Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 23, 2023

10/23 Links Pt1: IDF Screens Raw Footage of Hamas Terror Attack for Media; Hamas might release 50 hostages with dual citizenship

From Ian:

IDF shows foreign press Hamas bodycam videos, photos of murder, torture, decapitation

The Israeli government on Monday screened for 200 members of the foreign press some 43 minutes of harrowing scenes of murder, torture and decapitation from Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, in which over 1,400 people were killed, including raw videos from the terrorists’ bodycams.

The government said it had decided to show journalists part of its collected documentation in order to dispel what a spokesperson characterized as “a Holocaust-denial-like phenomenon happening in real-time,” as doubts have been raised around the world about some of the most horrific of Hamas’s atrocities.

Journalists were not permitted to record the screening, which took place on a closed military base.

The footage was collected from call recordings, security cameras, Hamas terrorists’ body cameras, victim dashboard cameras, Hamas and victims’ social media accounts, and cellphone videos taken by terrorists, victims and first responders. Over 1,000 civilians were slaughtered by the terrorists, and at least 224 people were abducted.

In one pair of videos that were screened, Hamas terrorists are seen dressed in IDF uniforms, flagging down passing cars and then shooting their occupants.

Dead bodies are dragged out of vehicles and left in the middle of the road after terrorists rifle through their belongings and in some cases steal the blood-soaked, bullet-ridden cars.

In another video, first responders are seen pouring bottled water over still-smoldering bodies, hoping to snuff out the remaining embers.

IDF hits Gaza tunnels; ground forces conduct raids ahead of offensive

The Israeli Air Force struck hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza in recent hours, including tunnels with terrorists in them, while infantry and armored corps conducted raids on the ground in the enclave in preparation for a wider ground offensive, the Israeli military stated on Monday.

Dozens of operational command centers housing Hamas and PIJ operatives were also hit, according to Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

Strikes were also conducted on targets that posed a threat to forces in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, including dozens of mortar and anti-tank missile launch sites, according to Hagari.

The raids into Gaza are being conducted by armored and infantry units against terror cells that were “preparing for our next stage,” while also seeking out information for hostages and the missing, Hagari said on Monday.

On Sunday, during a visit to the IAF’s Operations Command and Control Center, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “In terms of the operational aspects of maneuvering—at the end of the day, nothing will stop the IDF. It is a combination of two things: Our aerial capabilities and ground maneuvering. This should be our last maneuvering operation in Gaza, for the simple reason that afterwards there will be no more Hamas.”

Gallant added that “It may take a month, two or three, but at the end there will be no more Hamas. Prior to meeting our armed forces on the ground, the enemy [Hamas terrorists], will be faced with IAF strikes.”

On Sunday, one Israeli soldier was killed and three injured in an anti-tank missile attack on a tank and engineering vehicle during a raid in the Kissufim area.

Hamas might release 50 hostages with dual citizenship

The Hamas terrorist group may release 50 hostages with dual citizenship it holds in the Gaza Strip, “separate from any broader deal,” The New York Times reported on Monday, citing an Israeli military source.

Qatar and the United States are negotiating the release of abductees with dual nationality separately from those who have only Israeli citizenship, the report claimed.

Israeli senior officials have previously said that Israel is not involved in any kind of negotiations related to the release of the Israeli captives.

Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Monday that the military has so far confirmed that terrorists kidnapped 222 persons during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, in which 1,400 people were massacred in Israel and more than 4,500 were wounded.

On Friday, Hamas freed two hostages for what it called “humanitarian reasons.”

“Judith Tai Raanan and her daughter, Natalie Shoshana Raanan, were released by the terrorist organization Hamas,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed. The pair were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Oct. 7 invasion of the western Negev.

This is a real press release from the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon:

UN Special Coordinator Joanna Wronecka held a round of meetings this week with Lebanese and international stakeholders to try to safeguarding Lebanon’s security and stability from the ongoing warfare between Israeli and Hamas, which has already resulted in tensions along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. In all her meetings, the Special Coordinator underlined the urgency of restoring the calm along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel and of protecting Lebanon from a further spillover of violence at a time when the country was already in the throes of a protracted political and socio-economic crisis.

There are two more paragraphs, but they all have the same problem: they don't mention Hezbollah or Iran as players in this little drama.

This would be comical if it wasn't so insane: How, exactly, has Israel's battle with Hamas resulted in "tensions" along the Lebanese border? Who might be responsible for that? Who might be threatening the other party?

I can give her a hint from Lebanese media::

Hezbollah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has vowed that Israel will pay a high price whenever it starts a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying that his Lebanon-based group already is "in the heart of the battle."

If the UN can't even say Hezbollah's name and condemn it for its threats to start a war for no reason except Iran instructs it to, then it should just pack up and leave. Conflicts cannot be solved if you aren't even sure of who the two parties are.

(h/t Irene)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A brief history of Gaza aid being stolen by Hamas

In 2018, Middle East Online reported:

Hamas is accused of deepening the crisis of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, after the criticism it has been exposed to regarding the seizure of international grant funds and aid from more than one party.
Hamas, as it controls the Gaza Strip, receives millions of dollars in support from countries and international organizations to build hospitals, schools, and roads for more than two million Palestinians stuck in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the harsh measures and siege imposed by Israel on Gaza under the pretext of preventing Hamas from arming, which further complicates the lives of Palestinians, the movement spends a lot of money to purchase and develop weapons and equip its military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas is accused by the Palestinian National Authority of practicing a policy of blackmail by seizing international support, as the Palestinian government said in 2018 that Hamas “steals the money of the Palestinian people and seizes all of the sector’s revenues, refuses to transfer them to the public treasury, and imposes fees and taxes on citizens for its treasury.”

It is one of the great untold stories of Gaza: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid has been diverted by Hamas into its own terror operations.

Here are some examples:

In 2009, dozens of Hamas militants attacked a charity, Cooperative Housing Foundation International (CHF), arrested its workers, and confiscated aid meant for needy families.

In February 2009, UNRWA accused Hamas of stealing over 3,500 blankets and 406 food parcels meant for UNRWA "refugees." Days later, UNRWA said Hamas stole 200 tons of wheat and 100 tons of rice.

In 2010, French aid group Help Doctors accused Hamas on Wednesday of seizing computer equipment, telephones, chairs, office equipment and medical files.

Also in 2010, Hamas was accused of stealing medicine and medical equipment provided by the PA and putting them for sale in Hamas-owned pharmacies. People talked about seeing medicine clearly labeled "in support of the Palestinian people" or "donated by Charity X."

In 2014, Hamas was again accused of stealing medicine meant to be given for free to Palestinians.

In 2019, poor Gazans accused Hamas of stealing meat sent by Saudi Arabia during Ramadan and reselling it on the black market, along with medicines and other aid.

Meanwhile, Gaza stores could be seen selling UNRWA-marked food packages, saying in English "not for sale."

