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Saturday, February 17, 2024

02/17 Links: Michael Oren: The Core Conflict and the Jews; Phyllis Chesler: Silence of the Feminist Lambs: Not a Word on Hamas Horrors

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: Silence of the Feminist Lambs: Not a Word on Hamas Horrors
In 2005, I published a book titled The Death of Feminism. At the time, I was focused on how Western feminists had become obsessed more with the alleged “occupation” of a country that has never existed — Palestine — than with the real occupation of women’s bodies in Gaza and on the West Bank, who were being forced into hijab, niqab, and child and arranged marriages, or who were being honor killed by their families for minor or imagined infractions. This form of femicide is primarily a Muslim-on-Muslim crime both in the West and in Muslim countries but, to a lesser extent, also takes place among Hindus in India, and, less frequently, among Sikhs. Honor killing is likely a tribal custom that religious leaders have failed to abolish, I wrote, one in which women also collaborate.

Both Stalinized and Palestinianized feminists and rabid Islamists denounced me as an “Islamophobe” for prioritizing the rights of women of color over and above the rights of the men (and women) of color who were terrorizing and even killing them. I was also condemned as a “Zionist” for questioning the sacredness of Palestinian victimhood.

Thus, I may have been among a handful of people not surprised by the feminist silence on Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom-on-steroids. It does not ease my sorrow that so many others, including the worldwide media and professoriate, human rights groups, and the United Nations, are also actively engaging in Oct. 7 denialism, as well as in relentless and vicious blood libels against the Jewish state, every single day.

By the late afternoon of Oct. 7, I was a cognitive warrior on fire. Between Oct. 11 and Jan. 25, I had published 24 articles on the subject and been interviewed about it 10 times.

Most second-wave feminists have died, suffered strokes, or are struggling with either dementia or cancer. Many are disabled. They are no longer “dancing in the streets.” But some of my long-time allies still attend conferences, march, sign petitions, write articles, and speak out.

These are the feminist allies who did not respond to the articles that I sent them about their shameful, even unbearable, silence. Perhaps they felt that Israel deserved whatever it got but were too embarrassed to say that to me. Instead, they said nothing.

Only one such feminist ally responded by sending me articles by Masha Gessen and Judith Butler. She suggested that reading their ideas about the moral superiority of vulnerable Jewish Diaspora life and the advantages of dissolving the Jewish state would “open my mind to the truth.” She also sent me an article that blamed Benjamin Netanyahu — and only Netanyahu — for the failure of a “two state solution — the only fair solution.”

I immediately sent her my critique of Butler and Gessen; I sent her Bassem Eid’s fact-based piece in Newsweek. Eid summarizes the long history of Arab rejection of the offers for a Palestinian state, first proffered by the British, then by the UN, and, finally, by Israel at least six times. Thus far, she has not responded.

Another long-time feminist (a friend, not merely an ally) is adamant that Israel is “committing genocide” and is an “apartheid, colonial, occupying state.” I told her that we cannot discuss Israel ever again. But now our conversations are thinned, brittle. There is no way we can discuss Oct. 7 without endangering our suddenly fragile friendship.

Why are my views so different? Here’s one reason.

Most Western pro-Palestinian feminists have never lived in a Muslim country or moved in Muslim circles, as I have — and still do. When I was young and oh-so-foolish, I traveled to Kabul with my Westernized Afghan husband, whom I had met at college. Once we landed, an airport official smoothly, officiously, removed my American passport; I never saw it again. I found myself trapped in the 10th century with no way back to the future.
The sickness of anti-Semitism
It’s often been said that a society that allows anti-Semitism to flourish is in a particularly deep kind of trouble. That a society that fails to keep anti-Semitism in its box not only fails to stand by its Jewish citizens, but also risks becoming consumed and deranged by it. That anti-Semitism’s toxic cocktail of hatred and conspiracism can all too easily lead a reasoned, tolerant society to sicken. If so, Britain looks very sick indeed.

This week, a report by the Community Security Trust (CST) laid out in stark, blood-curdling detail the hatred we’ve seen exploding all around us since 7 October. Anti-Semitic incidents are at their highest for 40 years, the highest since the CST began logging them, surging by 150 per cent in 2023. This includes a 96 per cent rise in anti-Semitic assaults. The most ever recorded.

British Jews have had bricks, eggs and bottles thrown at them. They’ve been punched, kicked and spat on. They’ve been threatened with metal bars, knives and fake firearms. In one incident, ‘pro-Palestine’ protesters kicked a Jewish man on his way home from a Sabbath service in London. They then threatened to beat him up and shouted: ‘We are going to rape your mother, you dirty Jew.’ I’m sure this was all just an unconventional icebreaker, before they made the case for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.

We are seeing Jew hatred at its most visceral. According to the CST, the incidents were at their peak not when the IDF rolled into Gaza, or when this awful war – that Hamas started – began to claim civilian Palestinian life. No, they peaked just a few days after 7 October, just after Hamas had killed and raped its way through southern Israel, long before Israel’s full military campaign had begun. As the CST puts it, the initial surge in anti-Semitic abuse, graffiti and violence represented a grotesque carnival of ‘celebration’ – celebration, that is, of the murder and maiming and defilement of Jews.

It would be sickening enough if Israel’s just war in Gaza was leading scumbags in Britain to menace Jews on protests, or to daub ‘SS IDF’ on the wall of a synagogue, as happened in Sussex. To hold British Jews responsible for the actions – real or imagined, justifiable or unjustifiable – of the Israeli state is the essence of the new anti-Semitism. But we can surely now drop the pretence that the undiluted anti-Jewish racism we’ve seen on our streets in recent months was just mindless, misplaced anger with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows this has been brewing for longer than many would like to admit. Even before the awful events of 7 October, British Jews constituted 0.5 per cent of the British population and around a quarter of the victims of the religiously motivated hate crimes. Jewish pensioners being suckerpunched in north London or Jewish cemeteries being desecrated were grimly regular occurrences that rarely – shamefully – made it beyond local-news websites.

But it really feels like it’s open season now. It’s in the air. Jews – or at least the ones who are pro-Israel, which happens to be the vast majority of them – are fair game. You can even ‘hound’ them out of a comedy show, if they take against a performer pulling out a Palestinian flag at the end of his ‘non-verbal immersive comedy show’, as happened at the Soho Theatre last week. I still don’t know what’s worse, that performer Paul Currie was reportedly so upset with an Israeli audience member that he broke character and blared ‘leave my fucking show now’, or that his audience immediately joined in, chanting ‘Free Palestine’ until the pesky Jew left.
'The end of the Jews': Herzog reveals Hamas textbook seized from Gaza
At the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed a book titled "The End of the Jews", which was found in a residential home in Gaza and written by one of the founders of the terrorist organization Hamas.

