Tuesday, October 31, 2023

10/31 Links Pt2: Phillips: The west's mass psychopathy moment; O'Neill: The normalisation of savagery; To Be Anti-Racist is to be Pro-Hamas

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The west's mass psychopathy moment
This terrible conflict has been kept going by the west, which by supporting the Palestinian cause has indulged, funded, sanitised, legitimised and incentivised an agenda of annihilation, ethnic cleansing and murderous antisemitism.

The problem of Gaza will only be solved, like the Palestinian issue itself, if the west stops supporting the Palestinian cause -- and start addressing this conflict not as a fight over the division of land but as a genocidal war of extermination against Israel and the Jewish people.

Israel is fighting in Gaza not just against Hamas but against Iran. It is fighting a war for its existence against a genocidal enemy. That’s why this is a just war by Israel — indeed it could hardly be more justified. And the failure by the west to grasp how this has come about is why the west is now being convulsed by the forces of barbarism from within.

For it’s impossible to exaggerate the extent to which support for the Palestinian cause has destroyed the west’s moral compass. It’s not just that it’s been supporting an agenda whose aim, whether people understand this or not, is the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews. It is that it has produced a diabolical and deranged inversion of morality, which views genocide against the Jews as resistance and Jewish resistance as genocide.

As a result, the west has the blood of countless Jewish and non-Jewish Israeli innocents on its hands — and unless it purges this poison from its culture, its hands will be stained by yet more.
Brendan O'Neill: The normalisation of savagery
So it is not surprising, or contradictory, that campus ideologues who fume against un-PC words now welcome, or at least excuse, neo-fascistic violence. They are projecting their ideology of safety on to events in the Middle East. In their minds, Israelis are violators of the Palestinian safe space, and thus vengeance against them is not only justified but good. It is striking how much the Western language of mental dread is being used to explain the crisis in the Middle East. There will be a ‘tsunami of mental-health woes’ as a result of the latest Israel-Gaza conflict, reports NPR. The assault on Gaza is having a terrible impact on the ‘mental health of Palestinian children’, says a US-based psychologist. Many campus radicals also read every event through the prism of Western notions of vulnerability. It would not be surprising if they viewed Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October less as a racist onslaught against the Jewish people than as an act of therapeutic vengeance against a ‘privileged’ neighbour – cathartic payback against those who make Arabs feel ‘unsafe’.

Since the October pogrom, anti-Semitism has soared on campuses in the US, and much of it is underpinned by the self-regarding cult of safety. Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, reports a student saying to him that ‘what would make her feel safe’ in his law school would be ‘to get rid of the Zionists’. In short, to flatter my narcissistic feelings of psychic and ideological security, certain Jews must be kicked out. The safe space clearly licences racism, too.

The hate has been relentless. A professor at Columbia University said the Hamas assault on Israel was a ‘stunning victory’. A Yale professor said 7 October was an ‘extraordinary day’ and a great blow to the ‘genocidal settler state’ of Israel. An art professor in Chicago said ‘Israelis are pigs. Savages… Irredeemable excrement.’ A professor at the University of California, Davis ominously said ‘Zionist journalists… have houses [with] addresses, kids in school’, and ‘they should fear us’.

Note the vicarious thrill these people seem to derive from faraway acts of unimaginable violence. The cult of vulnerability – and its ugly cousin, vengeance – has robbed them of their humanity. Viewing Israelis as pigs and shit, and Western Zionists as suspect creatures who deserve to live in fear, speaks to the inhumanity of constantly abstracting individuals. Of treating people either as ‘oppressed’, and thus good, or ‘privileged’, and thus bad. It is a short step from academic theories of ‘white privilege’ to demeaning Israelis as excrement whose murders should be celebrated. The reason some in American universities are taking second-hand pleasure from Hamas’s pogrom is because they believe it fortifies their privilege / oppressor worldview and gives physical force to their own contempt for the merchants of unsafety. They welcome the pogrom as a kind of primal therapy.

It is chilling how many young people seem relaxed about Hamas terrorism. A Harvard poll in the US found that 52 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds support Israel but a staggering 48 per cent support Hamas. Fifty-one per cent said Hamas violence against Israeli civilians is justified. As a headline in Newsweek said, ‘An insane number of Gen Zers support Hamas’s slaughter of innocent Israelis’. Polls in the UK suggest significant numbers of young people reject the idea that Hamas are terrorists. There can be no greater indictment of our education system, and of all the new systems of socialisation, than the fact that many in the new generation witnessed the worst act of anti-Semitic violence since the Holocaust and thought: ‘Maybe Israel deserved it.’ We can now see, clear as anything, what a pernicious impact the politics of identity and cult of pity have had on the souls of the young. It has torn them from the values of our civilisation, to such an extent that they feel more affinity with the regressive, anti-Western barbarism of Hamas than they do with the Jewish civilians and democratic state that were desecrated by that barbarism.

We are living through a normalisation of violence. The decimation of the ideals of freedom, especially among millennials and Generation Z, has given rise to a situation where debate is discouraged on account of its hurtfulness, where brute force is wielded against dissenters, and where even genocidal terror can be celebrated if it silences the ‘privileged’. In the absence of freedom of speech, the pre-modern rituals of humiliating and punishing transgressors against orthodoxy have returned with a bloody vengeance. Surely the bleak and tragic month of October 2023 will be a wake-up call for the West.
David Harsanyi: Liberal Jews Have No Reason To Be Surprised By Progressive Antisemitism
Even Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League — a partisan group that’s spent years highlighting every dog whistle (real and imagined) while ignoring or actively diminishing the rise of antisemitism on the left — felt compelled to ask MSNBC, the leading left-wing cable network, “who is writing the scripts? Hamas?”

