Monday, October 07, 2024

10/07 Links Pt1: After the October 7 pogrom; We expected Hamas to kill Jews. We didn’t expect Americans to celebrate it.

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: After the October 7 pogrom
Writing the Jews out of their own unique suffering like this — and even blaming them for it — is another ancient trope of Jew-hatred. But O’Neill doesn’t stop there. He probes yet more profoundly into the sickness — and discovers a truth that few have identified. This is that antisemitism causes jealousy.

I have myself written about this — that people complain “the Jews have sucked up all the victimhood in the world and left none for anyone else”. Crazy, or what? But as I wrote, faced with the Nazi genocide of the Jews and the complicity or indifference of the west in enabling it to happen, there are people who respond by wanting what, in their warped view, the Jews were given in response — an apparent shield, provided by the charge of antisemitism, against being blamed for anything bad they actually do.

These Jew-haters believe that antisemitism lets the Jews get away with it.

Get away with what, precisely? Well, all the things that antisemites believe about the Jews but aren’t allowed to say and, they believe, are true — for example, that the Jews hurt others in their own interests but hide it behind the charge of antisemitism. The Jew-haters (who purport merely to hate Israel) want that get-out-of-jail-free card for themselves. In other words, as I concluded, rampant Jew-hatred isn’t just an outcome of intersectional victim culture. It squats at its very core.

O’Neill writes:
We are living in an era of Holocaust envy. The ascendancy of the politics of victimhood has nurtured a palpable hostility towards the idea that the Holocaust was uniquely barbarous. In an era in which victimhood confers moral authority, when the way you secure both social sympathy and state resources is by claiming to suffer “structural oppression”, it simply won’t do that the Jews have a singular claim over the gravest instance of victimisation in history. And so their claim on the Holocaust must be questioned, weakened, loosened. What about the other victims of Nazi murder? What about other genocides? Challenging the distinctive nature of the Holocaust, even demoting the Holocaust further down the pecking order of human agony, is the grim inevitable consequence of a cult of competitive grievance in which accruing ever-more tales of pain is the way you move ahead.

There’s much else in O’Neill’s savage analysis of the west’s reaction to the October 7 pogrom — the betrayal of feminism by the refusal to acknowledge the rapes of the female Israeli victims, the cult of “keffiyeh chic” as the ultimate cultural appropriation, and the genocidal streak of the student “snowflakes” who preposterously claim they endure trauma from “micro-aggressions” such as the failure to use their preferred pronouns.

O’Neill views the moral obscenity of the reaction to October 7 as the confluence of Islamist and radical western thought — an alliance between one of the most barbarous and reactionary creeds on the planet with the ideologies of “decolonisation” and critical race theory to seek the destruction of the Jewish state as the forward salient of a war against civilisation and humanity itself.

Brendan O’Neill hasn’t just provided a valuable analysis of the west’s cultural meltdown. He is in himself a health-giving antidote to the poison coursing through the cultural elites of Britain and the west. Bravo.
Seth Mandel: Defining October 7
What was October 7, 2023?

In a sane world, the question would be unnecessary. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which Amnesty International—one of the leading “human rights for everyone but the Jews” organizations around the globe—marked the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks with a video that is perhaps the best single example of why we are in a battle to define the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

In the video, a woman who’s speaking for a group of marching anti-Israel protesters says: “Don’t let anyone tell you this all started on the seventh of October 2023.”

What is “this”? Believe it or not, she never says. Rather, she launches into a diatribe against Israel’s founding 76 years ago and its continued existence. Later, she says: “And when there is no accountability, there is no reason to change, or to stop. And that’s why, one year on, Israel has escalated its attacks on Lebanon leading to more devastation and death.”

One year on from what, exactly? Where did Lebanon come into the mix? Again, she never says. And on some level, we understand: Her implicit defense of the barbarism of that day is genuinely evil, but as long as she doesn’t say it explicitly she can still look herself in the mirror.

The coopting of Oct. 7 by Hamas’s supporters around the world is why we have to say, and keep saying, what exactly happened that day. It’s what motivates one of the many worthwhile documentaries about Oct. 7, 2023, Pierre Rehov’s Pogrom(s).

Rehov’s documentary is a worthy expression of the horror and the sorrow and the devastation because its premise is also that none of “this” began on Oct. 7, 2023. Hence the title of the film, which not only describes the horrors but attempts to name them.

In the film, Richard Rossin, the former head of Doctors Without Borders, tells the viewer that Oct. 7 was far more than a terror attack. Dalia Ziada, a prominent pro-democracy activist in Egypt during the Arab Spring turmoil, offers: “What happened on October 7 was a genocide attack.”

Perhaps the film’s best attempt to categorize that day comes from Sarah-Masha Fainberg of Tel Aviv University: “Hamas operatives intentionally chose the modus operandi of the pogromists of tsarist Russia and of the Einsatzgruppen during World War II, to reactivate a deep sense of Jewish vulnerability.”

It’s true, Oct. 7 didn’t begin on Oct. 7, 2023. But as Fainberg notes, it also didn’t start in 1948 with Israel’s rebirth. It was the continuation of the long march of the oldest hatred.

In that sense, there is something almost mystical about it. In every generation they rise up to destroy us, and here they are rising up again. Still, Rehov’s film warns against taking that too far and thus removing from the Palestinians their agency. Rehov interviews Yuval Bitton, the former intelligence head of Israel’s prison service and a man who has spent many hours in that capacity with Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded Oct. 7. Bitton was also one of the Israeli doctors who helped save Sinwar’s life while he was in an Israeli prison.

“Whoever defines [Sinwar] as a psychopath gives him a gift,” Bitton says. “That’s basically saying that he didn’t know what he was doing.” But that, Bitton says, is plainly untrue. “Sinwar is not a psychopath. Sinwar knew exactly what he was doing. This is part of their worldview.”

By “this,” Bitton means: The wanton murder, by hand, of 1,200 innocents and the kidnapping of over 200 more men, women, and children. By “this” he means what another captured Hamas operative says when asked what the terror group had planned to do with women captives: “To whore them. To rape them.” By “this” he means the killing spree so savage that emergency responders found teeth and scalps at the kibbutzim that came under attack, kindergartens covered in blood, charred human remains and piles of ashes.
Bari Weiss: A Year of Revelations ‘We expected Hamas to kill Jews. We didn’t expect Americans to celebrate it.’
Someone asked me the other day how I planned to commemorate October 7. I found myself speechless, befuddled by the question.

How do you offer an elegy when the war is not yet over—and 101 hostages, those still alive and the bodies of the murdered, are not yet home? How do you remember a catastrophe when it is still unfolding? How do you mark a past event that feels as though it was a prelude to a much deeper darkness, whose dimensions we are still discovering? How do you look at something with a sense of distance when it has revealed so much, so close to home?

The genocidal war launched by Iran and its proxies a year ago this morning began with rocket fire and a ground invasion by Hamas battalions who carried maps of every kibbutz and village. These maps, made by Palestinians who worked inside Israel, told them where the daycare centers were, where the weapons were stored, which families owned a dog. After several thousand terrorists, targeting civilians, had raped, murdered, and kidnapped, they were followed by waves of ordinary Gazans—to borrow Chris Browning’s phrase—who played their role in a day of slaughter with millennia-old echoes in Jewish history.

Just look at the terror on the face of Shiri Bibas, clinging to her nine-month-old baby Kfir and her four-year-old son Ariel—an image that flashes across my eyes when I put our children to sleep.

I do not mean to say that the more than 1,200 human beings murdered by Hamas terrorists on that day—at a music festival, in their beds, in shelters where they sought safety—are symbols of history or politics. Only that what happened on that day—what Hamas did—was exactly what they had always said they would do in their founding charter, which calls for the genocide of the Jewish people. In stealing the Bibas family, and in butchering and maiming and raping and burning their neighbors, the terror group was doing exactly what it promised.

