The United Nations has 193 countries in the General Assembly, and 134, roughly 70%, are located in what is generally called the “Global South”, a term that has emerged to replace “third world” and “developing economies.” The region accounts for about 80% of the global population, with the difference in figures mostly due to the two largest populations – India and China – being located in the region.
The UN has many committees and agencies. Of all of them, the UN Security Council is the most significant, being the sole entity that can pass international laws. It has five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA – and ten non-permanent members which serve two year terms. More than 50 members of the UN have never served on the UNSC, including Israel.
The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, thinks that the current UNSC needs to be refashioned for the modern world. He bemoans the fact that no African country has a permanent seat on the council, and the ability for the five permanent members to veto resolutions has allowed some wars – like in Ukraine and Gaza – to continue for too long. He also believes that capitalism as dictated by the Global North has kept the Global South in poverty by charging higher rates of interest and not forgiving debt.
US President Joe Biden favored allowing two African countries to become permanent members of the UNSC but objected to their obtaining veto powers. He thought that the current system of veto rights already made the committee unproductive and adding more members with such rights would impede it further. Others countered that it was time to remove all veto rights. Still others like India, the world’s most populous country, demanded a seat on the committee as well. Arab countries took the opportunity to demand the same.
Negotiations will play out over 2025, with a new US administration under Donald Trump who is much more weary of multilateralism and the United Nations generally. The discussions will mainly focus on Africa, where most of the global growth in population is occurring.
China has invested heavily in Africa, accounting for roughly one-third of the infrastructure projects, and now has global trade of $282 billion with the continent. Its actions helped it surpass the United States in terms of popularity (58% to 56%). The US must consider how it interacts with the African continent directly and what steps it takes at the UN as it fights its shadow war with China.
Those who spend their lives focused on the UN and global politics have been debating which two countries should join the UNSC. If the seats go to the countries with the largest economies, it would favor South Africa ($373 billion) and Egypt ($347 billion). If it is awarded based on population, it would go to Nigeria (232 million) and Ethiopia (132 million). Others consider the Democratic Republic of Congo (109 million and one of the fastest growing population at +3.3% in 2024) which has been decimated by ongoing violence. Including a country which has longed for peace might make sense at the Security Council.
For people who focus on another country which has dreamed of calm – the Jewish State of Israel – the changes to the UNSC are extremely important.
Overall, the Global South is much more anti-Israel than the Global North. All 28 countries that refuse to recognize the State of Israel are located there. Almost every country in the Global South recognizes Palestine while a minority of the Global North recognizes such entity.
Since the Iranian Proxies War on Israel, South Africa has led the charge against Israel at the International Court of Justice, claiming Israel’s defensive war was a “genocide.” Those joining South Africa were almost all from the Global South, with the exceptions of Belgium, Ireland and Spain from Europe.
The dynamic of a change at the UNSC will not only impact Israel but possibly Jews around the world as witnessed by the spike of global antisemitic attacks since the October 7 massacre. In the United States, the majority of international students at universities come from the Global South, and an empowerment of their voices at the Security Council may exacerbate Jew hatred everywhere.
While people are focused on the genocidal jihad that brought violence against Jews in Israel and the United States watching movies like October 8, attention must include the impending harm that may come to Jews everywhere with changes at the United Nations Security Council.
ACTION ITEM
Write the White House to share your concerns of changes to the United Nations Security Council
Hamas Defenders (like the Arab world and universities) and their defenders (politicians and progressive Jews) – HDDs – have tried to reeducate the West about both the English and Arabic languages.
At congressional hearings, HDDs told senators that “Intifada” just means “shaking off” and did not mean the slaughter of Jews, despite the Second Intifada killing 1,000 Jews – almost all civilians – and resulting in more restrictions on Palestinians, like the Security Barrier which ended that intifada.
Those hearings had the head of the Arab American Institute also share that “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” is not a call for killing Jews but just the liberation of local Arabs.
That same speaker said that “Glory to our martyrs” plastered on buildings might only be interpreted as antisemitic if the buildings were synagogues or Jewish centers, but simply free speech if it was in public where Jews would see it going to school.