No, not Hamas. But their allies. MSNBC is where propagandists from the Qatar state-run theocratic network Al-Jazeera go to work. They host shows and join Al “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house” Sharpton, cozying up to the Morning Joe crew. One of them, Mehdi Hasan, has called non-Muslims “cattle” and “people of no intelligence.” This would be tantamount to hiring a Pravada reporter to cover the Cold War.

It is only antisemitism for Democrats if you say something unkind about their sugar daddy, George Soros. An enemy of Jewish people, the billionaire not only funds BLM but numerous Jewish front groups to create the perception of support for terrorists. Two of these groups, “Jewish Voice for Peace” and IfNotNow, beneficiaries of at least $15 million, were at the Capitol calling for Israel to give Hamas terrorists a pass.

Maybe, just maybe, giving unfettered loyalty to a president who played footsie with likes of Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright and who was good friends with former PLO spokesperson and agitprop Rashid Khalidi was a clue that this kind of thinking would be normalized on the mainstream left. Of course, not only did Obama (and, to a similar extent, Biden) bolster the Islamists in Iran — an effort to blunt Israel’s regional power — but he also reached out to Hamas and pumped millions into Gaza and Hamas.

Our elite schools and protest movements where philanthropic Jews drop millions every year sign petitions defending baby killers? Intersectionality. Decolonization. They’re all intertwined with identitarianism and antisemitism. Berkeley, like most campuses, is teeming Jew-baiting race-hustlers and pseudointellectuals who function in closed-minded havens for extremists. Sooner or later, those extremists are going to be emboldened. Sooner or later, they were going to be in positions of power.

Sooner is now.


The shameful silence of the ‘anti-racists’
Since Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October, anti-Semitism has surged across the UK. According to the Community Security Trust, anti-Semitic incidents have risen by 300 per cent compared with the same period last year. The Metropolitan Police have painted a similarly distressing picture, reporting that anti-Semitic hate crimes in London have risen by 1,350 per cent.

These grim statistics are shocking but not surprising. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen ‘pro-Palestinian’ protesters calling for ‘jihad’ on the streets of London. We’ve seen posters for the Israeli kidnapping victims in Gaza being torn down. And we’ve heard anti-Semitic chants being sung on marches, calling for the extermination of the Jewish people.

And yet, almost as shocking as this eruption of anti-Semitic bile has been the silence of those who claim to care most about tackling racism and advancing social justice. Faced by a resurgence of the oldest hatred, all these quangos, advocacy groups and activists have largely looked the other way.

Take the Runnymede Trust. It is one of the most influential racial-equality think-tanks in the UK. In the 1990s, it introduced the term ‘Islamophobia’ into British political discourse. And in recent years, it has jumped on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon to claim that there is ‘systemic racism’ in every nook and cranny of British life. And yet, when masked protesters, their Palestinian flags fluttering in the breeze, are calling for the annihilation of Israel, the Runnymede Trust has had remarkably little to say.

To even find a mention, let alone condemnation, of anti-Semitism on Runnymede’s profile on X (formerly Twitter), you have to dig pretty deep. Over a week after Hamas slaughtered 1,400 Jews, the trust felt moved to offer ‘solidarity to Muslim and Jewish communities at this incredibly difficult time’. It has also published a letter condemning the UK government for putting police into schools where tensions are thought to be running high, in order to gather information about potential trouble and to deter it. There are of course many good reasons to criticise a move that is likely to feed a sense of grievance and exacerbate tensions. But none of these occurred to the Runnymede Trust. Instead, it chose to complain that it will lead to Muslim pupils being ‘profiled’.

And what about Hope Not Hate, which campaigns against racism and fascism? Again, like the Runnymede Trust, Hope Not Hate has been struck near enough dumb by the appearance of actual anti-Semitism in our midst. Since 7 October, it has made only one original post about the threat anti-Semitism poses to British Jews. But other than that, it has seemingly had more important matters to concern itself with over the past month, tweeting about the dangers of Andrew Tate and the Conservative Party’s supposed move towards the ‘radical right’. This is strange, not least as Hope Not Hate has not shied away from confronting anti-Semitism in the recent past, especially within Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. Yet that willingness to stand up against anti-Jewish hatred seems to be much weaker today.

It’s the same story across the activist landscape. Stop Hate UK has made one measly repost of a Guardian article on the rise of anti-Semitism… in Germany. And the Race Equality Foundation hasn’t made a single mention of anti-Semitism since 7 October.
To Be Anti-Racist is to be Pro-Hamas
It didn’t take long, not just for BLM chapters, but for Ta-Nehisi Coates (who used to argue for slavery reparations from the false example of Holocaust reparations) and now Ibram X. Kendi to make it official that anti-racism means supporting the murder of Jews.

Ta Nehisi Coates, America’s most prominent literary racist until Ibram X. Kendi came around, signed a letter which claimed that, “on Saturday, after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza” and then “more than 1,300 Israelis were subsequently killed with over one hundred more taken hostage”: note the passive voice. Instead of condemning Hamas, the letter claimed that, “Israel is executing the largest expulsion of Palestinians since 1948 as it bombs Gazans without discrimination.”

Now Ibram X. Kendi, the godfather of antiracism, fresh off an ESPN deal, has joined the party. While Kendi failed to respond with a straightforward condemnation of the Hamas attacks, he posted multiple messages attacking Israel. In the latest one, the author of ‘Antiracist Baby’ described Hamas as a “credible source” of casualty statistics and claimed that “building a border wall around Gaza… is not self-defense” and “laying siege to Gaza is not self-defense” but are “crimes against humanity”.

“To be antiracist is to care about humanity,” Kendi contends.

If building a wall to keep terrorists who want to slaughter your families out isn’t self-defense, what is? Don’t ask Kendi.

But what is fairly consistent are the positions that BLM and the various black nationalist figures, some embraced by idiot liberal Jews, have taken. From Coates to Kendi, to lesser figures like Charles M. Blow, they’ve quite predictably sided with the terrorists.

