In a frightening spectacle of rewarding terror, a majority of countries at the United Nations voted to recognize the State of Palestine and give it a seat at the United Nations General Assembly. In so doing, there are two logical next steps for these 143 countries who claim to be supporting a two state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict: move their embassies to Israel to Jerusalem, and vote to dismantle UNRWA in the West Bank and Gaza.
Embassies to Israel in Jerusalem
For decades, many countries kept their embassies in Tel Aviv despite Israel’s capital being in Jerusalem. They did so, because the status of Jerusalem was always viewed as subject to negotiation. As originally envisioned in the November 1947 Partition Plan, all of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem were to be held in a “corpus separatum,” neither part of an Arab state nor a Jewish State. Now, in officially recognizing Palestine as a state and deciding that eastern Jerusalem is “illegally occupied” by Israel, those countries are essentially also recognizing that the western part of the city is part of Israel.
“Corpus Separatum” in orange line of Greater Bethlehem and Greater Jerusalem as marked in November 1949 UN Partition Plan, compared to 1949 Armistice Lines between Israel and Jordan marking West Jerusalem in blue and East Jerusalem in white, a situation that existed for 18 years 1949-1967.
Norway, Spain and Ireland recognized a Palestinian State in 2024 but failed to announce that they were moving their embassies to Israel to western Jerusalem. Mexico recognized Palestine in 2023 but has not moved its embassy. Sweden recognized Palestine in 2014 but has still not moved its Israeli embassy.
If countries simply recognize Palestine in theory – without borders – than it should demand that the phrase “Occupied East Jerusalem” should be stricken from any U.N. resolution. Alternatively, if they really believe that the matter of Jerusalem and borders are already settled as indicated in their votes, than to hold back moving the embassies to western Jerusalem is a slap in the face to Israel.
End UNRWA in Gaza and West Bank
For countries that recognize Palestine as a country controlling land in the West Bank and Gaza, it is absurd to have “Palestine refugees” in “Palestine.” The U.N. special “Palestine refugee” agency’s operations should handed over to the Palestinian Authority. Almost every UNRWA employee in the West Bank and Gaza are local Palestinians, so the hand off would be simple.
Failing to close UNRWA inside their recognized “Palestine” would be an affront to the sovereignty of Israel, essentially demanding that Israel accept millions of UNRWA’s wards despite Palestinians having a state of their own.
UNRWA in eastern Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
The recognition of Palestine has one of two flavors: it is merely symbolic and the countries still want the Palestinian Authority to negotiate borders, Jerusalem and refugees, OR these countries are actively attacking Israel in denying its sovereign right to declare its own capital and admit citizens of its own choosing.
If it is the former, than Israel should ask those countries to make clear that they do not consider “East Jerusalem” to be “occupied.” If it is the latter, Israel must consider taking strong political moves against them – together with allies which have not recognized Palestine like the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Australia.
The Muslim American community is a rapidly growing segment of the United States. It is projected to surpass the Jewish community by 2040 and be entrenched as the second largest religious group, estimated to become 8.1 million by 2050, according to Pew Research.
Like the Jewish community, a major consideration in the group’s focus is the Middle East. For Muslims, the region holds the major Islamic centers of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, while for Jews it is the Jewish holy land of Israel.
Beyond the sanctity of the land are co-religionists. There are 1.8 billion Muslims, with 50 Muslim-majority countries, with most being in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. This compares to just 15 million Jews globally and a single Jewish country, Israel.
Muslim population for Sunni and Shia (dark green), with Israel a dot in the middle
In 2024, several Muslim countries and territories surrounding Israel are waging a war to destroy the Jewish State, and the United States has backed Israel in defending itself. This Iranian Axis-Israel war is weighing heavily on how Muslim Americans are thinking about the 2024 U.S. presidential elections.
The community has long been outraged by former President Trump’s anti-Islamic comments and angered by his strongly pro-Israel actions during his term from 2017 through 2020. Muslims were upset about his cutting funds to Palestinians, placing sanctions on Iran, and normalizing Israel into the Arab Middle East with the Abraham Accords.
But Muslim Americans are also disgusted with the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel fighting against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. They cannot fathom voting for Harris in the upcoming presidential election, even as they view her more favorably than Trump.
