Thursday, November 30, 2023

11/30 Links Pt1: Douglas Murray: Wartime Diary; Israel ‘cannot claim self-defense,’ Abbas says; ‘Oct. 7 was just a rehearsal,’ warns Sinwar

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Wartime Diary
Gaza itself is a blown-out wasteland. I was there within the first week, embedded with the IDF and traveling in Israeli vehicles through the border opening that the terrorists had broken through. As well as a feeling of trepidation, there is a sense of victory in going through that crossing. Hamas had come for the Israelis. And now the IDF was coming back for the people who’d done this.

In Gaza itself, anything can happen. The Israelis were still bombing the north, where I was, and up from the al-Shifa hospital I watched the streams of Palestinians making their journey south. It was a pitiful sight, and a reminder of what Hamas has wrought on the people under its control.

While I was there, the IDF found a Hamas tunnel and blew it up in front of me. The earth shook. But the earth shook a lot that day. Machine-gun fire kept breaking out, as well as the rockets and air strikes. People often ask what it’s like in a live conflict zone. The truth is, absolutely anything can happen. You just have to hope that it doesn’t.

At one point, right in the middle of Gaza, I spoke to a senior IDF commander and asked if he had been here before.

“Yes,” he replied.

“When were you last here?” I asked.

“In 2005,” he said, “when I pulled family friends out of their houses. Now eighteen years later, here I am, back again.”

It is a reminder of the insolubility of the Gaza situation. Nobody has an answer to it. But why has this impossible problem been given to the Israelis to solve? Get someone else to resolve it. If the outside world thinks it knows what to do with a whole generation Hamas has indoctrinated into hate, then be my guest. Any takers? Any?

For now, the war is still on hold. The IDF is trained to go. But currently they sit around, like everyone, waiting and watching and wondering how long this suspension can continue. The pause strengthens Hamas and weakens Israel. Some people say that Israelis should be less sentimental. But when you see footage of a child running back into his father’s arms, you think again. And then you have to think of both these things at once.

The jihadists say they will win because they love death more than we love life. I think they are wrong. Israel will win precisely because they—we—love life. The Jews are ordered by God to “choose life” and even in the face of death, they do. The enemy can’t stop the great surge for life that comes up everywhere here in Israel, even in these days. The units I visit have unity and morale of a kind you would barely think possible. Because everybody now knows what the alternative to war is. The alternative is constant massacre.

Watching the sun go down tonight I think of Fallaci again, and when she returned from Vietnam, how she answered the little girl’s question, “What is life?”

What did Fallaci say to her?

“Life is something you’ve got to fill up well, without wasting any time. Even if you break it by filling it too full.”
Victor Davis Hanson: What Were the Hamas Monsters Thinking?
For all the boasts about loving death, it was Hamas who cowardly murdered the unarmed, scampered back to the safety of their tunnels, and used their own kindred Gazans to shield them from death—delivered to them by supposed nerds who love life too much.

Europeans also have had it with unlimited immigration from the Middle East. Restrictionist politicians throughout Europe are ascending as never before, in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, and Sweden.

They all reflect growing public anger that Europeans are hated by the very people who seek them out and wish to destroy their Enlightenment institutions by manipulating and discrediting them. The thousands who hit the streets to cheer on October 7 and damn their hosts only confirm a growing global consensus—in the West, Latin America, Asia, and even throughout the Middle East—that admitting migrants from Palestine or Gaza, or their supporters, is a veritable death wish.

Pro-Hamas protestors calling Joe Biden “Genocide Joe” and boasting about the Arab or Muslim vote in Michigan is incoherent. Not only do harassing Thanksgiving shoppers and parades, disrupting iconic American holidays and events, swarming highways and bridges, and preying on Jews alienate Americans. But also taking credit for ensuring Biden’s defeat will only distance the Democratic establishment, such as it is, from its embarrassing, loud, but ultimately relatively impotent Islamic constituency.