To be anti-racist, you have to hate. You always had to hate. And not just white people and Jews in America, but Jews in Israel as well.

Antiracism is antisemitism.

But now perhaps Congregation Emanu El can now admit its sins and repent for its desecration of Yom Kippur.
Eugene Kontorovich, Erielle Davidson: Not “Just Hamas”
On his recent visit to Israel, President Joe Biden insisted that most Palestinians oppose Hamas’s barbaric efforts against the Jewish state. At the same time, back in Washington, D.C., a mob of 300 broke into the Capitol. While the intruders resembled people you might see frequenting your local organic food co-op, they grabbed headlines because they described themselves as Jews protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, wearing shirts proclaiming, “Not In Our Name.”

Yet there has been no “Not In Our Name” protest in Gaza against Hamas’s war on Israel. Openly defying Hamas, of course, would be dangerous. Still, when a military mutilates and tortures to death 1,500 civilians and livestreams such brutality, one would expect some small number of honorable and brave souls to protest. Hungarians, Czechs, and Poles living under Soviet oppression rose up by the tens of thousands against their tyrannical governments and their collaboration with the Evil Empire. Though brutally suppressed, they vindicated their national honor and created a narrative for subsequent democratic governments. Where is the Palestinian Sophie Scholl? Where is the Gazan Solidarity movement?

If domestic persecution were the reason Gazans were not protesting the unspeakable atrocities, then surely Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, in whose name Hamas claims to act, would take to the streets, or at least to the tweets, to demonstrate their opposition. For many, the intentional killing of civilians would break natural ties of allegiance and sentiment. Not so for the Palestinians under Fatah (which governs the West Bank), whose reactions have ranged from celebratory to silent. Though Fatah is touted as a moderate potential replacement for Hamas, perhaps its subjects also do not feel safe protesting. What, then, about the vast Palestinian diaspora, with its major centers in free countries like Chile and the United States? Indeed, the massive, reflexive protests one would expect from an ordinary society seem completely missing throughout the Palestinian world. More Israelis protested the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatilla in 1982, where several hundred were killed by Lebanese Christian militias, than Palestinians have protested the unimaginable slaughter by Hamas.

The sad fact is that Hamas, or at least its policy toward Jews, is quite popular. Recent polling performed in July 2023 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reveals that “57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%).” Though measured a few months before the October attacks, this support does not reflect a “bait and switch” mechanism, whereby Gazans wanted the trains to run on time but could claim ignorance of Hamas’s genocidal policies. The Hamas Charter calls for the extermination of Israel, and the organization has long been indiscriminately lobbing rockets across the border and redirecting foreign aid toward terrorism. Buttressing the notion that violence against Jews is popular is the fact that other terror organizations in Gaza, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Lion’s Den, enjoy even more widespread support, with three quarters of Gaza expressing support for both groups.
JPost Editorial: Yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitism
Likewise, the fact that there is a small minority of Jews who identify as anti-Zionist does not make Zionism any less legitimate or opposition thereto any less antisemitic.

As these individuals march under banners reading, “Not in our name,” now is the time to turn that slogan right back at them.

Anti-Zionist Jews are not representative of the Jewish community and they don’t speak in its name. They are as Jewish as the Westboro Baptist Church is Christian.

The vast majority of Jews support Israel, regard themselves as Zionists, and consider anti-Zionism to be a form of antisemitism. They celebrate Israel’s triumphs and mourn its tragedies. Their synagogues and communal institutions fly the Israeli flag, they rejoice on Israel’s Independence Day, they travel – and send their children – to Israel, and they view their attachment to the Jewish state as an integral part of their Jewish identity.

According to the AJC survey, a whopping 86% of American Jews view the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement as infected with antisemitism.

As anti-Israel demonstrations fill city streets and flood college campuses, using token anti-Zionist Jews as fig leaves to legitimize their hate, the Jewish community needs to speak out and say clearly: “Not in our name.”

Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. The Jewish community knows it. The public knows it. And it’s time to say so.
Amb. Alan Baker: Anti-Israel Protests Stir Up Antisemitism
It is difficult to fathom the logic behind the wave of demonstrations against Israel, especially after the world has witnessed one of the most grueling exhibitions of utter barbarism and evil committed by hordes of incited and drugged Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists against thousands of innocent people going about their daily lives in Israel. What is quite obvious is that these demonstrations are not spontaneous. They are organized by an efficient, well-oiled, and well-financed propaganda machine.

Could these demonstrators, in liberal and open democracies, really be sanctioning such brutal and inhumane acts against Israel's civilian population and visiting tourists? If so, then it is a shocking example of blatant antisemitism, since the demonstrators are directing their criticism and condemnation solely and blindly against Israel, while choosing to ignore the cruelty and brutality of the thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who charged into Israel to slaughter innocent men, women, and children.

Could it be that the demonstrators would rather overlook the events of Oct. 7, preferring instead to revert to the age-old fixation for singling out and blaming Israel and the Jewish people? They should be ashamed of themselves.
The worst eruption of antisemitism in American history
Today, this seems quaint compared to the outpouring of support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 rampage of antisemitic mass murder and crimes against humanity.

What makes this celebration of the slaughter of Jews still more terrifying is that it’s led by some of the best-credentialed elites in our society and has attracted many young people.

These “sophisticated” supporters of genocide cloud their exterminationist intentions with euphemisms like “Decolonize Palestine”—which means rid it of Jews. “Free Palestine” surely can’t mean “Free Gaza” since it’s been entirely Judenrein since 2005.

Never before in history has America elected anyone to Congress who dared support groups seeking the extermination of the Jews. Today, some half a dozen members of Congress either openly support Hamas or refuse to condemn it.