Resigned to the fact that both candidates are not anti-Zionist, a significant part of the community has decided to send a message, and hopefully play spoiler in the upcoming presidential election, in the hope of drawing attention to their position to influence future elections.
The Turkish news site Andalu posted a talk featuring Islamic preachers and members of CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations. The discussion called for Muslim Americans to vote for third party candidates like Jill Stein and Cornel West. While they have no chance of winning, the aim is to make the two dominant political parties start to cater to their demands, especially in halting support for the Jewish State.
According to polls released by CAIR, the Muslim vote in Michigan and Wisconsin – two important swing states to securing the presidency – should have an enormous turnout for Stein. Their hope is to show the Democratic party that had they changed policy course on Israel, those votes could have been theirs. The Muslim American community would rather lose the election to Trump whom they despise, to influence the future direction of the Democratic Party, which is already infiltrated by members of the “Squad.”
Donald Trump may win a larger percentage of the Jewish vote than any Republican nominee over the past cycles which might make him keep pro-Israel positions, but Muslims have a soft back-up hope that Trump will credit the Muslim community for abandoning Harris to help him secure the presidency.
While the vast majority of Americans don’t focus on foreign affairs as the primary concern in elections beyond the border crisis, the Muslim and Jewish communities are putting the Hamas-Israel war at the top of their list, and each group may tip the scales to Donald Trump for very different reasons. Jews will focus on continuing to support Israel in its war against genocidal jihadists, while Muslims will argue that the U.S. should abandon Israel and foreign policy and funding altogether, to let the Iranian axis devour the sole Jewish State.
The Jewish community is taking a very near-term view of the American presidential election, concerned about the terrible spike in antisemitism in the U.S. and the ring of evil attacking Israel right now. The Muslim community is playing the long game, and is willing to simply place a marker on the table in 2024 that they are an emerging force to be reckoned with.
Jews are small in number with a single state and are beset by existential fear, so are pushing for immediate action. Meanwhile, the Muslim world has no existential worries, and can focus on the ultimate prize in which their numbers and power overwhelm American Jews, just as they encircle the Jewish State. In the near-term, they will work to infiltrate the educational system and overtake the Democratic Party to breed a new generation of socialist-jihadists who will normalize anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
It’s called the Insidious Jihad in America and is over five years old now. Imagine where the country will be in five more years.
In the aftermath of the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the United Nations decided that the killers are “peace-loving.”
On May 10, 2024, the United Nations voted and approved A/ES-10/L.30/Rev.1 which said “that membership in the United Nations is open to all peace-loving States,” and that Palestine fully qualifies. It endorsed Palestine as “peace-loving” despite Hamas committing a brutal slaughter of 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, as codified in its genocidal antisemitic charter which is embraced by Palestinians who elected the terrorist group to 58% of parliament in 2006.
The recorded vote was 143 in favour to 9 against (Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, United States), with 25 abstentions.
On September 10, 2024, Palestine took its seat at the General Assembly of the UN’s opening session. Delegates from around the world embraced the Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour.
Delegates of member states line up to greet Riyad Mansour, top right, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, as he arrives for the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 10, 2024 at the United Nations. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The beheading of people is “peace-loving” if the victims are Jews. The burning of families alive is “peace-loving” if the family are Jews. The sexual abuse of women is “peace-loving” if the women are Jews. The abduction of babies as hostages is “peace-loving” if the infants are Jews.
So says the United Nations, an institution awash in moral rot which should be defunded and closed.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, spoke in Geneva on September 8, 2024 and let it be known that the events of the past year in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank showed that Palestinians need to control their borders to satisfy their “causes.”
“We know that wars spill over, and into, future generations, fostering repeated cycles of hatred if their causes remain unaddressed.
Sadly, the war in Gaza is the quintessential example.
Since the horrific 7 October attacks claimed the lives of over 1,200 victims in Israel and injured many others, over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, several thousand injured, and thousands remain under the rubble in Gaza. Each day, Palestinians struggle to survive. Nearly 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced across the strip, many multiple times. Eleven months on, 101 Israeli hostages are still held to be in Gaza. While the actual number is likely higher, almost 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons or ad hoc military facilities, many arbitrarily, with over 50 people having died due to inhumane conditions and ill-treatment. In the West Bank, deadly and destructive operations, some at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades, are worsening a calamitous situation there, already aggravated by serious settler violence.
