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Wednesday, December 27, 2023

12/27 Links Pt2: Israel Stopped Apologizing on October 7; The State Department (Still) Has an Israel Problem; Red Cross is ineffective, replace it now

From Ian:

Prof. Gil Troy: Israel Stopped Apologizing on October 7
For years, many outside Israel treated it just a tad condescendingly. They cast Israel as a problem child - too wild, primitive, militaristic, fundamentalist, forever embarrassing their more enlightened, sophisticated selves. It got worse during the Trump years. Israel, not America, was somehow responsible for Trump because we thanked him for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and facilitating the Abraham Accords.

Since Hamas' savagery, with young Israelis dying every day, the accusations, anguish, and apologetics must end. Let's be clear. Israelis feel the love in every dollar raised, every meme posted, every prayer uttered, every vigil attended, and every demand made on American leaders to stand up for Israel, for American values, for the West's future. And the global surge in Jew-hatred appalls us and infuriates us. We are grateful and know it's been tough.

But you cannot equate the danger Israelis confront in Gaza or on the border facing Hizbullah, or when patrolling hostile Palestinian towns, with threats on leafy campuses. And we just don't have patience, during this hard, painful war, for all the anguish about Israel's military tactics. Yes, the IDF prefers keeping our kids alive and Israel safe from Hamas, to looking good on CNN.

There are serious moral and strategic dilemmas regarding how to fight back against Hamas' unspeakable crimes and its vows to repeat them. It's challenging with Hamas so embedded in Gaza - so popular there, so willing to hide in hospitals, mosques, and even behind women and children. Israelis who know how painful it is to bury our young take no delight in non-combatant casualties.

Hamas - and the entire Palestinian movement that started cheering the terrorists and jeering us on Oct. 7 - has drawn a clear line in the sand. We withdrew completely from Gaza - and they kept screaming it was "occupied." They hijacked billions sent to help their own people, instead building an infrastructure of evil against us. We were attacked - breaking the latest ceasefire and the one before that and the one before that.

No, we're not perfect. But the moral choice is clear. We in Israel, left and right, fight proudly together, without kowtowing or breast-beating; affirming life, even in these days haunted with death.
Seth Mandel: The State Department (Still) Has an Israel Problem
There are really only two kinds of Mideast policymakers at this point: those who believe that Oct. 7 was just another day in the “cycle of violence” and those who understand the impact the attacks had on the people and governments not just in the region but in America and the West as well.

Those in the latter category are fit to make policy regarding America’s stance toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. Those in the former category, unfortunately, are often the ones in position to screw everything up without even trying, like the investor in an episode of Silicon Valley who deletes massive amounts of his team’s data by accidentally resting a bottle of tequila on the delete key of his laptop.

Which brings us to Josh Paul, a former Booz Allen Hamilton and State Department official whose career largely consisted of making sure everyone has powerful weapons. Except one group of people, of course. In October, Paul resigned as director of the office overseeing U.S. arms transfers because President Biden refused to end his support for Israel’s counteroffensive after Hamas invaded the Jewish state, murdered 1,200 people, and took hundreds more hostage.

The hero’s treatment he received was certainly odd; State Department officials who oppose Israel’s self-defense are a dime a dozen. But now that he has submitted testimony in support of those suing Biden for not stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, it’s easier to understand the cultish aspect of his beatification. You wouldn’t find it odd, for example, watching Scientologists applaud each other.

More important, however, is what Paul’s publicity tour has exposed about the dearth of wisdom in government agencies when it comes to Israel.

Paul’s “genocide” brief, as well as his belief that Israel’s supposed crimes are tantamount to the Rwandan and Sudanese genocides, are attention-getting—as they are clearly designed to be. But it can be more helpful to look at the statement Paul made when he was asked about the actual conflict over which he resigned.
Zionism isn’t racism, but Palestinism is
Palestinism began with Haj Amin al-Husseini as a movement of hate, murder, and genocide, and has never evolved from the days when its founder lobbied the Nazis to murder Jewish children rather than let them go free. The society created by Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and their cronies is one in which the highest value is the killing of Jews and murderers are considered heroes. It is a society in which a young man can call his parents and yell with joy: “Look how many I killed with my own hands! You son killed Jews! I killed ten with my own hands!”