Just as Israel can no longer tolerate Hamas, neither can we tolerate its supporters. Whoever defends or justifies Hamas must not just be condemned. They must be shamed, shunned and expelled from civil society.

The longer such diabolical voices are amplified by a collaborationist media and go uncondemned by leaders of their own political party, the louder their voices and the larger their numbers will become. This would constitute not just an existential threat to America’s Jews, but to America itself.
We Have an Opportunity to Re-establish the State of Israel
Oct. 7, 2023, the day of the murderous Hamas attack, changed us. We are no longer the same people, no longer the same country. That day changed us because we experienced Jewish history firsthand.

The Zionist movement was founded by individuals who realized that the world was an unfriendly place for the Jews. The simple understanding that the alternative to Jewish sovereignty is pogroms and massacres was engraved in the consciousness of the generation that founded the State of Israel. The generation of the founding fathers had lived in the era before the Jews had a state. That is why they knew they could not take the existence of Israel for granted and devoted themselves to it.

The third generation began to forget the miracle. It was born in a reality where Israel was a given and it could not even imagine a world without a Jewish state in it. For the current, fourth generation, the Jewish state is a given and seems stable, strong, and eternal. Miracles are forgotten in the fourth generation when everything becomes a given. That is when we tend to quarrel, fight, and dismantle it all from within.

This is one of the deep paradoxes of human existence: When we believe that reality is stable - it falls apart; when we are aware that reality can at any moment fall apart - it remains stable. We all experienced that dark day when we were in a reality where there was no Jewish state. Now we are different people. We have acquired the perspective of the first generation.

When you look around and see the thousands of volunteers and the hundreds of initiatives that are popping up, you are witnessing a phenomenon that is rare and extraordinarily powerful. You are witnessing that the Israeli people feel a sense of responsibility and ownership of the state. This signals that after the war we will receive the opportunity to re-establish the State of Israel.
The Hamas Pogrom of October 7
On October 23, I was invited to view footage of the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7. The IDF decided not to release the video to the public out of respect for the victims and their families. In the video, I saw terrorists shouting in Arabic: "I swear to Allah, I just killed the coward Jew dog who was hiding under the table." That "Jew dog" was a young girl who was seen alive in the video hiding under a table. They shot her at close-range. I heard, "Give me a knife" and "pray to Allah to bless me with another Jew dog to kill."

We saw homes soaked in blood, we saw beheaded people, people slaughtered with knives, young women who had been raped, and people burned beyond recognition. We saw CCTV footage of terrorists standing on roadways shooting at civilian cars. A car stops, terrorists surround it and continue shooting at close-range even when it's clear the occupants are already dead. In some cases, the occupants were pulled out of their cars and those who were still alive but badly injured were shot multiple times.

We saw terrorists walking inside Jewish communities looking for people to kill, unsuspecting people, some still asleep or just woken up and having breakfast with loved ones. The terrorists peak into the windows to see if any Jews are there. They work their way through houses, shooting people trying to hide. We saw their terrified victims, people crying and begging the terrorists not to kill them. We saw a children's room soaked in blood. We saw babies, their tiny bodies covered with shots and others slaughtered with sharp objects.

Major Ella Waweya, the deputy commander of the IDF's Arabic-language spokespersons' unit and an Israeli Arab Muslim, said, "What Hamas did is against Islam, against humanity, against everything a human being can think of. Hamas came to kill children, to kill women, and to kill the elderly. In which religion is that written? This is not in Islam. This is not humanity....This is not the war of Israel, this is the war of the whole world against Hamas-ISIS."
Hamas Murders Innocents. That's the Main Story Here
In the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children and the elderly, we could talk about the failures that allowed this to happen or about Palestinian civilian deaths, but the primary story regarding Israel is this: Hamas is an evil organization that planned and executed the mass murder of more than a thousand Israeli civilians and has captured, held hostage, and tortured many other Israelis and others.

Even if we're talking about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas had primary responsibility to care for its people and it failed, valuing conflict with Israel instead. And Hamas, as the instigator of the current war, bears primary responsibility for Israel's airstrikes.

In a recent New York Times opinion video, the authors reject the idea that one ought clearly to take a side in this war between Israel and Hamas. They lamented "taking sides" between Israel and a murderous organization that recently launched one of the most heinous terrorist assaults in recorded history.

Yes, we should take sides. We can argue about whether Israel is taking enough care to avoid harm to civilians in Gaza, but that's a discussion we have after we make it clear that Hamas started this war and that Israel is justified in trying to eradicate Hamas. The evil of Hamas is the primary story here.
Video: They Believed in Peace. Hamas Stole Their Empathy
The residents of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where more than 100 Israelis were killed, reflect on what they lost on Oct. 7.

Survivor #1: "All of my friends in the neighborhood are dead, along with their children. We were crawling in the field, in the ditches."

"I truly believed that the people on the other side were not terrorists. They want to live in peace like me. But now we can't trust anyone."

Survivor #2: "I lost my father. Lawns were filled with corpses."

"In previous rounds of conflict when I would see videos of mothers and children [in Gaza] I would cry. Really, my heart would break. Now I see it and I don't have that empathy. It's not in me anymore. It's gone from me. It's far from me."

Survivor #3: "I always believed that a mother from one side of the border wants exactly the same thing as a mother on the other side of the border."

"Many people from the kibbutz would volunteer to drive patients from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. When we understand it's not just terrorists, it hurts so much more."
The Palestinian Authority's Responsibility for Hamas's October Massacre
There is absolutely no difference between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas when it comes to spreading hate against Israel and inciting the murder of Jews. It has also been proven that each time Israel cedes land or makes gestures to the PA or Hamas, they respond by increasing terror attacks against Jews.

Make no mistake. Inflammatory statements such as these drive Palestinians to carry out terrorist attacks against Jews.