Shouting for mass death “From the River to the Sea” does not endear the pro-Hamas crowd to half of their fellow Democrats, much less unabashedly strutting their anti-Semitism. The current overt support for Hamas, in other words, has revealed to the nation the bankruptcy of the entire pro-Hamas/DEI base of the Democratic Party and will do much to ensure a conservative president in 2024.

And that president will likely deport anyone on a green card or student visa promoting Hamas terrorism, or violating U.S. law, while ensuring a travel ban from terrorist supporting regimes in the Middle East. Such measures will win overwhelming public support, despite media and academic outrage.

Strategically, Iran, Hamas, and the Palestinians may seem to have flummoxed Israel into endless concessions by metering out hostages for serial pauses. But again, no Israel government can retain power by allowing the mass murdering Hamas to survive and so it will not.

Despite all the blood-curdling rhetoric of Hezbollah and Iran, neither will attack Israel or U.S. assets in force, given no American president could afford not to retaliate disproportionately. And “disproportionately” would mean rendering Iran’s military and Hezbollah to something akin to the current status of Hamas.

So for now, Hamas and its American-residing apologists are full of themselves and feel they are leveraging and manipulating the West. But such haughtiness may be a delusion. Hamas in the Middle East and its enablers in Europe and America have done more to harm the Palestinian cause and the idea of Middle Eastern immigration to the West than at any time since 9/11.

It is hard to anger Westerners, but continue the death chants, the violent demonstrations, the creepy anti-Semitism, and the proud support for the Hamas bloodwork of October 7, and they will be surprised at the growing anger of otherwise postmodern Europeans and distracted Americans.

Just as Israel realizes that there is no living with Hamas killers, so the West is learning that it can no longer sustain universities that despise the culture that nourishes it or Middle Eastern immigrants, visiting students, and residents that use the gift of freedom and tolerance to promote their abhorrent anti-Semitism, violence, intolerance—and, yes, hatred of their generous hosts.
‘They Can Go to Hell and Hide There’
A day after scores of civilians died in an Israeli air strike on a market in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, we spoke with an eyewitness to the tragedy. While Hamas and its allies persist in charging that Israel targets innocents, our interviewee explains that Gazans pin their own survival strategy on the understanding that innocents serve Hamas as human shields.

“To stop Hamas members from walking in our narrow streets,” he explains, “[my neighbors] blocked the streets off with sheet metal, so no one could get in at night.” He goes on, “We know it’s Hamas that makes the problems. They’re the ones who hide among us. . . though it still doesn’t justify killing civilians.”

Fears have grown that this misery will needlessly be prolonged by Westerners who strive, in effect, to perpetuate Hamas rule, according to one Gazan woman.

Addressing protesters who have taken to the streets to demand a cease-fire on behalf of Palestinians, she calls on them to make a choice: “Either support the Palestinian people or the Hamas regime that oppresses them.” If protesters harbor a humanitarian motive, she asks, “Why don’t we see them demonstrating against Hamas?”

If the war ends with Hamas in power, the woman predicts, then they will repeat the October 7 scenario, but within Gaza: “They’ll brutalize everybody who didn’t stand with them in the war.”

In Episode Nine, a speaker in Jabaliya critiques a particular strand within the protest movement: Palestinian diaspora figures who have supported Hamas for years. They watch the conflict “with tea and popcorn, as if we’re a TV series,” he says, and cheer Hamas leaders without regard for the suffering they cause regular Gazans.

He points out Tamim Al-Barghouti, a U.S.-based activist whom The New Yorker described as “a spoken-word rock star.” Barghouti’s post–October 7 tweets include praise for the apparent rape and kidnapping of an Israeli woman and call for “Death to the Palestinian ’National’ Authority.”

“He hasn’t seen anything that happened in Gaza for 18 years,” the Jabaliya resident says.

All of the above bring us back to the patient at al-Shifa Hospital who Al Jazeera cut off mid-sentence.

For a sense of what he might have told viewers if he had been allowed, we reached another patient there—and gave her the space to say her piece. “Every Palestinian knows Shifa hospital is full of [Hamas fighters],” she explains, “but nobody can talk: death by the Jews is better than death by ISIS.” She also echoes a sentiment we have encountered repeatedly in interviews with Gazans post–October 7: “Hamas is the destruction of the Palestinian people. We’ve had enough. They need to be wiped out—because if they remain, the people will be wiped out.”

