Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 03, 2023

12/03 Links: Like Hamas, UNRWA must be removed from Gaza; US: Palestinian Authority currently unfit to govern Gaza; US warship, commercial vessels attacked in Red Sea

From Ian:

David Harsanyi: No, rewarding Islamists with a Palestinian state isn’t the only option for Israel

It doesn’t have to be this way. Palestinian culture is steeped in generational, self-destructive, virulent animosity toward Jews that manifests in waves of extremism and violence.

This was the case in the early 20th century when Arabs began sporadically massacring Jews before Israel existed, throughout the 1940s when Palestinian leadership embraced Hitler and during a post-war faux nationalism phase (also before Israel existed), in the 1960s when the Palestine Liberation Organization introduced the world to modern terrorism (before “occupied territories” existed), and to the present Islamist iteration of that violence.

Yet Palestinians and their defenders remain the only people in the world who think they can reset history every time they lose a war of aggression.

Their very claim to a state is contingent on the myth that Israel invaded and “occupied” the West Bank and Gaza (and Tel Aviv) in an act of colonialism, when the “occupied territories” were taken in defensive wars against Egypt and (the existing Palestinian-majority state of) Jordan.

But forget history.

Forget that you can dig anywhere in the ground and find ancient Jewish artifacts.

Forget that Israel offered Arabs back the land on numerous occasions in exchange for basic recognition.

More importantly, there is zero evidence that Palestinian self-governance will lead to more peace — quite the opposite, in fact.

Murphy’s notion that the only way to bring about coexistence is to reward the vilest act of Jewish murder since the Holocaust speaks to the destructive, insular, morally confused nature of the Brookings-approved DC blobthink.

Every time the sides revisit the negotiations on the terms dictated by these people, it ends in disappointment and, inevitably, violence.

Fortunately, this state can’t be willed into existence by Hamas-friendly newspaper editorial boards, nor by resolution-happy tyrants at the United Nations. What do you think? Post a comment.

And that’s fine. Just as there is no independent Hungarian nation in Transylvania and no Republic of Basque, there may never be a “Palestine” — or rather, a second Palestine (Jordan being the first).

Nothing says there has to be.

Yes, the situation might be intractable right now.

But that is no reason to make it worse.

Netanyahu: Palestinian Authority can’t return to Gaza, this isn’t Oslo II

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged not to repeat the mistakes made under the Oslo Accords by allowing the Palestinian Authority to return to Gaza after its military campaign to oust Hamas from that enclave is over.

“One thing for sure I am not doing. I am not ready to delude myself to say that the defective act that took place under Oslo through a terrible error” must now take place a second time with the return of a “hostile entity” to Gaza and the West Bank, he told reporters on Saturday night.

Netanyahu referenced the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s initial exit to Tunisia. He noted that this was a correct decision, adding that the error that had been made was to allow it to return in 1994 with through the Palestinian Authority under the auspices of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

“I won’t repeat this mistake and return this body to Gaza, because the same thing will happen,” he said. He referenced the 2007 coup in which Hamas ousted the PA’s Fatah party from Gaza and forcibly seized control of the enclave

The Palestinian leadership has split into two, Netanyahu said, but the ideology that denies Israel’s right to exist is common to both those who rule in the West Bank and in Gaza.

US: Palestinian Authority currently unfit to govern Gaza

The Palestinian Authority is currently unfit to govern a post-Hamas Gaza Strip, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Sunday.

During an interview with ABC “This Week,” anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Kirby about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the P.A. playing any future role in Gaza due to its support for terrorism and promotion of Jew-hatred.

“What [Netanyahu] said was right now you’ve got an unreformed P.A. And that’s unacceptable to him. I would tell you that’s unacceptable to us too. We don’t believe the P.A. is in a position right now to be in—a credible control of governance in Gaza,” said Kirby.

He added that the administration wants a “reformed and revitalized Palestinian Authority” helping to govern the Strip.

“But whatever it looks like, and I’m not saying it has to be just the Palestinian Authority. We think that they should have a role, certainly. Whatever it looks like, though, George, it’s got to be responsive and representative of the Palestinian people, and certainly Hamas is not that,” he added.

Kirby also said that Jerusalem had been “receptive to our messages here in terms of trying to minimize civilian casualties.

“And I would tell you,” he continued, “we saw that as they went into north Gaza. They did it in a more precise way, a smaller way. And just in the last 24, 48 hours, George, they published online a map of places where people could go to avoid combat, and where they could go where they could find safety from combat.

“There’s not a whole lot of modern militaries that would do that. I mean that you know, so, to telegraph their punches in that way. So, they are making an effort,” added the spokesman.

Israel's UN ambassador slams Soros for donations to 'pro-Hamas groups' seeking destruction of Jewish state

Left-wing activist billionaire George Soros is facing intense criticism from Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. for pumping over $15 million into a network of nongovernmental organizations that allegedly support Hamas.

"George Soros’ donations to organizations that seek the destruction of the State of Israel as a Jewish state is shameful. However, I am not surprised," Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan told Fox News Digital.

Hamas launched a full-blown invasion into southern Israel Oct. 7, resulting in the mass murder of 1,200 people, including over 30 Americans. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages. American citizens were among civilians kidnapped by the jihadi terrorist entity.

"For years, Soros has backed and transferred money to organizations supporting BDS that want to isolate Israel," added Erdan, who has been leading the diplomatic campaign at the U.N. to spell out Hamas’ crimes against humanity. "They have never been about real peace or any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

BDS is an abbreviation for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting the Jewish state. The German and Austrian parliaments classified BDS as an antisemitic movement that resembles the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses during the nascent phase of the Holocaust.

Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of "The Soros Agenda," told Fox News Digital, "Support of pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian groups in the U.S. is not limited to foreign entities. It also comes directly and indirectly from U.S.-based foundations. George and Alexander Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) is one of them."

