After Iran fired over 180 missiles at Israel, Israel considered how to handle synagogue attendance during the Rosh Hashanah holiday. Synagogue attendance typically swells on the holy days, with even more secular Jews attending services. But most synagogues only have small mamads (safe rooms) to protect people during a shelling attack, so hundreds could be left unprotected during an attack.
The situation is even more dire at one of the largest synagogues in the world – the Western Wall Plaza at the Kotel – where thousands of Jews gather in the Old City of Jerusalem. The large outdoor location has few easily accessible places to hide from missiles.
Perhaps the grey-domed al Aqsa Mosque can be used by thousands of Jews as a safe room from jihadi missiles. The jihadists would presumably try to spare their religious building, making the mosque a potential haven for Jews.
Al Aqsa Mosque from outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls (photo: First One Through)
Hamas termed their barbaric slaughter of Israelis the “al Aqsa Flood.” Perhaps it didn’t imagine that the term would become a prophecy inverted, drawing masses of Jews onto the Temple Mount.
In the immediate aftermath of the brutal October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people in Israel by various Palestinian Arab terrorist groups including the ruling party Hamas, the United Nations was silent. Neither UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres nor the UN Security Council issued any statement for days. When they finally emerged from their shells, they urged Israel to act with “utmost restraint” rather than issue a statement of solidarity with Israel and for Hamas to be held accountable for its actions (as it does in standard form with every other terrorist attack).
One year later, nothing has changed.
Guterres posted on X his condemnation of the actions of Hamas but would still not say that the genocidal jihadi group must face justice.
The United Nations has shown a complete disregard of the lives, rights, dignity and humanity of Jews. It should not only be defunded but expelled from the United States.
ACTION ITEM
Write White House: The United Nations has STILL NOT DEMANDED FOR HAMAS TO FACE JUSTICE. It should be defunded immediately and expelled from the United States.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has many proxies surrounding Israel: Hamas which controls Gaza; Hezbollah which controls Lebanon; Syria; and farther away, the Houthis in Yemen.
Does it also have cells in the West Bank?
As Iran sent over 180 missiles into Israel on October 1, 2024, two Palestinian Arabs from Hebron shot and killed seven people in Tel Aviv and injured many others. The timing was minutes apart.
This was the first time that Palestinian Arabs shot up Tel Aviv streets during the year long war against Palestinian terrorists. Is it a coincidence that Palestinian Arabs decided to blast Tel Aviv just as Iranian missiles showered from above?
West Bank Arabs have been much more supportive of the October 7 attacks and commitment to destroying Israel than their counterparts in Gaza according to Palestinian polls. Israeli activity likely prevented a two-front war on October 7, which would have resulted in thousands of additional Israeli deaths in cities like Kfar Saba and Ra’anana which are very close to the 1949 Armistice Lines.
While the world is focused on the violent storm between Israel and Iran, Israel’s security will need to investigate how deeply Iran has integrated with the newer terrorist groups in the West Bank like Jenin Battalion, Lions’ Den and Tulkarm Brigades, to clamp down on yet another front of jihadi terrorism.
ACTION ITEM
Write White House and pro-Israel members of Congress like Ritchie Torres, Mike Lawler and Josh Gottheimer or your local representative to get the State Department to label the Jenin Battalion, Lion’s Den and the branches of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade as US designated foreign terrorist organizations.
College campuses have become awash in calls for an “Intifada” which some anti-Israel apologists say is only a call for another independent Arab state. Others acknowledge it as a call to destroy the Jewish State of Israel echoing the genocidal jihadists. Others say it encompasses a Diaspora Intifada, which comes for Zionists and Israel supporters everywhere.
University presidents are attempting to figure out how to allow civil discourse and free speech. Many allow students to take over campuses with calls to destroy an American ally and hunt Jews, as long as there’s no immediate call for violence. Some give professors tenure to spew their toxic opinions and instill Jew hatred like medieval preachers discussing blood libels.
The U.S. Congress is doing much the same.
On May 9, 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi invited Imam Omar Suleiman to give a prayer at Congress. Suleiman was already well known for his rhetoric about “Free Palestine” and what an ‘Intifada’ meant: a war to destroy the State of Israel.