We don't know if Hamas stole than and then sold them to stores, but clearly aid to Gaza was not reaching its intended recipients.

With this history, why would anyone believe that current aid to Gaza will not be diverted to Hamas first? That's what they do. (And so does the Palestinian Authority.)

So as terrible as this sounds, aid should not be sent if Hamas is the primary beneficiary. All the controls in the world cannot stop that theft from happening, and Hamas threats keep the witnesses mostly silent.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

How do we know Amnesty International is antisemitic?

I once listed 15 separate reasons, examples of egregious Amnesty bias and lies about Israel. And I could have listed dozens more.

Here's yet another.

Amnesty released a report on the early part of Israel's bombing campaign against Hamas.

The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”

These three paragraphs show that culminate in the "apartheid" libel which has nothing to do with Gaza proves that Amnesty's aim is dismantling Israel, not justice for Gazans.

If Amnesty does not know the targets of the attack, then it cannot call the attacks unlawful. In the past I've documented scores of cases where Amnesty claims that only civilians were killed and weeks later terror groups published the names of their members killed in the same attacks.

The fact is that Amnesty is clueless as to what the real targets were. If the targets were senior Hamas members, then no warnings could or should have been given.

That is real international law, not the fabricated version Amnesty pretends exists.

Amnesty's methodology is to interview survivors who claim that there were no terrorists around,. Often these people are lying, and sometimes these people are themselves members of terror groups!

Moreover, when Amnesty publishes these reports, it doesn't even consider that a professional army would not shoot expensive precision weapons at civilians for no reason. No, Amnesty thinks it can read the IDF's minds, and knows that there was no possible reason for the attack. To Amnesty, the IDF - with multiple layers of checks and balances, lawyers reviewing every target and every airstrike, and approvals needed at all levels - is just randomly attacking civilians.

Amnesty's track record of investigating these types of events is beyond awful. It shows a pattern where Palestinians are believed without question without even Googling their names, and where Israeli denials are assumed to be lies.

Even worse, an Amnesty researcher has admitted that Palestinian "eyewitnesses" often lie. But they haven't changed their methodology of believing their lies implicitly.

Beyond that, Amnesty never mentions that Gazans would be punished by Hamas if they were known to be saying anything Hamas doesn't like. That is a salient fact when they quote Gazans but Amnesty doesn't want anyone to know that.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is beyond sloppiness and beyond ignorance of how modern warfare works. That is antisemitism - assuming malicious intent from Jews and nothing but the truth from those with a long track record of lying to Amnesty.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/22 Links Pt2: The Brits are like turkeys voting for Christmas; The disgusting bigotry of the poster-rippers; How the woke have revived the ‘noble savage’

From Ian:

Victor Rosenthal: When We Said “Never Again,” We Meant It

My heart is breaking. What I surmised yesterday, but was afraid to write has turned out to be true. I have never wanted to be wrong more than I do this morning. But I can’t pretend that “it will be OK,” as Israelis like to say.

The IDF has been ready for some time to begin the operation to eliminate Hamas from Gaza. The plans were made long ago, and updated regularly. Hundreds of thousands of reservists have left their jobs and families, at great expense to the government. The tanks are poised near the border. Why aren’t they moving?

The reason is that they have been ordered not to by the Americans. Whether or not they planned it, Hamas struck gold when some twelve Americans and ten British subjects were included among the roughly 200 hostages that were carried back to Gaza by the terrorists. Now negotiations are taking place, brokered by the despicable Qatari regime, to obtain their release. The demonic Hamas have released two American women (for what in return?) to prove that a deal is possible.

I’m not surprised and I’m not criticizing the US president and British PM for trying to protect their people. That is the top job of a government – a job, incidentally, that ours has been failing to do for some time. But that’s another story.

Now our government has a different job. This is our last chance, after the disasters of Oslo, the withdrawal from Gaza, the Second Lebanon War, the Shalit trade, the ongoing loss of Area C, and countless other losses and humiliations, to end our slide to destruction. If Hamas is not ripped out of Gaza by its roots, the immediate result will be the loss of the northern and southern parts of our country (who would live there?) and the evaporation of any honor and deterrence that the State of Israel still has. And then there will be no peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, no hope of preventing a nuclear Iran, and no possibility of obtaining sovereignty in the strategic hill country and the Jordan Valley. We are suffering the death by a thousand cuts, and today the knife is poised over a vital artery. We are at the point of no return.

JPost Editorial: Israeli solidarity is its greatest asset in times of war

An enemy worse than ISIS
Facing an enemy worse than ISIS, the country quickly pulled together and showed the same spirit that has been displayed during previous wars, operations, and other hardships.

Reservists answered the call to serve, with many rushing home from abroad to draft. So many former soldiers begged to be called up that the IDF had to turn some away. Pilots dropped their political differences and mobilized en masse, with at least one air base commander saying there was more than a 100% turnout.

People opened their homes and hearts to perfect strangers who required a refuge from the rockets and other threats. Volunteer groups quickly formed to supply food, clothing, and toys to the displaced families.

Soldiers were bombarded with so much food and equipment from civilian well-wishers that it became the butt of jokes and memes.

The many ways in which people volunteered are too numerous to list here, but they show the same sort of creativity for which the country is famous.

Nobody knows what challenges lie ahead. No one can predict the exact course the war will take. But we all know one thing for certain: We need to remain united and to face this together. Soldiers fighting on the frontlines watch each other’s backs and serve as one, regardless of any political, religious, or social differences they have. In the same way, the ordinary citizens on the home front must also continue to be strong and united.

Together, we will win.

Jonathan Tobin: What happens when terrorists are rewarded for taking hostages

It remains to be seen if Hamas can use the hostages—not to mention the fate of Palestinian civilians around them they are also using as human shields—to ensure they emerge from this battle still in control of Gaza.

One of the most distressing aspects of the last two weeks has been the utter disdain for the hostages that has been expressed by Hamas’s foreign supporters, and the relative indifference of the international community and the corporate media to their fate. Indeed, it didn’t take long for the liberal press in the United States to essentially forget about the evidence of Hamas’s barbarism and become obsessed with the dilemma of Palestinians living in Gaza as Israel began to strike back against the terrorists lodged deep into the enclave.

But what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was to impress upon Israelis that ransoming a hostage can lead directly to something far worse. If the freedom of the 200 kidnapped Israelis now suffering who knows what torment at the hands of their barbaric captors is bought at the price of a victory for Hamas, their families will consider it worth it, and everyone should understand and sympathize with them. But as the Shalit deal should have taught the world—not to mention the way that American ransom payments have strengthened Hamas’s Iranian sponsors—such negotiations are a compact with devils that will create even more grief and suffering in the future.