The book, which has been described as a "blueprint for the annihilation of the Jewish people", was discovered in the Al-Furqan neighborhood in the Gaza Strip, and was showcased during a conversation with senior commentator David Ignatius on the stage of the Security Conference.

The author of the book is Mahmoud az-Zahar, one of the founders of Hamas and former foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, once again proving the antisemitic ideology of the Hamas terrorist organization, whose core is the hatred of Jews and a call for their annihilation; a call that was translated into the monstrous October 7 terror attack.

The book was discovered and seized by security forces, and it describes the allegedly justified hatred of Jews throughout history. For example, it notes that while the family of nations and its leaders defined the Nazis, who acted to annihilate the Jewish people, as having committed crimes against humanity, the Nazis are in fact an important and worthy role model for many around the world.

The chapters of the book focus on hatred of the Jewish people and justify the persecution and murder of Jews throughout history; among them are chapters titled "The World's Burning Hatred of Jews" and "Reasons to Expel the Jews".

"This book was written by Dr. Mahmoud az-Zahar, a well-known political figure of Hamas and one of its founders," Herzog said at the conference. "This book mainly says that there is no need to recognize that there are Jews, that there is a Jewish people, but mainly it glorifies the Holocaust, what the Nazis did, and calls on nations to follow in their footsteps. Now we are in Munich. On the outskirts of Munich, there is the Dachau concentration camp, where tens of thousands of Jews were massacred. And that's the problem, we need to form a coalition of all the moderate forces in the world, fighting this ideology."


Michael Oren: The Core Conflict and the Jews
In the shadow of October 7th, even left-of-center Israelis regard the very idea of a Palestinian state as madness. Speaking at Davos, President Isaac Herzog, former head of the left wing Labor Party, asserted, “Nobody in his right mind is willing now to think about what will be the solution…Everybody wants to know: Can we be promised real safety in the future?” Why, Israelis ask, would the United States want to reward the Palestinians for committing and applauding terror?

Yet President Joe Biden has proceeded to do exactly that. “We need to renew our resolve to pursue this two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side by side in a two-state solution,” he proclaimed on November 24. “Two states for two peoples. And it’s more important now than ever.”

Not only Washington but virtually every state in the world—including China, Russia, India, Germany, France, and Britain—adopted an identical policy. UN Secretary General Antรณnio Guterres rejected Israel’s right to object to the creation of a Palestinian State while Joseph Burrell, the European Union’s foreign minister, went further by calling for Palestinian statehood to be imposed on Israel. “I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore,” he opined. “We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.”

The United States did not go that far, but it definitely went deeper, specifying that the Palestinian state would be governed by a “revamped” or “revitalized” Palestinian Authority and never pose a threat to Israel. How this revitalization was to take place and by what criteria and by whom would the threat to Israel be measured remained unclear. Nor was it in any way certain that Israel would even be invited to help determine the nature of that Palestinian state. Indisputably, though, was the connection which the White House drew between the two-state solution and the resolution of the region’s other conflicts.

“The Biden Doctrine,” as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman dubbed it, calls for the conclusion of a Saudi-Israeli peace treaty and the construction of a regional front against Iran. Both of these goals, however, are contingent on the creation of a Palestinian state. In short, once again, linkage.

A half million Syrians could be massacred in recent years, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and Sudanese can be killed, but for the disciples of linkage Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians remains the nucleus. Forget, too, that the signing of the Abraham Accords without the creation of a Palestinian state definitively disproved linkage. That dogma, defying all logic and flying in the face of thirty years of facts, calls to mind another irrational, myth-based belief: Jew-hatred.

For what is antisemitism but the insistence on saddling the Jews with the responsibility for all of society’s ills, plagues, and wars? Similarly, by regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict as the nub of all Middle Eastern violence, and the Jewish state as that conflict’s core, linkage is itself linked to the world’s oldest hatred.

For centuries, antisemites would have answered that question—“What problem would you most like to solve?” with the same “epicenter” cited by General Jones, that is, the Jews. This is not to assert that he or the legions of linkage devotees are prejudiced against Jews, at least not consciously. Nor does it mean that Israel does not bear a degree of responsibility for the conflict or is above reproach.

Nevertheless, by pointing out the antisemitic undertones of linkage, decision-makers might be given pause before once again embracing it. They might be freed to pursue policies that address the other, far more dangerous, conflicts of the Middle East. They may even - through federal or expanded autonomy solutions - make real strides toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
PM Netanyahu delivers a statement after Hamas suspended negotiations

Qatari PM: Hostage deal shouldn’t be condition for truce, talks ‘not very promising’
Qatar’s prime minister said Saturday that a truce deal between Israel and Hamas “should not be conditioned” on an agreement for the release of hostages.

“This is the dilemma that we’ve been in and unfortunately that’s been misused by a lot of countries, that in order to get a ceasefire, it’s conditional to have the hostage deal. It shouldn’t be conditioned,” Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Munich Security Conference.

The comments were striking for the head of a country that has been a key mediator between the sides. While Hamas wants a ceasefire in order to shore up its forces and potentially lead to an end to the war, Israel has repeatedly made clear it sees no reason for a truce other than the release of hostages, and that while it may agree to a pause it does not plan to stop fully fighting until Hamas is dismantled.

Talks involving officials from Qatar, Egypt, Israel and the United States have so far not yielded a deal for a pause in the fighting.

Al-Thani also said talks had been “not really very promising” in recent days.

“I believe that we can see a deal happening very soon. Yet the pattern in the last few days is not really very promising.”

But “we will always remain optimistic, we will always remain pushing.”
Netanyahu: Those telling us not to enter Rafah are essentially saying ‘lose the war’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday on growing calls from world leaders to avoid a ground operation in Rafah, saying doing so would mean losing the war against Hamas.

“Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are essentially telling us: ‘Lose the war.’ I won’t let that happen,” he vowed at an evening press conference in Jerusalem. “We won’t capitulate to any pressure.”

Rafah, which sits on the Gaza-Egypt border, is the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the enclave, but it is also where over a million displaced Palestinians have fled to seek shelter from fighting elsewhere.

The US and several of Israel’s Western allies have warned Jerusalem that an offensive in Rafah in the current conditions would be catastrophic. Israel, which has said it will draw up a plan for civilians to evacuate before it enters, believes it cannot effectively curtail Hamas without taking Rafah, which sits on Gaza’s border with Egypt. At least some of the 134 hostages remaining in Gaza are thought to be in the city. Hamas leadership is also believed to be sheltering there.

Netanyahu said at the press conference that he’d told US President Joe Biden that Israel will fight until “total victory — and yes, that includes action in Rafah.” But the IDF operation in Gaza’s southernmost city, he stressed, will “obviously” come only after civilians there have an opportunity “to evacuate to safe areas.”

