Donate Us

Help us keep this free site alive with a small contribution from you. Select an amount below.

Thursday, November 2, 2023

From Ian:

Herzog: ‘Israeli society is our true secret weapon’
The following is the text of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to the nation on Nov. 1,2023:

Citizens of Israel, tonight I would like to address each and every one of you, personally, and talk about resilience, spirit and soul, on a personal and national level. It’s been almost a month since our country underwent a serious change. For almost a month we have been in a war like no other. Almost a month has passed since that cursed day, when the sun rose, the flowers blossomed and butchers slaughtered, slaughtered and slaughtered—women and men, elderly and infants, from kibbutzim, communes, communities, cities and towns. It is close to a month since that utter horror—which flashes again and again before our eyes, day after day, hour after hour.

Degrees of grief overflow in a way that cannot be contained at all, in a way that cannot be grasped in heart or mind. It surrounds and rocks us. We all feel it, for ourselves, for the parents, for the children. The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, hundreds of thousands of reservist recruits, and the war being fought— from the frontline to the back—affects us, all of us, mentally, both personally and nationally. And the fallen—the best of our children— whom we have mourned over the last days, only adds to the pendulum of pain that we are all experiencing at this time.

We will forever remember those who fought bravely and fiercely in the mission of defending the people and our homeland. We embrace their families and pray that they will know no more sorrow. In war, each of us endure moments which are simply unbearable.

Every day, I meet families and communities displaced from their homes, I visit the wounded in the hospitals, and families of those missing or being held hostage. Truly an Israeli mosaic like no other. The pain of the families of the hostages and the missing is simply unfathomable. My conversations with them are the most painful conversations I have held in all of my life. Mothers and fathers, families, spouses and partners, have not slept for more than three weeks. The cruelest and darkest abyss, engulfed these families and us as a nation. I say to you what I told the families, unequivocally, the hostages are in our thoughts, and their return is an integral part of the success of this campaign—of course—alongside victory in this decisive war against the enemy and restoring security to all Israeli citizens.

I knowingly commit to you that the best minds—thousands of Israelis, from the country’s leadership to every level of the security services—will work with professionalism and dedication, every minute of the day, to fulfill our moral duty as a country—to bring them back home.
Dear world: I don’t care
World,
For so, so long, I really, deeply cared
I cared about fitting in
I cared about what you think
I cared about being a model citizen
I cared about setting a personal example of how a tiny people in a tough neighborhood could still be a Light unto the Nations
How the world’s oldest minority – now a majority here – could treat its own internal minorities par excellence amidst the complicated and messy reality of ethnic conflict
How we could painfully dismember parts of our homeland and offer them on the platter of peace to Palestinians that want neither peace nor some parts (they want all of it)
How we could dazzle you with USB sticks, drip irrigation, operating system kernels, Nobel Prize winners, swallowable medical cameras, deep tech, quantum mechanics, generative AI and cures for disease
But now I’m finally accepting that you don’t care
You never did
You don’t see and you don’t hear
And because I cared about what you think so much, that so deeply hurts
But you don’t have my best interests at heart
You take issue with my base identity, with what I represent
Don’t expect me to wait for your approval this time
It doesn’t matter what I do, you’re not going to change
It doesn’t matter how I act, because your issue is with who I am
Now I’m going to block out your noise, and do what it takes to win this war
Today
Finally
I no longer care
UK's most-read paper features Israeli child hostages held in Gaza on
The Sun, the United Kingdom's most widely-read newspaper according to data analyzed by PAMCo, published a cover story on Thursday depicting the names and faces of all 32 children being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The cover image features the faces of all 32 children arched around a black box, emblazoned on which is the text: "32 innocent children snatched by terrorists. This is why Israel must fight evil of Hamas. BRING THEM HOME."

The article was also featured prominently on the UK news outlet's website, which included a compilation of video footage depicting, among other things, Hamas taking hostages on October 7, scenes of Hamas's underground tunnel networks, and protests calling for the hostages to be returned home.

Raising awareness of the plight of children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza

Children make up a significant minority (13.33%) of the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, when terrorists infiltrated southern Israel from the Gaza Strip and carried out a series of massacres and abductions.

The hostage issue remains a major factor in the IDF's ongoing war against Hamas, dubbed Operation Swords of Iron, as Israel works to ensure all of the hostages are freed.

According to the International Criminal Court and the Geneva Conventions, taking hostages during an international or internal conflict is considered a war crime.


The War Against the Jews
Antisemitism, on the right and on the left, will grow. It is already spreading rapidly, particularly on college campuses. Sometimes, antisemitism is violent Jew hatred, and sometimes it is couched in equity, diversity, inclusion language which shrinks from declaring the killing of babies a crime against humanity.

There is a concept called “moral injury” that we discovered among American soldiers returning from wars in the Middle East and Asia. It is not PTSD, for which there are established treatment protocols. Moral injury is the realization that one did something in a wartime situation in which the morality of the military protects one psychologically but which, when one returns to normal moral life as civilians, one realizes was terribly wrong. For instance: A soldier in the Middle East sees a pregnant-looking woman dressed in Islamic clothing walking toward him. He does not know whether she is pregnant or has a bomb under her clothing. He shouts at her several times in the local language to stop. He fires into the air to deter her. But she keeps coming toward him. In the end, he follows standard instructions to protect himself and his unit, and he kills her. But she turns out to have been pregnant, and not a terrorist. After release from the army, he returns home and sees his pregnant wife walking toward him. The scene comes back to him and the soldier turns violent, or turns to drugs or alcohol, or commits suicide. This is “moral injury.” He did what he should have done in the situation but, in a normal context, he realizes it was a terribly wrong thing to have done. I think that, for many Israelis and Jews, the anger, indeed the rage, that we are experiencing now and our intense desire for revenge as we read the stories and watch the videos of this horror, are going to become moral injuries as life moves forward.