The promise of America was to give “bigotry no sanction,” as our first president wrote in 1790 to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

But on October 7, 2023, the enemies of Washington’s vision—of America’s founding impulse—began to reveal themselves.

As news of the scope of the slaughter was still registering, and the tally of hostages still being made—the final count: 240 people from 40 countries carried off like barbaric spoils of war—progressive groups here at home and across the West began to celebrate.

More than 30 student clubs at Harvard put out a letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for the massacre. Israel. Not Hamas. Israel. This was on October 8, as Hamas terrorists were still roaming Israel’s south, and Hezbollah began its assault on Israel’s north from Lebanon.

Surely it had to be some terrible mistake, a sick prank. But the statement was sincere. And it wasn’t an anomaly.
October 7: A Year of Free Press Stories

A Year Ago Today, Terrorists Stole My Son
There are two videos that capture seconds of the terror my son experienced that day.

In the first one, terrorists are seen outside the shelter, throwing grenades into it one after another, while shouting at someone sitting on the ground outside. Gunshots can be heard in the background. The Hamas men throw grenade after grenade at the young men and women hiding in the shelter, but they are thrown back out—though in the video you cannot see who is deflecting them.

Another horrific video shows Alon being dragged by his hair across the ground outside the shelter by a terrorist in plainclothes. Another, wearing camo fatigues and a green Hamas headband, helps him lift my son into a white Toyota pickup truck. A third terrorist joins in to hit him before two of the terrorists raise their guns and point them at Alon, before the camera pans back toward the shelter. There is blood on him—on his face and on his shirt—but it is hard to make out his face.

For a time, that was all we knew. Later we learned the name of the hero who deflected those grenades. He was Aner Shapiro, and he was 22 years old. He was able to throw seven grenades out of the shelter, but died when the eighth exploded in his hands. He had come to the festival with his dear friend, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who Hamas murdered after 325 days in captivity.

Was my son Alon kept with Hersh in the tunnels? Is he with Or Levy and Eliya Cohen right now? I have no idea. And I try desperately not to think of his gruesome abduction, or how he has spent the past 365 days.

Instead I try to think about his beautiful blond hair and his green eyes. I think about how funny he is and how much he loves people. I think about how excited he would get about things, and how he would just light up—like with cars, which he’s been obsessed with since he was two years old. Or about cooking and surfing, and of course, music. I think about how I played Beethoven and Mozart for him while he was in my womb.

I think about how, after he finished his army service and saved up some money working at a luxury hotel in the south, he decided to travel to Asia, a common destination for young Israelis. But unlike most of his friends, he did it alone. He told me, “I want to see how I can be with myself, and cope with myself.” He loved it—he did a trek in Nepal and traveled around the south of India and Sri Lanka. He met up with so many people there, new friends and old. He had a big appetite for life, and an ability to find beauty in every experience. It’s hard to find a picture of him where he’s not laughing.

Two months after my son was stolen, a few of his friends arrived at my house to give us a key to their new apartment. That’s where his room is, waiting for him. The last time I saw him, at around eleven o’clock on the night of October 6, Alon played his piano for us a bit before leaving for the festival. He played a cover of Yehudit Ravitz’s “Song Without a Name.” It was beautiful. He left the piano open and it’s been open ever since, waiting.

After a year of the terrible, terrible conditions he has suffered, I don’t know if he will want to continue living as he did before. But if he does, it’s all waiting for him when he comes home.


Stephen Pollard: The October 7 pogrom changed what it means to be a British Jew
You know your real friends when you need them. And we have needed them. But where are they? I have – had, I must now say – one friend I have known since childhood. As you do, we’ve seen less of each other since marriage, kids and divorces – since adult life took over – but we have kept in touch for nearly 50 years, annual lunches, texts, phone calls.

It’s now a year since October 7 and I have not heard a word. Nothing. That is not a passive silence. It’s an aggressive, loud silence. It says everything. It screams, “Go away, Jew, remove yourself from my life”. We all have it: friends, acquaintances, neighbours who turn out – at best – not to give a damn and at worst decide they no longer want contact with Der Jude.

For years we have looked at the BBC and despaired at its inability to report fairly or even accurately on Israel. But that has been taken to a new level since October 7. BBC Arabic employs “reporters” who appeared to celebrate the massacre. And on the mainstream BBC, the stories to blame Israel for everything, always, are on display daily. Its international editor, Jeremy Bowen, admits insouciantly that his reporting is wrong. On October 17 he reported that the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza had been flattened by Israel. It had not been touched. “Oh yeah, well I got that wrong”, he replied when this was pointed out. “I don’t feel particularly bad about that. I don’t regret one thing in my reporting, because I think I was measured throughout, I didn’t race to judgment.” The American writer HL Mencken said that reading a newspaper was like injecting yourself with poison for breakfast. Since October 7 the BBC has injected our country’s body politic with poison.

But there have also been the allies – the mensches who in the weeks after the explosion of hate following October 7 went out of their way to show that they get it. The Alison Moyets, who told the world last year, “Seeing my Jewish neighbours and friends shrink into themselves as antisemitism rears its head again on our shores is heart wrenching. Years now we have trumpeted the righteousness of protecting our nation’s minorities. We need to remember that need for all as the world hardens.” Or the Tom Hollands, who posted: “All of us in the UK who are not Jewish – an immense, an overwhelming majority – have a responsibility in these troubled times to make our Jewish fellow-citizens feel valued and safe. A responsibility that clearly right now we are failing to meet. It shames the country.” Or the people we hadn’t even thought of as friends who simply asked how we are simply because they are good people, without even realising quite how much it meant to us.

That sense that we are on our own – that our moorings have gone as the ground has shifted underneath us – has been overwhelming. Our community has always thought of itself as, above all else, British, who happen to be Jewish. But so did German Jews. So did Viennese Jews. So did Jews everywhere throughout our history.

But what happens now, when it is clear that so many of our fellow countrymen – not the Jew haters, but the silent majority – do not think of us as British Jews but as Jews who happen to hold British citizenship? We are only a year on from October 7, but even now it is obvious something fundamental has changed.

This past year has changed almost everything. We know the hate is out there. We know the indifference is out there. And yes, we know the support is out there, too.

What we do not yet know is how all of that will change what it means to be a British Jew.
Howard Jacobson: ‘Politics stepped in where pity alone, at least for a while, should have spoken’
This time, with the smell of blood everywhere, the old superstitious slanders of the Jews could be repeated. Never mind settler-colonialists, we were back murdering babies, only this time our infanticide was caught on camera. Every night on the BBC a new baby dying and never mind the circumstances, the reasons, or the truth. And the pictures were indeed unbearable. Worse than “appalling”. Those children, too, deserved a vocabulary that registered the horror of their deaths. But cruelty has degrees and in case the death of Palestinian children didn’t, in vile intent, measure up to Hamas’s cold-blooded sadism, every Israeli soldier had to become a butcher and every pilot a deliberate child-killer. What possible advantage to Israel accrued by its picking out mothers and children to bomb, no one asked. This was just what Jews did.

“Could what the Israelis are doing in Gaza be the worst mass murder of the innocent in the history of the world?” a radio presenter asked recently. Unfortunately for him, he was talking to a military historian. No, it wasn’t. You could smell the presenter’s disappointment. Please let the Jews be guilty of the worst mass murder in the history of the world. Because then we could forget that they’d been the victims of the previous one.

