NYTs: Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack
Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, provide a detailed record of the planning for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as Mr. Sinwar’s determination to persuade Hamas’s allies, Iran and Hezbollah, to join the assault or at least commit to a broader fight with Israel if Hamas staged a surprise cross-border raid. The documents, which represent a breakthrough in understanding Hamas, also show extensive efforts to deceive Israel about its intentions as the group laid the groundwork for a bold assault and a regional conflagration that Mr. Sinwar hoped would cause Israel to “collapse.”
The documents consist of minutes from 10 secret planning meetings of a small group of Hamas political and military leaders in the run-up to the attack, on Oct. 7, 2023. The minutes include 30 pages of previously undisclosed details about the way Hamas’s leadership works and the preparations that went into its attack.
The documents, which were verified by The Times, lay out the main strategies and assessments of the leadership group:
- Hamas initially planned to carry out the attack, which it code-named “the big project,” in the fall of 2022. But the group delayed executing the plan as it tried to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to participate.
- As they prepared arguments aimed at Hezbollah, the Hamas leaders said that Israel’s “internal situation” — an apparent reference to turmoil over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plans to overhaul the judiciary — was among the reasons they were “compelled to move toward a strategic battle.”
- In July 2023, Hamas dispatched a top official to Lebanon, where he met with a senior Iranian commander and requested help with striking sensitive sites at the start of the assault.
- The senior Iranian commander told Hamas that Iran and Hezbollah were supportive in principle, but needed more time to prepare; the minutes do not say how detailed a plan was presented by Hamas to its allies.
- The documents also say that Hamas planned to discuss the attack in more detail at a subsequent meeting with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader at the time, but do not clarify whether the discussion happened.
- Hamas felt assured of its allies’ general support, but concluded it might need to go ahead without their full involvement — in part to stop Israel from deploying an advanced new air-defense system before the assault took place.
- The decision to attack was also influenced by Hamas’s desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the entrenchment of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Israeli efforts to exert greater control over the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, sacred in both Islam and Judaism and known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
- Hamas deliberately avoided major confrontations with Israel for two years from 2021, in order to maximize the surprise of the Oct. 7 attack. As the leaders saw it, they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”
- Hamas leaders in Gaza said they briefed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, on “the big project.” It was not previously known whether Mr. Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in July, had been briefed on the attack before it happened.
Hamas delayed terror attack on Israel by a year in an effort to rope in Iran, Hezbollah into plot
The minutes detailing the planning before the attack were found on a computer in late January by Israel Defense Forces soldiers who were searching an underground Hamas command post in Khan Younis, the New York Times said.
The documents were verified by experts, including Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Hamas member and a former fighter in its military wing who is now an analyst in Istanbul.
The discovery also set off a flurry of questions within Israel’s intelligence agencies, as an internal military review demanded to know how Israel’s spies failed to obtain the information before the Oct. 7 attack or to understand what they described, the Times noted.
While Israel did obtain Hamas’s battle plans before the attack, Israeli commanders repeatedly dismissed the idea that Hamas had the ability or intention to carry them out.
The Iranian Mission to the United Nations denied the allegations made in the minutes.
“All the planning, decision-making and directing were solely executed by Hamas’s military wing based in Gaza, any claim attempting to link it to Iran or Hezbollah — either partially or wholly — is devoid of credence and comes from fabricated documents,” the statement to the New York Times read.
Back in February, the Director of National Intelligence’s threat assessment said this:
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) October 12, 2024
“We assess that Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had foreknowledge of the HAMAS attack against Israel.”
When the Israelis had found evidence from Hamas to the contrary a MONTH prior. https://t.co/4O77bLP5Ni pic.twitter.com/uDzX4DvAFD
Five Jewish false beliefs about domestic antisemitism
While most American Jews are interested in supporting the well-being of the Jewish community and Israel, the prominence accorded these issues in shaping people’s political priorities varies widely. Yet to the extent that these issues do rank high in the political thinking of much of the community, their translation into continued, overwhelming support for Democrats reflects the embrace of several false beliefs regarding the party, American Jewish well-being and Israel.Anti-racist activist suggests he might have participated in Oct. 7 attacks if he grew up in Gaza
Five of them are:
1. Antisemitism in America is mainly a right-wing, conservative phenomenon.
This is a long-standing conviction among Jews that can be traced to their forebears’ experiences in late 18th- and 19th-century Europe—that the extension of civic rights to Jews largely garnered more support from liberal cadres than from conservatives, although this pattern was not consistent. Polls of American Jewish opinion throughout many decades have revealed a vast majority believing antisemitism to be more rife among American conservatives than liberals; however, actual surveys of American opinion regarding Jews do not support this belief. One might have expected that the emergence, particularly in the last decade, of leftist-dominated American academia as the chief institutional bastion of domestic antisemitism would have led to some questioning of the long-held association of Jew-hatred primarily with the right. But it has generally not done so. One might likewise have expected that since Jewish fealty to the Democrats has been grounded in the perception of the Democrats as the traditionally liberal party and, therefore, more congenial for Jews, the rejection in recent years by much of the American left and the Democratic Party of basic liberal principles would have led to a rethinking of old assumptions. An example of abandoned liberal principles is the commitment to free speech now being attacked on campuses. Another is a commitment to judging individuals by the content of their character rather than their group identity, also rejected by key left-dominated institutions. But again, there is little evidence of such a rethinking by American Jews even as the Republican Party has become the major political defender of such principles. Certainly, the vile antisemitism of far-right, white-supremacist and neo-Nazi sources has been garnering significant support on social media in recent years. Media personality Tucker Carlson’s popularity and his promotion of such rightist mouthpieces for Jew-hatred as the unhinged Candace Owens and Holocaust-denier “historian” Darryl Cooper are notable examples. But the other major sources of antisemitism—the progressive left and Islamists (the so-called red-green alliance) and black radicals—have penetrated much more into the American mainstream. In addition, they often make common cause with white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Any examination of social-media accounts belonging to Islamists and black radicals will, not infrequently, find praise of Hitler and the Nazi agenda, and the admiration goes the other way as well. In addition, the recent burgeoning of antisemitism in the United States, again largely from leftist, Islamist and black-radical sources, has been accompanied by a reluctance of the Democratic Party to address the hate. In Congress, there has been a consistent pattern to avoid discussion of the issue or to insist that any discussion be immersed in a wider consideration of bigotry. The recent greater attention to the issue in the House of Representatives has been a result of Republican control of the House. Yet the belief that Jew-hatred is promoted primarily by the right remains an article of faith for many American Jews.
2. Left-wing anti-Jewish sentiment is rooted in hostility to Israel.
This false belief is largely grounded in wishful thinking. Many American Jews are simply unprepared to acknowledge that left-leaning groups and the institutions with which they identify hold them in bigoted disregard. Therefore, they prefer to interpret that disregard as Israel’s fault. Much of the domestic anti-Jewish sentiment is indeed couched in anti-Israel or anti-Zionist terms, with any animus towards Jews often explained by bigots as stemming from Jewish support for Israel. But the wholesale attacks on Jews at college campuses and in the streets since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel ought to have raised some doubts about such explanations. In fact, there has been a domestic, left-dominated campaign fostering Jew-hatred that is only loosely linked to Israel. The diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) movement, ubiquitous in its academic spawning grounds and in much of corporate America, promotes Jew-hatred by categorizing Jews as privileged whites and by singling them out as particular beneficiaries of racist advantage by virtue of their being disproportionately successful. Jews are also viewed as proper targets of DEI venom because of their history of supporting meritocracy. These rationales for peddling Jew-hatred are distinct from and not simply secondary to anti-Israel bias, even though that bias—with Israel caricatured as a white-colonial project—is another facet of DEI hate-mongering.