The root of the conflict which began with al-Husseini’s pogroms in 1920 is antisemitism. It is the antisemitism of the Mufti which led him to ally with the Nazis and support the Holocaust as it was happening. It is the antisemitism of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. It is the antisemitism of Hamas. It is the antisemitism taught to children in Palestinian Authority and Hamas schools and broadcast on their televisions. It is the antisemitism of Hebron in 1929, Iraq in 1941, and the kibbutzim of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Peace will never come until this root cause, this antisemitism, is finally addressed. If Hamas is not destroyed, it has vowed to repeat the massacre of October 7 as many times as it takes to destroy the State of Israel. If the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas takes over Gaza from Hamas, it has spent too many decades brainwashing its own people to hate and value killing to ever be capable of making peace with the hated Jews or to agree to stop killing Jews.

Peace will come when the specter of the Mufti is finally expunged, when the values of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’ are cast aside, when mass murderers are recognized for the monsters they are instead of treated as role models every child should aspire to emulate.

Peace will come when the Palestinian Arabs finally reject hate, when they acknowledge Jews as human beings with the right to live, when they learn to respect Jewish holy and historical sites and Jewish people’s rights to visit them, and when they stop demanding a completely Judenrein state of Palestine.

To do this, their supporters at the United Nations, at universities and the media, must stop turning a blind eye to this deadly antisemitism. They must stop excusing this hate and taking part in it. The world must demand change and demand better from the PA instead of writing blank checks and blaming Israel every time this inherent antisemitism results in death and mayhem.

‘Palestinism’ is a racist, supremacist, antisemitic, genocidal movement with one goal – the annihilation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. That is what it always has been. That is what those who instead claim that ‘Zionism is racism’ give cover to.


JPost Editorial: Red Cross is ineffective, replace it now
Families who were released have slammed the Red Cross for its behavior as well. The family of Raz Ben Ami is suing the Red Cross for its lack of response. They had appealed to the organization in the US, Germany, and Israel, to no avail.

Hamas, a terrorist group, has been allowed to run Gaza for the greater part of two decades. Yet the international community has not held it to the standards of a government. Instead, Hamas leaders are hosted abroad, often by Western allies, and yet the group is not called upon to provide access to hostages.

The 240 hostages it kidnapped on October 7 are only the most recent examples of these crimes against humanity. Hamas has also been holding Avera Mengistu and Hisham Sayed, and the bodies of IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin. It has held Mengistu and Sayed, who are presumed to be alive, for nine years. The Red Cross has also not visited them.

One problem with the Red Cross today is that in its pursuit of neutrality, it often ends up effectively neutralized. This “both sides” approach, rather than promoting innovative third-party solutions, places a stumbling block in its path. For instance, the Red Cross has often sought Qatar’s mediation. This doesn’t always work. Thailand, for example, got its hostages released via talks with Iran. We are not suggesting Israel talk to Iran, but rather that the Red Cross could make inroads in Gaza by other means, instead of repeating the same failed approach.

The world cannot be held hostage by the Red Cross. It has proven unwilling to do the most basic tasks to help victims. Rather than beg it to send medicine, only to get a cold inhuman response, it’s time for new leadership to emerge to offer people this essential support.

Clearly, it’s time to rethink the role the Red Cross plays. Its ineffective and callous behavior illustrates the need for a new organization that can play a more valuable role.

Lacking the will to insist on access to the hostages not held by Hamas is one of many examples that cry out for new leadership in the human rights sphere and for a new organization to pioneer the important work the Red Cross once did.


Red Cross finds little sympathy among Israelis amid accusations of ineptitude, bias
U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told JNS, “The ICRC response is disingenuous and misleading. The entire basis of their ‘shocked and horrified’ Oct. 17 tweet about the al-Ahli hospital was ‘reports’ that it was destroyed and hundreds were killed. Those reports, as published by the New York Times, Reuters and the BBC, referred falsely to an ‘Israeli strike.’ The world was falsely blaming Israel, sparking hatred and attacks against Jews worldwide.

“The fact is that, whether out of malice or recklessness, the otherwise exceedingly diplomatic and cautious Red Cross decided in this case to rush out an immediate tweet about the al-Ahli incident, falsely stating that the hospital was destroyed and that hundreds were killed, and in doing so the organization helped stoke the flames of antisemitism,” said Neuer.

U.N. Watch found the same was true of some 143 other Red Cross tweets, noting the ICRC used “emotive and sometimes hyperbolic language” to describe Palestinian suffering, that would lead the reader to blame Israel. Those tweets left out that Hamas placed its terrorists and infrastructure among civilians.