It bothered the accusers not a jot that they were repeating libels centuries old. As it bothered them not a jot to wickedly conflate Zionists and Nazis. The concurrence of that Z is unfortunate. Or it is for us. For those who wanted it to, it worked like magic. Some uncanny malevolence was at work that more than justified the Hamas heroes’ massacre. And now the walls were down and it was possible to swear at Jews all one liked and call them by the name of those who killed them by the million – how thrillingly impious that was! – the topsy-turvy vocabulary of Jew-hate was off the leash. Genocide became the word of the hour, no matter that the International Court of Justice did not license use of it to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, while the true génocidaires were those who marched to a song calling for the ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land of Jews.

Do your genocidal (sometimes self-genocidal) sons and daughters at Oxford truly know what they’re chanting as they parade along Broad Street in their mortar boards and keffiyehs? Almost certainly not. Theirs is the politics of conceit and nonsense. Champions of Free Speech, they ban Zionists from speaking on their campuses, shout “shame on you” in order to silence anyone who thinks differently to them, and deny freedom to those they boycott. “Free speech” is fast becoming the favoured hiding place of scoundrels. In defending the free speech of protected groups only, our most elite universities and institutions are now havens of censorship, shielding the intolerant and encouraging the very thing they pretend to abhor.

Say this to your children: if you want your universities scoured of Zionist Jews, go ahead and scour them, but you cannot then complain of ethnic cleansing on the part of others.

We are not innocent of our children’s stupidity. We should have given them a better grounding in the history of who we are. They should know more about Zionism. They should not have been allowed to call a refugee a colonialist adventurer. True, Zionism is not at this moment what the first and best Zionists hoped it would be. Tragically, the religious fanaticism they had hoped to leave in the shtetls has found a way in.

But we’d be better equipped to speak purposefully against this unholy godliness, to know whereof we are accused, whereof we are guilty, and whereof we are innocent, if we knew what we were talking about.
Uri Kurlianchick: Black Sunday: reckoning with October 7 a year later
Everyone wants to see the hostages returned, but at what cost? Hundreds of Israeli lives? Thousands? This nightmare all over again, only worse? Even the “lightweight” Hamas prisoners released in November have since taken part in attacks against Israelis. What would happen if we released hundreds of “heavyweights?” What message would we be sending to other terrorist organizations across the world?

Over the period from December to February, Bring Them Home Now, the movement that represents some of the hostage families, became increasingly aggressive in its demands to accept any deal, even if it meant losing the war or the return of only some of the hostages. The organizations that have opposed Bibi for years slid into the movement like a hand into a glove, weaponizing the pain of the families to destabilize the country with roadblocks and rowdy protests.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made the situation worse by pressuring Israel to accept a ceasefire deal while conditioning aid to Israel on Israel’s paradoxically delivering aid to the enemy, turning the war into a slog. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists, but you should.”

American pressure and internal Israeli division boosted Hamas’s confidence and made it more obstinate. At the same time, the tit-for-tat with Hezbollah near the Lebanese border grew bloodier, making Israelis wonder if we’ve given up on the north for good. Everyone is asking, “What is Bibi waiting for?” Perhaps he’s waiting for the results of the upcoming elections in the US before committing to any fateful decisions. He is a master of inaction, which is what allowed Israel’s enemies to build sufficient power to launch this horrific attack. However, the same trait allows him to resist tremendous pressure from all directions. He’s nothing if not steadfast.

The present situation in Israel has become a waiting game and Israelis are adjusting. In the past, we were a culture that wanted everything here and now while the enemy had the patience to play the long game. Now, for the first time in my life, I see Jews display grim steadfastness while Arabs cry, “We’ve run out of patience. We’re tired.”

In the end, our ability to hold fast may prove to be the most important weapon of all.
Jonathan Tobin: The real lessons of Oct. 7 must not be ignored
That is a position many on the American left have increasingly adopted. Indeed, it is the reason why anti-Israel protesters chant “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada.” The whole point of woke ideology, such as critical race theory and intersectionality, as it applies to the Middle East, is to delegitimize Israel as a “settler/colonial” state. Seen from that perspective, nothing it does in its defense—even against the most barbarous opponents, like Hamas and Hezbollah—can be falsely characterized as “genocide” since there is virtually nothing Israel could do to defend itself that could be justified in their eyes. And it’s why the same people dismiss the atrocities of Oct. 7 (which, like Holocaust deniers, they simultaneously justify and minimize).

And so, it is incumbent on Israelis and friends of Israel elsewhere to stop bickering over peace plans or pretending that Israel should be “saved from itself,” as former President Barack Obama believed it should.

In the absence of a complete transformation of Palestinian society that is nowhere in sight, any advocacy for a Palestinian state in the post-Oct. 7 world from those who claim to support Israel is a unique form of delusionary thinking.

The only logical way to defend Israel going forward must begin by recognizing this truth and stop treating those who wish to deny Israel the same rights granted to every other nation in the world as if their opinions were reasonable and well-intentioned. We must not hesitate to label those who seek to “flood” cities like New York with protests glorifying the Oct. 7 massacres as justified “resistance” and call them out for being antisemites and proponents of foreign terror groups.

After Oct. 7, we must no longer treat those who oppose Israel’s existence as if there was some distinction between their position and that of classic Jew-hatred. The brutal truth is that whether or not they root their stand in what they call “anti-racism” or even if they claim to be Jewish, those who wish to eradicate the only Jewish state on the planet are, at best, the “useful idiots” of the Oct. 7 murderers, rapists and kidnappers. At worst, they are their active supporters.

As much as Israelis can and must sort out the crucial questions about who bears the lion’s share of the blame for the success of Hamas’s brutal surprise attack, there are more important lessons to be learned from this episode than just another repeat of the same questions that were asked after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began with a similar failure. Doing so will be extremely hard for liberal Americans who believe in the two-state myth as if it were a religious doctrine handed down from Mount Sinai. But if we fail to learn them, then they will set the stage for more such tragedies, just as much as if the IDF chose to repeat its pre-Oct. 7 complacency.
John Podhoretz: Kamala Harris’s October 7th Tree
Israel is still fighting. Rockets are landing in the nation’s center, soldiers are methodically going through the Gaza tunnels, and tanks are rolling into Lebanon. In the chambers of power, the Israeli response to Iran’s missile strike is being planned. Reservists who might have been home for the Rosh Hashanah holiday are reporting back to duty as active members of the military are shifted toward the battle in the north to destroy Hezbollah in the wake of the looming destruction of Hamas in the south.

It is another day in the war that must be won for the Jewish people to be safe, the Jewish state to reestablish its deterrence against its genocidal enemies, and the West to prevail against the anti-Western Muslim ideologues who made their anti-human intentions known 45 years ago when they took 52 American embassy employees hostage and held them for 451 days. The 101 hostages held by Hamas have been in captivity for 365 days. For them, too, this is just another day, a day of horror. It’s unlikely they even know what day it is, as they have not seen the light of the sun in a year.

And yet here we are in America, commemorating as though this were some kind of…what? Holiday? It’s also just another day—a day when I walked by my bank on the Upper West Side to see it defaced by red-paint graffiti that read “CITIBANK GENOCIDE,” which is a new one for me, and I thought I’d seen it all. A day when people aligned with the monsters who want to see my children dead and my people wiped off the earth are marching in support of those goals. Just another day in the world after October 7.

Oh, and I’m delighted to announce that on this day, the vice president of the United States, who is also leading in the polls for president in the election that will conclude in 29 days, will be planting a tree in commemoration of—again, what?—next to her house as her husband stands next to her, possibly sated by some leftover brisket from lunchtime cooked by the Veep. Yes, the brisket that, he informed us, helped bring him back to his religion. Together, as I said, they will be planting a tree.

A tree, people.