As the 2014 Israel-Hamas war started, Soleiman tweeted “The 3rd Intifada starts on the 27th night of Ramadan. Oh Allah make it blessed. #FreePalestine #48kmarch.” Just as the war was concluding, he tweeted much the same: “For the first time since 1967, Masjid Al Aqsa is closed. A third intifada is near insha’Allah #FreePalestine.”
None of these sentiments was disqualifying for Pelosi. She thought that a person calling for the destruction of an ally was appropriate to elevate to the national stage.
In the current Iranian proxies war against Israel, Suleiman continues to call for the destruction of Israel. After Hassan Nasrallah (fungus be upon him), the leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah was assassinated by Israel, Suleiman called to his followers to “continue to persevere” in the goal of eradicating the Jewish State.
The platforms which call for the destruction of the only Jewish State, where nearly half of Jewry lives, are plentiful: social media, universities and at governments. The defense is ‘free speech’ which a flimsy veneer to allow a voice for those who had typically not been seen or heard. While free speech is about CONTENT, today’s version is about the SPEAKER, and society is demanding those speakers be platformed regardless of what they say.
Noted White supremacists don’t get invited to address the House of Representatives nor given tenure at Ivy League schools. Universities have not permitted the KKK to have chapters on 250 college campuses like Students for Justice in Palestine.
The tenet of free speech and goal of giving voice to the unheard are seemingly complementary but alarmingly discordant today.
At least to Jews, who have suffered more hate crimes than any community for millenia. Now told to shut up and listen to the bile, as the victims of preference have the floor.
After Israel’s assassination of much of the political-terrorist group Hezbollah’s leadership, people worry whether the region will be engulfed in a wider war. Hamas has been neutered and Hezbollah is rudderless, making their sponsors in Iran furious. The fear is that the Islamic republic’s ire may get them to aggressively attack Israel and thereby bring the United States into the war.
It is just as likely that the leaderless Hezbollah terrorist group and its anti-Israel supporters around the world will begin to hit ‘soft targets’ globally, much as the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group has done in the past.
The Henry Jackson Society published a Timeline of Terror in 2012 listing the various attacks committed by Hezbollah. The associate editor at that time was the now famous Douglas Murray. The attacks outside of the region included:
1984 bombing of a restaurant with U.S. servicemen in Spain, killing 18
1984 hijacking of a Kuwait airline, killing 4
1985 hijacking of a TWA flight from Greece, killing 1
1990 killing of Saudi businessman
1992 attack on Israeli embassy in Turkey, killing 1
1992 bombing Israeli embassy in Argentina, killing 29
1993 failed attack on Jewish community in Turkey
1994 bombing of Jewish community center in Argentina, killing 85
1996 bombing US air force residential tower in Saudi Arabia, killing 19
2012 failed bombing of tourist site in Thailand frequented by Israelis
2012 attack on Israeli ambassador in Azerbaijan
2012 attempted killings of Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia
2012 suicide bomb of tourist bus with Israelis in Bulgaria, killing 7
2014 failed attack on Israeli tourists in Thailand
2015 failed attempt to stockpile bombs in the United Kingdom
2015 failed attempt to stockpile weapons in Cyprus
2023 failed attempt to attack the Jewish community in Brazil
People examine a damaged Israeli embassy car after an explosion in New Delhi, February 13, 2012.
REUTERS/Parivartan SharmaDestruction of the Jewish Community center in Buenos Aires, July 18, 1994Suicide bomber blows up bus with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, July 18, 2012Explosion in Bangkok, February 14, 2012Hezbollah hijacks TWA plane from Greece, June 14, 1985
At this moment, as the Iranian proxies get decimated, it is just as likely that they and their supporters such as Within Our Lifetime will truly launch the “Global Intifada” in violent attacks against Jews and Israelis around the world.
Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani calls for an “Intifada Revolution” wherever these are Israelis and Israel supportersWOL protest outside a New York City exhibit on the massacre at the Nova music festival in Israel, with signs “Zionists are not humans”Within Our Lifetime mourns death of Nasarallah by “zionist entity” in a tweet “The martyrdom of such a figure may generate feelings of despair, but resistance does not rest in one man’s hands — it is in the hearts of millions who refuse to abandon Palestine. Thousands will rise from his place in the earth to challenge this cruel world and carry on our people’s task. The weight of his martyrdom will crash down on the heads of the settler colony.“
Just two months after Israel assassinated one of the leaders of a U.S. foreign terrorist organization in Iran whom The New York Times called a man of peace, the facts repeated.