WESPAC-backed Palestine Youth Movement masked members plastering “Glory To Our Martyrs” on top of the map of Israel, at train stations in New York
HDDs said there was no hate crime when professors said the massive slaughter of Jews on October 7 was “exhilarating” to a crowd, or when students held signs pointing at Jews that read “al Qassam next targets.” Not just not a crime, but not even hate.
Masked Columbia student calling for Hamas missile strike on Jewish students
They accuse Jews of being too sensitive.
When HDDs accuse Israel of committing “genocide” and behaving like “Nazis” committing “ethnic cleansing” while engaged in “apartheid,” they attempt to strip the victims of European and Arab countries’ atrocities of their history and memory and desecrate the memories of 6 million Jews.
As HDDs refer to the raping of Jewish women, burning families alive and kidnapping Holocaust survivors a form of “justified resistance,” they seek to insult the memories of the Jewish dead and have the world condemn the innocent as evil “occupiers.”
NYC mob waving flags of Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chanting for “Intifada revolution” in front of exhibit about the Gazan slaughter of innocents at the Nova Music Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023
It is an attempted institutional gaslighting of Jews.
When HDDs testify that chants like “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” require “context” and must be “targeted and pervasive” in order for school administrations to even consider taking action, they don’t pause to consider Jews being locked in rooms for their safety or fleeing campus because schools won’t protect them. FOR MONTHS.
Jewish students in downtown NYC barricade themselves in a library from a horde
The Democratic Socialists have declared every White person and Israeli part of the colonialist regime and are therefore all guilty and thereby legitimate targets for violence. Even babies.
Democratic Socialists of America siding with Hamas arguing that all forms of violence are legitimate in an effort of “liberation”
Jewish HDDs (they are mostly in the second ‘D’ in HDD) accuse their fellow Jews of being tools of antisemitic Republicans who are using them to dismantle the education system and suppress free speech. They add that those Jews who complain about antisemitism are right-wing racists who are putting international and minority groups at risk by complaining to authorities.
That has become the American landscape into which Jews step out of their front doors every day. Walking the streets, quietly wearing a yellow ribbon for the hostages held by Gazans and members of the United Nations, they are accosted with accusations that Jews and Zionists are evil and deserve neither dignity nor empathy. Even more, that Jews must relinquish their history and rights or face the firing squad before a cheering crowd.
Diaspora Jews are being groomed for slaughter. The operators of the slaughterhouses are in the awkward early days of learning how to keep the human cattle from acting up as they get processed. For the moment, they are playing with language and attempting to invert victim and assailant to enlist sympathy from the masses to join in the massacre.
Watching their growing ranks including progressive and anti-Zionist Jews as well as politicians, empowers the HDD movement that it is on the right track.
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace take over Trump Tower on March 13, 2025
The context of the Global Intifada is that Jews and the Jewish State are considered part of the White Imperialist and Capitalist world. All are inherently guilty and therefore should not be allowed to defend themselves. HDDs are telling you that to be on the right side of history, everyone has to take up the cause and confront Zionists and White people wherever they are.
The pathetic joke is that the mantra is being stoked principally by foreign actors of the Global South on American soil under our own noses.
The Book of Esther has several primary and secondary characters. One of the seemingly minor players is Hatach, the eunuch who appears in four sentences in chapter 4:4-11:
When Esther’s maidens and eunuchs came and informed her, the queen was greatly agitated. She sent clothing for Mordecai to wear, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he refused.
Thereupon Esther summoned Hathach, one of the eunuchs whom the king had appointed to serve her, and sent him to Mordecai to learn the why and wherefore of it all.
and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and all about the money that Haman had offered to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
He also gave him the written text of the law that had been proclaimed in Shushan for their destruction. [He bade him] show it to Esther and inform her, and charge her to go to the king and to appeal to him and to plead with him for her people.
“All the king’s courtiers and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any person, man or woman, enters the king’s presence in the inner court without having been summoned, there is but one law for him—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the golden scepter to him may he live. Now I have not been summoned to visit the king for the last thirty days.”