A tree.
Caroline Glick: Evil Exists, Don’t Look Away: Visiting the Hell of October 7th
Join JNS senior contributing editor Caroline Glick for this special Oct. 7 episode of In-Focus from one of the communities most affected by the Hamas massacre, Kfar Aza. Glick reflects and discusses some of the lessons Israel, the Jewish people, and the entire free world must learn from that horrific day and this once-flourishing town.


The Quad: Oct. 7 SPECIAL in Nova: What Israelis Are REALLY Thinking a Year Later
In this Oct. 7 memorial episode, "The Quad" is joined by Aish HaTorah Chief Marketing Officer Jamie Geller for a special conversation from the site of the Nova musical festival massacre.

Join "The Quad" as they reflect on the horrific day of Oct. 7, 2023, and everything that has happened since.

Chapters
00:00 Commemorating a Year of Loss
02:59 Bearing Witness to Grief
05:50 The Weight of Guilt and Hope
07:17 Underestimating the Enemy
11:09 Seeking Solutions in Gaza
15:31 Unity and Divine Intervention


The end of the post-Holocaust era

Suella Braverman: Britain’s response to October 7 has been shameful



Eylon Levy: Israel is fighting on the frontline of the free world. Thank us later
At stake is whether the enemies of the free world conclude that it won’t stand up for itself, and will throw its allies under a bus when the going gets tough. Because the Iranian regime and its proxies understand the critical importance of Israel to the West’s security, perhaps more than some Western leaders do. They want to weaken us to weaken you; they want to hurt us to hurt you.

This is not a war Israel started, wanted, or even expected. But it is a war that we must win, because we want to live. Much of the West wants this war to go away, but the war cannot go away until the threats go away. And we cannot wish them away.

We cannot accept a return to October 6 2023, with Iran’s terrorist armies waiting for a moment of weakness on our borders. Obviously we want a diplomatic resolution, but what is the diplomatic off-ramp from a seven-front war against us, by terrorist armies threatening more October 7 massacres until Israel is destroyed? Right now, “deescalation” is simply another word for appeasement, a policy to give Tehran’s terrorist proxies a chance to catch their breath when Israel has them on their knees.

Israel is doing the world’s dirty work. It does not want your sympathy; it demands your respect. It is single-handedly taking out the world’s most wanted terrorists with bounties on their heads. It is dismantling the Iranian regime’s proxy armies and disrupting their supply routes. It is conducting espionage operations far beyond Q’s wildest ambitions. It is showing the world what it means to have a spine and stand up for yourself, your survival, and your country. To withstand unimaginable pressure to do what you’ve got to do to keep your family safe.

In Israel we all dream of peace, but we know peace is impossible while we are surrounded by enemies that openly seek our annihilation. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power, hostages in Gaza, and Hezbollah threatening a bigger October 7 from Lebanon would only set the clock ticking to the next war.

And have no doubt, if Israel does not win the October 7 War, there will be a next time, and it will be worse, and it will be worse because the enemies of the West will conclude that it will keep saving them from the wars that they start.

The Iranian regime and its proxy armies are counting on Western states to abandon a major ally and leave themselves exposed. They want you to bottle it. Don’
The Spectator: Eylon Levy: is the world still with Israel?
A year on since Hamas launched an attack on Israel, former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy joins deputy editor Freddy Gray to reflect on what has happened since 2023. With war now raging on multiple fronts, they discuss whether Israel has been neglected by its international allies, and how the involvement of Iran is changing the landscape.


Commentary PodCast: What We've Learned Ruthie Blum joins the podcast today to discuss the lessons of October 7—about Israel, about American Jewry, about anti-Semitism, about the Biden administration, about the hunger to blame Jews for their own misfortunes, about the hunger to blame Benjamin Netanyahu for the war, and about what the future of an America uncomfortable with military victory might hold.



This Oct. 7, stand with Israel for the free world’s salvation
Instead, millions of decent and ordinary people want to join the Israeli-American sphere of strength, security, freedom and prosperity — catapulted into prominence by the Abraham Accords, through which the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco courageously made peace with the Jewish state.

The Accords’ signatories have reaped staggering benefits. And the ayatollahs in Tehran have looked on, green with jealousy, as tomorrow’s Middle East leaves them behind.

On Oct. 7, they tried to torpedo this peace in the only way they knew — animalistic violence.

Through their proxy Hamas, they sent thousands of their most dangerous fighters, the Nukhba battalion — not to engage soldiers on a battlefield, but to gun down hundreds of young Israelis at the Nova music festival.

To torch villages, rape women, kidnap children and turn southern Israel into a wasteland.

For a year, everyone who pays attention has known that Israel didn’t start the fire, and never wanted this war.

Now, everyone knows something more: Such fights are not only ghastly, but futile.

Those who pick fights with Israel and the free world are signing their own warrants of death.

In the clearest way since the Hamas invasion, a picture is emerging of a new Middle East — with Gaza, Lebanon and even Iran liberated from the doomsday jihadist radicalism of their power-hungry “leaders.”

And so every single one of us has a choice.

Do we say no to the Iranian regime’s bloody and unwinnable assault on Israel?

Do we support the brave people of Iran in their quest to shed the shackles of dictators?

Do we admit that terror groups who scream “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” should be forcefully broken, not propped up indefinitely?

Do we internalize the fact that — for citizens of the free world — standing with Israel is self-preservation, while joining Israel’s enemies is slow-motion suicide?

What do you think? Post a comment.

It is time to choose. Time to support Israel and Western civilization against Iran’s radical Islamic axis of evil.

It will take work, but one year after the darkest day of our lives, we have a singular chance: To honor the memory of the fallen and guide our fractured world toward peace, justice and healing.

Ofir Akunis is Consul General of Israel in New York.
Dave Rich: One year on
By shaping their campaigning in a way that challenges Israel’s very existence - sometimes explicitly so - Western pro-Palestine activists have conveniently brought their solidarity movement into line with the actual campaign against Israel in the Middle East. On the ground where it matters, in the place where the real action occurs and the outcome of this struggle will be determined, the campaign against Israel is led by Hamas, Hizbollah, the Houthis, and behind them Iran. Those groups are not interested in a two state solution or in merely recovering the territories conquered by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967: they want Israel gone for good and are happy to say so. It would be pointless for the solidarity movement expending all that energy on the streets and campuses of Western cities to do so in support of a goal that was completely different from that pursued by the sharp end of this movement in Palestine itself. The leaders of Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran recognise this, even if those Western campaigners don’t realise it themselves.

In that respect, it is striking that just as the Palestine Authority, which officially supports two states and does not back a full boycott of Israel, is a relatively powerless onlooker in the struggle between Israel and Hamas, so the representatives of the Authority in the West are similarly marginal in the protest movement here. The Head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, Husam Zomlot, speaks at rallies and is interviewed on the news, but his office is not an official organiser of the marches, nor does he set its slogans and goals. Instead, the defining slogan of this protest movement - ‘From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ - appears almost word for word in Hamas’s official policy document of 2017 (which is regularly, but wrongly, referred to as an updated Charter).

It is true that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected proposals for a Palestinian state, and with it, presumably, a two-state solution - but that doesn’t mean the Palestine solidarity movement in the West should also dispense with the idea. They don’t normally take their lead from Netanyahu, after all.

The narrative that Israel is simply an invention of modern colonialism, dreamed up by Victorian imperialists in the backrooms of Whitehall, inevitably involves an effort to re-write Jewish history - and this is where it becomes much more troubling, because it encourages the denial that there ever was a Jewish connection to the land of Israel, either in ancient times or through to the modern period. “Europeans wanted to bring the Jews here to preserve their interests in the region … Israel is a colonial project that has nothing to do with Jews”, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, quite wrongly, in 2018. The argument that Israel is a European implant in the Middle East implies that all Israelis are white Europeans, erasing the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi and Maghrebi Jews who emigrated to Israel from across the Middle East and north Africa. In short, it involves the imposition onto Jews of a false account of our own history and a restrictive, unwanted definition of Jewish identity, designed to support a politics that most Jews would consider hostile, even dangerous. Whether this is the intention or not is beside the point: this is how it works in practice.