This conviction is the darker half of a Gazan worldview that, though prevalent, has been largely filtered out of most international coverage of the conflict. Its brighter half—the vision of a different future—is encapsulated here by a young woman who spoke with us in Gaza City last year.


Eve Barlow: Don't dry your eyes
Tonight I saw three survivors from October 7 speak in person. One of them is Ella. She is 14. She survived the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. She spoke for 30 minutes. I am posting the video here with her permission. I went up to her to ask for it afterwards. Before I could even say hello to Ella, she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. She hugged me. As survivors we Jews are a different breed.

Ella told us she was euphoric because today her cousin Amit was released. I cried. We all cried. She also told us her father’s body was found burned to a crisp. She lives with the hope he died from the bullet wound.

Ella speaks with more courage than world leaders, than politicians, than so-called activists and human rights lawyers, than journalists, than most people three times her age. Ella gives Greta Thunberg more than a run for her money.

I also saw two men speak. One was a young student, Ariel, who survived the atrocities at Zikkim Beach in the South. His story was relentlessly horrifying, and left everyone on the edges of their seats as he detailed the horrendous escape from the South, through traps upon traps of terrorists, non-stop rocket fire, gun fire from every direction, attempted shelter in multiple hiding places over hours, combined with a psychological journey that spanned acceptance of certain death to mistrust of safety to grief over the dead.

The other man was Tomer, an Israeli artist based in LA, who moved here to escape the PTSD he lives with from prior service in wars while in the IDF. Tomer volunteered with ZAKA, the service that clean up the dead bodies. He spoke for about thirty minutes, too. I heard things that have so far evaded me, which is not something I thought possible. He narrated in fine detail the process of finding bodies in indescribable ways (burned, mangled, bloated, puffy, secreting, ashen and crumbling). He recalled sights and smells that would make you hurl. And he explained why and how he documented all of this, initially against ZAKA’s wishes but eventually with their cooperation. He spoke about returning to LA to find out everyone on his professional team had quit their association with him, because he was in Israel, because he’s an Israeli, because he’s a Jew. While Tomer went through hell to identify and clean the dead, back in LA he was being, well, cancelled.
Richard Landes: Pallywood’s Latest Blockbuster
In 2003, after watching the first postmodern blood libel go viral, I coined the term Pallywood to describe the widespread use of staged scenes of Palestinians suffering violence supposedly at the hands of Israel, fabricated for global consumption. The term was decried as a “conspiracy theory,” and against all evidence, Israel was blamed for murdering 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durah. Twenty years later, we’re back where we started.

On Nov. 2, 2023, the “fact-checking website” (ostentatiously called Polygraph) of the government-funded Voice of America warned that “Israel supporters on X are using the derogatory label ‘Pallywood’ … to claim that Palestinians are staging scenes of death and violence using so-called crisis actors to elicit global sympathy and win the PR war with Israel.” These Israel supporters were “propaganda campaigners” spreading “disinformation,” the state media organ asserted.

The following day, the Anti-Defamation League joined in with a blog post (which it later stealthily deleted) titled, “ADL Debunk: Myths and False Narratives About the Israel-Hamas War.” The post tackled “a slew of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories about the ongoing conflict.” It listed a number of “false or misleading narratives,” which it proceeded to “debunk.” Only the ADL post didn’t debunk any one particular example of Pallywood. Rather, it declared that Pallywood—the notion that “Palestine is using elaborate filmmaking tactics to create fake victim footage”—as a whole was a “false narrative.” The post then explained what “reality” is: “The ‘Pallywood’ conspiracy theory has been around for years … There is ample evidence of Palestinian victims suffering in Gaza.”