Neuer said that Israeli suffering, whether from 13,000 Hamas rockets, or from the Oct. 7 attack itself, was “almost never a focus of their tweets, or a matter on which they used emotive or dramatic language.”

Then there is the ICRC’s recent decision to tap former UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl as its new director general, Neuer said, which “only underscores and entrenches their bias against the Jewish state.” UNRWA is widely regarded as a Hamas-dominated organization.

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) also found the Red Cross culpable of anti-Israel bias in a Dec. 18 report. It called for the United States, a major benefactor of the ICRC and its affiliates, to practice “rigorous oversight” and “inform it that future U.S. grants to the ICRC for rebuilding Gaza are being jeopardized by its failure to uphold its mission”—that is, to act as an impartial actor in every conflict.

There is a precedent for applying American pressure to bring change at the Red Cross. It took nearly 60 years for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva to recognize Israel’s own first aid organization, Magen David Adom, which uses a Red Star of David in place of a cross.

Its final acceptance appears largely due to the efforts of U.S. cardiologist Bernadine Healy, who became president of the American Red Cross in 1999 and fought to correct what she saw as a legacy of antisemitism at the ICRC.

“This is something we must correct, lest the exclusion of Magen David Adom be perceived as partial, biased, discriminatory, or politically driven,” she said in a speech in Geneva two months after becoming president, as reported by The New Yorker in 2001. The report added, “The other federation members were said to be furious at what they considered her presumption.”

Healy convinced the American Red Cross to withhold its five million dollars in annual dues to the ICRC. Although she was forced to step down as president in 2001, reportedly over her aggressiveness on the issue, the ICRC finally relented and admitted Magen David Adom as a full member in June 2006.

Even then, it was forced to share its victory with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which was admitted at the same time.
Israel to start scrutinising UN staff visas and could ban some officials from Jewish state
Israel may begin barring entry to United Nations officials and will decide whether to grant visas to them on a case-by-case basis, a spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry has said.

The diplomatic move was made following the “disgraceful” response by the international body to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, in which the terror group murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel, the Foreign Ministry added.

Until now, the Jewish state had automatically granted entry visas to UN personnel, according to media reports.

Jerusalem has in recent weeks accused UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN Women and other international agencies of ignoring or even legitimizing the atrocities committed by Palestinian terrorist organizations, including the murder, rape and kidnapping of civilians.

On December 6, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen went as far as calling Guterres’ tenure as UN chief “a danger to world peace.”

Cohen’s comments came after Guterres wrote a missive to the Security Council under Article 99 of the UN Charter, which allows the secretary-general to bring to the council’s attention issues that he perceives as a threat to international security.

It was the first time Guterres had invoked the clause since assuming office in 2017, and the first time any U.N. chief has done so since 1989.

“I don’t think any UN secretary-general in history has gone so far to secure the survival of a terrorist organisation,” an Israeli government spokesman subsequently told journalists.


UN taps Dutch minister accused of financing terror for Gaza role
The United Nations has tasked the outgoing finance minister of the Netherlands, Sigrid Kaag, with coordinating the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas, outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced on Tuesday evening.

Kaag, who previously served as the European country’s minister for foreign affairs and development cooperation, admitted to parliament in 2020 that her ministry had paid part of the salaries of two terrorists involved in the murder of an Israeli teenager.

The terrorists implicated in the attack were employed by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), which has close ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group.

Ignoring multiple warnings from Israeli watchdog groups, Kaag, who is married to Anis al-Qaq, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister and PLO ambassador, continued to support the UAWC, contributing some 11.7 million euros ($12.9 million) between 2017 and 2020.

In addition, before joining the Dutch government in 2017, Kaag served in multiple senior United Nations roles, including at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Guterres Appoints the Wife of Arafat’s Deputy Minister to Coordinate Humanitarian Aid in Gaza
On Tuesday, the United Nations appointed Sigrid Kaag, the departing finance minister of the Netherlands, as the lead coordinator for humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Gaza. The decision followed a UN Security Council resolution passed on Friday to enhance humanitarian assistance.

Beginning on January 8, Sigrid Kaag will assume the position, tasked with facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying humanitarian relief shipments destined for Gaza. In addition, she will institute a “mechanism” aimed at expediting aid delivery to Gaza from countries not directly engaged in the conflict.