When we look back at the past year, there is much that is obviously antisemitic. Some of the justifications and excuses made for the brutality of October 7 are utterly nauseating, matched only in their disgrace by those who deny that the Hamas atrocities of that day happened at all. But I fear that more long-lasting damage will be done by this pernicious invention of a false version of Jewish history, that deliberately denies or ignores all that makes the Jews a people, as part of a project to reverse the single greatest political achievement of the Jewish people after the Shoah. Those who wish to remove the Jewish state from the world seek to do so by first erasing the Jewish people from history. And this, ultimately, is the deepest antisemitism of all.


‘Not one girl could be shown to her parents’: The horrors of Oct 7 – as told by the survivors
Shari Mendes went to the United Nations on December 4 to tell them about the sexual violence, the unbelievable depravity she saw inflicted on women and girls. (As well as Jews, they were Christian, Druze, Hindu, Muslim.) It was an incredible speech, but the UN was notably slow to respond to the mass violation of Israeli women giving rise to the hashtag, #MeTooUnlessYoureAJew. “The UN is supposed to represent all nations,” says Shari, “and they had an exhibit on August 17. It was the International Day of people who were killed in conflict and terror attacks. And they showed a picture of every single terrorist attack that happened that year, but they did not include October 7. What does that say about the UN?” They did eventually send the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict to Israel from January 29 to February 14. Shari and others testified to Pramila Patten. Her report said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October”. That’s not good enough, Shari snaps. “I haven’t heard most women’s organisations condemn the sexual violence. And what about the fact that there are still 101 hostages, living and dead? Including the young woman we saw taken with bloody jogging pants. What’s being done to them? Why are their names not on everyone’s lips? Every. Single. Day.”)

After October 7, Shari and her colleagues worked 12-hour shifts, non-stop for two weeks; they often slept at the base. Their own children were being called up. “I had a son, a daughter-in-law and another son who were on active duty. I didn’t know where they were, were they safe?

“You ask me, Allison, how could I bear it? You asked how we got the strength. I mean, I remember thinking that first day I was just in shock, and everybody was just doing, doing, doing. We were using masks, and they were giving us lavender, but all the senses were being assaulted. By the third, fourth day, I was losing it, and I thought, ‘I don’t know that I can do this anymore’.”

After the bodies had been definitively identified, they were taken to a second room, the burial room, where the atmosphere was calmer “and it was just us women with the woman”.

The team would look after her, showing all the tender care that was the opposite of her final moments alive. One morning, amidst the grey, they saw a flash of pink. “A beautiful manicure with a flower on each fingernail. And that was such a terrible moment for all of us women because a manicure is such a sign of hope for a woman. They’re making themselves beautiful, aren’t they? It was the only colour in the room.”

They didn’t wash the bodies. Shari explains that someone who dies in war or in terror, according to Jewish law, is not washed because even that dirt is holy, that they died in a sacrifice for God. “They’re already as holy as they could be. We took our time with them, said a prayer. You put dust of Jerusalem above the eyes. And you ask the person for forgiveness.”

She tried not to know their names. “I didn’t want to associate them with the news stories. I’d go home and learn they had a dog and a sister and a mother who was crying. I made that mistake the first day, and it almost destroyed me. I had to keep going.”

She says she knew she would probably be the last person who saw them “and that’s a responsibility. Because they could have been our daughters.”

Of all the young women whose bodies she took care of and prepared for burial, how many were in a fit state to be shown to their parents?

There is total silence in the room, except for the ticking of a clock on the kitchen wall. I pat the dog beside me, pressing my hand deep into his fur to bring me back to this world and away from that place where jihadi psychopaths annihilate the faces of young women for kicks.

Shari looks at me. I can’t tell if her eyes are full of sorrow or glittering with rage. “None,” she says at last. “Not one girl we could show to her parents.”
Call me Back Podcast: One Year Since October 7th - with Amir Tibon
As we arrive at the grim one-year anniversary of 10/07, we are featuring a dedicated series in which we take a longer horizon perspective, asking one guest each week to look back at this past year and the year ahead.

For the fourth installment of this special series, we sat down with Amir Tibon, who is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz and the author of the newly released book: “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands.” You can order Amir’s new book here: https://tinyurl.com/4khzaxab

Amir is also the author of “The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas” (co-authored with Grant Rumley), the first-ever biography of the president of the Palestinian Authority.

From 2017-2020, Amir was based in Washington, DC as a foreign correspondent for Haaretz, and he also has served as a senior editor for the newspaper’s English edition. He, his wife, and their two young daughters are former residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz but are currently living as internal refugees in northern Israel. His book tells the harrowing story of his family’s experience on October 7th as well as the history of Israel’s Gaza Envelope communities and of the Gaza Strip.


Seth Frantzman: At the Nova Festival massacre site a year later
THE SILENCE was punctuated by artillery fire in the distance. There was also the sound of machine-gun fire in Gaza, the “rat-tat” of disciplined fire that means it is the IDF. Overhead a drone flew, and two helicopters circled. The number of police, soldiers, and helicopters today was in contrast to a year ago when there were very few soldiers on the border to stop the Hamas attack. The police present near the festival were massacred, many of them trying in vain to defend the festival-goers by firing their sidearms at terrorists who arrived in pickup trucks armed with RPGs and AK-47 assault rifles.

The people who gathered just before sunrise on this October 7 came from all walks of life. There was a motorcycle club; soldiers and police came; young people and old arrived. A high-ranking officer in the reserves sat next to me; a woman prayed.

Many people came with the images of their fallen loved ones or friends emblazoned on their shirts. One shirt has a quote that says “life is only as good as your mindset” and another shows two people on it and says “Maya and Eliran Forever.” A group brought balloons with the names of the killed and attached them to benches.

The ceremony began after 6:30 a.m. There was a brief sequence of music played, the same music as was playing when the music stopped due to the rocket fire a year earlier. Then organizers gathered and there were short statements and one man played a guitar. President Isaac Herzog joined and walked among the crowds.

No other politicians were present. Other than the police who helped direct traffic and secure the location; there was no evidence of the state being present at all. There is something symbolic in this. Similarly, on October 7 last year, the thousands of people at the Nova festival were also left on their own. With the state mostly absent, soldiers nearby were under siege by terrorists; tanks were overrun.

People who fled the festival and survived mostly ran east. Many of these people were rescued by civilian volunteers. The absence of Israel’s politicians from this event is important. The politicians have not investigated the October 7 massacre.

Most of them also seem unable to face the victims, embrace the families of the hostages or even confront the horrors of that day. There are exceptions, but their absence and the absence of any speech-making from this first anniversary was a welcome change from the claims that Israel is pursuing total victory in Gaza, or that the hostages are a priority, after having been left for a year in Gaza, just a few miles from where we gathered at the grounds of the festival.

It’s impossible to ignore this fact. Where we stood a year after the massacre is only a few miles from Gaza where more than 100 hostages are held. It’s impossible not to think of how they have been left there, civilians and soldiers, for far too long.


'Lady in Red' - my big regret one year after Nova festival massacre: Iconic survivor reveals one thing she wishes she had done to save others and how she copes with the trauma
Vlada said: 'I haven't really spoken about what happened to anyone, it's still very painful for me, I've shared with my family the horror of that day and I still thank God every morning that I'm still alive.'

After arriving at the festival site at Re'im - just a mile and half from the border with Gaza - Valda, Matan and Mai set up camp and spent the evening talking, a chance to unwind from a busy week of wedding planning.

