Sunday, October 22, 2023

10/22 Links Pt2: The Brits are like turkeys voting for Christmas; The disgusting bigotry of the poster-rippers; How the woke have revived the ‘noble savage’

From Ian:

Victor Rosenthal: When We Said “Never Again,” We Meant It
My heart is breaking. What I surmised yesterday, but was afraid to write has turned out to be true. I have never wanted to be wrong more than I do this morning. But I can’t pretend that “it will be OK,” as Israelis like to say.

The IDF has been ready for some time to begin the operation to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. The plans were made long ago, and updated regularly. Hundreds of thousands of reservists have left their jobs and families, at great expense to the government. The tanks are poised near the border. Why aren’t they moving?

The reason is that they have been ordered not to by the Americans. Whether or not they planned it, Hamas struck gold when some twelve Americans and ten British subjects were included among the roughly 200 hostages that were carried back to Gaza by the terrorists. Now negotiations are taking place, brokered by the despicable Qatari regime, to obtain their release. The demonic Hamas have released two American women (for what in return?) to prove that a deal is possible.

I’m not surprised and I’m not criticizing the US president and British PM for trying to protect their people. That is the top job of a government – a job, incidentally, that ours has been failing to do for some time. But that’s another story.

Now our government has a different job. This is our last chance, after the disasters of Oslo, the withdrawal from Gaza, the Second Lebanon War, the Shalit trade, the ongoing loss of Area C, and countless other losses and humiliations, to end our slide to destruction. If Hamas is not ripped out of Gaza by its roots, the immediate result will be the loss of the northern and southern parts of our country (who would live there?) and the evaporation of any honor and deterrence that the State of Israel still has. And then there will be no peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, no hope of preventing a nuclear Iran, and no possibility of obtaining sovereignty in the strategic hill country and the Jordan Valley. We are suffering the death by a thousand cuts, and today the knife is poised over a vital artery. We are at the point of no return.
JPost Editorial: Israeli solidarity is its greatest asset in times of war
An enemy worse than ISIS
Facing an enemy worse than ISIS, the country quickly pulled together and showed the same spirit that has been displayed during previous wars, operations, and other hardships.

Reservists answered the call to serve, with many rushing home from abroad to draft. So many former soldiers begged to be called up that the IDF had to turn some away. Pilots dropped their political differences and mobilized en masse, with at least one air base commander saying there was more than a 100% turnout.

People opened their homes and hearts to perfect strangers who required a refuge from the rockets and other threats. Volunteer groups quickly formed to supply food, clothing, and toys to the displaced families.

Soldiers were bombarded with so much food and equipment from civilian well-wishers that it became the butt of jokes and memes.

The many ways in which people volunteered are too numerous to list here, but they show the same sort of creativity for which the country is famous.

Nobody knows what challenges lie ahead. No one can predict the exact course the war will take. But we all know one thing for certain: We need to remain united and to face this together. Soldiers fighting on the frontlines watch each other’s backs and serve as one, regardless of any political, religious, or social differences they have. In the same way, the ordinary citizens on the home front must also continue to be strong and united.

Together, we will win.
Jonathan Tobin: What happens when terrorists are rewarded for taking hostages
It remains to be seen if Hamas can use the hostages—not to mention the fate of Palestinian civilians around them they are also using as human shields—to ensure they emerge from this battle still in control of Gaza.

One of the most distressing aspects of the last two weeks has been the utter disdain for the hostages that has been expressed by Hamas’s foreign supporters, and the relative indifference of the international community and the corporate media to their fate. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the liberal press in the United States to essentially forget about the evidence of Hamas’s barbarism and become obsessed with the dilemma of Palestinians living in Gaza as Israel began to strike back against the terrorists lodged deep into the enclave.

But what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was to impress upon Israelis that ransoming a hostage can lead directly to something far worse. If the freedom of the 200 kidnapped Israelis now suffering who knows what torment at the hands of their barbaric captors is bought at the price of a victory for Hamas, their families will consider it worth it, and everyone should understand and sympathize with them. But as the Shalit deal should have taught the world—not to mention the way that American ransom payments have strengthened Hamas’s Iranian sponsors—such negotiations are a compact with devils that will create even more grief and suffering in the future.

This understanding shouldn’t be confused with indifference to those languishing somewhere in Gaza, but as much as we desire their safety and freedom, it cannot come at the expense of an existential threat to the Jewish state and the West. It is a terrible thing that destroying Hamas in the coming weeks and months will likely cost the lives of many Israelis and innocent Palestinian Arabs as well as the terrorists. However, it will save more lives in the long run. Nothing—not American pressure or even the tears of the families of the captives—should allow Hamas’s cruel expectation that they will be able to get away with crimes worthy of the Nazis to be proven true.
David Collier: The Brits are like turkeys voting for Christmas
Journos like Sadiya Chowdhury
One of the key problems the UK has (not just the Jews) is that these Islamists are being potrayed on our main media channels as peace loving people. A perfect example of this took place yesterday in a live interview on Sky News (link to video, h/t Stuart):

Sky had a journalist at the demo, talking to demonstrators. The Sky News journo declared that ‘peace is the sentiment here that everyone is calling for‘. Incredibly she failed to notice the sign supporting ‘resistance’ being held directly in front of her:

The journalist is Sadiya Chowdhury. Chowdhury’s recent tweets are all about demonising Israel:
A report that settlers have been attacking Palestinians.
About Pro Palestinian voices being supressed.
Chris Doyle from CAABU on the ‘Genocidal rhetoric of Israeli leaders’.
A nonsensical Channel 4 conspiracy piece claiming Israel did bomb the hospital (they didn’t).
A post from Middle East Eye (A Qatari state mouthpiece)

Her Twitter history is an anti-Israel rant – that includes the promotion and defence of BDS, slurs against the IDF, and the equating of Israel with Hamas,

Perhaps it would have been helpful to know Chowdhury spent three years working for the Islam Channel. You can see her here in 2014 reporting in an anti-Israel hit piece. In the same segment there is even an interview with Ismail Patel – the same Ismail Patel behind the FOA demonstration in London. Chowdhury has been in this game a long time. In 2003 she was writing for Arab News – attacking Israel’s security fence.

