Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 29, 2023

12/29 Links Pt1: NYTs: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence; South Africa urges ICJ to probe Israel; Hamas’ philosophy: All civilians, all children are tools of war

From Ian:

NYTs: ‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7

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At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress.”

In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.

The video was shot in the early hours of Oct. 8 by a woman searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave in southern Israel where, the day before, Hamas terrorists massacred hundreds of young Israelis.

The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter.

One family knew exactly who she was — Gal Abdush, mother of two from a working-class town in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night with her husband.

As the terrorists closed in on her, trapped on a highway in a line of cars of people trying to flee the party, she sent one final WhatsApp message to her family: “You don’t understand.”

Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks.

Israeli officials say that everywhere Hamas terrorists struck — the rave, the military bases along the Gaza border and the kibbutzim — they brutalized women.

A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.

Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.

Four witnesses described in graphic detail seeing women raped and killed at two different places along Route 232, the same highway where Ms. Abdush’s half-naked body was found sprawled on the road at a third location.

And The Times interviewed several soldiers and volunteer medics who together described finding more than 30 bodies of women and girls in and around the rave site and in two kibbutzim in a similar state as Ms. Abdush’s — legs spread, clothes torn off, signs of abuse in their genital areas.

Many of the accounts are difficult to bear, and the visual evidence is disturbing to see.

The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin.

The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas.

Hamas has denied Israel’s accusations of sexual violence. Israeli activists have been outraged that the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, and the agency U.N. Women did not acknowledge the many accusations until weeks after the attacks.

Investigators with Israel’s top national police unit, Lahav 433, have been steadily gathering evidence but they have not put a number on how many women were raped, saying that most are dead — and buried — and that they will never know. No survivors have spoken publicly.

The Israeli police have acknowledged that, during the shock and confusion of Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israeli history, they were not focused on collecting semen samples from women’s bodies, requesting autopsies or closely examining crime scenes. At that moment, the authorities said, they were intent on repelling Hamas and identifying the dead.

A combination of chaos, enormous grief and Jewish religious duties meant that many bodies were buried as quickly as possible. Most were never examined, and in some cases, like at the rave scene, where more than 360 people were slaughtered in a few hours, the bodies were hauled away by the truckload.

Islamic Jihad terrorist admits to rape, NYT probes Hamas's sexual violence

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist captured in Gaza admitted during questioning that he participated in the massacre on October 7 and that his squad committed rape and then murdered victims during the massacre, KAN reported on Thursday.

Serious sexual offenses were part of the method Hamas and other terrorist groups utilized in the massacre on October 7. Lahav 433, Israel’s top national police unit, collected evidence of dozens of cases of sexual offenses and sexual abuse from investigations of the terrorists and the collection of survivor testimonies.

A survivor of the massacre recently testified to the police about a rape she saw with her own eyes, and her testimony was verified by another survivor who was close to her.

"I understand that he raped her, then they gave her to someone else. She was alive and finally, he shot her," said the survivor. Some of the terrorists said in their investigation that they received permission to abuse corpses, to create fear in Israeli society.

On Channel 11, testimonies were revealed that were provided to the Zman Emet (Real Time) show - two witnesses who saw and heard the atrocities and decided to speak about it now for the first time and openly. One of them, Raz, a discharged officer who participated in the Nova festival in Re'im, said: "A white car arrived and five terrorists exited out of it. They stood in a semi-circle around her, grabbing her by force so she wouldn't move. It happened 30 or 40 meters from us. There was a lot of movement...he raped her. I look and see that the girl is no longer moving, but the terrorist still continues to rape her. It was impossible to help her. I couldn't do anything. I wish I had a weapon and I could help," he said.

After Cohen's appearance on Channel 11, he gave evidence to the police, becoming the first witness to openly describe the acts of rape he witnessed on October 7.

First Lady of Israel: Hamas rape. Hamas murder. Hamas kidnap. Hamas must be destroyed. I pledge to continue fighting, so that the voices of these heroic women - who suffered so much just for being our sisters - are heard in every corner of the globe. https://t.co/WWCStVrP4G
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) December 29, 2023

Perhaps the greatest mercy Israel is showing to Gaza is not releasing to the public the full details of what was done by the invaders to their victims. Ostensibly for the sensitivities of the families, but also I think because what populace would be able to restrain themselves?
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) October 12, 2023

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics issued a report showing the economic costs to Palestinians of the Gaza war, in both Gaza and the West Bank, through the end of November.

During the war, Israel has not allowed Palestinian workers into Israel. It has also not allowed Israeli Arabs to go to the PA-controlled areas of the West Bank, where they would often shop and obtain services at a lower price than they could get in Israel.

As a result, the Palestinian private sector lost about $1.45 billion compared to what would have been expected in October and November. It is losing about $25 million a day.

This is not including direct losses from the war of property damage.

Productivity in the West Bank has gone down by roughly half, which shows how dependent the Palestinian economy is on Israel. In Gaza, predictably, productivity has been slashed some 86%, The only sectors doing well in Gaza are humanitarian aid and health.

Yet there are no protests in the West Bank demanding that Hamas end the war. Zero.

There are no doubt that individuals are not happy about their wellbeing being affected by Hamas deciding that killing Jews is more important than Palestinian lives and livelihoods. But you won't hear about any of them, because every Palestinian knows that they must show unity with their leaders,and the West Bank leaders know they must show solidarity with whatever Hamas is doing. Any public disagreement is regarded as a source of shame.

Hamas and Palestinians take great pleasure in seeing any signs of a rift in Israeli society. They eagerly report about families of hostages pressuring the government for a deal. They regard internal debate as sign of weakness, and because they project their own honor/shame culture on others, they think that Israel must be in really bad shape to subject itself to such shame.

Supporting Hamas killing Jews is, bizarrely, considered honorable. It is far more honorable than having jobs or paying for food and living expenses.

It is a truly sick society.

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!

Djibouti's real estate is incredibly valuable from a geopolitical perspective.

It lies on the African side of the Bab al-Mandab Strait that overlooks all maritime traffic to the Red Sea - the strait that the Houthis have been threatening.

Djibouti is a poor country, and gets a great deal of income from traffic that goes through those straits.

Even so, Djibouti supports the Houthis, even though that support for the blockade hurts Djibouti.

Its reasons are important for the West to understand. From Saba (Yemen):

Djibouti's Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Ali Youssef, confirmed today that his country did not condemn the Sanaa attacks in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, because it considered them "true relief for the Palestinians."