This understanding shouldn’t be confused with indifference to those languishing somewhere in Gaza, but as much as we desire their safety and freedom, it cannot come at the expense of an existential threat to the Jewish state and the West. It is a terrible thing that destroying Hamas in the coming weeks and months will likely cost the lives of many Israelis and innocent Palestinian Arabs as well as the terrorists. However, it will save more lives in the long run. Nothing—not American pressure or even the tears of the families of the captives—should allow Hamas’s cruel expectation that they will be able to get away with crimes worthy of the Nazis to be proven true.

David Collier: The Brits are like turkeys voting for Christmas

Journos like Sadiya Chowdhury
One of the key problems the UK has (not just the Jews) is that these Islamists are being potrayed on our main media channels as peace loving people. A perfect example of this took place yesterday in a live interview on Sky News (link to video, h/t Stuart):

Sky had a journalist at the demo, talking to demonstrators. The Sky News journo declared that ‘peace is the sentiment here that everyone is calling for‘. Incredibly she failed to notice the sign supporting ‘resistance’ being held directly in front of her:

The journalist is Sadiya Chowdhury. Chowdhury’s recent tweets are all about demonising Israel:
A report that settlers have been attacking Palestinians.
About Pro Palestinian voices being supressed.
Chris Doyle from CAABU on the ‘Genocidal rhetoric of Israeli leaders’.
A nonsensical Channel 4 conspiracy piece claiming Israel did bomb the hospital (they didn’t).
A post from Middle East Eye (A Qatari state mouthpiece)

Her Twitter history is an anti-Israel rant – that includes the promotion and defence of BDS, slurs against the IDF, and the equating of Israel with Hamas,

Perhaps it would have been helpful to know Chowdhury spent three years working for the Islam Channel. You can see her here in 2014 reporting in an anti-Israel hit piece. In the same segment there is even an interview with Ismail Patel – the same Ismail Patel behind the FOA demonstration in London. Chowdhury has been in this game a long time. In 2003 she was writing for Arab News – attacking Israel’s security fence.

In other words, the Sky broadcast was nothing more than someone who has a toxic anti-Israel viewpoint- interviewing other people with toxic anti-Israel views. Chowdhury even (disgracefully) plugged the ‘river to the sea’ chant as something innocent and peaceful. ‘There you have it’ she said.

If this is what Sky News actually think is professional TV, we may as well all watch Al-Jazeera. This is absolutely shameful Islamist propaganda – misrepresenting an extremist Islamist demonstration as a peaceful march. People here must wake up to how the media is playing a major part in this massive disinformation campaign.

Back to the main march
There were a lot of people demonstrating in London – the police estimate was 70,000, so when I returned to Park Lane, the march was still going on. After a while it all looks the same, rows and rows of people – mostly Muslim – all calling for the destruction of Israel. As usual they are accompanied by signs that support ‘resistance’ and ‘intifadas’ – all code words for slaughtering Jews.

And like moths to a flame – there were also the antisemitic images on show:

The Jewish connection
It is incredible to think that some Jewish people are so stupid that they march with groups like Friends of Al Aqsa. I do not even know where to start with this one, so I will let the image speak for itself:

And there is no excusing this depressing image.

As the Islamists marched – somewhere within were the lost Jewish youth of Na’amod. Standing alongside FOA and other Islamists – people who identify more with the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered 1400 Jews – than with their Jewish victims. There is little more sickening than this image. Smug, privileged, British Jews – spitting in the eyes of millions of Israelis. These people are standing alongside the Islamists who are calling for Jihad and the destruction of Israel. Shame on you all.

Anti-Hamas billboard taken down in New Jersey after over 100 complaint calls to police

By Forest Rain

Ours is the most moral army in the world. The people of Israel like that. We want to be moral and good. We don’t like the idea of fighting or killing.

The IDF is the Israel Defense Force (not the Israel Attack Force) for good reason. We have no desire to attack anyone. The mission of our military is to defend the Nation of Israel – our State and our People. To protect our homeland so that Jewish people everywhere know that, in a world that is dangerous for Jews, there is one place on earth where Jews can defend themselves and are not left to the mercy of others.

The IDF is supposed to fulfill the promise of “Never Again”.

The problem is that the world, including many Jews, have not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Lessons, sharp and clear (though different for Jews and non-Jews) have been diluted and universalized to the point of being meaningless.

The Hamas massacre of October 7^th, 2023 is a harsh reminder.

This isn’t a general issue. It’s a particular issue.
This is about me. My family. My friends. My home. And Never Again is NOW.

For Jews, the promise “Never Again” means that never again we put our safety in the hands of others, no matter how civilized they seem. Never Again will we wait for other people to rescue us. It is up to us to be powerful enough to defend ourselves.

For non-Jews, “Never Again” was supposed to be a promise to never again remain silent while Jews are being abused, tortured, and slaughtered. To not remain silent when they see evil occurring. To never again, turn away and pretend they don’t see what is happening – no matter how frightened they are of the people committing the atrocities.

Because there will always be someone eager to commit horrendous acts against Jews.

And what happened?

Jews built the State of Israel, powerful enough to defend herself from invading armies, prevent enemy states from building nuclear bombs, and even fly across the globe to rescue Jews, targeted for being Jewish. And then we allowed ourselves to be convinced to hand our security over to other people and let monsters live on our doorstep.

Over and over, we were attacked, innocent people brutally murdered, our country bombarded with missiles and the “civilized” nations of the world told us to stand down, that the “stronger side” can swallow abuse for peace. That the monsters on our doorstep were our chance to live in peace.

And we, because we want peace and hate war, because we want to live in a kind world, decided to believe them.

The problem is that this decision was immoral.

It is one thing to be proud of succeeding in eliminating murderous terrorists without hurting bystanders because that is more moral than carpet bombing. It is another thing to know that the people on your border want to wipe you off the face of the earth and allow them to have hope that one day they will succeed.

We knew the problem existed. We watched it grow. We suffered the results of it when it was still small. Worst of all, we listened when we were told “The world is condemning you. Don’t retaliate. Lick your wounds and pretend it never happened.” We wanted to be loved.

The Hamas Charter states that it will eliminate the Jewish State through jihad. On October 7^th, Hamas showed the world what that jihad looks like – they came with Go-Pro cameras and proudly filmed their actions for posterity.

Well-trained Hamas commando units broke through our borders under the cover of a missile bombardment. That opened the way for swarms of regular Gazans, eager to join in.

"Crimes against humanity" is too mild and technical a term to describe the atrocities they committed.

They slaughtered men, women, and children and chopped their heads off.
They entered homes, tortured the parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents, gouging out eyes and chopping off fingers – all while eating the family’s food and laughing.
They gang-raped girls and then ripped their limbs off.
They ripped open a pregnant woman’s stomach and stabbed the baby.
They tied children together and burned them alive.
They did more and worse. It is not possible to detail all the horrors.

And then they stole money from the wallets of the people they murdered, looted their homes, taking everything from TVs to tractors, identity cards, and passports.

And then they took as many hostages as they could get their hands on - including babies and elderly people, entire families, and dead bodies.

