Conniving Jewish Dogs: The Canine Casualties of October 7 (Judean Rose)

Arbel Yehoud with her partner Ariel Cunio, still captive in Gaza, and their rescue puppy, Murph

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

When Eli Sharabi appeared on our screens wasted, skeletal, like an apparition from the Holocaust, it broke our hearts. We knew he’d been through a Holocaust without having heard the details. And like so many other survivors of the previous Holocaust, Eli was to learn what he’d hoped against hope was not true: no one in his immediate family was waiting for him. Eli Sharabi’s wife was gone. His two daughters were gone. His home was gone. Even his dog was gone—on October 7, Hamas shot Eli Sharabi’s four-legged friend dead, too.

Before the release of Eli Sharabi, there was Arbel Yehoud, squeezed on every side by masked Hamas terrorists armed to the teeth. She was terrified. No one had explained what was happening to her now, and she was sure that this time she would not manage to cheat death as she had for over a year. But Arbel did survive and she did get out.

Arbel’s partner, of course, is still suffering, still locked away in Gaza—we hope—because the alternative is death. But Arbel’s dog Murph is not suffering, and not locked away for some indeterminate period of unending time. Murph was shot dead by Hamas terrorists on October 7. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by My Land of Israel / Meira׳s Page (@mylandmyhomeisrael)

Emily Damari impressed us all with her spunky personality still shining through after going through hell. With good humor, Emily gave us the victory sign despite her missing fingers. Hamas had shot her in the hand. They sewed it up crudely, without anesthesia, in unhygienic conditions, but Emily survived.

Emily Damari’s dog Choocha did not. Like so many other faithful family dogs on that black day in October, Emily’s dog had been shot dead.

What are we supposed to make of terrorists whose hate for Jews runs so deep and so black that even their pets must be eliminated? Do Nukhba “fighters” and the “just regular Gazan folk” who poured across the border to slaughter Jews, see these dogs as having a taint by association with their Jewish masters, or did the terrorists simply murder them for sport?

Here we see a dog come bounding out of a house towards the October 7 attackers, hoping to protect his owners, only to be immediately mowed down with a barrage of bullets

                                     

He staggers along through several shots

Did they murder the dogs to shut them up so they wouldn’t alert their owners to the horror that was about to descend upon them? Or did the murderers perhaps murder these beloved family pets to inflict maximum pain on their Jewish owners? Who knows?

At last he succumbs, after a final bullet takes his life.

Perhaps the murderers murdered these voiceless, intelligent creatures because in their brand of Islam, dogs are impure and spread impurity and may therefore be mistreated and killed at will. Especially, if you happen to be a monster that craves blood. Maybe it doesn’t matter whose blood is shed, blood is blood, and all of it makes terrorists happy. They see red and it gives them joy. And it didn’t begin on October 7.

In November 2022, Tayseer Abu Sneineh, the mayor of Hebron and a convicted murderer of six Israelis, announced a 20 shekel bounty—about $5—to anyone who captured or killed a stray dog. The Arab residents of that town proceeded to go on a wild shooting spree, torturing and killing dozens of dogs. Judging by the subsequent flood of footage and photos on social media, the Hebron dog massacre was probably less about the money than the easy attainment of a license to kill. This appalling episode suggests that PA and Hamas-ruled Arabs do indeed enjoy spilling the blood of living things, in particular, Jews and dogs. 

It’s reasonable to wonder what Islam has to say about killing dogs, creatures unable to defend themselves from a maniac with a gun. Well, it’s not that the Quran says it straight out: “Kill dogs.” But it comes pretty close. According to one Hadith, for every day that a Muslim keeps a dog as a pet, he loses a part of his heavenly reward:

[Ibn ‘Umar] said:

“I heard [Mohammed] say: ‘Whoever keeps a dog, except a dog that is trained for hunting or a dog for herding livestock, his reward will decrease each day by two Qirats.’”

. . . What is the meaning of Qirats? When the companions asked [Mohammed] about its meaning he said: “Equal to two huge mountains.”

Raising a dog or keeping a dog decreases our good deeds.

When keeping a dog for any of the reasons known in shariah then you should prepare a separate place for it [as] dogs shouldn’t enter the house.

Muslims are permitted to keep dogs for practical reasons like hunting, herding, and serving as watchdogs. Unfortunately, abuse of these smart, sensitive animals is widespread. “I volunteer at the Gush Etzion Municipal Pound,” relates Efrat resident Leora Hyman. “We get dogs from the surrounding area. We have had dogs and puppies come in with no ears. Their ears are hacked off. I have heard that it's done so when the dogs are guarding outside in the rain, the rain and the wind will get into their ears and bother them so much, so they won't fall asleep. One puppy came in with no ears, cigarette burns and a knife wound.

“I adopted one of those puppies and he could never get over his trauma of being in a small place,” said Hyman. “If he were in a small space he would become aggressive. If he saw Arab workers, he would bark at them even though he was friendly to everyone else. Always.

“Other puppies have come in and not been so traumatized, but their ears are gone and they struggle in the rain and wind. I bought my dog an ear covering for walks in the rain.”

It’s painful to hear about and witness such cruelty, but even more difficult to understand why the world would cheer on a motley crew of dog killers. Sure, we understand that the world hates Jews. But dogs??

You’d think that all the students and others protesting Israel’s “genocide” of “innocent” Gazans, in addition to supposedly caring about the Gazan people, would also care about animal rights. What would these green-smoothie-drinking college campus protesters say were we to show them the clips and photos of Hamas terrorists shooting defenseless creatures dead on October 7? There’s no lack of such photographic evidence. The terrorists filmed the whole thing themselves with their GoPro cameras.