Youssef said in a television interview: Djibouti has reservations about participating in the coalition formed by the United States, even though the cessation of maritime trade in Bab al-Mandab will harm Djibouti’s economy.

He pointed out that maritime trade is an essential part of Djibouti's national income, and if Bab al-Mandab is closed, "its economy will collapse."

He added: The Yemeni Ansar Allah group “attacked the ships in order to rescue and relieve the Palestinians, and we must all support Palestine because brother supports his brother, even with the weakest faith, and Djibouti does not condemn the Yemeni operations because they are a fraternal duty.”

The US has a military base in Djibouti, as do Italy, Japan, Germany, Spain and Saudi Arabia. None of them are fans of the Houthis or Hamas. They could put economic pressure on a country that is utterly dependent on them to issue statements denouncing Hamas, condemning its massacre on October 7, call on it to release hostages.

But they don't.

The honor/shame mentality is not only individual. It is also at the level of tribes, countries and ethnic groups. As this statement makes clear, Arabs must not show cracks in their unity, because it would be shameful to expose differences of opinion in front of the larger world.

This gives a huge advantage to violent Arab extremists. They can count on unquestioned public support by a half billion fellow Arabs or two billion fellow Muslims no matter what heinous acts they perform. As long as they don't attack fellow Arabs, they have an automatic cheering section that is willing to support, rally and lie for them.

There is a huge irony here. Jews are accused by antisemites of having a single, secret agenda. It makes no sense to accuse Jews of controlling the government or various industries unless you accept as a premise that Jews are monolithic and working towards a single agenda. Yet Jews are the least homogenous group there is. Jews are willing and often eager to publicly argue and disagree with other Jews.

But Arabs, and Muslims, are much more monolithic. They will support each other even when they disagree with what they are doing. They will publicly pledge solidarity even when that hurts themselves.

The Houthis aren't saving a single Palestinian life. They are following the instructions of (non-Arab) Iran. They are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Arab civilians. But when they claim they are fighting Israel, they get automatic, reflexive public support from the larger Arab world.

Just as Hamas is.

The fiction of Arab unity, fueled by "honor," was part of Hamas' calculations when they decided to start this war. No matter how horrified some Arabs might be at Hamas, they will not criticize the group in public.

Which means that the honor/shame culture that mandates Arab and Muslim unity is a culture that encourages war and terror.

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!

Israel is not only the most moral army - but also the most transparent

The New York Times reports:

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had caused “unintended harm” to “uninvolved civilians” in two strikes this week on a densely packed Gaza Strip neighborhood, where, the local health authorities said, dozens were killed.

It was a rare admission of fault by the military over its conduct of the war. The military said it was targeting Hamas on Sunday when it launched two strikes on the central Gazan community of Al Maghazi, which has been flooded with Palestinians uprooted by war and crammed into homes by the dozen.

“A preliminary investigation revealed that additional buildings located near the targets were also hit during the strikes, which likely caused unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

“The I.D.F. regrets the harm to uninvolved individuals, and is working to draw lessons from the incident,” the statement said.

In 2021, the New York Times reported that over 60 civilians were killed in a 2019 US airstrike in Syria. It dropped a 500-ton bomb on a crowd and then two 2,000 pound bombs. It also reported that the US Army did everything it could to cover it up:

The Baghuz strike was one of the largest civilian casualty incidents of the war against the Islamic State, but it has never been publicly acknowledged by the U.S. military. The details, reported here for the first time, show that the death toll was almost immediately apparent to military officials. A legal officer flagged the strike as a possible war crime that required an investigation. But at nearly every step, the military made moves that concealed the catastrophic strike. The death toll was downplayed. Reports were delayed, sanitized and classified. United States-led coalition forces bulldozed the blast site. And top leaders were not notified.

After the New York Times report, the army mounted an investigation, and said that nearly all of the casualties were military - 52 militants and four civilians. It did admit fault in delays of reporting on the incident.

That's ovcr three years between the airstrike and any public reporting of findings into the incident.

Here, Israel investigated and found indications that it used a larger munition than necessary for the legal attack on militants - and it admitted this mistake within only four days.

And that is not the only official recognition of a mistake given by the IDF on Thursday. It also released a report - not a preliminary report, but results of as full an investigation as possible in a war zone - on the accidental killing of three hostages December 15. That's less than two weeks.

Perhaps the reason that admissions of fault are "rare" is because actual fault is rare by Israel, despite the journalists' desire to find such fault. For example, the New York Times also published an investigation on Israel's use of 2,000 pound bombs based on craters seen from satellite imagery and described how destructive they are. But they described the wrong bomb, as Lenny Ben David reports:

The Times based its analysis on the wrong bomb, a Mark-84, which explodes on impact with little penetration properties. The Times failed to report on a more credible bomb, the BLU-109 “bunker buster bomb,” that penetrates many meters below the surface before it explodes, making it a very effective weapon to destroy deep Hamas tunnels. The craters were the telltale sign of underground voids, such as tunnels, collapsing. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The United States has not previously disclosed the total number of weapons it sent to Israel nor the transfer of 100 BLU-109, 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs.”2

One U.S. intelligence officer (retired) told the author, “The crater in the (Times’) image is ridiculously clean for there to have been a target on top of it. The crater is also symmetrical, which would not be the case if the bomb had glided in.”

The BLU-109 would give much less collateral damage since it explodes underground, but the NYT report describes only a bomb that explodes on the surface and sends shrapnel for thousands of feet around - not the craters the Times showed.

CNN made the same error - knowingly. It published a map showing that schools were within the 1000 meter damage zone of a Mark-84 bomb, but in the small print it admitted that the craters were consistent with bombs that explode underground - meaning no damage zone. And the bomb craters are on a straight line, indicating they were meant to destroy tunnels deliberately built near those schools.

Israel is fighting in a battlefield that was deliberately built over 15 years to maximize civilian harm in order to attack the enemy. It is probably the most difficult battle in history for any army that values human life.This is unprecedented.

Israel has dropped far more bombs than the number of people killed. For an urban war zone, this is unprecedented.

Israel has mounted investigations in a highly complex environment and given accurate information on specific incidents within days at a time when there are many attacks. This is unprecedented.

Israel has admitted mistakes within days of events, not years afterwards. I'm pretty sure this is unprecedented.