Finally, remember that 2033 is the 100th anniversary of the rise to power of Hitler; that 2038 is the 100th anniversary of Kristallnacht; and that 2041-44 is the 100th anniversary of the Nazi death camps. The Jew haters know this, for sure. I won’t be around to see this. Many of you won’t either. But our children and grandchildren will.

In the end, it is my thinking that Iran will play it rationally. They will not risk nuclear war for Palestine. They will, therefore, take their Palestinian losses, restrain Hezbollah and other pawns from intervening, declare victory, and return to planning the next major step in their jihad against Jews, Christians, and the West. Israel will do something in Gaza but will not be able to “eliminate” Hamas or Islamic Jew hatred. Hamas will suffer, will declare victory over the Jews, and will succeed in getting more money to rebuild. America will claim to have prevented another damaging war and will go on believing that it leads the free world in its march for justice and peace. Jews everywhere will grudgingly be forced to acknowledge that “there is nothing new under the sun”; that Jew hatred is here to stay. The Hamas pogrom will take its place, alongside other pogroms against Jews, as the first pogrom of the 21st century. Welcome to Jewish history.
Bonnie Glick: The United States must cut aid to Palestinians, again
While I served as the deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the No. 2 position in the $40 billion U.S. government agency, I often asked why it was in America’s national security interest to fund the Palestinians. The answers from career staff that I would inevitably get were: First, because it’s in our national interest to promote a two-state solution. Second, if we and other like-minded countries don’t fund the Palestinians, they might fall into the arms of Islamic radicals. Third, this is a way for us to guide them to become developed—the so-called journey to self-reliance—and finally, the Israelis want us to.

I didn’t believe any of it then, and I don’t believe any of it today.

Let’s look at each of the arguments presented for assistance to the Palestinians—both representatives of Fatah, the fat cats who call Ramallah home and who are direct descendants of and adherents to the philosophies of the Egyptian-born Yasser Arafat, as well as the bloodthirsty adherents to Hamas who make their homes in five-star hotels in Qatar. Make no mistake, the two groups are cut from the same cloth and have no interest in a two-state solution. If Fatah were any different from Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, its leaders would not be standing by Hamas at this moment. However, they serve obediently as Hamas’s mouthpieces to Western donors like, tragically, the United States.

Does our national security interest dictate support of Palestinians?

We actually have evidence that demonstrates that our national security interest derives no benefit from support to Palestinians. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. government halted all assistance to the Palestinians. Contributions to the coffers of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and to the U.N. Relief Works Agency for Palestinian “Refugees” (UNRWA) in Gaza stopped flowing. The U.S. embassy’s own USAID office was closed. Additionally, in March 2018, President Donald Trump signed into law the Taylor Force Act, which makes it illegal for the United States to provide assistance to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues to pay salaries to “resistance fighters” and the families of so-called Palestinian “martyrs,” another word for suicide terrorists.

Guess what? Israel was able to keep a lid on much of the terror activities emanating from Hamas-administered Gaza and P.A.-administered territories.

The Trump administration recognized that the leadership in both Ramallah and Gaza is in no way representative of the Palestinian people in the same sense that we in the United States enjoy representation. Abbas has been “president” of the Palestinian Authority since his sole election in 2005. He is now in the 18th year of his four-year term. Gaza, similarly, has been ruled by Hamas terrorists since 2006 when it was popularly elected by a wide margin over Abbas’s Fatah group. Make no mistake: Gazans elected Hamas in an overwhelming majority, and all polling indicates that were elections held today, Hamas would enjoy even wider margins than before.

UNRWA is a farcical U.N. agency that exists to perpetuate its own existence. The “relief” work that it undertakes is flagrantly antisemitic and in league with Gaza’s Hamas rulers. UNRWA’s presence actually embeds further in Gazans the desire to eradicate all of the Jews. Ostensibly, UNRWA is present in Gaza to provide education and health facilities for local Palestinians. It is a stand-alone agency for Palestinian “refugees” because Palestinian so-called refugees do not meet the regular U.N. requirements to merit refugee status as dictated by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. Rather, the corrupt U.N. system has a carve-out for Palestinians in order to control what they learn and to keep them as a permanent underclass among Arabs worldwide.
House passes bill requiring annual report on Palestinian teaching materials

Daniel Greenfield: Biden Admin Warns Israel Against Cutting Off Hamas Internet, Money and

An Open Letter to Hamas’ Defenders
Hi, Terror Apologist!

I don’t know who you are, why you care about the plight of Jews in the Diaspora or in Israel, how long you’ve been involved with Jewish/Arab peace and coexistence movements, or how much you have personally at stake with the safety of Israeli Jews or people in Gaza, but I’m so glad you’re here.