In response to a question from The Times of Israel on whether there had been plans to enter Gaza’s southernmost city earlier, at the beginning of the ground offensive, and, if so, why that step had not been taken then, Netanyahu expanded on the government’s efforts to cope with the refugees in Rafah.

“I won’t get into our plans,” the premier responded, but “there is a lot of space north of Rafah” to evacuate the civilians sheltering there. “There will be space for evacuation.

“We have to do this in an orderly fashion — and that’s the instruction I’ve given to the IDF.”
Biden: Must be ‘temporary ceasefire’ before Rafah operation
U.S. President Joe Biden demanded a temporary ceasefire to secure the release of hostages in Gaza, claiming that the deal “has to” go through before Israel launches a military operation in the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking at a quickly scheduled press conference on Friday about the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Biden was asked if Israel provided him with a plan to address the more than 1 million civilians sheltering in Rafah ahead of an expected operation to clear out Hamas.

“There has to be a temporary ceasefire to get the prisoners out—to get the hostages out,” Biden said. “I’m hoping that the Israelis will not make any massive land invasion in the meantime. It’s my expectation that’s not going to happen. There has to be a ceasefire temporarily to get those hostages.”

The president added that he had multiple, nearly hour-long conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conveying that message in recent days. He also noted that U.S. citizens remain among the hostages whom Hamas terrorists kidnapped on Oct. 7.

“My hope and expectation is that we’ll get this hostage deal,” he said. “We’ll bring the Americans home and the deal is being negotiated now.”

Biden said on Monday that the United States is working with Netanyahu and Qatari and Egyptian leaders to get a deal for a temporary ceasefire and the release of hostages, and that the “key elements” of the deal are ready but “gaps” remain.
Russia Extends Invitation to Palestinian Factions for Talks in Moscow
Russia has extended invitations to various Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, for discussions on the Israel-Hamas conflict and broader issues in the Middle East.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov announced the initiative on Friday, highlighting Moscow’s desire to engage with all major players in the region amid heightened tensions.

The invitation included a dozen Palestinian groups and is slated for “inter-Palestinian” talks scheduled to commence on February 29.

Bogdanov, serving as President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East, emphasized the inclusivity of the invitation, stating, “We invited all Palestinian representatives — all political forces that have their positions in different countries, including Syria, Lebanon, and other countries in the region.”

Among the invitees are Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, alongside representatives of Fatah and the broader Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
‘Exceptional Opportunity’: Blinken Says ‘Virtually Every Arab Country’ Wants to Normalize Ties with Israel
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that the present moment represented an “exceptional opportunity” for Israel to normalize ties with Arab states.

“Virtually every Arab country now wants to integrate Israel into the region to normalize relations,” the official told the conference, according to Reuters.

Blinken also spoke of an “urgent” imperative to “proceed with a Palestinian state that would also ensure the security of Israel.” He said there was a regional effort underway to revive the Palestinian Authority, and turn it into a viable institution.


Israel: State of a Nation with Eylon Levy: They Say Gas The Jews, But What They ACTUALLY Mean is... | Einat Wilf on Westsplaining
Does Hamas represent Palestinians?

In the third episode of the State of a Nation Podcast, Eylon Levy is joined by Dr Einat Wilf, former Knesset member and foreign policy advisor and author of several books, including “The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace” to explore the concept of Westsplaining, Palestinian narratives, priorities, and preconditions for peace.


Visegrad24: Living as a Christian Arab in Israel - Yoseph Haddad | Visegrad24 Podcast
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Yoseph Haddad is an Arab-Israeli journalist and CEO of the 'Together – Vouch for Each Other' association that works to connect the Arab-Israeli society to the broader Israeli society.

00:00 - Introduction
02:17 - Being a Christian in Israel
03:43 - Being a Christian in Gaza
07:48 - Jewish-Arab relations
12:22 - Co-existance?
14:21 - Israeli Arabs and West Bank Arabs
18:49 - Apartheid in Israel?
24:36 - Migrants in the West
26:20 - Foreign interference
27:40 - Clueless Western activists


Visegrad24: Anti-Semitism should be fought, not banned: Meira Cowland | Visegrad24 Podcast
Visegrad24 presents an in-depth series covering the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. This comprehensive series features on-the-ground interviews, bringing firsthand insights from a diverse range of voices, including politicians, professors, journalists, experts and influencers.

Our guest today: Meira Cowland Political and social commentator. Find her on Instagram as @theofficialmeira.

00:00 - Introduction
01:32 - Turning point in Israel
02:34 - New media
04:15 - Instagram news
05:01 - International media vs Israel
09:24 - Visiting Israel
11:21 - Sensationalist media
13:53 - Naive Westerners
15:42 - Cognitive dissonance
17:26 - The language of the desert
21:35 - The West fooling itself
23:32 - A new Cold War
24:55 - Echo chambers
27:41 - The Israeli left
31:28 - Pro-Palestinian politicians
32:46 - Free speech




UNRWA chief says Israel waging campaign to ‘destroy’ Palestinian aid agency
Israel is waging a concerted campaign aimed at destroying UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, claimed in an interview published Saturday.

Speaking to the Swiss newspaper group Tamedia, Lazzarini said: “Right now we are dealing with an expanded, concerted campaign by Israel aimed at destroying UNRWA,” the main aid body in the Gaza Strip.

“It is a long-term political goal because it is believed that if the aid agency is abolished, the status of the Palestinian refugees will be resolved once and for all — and with it, the right of return,” he said, referring to the demand of the descendants of Palestinians who left their homes during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence to receive a right to return to the land. “There is a much larger political goal behind this.”

“Just look at the number of actions Israel is taking against UNRWA,” he added, citing measures in the Israeli parliament, moves to remove the agency’s VAT exemption and orders for contractors at Israel’s port of Ashdod to “stop handling certain food deliveries for UNRWA.”

“And all these demands come from the government,” he said.

Furthermore, Lazzarini said that more than 150 UNRWA installations have been hit since the Gaza war began.

Following the discovery that at least 12 UNRWA staffers directly took part in the October 7 massacre – which saw 1,200 people killed, mostly civilians, and 253 taken hostage – and at least another 30 provided assistance, Israel called for Lazzarini to resign.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday that of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, at least 12 percent are affiliated with the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.
Congressman spotlights Washington Examiner report in speech urging Hamas-tied UNRWA’s defunding
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) discussed a Washington Examiner report on Hamas-owned cryptocurrency as part of a House floor speech this week calling for the Palestinian aid agency of the United Nations to be defunded over terrorism ties.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee member in a Wednesday speech excoriated the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which faces an uncertain future after Israel’s claim that its staff participated in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack against Israelis prompted the United States and other countries to halt aid to it. Burchett introduced a resolution last week asking the Departments of State and Treasury to investigate “whether any cryptocurrencies were exchanged between Hamas and UNRWA” following a Washington Examiner report on Feb. 2 that revealed that an Israeli firm called Lionsgate Network is tracking cryptocurrency donations to UNRWA to uncover potential terrorism connections.