Would the protesters make excuses of some sort for this show of barbarism—the cold-hearted murder of harmless pets? Surely pets have no religion and no political bent for which they might reasonably be slaughtered. Or is killing a dog somehow different when it happens while ridding the world of colonialist Apartheid Jew occupiers? 

Can excuses be made in such a case? Or even denials? Can one reasonably claim that the GoPro footage was edited?

There was no outrage at the gang-raping and genital mutilation of Jewish women on October 7. There was no outcry as Jewish women in captivity continued to be sexually abused by their captors. But there was also no outcry and no outrage at the murdering of several of man’s best friends.

Could it be that when a man is Jewish, man’s best friend is nothing but a conniving Jew?

---

---

Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

Read More

Terror Unleashed: The Dangerous Cost of Hostage Freedom (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

The night before the first three women hostages were released, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the nation. Attempting to placate a nation appalled at the prospect of another terrorist release, the prime minister made a promise [emphasis added]. “We have established that terrorists who have killed will not be released to Judea and Samaria; they will be expelled to the Gaza Strip or abroad, and we also decided in the cabinet on a very significant reinforcement of our forces in Judea and Samaria to protect our citizens,” said Bibi.

Because we have been lied to before, we didn’t really believe this declaration. But it didn’t much matter. The only difference between a terrorist who has killed and one who hasn’t, is that in the first instance, the victims died, and in the second, they lived. That is why the distinction isn’t much comfort to the 5,700 or so Jewish residents of Beit El. Of the first 200 terrorists released in this deal, 114 of them were sent to Ramallah, adjacent to Beit El.

One woman in my town of Efrat heard that a further 22 terrorists “who have not killed” were released to Hebron, quite close to us. I asked how she knows this, since everything about the mass terrorist release has been cloaked in mystery. It turns out her son’s friend is serving there. He said he would have been safer in Gaza.  

In truth, there is a general air of despondency here. Many assume that what we hear about the terrorist release is not true, or at least not the whole truth, because so little information filters down to the common man that it makes us suspicious. Others are more pragmatic. “I'm not sure it's a ‘lie’ as much as politics and hands tied and deals behind the scenes,” says Chani Ugowitz of Efrat.

Be that as it may, the lack of information has created an air of distrust. Victim families directly affected by the release have yet to be contacted by the government. Those of us who live in close proximity to locations where terrorists will now roam free, have not been briefed.

 “This is a crazy complicated situation. I am so against this "deal"/ blackmail but know so many people that are going with it because they feel we had no choice. We tried the other way and it didn't work. I don't know. Makes me mad, scared, and sad,” says Ugowitz.

“It’s incredibly painful,” said another Efrat friend, Rachel Schwartz, “Statistically, half of those will do another terror attack. 170 out of 200 hundred that were released had life sentences. Varda, it is so incredibly painful. I can’t stand it.”

I had heard the same figure regarding terrorist recidivism. But it seems this figure has been updated. Lt. Col. (res.) Attorney Morris Hirsch formerly of the Military Prosecutor’s Office, writes that [emphasis added], “[As] part of the cabinet discussion going into approving the deal, the head of the Shin Bet noted that 82% of those released in the Shalit deal returned to terrorism.”

In the frightening Hebrew-language article, Without you knowing: This is how Israeli terrorists will be released back to the country, Hirsch shares a further, little known but profoundly disturbing fact, “The list of terrorists who will be released as part of the deal includes no less than 73 terrorists who hold Israeli citizenship or residency. This means they will be released back to the country.”

“Of that list, 21 terrorists are serving life sentences – that is, murderers. Of these, eight terrorists are to be released to Israel (within the 1949 armistice lines), while the rest are to be deported, although at this stage it is not clear where,” writes Hirsch. “Five of the eight are affiliated with Hamas and the rest with Fatah. All eight were arrested between 2001 and 2003, during the terror attacks initiated by the PA, starting in September 2000.”

All in all, of the 73 Israeli terrorists to be released from prison, 45 will be released into Israel, writes Hirsch, “while the remaining 28 terrorists will be deported abroad, either temporarily (3 terrorists) or permanently (25 terrorists).”

We may not know nearly enough about the terms of this deal but one thing seems certain, exactly none of the terrorists slated for release will be deported to America. President Trump wants Americans to feel safe. He doesn’t want any more innocents killed, people like Jocelyn Nungary and Riley Laken. So Mr. Trump is having these criminal elements deported. He doesn’t want them in his country.

“And there they are deporting murderers and criminals,” said Chani Ugowitz of the new administration, “while forcing us to take them to our streets with our children.

“I've gotten very harsh in my views since the war and I don't like it but I don't like how the other side has pushed me to think in an "us or them" mentality. There is no partner on the other side of the negotiation table so it becomes blackmail on their end and force on ours.”

Then too, what does it say about Israel that we’re freeing murderers into the wind? Whatever it was that was held over Bibi’s head to agree to this deal, it’s hard to hear that it was worth letting these murderers roam loose. Why would anyone even ask us to do so? 

“How depressing that monsters like these are the price of getting innocent Israelis freed from the Hamas underworld,” remarked Arnold Roth, father of 15-year-old terror victim Malki Roth, murdered in a pizzeria. “and that there's no one so monstrous that Israel would keep him or her in prison if the blackmail demands were perceived as warranting an even more painful surrender.”

Meantime, outside of Israel, Jews are giving Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff multiple ovations (!) for forcing Israel into accepting Biden’s May horrific deal. Yet he managed to get not a single American hostage released. 

What then, was the point?

I wonder if President Trump is aware that among the terrorists released or slated for release in this deal, are many who were convicted of murdering Americans. JD Vance begged us Israeli Americans to vote for Trump, and we did. Now we wonder at the betrayal of American Israeli victims of terror whose murderers we were leaned on to release.

