Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States in July 2024 to thank the United States for its support in fighting five Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza who carried out the October 7 massacre. As part of the visit, he spent time with President Joe Biden, Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris, and former president and Republican nominee President Donald Trump.
While all three senior American politicians defended Israel’s right to defend itself from the terrorist groups, Harris went in a different direction and condemned “extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.”
Remarks by VP Harris about her meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, July 2024
Some education for Harris, and others who might miss some important facts:
This is not a war solely against Hamas but all Palestinian terrorist groups who kill Israelis and continue to threaten Israelis
West Bank Palestinians are more pro-Hamas and desirous of repeating the October 7 massacre than Gazans
Palestinian Terrorist Groups
As it relates to the brutal October 7 massacre, Human Rights Watch found “strong evidence of the participation of at least five Palestinian armed groups from Gaza in the attacks: Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the National Resistance Brigades or Omar al-Qasim Forces; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, formerly linked to the Fatah political faction.”
The United States State Department has labeled several Palestinian groups as foreign terrorist organizations including: HAMAS, Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC), Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB), and Army of Islam (AOI). Backgrounds on each can be found here.
There are many other Palestinian terrorist groups not yet designated by the United States, including three new ones operating in the West Bank: Lion’s Den, Jenin Brigades, and Tulkarm Brigades, each of which has conducted murderous attacks against Israelis.
All of these groups – as well as individuals associated with them – should be condemned unambiguously. The US should provide full support in rooting out these groups and its supporters, and America should arrest and / or expel such individuals found in the US.
The West Bank Is Rife With Terrorist Supporters
Harris seems to think that Palestinian terrorism is confined to Hamas in Gaza, as that is where the October 7 emanated from and where hostages are supposedly being held. In fact, West Bank Arabs are more supportive of Hamas, its leadership and the October 7 massacre than Gazans.
According to a June poll conducted by the PCPSR, West Bank Arabs immediate reaction to the butchering of Israelis was overwhelming glee. In a December 2023 poll, 82% of West Bank Arabs supported the heinous attack, far more than the 57% of Gazans. Support continued to remain high in June 2024, with 73% of West Bank Palestinians supporting October 7.
West Bank Palestinians also support Hamas.
Asked in a variety of formats, West Bank Arabs support Hamas (82%) and the architect of the October 7 atrocities, Yahya Sinwar (76%) significantly more than Gazans (64% and 50%, respectively). A majority of 71% of West Bank Arabs want Hamas to rule Gaza compared to 45% of Gazans. West Bank Arabs prefer Hamas over the less genocidal Fatah (41% to 17%), higher than the margin among Gazans (38% to 24%).
Consistent with West Bank Palestinians support for Hamas and the October 7 massacre is the preference for violence, with 62% expressing support for an “armed intifada.”
Harris’s concern for West Bank Palestinians is not reciprocated. Only 1% have a positive view of the US, less than the 6% of Gazans who are happy with the US.
The “extremist settlers” highlighted by Harris are resisting genocidal maniacs who want to repeat the October 7 massacre on Jews throughout the West Bank and Israel.
It is time to lay bare plain facts: the supporters of Palestinian murderers are found throughout the West Bank and their enablers are increasingly found in western countries.
I have been fortunate to visit Israel dozens of times. I have come for work and to vacation. To celebrate Jewish holidays and family and friends’ celebrations. During wars and “intifadas” as well as times of peace.
July 2024 was different. I came to a country held hostage.
The Individual Hostages In Gaza
The first thing one sees upon arrival at the airport is a large sign “Bring them home now!” with sample dog tags showing the date October 7 when over 250 people from Israel – living and dead – were seized by Palestinian Arabs and hauled into Gaza.
The faces of the hostages were found everywhere: in the airport, on the streets and in office lobbies. On stickers, banners and shirts. Israel is consumed with the people abducted by terrorists. Their faces, names and stories refuse to be forgotten.