On the same day, Rolling Stone published a long article, which consulted a “senior fact-checker,” and which affirmed the same talking points: The “derogatory” Pallywood term is an “old myth” that “Palestine’s opponents” are reviving “to discredit the suffering, grief, and pleas for help coming from Gaza.” Rolling Stone then added another important point explaining why the Pallywood “conspiracy theory” is especially “insidious.” It’s not only because it claims “falsely, that the Palestinians are faking it,” but also because it “dovetails with a rise in anti-Muslim hate speech.”

The new, remarkably uniform line of attack echoed an initiative the White House had just unveiled: the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia in the United States. As antisemitic incidents spiked across American cities following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, the Biden administration decided that an initiative to combat “the scourge of Islamophobia” was the nation’s most pressing priority.

With so much at stake, the danger posed by the conspiracy theory, that the Palestinians make visual productions for information warfare, had to be exposed and expunged. The Pallywood false narrative was a clear example of what the administration says are the two most egregious offenses against our democracy: “disinformation” and “hate speech,” namely against Muslims.

Against this background, one of the most vivid examples of the Pallywood genre during the current war in Gaza took place at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City the day before President Joe Biden landed in Israel.
Phyllis Chesler: The Failure of Western Feminism When It’s Most Needed
On Nov. 25, the United Nations initiated its annual Sixteen Days of Global Activism Against Gender-Based Violence against women and girls. This will continue until Dec. 10, which is Human Rights Day.

My people are the feminists at the UN. They also head NGOs, occupy chairs at foundations, human rights organizations, national women’s organizations, and Women’s Studies/Gender Studies departments, and are prominent Talking Heads in the media. For eight whole weeks, they have remained silent about the genocidal rapes of Israeli women on Oct. 7.

Some of these women once waged brave and determined battles against rape, incest, and domestic violence; supported the #MeToo Movement; and at least issued statements condemning the rapes of women in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan, and the Yazidi women who were kidnapped by ISIS.

They also supported the idea that rape is a war crime, at least in a battle zone.

However, these once visionary feminists have not only betrayed Israeli women – they have also betrayed women of color who live under Sharia law.

Most have remained relatively silent about the normalized mistreatment of Muslim women in Muslim countries and communities. They have not organized campaigns to end forced face veiling, polygamy, child marriage, routine girl- and woman-battering, or honor killing (femicide), either in foreign countries or in the West.

Why? Even though the victims of such injustices are primarily women of color, Western feminists have been very cautious about accusing men of color, especially men whose countries may once have been colonized, of crimes. They fear doing so might be seen as “racist.” Or “Islamophobic.”

Worse, some feminists in the West have actually glorified the forced wearing of the Islamic veil as a form of anti-colonial resistance. During the Women’s March in Washington, some women fashioned hijab out of American flags. Many anti-Israel rallies and marches feature both women and men, leftists and Muslims, sporting Palestinian keffiyehs as a way to signal their support – for the oppression of women.


'Jeopardy!' host Mayim Bialik asks where 'progressive feminists' are over silence on Hamas Oct. 7 rapes.mhtml
“Jeopardy!” co-host Mayim Bialik slammed women’s organizations around the world for their silence over Hamas’ alleged systemic rapes of Israeli women during the terrorists’ deadly Oct. 7 attack.

The Jewish actress and talk show host called out the deafening silence over the gender-based abuse of Israeli women — a war crime — on social media last Saturday.

“There has been an abhorrent and conspicuous absence of women’s organizations around the world unequivocally condemning the systematic rape and torture of women on October 7 by Hamas,” Bialik wrote in a long post to X. “Brutal gang rapes, sexual torture, and murder of fetuses happened- period. Where are the “BELIEVE THEM” voices?”

Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis, largely civilians, when they crossed the border and attacked families in their own homes as well as attendees of a large music festival. Israeli forensic teams who examined the bodies of the dead said they found multiple signs of rape, torture and other atrocities suffered by the victims.

“We saw many women with bloody underwear, with broken bones, broken legs, broken pelvises,” a volunteer worker at the Shura military morgue named Shari told the Washington Post.

An Israeli paramedic told the outlet he saw evidence including the presence of semen on the bodies of two teenage girls found dead in their bedroom following the Oct 7 attack.