“Now, an Israeli firm is investigating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s digital wallets to see where the cryptocurrency is going,” Burchett said Wednesday. “This firm has found at least one digital wallet that belongs to Hamas still active. We need to defund the United Nations.”

“There have been rumors that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency had a relationship with Hamas,” Burchett also said in the speech. “Last week, these rumors were confirmed when we discovered that 12 members of the agency were directly involved in the horrific attacks on our friends in Israel on Oct. 7. Another 1,200 employees of the agency have direct connections to Hamas.”

“That’s 10% of all the agency’s employees in Gaza,” Burchett said.


Special forces searching Khan Younis hospital detain over 100 terror suspects, IDF says
The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that special forces soldiers have arrested more than 100 terror suspects at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as they continued to carry out searches of the medical center.

The military said that forces from the Maglan and Egoz units have also killed several Hamas operatives on the outskirts of the hospital.

IDF troops entered the Nasser Hospital building on Thursday after surrounding the hospital for a week, saying they had information that hostages had been held there and that some bodies of dead hostages may still be at the site. At least one released hostage has said that she and over two dozen other captives had been held inside the hospital.

The soldiers have found mortars, grenades and other weaponry belonging to Hamas inside the medical facility, as well as medications with the names of hostages on them.

The IDF on Friday denied claims that troops targeted generators at the hospital. Hamas had claimed several patients had died due to a lack of oxygen after power was cut off and the generators stopped following an IDF raid.

“This morning, a report was received concerning the interruption of generator activity, resulting in the failure of electrical systems within the hospital. Contrary to the allegation, IDF troops did not target the generators. The troops were instructed to ensure the continuous functioning of the hospital,” the IDF said. An IDF soldier speaks to a doctor at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on February 16, 2024. (IDF)

“Despite the generator malfunction at the hospital, all vital systems continued to operate throughout the day based on the existing Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system in the hospital,” the IDF said.

The IDF said that upon receiving reports of the generator malfunction at the hospital, troops worked to repair it, while the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit brought in a replacement generator.


Freed hostage Aviva Siegel recounts Hamas’s sexual abuse, violence toward captives
Aviva Siegel, who spent 51 days in Hamas captivity and has since campaigned indefatigably for the remaining hostages, spoke to Channel 12 in an interview broadcast Friday, in which she detailed the Palestinian terror group’s humiliation tactics and sexual violence.

Siegel, 62, who was abducted along with her husband Keith from their home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, described the weaponization of sexual violence against female hostages, for whom Siegel has emerged as a fierce advocate since being released during a November truce.

During Hamas’s brutal onslaught, terrorists broke into the Siegels’ Kfar Aza home, snatching the couple to Gaza in their own car. When marching the couple, the terrorists shoved Keith, breaking his ribs.

Siegel said that among the thirteen locations she and her husband were held in was a tunnel so lacking in ventilation that they did not have enough energy to talk. They were left in the tunnels while their Hamas guards would take breaks above ground to breathe fresh air.

After several days, the hostages asked their guards what they should do if they felt suffocation was imminent, and the guards told them to shout for help. Siegel recalled that at one point Keith yelled repeatedly to no avail.

She also described how malnourished the hostages were, sometimes going for days without food or water, while their guards pretended not to understand the hostages’ pleas for sustenance.

Siegel recalled hiding food and when another hostage told her that a piece of bread she had hidden would soon be covered in mold, Siegel replied, “don’t worry, I’ll eat it with the mold.”

Siegel recounted how the terrorists would dress up the younger female hostages in tiny clothes, making them into “dolls — marionettes,” at whom the armed guards “just sat and stared.”

One woman was given such tight-fitting clothes that she couldn’t bend her knee.

Siegel said that when “three particularly young girls” took up the guards’ offer of a shower, the condition was that they would bathe together, with an open door and the terrorists watching.

Siegel said that in another instance, a young female hostage was ordered at gunpoint to accompany a guard, who then pulled her by the hair, tossing her to the floor, as he and three other terrorists beat her with a stick.


What worked for Taylor Swift fans will work 'Evermore' for Israel advocates
How does Taylor Swift fit into the Israel-Hamas War?
SO, DESPITE there being no true love story between Swift and either Israel or Hamas, can there be a role for her in this war, or will she just remain a blank space facing bad blood from both sides?

The answer is that she and her followers can and should be role models for Israel advocates fighting on the important battlefield of social media.

Two weeks ago, fake sexually explicit images of Swift proliferated on social media. An image of the pop singer generated by artificial intelligence that was shared on X was viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended and disappeared.

Her dedicated fan base of “Swifties” quickly got to work, launching a successful counteroffensive on X. The hashtag #ProtectTaylorSwift flooded the platform with positive images of her, while accounts that were sharing deepfakes were reported to X and removed immediately.

Even the White House got involved, as press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the fake images “alarming” and said social media companies had a responsibility to prevent the spread of such misinformation.

X temporarily blocked users from searching for Swift. Searches for her name on Sunday yielded the error message “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”

The campaign to save Swift’s image and prevent the proliferation of damaging fake pictures of the star completely succeeded.

WHAT WORKED for the Swifties can also work for proponents of the Jewish state. They need to mobilize the way they did and remain vigilant until they succeed.

It is undoubtedly an uphill battle. There are a lot more Swifties on Earth than there are Israel advocates and Jews in general. But that is no reason to not try.

The key to success that can be learned from the Swifties is to combine efforts and speak the same language, because the sum is greater than its parts. Working together, the technical challenges of the social media companies’ algorithms can be overcome to effect change.
MATISYAHU SHOWS CANCELED FOR POLITICAL REASONS ... Workers Bailed Last Minute
Two of Matisyahu's recent concerts got canceled ... and he's theorizing the cancelations might've been caused by some workers making a political statement against Israel.

The singer-songwriter joined us on "TMZ Live" Thursday ... telling us his sold-out show in New Mexico was canceled just hours before the curtain was set to go up -- something he learned about very last minute.

As Matisyahu -- a very vocal supporter of the Israeli cause in Gaza -- explained it ... a fan approached him after he'd already performed a sound check in the Meow Wolf venue and said they had received an email saying the concert was called off because of security threats.

When his team approached the event organizers about it, Matisyahu says they told him workers were afraid to come to work because of possible protests outside the building and that they wouldn't have time to hire more staffers for the event.

BTW ... the protest didn't exactly take off -- with just about five people showing up, apparently, to voice their displeasure according to Matis. So, hardly a threat, really.

It's not the only show that's been canceled, as it turns out ... Matisyahu says his show tonight in Tucson, Arizona, is also not happening because employees there are also allegedly calling out.