In July 2023, Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, one of the heads of Hamas, an organization sworn towards the destruction of Israel, while he visited Iran. In September, Israel took out Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, also dedicated to destroying the “Zionist entity.” Just as the Times called Haniyeh the key towards peace in the region, it extolled Nasrallah.
The Times called Nasrallah a “towering figure… across the Middle East.” He “was opposed to Israel… and maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians.”
I kid you not.
The Times painted a fictitious narrative that Hezbollah “opposes” Israel, maybe like dueling political parties. Perhaps the organization disliked Israeli policies on a couple of issues, or maybe simply wanted a “Free Palestine” with equality for all.
That is a disgraceful whitewashing of the genocidal intent of the jihadist group. Hezbollah wants Israel destroyed and to bring shari’a law throughout the Middle East.
As relayed in a number of articles and speeches, Nasrallah’s Hezbollah sought the destruction of the Jewish State:
“our struggle will end only when this entity [Israel] is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated. We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.” – February 1985
“Our people in Palestine, you have the chance to decide on your own destiny, and you can get your land back. O people of Palestine, your way to Palestine and to liberty is through serious resistance and a real insurrection, not through “The Oslo Accord” or the unfair negotiations held in Stockholm. You should choose insurrection and resistance and never let go of your rights. Do what the Lebanese do: They refuse to keep even a small part of their land occupied.” – May 2000
“[Israel] is an aggressive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future in our land…. It’s destination is manifested in our motto, ‘Death to Israel’.” – 2005
“Hezbollah congratulates the resisting Palestinian people and the heroic fighters of the Palestinian factions, especially our dear brothers in the al Qassam Brigades and the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, for the wide-ranging and divinely supported heroic operation, promising complete victory. This triumphant operation is a decisive response to the ongoing crimes of the occupation and continuous violations against sanctities, honors, and dignities. It is a renewed confirmation that the will of the Palestinian people and the rifle of the resistance is the only choice in confronting aggression and occupation. It sends a message to the Arab and Islamic world, and the international community as a whole, especially those seeking normalization with this enemy, that the Palestinian cause is an everlasting one, alive until victory and liberation.” – after October 7, 2023 massacre by Hamas
Nasrallah repeatedly stated that Hezbollah will never negotiate with the “Zionist entity.” That its goal was converting all Christians in the region to Islam and bringing shari’a law as soon as Islam crossed the majority. As it is not currently in the majority, the jihadi group will not force conversion by the sword and asked the Christians in Lebanon to therefore not use violence against them, even as they run a completely distinct army from the government of Lebanon.
Part of Hezbollah’s statement of purpose from 1998
The NY Times description of the removal of leading terrorists who were actively gunning for civilians as an unjust assassination of peace, is designed to mark Israel as blood-thirsty murderers who crave war. Expect the hashtag #HitlerWasRight to accompany reposts to Times’ articles.
The New York Times is deliberately lying to its readership that jihadi terrorist groups which seek the complete destruction of Israel are really seeking coexistence. It is a subtle incitement to antisemitism and hatred of Israel, even in the shadow of the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and in the midst of a multi-front war.
ACTION ITEMS
Write to the New York Times to state clearly that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations that seek the destruction of Israel, and not benign actors looking for religious coexistence.
The escalation of the war between Iranian Proxies and Israel continues to lay bare the alias armies of Iran embedded around the region.
The United Nations is demanding diplomatic negotiations commence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority while only narrowly condemning the Hamas (not Palestinian) savage massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. For the UN, Hamas is at once distinct from Palestine, and simultaneously a legitimate Palestinian political group, as UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths said “Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, of course, as you know. It’s a political movement.”
Does the UN think that Hamas is a separate group inside of Gaza or does it acknowledge that Palestine launched a genocidal war against Israel?
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has vast military capabilities, estimated to be around 150,000 missiles. In conjunction with Hamas’s October 7 war, Hezbollah began its attack on Israel. Israel’s response to Hezbollah has been characterized as an attack on Lebanon rather than Hezbollah.