Over a thousand pro-Palestinian protesters marched from Columbus Circle around midtown Manhattan, ending up at Grand Central Nov. 10, 2023. (Stephen Yang for Fox News Digital)

"Soon after he settled in the White House, Biden appointed Robert Malley as his special envoy to Iran," Ehrenfeld wrote in her book. "Malley is the former president and CEO of the Soros-funded, Brussels-based International Crisis Group, which, like Soros, has been criticizing Israel and praising Hamas. "

David Collier: Cambridge University event plugs Steven Sizer group

On 29 Nov, I spent 90 very-long minutes watching an anti-Zionist event at Cambridge. The event was advertised by the Cambridge Faculty of History. The title was ‘Jewish Solidarity with Palestinians: Antizionism, Activism and Liberation for All’.

In the middle of an awful episode in Jewish history – academics at Cambridge decided to bring together some of the fringe Jews that stand with antisemitic haters – so as to provide an orgy of lies, misinformation, and raw anti-Israel hatred.

Our Host – Dr Hana Morgenstern
Toxic events such as this only make it into the university space because of sympathetic faculty members. In this case it was Dr Hana Morgenstern. She is an Associate Professor in Postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literature at Cambridge. She was the only one at the event who didn’t actually speak, but her presence as the facilitator was her gift to the anti-Zionist world. Without her, there is no platform for this event.

I have previously discussed this issue of academic clones, with some campus spaces becoming conveyor belts for a series of anti-Zionist academics. Morgenstern achieved her PhD at Brown, and the acknowledgements section in her thesis is full of gushing praise for anti-Zionist academics such as Professor Ariella Azoulay. She was radicalised in the academic space and now she seeks to radicalise others. Morgenstern is a product of the demise of western academia.

Morgenstern recently signed a letter ‘from within the location of British imperial complicity, that opposed ‘Israeli settler colonial dispossession, ethnic cleansing, military occupation and apartheid’. The letter – signed by lots of brain-dead students and academics, even includes a reference to the bombing of al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital, which as we all know – was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. Still, modern academia has little need for things such as facts anymore, and I am sure that the University of Cambridge is immensely proud that their academics are busy signing such nonsense.

Bottom line – if I was a Jewish student who needed Morgenstern’s academic approval to succeed – I would be both intimidated and scared. Such is the life of Jewish students these days. As it is, she helped put together an event that for an evening at least, turned Cambridge into a sewer of anti-Jewish hatred.

UN Women finally says something about October 7 - but it is almost as bad as its silence

Finally, nearly two months after Hamas' systematic mass sexual assault on Israeli women and after withering criticism, UN women has issued a statement of condemnation.

The details of the statement show that they are not serious at all about caring about Israeli women.

We deeply regret that military operations have resumed in Gaza, and we reiterate that all women, Israeli women, Palestinian women, as all others, are entitled to a life lived in safety and free from violence.

We unequivocally condemn the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October. We are alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks. This is why we have called for all accounts of gender-based violence to be duly investigated and prosecuted, with the rights of the victim at the core.

In all conflicts, UN women fully supports rigorous investigations and Commissions of Inquiry where they exist. We are actively supporting the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, which began its investigation into sexual violence very shortly after the attacks occurred. We welcome that the Commission has opened its call for submissions on gender-based crimes since 7 October.

This is the same UN Commission of Inquiry whose very mandate is stacked against Israel. It is headed by Navi Pillay who is an apologist for both terrorism and antisemitism. One member has engaged in absurdly antisemitic tropes.

We also know from previous "calls for submission" that this same Commission of Inquiry has a history of ignoring hundreds of submissions that don't fit its predetermined anti-Israel stance.

To give an idea of how twisted this commission is specifically in the context of accusing Israel of hurting Palestinian women, here is what it says in its latest report released in September:

Gender impact

Fewer women and girls are killed and injured by Israeli security forces compared with men and boys. This should be seen within the social context in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where women and girls participate less frequently in the public domain (see A/HRC/40/CRP.2, paras. 592–598). These gender dynamics result in a disproportionate burden on women who have had to become caregivers to injured family members and primary breadwinners when men are killed, injured or detained, underscoring the context of intersecting forms of discrimination and violence against Palestinian women and girls.

You see? Because Israel kills terrorists and terrorists are mostly men, that disproportionately affects the terrorists' wives and mothers! Therefore, Israel is misogynist!

This isn't a serious analysis. This is just one of thousands of examples of how this UN Commission of Inquiry decides Israel is guilty beforehand, and seeks to twist facts to fit that verdict afterwards.

But it is worse than that. If you look at the reference they gave, about the protests at the Gaza fence in 2018, we see this interesting fact:

Women have also told the Commission that they perceived that they were less likely than men and boys to be shot by the ISF. A 26-year-old woman told the Commission:

"Women do not usually go close to the fence like I do. I burn tyres and throw stones, usually women do not do that. When the men want to cut the fence, I help them. For example, I walk in front of them to cover them when approaching the fence. Soldiers do not kill women usually – men on the other hand are hunted by Israelis like birds."

Gaza women specifically act as human shields and participate in terror activities because Israeli soldiers are less likely to shoot them.

And this UN commission tries to spin this as a source to prove Israel is discriminating against Palestinian women!

This is the commission that UN Women is praising for opening up an inquiry on the events of October 7 and afterwards. (Interestingly, the title of the inquiry is "Call for submissions on gender-based crimes since 7 October 2023," not "on or since 7 October 2023," although the text itself includes October 7.)

Both the Commission of Inquiry and UN Women are jokes who care far less about the human rights of women than they do in promoting an explicitly anti-Israel, antisemitic agenda.

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!