Perhaps you’re a gentile with a social justice bent and you’ve recently become interested in a centuries-old conflict between people you don’t know in a place you’ve never been near. Perhaps you are on an exciting algorithmic adrenaline ride, learning as you go. Perhaps you are an assimilated Jew with some intellectual curiosity and the epigenetic trauma response of trying to cover your ass so you’ll be accepted by the secular world. Whatever the case, you are alive and well and safe enough in this moment to be putting forth some sort of argument for—or implicit defense of—terrorism. You might be doing so from an Israel bomb shelter, in which case I salute you and would love to discuss the absolute necessity of a two-state solution, the complete removal of Netanyahu and his cronies, a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, and the travesty of what unfolded in Gaza since we unilaterally withdrew in 2005 and found ourselves under rocket fire literally two hours later—once our hostages are home and Hamas is destroyed. Assuming you aren’t a random careless internet dilettante who will be on to the next “cause” by then.

We can talk about war crimes, morality, good and evil, when this war we never wanted is over. Assuming you won’t be on to the next cause by then.

We weep for the plight of the Palestinian people and for the ignorance and naïveté of so many who believe that anyone but Hamas is responsible for their current suffering. Someday, when this war we didn’t want is over, I’d love to discuss the radicalization of the oppressed. And the fomenting of extremism, and Israeli intellectuals who have been warning against this very scenario for decades. When this war we did not want is over, we can grab coffee and talk about Iran and Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And Jordan and Egypt and Yemen. We can talk about building terror infrastructure under a hospital, about the concept of “martyrdom,” about propaganda. We can talk about squandered opportunities. We can talk about Hamas’ misdirected/stolen billions in aid. We can talk about means and ends and which ends justify which means. We can talk about how a population that doubled over the past 20 years can possibly be said to be a victim of genocide. We can talk about war crimes, morality, and good and evil when this war we never wanted is over. Assuming you won’t be on to the next cause by then.

Meanwhile, our hearts are broken and our hopes for peace are dashed yet again, but we have long memories and a powerful will to live.

Am yisrael chai.

Be safe, and pray for the safety of others—

Elisa


The Commentary Magazine Podcast: Where Are the Cops? Where?
Today’s podcast takes up the horrible story of the still-unsolved murder of Samantha Woll and the haste with which Detroit police said it had not been a hate crime—but never said why they believed this and have not yet even apparently found a person of interest in the case whose presence would refute the idea that a young synagogue president was stabbed to death without apparent cause. And where are the Cambridge and Harvard police when it comes to the president of the Harvard Law Review menacing and possibly assaulting a Jewish student? Give a listen.
British Deputy Prime Minister Says Israel Fighting "a Just War" and Rejects Ceasefire Calls
British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has said Israel is fighting "a just war" in Gaza as he rejected calls for a ceasefire in the conflict. The cabinet minister said Israel was justified in trying to "eliminate" the terror group Hamas after it launched a devastating attack which killed 1,400 Israelis.

Asked if Israeli airstrikes on Gaza are morally justified, Dowden told BBC Radio 4: "I do believe this is a just war Israel is seeking to prosecute against cold-blooded terrorists who have murdered its citizens. We would do the same thing in this country if it happened to us. Israel has set out two clear aims for this conflict which the United Kingdom agrees with - which is to eliminate the Hamas threat and to release those [Israeli] hostages."

"Hamas is a terrorist organization that has murdered in cold blood over 1,000 innocent Israeli men, women and children, and now seeks to hide amongst the civilian population....We continue to urge the Israeli government to abide by international law. I believe that the Israeli government is continuing to do so."
Israeli forces ‘deep in the Strip, at the gates of Gaza City’

IDF Tactics in the Gaza Ground Offensive
The IDF has put extensive censorship on what can be reported about its military tactics in Gaza.

Hamas is used to having access to Israeli open sources for real-time intelligence on IDF troop movements.

The censorship has been effective and has led to Hamas mispositioning its forces in trying to guess where the IDF will show up next.

Artillery and tanks are using a variety of smoke-style diversions to make it difficult for Hamas forces to get clear shots at IDF forces when they enter new areas.

D9 bulldozers are being used to clear out boobytraps and mines before soldiers enter various areas.

Drones are being used extensively in conjunction with land forces to strike Hamas forces, which come out to engage IDF forces.

This is an advantage over airstrikes alone, which do not force Hamas forces out of their hideouts.

The support of artillery and tanks allows much more immediate destruction of hiding places anytime Hamas forces reveal themselves with gunfire.
Israeli forces ‘deep in the Strip, at the gates of Gaza City’

No ceasefire, Hamas doesn’t get a ‘do-over’ to commit genocide again

Israeli slain in Samaria terror attack

Israeli forces thwart shooting, bombing plot in Jerusalem

J’lem police arrest Gaza infiltrators, including sister of Hamas terrorist

Two Israelis injured in Hamas rocket attacks from Lebanon

JPost Editorial: The rescue of Private Megidish shows the multi-pronged approach Israel must take

Israel trying to minimise the risk to civilians, says IDF spokesperson
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus says Israel is doing what it can to avoid civilian casualties.

"The only casualties will be Hamas combatants those are the ones that we are aiming for, we are not fighting against the Palestine civilians," Lieutenant Colonel Conricus told Sky News Australia.

Lieutenant Colonel Conricus' comments come as Israel confirms the second airstrike in the Falluja neighbourhood of the Jabaliya refugee camp on Wednesday.

"My only wish is to the people ... which are unfortunately paying the price now for Hamas aggression against us, is that they would have heeded our warnings and would have evacuated that area," he said.

"We've been warning and asking them to evacuate for two weeks.

"Our assessment is that most of them have stayed in northern Gaza and they are now fighting against our troops that are there.

