Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) represents the eighth largest Jewish district in Congress. He represents Americans.
And he has abandoned them all.
On October 16, 2023, while nearly 200 hostages remain captive in Gaza by the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas, the American far left-wing “squad” put forward a resolution which ignored them.
The “CeasfireNOW” Resolution leads that “between October 7 and October 16, 2023, armed violence has claimed the lives of 2,700 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis, including Israelis, and wounding thousands more.”
There was no acknowledgement of the sickening and unprovoked terrorist attack which started the violence.
There was no mention in the resolution of the hostages taken, which President Biden’s team said “are the highest priority. He [Biden] has sent hostage experts to coordinate and consult with the Israeli government on hostage recovery efforts.”
There was no statement to bring the Hamas perpetrators to justice. Quite the contrary, it called for “the Biden Administration to immediately call for and facilitate deescalation and a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence,” to allow the butchers to remain free, laughing at Israel and taunting the hostages.
Jamaal Bowman and fellow extremists Rep. Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib, have abandoned innocent hostages and are working to ensure that Hamas terrorists are never brought to justice, free to wantonly kill Jews whenever the mood strikes.
Is the squad being paid by Iran too?
ACTION ITEM
Email White House: “The CeasefireNow” Resolution put forward by the left-wing radical fringe including NY’s Bowman ignores Hamas terrorism and the hundreds of hostages held by the jihadi group. It is disgraceful and alarming surrender to violence. It must not only be rejected but the sponsors should be censured.”
The Jewish State and Jews around the world have woken up to the fact that they are in a war, hated for who they are, where they are and what they do. It took a monstrous massacre for the reality to awaken people to the situation, and having reached this point, it’s important to know more about the haters and their intents.
The article “The Center of Intersectionality looks a lot like Adolf Hitler” listed many vile antisemites including: the Democratic Socialists of America, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Ilhan Omar, New York City Council member Shahana Hanif, Linda Sarsour and Zahra Billoo of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. There are many others like the Mapping Project in Massachusetts which is part of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement, which wants to make it easier to target Jewish organizations throughout the state, and so listed them and their addresses. Organizations included those that promote “normalization” and peace, as well as synagogues.
After the brutal massacre of hundreds of Israelis on October 7, 2023, one would imagine that even everyday antisemites would distance themselves from the carnage and attempt to not appear as Nazis bent on Jewish blood.
Alas, the bilestorm is upon us, and those celebrating the murder of Jews are out in the open. Jews should take note and be prepared in both the near- and intermediate-term.
Immediately after the atrocities became public, The United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) threw its full weight behind Palestinian Arabs. It published a statement about the “recent unprovoked and continuous attacks by Israel on Palestinian towns, cities, and refugee camps have resulted in tragic loss of Palestinian lives. We condemn Israel’s targeted and indiscriminate killing of civilians, including innocent children, women, and the elderly, and we denounce the inhumane siege imposed on the nearly 2 million inhabitants of Gaza, a clear violation of international law and an implied declaration of open war on the Palestinians which oblige them to be in constant self-defense.” Members of USCMO are:
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). They have a convention in Chicago November 23-5
Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) which vigorously backed Billoo’s antisemitic rant that all Jews are enemies of Muslims
Al-Awda – The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition
Within Our Lifetime
Samidoun
CUNY School of Law Students for Justice in Palestine
Decolonize This Place
Existence Is Resistance
CUNY for Palestine
Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America
Yalies for Palestine
Semilla Collective
Greater New Haven Peace Council
Wesleyan Students for Justice in Palestine
Party for Socialism and Liberation
Witness Palestine Rochester
ANSWER Coalition
Bard College SJP
Students for Justice in Palestine – Butler University
Jewish Voice for Peace – Indiana
Party for Socialism and Liberation – Indianapolis
SJP @ UC Davis
AMP Chicago
… and many more
The Democratic Socialists of America and Students for Justice In Palestine were in full force around the country backing the wanton killing of Jews. AMCHA Initiative has long tracked how the presence of SJP on college campuses results in antisemitic incidents jumping by five times.
The head of NYU Law Student Bar Association sent out a broad email about “my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinian in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination.” Ryna went on to say Israel’s blockade of the terrorist enclave “made resistance necessary. I will not condemn resistance.” That such a person can be a lawyer and approve of the wanton slaughter of non-combatants en masse is terrifying. This person, Ryna Workman, should be rejected from all employment.
Ryna has company. Harvard University posted a letter signed by 30 groups supporting Hamas’s butchery. After billionaire investor Bill Ackman, an alum of the school, asked that the school release the names of the individuals behind the letter, someone posted their names.
Columbia University’s Student for Justice in Palestine produced a vile antisemite named Naye Idriss who gave a speech in Times Square in New York City the day after the massacre of Jews and called for more massacres to a reception of cheers.
