-year-old Abdullah Qureshi was found guilty of religiously aggravated grievous bodily harm and assault after he travelled down to north London, all the way from Dewsbury, just to punch Jews. He managed to attack three, including a 14-year-old boy, during his flying visit.

Every time the Israel-Palestine conflict flares, British Jews steel themselves for more of this hate – they are held collectively responsible for the crimes, real or imagined, of the Israeli government. But what has become abundantly clear this week is that this really isn’t about Israel. This is about Jew hatred, pure and simple. Anti-Zionism is now just the mask anti-Semitism wears, and the disguise is fooling no one anymore. Chanting genocidal slogans. Openly celebrating Hamas. Openly mocking the dead. Taking to the streets in glee before their bodies are even cold. The sickening scenes in recent days have about as much to do with Palestinian rights as those scumbags who drove around London in 2021, as Israel and Hamas were exchanging missiles, chanting: ‘Fuck the Jews… Fuck their mothers… Rape their daughters.’ (A grim foreshadowing of the horrors of last weekend.)

If we do not confront this hatred, we surrender the right to call ourselves a civilised nation. We must stand in solidarity with the Israelis under assault by Hamas’s terrorism and with the British Jews being menaced by Hamas’s gloating British cheerleaders. We must oppose anti-Semitism in all the tumorous forms it now comes in – from its Islamist to leftist varieties. And we must ask some searching questions about how we ended up here – where some British citizens are so filled with hatred, or so marinated in propaganda, that when fascists attack the Jewish State their immediate response is to take to the streets and rage against the Jewish State.
No, Hamas is not struggling against ‘apartheid’
What’s important to note about this moment is that the black masses always saw their perfunctory armed struggle as a part of a broader political struggle for freedom and equality. It was never about violence for the sake of violence. Yes, some political movements frustrated by the ANC’s moderation, like the Pan Africanist Congress and later the Black Consciousness Movement, tried to advocate a race war against their white oppressors. But this approach never caught on among South Africa’s black majority.

The black masses’ often brutalising struggle against Apartheid, which cost the lives of thousands, was never about violence as an end in itself. It was about the pursuit of the political ideals of democracy and freedom.

The contrast between the struggle against Apartheid and Hamas’s war with Israel could hardly be starker. This weekend, Hamas carried out a pogrom against Jewish civilians. As Daniel Ben-Ami highlights, Hamas is not a national-liberation movement engaged in trying to free Palestine. It’s an anti-Semitic death cult, hell-bent on eliminating all Jews in the quest for an international Islamic order. There is not one iota of democratic idealism in Hamas’s make-up.

In equating Hamas with Umkhonto, Yanis Varoufakis and his fellow cheerleaders not only arrogantly malign the sacrifices of South Africa’s black masses. They also perpetuate a damaging falsehood about Israel, which helps to isolate the Jewish state globally – namely, that Israel is an apartheid state. That it is just like South Africa used to be.

This is simply untrue. Arabs in Israel can vote in elections and Arab parties sit in parliament. There are Arab justices on the Supreme Court and Arab doctors in the health service. Similar equality for black people in Apartheid South Africa would have been unthinkable.

Yes, Arabs do suffer discrimination over jobs, education and housing. And the Israeli state’s abuse of human rights should be condemned. There are grounds for a serious debate about Israel’s problematic policies towards Palestinians. But the comparison with Apartheid South Africa is grotesque.

Moreover, comparing the sacrifices and courage of the black South African masses in their struggle against the Apartheid regime to the cowardice and cruelty of Hamas’s slaughter of defenceless Jewish civilians – including children and the elderly – simply beggars belief. What Varoufakis and others are currently defending is barbarism, pure and simple.
‘When Hamas attacked Israel, it was a beautiful day’
‘Hamas conducted a very successful operation. It was a beautiful day. I was very happy to see it.’

This is how Laith, a student who attended Monday night’s ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstration in London, described last weekend’s slaughter of hundreds of Israeli civilians to me. It was a moment of celebration, he said. Sadly, he wasn’t alone in thinking this. His view was apparently shared by many among the 5,000 or so who gathered outside the Israeli embassy.

The atmosphere was festival-like. There were blaring horns, clouds of colourful smoke and frequent chants of ‘Allahu Akbar!’. Amid a sea of Palestinian flags, and an occasional Pride flag, placards screamed anti-Israel slogans. One even indulged in a spot of Holocaust relativism: ‘The Zionist Jews have done to the Palestinian Arabs what the Nazis did to the Jews.’