Hostage To Memories And Emotions
Outside the Tel Aviv Museum is Hostage Square, an encampment of families and friends who sit in shelters to talk to people about the abducted amidst a range of emotional tributes and installations. Most of the people try to avoid talking about politics or the war, and are solely focused on the innocent people ripped from their homes and regular lives.
One of people I met in a tent for one of the kibbutz communities attacked was a Ukrainian-Israeli who confided that she liked to talk to tourists. She felt it difficult to talk to fellow Israelis who were enmeshed in the ongoing tragedy but could “unload” to strangers and not be alone.
She pointed to a picture over the door and said that the bearded man was her old boyfriend who was killed on October 7 and his body was hauled into Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces retrieved his body just a few weeks earlier.
While this woman talked to me, another women from the kibbutz had been talking to another female visitor. That kibbutz woman introduced a middle aged lady who shared that she was a neighbor of the Ukrainian’s old boyfriend. The Ukrainian covered her mouth and began to bawl. She attempted to speak and then fled the tent.
Hostages To War
I have visited the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem many times. In 2003, during the Second ‘Intifada’, I had the opportunity to get a tour of the new emergency room by Dr. David Applebaum two weeks before he and his daughter were killed in a Palestinian terrorist bombing on the eve of her wedding. I came to visit now to see how the hospital was functioning during a war.
The hospital lobby has a long table filled with pictures of family members of hospital workers who were killed over the nine months of war. Some were killed during the October 7 massacre while others died in the fighting to free the hostages and to bring the terrorists to justice.
Lobby of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, July 2024
The guide shared that this war had an enormous casualty-to-death ratio relative to past wars. The reason is that many soldiers who would have been killed in the past were saved due to some tactical measures.
Firstly, Israeli soldiers entered the hornet’s nest of Gaza wearing tourniquets. With a battlefield loaded with booby traps, many people were losing limbs as bombs exploded. In the past, those soldiers would have bled to death but now, tourniquets provided precious time for them to be rescued.
Behind the wave of infantry were medics equipped with various equipment to stabilize the injured quickly for immediate transfer out of Gaza into Israel a short distance away. As soon as the injured entered Israel, well-equipped medical helicopters flew the seriously injured to hospitals like Shaare Zedek, a short 15 minute flight, while those in non-life threatening situations were transferred via ambulance. The sophisticated medical helicopters had advanced equipment like sonars which evaluate the soldier’s condition to prepare the emergency room at the hospital to receive the injured and operate quickly. There were cases that a person was on an operating table less than 45 minutes from the moment of attack.
The tour of the hospital also featured a large empty underground intensive care unit, should air sirens be blasted in Jerusalem and very sick patients need to be moved into a shelter.
Underground ICU in case of bombing
Hostages To The Government
Many Israelis are deeply upset with their leadership and Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. They are angry at the failure to protect the border, allowing the October 7th massacre to occur. They are furious at the inability to finish off Hamas and release the hostages.
Graffiti around Jerusalem angry at Netanyahu
They are angry at Bibi’s failure to conclude a hostage deal and his refusal to step down and hold elections. They feel trapped by his incompetence and ego but have few tools to call for an early election.
The Saturday night protest near the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem was not shrill and it seemed like the the crowd was worn out from many months of little progress.
But they keep turning out.
Hostages To Family Fighting
Many Israelis are exhausted in every manner of the word. They have family members who have been fighting in Gaza or up north on-and-off for nine months. They all have or know of families who have lost loved ones. They are desperate to leave the country for a much needed respite but feel unable to do so while family is on the front lines.
Those who remain in the country ask each other difficult questions: do you postpone a wedding until after the war? Do you start dating someone who is on the front lines, who might suffer a terrible injury or death?
The soldiers occupy their every action and prayers. They have also been captured into a war zone since October 7, a war which no one wanted.
Hostages To Tradition
In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Romema, many new buildings are going up to accommodate the rapidly growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews who want to live in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest city. While the vast majority of that community do not serve in the army, many are trying to contribute to the war effort in their own way.