Columbia business Professor Shai Davidai wrote, “Ta-Nehisi Coates is not above raping young women at a music festival in the name of ‘resistance,’ ” referring to one of the Oct. 7 attacks that left hundreds dead at the Nova fest.Ben Shapiro: This Worldview Is TOTALLY EVIL…And It’s Now Mainstream
Among other things, Coates is famous for “Between the World and Me,” a book written as a letter from a father to his son trying to explain racial injustice.
Known for his attacks on white supremacy, the author — who also put together the 2017 “We Were Eight Years in Power,” a collection of essays he penned during the Obama White House — has taken hits from black activists such as Cornel West.
“Who’s the ‘we’? When’s the last time he’s been through the ghetto, in the ‘hoods, to the schools and indecent housing and mass unemployment?” West told the New York Times Magazine in 2017.
“We were in power for eight years? My God. Maybe he and some of his friends might have been in power, but not poor working people.”
Coates’ comments to Noah come in the midst of ongoing fallout over his contentious interview on “CBS Mornings” with host Tony Dokoupil regarding his latest book, which devotes a significant section to the Holy Land.
“If I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim … the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said to Coates during the heated segment.
CBS news bosses later reprimanded Dokoupil, saying his treatment of Coates violated their editorial standards.
Ta-Nehisi Coates goes full extremist, and we examine just how deep his ideology has spread; the Kamala Harris campaign has lost its mojo; and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer unleashes a bit of anti-Catholic malice.
“Someone finally has the audacity to ask Saint Ta-Nehisi a couple of critical questions—and the network goes into meltdown.”
— The Free Press (@TheFP) October 11, 2024
FP contributor @DouglasKMurray breaks down our reporting on Ta-Nehisi Coates’s CBS interview with @DanaPerino. pic.twitter.com/fwKi7hTwxd
The context doesn't make this clip better like at all
— Kiyah Willis (@kiyahwillis) October 11, 2024
He just doubles down on the idea of “if my life was hard enough, I might consider killing innocent people”
He is not a good person https://t.co/1nT7b6oiGa
Lebanon’s “modern day slavery” treatment of foreign workers is in the spotlight as they are abused by their employers amid the conflict.https://t.co/VtxsWxjKZW
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) October 12, 2024
Kamala Harris mingled with Tehran regime operative who promotes terrorism
Iranian operatives in the US fund and fuel hate on campus and spread propaganda across the country — and even get face time with friendly American elected officials, according to an alarming new report on extremism by George Washington University researchers.Iran on-profit ‘front’ in NYC at center of hate campaign in United States: report
In one of the report’s concerning images, Vice President Kamala Harris is seen happily mingling with an imam at the center of the murderous regime’s influence campaign.
An Iranian-born cleric who served as head of the Iranian Navy’s political-ideological office during the 1980s, Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi has deep, decades-long ties to his homeland, and has praised the Islamic Republic’s bloodthirsty founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Hezbollah, saying he would die for the cause.
Harris convened with Elahi at a vaccination event at the TCF Center (since renamed Huntington Place) in Detroit in July 2021, and planned to visit his controversial Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn, Mich., before the tour was scrapped at the last minute due to a flood, according to the nonprofit’s website.
“Imam Elahi joined the vaccination mobilization event addressed by Vice President Harris, Governor [Gretchen] Whitmer . . . and a group of state and national political leaders,” the nonprofit gushed alongside images of a smiling Elahi with Harris.
“Talking with VP Harris, the imam congratulated the administration for their great achievements in fighting COVID 19 and advancing the vaccination services,” the organization wrote. “Vice President Harris thanked Imam Elahi and IHW for their preparation to host her at the House of Wisdom.”
The chance encounter illustrated just how far, and high up, Iran’s hateful influence in the US reaches. It was recounted in an explosive new report from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
The report singled out the radical Manhattan-based Alavi Foundation, once accused by federal prosecutors of serving as a “secret” front for the Iranian government. The group has funneled nearly $500,000 to Elahi’s organization since 2000, along with another nearly $1.9 million to American universities, including Columbia, according to tax records reviewed by The Post.
A Manhattan “front” for Iran has many tentacles in the five boroughs, including a 36-story office building on Fifth Avenue considered its crown jewel.Jimmy Carter, friend of dictators and champion of terrorists
The Alavi Foundation — named in a new report as a lynchpin of Iran’s “influence” campaign inside the US — also owns a 36,000-square-foot building in Queens that is home to a mosque and a school with a taxpayer-funded pre-K program.
In 2017, the federal government seized the soaring building at 650 Fifth Ave on the corner of East 52nd in what was then seen as a massive victory in the war on terror.
An appellate judge, however, overturned the action on procedural grounds, and the legal battle is still ongoing, according to the report from George Washington University’s program on extremism.
The tax-exempt foundation owns four other properties in the US that it leases out to Muslim organizations for $1 a year to serve as mosques, community centers and schools.
Income from commercial rents at 650 Fifth Ave. allows them to finance the subsidy.
Tenants at the Fifth Avenue skyscraper currently include Nike’s flagship House of Innovation, a Rolex service center and a number of law firms.
The 17th floor previously was rented out to a fund owned by President Biden’s son Hunter and brother James.
The Alavi building on Queens Boulevard is home to the Islamic Institute of New York, the Imam Ali mosque and the private Al Razi School, according to GWU researchers.
The private school, with 163 students, received more than $1 million in government grants in 2022, according to tax records. The GWU report noted the school receives funding from the New York state Department of Education.
The Razi school and Islamic Institute have attempted to distance themselves from their landlord.
A sign at one point was put up in the school’s lobby noting that Alavi has “no involvement” in any of the building tenants’ activities, according to a 2009 New York Times report.
Alavi, however, has pumped over $1.6 million into the institute over the years, in addition to spending millions on maintaining and renovating the building, the report found.
Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old this month. As is customary, the press showered our longest-living ex-president with hosannas to mark the occasion.
Since October also happens to mark the anniversary of one of the most savage attacks on Jews in history, I was reminded that our genteel one-term president did more than teach Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church. He spent most of his career befriending, legitimizing, and championing the worst people on the planet.
Who can forget Carter imploring the United States to “give Hamas a chance”? That was back in 2006. It wasn’t the first or last time Carter vouched for the theocratic death cult. He is a longtime fan.
Forgotten in the deluge of anti-Israel propaganda is the fact that Hamas was given a chance. In 2005, as a test run for a new state, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon evicted thousands of Jews from the Gaza Strip and handed the Palestinians autonomy for the first time in their history. When mobs of Palestinians in Gaza found no Israelis to murder, they destroyed millions of dollars in farming equipment left to them by American Jewish donors.
In any event, within a year, Hamas won a significant majority in the “Palestinian Parliament,” and Carter began imploring the U.S. to treat the group with the legitimacy it might the Swiss or Japanese governments. Soon enough, Hamas was defenestrating rival Fatah officials and smuggling weapons from the Islamic terrorism regime in Iran, ensuring war and destabilizing the region.