From Naharnet (Lebanon):

French Special Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian has called on Lebanon to “implement” U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 by “ending the presence of armed appearances within a 30-kilometer-deep area so that it serves as a buffer zone,” a media report said on Friday.

If Lebanon does not comply, Le Drian has warned that the resolution would be amended so that the U.N. forces become “more effective in their military jurisdiction” and that the international community might resort to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter to implement the resolution “by force,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported.

“The international pressure for the implementation of the resolution has reached Lebanese officials from several international sides, not only from Le Drian, and it is something expected to happen, especially that the settlers of the Israeli north are refusing to return to their homes without security guarantees starting by the withdrawal of armed appearances from the area south of the Litani River,” diplomatic sources told the daily.

“International pressure on Lebanon will intensify as time passes with the aim of rearranging the situations in the border area, seeing as it will be difficult to return to the pre-October 7 situation,” the sources added.

“That’s why the stances of the Lebanese forces are being explored regarding the issue of delineating the land border after Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied areas and the 13 contested points while halting its violations, in return for pulling back armed appearances from the area south of the Litani River,” the sources said.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 calls for "security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL... deployed in this area." While it doesn't mention Hezbollah by name, that is clearly what it is talking about.

The threat of things escalating into a full-blown war has placed this issue on the front burner, even though it had been almost completely ignored for 17 years. U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka issued a statement saying "the full implementation of Resolution 1701 is a key entry point to realize peace, security and stability in the region."

Hezbollah doesn't want to lose "honor" by appearing to back down. Lebanon doesn't want a war. Israel cannot live with its northern residents under threat of Hezbollah rockets, artillery and anti-tank weapons.

Things will come to a head one way or another. Since Lebanon cannot fix itself, the best alternative is for the UN to strengthen 1701 by giving UNIFIL additional power to enforce it by itself with or without the Lebanese army.

A potential war with Lebanon will make Gaza look like a picnic.

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!

Proof that Gaza Health Ministry just makes casualty statistics up

Here is a table of the number of Palestinians killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry (as reported by UN-OCHA), on these days in mid-October.

Date	Number claimed killed	Cumulative number
13-Oct		1900
14-Oct	328	2228
15-Oct	442	2670
16-Oct	138	2808
17-Oct	192	3000
18-Oct	478	3478
19-Oct	307	3785
20-Oct	352	4137
21-Oct	248	4385
22-Oct	266	4651
23-Oct	436	5087

According to the ministry, Israel killed several hundred people on most days.

Now, look at the figures from October 18, covering the alleged deaths from October 17.

The ministry claimed that 471 people were killed at the Al Ahli Hospital on October 17, but for the entire day they only counted 478 dead.

The ministry swears that Israel bombed that hospital. Which means that outside that one explosion, only 7 additional people were killed! Suddenly, the death toll went to practically zero on that one day.

Of course, every observer of the aftermath of the rocket explosion believes that the 471 figure was grossly exaggerated to begin with.

But that is hardly the only bizarre anomaly in the Hamas health ministry numbers.

Here are their numbers from October 28 and 29 in the UN report:

On October 29, the ministry said the total number killed in the previous 24 hours was 302 (8005-7703.) But the number of women and children killed in the same 24 hours was 328! (2062-1863=199, 3324-3195=129, 199+129=328.)

Yes, more of the deaths were women and children than...the total. 109% of those killed in that day were women and children.

Sure it's impossible, but why let that dissuade you from believing their statistics?

Similarly, the November 6-7 reports indicate 306 killed, yet they claim 337 - over 110% - were supposedly women, children and elderly.

Almost as unlikely is the October 29-30 reports, which indicate that 210 out of 216 killed - over 97%! - were women and children (They didn't count elderly until October 30th, if we had those alleged numbers, almost certainly the count would go above 100% as well.)

And somehow, we never see women and children looking at damage after an airstrike. They all seem to be men of fighting age.

These numbers are all randomly made up. There is no other explanation. The news media has no independent source for casualties, as they did in previous wars, so Hamas can issue whatever numbers it wants without fear of anyone calling them out on it.

Even though their numbers literally don't add up.

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!

12/02 Links: Why Anything Short of Total Eradication of Hamas Isn’t Enough; The Anti-Israeli Left Is Turning Into QAnon; UN Women finally condemns Hamas attacks, sexual violence on Oct7

From Ian:

Josh Hammer: Why Anything Short of Total Eradication of Hamas Isn’t Enough

Israel cannot realistically turn down hostage swaps, at least at face value, no matter the tangible benefits to Hamas. But with Hamas now transparently violating the “truce” and calling all the shots, the Jewish state must regain the upper hand in this conflict immediately. Anything less than unmitigated Israeli victory in Gaza would be catastrophic.

But Israel is losing the war right now: It is waging war on Hamas’ terms and capitulating to Biden administration and Qatari pressure.

Israel, a nation once vaunted for its military and intelligence prowess, appears extraordinarily weak. The optics of abiding by the “truce” while Hamas manifestly does not do so plays right into Hamas’ hands. Hamas is taunting Israel, further sullying its reputation and undermining its deterrent posture. Hassan Nasrallah and Ali Khamenei are surely laughing.

Especially after Thursday’s slaughter in Jerusalem, Israel has no choice but to put on its blinders, tune out the “international community,” and immediately reestablish deterrence by revving back up the IDF tanks and warplanes to eradicate Hamas in Gaza.

In the aftermath of the Hamas Holocaust of Oct. 7, anything short of complete eradication is inexcusable. No citizen in a First World country can live with such a genocidal specter constantly looming.

Eradication of Hamas is also necessary to deter Hezbollah, a considerably more dangerous foe than Hamas, to say nothing of the regional “head of the snake,” the Iranian regime itself.