The Ishtar Gate from Babylon, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin
In the plain reading of the text, we see that Hatach is one of several eunuchs and attendants that the king had assigned to Queen Esther. Esther uses Hatach as a messenger to find out what so distressed Mordecai that he sits in mourning at the city gate. Mordecai must have recognized Hatach as one of Esther’s attendants, as he not only shares everything that he knows about Haman’s plan, but hands Hatach the written order to show Esther. He further tells Hatach to direct Esther to intervene for the Jewish people. Esther sends Hatach back with a reply to Mordecai that she cannot intervene, lest she be put to death.
The text then stops using Hatach’s name. Perhaps he continues to be the trusted messenger between Esther and Mordecai or perhaps another messenger takes his place. See Esther 4:12-17:
On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.”
“Go, assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan, and fast in my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!”
So Mordecai went about [the city] and did just as Esther had commanded him.
The back-and-forth language switches to a passive verb. Hatach no longer delivers the messages but messages were somehow delivered. What is the text trying to teach the reader?
Hatach was fine following Esther’s order to find out what was troubling Mordecai and return with such information. He also accepted the queen’s order to respond back to Mordecai with a message that she couldn’t go against the king’s rules to simply show up at the palace.
And that is when Hatach disappears.
Perhaps Hatach felt that his role had ended. He was not Mordecai’s servant and only brought back his initial message because Esther specifically asked to find out what was happening with Mordecai. Without the expressed order to hear what Mordecai had to say, he was done at delivering Esther’s message.
Or maybe he never delivered the message.
Sentence 12 reads that Mordecai “was told” the message from Esther. It is possible that when Hatach heard about the possible penalty of death for showing up at the palace unannounced, he became frightened. Perhaps he felt that a plot was unfolding of which he wanted no part.
There may be more. The assumption that eunuchs are safe to have around the queen typically relates to the inability to have sex. But the point is deeper.
Voluntary castration is a sign of profound loyalty to the king. To give up so much to be in the king’s graces must mean that the eunuchs have completely aligned with everything the king desires. Eunuchs are safe to have around the queen not only because they cannot have sex but because they have proven that they will do anything for the king and never harm the king.
When Hatach heard the back-and-forth between Mordecai and Esther, his loyalty to the king came into play. While he was a trusted messenger between Esther and Mordecai, his true allegiance was with King Acheshverus.
While sentences 11 and 12 are in sequence, it is possible that there is a significant gap in the story. Did Hatach just not deliver the message and Esther found a new messenger? Did Hatach find another way to get the message to Mordecai without delivering it personally?
Sentences 12 to 17 are the start of the plan which put either Esther or all Jews in the kingdom at risk of death. It is possible that Esther and Mordecai used multiple messengers and did everything in writing to make the scheme difficult to comprehend if a messenger only had one part of the story and thereby not risk the plan with people loyal first and foremost to the king.
Queen Esther likely viewed Hatach as HER trusted messenger when this communication began but came to realize that “the king had appointed” him and his loyalty was actually with king. It likely made her feel even more isolated and vulnerable in the palace, questioning even those attendants whom surrounded her.
A deeper review of the text and minor characters adds more color to the terrifying story of 2,500 years ago that we continue to celebrate today.
Fewer people are going to college and graduate schools. Some of the drop-off relates to people having fewer children so the absolute number of people going to school has been declining. But the percentage of students going from high school to advanced degrees has also fallen considerably. Even in the years before the pandemic, the decline in high schoolers going to college dropped from 70% in 2016 to 63% in 2020. The figure dropped to 61.4% in 2023, with men being the most likely to skip college with only 57.6% opting for that education. The rates for Whites and Blacks were roughly the same at 59.9% and 59.6%, respectively, with Hispanics being lower at 51.8% and Asians surpassing every group at 84.7%. The overall impact can be seen in 2010 college enrollment of 10.2 million women and 7.8 million men, dropping to 8.9 million (-12.7%) and 6.5 million (-16.7%), respectively in 2021.
The reasons that most Americans are skipping college include a strong job market paying good wages, the desire to avoid college debt, people pursuing jobs that don’t require advanced degrees, and the ability to learn many skills online.
To address the declining enrollment, universities are taking many more international students. In the 2023/24 academic year, U.S. universities had over 1.1 million foreign students, a record. These students mostly came from the “Global South,” the emerging, principally non-White economies. The majority of students came from southeast Asia including India (331k), China (277k), Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Taiwan. No European country was in the top ten. The only countries in the top ten which are part of the Global North were South Korea and Canada. The countries with the largest spike in students over the past year were all from the Global South including Ghana (+45%), Bangladesh (+26%), India (+23%), Iran (+15%) and Nigeria (+13%).