Carter likely first met with Hamas leaders in January 1996. In March and February of that year, Hamas participated in a string of suicide bombings, murdering 65 people, including three U.S. citizens. Dead Americans did not move Carter to admonish his friends in Gaza.
Carter again met with Hamas in April 2008 as it was launching hundreds of missiles every month at civilian targets within Israel, promising that the group wouldn’t undermine peace. After Hamas first attempted to launch an Oct. 7-style attack in 2014, Carter called on Israel and the U.S. to recognize the offshoot of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood as the “legitimate political actor” that represents the “Palestinian population.” If our former president were sentient today, it is almost surely the case he would call for the U.S. to make peace with Hamas and castigate the Jewish state.
It should be said that Carter’s admiration of antisemitic terrorists did not begin with Hamas. The former president harbored a deep “fondness” for Yasser Arafat, the godfather of all modern terrorism, a relationship that “transcended politics” and was “based on their emotional connection and the shared belief that they were both ordained to be peacemakers by God,” according to historian Douglas Brinkley. (Carter tried to cram Arafat into the Camp David peace talks after Israel and Egypt had already cut a deal, which the president had very little to do with.)
To understand his motivations, one could read Carter’s demented book The Blood of Abraham or Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which historian Kenneth W. Stein, a former longtime Carter adviser, noted was “replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments” and Michael Kinsley called “moronic.” Carter is a religious zealot with a messianic complex and a distorted understanding of history.
B. General (retired) Iteshek Segev, Israel's military attaché in Iran, was in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Coup D'état.
— Goldie Ghamari, MPP | گلسا قمری (@gghamari) October 12, 2024
Pay attention to what he says about President Jimmy Carter.
This is why Iranians despise Carter.
The Islamic Republic in Iran is not a legitimate government.… pic.twitter.com/I2pGPLcb8a
— David Hirsh (@DavidHirsh) October 10, 2024
So, @PrivateEyeNews deleted this post on X
— Tosh (@ToshN0tBurnside) October 11, 2024
Which is a shame ‘cos it’s very funny!
The far-left are triggered
But it appear Private Eye are not as brave when it comes to upsetting the left
…compared to those on the right of politics! pic.twitter.com/DxSfhfZ5AN
Mexico calls for recognition of Palestinian state amid war
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called for the recognition of the state of Palestine alongside Israel, reaffirming her country’s longstanding position on the matter.Nicaragua severs ties with Israel over Gaza war, calls it ‘enemy of humanity’
In a statement on Saturday, reported by Revista Proceso, she declared, “We condemn the aggressions that are being experienced and also consider that the state of Palestine must be recognized in its entirety just like the State of Israel. This has been Mexico’s position for many years, and that is the position we have. We search for peace above all.”
During her daily press conference, Sheinbaum condemned the ongoing violence in the Middle East, emphasizing that “war will never lead to a good outcome,” according to Sky News Arabia. She urged a peaceful resolution of the conflict and called upon international institutions to play a more active role. “The United Nations should be much more proactive as an institution in the search for and construction of world peace,” she stated.
Former secretary of foreign affairs Alicia Bárcena, now serving as the secretary of the environment, echoed the president’s sentiments. She warned of the potential expansion of the conflict to neighboring countries, saying, “There is concern about the risk of the expansion of this conflict to Lebanon and Syria. That could really complicate the Middle East a lot,” as reported by Revista Proceso.
Bárcena highlighted the disproportionate nature of Israel’s response following the attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023. “It is true that Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, but it is also true that Israel’s response has been disproportionate and has affected thousands of civilians, not only in Gaza, in Palestine as a whole, and now it is happening in Lebanon. So there is really an enormous concern,” she said.
She also addressed issues within the UN Security Council, particularly the use of the veto power that often stalls decisive action. Bárcena asserted, “The key is for the Security Council to eliminate the veto, because it is not operating because it is stalled in the vetoes, so the veto should be eliminated so that the council can really act decisively according to Article 4 of the UN Charter and recognize the state of Palestine. The United Nations already did it, but the only solution to that conflict will be that there are two states.”
Nicaragua announced on Friday plans to break off relations with Israel over the war in Gaza, calling the Israeli government “fascist and genocidal.”
Nicaragua’s left-wing President Daniel Ortega, who has been fiercely critical of Israel’s yearlong war with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, ordered ties to be cut, said Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is also Ortega’s wife.
The move is an essentially symbolic one, with ties between Israel and the central American country virtually nonexistent.
Israel has no ambassador in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua.
The decision was taken by the Nicaraguan government, which passed a resolution calling Israel an “enemy of humanity.”
The resolution added that Nicaragua stood against “genocide, occupation and permanent aggression against the life and dignity of the Palestinian people, which is now spreading to the people of Lebanon and seriously threatening Syria, Yemen, and Iran, endangering peace and security in the region and the world.”
It also “reiterated [Nicaragua’s] warm and constant consideration for the dear families of the Israeli people, who deserve our affection, support, and solidarity, and who are living difficult times as a result of the excessive brutality and hatred of the Israeli government.”
Nicaragua has twice before broken off ties with Israel — once in 2010 under Ortega as well as in 1982 under the Sandinista revolutionary government led by Ortega following the country’s 1979 revolution.
Saudi Journalist Abdulrahman Al-Rashed: The Two-State Solution is the Most Logical and Feasible Solution; The Arabs Should Agree to a Demilitarized Palestinian State and Put the Pressure on Israel to Accept It @aalrashed pic.twitter.com/2nSvQlqNpx
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 11, 2024
Make no mistake, ‘settler colonialism’ means America
The goal of “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators who celebrate the murder of 1,200 people in Israel last Oct. 7 is not simply the destruction of the Jewish state.The Anti-Colony: Falsely Labeling Israel
Yes, they certainly hope to wipe Israel off the map, every bit of it “from the river to the sea.” But that is not the final destination yearned for by urban and campus activists wearing their uber-cool terrorist headscarves, waving their green, red, white, and black flags, and sullying the American polity with their ignorance as much as they sully its buildings with their graffiti.
To see where their logic leads them, look at what their placards demand. They mention such disparate objects of hatred or veneration as the CIA and the Stonewall riots. But the key expression of hope is on the simplest placard reading, “Palestine Will Be Free.”
What exactly does this mean? What does it imply, and where does it lead?
Most obviously, the freedom demanded is Palestinian freedom from the state of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. It is an expression of the ancient visceral bigotry that reviles the Jews, which has seethed and erupted among ethnic Arabs and Europeans for centuries.
This gut hatred is given sanction and the force of holy writ by Islam’s principal texts. But the Quran and other articles of Muslim faith do not motivate most young New York or California lefties who’ve embraced the cause of antisemitic genocide in the past year. They are convinced and inspired, instead, by what they understand of “settler colonialism.”
In their historical ignorance, they regard Israel as a colonial state established on land stolen from its true owners, Muslim Arabs. This perspective is sometimes given expression in the phrase, “History didn’t start in 1948,” which one sees often in smug social media posts. It is intended to convey the false notion that the speaker is smart enough and knowledgeable enough to know what came before Israel was founded and recognized by the United Nations 77 years ago.
The land Israel occupies was called Palestine, but the implication that its proper owners are the Palestinians is false. The majority of Palestinians are probably descended from Syrians who moved to Palestine in the first third of the 20th century at a time of parallel Jewish immigration. But all Palestinians, whether or not recently arrived from Syria, aren’t the “original” inhabitants of the Holy Land but are descended from Mohammedan conquerors who swept out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century and took the land from the Byzantines.