Israel’s destruction of Hamas would also have salutary global repercussions: The global jihad that has been emboldened since Oct. 7 would be subdued, and Jews all over the world facing skyrocketing antisemitism would finally feel a little bit safer at home.

This is an extraordinarily difficult position for an Israeli leader to be in. But Benjamin Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister ever, and he comes from a famed Zionist family. The future viability of Zionism now hangs on his next moves.

John Podhoretz: A Shabbat in Tel Aviv

How, you have to ask yourself, did the Jewish people remain on this earth to build this country? Walk through the museum, which is largely dedicated to figures in history who managed to make a difference under the most difficult of conditions, ranging from official discrimination to the occasional but ever-possible pogrom, and you cannot but marvel at the simple fact that the museum even exists, and that it exists on a large college campus, and that it exists on a large college campus in the center of an important world city that is itself barely 100 years old. Here I was, on the Jewish Sabbath in a Jewish city in a Jewish country on a planet of 8 billion people, out of which the 14 million surviving Jews make up two-tenths of one percent, and the subject of my afternoon was: We’re here. And we’ve always been here.

Jews survived in the tiniest numbers, atomized throughout the world, through the two millennia following Christ. One exhibit features the findings of the 12th century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, who went from Spain around the world visiting Jewish communities, around 300 in all. He found a few hundred Jews in Greece. I myself know two Jews of Greek origin today whose ancestors must have been among those who met Benjamin on his travels. There were some in Marseilles. Some in a town called Taranto. The biggest surprise is that by far the largest Jewish community in the world seemed to have been in Yemen. Any one of these 300 communities could have been wiped out by plague or famine or just a general falling-away and assimilation into the general surrounding population and maybe some did. The point is that the Jews survived. They were tiny in number then. They are tiny in number now. And yet here we are.

It is the primary contention of our Jewish Commentary columnist, Meir Y. Soloveichik, that the creation and the flourishing of the state of Israel are themselves proof of the existence of the Jewish God. Being in Israel itself can make it hard for someone who does believe in God not to see this. Where once—maybe a little more than a century ago—there was almost nothing, there is now something powerful and beautiful. Where once two Temples stood and were destroyed 500 years apart, with the people who worshipped in them scattered in exile and then returned and then scattered again and then returned again and then scattered seemingly forever, there is the 28th richest country on earth. And all this on a planet where, twice in another 500 years, non-Jews sought to eliminate the existence of Jewry on the Iberian peninsula and then in Europe, there is Israel—facing eliminationist foes again but never to be eliminated as long as it is determined it will not be.

October 7 reaffirmed that determination. This is a small country and, even on the Sabbath, it’s not taking a nap. Rockets are going off and they’re being destroyed. Soldiers are fighting in Gaza. Israel is going to save itself from its foes and emerge the stronger for it. Such is the lesson of Jewish history.

John Podhoretz: Kfar Aza Must Live

I doubt the people of Kfar Aza are big fans of COMMENTARY; this is a peacenik, old-time leftie kibbutz. But one cannot view its residents with anything other than respect, because they put their money where their mouth is—and decided to live in a risky way because they believed in something and wanted to walk the walk. They believed in peaceful coexistence with the Gazans. They lived a mile away from the border and tried to find a way to be neighborly. They petitioned the government to let Gazans in to Israel to work, and employed them at Kfar Aza. In extending the hand of friendship, they gave Hamas a window inside their streets and walls—and the information passed back to the leaders helped provide the literal map for the invasion and slaughter.

I am not going to condemn them for foolishness. They knew what they were doing posed a potential danger to them and they did it anyway out of deep conviction. These are not limousine liberals toying with radical politics from their Park Avenue apartments and Hamptons houses. These are missionaries, their religion a secular creed of coexistence. Missionaries have, from time immemorial, risked their lives for their deep conviction and hope of bringing about salvation. I’m not a Christian, but I am awed by the stories of the daring of Christian missionaries across time to spread what they believe to be the Word. I’m not a peace activist either, but the last thing you can say about the victims at Kfar Aza and their fellow kibbutzniks is that they were and self-parodying unserious people. They lived in Israel as Jews and they were murdered for being Jews, their only crime to seek a better future for their country. There’s a word for what they are. The word is “martyr.”

Kibbutzim are collectivist communities of a kind pretty much unique to Israel, a social experiment in radical utopianism which involved the reorienting of the most basic daily life decisions and ordinary human wants toward a sense of collective purpose. In the early decades of the movement’s existence, most kibbutzniks literally owned nothing of their own, dined together, and even raised their children separately from parents in dormitories so as to engineer a sense of collective responsibility for all the kids. They were awash in demented ideas, potted efforts to make communist fantasies real—and as the kibbutzim themselves began to realize this, their novelty and reputation for innovation began to fade.

By now, kibbutzim are best understood as small towns without individual private property whose residents generally join together to pursue a single line of business. Some are still dedicated to farming, which is what all the kibbutzim did from their earliest days in the 1920s. But not many. A family member of mine grew up on a kibbutz that sold chocolate and had a small kiddie amusement park. There’s one that holds a patent on a certain high-grade military plastic and as a result is of the richest places per capita on earth. (With a population of 400, it makes an estimated $850 million per year.) By now, very few Israelis live on them; kibbutzniks make up about 1.5 percent of Israel’s population.

There are a couple hundred kibbutzim left, and they are home to a mere 1.3 percent of the country’s population. I hope, 100 years from now, if there is one still standing, it will be Kfar Aza—because Hamas’s depradations have marked it even more powerfully in the history of our people a place for Jews. And Jews should therefore there forever,

12/01 Links Pt2: Douglas Murray: Europe's clash of cultures — and antisemitism — is coming to America; The 7 October denialists

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Europe's clash of cultures — and antisemitism — is coming to America

Well, the war on Christmas certainly started early this year. On the streets of New York. And in the ugliest way possible.