Global North in blue and Global South in red
The student exchange is not reciprocal. Only 280,000 Americans studied abroad and the majority (64%) went to Europe, with Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France dominating the destinations. Two-thirds of those students identified as White.
The Americans abroad tended to go during their undergraduate years, spending just a few months away (only 2.4% went for a year). They tended to be women (67%), and studied business and management (20%) and social sciences (18%). This is in sharp contrast to international students coming to the United States who were typically graduate students pursuing a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at 56%.
The international students are older and come for longer periods of time. They often marry and have kids while pursuing their degrees, establishing a foothold in America, while Americans-in-Europe simply have a quick experience away from home.
The universities are very happy to have these paying students fill their classrooms which are being abandoned by Americans. In 2019 and 2020, 49% of all STEM master’s degrees and 57% of all STEM doctorate degrees were conferred to international students. The economics of running courses and an institution without half the students would have required eliminating courses and teachers, and perhaps shutting whole departments.
Technology companies want and need these skilled students as future employees. Google, Apple and Microsoft count on new STEM graduates to fill their ranks each year and lobby the government accordingly. Open Doors estimates that these international students contribute roughly $50 billion to the U.S. economy, or about $5,000 per student.
The U.S. government plays a heavy hand in all of this, not only seeking to salvage American university programs and building feeders to the American technology landscape, but on a political level as well.
Two situations highlight U.S. politics driving international students to these shores: Saudi Arabia and Israel.
As the United States ramped up pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding its nuclear program from 2007 to 2015, the U.S. sought to reassure its ally, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which is a foe of Iran. During those years, the number of Saudi students in American universities climbed from just a few thousand to over 61,000. The Saudi students learned courses like petroleum engineering to better extract and process oil, as well as nuclear physics to be able to build nuclear power on their own. Just after the nuclear agreement was signed, the number of Saudi students dropped significantly, down to under 15,000 in the 2023/24 academic year.
American politics playing out for international students from Israel is more explicit, and targets high school students, as long as they are Arabs.
On September 12, 2023, the U.S. embassy in Israel posted an advertisement that the U.S. State Department “is seeking a group of Arab citizens of Israel secondary school students to participate in a Study- in-the-USA initiative for high school students during the 2024-2025 school year.” (bold in original) It is backed by the YES Program Scholarship which gives “many countries with significant Muslim population an opportunity to study at American high schools and live with American host families for one academic year,” funding “all expenses in connection with the study tour including airfare, room and board, pocket money and most other costs.” It is part of the broad U.S. policy to make amends for the “War on Terror,” and selected only non-Jews from the Jewish State to learn in America.
The cherry-picking of certain types of international students demands a deeper exploration of the segments of the Global South that are in American schools.
The Global South has two principal regions as it relates to American immigrants: Latin America and everywhere else.
The United States was primarily populated by European migration from 1840 to 1920. World War I, the Great Depression and World War II stemmed immigration for several decades before it picked up with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Since that time, 49% of immigrants have come from Latin America and 27% from Asia. These groups are very different. The typical immigrant from Latin America had little formalized education (only 9% of Mexicans in the US in 2022 had a college degree). That compared to those from South Asia where 72% had a college degree, 55% from Central Asia and 49% from East and Southeast Asia.
Those coming from Latin America typically came for jobs not requiring a college degree while those coming from Asia came with degrees or obtained them at American universities.
The demographics between Latin America and Asia are also very different regarding religion.
About 50 million Muslims live in the Global North which has a population of roughly 1.6 billion, or about 3% of the population. It is even lower in Latin America which has roughly 4 million Muslims out of a population of 665 million, or about 0.6%. That is is sharp contrast to roughly 1.8 billion Muslims living in the Global South with a population of 6.4 billion, or roughly 28%, or 31% x-Latin America. If one were to exclude China as well which has around 25 million Muslims, the Global South is over 41% Muslim (x-China and x-Latin America).
While China does not resemble much of the Global South in both religious demographics and not having a history of European countries on its soil, it is now in an aggressive competitive battle against the Global North for power. As such, China is leveraging its regional position alongside the Global South to wage a cultural and economic war against the West.