"And when you balance between trying to minimise the threat to civilians and perhaps allowing the enemies some wiggle room we prefer to minimise the risk to civilians and were able to deal with the fact that maybe a few of the terrorists are escaping ."




UN have been ‘anti-Israeli’ throughout decades of conflict with Palestine
Former Israel National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata says the civilians in Gaza shouldn’t have been in the warzone after receiving advanced warning.

Mr Hulata told Sky News Australia that he wishes Israel had been given advanced warning before Hamas “massacred” their civilian communities.

“The UN is not playing the role that they should play … they’ve been anti-Israeli throughout the decades of this conflict," he told Sky News Australia.

“Not that Israel is doing everything right, we’re not of course.

“But in a situation like this, not to condemn Hamas.”




Hamas stops Red Cross seeing over 240 hostages, reveals Israeli MP
Israeli MP Sharren Haskel says the Red Cross still haven’t seen more than 240 hostages because of Hamas.

“Hamas haven’t even allowed the Red Cross to visit them to see whether they’re okay, to give them medical treatment,” Ms Haskel told Sky News host Sharri Markson.

Her comments come as the Israeli Prime Minister continues to ignore calls from world leaders for an Israel- Hamas ceasefire.

“When we say we need to pause, what does that pause mean? It means that our troops are being more endangered because they are already in Gaza," the MP said.

“It means that Hamas have time to go and steal petrol from some humanitarian organisation, like they just did yesterday.”




IDF shows Hamas stealing fuel from Gaza hospitals

Caroline Glick: Why are the October 7 atrocities being denied?
On its face, Holocaust denial makes no sense. The physical evidence of the genocide exists. The testimony of survivors and of Nazis and their collaborators exists. And they are all irrefutable.

Beyond that, the Nazis were proud of the fact that they killed 6 million Jews. By denying the Holocaust, contemporary Nazis and Nazi fans seem to be demeaning their heroes. Why would they do that?

The mystery of Holocaust denial is no mere puzzlement from a distant past. Understanding its purpose is essential as we contend with our present predicament. Immediately after word got out about Hamas’s sadistic slaughter of more than 1,400 Israeli men, women and children on Oct. 7, Hamas’s supporters worldwide launched a concerted effort to deny that anything had happened.

Just as neo-Nazis both celebrate the Holocaust and deny it, so do those who rapturously greeted the stories of slaughtered and decapitated Jewish babies and men, and raped and dismembered Jewish women and girls, insist that Hamas didn’t commit any of those crimes.

A notable aspect of the atrocities is that Hamas’s mass murderers didn’t try to hide them. Instead, they broadcast them worldwide as they carried them out. Armed with Go Pro cameras and the cellphones of their victims, the Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel filmed the rape, dismemberment, torture and execution of their victims on their victims’ own phones, posting them in their victims’ family WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages as they carried them out. They did the same with their own social-media platforms. No one needed researchers to comb through Hamas archives. The directions for the slaughter were found in documents that the terrorists carried with them into Israel.

So why are supporters of Hamas tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children, women and men being held hostage in the Gaza Strip? They celebrate the hostage-taking on their social-media postings. Why are they insisting to their fellow students on campuses or subway riders in New York and Johannesburg that there are no hostages in Gaza, and this is all a Zionist conspiracy? A gas-lighting?

To understand what is happening and what it represents, we need to look at the most popular and powerful form of Holocaust denial today. As Izabella Tabarovsky meticulously demonstrated in a Tablet magazine article last January, this form of Holocaust denial was coined by the Soviets. It was popularized by a Palestinian terrorist of some repute: Palestinian Authority chairman and Palestinian Liberation Organization chief Mahmoud Abbas.

In 1982, Abbas wrote a doctoral dissertation at the KGB’s Institute of Oriental Studies, which he later turned into a bestselling book. His thesis, titled “The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945,” is the basis for Holocaust education in Palestinian schools.

Abbas claimed that the Zionists were Nazis. He insisted that just as the Nazis defined themselves as Aryan racial supremacists, the Zionists defined themselves as Jewish racial supremacists. Abbas claimed that the Holocaust was a collaborative effort between the Nazis and the Zionist leadership in the land of Israel. David Ben-Gurion, he wrote, had agents in Europe who collaborated with the Nazis. Their goal, Abbas said, was to support the genocide of European Jewry in order to win international sympathy for the Zionist effort to establish a Jewish supremacist state in the land of Israel, aka “Palestine.”

As Tabarovsky explained, the allure of Abbas’s claims for Palestinian Jew-haters and Soviets alike is clear. First, it enables them to avoid accounting for the role they played in the murder of 6 million Jews. It was the Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini—not Ben-Gurion or any other Jew, Zionist or not—who collaborated with Hitler to annihilate the Jews in Europe and throughout the world. And it was the Soviet Union,—not the Zionist leadership—that signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. By insisting that it was the Jews who collaborated with their own destruction, both the Soviets and the Palestinians were able to project their own culpability onto their enemy: the Jews. They were also able to deny the Jews moral legitimacy as victims.

After all, if the Jews did it to themselves, then no one else had anything to own up to. And more importantly, the Jews’ alleged venality meant that the Nazis were right. The Jews are evil and deserve to be wiped off the map.
Caroline Glick: ‘All the bodies were brutalized’: The truth about the Hamas attacks
Author and Journalist Caroline Glick sits down with Avigail Gimpel - educator, author and burial society member who handled the bodies of the Oct. 7th massacre. With so many claiming that the atrocities are exaggerated or untrue, it is crucial that we hear from someone who witnessed the brutality firsthand.