Israel ‘cannot claim self-defense,’ Abbas says
Israel is carrying out a “genocide” and “cannot claim the right to self-defense,” Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas claimed in a statement issued on Wednesday, as a Biden administration official credited Ramallah for keeping the “relative calm” in Judea and Samaria.

“The war of genocide carried out by the Israeli occupying war machine is not self-defense. … whoever commits the crime of aggression and occupation of the land of others cannot claim the right to self-defense,” said Abbas, according to the P.A.’s official Wafa news agency.

“We should all know by now, peace and security can never be achieved by stripping Palestinians of their humanity, or by demonizing them, nor by crushing the skulls of infants, or shedding the blood of children,” added the Palestinian leader, echoing antisemitic tropes.

The inflammatory remarks against the Jewish state, which came as the United Nations marked its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, stood in stark contrast with the praise Abbas received from Washington hours earlier.

On Wednesday morning, an anonymous Biden administration official praised the P.A. for what the White House characterized as a “relative calm” in Judea and Samaria amid the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to The Times of Israel.

The U.S. official pointed to efforts by Abbas’s security forces to combat terrorism and maintain stability in the disputed territory despite “difficult conditions” aggravated by “rising settler violence,” the report said.

On Thursday afternoon, two Israel Defense Forces reservists were lightly wounded in a car-ramming attack near Moshav Beka’ot in the Jordan Valley in Judea and Samaria. Israeli forces killed the Palestinian terrorist.

During a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv earlier on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the government in Jerusalem to take “immediate steps to hold settler extremists accountable for violence against Palestinian civilians.”
‘Oct. 7 was just a rehearsal,’ warns Sinwar
Hamas’s Oct. 7 slaughter was “just a rehearsal,” the Islamist group’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar threatened on Thursday, in his first public statement since the terrorist organization massacred more than a thousand people in Israel.

“The leaders of the occupation [Israel] should know, Oct. 7 was just a rehearsal,” stated Sinwar, according to the Maariv newspaper.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border. Another 240 men, women, children and soldiers were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that Sinwar paid a visit to several of the hostages held in an underground tunnel in the Strip. One of the hostages released over the weekend said the terror mastermind spoke to them in Hebrew without an accent.

As Israel and Hamas agreed to extend their ceasefire-for-hostages agreement on Monday, Egypt reportedly put heavy pressure on Sinwar.

“Twice during the ceasefire the parties got into a crisis when Yahya Sinwar tried to violate the agreements, the first time last Saturday night,” said an Egyptian source with access to official circles in Cairo.

“Egyptian intelligence officers arrived at the Rafah Crossing [to Gaza] and conveyed to Sinwar extremely difficult messages and threats peppered with juicy curses. A short hour later … the Israeli hostages were released,” the source added.

On Oct. 14, Israel Defense Forces International Spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told journalists that Sinwar and his entire command team “are in our sights.”

“Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, like [Osama] bin Laden was. He built his career on murdering Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. That’s how he became known as the butcher of Khan Yunis [in southern Gaza],” said Hecht.


Three killed, six wounded in terror shooting near Jerusalem
Three Israelis were killed and six other people were wounded on Thursday morning in a terror shooting on Weizman Boulevard at the entrance to Jerusalem.

Magen David Adom emergency medical personnel treated the victims before evacuating them to hospitals in the capital.

The fatalities were identified as 24-year-old Livia Dickman, from Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood; Hanna Ifergan, a school principal in Beit Shemesh in her 60s; and Rabbinical Court Judge Elimelech Wasserman, 73.

According to police, two terrorists got out of their car at 7:40 a.m. and opened fire at a bus stop. They were reportedly armed with an M-16 assault rifle and a handgun.

Two off-duty soldiers and an armed civilian killed the terrorists, according to reports.

The attackers were later identified as brothers Murad Namr, 38, and Ibrahim Namr, 30, from eastern Jerusalem.

According to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the pair were Hamas members and had previously been jailed for terror-related activity.

In a statement, Hamas’s “military” wing took responsibility for the attack, identifying the perpetrators as “jihad-waging Qassam martyrs” while calling for “escalation of resistance [i.e., terrorism].”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement on the terrorist attack following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in the Israeli capital.