All evidence points to Israel being the most moral army in history. All evidence points to Israel being the most transparent army in history.

And all evidence also points to a media environment that is ignorant of the realities of war at best, or deliberately misleading about it at worst.

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!

12/28 Links Pt2: A Coordinated Media Attack on Israel by the NYTs, WaPo, and CNN; Europe is terrified and Kowtows to Hamas; The rise of woke anti-Semitism

From Ian:

A Coordinated Media Attack on Israel by the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN

The New York Times (December 21, 2023) claimed Israel's air force used U.S.-provided 2,000-pound bombs in Gaza, specifically a model that "is one of the most destructive munitions in Western military arsenals." But the Times based its analysis on the wrong bomb, a Mark-84, a bomb that explodes on impact with little penetration properties.

The Washington Post (December 22, 2023), with its satellite and visual analysis, claimed that "the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the [Shifa] hospital as a command-and-control center."

CNN, following the New York Times, claimed that Israel's 2,000-pound bombs were responsible for the high casualty rate among Gazans. But it appears that CNN was also relying on data from general-use MK-84 bombs and not earth-penetrating bunker busters that explode underground.

What is clear in one CNN map is that the bunker-buster bombs did not damage nearby schools or injure children, but they were deployed to destroy Hamas tunnels, which also explains why the craters were in a linear pattern as if the Israeli pilots were bombing a long stretch of tunnel.

Even suggesting that the IDF sought to harm Gazan school children is a blood libel. But genuinely puzzling is why CNN had a very tiny caption that admits Israel used bunker-busting bombs that avoid explosive damage on the surface.

All three media analyses relied on "weapons experts and investigators" formerly from the U.S. government, the UN, and non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch. Not surprisingly, the experts are also known for their animosity to Israel. The consequences of the fraud are Members of Congress calling to cut military aid to Israel.

Ben Dror Yemini: Europe is terrified and Kowtows to Hamas

Hamas could not have become what it is without the support of the free world. Palestinians would not have rejected any peace initiative or compromise without the protection they have been given by Western media and academia. The intellectuals encouraged Palestinian obstinance. There is a long list of professors, journalists and human rights activists who backed Palestinian rejection of peace initiatives and justified "resistance," which is another word for terrorism. Hamas, as part of the Jihad, is not the oppressed. It seeks to impose its oppressive Islamist imperialism on the rest of the world.

Highlighting and bolstering the nakba, when Palestinians were displaced in the 1948 War of Independence, does not help resolve the problem of refugees; it perpetuates it and UNRWA only ferments more hate.

The West funds UNRWA annually. In 2022, it was to the tune of $1.6 billion. This massive amount of money delivered to the offspring of refugees year after year since 1950 could have paid for housing for each of those families and the construction of infrastructure and industrial zones. But no. The money is spent on perpetuating their refugee status, and on an education system that nurtures the hope of the destruction of Israel.

It is the free world that is ultimately paying the price because it nurtured the hatred of Israel in headlines and on campuses and that hate is now turning on the free world itself. Muslim clerics in Hamburg, Paris, London and Chicago are raising a new generation filled with hate and when they enter universities, they hear the same from their professors: hate for the West, hate for America, hate for Israel and hate for Jews. That is not the way to advance reconciliation, compromise and peace. Israel ultimately can defend itself, but can the free world say the same?

Stephen Fry and the rise of woke anti-Semitism

The great irony of the tidal wave of anti-Jew invective that has come Stephen Fry’s way over the past 48 hours is that it has perfectly proved his point. He goes on TV to say we are witnessing a ‘rise in anti-Jewish racism’ and right away there’s a spike in anti-Jewish racism. Even before he’d finished his touching fireside homily on Jew hate, the Jew haters were out in force to ask: ‘Who the fuck does he think he is?’ A Jew on TV? At Christmas? Wanging on about the victimisation of Jews? Vomit emoji. That was literally the response of the army of arseholes that passes for the left these days, every one of them too dim to realise they were making Fry’s case for him.

Fry made his remarks on The Alternative Christmas Message on Channel 4. That’s the non-royal Christmas Day TV sermon, a little witty, a little right-on, in which a celeb is invited to hold forth on a hot issue the monarch is likely to overlook. Normally middle-class radicals lap it up, but not this time, because… oh you know why. The last thing they needed while tucking into their pigs in blankets was a lecture from one of those people who don’t even eat pigs. I swear they were more rattled by Fry than they were when Channel 4 invited then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give the alternative message in 2008. A literal Holocaust denier? What fun. A Jew concerned about anti-Semitism? Pass the remote.

Fry’s message was fair and benign. You’d have to be a frothing loon to object to it. He ‘came out’ as a Jew. He offered cold, hard facts. Since the Hamas pogrom of 7 October there have been 50 anti-Semitic incidents a day in London, he said. That’s an eye-watering 1,350 per cent rise in Jew-hate incidents. It’s the greatest rise in anti-Jewish racism in the UK since modern records began. He slammed the ‘venomous slurs’ heaped on Britain’s Jews in recent weeks. He made a plea for a return to the ‘decency’ our nation is famed for. And he ended on a note of Kumbaya. The ‘simple truth’, he said, is that ‘we are all brothers and sisters’: ‘It’s naive, but it’s as good a message as any other.’

Imagine hearing that and feeling enraged. Imagine seeing a famously genteel ‘national treasure’ express concern about anti-Jewish racism and shaking with fury. The Fryphobes protest too much. ‘We are not anti-Semites!’, they essentially screamed, in unison, all over the web. How interesting that you assumed Fry was talking about you…

This video of an Adolf Hitler speech has been exploding across Arabic social media channels.

The Arabic subtitles say:

Believe me, do not have mercy on them.

Kill their young and old.

Do not be merciful to them. Kill them everywhere.

I do not want Jewish descendants in this land!

Their offspring is out to destroy humanity!

They do not want to coexist. They view you as slaves!

You must kill them before they kill you!

Let these enemies of humanity die!

The clip is so popular that AFP Arabic tracked down the original speech and debunked the subtitles - it was really an election campaign speech.

But the popularity of the clip shows that a huge number of Arabs admire Hitler because of his hatred of Jews. Here is just the responses to one tweeter; there were hundreds more posts of this video on all platforms.