The terrorists in Gaza must have said to themselves: If terrorism is working in the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority is not doing anything to stop us from murdering Jews, why not launch an attack to murder Jews from the Gaza Strip?

This month alone, the Palestinian Authority will pay the families of the Hamas terrorists who were killed this month at least 11.1 million shekels ($2.7 million) "Pay-for-Slay" reward for perpetrating the atrocities against Israeli civilians.

[I]t is not enough to condemn Hamas for the atrocities. The Biden administration and the international community must understand that the hands of Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority also drip with the Hamas victims' blood.
Anti-Israel JVP recites Kaddish for terrorists
'Jewish Voice for Peace' is neither Jewish nor an advocate for peace. They were protesting around the US last Tuesday, and did so in my hometown, at Woodruff Park, in the heart of downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

People need to know who these radical activists are and who they are not. They are a mouthpiece for “anti-Zionist” (euphemism for anti-Jewish) sentiment, do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and would love for her to be the 23rd member of the Arab League.

Cheryl Dorchinsky, the founding executive director of the Atlanta Israel Coalition, went to JVP’s rally at Woodruff Park, along with 20 to 30 Israelis, 10 to 15 members of a local Jewish biker group, and a few other pro-Israel advocates from Atlanta’s Jewish community. They were there to bear witness – to what JVP was saying and doing.

“When we arrived,” Cheryl told me, audibly shaken, “they were chanting ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’” a cry for judenrein, for the end of a Jewish presence in our indigenous home. Cheryl estimated that there were about 200 JVP activists there, most of whom were not Jewish, and many of whom, she said, “didn’t hesitate to let me know it.”

“They (the JVP activists) were reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish for Hamas – saying it in front of Israelis – some of whose relatives and friends had just been slaughtered and who still have loved ones in captivity,” Cheryl said.


Almost four weeks on, where does the Israel-Hamas conflict stand? What will happen?

Is Israel’s “Siege” Denying Water and Food to Gaza Just the Facts
In the wake of horrific mass terror attacks against southern Israeli communities, in which up to 1400 Israelis were murdered by terrorists from Hamas-ruled Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of the territory:
I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.

Because some have mistakenly interpreted this to mean that Israel supplied — and is now cutting off — all of Gaza’s water, electricity, and food, the facts are outlined below.

Before the facts though, some context:

1. For years Israel sent water and electricity into Gaza, and in return Gaza sent rockets, mortars, incendiary balloons and terrorists into Israel, all intended to kill Israeli civilians. That is, Israel sending supplies to Gaza is a humane gesture towards an entity run by popularly elected inhumane jihadists, determined to murder Jews and Israelis wherever the opportunity arises.

And yet, on many college campuses and elsewhere, Israel is accused of engaging in “apartheid” and “genocide.”

2. There is no doubt that since Hamas started the war, Gaza residents have faced serious shortages of power, water, medical care, food, etc. But as we shall see below, with the partial exception of electricity this is not because Israel stopped supplying Gaza.
CNN Leaves ICC Prosecutor’s Questionable Claims Unchallenged
Khan also misled when he “warned that denying humanitarian assistance to civilians is a crime.” As has been articulated in several articles by legal experts recently, it’s not that simple. In a 2022 article, United States Military Academy law professor Sean Watts explained that siege law rules “reflect a compromise between human needs and military demands,” And while there is debate about how the rules around starvation in siege work, another United States Military Academy professor, Thomas Wheatley, explained: “To interpret the law to categorically outlaw even incidental civilian starvation would be to create an exception that swallows the rule, which ‘could well render siege impossible as it has historically been known…’”

Unfortunately, this is far from the first time CNN has platformed UN or ICC figures who make legally and factually dubious claims. In March, for example, CNN’s Isa Soares platformed the UN’s Francesca Albanese. At no point did Soares inform her audience of Albanese’s long history of antisemitism and of her open acknowledgement that she is biased on the matter. Several days ago, CNN similarly aired the accusations of a UN Commission of Inquiry without informing its audience that the three commissioners have been widely condemned for antisemitic remarks.

While the UN is widely known for its extraordinary bias against Israel, the ICC has similarly engaged in double standards. For example, while the previous chief prosecutor decided to go after Israeli settlements, she simultaneously refused to go after Turkish settlements in Cyprus.

Media outlets, including CNN, cannot simply treat UN and ICC figures as neutral, unbiased sources whose claims can be left uncontextualized or unchallenged. In times of war, journalists must be extra careful, too. To do otherwise is to risk playing a part in Hamas’s cynical use of human shields and civilian deaths.
ISRAEL'S WAR AGAINST HAMAS - DAY 25
Israeli forces demolish overnight the house of Hamas deputy leader, Saleh al-Arouri, in the West Bank area; operations continue near and in Gaza

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operated on multiple fronts overnight Monday to Tuesday, confirming it hit military targets belonging to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon after attacks on northern Israeli areas.

In addition, the IDF demolished the house of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, located in the Ramallah region of the West Bank, though the terrorist organization's number two resides primarily in Turkey and Lebanon.


IDF expands Gaza ground operation, clashes continue in the north
Former Commander, British forces in AfghanistanCol. (Ret.) Richard Kemp details and Former MK Ruth Wasserman Lande break down the latests update in the Israel-Hamas war.




Iliza Shlesinger: “Jews Have Been Left Off the Agenda”
It’s a global, historical and national pastime to hate Jews as a way to temper your own economic failures. There has never not been a period of history where Jews weren’t being threatened. Our history is not about fighting to spread our religion: It is about fighting to stay alive.

Our history aches. It’s an ancient pain and a recent pain. It hurts to know the genocide that killed 6 million of us is used as a punchline, discounted, refuted or barely remembered by so many.