China and the Global South have advanced efforts to promote anarchy in the United States alongside far-left non-White movements like Justice Democrats. The calls to Defund the Police and Abolish ICE were designed to tear down walls of protection and flood the United States with people from the Global South. The chants to “Globalize the Intifada” on American campuses and streets are calls to dismantle Western civilization’s capitalism and support for the Jewish State, with a broad redistribution of wealth and power to the preferred people in the Global South.
“Intifada” protest at Columbia University streets
When people in the Global North hear the chants of “Intifada,” they recognize the vile terrorism of Palestinian Arabs blowing up buses and pizza stores in the Second Intifada. However, the Global South considers it an Arabic term meaning “shaking off” the colonialism and imperialism of the West. The South’s overriding desire of taking on western civilization overwhelms the facts that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel and that the Intifada is a premeditated violent attack on civilians. The Islamist Global South rallies to its coreligionists.
Banner with “Intifada” hung outside Columbia University
The population on America’s campuses does not resemble the rest of America. The disproportionate number of Asians and Muslims enrolled at America’s universities come from regions which are in active competition with the West, and embrace the Stateless Arabs from Palestine’s (SAPs) jihadi war against the Jews. The universities which enroll the international students of the Global South, attempt to tie them with American minority groups whose ancestors originated from those regions. Remarkably, a cause like Black Lives Matter which has nothing to do with the Global South, becomes hitched to the Israeli Defense Forces.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on hearing about antisemitism at universities showcasing “Intifada”
The declining enrollment at American universities has led to them being taken over by international students from Asia and Africa. This has led directly to antisemitism on campuses and in the streets. It was true before the October 7 massacre and has only accelerated since then.
New York City march to “Globalize the Intifada” in September 2021, two years before the October 7 massacre by Gazans
Americans and the Global North are watching the initial battles of the Global South on the beachheads of American universities and are dumbstruck. The West would be well served to reevaluate those international students admitted to study here, and use this time to prepare for the battles to come.
ACTION ITEM
Contact the White House to vet international students coming to study at American universities, trimming the numbers coming from the Global South and making their visas conditional to peaceful behavior.
The Global South in downtown New York City taunting Jews and Israelis attending an exhibition about music lovers slaughtered by Gazans on October 7, 2023
International humanitarian law (IHL) has been established for decades, and many are principally designed to protect civilians during armed conflict. In the case of the Gaza war against Israel, it is questionable whether the laws can be applied to Israel’s actions in the war, not whether Israel is abusing such laws.
Principle of Distinction
The driving themes of IHL surrounds mitigating the harm to non-combatants during hostilities. The first driver is, therefore, to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. In most battles, this is easy to accomplish: during a clash on a battlefield, the only participants are soldiers. In urban warfare, this is much more difficult.
In the dense Gaza strip, this is virtually impossible.
The various military groups in Gaza are embedded and underneath almost every building and road. Hamas, the popular political-terrorist group that rules Gaza, built an entire infrastructure underneath the city with a maze of 500 kilometers of tunnels and storerooms. The hundreds of exit shafts for much of this infrastructure is located in houses and schools.
Hamas soldiers in Gaza tunnels
Additionally, Gazan combatants dress in civilian clothing and are members of groups which are touted to be neutral including the United Nations, the press and hospital staff.
UNRWA employees and Hamas militants
If civilians and related infrastructure are enmeshed by premeditated design with an active military, then the civilians have become integrated into the war effort and renounced protections of distinction.
Principles of Proportionality and Precaution
IHL’s Principle of Proportionality is designed to minimize collateral damage to civilians when attacking legitimate military targets. It calls for a review of the situation and reducing armaments to make any incidental civilian harm be aligned to the relative military gain achieved. The related Precaution principle is one step further, to try to prevent any military action, if possible.
Israel has taken many actions to limit the harm to civilians – which have been harshly criticized, nevertheless.