The possible reasoning behind this ... Matisyahu says he thinks workers might've realized the event would have to be called off if they decided not to arrive for work -- adding social media posts of some of the New Mexico staff made it clear they stood against Israel.

Matisyahu insists he's not pushing his politics at his shows ... admitting he sometimes makes statements against Hamas but keeps political division out of his performances for the most part.

If boycotters are hoping to discourage Matisyahu ... it's not working so far, with him saying he's willing to play at any venue willing to host him and his group. He even mentioned his cousin who goes to school in Tucson -- and said he'd put on a show at a frat house if they're interested!


Black church leaders call on US to halt aid to Israel amid 'mass genocide'
The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church has called on the United States "to immediately withdraw all funding and support from Israel," calling Israel's fight against Hamas in Gaza a "mass genocide."

The statement, released Thursday, came shortly after Israel entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians fled after the start of the war. The bishops accused Israel of denying these Palestinians "access to food, water, shelter, and health care" and said that "after this torture, they plan to murder them."

While several Christian organizations and leaders have called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas – including the National Council of the Churches in Christ – or offered aid to Christians and Muslims living in the Gaza Strip, this is the first such call for a cessation of all American assistance to the Jewish State.

The bishops, citing numbers provided by the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry, accused Israel of killing more than 28,000 Palestinians – primarily women and children – since the October 7 Hamas massacre, when terrorists entered Israel and slaughtered over 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others.


Why the ‘paraglider girls’ got away with it
Benedict Spence, Tom Slater and Fraser Myers discuss Britain’s two-tier justice system.


Police arrest 12 people at pro-Palestine protest in London: Man accused of assaulting police officers as other marchers 'wave antisemitic placards'
The arrests were for a string of alleged offences, including inciting racial hatred, suspicion of support for a proscribed organisation in relation to a placard, and assaulting emergency workers.

But the Metropolitan Police said the 'overwhelming majority' of people who took part were peaceful and acted lawfully. Between 200,000 and 250,000 people were expected at the demonstration, according to a spokesman for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Protesters met at the south of Park Lane, holding banners calling for a 'ceasefire now' and chanting 'free, free Palestine', before leaving for designated place near the Israeli embassy where speeches were made.

Among the speakers was former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Palestinian ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot, who both called for 'justice' for the Palestinian people.


Biden official pressed by Lawler over ActBlue fundraising for anti-Israel group
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) sought information in a Wednesday hearing from a top Treasury Department official on why the agency has stonewalled investigating top Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue for boosting an anti-Israel group accused of being linked to terrorism.

In September 2023, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked the FBI and Treasury Department to review whether ActBlue Charities Inc., violated federal law after a Washington Examiner report on the platform cutting ties with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions National Committee. However, the agency has not replied to Issa, a fact that prompted Lawler to grill Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson in a House Financial Services Committee hearing.

“ActBlue Charities allowed the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to fundraise on its platform for two years until repeated calls by the Examiner to address this,” Lawler said. “Undersecretary Nelson, Mr. Issa sent you this letter on Sept. 21, 2023, asking multiple questions regarding whether ActBlue Charities has raised funds for international terrorism through its fundraising collaboration and inquiring about a review.”

Lawler continued, “It’s my understanding he has still not received a response. So can you answer, have you conducted any such review, and will you respond to representative Issa?”

“We will, of course, respond to the letter,” Nelson replied.

“Have you conducted any such review yet?” Lawler asked.

“I’ll have to go back and talk to my staff, but we’ll respond—,” said Nelson, to which Lawler said, “So, you’re, at this moment, you’re not aware of any such review?”

“I’m not currently aware,” Nelson said.

Issa is preparing to send another letter to the Treasury Department on the ActBlue issue, which has only become more concerning to lawmakers seeking to thwart terrorism financing after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

PACBI, which was on ActBlue from 2021 to 2023, is a project of Alliance for Global Justice, a charity in Arizona revealed through a Washington Examiner investigation to share ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group.
My Word: The Eurovision and the drums of war
Spoiler alert: Israel is not going to win this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. It doesn’t matter how Eden Golan performs, what song she sings, and what message she delivers to the multi-million-viewer audience around the world. She is simply out of tune with international sentiment by the very fact that she is Israeli – and proud of it.

The musical event sings its own praises as being apolitical, but experience has shown otherwise. It was clear, after all, that Ukraine was going to win the 2022 Eurovision, following Russia’s brutal invasion. The six-member Kalush Orchestra, with its folk-hip hop fusion, could have sung anything, worn anything, and said anything and still won. Eden Golan is in the opposite situation.

But winning the Eurovision is not the same as winning the war, which is what really counts. There has been a drop in international aid to Ukraine and the gains that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces once so remarkably made have been held in check. Russian missile and drone attacks on places like Kharkiv take a toll but hardly make global headlines. The woes and narrative of the Palestinians have usurped other stories.

But this is the global village and there are connections – global jihad connections. For instance, according to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) this month reported that Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are training Russian drone operators at a Syrian air base.
Ireland's hostility towards Israel must be stopped
Assassinated at age 32 in a roadside ambush, Michael Collins was an inspiration for underground fighters worldwide, including future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, whose underground name – “Michael” – was borrowed from the Irish rebel.

The Jewish and Irish liberation movements had a lot in common – national traumas, dormant languages, intercontinental diasporas, and the British enemy – and initially respected each other.

Collins at one point hid among Dublin’s Jews disguised as an Orthodox Jew. An Irish Jew, Robert Briscoe, was the IRA’s arms purchaser and served as an adviser to Menachem Begin as the latter set out to turn his own anti-British militia into the political party it indeed became.

That’s how things were when the Jews were anti-British. But by the mid-1950s, as Britain and Israel became allies, Ireland became Israel’s foe. Last week that enmity got out of hand, making it plain that it’s time for Jews to stand up to Ireland’s abuse.

When did Ireland's hostility start?
IRISH HOSTILITY toward Israel bubbled on two levels. Clandestinely, the IRA inspired and helped Palestinian terrorism. Officially, Ireland delayed its exchange of ambassadors with Israel until 1993.

Dublin’s explanation for this standoffishness was that Israel was violating United Nations resolutions. That claim alone, besides being debatable, was also hypocritical, as many of the countries Ireland did not shun were violating not only UN resolutions but the UN charter itself.

Still, fingering Israel – which included even a protestation of the 1981 bombing of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor– was part of a self-important mindset, a version of the role Romania played those days within the Eastern bloc by making the occasional anti-Soviet statement.

Israel, for its part, had more urgent problems to deal with and saw the Irish position less as part of the Israeli situation and more as part of the Irish psyche. Ultimately, Israelis figured, Ireland is part of the West, if even a marginal part. In 1993, this “let them be” attitude seemed to have paid off when the Oslo Accords finally made Dublin accommodate an Israeli embassy.