By now, everybody will have seen the footage of anti-Israel activists and pro-Palestinian extremists trying to disrupt the Christmas tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center.

Let’s ignore for a moment that one of the crowd was carrying a swastika and that the general mood of the crowd was more of a mob than a demonstration.

What did they think they were doing?

Perhaps these thugs had been emboldened by managing to interrupt the Macy´s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But what had Macy’s ever done to them? And why attack a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony? Who do these people think they are?

The answer is that they are fanatics, and fanatics who have whipped themselves up into a huge lie.

The idiots trying to stop the Christmas tree-lighting on Wednesday night kept chanting for an “end to genocide.”

But if any of these people had ever left their college dorm rooms, they might have discovered that there is no genocide going on in Gaza.

In fact, in the 18 years since the Israelis left Gaza (forcibly removing every last Jewish resident), the population of Gaza has boomed.

In the last 18 years, the population of Gaza has gone from 1,299,000 to around 2.05 million people.

In other words, the population of Gaza has grown by almost a million people since the Israelis left.

Which is one reason why you hear so much about the youthful population of Gaza.

Perhaps if any of the members the forward operating unit of the anti-Christmas tree brigade were capable of thinking, they could answer an obvious question:

Where is the genocide? Is it not happening? Or are the Israelis trying to commit genocide against the people of Gaza yet are so bad at committing genocide that the population actually grows while they´re trying to kill everyone? I’d love to hear the answer.

Editor's Notes: Where are our allies?

Many Jews, who have long prided themselves on standing with other groups and communities in their time of need, have been left wondering: Where are our allies?

Indeed, in the weeks since the October 7 massacre, a slew of Jewish activists – many of whom have long identified with the progressive left – have written heart-wrenching essays and social media posts expressing their sense of pain and abandonment. “It is horrifying that people who profess that their life is all about the humanity of others – that maybe that humanity doesn’t extend to Jews,” one such activist, Jonathan Rosen, told the Financial Times. Rabbi Sharon Brous, a popular progressive Jewish leader in Los Angeles, described feeling “existential loneliness.”

And yet, not everything is bleak. Many prominent figures from communities with which American Jews have long aligned themselves have stood up for Israel and the Jewish community in recent weeks. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries – one of the most senior elected officials in America and a longtime member of the Congressional Black Caucus – was front and center at the massive March for Israel in Washington two weeks ago, where he spoke powerfully about the need to support Israel and Jews around the world at this time. The Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute has the text, “CHLI mourns for the victims of the heinous attack on our friends, the people of Israel. This is a time for solidarity with the State of Israel,” emblazoned across its website’s homepage. Scores of leaders from the African American, Asian American, Latino, and LGTBQ communities have expressed their revulsion at Hamas’s atrocities and have condemned the recent explosion of Jew hatred across America and around the world.

In a conversation he and I had earlier this week, Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York made his position plain.

“I’m commonly asked why, as a gay Afro-Latino from the Bronx, am I so outspoken against antisemitism, and people are asking me the wrong question,” he told me. “The right question is not why I have chosen to be outspoken. The right question is why others have chosen silence in the face of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.”

Allyship should not be transactional. We support one another not because we expect to get something in return, but rather because it is the right thing to do.

And yet, at the same time, allyship, if it is genuine, should be mutual and bidirectional: We feel your pain. We stand with you, we march alongside you, and we speak out for you when you need us. Is it too much to ask that you do the same?

That is the question that many Jews are asking at this fateful moment. The answer we receive will echo for years to come.

Stop Psychoanalyzing Israel

Upon his arrival in Israel last month, President Biden advised, "While you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it." The notion that if Israel hits hard at terrorists, it must be acting out of some kind of irrational emotion is inaccurate and insulting.

In the years before there was an Israel, there were those who dismissed Jewish concerns about Nazism as a kind of emotional rage from which Jews just needed to calm down. The false diagnoses of "Jewish rage" assumes that all Jews think alike and act alike. Therefore, since some Jews were persecuted in the past, their descendants today must be acting out some hidden psychological problem if they cry out or fight back.

The absurdity of that argument is obvious from Israel's demographic makeup. Most Israelis today are not children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors - because their parents and grandparents did not come from Europe. Certainly Israelis are deeply interested in the history of the Holocaust. And they may justifiably view the Nazi genocide, and the world's reaction to it, as a cautionary tale. But that is a far cry from being traumatized or mentally unbalanced as a result of what happened to previous generations.

When Israelis look at Hamas, they don't see Nazis. They see Palestinian Arab terrorists who, just weeks ago, perpetrated mass murder, torture, rape, and beheadings of Jews. Israel's response to them is not rage against imaginary enemies. It's self-defense against real enemies.

By Forest Rain

Why do horrible things happen to good people?

Some things are so horrific that they can only be called evil. The Holocaust. The Hamas Massacre of October 7^th, the new Holocaust. There aren’t enough words to convey the full extent of the horror. Words like “atrocity” are just too small and the question arises: where was God when these unspeakable events occurred?

Many people mistakenly assume that the trail of God by Jews in Auschwitz is an allegory rather than an actual event.

Elie Wiesel once declared: "I was there when God was put on trial. It happened at night; there were just three people. At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty'. It means ‘He owes us something'. Then we went to pray."

Then we went to pray.

Fast forward to the Holocaust of October 7^th. Head of the Southern district of ZAKA, Yossi Landau, described their own “trial”, in the devastated Kibbutz Be’eri.

ZAKA, Israel’s "Disaster Victim Identification" experts are volunteers who collect bodies in cases from car accidents to terror attacks. They are motivated by the belief that the dead deserve sacred respect. Burying them whole and with dignity honors the soul of the departed and recognizes the sacred spark of God that gives life to every human being.