Withholding electricity and other aid. Israel has attempted to pressure Hamas and other militant groups – which seize all goods into Gaza – by withholding basic items like electricity so Israel would not have to use military force in the region. For those efforts, Israel is accused of causing a humanitarian catastrophe, rather than adhering to the Principles of Precaution
Move civilians out of the field of battle. Israel has moved and continues to urge civilians to leave “hot” areas, only to be accused of “ethnic cleansing”
Using ground forces. Israel could minimize its own casualties by only using air power against the terrorist enclave. Instead, it seeks a more targeted effort to eliminate combatants and protect civilians, for which it is criticized.
While Gazan authorities threaten to commit the October 7 barbarity over and again, Israel attempts to adhere to international law yet is criticized for it. Even though Israel left Gaza in 2005, and put in place a blockade only when Hamas took full control of the strip in 2007 to follow the Principle of Precaution, it is laughingly accused by international “human rights” groups of a “belligerent occupation.”
The terrorist enclave of Gaza has removed distinctions between civilians and militants, aid workers and terrorists, state and non-state actors, locals and international operators, and civilian infrastructure and military bases in a toxic brew. It defecates on all humanitarian norms while pointing both armaments and accusing fingers at Israel.
As the United Nations and Gazans have themselves destroyed all distinctions between combatants and non-combatants, and declared that Israel can never meet the standards of international humanitarian law, there is no basis to criticize Israel’s handling of its defensive war on such basis.
The New York Times is accelerating its attempt to redefine facts and U.S. policy, especially in regards to the State of Israel.
Nowhere is this more pronounced than attempts to educate its readers that “East Jerusalem,” is an actual city, even though it existed for only 18 years in its 4,000 year history from 1949-1967 because of war.
The Times wrote “East Jerusalem” no less than SIX times in an article on March 7 about a Hamas leader’s release from prison. Using the phrase repeatedly was meant to grant another victory to Hamas, in its “Al Aqsa Flood” war.
At the fifth mention of “East Jerusalem,” the Times wrote that “Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 war in a move not recognized by most of the international community.” So what? Most of the “international community” considers homosexuality a disgusting offense and crime, yet the Times doesn’t append such comments when discussing the gay community.
The United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and only Israel. When President Donald Trump issued his statement of official recognition, he specifically referred to holy sites in the Old City of eastern Jerusalem saying “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. Jerusalem is today, and must remain, a place where Jews pray at the Western Wall, where Christians walk the Stations of the Cross, and where Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Jerusalem has been reunited under Israel for decades and the U.S. embassy in Israel straddles the area that was considered “no man’s land” during those horrible years of 1949 to 1967. It is time to be explicit that the United States recognizes the unified city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and does not recognize any place called “East Jerusalem.”
Location of new U.S. embassy to Israel
The Trump administration can cement such understanding with blessing Israel’s expansion of Jerusalem eastward in an area known as “E1.”
ACTION ITEM
Write the White House comments@whitehouse.gov to clearly state that the U.S. recognizes all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and endorse construction of homes in E1.
Write The New York Times CORRECTION editors corrections@nytimes.com to stop calling a place “East Jerusalem” or to similarly change policy for all historically divided capitals referencing East and West Berlin as well as East and West Beirut and in its articles.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, delivered her latest thematic report on torture which defined hostage-taking as a “cruel game” and definitely a form of torture. The lengthy report highlighted several examples of the practice, and specifically called out a number of countries – China, North Korea, Iran, Russia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela – as particularly notorious state offenders.
Edwards called out non-state actors as well, including those backed by Iran, such as the Houthis in Yemen “holding at least 30 humanitarians,” and “Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups” which abducted 251 people in Israel on October 7, 2023.
Calling out the obvious evil was controversial in the morally-bankrupt institution.
In a press conference after the release of the report to the Human Rights Council, Edwards said (5:55) that several countries and NGOs asked her to remove certain countries from the report and criticized the timing of the release, presumably because it is coming amidst the horrific reports emerging from captives held by the Palestinian Arab political-terrorist group, Hamas. Edwards was accused for bias for her actions but refused to be silenced as she believes that hostage-taking should be viewed as a critical component in discussing human rights.
Edwards criticized the draft document of international crimes against humanity for not including hostage-taking. She argued for the families of hostages to have a point person in governments and at the UN with whom to liaise.
Most significantly, Edwards called on those taking hostages, “and those that aid and abet them,” to be held accountable and punished severely, as hostage-taking has become a “low-risk high-reward crime” (15:20) on the global stage. She argued for compensation for survivors.