Even so, Ireland never sought a middle ground between Israel and the Palestinians. Dublin took the Palestinian side. By far the most anti-Israeli country in Europe, Dublin actively incites other European countries against Israel, Israeli diplomats report. Deluding itself that it is still living in the days of Michael Collins, Dublin adopts and spreads the libel that Israel is part of what Ireland’s liberators fought.
Justin Trudeau keeps dancing to Hamas's tune
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has found himself, once again, at odds with Israel’s war effort, calling on Wednesday for the Israeli military to nix plans to mount an attack on Rafah. But while Trudeau may have, in his own mind, been taking a principled humanitarian stand, his words played right into the hands of Hamas, whose clear endgame has always been to pack as many Gazans as possible into the city for use as human shields.

In a joint statement cosigned by the leaders of Australia and New Zealand, Trudeau said he was “gravely concerned” about the rumoured Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, claiming that such an operation would be “catastrophic” for the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians taking refuge in and around Gaza’s southernmost city.

“There is growing international consensus. Israel must listen to its friends and it must listen to the international community,” read the statement, which heavily implied that an Israeli attack on Rafah would violate international law.

This marks the second time that the trio of anglosphere leaders have publicly given Israel a cold shoulder at a critical juncture of its now four-month-long war with Hamas. In December, the three prime ministers released a similar joint communiquรฉ calling for a “sustainable ceasefire” in Gaza, telegraphing their intention to side against Israel at a then-imminent UN General Assembly vote.

The fallout from the first joint statement was swift and humiliating for all involved. A week later, a senior Hamas official appeared in a video message thanking the three countries for backing the push for a ceasefire in Gaza. The unwelcome expression of gratitude left Canada’s foreign affairs minister Mรฉlanie Joly scrambling to do damage control, insisting Hamas had “no future in Gaza” in an after-hours tweet.
Why anti-Semitism lives on in Labour
Benedict Spence joins Tom Slater and Fraser Myers for the latest episode of the spiked podcast. They discuss the Rochdale anti-Semitism scandal, Britain’s two-tier justice system and how trans ideology threatens grassroots sport.


Lord Austin suspended by housing association over Hamas tweet
Housing secretary Michael Gove has criticised a housing association for dropping independent peer Ian Austin as their chair after he tweeted calling Hamas a "death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists."

Gove said he was seeking an "urgent meeting and explanation" from the housing association, which receives substantial public funding.

In the now-deleted post, Lord Austin ridiculed Unwra’s claim it had been unaware that Hamas was operating underneath its Gaza headquarters. He tweeted: “Everyone, better safe than sorry: before you go to bed, nip down and check you haven’t inadvertently got a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists running their operations downstairs. It’s easily done.”

Mend, a Muslim campaign group claimed that the tweet was Islamophobic, and there was a backlash online, ed to the peer receiving a torrent of abuse, including several death threats made on X, formerly Twitter. Social media users with red triangles in their names – a symbol used to suggest support for Hamas – have also posted a barrage of derogatory and threatening posts aimed at the peer.

Lord Austin then deleted the post. He tweeted: “It was not my intention to offend anyone and I have deleted it.

“As I have written and said many times – including in a national newspaper today – the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and terrorism as everyone else.”

Mend said that Lord Austin’s original tweet contained “humiliating stereotypes” which constitute "harassment towards Muslims”. The group mobilised its supporters with an “action alert” and created a “step-by-step" guide to lodge an official complaint against the peer.


Could Rochdale Muslims enraged by the war in Gaza sweep Putin-loving firebrand George Galloway back into the House of Commons?
The colours of Palestine are proudly on display at George Galloway's campaign headquarters next to a former Suzuki car showroom in Rochdale. The flyers bearing his face on the railings outside? Black, white and green. The giant poster next to them? Black, white and green. The leaflets stacked on trestle tables inside? Black, white and green. The badge on Galloway's lapel? Black, white and green.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you are still in Rochdale, an old mill town in the foothills of the Pennines, north of Manchester. Galloway, now 69 and one of the most controversial political firebrands of recent times — who has lately been busy retweeting admiring posts of Vladimir Putin — is on the stump here for the forthcoming by-election, in his signature black fedora and Ray-Ban spectacles, megaphone in hand. 'For Rochdale, For Gaza' is his slogan.

'Gaza is the main issue facing at least 40,000 people,' he tells me unapologetically when I meet him one evening this week back in his 'bunker' on the outskirts of the town centre, where he is plotting to return to parliament for the fourth time — only Winston Churchill is ahead of him, having represented five constituencies —on a budget of just £15,000.

But what about the other 180,000-odd people outside the Muslim community in Rochdale who may not feel the same way, George?

'We have lots of other things we are planning to do,' he retorts.

His manifesto, he says, includes reinstating local maternity services, opening more youth clubs, providing more support for business and promising to clean the town hall clock.

And with another anti-Semitic scandal embroiling the Labour Party, the bookies have now made the pugnacious Scot — who, as someone once said, could start an argument in a phone box — the narrow favourite to win the seat.

The bigger picture is that Sir Keir Starmer's response to the controversy has triggered a serious crisis in his leadership, notwithstanding the thumping double by-election victory in Kingswood and Wellingborough yesterday.
Pro-Palestinian protests on campus are calling for Jewish blood
Gone are the days when our biggest worries were a pop quiz or late assignment.

Not one week after Israel suffered the worst terror attack in its history, self-proclaimed “activists” on college campuses began to support the murderous rampage perpetrated by Hamas.

At the University of Maryland, College Park, anti-Israel protesters chanted, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and chalked “Long live the intifada” on a main campus plaza. At UC Davis, students read out the names of “martyrs,” offering no distinction between innocent civilians and Hamas terrorists. They also chanted in Arabic what translates to “from water to water, Palestine is Arab.” At UC Berkeley, protesters declared, “We don’t want no two states, we want all of 48,” and later encircled Jewish students, shouting “Zionist shame.”

Cloaked in the language of liberation and resistance, the grave implications of popular slogans are overlooked. When you bellow “intifada” across campus, you dredge up our collective nightmare of losing over 1,400 Israelis in the First and Second Intifadas. When you yell “glory to our martyrs,” you’re exalting a legacy of violence and despair, celebrating figures drenched in the blood of the innocent. And when you scream at Jewish students, telling them to “take a shower” or ominously whisper, “We know where you live, Jew,” you’re not making a political statement. You’re dragging us, in 2024, to the darkest chapters of history, insisting we relive the trauma of ghettos and genocides. This isn’t advocacy; it’s an affront to our shared humanity – a deliberate provocation wrapped in the banner of free speech.