In other words, the Sky broadcast was nothing more than someone who has a toxic anti-Israel viewpoint- interviewing other people with toxic anti-Israel views. Chowdhury even (disgracefully) plugged the ‘river to the sea’ chant as something innocent and peaceful. ‘There you have it’ she said.

If this is what Sky News actually think is professional TV, we may as well all watch Al-Jazeera. This is absolutely shameful Islamist propaganda – misrepresenting an extremist Islamist demonstration as a peaceful march. People here must wake up to how the media is playing a major part in this massive disinformation campaign.

Back to the main march
There were a lot of people demonstrating in London – the police estimate was 70,000, so when I returned to Park Lane, the march was still going on. After a while it all looks the same, rows and rows of people – mostly Muslim – all calling for the destruction of Israel. As usual they are accompanied by signs that support ‘resistance’ and ‘intifadas’ – all code words for slaughtering Jews.

And like moths to a flame – there were also the antisemitic images on show:

The Jewish connection
It is incredible to think that some Jewish people are so stupid that they march with groups like Friends of Al Aqsa. I do not even know where to start with this one, so I will let the image speak for itself:

And there is no excusing this depressing image.

As the Islamists marched – somewhere within were the lost Jewish youth of Na’amod. Standing alongside FOA and other Islamists – people who identify more with the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered 1400 Jews – than with their Jewish victims. There is little more sickening than this image. Smug, privileged, British Jews – spitting in the eyes of millions of Israelis. These people are standing alongside the Islamists who are calling for Jihad and the destruction of Israel. Shame on you all.
Anti-Hamas billboard taken down in New Jersey after over 100 complaint calls to police



The IDF Prepares to Enter Hamastan
Much of the international community is currently arguing obscenely about whether the Hamas monsters who two weeks ago slaughtered, beheaded, burned, raped and abducted our citizens, inside our homes and communities, inside our sovereign land, should be considered "terrorists." Much of the international community is choosing to give credence to an evidence-free Hamas claim that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital, over the IDF's fact-based conclusion that a misfired Islamic Jihad missile was to blame.

But inside Israel, we are preoccupied with the army's imminent mission to send ground forces into Gaza to try to ensure Hamas can never harm us again. Rocket fire from Gaza is incessant. Every day brings further unwatchable documentation of the horrors Hamas perpetrated against our children, parents and grandparents. Every day brings more funerals.

Everybody here knows not only one or more of the 1,400 Israelis who were massacred or abducted by Hamas, but also one or more of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in our standing army and our called-up reserves. We know this war will take time and involve still more terrible loss.

We know that our soldiers are brave and fine and motivated. Morale is high. They know that the country is behind them. They are the country. The fate of Israel is in their hands. We all know that the mission must succeed because we have to be able to live in security in our small patch of land. As President Biden noted, we know what happens to Jews everywhere without an Israel.


Not just prayers: War sparks unprecedented mobilization by ultra-Orthodox Israelis
When war broke out, Pini Einhorn and Moishe Roth found themselves suddenly out of work.

The popular Haredi musician duo canceled all the concerts they had lined up for what was supposed to be one of the busiest times of the year, just after the Jewish autumn holidays.

Einhorn and Roth initially channeled their free time toward joining countless Israelis delivering food to soldiers and residents of the south. But the surplus of volunteers made the pair look for alternative ways to contribute, said Einhorn, a 34-year-old father of four.

So they decided to do what they know best: playing music for groups of people. In just a few days, the pair have visited over 100 houses of mourning in hopes of helping console families in the depths of sorrow as they observe the traditional seven-day shiva bereavement period for their slain loved ones. While musical instruments are generally prohibited by Jewish law during mourning periods, the two sing hymns when requested.

Their activities are part of an unprecedented push by Haredim, who by and large avoid army service, to contribute to the war effort in myriad ways — including by volunteering for the military.

Occurring at what is arguably a low point in relations between secular and Haredi Jews in Israel, some believe these new expressions of solidarity will help lead to long-term changes in each side’s attitudes toward the other.

“The Haredi public is mobilized in an unprecedented way,” said Yitzhak Pindrus, a lawmaker for the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party. “Everyone is doing something in addition to praying,” he told The Times of Israel.

At least 2,000 Haredi men have signed up to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, according to Eliyahu Glantzenberg, a 38-year-old Haredi community activist from Petah Tikvah near Tel Aviv.

A high-tech professional working for the Freesbe branding agency, he launched an initiative together with the former top rabbi of the Israel Air Force, Moshe Raved, through which Haredim could sign up to be recruited into the army.

On Saturday, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Hagari said the IDF had received more than 2,000 requests from Haredim in recent days. They will begin to be drafted as volunteers on Monday, he said.

An abbreviated basic training is set to open for hundreds of them, the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit told The Times of Israel.

“It’s to fill gaps: drivers, programmers, cooks. Whatever’s necessary,” said Glantzenberg of the recruits.

The list of volunteers is growing as people from the Haredi world spread the word in synagogue and on WhatsApp groups, among those Haredim who use smartphones.
Gaza terrorists fire anti-tank missile, kill Israeli soldier
Terrorists from the Gaza Strip fired an anti-tank missile at Israeli troops stationed along the border fence on Sunday afternoon, killing one soldier and injuring three others, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed.

“An IDF soldier was killed, an IDF soldier was moderately wounded and two other IDF soldiers were lightly wounded by an anti-tank missile fired at a tank and an engineering vehicle during a local raid carried out earlier today in the territory of the Gaza Strip in the Kissufim area,” the IDF said on Sunday night.