The massacre occurred under the cover of a missile bombardment from Gaza. The search for survivors and the collection of bodies began before the massacre was over, while soldiers were still fighting the terrorists, while missiles were raining down on Israeli communities.

In one of the homes Yossi Landau, described an unfathomable scene.

The family’s dining table was in the middle of the room. On one side of the room, they found the bodies of a father and the mother. They were kneeling on the floor, their hands tied behind their backs. On the other side, as if in a mirror image, a little girl and boy approximately six and seven years old.

The father had an eye gouged out. The mother had one of her breasts cut off. The boy had several of his fingers chopped off. The little girl, they chopped off her foot.

And after all that the terrorists sat at the table and ate the food the family had prepared for their holiday meal.

Yossi Landau explains that he feels as if the bodies speak to him, telling the story of their death. Although highly experienced in dealing with death but the joyous cruelty evident in this scene was overwhelming to him and his team.

The horror of what this family experienced was so evil, it was like a wall that could not be passed and yet, it needed to be passed in order to grant these souls the dignity of a proper burial.

Yossi Landau described this scene in many interviews. Only in a few did he describe how they dealt with this horror.

He collected himself and told his team to hold hands. They walked into the room. There was blood everywhere. They sat down in the middle, with the bodies and the table with the remains of the meal and they sang a Jewish song:

“I believe
With complete faith
In the coming of the Messiah.

And even though he may tarry,
With all this, I will still wait for him.
I will wait for him every day
May he come.”

And then they got up and began attending to the bodies.

This was just one of the first houses, there were many more to check and no way to know what they would find there.

Where was God amidst this evil?

In Judaism there is a concept of God “hiding His face”, as if stepping out of the story. That doesn’t mean that God is gone or stops caring, it means that we can’t feel the connection to Him. It is perhaps like a parent who steps out of the room to see how the children work out their problems by themselves.

The Jews in Auschwitz judged God and found him “owing” – and then they went to pray.
The Jews in Be’eri sat down in the blood of our tortured family – and sang their faith in the coming of the Messiah.

This is the unfathomable faith of the Jewish People in the face of horror. It is the strength of a People broken, yet still standing – the mysterious factor that leads to deep confusion about Jews.

Who are these people, victimized yet refusing to be victims?

Many conclude that the evil we face must not be so bad – because who could get up again after that?!

Broken yet still standing. God, not guilty but “owing”. We are still here and even in the midst of the blood of our tortured family members, can sing of faith in the coming of the Messiah – not here but with hope for a better future.

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12/01 Links Pt1: Israelis will not feel safe until Hamas is eradicated; IDF resumes combat in Gaza after Hamas violates ceasefire; Israeli hostages recount beatings, death threats

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israelis will not feel safe until Hamas is eradicated

Three people were savagely murdered and five others were wounded in a shooting attack in Jerusalem on Thursday morning.

The terrorists, two residents of east Jerusalem, came carrying an M16 rifle and a handgun to the Givat Shaul junction at the entrance to the capital, where they opened fire at people gathered at a bus stop. They were shot and killed at the scene by security forces and a civilian.

Hours later, Hamas took credit for the attack.

The man murdered in the attack was 73-year-old Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, who served as a rabbinical judge in Ashdod.

One of the women murdered in the attack was 67-year-old Chana Ifergan, the principal of a Beis Yaakov school in Beit Shemesh.

Livia Dickman, 24, a resident of Har Nof, was named as the third fatality.

On October 7, there was a rush to move away from locations where terrorist attacks might occur as a continuation of the massacre. This, at the time, included Jerusalem, which was targeted by some rockets but remained relatively calm. Israelis feared that they, too, would be targeted, and their families victimized.

But it was the northern and southern borders that bore the brunt of the attack, and the Tel Aviv area that has seen the heaviest rocket barrages, while the Jerusalem area has remained comparatively calm.

Terror attack incites fear throughout the city
After yesterday’s attack, however, Jerusalem social media groups were aflame with people afraid to leave their homes, scared to catch a bus, and fearful of getting in their cars. At that moment, Jerusalemites knew what it feels like to live along the Gaza or Lebanon borders at this time and were reminded of previous waves of terrorism.

Gaza border communities and Lebanon border towns were ordered to evacuate the day after the war broke out, in concern over possible additional attacks.

Some residents have since been told that they may return home, but many are concerned and angry.

During the current pause in hostilities, relative peace has been maintained on the northern border. With the exception of a few minor attacks, the northern front has been relatively quiet.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, upon completing a situation assessment in the area last week, said that the successes of the IDF along the border will be “translated” into a situation that will allow the gradual return of northern residents.

Israeli who helped thwart J’lem terror attack dies of wounds

An Israeli civilian who fired on two Palestinian terrorists during a Thursday morning shooting attack died of his injuries.

Yuval Doron Castleman, a 37-year-old attorney was at a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem when two Palestinians arrived in a vehicle and began shooting at rush-hour commuters.

Castleman, who was armed with his personal weapon, and two off-duty soldiers engaged and killed the terrorists, but the attorney was wounded. The soldiers apparently mistook Castleman for a terrorist.

His death brings the death toll from the attack to four.

Also killed were 73-year-old Rabbi Elimelech Wasserman, who was a judge in the rabbinical court in Ashdod; Hanna Ifergan, a 67-year-old principal of a girl’s school in Beit Shemesh; and 24-year-old Livia Dickman of Jerusalem. Five other victims are hospitalized.

The two terrorists, both in their 30s, were identified as Murad Nemer and his brother, Ibrahim, of eastern Jerusalem. The brothers were associated with Hamas, and had previously been imprisoned for terror activities. The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said that Murad was jailed from 2010 to 2020 for planning attacks under the direction of terror commanders in Gaza.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on Telegram.