The Byzantines were heirs of Rome, whose legions arrived before Christ was born among his fellow Jews, a people who had been there by then for more than a thousand years. It is by right of conquest and colonization that Arabs lay claim to the land that the Romans named Palestine to punish indigenous Jews for rebellion against Caesar.
But Arab settler colonialism is not the settler colonialism taught in American colleges, which animates the international Left in support of Islamist butchers. Theirs is a virulent self-hatred — the late, great philosopher Roger Scruton dubbed it “oikophobia,” from the Greek — which focuses only on European colonialism. The majority of Israelis are descendants of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East, but the state was founded by European Jews. This and its liberal democratic principles, its dynamism, and its Western-style success, make it the Left’s enemy.
"Colonialization" is the new mortal sin, the physical manifestation of the evil wrought by White oppressors on the unfortunate oppressed.It’s time to correct Wikipedia’s dangerous anti-Israel bias
The current focus of this obsession is Israel, deemed a Western colony on Arab land.
Yet the notion that Israel is a colony is contrary to reality.
The most widely accepted definition of a "colony" is a territory seized and controlled by people from another territory, usually involving the displacement of indigenous peoples.
But Israel is not a colony by any definition. Israel is a nation made up of the descendants of indigenous people who have regained control of land from those who took the land by force from their ancestors.
Its founders did not seek to create an outpost for a distant society. It is assuredly not a group of people who have sought to settle in a new place; the Jews have returned to their old homeland.
Israel is the anti-colony. They do not seek to retain political ties to other countries.
On the contrary, the Zionist movement is predicated on inducing Jews to definitively leave the land of their exile to return to the land of their ancestors.
The colonists in the area "between the river and the sea" are not the Jews but the Arabs who came to the area under cover of Islam's conquest of Asia and Africa.
Many of the grandparents and great-grandparents of those who today style themselves as Palestinians were born in distant lands.
Wikipedia prides itself as a “free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality” available to “every single person on the planet in their own language.” Its reach as the world’s “largest and most-read reference work in history” is unprecedented, fielding 4 billion global visitors monthly.Wikipedia Describes Nakba As “Ethnic Cleansing”
In Wikipedia’s case, while free and popular might not guarantee quality, it surely will have a negative and dangerous impact on public discourse surrounding Israel and Middle East terrorism.
In recent years, Wikipedia’s shortfalls have become apparent through its intensifying anti-Israel biases, evidenced by its shameless anti-Israel activism, efforts to erase Israeli identity, and discrepancies that seemingly whitewash anti-Israel terrorism. As Wikipedia bears the ability to significantly influence public discourse and global affairs, now more than ever, it’s time to demand that the online encyclopedia restores its guidelines, including its obligation to report “from a neutral point of view… without editorial bias.”
Wikipedia’s Arabic portal clearly indicates the website’s anti-Israel leanings. For example, a search for Frank Sinatra – or any subject in general – in Arabic will reveal an entry page, headed by Wikipedia’s logo draped in Palestinian colors, and a statement that falsely accuses Israel of genocide and expresses the organization’s “solidarity with the right of the Palestinian people.” In so doing, Wikipedia seeks to preempt and scapegoat the Jewish state for its current self-defense campaign against Hamas, which unilaterally invaded Israel and killed 1,200 innocent people on October 7, 2023 and took 250 hostage.
Wikipedia has also actively promoted erasure of Israeli identity. In July 2024, Hezbollah killed 12 Druze children playing soccer in the Golan Heights. On its entry page documenting the incident, Wikipedia referred to the victims simply as “Syrian children,” despite a 2020 poll revealing that “61 percent of Israeli Druze” feel “very much” like “real Israeli[s].” Wikipedia’s mischaracterization seemingly sought to downplay Israel’s multi-pluralism and the possibility that Israelis could actually be the victim of Middle East terrorism.
A clear double standard
Additionally, Wikipedia has sought to whitewash the terrorism of anti-Israel groups. When it comes to US-designated terrorist groups that are not foremostly focused on Israel’s destruction – such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-E-Taiba, FARC, ISIS, or the PKK – it usually takes Wikipedia no more than two paragraphs (usually just one) to highlight that these entities engage in terrorism or are designated as terrorist groups. But when it comes to the entry pages for terrorist groups that clearly prioritize Israel’s destruction – such as Hamas and Hezbollah – Wikipedia only first makes mention of the word “terror” or “terrorism” after four and 31 paragraphs, respectively.
A clear double standard exists, whereby for anti-Israel terrorists, Wikipedia frequently buries the devils in the details and places the burden on readers to find them. Through this tactic, the site seemingly wants to make it difficult for readers to similarly diagnose Hamas and Hezbollah as they would other terrorist groups. After all, according to Forbes, “website users dedicate 5.59 seconds to reading written content on a site.”
The Wikipedia article on the Nakba, which is Arabic for “catastrophe,” describes the events of Israel’s war for independence in 1948 as being “the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs.”US official confirms sending THAAD air defense system to Israel being mulled, but no decision yet
The opening sentence of the article states: “The Nakba (Arabic: النكبة an-Nakbah, lit. ‘The Catastrophe’) was the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine during the 1948 Palestine war through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is also used to describe the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.”
Wikipedia operates by consensus, a combination of numbers and argument strength regarding site policy. Dating back to March of this year, an overwhelming majority of editors have argued on the talk page of the article it’s kosher under Wikipedia policy to use “ethnic cleansing” in a neutral voice (wikivoice) because it’s the mainstream academic view. It’s not until later in the article does the reader learn of the “Israeli national narrative” that “the Palestinian Arabs voluntarily fled their homes during the war, encouraged by Arab leaders who told Palestinians to temporarily evacuate so that Arab armies could destroy Israel, and then upon losing the war, refused to integrate them. This viewpoint also contrasts Jewish refugees absorbed by Israel with Palestinian refugees kept stateless by Arab countries as political pawns.” But Wikipedia editors know that the majority of their readers don’t read past the lead.
“It’s not the mainstream view,” Tel Aviv University Vice Rector Eyal Zisser told me regarding the history of the use of “ethnic cleansing,” pointing out that Wikipedia uses the term “expulsions” regarding Czechoslovakia’s deportations of Germans in the aftermath of World War II. The Czechs’ deportation of the Germans “were well-prepared and with a clean intention” but “this is not the case in 1948 when there was a war,” Zisser said. An editor who grew disillusioned with Wikipedia after making thousands of edits told me that while Zisser’s argument about the Czechs may be valid to those “outside Wikipedia,” it won’t be compelling to “an experienced editor” as “they can handwave away anything that’s not by a ‘reliable source’ and know how to focus heavily on the sources that say what they want the article to say.”