They came with maps and details about homes, how many people in each family, whether there was a dog or not - all spelled out by individual Gazans who Israelis had employed for years, doing construction work and odd jobs in their communities.

They didn’t come as an army trying to conquer an enemy state, soldiers fighting against soldiers. They came as a tidal wave of death, to exterminate everything living in its path and before doing so - humiliate and create as much suffering as possible.

They know that we love life and hold it sacred. They know that we honor the dead, putting supreme importance on respectful burial. This is why they hurt us where it would be most painful.

They violated the sanctity of our homes, showing that Jews are not safe anywhere.

They violated our past, terrorizing Holocaust survivors and bringing the Holocaust into the present with fire and sending Jews into hiding where they had to hold their hands over the mouths of babies, praying that they wouldn’t make a sound so the monsters wouldn’t find them.

They committed mass rapes of women, grandmothers, and children as more than a by-product of vicious bloodlust – in the context of people who come from an “honor culture”, this is the deepest violation, the theft of our honor, a display of utter disgust and domination, “dirtying” our beloved, grinding them into the earth – and mocking our men who were not able to save them.

Dismembering bodies, scattering them, and burning people is not just a matter of gruesome cruelty. The terrorists were given deliberate instructions to commit these acts by people who understand how serious Jews are about respecting our dead and bringing them to a proper burial.

They know us well and they deliberately used everything we care about most to hurt us.

And after all this, around the world, we are seeing people marching in the streets, chanting their support for the Hamas Massacre. Jews are being marked in “civilized” countries. Homes marked with Stars of David, businesses smashed, and students humiliated and abused because they are Jews.

Never Again is NOW.

For years we have said that had Israel existed, the Holocaust would never have happened. Now it is time to make sure that is true. That is what the IDF is for.

The IDF must fulfill the promise of Never Again. This is not about revenge (though well warranted). This is about the survival of Jews everywhere.

It is necessary to crush Hamas so thoroughly and completely that all enemies of Israel will learn that there is no impunity and no safe haven for those who dream of our extermination.

And that, unfortunately, is just the beginning because they are just one of the monsters on our doorstep. We are surrounded (and some are within our borders) and they are watching us. Without utterly crushing them, Israel will not survive.

Without Israel, no Jew, anywhere on earth, will ever be safe again.

Fulfilling the promise of “Never Again” doesn’t look nice on TV. Already the “civilized” nations are telling us to wait, delay, and consider the humanitarian needs of Gazans. It is crucial to retain our morality and fulfill our obligations.

Being merciful to the cruel ultimately makes you cruel to the merciful.

Allowing our enemies to have hope that they can succeed in wiping us off the face of the earth is immoral. We allowed this evil to grow too large. It must be stopped now, no matter how bad the process looks, no matter what our “friends” say.

“Never Again” is the moral obligation of the IDF.

The obligation of decent individuals everywhere is to make sure everyone else knows this.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/22 Links Pt1: The only choice Israel has; Hamas WB fugitive lives in North London council property; Chappelle's antisemitic rant

From Ian:

The only choice Israel has

After the horrors we have seen, nothing should surprise us regarding their ruthlessness. We must assume that they have boobytrapped everything they could. In this reality, the challenges of warfare are numerous and complex.

Under these circumstances, it is expected that the state's authorities, its institutions, and its citizens will support the military's efforts by lifting various constraints. It is important to emphasize that there is no dilemma when choosing between adhering to international law and minimizing the risks to our forces.

The circumstances under which Israel entered the war in Gaza exempt it from dealing with what will happen in Gaza after the war. The reason for this is simple: Israel has no other choice. It must respond with overwhelming force, and let the chips fall where they may.

Any other response could potentially leave it under existential threat. Every other scenario is less severe than that. The question of what will happen after the war should concern us less than the question of what will not be present: There will be no Hamas rule, no military or terrorist capabilities threatening the State of Israel, and Gaza's humanitarian needs will not be Israel's concern.

The efforts Hamas invested in the documentation, photography, and dissemination of their horrors can shed light on one of the goals of the attack on Israel: breaking Israelis' spirit. Indeed, they sought to murder Jews for the sake of murder, to kidnap in order to use captives as human shields and bargaining chips, to carry out complex attacks to project strength and leave a historical mark, to humiliate, document, distribute – to shock and frighten the Israeli society and instill terror and fear in every Israeli.

Viewing Hamas videos or distributing them may serve their purpose. The resilience of a united Israeli society in the face of this monstrous threat and the strengthening of the people's spirit will thwart their efforts and allow us to eliminate the forces of evil.

Israel war: Why Biden is wrong to delay Israel's ground offensive

Don't misunderstand me. Assuming Abdel Fattah el Sissi doesn't play games (an unfortunately big assumption), the U.S. is right to push Israel to allow a humanitarian corridor from Egypt into Gaza. Biden is also right to assert that a two-state solution remains the eventual (if distant) U.S. goal for Israel and the Palestinians. And yes, Palestinian civilians deserve respect — and Palestinian Americans also. Nevertheless the basic imperative here must be Israel's resumption of strategic authority. That authority was gutted on Oct. 7 and, along with it, Israel's raison d'etre of providing a safe haven for the Jewish people. Hamas knows it. Iran knows it. Israel's enemies know it. And the U.S. should not lose sight of it.

What Washington must now focus on is the reality that it can impose a more favorable strategic calculus if it desires. Multiple Air Force fighter and bomber squadrons, a U.S. carrier strike group (soon two and, according to rumors, three), a Marine expeditionary force, and an undisclosed number of Tomahawk-laden guided missile submarines provide a potent force. Does the U.S. want to use these forces in combat? No. Should it act diplomatically where possible to prevent that outcome? Yes. But Washington must not lose sight of the fact that Iran and Hezbollah don't want these U.S. forces in action either. If they did, Hezbollah would have already launched a full-scale assault on northern Israel, and Iran would have already started firing ballistic missiles at Israel. They would have done so because they sense Israel has rarely been more vulnerable.

That is the exigent point here. In turn, if the U.S. wants its citizens recovered, it should make something plain to Hamas: Those hostages must not be harmed under any scenarios and that, if they are, five-star hotels in Doha nor European fundraising circuits will no longer provide refuge.

While there is a limited utility to keeping Hamas fighters guessing as to when an Israeli attack will come (high-stakes sentry duty for days on end gets tiring), the Israeli government must have the final say when it enters Gaza. They must, because what happened on Oct. 7 was, in ideological intent, desired scale, and brutal tactics, a modern version of the Krakow ghetto liquidation — an atrocity masterfully encapsulated by Steven Spielberg as in the video below.

As Iran's nuclear program spins deep underground, Israel's enemies must know Krakow and Oct. 7 won't ever be repeated.

Richard Goldberg: Biden is being played by Hamas, Iran and Qatar — with American and Israeli lives at stake

If Washington believes Hamas is worse than ISIS in its barbarism, why would US policy enable Qatar to provide a base of operations and direct funding to help Hamas commit more savage massacres?