The shifting nouns makes Israel appear to be the aggressor against a neutral party: while Hamas attacks Israel, Israel attacks Gaza; while Hezbollah attacks Israel, Israel attacks Lebanon.
Hamas controls Gaza and has 58% of the seats in the Palestinian parliament. Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon and has 48% of the Lebanese government.
In no other sphere can a country claim that its military is not a functioning arm of the government. Such fictitious divide affords the government a veneer of peaceful intentions while its army wages war.
Simultaneously, both are proxy groups of the Islamic Republic of Iran, colonial outposts on the borders of Israel.
Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel are either 1) a rogue third party terrorist group attack on the Jewish State, 2) a Lebanese attack, or 3) an Iranian attack. If it is a separate entity, than a diplomatic solution must a) have the Lebanese government confiscate all its weapons, b) strip the group of all seats in parliament, and c) expel it from Lebanon. If the attacks on Israel were from Lebanon, than Israel has full right to attack all of Lebanon. If the attacks were spearheaded by Iran, than we have long been in a regional war.
Multiple countries issue a release calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon (people and government), making no mention of Hezbollah or Iran, tacitly accepting that Hezbollah is part of Lebanon and that Lebanon launched an unprovoked attack on Israel.
The same should hold for Hamas and Palestinian territories: Palestinians launched a war against Israel, not Iran or a limited wicked entity.
Labeling armies with unique names distances the governments and population from the violence they perpetrated. It falsely shields the attacking government and people from fault and casts the defensive response as unwarranted and sinister.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez calls members of Hezbollah “innocent civilians” and Israel’s attack a violation of “international humanitarian law,” which implies that she believes that the people and government of Lebanon started a war with Israel and Israel is acting in self defense.
The anti-Israel world does not believe that non-Hamas Gazans who are killed by Israel’s defensive war are civilians caught in a war that its government started, but defenseless targets of an Israeli initiated attack. The “Hamas attacks Israel / Israel attacks Gaza” (not Hamas) narrative obfuscates the culpability of the people and government of Gaza.
The antisemitic jihadists in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza launched a war of annihilation against the Jewish State using alias armies, attempting to shield the people and governments as uninvolved bystanders. Much of the world has ingested the red herring and is defaming Israel’s just war in the latest incarnation of a blood libel.
Columbia University has long felt insecure among the Ivy League schools, particularly relative to Harvard. Whether in the undergraduate or graduate programs, Harvard was considered the gold standard. For decades, Boston has been known as the elite university city while New York City was an elite city that happened to have a bunch of decent schools.
Building on its historic reputation as a haven for “revolutionaries” in the 1960s, the administration opted to use the Palestinian Arab enormous massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023 as a launching point for its new branding campaign. It allowed student protestors to harass Jewish students, break into school buildings and intimidate anyone who did not show solidarity with the anti-Israel movement. It gave permission for radicals to cut off access to the school and incite violence. It laughed off the dwindling Jewish population’s petition to remove Professor Joseph Massad who celebrated the October 7 Palestinian slaughter of Jews. The dean of the university celebrated the “peaceful protests” of the students as part of the “long and proud tradition [at Columbia] of protest and activism on many important issues.” She allowed deans who mocked antisemitism to resign with all their benefits rather than fire them for cause.
Columbia’s “Israel apartheid wall” bisects the campusPro-Hamas marchers calling for violence
As college enrollment has been on a steady decline since 2010, Columbia’s administration decided to tap into the populist anti-Israel movement and rename its School of International and Public Affairs, as the Yahya Sinwar School Of Government, after the leader of the Palestinian pogrom on Israeli Jews. It is bringing back the Intifada banners hung by students and etching its call into the stone walls of the buildings’ entrances to embrace antisemitism as the new anti-racism.
Columbia “Intifada” banner to be preserved in the new Yahya Sinwar School of Government lobby as historic inspiration
Columbia hopes that its new jihadi branding will entice the antisemitic generation to look past the flailing institution’s educational content and embrace the thriving Jew hatred culture metastasizing among the socialist-jihadi youth.
Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Columbia has eyes on you.
The National Review posted a cartoon in the aftermath of the political-terrorist group Hezbollah’s pagers blowing up around Lebanon and Syria, of U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) sitting at her desk and pondering why her pager had just exploded. In response, many of her alt-left comrades rallied to her and accused the right-leaning media company of racism.