One of the most extraordinary survival stories of Israel's 9/11: Video shows the moment Hamas gunmen rake Muslim father's car killing his wife - but that was just the beginning of his seven-hour epic to save his baby son

Caroline Glick: ‘Insulting and dangerous’: Israel warns allies sending aid to Gaza will only ‘supply Hamas’
Israel has warned its allies and the rest of the world from sending humanitarian relief directed to Palestinian civilians stuck in Gaza as the aid will only be taken by Hamas.

“All this is, is supply to Hamas,” Netanyahu’s former assistant foreign policy advisor Caroline Glick told Sky News Australia.

“Which is one of the reasons that the people of Israel find it both insulting and dangerous and really shocking that the US and Australia and other allies are advocating so obsessively on behalf of expanding the resupply of Hamas in the middle of this war.

“They control everything, the whole concept of humanitarian aid in an area controlled by a terrorist organisation is absurd.”

Ms Glick’s comments come after more than 400 foreign nationals and injured Palestinians, including over 20 Australians were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip on Thursday.




‘Totally unfair’: Israel fighting war with ‘one hand tied behind their backs’
Former foreign minister Alexander Downer says the Israelis are always put under pressure to fight a war with “one hand tied behind their backs”.

This comes as Foreign Minister Penny Wong flagged the importance for Israel to "observe international law” in their conflict with Hamas.

Mr Downer believes this insistence on Israel to abide by the rules of war is “totally unfair”.

“It’s a bit outrageous really, the Israelis are always put under pressure here to fight a war with one hand tied behind their backs.

“It’s totally unfair.”


‘Dealing with a terrorist organisation’: Israel facing a war on multiple fronts
Together Vouch for Each Other CEO Yoseph Haddad says he hopes people refer to Hamas as a “terrorist organisation” and push back against their media.

Mr Haddad sat down with Sky News host Sharri Markson to discuss how Israel is facing a war on multiple fronts.

“We’ve seen what’s going on in the south of Israel when we’re dealing with the terrorist organisation,” he told Ms Markson.

“I really hope people call Hamas as exactly what they are.”

This comes as the Israel-Hamas war has intensified, as the death toll continues to climb following the IDF’s ground invasion of Gaza.




‘Terrorists don’t work like that': Barnaby Joyce says 'no hope' of pause from Hamas
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce says calls for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire is a “rhetorical flourish”.

“Hamas does not respect human life. It is a terrorist organisation. It doesn’t respect the rights as we see it of women ... it is quite happy to position themselves in such a form as to make hospitals targets, to use as human shields,” he told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“When you start saying well, we want you all to settle down, well Hamas started this, let’s just be unequivocal of that, and they could show goodwill by releasing hostages, but you’ve got no hope of having any sort of rein on Hamas what so ever.

“This is just a rhetorical flourish, we want you all to settle down - they’re a terrorist organisation, terrorist organisations don’t work like that.”

A number of leaders, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan, have called for an Israel–Hamas ceasefire.




Palestinians mustn’t be forced out of Gaza, Biden and King Abdullah warn

Israel asks countries to send hospital ships for wounded Palestinians

Unpacked: Is Israel Committing War Crimes in Gaza?
Israel is often accused of war crimes against Palestinians, and accusations of targeting civilians, using disproportionate force, and blocking civilian access to humanitarian aid have intensified during this latest war in Gaza. But are Israel’s current actions towards Palestinians in Gaza actually war crimes according to the legal definition? And if they’re not war crimes, does that mean they are justified?

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:59 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, Oct 7, 2023
01:56 What is a war crime?
03:17 Does Israel target civilians
05:30 Does Israel use disproportionate force?
09:45 Does Israel prevent Palestinians in Gaza from accessing humanitarian aid?
12:01 Hamas is indifferent to Palestinian suffering
13:12 Why do people accuse Israel of war crimes?
13:39 What does Israel gain from targeting civilians?
13:54 Worldwide increase in antisemitism


The Israel Guys: Yemen Just DECLARED War On Israel | What Does This Mean For The Region?
Yemen just declared war on Israel, yes you heard that right. We’re going to get into what that means for Israel and the region. The IDF made major gains in the northern Gaza stronghold of Jabaliya, killing 50 terrorists, in the process.

And we have a crazy video showing you just how huge the Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza are.


Ben Shapiro: Hamas’ Fifth Column
The media continues to prop up Hamas with blood libels and moral equivalence; as Democrats split over whether to bail out Hamas, the Biden administration tries to hold the line; and the Yemeni Houthis declare war on Israel.




Megyn Kelly: Horrifying: Anti-Israel Harvard Protesters Attack Jewish Student, with Mike Davis and Dave Aronberg
Megyn Kelly is joined by attorneys Mike Davis and Dave Aronberg, to discuss Israel criticized over "war crimes," more footage of Harvard Jewish students being attacked by anti-Israel protesters, the anti-Semitic attacks continuously happening on college campuses, and more.


'Just rubbish': Greens' 'bias' called out following comments on Israel-Gaza
Former Victorian Labor minister Philip Dalidakis has called out the Greens’ “bias” following a Senator’s comments on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge claimed in an interview with Sky News Australia on Thursday that Israel intentionally targeted the Jabalia refugee camp where civilians were killed.