This seemed a bit much for the socialist-jihadi alliance which roams the halls of the UN. Almost no one attended the briefing and only two reporters asked questions of Edwards. Both featured whataboutery, asking about Israel’s treatment of captives, and whether the Jewish State was just as guilty as Hamas And Friends.
Edwards responded (24:19) that Gazans took hostages as negotiating leverage, while Israel took prisoners of war in the middle of the ongoing war. Those taken from Israel were done so for leverage and ransom, while those taken by Israel were placed in detention and removed from the war effort, and therefore could not be considered hostages.
This was all way too much for the Palestinian Authority.
The PA’s official media arm, WAFA, produced its own reporting of the UN report on torture. It claimed that the special rapporteur “report focused on torture during captivity” which criticized the “Israeli attacks on Gaza” and “ill-treatment endures by Palestinians detained by Israel.” Nowhere does the PA’s account explain that Palestinian Arabs held by Israel are not hostages, the main theme of the report, nor does the “news” summary review the axis of evil which supports the Palestinian Arabs, as the worst offenders of hostage-taking.
The Palestinian Authority, propped up by the United Nations, tolerates the terrorist activities of local Arab terrorist groups – including the taking of civilian hostages and sexual violence -because the armed jihadi groups are much more popular amongst the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). The puppet regime is either a worthless veneer or complicit, and should be held similarly accountable.
ACTION ITEM
Demand all officials condemn Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups which participated in the October 7 barbarity and demand that they face maximum justice.
So why start another PAC that does the same thing? It’s not as though Bowman’s PAC is going after conservative non-White voters; it’s using the same alt-left agenda as Justice Democrats, including supporting Gazans who initiated and supported a jihadi genocidal massacre against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.
Bowman knows he has a terrible record. His brand is so tainted that he needed to go around the country including California and Virginia with other members of Congress to try to raise money during his failed primary run.
A new congressional run – perhaps this time for Rep. Ritchie Torres’s seat in NY-15 if Torres decides to run for governor against the unpopular Kathy Hochul – would require money that may not be so forthcoming to a censored former politician. As such, creating a new PAC BEFORE he announces his intention to enter a race, could give him several advantages:
He may be able to market the cause more successfully if it isn’t about him personally
He gets practice stumping and meeting donors without being forced to disclose his numerous failings
Bowman can use the Zeteo platform with Mehdi to go even more viciously anti-Israel than Justice Democrats may be willing to go, perhaps unlocking deep jihadi pockets
Disclosure rules are more lax for PACs. Pro-terrorist groups have easier times giving money to blind pools than individual candidates. Bowman can court antisemitic donors with greater ease
Should Bowman enter the race, he may attempt to repurpose this PAC to himself. This is a tactic that was used by Rick Scott who took over the New Republican PAC in 2016. Scott’s moves in this regard brought multiple investigations. As the non-partisan group OpenSecrets stated about the issue, “Federal law would prohibit an announced federal candidate or campaign from coordinating with either state-level committees or federal super PACs, which can take unlimited corporate money that federal candidates are not permitted to receive.” Campaign Legal Center wrote at that time “Campaign finance laws are in place to prevent schemes like this one that hide information from voters about which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our votes and our government.” Imagine these aren’t “wealthy special interests” seeking profit but groups out to destroy America and its allies.
Built to Win PAC may become the alt-left anti-Israel piggybank for Bowman and his co-host on Zeteo, Cori Bush, who made their losses all about the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC rather than their own failings.
Bowman’s reemergence on two platforms: Zeteo to engage the public in race-baiting, and with a PAC to draw in unlimited monies, is potentially a cause for serious alarm for the country, especially Jews in the midst of a horrifying spike in antisemitism.
The two major wars grabbing world attention for the past couple of years has been Russia-Ukraine and Iranian Proxies led by Gaza-Israel. While Russia invaded Ukraine and the two have largely faced off with Russia maintaining about 20% of Ukraine, Gazans invaded Israel and got decimated.
President Trump’s recent interaction with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy this week has made some in the pro-Israel community nervous. If Trump will side with the aggressor (Russia), will he also back Gazans and Iran against Israel?