On the first floor of a small building, a cramped kitchen has been set up by volunteers who cook and pack meals for families who have people fighting in Gaza or the Lebanese border. They pack hundreds of meals including soup, meatballs, spaghetti and dessert. Each package is customized according to the size of the family who has asked to receive the meals. The day I came to help pack, the meals were going to the community in Beit El.
Car packed with meals for families with people serving in the army, cooked and prepared by Haredi Jews in Jerusalem, July 2024
Economy Held Hostage
Israel has a citizen army in which everyone serves. While 18 to 21 year olds serve before they attend college, people also continue to get called up for milu’im, occasional service as the army needs people. In the course of this war, thousands of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s have left their jobs to fight the Palestinian Arab terrorists. Beyond the direct financial cost of the war, the impact on the country’s economy has been dramatic as millions of work-hours have vanished to defend the country.
There is still no end in sight all these months later, as fronts with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houtis in Yemen open up further.
Homes Held Hostage
Many hotels and apartments in Jerusalem have unusual activity. Whole families from the country’s north near Lebanon, as well as from near the Gaza Strip have relocated to the middle of the country. For nine months, they have been living as internally-displaced people. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the numbers surpassed 200,000 but is now closer to 90,000.
According to UN Watch, “Despite the unprecedented massive displacement within Israel, both the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the UN Special Rapporteur on Internally displaced people (IDPs), Paula Gaviria Betancur—the two UN representatives one would expect to champion the rights of the displaced Israelis—have been largely silent on the issue.”
Israelis – roughly the population of Duluth, MN – have lost access to their homes, and the world has remained silent.
Hostages To Creeping Ambivalence
So many Israelis share the refrain that they “do not want the situation of hostages to become normalized.” They refuse to live in a country in which it is accepted that more than one hundred people are trapped in Gaza. They rail against a world which cannot fathom the deep trauma of the country that innocent civilians were kidnapped from their homes by thousands of terrorists.
As each day morphs to another, people afix new numbers to tape on their chests: 278, 279, 280, 281… People are not only more fearful about the fate of the hostages as time goes by but that their lives and stories grow more distant to the world.
Resistance
While many feel trapped by the current war, Israelis are taking action incorporating the new reality. They try to transform points of pain to rays of light.
Shuva Junction, about 5km from Gaza, was originally the location where people brought dead and wounded people from the October 7 massacre. Since that time, it has become a makeshift hub where Israeli soldiers come to rest and get food. Roughly 1,500 people are fed every day at a cost of roughly $5,000, all done by volunteers.
Already an outlier among countries allowing sperm extraction from a dead man by a spouse, Israel is debating allowing parents to do posthumous sperm retrieval for their fallen sons post-October 7. The bereaved parents want their sons to live on somehow, after sacrificing everything for the nation.
Beyond the war is living life. While it felt strange to go out for dinner or shop while a war was raging and over a hundred people were still being held hostage, the overall environment always felt like it included both fighters and hostages.
I was fortunate to attend a Hanan Ben Ari concert in the Sultan’s Pool right outside the Old City of Jerusalem. The stage was illuminated by the number of days that hostages were captive along with a yellow ribbon.
Stage for Hanan Ben Ari concert at Sultan’s Pool, Jerusalem in July 2024
I was unfamiliar with the singer and my Hebrew is not great, so I needed to listen particularly closely to the words. I heard a man praying for his children. I listened to a singer honoring his grandfather who was buried on Har Meuchut, on the other side of the Old City walls.
Hanan Ben Ari at Sultan’s Pool
And I watched the crowd of secular, modern and ultra-Orthodox Jews sing along. I saw young and old, men and women dance and sway to the music.
And cry.
Hanan Ben Ari put up a picture of one of his road managers, along with one of him with his family. Hanan spoke of him and how he was working the Nova music festival and slaughtered on October 7. Ben Ari then showed two people in his crew who were still held captive in Gaza.
He then asked people to hold the flashlights on their phones if they know of someone killed in the war. All 6,000 people in the audience raised their arms and began crying to a mournful song, Shvurei lev, a song of a broken heart.