Israel Defense Forces confirmed they were responsible for an airstrike which struck Jabalia refugee camp, killing 50 and wounding 150, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel confirmed the airstrike on Gaza’s largest refugee camp killed a senior Hamas commander.

“It’s just rubbish,” Mr Dalidakis told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

“To make matters worse, Senator Shoebridge and his colleagues have been shown to have a bias when they are only interested in Arab Muslim deaths when there’s a conflict with Israelis and Jews.”


'She’s an idiot': Monique Ryan slammed for social media post on the Israel-Gaza war
Commentator Jason Morrison has slammed Independent MP Monique Ryan for a post she made to her social media amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

This comes after a Jewish college in Melbourne hit back at the Teal MP for Kooyong after she said in a post: “We have no greater responsibility than protecting our children. As a paediatrician, I find the human suffering in Gaza intolerable.”

The Principal of the Jewish Zionist school Bialik College, located within her electorate, hit back at her reference to the suffering only in Gaza, calling it unacceptable and “intolerable”.

“Is it hatred or is it ignorance? I actually think she’s an idiot,” Mr Morrison told Sky News host Sharri Markson.

“This is her moment of moral gesturing to be able to show people that you know she’s a – ‘I’m a doctor, I know, I’m better than you, I have a better insight’.”


Rishi Sunak and US Vice President Kamala Harris meet and agree on Israel's right to defend itself - and vow to get more aid into Gaza

A ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Rally Would Call for Peace and Two States; These Rallies Want Jews Dead

Bondi beachgoers clash over Gaza: Moment Palestine supporters tear down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas terrorists Two men attempted to destroy Jewish kidnap posters at hostage memorial in Bondi
Sky News Senior Reporter Caroline Marcus provides an update after two men tried to destroy posters at the Israel hostage memorial at Bondi Beach.

Ms Marcus said the Israeli hostage installation in Bondi was an authorised event to bring awareness to the more than 200 hostages still kidnapped by the Hamas militant group.

“An installation to bring awareness to the fact that there are still more than 200 hostages that Hamas kidnapped from Israel during the October 7th massacre that have not come home yet,” Ms Marcus told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

“They had more than 200 towels, pairs of thongs and posters of these hostages put up at Bondi Beach throughout the day but this afternoon two men who attended this installation were seen ripping down these posters.

“When they’re confronted by the organisers and some witnesses and they said that they didn’t want to see the violence brought here; of course they were challenged on that.”




TikTok influencer wanted by police over sickening pro-Palestine mice attacks at McDonald's restaurants in Birmingham is arrested after handing himself in after officers stormed his parents' house: Second supect still hunted by detectives

'Blood on your hands': Pro-Palestinian protesters scream at Kamala Harris in London
Pro-Palestine protesters have rallied outside the gates of Downing Street in London, as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with US Vice President Kamala Harris.

The protesters used the backdrop of the meeting to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

Protesters are filmed chanting “ceasefire now” and “blood in your hands” as the US Vice President arrived.

Kamala Harris thanked Rishi Sunak for the “position that you and the United Kingdom have taken in terms of what is happening in Israel with Hamas”.

After the meeting, a Downing Street spokesperson said; “The Prime Minister reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself against terror as well as the need to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza and to free hostages taken by Hamas.”




Here's what protesters had to say at London's Pro-Hamas rally
On this free episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra was in London, England for a giant pro-Hamas protest. A Muslim British protester shared his thoughts with Ezra and, while condemning violence, hesitated to label Hamas as a terrorist group.
0:00 Intro.
4:10 Conversation with protesters.
8:40 Worried about anti-Semitism in the UK?
17:40 Is Hamas a terrorist group?
23:50 What is the hope for resolution?
30:30 Summarizing interviews from pro-Hamas protest.
39:58 End.


'Turn if off now!': Protester interrupts coverage of pro-Hamas rally in London
Ezra Levant was in London, England, covering a massive rally in support of Palestine, when one of the pro-Hamas protesters stormed into the shot before demanding Rebel News videographer Lincoln Jay not film her.


Is the pro-Palestine 'from the river to the sea' chant a call for genocide?
Before Israel even had a chance to retaliate against the Gaza Strip's terrorist government, Hamas, protesters could often be heard shouting anti-Israel chants, including one that at first listen may come across to many as being harmless.








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-haters/antisemites often use an exceptionally effective method to win in the court of public opinion, known a "framing." When one sets the ground rules of what is and is not up for debate, they can create a playing field where the Zionist or Jewish side cannot win. Forcing Jews to argue within those parameters gives them a huge handicap.

One classic example is to pretend that the history of Israel starts with modern Zionism. If you exclude any talk about the history of the Jews in the Land of Israel before the 19th century, they look just like the foreign colonialists that the haters claim we are. 

With Operation Iron Swords, the framing has been elaborate and very effective.

The false framework goes like this:

* Telling civilians to move, whether within or without their territory,  is a war crime.
* Neighboring countries have no obligation to accept refugees.
* Killing lots of civilians is a war crime by definition. 
* Limiting humanitarian aid to a war zone is a war crime.

All discussions of the war on TV is bound by this framework. These four "rules" are not always explicit, which makes it harder to go against them. Who wants to see dead civilians? 

The framing statements are incorrect.  But the framework is carefully created to ensure that Israel cannot achieve its military objective of destroying Hamas.