Police officials said on Friday morning that the Nemers’ home had been mapped out for demolition. Police added that they are increasing patrols in the city with the renewal of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz, a member of the War Cabinet, said that the attack strengthened Israel’s resolve to continue waging war against Hamas in Gaza.

“This terror attack is further proof of our obligation to continue to fight with strength and determination against murderous terrorism, which threatens our citizens. In Jerusalem, Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, and everywhere,” said Gantz.

IDF resumes combat in Gaza after Hamas violates ceasefire

The Israel Defense Forces resumed combat operations in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning after Hamas broke a week-long ceasefire by firing rockets at the Jewish state.

The military said it was conducting a wave of airstrikes across the coastal enclave.

“Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory. The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza,” the military said.

Terrorists fired a rocket from Gaza at about 6 a.m., which was intercepted by the Iron Dome air-defense system.

An hour later, several projectiles were again fired at the Jewish state, setting off sirens in Kibbutz Holit. The rockets landed in open areas, causing no injuries or damages.

Alarms continued to blare across southern Israel throughout the morning.

Five IDF soldiers were wounded by a mortar that struck near the southern community of Nirim, according to Israeli media. Three of the soldiers were in moderate condition, while the others were lightly hurt.

Another rocket launched from Gaza caused property damage in Kibbutz Mefalsim, local authorities said. There were no injuries reported.

Communities along the Gaza border have largely been evacuated due to the conflict.

The IDF on Friday published a map splitting Gaza into scores of small areas, which will be used to notify Palestinian civilians of active combat zones.

“The IDF is operating forcefully against terror organizations, while making great efforts to protect civilians,” the military said in a message to Gaza residents.

“The people of Gaza are not our enemies. For this reason, the IDF is leading controlled and specific evacuations in order to remove them as much as possible from areas of combat,” it added.

I have been having a hard time finding any Arabs in Arab countries denouncing the October 7 pogrom in Arabic. But French magazine Le Point did publish this unequivocal condemnation of the attacks by Moroccan Muslim intellectual Tahar Ben Jelloun several days after the attacks:

As a Moroccan Arab and Muslim by birth, culture and traditional education, I cannot find the words to say how horrified I am by what the Hamas militants did to the Jews . Brutality, when it attacks women and children, becomes barbaric and has no excuse or justification.

I am horrified because the images I saw touched me to the depths of my humanity.

I believe that we can resist an occupation, fight against colonization, but not with these acts of great savagery.

The Palestinian cause died on October 7, 2023, assassinated by fanaticized elements, mired in an Islamist ideology of the worst kind.

Hamas is the enemy, not only of the Israeli people, but also of the Palestinian people. A cruel enemy without any political sense, manipulated by a country where young opponents are hanged for not wearing a veil on their heads.

The taking of hostages and the blackmail of their execution only exacerbates the anger of all of us.

This brutality comes from far away. Certainly from the occupation and humiliations suffered by youth without a future, quickly taken over by an Islamist movement dependent on the goodwill of Iran.

After the massacre, whatever the number of deaths on both sides, barbarism has permeated our imagination and it is difficult today to believe that these men did this to “liberate” a territory. No, war is fought between soldiers. Not by killing innocent civilians.

No, there is no reason to excuse what they did in homes, in camps, wherever they could seize young people partying.

The horror is human, I mean animals would never have done what Hamas did. A minister in Netanyahu's government [Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant] called Gazans "animals." No, there are men without conscience, without morality, without humanity who perpetrated the massacres, then there is a population which suffers, which is neither armed nor barbaric.

Do not confuse Hamas with the population (2.5 million people), who live under occupation and embargo .

I say it, but my voice is alone.

I, in my solitude, in my sadness and my shame as a human being, my disgust at this humanity to which I refuse to belong, I say, no, this is a fight that does not honor their cause. No, to these applause in certain Arab capitals. No, to this bloody triumph over the innocent. No, to the blindness of those who pull the strings of a tragedy where, sooner or later, it will be the Palestinian population who will pay this heavy bill.

We will carry this tragedy in our memory as an injury to all humanity. A wound, never closed, never forgotten.

Morocco's Hespress wrote that other Moroccan intellectuals were "almost unanimous" in denouncing Ben Jelloun.

Moroccan writer Aziz Lazraq said that this article was filled with "hasty and emotional statements that are not part of his language or nature, and devoid of any meaning."

Another writer, Montaser Hamadeh, accused Ben Jalloun of adopting the French position towards Israel instead of the Moroccan one.

Both he and writer Abdel Samad Belkabir explained that Ben Jallun lacked proper "context" in condemning Hamas without seeing that everything is really Israel's fault, and Hamas' murders and kidnappings and rapes are mere "mistakes."

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Haaretz reports:

[Dr. Cochav] Elkayam-Levy, of the department of international relations at Hebrew University, really does want to reduce interest in her personally, but the truth is that during the past weeks she has been playing a key role in directing attention to one of the especially nightmarish chapters of the nightmare of October 7. The Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, which she founded, is casting a spotlight on the acts of rape and other sex crimes committed by the terrorists under the “aegis” of the attack on the south.

During these past weeks, the women of the nongovernmental commission have been hard at work gathering testimony and documentary materials related to the day of the massacre, with the aim of putting together a database of crimes against women and children. They are assembling one account after another, one piece of evidence after another, and gradually putting together all the pieces of the puzzle. The aggregation of the evidence presents a horrifying picture that leaves no room for doubt: Under cover of the massacre, Hamas carried out a campaign of rape and sexual abuse at many of the communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip that it attacked.

Elkayam-Levy is a lawyer and scholar of international law, gender and human rights – a combination that seems to have prepared her in advance to head such a commission. Nonetheless, she says, “I never thought my work in international law and feminist theory would intersect in such a shocking way,” she says.