She said: 'The strange thing is I didn't want to go to the festival. It was just a last-minute thing.

'Matan got some tickets, and we went with a friend, but I had a feeling something wasn't right when we left the Friday afternoon.

'Romi was so quiet, she is always usually noisy running around playing with her toys but that day she was still, and I'm sure now she knew something terrible was going to happen.'

Vlada said of the festival: 'I remember the atmosphere was very strange, people were having fun and dancing but for me there was no energy, and I didn't dance around as much as I usually do when I go to these festivals.

'I did think at the time it was weird to have a festival so close to the border with Gaza and rockets come over every now and then, but I thought the organisers must think it's safe or they wouldn't hold it.'

At 3am she laid down on a mat to sleep but was woken at 6.30am when an air raid alarm app on her phone went off.

She said: 'I looked for Matan and Mai and I immediately heard shooting. It was loud and very close to us. For a few seconds I didn't know what was happening and then Matan just screamed that we had to run for the car.

'Missiles started coming over and the place just went crazy, the announcer said for everyone to evacuate and people just started running for their cars.

'I think at first people thought it was just one of those routine rocket attacks from Gaza and it wasn't until later when we looked at our phones we realised it was a proper invasion and these terrorists wanted to kill us.

'But I don't understand why, even now, it was just a music festival, it was peaceful, people were dancing and they came and murdered people, some of my friends, and for what?'
Israeli hostage Idan Shtivi, 28, is declared dead
Israeli hostage Idan Shtivi, previously believed to be alive in Hamas captivity, was murdered during the terror group’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body taken to Gaza, Channel 12 reported on Monday, the first anniversary of the massacre.

Shtivi, 28, was murdered by terrorist infiltrators along with his friends while they were attempting to escape from the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel.

He was considered missing until early January when his family officially learned that he was abducted. On Monday morning, they were informed of his death.

The Israel Defense Forces said Shtivi was declared dead based on new intelligence.

“The decision to declare him dead was based on intelligence information that was confirmed by a panel of experts from the Health Ministry, together with participants from the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Israel Police,” the military said, adding that “the IDF operates with a range of methods to try and gather information on the hostages in Gaza.”

Hamas is still holding his body.

Idan leaves behind his parents, Eli and Dalit; three siblings; and his partner, Stav.


Father of kidnapped schoolgirl Emily Hand, nine, says she is 'smiling again' after 50 days of 'absolute hell' as an Hamas hostage left her broken and terrified to speak
A brave little girl who was taken hostage by Hamas was thankfully returned to the arms of her father, but remained traumatised and nearly mute until now.

Nine-year-old Emily Hand was snatched in her pyjamas during a sleepover at her friend's house during the terrorist group's attack on Israel on October 7 last year and was held hostage for 50 days.

Footage of Emily running into her father's arms before they shared an emotional embrace warmed the hearts of all who watched it.

Her father said at the time she was 'broken but in one piece' after he had previously said he believed she would be better off dead than kidnapped by Hamas.

It's been a long road to recovery, as upon her return Emily was painfully skinny, with matted filthy hair and she only spoke in a whisper because her thuggish captors had told the schoolgirl they would stab her if she made too much noise.

But her father Thomas praised her as a 'fighter' and revealed she is now as 'noisy and boisterous as ever' and is 'smiling again'. He vowed to never complain about how loud she is being.

He told The Sun Emily is 'smiling again' and is back at school with some of her old friends, starting to 'enjoy life'.

He said: 'Emily still gets scared of loud noises and wasn't able to sleep alone for a long time after she came back.

'She still has nightmares but counselling has helped and things are much better now.

'She spent her last birthday in hell so I'll be making sure she has a party to remember this year when she turns 10 on October 17.'

Ahead of the anniversary of the attack, he said 'our thoughts are always with the hostages'.

Upon her return, Mr Hand said he had been too scared to hug her tightly - but vowed to throw her the 'biggest birthday party ever'. She turned nine while a hostage.

Following her release, her family added in a statement: 'Emily has come back to us. We can't find the words to describe our emotions after 50 challenging and complicated days.


Caroline Glick joins John Burnett and Krysia Lenzo of Newsmax on the 1st Anniversary of Oct 7th.
Caroline Glick joins John Burnett and Krysia Lenzo on Newsmax, First Edition, for the 1st Anniversary of the October 7th massacre and kidnappings of Israeli citizens in Gaza.


‘Tragic day’: Sharri Markson reflects on October 7 one year on
Sky News host Sharri Markson has reflected on the first anniversary of the October 7 terror attacks, labelling it a “tragic day” which the international community “can’t forget”.

Monday marks one year since Hamas fighters launched a wave of terror against innocent Israeli citizens.

“It’s truly a tragic day, and the world can’t forget it,” Ms Markson said.

“It often feels like the international community doesn’t care about the hostages. I mean, how often do we hear our own government demand the release of the hostages?

“More can be done from the international community to bring the hostages home.”




Former President Trump marks Oct. 7 with prayer visit to Ohel in New York
Marking one year since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, former president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump paid a personal prayer visit on Monday afternoon to the Ohel in Queens, N.Y., the resting place of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

Millions of people send written prayers via email and snail mail to the Ohel, while some 400,000 make pilgrimages there every year. Located at the Old Montefiore Cemetery, the Ohel is open 24/7 and has long been a place for reflection for private citizens and world leaders alike, for Jews and non-Jews, each coming to the holy site to pray, seek inspiration and find solace.

Trump was welcomed by Rabbi Abba Refson, director of the visitor’s center at the Ohel, and Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch. Also present were families of hostages still being held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip; Jerry Wartski, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp; Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement; and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of American Friends of Lubavitch in Washington, D.C., among others.

On his way into the Ohel, Trump placed a few coins into the large tzedakah box near the entrance in keeping with Jewish tradition to increase charitable giving at this time of year.

The Rebbe’s Ohel is the most visited Jewish holy site in North America, drawing people from all walks of life in a way similar only to the Western Wall in Israel. It is common for people to visit the Ohel to pray in proximity to a personal or professional milestone—whether a bar or bat mitzvah, wedding, anniversary, starting a new business or overcoming personal challenges. Indeed, the former president has survived two assassination attempts over the last few months.

In many ways, Trump’s visit is the continuation of a family tradition: Before both presidential elections, his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, paid late-night, media-free visits to the Ohel.


Karol Markowicz: One year after 10/7 attacks and Democrat-run states have let antisemitism fester
October 7th was the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Hamas invaded Israel, murdering people at random, raping, destroying homes and kidnapping people back to Gaza. There are more than 100 still held hostage, including four Americans.

Raw and hurting, American Jews watched the streets of U.S. cities fill up with crowds. The people in the streets weren’t marching to stand with the slaughtered and the raped. They were gleeful, exuberant and there were many of them.

In New York’s Times Square, hundreds of people gathered on October 8, while Israel was still sorting through their dead, and counting how many children and elderly had been kidnapped, to flash swastikas and chant "death to Israel" as well as "700," the number of Israeli dead counted at the time. That number was later revised to 1,195.

In Los Angeles, it’s been nearly a year of violent protests outside synagogues and in Jewish neighborhoods. One Jewish man was killed after a confrontation in November. Pro-Palestinian protesters at Harvard University

It seemed like antisemitism was festering all over the country.

But a closer look showed that it wasn’t, actually, happening everywhere, it was very specifically happening in places primarily run by Democrats. It’s not that antisemitism can’t exist in red areas. It can, it does. Vandalism, verbal harassment, even physical assault can happen in Republican-led places. But the occurrence is far rarer and the real difference is the consequences.