Ending that war and averting a full-blown regional conflict is an absolute and urgent priority. Equally, the wider situation of illegality across the occupied Palestinian territory deriving from Israel’s policies and practices, as so clearly spelled out by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion in July, must be comprehensively addressed.
States must not – cannot – accept blatant disregard for international law, including binding decisions of the Security Council and orders of the International Court of Justice, neither in this nor any other situation.“
The head of the UN Human Rights did not ascribe the murder of 1,200 people in Israel and holding of over 100 hostages to Palestinians. He did not state that Palestinians launched the war nor that they executed bound hostages. He used passive language to describe Israeli victims. Yet he did blame Israeli forces and “settler violence” for the deaths of Palestinians.
Turk ascribed the situation of the “repeated cycles of hatred” from the “illegality” of Israel’s policies regarding “Palestinian territory.”
The UN’s agenda is to fully arm an antisemitic Palestinian state next to the only Jewish State.
Gazans have had self-determination and independence since 2005 when Israel uprooted every civilian and military personnel from the area. The Palestinians had elections which brought the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of the parliament in 2006. Gazans used this freedom to build a vast tunnel infrastructure and war machine rather than build an economy, as they do not simply seek self-determination but a destruction of the Jewish State.
Gazans were able to commit a massive heinous butchering of men, women and children in Israel with a blockade surrounding the terrorist enclave. The United Nations turns a blind eye to the savagery as they perceive the Arab assailants as victims.
The UN wants the Israeli blockade of Gaza lifted so Hamas can have a free flow of advanced weaponry from the Islamic Republic of Iran and other terrorist groups. With such armorment, the root “cause” of Palestinian Arabs – the destruction of the Jewish State – may be realized.
The media narrative on the Gaza war is very much informed by whom the media opts to quote. The Israeli press as well as Jewish and pro-Zionist voices cite the Israeli government or military. For the rest of the world, it seems to only be the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas and its minions.
Israel recently attacked a school which several Palestinian Arab terrorist groups were using as a command center from which to plan attacks. Israel killed 19 terrorists according to an account by The Jerusalem Post.
While featuring the strike in the headline, JPost added that the United Nations condemned the attack, leaving a reader to ponder the deep anti-Israel UN bias for criticizing attacking terrorists. The JPost article went on to state that the “Israeli Army disputes Hamas’ claim that 100 civilians [were] killed,” putting the source of the Arab casualties squarely on Hamas and citing Israeli denial. The article would also name a senior Hamas terrorist killed in the attack.
This is in sharp contrast to headlines and articles found elsewhere in the increasingly anti-Israel western world.
The Associated Press only quoted “Palestinian officials” in the headline, making the source appear somewhat neutral while it mentioned “at least 80” killed, not breaking out the number of terrorists. The sub-header similarly quoted “Palestinian health authorities,” not identified as working hand-in-glove with Hamas, which governs the territory.
The British publications did much the same, with BBC News headlining a seemingly unbiased “hospital head,” while the Independent attempted to inflame readers with the headline “Terror and death as Israel strikes school in Gaza during prayers,” quoting generic “Palestinians.”
In France, Le Monde quoted “Gaza’s civil defense agency,” as if the region was acting in a defensive mode in a war it started, headlining that “World leaders ‘appalled’ by deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school.” Barron’s quoted Agence France-Presse that “France condemned Gaza school strike,” and quoted generic “rescuers” about the death toll.
Reuters’ headline led with a death toll by generic “officials,” but the article did quote a range of people including “the Israeli army,” “medics,” residents,” “Gaza health ministry,” and “Gaza health officials.” Almost all parties quoted were Palestinian Arabs, including “Hamas and Islamic Jihad” which denied the Israeli charge that there were militants in the building. There was no quote from the Israeli army questioning the death toll.
There is a war against Israel being fought in western media in the coverage of the war, designed to influence – not inform – its readership. The narrative is highly partisan and anti-Israel, orchestrated to incite the mob against Zionists and protect the genocidal regime of Hamas.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group Hamas, was killed in Iran last night. Hamas, a popular political-terrorist group that seeks the destruction of Israel according to its charter, has killed thousands of Israelis since it was founded in 1988. The terrorist group launched a massive war against the Jewish State on October 7, 2023, killing and butchering 1,200 people – including hundreds of women and children – and taking over 250 people – living and dead – into Gaza. The terrorist group has stated that it intends to repeat the barbaric attack “again and again“, thrusting Israel into a war to stop the terrorist machinery and bring the hostages home.