I bear witness that he was right

He was a far-sighted man who read the future💛

The Lord of the Kaaba is true

The saying goes, take wisdom from the mouths of madmen, and I don't think he was mad

A man of love and peace💚💚💚💚

God willing, Yemen will be the Hitler of this era

We understood and were certain why you did what they deserved...and we were certain that you were very negligent towards them because they deserve [to be killed] more.

Hitler, may God have mercy on him

Very well said👍🏻

I wish you had completed them

He speaks right

We discovered he was right

It seems that the world has now understood Hitler's words

I bear witness that he is honest

Hajj Hitler

All of history insults Hitler and portrays him as a monster and a criminal machine, but in the end Hitler appears to be right.... Proof that history is a lie. Everything written in it is based on nonsense and ignorance of the facts.

May God have mercy on him for what he said and did against the Jews

They are cheering a speech more hateful than anything Hitler actually said publicly about Jews! They are cheering direct incitement to genocide.

Why isn't this a major news story???

This is the ugly reality of Arab Jew-hate that the media and the Western world refuses to acknowledge.

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!

35-Year-Old Hamas Child Martyr To Be Tried In Heaven As Adult (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jannah, December 28 - An Islamist militant whom Israeli forces killed in a firefight and whom Palestinian officials called a "child" in statistics released to the media will nevertheless be considered to have reached majority for his impending afterlife judgment, despite his having lived only three-and-a-half decades upon his death, supernal sources disclosed today.

Hassan Ayyash, 35, met his temporal end yesterday when attempting to ambush IDF troops in the central Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. The Hamas fighter jumped out of a tunnel shaft to fire at a passing Israeli patrol, but, unaware that the enemy soldiers had already identified the position, placed himself in their crosshairs and died in a hail of M4 rifle bullets without getting off even a single shot of his own. Ayyash's lifeless body fell to the bottom of the tunnel shaft, knocking down a comrade and breaking his leg. The comrade died moments later when the IDF troops dropped several grenades down the tunnel shaft.

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health included Ayyash's death in the latest batch of casualty figures, counting him among 255 children it claimed were killed in the last two days of IDF activity in the territory. While his status in those government documents unequivocally appears a "child," the heavenly tribunal that will decide his eternal fate intends to try him as an adult.

"I don't understand," Ayyash, visibly confused, remarked as he awaited trial. "I'm clearly a child. All of the Gaza dead are children. Even the journalists doctors, musicians, and others. There are no combatants on our side, unless our side is bosting of its achievements on and since October 7. But yeah, I'm clearly a child. My government says so!"

Ayyash voiced frustration that Supernal standards of age seem not to dovetail with the standards Hamas and its sympathizers use in addressing international media. "I'm going to be in for a rough time if the Jews' control of affairs extends even to the afterlife," he acknowledged. "Obviously that can't be. I've been my entire identity and sense of purpose and value around seeing Jews as Allah's enemies. It's unthinkable that my teachers, mentors, and entire society have been that wrong about anything that big. The ultimate shame. And therefore impossible. I'm sure this will all prove to be a big misunderstanding."

Heavenly tribunal sources intimated that Ayyash will soon face revelations about divine, eternal truths that he will find most unpleasant.

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!

12/28 Links Pt1: Matti Friedman: The Wisdom of Hamas; Israel must stay the course on Gaza war; Many hostages released by Hamas still being treated for trauma

From Ian:

Matti Friedman: The Wisdom of Hamas

In the days after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, triggering the current war in Gaza, many believed that Hamas had erred. The word “miscalculation” recurred in news analysis and in statements from Israeli leaders. People here in Israel were galvanized into action by the massacre. Western governments responded with shock and revulsion. The civilians of Gaza were staring at a looming catastrophe. Hamas was in for it now! What were they thinking?

But as I write nearly three months later, with several acquaintances dead in battle and one still held hostage in Gaza, it’s easier to understand what Hamas leaders were thinking. Indeed, it’s increasingly worth considering the possibility that they weren’t wrong.

In many ways, Hamas understood the world better than we Israelis did. The men who came across the border, and those who sent them, may have grasped the current state of the West better than many Westerners. More than anything, they understood the war they’re fighting when many of us didn’t—and still don’t.

Some aspects of Hamas’s success are easy to see, like the behavior of the Western press. After dealing with reporters through many rounds of violence since coming to power in Gaza in 2007, Hamas understood that most can be co-opted or coerced, and that coverage of Gaza would reliably focus on civilian casualties, obscuring the cause of the war, portraying Israel’s military operations as atrocities, and thus pressuring Israel to stop fighting.

This may have seemed unlikely in the first few days after October 7, when the shock of Hamas’s barbarism was fresh. But it happened, as we’ve seen in a recent rash of stories containing variations on the claim that this war is one of the worst in history and that responsibility lies with Israel.

Hamas also knew that when faced with heartbreaking images of civilian death, some Western leaders would eventually buckle and blame the Israelis, helping Hamas live to attack another day. It took about five weeks before this happened to Emmanuel Macron of France (“These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy”) and Canada’s Justin Trudeau (“The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop.”)

And Hamas knew that the international organizations that bankroll Gaza, like the United Nations, having mostly turned a blind eye to Hamas’s vast military buildup at their expense (and, in some cases, on their property), would focus their fury at Israel alone and do their best to blunt the consequences of Hamas’s actions.

All of this shows not a miscalculation by Hamas, but an admirable grasp of reality.

Getting at Hamas’s understanding of what’s going on, and at our own misunderstanding, means asking what the Hamas war is. It’s this question that will help us begin to solve one of the core mysteries of October 7: namely, why an historic massacre of Jews, even before the Israeli response got underway, triggered a powerful wave of hostility not toward the attackers—but toward Jews.

Use Link in Tweet, you might have to copy the tweet URL into a new tab.

In many ways, Hamas understood the world better than we Israelis did, writes @MattiFriedman. They grasped the current state of the West better than many Westerners. And they understood the war they’re fighting when many of us didn't, and still don’t.https://t.co/hxUU3pMJ59
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 28, 2023

Alan M. Dershowitz: Who Supports Hamas?

Many of the protests that now demand a unilateral ceasefire -- including the attempts to shut down Christmas celebrations -- are orchestrated by some of the same radical groups that organized the pro-Hamas demonstrations before Israel went into Gaza.

Demonstrations and protests by groups such as the Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace or the National Lawyers Guild seem anything but spontaneous and grassroots responses to "Israel's military actions in Gaza." They are not demonstrations against what Israel does; they are protests against what Israel is, namely the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people.