“This is the same Hamas that carried out the horrible massacre on Oct. 7, the same Hamas that tries to murder us everywhere. I told him [Blinken]: We swore, and I swore, to eliminate Hamas. Nothing will stop us,” said Netanyahu.


Senior judge in rabbinic court system named as victim in Jerusalem attack

Seth Frantzman: Terror in Jerusalem shows spillover from Gaza threat

Terrorist wounds two Israelis in Jordan Valley car-ramming

IDF: Two hostages return to Israel from Gaza Strip

Mia Schem, Amit Soussana first two Hamas hostages released Thursday

American hostage Liat Beinin is FREED by Hamas after seven weeks in captivity - only the second US national to be released since Oct 7 attack

Released testimony of returned Israeli hostage, Ofir Engel

Hamas Convicts Celebrate Release With Calls for Jewish Blood
Israeli child hostages greeted with hugs and prayers; Hamas convicts celebrate release with calls for Jewish blood.

Despite mainstream media reports suggesting otherwise, there would appear to be a significant difference between the two sides in this conflict.




If we want to return our hostages, we must focus on defeating Hamas

Caroline Glick: Aharon Haliva has got to go. Now.

Overwhelming Israeli Public Support for the War
In the fifth week of the IDF's ground operation in Gaza, the overwhelming public support for the military counterattack is evident.

This solidarity rests on a sweeping consensus in the public, including the establishment media, concerning the war's objectives as defined by the political leadership.

The widespread sense of anxiety caused by a profound threat has resulted in a consensus that this is a just and unavoidable war, designed to defend the homeland and citizens against a vicious, inhumane enemy that must be eliminated.
The Day After in Gaza
Since the beginning of Israel's war with Hamas, some prominent figures in the U.S. have raised the idea of installing the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the governing body in Gaza for civilian affairs. However, such a course of action would inevitably result within a few years in the emergence of a new terrorist state hostile to Israel, possibly even under the control of a re-emerged Hamas. The most feasible alternative is an autonomous Arab civilian entity in Gaza, with Israel maintaining overall security responsibility for as long as required by the security situation and threat assessment.

In Gaza today lives an entire generation that has been indoctrinated into Hamas' genocidal ideology. The only way to create a political entity in Gaza that is not hostile to Israel will be for the public to undergo a deradicalization process, similar to the de-Nazification process carried out in postwar Germany, during which civil society underwent a profound transformation.

Transferring power to the PA would guarantee the re-emergence of a terrorist state. The PA is itself already a political entity hostile to Israel's existence. The PA is perceived by the public over which it rules as a deeply corrupt institution. According to a June 2023 Palestinian poll, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would defeat PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas by a large margin. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that a PA-led government in Gaza will educate for peace and promote coexistence with Israel. Even today, the PA educates for hatred and hostility toward "the Zionist entity."
Avigdor Liberman warned of a Hamas attack. Now, he says Israel is under same delusions about Hezbollah

Ben Shapiro: Stupid, Cowardly Happy Talk Isn’t The Answer

Travelingisrael.com: DeBunking pro-Palestinian arguments (It’s EASIER than you think)



The Commentary Magazine Podcast: Schumer’s Shining Moment
Hosted by Abe Greenwald, Christine Rosen, John Podhoretz & Matthew Continetti
Today we talk about Chuck Schumer’s bold Senate-floor speech warning about anti-Semitism from the left. He said the right words at the right time, but how will it impact the calls from his own party to condition aid to Israel? And what’s up with Joe Biden’s tweet seeming to nod toward the ceasefire crowd? Give a listen.


The Israel Guys: This US Aid Will DEFINITELY End Up in the Hands of Terrorists
Just in the past week, the United States has airlifted half a million pounds of UN aid to Gaza to be distributed by UNRWA. Everyone knows that Hamas controls everything going into Gaza, and that UNRWA is a corrupt organization with ties to Hamas, so why did the United States think that this was a good idea?