Just days before, Hamas had massacred hundreds upon hundreds of innocent men, women and children, as part of its brutal incursion into Israel on Saturday morning. But no one I spoke to at Monday night’s protest felt the need to condemn this barbarism. ‘I don’t care if the West calls Hamas terrorists’, Laith told me. ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. There is no liberation without violence.’

Others agreed. ‘We know that [Hamas] are not the real terrorists’, said Sophia, a writer. ‘The Israeli government is.’ Another protester, who didn’t want to be named, told me that ‘any resistance movement has to use some terror tactics’, before absurdly likening Hamas’s actions to those of the ANC in South Africa.
Hamas’ Terrorist War Against Israel: There Is No 'On the Other Hand'
I spent the weekend and most of Monday engaging in back-and-forth with fellow progressive Democrats who were trying to change the subject on the clear black-and-white facts about Hamas’ terrorist war against Israel. I kept reminding them of four indisputable facts.

Fact one: Hamas openly declares it hates Jews. It is an openly bigoted, anti-Semitic organization. Its public charter, which it calls its “Covenant,” states: “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” The Covenant actually endorses the notorious fraudulent anti-Semitic rant, used in part by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Fact two: Hamas’ invasion is not about supporting an independent Palestinian state. Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist. It rejects a two-state solution. The head of its political bureau, Khaled Meshal, stated this plainly at a 2012 rally in Gaza: “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of land.”

Some commentators, attempting to explain the Hamas invasion over the weekend, blamed the establishment of the state of Israel as the reason why there is still no independent Palestinian state. That is false and contradicted by undeniable historical facts. For example:
For 19 years, between 1948-1967, Arab countries controlled East Jerusalem and all the land of the West Bank all the way to the Jordan River. They could have established a Palestinian nation, with Israel left with a fraction of territory compared to today’s Israel. So why didn’t they?
In 2000, at Camp David, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to create a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97% of the West Bank. The answer was no.
In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Ohmert offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank and to partition Jerusalem on a demographic basis – in addition to all of Gaza still being without Israeli soldiers or civilians. Still the answer was no.
Harvard Shrugs at Anti-Semitism
Of course, it’s not just governments that risk falling into moral confusion, and it’s not just large international organizations with outsized budgets that propagate it. At Harvard, a group of over 30 student organizations quickly responded to Saturday’s atrocities with a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Similar declarations emerged from other top-tier colleges, like the 50 student groups at University of California, Berkeley who joined together to express “unwavering support for the resistance in Gaza.”

J.J. Kimche, a doctoral student at Harvard whose explorations of Jewish thought may be familiar to readers of this newsletter, takes the statements of his schoolmates seriously:
Not only have our fellow students failed to condemn this proto-genocide; they have justified and celebrated it. The authors and signatories of this statement, men and women with whom we share dormitories and libraries, have exposed themselves as worse than common anti-Semites. They are enthusiastic proponents of our slaughter, a vanguard of apologists for those who seek the extermination of the Jewish people.

This realization has grave consequences not only for Jewish life on campus but for the university’s existence as a community. How can we share dormitories, classrooms, and ideas with students who would makes excuses or even celebrate if we and our families were hacked to death by a Hamas terrorist tomorrow?

Harvard’s top administrators made no effort to assuage such fears. . . . Only on Tuesday did President Claudine Gay “condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.” She didn’t condemn the statement excusing Hamas, but merely distanced herself from it: “No student group—not even 30 student groups—speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”

One might defend Gay’s pusillanimity with the argument that issuing statements about current events, no matter how horrific, is well outside the remit of university presidents. But nowadays Harvard presidents feel obliged to issue declarations about the war in Ukraine, the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, and much else. Why do they find it so hard to spare a few words to condemn the slaughter of Jews?
The Litmus Test: Beinart Fails
In the meantime, Beinart’s deep commitment to forcing Israel to live with uncivil neighbors who delight in massacring them comes uncomfortably close to David Deutsch’s “Pattern,” in which it people have a right to hurt Jews. He doesn’t want to do hurt them – heaven forbid! – but he zealously if unintentionally protects the rights of others, of people who have shown him their most ferocious intentions. And so, after looking briefly at the unfathomable savagery of their hatred, he plunges back into his (self-destructive) narrative.

O’Donnell (06:16:04): What is what is your view of what the strategic next step should be?

Peter Beinart: This is not a problem that ultimately has a military solution. Even if Hamas were to cease to exist. The Palestinians have been fighting Israel since long, long before Hamas was created. If Hamas didn’t exist tomorrow, most of the people in the Gaza are the children and grandchildren of refugees who were expelled from Israel during its war of independence and fought and then forced to live in this tiny little area.