Why was Israel pressed into this deal now, when we were ahead of the game, when we were winning, when we were no longer between a rock and a hard place because it was no longer Joe Biden threatening us, slow-walking arms, and supplying the enemy with cash dollars? Trump had won and could now push Hamas into releasing the captives with just a few threatening words. Why then force Israel to release murderers from Israeli jails into the wild? 

Will we ever know why we were compelled by Trump to sign a bad deal months after it had been rejected? Or why not one American hostage has yet been released since this ceasefire was implemented. As of this writing, Keith Siegel is not to be released in this latest batch of hostages, and we know he is fast fading. Emily Damari was so worried about Siegel that she offered to switch places and let him go first. Hamas refused.

Keith Siegel, an dual American citizen held captive in Gaza

So we watch as no Americans are released, but the murderers of Americans like Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, who were blown up in the Hillel Café on the night before what would have been Nava’s wedding are going free in this “deal.” 

Dr. David Applebaum, Nava Applebaum, murdered at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem

Member of the cell that killed them, released or about to be.

The same is true of the murderer of American citizen Asher Palmer and his baby son Yonatan, who were on their way to spend Shabbat with their family when their murderer stoned their car with boulders.

Asher and Yonatan Palmer, murdered when their car was stoned while driving to family for Shabbat

 

On the list of terrorists demanded by Hamas

Ditto the murderer of Tuvia Yanai Weissman, an American killed by a child terrorist in 2016 while shopping at a supermarket.

Out or about to be out and free as birds.

It was that last name that grabbed at my throat, as I finished scanning a new list of the terrorists to be released, this time in English, from Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). It was just before Shabbat, and I had to shut down my computer, but I remembered that one. I never could get Tuvia Yanai Weissman out of my mind, because of the photo that circulated of him with his young wife and infant son. He had such a beautiful baby face, and his wife’s face was so full of joy and light. How awful to lose her young husband with whom she was clearly smitten. I mentioned Tuvia at the Shabbat table, and my youngest son told me that Weissman’s wife is his friend’s sister.

Tuvia Yanai Weissman, a dual American citizen, murdered in a supermarket.

Every Israeli has multiple connections to multiple terror victims. Connections upon connections upon connections. That’s the way it is.

Ari Fuld, dual American citizen, murdered while talking to his wife on the phone

I wonder: does President Trump feel a connection to the American victims whose murderers are now being set free in this deal we were compelled by his man Witkoff, to sign?

Why don’t we hear President Trump threatening Hamas if they don’t release Keith Siegel, now? 

Why don’t we hear Witkoff saying to Hamas, “No. You can’t have the terrorists who killed American citizens. You can’t have the murderers of Americans Marla Bennett and Ben Blustein, exchange students killed in the Hebrew University Cafeteria,” or “No. You can’t have the terrorist who killed American citizen Ari Fuld while he was standing outside a supermarket talking on the phone with his wife,” or “No. You can’t have the murderers of David and Nava Applebaum, or the murderers of Asher and Yonatan Palmer. You can’t have the murderers of Tuvia Yanai Weissman.”

Ben Blustein, American exchange student

Marla Bennett, American exchange student, who along with Ben was murdered in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus

Instead, we hear none of this. We hear people say things like, “What if it were your family members being held in Gaza?” as if those of us who feel as I do, that this “deal” is a horrible, unjust, and dangerous thing, are heartless.

But two things can be true at once. We are joyous at the release of each hostage, and sick at the release of murderers of loved ones we tracked down, caught, and jailed. Where is the justice for the victims? 

How do you think their families feel?

And how would you feel if you lived in Beit El, and 114 murderers had just been released next door to your home?

---

---

Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

Read More

A Price of Pain: Hostages Returned, Terrorists Released (Judean Rose)

“The nightmare is over.”

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Last Sunday, the entire nation of Israel was riveted to their screens, hoping for a glimpse of Emily, Romi, and Doron. At the same time, at least where I live, in Efrat, the joy and relief were tempered with the knowledge that the cost is higher than any of us can stomach: the release of 1700 terrorists. Among those terrorists to be released is Khalil Ali Jabarin who fatally stabbed and killed Efrat resident Ari Fuld, a husband and father of four, in 2018.

And now, apparently, he will be released from prison, to do it again. It’s what they do. Kill Jews. It’s a proven fact. The recidivism rate is high. Terrorists were released in exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011. By 2014, half of them had committed further acts of terror. So now we have three amazing women back, but we feel unsafe.

In an address to the nation the night before the hostage release, Netanyahu assured us that no terrorists would be released to Judea and Samaria. “We have established that terrorists who have killed will not be released to Judea and Samaria; they will be expelled to the Gaza Strip or abroad, and we also decided in the cabinet on a very significant reinforcement of our forces in Judea and Samaria to protect our citizens,” he said.

Yet we see report after report suggesting that the terrorists slated to be released in this “deal” will indeed be released to Judea and Samaria. Efrat, once home to Ari Fuld, is located in Judea. We are in agony at the injustice of his murderer and so many other murderers of Israelis, going free. How do we trade this for that? Three young woman, but Ari’s murderer is set loose to wander free, and perhaps among us. 1,700 terrorists to be released into the wild.

We are winning. Why should we trade anything at all for a ceasefire, let alone release 1,700 murderers for 33 hostages? Why did Trump insist that we accede to Biden’s very bad May ceasefire plan? Does the new president not know that this means the release of terrorists who murdered American citizens, such as, for instance, Ari Fuld and Richard Lakin?

But that’s not the entire story either. It’s not the only reason our feelings are a bewildered mishmash of orphaned puzzle pieces. Israel has been fully mobilized for more than a year. We are in constant fear for soldier husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. They are gone for months. Wives and mothers are left on their own, some for more than a year. They are terrified. They must be strong for the kids. And how to soothe children when daddy is away and there are sirens.