If Tlaib was targeted solely because she is an Arab Muslim, that would certainly be offensive and racist.
Tlaib has a history of falsely attacking Israel as engaging in “ethnic cleansing”, “apartheid” and “genocide.” She has also refused to call for Hamas to be held accountable for actual premediated genocide and ethnic cleansing. She seemingly believes that the best defense for Palestinian Arab terrorism is to go on the attack to make their evil actions appear warranted.
Does someone’s antisemitism and hatred of Israel warrant being labeled terrorist-adjacent, at least in jest?
The recent exploding pager attack was narrowly targeted to members of Hezbollah, and hit those in its orbit including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. It clearly demonstrates the ties between politicians and the terrorist group, hence the cartoon.
Hamas and Hezbollah are both radical jihadi groups with manifestos calling for the destruction of Israel (“It’s destination is manifested in our motto, ‘Death to Israel'”- Hezbollah; “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” – Hamas). Tlaib has not stated anything that extreme, even though she defends the groups’ crimes against humanity.
Had the cartoon been made using Rep. Jamaal Bowman, would people have made a charge of racism about the cartoon? Is the alt-left’s aggressive defense of Tlaib acknowledgment that 75% of Palestinian Arabs support the heinous Hamas massacre of Jewish women, children and the elderly?
While other alt-left members of Congress have a few reasons for possibly being portrayed as anti-Israel, Tlaib is the unquestioned champion of vile antisemitism, promoting libels about Israel, defending anti-Israel terrorist groups and taking funds from their supporters.
The charge of “anti-Arab bigotry and Islamophobia” does not hold.
There are two competing narratives of the war between Lebanon and Israel, one being promoted by the liberal media, the United Nations and Muslim-majority countries (the “Anti-Israel Camp”), and the other by Israel and its supporters. How each side sees the framework of the war will continue to direct the commentary as the war unfolds.
Anti-Israel Narrative
According to one telling of the story, Hezbollah is a “Lebanese militant group” which is “supported by Iran.” The group attacked Israel on October 7, just after the Hamas massacre, “to show support for its Palestinian ally,” and will stop fighting Israel as soon as there is a “ceasefire agreed to by Hamas.”
In this telling of the events, Israel has opened up a new front against Hezbollah for virtually no reason, as the key to stopping the Hezbollah attacks is to end the fighting in Gaza. Israel’s “ferocious assault on Hezbollah” is not only unwarranted but infuriating the United States President Biden who has sought to confine the fighting to Gaza.
NY Times article bemoaning Israel’s attack on Hezbollah, creating a rift between the U.S. and Israel
Hezbollah is portrayed as only a Lebanese ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, whose mission and intentions are unstated. Israel’s mission is seemingly a folly, destined to repeat the “mistakes the United States made after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”
Pro-Israel Narrative
The same events are seen very differently by Israel supporters and those who appreciate a truthful account of current events.
Hamas has majority support of Palestinians, with 58% of parliament. It’s goal to destroy Israel is to enable 6 million Palestinians to overtake the Jewish State. Hezbollah is slightly less popular than Hamas, with 48% of parliament and seeks to expel the 490,000 Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) who reside in Lebanon to a new state of Palestine.
Israel was attacked by both Iranian proxies of Hamas and Hezbollah on October 7, 2023 and is fighting a defensive war it does not want against each. The threat of Hezbollah is much greater than Hamas, which has an estimated 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Over 80,000 Israelis in the north have been internally displaced to the south because of the Hezbollah attacks and ongoing threats.
These narratives are very different. The anti-Israel camp thinks that the United States waged wrongful revenge attacks after 9/11 and Israel is going down the same ill-advised path. But the pro-Israel view is that the American response wasn’t the problem: it waged the war terribly, first by attacking Iraq which was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, and then spending twenty years in Afghanistan fighting a terrorist group that could not pose an existential threat to the US, for the action al Qaeda took on a single day. That dynamic is not remotely similar for Israel fighting two clear and obvious enemies on its borders that are constantly attacking its citizens.
If the reports you consume tell you that Hezbollah is simply helping its beleaguered Gazan allies who are being crushed by the powerful Israeli army against the wishes of the United States, know that you are absorbing a toxic anti-Israel fake account of the just defensive war Israel is waging against genocidal foes next door.
First One Through 