So the Palestinian people, since before Hamas have declared war on Israel, and refuse to give up that war even though every time they try, they lose and suffer more than their enemies. And therefore, war is not the answer…? When someone declares war, war is not the answer? In what alternative (and messianic) universe is that true? I understand that as a liberal you don’t want war to be an answer, but does that make it true?

If Palestinians don’t have basic rights, the basic opportunities to be citizens of the country in which they live and to aspire towards a better life,

Mind you, this characterizes the overwhelming majority of Arabs throughout the region. They do not have basic rights, they have sharply curtailed opportunities for a better life, they are not citizens but subjects. But somehow, granting those rights to Palestinians will help resolve a conflict (vendetta) that plays a key part in the refusal of Arab leaders to give their subjects the rights of citizens… a twisted logic that only a dogmatic attachment to projecting liberal values on people who despise them. And for Peter, this is a “fundamental reality.”

new Palestinian organizations will grow up, and they may do terrible things, too, because brutalized people do brutal things sometimes. The IRA bombed apartment building buildings in department stores in London. It was horrifying. But Hamas has done is horrifying.

But the way to bring about peace is through a measure of justice. And that has to be there has to be a political strategy to deal with that. The military strategy can been bring you some time. It can kill some some Hamas members and destroy some weapons. But you know what? It’s also going to produce a whole new generation of Palestinians so deeply traumatized that they’re willing to join the next Hamas and take up arms again.

Wow. So he’s now digested the events of 7/10. They’re the fault of Israeli brutalization of Palestinian lives. With classic humanitarian racism, Beinart assigns no agency, no demands, on Palestinians. They are purely reactive, and whether they have no choice, or there’s just nothing to be done, they’ll keep doing brutal, horrifying things.

That we should disapprove? That we should point out that many people have responded far more constructively to losing wars and occupations? And that if they want dignity and freedom they have to be ready to grant it to their neighbors? That justice means everyone has a case to make? That when you feel aggrieved it is not your “inalienable right” to rage genocidally?

Heaven forbid.

No, it’s on the Israelis to make the concessions to appease the Palestinian sense of injustice. Then we’ll have peace.

It’s hard what to make of someone like Peter Beinart. But his face, etched with sorrow, reminds me eerily of the woman doctor defending operations of children to change their gender with a beatific smile on her face. This man is convinced he’s doing “the right thing.”


UK Peace Camp Defends Hamas
Those making the vacuous argument that if you live in Gaza it is understandable for you to engage in wanton slaughter because Israel has made living conditions untenable are themselves part of the problem. Over and above the fact that the various restrictions that have cumulatively been imposed on the Gaza Strip have evolved over time to keep Israelis safe from Hamas, the rhetorical sleight of hand that claims that by living in Gaza you become a murderer of children and a rapist is, or should be, self-evidently nonsensical.

It’s time to push back against the rhetoric of groups like the Socialist Workers Party who are claiming that “the magnificent Palestinian resistance now faces the might of Western-backed Israeli vengeance” without pausing for a second to consider that after the wanton slaughter inflicted upon Israel it is Hamas who are responsible for what comes next.

The Stop the War Coalition have advertised a demonstration for this Saturday. They don’t mention the massacre conducted by Hamas. They claim “This conflict will only be resolved when the Palestinians achieve freedom and their persecution is ended.” I beg to differ. When Hamas had freedom, when it broke the fences and took over the military bases surrounding the Gaza Strip they went in their hundreds to nearby Israeli towns and villages and massacred the people living in them.

Contrary to popular belief this conflict will only be resolved when Palestinians find a way to banish Hamas from their political reality. If Britain’s so called peace activists really cared about Palestinians they would dedicate themselves to helping them do this.


Israeli victims’ credit cards reportedly abused by terrorists after Hamas onslaught

Palestinian shot after attacking security forces at Jerusalem checkpoint

PMW: PA TV praises Hamas terror massacre on Israel, happy about murder victims and hostages who are all “settlers”

PMW: Ignoring Hamas’ atrocities, Abbas attacks Israel for causing “suffering”



MEMRI: Lebanese Politicians To Hizbullah: Don't Involve Lebanon In A War Against Israel

MEMRI: Emirati 'Al-Arab' Daily: Qatar's Offers To Mediate Between Hamas And Israel Are Meant To Cover For Its Harboring Of Hamas Arch-Terrorists