* In fact, in a war zone, the attacker is obligated to tell civilians to move out of the war zone - which Israel has done and Hamas has tried to stop. 

* While I don't think that Egypt is legally obligated to open its border, it never had a problem with taking in hundreds of thousands of other refugees from elsewhere. It certainly has a moral obligation to do so.

* Targeting civilians is a war crime. Knowing that civilians will die during an attack on a legitimate military target is acceptable as long as the casualties are not excessive, and international law has a much more liberal view of what is excessive than what Israel does.

* Israel has every right to inspect and limit aid to ensure that Hamas does not get it. 

But the first four rules are accepted as the framework on CNN and Al Jazeera. Most news shows don't bother explaining the truth about international law because nuance is not TV-friendly. 

Spokespeople on TV must break the framework by saying that they do not accept these parameters and creating their own, accurate framework:

* Hamas started this war with an unprecedented, horrific attack on Israel.
* Hamss has made it clear that they will never change or reform. This is who they are.
* The only moral choice is to utterly destroy them.
* Hamas has turned the entire Gaza Strip into a huge human shield for its army and vast subterranean military complex.  
* Israel scrupulously follows international law even under these difficult constraints.
* Therefore, while Israel tries to minimize casualties, every civilian death is purely Hamas' fault.

How many TV shows or newspaper articles have you read that accepts these accurate statements as their framework? 

It's going to be a long war, and Israel needs to reframe the discussion. 



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's COGAT published a humanitarian status report on Monday where it describes the real situation in Gaza. (It is unfortunately not online.) 

Excerpts:

Hamas possesses fuel reserves, and it is continuing to take control of private fuel reserves as well. The Hamas fuel reserves are variously located around the Gaza Strip, and Hamas is controlling the supply of fuel to hospitals and other vital facilities according to its own interests in a way that creates pressure on the international discourse and leads the public to believe that the Gaza Strip has insufficient fuel. 
With Hamas in control of fuel, the water, sewage, and hospital systems are all directly affected.

Energy

The vital facilities of the Gaza Strip depend on the fuel depots controlled by Hamas, which supplies a limited quantity every few days.

There is local energy production based on solar farms and on generators powered by private fuel reserves. 
All the vital facilities — hospitals, desalination plants, wells, and the like — have alternative energy sources.  

Operations are adjusting their activities in order to preserve energy.

Food

Food reserves are sufficient for the near term. There is no food shortage. 

International organizations are permitted to bring food aid into the Gaza Strip. 

There is hoarding of food — purchasing at the groceries and hoarding by private parties. 

Eight major bakeries operate in the southern Gaza Strip. During the past 24 hours, hundreds of tons of flour have been brought to the Gaza Strip's bakeries.

Health

A number of options are being weighed, in coordination with representatives of the international community, for the establishment of field hospitals. 

Hamas has resumed supplying diesel fuel once in 48 hours to the hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip. Not even the hospital directors know when they will receive fuel, or how much. The matter is kept secret among the inner circle of Hamas.

All the hospitals have alternative energy sources. 

At the hospitals, work is affected by the high occupancy and by the weariness of medical staff. Uncertainty regarding fuel for operating the hospitals is also a factor. 

The hospitals are very full but are functioning.

There are people sheltering at the hospitals and they add to the burdens of functioning. 

The Gaza Strip has a stock of medical supplies available. Hamas manages the stock and decides how to allocate the medical supplies to the hospitals. It even keeps a some of the supplies for itself, while trying to give the false impression of a shortage. The international organizations are preparing a shipment of medicines, and we will give its entry priority.

Water

There is no water shortage in the Gaza Strip as of this writing. 

 Most of the drinking water in Gaza was provided from within the Gaza Strip. Only about 10% of the water came from Israel. Over the past two weeks, we have opened two water lines from Israel — Birkat Sa'id and Bani Suheila — and they provide water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the central and southern Gaza Strip.

One of the water lines was damaged by a mortar shell from Hamas. The damage was repaired and the supply of water has been renewed.
How do we know that this is not propaganda? Because the information out of Gaza has consistently been shown to be lies. The health ministry has announced that hospitals are hours away from running out of fuel for weeks, and yet they still function. 

Also, COGAT's information  is consistent with what observers of Gaza have known for years. We know solar power generators that have been built in Gaza for years because of the inconsistent fuel supply. we know that huge water treatment plants have been built, that also rely on solar energy, tha have turned around the major water problems Gaza had years ago. We know that no one has ever starved in Gaza even after years of such warnings.

Israel has consistently provided accurate information. Hamas consistently lies. And news media consistently treats Israel's statements as suspect and Hamas' statements as gospel.




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!

 

 

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

When Hamas lies, the West assumes they are telling the truth.

When Hamas tells the truth, the West assumes they are lying.


MEMRI summarizes:
Ghazi Hamad of the Hamas political bureau said in an October 24, 2023 show on LBC TV (Lebanon) that Hamas is prepared to repeat the October 7 "Al-Aqsa Flood" Operation time and again until Israel is annihilated. He added that Palestinians are willing to pay the price and that they are "proud to sacrifice martyrs." Hamad said that Palestinians are the victims of the occupation, therefore no one should blame them for the events of October 7 or anything else, adding: "Everything we do is justified."



This has been Hamas' consistent message since its founding. They've never deviated from it. And yet, for decades, "experts" and "analysts" have dismissed Hamas threats as mere rhetoric, Westsplaining that Hamas is really pragmatic and not genocidal. 