As a mother of soldiers, I can tell you that it is hell to be a mother of soldiers in wartime. And now our soldier sons wonder why they served. Did they do their jobs bravely and well only to see the release of these monsters? Here, too, there is no justice. Especially for families who lost soldier husbands, sons, brothers, daughters, and sisters.

We are winning the war. Why are we being forced to capitulate, forced into Biden’s very bad “deal” from May, by Trump’s envoy, Witkoff. A man in Qatar’s pocket. Word is, Witkoff not only strong-armed Bibi into agreeing to this terrible deal (at Trump’s behest of course) but forced him to meet on Shabbos telling him that he knows Bibi isn’t orthodox, that he doesn’t wear a yarmulke, so he better damned well meet with him on Shabbos. Rumors. But rumors that rankle.

One woman friend told me that she had never cried so much as she did on Sunday, the day we waited for the hostages to be released. We didn’t know what feeling to land on: the fear, the feeling of being betrayed, that it was all for nothing, yet joy at the prospect of getting those girls, those three precious souls, out of hell.

Now, the newspapers are focused heavily on the hostages. The terrorist release is like a mere whisper in the media compared to the huge story of Emily, Romi, and Doron. They deserve our love and our joy. They deserved their hell to end. But to release terrorists who are almost certainly bound to kill again, is a terrible thing. And we can’t stand it.

I keep thinking back to October when JD Vance called on Americans in Israel to vote for Trump (emphasis added):

Vance stressed the importance of every vote in what is expected to be a close race. "This election could be decided by just a few votes. Do you want Kamala Harris, or do you want Donald Trump? If you want Donald Trump, get out there and make it happen." 

Aryeh Lightstone, Former senior advisor to Ambassador David Friedman, told The Jerusalem Post, "In an election that may be decided by just thousands of votes, the Trump-Vance campaign is convinced that Americans in Israel know better than anybody else, the value of strong leadership, and they are speaking directly to these voters to make sure to show up through these videos."

"They have promised to continue to stand by Israel, and they are asking Americans in Israel to stand by them," Lightstone said.

We did stand by them. We voted for Trump and Vance, and now they are forcing us to release terrorists from our prisons who have American blood on their hands. If this is Trump and Vance standing up for us, no thanks. They could have come up with a different “plan.” It didn’t have to be this one. The cost is much too high.

There is also the issue of the dearth of information regarding the terrorists to be released. The government is obligated to inform the families of terror victims before the terrorists who killed their loved ones are let loose. But the government has not done so. None of the families have been notified. If I am wrong about this, please do let me know. I would feel better to be proved wrong.

Not too many people know about it, and it is light on information, but there's a list of terrorists slated to be released on Israel’s government website. The names of the innocents they murdered are not listed there, of course, but only those of the murderers. It makes it difficult for the public to get a good picture of what this all means, the gravity, and the enormity of releasing these particular prisoners. For how can we know how bad this is without knowing their names and what they did?

Families of terror victims and the press have been sifting through some the information on this list as best they can (once they know a list exists). That's how Ari Fuld’s murderer was discovered there, as was Balal Abu Gaanam who murdered American citizen Richard Lakin.

Balal Abu Gaanam as his entry appears on the list of terrorists slated to be released in exchange for the hostages.

The mastermind of the murder of Rina Shnerb is on the list, Khalida Jarrar.

Khalida Jarrar

Slowly, we are finding out who is there on that list. The horrible people who killed our loved ones. Who would not hesitate to kill once more, a dozen times more. With passion.

Khalil Yusuf Ali Jabarin, murderer of Ari Fuld.

I asked Ari Fuld’s younger brother, Hillel, if anyone in the government had contacted the family regarding the impending release of Khalil Ali Jabarin. How did they find out that Jabarin would be released. Do they even know for sure that he will be released?

Hillel Fuld

Hillel Fuld has not heard anything from the government. Perhaps it's because he's a brother, rather than a wife. “The government didn't contact me. I'm not sure if they contacted Miriam, not that I know of, as far as I know they didn't contact us, but again, I can only speak with certainty about myself. I definitely didn't hear anything from anyone other than that list that was published,” said Fuld.

I asked Arnold Roth, father of 15-year-old Malki Roth, murdered in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing by Hamas, if he’d heard of any families of terror victims being notified by the government that the murderers of their loved ones were about to be freed. “I saw an Israeli news report in the past few days which said the families of terror victims were going to be contacted by appropriate Government of Israel people once a decision had been made to free any of the terrorists convicted in the murder of a family member of theirs. That ought to include people like my wife and me. Our 15-year-old daughter Malki, was murdered in an act of Palestinian Arab terror orchestrated by Hamas in 2001,” said Roth.

“Although an entire gang of killers was caught, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned, they were all freed in the 2011 Shalit Deal. The woman who spearheaded the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria, Ahlam Tamimi, was one of them - perhaps the most famous of the entire Shalit Deal list of freed savages. She returned to her native Jordan the day after Israel let her loose and has gone on to make herself a spectacular career there as a media personality and commentator on issues that speak to the hearts of people who support the murder of Jewish children.

“But there's one exception. One of the terrorists who played a key role in the Sbarro atrocity (and numerous other atrocities) and who did not walk free in 2011 is Abdullah Barghouti. He's the weapons expert who fabricated the massively-explosive guitar case that a human bomb carried on his back and into the pizzeria with the help of the Tamimi woman.

Arnold and Frimet Roth gaze at a photo of their daughter Malki, HY"D

“Barghouti is currently serving a sentence of 67 life terms, the longest ever imposed by an Israeli court and tied to the number of innocent lives wiped out by his bombs.

I don't know if Barghouti has been designated as one of the beneficiaries of the current hostage-freeing deal. But this report says he's on the Hamas list of demands. This doesn't mean he will be released but who knows? If they get their way, meaning if Israel capitulates to the mass-murdering terrorists as it did in the Shalit Deal, this is horrific and indefensible,” says Roth.