Kaag, a practicing Catholic, is married to Jerusalem-born Anis al-Qaq, who served as Deputy Planning Minister under Yasser Arafat in the 1990s, and as the PA’s Ambassador to Switzerland. The couple has four children.

In a 1996 interview, Kaag described Benjamin Netanyahu’s politics as having “racist, demagogic overtones” about PA Arabs. She called Jewish settlers “illegal colonists on confiscated land.”

NGO Monitor reported that on July 20, 2020, the Dutch government announced it was freezing funding to the PA Arab NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees over its close links to the terror group The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Foreign Minister Stef Blok and Development Minister Sigrid Kaag revealed that an internal government audit concluded that Dutch funds were used to pay the salaries of two UAWC employees – Samer Arbid and Abdel Razeq Farraj, convicted of the August 26, 2019 murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb Hy’d.

NGO Monitor reported that Kaag’s office continued to support the UAWC, contributing an estimated 11.7 million euros between 2017 and 2020, despite multiple warnings from the Israeli watchdog group. This continued support raised significant concerns about the oversight and due diligence processes in Kaag’s ministry regarding funding for groups with links to terrorism.


David Collier: BBC News and the ever missing context
We cannot know what the real reason was for Israel targeting that building. We know that it wasn’t targeted because Fatma’s brother was just ‘a journalist’ (the only possible scenario mentioned in the article). This family may have nothing to do with Hamas – or maybe it does – we certainly know for a fact that Hamas is not far away.

There is nothing new for me in this (and probably for most readers of this website). We are fully aware of the antisemitism, hate and extremism that exists in large parts of the Muslim community. We also know there is often one face Islamists give to the west and a more extremist one that they share with their own. But does western media really need to be so easily duped?

I honestly have no interest in attacking Fatma Aljaja, her husband Mohammed Sheraz, or Fatma’s deceased brother in Gaza. Fatma Aljaja is mourning the loss of her family. What I am interested in is why BBC News consistently fails to do the most basic of checks. Both the husband and wife presented in this article glorified and celebrated the Hamas Oct 7 attacks. Did the journalist / editor not even bother to check before writing eagerly about Israel deliberately targeting innocent journalists?

Some may errantly argue that in light of a family in mourning, these details are not important – but they provide the context necessary to shed light on what is truly happening. The Islamist hate that celebrates atrocities such as those that occurred on Oct 7 and the vile anti-Jewish racism are both pillars of the entire conflict. They provide the bedrock for the Palestinian violence that frequently explodes with such deadly results. It also seems that everyone’s Palestinian cousin in Gaza is a Hamas terrorist – so maybe Hamas are not aliens after all. These vital ingredients are all missing from the BBC News story.

If the BBC do not want to tell the story in true multicolour – then it should not be telling the story at all.
Austrian university severs ties with Harvard over antisemitism concerns
The Lauder Business School, a notable institution in Vienna catering to a diverse student body, including Israelis, has recently announced the cessation of its collaboration with Harvard University. This decision arose amidst concerns regarding the escalation of antisemitism on the Harvard campus and the perceived lack of appropriate response from its leadership.

According to a statement on behalf of the Austrian university, the partnership, which commenced in 2014 as part of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, symbolized Lauder Business School's "dedication to global educational collaborations." However, the unfolding events at Harvard have prompted a reevaluation. "In light of the recent developments, Lauder Business School has decided to withdraw from this network, thereby expressing solidarity with the Jewish student community at Harvard," the school stated.

Earlier this month, Harvard University President Claudine Gay did not provide a clear condemnation of the concept of Jewish genocide during a Congressional hearing.

Five-hour congressional hearing
In the five-hour congressional hearing on antisemitism on campuses, presidents from MIT, Harvard, and UPenn testified following a Department of Education investigation into rising antisemitic incidents since the Hamas terror attack on Israel. The hearing, which focused on the inability of university presidents, including UPenn's, to unequivocally condemn calls for the genocide of Jews, led to President Liz Magill's resignation after pressure from donors and criticism over her testimony and prompted a US House of Representatives committee to investigate the three involved universities.

Emphasizing the importance of ethical alignment in partnerships, a statement on behalf of the school expressed, "Our university is proud to create partnerships, but these must consistently align with our moral standards and criteria."
My pro-Israel views have left me fearing for my life, reveals MP Mike Freer
Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer has said that his pro-Israel views have made him fear for his life following an arson attack on constituency office.