And then there’s Israel, a piece of land that Jews already inhabited, despite the popular notion that Jews just appeared there and then “colonized” it. However, despite a decades-long conflict, Jews and Arabs have shared and continue to share that land. Israel isn’t perfect, but it is progressive. Israel’s governing body, the Knesset, includes Jewish, Muslim and Christian members. As hard as I try, I know that it is very hard to distill facts uncolored by partiality when it comes to Israel or Palestine. How Israel is attacked and has retaliated over the history of its time as a state, this subject is better reserved for conversation over drinks with friends you’re OK with never seeing again.

And now we have what happened in Israel on Oct. 7.

The barbaric Hamas terrorist attacks sparked outrage and support for Jews that I’ve never witnessed before. For the first time, Jewish people were finally allowed to scream in the streets and at the internet. It was validating to finally exercise some righteous indignation, not on behalf of another group I was standing up for, but for myself, and for other Jews who couldn’t. And, shockingly, people were supporting me and those being vocal like me.

Now the news spin cycle has washed away the animalistic slaughter of Israelis and replaced it with outrage over the retaliation by the IDF. That anger is now being taken out on Jews across the world as evident in the disgusting rhetoric on rally signs, as seen in the images of Jews globally being attacked and footage of Palestine supporters ripping down missing persons posters for Jewish hostages. I can’t fathom taking out my anger toward Hamas on a random Middle Eastern person.

Because the goal for so many, Hamas included (and, sadly, for many of the protesters against Israel we see demonstrating their freedom of speech) has never been to merely hurt Jews or limit their rights, it has been full, outright extermination. The truth being revealed here is that, for many, the agenda has never been to live peacefully with Israel or Jewish people. The goal is “we want all of it” (I’m taking this from an NYU sign and rally call posted recently), which is code for something far worse. They want to keep pushing and pushing until all Jews are gone. Dead.

So, Israel fights. The fact is, Israel didn’t become a military powerhouse unprompted: It’s a response to perennially being a target. And what is marketed to the public is that Israel attacked, what gets less clicks is what they were retaliating against in the first place.

Hamas attacked Jewish people because they hate Jewish people. And now the civilians of that land are caught in the crossfires. And the world’s response is hate crimes on innocent Jews the world over. Israel retaliated to the largest killing of Jews in one day since the Holocaust and now a lot of innocent lives are being lost in every direction. So what’s to be done? I know the answer can’t be the exhausted, half-invested, pacifist, keyboard warrior, soft serve solution for “both sides to set their guns down.” That would be great except for one fact, and that is history. I know that if Israel put down their guns, no one else would, and there would be no more Israel.
Metta World Peace: Peace can only come by freeing Gaza from Hamas
Pro-Hamas rallies have taken place in my hometown of New York under the guise of promoting peace.

These rallies, unfortunately, have done nothing to promote peace; instead, they justify terror against innocent civilians.

The participants displayed a concerning lack of condemnation for Hamas.

While freedom of expression is crucial, it’s essential to distinguish between advocating for peace and supporting groups that refuse to condemn atrocities against innocent civilians.

Responsible activism should unequivocally denounce all forms of terrorism.

These rallies failed to live up to this basic standard.

Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel

If you can’t condemn harming innocents amidst horrific images of Jewish babies in cages, then you need to check yourself.

If you want to help Palestinians, the best way to support them is by first supporting tangible steps toward peace by freeing Gaza from Hamas and letting the Palestinian people decide their own future without being controlled by a repressive terrorist organization.

Free Gaza from Hamas and its injustice once and for all.

Only then will we have a chance at peace.

Metta World Peace, born Ronald William Artest Jr., is a former NBA player who played for 19 seasons and won an NBA championship with the Los Angeles Lakers. He is a staunch advocate for mental health, even auctioning his championship ring to benefit mental-health charities.
The Great Betrayal
While professional politicos, like DSA founder Maurice Isserman, are publicly stepping down from their parties and denouncing organizations that justify, or even cheer, the events of October 7, and wealthy Jewish donors claw back their millions from elite universities that they say helped foment antisemitism on their campuses, there’s a quieter, more personal reckoning happening among progressive Jews. Like Rose, they feel betrayed by a left that they thought would have their backs.

Dov, 30, a Canadian musician who didn’t want to share her last name for privacy reasons, is transgender and a self-proclaimed “political progressive.” Since October 7, she says, “Every time I open Instagram I’m just like, blocking or deleting people that I thought I knew.” She calls anti-Zionism “cloaked antisemitism.”

Josh Gilman, 37, who lives in Arizona and prides himself on having friends across the political spectrum, says he has been muting even close friends who espouse anti-Zionist views. “I don’t need the emotional distress,” he told The Free Press. “If there’s someone who is truly my friend, it makes me feel that they very much don’t understand who I am as a person.” He’s cut out people he had invited to dinner at his home, and who he had trusted around his family and children.

“There’s a line in the sand, which is Israel,” he said. Nate Clark, 34, lives in Virginia. He’s marched for gay rights, and in 2020, for the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers in his home state. He said his choice to stand up for others is rooted in his Jewish identity.

“As a Jew, I feel like it would be weird if I went to Germany and took a right turn down Hitler Avenue or saw a statue of Eichmann, and then hear people claim ‘Oh, it’s our history. We’re just proud of our history,’ ” he told me.

Since October 7, he’s found himself “politically homeless.”

The Jewish progressives The Free Press spoke to said they no longer believe in a left that sees their own people’s plight. They feel torn: they don’t want to give up on the progressive causes they’ve marched for and believe in. But groups like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace don’t speak for them, and they don’t feel kinship with Israel’s allies on the right—like evangelical Christians and social conservatives.

“When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home. And when you look at the political left, you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews at home and very uncomfortable with Jews in Israel,” Clark said.
What Happens When There Aren’t Enough Jews to Lynch?
There are about eight hundred Jewish families left in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. So the antisemites who live there have faced a supply-demand issue in recent days: a mob of salivating Jew-haters without sufficient Jews to lynch.