And a bunch of clowns, otherwise known as foreign ministers, made a statement yesterday calling for a ceasefire and a two state solution.




Hamas 'responsible' for Israel's 'moral conundrum'
Lawyer and author Alan Dershowitz says he agrees there is a “moral conundrum” about whether Israel should be allowed to finish eradicating Hamas given the civilian death toll in Gaza – but Hamas is responsible for causing it.

Mr Dershowitz said Hamas has a strategy which its supporters call it the “CNN strategy” – but he calls it the “dead baby strategy”.

“What Hamas does is they kill as many Israeli Jews as possible, knowing that Israel’s going to have to respond by going after their commanders, their tunnels and their rockets,” he told Sky News Australia host Piers Morgan.

He said they hide these among babies, children and civilians.

“And then when Israel responds and tries to conduct a military operation, to prevent the reoccurrence of these barbarisms, they bring the dead babies in front of CNN and the New York Times.

“And the world of course sheds tears as we all shed tears whenever we see a dead baby and the world turns against Israel – and then Hamas does it again, again and again.”


Hamas would ‘declare victory’ if permanent ceasefire was called
Former US Army vice chief of staff General Jack Keane warns if a permanent ceasefire was called in the next week Hamas would “absolutely declare victory”.

“Their regime is intact, their leaders are intact, most of their fighters are intact and they dealt a very lethal blow to Israel," he told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“What have they accomplished? Worldwide international condemnation of Israel.

“Considerably more geopolitical isolation of Israel internationality.”

General Keane discussed the conflict and truce between Hamas and Israel.


‘Most shameful manifesto in Australian journalism’: Andrew Bolt lashes the media
Sky News host Andrew Bolt has hit out at the Australian journalists who signed a letter demanding media outlets treat Israel as a “genocidal state”.

“Last week 165 Australian journalists issued the most shameful manifesto in Australian journalism,” Mr Bolt said.

“These journalists ordered the immediate to give adequate coverage, in their view, to the supposed ‘war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid’ … they obviously meant Israel.

“Not once did they attack Hamas like this – which is in fact genocidal.

“They demand the media treat Israel’s leaders as no more trustworthy than those of Hamas.”

Mr Bolt is joined by writer Tony Thomas to discuss the controversial move.




Pundits Slam Israel for Hosting 'Anti-Semite' Elon Musk, Demand State Make Peace With Hamas

Elon Musk denies his trip to Israel was 'an apology tour' - but admits amplifying anti-Semitic post on X was one of the most 'foolish' things he's ever done

Pro-Palestine activists spark outrage after storming hotel where families of Israeli hostages are staying Pro-Palestinian protesters harass Israeli hostage families at Melbourne hotel
Families of Israelis kidnapped or killed by Hamas have been harassed by pro-Palestinian protesters at a Melbourne hotel.

Footage shows the protesters entering the hotel lobby waving around a huge banner and chanting through a megaphone while police monitored the crowd.

The Israeli Embassy has confirmed they are aware of the incident last night, and that families of those Israeli terror victims were left feeling insecure.

Both sides of politics in Victoria have condemned the actions of the protesters.

Victorian Liberal MP David Southwick said there’s a time and place for protest or to talk about differences, but that was definitely not it.

“There’s a time for people to be able to talk to people about their differences and protest, but what were these activists protesting about? What were they doing there? These are people who have lost loved ones, that have hostages still kidnapped for over 50 days," he said.

"What where they doing at that hotel?"




Sharri Markson breaks down during emotional interview with mother of Hamas victim
Sky News host Sharri Markson has been brought to tears during an emotional interview with a mother whose son was killed at the Supernova music festival brutal massacre on October 7.

Tali Kizhner is in Australia to fight the rise of anti-Semitism sparked by the war in the Middle East.

She was one of the members of a delegation of loved ones of those killed or taken hostage by Hamas visiting Australia.

Ms Kizhner told her story of the day she lost her son, Segev, during the October 7 massacre and how she “didn’t even say goodbye”.

Ms Kizner also became emotional during the interview while recounting the day.