October 7 proved that nothing has changed. This interview shows, more than anything, that Israel has the moral obligation to destroy Hamas no matter what. 

And because Hamas has spent a decade and a half turning Gaza itself into a huge fort to protect itself, Hamas is responsible for every civilian that dies. 




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!

 

 




Here's how the New York Times reported on the attack on Jabalya yesterday:

The two sides gave conflicting accounts of a deadly Israeli airstrike in the Jabaliya community north of Gaza City, site of a long-established and densely populated refugee camp, where photographs taken on Tuesday showed at least one large blast crater that was not present in earlier satellite images, and significant damage to buildings.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry said that the strike had killed and wounded hundreds of people. Dr. Marwan Sultan, medical director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital, said there were dozens dead and his facility had received hundreds of injured patients. The figures could not be verified.

The Israeli military said the strike had killed a Hamas commander who was a key plotter of the Oct. 7 assault on Israel that the Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people and captured more than 200 hostages.

The commander, Ibrahim Biari, was actively directing attacks against Israeli targets from a “vast underground tunnel complex,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a late-night briefing. He said that in Israel’s estimation, “dozens” of Hamas combatants were killed along with him when the underground complex imploded.

Hamas denied that any of its commanders were in the area of the strike.
So even-handed!

According to Israel, a major military target was attacked. In the photo you can see the airstrikes appear to be along a path that follows the "alleged" tunnels underneath the camp - which is known as a Hamas stronghold. They identified a specific person and verified his death. They are confident enough that he was killed that they are saying it definitively and publicly. If he pops up in a video, Israel's entire credibility is lost.

According to Hamas, Israel just decided to murder hundreds of civilians for no reason and there were no Hamas members there. 

The photo above shows that the craters are all in the street, which is where tunnels would generally be. If Israel wanted to murder civilians in Jabaliya, why aim at the street?  And I'm no military forensics expert, but the craters indicate that there was an empty space fairly deep underneath the ground which collapsed. 

Only one narrative makes sense. The other is obvious propaganda, although it is likely that dozens of civilians did die. 

Like any country at war, Israel is not going to reveal its intelligence. It is not going to give details of its strategy, tactics or methods. But only one story makes any sense, and the track record of Israeli statements like this is far better than that of Hamas. 

Beyond that, Israel has made its military goals clear: it intends to destroy Hamas. Hamas' cynical use of human shields to protect its tunnels is the only war crime here, and Israel has given redicents weeks to evacuate. It has done everything properly under international law, and it is not obligated to wait indefinitely to target Hamas military targets. This is the most salient fact that the media consistently ignores. 

Giving equal weight to both sides, and ignoring the international law of one side, isn't journalism - it is a betrayal of informing the readers of the truth. 




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!

 

 



MEMRI has videos of a number of prominent Palestinians and Muslims denying that Hamas attacked civilians on October 7.

"On October 7, Hamas targeted military personnel only. All the [Israeli] civilians who were captured or harmed – it was not done by the Hamas fighters, but rather by the civilian masses who dashed when the border wall collapsed, and were utterly ecstatic about returning to the land of their forefathers. Hamas did not target a single [Israeli] civilian."

And media darling Hanan Ashrawi:

"Even the Europeans swallowed all those lies at the beginning of the incursion, in which they accused the Palestinians of horrible things, without evidence, without substantiation, without any kind of proof, and then it became actual fact. We have to walk back the women being raped, or children being beheaded, or all that nonsense, doctored pictures, and so on. What about the Anglican hospital? Immediately the Israelis said, 'We [Palestinians] bombed ourselves' …[with] the Palestinian rocket. Biden just blindly parrots of the things he hears from the Israelis. And I said this the Israelis have a spin machine. And they are good at it, I must say, because they spend billions on it."

This is the 21st century's Holocaust denial.




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!

 

 

EoZTV Podcast

Powered by Blogger.

follow me

search eoz

Recent posts from other blogs

subscribe via email

comments

Contact

translate

E-Book

source materials

reference sites

multimedia

source materials for Jewish learning

great places to give money

media watch

humor

.

Source materials

Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts Ever

follow me

Followers


pages

Random Posts

Pages - Menu

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون

Donate!

Tweets

Compliments

Monthly subscription:
Subscription options

One time donation:

Interesting Blogs

Categories

Best posts of 2016

Blog Archive

compliments

Algemeiner: "Fiercely intelligent and erudite"

Omri: "Elder is one of the best established and most respected members of the jblogosphere..."
Atheist Jew:"Elder of Ziyon probably had the greatest impression on me..."
Soccer Dad: "He undertakes the important task of making sure that his readers learn from history."
AbbaGav: "A truly exceptional blog..."
Judeopundit: "[A] venerable blog-pioneer and beloved patriarchal figure...his blog is indispensable."
Oleh Musings: "The most comprehensive Zionist blog I have seen."
Carl in Jerusalem: "...probably the most under-recognized blog in the JBlogsphere as far as I am concerned."
Aussie Dave: "King of the auto-translation."
The Israel Situation:The Elder manages to write so many great, investigative posts that I am often looking to him for important news on the PalArab (his term for Palestinian Arab) side of things."
Tikun Olam: "Either you are carelessly ignorant or a willful liar and distorter of the truth. Either way, it makes you one mean SOB."
Mondoweiss commenter: "For virulent pro-Zionism (and plain straightforward lies of course) there is nothing much to beat it."
Didi Remez: "Leading wingnut"