I have been to Israel durings wars and sensed a people who had long ago accepted that they lived in a region amongst people who did not accept their basic presence or humanity. Still, they believed the episode would pass; the country will prevail in the near-term battles and in the longer-term, peace will prevail when the Jewish State’s enemies internalize that they are never leaving.
But that was not the nation I visited in July 2024.
Woman crying over fate of the murdered, the fallen and the hostages while she surveyed her fellow countrymen raising their arms at a Hanan Ben Ari concert, that they have suffered deeply in the 2023-4 Hamas war.
Israelis are deeply scarred by those killed and the manner in which they were butchered on October 7. They were rocked by the government and army’s failure to protect them. They are tortured by the ongoing hostage situation. They are deeply troubled by their strongest ally of the United States being rocked with rabid antisemitism which had previously only been displayed in Europe. They are livid at being blamed for a war they never wanted and want to end as quickly as possible.
The Jewish State is being held hostage in Gaza because Judaism believes that every life is a world. It is being held hostage by the scars of the barbarity of October 7 massacre. It is being held hostage by the fear of living next door to people who support such crimes against humanity. It is being held hostage by its own government that won’t step down and hold new elections. It is being held hostage by a false narrative at the United Nations and the ICC. It is being held hostage by a single powerful ally fading in its support.
There are more than 100 hostages. There are millions.
Israel has long known war and is confident that it can defeat Palestinian terrorists.
This is more than a war against a weak genocidal foe. This is a battle in the cramped crevices of hearts and minds to salvage humanity. Alone.
Air traffic control of Tel Aviv airport – the main international airport for the entire country – lit up with yellow ribbon for hostages held in Gaza, July 2024. Over the first nine months of the year, before the October 7 attacks by Hamas, passenger traffic surged by an annual 38.5 percent, to 19.1 million. But since then, traffic has plunged, culminating in a 78 percent drop in November and 71 percent dive in December, according to the Israel Airports Authority.
The top court of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s presence in territories it captured in the June 1967 Six Day War is illegal. Specifically, it decided that “Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.” ICJ’s President Nawaf Salam said that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”
To arrive at such conclusion, the ICJ must believe that Jordan is Palestine.
The “West Bank and East Jerusalem” were captured in a defensive war that Israel fought after Jordan (Transjordan at the time) attacked it from those lands in 1967. TransJordan had annexed those lands in April 1950 after it fought a war to destroy the nascent Jewish State. Only Britain, Pakistan and Iraq recognized that annexation.
It would appear that the ICJ has now recognized that annexation as well.
The San Remo Conference of April 1920 set the outline for carving up the defeated Ottoman Empire into a number of mandates, including the Mandate of Palestine which covered today’s Israel, Gaza, West Bank and Jordan. According to the British Mandate which took effect in July 1922, Britain had the right to separate Mandate Palestine into two areas: one for the Jews west of the Jordan River and one area east of the river, according to Article 25. It did so on May 23, 1925 in the area that became Trans-Jordan. Trans-jordan declared its independence on May 25, 1946.
Britain was having difficulty dealing with the eastern Palestinian Mandate and turned to the United Nations for assistance. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition the remaining eastern Palestine into a Jewish State and and Arab State, with the area of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem to be held by the United Nations in a Corpus Separatum, an international zone.
UN’s plan for an internationally-controlled “Corpus Separatum” including Greater Bethlehem and Jerusalem
The UNGA and the Jews accepted the planned division but the Arabs rejected it. When Britain left the region in May 1948 and the Jews declared a new State of Israel, the Arab world attacked. At the end of the war, Transjordan seized the area that became known as the “West Bank”, the eastern part of Jerusalem and all of greater Bethlehem. Israel took the western part of Jerusalem. Transjordan ethnically cleansed its annexed lands of all Jews and gave citizenship to everyone who lived in those lands in 1954, except if they were Jews (Article 3).
“Corpus Separatum” in purple as divided between Israel (shaded grey) and Trans-Jordan (in white)
Palestine did not exist as a distinct country pre-1948, but was a subset of Greater Syria as part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917, and then under British rule. Under the British, the land was separated into a portion west of the Jordan River set up to be a reestablished Jewish homeland, and east of Jordan River to be Transjordan. After the Israeli war of independence, there was still no “Palestine” but an expanded Jordan which seized the western shores of the Jordan River which were to be part of the Jewish homeland, and eastern Jerusalem which was designated to be an international city.