Right now, Hamas wants to buy time — and it’s using its hostages to prematurely end Israel’s military response.

Qatar, which hosts Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, wants to be the Swiss bankers to the Nazis of the modern era: maintaining ties with America, Iran and Hamas simultaneously.

Last weekend, Iran and Hamas met in Doha to coordinate next steps while Qatar’s Al Jazeera spreads Hamas disinformation, vile antisemitism and anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab world.

With Qatar finally facing calls to designate it a state sponsor of terrorism, Hamas unexpectedly released two American hostages Friday — and thanked Qatar for its efforts to win their release.

The United States is now reportedly pressuring Israel to hold off any ground invasion pending further Qatar-led negotiations.

No, Hamas hasn’t grown a heart.

In its own inhumanity, Hamas is leveraging our humanity — and undermining any military campaign to destroy it.

Rather than allow Hamas to leverage America, America should leverage Qatar: threatening tough economic sanctions if all hostages are not released within 48 hours.

And we should make clear every Hamas official roaming Doha is a legitimate military target. What do you think? Post a comment.

If America doesn’t get tough with Iran and Qatar, Hamas will survive, and Iran will emerge more dangerous and emboldened than ever.

And that will further eviscerate American deterrence — not just in the Middle East but around the globe.

Over 800 terrorist rockets have exploded inside Gaza so far

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has always been the best source for information during Israel's wars in Gaza. They have connections in the IDF that the media generally do not have.

In their update from October 19, they show exactly how many terrorist rockets have been shot since October 7 - and how many have exploded in Gaza.

About 10% of rocket launches have been unsuccessful, according to their analysis. Moreover, the percentage of failed launches has been increasing in recent days: 25% on 10/14, 18% on 10/18.

By now the number must be closer to 900 failed launches.

While some of these failed launches explode on the ground, hundreds clearly get airborne and then fall inside Gaza. And as we've seen, not just from the Al Ahli hospital incident but from previous wars, Gaza civilians are often killed by these rockets.

And the media usually doesn't even consider that possibility when they discuss fatal "airstrikes" in Gaza.

The percentage of failed rocket attacks has always been in the 15-20% range in previous wars as well.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Lebanese actress Pamela El-Kik, who has over 2 million Instagram followers, got into trouble for an antisemitic statement that wasn't antisemitic enough.

She said in an interview on Lebanon's MTV, “What I love about the Jews is that they bring each other together in the right way. This is the only thing that is right about them. Other than that, I do not like them at all.”

El-Kik was immediately pilloried for her statement that Jews have one attribute that is praiseworthy while everything else about them is awful.

She immediately issued a statement that her interview was recorded before the current fighting in Gaza, calling the Hamas terrorists "heroes."

She then posted photos of herself posing as a masked Palestinian terrorist, much to the delight of her fans.

All is forgiven!

The Lebanese might hate Hezbollah, but their antisemitism is bone-deep.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

"Forensic Architecture" tries to say hospital explosion wasn't a terror rocket, creating a conspiracy theory

We've already proven in the past that Forensic Architecture is an anti-Israel group that partners with media and human rights NGOs to pretend to use cutting edge 3-D modeling to prove its lies.

They helped create the Amnesty International "Gaza Platform" that is filled with data that is provably wrong to reach conclusions that are obviously wrong.

In 2021, using their signature 3D modeling, they claimed that a Palestinian car ramming attack at a checkpoint was really a simple car accident whose driver was executed for no reason. Yet the video clearly shows both the car accelerating towards the soldiers - and that the driver jumped out of the car to attack them less than a second after the crash, something a stunned victim of an accident would never do.

In 2022, they teamed up with Al Haq and falsely accused Israel of targeting "cultural heritage sites" in Gaza. Not only were they wrong - Israel was shooting at rocket launchers on top of the site - but their own video proved that Hamas was building right on top of those old Roman ruins!

Later that year the two groups accused Israel is purposefully trying to create an ecological disaster in Gaza - using the worst possible munition for that purpose.

Now, Forensics Architecture is pretending that the explosion near the Al Ahli hospital was really from Israel:

Preliminary analysis by FA, @alhaq_org & @earshot_ngo into the #AlAhli hospital blast in Gaza casts significant doubt on IOF claims that the source of the deadly explosion was a Palestinian-fired rocket travelling west to east.

3D analysis shows patterns of radial fragmentation on the southwest side of the impact crater, as well as a shallow channel leading into the crater from the northeast. Such patterns indicate a likely projectile trajectory with northeast origins.

In reviewing our analysis, investigator & explosive weapons expert @CobbSmith agrees the fragmentation patterns may indicate the projectile came from the northeast—the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter—and not from the west, as claimed by the IOF.

Our/@CobbSmith’s analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment.

@earshot_ngo analysed the recording released by IOF officials of an alleged exchange between members of Hamas implicating the Islamic Jihad in the attack. They found that the recording was manipulated and therefore not a credible source of evidence:

...A conclusive investigation into this attack requires full access to the site and munition fragments, as well as witness interviews. We continue our work on this case, and reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinian people under attack, including our friends & colleagues.

This is 9/11 Truther conspiracy theory level stuff. All evidence that shows it was Islamic Jihad, such as multiple videos of the rocket being shot from the same location as a salvo of other Gaza rockets, or how the rocket fuel would explain a huge fireball but no artillery shell would, is ignored.

The videos clearly show a rocket that fell apart in mid-air. Any analysis of direction after a mid-air breakup is useless - chances are the part that hit the parking lot of the hospital was corkscrewing towards the ground as it has probably lost its tailfins. Assuming their debris analysis is correct, it probably simply hit the ground while facing a southwest direction. (After I wrote this, I see that CNN's experts agree: "If the projectile malfunctioned and broke apart in the air, as CNN’s analysis suggests, the direction of impact reflected by the crater would not be a reliable finding.")

Interestingly, CNN interviewed the same Chris Cobb-Smith and he said something nearly the opposite than what Forensic Architecture says he said:

Cobb-Smith said that the conflagration following the blast was inconsistent with an artillery strike, but that it could not be entirely ruled out.

AP's analysis agrees with CNN and the IDF.

Of course the IDF manipulated the audio. They edited out information that was sensitive. As far as the two audio channels, chances are that they were wiretapping both ends of the conversation separately and combined them, and chose to use stereo to make it easier to understand.

But the most obvious proof that Forensic Architecture cannot be trusted - besides its track record of lying, that is - is that its own language calling the IDF the "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces," meaning that all of Israel is "occupied territory") and their statement of solidarity with Palestinians. They are admitting their agenda, proving that they are not even close to objective. They are only interesting in supporting their biases, not the truth.

The question is why any organization would pay them for consulting services, unless they want manipulated and biased results to begin with.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/21 Links: Douglas Murray: The aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel has exposed the West’s moral collapse; Antisemitic NGOs justify terror in three stages

From Ian:

Josh Frydenberg: Terror, trauma, but still there is hope

I am anguished and anxious about the future.