On October 28, the Flamingo Hotel in Khasavyurt, Dagestan, was stormed by a group of men looking for Jews. On October 29, the Jewish community center in Nalchik was set on fire—along with an inscription on one of its walls: ​​“Death to the Jews.” In Cherkessk, on Russian Telegram, videos circulate of locals calling for Jews to leave the country.

So you can imagine the excitement when the people of Dagestan heard that a flight from Tel Aviv was landing on Sunday evening at the airport in the city of Makhachkala.

Hundreds of people stormed the airport to greet that flight—of 45 passengers, 15 were Israeli, many of them children. “Allahu Akbar,” they shout in videos that have emerged online, some men waving Palestinian flags. On the tarmac, they attack an airport employee, who desperately explains: “There are no passengers here anymore,” and then exclaims, “I am Muslim!” Some of the rioters demanded to examine the passports of arriving passengers, seemingly trying to identify those who were Israeli, and others searched cars as they were leaving. Another video emerged of two young boys at the airport, proudly declaring that they came to “kill Jews” with knives.

According to the local health ministry, more than 20 people were injured in the skirmishes. One video showed a pilot telling the passengers over the intercom to “please stay seated and don’t try to open the plane’s door. There is an angry mob outside.”

Today the Kremlin responded by blaming the airport attack on “external interference” from Ukraine and the West. Top Putin advisers were set to gather to discuss what they characterized as the “West’s attempts to use the events in the Middle East to split Russian society,” according to reports.
After the Hamas Pogrom, we can see what American Universities have become
What too many variants of radical ideology have in common—besides gauzy dreams of a qualitative break with present reality, in favor of some utopian alternative that can hardly be specified—is a palpable, visceral attraction to fantasies of transformative, retributive violence.

In roughly psychoanalytic terms, they gravitate to alibis for sadistic murder. Or as one says nowadays, they seek a ‘permission structure’ to vent their spleen to the fullest. According to the eminent myth scholar and philosophical anthropologist, René Girard, these befuddled victimisers of innocents hunger for sacrificial scapegoats who are designated, essentially arbitrarily, as responsible for the ills of the world, and they bond together as a solidaristic community of the (self-)righteous in the act of executing them.[3]

Add to that the predominance of ‘woke’ progressive ideology on the American college campus today—too often a wooly-minded mélange of every sort of anti-civilisational, anti-systemic ‘thought’—and what you get that’s somewhat novel is the uninhibited cries of bloodlust, worthy of a proud troop of resentful Raskolnikovs, now echoing through the halls of academe so loudly that they can no longer be ignored, but have instead at last forced the broader public to take note of the rot festering in the universities for decades.[4]

Albeit, the mad shrieks had surely been sounding there over a very long period of time.[5] Nonetheless, the cumulative results of so much grotesque miseducation foisted on our young have yet been on display more starkly than ever, since 7 October: support or apologia for a ‘resistance’ that carried out the worst antisemitic pogrom since the Holocaust. (See Alan Johnson’s astonishing catalogue of such ‘progressive’ responses to the Hamas Pogrom.) Even torture is okay with the kids today, it seems, when sacrificing to the pagan gods of wokedom. The ‘resistance’ is being hailed, despite the fact that many of the terrorists’ victims on October 7th in southern Israel were denied even the mercy of a swift death—or, rather, as one senses, in fair measure because of it. Remember, we’re talking about human sacrifice, as I began by mentioning, the enjoyment of a ritualistic, albeit frenzied cruelty. Thus, many had their hands tied first, then were laid on the ground, then stabbed, then set on fire, then shot. Including children.[6] This is what decolonization looks like? While university administrators have been wringing their hands about ‘micro-aggressions,’ it turns out the English department and Gender Studies program have been softening the ground for their students’ to exult in the face of antisemitic butchery.


London's shame: Flood of anti-Semitism a worrying sign for the West
Avi Yemini, reporting from London at the ARC Forum launch, asks British political commentator Douglas Murray about growing fears among Jews amid rising anti-Semitism.


Australian actress Holly Valance calls for unity amid global unrest
In a candid conversation during the ARC Forum launch in London, Australian actress Holly Valance shared her concerns about the growing extremism on city streets, emphasising the importance of community service.


France’s Nightmare Is Yours Now



Palestinian Arab activist promises: 'We will drink your blood'

Far-left US protesters disrupt congressional hearing on military aid to Israel

Fmr Amb. David Friedman to Newsmax: 2-State Solution 'Insult' to Jews

WHO makes multinational appeal to raise money for Palestinians

WHO warns of Gaza public health catastrophe as UN says aid inadequate

Las Vegas man charged for threatening Jewish Sen. Jacky Rosen

Starmer suspends MP Andy McDonald over ‘offensive’ chant at pro-Palestine rally after facing pressure from PM to act

El Al flight to Thailand avoids Oman airspace

China deletes Israel from online maps

South Africa Asks U.N. to Deploy ‘Rapid Protection Force’ to Gaza Against Israel

Colombia: Leftists Crushed in Regional Elections After President Petro Compares Israel to Nazis, Visits China

MEMRI: Maryland Imam Mahmoud Abdel-Hady: The Muslims And The Oppressed Will Eventually Be In Control Of Things, Considering The Birth Rate Of Muslims; October 7 Was A 'Great Victory,' Like The Viet Cong's Tet Offensive

MEMRI: Columnist In UAE Daily: Hamas, A Muslim Brotherhood Faction, Seeks To Topple Arab Countries And Revive The Caliphate; It Does Not Represent The Palestinians And Has No Right To Embroil Them In Wars

IDF Soldiers Lost Their Lives to Arm Rocket Interceptors
IDF soldiers manning Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system lost three of its soldiers in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

When the rocket barrages began at 6:30 a.m., the soldiers at the battery near the Gaza border launched intercepting missiles against numerous rockets, preventing dozens of rocket impacts and hundreds of casualties.