What do these phrases mean?
Anti-Israel agitators have succeeded in distorting the meaning of phrases and sanitizing their messaging when appealing to those who have little knowledge of the conflict. We have taken it upon ourselves to unpack the factual meaning behind these phrases.

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.”

This slogan advocates for dissolving Israel’s presence on land, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This phrase disregards the historical and UN-acknowledged Jewish ties to the land, signaling a stance that goes beyond seeking peace to suggesting the dismantling of the Jewish state.

“There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”
Palestinian performers withdraw from National Multicultural Festival over controversy surrounding play about Gaza
Controversy has erupted just as the National Multicultural Festival kicks off in Canberra.

A group of Palestinian performers say festival organisers told them they had to remove the parts of their play about Gaza for being political.

The Australian Palestinian group, Tales of a Homeland, was set to make its debut at the festival in Canberra today with a play called Gaza Press about frontline workers currently serving in the conflict in Gaza.

The group has now pulled out of the festival, and will not perform.

Co-director Jana Fayyad told ABC Radio Canberra the group's proposal to put on the play at the festival was submitted and accepted in early January, and was made up of both a script and an explanation of the story.

"We made it very clear that it was set in Gaza," Ms Fayyad said.

"We made sure that we sent them the proposal because we wanted to confirm with the festival before we made our arrangements.

"[Then later] we were contacted by two of the festival organisers who called us into a meeting and said that they were concerned about our play, and they wanted us to remove the parts about Gaza and stick to the dabkeh, which is our traditional Palestinian dance [that was included in the play]."

Ms Fayyad said in that meeting she and her co-director pushed back and told the organisers they would not change the play as it was a representation of Palestinian culture.

She said after a week, another meeting was called with a senior representative, who again said they would have to remove parts about Gaza from the play. Government says proposed performance was changed from original application

ACT Communities Services Directorate executive group manager Anita Perkins told ABC Radio Canberra the grant application from the Palestinian delegation was "for the Tales of a Homeland presentation, which is a folk dance".

"Our understanding is the original application that we received for Tales of a Homeland had been updated to now be called Gaza Press, and it did incorporate more elements about the conflict that is being experienced at the moment," Ms Perkins said.

"The team was proposing to put on a different performance from what they applied for, so we wanted to work through with them that it would be appropriate given it was something different than we have been advertising.
Soros network gave paid fellowship to head of anti-Israel center propping up terrorism
The philanthropy network steering the wealth of Democratic megadonor George Soros awarded a paid fellowship to the leader of a law school’s anti-Israel office facing a Senate investigation for promoting terrorist sympathizers, records show.

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans this month requested Rutgers University by Feb. 20 turn over funding and budget information on its Center for Security, Race and Rights, which the lawmakers accused of spreading “vile antisemitic propaganda,” while its advisory board included Adeel Mangi, a judicial nominee for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Rutgers Law professor Sahar Aziz, who directs the center, pocketed $143,000 from the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations network for its equality fellowship to advance “racial justice,” according to disclosures on the grantmaker’s website.

That Aziz was a fellow through OSF for 18 months beginning in 2021 is likely to light a fire under Republicans to obtain financial records from Rutgers on the Center for Security, Race and Rights, which equated condemnation of Hamas last year to attempts to “ignore over 75 years of colonial violence and the horrific consequences born out of these decades of oppression and attempted erasure.” Soros is a chief foe of conservatives, who have long held that the 93-year-old billionaire’s staggering grants through OSF, such as to pro-Palestinian organizations linked to terrorism, fuel societal decay. OSF’s expenditures in 2022 were $1.3 billion, with at least $37.7 million of that sum being directed to the Middle East and North Africa.

“I am not at all surprised that the center’s director received funding from George Soros’s web of dark money,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner, noting he and his Judiciary panel colleagues aim to vet the center’s funding sources and “promotion of antisemitic propaganda.”

In their letter last Tuesday, senators expressed concern to Rutgers about its center, which received $6,500 from Mangi and $13,000 from his law firm, Patterson Belknap, over the years. The center hosted a 2021 event on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which featured Sami al Arian, an ex-University of South Florida professor who pleaded guilty in 2006 to aiding the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. It also featured Hatem Bazian, a University of California, Berkeley professor who has supported “intifada” against Israel, and Rabab Abdulhadi, a San Francisco State University professor who’s hosted events with convicted Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist Leila Khaled.


Al Jazeera: A genocidal anti-Israel propaganda machine
The Qatar-based Al Jazeera television network is an evil empire. It glorifies Hamas, including its “heroic” massacres of October 7 and ongoing “resistance” against Israel, and all forms of Iranian proxy terrorism against Israel. It aids Hamas by reporting on IDF troop movements in Gaza and on IDF forces concentrated along the Gaza border. It is actively drumming up Ramadan terrorism against Israelis too.

There are ways of blocking Al Jazeera’s broadcasts from Israel and the territories and its reception in Israel and the territories, but Israel needs to gum up the gumption to do so despite Qatar’s protected status as a mediator between Israel and Hamas in the hostage matter.

Cutting Al Jazeera down to size on the international scene is long overdue. The network hosts the most virile antisemitic, radical Islamic preachers who poison the minds of millions against Israel and the West.

Closing down Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel by stripping its reporters of their press credentials has been on the agenda ever since then-communications minister Ayoob Kara raised the matter in 2017 after Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE took steps to shutter Al Jazeera offices and block its websites.

These countries are targets for Al Jazeera’s poisons because they are not in the pro-Iranian or radical Islamic camps. Al Jazeera supported Osama bin Laden’s calls to overthrow the monarchy in Saudi Arabia and support for the Muslim Brotherhood overthrow of President Mubarak in Egypt, the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra’s campaign against President Assad in Syria, and more.
In Nasser Hospital Coverage, New York Times Underperforms the Babylon Bee
Will the New York Times ever stop falling for the Gaza “hospitals threatened” Hamas publicity stunt?

The New York Times of Thursday February 15 resumed the newspaper’s preferred post-October 7 status as a kind of Gaza hospital trade association newsletter. “Hundreds Vacate Hospital in Fear of Israeli Attack,” is the lead, front-page headline.

The article carries the bylines of three Times journalists, with “reporting was contributed” credits for another seven, for a total of ten journalists. Among those contributing reporting is a newer name, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad. Her social media timeline is full of retweets of journalistically objective material such as “Across the country Zionists are beating, gassing, shooting, lynching Palestinians. They’re unhinged. The videos we’re seeing are reminiscent of the Nakba. State-settler collusion emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land. Terrorist, genocidal nation” and “IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child.”

You might think that by now the Times would have learned from its mistakes in terms of covering Gaza hospitals that turn out to be Hamas terrorist bases.