“The entire Nakba narrative is based on the destruction of Israel,” Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky, who heads Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and North Africa, told me. “The Nakba narrative is basically to equate 1948 to the Holocaust … what they argue is very simple: They say that the state of Israel only exists because of the Holocaust, so if there wasn’t any Holocaust, there wouldn’t be a state of Israel. They go one step further to say that the Nakba [19]48 is the Holocaust and say, ‘How dare the Jews who experienced the Holocaust do something worse to the Palestinians.’ So that’s how the use of Holocaust inversion feeds into all this.” He added that “the fact of the matter is that the majority of the [Palestinian] population left because they were told to leave because of outside forces [from] Syria and Iraq and other places and that these forces promised the Palestinians that they could come back to their homes after Israel was destroyed, but that never happened. They had to make up a reality to justify the lack of a foregone conclusion.” Romirowsky argued that the consensus is that the cause of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war is about “a third, a third and a third” attributed to forcible removals, leaving on their own volition and being told to leave by the Arab leaders. His read of the documents is that “the majority left because they were told to leave” and that the Arab leaders wanted “less Arabs in the area” so they “could come in and cleanse the area from Jews.”
A US official tells The Times of Israel that US President Joe Biden’s administration is considering transferring Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) air defense systems to Israel, but adds that a decision has not yet been made.
Earlier, several Israeli reports claimed that the US will deploy the anti-ballistic missile system in the Jewish state — including sending American troops to Israeli soil to operate it — as part of preparations for the expected Israeli response to Iran’s recent missile attack.
The US has a wide range of missile defense systems arrayed across the Middle East and Europe, including Patriot systems. Officials have been discussing for months what types of air defense systems to deploy to the region and where to put them. Any move of a THAAD to Israel would involve the deployment of soldiers to operate the complex system.
A year ago, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of a THAAD battery and additional Patriot battalions to locations around the Middle East to increase the protection of US forces and to aid in the defense of Israel. According to an April report by the Congressional Research Service, the US Army has seven THAAD batteries. Generally, each consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors, radio and radar equipment, and it requires 95 soldiers to operate.
The THAAD is considered a complimentary system to the Patriot, but it can defend a wider area. It can hit targets at ranges of 150-200 kilometers (93-124 miles).
Despite U.S. Officials claiming that a decision had not yet been made regarding the Deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Battery to Israel, a U.S. Air Force C-5 “Galaxy” Strategic Airlifter from Portsmouth arrived earlier today at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in… pic.twitter.com/lHUSv7jlp7
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 12, 2024
Underground Warfare: Inside Gaza Terror Tunnels
Israeli SOF teach Lev & Shai how to fight terror underground! Special operators from Yalom, Israel’s elite unit specializing in tunnel warfare, to reveal the intense challenges of fighting in Gaza's terror tunnels. From navigating claustrophobic spaces to dealing with low oxygen, gas threats, and enemy ambushes, this video takes you inside the tunnels, showing the tactics, equipment, and mindset needed to confront this dangerous underground warfare."
UN says Lebanon peacekeeper injured by fire of unknown origin, the 5th hurt in 2 days
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said Saturday that unknown gunfire a day earlier hit a peacekeeper, the fifth wounded in south Lebanon near the Israeli border in just two days.
“Last night, a peacekeeper at UNIFIL’s headquarters” in Naqura “was hit by gunfire due to ongoing military activity nearby… We do not yet know the origin of the fire,” a statement said.
UNIFIL said the peacekeeper underwent surgery to remove the bullet, and was “stable.”
The UN force additionally said that buildings in the position in Ramyah “sustained significant damage due to explosions from nearby shelling.”
Two UN peacekeepers were injured on Friday by an Israeli strike near their watchtower in south Lebanon, the Israeli military said.
The Israel Defense Forces expressed “deep concern” and said its troops fired at an “immediate threat” emanating from near a UN peacekeeping mission position.
It said the peacekeepers had been warned hours earlier to take shelter. The United Nations said both were from Sri Lanka.
The world is all of a sudden in love with UNIFIl after #Israel injured two of them. Since 2006, #Hezbollah has killed, injured, clashed with, hurled stones at, chased away dozens of UNIFIL, dozens of times. Did the world ever make an issue out of it?
— Hussain Abdul-Hussain (@hahussain) October 12, 2024
Of course not! https://t.co/NPjqo1IDmr pic.twitter.com/n4XjCyNBYn
IDF strikes 280 terror targets, eliminates 250 terrorists responding to Yom Kippur attacks
The Israel Air Force and IDF conducted several interceptions and strikes following alerts in the Galilee and Ashkelon areas, the IDF reported throughout Yom Kippur.
At around 10 a.m. on Saturday, a rocket launched from Lebanon toward the Central Galilee was successfully intercepted, as were multiple rockets, also launched from Lebanon, toward the Upper Galilee, an hour later, the IDF said.
The IDF noted that shortly after 12 p.m. on Saturday, they identified approximately 30 more rockets crossing from Lebanon toward the Galilee, some of which they intercepted; however, they reported some hits. Two more rockets, intercepted almost an hour later, crossed from Lebanon.
Close to 5 p.m., around 16 more launches from Lebanon were detected in the Upper Galilee; some were intercepted, and impacts were reported in the area. Finally, the IDF reported that two rockets launched from the Gaza Strip toward Ashkelon fell in open areas without causing any harm.
Furthermore, the Israel Air Force intercepted two drones launched from Lebanon that did not enter Israeli airspace.Alerts sounded in all incidents. When the alerts sounded on Saturday, Israeli media reported that 12 people sustained minor injuries while heading to a protected area, while the blast wave from a rocket falling in the Western Galilee lightly injured three others.
In response to the attacks during the solemn fast day, the IDF targeted approximately 280 terror targets in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, including tunnels, weapon storage facilities, and rocket launch sites aimed at Israel.
IDF eliminates terrorists, destroys terror sites in Lebanon, Gaza
Additionally, the IDF eliminated around 50 Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon while uncovering weapons and other equipment belonging to the terrorist organization.
In Gaza, IDF forces neutralized over 200 terrorists. In Jabalya, more than 20 terrorists were eliminated through a combination of tank fire, close combat, and airstrikes by the 162nd Division. In the central Gaza Strip, the 252nd Division eliminated several terrorist groups involved in anti-tank attacks, while in Rafah, the IDF’s Gaza Division forces took out additional terrorists who were targeting IDF soldiers.
During these operations, the IAF destroyed rocket and missile launchers in southern Lebanon and hit an underground Hezbollah site near the Syria-Lebanon border. Targets included underground terrorist facilities, weapon storage, command centers, terrorist cells, and military sites linked to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Two soldiers were wounded during combat in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, the IDF reported on Saturday evening. An officer from the Military Engineering School was severely wounded during combat in southern Gaza earlier on Saturday. A reservist from Battalion 9203, part of the Alexandroni Brigade, sustained severe injuries during combat in southern Lebanon in a separate incident on Saturday.
Even on our holiest day Israel must be protected!
— The Mossad: Satirical and Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 12, 2024
Over the weekend, IDF forces eliminated dozens of Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza. The IAF struck 280 terror targets, including rocket launchers and underground infrastructure. In Lebanon, 50 Hezbollah… pic.twitter.com/eQkvtDvkLS
A nursing home in Herzilya was hit by a Hezbollah drone this evening. No casualties were reported. pic.twitter.com/8taldh95QC
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) October 11, 2024
IDF intercepts ‘suspicious aerial target’ over Red Sea; Iran-backed group in Iraq claims attack
The IDF says it intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” headed toward Israel from the direction of the Red Sea.
A statement from the military stresses the aircraft never entered Israeli airspace.
The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq claims responsibility for the attack, saying it launched two drones at Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat.