As it stands, that particular Barghouti is not on the Israeli government list of terrorists slated for release, though a different terrorist Barghouti family member, Ahmed Barghouti is there. But it is all very unclear. Roth tells me that Abdullah Barghouti, a relative of Tamimi, boasted on Sixty Minutes of his “passion to kill again and again.” I took a look at the interview:

The most notorious of all the prisoners held at the Be'er Sheva Prison is Abdullah Barghouti. It's not easy to get to see him because he's being held in indefinite solitary confinement. He's been convicted of being the mastermind behind Hamas' deadliest suicide bombings, responsible for the deaths of 66 people, including five Americans. How does he feel about this death toll?

"I feel bad because the number only 66. This the answer you want to hear it?" Barghouti told Simon.

"I want to hear what you have to say," Simon replied.

"No, this is the answer they want to hear it? Yes, I feel bad, because I want more," Barghouti said.

Barghouti has already killed more Israelis than anyone else. For two years, he sent suicide bombers to places, ordinary places, the names of which no Israeli will ever forget. They include "The Moment Café," the Hebrew University cafeteria [where American citizens Marla Bennet and Ben Blustein were murdered, V.E.] and the Sbarro Pizzeria, where seven children were killed.

Still, Ari Fuld is dead, the hostages are yet alive and suffering immensely, clinging barely to life after more than a year underground. Those who aren't dead, that is. We owe it to those both living and dead to get them out. But in my opinion, not like this. 

Ari Fuld's funeral

I asked Hillel Fuld if he would share his own feelings about the deal. He said, “I feel there are two parallel lines when it comes to this deal. There's the beautiful line and there's the terrible line. These two lines can't coexist on one line like what social media would have you believe, that everything is just black and white. It’s beautiful and beyond beautiful and emotional that those poor hostages get to be reunited with their families and we all experienced that emotional moment a few nights ago.

“It’s also a terrible deal because they're releasing a thousand monsters to the streets and that could not be more terrible so it's both beautiful and terrible at the same time.”

Asked what he thinks of the framework for the ceasefire deal as proposed by Biden in May, now being set in motion, and how it went down now, with Witkoff, Hillel chooses to be positive. “I don’t know the details of what went on behind the scenes. I want to believe that there is more than meets the eye that there was some kind of incentive to get Netanyahu to agree to this deal. I don't have any information but that is something that I tell myself to make myself feel better and I hope that it will become clear in the coming months in terms of what was promised to Netanyahu.”

Freed hostage Emily Damari with her mother, Mandy.

What would you like to see happen now, I asked Hillel.

“What would I like to see happen now? I'd like to see our hostages come back so we can return to the war and obliterate Hamas and achieve our war objectives of eliminating Hamas from this world; removing all threats from Israel's borders; and getting our hostages back."

I appreciate Hillel Fuld’s life-affirming positivity. Unfortunately, I’m more like the people he describes on on social media who can’t see parallel lines. Like everyone in Israel I love, love, love to see the moving photos, stories, and videos of the freed hostages. Still, I am concerned that we are letting down the memories of terror victims, and leaving our people as unsafe as we were on October 6.

Perhaps that's not even the worst of it. It goes to the core of who the Israeli people are as a society. “No self-respecting government can justify to its citizens the restoration of the freedom of a barbarian like Barghouti,” says Arnold Roth. “Allowing him out of his cell would be a monstrous act of moral bankruptcy.”

And yet here we are, giving many killers of Jews a fresh start so we can get a very small number of hostages out of hell. I don't think it had to be that way. We are winning, or at least we were winning. Until the point where we were leaned on by Witkoff to capitulate to the enemy on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.

Now look, I am happy, truly happy, that Trump is doing so many nice things for Israel--I will let others talk about suspending UNRWA and lifting the sanctions imposed on Israeli Americans in Judea and Samaria because of where they live and their religion, and all the other goodies--but this “deal” spits on the memories of American citizens murdered because of their religion. 

I ask you, is this right, Mr. Trump? Is it just in your eyes?

I don’t expect an answer from President Trump, nor, the truth is, from my own government. The Israeli government is not being forthright with the families of the victims whose murderers are soon to be, if not already released.

This has engendered a deep sense of betrayal and despair in many of us Israelis, a feeling of why did we do all this--why did we sacrifice so much? To what purpose? To strengthen the hand of terror? And yet, it fills our hearts to see Emily, Romi, and Doron in the arms of their families once more. Can anyone really put a price on that?

---

---

Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

Read More

Blind Allegiance: The Dangers of Uncritical Jewish Support for Social Movements (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Black lives matter. Of course they do. Everyone’s lives matter. But you don’t just go and support a group with an agreeable name without some due diligence. Or do you?

My progressive Jewish friends don’t seem to think any due diligence is necessary when it comes to being gung-ho for organizations like Black Lives Matter, or the Women’s March. If Black Lives Matter says it’s against racism then gulldarnit, my progressive Jewish friends are going to put a clenched fist BLM badge on their Facebook profile pic. If they think the Women’s March is for women, they’re going to put on a pink hat with a name that inwardly makes them feel thrillingly naughty as they outwardly express their righteous indignation.

These same progressive friends at some point take down the badges from their profile pics as the truth outs, as truth so inconveniently tends to do. Now they know: BLM is inherently antisemitic and anti-Israel—really the same thing. Were they sheepish when the Women’s March and the Chicago Dyke March excluded women and dykes if they happened to be Jews or Zionists? Or did they just quietly take down the badges on their profile pics and find something hopefully innocuous to support—something that doesn’t hate Jews or Zionists? (Good luck with that.)