Freer, whose office in Finchley was damaged across three floors when it was attacked on Sunday, told the JC he was “always worried if I'm going to come home each night”.

He added that his husband “always wants to make sure he picks me up from the tube after work, he doesn’t like me walking home alone”.

Freer, who has been the subject of two other serious incidents and wears stab vests at public events, said he had been bombarded with abuse over the years, including one email that he received on Tuesday night which said he was “the kind of person who deserved to be set alight”.

“I think obviously because I have such strong views on the Middle East, and I’m pro-Israel, this has led me to become a target,” Freer said.

He has been the MP for Finchley and Golders Green since 2010. In October 2011, he was the target of an attack at a constituency surgery by members of Muslims against Crusades, and in April 2022 the MP revealed that the terrorist who murdered David Amess had visited his constituency the September before. By chance, he had not been in his office.

He said, however, he “won’t be deterred” from being a vocal supporter of Israel. “Anyone who wants to silence somebody shouldn’t be allowed to win,” he said.

One of Freer’s Jewish constituents said: “At a time of heightened fear and concern in the Jewish community, it seems more important than ever that staunch spokespeople for our community such as Mike Freer can carry out their roles without threat or fear.”

Although he is not Jewish, Freer’s constituency has the highest proportion of Jewish voters in the UK. “Living in the area, I’ve got to know the community inside out, from the most liberal to the most observant,” the MP added. “I embraced them and they embraced me back, and for that I’m enormously grateful.”

Speaking on the rise in antisemitism across the country, Freer said: “As a friend of the community, I more than ever want to ensure that they are protected. This attack comes after antisemitic hate crimes in London surged by 1,350 per cent in October.”
Joel Pollak: The Roots of Campus Antisemitism
The explosion of antisemitic protests and riots at elite universities across the United States in the wake of the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, has shocked Americans — and the world.

Elite university administrators struggled to find the words to condemn the murder of innocent Israeli civilians. Leading university presidents, testifying before Congress, refused to say that calling for the genocide of Jews would be a violation campus rules.

To be clear: mere criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. But calling for an end to the existence of Israel is antisemitic, especially in the wake of the October 7 attack, when it became apparent that Jews in the region would be vulnerable to genocidal violence without the protection of the State of Israel.

In some cases, Jewish religious institutions have been specifically targeted by anti-Israel protests, as well as Jews, or Jewish-owned businesses. In others, antisemitic prejudice was implicit, but no less real.

Resolving the crisis requires that we understand its deep roots.

1. Non-uniformity. It is important to acknowledge that antisemitism is not uniform across American campuses. Some saw no anti-Israel protests at all after October 7, and a few — such as Southern Methodist University — saw pro-Israel demonstrations. Generally, the institutions that saw the worst anti-Israel and antisemitic activism were in the Northeast, the Midwest, and on the West Coast. Elite institutions seemed to be hardest hit, including Harvard — once the most pro-Israel campus in the Ivy League.

2. Institutional bias. Many elite universities were steeped in antisemitic prejudice through the early twentieth centuries. That bigotry disappeared in the postwar era. But in the last few decades, Middle East Studies departments emerged, and most were dominated by radical scholars in the mould of Edward Said, the Palestinian intellectual whose Orientalism defined post-colonial studies. Arab regimes donated money to these departments, and to Islamic Studies; Israel made no similar investments abroad.

3. Critical theory. In the 1990s, the emergence of Critical Race Theory at Harvard and elsewhere had a profound effect on academic attitudes toward Israel — and to Jews. In the new taxonomy, Jews were considered, by virtue of their success, to be among the morally suspect “privileged” groups. Likewise, Israel was recast as an oppressive, occupying, settler-colonial state, not as a successful post-colonial effort by determined refugees who had survived the worst genocide in the history of the world.
USF is a safe haven for antisemitism

Penn ‘failed to take concrete action’ on Jew-hatred, state governor says

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Domestic Violence Prevention Group ‘Likens Israel to an Abuser’

Young social activists' strategy in trying to battle online fake news

Broken Borders? Media Showcase Oct. 7 Pictures by Gaza Photojournalists as “Images of the Year”
Every December, media outlets select their best photos of the year to be included in collections showcasing what they deem to be their finest examples of photojournalism.