MEMRI: Reactions In Afghanistan To Hamas Attack In Israel – Afghan Taliban's Head Of Hajj And Religious Affairs In Kandahar: 'May Allah Cause All Of Israel To Perish With Thunderbolts; They Are A Very Bad Nation; They Are Jews'; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: 'Just As The U.S., Britain, And NATO Were Defeated In Afghanistan, This Experience Will Repeat In Palestine'

MEMRI: Arab Social Media Users Criticize Hamas Large-Scale Attack: Defacing Corpses, Raping Girls, Abducting Elderly Women Are All Against Islam

Republicans Probe Rob Malley's Ties to Tehran Influence Network
Republican leaders on the Senate and House foreign affairs committees have opened a joint investigation into Biden administration Iran envoy Robert Malley's links to a secret Iranian government influence network that reportedly includes several of his closest associates, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Sen. James Risch (R., Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas)—the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, respectively—are asking the State Department for information on whether Malley was compromised by the Iran Experts Initiative (IEI), a vast Iranian government-controlled propaganda operation that allegedly includes at least three of the diplomat's close associates, including one who works at the Pentagon and has a security clearance.

Malley had his security clearance pulled earlier this year and was suspended from his post at the State Department amid an FBI investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified information. The disclosure of the Iranian influence operation, first reported by Semafor, is raising questions about Malley's suspension.

"On its own, the discovery of the IEI would represent an important step in unraveling a broader Iranian malign influence network," the lawmakers write, according to a copy of a letter sent Friday and obtained by the Free Beacon. "However, the involvement of the IEI in influencing Mr. Malley's confidants, when Mr. Malley himself is the subject of an ongoing security clearance investigation, raises serious questions about whether this Iranian influence operation succeeded in penetrating the U.S. government and influenced the policies of this administration."
Iran Has Made $80 Billion in Illicit Oil Sales Since Biden Took Office



They live among us
Since 9/11, travel by air has become extremely unpleasant. One has to arrive up to 3 hours before one’s flight in order to submit to lengthy and intrusive security checks. One has to remove one’s shoes, one’s belt, unpack one’s laptop and phone, throw away perfectly good shampoo or aftershave one has forgotten to remove from one’s toiletry bag, and unfinished water. If one’s various wall-warts and cables look odd on the x-ray, one has to suffer the indignity of having one’s hand luggage unpacked in full view of everyone by someone with a scowl and rubber gloves, upon which they discover a small pocket knife or nail file carelessly left in a pouch and confiscate that too. All this security theatre is designed to keep us safe and alert to the ever-present threat of terrorism. But what is the point of it all when the bloody pilot is a terrorist sympathiser?

If this sort of anxiety makes you ill, you may want to visit your doctor, but then it turns out that your doctor is a terrorist sympathiser too!

Have we learned nothing? Perhaps not. We have to go to school with terrorist sympathisers, we have to go to university with terrorist sympathisers, and of course we have to submit to being taught by terrorist sympathisers as well.

Even the seedy world of the porn star has not escaped someone banging on about their sympathies for terrorists. Nor has the even seedier world of mainstream politics.

Perhaps they’re just passing you in the street.
‘Light It’: CUNY Law School Group Shares Pro-Palestinian Molotov Cocktail Guide as Israel-Hamas War Rages
Amid the circulation of footage showing gruesome acts of violence committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians, the City University of New York (CUNY) Law School’s Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA) shared a tweet containing instructions for making Molotov cocktails while appearing to defend Hamas’ terror campaign.

The graphic was posted on X/Twitter as a response to a written statement from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who condemned terrorism and expressed condolences for the Israeli victims of Hamas’ surprise invasion over the weekend. Zelenskyy also said Israel has the right to defend itself.

The graphic depicted a hand holding a Molotov cocktail aflame with two sets of sarcastically written step-by-step “instructions” written on the side outlining how to use it and comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

For one set of instructions, each step was preceded by an image of a Ukrainian flag, while the other set showed the Palestinian flag in the same manner. The steps with the Ukrainian flag called for using the Molotov cocktail as a weapon.

“Soak a cloak in flammable liquid … resoak [sic] the exposed wick and light it,” the text read. “Target a hard surface, such as an engine grill. Repeat until the invading occupiers retreat.”

However, the instructions with the Palestinian flag had a different tone. “Remove non-Zionist content from kindergarten textbooks … refrain from acts of incitement such as use of the word ‘Palestine,'” the text instructed. “Accepted limited self-rule in demilitarized enclaves outside the invaders’ colonies and military encampments.”