WILD FOOTAGE ⚡️
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 12, 2024
Last night, two Hezbollah explosive drones reached central Israel region. One was intercepted, while the other impacted a building with no injuries. pic.twitter.com/Bz4KUyILd7
IDF says Hezbollah moving fighters, arms in ambulances as 2 Lebanon hospitals damaged in strikes
Two hospitals in the Bekaa Valley, a stronghold area of Hezbollah, sustained damage from Israeli strikes today, the hospitals say. There were no casualties, they add.
The Israeli military said today that Hezbollah was using ambulances to transport fighters and weapons and that it would take any necessary action.
The IDF spokesman announced today in Arabic that Hezbollah uses ambulances to transport gunmen. The IDF warned medical teams that if will attack any vehicle that contains armed men. pic.twitter.com/qJaDPbQG9c
— Mike (@Doranimated) October 12, 2024
A thing of beauty!
— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) October 12, 2024
This is the village of Yaroun.
It is getting the "Gaza treatment"
Use any civilian structure for terror activity and it will be demolished! pic.twitter.com/VJbsx7n1oK
To promote the fantasy among the Lebanese that Iran can bring them something other than death and destruction, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited the site of the Israeli strike in Beirut that targeted Hezbollah's security chief, Wafiq Safa, on Thursday.… pic.twitter.com/lkzSLCtawY
— Mike (@Doranimated) October 12, 2024
12 more Hezbollah fatalities, mourned by their local communities in Lebanon.
— QalaatM (@QalaatM) October 12, 2024
It includes several field commanders and sometimes relatives.
This is roughly a third of what Hezbollah loses daily since 23rd September.
📸 #703 -> #714 pic.twitter.com/MTQcdEMzsW
spiked podcast: After 7 October: the crisis of civilisation
Toby Young, Tom Slater and Fraser Myers discuss the woke left’s sympathy for Hamas, how James Cleverly imploded and the bald man who sued for sex discrimination.
"We Indian Jews have adopted Hindu traditions, that is why we are also known as Hinjews in Israel" ~ Actress Madhura Naik.
— Anshul Saxena (@AskAnshul) October 10, 2024
On 7th October 2023, Hamas terrorists killed her sister & brother-in-law in front of their children in Israel.
When Madhura posted about them, she was… pic.twitter.com/FfnQUrk6Xy
Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule: Dear Chappell Roan...
To mark the anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel, Bill attempts to educate young Americans about the Middle East.
One year after October 7th, a mainstream media outlet writes that 1200 people were murdered and 250 were abducted “according to Israeli authorities.” Could you imagine an outlet writing: “3000 Americans died on 9/11 according to American authorities”?
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) October 12, 2024
Once an event is… pic.twitter.com/23uAbNshh1
Honestly with Bari Weiss: The Hundred Year Holy War
We all know the horrid tale of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023. Waves of gunmen attacked families in their homes and young people attending a music festival. The marauders filmed their murders on GoPro cameras. They burned families alive in their safe rooms; raped, and mutilated their victims; and took hostages back to Gaza on golf carts. Why did they do it?How Hamas Might Have Made Young Israelis Even More Determined | David Friedman
For many critics of Israel, the horrific violence of October 7 was the predictable response to the “occupation”—never mind that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. To them, October 7 was a jailbreak from what progressives often call “an open-air prison.”
But for the belligerents, in their own words, this war is for the defense of a mosque on top of a mountain. They called their massacre “Al-Aqsa Flood,” named for one of the two mosques that sit atop what is known to the Jews as the Temple Mount. This is where King Solomon’s temple once stood, and at its base is the Western Wall, where Jews have prayed since its construction in the second century BCE. It’s also known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, a noble sanctuary. It’s where Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven in a dream. An October 10 Hamas communiqué justified their attack as resistance to thwart “schemes and dreams of Judaizing Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.”
This reveals something very important about the Israel-Palestine conflict: That it is not a territorial dispute. It’s a holy war, with roots in an ancient city with significance far beyond its 2.5 miles of limestone walls. The world knows it as Jerusalem. The Palestinians call it Al-Quds.
Hamas claims there is a plot by Israel to destroy Al-Aqsa—the mosque atop the Temple Mount that sits in the center of Jerusalem—and build a third Jewish temple where it now stands. It’s a lie. A lie that goes back a century. The man who first began to spread the libel was from one of Jerusalem’s great families that traced its lineage back to the prophet Muhammad himself. He was a seminary-school dropout, a fanatic antisemite, and a Nazi collaborator. His name was Hajj Amin al-Husseini.
Today, Eli Lake tells the story of al-Husseini, the origins of the 100-year holy war, and why it persists to this day.
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to former Ambassador to Israel David Friedman about the challenges facing Western nations, particularly Europe, as they face internal threats and immigration issues; Israel's stronger identity and self-defense policies compared to Western countries; how radical Islam plays a long-term strategy to infiltrate and destabilize nations; Israel’s youth being more conservative and patriotic than previous generations; the ongoing real estate boom in Israel, even during conflict; and much more.
In company video, Amazon exec wears necklace with a map of Israel with a Palestinian flag across it — while Amazon refuses to publicly acknowledge its employee, Sasha Troufanov, has been held hostage by Hamas for over a year https://t.co/4Q1EBvyif7 pic.twitter.com/yWeULBCfjD
— Lahav Harkov 🎗️ (@LahavHarkov) October 12, 2024
Labor's Yom Kippur message
— Australian Jewish Association (@AustralianJA) October 12, 2024
Labor's Penny Wong continues a nasty tradition of Labor timing their anti-Jewish attacks for major Jewish holidays.
Minutes before Yom Kippur, Wong launched an anti-Israel attack, falsely accusing Israel of 'targeting' UN personnel.
In reality,… pic.twitter.com/bJzLoFnQrS
Francesca Albanese: "How many October 7ths had there been in Gaza before October 7?"
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 12, 2024
I don't know, Fran, why don't YOU tell us how many times Israel beheaded people at a music festival?pic.twitter.com/VXBixlcftK
There's a lot more wrong with this thread - and I don't mean stuff I disagree with, I mean disturbingly incompetent and ahistorical claptrap that he should be ashamed to have ever put to print.
— Haviv Rettig Gur (@havivrettiggur) October 12, 2024
The crazy salad he makes of "self-determination" - he seems to think the term is some…
When you don't know the history and don't care about minorities being decimated if they don't fit into your ideological matrix, you start spewing claptrap about "an essentialist racist “Clash-of-Civilisations-y” argument about the human condition" or "inherent Arab evilness."… https://t.co/5gePSQSIPZ
— Haviv Rettig Gur (@havivrettiggur) October 12, 2024
Palestinian cafe in California offers ‘Sweet Sinwar’ drink for October 7 anniversary
A Palestinian-owned café in Oakland, California, has introduced a menu to celebrate its first anniversary that includes an item celebrating Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the terror group’s leader and architect of its brutal October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel.
Near the bottom of its menu, the Jerusalem Coffee House advertises the “Sweet Sinwar” orange, ginger and carrot juice for $10.
The café released the menu on Monday, the first anniversary of the attack and a day that featured competing pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies across the United States, as well as expressions of communal mourning in Jewish communities.
Also on offer is the “iced in tea fada” iced tea, named after “intifada,” the word denoting Palestinian uprisings, the second of which killed some 1,000 Israelis two decades ago. The menu’s design motif features inverted red triangles, a symbol used by Hamas to indicate military targets.