According to the Anti Defamation League (ADL) "The states with the highest number of incidents were California (1,266), New York (1,218), New Jersey (830), Florida (463) and Massachusetts (440)." Four of those states are blue states. In my red home state of Florida, we had approximately the same number of incidents as Massachusetts while having about three times the population and a third of the incidents of New York despite having over 2 million more people.

The ADL is a left-leaning Jewish organization, and yet they admit, "On a per capita basis, the states with the highest concentration of antisemitic incidents were New Jersey – with 8.93 incidents per 100,000 residents – followed by Vermont (6.64), Massachusetts (6.28), New York (6.23), Maryland (5.49) and Connecticut (5.09). On the city level, two cities – Manhattan (26.84 per 100,000) and Washington, D.C. (25.75 per 100,000) – stood out with far and away the highest levels of incidents per capita. Brookyln [sic], NY, stood out specifically in terms of physical assault incidents, with 1.16 assaults per 100,000 residents." Again, all deep blue states and cities.
House resolution marking Oct. 7 demands Hamas surrender, return of Israeli hostages
A group of 136 Congress members signed on to a House resolution marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel.

The bipartisan resolution—co-sponsored by Reps. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)—condemns Hamas and demands its surrender, in addition to the release of the estimated 101 hostages the terror group still holds captive; reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defense; and “commits to ensuring that humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian noncombatants.”

It also calls on global bodies, including the United Nations, and countries “to unequivocally denounce this attack and the ongoing atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists and call for the immediate release of the hostages.” The legislation further condemns rising Jew-hatred worldwide, including on U.S. college campuses, “and commits to confronting and combating this hatred in all its forms and at every level.”

“As we commemorate one year since Oct. 7, we honor the memory of the innocent civilians who were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists,” Gottheimer stated. “We stand with our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel, in its efforts to secure the safe return of the remaining hostages.”


Anti-Hamas 'rape tunnel' posters appear in London Tube stations for October 7 anniversary
Pro-Israel campaigners have put up posters condemning Hamas and calling for the return of hostages across London’s Tube network on the anniversary of the terror attack.

The images mock up a Tube network map for Gaza made with Hamas underground tunnels, with lines labelled “Hostage Execution Tunnel” and “Hamas Rape Tunnel” among others.

The “Gaza Underground” posters add: “On October 7th 2023 Hamas murdered hundreds and kidnapped hundreds.

“The UK Government must do all it can to ensure the release of 100 hostages, still unaccounted for after 365 days of terror.”

The posters, understood to be unauthorised by TfL, have been spotted in several major Tube stations such as King’s Cross, Old Street and South Kensington, and as far afield as Redbridge.

In a statement, the group behind the posters, London Against Hamas, said: “On the first anniversary of the unimaginable horrors committed by Hamas murderers on October 7th 2024, the tunnels of London Underground today have featured maps showing that terror organisation's Rape Tunnels of Gaza.

“Trains on every Underground line now feature "Gaza Underground" maps, reminding Londoners for what appalling purposes Hamas have created their subterranean network - rape, murder, torture, further terrorist activities - as supporters call for the UK Government to do everything to ensure the release of the 100 hostages still unaccounted for after 365 days.”


Poll reveals harsh truth for Middle East protesters
Pro-Palestinians peacefully rallied in Sydney on Sunday without succumbing to the blandishments of those who would inflame local passions over the Middle East for their own ends – testimony perhaps to commonsense and our habit of free speech. But Australians seem to be rapidly losing interest, if not patience, with the protests.

Their tolerance and attentiveness will be further tested today as silent vigils by Jewish and Muslim communities and their supporters take place around Australia, marking the first anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

It is a poignant moment better left to the Jewish community to lead the remembrance, but while proponents on either side of the tragic war remain further apart than ever, there is little doubt where public sympathy lies: The Herald’s Resolve Political Monitor poll found Australians strongly reject the use of public protests to take sides in the escalating war: 59 per cent of voters oppose the marches.

Only 8 per cent want authorities to allow protests supporting Palestine; 7 per cent were in favour of pro-Israel protests. Resolve director Jim Reed said results showed the marches were not building support for the Palestinian cause. “Where there is partisan support in areas like diplomacy and supply of equipment, it tends to favour Israel by a factor of two to one,” Reed said. “If the idea behind weekly marches for Palestine or Lebanon is to gain mainstream support for their cause, they are failing dismally.”
Jeers for Albanese and cheers for Dutton as leaders join Jewish communities to mark 7 October atrocities
There were jeers for Anthony Albanese in Melbourne and cheers for Peter Dutton in Sydney at events held by the Jewish community to mark the first anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

Some 6,000 gathered in Moorabbin in Melbourne’s south-east on Monday evening for the Illuminate October event, which began with a procession of hand-painted lanterns, each dedicated to 1,200 Israelis killed and 250 hostages captured by Palestinian militants in the past 12 months.

The prime minister, the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, the Macnamara MP, Josh Burns, the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, and her deputy, Ben Carroll, joined the procession alongside other state and federal politicians.

Albanese walked alongside rabbi Gabi Kaltmann and was met with some jeers of “shame”, though overall the event was peaceful and the police presence was minimal.

One man carried a sign reading: “Shame on you Albo. Photo opportunity only!!! No genuine support for Jewish community.”

Neither Albanese nor Allan delivered speeches at the event. Instead, it featured reflections from members of the community and families of the hostages, as well as performances from local schools and shule choirs.

Yossi Goldfarb, the president of Zionism Victoria which organised the event, drew cheers when he accused the federal government of being “weak and ambiguous” on the conflict in the Middle East.

Goldfarb told the thousands-strong crowd Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis were “enemies of Israel”, a “pernicious threat” that must be defeated and described the rise of antisemitism in Australia as “simply out of control”.

“[It is] a threat to everything that makes our country unique and great. There is a permissiveness that has led antisemitism fester, a permissiveness encouraged by weak and ambiguous expositions of our foreign policy,” he said.

“In our community’s view, they have weakened our social cohesion, leaving us to feel the state of Israel has been abandoned as a natural ally of the Australian people.”


Media rebrands Oct. 7 terror celebrations ‘pro-Palestinian rallies’
The creeping normalization of Islamic terrorism by the media means that Islamic terrorist supporters celebrating the anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023 are being rebranded in the blandest terms.

“Thousands join pro-Palestinian rallies around the globe as Oct. 7 anniversary nears” – AP

“Pro-Palestinian rally in OKC’s Myriad Gardens is planned to mark ‘One Year of Resistance’” – The Oklahoman

“Israel-Hamas war: Pro-Palestinian rally held in downtown LA as Oct. 7 anniversary nears” – ABC7 Los Angeles

What is that “One Year of Resistance”? Why are there rallies on the anniversary of the worst Islamic massacre of Jews in centuries?

The media nods along and labels them protest rallies against the war. But they’re not protesting the Hamas massacre of Israelis.

They’re protesting against Israel fighting back.

Rather than reporting this the media even adopts the terrorist vocabulary, using terms like “resistance” to whitewash and even glamorize Islamic terrorism.

These rallies are not anti-war, they’re pro-war. It’s another reason they keep using “flood” names.


Sickening figures reveal the significant minority of British youngsters who support Hamas, believe reports about October 7 are exaggerated or think the massacre of Jews was 'justified'
Shocking new figures show the level of sympathy and ­support for Hamas on Britain's streets as Israel today marks the anniversary of the ­October 7 terror attack.

The findings reveal one in ten of those aged 18 to 24 have a ­'favourable view' of Hamas a year after the group's deadly incursion left almost 1,200 dead, including 36 children.

With the most extreme views coming among young people, it has raised fears about extremism being sown on college and university campuses.

Some 13 per cent of young people do not believe that media reports about the atrocities are 'broadly true' – believing that they have been exaggerated or invented, while 16 per cent believe the massacre was 'justified'.

