The United Nations’ role in the Middle East is a dangerous farce. It pretends to be an impartial party attempting to bring peace to the volatile region, when in fact it takes only sides with Palestinian Arabs.
The UN has a person appointed to be the “Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process,” Tor Wennesland. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Wennesland to that role in December 2020 and simultaneously to act as Guterres’ “Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.” How could Israel possibly take the position of such a biased representative seriously? Guterres shot the messenger by cementing him with Palestinian cement shoes from the outset.
Not surprisingly, the “peace process” floundered under Guterres and Wennesland, with the Palestinian Arabs together with backers in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen all coming for the Jewish State in a regional assault.
The biased and tarnished Wennesland continues to address the UN Security Council and the world via social media. Various biases can be found throughout his comments.
On August 16, 2024, Wennesland tweeted that he condemned settler violence and wanted “to ensure full accountability for all involved,” and further called “on the Israeli government to stop settler violence.”
August 16, 2024 tweet calling out Israelis for violence and demanding full accountability
But Wennesland did the opposite regarding Hamas and other terrorist groups attacking Israel, where he did not call out “Hezbollah” and demanded that Israel use “maximum restraint” in responding to terror.
July 27, 2024 tweet not naming Hezbollah terrorists and urging Israel respond with “maximum restraint”
The hypocrisy is a designed feature of the UN. When Wennesland addressed the UN Security Council on May 29, 2024, he acknowledged the “breakdown of law and order” in Gaza as well as the “well-organized looting of the UNRWA Rafah log base,” but deliberately omitted saying that the looting was done by Hamas. In fact, he implied the opposite, that because Hamas was no longer in charge, there was a breakdown of order.
Comments to UNSC on May 29, 2024
Wennesland treats Hamas as a trusted partner and uses the political-terrorist group’s talking points. On August 10, 2024, Wennesland condemned on the “devastating strike on a school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinian, with dozens of fatalities.” The UN itself admitted that those “dozens of fatalities” were terrorists, yet the UN’s “Coordinator for Peace” parroted jihadi terrorist propaganda.
Official statement condemning the killing of terrorists on August 10, 2024
Wennesland views his role as protecting and promoting Palestinian Arabs, not securing peace. It means advancing their narrative, excusing their terrorism, and preventing Israel from eliminating jihadi terrorists.
Wennesland knows that there are numerous allies of Palestinians all attacking Israel; he names Hizbullah, Iran and the Houthis, even while treading gingerly around Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s because he sees his goal as supporting the creation of a Palestinian state first and foremost, and that means calling for international support for a Palestinian government, even knowing it to be deeply corrupt and antisemitic.
May 29 comments to UNSC
The UN’s idea of a “peace process” is deeply and fundamentally flawed. The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Coordinator for Middle East Peace Tor Wennesland should both be fired for abetting terrorism, and all UN agencies in the region should be shuttered.
For decades, Palestinians put on a dance that they had two personas: one peaceful and secular, the other militant and Islamist. In August 2024, they shed the former and fully embraced the latter.
Palestinian Arabs had two principal parties in their government: the more secular Fatah and the Islamist Hamas. The Palestinian Authority has been ruled by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who the west presents as a moderate voice of reason, despite being a Holocaust denier and being deeply unpopular amongst local Palestinians. Abbas has ruled E49, the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines, commonly called the “West Bank” by Palestinians and “Judea and Samaria” by Israelis.
Hamas is the more popular political party amongst local Palestinian Arabs and has ruled Gaza since 2007. It is a designated terrorist organization according to the United States, European Union, Israel and many other countries. It nominally divided the organization between its political wing and its military wing, much like Nazi Germany had different divisions of the SS, Gestapo, Waffen, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and Wehrmacht.
On July 31, 2024, Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, while he was in Iran. In response to the vacated position, on August 6, Hamas announced that Yahya Sinwar who is the group’s military leader, will also assume the role of diplomatic leader. The move consolidated the diplomatic and terrorist faces of the organization.
Just over a week later on August 15, President Abbas spoke to the government of Turkey in a large address. In his remarks, he made clear that the Palestinian Authority is not a secular party but a religious one, intent on “implement[ing] Islamic sharia law: victory or martyrdom.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas addressing government of Turkey on August 15, 2024
He called for Islamic prayers to mourn for the slain leader of Hamas with reciting prayers from the Quran to wide applause.
And then called the United States a “plague,” something nefarious and detrimental to humankind which must be destroyed.