When fears over safety see Jewish students afraid to attend lectures on campus, Jewish parents feel the need to keep their children home from school and Jewish schools advise students not to wear their uniforms that make them identifiable outside school grounds, we know we have a problem.

And when demonstrators in Sydney chant “f--- the Jews” and “gas the Jews”, we know just how dangerous and serious that problem really is.

What happened last week outside the Sydney Opera House was nothing short of an abomination. A national disgrace that has become an international embarrassment.

Just think for a moment what just happened in our own country. Instead of being able to show solidarity with Israel as our national icon was lit up in blue and white, sympathetic Australian Jews and non Jews were told to stay away for their own safety as a rampaging mob was given centre stage.

No such behaviour was tolerated near the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate or Number 10 Downing Street when they were lit up in blue and white. To the contrary, thousands rallied outside these landmarks, singing the Israeli national anthem, the Hatikvah, and showing their spontaneous support.

If that was not bad enough, it’s been reported that it was said to the leadership of the NSW Jewish community that “maybe it’ll just be easier if we don’t light up the Opera House to protect you people”.

“You people”: what a disgraceful term for a community of proud Australians that has never seen a conflict between their faith and their nationality. Loading

A community that has produced our greatest citizen-soldier Sir John Monash, governors’ general, governors, chief Justices, chief scientists, Nobel Prize winners, leading business figures, philanthropists, medical professionals, among so many others ...

I can dwell on the death, despair and darkness that is dominating debate, or I can share some of the lessons of history and what they tell us about how the light will shine again.

For more than 2000 years, the enemies of Israel have been seeking its destruction. The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Nazis, to name just a few. But history tells us that the enemies of the past are no more. The Jewish people survived and Israel prospered.

So now, despite the huge challenges ahead, I see the light returning.

This is an excerpt of a speech given in Melbourne on Thursday night to support victims of terrorism.
Josh Frydenberg is the former treasurer of Australia.

Boris Johnson and Bernard-Henri Lévy: Our Support for Israel Is as Important as That for Ukraine

There can be no binary, zero-sum choice here—between helping the Ukrainians to fight Putin, and helping Israel to fight off the terrorists of Hamas. When we look at Putin’s thugs in Adviika, or jihadi thugs in Gaza, we are looking at different heads of the same hydra.

We see the difference between those who are trying to kill and terrify civilians, and those who are trying to save civilian life. We see the difference between democracy and autocracy, between tyranny and the rule of law.

It is no surprise that Russia has failed to condemn the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, or that the Russian media draw comparisons between the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the Nazi siege of Leningrad in WWII.

It is hardly accidental that the Russian government maintains such good relations with the two most important global sponsors of Hamas—Iran and Syria. That is because Putin’s Russia shares with Hamas a blatant disregard for the laws of war.

We have seen in the war against Ukraine how Putin’s armies have wittingly and deliberately trained their fire on crowded train stations, on theaters, churches, restaurants. They even attacked the Babyn Yar memorial, in Kyiv, to the victims of the Holocaust—as if to symbolize the new barbarism of their approach, their cold indifference to the loss of innocent human life.

Putin’s thugs and Hamas terrorists are morally identical in making no distinction between civilian and military targets; and that is no wonder, because their objectives are really the same—to destroy liberal democracy. The children killed or deported from Mariupol are victims of the same brand of barbarism as the children killed in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza.

This is not the time to give priority to one set of victims. They both deserve the protection of the West. We are now fighting on two fronts, for the same values and the same ideals, against the same anti-democratic and terroristic forces.

To our American friends we say: We must help protect Israel, and help save Ukraine. To choose one would be a betrayal of both.

Antisemitic NGOs justify terror in three stages

It must be difficult to be a pro-Palestinian propagandist these days. After all, how can you possibly defend the gruesome slaughter of over 1,400 innocents, torture, rape, defiling corpses?! Yet there is a network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are doing their best to justify the unjustifiable.

For the past week, my colleagues and I at NGO Monitor have carefully examined the output of NGOs that claim human rights agendas, many funded by European governments, and analyzed their claims and argumentation. We have identified a three-staged process by which NGOs work to erase the heinousness of Hamas crimes and fuel the international demonization of Israel.

Justifying and celebrating attacks
The first stage is open justification and celebration of the attacks as “resistance” against a “settler-colonial state.” For example, the 150-member Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) “saluted this honorable image that our people are sketching,” having faced, “for more than 75 years, a racist, fascist occupation,” and stated that “the Palestinian people… are resisting this with all valor and sacrifice.” BADIL, a Palestinian “return” NGO, wrote, “resistance is the most human and legitimate act” because “the Palestinian people have been suffering for 75 years of colonial-apartheid regime, ethnic cleansing, forcible transfer/displacement.”

Similarly, an advocacy officer from Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P) referred to “Palestinians resisting Israeli colonization & trying to take back their land.”

These and other examples demonstrate how the initial NGO responses celebrated the “accomplishments” of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist groups, i.e. the mass killing, abduction, and other heinous crimes against thousands of civilians.

Whataboutism and shifting focus
Next, NGOs moved on to stage two: trying to shift media and political focus by inventing Israeli atrocities that are similar to the actual brutality of Hamas. Palestinian NGOs have always delegitimized Israel’s right to self-defense and denied the existence of Palestinian terrorism, which they invariably decorate as “resistance.”

Israel’s military response targeting terror infrastructure in Gaza provided another opportunity to accuse Israel of committing the worst crimes. For example, a joint statement from the PFLP’s NGO network – Al-Mezan, Bisan, Al-Haq, DCI-P, Addameer, Union of Palestinian Women’s Committes (UPWC), and others – demanded that the EU “fully denounce Israel’s indiscriminate military reprisals…and intervene to protect the Palestinian people against Israel’s incitement to genocide.”

In another statement, Al-Haq accused Israel of “targeting male and female civilians and civilian objects in such a way that amounts to acts of genocide.” Zakaria Bakr, who heads the Union of Agricultural Work Committees’ Gaza Fisherman Committee, wrote, “We are living through an action of ethnic cleansing and genocide accompanied by starvation…what we are living through is more powerful and stronger than the holocaust which the Zionists talk about.” Palestinian Medical Relief Society Director Mustafa Barghouti published a statement referencing an Israeli “plot…to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip.”

Of course, all these NGOs, primarily funded by their European government patrons under the facade of “human rights,” were entirely silent on Hamas’s genocidal violence. Stage three is reminiscent of a standard tactic employed by those caught red handed – deny, deny, deny. As they recognized the need to salvage international support for the Palestinian cause, some NGOs began denying that the atrocities and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hamas actually happened. Good Shepherd Collective, which describes itself as “an anti-Zionist, anti-colonial organization,” alleged that “zionists” (sic) were sharing “AI generated images, trying to convince us that Palestinian resistance fighters simply must be the barbarians they believe them to be.”