A Jerusalem Coffee House representative declined to answer questions about the menu with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The representative asked this reporter via Instagram direct message to “share your opinion on whether or not you feel the media has been accurate in reporting on the genocide in Gaza?” and did not respond to further questions.
The menu, which the café posted on Instagram, has also circulated on social media, including by prominent right-wing influencer Andy Ngo, who shared it with his 1.5 million followers on X. Some users in his replies called to leave negative reviews for the café on Google Maps. A notice on the café’s Yelp page says it is currently being monitored by Yelp’s support team “for content related to media reports.”
Publicly, the café is striking a defiant pose.
“Thanks to our beautiful community for the support and feedback about our new menu we look forward to continuing to build with you all,” the café said in a story on Instagram. “As we grow and our community continues to blossom these zionists will keep crying and calling for attention.. they’re having fun leaving shitty reviews on our Yelp; check out and leave a better review, rooted in honesty and authenticity of your experience at Jerusalem and pull up on us! We’re here till 3!”
Pro-Hamas cafe in Oakland, Calif: The Jerusalem Coffee House is run by a pro-Hamas extremist named Abdulrahim Harara. The cafe unveiled an Oct. 7 celebration menu that features drinks honoring Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the terrorist "intifada" attacks in Israel.
— Andy Ngo 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 10, 2024
The owner… pic.twitter.com/lkMmUGqwP6
Anti-Israel Agitators Swarm University of Michigan Students Who Blocked Funding Hamas-Associated College in West Bank
Anti-Israel agitators mobbed, harassed, and threatened University of Michigan student government representatives who voted against funding a Hamas-associated university in the West Bank, videos show. The school is investigating the incident, and the student government president and vice president have faced calls to resign.
In the wake of the vote held Tuesday night, protesters quickly swarmed Central Student Government (CSG) officers, calling them "f—ing Zionists" and "race traitors," according to videos of the ordeal. They also made "thinly veiled death threats," accused representatives of being "colonists," and called a female Lebanese student a "Zionist whore," students told the Washington Free Beacon.
Protesters began to approach and verbally attack the speaker and other CSG representatives, "Are you proud of yourself?", "Fucking Zionists!", "Shame!". Protesters also reportedly spit on members. According to a former CSG rep, protesters followed members to their car and home. pic.twitter.com/wuV3STFRDf
— Josh Brown (@jbis9051) October 11, 2024
"The fact that there were students physically assaulting other students is unbelievable," Patrick Szendro Arceo, a student government representative, said. "This is one of the many cases of how our campus is collapsing socially. People can no longer talk to each other."
Agitators accused Arceo of "betraying his people." He said some students cried while the mob followed them out of the meeting.
"People were still trying to chase us, but the police were able to block them. We had to separate into groups in order to escape and run to our cars," Arceo said.
The outburst began after the CSG passed the Wolverines’ Budget Act on Tuesday, restoring funding for campus activities. The organization’s president, a member of the SHUT IT DOWN party, which aims to halt all student government activity until the University of Michigan divests from Israel, had vetoed a previous budget, forcing student groups to rely on loans from the college for months.
Ali Qaraqe, a news editor at GQ Multimedia who posed in friendly photos with senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad Khader Adnan, was an outside agitator who participated in the @UofT's encampment. https://t.co/0KNnq5wDVy pic.twitter.com/UbcwHA6Wzh
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) October 12, 2024
Sam (Samantha) Eisele LinkedIn and IG profile: https://t.co/QG6yDa2p64 pic.twitter.com/dfR4FTtlZi
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 12, 2024
Jewish students at UConn posted flyers around campus denouncing antisemitism.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) October 12, 2024
They were destroyed within a few hours.
💔 pic.twitter.com/EiGjicBPi8
Wire news agencies like Reuters, AFP cooperate with Hamas but don't face protests
Movies have the Oscars. Major League Baseball has an All-Star team.
Do you know when you’ve really made it big on the pro-Israel speaking circuit? When you’ve gotten heckled enough to be cited in a report by the Anti-Defamation League.
I got that honor in a 2011 ADL report on “Anti-Israel trends on college campuses” in a section on “attempts to silence the pro-Israel voice.”
But the adjective used to describe me was not one I would pick for myself as a proud carnivore.
“When a relatively pareve speaker like Gil Hoffman is getting heckled, the problem must be very serious,” the report said.
I’ve managed to stay out of trouble for the most part since then –but nowadays, anyone pro-Israel is automatically controversial. Last month, attempts were made to cancel my talk on “How to Avoid Media Bias in Your Middle East Reporting” to the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists.
The critics warned that my Zoom would “harm local Jewish and Palestinian communities,” falsely accusing us of being sponsored by AIPAC and saying I “lack the credibility and sensitivity required to serve our community’s needs.” Thankfully, the organization stood up to cancel culture, and the talk went well. The Jews and Palestinians of New Jersey seem to have emerged unscathed.
However, HonestReporting has brought about its share of casualties on the media battlefield in the current war. Six journalists from top media outlets were reassigned or let go after we revealed their antisemitic social media posts or connection to Hamas.
But our role as a watchdog has only made media outlets more careful to avoid bias and maintain professionalism as journalists.
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) October 12, 2024
https://t.co/pgDK8mxUpQ https://t.co/SeMk7fXEPw
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) October 12, 2024
https://t.co/pgDK8mxUpQ https://t.co/SeMk7fXEPw
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) October 12, 2024
You have a number of ballistics experts telling you this is fabricated and many who gave you a professional explanation, yet you still didn't delete this post which has over a million views.
— יוסף חדאד - Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) October 12, 2024
This is absolutely outrageous. These falsifications do not help anyone, and you know… https://t.co/LFlBeNqJbH
I will question the motives of any organization that routinely collaborates with CAIR (the US-based Hamas front group) and hosts antisemite extraordinaire Linda Sarsour pic.twitter.com/jdcIQgWRAn
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 12, 2024
And one that posts widely debunked disinformation from the Hamas media office and leaves it online for a full year pic.twitter.com/UDVCbhnrNu
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 12, 2024
Proof the piece was authored by a PAMA volunteer, as was the person who supplied the images, Dr. Mimi Syed.
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) October 12, 2024
It's a shame because I'm sure PAMA has done important work in Gaza with those tragically impacted by the war. But there's no excuse for joining the disinformation campaign pic.twitter.com/ctCzz3vEoN
Yeah, don't look away from your lies!
— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) October 12, 2024
This single line about the Al Ahli hospital bombing from October 17th, shows just how unethical and biased you are!
It has been proven that what hit the hospital PARKING LOT was a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad.
There was no damage to the… https://t.co/LfoVQ4xgZv pic.twitter.com/MxQWmdXB2y
US slaps sanctions on Iran’s ‘ghost fleet’ oil-tanker network
The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Friday that it imposed sanctions on Iran’s “ghost fleet” of tankers and shipping companies that the Islamic Republic uses to sell oil.
The department designated 23 vessels and 16 companies for their participation in Iran’s efforts to contravene U.S. sanctions.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said the new sanctions were part of the “severe consequences” that he had threatened Iran would face after its Oct. 1 ballistic-missile attack on Israel.
He said the sanctions involve “new and significant measures to more effectively target Iran’s energy trade.”
“The new designations today also include measures against the ‘Ghost Fleet’ that carries Iran’s illicit oil to buyers around the world,” Sullivan stated. “These measures will help further deny Iran financial resources used to support its missile programs and provide support for terrorist groups that threaten the United States, its allies and partners.”