But why didn’t they give these groups a thorough vetting before throwing their support behind them? The answer is pathetic: they didn’t believe that someone protesting racism could hate Jews. They didn’t believe that someone speaking up for women’s rights didn’t believe in Jewish women’s rights.

Even very, very intelligent Jewish women—women like Bari Weiss—were surprised when all the groups fighting against sexual violence, looked the other way when the victims of sexual violence were Jews. In her introduction to a podcast with Sheryl Sandberg to discuss the documentary Screams Before Silence, Weiss said, “Sheryl Sandberg watched the horrors of October 7th unfold and assumed that everyone she knew would rally against these unspeakable atrocities—particularly after reports of sexual violence and rape committed by Hamas started pouring in. But when she saw that many people didn't, or worse, that they denied it was even happening, she was stunned. She was particularly shocked that many of her would-be allies—prominent feminists and progressives in this country and around the world—stayed silent.”

During that same podcast, Sandberg described when drove her to make the documentary. “I never thought I would do this, and I wish this didn't have to be made. When October 7th happened, I was shocked. I think everyone was shocked. I was even more shocked afterward. The single most surprising thing I found was that in the weeks following, people started coming out with what I thought was clear evidence that this wasn't just mass murder; there was rape. Women were found naked and bloodied. Over and over, the stories were coming out, and what I then expected to happen is for people to say, ‘Oh my God, rape is never supposed to be used as part of war. No sexual violence is part of conflict.’ But that just wasn't happening.”

Sandberg made the video to convince the rape deniers who only deny rape when Jews are involved. But it didn’t much help. People who hate Jews hate them whether or not they are gang raped, tortured, kidnapped, and abused. They hate Jews whether or not they are Zionists, hate them whether or not they live in Israel.

“We made a video,” said Sandberg, “and that video went very viral. I tried to make that video really carefully. I mean, I have strong views on what's going on, but there were no views in this video. This video said, ‘No matter what flag you're flying,’ carefully including half Palestinian flags and half Israeli flags, ‘No matter what you believe, we have to stand united against the clear use of sexual violence.’

“Yet people were still not believing it. So, I helped organize a conference at the UN where we brought witnesses who stood there and cried and said, ‘Here's what I saw with my own eyes.’ Then I took those same witnesses to parliaments in Europe, where I felt they needed to speak out, but we still encountered some denial and significant silence.”

Bari Weiss details the various denials of October 7 rape even in the face of the rape videos that the terrorists proudly shared. “Max Blumenthal, a commentator and journalist, said that a woman’s body found naked from the waist down was simply because women at festivals like to dress in skimpy attire. Another example is the prominent British commentator Owen Jones, who said there's no evidence of rape. This is a guy with a million Twitter followers.

“Then there’s Briahna Joy Gray, who was Bernie Sanders’s press secretary in 2020. She said Zionists are asking that we believe the uncorroborated eyewitness accounts of men who describe alleged rape victims in odd fetishistic terms. She said, ‘Shame on Israel for not seriously investigating claims of rape and collecting rape kits.’ How do you understand the logic or the worldview that leads people to say things like that?

“Before this conversation,” said Weiss, “I checked in with some of the top feminist organizations in the country. Since October 7th, the National Organization for Women made a statement two months after the fact, which didn’t mention Hamas. UN Women, a group whose mission is to create an environment where all women can exercise their human rights, waited 55 days before saying anything. The International Committee of the Red Cross has issued nothing. I could go on for hours detailing the silence—or worse, weaselly statements where they fail to mention the perpetrators of evil actions.”

So much for “Believe all women.” (Perhaps they should change that to “Believe all shiksas.”)

As for Black Lives Matter, their adherents thought they were invincible. Probably because they saw how all my progressive Jewish friends were using that clenched fist badge on their Facebook pics. They saw how easy it was to pull the wool over our eyes under the guise of a fight against racism. But now we all know about the corruption of those at the top of the BLM food chain.

Take Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, for example. Cullors resigned from the “charity” in 2021 after getting caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Back in June, the Washington Free Beacon reported that BLM is still reeling from Cullors’ abuse of power:

Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors resigned from the embattled charity in 2021, but the charity suffered from the excesses of her tenure well into 2023, according to a copy of its latest tax return obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Under Cullors’s leadership, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation doled out massive contracts to her friends and family, purchased a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles in 2020, and financed the purchase of an $8 million mansion in Canada in 2021. By the end of its 2023 fiscal year, the tax forms show, Black Lives Matter saw the $80 million windfall it raked in during the George Floyd riots of 2020 diminish to under $29 million as it hemorrhaged cash fulfilling lingering contractual obligations to Cullors’s associates.

Those individuals include Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’s only child, whose art firm Trap Heals received $778,000 from Black Lives Matter in 2023 despite performing no work for the charity that year.

But hey, Black Lives Matter, gulldurnit, so all those progressive Jewish women rushed to put up that clenched fist badge on their Facebooks. It made them feel good, like they were making a statement about their own goodness, I suppose. Because those badges certainly didn’t do a THING for black people or against racism. And neither did Black Lives Matter.

The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), under whose umbrella Black Lives Matter falls (or at least did, originally), is drenched in Jew hatred. In its original 2016 platform, M4BL stated that “[the] US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people,” that “Israel is an apartheid state,” and that “[the] US [has funded an] apartheid wall.”

The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people. The US requires Israel to use 75 percent of all the military aid it receives to buy US-made arms. Consequently, every year billions of dollars are funneled from US taxpayers to hundreds of arms corporations, who then wage lobbying campaigns pushing for even more foreign military aid. The results of this policy are twofold: it not only diverts much needed funding from domestic education and social programs, but it makes US citizens complicit in the abuses committed by the Israeli government. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday [sic], Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall.