‘A new low’: Pro-Palestinian protesters storm Melbourne hotel
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan says the recent “pro-Hamas” Palestinian activist protests hit a new low by storming a Melbourne hotel.

“It was hard to believe that some of the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas in this case, protesters could go any lower,” told Sky News host Sharri Markson.

“This is really a new low I think to confront affected family members of people that have been captured, maimed, brutally treated by a terrorist organisation.

“The full force of the law should be applied if possible, it shouldn’t be right to intimidate people like this.”

Mr Canavan sat down with Ms Markson and The Australian’s Associate Editor Jenna Clarke to discuss the recent protests in Melbourne.


‘What are you doing?’: Andrew Bolt urges pro-Palestinian protesters to ‘walk away’
Sky News host Andrew Bolt has urged pro-Palestinian protesters hurling abuse and launching physical attacks on Jewish people to simply “walk away”.

Friends and families of Israeli hostages were staying at a Melbourne hotel when they were tracked down by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Around 20 protesters stormed the CBD hotel holding banners reading “Stop arming Israel. Free Palestine” and “Zionism is Fascism”.

Mr Bolt claimed these protests have become fronts for “the most wicked Jew hatred” as he condemned the “thuggish” activists involved in the Melbourne protest.

“You see the behaviour now that these Palestinian protests here are encouraging – the threats, the screams of abuse, the physical attacks now on Jews, the murder threats, the in-your-face vandalism, intimidation, hunting Jews through hotels now,” he said.

“What are you doing? Walk away, leave all that in the gutter with the Greens, with the haters, with the bullies, with these apologists for terror – just walk away.”


Jewish community ‘really hurting’ with anti-Israel protests
Deputy Victorian Liberal Leader David Southwick says the whole Jewish community is “really hurting” with the anti-Israel protests around the country.

Around 20 anti-Israel protesters invaded a Melbourne hotel on Wednesday night.

Mr Southwick told Sky News host Peta Credlin that the families at the hotel were targeted by “gutless cowards”.

“When the visitors arrived … they heard sirens, they heard screaming, they saw these horrific banners," he said.

“That is no way to treat a guest, let alone anyone in this state.”


‘Sign of a healthy culture’: Peta Credlin on Jewish prosperity
A “sign of a healthy culture” in a country is where Jews prosper and are safe, Sky News host Peta Credlin says.

Ms Credlin said in places where this doesn't happen, a country's culture is “in decline”.

“It's the cultural canary in the coal mine.

“Last night, about 20 anti-Israel protestors invaded a Melbourne hotel.

“Designed to intimidate five family members of Israeli victims and hostages of Hamas who were staying there.”




Jew-hatred up 591% in Australia, 320% in Germany, synagogue arsonist gets 10 years

‘Undercurrent of neo-Nazism' seen at some pro-Palestine rallies
Former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger says we are living in a “very sick society” at the moment.

This comes after pro-Palestine rallies erupted across the world in support of Gaza, sparked by Israel’s military operations in the enclave.

“We’re seeing not just anti-Semitic rallies – let's call it what it is – we are seeing an undercurrent of neo-Nazism at some of these rallies,” Mr Kroger told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything worse in my life in terms of a demonstration than that.

“And the Greens have been front and centre at so many of these anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic rallies.”




Pro-Palestinian mob - including protester holding a SWASTIKA banner - heads towards NYC's Rockefeller Center in sick effort to ruin famous Christmas tree lighting attended by families

Germany teens held for alleged Christmas market attack plot

'My kids follow their intuition on human torture': Gigi and Bella Hadid's father defends their Insta posts on Palestine - as she apologizes for not fact checking background of inmate she said was 'child PoW'

Outrage in Oakland as residents DENY that Hamas killed Jews on October 7 and say anyone who supports Israeli strikes is a 'white supremacist' in SIX-HOUR town meeting

Oakland Council Meeting Devolves Into Anti-Semitism, Denial of Hamas Massacre
Several speakers at a meeting of the Oakland City Council on Monday denied Hamas's Oct. 7 atrocities and made other statements in support of the terror group.






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