Troops were operating in the area in an attempt to “thwart terrorist infrastructure, cleanse the area from terrorists and weapons and locate missing persons and bodies,” the army added.

The families of the soldiers were notified, the military said.

In a statement, Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades claimed its gunmen had clashed with Israeli troops on the border east of Khan Younis and destroyed two armored bulldozers and a tank.

Earlier on Sunday, the Israel Air Force killed a senior member of Hamas’s rocket-launching unit in the Gaza Strip, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said.

Muhammad Katamash was responsible for “artillery operations” in Hamas’s Central Brigade in the Gaza Strip and oversaw the firing of thousands of rockets at the Jewish state, according to the joint statement.

“The IDF has continued to attack several targets of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip since the morning hours,” the army said on X (formerly Twitter).

“Among the targets were the head of a rocket firing squad and several other operatives. In addition, a Hamas weapons production site and a military headquarters were attacked,” the military said.

The IDF on Sunday made the first operational use of Iron Sting, a new mortar developed by Haifa-based Elbit Systems that uses both laser and GPS guidance systems to prevent collateral civilian damage.
21 Israeli children orphaned by Hamas attacks
At least 21 Israeli children from 13 families had parents murdered during Hamas’s terrorist onslaught that began on Oct. 7, the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs revealed on Sunday.

Child welfare workers established that 16 children lost both parents, while two children of single mothers were orphaned. Two children had one parent murdered and one still missing.

In one case, one parent was murdered, and the other was taken as a hostage to the Gaza Strip.

Social workers have established contact with the families of the orphans and will provide them and their guardians with all the resources necessary, the Welfare Ministry said on Sunday.

“It was important for us to reach the children who were left without a father and mother as quickly as possible, to check that they are in a safe place, to help the family members who are currently taking care of them, and to assure them that the State of Israel is with them and will continue to support and accompany them in the future,” said Eti Kisos, a senior official in the ministry.

Hamas terrorists killed 1,400 Israelis and wounded more than 5,400 in a massive offensive launched from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, which included the firing of thousands of rockets at Israel and the infiltration of the Jewish state by terrorist forces.

As of Sunday, there are 302 people hospitalized for their injuries, of whom 43 are seriously wounded, 172 moderately wounded and 87 lightly wounded, according to Health Ministry data.

On Sunday afternoon, an Israeli man in his 60s sustained serious wounds as a result of a rocket impact in the southern city of Netivot, the Magen David Adom emergency medical service said. He was taken to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva.
Israel Police chief reports no war-related violent incidents with Arabs
Arabs Israelis have not perpetrated violent incidents in response to the war, Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Kobi Shabtai said Sunday.

“There’s a connection to the local leadership at the territorial level, and we are in talks, while at the same time, we’re ready for every eventuality,” he told the Knesset National Security Committee.

The committee meeting was held to discuss police readiness for a situation similar to that of Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, which was accompanied by multiple violent incidents and lynches of both Arabs and Jews.

“In Guardian of the Walls, we were surprised because we didn’t know anything, and the situation flared up over social media,” Shabtai said. “Now, we’re using the covert and overt intelligence system, and we’re responding to trends and can analyze and prepare in advance.”

The police have received more than 2,400 reports of people taking photos of houses, Shabtai said.

“I want to calm the public,” he said. “We are more spread out and more ready for every eventuality. All the reports were dealt with. We’re not taking this lightly.”
Hamas-Israel war: Palestinians, allies are to blame for the coming Nakba
IN RECENT years, some rogue human rights organizations have labeled Israel as an apartheid state. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has also tried to define Israel’s standing as equivalent to the old, white supremacist South African government. Never mind the false representation of the Jewish state and the trivialization of the heinous discriminatory program of the old Boer government. The real goal is to place Israel beyond the pale. The rhetoric of human rights is corrupted to reinforce the Palestinian fantasy of destroying the Jewish state some day.

Similarly, the spread on the radical left and in universities of the intersectionality idea, that Israel is the enemy of all oppressed minorities, is continuing. The labeling of Israelis as colonial settlers denies 3,000 years of Jewish rootedness in the land of Israel. The 50% plus of Israelis who are Mizrahim (descendants of local Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa from biblical times to the modern era) and Ethiopian Jews are “whitened” out of existence, while the Palestinians are dubbed indigenous people of color.

The Palestinians are given a free pass for atrocious behavior that only reinforces their policy of annihilation, rather than seeking reconciliation.

The UN, with its endless stream of resolutions condemning Israel, is trying its utmost to demonize the country, as do those who label Israel as a colonialist power. Neither, however, would admit that they are supporting a genocidal policy against Jews. In reality, however, that is what they are doing.

Even the United States and western Europe, which have mainly stood by Israel, have failed to check the Palestinians or give them feedback that they must give up their unholy war on Israel and seek a modus vivendi (peaceful coexistence).

They should have given the Palestinians assurances that they would support a two-state solution, but told them, in no uncertain terms, that any use of terror to achieve their aims would result in the loss of that support.

The US supported Israel, but, with the exception of the idiosyncratic Trump administration, never confronted UNESCO and UNRWA with budget denials for their delegitimization of the Jewish state. When Israel was driven to military action, the typical Allied response was to restrict Israel’s actions and make sure that it did not go “too far.” This allowed Hamas to use international humanitarian help to regroup, rearm, and return to terror every time.

The Hamas pogrom almost two weeks ago was the outcome of these policy failures. Now, the number of deaths on both sides will far exceed that which would have occurred were the matter taken in hand sooner and not allowed to spiral out of control.

Allies of the Palestinian people have failed them by not redirecting them, while the radicals have corrupted them by supporting their policy of victimhood and self-destruction.