10/20 Links Pt3: 2 Israeli-Americans hostages released; A ceasefire would normalise the pogrom; Courage in an age of moral degeneracy; A new generation of hate rises in America

From Ian:

Cary Nelson: A ceasefire would normalise the pogrom

Two to three thousand members of highly organised murder squads cross an international border and set about murdering civilians in as gruesome and indiscriminate a manner imaginable. In fact, the wanton indulgence in blood lust exceeds anything that had been foreseen or imagined. With that barbaric mission completed in a day, some in the international community immediately begin calling for a ceasefire. The critical point to make is that a ceasefire keeps Hamas in power. The consequences of that must be faced.

Those urging a ceasefire stand behind what appears to be the most basic humanitarian motive: prevent further loss of life; end the massacre of innocent civilians. And then the coup de grace is delivered in hypocritical feel good rhetoric: everyone should respect international humanitarian law. Except that Hamas never has and never will honour international humanitarian law.

Meanwhile, no reprisals for murdering men, women, and children are to follow. No sanctions. No punishments. No accountability. The barbaric intimacy of so many of the killings is to be met with stability, frozen in time. We are all to accept what happened and move on.

Fools, hypocrites, dreamers, and antisemites alike stand in solidarity. Except that if the crimes are allowed to stand unanswered they will be repeated or more likely horrifically reinvented within a few years at most. A new standard for monstrous assault on Israelis will be in place.

Keep in mind that many in the international community have advocated the normalising of repeated rocket barrages from Gaza into Israel. Since Iron Dome protects most Israelis, destroying the rockets in midair, that should suffice. Intercepting Hamas rockets constitutes the moral limit of Israel’s right to defend itself.

Israel has but this one chance to demonstrate that organised, wanton, antisemitic murder sprees will not be tolerated. If it fails to do so, these new forms of Hamas butchery will become Israel’s new normal. Eliminating the invading killers will be the limit of Israel’s internationally acceptable response. If Israel wants to draw a line and establish that what Hamas did is absolutely unacceptable, it must respond in a way that is different in kind, not just degree. Simply increasing the number of air strikes will not suffice. The Hamas pogrom presents Israel with what really is this time an existential threat. It has to be treated that way.

Douglas Murray: A new generation of hate rises in America

Sure there have been pro-Israel protests. And people like Mayor Adams should be applauded for their strong stance in defense of the state which was actually attacked here.

But underneath that top-level things are very rotten indeed.

Look at the professor at Cornell who the Post exposed for calling Hamas’s massacre of over a thousand Israelis “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

Or NYC Councilman Charles Barron telling an anti-Israel rally in NY that Israelis were “European converts to Judaism” who had “stolen” Palestinian land. He went on to say “We can’t be kowtowed and afraid of the Israeli lobby.”

Or what about the member of the faculty at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mika Tosca, who this week called Israelis “pigs,” “savages” and “irredeemable excrement.”

Tosca calls herself a “radically optimistic transsexual climate scientist.” But I wonder if her dehumanizing, anti-Semitic language reminds anyone of anything?

Across this country there has been an outburst of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate.

And it isn’t from gnarled old bigots of the type Hollywood would paint.

It is from youngest people in the country. From the youngest members of Congress. From the youngest people on campus. And from people like Mika who think they’re radically progressive while saying the most regressive things imaginable.

One instructor at Stanford was suspended this week after singling out Jewish students from their classmates and referring to “Only 6 million” Jews being murdered in the Holocaust.

That clearly wasn’t enough for him. And it’s clearly not enough for many of the other psychopaths who have decided that the murder of Jews is a good moment to call for more of the same.

The top floors of the American apartment building may be OK. But down below it’s not. No other minority would put up with being murdered and then taunted for being murdered. I don’t know why Jews should either.

I’m relieved that they are being supported from the top. But where is the support on the streets? And what has happened to the rest of the damn building?

Melanie Phillips: Courage in an age of moral degeneracy

It’s very important, therefore, to acknowledge that this is itself a distorted picture of public opinion. There are millions of decent people who are horrified by what happened in Israel, who are aghast at the jubilant Jew-hatred now rampant on the streets and university campuses of Britain, America and elsewhere, and who understand that this evil that’s been unleashed threatens them too.

And there are also some individuals who are bravely and publicly telling the unambiguous truth, and confronting head-on the nauseating hypocrisy and cowardice of the so-called liberals who are dominant in political and cultural life and whose accommodation with evil has brought western civilisation to this terrifying inflexion point in its existence.

Here are some who have caught my eye over the past few days.
This is Mohammad Kabiya, an Israeli Arab Muslim reservist in the Israel Defence Forces, telling the unvarnished truth about Hamas and Israel’s need to defend itself — while the BBC Arabic station’s anchor vainly tries to “put the other side”, ie defend Hamas, in the BBC style to which we have become accustomed.

This is Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, packing a terrific emotional punch at a “New York Stands With Israel” rally.

“You marched with us with Dr. King. You stood with us with all the fights we have. And I’m saying we’re going to stand with you and stand united together. And we don’t have to be all right. We should be angry at what we saw. Thank you, Israel.”
The British commentator and author Douglas Murray, interviewed on Talk TV by Julia Hartley-Brewer, took apart the “deep perversion” of Britain’s callow and idiotic requirement for Israel alone to make a “proportionate response” to genocidal attack. To watch, click here.

This is British politics professor Matthew Goodwin on BBC TV’s Politics Live, letting fly at the BBC’s coverage of Israel and Hamas.

“I can’t remember a time in my life when I’ve felt more ashamed by our national debate”. Read Matt’s Substack blog here.
This is US Senator Ted Cruz, at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee confirmation hearing for the prospective US ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew, absolutely ripping into both Lew and the Biden administration over their responsibility for the Hamas pogrom by having systematically appeased and empowered Iran. Epic.

Finally for now, Shai Davidai, an Israeli-American Assistant Professor of Management at Columbia Business School, New York, called out university presidents by name for allowing incitement against Jews by pro-terror organisations on campus.

“To the pro-terror organisations on campus…my two year-old daughter is a legitimate target of resistance; that’s what they’re saying, you’re allowed to murder and kidnap my two year-old daughter in the name of resistance; and none of the presidents of universities all around the country are willing to take a stand”.

10/20 Links Pt2: Why a Nice Girl Vandalizes Israeli Hostage Rescue Posters; Inside Black Lives Matter's Long History With Hamas-Friendly Activists

From Ian:

Why a Nice Girl Vandalizes Israeli Hostage Rescue Posters

Yazmeen Deyhimi, who the organization Stop Antisemitism identified as one of two New York University students caught on video tearing down flyers depicting the faces of people Hamas kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, began volunteering for the Anti-Defamation League when she was just a freshman in high school. While still a young teen, she “took part in the ADL Peer Training Program,” according to a short biography of Deyhimi included in the ADL of New York and New Jersey’s announcement of its 2019 high school summer intern class. “She quickly joined the No Place for Hate Committee and has been committed to help facilitate events such as Unity and Equality Days,” the blurb continued.