Recall that these protests began before Israel counterattacked against Hamas. They were in full bloom on October 8, even while the bodies of 1,200 murdered Israelis, including babies burned alive, were still being gathered and counted, and the roughly 240 hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza identified.

The protests are exclusively anti-Israel, anti-American, pro-Hamas, and pro-terrorism.

Where are the calls for anything that would actually help the Palestinians or make their lives better: freedom of speech, equal justice under the law, freedom of the press, better job opportunities, and an end to government corruption and abuse?

So when you watch an anti-Israel demonstration on television, please understand who is behind it and what are their ultimate goals, because the next target is American democracy -- and you.

JPost Editorial: Israel must stay the course on Gaza war

The going is slow and painstaking, and as Halevi hinted, the international community's pressure to agree to a ceasefire without achieving our goals is growing stronger all the time. From the UN Security Council to human rights groups and countries throughout the West, the carnage of October 7 and the continued cruel imprisonment of the hostages are old news and disconnected from Israel’s offensive against Hamas.

Thankfully, the US, and especially President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, understand the cause and effect at play and realize that the untenable situation in Gaza is solely due to Hamas. That understanding has enabled Israel to pursue its goals with its greatest friend in its corner. However, that support should not be taken for granted, and as the war drags on, the pressure from the US will increase as well.

There’s also internal pressure at play, with the movement surrounding the hostages' families gaining more traction in their call for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages as the priority over the current offensive. They don’t buy the argument presented by the government and the army that military pressure is the only way to drag Hamas to an agreement that would enable more hostages to be released.

Israel needs to remain firm against the forces, both external and internal, that would prevent it from achieving its end goals.

The revelations that are still emerging two and a half months after the atrocities of October 7 show that Israel needs to stay the course, realize there is no quick fix, accept the pain and anguish that comes with losing the best people that Israel has to offer, and strengthen all of our resolves that the war we’re fighting is just and necessary.

The deaths of the October 7 terror victims and the 164 soldiers who have fallen in the battle to eliminate the Hamas threat and ensure that another October 7 can’t occur must not be in vain.

Even if the road ahead is long and difficult, we must carry on, hoping that a future generation of Israelis can one day live in peace.

The New York Times covered the anti-Israel protests that closed highways leading to major airports in NYC and LA during the busy holiday travel season.

But there is a standard format that most news articles follow: they usually try to add a human component to the stories, almost always in the first paragraph, showing how someone was affected by the event they are covering to draw in the reader with empathy.

This article, and most others about the disruptions caused by these protests, doesn't include that.

Thousands of people were blocked from getting to the airports (and train stations, and their jobs, and their families) in these protests over the past month.

When traffic is delayed for weather or other reasons, the media will always interview those who are affected. On December 14, a bull on the tracks delayed trains into Penn Station and the NYT interviewed commuters for their reactions. Of course they did - this is modern journalism 101.

But when the travelers are frustrated by self-righteous antisemites who think the world revolves around them, there are no interviews with the victims of their hubris. No stories about people forced to miss their flights or who cannot make it to their medical appointments.

The media only chooses to humanize victims when it fits their narrative - and they are more sympathetic with the privileged anti-Israel protesters who inexplicably seem to have no jobs or responsibilities, so they can be free to snarl traffic in the middle of the day, every day.

Over the course of several weeks, tens of thousands of commuters and holiday shoppers and tourists have been frustrated and inconvenienced not by a natural event but by the deliberate decisions of people who hate Israel to disrupt everyone's lives. These aren't planned protests with permits - these are illegal campaigns. This is a human story that is not being told. This is a story about planned criminal activity that is not being told.

Why not?

Media bias is often seen not by what it written, but by what is not written. And it is hard to look at this article and others without thinking that the reporters are more sympathetic with the lawbreakers than with the people whose lives are upset by these haters.

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!

67% of Democrats think there was once an independent Arab state called "Palestine." The more people know, the more they support Israel.

A firm called WPA Intelligence did a survey of American voters asking various questions about whether they want a ceasefire in Gaza and other things.

But one question say volumes about how little liberal - and supposedly educated - Americans know about the conflict they are so eager to opine about.

67% of Democrats agreed with the statement that “a sovereign Arab country named Palestine used to exist where Israel is presently located.”

Two out of three Democrats don't know this basic fact. For Republicans, 55% thought the statement was false. For all American voters, the results were about 50/50, which is disheartening on its own.

Older respondents tended to answer the question correctly, while 68% of those ages 18-34 got it wrong.

But the percentage of people altogether who believe the lie is not at all correlated to education. 57% of those with a high school or lower education, 58% of those with some college education, 54% of those with a bachelor's degree and 56% of those with a postgraduate degree believed this fiction of an independent Palestinian state.

This is a damning indictment of the US educational system.

Another survey question is relevant. When asked, without context, whether they supported a ceasefire in Gaza. 70% said they do.

Then the survey told them that this means that a ceasefire would mean that the hostages would not be released. Suddenly, 20% of those who supported the ceasefire switched sides. (But 70% of Democrats still support a ceasefire without Hamas being defeated and without the hostages being returned.)

Now, imagine if the people surveyed knew about Hamas' promise that October 7 was just the beginning, and the terror group intended to mount much deadlier attacks "again and again" until Israel is destroyed - a story that did not get nearly as much publicity as the daily reports of civilian deaths in Gaza. There would be another large shift against a ceasefire when people get an inkling of what the conflict is really about and how depraved Hamas is.

The 70% who say they support a ceasefire are the same 70% who know nothing about the history, the facts, the context.

The people who are the most informed tend to side with Israel.

The corollary to this is that the people who hate Israel will do everything they can to misrepresent the facts and lie about the conflict in order to get people on their side.

People learn about the conflict not from school but from social media, from TikTok and YouTube, from loud and obnoxious anti-Israel activists who are committed to lie and misrepresent the issues. And it shows.

The media isn't helping matters because most journalists are at least passively anti-Israel and their coverage will minimize real facts, history and context and emphasize Palestinian victimhood.

If you think that Israel replaced a Palestinian state, of course you would be anti-Israel. This is exactly why so many social media posts represent British Mandate currency as if it was from a nation named "Palestine" and people named "Palestinian." The coin suggests a story, the reality shows the opposite, and a lot of people don't want the people to know the reality.

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!