Whether during the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, or during Israeli and Jordanian rule, there was never a country called Palestine. Further, “East Jerusalem” a fragment of the city which existed only during 18 years from 1949-1967 under Jordanian rule, was never contemplated to be part of Palestine in any formulation.
Israel fought a defensive war with Transjordan in 1948-9 and then again in 1967 in land that was specifically designated in the San Remo Conference and the British Mandate to be an integral part of the Jewish homeland. In order to consider the “West Bank and East Jerusalem” to be “occupied” and “illegal”, one would have to declare that:
the British mandate to have been illegal
the annexation of the seized land west of the Jordan River by Transjordan in 1949 to be legal
Jordan’s ethnic cleansing of Jews from those lands and barring them from citizenship to be legal
Jordan to be Palestine
In no other configuration could the ICJ conclude that Israeli Jews living in eastern Jerusalem is illegal and should be expelled.
The ICJ ruling is revisionist history and deeply antisemitic. It shows the moral rot of the United Nations which still has “Zionism is racism” in its lifeblood.
The single largest issue in the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict is the belief among those Arabs that they have a right to move into towns and houses where grandparents lived many decades ago. They call it a “right of return” and state that it is an individual right laid out in international law.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
As it relates to the first point, Palestine either was or was not a country before Israel declared itself a state in May 1948. If it was not a country, the UDHR right is irrelevant as it specifically relates only to countries. If it was a state, than the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank are already part of such state and have no right to move based on the first clause. Their right to move to Israel under the second clause of moving “within the borders of each state” would mean negating the very existence of Israel, a member state of the United Nations, which would undermine the institution upon which the clause exists (rendering such notion impossible).
If Palestine were considered a state pre-Israel, then the descendants of refugees (DORs) in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan could relocate to Gaza or the West Bank (Palestine), but not to Israel.
So under broad international law, there is no right of return for Palestinian Arabs to Israel regardless of whether one thinks Palestine was a country in 1947.
Palestinian Arabs and their supporters therefore try to use a specific clause within a particular UN General Assembly resolution. UNGA Resolution 194, Article 11 states “Resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”
This resolution has multiple legal issues regarding applicability.
UN General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but advisory at the most fundamental. Second, Resolution 194 includes many items including Articles 7 and 8 which places holy places – including those in Nazareth and Jerusalem – under UN control, which neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority desire. One cannot cherry-pick specific items which one side prefers to make a case; the entirety of that resolution is passed its expiration date.
Significantly, the clause itself demands that those refugees desiring to return to “homes” – which may or may not exist anymore – must live in peace with their neighbors. The many wars and pogroms by Palestinian Arabs, including their overwhelming support for Hamas and the October 7 massacre, show them to reject basic coexistence with Jewish neighbors.
Yet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres makes a mockery of reality and destroys a pathway to peace when he says the opposite. He often states “the need for tangible progress towards a two-State solution based on 1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both States, in line with UN resolutions and international law.” That clause makes Palestinian Arabs think that millions of Arabs will get to move to Tel Aviv and Haifa. Their frustration of not moving there leads to frustration and causes massacres as seen on October 7.
The United Nations must make clear that there is no “right of return” for any Palestinian Arab to Israel, full stop. The failure to do so causes bloodshed and suffering.
Roughly 3,500 Palestinians Arabs from Gaza stormed into Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023. They went into civilian homes and killed children in front of their parents as well as parents before their children. They burned families alive. Roughly 1,200 Israeli civilians and hundred of security personnel were murdered.
Imagine that the Israeli army acted quickly.
Imagine that Israeli soldiers and drones quickly encircled the Palestinian terrorists and wiped all of them out. Imagine that the Israelis killed 3,500 Palestinians after the terrorists killed only 100 people in Israel, a 35-to-1 ratio.