Iran uses a variety of methods to try to conceal the origin of its oil for sale on the global market, including falsifying ship location data to disguise oil transfers in the Persian Gulf, conducting ship-to-ship oil transfers and using foreign corporations to forge cargo documents to mask the Iranian origin of petroleum shipments.
Much of this oil is then sold to China, which does not recognize U.S. sanctions on Iran. Friday’s sanctions announcement notes that Iran has sold millions of barrels of oil to Chinese refineries but does not include new designations of any Chinese companies.
Treasury and @StateDept claim these sanctions are in response to Iran's October 1 attack on Israel.
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) October 11, 2024
That's not true. They were issued TODAY because Congress forced these sanctions through the SHIP Act on the Biden admin back in April out of frustration.
TODAY was the deadline.
The SHIP act required (not allowed, *required*) sanctions against 5 classes of "persons" supporting Iranian oil exports:
— Gabriel Noronha (@GLNoronha) October 11, 2024
1. Foreign port owners/operators
2. Vessel owner/operators
3. Refinery owners/operators
4. Family members of #1-3
5. Owners of #1-3
They didn't do that.
Jewish school in Canada targeted by gunfire during Yom Kippur, in 2nd attack in months
A Jewish school in Toronto was hit by gunfire Saturday for the second time this year, local police say, amid a rise in antisemitic attacks in Canada in the wake of the war in the Middle East.
No one was injured after shots were fired from a vehicle at around 4 a.m. local time at the Bais Chaya Mushka girls school, with the only damage being a broken window, according to authorities.
The school in the North York area of Toronto was targeted in a similar incident in May, and police believe the two shootings are connected.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is “very disturbed” by the incident, which comes as Jewish people celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism.
“As we wait for more details, my heart goes out to the students, staff and parents who must be terrified and hurting today,” Trudeau says in a post on X.
“Antisemitism is a disgusting and dangerous form of hate — and we won’t let it stand,” he adds.
According to a report published in May by Jewish organization B’nai Brith Canada, antisemitic acts more than doubled in the country between 2022 and 2023.
In November 2023, a Jewish school in Montreal was shot at twice in a single week, with no one injured.
More bullets fired at a Jewish school overnight in Toronto.
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) October 12, 2024
This is yet another shameful and terrifyingly common antisemitic attack in Canada in 2024. It is part of a 251% increase in hate crimes during the 9 years of the NDP-Liberals.
I will ban the terrorists, secure our…
More close up photos of the crime scene #BaisChayaMushka #NorthYork #Toronto #Ontario #onpoli #cdnpoli https://t.co/y0eDmewnWi pic.twitter.com/RD8YFzPVwX
— Documenting Reality (@realitydocu) October 12, 2024
🚨🚨🚨SHOTS FIRED AT JEWISH GIRLS' SCHOOL — AGAIN
— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) October 12, 2024
Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary in the Toronto area was peppered with gunfire for the second time. Below was the first.
This on our holiest day of the year.
I didn't want to use X until sundown. But we must protect our children at… pic.twitter.com/GSdPKVrvUQ
Australian police sergeant likely to be charged over Nazi salute in front of recruits
An Australian state police chief apologized to the Jewish community on Saturday after a sergeant allegedly performed an outlawed Nazi salute.Israel vs. Iran on the Judo Mat
The 65-year-old instructor on domestic violence policy and law at the Victoria state police academy in Melbourne is facing charges for the gesture and for praising Nazi leader Adolf Hitler with the words, “Heil Hitler” on Tuesday and Wednesday in front of academy staff and recruits, Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said.
“I want to express just here at the outset my disappointment, my disgust, my anger at this appalling conduct,” Patton told a press conference.
“There is simply no place for this type of conduct in our society, let alone in this police force. For that reason, I want to profoundly apologize to the Jewish community but also to the community as whole,” Patton added.
Patton said the alleged behavior would exacerbate the grief and pain the Jewish community felt following the Oct. 7 anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
The police officer, whose name has not been released, has served for more than 40 years. She was suspended from duty on Friday and was interviewed by professional standards internal investigators on Saturday.
She will likely be charged by summons, a police statement said after Patton’s news conference. The offense carries a potential maximum penalty of 12 months in prison and a fine of up to 23,000 Australian dollars ($16,000).
Performing Nazi gestures and displaying Nazi symbols such as the swastika have been banned by various state and federal laws since 2022.
A new film about rival female judokas, one from Israel and one from Iran, by an Israeli director by Raz Greenberg
An early scene in the sports drama-thriller Tatami brings together protagonist Leila Hosseini (Arienne Mandi), an Iranian judoka, and her potential Israeli rival Shani Lavie (Lir Katz). They meet just before they are about to start competing at the World Judo Championship held in Georgia, where they will very likely face each other in an upcoming match. However, the film makes it clear that despite their professional rivalry and the conflict between their countries, they hold no personal grudges against each other.
Their conversation is friendly, but it also highlights the difference between the two characters. Lavie struggles to find the balance between her professional and personal life, having recently broken up with her boyfriend over her busy practice schedule. Hosseini, on the other hand, has obviously found this balance in her life: She is married to a loving husband (Ash Goldeh) who takes upon himself most of the responsibilities in raising their child so that she can focus on her judo career. The conversation also reveals deeper differences between them: Lavie is still in her self-searching phase, probably (though the film does not explicitly state this) after her mandatory IDF service, trying to figure out what path to take. Hosseini, as seen throughout the film, has found her path: She came to win, and she is not going to let anything stand in her way.
Lavie’s character is barely seen through the rest of the film; the story is not about her. But the early scene of her meeting with Hosseini’s character makes it clear that the film is every bit about Israel as it is about Iran—which is quite appropriate given that it was co-directed by Israeli filmmaker Guy Nativ and Iranian actress and director Zar Amir Ebrahimi, who also plays the role of Hosseini’s coach, Maryam Ghanbari.
In terms of plot and style, Tatami plays like a first-league work in both its genres. The judo matches are loaded with raw, brutal energy: Restless camerawork and editing make the audience feel every punch, kick, and fall, all accompanied by excited narration from unseen sports reporters that boost the drama. Those who follow real-life judo matches (as many Israelis do, given the achievements of Israeli contestants in the field) will perhaps find it all a bit too dramatic, feeling more like something out of a martial arts film than a real judo match. But what Tatami loses in realism in its portrayal of judo fights, it wins back through its impressive black-and-white photography that gives its sports segments in the film a rough, documentarylike feeling.
As the plot progresses, the film slowly turns from a sports drama into a nail-biting thriller: Fearing that Hosseini’s victory streak will eventually bring her to face Lavie, the Iranian government orders Ghanbari to pull Hosseini out of the championship, which Hosseini refuses to do. Pressure quickly increases: The Iranian security forces have no qualms about taking violent actions against Ghanbari or Hosseini—either through their families in Iran or toward them directly with representatives of the regime sent to watch them during the championship and make sure they will not stray from the path dictated to them. Taking place in real time, following the schedule of the championship, Tatami turns Hosseini’s struggle into a desperate affair as her options run out. Here, too, the film’s black-and-white photography serves it well, providing it with a threatening noirlike aesthetic that makes it feel as though the narrow corridors of the stadium in which the championship is held literally suffocate the protagonists.
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