Cullors, back in 2015, while speaking as a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School's 'Globalizing Ferguson: Radicalized Policing and International Violence' forum, opined that people must "end the imperialist project that's called Israel." “Palestine is our generation's South Africa. If we don't step up boldly and courageously to end the imperialist project that's called Israel, we're doomed.”

Is this really what my progressive Jewish friends, relatives, and acquaintances wanted to support as they watched BLM gain momentum? Did my fellow Jews support an end to Israel? Probably not. But they hadn’t bothered to check what BLM actually stands for. Black Lives Matter was a sentiment that brooked no criticisms or doubts about the respectability of the group going under the mantle of that oh-so-progressive-sounding name.

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors calls to "end the imperialist project that's called Israel." pic.twitter.com/0PgEtPMpVx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 28, 2021

That same year, Cullors and her friends organized a solidarity trip to Nazareth called “Ferguson to Palestine.” To liven things up, they did a flash mob “specifically calling for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions of the state of Israel. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it’s won.”

Here’s some of the other Jew-hating bullpucky they spouted:

We came here to Palestine to stand in love and revolutionary struggle with our brothers and sisters. We come to a land that has been stolen by greed and destroyed by hate. We learn of laws that have been co-signed in ink but written in the blood of the innocent. We stand next to people who continue to courageously struggle and resist the occupation. People continue to dream and fight for freedom. From Ferguson to Palestine, the struggle for freedom continues.

We who believe in freedom cannot rest. We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it’s won. We who believe in freedom cannot rest.

We sit in a sea of settlements while the sound of suffering is lost in the listening, as the voices of heartache hail the power of presence. People are portals, passports to heaven. Here is a protest in the form of a prayer. God is in the holy water lining the lower lids of a child’s eyes, a tear running against a cheek in Old Jerusalem. The lonely storyteller sits on a leaning chair in the market.

God is a woman holding a crying baby in her arms at a checkpoint, waiting at the gates like cattle. God is in the rubble, with gnarled hands rinsing in an open fire. A journey of dreamers sings through empty streets in Bethlehem. We survive in the telling, unafraid. We survive in the telling.

What if the occupations drain the Palestinians who had thrills underneath their teeth, and they suddenly awoke to see the ships at the Bay of the West Bank shore, discovering that the occupation existed no more? What if Zionism is the second coming of Christ? Destruction is the matriarch of sight, for if we are the Messiah, then God is not white. What if life is the afterlife, and we are already dead? The footage of the moment loops in your head, replaying until you die for the second time.

What a power influence your intelligence and mind, and those with lesser means—the oppressors. Would you still steal this land under that pressure?

Free Palestine! Palestine and Ferguson in the occupation. Ferguson and Palestine, we fight to free our nations.

Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

I believe! I believe!

They know that we know. They know that we win. We are all right.

Group hug! Come on!

Black lives matter! Black lives matter!

See? As long as you say it under the rubric of “Black Lives Matter!” you can say any gulldurned hateful lie you can think of. It’s all good. Good enough for my progressive Jewish friends to not bother to even do a rudimentary check of what these people are plugging—and they ain’t plugging DEI—they’re plugging antisemitism.

There really was such a wealth of material out there, attesting to the disingenuousness and horrifically hateful views of BLM. If only my progressive Jewish friends had been interested in examining even a modicum of the evidence. In 2016, for example, several horrible people made a film comparing anti-black racism, to “Palestinian” suffering under the supposed thumb of Israel.

From Moment Magazine:

Stragglers arrive; extra seats are formed into rows, and even more latecomers will be forced to stand. The lights dim, and a video recently released on YouTube begins to play on the projection screen. Entitled When I See Them, I See Us, it features activist-scholars Angela Davis and Cornel West, musician Lauryn Hill, actor Danny Glover, writer Alice Walker and dozens of other prominent activists, Palestinian and black. Narrators recite the title in rhythmic repetition as the activists hold up a series of slogan-bearing signs: “Racism is systemic. Its outbursts are not isolated incidents.” “Your walls will never cage our freedom.” “End state racism.” “Gaza stands with Baltimore.” Photos of dead Palestinian children alternate with photos of black victims of police shootings and scenes of Gaza rubble.

When the three-minute video ends—directing viewers to the website blackpalestiniansolidarity.com—the room bursts into applause. Dajani introduces the guest speaker for the evening, Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler, the senior minister of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC. From his temporary pulpit, Hagler weaves a web of parallels—the walls of a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts to Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank; property destruction in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray to the first and second intifadas. His voice frequently reaches sermon pitch, his audience full of nodding heads, murmurs of approval, snapping fingers, and calls of “Yes.”

For all my progressive Jewish friends who so proudly displayed BLM FB badges until they didn’t, here’s a taste of that film script:

When I see them, I see us.

Every 28 hours, a Black life is stolen by police or vigilantes in the U.S. Every two hours, a Palestinian child is killed in Israel's attacks on Gaza.

Eric Garner, 43 years old, father of six, grandfather, friend. Seven-year-old killed when an Israeli missile struck her home. Hashem Abu Maria, 45 years old, father of four, human rights worker. Ayanna Jones, seven years old, killed in her sleep by Detroit police.

I see us—harassed, beaten, tortured, dehumanized, stopped and frisked, searched at checkpoints, victims of administrative detention, youth incarceration. When I see them, I see us—from Rikers Island to Ophir Prison, from Raeford to Chicago, lives are being stolen.

Remember them. We are not statistics. We are not collateral damage. We have names and faces: Sakia Nadeem Kimani, Renisha Muhammad. They burned me alive in Jerusalem. They gunned me down in Chicago. They shot out our water tanks in Hebron. They cut off our water in Detroit. They demolished our homes in New Orleans. When I see them, I see us.