This year, however, The New York Times, Reuters and Associated Press chose to include in their prestigious photo galleries images taken by Gaza-based photojournalists whose early morning presence at the breached Gaza-Israel border on October 7 and their capturing of Hamas atrocities have raised serious ethical questions detailed in an HonestReporting expose last month. The article asked whether not only physical borders have been breached, but also professional and moral ones.

The publication of the article on November 8 created a public uproar leading AP and CNN to cut ties with one of the photojournalists whose close relations with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar were highlighted.

Additionally, a group of 14 US state attorney generals warned the chiefs of CNN, The New York Times, Reuters and AP, to better vet their freelancers lest they fall foul of laws against providing material support to terrorist organizations like Hamas.

But all of this hasn’t prevented America’s leading newspaper and the world’s largest news agencies from republishing some of the controversial photos taken by those freelancers — and celebrating their professional value.

“Brave photographers”
The New York Times’ photo gallery is titled: “A weary world”, presenting images from Ukraine to Hawaii. It makes the following statement:
Every year, our photo editors try to capture the best photojournalism in one intense presentation. The Year in Pictures is a way to commemorate the big news events from January to December: the ones that traumatized us — and there are many of those — mixed in with some moments of bliss.

Then it adds:
The images gathered here, a tribute to the brave photographers who scrambled into harm’s way to capture them, remind us that there were so many tears in 2023.

With this in mind, readers come across the following photo of the Gaza border fence being breached:
HOW HAS THE BBC REPORTED HAMAS TERRORIST INFRASTRUCTURE IN JABALIA?

Dutch agency spying on Holocaust survivors for years ‘defies any idea of civilization’

Jordan Losing Over $250 Million Per Month Due to Israel-Hamas War

MEMRI: Daughter Of Pakistan's Late Spy Chief Hamid Gul Writes In Urdu Daily: Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Said 'A Ceasefire In Gaza Could Be Possible If Nuclear-Capable Pakistan Were To Issue Only A Threat To Israel'

Pakistan’s Massive Deportation Drive Included Afghans Awaiting Resettlement in U.S.

Israeli teen jailed for refusing IDF service, cites war with Hamas in Gaza

A third of Arab Israelis see Oct. 7 massacre as in tune with Islamic values
One-third of Israel’s Arab citizens disagree with Ra’am lawmaker Mansour Abbas’s statement that Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre “does not reflect Arab society, the Palestinian people and the Islamic nation,” according to a recent poll.

Thirty-three percent of all Arab Israelis surveyed disagreed with the statement while a further 11% “didn’t know.” Among Muslim Arabs only (separating out Druze and Christians) the number was larger still, with 34.5% disagreeing with the statement and 12.5% answering “didn’t know.”

The poll was carried out between Nov. 27 and Dec. 4, 2023, with 538 men and women interviewed by telephone in Arabic. The maximum sampling error was ±4.31% at a confidence level of 95%.

It was conducted by the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions (Arab Society in Israel Program) in collaboration with the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.

The pollsters noted that “this was a statement by a political figure [which] may have impacted certain responses.”

The poll results, similar to those of a survey published in early December, indicate that a significant number of Arab Israelis harbor views that put them at odds with the country’s values.

The earlier poll, conducted by Tel Aviv University, found that 32% of Arab Israelis do not believe that Hamas terrorists intentionally targeted women and children on Oct. 7.

The TAU poll also found that 44% of Arab Israelis did not feel that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack was justified, while 38% believed that both Israel and Hamas share responsibility for the outbreak of war.


PMW: Is Jesus a Palestinian? The PA lies to its own people and to the world



MEMRI: Hamas Operating In Libya In Service Of Qatar

Abbas’ advisor: Israeli PM Netanyahu “is just a clerk of the US administration who obeys its orders”

Top PA official calls for unity with Hamas, Oct. 7 massacre was “a great earthquake”

In name of PA Chairman Abbas, top PA official calls on terror organizations to unite with the PA

Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades music video: "Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah"



US court sentences white supremacist who threatened Pittsburgh jurors, witnesses to 6 years

Jewish men attacked by cyclist outside synagogue in Stamford Hill

Spokane School Takes the Name of a Holocaust Survivor
A 100-year-old Holocaust survivor recently had a middle school named after her in a region once infamous in the U.S. for its violently racist and antisemitic past.

In September, Carla Peperzak welcomed sixth and seventh graders into the newly built Carla Olman Peperzak Middle School in Spokane, Washington.