The moderate Arab governments and the PA have not condemned the recent Hamas atrocities. Now, all Palestinian allies must put systemic pressure on the Palestinians to renounce terror and work toward a better life and freedom.
Palestinian terrorists have been murdering babies for a century
The scale of the atrocities is new, but they are not without precedent.

In 1920, Jews were massacred in Jerusalem by Arab rioters led by Amin al-Husseini, a future Nazi collaborator. Husseini wanted to sway ruling British officials from supporting a separate Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. The rioters chanted “the Jews are our dogs” and “we will drink the blood of the Jews.” More violence followed.

In 1929, Husseini instigated attacks on ancient Jewish communities in Hebron and other towns. Homes were ransacked, their inhabitants slaughtered.

Indeed, the accounts of the massacres could have been ripped from today’s headlines. One British policeman, RJ Cafferata, later testified that he discovered “an Arab cutting off a child’s head with a sword.” Cafferata shot the man before seeing another armed with a dagger and “standing over a woman covered with blood.” Cafferata shot him too.

Women were raped en masse. Both men and women were tortured.

The Dutch Canadian journalist Pierre Van Paassen came upon one rabbi’s house and found that “the rooms looked like a slaughterhouse. … Not a single item had been left intact except a large black-and-white photograph of Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism” and “around the picture’s frame the murderers had draped the blood-drenched underwear of a woman.”

Van Paassen later wanted to “gather up the severed sexual organs and the cut-off breasts we had seen lying scattered over the floor and in the beds.” A Jewish baker, Noah Imerman, was burned to death with a kerosene stove.

A week later, another pogrom unfolded in the village of Safed. One eyewitness, David Hacohen, “saw the mutilated and burned bodies of the victims of the massacre, and the burned body of a woman tied to the grille of a window.” Homes were set on fire, and victims stabbed “to pieces … bursting into the orphanages,” and the terrorists had “smashed the children’s heads and cut off their hands.”

On May 13, 2011, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV broadcast an interview with Sara Jaber, a 92-year-old Palestinian woman who looked back at these atrocities with fondness. “We, the people of Hebron, massacred the Jews. My father massacred them and brought back some stuff,” according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that translates foreign media. The woman told her interviewer: “Allah willing, you will massacre them like we massacred them in Hebron.”

This history of violence is as revealing as it is revolting. The barbarism wasn’t committed in the name of a separate Palestinian Arab state. Rather, it was committed to vanquishing the very idea of a Jewish one.

Indeed, Israel wasn’t created until 1948. And it did not seize the areas of Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, and Gaza until 1967, when it won a successful war of defense. The West and some in Israel came to believe that these territories were the root of the conflict. Israel, the thinking went, just needed to give up land, and it would receive peace in return.
Palestine: A Cause or a State?
Why did Hamas trigger its attack out of the blue? Hamas apologists repeat the usual shibboleths: occupation, colonial settlements, expulsions, Apartheid, the two-state solution.

A closer look, however, shows that none of those "reasons" could explain, let alone justify, why Hamas did what it did on October 7.

The [Palestinian Authority] and Hamas have preferred to pose as guardians of the flame rather than builders of state structures.... For a brief period, 2007-2013, the PA under Prime Minister Salam Fayyad tried to promote the state-building culture as opposed to the chest-beating posture of "the cause". But both Hamas and the PA did all they could to derail Fayyad's project.

The "Gaza first" scheme exposed the concept of "security through evacuation" as a dangerous myth that replaced another myth: land-for-peace, which has offered what amounts to lukewarm and always reversible peace.

All along, Israeli leaders tried to jump through one hoop after another to avoid seriously dealing with the "two-state" formula, which the United States and its Western allies promoted regardless of its lack of support among Israelis and Palestinians.

[T]he "Palestinian cause" [is] used, and abused, as a means of legitimizing regimes as diverse as the Islamic Republic of Iran; the AKP in Turkey and, believe it or not, the leftist outfit in Colombia. And that not to mention "return ticket revolutionaries" in the West who draw voyeuristic pleasure from watching others kill and die for "great causes."

Throughout the Cold War, ignoring the geopolitical dimension of the Israel-Palestine issue encouraged wild-goose diplomatic chasings most notoriously symbolized by the "two-state" formula. Today, the same error is repeated by focusing almost exclusively on Hamas without asking who is funding, training, arming and manipulating Hamas in the name of "clash of civilizations".
Young Palestinian Boy With Knife Sent By His Father To 'Die A Martyr's Death'
This past Friday, a 10-year-old Arab boy from the Palestinian territories made headlines when he entered the settlement of Shema, only to be apprehended with a large knife in his possession. In the subsequent investigation conducted by security personnel within the settlement, it came to light that the boy had been sent on this troubling mission by his father. According to the young boy's account, his father, armed and determined, had been roaming the roads of Samaria with the intention of launching an attack on Jewish residents.

The incident unfolded just a few hours before the commencement of the Sabbath when a resident, returning from IDF reserve duty, stumbled upon the young boy and initiated a swift search. This search revealed the concealed knife. When questioned by the security forces, the boy revealed that his father was armed with a more formidable weapon and was waiting for him. Shockingly, the boy disclosed, "Father wanted to enter the settlement with me, but when he saw that there were military forces present, he sent me to carry out an attack and, in his words, 'die a martyr's death.'"

The Israeli forces operating in the area managed to apprehend the father. However, due to the status of the child as a minor, he was ultimately released. This turn of events raised concerns among residents. One resident stated, "This child terrorist came with one thing on his mind—to carry out an attack in the settlement." The fact that a child could enter the settlement in broad daylight without detection is deeply unsettling. While it is acknowledged that this is indeed a young child, it underscores the continued interest of certain individuals in infiltrating settlements and perpetrating terrorist attacks. Residents of Shema expressed gratitude for what they deemed a "great miracle."
DeSantis and Palestinian Muslim antisemitism

Polish President Condemnds Antisemitism at Warsaw Pro-Palestine Rally

How the woke have revived the ‘noble savage’
‘Oh, and by the way’, said Owen Jones in his ‘sassy’ mode the other day on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, ‘it wasn’t actually Hamas who introduced the law banning homosexuality in Gaza. Guess who it was?’ He then gave an extra pause for extra sass. ‘The British Empire.’ (Dramatic chord!) He went on to quote: ‘Same-sex sexual activity is prohibited in Gaza under the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance 1936.’