They see our rooms as dangerous, label us as demographic threats. They sterilize us without our knowledge and mark our children as criminals. We say no to all forms of oppression in U.S. cities and on the streets of Palestine. We respect the uniqueness of our struggles and our varied histories. When I see them, I see us—resilient, steadfast, determined.

I see who we were meant to be: alive, free, liberated, mapping out our destiny. I see hope, strength, love—a place where our children can dream. I see a road, a partner, a family, a world where we can rise and be seen.

Now, with Cullors out of the picture, it has become clear that the BLM people need a new Jew-hater in charge. Which is why they just hired Yonasda Lonewolf!

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Black Lives Matter Grassroots announced in a New Year's message to its supporters on Thursday that it hired Yonasda Lonewolf, a rapper and activist with close ties to Farrakhan, as a "special projects specialist" to help the group as it works to "claim victory over the white-supremacist systems designed to kill our people." Black Lives Matter Grassroots said in the message it would enter 2025 with "the revolutionary spirit of our Haitian forebears" and featured an image of Haitian revolutionaries in the early 1800s lynching French military officers.

Lonewolf doesn’t shy from her devotion to Farrakhan, who has praised Adolf Hitler as a "very great man" and casts Jews as "termites" and "enemies" who control black people. She professed her love for Farrakhan in a 2016 Facebook post and later, in a 2020 Instagram post, described the minister as "my grandfather Min. Farrakhan who also eased my spirit." In 2023, Lonewolf attended Farrakhan’s annual keynote address, where she told the ministry’s propaganda website that she felt "rejuvenated" by his message.

"We are all under attack right now, and it’s the fight against good and evil, at the end of the day," Lonewolf told the Final Call, the Nation of Islam's official publication. "The fact that we still have a great leader amongst us is a testament that he’s standing, that we need to be able to continue." Other Farrakhan devotees interviewed in that article praised the Nation of Islam leader's stand against "the Satanic Jews" and "the Jewish powers that be."

As to the pink pussy hats, they were all the rage with progressive Jewish women. But that didn’t go very well, either.

From Barbara Kay in the National Post:

It should be obvious to progressive Jewish women by now that the Women’s March, an allegedly feminist movement, which allegedly supports the rights of all women, just isn’t into Jewish women. To progressive ideologues, Jews are burdened by the original sin of Zionism, whether they are pro-Israel or not.

On why we asked folks to leave the rally at Piotrowski Park yesterday pic.twitter.com/4FKSStFFF2

— Chicago Dyke March (@DykeMarchChi) June 25, 2017

This was made very clear in June 2017, at the Chicago Dyke March, when three Jewish LGBT Pride marchers carrying flags adorned with a Star of David (similar to, but not the flag of Israel) were ousted from the parade. This was an act of pure anti-Semitism by radical feminists. 

In fact, at the event in question, the 21^st annual Chicago Dyke March, a member of the group said that the women were told to leave because the flags “made people feel unsafe” and that the March was both “anti-Zionist” and “pro-Palestinian.”

Two years later, things had not much (read “not at all”) improved. But at least the rules of the 2019 DC Dyke March were clear.

From JNS (emphasis added):

The DC Dyke March, returning to Washington, D.C. on Friday after a 12-year absence, will prohibit Jewish and pro-Israel pride symbols, including flags.

“Jewish stars and other identifications and celebrations of Jewishness (yarmulkes, talit, other expressions of Judaism or Jewishness) are welcome and encouraged. We do ask that participants not bring pro-Israel paraphernalia in solidarity with our queer Palestinian friends,” Yael Horowitz, a Jewish organizer of the D.C. march, told A.J. Campbell, who wanted to bring a Jewish Pride flag to the march, in a Facebook message, reported The Washington Post.

The progressive Jews I know are on the whole, accomplished professionals with Ivy League educations. Why then, do they completely lack the ability to see when they’re being taken for a ride? How is it that they’re so quick to support what isn’t? BLM isn’t about equal rights for black people. It’s about misusing funds and hating Jews. The Women’s March and Dyke Marches aren’t about women or dykes. If it were, Jews and their symbols showing up in solidarity would be welcomed. After all, what does Israel have to do with the women’s rights movement in the United States?

Answer: not a thing. It’s not even intersectional. The marches are a pretext to hate whatever floats their hate boat. Straights, whites, Jews, Donald J. Trump . . . whatever they hate most at the moment. None of it hangs together in any cohesive form whatsoever.

In the run up to the election, a friend explained to me that she could not vote for Trump because she feared her elementary school-aged granddaughter would someday not be able to get an abortion as a result. But Trump didn’t do anything with abortion in his first term, and has no intention of having much to do with it now. It’s not even a thing. He’s leaving it up to the states to decide these things for themselves.

And guess what, they already have. There is no place in America where a woman cannot get an abortion where there is a risk to the life of the mother. In fact, there are very few places in America where the usual exceptions are not in place. 

But you know, Kamala Harris told them otherwise, so they believe her. And voted for her. Because they are Jewish progressives, so they embrace whatever cause they are told is progressive without even the smallest effort made at verifying the facts. 

Are they aware that Kamala Harris supports student protests against “Israel’s genocide in Gaza” and tells them they have a right to “their truth?”

 

Probably not. Again, because they don’t care. What they care about is the appearance of being consonant with progressive values. They want to belong, so when others scream BLACK LIVES MATTER, they put those badges up on their Facebook pages. And when Kamala tells them that Donald J. Trump wants to control their bodies, they vote for her, despite her hatred of their homeland and the people who live there. They comfort themselves by saying, there's no way she hates Jews. Her husband is Jewish!

Will Jewish progressives wake up in time to save themselves? Probably not. They are too intellectually lazy to perpetuate their own species. That expensive education their Yiddisher parents paid for is basically a framed diploma on a wall. They graduated a long time ago, and no longer have to use their brain cells to dig deep and critically think about anything much at all.

---

---

Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

Read More