Israel and Cyprus approved plan to send aid to Gaza via ships. The Palestinian Authority REJECTED it. The reason tells you everything about the conflict.

AP reported last week:

Israel wants to fast-track the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through a maritime corridor from Cyprus, bolstering stability in the region, the country’s foreign minister said Wednesday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Israeli and Cypriot technical teams would spend Wednesday and Thursday hammering out the details of the initiative so that aid shipments from Cyprus’ port of Larnaca, some 240 miles (385 kilometers) from Gaza, can begin as soon as possible.

“Cyprus and Israel, together with other partners in the region are promoting the initiative for a secure maritime corridor to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Gaza in an organized and well inspected manner,” Cohen said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Constantinos Kombos.

Cyprus had been pushing this plan for over a month. Israel would inspect the aid to ensure that it does not have any weapons and put other controls in place. It would eventually replace Kerem Shalom as the main means for Gaza to get imports and exports, thereby decreasing the risk to Israel of another Hamas attack like October 7.

Over the years, Hamas and other terror groups have routinely attacked Kerem Shalom and the other crossings that brought imports and humanitarian aid, causing death and injuries to workers there.

So who could possibly be against creating such an aid corridor that would be a reliable route to help Gazans?

Why, the Palestinian Authority, of course!

At the weekly PA cabinet meeting Tuesday, the plan was discussed - and rejected.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad Al-Maliki, ... spoke about the so-called water corridor that was recently agreed upon between Israel and Cyprus, under the excuse of transferring aid to the Gaza Strip. The Council confirmed its rejection of this corridor due to the risks it poses that target the demographic situation in the Gaza Strip, in light of the killings, starvation, and cutting off the lifeline in the sector.

The Council of Ministers demanded that aid be brought in through the five crossings that connect the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and not through corridors carrying a humanitarian banner, which would cover up the passage of plans consistent with the objectives of the genocidal war committed by Israel against our people in the Gaza Strip. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was assigned to communicate with the Cypriot government to inform it of the rejection of this waterway.

The logic is that the PA insists that Israel remain responsible for Gaza - that way they can claim Israel "occupies" the sector. The mention of "five crossings" includes the crossings that Israel closed after Hamas took over and continuously attacked them. Even though Kerem Shalom was adequate for all of Gaza's needs, the PA wants an open border between Gaza and Israel - so there can be more vectors for Hamas to attack and more October 7ths.

If Cyprus replaced Israel as Gaza's main source for imports and exports, then the Palestinians are more independent - but they cannot blame Israel for all their problems. Their claim that there is an Israeli "blockade" on Gaza can no longer credibly be claimed when the bulk of Gaza trade is through Egypt and Cyprus.

It might help Palestinians, but it makes Israel safer and weakens anti-Israel propaganda and makes Israelis marginally more secure.

If the PA (and Hamas) really cared about their own people, they would insist on the corridor plus Israel keeping Kerem Shalom open. They aren't saying that.

So of course Palestinians are against the plan: like Hamas, their purpose is not to help their own people but to destroy Israel, and the humanitarian corridor goes against that desire.

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!

12/27 Links Pt2: Israel Stopped Apologizing on October 7; The State Department (Still) Has an Israel Problem; Red Cross is ineffective, replace it now

From Ian:

Prof. Gil Troy: Israel Stopped Apologizing on October 7

For years, many outside Israel treated it just a tad condescendingly. They cast Israel as a problem child - too wild, primitive, militaristic, fundamentalist, forever embarrassing their more enlightened, sophisticated selves. It got worse during the Trump years. Israel, not America, was somehow responsible for Trump because we thanked him for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and facilitating the Abraham Accords.

Since Hamas' savagery, with young Israelis dying every day, the accusations, anguish, and apologetics must end. Let's be clear. Israelis feel the love in every dollar raised, every meme posted, every prayer uttered, every vigil attended, and every demand made on American leaders to stand up for Israel, for American values, for the West's future. And the global surge in Jew-hatred appalls us and infuriates us. We are grateful and know it's been tough.

But you cannot equate the danger Israelis confront in Gaza or on the border facing Hizbullah, or when patrolling hostile Palestinian towns, with threats on leafy campuses. And we just don't have patience, during this hard, painful war, for all the anguish about Israel's military tactics. Yes, the IDF prefers keeping our kids alive and Israel safe from Hamas, to looking good on CNN.

There are serious moral and strategic dilemmas regarding how to fight back against Hamas' unspeakable crimes and its vows to repeat them. It's challenging with Hamas so embedded in Gaza - so popular there, so willing to hide in hospitals, mosques, and even behind women and children. Israelis who know how painful it is to bury our young take no delight in non-combatant casualties.

Hamas - and the entire Palestinian movement that started cheering the terrorists and jeering us on Oct. 7 - has drawn a clear line in the sand. We withdrew completely from Gaza - and they kept screaming it was "occupied." They hijacked billions sent to help their own people, instead building an infrastructure of evil against us. We were attacked - breaking the latest ceasefire and the one before that and the one before that.

No, we're not perfect. But the moral choice is clear. We in Israel, left and right, fight proudly together, without kowtowing or breast-beating; affirming life, even in these days haunted with death.

Seth Mandel: The State Department (Still) Has an Israel Problem

There are really only two kinds of Mideast policymakers at this point: those who believe that Oct. 7 was just another day in the “cycle of violence” and those who understand the impact the attacks had on the people and governments not just in the region but in America and the West as well.

Those in the latter category are fit to make policy regarding America’s stance toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. Those in the former category, unfortunately, are often the ones in position to screw everything up without even trying, like the investor in an episode of Silicon Valley who deletes massive amounts of his team’s data by accidentally resting a bottle of tequila on the delete key of his laptop.

Which brings us to Josh Paul, a former Booz Allen Hamilton and State Department official whose career largely consisted of making sure everyone has powerful weapons. Except one group of people, of course. In October, Paul resigned as director of the office overseeing U.S. arms transfers because President Biden refused to end his support for Israel’s counteroffensive after Hamas invaded the Jewish state, murdered 1,200 people, and took hundreds more hostage.

The hero’s treatment he received was certainly odd; State Department officials who oppose Israel’s self-defense are a dime a dozen. But now that he has submitted testimony in support of those suing Biden for not stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, it’s easier to understand the cultish aspect of his beatification. You wouldn’t find it odd, for example, watching Scientologists applaud each other.