Devolution of exchange starts at 40:00, when Zelenskyy challenges ability to have diplomacy with Russia which does not abide by agreements
I believe that it is a misreading of Trump’s policy of America First.
Trump likes winners. Winners have the strength and position to negotiate deals, whereas losers ask for handouts. If Russia is declared the winner in the midst of the war and able to annex large chunks of Ukraine, the United States will negotiate important mineral deals with Russia rather than with Ukraine.
Gaza has nothing to offer America other than real estate. The region is in shambles and will require billions of dollars to redevelop. The political-terrorist group Hamas still rules the strip and Gazans have proven themselves morally bankrupt in supporting the massacre of innocent people in Israel. Why would Trump want to engage with the initiators of a war which they completely lost? His inclination would be to side with the Israeli victors who have a thriving liberal society and economy with leading technology to trade with the United States.
President Trump just approved nearly $3 billion in arms sales to Israel to help replenish its arsenal over the multi-front war with Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank. Those arms should help neuter various terrorist groups and position the United States to negotiate an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Kibbutz Be’eri burned by Gazan invaders during massacre on October 7, 2023
People think such action is based on short-term thinking but it is about long-term planning. If the parties in conflict have assets and relationships which the U.S. covets, it will engage with those in charge who can deliver. If they are the more moral and ethical as is the case for Israel, so much the better.
Jason Greenblatt, who worked for Donald Trump for decades in his real estate office before working in the first Trump administration developing a new roadmap to peace between Israel and its neighbors made clear that Zelenskyy butchered a chance to help Ukrainians by not understanding how Trump operates, tweeting “Whoever prepared President @ZelenskyyUa for the Oval Office meeting with @POTUS & @VP did an absolutely terrible job! Zelenskyy did not pay attention to the messaging that was coming out of @WhiteHouse for a while now. President Trump is interested in protectinginterests 1st & foremost. That’s his job, no matter how people feel about Ukraine. He also wants to end the death & destruction in Ukraine if a logical deal can be made. Hard to believe how Zelenskyy let this devolve instead of taking the cues. What a shame for Ukraine.”
In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas failed to understand and capitalize on Trump’s efforts for Palestinian Arabs and let the relationship completely devolve. Abbas is trying to play catch up now by trying to arrest terrorists east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL / “West Bank”). It is unclear if that will be enough to impress the administration that has watched Israel be a strong partner.
Trump’s “America First” policy may sometimes run against the wronged party, as in Ukraine. In the Middle East, Americans will have comfort that Trump has an ally which is strong, moral, has much intellectual property to benefit Americans and deeply appreciates the relationship with the U.S.
The story of the Bibas children from October 7, 2023 until now has been horrific on every level, at every turn.
First, the four year-old and nine month old were ripped from their homes by the military of the ruling political-terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, along with the children’s terrified mother. They were abducted to the terrorist enclave of Gaza, murdered by Palestinian Arabs weeks later.
Their bodies were then held by the Palestinian Arabs without burial for over a year. They were not returned to Israel for proper, respectful burial.
Instead, they were held for ransom. The small Jewish corpses were ultimately paraded on stage before a crowd of hundreds of cheering Gazans – alongside their children – with a Gazan woman who was not their mother despite Hamas assurances, to be shipped to Israel.
The tiny innocent children were exchanged for dozens of Palestinian Arab terrorists convicted of murder, per Hamas demands. These released terrorists are alive and ready, willing and capable of slaughtering Jews once more.
The media falsely portrays this as a “prisoner exchange,” as though the two sides were swapping living adult prisoners of war. A blasphemy.
Every level of the story is a horror. Yet, there is only so much that Israel can do on its own to change the deep “deformity” in Gazan culture.
But it must try to dissuade at least some of the depraved actions.
Israel should commit to never holding onto any corpses of any Palestinian, whether soldiers, terrorists or anyone else UNLESS Palestinian Arabs are holding dead Israelis. As soon as Palestinians take a dead Israeli, every Palestinian killed should be retained by Israel. A future exchange will only have a single swap: all corpses for all corpses. It removes any bargaining power of killing people and holding the dead.
The Bibas story is pure torture. The Bibas Rule of only corpses for corpses might alleviate some death and pain in the years to come.
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