How Hamas-supporting medics are lurking within our NHS - including a doctor who mocked Israeli festival-goers who fled Palestinian gunmen

Publish the Names of Students and Professors Who Support Hamas Lynching and Rapes

Columbia University Professor Cheers Hamas Barbarity

Black Lives Matter Group Throws Support Behind Hamas Attacks, Calls Murder of Israelis 'Self-Defense'

Sky News Australia: ‘They’re fools’: Megyn Kelly slams pro-Palestinians as ‘disgusting’
The Megyn Kelly show host Megyn Kelly has slammed pro-Palestinians as “fools” who think their movement is the “new BLM”.

Her remarks come amid rising anti-Semitic rallies after Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched attacks on Israel on Saturday.

“They’re become so obsessed with identity – they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ms Kelly told Sky News host Paul Murray.

Ms Kelly said the Gaza Palestinians “turned around” and elected Hamas as their government after Israelis exited the Gaza Strip in 2005.

“Then they started bombing Israel – Israel had turned it over, Israel moved out, they could do whatever they want in Gaza, and they chose to bomb Israel over and over.

“Any person who was at Sydney Opera House chanting what they were chanting is an anti-Semite – it’s absolutely disgusting.”


Sky News Australia: Chris Minns apologises for pro-Palestine rally at Opera House
NSW Premier Chris Minns has apologised to the Jewish community for the pro-Palestine protest at the Opera House.

Mr Minns said he takes “full responsibility” for the ugly scenes on Monday night.

According to the Premier, NSW Police will deny applications from the Palestine Action Group to host another protest.

“The protest organisers have already proven that they are not peaceful,” Mr Minns said.

“Shouting racial epithets at Jewish community members is not the definition of a peaceful protest – the idea that they are going to commandeer Sydney streets is not going to happen.”


Sky News Australia: Response to attack on Israel has 'exposed' the Prime Minister: Andrew Bolt
Sky News host Andrew Bolt says we must “fight” the tribalism which has not only been prominent following the Hamas attack on Israel but through the Voice.

Mr Bolt said the horror in Israel has "exposed" the Prime Minister, the Voice and Labor.

“Governments mustn't cement such differences into our Constitution, especially differences of race,” Mr Bolt said.

“Their duty is instead to remind us through laws and rituals that what unites Australians is bigger than what divides.

“That is the sin of the Voice. It would divide us even more, just as some Muslims are now hunting Jews in our streets."

Warning: Some viewers may find content in this video distressing.




Poisoned Ivy: Harvard students who blamed Israel for Hamas attack face Wall St. blacklist



Israeli TikTok Influencer Mocks ‘Palestinian’ Rally: ‘From the River to the Sea, Petah Tikvah Will Be Free’
Israeli TikTok and Instagram influencer Uri Cohn stood in front of a pro-“Palestinian” parade in Times Square and sang the catchy slogan: From the river to the sea / Petah Tikvah will be free.” He later commented on the fact that the demonstrators held their flag upside down.

He then followed-up with this amusing commentary:

Cohn is obsessed with Petah Tikvah, fondly known in Israel as the “Mother of the Settlements,” established in 1878 by a groups of Haredi Jews from the old city of Jerusalem. Here is a video of his campaign to free Petah Tikva. Wait for the moment near the end where he turns the sign around to reveal he wants the city to be freed from the “arsim,” which is Arabic for pimps. It means Israelis who are crude, use vulgar language, hang out with suspicious characters and wear flashy clothing and jewelry. You’ve probably never met any.


PreOccupiedTerritory: Study: Majority Of Hamas Backers Adhere Not To Wahhabism But Whataboutism (satire)
Researchers have discovered that activists and online figures defending or endorsing the brutality of the terrorist group that governs this coastal territory harbor a primary belief system that, contrary to popular assumption, follows not the precepts of a radical sect of Islam, but the precepts of trying to distract or deflect from the evil that Hamas perpetrates by attempting to call attention to crimes, mostly imagined, perpetrated by Israel or its founders.

Analysts began to pay attention to the extremist ideology of Wahhabism in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. However, the behavior of Hamas, and of the Palestinians and “pro-Palestinians” who support Hamas, dovetails less with the intolerant tenets of that sect, though the overlap remains significant, than with the tenets of Whataboutism, a much more global ideology not restricted to any denomination of Islam.

“What about Israeli genocide?” challenged at least eight thousand Twitter users, employing a unique definition of the term that somehow results in a tenfold increase in the victim population, and only vaguely reflects the principles espoused by Islamic revivalist Muhammad ibn Abd el-Wahhab in the eighteenth century.