More important, however, is what Paul’s publicity tour has exposed about the dearth of wisdom in government agencies when it comes to Israel.

Paul’s “genocide” brief, as well as his belief that Israel’s supposed crimes are tantamount to the Rwandan and Sudanese genocides, are attention-getting—as they are clearly designed to be. But it can be more helpful to look at the statement Paul made when he was asked about the actual conflict over which he resigned.

Zionism isn’t racism, but Palestinism is

Palestinism began with Haj Amin al-Husseini as a movement of hate, murder, and genocide, and has never evolved from the days when its founder lobbied the Nazis to murder Jewish children rather than let them go free. The society created by Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and their cronies is one in which the highest value is the killing of Jews and murderers are considered heroes. It is a society in which a young man can call his parents and yell with joy: “Look how many I killed with my own hands! You son killed Jews! I killed ten with my own hands!”

The root of the conflict which began with al-Husseini’s pogroms in 1920 is antisemitism. It is the antisemitism of the Mufti which led him to ally with the Nazis and support the Holocaust as it was happening. It is the antisemitism of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. It is the antisemitism of Hamas. It is the antisemitism taught to children in Palestinian Authority and Hamas schools and broadcast on their televisions. It is the antisemitism of Hebron in 1929, Iraq in 1941, and the kibbutzim of southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Peace will never come until this root cause, this antisemitism, is finally addressed. If Hamas is not destroyed, it has vowed to repeat the massacre of October 7 as many times as it takes to destroy the State of Israel. If the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas takes over Gaza from Hamas, it has spent too many decades brainwashing its own people to hate and value killing to ever be capable of making peace with the hated Jews or to agree to stop killing Jews.

Peace will come when the specter of the Mufti is finally expunged, when the values of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’ are cast aside, when mass murderers are recognized for the monsters they are instead of treated as role models every child should aspire to emulate.

Peace will come when the Palestinian Arabs finally reject hate, when they acknowledge Jews as human beings with the right to live, when they learn to respect Jewish holy and historical sites and Jewish people’s rights to visit them, and when they stop demanding a completely Judenrein state of Palestine.

To do this, their supporters at the United Nations, at universities and the media, must stop turning a blind eye to this deadly antisemitism. They must stop excusing this hate and taking part in it. The world must demand change and demand better from the PA instead of writing blank checks and blaming Israel every time this inherent antisemitism results in death and mayhem.

‘Palestinism’ is a racist, supremacist, antisemitic, genocidal movement with one goal – the annihilation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. That is what it always has been. That is what those who instead claim that ‘Zionism is racism’ give cover to.

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

When 84-year-old hostage Alma Avraham was released by Hamas, she was barely alive. Her daughter, Tal Amnu described her condition. “I can say on behalf of my mother that she arrived with a pulse of 40 with a temperature of 48 degrees,” Amnu said. “Unconscious. All injured.”

Amnu added that family members had twice met with Red Cross representatives, who twice rejected their request to get medications to her mother.

On December 4, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric, visited the Gaza Strip. She was there, ostensibly, to coordinate visits by Red Cross personnel to hostages held by Hamas. In a video released by Spoljaric following the visit however, she said almost nothing about hostages, but spoke at length about the plight of Gaza civilians. The hostages abducted by Hamas from Israel during the October 7 attack received only a brief mention by Spoljaric near the end of the two-minute video.

My message from Gaza today: pic.twitter.com/0EkxwD0XRL
— Mirjana Spoljaric (@ICRCPresident) December 4, 2023

On December 14, Prime Minister Netanyahu met with Spoljaric in person, in an attempt to persuade her to deliver a box of medications for the hostages. What followed was a circular argument, Spoljaric saying, “It won’t work,” and Netanyahu saying, “Why don’t you try?”

“It’s not going to work, because the more public pressure we seemingly (air quotes) would do, the more they would shut the door.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Yes, they would. They would with . . .”

“Well, why don’t you try?”

@mrb3317
♬ original sound - MRB

A week earlier Roni and Simona Steinbrecher met with the Red Cross. Their daughter Doron had been kidnapped on October 7 and she requires daily medication. Roni and Simona asked the Red Cross to intervene and help them get the medication to their daughter. Instead, they received a lecture. “Think about the Palestinian side,” the representatives of the Red Cross told Simona. “It’s hard for the Palestinians, they’re being bombed.”

Simona left in a state of shock over the brusque dismissal and reprimand. “We left there as we entered: without new information, without something new, and with disappointment,” said Steinbrecher.

Steinbrecher’s shock is understandable. And still, the Red Cross has been disappointing Jews for a very long time, such as during the Holocaust. In February 1945, the president of the Red Cross sent the following message to a U.S. official. "Concerning the Jewish problem in Germany we are in close and continual contact with the German authorities."

Note the Nazi terminology employed by the Red Cross president: “Jewish problem.” When they saw Jews, the Red Cross didn’t see a people undergoing extermination. Like Hitler, they saw the Jews as a problem, a kind of vermin that needed to go away.

The Red Cross was aware of the Nazi atrocities as early as August 1942, but did nothing to intervene, and certainly did nothing to ensure better conditions for the Jews in the camps. Roger Du Pasquier, head of the IRC’s Information Department at that time explained that the Red Cross couldn’t do anything to help the millions of Jews slaughtered by the Nazis. His excuse? The Red Cross couldn’t help, because if they helped, they would have been deprived of all opportunities to help (emphasis added):

No relief action of any sort by the Red Cross in Germany or the occupied territories could have been undertaken without the approval of the authorities . . . Conforming to the letter, if not to the spirit of the Geneva Conventions . . . the Nazi government permitted the ICRC and its delegates to act on behalf of the several millions of prisoners held in the Stalags and Oflags. It refused, however, to allow any intervention on the part of the Red Cross in the concentration camps . . .

. . . In the face of such an obstinate refusal which covered up the horrifying reality, about which one was then ill-informed, the ICRC certainly could have made itself heard; it could have protested publicly and called on the conscience of the world. By doing so it would, however, have deprived itself of any possibility of acting in Hitler's Empire; it would have deliberately given up what chances there still remained to it to help, even in a restricted manner, the victims of the concentration camp regime. But, above all, it would have made it impossible for it to continue its activity on behalf of millions of military captives. For the Nazi leaders viewed this activity with suspicion which they would have ruthlessly suppressed on the slightest pretext.