Jones, who has been a vocal supporter of Palestine during the current conflict in Gaza, clearly thought he had got one over on those critics who have tried to remind him of Hamas’s less than savoury attitudes to gay people. Never mind that the British Mandate for Palestine ended in 1948, when Dorothy Squires was Britain’s top hitmaker and Mrs Dale’s Diary was the hot new soap. The obvious thought that the Gazans have had 74 years to repeal this anti-gay ordinance doesn’t seem to have occurred to Jones. In fact, they have made the ‘offence’ and its punishment more severe in recent years. Meanwhile, the other jurisdictions that also were formerly under the mandate had no such issue – Jordan scrapped the law in 1951, Israel in 1988 (though it stopped bothering to prosecute homosexuality much earlier).

Jones’s inane tweet, however, is a good summation of the attitude that everything bad in the world can be traced back to Western imperialism. Presumably, before 1936 and the arrival of Colonel Blimp, the Emirate of Transjordan (an unfortunate name to our ears) was a sandy paradise with Brokeback Bedouins tethering their camels, before ripping off each others keffiyehs and snogging away under the desert moonlight.

This bizarre romanticism of non-Western cultures as prelapsarian paradises is, ironically, a very Western thing. In fact, there is a bulging smorgasbord of ironies here.

The first and most obvious is that this view is deeply racist. It treats the non-Western peoples of the world as children, with no agency or identity of their own. They can only copy us, and once something Western goes into their laws, bish bosh, it’s in for good. Even after decolonisation, it never occurs to them to change it. Their putty minds are forever indented by the thumbprint of Western sin.
Spiked: Hamas’s useful idiots | The spiked podcast
Jake Wallis Simons – editor of the Jewish Chronicle and author of Israelophobia – joins Tom Slater and Fraser Myers to discuss the dangers of demonising Israel, the return of Islamist terror in Europe and Australia’s rejection of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.


The disgusting bigotry of the poster-rippers
The inhumanity, the smugness, the constant insinuation that these sneaky Jews are making stuff up… There have been some disgusting scenes on the streets of London these past two weeks, from protests celebrating Hamas’s slaughter of 1,400 Israelis to a surge in anti-Semitic hate crime, but there is something about these poster-rippers, with their casual, chuckling disregard for kidnapped Jews, that really hammers home the scale of the bigotry we’re dealing with.

Worse still, it isn’t just racist passersby who are stopping Jews from campaigning for the return of Hamas’s victims. The Metropolitan Police have been getting in on the act, too – albeit for different reasons. Last night, the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism released footage of police in Westminster telling its activists to turn off their billboard vans, bearing the names and photos of kidnapped Israelis, and leave central London for their own safety. (The cops feared the Jewish activists would clash with pro-Palestine activists down the road.)

Shameful doesn’t come close to it. There’s the Jew-hatred, then there’s the cowardice. There are those who are so marinated in Israelophobia that even the image of an imperilled Israeli child mortally offends them. And then there are the authorities, who last night unwittingly became the armed wing of the poster-rippers, telling Jewish activists it would be better all round if they took their images of kidnapped Israelis elsewhere.

We gentiles cannot turn away from this bigotry, purely because we have the privilege of ignoring it. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have no such luxury. They can’t even campaign on behalf of their missing friends and loved ones without being sworn at and mocked in the street. The time to stand up to this is now.


Something is rotten in the state of academe
As bullhorns echoed across leafy paths all the way to the offices of University Presidents and DEI administrators, the leadership of academia fell silent. At Harvard, after days of studious reticence, it took the public shaming of a former president and donors closing their checkbooks for leaders to issue a tepid statement, one that was amended a second time for failing to take a stand. [Alumni at PENN withdrew funding and resigned from the university board, which was met with a Faculty Senate letter that seemed to evoke antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish money and power.] Some, even days or a week later, sent emails that could hardly use the word Israel or Hamas without qualification, rendering violence only in the passive voice. Other campuses including my former employer Northwestern University, which have spoken out repeatedly on other events in the news cycle and their campuses, still remain mute.

While the public value of official statements may be dubious, the stunning absence after these attacks against Israelis and Jews could only be read as coded antisemitism. For all the campus chatter about diversity, equity, and inclusion, there seems to be one category that need not apply. Further, we should be crystal clear that the lack of condemnation of pro-Palestine rallies on campus that have threatened and terrorized Israeli, Jewish, and Zionist students would never be tolerated for other identity politics groups. Can you imagine a university in 2023 that would allow the KKK to wander through campus extolling the burning of black babies? Or tolerate a call for the extermination of Native Americans from sea to sea of American shores? Or proclaim a never-ending uprising against Palestinian students? As administrators fulminate about protecting free speech (or hate speech and incitement to violence?), this simply confirms what many have feared all along: Antisemitism has taken firm root in academia.

I was an undergraduate at Yale University on 9/11, and I remember how my fellow classmates and I sat slack-jawed in common rooms watching the Twin Towers fall over and over on television, then stood sheltering candle flames from the wind on Cross Campus as we mourned the dead. I was no stranger to wars in the Middle East even then and had spent my junior year of high school in Israel shortly after the Rabin assassination. It simply never occurred to (most of) us then to cheer Al-Qaida or to defend the killing of Manhattan office workers, Pentagon officials, or airplane travelers as an appropriate and proportionate response to US imperialism. How times have changed.