Palestinian leadership has shed the polite diplomatic facade and embraced the genocidal jihadi mantra of the foundational Hamas Charter, in line with the desires of the Palestinian Arab public and radical jihadists around the world. It remains to be seen if this will expand the war against the Jewish State or initiates a global recognition that an antisemitic genocidal regime next to the only Jewish State is untenable in the extreme.
Jewish students were physically blocked from sections of UCLA’s campus by anti-Israel protestors, many covering their faces with kaffiyehs in the Spring 2024 semester. Three students consequently sued to have the university ensure that they have equal rights to use and enjoy the campus facilities.
U.S. District Judge Mark C. Scarsi agreed with the plaintiffs that UCLA knew students could not enter parts of campus because of their religious beliefs. His ruling ordered UCLA to stop “knowingly allowing or facilitating the exclusion of Jewish students from ordinarily available portions of UCLA’s programs, activities, and campus areas, whether as a result of a de-escalation strategy or otherwise.”
UCLA strongly disagreed.
Mary Osako, UCLA vice chancellor for strategic communications, said “the district court’s ruling would improperly hamstring our ability to respond to events on the ground and to meet the needs of the Bruin community. We’re closely reviewing the Judge’s ruling and considering all our options moving forward.”
Thomas Harvey, the lawyer representing Faculty for Justice in Palestine, came up with the absurd notion that the ruling “paves the way for total removal of pro-Palestinian activity on campus. If the sincerely held religious belief being protected here is the belief in the Jewish state of Israel, any class, campus event or speaker that criticizes that nation’s legal or political decisions might be prohibited.”
Jewish student at UCLA denied entry to campus while police looked on
UCLA and the lawyer’s arguments aren’t just ridiculous but make one wonder if they are deeply antisemitic. The ruling doesn’t say anything about criticizing “political decisions” of any country; it is about free and fair access for all students to use every corner of the university campus.
In a strange bit of coincidence, on October 6, 2023, one day before the barbaric Palestinian massacre of Israelis, UCLA announced the UCLA Research Hub on Antisemitism, funded by a $600,000 gift by the Pritzker family. The hub is a joint effort between the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate and the Center for Jewish Studies. In announcing the new effort, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said “It is critical that we do more than condemn the recent surge in antisemitism — we must actively work against it.”
Chancellor Block was pushed to resign in May 2024 by anti-Israel protestors who also called for canceling the school’s Israel Studies Department and for boycotting all Israeli universities.
UCLA is tacking to the jihadi fringe to remove any tolerance of contrary points of view and freedom of access in an undemocratic purge of Zionists and Jews. It is displaying a frightful lack of basic civility and critical thinking.
UCLA is so infected with anti-Zionism, that it is fighting to ban pro-Zionist students from campus and an education. It says a great deal about California and the terrible state of education today.
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.
Anti-Israel politicians and pundits are slamming Israel about its attacks in Gaza as it tries to root out the command structure of Hamas, the popular political-terrorist groups that rules Gaza. To listen to them, one would imagine that it is Israel and not Hamas that is flouting the rules of war and the Geneva Convention of 1949.
X post by Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs decrying the attacks in Khan Younis that killed a senior Hamas leader as well as dozens of civilians on July 14, 2024
The Israeli military said that Rafa Salama, Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade commander, was killed in an air strike on July 13 that also targeted the head of the group’s armed wing, Mohammed Deif. Salama was confirmed dead but Deif’s fate is unknown at this time. Perhaps as many as 90 civilians were also killed in the strike.
Mohammed Deif (left) and Rafa Salama (right) senior Hamas leaders targeted by Israeli military
Assassinating senior military leaders who masterminded the October 7 massive and brutal slaughter in Israel which launched the region into a bloody war is the definition of justice. The two Hamas commanders continued to lead the Palestinian army these past months, and their deaths will hasten the end of the war, sparing thousands of lives.
This is readily apparent to all. So why would Norway’s foreign minister attack Israel for the tragic collateral deaths instead of Palestinian leadership for embedding military leadership within a civilian population?
The Geneva Convention’s Article 51(5b) states clearly that it is against the rules of war to launch “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life… which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” Article 57 says much the same.
The “concrete and direct military advantage” in killing the heads of Hamas’s military wing is enormous. While the death of 90 civilians is a tragedy, bringing an end to the war would be considered within the guidelines of the rules of war.
Article 51(7) is explicit that armies can operate in civilian areas that are infested with high profile military targets: “The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations.”
In fact, it is Hamas which is violating the Geneva Convention by using civilians to shield terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres similarly inverted reality in attacking Israel and not Hamas. He addressed a group during a fundraising appeal for UNRWA, the agency that pretends that many Palestinian Arabs living in Gaza are somehow refugees. He said “Recent days have brought yet more evacuation orders by Israeli authorities, yet more civilian suffering, and yet more bloodshed. Palestinians in Gaza keep being forced to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death.”