Would the world have condemned Israel for the “disproportionate” slaughter of Palestinians? Would extremist American politicians like Jamaal Bowman have gone onto the streets of his district to rile up a crowd that Israelis have been brutalizing Palestinians “for 75 years [since the founding of Israel]” and that Israel “values certain lives over others“? Would protests on college campuses have become hotbeds of antisemitism calling to “Globalize the intifada [to kill Zionists everywhere]?”
Gazans started and are still engaged in a war intended to destroy the Jewish State and annihilate Jews. The fact that Palestinians are dying in much greater numbers than Israelis does not change the basic facts that Gazans are engaged in a genocidal war while Israel is fighting a defensive war.
On Saturday June 8, 2024, Israeli security forces rescued four of the Israeli hostages who were kidnapped to Gaza from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. In the action to bring everyone back to Israel, one of the Israeli vehicles got stuck and was surrounded by Palestinian terrorists. Israel called in the Air Force to provide protection and scores of Palestinians were reportedly killed.
Pro-Israel media portrayed the rescue operation as an enormous success. Israelis celebrated on the streets at the return of the seized peaceful party-goers who were held illegally in captivity for eight months by Gazans.
NY Post cover pageWall Street Journal cover page
The anti-Israel media lambasted the operation as it killed many Palestinians. It mocked the rescue as being inhumane because of the toll on Palestinians who were part of the Hamas infrastructure imprisoning the Israelis.
Pundits went on to speculate that Hamas would now likely move hostages from apartments to the underground tunnel network and embed them with Palestinian soldiers.
That is inverted logic.
Hamas has no possibility of militarily defeating Israel, a fact made abundantly clear over the past eight months. The only war Hamas is attempting to win is one of public opinion, which it tries to do by getting the woke anti-Israel media to see Israel as mercilessly killing civilians – ideally as many women and children as possible. Hamas watches the news, and celebrates the latest victory that so much of the media has not condemned it for keeping hostages in the heart of a residential neighborhood.
It will make the next attempt even more heinous.
After the daring rescue operation, Hamas is likely to move remaining hostages into nurseries, to force Israel to kill as many Arab infants as possible, should the Jewish State attempt another rescue. It would be a huge victory for Hamas, as it offers infant martyrs for the cameras.
The Israeli government and army were shocked as over 1,000 members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad invaded Israel and butchered babies, women, men and the elderly. They were totally unprepared for the abduction of 250 people to Gaza.
But the world didn’t voice shock that thousands of Palestinian Arab civilians from Gaza participated in the atrocities. The world remained silent.
The Israeli army has killed and captured thousands of Palestinian terrorists since October 7. The intelligence gathered from the Gazan soldiers provided information to launch rescue operations to free Israeli hostages.
On June 8, four Israelis were rescued from an apartment complex in the United Nations run-Nuseirat “refugee” camp in central Gaza. The camp is right next to the Izz ad Deen al-Qassam Mosque, named for a Syrian terrorist who hunted the British and Jews in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s.
The four Israelis included a 26-year old woman, held hostage in an apartment for eight months. The local Gazans said and did nothing the entire time but is not flagged in the media.
Freed Israeli hostage Noa Argamani reunited with her father
It is being reported that the hostages were forced to read the Quran and learn Islamic teachings. Such activity evidences the religious nature of the war from Gaza is not a battle over land.
The Islamist war is not being discussed in the mainstream media.
It is also being reported that one of the people who kept the hostages, or lived next door, was Abdallah Aljamal, an employee of Al Jazeera, the Qatari-based media company aligned with Hamas, or more likely, Palestine Chronicle, another media outfit. Whether Aljamal was the guard overseeing the hostages or not, a journalist would certainly have known about hostages next door. And he said nothing, showcasing his allegiance to the terrorists over journalism.
The Gaza journalists complicit with terrorism is not being discussed in the mainstream media.
Polls of Gazans have long shown that they support Hamas and the goal of killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel. Recent polls show a majority of Gazans support the October 7 attack. They view the abduction of civilians as part of a war effort which they support and from which they will benefit.