The Prime Minister, who hosted British relatives of some of the victims at Downing Street last week, said 'we must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community' and ­reiterated his calls for a ceasefire.

Sir Keir Starmer described the massacre as 'the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust', adding: 'Over a thousand people were brutally ­murdered. Men, women, children and babies killed, mutilated, and tortured by the terrorists of Hamas.

'Jewish people murdered whilst protecting their families, young people massacred at a music festival, people abducted from their homes.

'Agonising reports of rape, torture and brutality beyond comprehension which continued to emerge days and weeks later. As a father, a husband, a son, a brother – meeting the families of those who lost their loved ones last week was unimaginable. Their grief and pain are ours, and it is shared in homes across the land.'
New polling shows extent of sympathy for Hamas and frightening trends of radicalism among young Britons
Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) commissioned YouGov to survey British adults’ attitudes towards Jews.

The polling has revealed very concerning levels of support for Hamas and antisemitic views, especially among young people in Britain.

As we mark one year since Hamas’ barbaric attacks in Israel, levels of antisemitism in Britain have never been higher.

Here are some key takeaways from the polling:

Views on Hamas
Almost one in ten – 9% – of 18-24 year olds have a favourable view of Hamas, compared to 3% of the general British public. More than two thirds (68%) of the British public has an unfavourable view of Hamas, as do 50% of young Britons.
More than one eighth of British 18-24 year olds (13%) do not believe that reports that Hamas killed around 1,200 Israelis in the attacks on 7th October 2023 are broadly true, compared to 7% of the wider British public. Just over half (55%) of the British public think that those reports are broadly true, compared to 39% of 18-24 year olds.
An astounding 16% of young British adults believe that the attacks carried out by Hamas on 7th October 2023 were justified, compared to 7% of the wider British public. This figure rises to 28% among people identifying as “very left-wing”.
More than one eighth of British 18-24 year olds (13%) believe that the British Government is wrong to classify Hamas as a terrorist group, compared to 7% of the British public and an astonishing 31% among the “very left-wing”.
Over half (59%) of the British public would be less likely to visit a city centre if they knew a large pro-Palestinian march was due to happen.

Antisemitic attitudes
One third (33%) of the British public believes that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews, which is antisemitic according to the International Definition of Antisemitism. This is the highest figure that we have recorded in our polling. Even more worryingly, the figure rises to a shocking 48% – nearly half – of 18-24 year olds. More than two-thirds (68%) of those who identify as “very left-wing” hold the same view. Among 2024 Labour voters, the figure is 45%, compared to 36% for Lib Dems voters, 22% of Conservative voters, and 18% of Reform voters.
Almost one in five (18%) British people believe that Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media, a figure that rises to a shocking 33% – one third – among 18-24s. Almost one quarter (23%) of 18-24s do not believe that Israel is right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it, compared to 7% across the whole population. This number rises to one third (33%) among the far-left.
Nearly one fifth (18%) of young people do not believe that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. Overall among the British public, the figure is 8%. Interestingly, among 2024 Lib Dem voters, it is one in ten, which is higher than other mainstream political parties.
Almost one-fifth (19%) of the British public is not comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel. Among young people, it is 41%, nearly double the 21% figure recorded in December 2023.
Almost a quarter (22%) of the general population think that Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on our democracy. Among young people, the figure is a staggering 43%. A quarter (25%) of 2024 Labour voters believe this as well, as do 22% of Lib Dem voters, 17% of Reform voters and 10% of Conservative voters.
One in ten people in Britain believe that compared to other groups, Jewish people have too much power in the media. Among 18-24 year olds, this rises to 16%.
One in ten young people believe that Jewish people talk about the Holocaust just to further their political agenda. Among the general public, the figure is 7%.
Nearly one-tenth (9%) of British young adults do not believe that Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business, which is almost double the 4% of the general British public.
The police have learnt nothing over the last year
A Pro-Palestinian activist holds a placard reading 'From the River to the Sea' as they march through London

October 7, 2023, will forever be the high watermark for terror, horror and brutality. Hamas soldiers invaded Israel on a raping and killing spree. When it ended, they had killed and tortured over 1,400 people and taken over 250 hostages – many of whom are still being held in Gaza – and their trail of destruction was beyond belief.

Much of what they did was filmed live on body cams and posted on the internet.

But on the weekend before the anniversary of one of the worst terrorist atrocities since 9/11, it became clear just how much our capital has been captured by thousands of pro-Palestinian, pro-terror and anti-Jewish demonstrators who appear to view the Metropolitan Police as observers or, worse, enablers.

This past Saturday we saw perhaps one of the worst examples of two-tier policing. Among the thousands marching through the streets of London were those chanting anti-Semitic slogans and even holding up banners in support of Hezbollah.

The police, under the direction of Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, had vowed to clamp down on any visible or audible support for any terrorist organisation, but it didn’t seem to work out like that.

At the end of a very toxic and confrontational day there were just 17 arrests, there were no riot police, and there were no 24 hour courts to deal with those holding up banners which were surely in breach of the law.

If coppers are taking their lead from the national broadcaster, perhaps this isn’t surprising. One Radio 4 presenter was reprimanded for failing to counter claims from an Iranian professor about “chosen people seeking to colonise the whole region”. Its foreign correspondent gave an hour of sympathetic questioning to a Hamas leader. One interviewee on BBC News claimed: “Hezbollah and Iran have played it fairly rationally trying to be very cautious and leave off-ramps where they could”, yet was never challenged.

Is it any wonder the police don’t know what to do?

According to their posts on X, “the law is very clear – anyone displaying symbols, wording or otherwise indicating their support for a proscribed organisation risks arrest”. This was hardly a deterrent, however. The banners on display included “I love Hezbollah” and “Hezbollah are not terrorists”. There were even posters held up in support of Hassan Nasrallah, the murderous Hezbollah leader, who was killed by Israeli firepower last weekend in Lebanon.


Large crowds gather outside Lakemba mosque as pro-Palestine protesters mark October 7 with controversial chants and signs - and Hezbollah issues statement on Aussie demonstrations
While Albo is in Melbourne, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has addressed 10,000 attendees at a Jewish vigil at a park in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

'Israel was at the epicentre of Hamas evil on October 7 last year. The shock waves of that terrorist attack resonated around the world,” he told the large crowd.

'That day of depravity, the greatest loss of Jewish life on a single day since the Holocaust awoke and exposed an anti semitic wave afflicting Western democracies.

'On this the first anniversary of October 7, and given all we’ve seen since then, several things are important.

'Memory is important. Even today, there are people seeking to distort, to deny and defend the barbarism that took place on October 7.

'What else is important? Moral clarity is important because, frankly, there hasn’t been enough of it. Instead, we’ve seen a moral fog.

'Just days after October 7, we saw protesters chanting slogans calling for the extermination of Israel, and they haven’t stopped since as soon as Israel took the fight to Hamas, we began to hear unreasonable calls for immediate restraint, calls for Israel to not look back in anger, calls for Israel to deescalate and pause its military response.

'Now, such calls have persisted, despite hostages remaining in chains and being executed.

'Those making such calls hold Israel to a standard they would never expect or accept of themselves, and following the shocking events on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, there’s been a vacuum of leadership. In that vacuum, intolerable incidents have been tolerated.'

Also in attendance was federal health minister Mark Butler, who told the crowd Israel had the right to defend itself and respond to terror attacks.

'Co-ordinated attacks from her south, north and east by terror groups and a state openly committed to the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish state on the planet.

Of course, Israel has the right to defend itself and respond to these attacks.'

Mr Butler said "history's oldest prejudice - its oldest hatred, anti-Semitism - is growing and spreading here in a way we've never seen before" and "it must stop.'




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!
 

 



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

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