“I don’t care about settlers when there’s a siege of Gaza,” declared other activists, likewise introducing new definitions for familiar terms, and again reflecting none of the religious sensibilities of Wahhabism. Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, owes at least something to Wahhabism in its ideology, though Whataboutism has proved much more salient in current rhetoric.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR GUEST COMPARED SATURDAY’S BARBARIC ATTACK TO ISRAELI DEFENSE
Early Saturday morning, on Shabbat and on a Jewish holiday, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and attacked Israeli civilians in kibbutzim and in towns, killing and capturing women, children, and the elderly. By early afternoon that day in the US, over a hundred people had already been reported killed and dozens taken hostage (deaths tolls continued to rise afterwards). As horrific videos of the attack circulated on social media, at about 2PM Eastern time that day, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour chose to allow Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority ambassador the UK, to blame the attack on Israel and to compare it to Israel’s self-defense with almost no pushback.

At the start of segment, Zomlot had to be prodded to even condemn the attack on Israeli civilians in the most mild terms. After being asked three times, he said, “the loss of civilian life is tragic on all sides and what is happening is extremely worrying and very tragic, as we speak the loss of life, you’ve counted 70 Israeli deaths, there is more than 200 Palestinian deaths so far, more than 1,600 entire residential compounds are being wiped out. This is a war crime committed by Israel.” (It was not clear what he meant by “1,600 residential compounds.”)

He continued:
Israel knew this was coming their way. We, the national movement of Palestine, the PLO, have found a different path 30 years ago. We have committed to what the world asked us, recognize Israel, commit to negotiations and non violence, and to international legitimacy and resolution. Israel was expected to do one thing only, roll back its occupation, stop its colonial settlement expansion. Not one day it did so, killing the prospects of the two state solution. And the world was expected to do one thing, Christiane, uphold international law equally on everybody, on Ukraine, on Palestine. And the world fails to do that. No accountability. Now every single political avenue is blocked, every single legal avenue for us is blocked, like the international court of justice.

Of course, not one word of the above was true. The Palestinian Authority continues to pay salaries to terrorists who murder Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian Authority, not Israel, is the entity that has blocked the two-state solution by rejecting every single offer of independence that was made to it. Nor is there any moral equivalence between intentional attacks that target civilians and unintentional civilian casualties that result from self-defense. But CNN’s Amanpour responded simply: “I want to know what happens now. There’s a war that Israel has declared after Palestinian militants, who I don’t think are your friends, Hamas is not a supporter of the Palestinian Authority, there’s a war, and as you say, there’s going to be a massive escalation.”
LIES AND TESTIMONY: MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI VS. JEWISH VICTIMS OF THE OCT. 7 MASSACRE

CAMERA OP-ED: NO SAFE HAVEN FOR HAMAS

AS ISRAELIS ARE SLAUGHTERED, MSNBC SAYS PALESTINIANS IN CHICAGO ALSO IN “PAIN”

BBC BACKGROUNDER ON HAMAS ATTACKS SHORT ON ‘ESSENTIAL CONTEXT’
By the time the eighth version of this report was published on the afternoon of October 8th, it was already known that the number of civilians killed is in the upper hundreds rather than “dozens”.

That supposed explanation of “Why are Israel and Hamas fighting?” does not include any reference to Hamas’ long-stated aim of wiping Israel off the map.

In the latest version of the report – published nearly 48 hours after its original appearance – the title of that sub-section was changed to read ‘Why did Hamas attack now?’ and readers found a new theme:
“Although the attack by the militants on 7 October came without warning, it happened at a time of soaring Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

This year has been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which could have motivated Hamas to strike Israel with a spectacular attack. Hamas might also have been seeking to score a major propaganda victory against Israel to boost its popularity among ordinary Palestinians.

The fact that it has taken so many Israelis captive is likely to be aimed at pressuring Israel to free some of the about 4,500 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons – a highly emotive issue for all Palestinians.”

No attempt is made to inform BBC audiences that most of the “Palestinians held in Israeli prisons” are convicted terrorists and similarly readers are not told that the majority of the Palestinians killed in 2023 were members of terrorist organisations – including around 35 belonging to Hamas itself – or males who were carrying out terror attacks or acts of violence at the time. The BBC does not bother to explain the ‘logic’ behind its unevidenced speculation that a terrorist organisation which sends its operatives to commit acts of terror against civilians would then be “motivated” to launch a massive attack because they were killed in or following the act.

Later sections of the article – which is still being amended – are used to re-promote reports written by three BBC journalists – Jeremy Bowen, Frank Gardner and Yolande Knell – with readers told that “Militants breached the wire that separates Gaza from Israel in multiple places” but no mention made of the paragliders used or the attempted infiltrations by sea.