And the world continues to say nothing about the desire of Gazans who want to see Jews murdered.
Many people had assumed that the hostages were being kept by the terrorist groups in underground tunnels with Gazans kept as human shields for the underground terrorist infrastructure. However, the recent rescue operation shows that assumption to be incorrect: the people of Gaza are keeping Jews as hostages in their homes and in their neighborhoods, under the watch of Hamas and the United Nations.
The Arabs of Gaza are not human shields for Hamas; they are an integral part of the infrastructure of antisemitic terror.
Nicholas Kristof is an opinion columnist for The New York Times. According to the paper, his beat is “Human rights, women’s rights, health, global affairs.”
Somehow, he is unable to comprehend blatant antisemitism.
In an opinion article called “Thinking Through The Moral Tangle in Gaza,” Kristof made himself sound like a well-read balanced observer of the conflict, seeing good and bad in both Palestinian Arabs and Israelis. He ticked through twenty points which he thought could lead to peace and a two-state solution and an end to the conflict.
Instead, he showed he lacks basic understanding of the situation to untangle the situation in Gaza.
In his fifth point he wrote “Hamas is an oppressive, misogynistic and homophobic organization whose misrule has hurt Palestinians and Israelis alike.” What an abysmal portrayal of the organization.
Yes, Hamas is oppressive, homophobic and misogynistic, but that doesn’t touch upon the crux of the conflict and the ongoing war. Hamas is an antisemitic genocidal group dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish State. It makes the point clearly in its foundational charter and in remarks by its leadership repeatedly.
How can Kristof talk about the situation in Gaza without clearly articulating that Hamas is built upon Jew hatred? Does he think that the “moral tangle in Gaza” is simply because Gaza leads the region in honor killings of women and beheads gay people?
Kristof places a red herring before readers in stating that Hamas is bad for Palestinians. The fact is that Hamas is extremely popular among Palestinian Arabs and those in Gaza in particular. A majority of Gazans support the Hamas massacre of 1,200 civilians and another 400 security personnel in Israel. Roughly two-thirds of Gazans have been in favor of slaughtering Jewish civilians inside of Israel since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007.
The moral failure of the NY Times did not start on October 7, but is increasingly painful to stomach since that date. The disgraceful articles and opinions continue to bury the rampant antisemitism in Hamas and among Gazans, as well as in the United States which emanates from jihadists and socialists.
Hamas, a U.S.- designated foreign terrorist organization, has ruled Gaza since 2007. Since that time, it has launched several wars against the State of Israel, including in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and the current war of 2023-4.
Gazans are deeply supportive of Hamas and their wars against the Jewish State. Palestinians elected Hamas to 58% of the Palestinian parliament in 2006. In polls since 2007, a majority of 65% of Gazans support killing Israeli civilians. Hundreds of regular Gazans participated in the October 7 slaughter and a post-October 7 Massacre poll of Gazans showed 64% supported the attack and 60% support Hamas.
The local population has not fought to purge the antisemitic genocidal maniacs from power
They have not complained that many Hamas leaders are multi-millionaires living in luxury while they suffer on the battlefield
They have not stormed the Hamas tunnels for safety
They don’t condemn Hamas storing armaments in schools, hospitals and next to tent camps, putting children’s lives in danger
Hamas is the popular Gazan army. It is fighting a war to destroy Israel with the support of a majority of the adult population.
Gazans do not want Hamas defeated nor do they want it to surrender to end the bloodshed. They want the war to continue until Israel is destroyed. The fewer martyrs, the better, but there are no regrets for any of the dead. They believe that they are a price to pay to make the holy land devoid of Jews and Jewish sovereignty.
What is the best protocol for dealing with the children of extremists that are raised to believe there is no higher calling than Islamic jihad?
Will a one way ticket to Dearborn Michigan and a pamphlet suffice?