As a professor of Israeli studies in the UK and USA for more than a decade, I am not surprised that the campuses have erupted in paroxysms of rowdy hate while maintaining a deafening silence on the Hamas atrocity. I have taught hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students about the conflict, but sadly only the ones who defied campus orthodoxies to take a course with “Israel” or “Zionism” in the title, a topic that we all knew to be the third-rail of campus politics. These brave students, I might add, have been Jews, Muslims, Christians, black and white, millennials and mature students, Germans and Poles, Israelis, Palestinians, and Arab. I had even joked in recent years that my enrollment was becoming a kind of algorithm for normalization with Israel.
Word Crimes: Explaining The Gaza War on Campus
The Hamas attacks on October 7 have, according to specialists, altered the nature of the Middle East Conflict, yet the discourse on the university campus remains largely the same. For all its presumed expertise, the academic study of the Middle East is still imprisoned by words[1] pigeonholing events into presumed moral absolutes that appeal to emotions or to a larger ideological agenda. The apocalyptic images of dead Israelis became the source of ‘exhilaration’ for a Professor at Cornell while they were the prelude to ‘liberation’ for another at Columbia. The Universities have become the staging ground for a discourse that holds butchered Israelis responsible for the horrors perpetuated on them.

Of all the changes that can be documented in the more than seventy-five years since the founding of Israel, none is as dramatic and surprising as the country’s status as a topic of intellectual inquiry. Once a trope for self-sacrifice and solidarity, a testament to the redemption of a bruised and battered people, the Jewish state, today, stands accused of practicing apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and of sustaining itself as a remnant of an outdated and thoroughly delegitimized colonial order. The Jewish state has not simply been re-branded; it has essentially been re-named. Once thought distinctive, Israel’s singularity is now presented as an example of horrific bigotry if not savagery.

Having acquired canonical status, this vocabulary exerts a strong hold on students and scholars substantially degrading the study of Israel but no less wildly misrepresenting what can be said and written about Palestinians. Students learning this language graduate with a vocabulary that identifies Israel not simply as a force hostile to Palestinian interests but also as a major source of the world’s evil. Earning cultural capital for their anti-Israel words and deeds, university professors, in increasing numbers, venture far outside their disciplinary training to propose boycotts against Israeli educational institutions in order to deny their students stipends and research opportunities but also and more importantly to display their righteousness and their progressive credentials. Not only are activist faculty gatekeepers controlling hiring and firing, they are also tutoring young scholars in the art of career advancement: adhere to an ideological catechism and their research will be published in highly ranked journals and/or in university presses as peer review processes increasingly bend to service an anti-Israel crusade.

Consider the term genocide. Commonly associated with the extermination of the Jews and one reason for strong international support for Israel’s founding in 1948, genocide is now defined as the force driving the Zionist project. A word that once engendered sympathy for Jews has been contaminated by becoming a rubric for Israeli policies and a reason to fear Jewish power. A vocabulary, so baked into campus discourse on Israel, convinces students to think this is a permanent feature of the way people always spoke about the founding of the Jewish state and not simply a trendy but highly contested scholarly cliche.
The same leftists who support unrestricted abortion cheer Hamas

Education Ministry removes Greta Thunberg from curriculum after

100 Israeli green activists slam Greta Thunberg for Gaza stance



Israel war: Ivy League schools lose donors amid anti-Israel student activism



Israel war: UPenn faculty leaders denounce 'efforts of intimidation' as donors cut ties

Billionaire-backed philanthropy network vows no future grants to Palestinian terror-tied group



Israel war: ActBlue silent on letting Black Lives Matter fundraise after pro-Hamas post

OUTRAGE: New York Times Defends Rehiring Pro-Hitler, Pro-Terror Freelancer in Gaza

MSNBC's Reid Even if Hamas Is Using it as a Shield, Israel Is 'Bombing a Church'

Media Echo Report That Includes Hamas Members as ‘Journalists’



The West needs to ‘stop and think’ before sharing ‘fake propaganda’ on Israel-Hamas war
Security Expert Daniel Lewkovitz says in an age of social media, lies can be around the world “a dozen times before anyone even realises”.

His comments come in response to the conflicting information that has been reported on the war between Israel and Hamas.

“One thing that the Jewish people have learned is that great lies actually, when they’re spread, turn into violence towards Jewish people,” Mr Lewkovitz told Sky News Australia.

“I think people have not only a practical obligation but a moral obligation to stop and think before they spread something.

“It’s very important the people in the West actually just stop and think that maybe they might think they’re helping by resharing stuff but in many cases, this is completely fake propaganda.”




Daniel Greenfield: The Myth of Biden Sending a $10 Billion Check to Israel

Terror is exposing France’s failed state



Inside Hamas’ propaganda game
For example, on Tuesday, Hamas employed extensive propaganda tactics as reports emerged of an alleged Israeli airstrike targeting the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. One of the earliest pieces of evidence demonstrating the dissemination of disinformation appeared when a member of the Hamas-operated health ministry was quoted by al-Jazeera – a fervent advocate of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – alleging that five hundred individuals at a hospital had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. Subsequently, this information rapidly proliferated across various social media platforms, including mainstream news web sites.

The news spurred the Israeli military to deny the accusation and declassify intelligence demonstrating that it did not strike the hospital and that it was an errant rocket fired by Islamic Jihad. Allied countries like the United States and France publicly supported Israel’s assertion that it was not responsible for the blast.

Another point of significance is that rockets launched by Palestinian armed groups are unreliable and often times strike the civilian population in Gaza. Last year, video evidence surfaced that rockets fired by terrorist organizations were falling short and hitting civilian infrastructure.

Although the explosion at the hospital was probably caused by a misdirected rocket, and the casualties initially reported were inflated, the damage had already been done to Israel’s image on the international stage.