As we see, this backgrounder falls seriously short of its declared aim of providing BBC audiences with “the essential context to understand this story” and completely fails to report the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by a terrorist organisation that the BBC continues to refuse to define as such in its own words.


Former Israeli ambassador to U.S. fumes at western media over 'militant' label for Hamas

WATCH: MSNBC Caught Following Hamas’s Script After Terror Attacks on Israel

Shapps Slams BBC Over ‘Disgraceful’ Failure to Call Hamas Terrorists

The Antisemitic Social Media History of AP’s Correspondent in Gaza
The main reporter covering the war in Gaza for the Associated Press has called publicly for the annihilation of Israel and a “Palestinian revolt” and compared Israel to the Nazis, HonestReporting revealed Wednesday in an investigation of his social media accounts.

The social media history and pro-Palestinian activism of Issam Adwan, who joined the wire service in August after working for Al Jazeera English and anti-Israeli non-governmental organizations, reveals some disturbing and antisemitic content, demonstrating that he cannot be relied upon for objective coverage of the conflict.

In a post on X/Twitter from October 13, 2022, Adwan wrote that “the Palestinian revolt against the Israeli oppression will be a triumph” and that “every colonial system will be overthrown”:

Adwan also openly compared Israel to the Nazis:

This disturbing comparison is explicitly defined as antisemitic according to the internationally recognized IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) working definition of antisemitism.

Adnan made this comparison as a repost supporting none other than Hosam Salem – a former New York Times photographer who was fired after HonestReporting exposed him glorifying a gruesome Palestinian terror attack and calling to “Smite the Necks of Unbelievers.”

Adwan’s repost effectively dismissed the complaints against his fellow “journalist” as “hypocrisy and nonsense.” What does this show about Adwan’s ability to uphold basic journalistic standards, let alone human ethics?


Help Advocate for Israel During this Critical Time
As we watch the horrific news unfolding in Israel, so many of us feel helpless. We are angry, and scared, and sad.

The immediate needs of the Israeli people are to support the victims and the brave IDF soldiers who are defending the Jewish State. We’ve seen an incredible outpouring of generosity to do just that.

Here are additional ways that you can help:
Amplify the message: LIKE, SHARE, and COMMENT. Pro-Israel organizations, like HonestReporting, are producing critically important content to fight the onslaught of misinformation during this devastating time. We are telling the story that the international media won’t. We are discrediting cringeworthy “news.” And, we are amplifying those instances where credible journalists are getting it just right.
LIKE, SHARE, and COMMENT each and every time you see one of these posts. The more you engage with a post, the more times it will be shown on the platform.
If you see something, say something! Even with advanced technology, we cannot catch every instance of anti-Israel bias. In fact, some of our most popular exposes originated as tips from subscribers.
Send us articles, social media posts, and/or the date, time and channel of broadcast media so that we can set the record straight. Email action@honestreporting.com.
Volunteers with social media and graphic design skills are needed now! Join the fight against social media misinformation. HonestReporting’s staff has been called for reserve duty to defend the Jewish State. We are looking for volunteers that (1) are knowledgeable on Israeli history and current events, (2) have experience with Adobe Illustrator or Canva, and (3) can help us draft responses to anti-Israel media. Email action@honestreporting.com to let us our social media manager know about how you (or your grandchildren) can help, today!
How to Be an Ally
Fellow non-Jews, here’s what’s been useful for me that you might like to know:
• Israel seems far away, but for a lot of Jews, it doesn’t. That’s either because they consider the entire Jewish people to be their family, or because they have literal friends and family living in Israel. With that in mind, it’s not hard to see how a little empathy could go a long way in a time like this.
• Jews can (and do!) have complicated feelings about the State of Israel. Don’t make assumptions about their politics or their Zionism. Right now, the main thing that matters is that there are people chanting “gas the Jews” en masse in major cities. Do we mean what we’ve been saying about being against racism and Nazis?
• Put politics to the side, and check in with your Jewish friends and acquaintances. Let them know that you’re thinking about them and (if it’s your thing) praying for them, for their friends and family—by name, if possible.
“Maggie,” you may be saying, “I know I’m reading Tablet—and this is a little embarrassing to admit—but I don’t actually know any Jews personally.” It’s OK, you’ve admitted you have a problem, that’s the first step. We can work with that.
Here’s what I’ve done—and you can too, right from the comfort of your very own home!
• Find a local synagogue. Reach out, even if it’s just to leave a voicemail, an email message, or a comment on their social media feed saying you’re standing with them. Related
• Do you belong to a church, civic group, or volunteer organization? Get in touch with the leadership and see about sending a bouquet of white roses, a symbolic gesture of resistance with its roots in WWII. (I got this idea from the Philos Project, a Christian ally organization that delivers white roses to Jewish communities after acts of antisemitism.)
• Post about your support for the Jewish people. No, really! A good friend of mine observed that a lot of the uglier reactions we’re seeing play out currently are downstream of a sort of “gamification” of world events—for a lot of people, what they see flattened on screens and infographics and served up to them by algorithms is the extent of their engagement with an issue, and it gets further simplified to “good guys” and “bad guys.” So much of the horror playing out in Israel is designed to be seen online. So for someone feeling like their hurt, pain, and confusion are being ignored or jeered at, scrolling and seeing a post standing by Jews and condemning the actions of Hamas, might well kindle the small flame of hope they’re struggling to keep alive.
Jewish Singer Matisyahu Calls Out Celebrities Who Are ‘Too Afraid’ to Support Israel
Jewish singer Matisyahu said he is disappointed in all the celebrities who have remained silent or equivocated as the war between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas rages on, telling those “too afraid” to support the Jewish state publicly that the situation is “bigger than your brand.”