The then-high school junior was a Girl Scout, as well as a tennis instructor for the underprivileged. “She is,” we learn, “extremely passionate about fighting racial profiling and championing gender equality.”

The ADL could not have been expected to know that a bright and socially conscious high school student from the extremist hotbed of Port Washington, New York, would proudly announce a sociopathic lack of sympathy for Jews in terrorist captivity four years later. At the same time, Deyhimi’s story is a look into how little sticking power the ADL’s brand of consensus-seeking, center-left politics might have in the long run, even with people who volunteered with the group through most of high school. “We fully condemn her actions and hope that the apology she issued is the first step towards working to repair the harm and deep hurt her actions caused,” an ADL spokesman told Tablet by email when asked about Deyhimi.

“As a matter of policy, ADL does not comment on personnel matters,” the ADL spokesman wrote. “However, we will say that ADL and our staff are steadfast in our support of Israel, that our body of work speaks for itself, and that we are grateful for the tireless efforts of the entire ADL team in the wake of the largest mass murder of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

Deyhimi’s apology, which came after she was widely identified by name on social media, opened with the acknowledgement that “My actions that were caught on camera are a poor representation of what I believe: all innocent lives—Israeli and Palestinian—should be spared and all terrorist organizations should be condemned and punished.” The sentiment is blameless, of course. Who could argue otherwise?

In her apology, the NYU junior proved herself to be a fluent writer of officialese, proof her education at a hyperselective American college did not go to waste. What do young high-achievers learn at expensive universities these days—aside from, perhaps, the necessity of supporting terror attacks against Israeli families, children, and old people, of course—if not the language of virtuous self-presentation, a survival skill in a world in which one might flip from being a victim to victimizer in a hot minute? Handling these kinds of passages is a delicate art, worthy of the courtiers of Versailles.

As the NYU junior continued, “I have found it increasingly difficult to take my place as a biracial brown woman, especially during these highly volatile times. I find myself more and more frustrated about the time we currently find ourselves in.”

The honesty is laudable, and it is hard not to identify with it, whatever your beliefs about the war: Everyone is at least a little frustrated right now. People want to repair a horrific breach in reality, wherever they are and however they can, even if their real motive isn’t to improve much of anything in the external world but to quiet their own inner turmoil. All the better if one’s emotional pain-relief racks up the maximum number of points on the great peer group-social, media-victimhood scoreboard.

While tearing down flyers of kidnapped Jews isn’t most people’s idea of helping the situation, or seems a strange way of assuaging an individual sense of helplessness, the thought process Deyhimi describes in her apology is chillingly legible, common to people of good and ill intent on both sides of this awful conflict. We all want to do something, don’t we? But do what? Hard to say, now that “reality” is an increasingly vague chaos in which our own ever-multiplying “identities” can seem like the last pillars of certainty.

People want to repair a horrific breach in reality, wherever they are and however they can, even if their real motive isn’t to improve much of anything in the external world but to quiet their own inner turmoil.

Deyhimi’s trajectory tracks with that of a generation of rising elites for whom staid, establishment institutions have served as a pipeline to a much edgier, more militant set of values, which themselves are admission tickets to prestige institutions. Thirty student groups at Harvard, including, initially, the university’s Amnesty International chapter, signed on to a statement endorsing Hamas’ slaughter of 1,400 Israelis—many of them believing, no doubt, that a public display of fealty to a terror group wouldn’t hurt them in the elite job market.

Daniel Greenfield: 1 in 10 College Students Support Hamas Atrocities

Some people are describing this poll as good news. It only seems that way because we’ve lowered the bar so drastically that anything short of a majority committing to bombing the Empire State Building seems good.

It’s not good news.
The poll finds 86% of college students saying they’re aware of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. And of that share, 67% describe the attack as an act of terrorism by Hamas, versus 12% who see it as a justified act of resistance by Hamas. Another 21% describe it as something else other than an act of terrorism or resistance.

1 in 10 college students support the murder, rape and kidnapping of Israeli civilians. Only 2 out of 3 can even bring themselves to call it terrorism. 1 in 5 are not even sure how to define it, but don’t want to call it terrorism.

These are catastrophic numbers for what should have been the lowest of low bars, horrifying atrocities against civilians caught on video and recorded in photos, widely discussed and made available, and not even 70% will call it terrorism.

The numbers predictably get worse with party and race breakdowns.
By party, 73% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats and 50% of independents say they blame Hamas for the attack on Israel.

And by race, 58% of white college students, 47% of Latinos and 36% of Black college students believe Hamas deserves blame for the attack.

50% among non-Republicans. Not even a majority among non-whites. A third among black people.

Generation Lab doesn’t make its polls public so I can’t dig into the data any further, but there’s little here that inspires optimism and plenty that shows where the hate on campus is coming from.

Kassy Dillon: Father of IDF reservists compares those denying Hamas’ brutality to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels

An American frustrated by activists downplaying Hamas' brutal attack detailed the horrific massacres his family in the Israel Defense Forces have seen.

"Anybody who claims that this didn't happen is just denying the truth and is part of the problem and should be lumped together with the people of Hamas," Marc Tobin, who lives in Israel, told Fox News.

Some activists around the U.S. protesting the Hamas-Israel war have downplayed Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers and resulted in nearly 200 hostages. Anti-Israel demonstrators have called Hamas' massacres "resistance," accused Israel of genocide for carrying out retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza and been filmed ripping down posters of Israeli hostages.

In response, Tobin, who has three sons and 13 nephews serving in the IDF, relayed his families' experiences. The IDF sent his middle son to the Gaza border last Monday to find terrorists still in Israel and to ensure survivors were accounted for in the nearby villages. He and his fellow soldiers went door-to-door in Kfar Aza.

"Unfortunately, they saw the massacre," Tobin said. "A lot of the bodies had been put into — already — body bags so they saw all the different sizes of bodies, the adults, the children and unfortunately, the infants."

Tobin said his son fortunately didn't see the bodies before they were put in bags, "but there were enough in his unit that did see that people were butchered." body bags israeli soldiers

Israeli soldiers remove bodies of civilians who were killed days earlier during Hamas terrorists' attack in Kfar Aza, Israel. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office last week released photos of babies that it says Hamas terrorists "murdered and burned" in Kfar Aza during the attack. More than 70 of the kibbutz's 765 residents were killed, according to the Times of Israel.

IDF troops found about 200 dead, including babies, some of whom they said were decapitated, Israeli media reported.

"I think Hamas is just like the Nazis were," Tobin said.

Tobin said protesters and activists ignoring Hamas' atrocities are taking a page out of Adolf Hitler’s chief propagandist's playbook to create and spread disinformation.

"[Joseph] Goebbels had a strategy of if you say it enough, then people believe it," he said.