None of this was covered by The New York Times.
The Times led that Haniyeh was a “political leader” as if his hands were clean. His “assassination raises fears of war,” rather than the killing of a leading terrorist bringing justice to a region that has only known war.
The Times continued:
Over a picture of a smiling Haniyeh amongst friends, the Times wrote that this leader “was a key player in negotiations to stop the fighting in Gaza,” cementing the notion that Israel killed a man of peace.
Not once did the Times call Hamas a terrorist group. Not once did it show a picture of the heinous massacre that Hamas committed on October 7.
Instead, the Times repeated their twisted narrative that Israel’s killing of this “political leader” would “engulf the region in further conflict,” as though Israel launched this war it never wanted. It added to the story about Israel’s killing of a leader of Hezbollah, another U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, spinning an article that Israel is a rogue nation of assassination.
The Times continued that it will now be Hamas that “responds” to the assassination, as opposed to the fact that Israel has been responding to Hamas’s attack. The Times’ cherry-on-top to its toxic sundae was that “Mr. Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’s cease-fire negotiations with Israel,” crowning the terrorist as a man of peace.
Many Jews and Zionists stopped reading the Times because of its anti-Israel and anti-religious bent. The whole world should condemn the #FakeNews which inverts reality and causes real-world harm when it canonizes a chief jihadi terrorist.
The pro-Palestinian movement in the United States has gone full jihadi, targeting JEWISH institutions, including synagogues. The instigators are not only anti-Israel but anti-Jews.
Squirrel Hill Synagogue, PA location of worst mass murder of Jews in the US, defaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti, July 2024Mercer Island, WA synagogue defaced, November 2023
Jewish houses of worship are not Israeli. They have nothing to do with the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists, but were targeted by pro-Palestinian antisemites.
Synagogue in Los Angeles, CA spray painted with “Free Palestine” and “F*ck Israel” in May 2020Calgary, Canada synagogue defaced July 2024
The Palestineism movement specifically calls for finding and confronting Zionist organizations, which it has determined is every Jewish organization unless it specifically repudiates Zionism. They have created a “Mapping Project” to enable people to locate and harrass Jewish Americans, Jewish organizations, Jewish schools and synagogues.
The United States Holocaust Museum has written extensively about the Nazis use of intimidation as a tool to weaponize fear and “rationalize war, persecution, and genocide.” The “Free Palestine” graffiti on houses of worship – especially in the shadow of the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust on October 7, 2023 by Palestinian Arabs – is a deliberate targeting of Jews, a marker for exclusion and persecution.
The Department of Justice needs to act against these hate crimes. The department knows that “Hate crimes have a devastating effect beyond the harm inflicted on any one victim. They reverberate through families, communities, and the entire nation, as others fear that they too could be threatened, attacked, or forced from their homes, because of what they look like, who they are, where they worship, whom they love, or whether they have a disability.”
Section 241 of the civil rights code makes it a felony to intimidate people to hinder the free exercise to a basic privilege like worship.
Yet in Pennsylvania, home to the largest mass murder of Jews in the United States and scene of recent graffiti on a synagogue, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Josh Shapiro did not flag that the perpetrators of the antisemitic intimidation should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They only spoke of the symbolism of the vandalism and graffiti.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) made it an offense to use intimidation to prevent a person from going to a synagogue. A Tennessee woman was just sentenced to three years and five months for intimidating people from using an abortion clinic. Such action should be enforced quickly and broadly for vandalizing a synagogue, with long sentences when the language calls to eradicate the Jewish State.
Words of condemnation are appreciated but American Jewry needs and demands that politicians and law enforcement enforce laws to protect Jews from the onslaught of toxic antisemitic Palestineism that is sweeping the nation.
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.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024. He spoke of the strong ties between Israel and the U.S. and their mutual enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. He thanked Presidents Biden and Trump for being reliable allies, helping Israel fight its enemies and forge peace with those willing to coexist with the Jewish State.