Speaking with the digital media company FACTZ on Tuesday, the Jerusalem singer, whose real name is Matthew Paul Miller, at first thanked the celebrities who have been vocal in support of Israel amid the ongoing war. He then added, “And to the people that are too afraid to speak up, or the people that are putting up posts and then taking them down because they’re afraid they’re going to lose followers — and [that] they’re going to lose some of their fame or their standing — I have to say, I’m sorry for you. It’s bigger than your brand.”

Over 1,000 people have been killed and thousands more injured in Israel since Hamas launched its initial invasion against the Jewish state from Gaza on Saturday. The terrorist group, which controls Gaza, also kidnapped dozens of civilians and soldiers and brought them back to the neighboring enclave.

During his speech from the White House on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said 14 Americans have been killed by the terror onslaught and confirmed that some Americans are being held hostage by Hamas.

While many celebrities have expressed solidarity with Israel since Hamas’ invasion, others have been less willing to do so.

Reality star and Kylie Cosmetics founder Kylie Jenner posted a message in support of Israel on her Instagram Stories over the weekend but deleted the post after receiving criticism. Some social media users have expressed disappointment that some of the biggest names in Hollywood — and those who garner the most followers on social media — have not spoken out against the Hamas violence.

Matisyahu explained that the current war between the Jewish state and Hamas “isn’t just about Israel.”

“It’s about women and children being burned in the streets, being taken from their homes, and that’s not about land, that’s a religious war,” he said. “Israel has to fight for their existence. Jews have had to fight for their right to exist since the beginning of time.”
None of 10 Most-Followed Celebrity Ig Accounts Shows Support for Israel Following Hamas Attacks, Many Backed BLM
None of the ten most-followed celebrity Instagram accounts has shown support for Israel in the four days following Hamas’ bloody attacks on Jewish people that have so far claimed more than 1,100 Israeli lives.

At the same time, many of these same stars publicly voiced their support for Black Lives Matter in the recent past.

Celebrities including Beyonce, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, as well as various members of the Kardashian clan have all remained conspicuously silent in the past four days when it comes to backing Israel. The exception is Kylie Jenner, who posted a pro-Israel message following Saturday’s bloody attacks, only to delete it shortly thereafter following an onslaught of negative comments.

Other famous faces whose Instagram profiles rank in the top ten are Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

The deafening silence indicates a PR conundrum for celebrities with gargantuan social media followings. Showing support for Israel could count as a strike against them in the eyes fans as well as the establishment news media, which is almost entirely anti-Israel.

But many of these celebrities had no problem publicly backing BLM, despite the Marxist movement’s unpopularity with about half the U.S. population.


Sky News Australia: Joan Collins says Hamas attack on Israel is 'barbaric' and 'completely vile'
Actress Joan Collins has commented on the Hamas attack on Israel, calling it “barbaric” and “completely vile”.

“I can’t think of anything that has upset me more, other than 9/11,” Ms Collins told Sky News Australia host Piers Morgan.

“It’s totally barbaric, it’s not the sort of thing a human being does – it’s an animal.

“I’ve been very upset ever since this happened, I’ve been watching all the news, I’ve been reading all the reports.

“And all I can say is that I and everybody else, I’m sure, is just shocked and horrified.”






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