Another example of Hamas propaganda emerged during the first days of the war when its spokesperson, Abu Obeida, threatened that Hamas would begin executing hostages if Israeli airstrikes did not cease. Since the statement, Israel has continued striking military infrastructure, and Hamas has not made any more public threats about the hostages.

Lastly, Hamas disseminated a recording showing a seemingly injured Israeli hostage receiving medical care. The video was an attempt to show that Hamas cared for the prisoners. Still, in reality, Hamas was trying to restore its image after much of the brutality and kidnappings by the group were published online.

Hamas has implemented various propaganda techniques throughout previous wars, including during times of general calm. Specific methods have effectively dispelled inaccurate information, primarily because of mainstream media’s limited comprehension of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Given the propensity of journalists to at times conduct insufficient research when reporting events during war because of the urgency to provide speedy information on social media platforms, Hamas will undoubtedly attempt to continue exploiting these vulnerabilities.


PMW: PA: All mosques must teach that extermination of Jews is an Islamic imperative

PMW: Fatah’s student movement calls for terror in the West Bank

Abbas’ advisor: Abbas is “commander of the Jihad fighters,” “cause is not of land… but religious cause”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “We will not leave Palestine. We will remain there as the olive tree remains… and they (i.e., the Israelis) will leave. They will leave… I bless you with a Palestinian blessing, a blessing of resolve and Ribat (i.e., religious conflict over land claimed to be Islamic)… a blessing of those preserving the ember of resolve, who adhere to the land… who are carrying out Jihad for it on the path of Allah, and standing with bare chests, with unshakable faith, and with complete confidence in Almighty Allah … [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the State of Palestine and commander of the Jihad fighters in Palestine, said on behalf of all the Palestinians from the UN [General Assembly] podium: … ‘Whoever thinks that he can achieve peace without the Palestinian people’s rights is deluded’…
Palestine is not just a cause of land and borders and a political cause. Palestine is a religious cause and a cause of faith... Would we abandon the legacy of Allah’s Messenger [Muhammad]?"
[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 18, 2023]

Al-Habbash made these statements at the 8th International Fatwa Conference in Egypt, October 2023


Fatah member calls Hamas’ massacre on Israel a “heroic operation”
Video title: “A senior Fatah official told Al-Mashhad: The American hegemony over the international establishment is giving Israel a green light”

Fatah member Raafat Alayan: “The Palestinian was left without a choice…. He had no option other than the option of resistance, and he went in the direction of resistance to the occupation. The resistance went in the direction of the heroic operation that was carried out (i.e., Hamas’ massacre on Israel). The heroic operation that the resistance carried out on Oct. 7, [2023,] is a natural result of the bias of the international institutions in favor of the US that is biased in favor of Israel.” [Al-Mashhad TV (Dubai), YouTube channel, Oct. 17, 2023]

Raafat Alayan is Fatah’s former official spokesman in Jerusalem

Hamas war on Israel October 2023 - At least 1,400 Israelis were murdered and over 3,500 wounded, in addition to at least 212 Israelis who were abducted into the Gaza Strip, in a Hamas terror war that began when approximately 2,500 Hamas terrorists broke through Israel's security fence at the Gaza Strip border and launched a surprise attack, taking control of several Israeli towns and attacking a music festival on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret (Simchat Torah), which fell on the Sabbath, Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas terrorists also fired at least 5,000 rockets at Israeli population centers. In response, Israel launched Operation Iron Swords to counter the Hamas terror threat. Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon joined Hamas' terror war starting from the following day, attacking Israel from the north.


Abbas’ advisor: ”Once [Israel] comes to an end, there will be no targeting of civilians or soldiers”
PA Chairman Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The basis of the problem is the existence of the occupation (i.e., Israel), which has been imposed for more than 7 decades on the Palestinian people… You cannot have peace, security, or stability as long as the occupation exists... The basis of the problem is the existence of the occupation. Once the occupation comes to an end, there will be no targeting of civilians or soldiers (i.e., refers to Hamas’ massacre on Israel). There will be no motivation to use weapons.”

Posted text: “[PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud] Al-Habbash to Al-Arabiya TV: As long as there is an occupation there will be no peace, and the Palestinian leadership is alongside its people”

[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 15, 2023]




How Iran tricked the West in its push to destroy Israel

Why It's Obvious Iran Approved Hamas' Attack
Shortly after Hamas' assault on Israel, the Wall Street Journal, relying on Hamas sources, reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran had green-lit the Oct. 7 attack.

U.S. government officials said they don't have evidence of Iran's involvement.

But American intelligence agencies' lack of evidence isn't surprising, since they also failed to predict Hamas' attack.

Those who understand the Islamic Republic's regime find it hard to believe that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei didn't give his consent.

Iran primarily fights the U.S. and Israel through proxies. This falls within the portfolio of Brig.-Gen. Esmail Qaani, the Quds Force commander and a member of Khamenei's circle.

After Khamenei gave the green light, Gen. Qaani and other officials, using the supreme leader's authority, instructed the rest of the regime to shuffle around money and materiel for Hamas.

Gen. Qaani met with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in April and June.

Iran is likely to be the largest beneficiary of the Hamas attack.

The regime expects Israel's national-security policy to reorient toward the Palestinians, relieving Tehran of military pressure in Syria and Iraq and over its nuclear program, while Israel tries to deal with Hamas, prevent a third intifada, and protect its northern border.
Iran: Behind Hamas' Planned Genocide
In 1930s, Britain pursued a policy of appeasing Hitler and Nazi Germany in the hope of avoiding a war. To the contrary, as we know, by empowering the Nazis to invade and attempt to take over other nations, this policy of appeasement led to World War ll.

[T]he Obama administration imagined, it seems, that enabling the expansionist, revolutionary regime of Iran, which is designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism, to possess nuclear weapons, would somehow magically transform it into peaceful, collegial member of the family of nations. President Barack Obama appeased the ruling mullahs of Iran by lifting sanctions and inventing the 2015 "nuclear deal."