— Jason Curtis Anderson (@JCAndersonNYC) May 29, 2024
students at UNRWA schools in Gaza taught to hate and kill Jews
Year after year, Palestinians educate their children that Jews have no history in the holy land and are illegal colonizers to be wiped out. Every day children are told that terrorists who kill Jewish civilians are to be praised. They are taught to hate and kill Jews.
Gazans have made Gaza a terrorist enclave, with antisemitism instilled from birth. It is a gross deformity of basic humanity, an evil project of the United Nations which has blessed the leaders and school teachers.
The UN condemns Israel for dealing with the problem that the UN itself created. Rather than fix the issue and tell Palestinians that there is no right of return to Israel, they continue to breathe life into the notion, into Hamas and into the war.
There is a reason that the United States opposes the United Nations in the current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza: the UN believes that Hamas is legitimate and Gazans desire to move to Israel is just, while the United States believes that the antisemitic genocidal maniacs are a proven problem being next door to a Jewish State, and it’s an obviously preposterous evil proposal to relocate them into Israel.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Betty McCollum put forward H.Res 1123, a ‘Nakba Resolution’ in May 2022 which demanded that millions of Arabs who had parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who once lived in Israel should be allowed to move there against the wishes of the sovereign State of Israel. They continue to make incendiary comments to strip Israel of its sovereign rights to determine who may live inside the country, and even more glaring, are trying to compel the admittance of people who voted a genocidal regime into a majority of the Palestinian parliament, and which just tortured and brutally murdered 1,200 civilians and almost 400 security personnel.
Tlaib, Bowman and crew attempted to push the resolution through Congress again in May 2023.
Tlaib was roundly censured by Congress – including by fellow Democrats – for her vilification of Israel, calling for the end of the Jewish State, and her lies that Israel and the United States were responsible for the October 7 Hamas massacre, in H.Res 845. Jamaal Bowman was one of the few people who came to Tlaib’s defense.
In the aftermath of the October 7 Palestinian slaughter of Jews, Bowman went onto the streets of White Plains, NY and said before an anti-Zionist crowd “What we never talk about- the number of women and children that have been taken by Israel in the West Bank. They need to be released as well [even those who committed murder]. We have to tell the truth about what’s been happening there for 75 years [since the founding of Israel in 1948]. The occupation [the basic existence of Israel] is a war crime.”
Bowman would go on to describe Israel’s claims of beheaded babies and raping of women as “lies and propaganda.” Tlaib followed suit, and was the only member of Congress to not vote on a resolution to condemn Hamas’s rape of Israeli women, essentially defending her position by concocting a fiction that Israeli forces are raping Palestinians.
Tlaib continued to vote in Congress to protect the antisemitic genocidal group Hamas:
H. Res 966 had 200 cosponsors which condemned Hamas’s murder and raping of women. Rashida Tlaib could not bring herself to condemn rape if done by Hamas. She was the only member of congress to abstain from voting.
H. Res 8304 resupplied Israel’s military in its defensive war against Hamas. It passed by 366 to 58, with Tlaib, Bowman, and other members of the squad voting against the measure.
While Tlaib is invited to speak at conferences which sek to end the Jewish State, Bowman runs for the blessings of these groups and holds fundraisers with their donors.
Bowman proved his anti-Zionist bona fides to such a level, that he was able to get the endorsement of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, after lobbying to get their approval.
The NYC-DSA is a grossly antisemitic group. It held a rally in Times Square on October 8 and mocked the hundreds of young peaceful dancers who were butchered and taken hostage by Hamas.
DSA in Times Square on October 8, 2023 mocking the young Israelis who were killed and taken hostage
A majority of Gazans have long supported Hamas and killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel. Reps. Tlaib and Bowman and standing beside them and begging them and their sponsors for support, as they attempt to remove Israel’s critical ally in its battle with genocidal maniacs. The alt-left duo is aligning with an axis of evil which wants to destroy the United States and Israel.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer, Bowman’s Democratic Party opponent, put it best: Jamaal Bowman actively courted and finally secured the endorsement of “a group that wants to pull the US out of NATO; end sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran; wipe Israel off the map; stonewall President Biden’s agenda; and legalize fentanyl.”
First One Through 