“It was surreal. I couldn’t believe it. When I saw the building with my name on it, it became more down to earth. It’s an amazing thing that this happened,” Peperzak said. “I see it as an important part that, hopefully, people will continue to be educated on the Holocaust.”

A resident of Spokane, Peperzak was born in Amsterdam in 1923. She lived in the same neighborhood as Anne Frank and attended Hebrew school with Anne’s older sister Margot. Their families also ran businesses next to each other. Both were forced to close. Peperzak lost 80% of her relatives in the Holocaust. In 1941, she joined the Dutch resistance at 18 years old. She helped save numerous Jews by securing hiding places, creating fake identification papers and ration cards, and publishing an underground newspaper. Peperzak even dressed as a German nurse to rescue her 2-year-old cousin from a train heading to a transit camp that sent Dutch Jews to killing centers in Poland.

“I have a pretty good memory. I’ll be talking about something then something comes back,” she said. “I do not remember all the fine details, but I remember what our life was. And I was always afraid.”

Preserving memories of the Holocaust is important to Spokane Public Schools officials. Aside from the naming, the middle school’s library is stacked with Holocaust education literature that is available to every middle schooler in the district.

“Carla’s story was very powerful to me and others,” said SPS Board President Michael Wiser. “It just felt surprising that somebody who took on the role that she did in that time is living here in our community and still telling her story. It’s a story that really needs to be heard. It’s inspiring, and it felt especially that it could be inspiring to those middle school students.”


'Stranger Things' Gelman guests on 'Eretz Nehederet'
Stranger Things star Brett Gelman put his rich comedic talent to use to support Israel during wartime by performing in a sketch on the comedy show, Eretz Nehederet (Wonderful Country), which aired Tuesday night on Channel 12.

Since the beginning of the war against Hamas, Eretz Nehederet has featured several sketches in English that have gone viral, reaching millions all around the world. These included two that lampooned the BBC’s coverage of the conflict and its embrace of the terror group Hamas.

In an Eretz Nehederet sketch starring Michael Rapaport, the American celebrity visitor to Israel poked fun at US university presidents while playing Dumbledore, in a Harry Potter-themed skit. The university heads had said in a congressional hearing that calls for genocide against Jews on campus were only a problem “depending on the context.”

One of the funniest and most popular Eretz Nehederet skits featured two clueless university students in America gushing over a Hamas terrorist, who tells them that he will throw them from a rooftop if they ever visit Gaza.


Famed Argentinian soccer commentator Hernan Feler uses platform to demand return of hostages
Senior editor Carlos Gurevich shares his takeaways from his recent travels to Mexico and Argentina.

Author Gabriel Ben-Tasgal explains the concept of "300 words" and tells us how it can be used to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A special interview in studio with soccer commentator Hernan Feler, whose aunt Ofelia was kidnapped to Gaza, and made the daring decision to condemn Hamas and demand the release of hostages while narrating matches. He's joined by the entrepreneurship director of the World Zionist Organization, Silvio Joskowicz




A classic heartbreak song is reborn: The "Winter of '73" becomes "October '23"
Before you watch the video immediately below, please wait. Read what’s further down, watch the other videos, and then you’ll really be able to appreciate what this is. It’s a song sung by three teachers to their high school students, now graduated and serving as soldiers, with thanks for their willingness to sacrifice everything for their country.

But … we can’t really appreciate this song without knowing the song on which it is based, and the history of that song, which we’ve written about earlier, here and here.

So let’s skip down a bit, first, to the video with the English words and grey background, just below.

The song below, “The winter of ‘73,” is one of Israel’s great classics. The song was first performed on Independence Day of 1994, and speaks in the voice of the children who were conceived by their broken-hearted parents in the winter of 1973, in the months immediately following the Yom Kippur War. To this day, the song stirs the hearts of Israelis everywhere.

This next clip is the only version that I could find with English subtitles. I would have translated parts of it slightly differently, but it’s “good enough for jazz.” With one exception: the opening “explanation” says that the song was sung by soldiers who were born in the winter of 1973, when the song specifically claims to be the voice of those who were conceived in 1973. There’s a big difference, and in this song it matters.

But the rest of video more or less works, so let’s start with that.

The song was first performed by the musical troupe of the IDF’s Education Corps, in April 1994. Here, so you can follow along with the next clips, are the words to the song and a translation:




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