What was actually the result? The international community witnessed even more rockets launched by Yemen's Houthis at civilian targets, the deployment of Lebanese Hezbollah soldiers in Syria, and increasing attacks by the Iranian-funded Hamas on Israel and the United States. With billions of dollars of revenue pouring into the pockets of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran did not change its behavior for the better. Instead, Iran became even more empowered and emboldened... as well as to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. Iran became, in fact, according to the US State Department, "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism."

At the peak of these appeasement policies towards the mullahs, Iran was emboldened to publicly harass the US Navy, detain US sailors, imprison American citizens, and threaten to assassinate former US officials on US soil for a $1 million bounty. Khamenei also repeatedly vowed "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" and to "raze the Zionist regime in less than 8 minutes."

Iran's radical regime, whose mission is to "Export the Revolution" and bring Islamist rule to the rest of the world via its military and terror groups, will not alter its aims through policies of appeasement.

The Biden administration and the European Union have pursued this dangerous policy -- not just of appeasement, but also of financing terrorists; of supporting a regime that chants "Death to America," "Death to Israel"; that plots to push the US out of the Middle East; that is committed to uprooting and replacing Israel; that has zealously been targeting American citizens and American assets, and that is one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, as well as a leading violator of human rights. It is high time to put Iran's regime out of business.


Louis Farrakhan files $5B defamation suit against ADL over ‘false’ antisemitism claims



‘Never again is now’: German companies condemn Hamas terror, stand with Israel



Marc Maron On Why He Won’t Stop Talking About Antisemitism
I’ve been doing bits on that trajectory ever since. In my last three specials, I tried to provoke antisemites. I prod people who don’t know Jews or realize that it is wrong to generalize. I do it because I feel like it’s my responsibility. To publicly be Jewish and cutting when it comes to what non-Jews assume about us. Antisemitism can be innocuous, almost unintentional, innocent ignorance or violent and deeply rooted in false ideas about the nature, reality and diversity of Jews. Whether you think Jewishness is a religion, a race, a cultural identity, or if you are a Jew and think that other types of Jews are not really Jews because they aren’t religious enough or they aren’t Zionist — none of it matters to antisemites.

We’re all Jews.

Jews are being attacked for being Jews. Jews are being killed for being Jews. Here in America. Now. It’s random and usually attributed to a radicalized, mentally ill person, but the information that drives that radicalization is organized and focused and readily available and promoted. Antisemitism is becoming normalized. Christian fascism is rising. Democracy is under threat. It is dangerous to be out as a Jew in some states. I go to those states to perform comedy. It scares me sometimes.

After a show in Salt Lake City recently, during which I had done my most recent riffs on antisemitism, I left the club — alone. Outside, some of the audience members were lingering around. There were these two young guys who looked a bit lit-up, wiry, game for trouble. They were with two young women. They didn’t seem like my fans. Maybe they just came for a “comedy” show. A date night. They were looking at me, almost manic. One said, “Hey, what are you up to now?” I said, “Going back to the hotel, I guess.” The other one said, “You want to go do some hate crimes?” It was odd, but I played along, “Yeah, you have some spray paint? Let’s go find a synagogue.” Then the first guy said, “No really, what are you doing now?” It felt menacing. I thought, wait, am I the hate crime they want to do?

I may have been projecting. I may have been being paranoid. The fact is, it is not out of the realm of possibility. It’s something Jews live with now. I guess they always have.

I won’t stop talking about antisemitism.


Large crowds back Israel in London, Berlin, elsewhere, demand release of hostages
Many thousands of people joined vigils in Berlin, London, and elsewhere on Sunday to oppose antisemitism and support Israel in its war against the Hamas terror group.

Meanwhile, in Paris and other cities, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators demanded a ceasefire and relief for people in Gaza.

Some of those who gathered in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate carried Israeli flags or posters with photos of some of the more than 200 people seized by Hamas as hostages during the terror group’s murderous October 7 rampage in southern Israel.

“It is unbearable that Jews are living in fear again today — in our country of all places,” Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the crowd, estimated at 20,000 by organizers and at 10,000 by police. “Every single attack on Jews, on Jewish institutions, is a disgrace for Germany. Every single attack fills me with shame and anger.”

Earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz inaugurated a new synagogue in the eastern city of Dessau and said he was “outraged” by the upsurge in antisemitism since the conflict began.

Several buildings in Berlin where Jews live had the Star of David painted on doors and walls, and assailants threw two Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in Berlin last week.

“Here in Germany, of all places,” Scholz said, vowing that “our ‘never again’ must be unbreakable.”


Noa Kirel raises nearly $30 million for IDF in war effort
Israeli singer Noa Kirel finished her series of conferences together with the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF) throughout the USA, during which $29.5 million was donated to the IDF.

With the help of the donated money during these times, many ambulances and mobile operating rooms have been purchased that will save lives.

FIDF's total donations are reportedly expected to reach $100 million.

The Ben Yosef family and Kirel organized the evenings to salute to IDF soldiers of the FIDF organization, which were attended by philanthropists and influential businessmen in the US economy.

Kirel to return to Israel
Kirel is expected to arrive in Israel next Monday to participate in a special fundraiser, of which the money raised will be transferred directly to the residents of the south and to the rehabilitation of the settlements that were affected by the murderous terrorist attack by Hamas.

Kirel will perform a special acoustic performance of the song "Unicorn", with which she represented Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest, together with the musicians of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The performance will be broadcasted live from the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv.

Kirel had also recently performed last week in New York City in honor of those who were murdered on the October massacre. Kirel performed Hatikvah draped in an Israeli flag at Barclays Center before the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets played Maccabi Ra’anana of the Israeli National League on October 12.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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