... Last month, when Elkayam-Levy was invited to speak on a panel organized by several different Jewish student groups at Harvard University, she felt that the time was right to present some of the evidence to the world.

When her turn to speak came, she delivered a detailed warning about the difficult things she was about to describe, took a deep breath and began a horrifying survey. She recounted a long list of evidence about acts of rape, including gang rape, disfigurement and other acts of abuse. She described a number of videos that Hamas distributed in which naked women are seen, with signs on them that leave little room for doubt. In one case, the victim was taken to Gaza with no clothes on and unconscious, and displayed before a cheering crowd. Pictures that had come into her hands showed other victims of sex crimes. She also read out several chilling descriptions by eyewitnesses of acts of rape.

...After eight minutes of stomach-churning monologue, she asked to stop. “Never in my life had I imagined I would face my colleagues to talk about gender-based war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out against Israeli women and children on such a large scale,” she says, “and we are assuming that many more cases will surface in the future.”

“We connected one testimony to the next,” Elkayam-Levy says. “Suddenly seeing the big picture, how systematic it was, the extent of the violence – it was a punch in the stomach.”

Elkayam-Levy's frustration at how the international community and media are treating this topic is palpable:

“All kinds of vague statements are beginning to come out,” she notes, “calling upon both sides to ‘show restraint,’ and simply making October 7 vanish from the timeline. A parallel universe. The terrible betrayal we have felt has developed into a feeling that we are now the victims of wild incitement directed at us. At very early stages of the war, those organizations began running campaigns about the genocide Israel is carrying out in Gaza. I am very uncomfortable saying this, but those organizations have shown themselves to be antisemitic bodies.

“The moment those organizations keep silent, or do not report the truth, we have a problem,” she continues. “It is untenable that experts who are supposed to responsive to women’s distress everywhere are subordinating themselves to political considerations, and are not reporting what happened in a disaster of this magnitude. It is incomprehensible that agencies of the UN that are responsible for [promoting and safeguarding] women’s rights are ignoring the Israeli women who were taken hostage, or were murdered and raped by Hamas.”

In Elkayam-Levy’s view, this is a replication of those same denial mechanisms often applied concerning individual cases of rape. “When a woman is raped, the discourse immediately revolves around evidentiary questions – is there or is there not evidence of rape? Doubt is cast on the woman, her reliability is questioned, and a question mark is posed as to whether it did or did not happen. This casting of doubt is now directed against us at the collective level.

“Questions are asked like: Is there or isn’t there semen? Was there or wasn’t there a rape kit? Those same female jurists with international reputations who are conducting this discussion apparently do not have a basic understanding of international law. International law does not talk the language of the individual case. My call to them is to look beyond those denial mechanisms. You are facing a bunch of respected women and telling them that shocking crimes were committed here. Am I the one who needs to provide the evidence for the terrorists’ deeds? What kind of travesty is it that they are imposing the burden of proof on me?

...“There are journalists who contact me and ask: Did it [a particular rape] really happen? It’s like, what are we even talking about? This is about the most documented set of horrors humanity has known. There are innumerable videos that have already been released – just go into the Hamas Telegram groups. You are journalists, do your work. Don’t ask me what happened and how it happened. It is hard enough that I need to go through those groups myself to extract information from them.”

Dr. Elkayam-Levy appears on this very hard to watch video of a press conference on this topic two weeks ago.

She describes [59:23] how her commission gathered evidence about the story that came out in the first days after October 7, of a pregnant woman whose child was cut out of her body - a story that was immediately ignored or doubted by commenters and the media. Yet as time went on, the commission gathered more and more evidence that, yes, it really happened, and it was even worse than first reported:

I want to bring one one example we've heard from the in the first week of the war of a pregnant woman found slaughtered. It was broadcast in international media in the second weekend. We were shocked we're like 'could it be that they took a baby out of a woman's womb?'

The second week of the war we've heard about it from the rescue teams; we got a report that the rescue team collected a body of a woman and the baby. And the third week or a few days afterwards we got the information from Shua from treating the body of of this woman.

And the most terrible thing is that last week we got the video of this woman..

Now I didn't know what really happened to her, we could only imagine, but to see the video - I didn't see it, I had a person next to me describing exactly what it is, I couldn't watch - it was alive. I didn't imagine that she was alive, I don't know, I just imagined that she was dead while they did it, but that she was alive, she had her mouth covered with something, her breasts were cut while she was screaming and tortured, the baby they cut it up, they cut open her belly. I couldn't really understand that this has happened.

Her anguish comes through in the video. She notes that for every case like this where the evidence came out and was clear, there are plenty where there is no video, no smoking gun.

But when the known evidence is examined and verified, it is undeniable that Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of terror. It is sick that the media is asking for specific evidence in other cases. There is not going to be video for every woman without underwear who was bleeding from between her legs showing that she was raped - but the way the media and pundits are framing this, without a rape kit and video then we must assume Hamas is innocent.

All while they believe the most ludicrous anti-Israel claims with no evidence whatsoever.

The sexual abuse stories are a double crime - not only Hamas' physical attacks on these women, but the world's refusal to believe the victims. As Elyakam-Levy points out, the skeptical treatment of Israeli testimony is directly analogous to how individual rape victims are not believed or expected to bring high levels of evidence for their trauma.

This is todays' antisemitism.

(h/t Irene)

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Muslims boycotting other Muslims because of Israel

If you go to the McDonald's Pakistan webpage, you see a pop-up:

Short version: "Please don't boycott us! We aren't Jewish!"

Early in the war, McDonald's Israel said it would donate thousands of meals to soldiers. As a result, Israel-haters worldwide are boycotting McDonald's - and only hurting their own locally owned franchises.

McDonald's Pakistan has slashed prices, some by over half their normal prices, to stay afloat.