But surely the head of the United Nations knows that Israel is following the Geneva Convention of 1949 in attempting “to remove the civilian population” to avoid their injury as it brings terrorists to justice. Article 58 specifically states that parties should “avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.”
Article 58 of the Geneva Convention of 1949
Israel is prosecuting a defensive war it never wanted according the principles of the Geneva Convention and complying with the principles of proportionality, distinction and precaution against an enemy sworn to its annihilation which tramples on every human right. Yet the heads of the United Nations and Norway are blind to facts, preferring the genocidal regime in the belief that genuflecting to genocidal maniacs will yield a Palestinian state.
Some in the West believe that acknowledging that Hamas is evil and genocidal will forever prevent the establishment of a Palestinian State as it marks all Palestinian Arabs unworthy and incapable of peaceful coexistence. The truth is the opposite. Shielding Hamas ensures that Palestinians will be trapped in forever wars.
In an environment of politicians and political organizations endorsing people running for office, it is noteworthy to see a grassroots-led initiative push for an organization to rescind an existing endorsement.
In one of the most-watched primaries in the country, residents of New York State’s 16th Congressional District have been writing to Planned Parenthood to rescind its endorsement of Rep. Jamaal Bowman. The impetus for people in the liberal district to call the women’s rights organization was the recently surfaced video of Bowman yelling at a crowd on the streets of White Plains that the October 7 rape of Jewish women in Israel was a “lie” and “propaganda.”
“I have been giving to Planned Parenthood for forty years. I send them money monthly, and I cannot believe that they would endorse a rape denier,” said Jackie Laub, a retired medical technician who lives in White Plains. “Do the leaders of the organization hate Jews and Israel so much that they would still endorse him?”
Rabbi Scott Weiner of New Rochelle used to be a board member of Planned Parenthood. He submitted the petition to the organization’s CEO and Chair last week, signed by six hundred people in just one week, the vast majority of whom are residents of the district. “I am deeply shocked,” Rabbi Weiner said. “I care deeply about the organization, and for it to have its brand tarnished by endorsing Bowman will likely cost them important donors.”
The video of Bowman denying the sexual assault of women in Israel came out in late March, even though it was filmed at a pro-Palestinian rally in November. When people began to question and criticize Bowman about his rape comments, he refused to discuss it, according to Politico.
Eventually, Bowman got around to condemning the sexual violence committed by Hamas but many of his constituents remain deeply troubled by his initial instinct to not believe women who are raped if they are Jewish.
Diane Katz, who raised her four children in the district said “I wrote to Planned Parenthood as soon as I learned that they had endorsed Bowman. The organization’s response was abysmal. How can they endorse someone who clearly denied the extremely well-documented evidence and testimony of Israeli women who were raped and sexually mutilated? Jewish women around the United States have been leaders in the pro-choice and reproductive rights movement for decades and this is a slap in the face to our community.” She added her name to the petition to not feel so alone and abused by the organization’s tepid response to her letter.
“They are endorsing a rape denier. Can you imagine that?” Katz asked. “A woman’s rights organization is endorsing a rape denier.”
Others had a similar road to signing the petition.
Dr. Rebecca Amaru of White Plains shared her initial email with Planned Parenthood. It led with “I write as a resident of NY-16, a woman, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist, an abortion provider, a proud activist on behalf of abortion access and rights, and a Jew.” She added “Jamaal Bowman does NOT stand for the values that Planned Parenthood represents. Mr. Bowman’s statements after October 7, 2023, included denials of the sexual violence propagated by Hamas terrorists against countless women in Israel. The denials by some progressive politicians of the well-documented crimes against women on October 7 are a stain on the Democratic Party. No matter what Planned Parenthood believes about the war in Gaza, you MUST come down on the side of women victimized by rape as weapon of war.”
After not getting a response from Planned Parenthood, she began to forward the petition to friends.
“It is not as though [Westchester County Executive] George Latimer is not pro-women. He is every bit as pro-choice as Bowman. Minus the rape denial,” added Amaru.
Dr. Sandra Weinstein of New Rochelle, a mother of three girls, was glad that the petition was being circulated. “Candidly, I wasn’t going to vote for Bowman anyway, so this has nothing to do with the race. This is about the normalization of rape denial if the victims are Jewish.”