Back in October, the Times published an editors’ note confessing that editors “should have taken more care,” instead of falling for false Hamas claims blaming Israel for killing hundreds at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

Earlier this week, the Times even belatedly acknowledged about Al-Shifa Hospital that “Hamas used the hospital for cover, stored weapons inside it and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath the complex. The Times had obsessed about that hospital on its front page for weeks, passing along to its readers ritualistic denials from Hamas and the hospital’s leadership notwithstanding that they were transparently bogus.
BBC News ignores Al Jazeera journalists stories
Footage of Abu Omar at Nir Oz on October 7th as well as documentation of his praise for the massacre committed on that day is available online.

As readers no doubt recall, the BBC has produced no small amount of content in recent months (and also before the current conflict) promoting the allegation – including from Al Jazeera – that Israel ‘targets journalists’ and whitewashing the terror links of some of the journalists killed in the region in recent months and years:

BBC NEWS WEBSITE REPORTING ON THE DEATHS OF JOURNALISTS

MORE UNCRITICAL BBC AMPLIFICATION OF CPJ MESSAGING

MORE BBC AMPLIFICATION OF AL JAZEERA’S ‘TARGETING JOURNALISTS’ FALSEHOOD

BBC NEWS STICKS TO THE NARRATIVE AFTER ‘JOURNALISTS’ EXPOSED

It therefore perhaps does not come as much of a surprise to find that the BBC has to date shown no interest whatsoever in informing its audiences about the latest two stories concerning the additional activities of some Al Jazeera journalists.
Imam recites Quran at Belgian parliament, calling for killing, kidnapping of Jews

Did Biden just accidentally ban arms sales to Turkey?
After more than a year of negotiation and brinkmanship, President Joe Biden believed he found the magic formula to compel his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to lift his hold on Sweden’s NATO accession. The same day Turkey’s rubber stamp parliament ratified Erdogan’s approval of Sweden, the White House called members of Congress to urge them to lift their hold on a multibillion-dollar sale of F-16s and jet fighter upgrade packages. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan may call it a sophisticated diplomacy, but a more honest assessment is that it was humiliating acquiescence to Turkey’s extortion.

Two weeks later, on Feb. 9, 2024, Biden signed a presidential memorandum to authorize a swift cutoff of military assistance to countries that violate international protections of civilians. Motivating Biden was a desire to virtue signal. Politically, he hoped to assuage an important Arab and Muslim constituency in Michigan upset at his administration’s support for Israel in its fight against U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. Diplomatically, Biden hopes to blunt criticism of European and Arab partners who criticize the United States in order to project self-righteousness, never mind the irony that Israel allowed Hamas more freedom in Gaza than Jordan’s King Abdullah II or Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would ever grant it in their own kingdoms.

Biden’s implied criticism of Israel was also unfair: Hamas violates international law by holding hostages and uses Gaza’s civilian population as human shields. Urban warfare is always brutal, but the U.S. destruction of Mosul and Raqqa in the name of their liberation from the Islamic State was as deadly if not as destructive as Israel’s operations in Gaza.

Biden, however, did not write the presidential memorandum narrowly. He directs the United States government to cut off military aid swiftly if not immediately to all countries that violate international protections.

It is time for Congress to tell the White House that its F-16 sale to Turkey is now illegal. Turkey regularly bombs civilians in Syria and Iraq. As the international media focused on Gaza, Turkey systematically used drones and F-16s to destroy civilian and economic infrastructure in districts of Syria under Kurdish control.

Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus likewise now nears its half-century mark. It is illegal under every interpretation of international law. There is no corollary between the West Bank and Gaza on one hand and northern Cyprus on the other. The former are technically disputed since Gaza was not a country when Israel took possession in 1967 from Jordan and Egypt, neither of which were legal sovereigns of the territory.


North Carolina gubernatorial candidate accused of Holocaust denial touts Israel support
One candidate is an Ivy League-educated attorney who over 25 years amassed allies as he climbed North Carolina’s Democratic ladder. The other is a former furniture factory worker with a history of blunt commentary who plowed into Republican politics four years ago after a viral video on gun rights vaulted him to prominence.

While taking dramatically different paths, Attorney General Josh Stein and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson have emerged as front-runners for their parties’ nominations for governor next month in the race to succeed term-limited Democrat Roy Cooper in the nation’s ninth-largest state.

Each faces credible rivals, including two Republicans seeking to defeat Robinson using their own personal wealth to convince GOP voters that he’s too controversial to lead the state. But Robinson and Stein have led their fields in fundraising and won potentially pivotal support from Donald Trump and Cooper for their respective candidacies.

As early in-person voting for the March 5 primaries began Thursday, national party groups were already gearing up for an expensive and heated general election campaign, regardless of who advances.

“People are definitely considering it the most important competitive [gubernatorial] race in 2024,” said Mac McCorkle, a Duke University public policy professor who advised two of Cooper’s predecessors.
California judge under investigation for alleged antisemitism, ethical violations
A Northern California judge is under investigation by a state agency for allegedly making antisemitic remarks when addressing a deputy public defender, failing to recuse himself from cases involving attorneys and other people he socialized with, sexually harassing women, and other ethical violations.

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Gregory Kreis was notified last week he is charged with 19 ethical violations going back to 2015.

California’s Commission on Judicial Performance, which investigates complaints against members of the judicial branch, said in its notice of formal proceedings that Kreis is charged with “willful misconduct in office, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute, and improper action.”

Kreis, who was appointed to the bench in 2017 by former Governor Jerry Brown, has until February 22 to respond to the commission. He was previously a Humboldt County public defender.

Kreis said in a statement posted on social media last week that the allegations against him were “outright lies” and noted they come as he is seeking reelection. He is running in the March 5 primary for another 6-year term.
Call Me Back PodCast: The spirit of a nation at war — with Wendy Singer
Hosted by Dan Senor
While there has been a lot of resentment inside Israel towards its political and security leadership, Israeli society has stepped up in ways sometimes impossible for me to describe. So, when I was in Israel, I asked Wendy Singer to join me for a conversation about what most Israelis are seeing and experiencing at the grassroots level, day-to-day, that we may not see.

Wendy Singer is an advisor to several Israeli high-tech start-ups, including Re-Milk — https://www.remilk.com/
Wendy was the executive director of Start-Up Nation Central since its founding in 2013 — https://startupnationcentral.org/
Previously, she was the director of AIPAC’s Israel office for 16 years and served in AIPAC’s Washington office before immigrating to Israel in 1994. Earlier in her career, Wendy was a foreign policy advisor in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.


Philanthropist Sylvan Adams works to rebuild Israel's abandoned south
The outbreak of the war on Oct. 7 inspired philanthropist Sylvan Adams to make a transformational donation to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, aimed at advancing education and campus life while rebuilding and strengthening the South


Last Oct. 7 victim leaves hospital, meets soldiers who saved him
Shalev fought for his life after being injured on October 7, and now he is finally going home – as the last of those wounded to be released from the hospital






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