The Red Cross was not “ill-informed” at that time. By then, they knew about the atrocities and the camps, and had for several years. In other words, Du Pasquier lied. The Red Cross knew about the atrocities and the camps, and they did nothing. They did nothing, and pretended they did nothing because if they did something, they would have lost the opportunity to do something.

Or something like that.

The script, as we saw in Netanyahu’s meeting with Spoljaric, has not changed since that time. Deliver a box of medications to the hostages? “It won’t work. The more pressure on Hamas, the more they’ll shut the door.”

Well, look girlie, the door is already shut. Your job is to open it. Deliver those medications. At least try, as Netanyahu repeatedly told her.

Spoljaric ran out of buts and the meeting was adjourned with nearly nothing accomplished. Why do I say “nearly nothing?” Because at least the damning exchange of a Red Cross president refusing to deliver a box of medications to hostages was captured on video for posterity. Not that it matters. The Red Cross has always been blatant in its hatred of the Jewish people.

Whereas the Nazis were defeated, the Red Cross continued on its merry way in its campaign against the Jews. It was not until 2006 that the Red Cross admitted Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) into its ranks. And still, the star was a no. The (Muslim) Red Crescent Society? Sure. The Red Lion and Sun Society of Iran (don't ask)? Sure, why not? But not a Jewish Red Star. And definitely not Israel.

They would neither parade that star symbol, nor give it validity. Essentially, none of this Jewish star stuff.

And that is/was the crux of the matter. The star. The Red Cross had no problem accepting a Muslim crescent emblem in relevant countries, but the Jewish Star of David was disallowed.

Meet Oshrit Hadad - a 22 year old Magen David Adom Paramedic - and the story of just one of the lives she fought to save on October 7th#Hero #IsraelUnderFire pic.twitter.com/Cet9WPGKUf
— Magen David Adom (@Mdais) December 14, 2023

What excuse did the Red Cross have for not granting legitimacy to the Magen David Adom all those years, from 1930 to 2006, when it finally succumbed? According to Wikipedia, “concerns of territorialism.”

What, exactly, does “territorialism” mean in regard to Israel? It means that the Jews cannot have their own land, and cannot have their own symbol for their own exclusive use. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Magen David Adom was boycotted by the Red Cross, “which refused to grant the organization membership because ‘it was [...] argued that having an emblem used by only one country was contrary to the principles of universality.’"

Even today, the Red Star of David, well—you can use it, but it’s not recognized as a protected symbol outside Israel. Israel is officially not protected. Israel has to use a phony, all-purpose Red Crystal symbol the Red Cross dreamed up so they wouldn’t have to admit the Jewish star:

For over 50 years, Israel requested the addition of a red Star of David, arguing that since Christian and Muslim emblems were recognized, the corresponding Jewish emblem should be as well. This emblem has been used by Magen David Adom (MDA), or Red Star of David, but it is not recognized by the Geneva Conventions as a protected symbol. The Red Star of David is not recognized as a protected symbol outside Israel; instead the MDA uses the Red Crystal emblem during international operations in order to ensure protection. Depending on the circumstances, it may place the Red Star of David inside the Red Crystal, or use the Red Crystal alone.

In her March 2000 letter to the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, Bernadine Healy, then president of the American Red Cross, wrote: "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom—the Shield (or Star) of David." In protest, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies since May 2000.

Some were excited when Israel’s MDA was finally admitted into the IRCRC. They crowed over this perceived sign of acceptance. They were happy to compromise on the emblem, which was just a symbol, after all.

From the Forward (emphasis added):

Chalk up a victory for the Star of David — or, as it is called in Hebrew, the magen David or “Shield of David.” Long boycotted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which refused to grant Israel’s “Red Shield of David” organization membership in its ranks because it did not recognize the medical and humanitarian use of this Jewish symbol alongside the Christian cross and the Muslim crescent, the magen David was finally voted in at a Red Cross meeting in Geneva last week. It’s true that it will have to appear, on Israeli ambulances and elsewhere, on a smaller scale than the cross and crescent and within a diamond-shaped “crystal,” but compromise is the stuff of politics, and the Geneva decision was nothing if not political.

In hindsight we can say that this was no victory. That we should never have compromised on our emblem, our safety, or our legitimacy. We are speaking of an organization that will not help hostages, yet uses the word “human” twice in its mission statement:

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is the largest humanitarian network in the world. Its mission is to alleviate human suffering, protect life and health, and uphold human dignity, especially during armed conflicts and other emergencies.

Are the Jews then, not human? If you prick us, do we not bleed? Is the suffering of our hostages not worthy of alleviation; their lives and health not worthy of protection. Do our hostages not deserve to have their dignity upheld?

Spoljaric—and Du Pasquier before her—would never say it out loud in mixed company, but in their heads, the answer is a big, fat, loud, emphatic NO. Because to the people of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Jews are not human. In their eyes, Jews are monsters. It’s what they tell themselves to justify their refusal to help the October 7 hostages in any way.

It’s what the Red Cross as much as told Roni and Simona Steinbrecher when they pleaded for help to get medication to their daughter. “Think about the Palestinian side,” they were told, “It’s hard for the Palestinians, they’re being bombed.”

The IRCRC has representatives in Gaza. They know what happened on October 7, and they do not care. To them, just as in Nazi Germany, Jews are a subhuman species, undeserving of human rights of any kind. Jewish suffering doesn’t touch them. The rape and torture of Jews doesn’t touch them. They don’t feel it because “Jews are not human,” they would say if they could. “Jews are monsters.”

Why would the Red Cross help Israeli hostages? The Jews, after all, are a “problem.” Perhaps they are not even human—so their suffering doesn’t count, and they don’t deserve dignity.

Because they’re Jews.

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!

The Arab Parliament, which is the legislative body of the Arab League, is trying to bring back the Arab boycott of Jews...I mean, Israel.

Ahead of a planned emergency session on Gaza tomorrow, the speaker of the Arab Parliament, Adel Al-Asoumi, called on the Arab people to adhere to the economic boycott of companies that support Israel.

Al-Asoumi said that the Arab Parliament has supported the Palestinian cause since the first day of the war on Gaza on the seventh of last October, which sure makes it sound as if they supported the massacre on October 7.

The funny part is that the Arab League boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, which started in late 1945, has never officially ended. Syria and Lebanon still adhere to it fully, everyone else abandoned it.

So this is a call to follow an existing 78 year old boycott. A boycott which was always against Jewish companies.

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!