Concerned that interceptor missiles could soon run out for other batteries stationed near the Gaza border, Capt. Sahar Saudian volunteered to provide ammunition to the other batteries, together with Sgt. Binyamin Gabriel and Sgt. Nativ Kuzaro.

They encountered Hamas terrorists who opened fire on their vehicle. All three were killed.
Israel green-lights entry of thousands of Palestinian workers

MEMRI: Signs That Iran Will Open A Front Against Israel From The Syrian Golan Heights

Israeli lightly wounded in Samaria stabbing

Middle East Expert Samuel Katz on the War in Israel - Danger Close with Jack Carr
Today’s guest on this special episode of Danger Close is an expert on the Middle East, counterterrorism, and special operations.

In addition to hundreds of articles on topics related to the Arab-Israeli conflict and international security issues, New York Times bestselling author Samuel Katz is also the former editor of the trade publication Special Operations Report.

He is the author of more than 20 books, including The Ghost Warriors: Inside Israel's Undercover War Against Suicide Terrorism, No Shadows in the Desert: Murder, Vengeance, and Espionage in the War Against ISIS, Harpoon: Inside The Covert War against International Terrorism’s Money Masters, and Beirut Rules: the Murder of a CIA Station Chief and Hezbollah’s War You can find more of his work at samuelkatzonline.com and on X @Samuel_M_Katz


Israeli Military Expert Yaakov Katz - Danger Close with Jack Carr
Yaakov was the Editor-in-Chief of The Jerusalem Post where he remains a columnist, is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, and was an international fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

He is the author of three books on Israeli military affairs: Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower, and Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War.

You can follow him on X @yaakovkatz and see more of his writing yaakovkatz.com




PMW: West Bank girls march: “Blow up the Zionist’s head… Strike Tel Aviv… Strike Ashkelon”

Hamas’ massacre on Israel was a “noteworthy, beautiful, and wonderful operation”
Hamas’ massacre on Israel was a “noteworthy, beautiful, and wonderful operation,” says Lebanese university lecturer

Lebanese university lecturer on Sociology Fida Abu Haidar: “The [Palestinian] resistance movements (i.e., terrorists) are the ones who cause [the occupation] pain… Because through the beautiful images they created, there was this wonderful entry (i.e., into Israel) by Hamas, a breach of the electronic barriers, an entry into the land of Palestine, and they carried out a noteworthy, beautiful, and also wonderful operation (refers to Hamas’ massacre on Israel). The same is true regarding what Hezbollah is doing. Therefore, we should bet on these movements.”
[Official PA TV, Oct. 22, 2023]

Hamas war on Israel October 2023 - At least 1,400 Israelis, including over 1,000 civilians, were murdered and over 4,800 wounded, in addition to at least 243 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 Simchat Torah, which fell on the Sabbath, Oct. 7, 2023. During the massacre the terrorists tortured, raped, shot, beheaded, and burned their victims alive, murdering entire families and leaving at least 21 children without parents. 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. Occasional rocket launches and shootings continued from Lebanon throughout the war.




Iran-Backed Forces Have Attacked US Positions and Allies 23 Times in Past Two Weeks, Pentagon Says

Alan Dershowitz: Students have been responsible for some of history's atrocities On Monday's "The Record with Greta Van Susteren," Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz recounts the history of youth engaging in atrocities.

On the Pro-Genocide Rally at George Mason University

UW prof Megan Ybarra praised terrorist attack as ‘justice’

I Said Hamas Raped and Beheaded. The Yale Daily News Issued a Correction.

Harvard President Claudine Gay launches antisemitism advisory board after students blamed Israel for Hamas attack

Virginia Attorney General Opens Investigation Into Anti-Israel Group for Potential Terrorist Connections

Columbia Faculty Downplay Hamas Terror Attack as 'Military Response'

Jewish Columbia students slam university’s ‘inaction’ against antisemitism: ‘I don’t feel safe’

UMass Lecturer Who Refused To Condemn Terrorism Promises Pro-Hamas Protesters Legal Support

What Rockets? International Media Blind to Hamas Missiles Raining Down on Israel

FINANCIAL TIMES GIVES HAMAS A MORAL PASS

BBC NEWS PORTRAYS DAGESTAN POGROM MOB AS ‘ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS’

CP24 Interviews Anti-Israel Activist Accusing Country Of “Ethnic Cleansing” Of Palestinians

Walrus Magazine Commentators Make False Equivalence Between Hamas & Israel

Douglas Macgregor advanced fake Gaza 'intel' on Tucker Carlson show, and it appears he obtained it from group connected to Chinese 'serial fraudster' Anti-Israel Mob Hunts Jews in Russia. US Media Go With These Headlines

One Family, One Nation

Korean-American Singer Cancels Malaysia Concert After Receiving Threats for Condemning Hamas Terrorism

Israel's Emergency Medical Service to Receive $88 Million, Half from Michael Bloomberg
Former New York City mayor and philanthropist Michael Bloomberg said on Monday he planned to match contributions he solicited through an email appeal for the American Friends of Magen David Adom.

Nearly 34,000 donors gave $44 million over 11 days. Bloomberg said he will donate $44 million to reach a total amount of $88 million.

"I am encouraged that so many of us are stepping up to help our ally during these challenging times," he said.

The new funds will help buy ambulances, medical equipment and protective vests and helmets for emergency workers, said Catherine Reed, chief executive of American Friends of Magen David Adom.


Team aims to ‘paint world with red balloons’ until hostages come home

US removes video of children singing from social media after antisemitic abuse

The children of Israel are calling- Stand by me
The children of Israel are calling the world: Stand by me. Stand with us. Stand with Israel. Bring our kidnapped babies and kids back home!






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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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