The petition does not discuss the primary race and acknowledges Bowman’s stance on abortions. Specifically, the petition states that it is “deeply distressing to see Planned Parenthood continue to endorse Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16). While he has been a supporter of female reproductive rights, he has vocally denied the mass rape of Israeli women before a chanting crowd on the streets of his district. Women’s bodily autonomy is not limited to a right to abortion. It must include protections from sexual abuse and assault. Rep. Bowman’s disgraceful ridicule of raped women is beyond the pale and cannot be normalized as acceptable, which Planned Parenthood’s endorsement does.”
One Email sent by someone in District 16 to Planned Parenthood, and a QR Code which was used to get people to sign the petition
Dr. Tali Lando of White Plains was very direct, saying “I’m disgusted. How can my congressperson’s initial reaction not only be to mock the rape of Jewish women, but to incite a crowd that Jewish rape victims are liars? What kind of country are we in?” She continued that the entire premise of Planned Parenthood endorsing Bowman is a contradiction of being for abortion rights. “Planned Parenthood should be ashamed of itself. It cannot claim to be the leading advocate of women’s bodily autonomy while simultaneously aligning itself with a rape denier.”
Rabbi Weiner added that “this is not just a Jewish issue. When a leading national woman’s rights organization like Planned Parenthood affixes its name to person who denigrates the victims of sexual assault to a cheering crowd, every person is at risk.”
The group’s action is already costing them one donor. “After forty years, I am no longer giving to them. They’ve lost me,” said Laub.
Planned Parenthood has still not responded to the petition other than acknowledging that it was received on June 10.
In yet another bit of lying to its readership to convey an entirely fictitious narrative, The New York Times wrote an article on its front page that claimed that Gazans hate the ruling government of Hamas, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization.
It’s completely untrue as shown over and again in polls, including one released this week.
New York Times front page on June 16, 2024 print edition
The article in the print version was titled “Gazans Voice Their Distress Under Hamas.” The article claimed that “support among Gazans [for Hamas] has been low for some time.” It added that “the group and its leaders have remained broadly unpopular in the enclave. More Gazans have even been willing to speak out against Hamas,” and that the people “held Hamas responsible” for their miserable condition.
The Times ran this tale in a front page Sunday paper interviewing about ten people.
Out of a territory of 2.2 million.
The reality is that there is a credible Palestinian organization which polls the local population every three months and has done so for decades. It interviewed roughly 750 people in both Gaza and the West Bank at the end of May. It is called the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey and Research (PCPSR) and it released its latest findings on June 12, just days before the Times piece.
The Times referenced the article but ignored its findings in favor of presenting its fake narrative.
The PCPSR poll clearly shows that a MAJORITY of 64% of Gazans supporting Hamas. This is a STEADY RISE from December 2023 when a small majority of 52% supported the government launching and carrying out a war against Israel.
The poll also showed increasing support among Gazans for Iran since the Islamic Republic launched missiles against Israel.
This isn’t news. Gazans have always supported killing Jewish civilians in Israel according to polls going back to 2000.
Decades of PCPSR polls consistently show Gazans supporting terrorist attacks inside of Israel against Jewish civilians
Which begs why The Times reported this fake news. Some things come to mind:
It knows / believes that its readership does not check any of its sources
It wanted to convey that its reporters went into Gaza for a handful of interviews
It wanted to tell a specific narrative that the people of Gaza are distinct from its leaders and army, painting them as twice-over victims of Hamas and the Israeli army
The Times concluded the cover story with precisely that last point: “While Hamas and even the Israeli hostages were in the underground tunnels, he said, Gazans were above ground with no protection from Israeli and U.S.-made bombs dropped over their heads every day. That is an oft-heard complaint by Hamas’s critics in Gaza.“There is uncontrolled anger against Hamas,” he said. “It threw the Palestinian people into the bottom of the well.”
Notice how The Times inserted “U.S.-made bombs” into the talk-track, a deliberate manipulation to add the United States to the cause of misery of every-day Gazans.
The Times portrayal is #FakeNews. The majority of Gazans support the October 7 massacre, support Hamas, support Iran, support the goal of destroying the Jewish State and support killing Israeli civilians.
Alas, we live in a world where facts are gaining irrelevancy. Social media has allowed societies to be overwhelmed by feelings and narratives. A single emotional interview – especially one doctored – carries more weight than reams of data and analysis.
The Israeli war against Gaza is a just war by any measure of analysis, yet is deeply vulnerable to ongoing support in a culture in which emotions and systemic antisemitism prevail.
The Times is giving red meat to that highly-charged, angry anti-Zionist mob as a near-term business matter and to influence American policy, even as it sacrifices the long-term credibility of its institution and the physical well being of American Jewry.
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.
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