The speech was addressed to a bipartisan audience of past, present and future Democratic and Republican presidents and members of Congress, and reflected the bipartisan and bicameral invitation to Netanyahu.
Yet only one party attended en masse. Only one party rose to their feet again and again during Netanyahu’s remarks. Only one party closed ranks with a strong ally in the middle of a horrific war.
The Republicans.
There was also one party which stood divided about Israel. One party who disrespected and disparaged the Israeli leader. One party whose shrill anti-Israel voices drowned out those who support Israel.
The Democrats.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was angry that Netanyahu came to address Congress as “bad faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” In truth, the bipartisan invitation did not politicize the relationship but laid bare the pro-Hamas and anti-Israel wing of woke politicians and Americans.
Nadler, a Jewish Congressman, insulted Netanyahu as “the worst leader in Jewish history.” He spent his time at Netanyahu’s speech reading from a book highly critical of Netanyahu that he brandished about like garlic before a vampire.
Rep. Jerry Nadler read highly critical biography of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while the prime minister addressed a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who had invited the Israeli Prime Minister, refused to shake the leader’s hand. Schumer had sharply criticized Netanyahu four months earlier in Congress, calling for new elections and meddling in foreign affairs of a democratic ally.
There were some Democrats who were supportive of Netanyahu and the Jewish State. Reps. Torres, Gottheimer, Hernandez, Manning, Franel and Wasserman-Schultz were clear about being proud Zionists, voicing full bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, calling for bringing home the hostages held by Palestinian Arabs, and blasting the antisemitic protests on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Yet few people took notice of their comments which were viewed only a few thousand times on X.
The anti-Israel and anti-Netanyahu politicians were much more popular.
Many far-left members of Congress boycotted the speech. According to Axios, roughly half of the Democrats in the Senate and the House did not attend the address, including Vice President Kamala Harris who chose to attend another event, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA.), former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). That’s over two times the number of Democrats who boycotted Netanyahu in 2015.
When the generals of wokedom Sanders and AOC posted about their feelings of “war criminal” Netanyahu and skipping the speech, MILLIONS of followers took in the bile. Even Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) who has already lost his seat in Congress for the next term, had nearly five times the number of views as Rep. Ritchie Torres.
The streets of Washington were filled with woke antisemites. Some held placards calling for the “final solution” in a reference to Hitler’s plan for a genocide of Jews. Some painted on governmental monuments that “Hamas is comin.”
The left-wing media joined the fray. The New Republic published an article about how horrible it would be for Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, to choose Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), an Orthodox Jew. Such a move would “ruin Democratic Unity” and “fracture the party” because Shapiro is a Zionist. Jacobin wants Harris to pick 82-year old Bernie Sanders as her Vice President, enjoying his vilification of Israel and capitalism.
According to a Gallup poll in March 2024, the favorability rating of Americans about Israel dropped below 60% for the first time since March 2004. It was mostly driven by young people 18-34 whose favorability ratings for Israel dropped in the last year to 38% from 64%, while their opinions barely budged for the Palestinian Authority. As it relates to the war, Democrats and the youth were the only segments to have a higher favorability rating for Palestinians more than Israelis.
By every measure, in just 75 years, Israel built a successful and thriving liberal democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Despite its success, the ongoing war against Gazan terrorists have sapped the support of the young and most left-leaning Americans, according to another poll by Gallup in late March 2024. Whether justified or not and fought minimizing harm to civilians or not, the anti-war movement amongst the young is not just drawing support from the Jewish State, but accelerating a movement to attack it and Zionists globally.
The messages of turning on Israel and Zionists continue to gain momentum, even among progressive Jews. Little known members of Congress like Rep. Sarah Jacobs’ (D-CA), not coincidentally the youngest Jew in Congress, post about boycotting Netanyahu got one million views on X, a platform more often used by young people.
Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress did not “politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship.” It exposed the deep rot of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in a growing segment of the Democratic Party, much like the Congressional hearings about antisemitism at universities shed light on the noxious Jew-hatred metastasizing in woke establishments.
ACTION ITEM
Contact Rep. Jerry Nadler and tell him he’s a vile and childish putz for insulting a leader of an American ally who was invited by a bipartisan and bicameral Congress. Call (202) 225-5635