Idriss was likely fueled in her hatred of the Jewish State from Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi who said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs “will necessarily, inevitably bring a violent reaction (51:40). Another professor, Joseph Massad mocked how Jews fled on foot from their “colonies” (since he views all of Israel as an illegal colony) in the massacre. He didn’t mention a single slaughtered Jew but went on to lament Arab dead, which he hoped would be the “start of the Palestinian War of Liberation.”
Of course, this generation’s Nazis is the popular Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas which carried out the slaughter. Its 1988 foundational charter is replete with antisemitism and the call to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish State, seemingly to the joy of Palestinian Arabs who voted the party into 58% of parliament in 2006. Its leadership calls on Muslims around the world to engage in a global intifada to support their annihilation of Israel.
Turkey, another Islamic, non-Arab country provides Hamas political support
Qatar hosts Hamas’s leadership and funnels money to it
Eugene Puryear, part of the Party for Socialism and Liberation organized rallies for Hamas and said “Palestinians are right to stand up against occupation.”
ADL has tracked many of the recent pro-Hamas protests which backed the massacre and called for the destruction of Israel. Chants included “Zionism has got to go!” and “Zionism is genocide!”, “You need to stop being apologetic about Palestinian liberation“, “Resistance is not terrorism.” Regarding the massacre of Jews, speakers said “make no mistake, we are in celebration.”
While Jews grieve and pray, they seemingly have not internalized that the pro-Palestinian community does not view this as a battle like 2008, 2012, 2014 or 2021. They don’t think it’s like the Second Intifada in which they rejected two states for two people.
Your enemies believe the war to end the Jewish State has begun. It’s 1948 Redux.
And they have called for the world to join them in their efforts to end Israel and prosecute its supporters in a “global intifada.”
Israel’s fight in Gaza is not about the terrorist group Hamas; it is about terminating Hamas’s jihadi dream of destroying the Jewish State.
Almost every Palestinian Arab is already an antisemite and this war will not make them hate Jews any less. However, it must teach them that Israel is here to stay.
People around the globe are looking for ways to help Israel during this terrible time. Below are a few ways: Donate, Lobby, Support students, Rally, Pray. Stay informed.
Donation Dos and Don’ts
There are many organizations based in Israel which can be helpful and, unfortunately, many well-intentioned people who pour time and resources into bad ideas and scams.
DON’T give money or buy military supplies in the diaspora. It sounds illogical but there are several reasons.
The Israeli government has supplies which are consistent with how soldiers are trained and how it maintains equipment. It cannot accept and manage an odd helmet here and two night vision goggles there. It mucks up the military order.
It’s also illegal in most countries to send military supplies abroad.
DO send items. Socks, underwear, canned goods and the like are welcome and can be distributed to displaced people, soldiers, volunteers and others.
DONATIONS are welcome – to known entities. Beware of organizations which popped up overnight which might sound good but have no proven ability to direct 100% of the donations to people in need. Some good organizations in Israel include:
Friend of Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) to help soldiers
There are also organizations supporting college students who will be facing a barrage of anti-Israel attacks. Donate to organizations which help these students combat the amplified antisemitism and anti-Zionism that is growing every day:
StandWithUs helps students with training and materials
There are occasional one-offs who can help, such as The Jerusalem Great Synagogue which has set up The Emergency Fund supervised by Malcolm Hoenlein. The fund originally had roots in assisting lone soldiers in Israel and is now serving as a base to dynamically change the destination of contributions based on current need which Malcolm identifies and then gets approved by the donor before distribution.
The American Friends of The Jerusalem Great Synagogue is a United States tax exempt 501c3 charitable organization. Federal ID number: 23-7013128 Acct# – 096073694365 Acct Name: AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE JERUSALEM GREAT SYNAGOGUE INC Acct Address: 3145 Coney island Avenue Brooklyn NY 11235 Bank Name: JPMorgan Chase Bank NA SWIFT Code: CHASUS33 Routing#: 021000021 Address: 270 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Phone Number: (866) 865-1388
The Importance of Lobbying
Israel is going to need persistent support, especially as the war continues and the number of Arab casualties rises. Politicians care about and track the calls and emails that come to their offices. Contact your local representatives, even if only sharing one or two sentences. Feel free to use any article on the FirstOneThrough site with politicians to amplify your voice.
Universities have become hotbeds of radicalism among socialists and Islamic extremists. The war will likely make campuses extremely hostile for anyone clearly Jewish, such as Orthodox men wearing kippahs.
In addition to donating to organizations like StandWithUs, contact your alma mater and let them know that antisemitism and support for Hamas are completely unacceptable. Contact fellow alumni who share your passion for the subject to create bulk power initiatives to confront any biases that might arise on campus.
Rally
There are many rallies taking place to support Israel. Go to your local synagogue or community center website or national organizations such as UJA putting one together October 10 at 5pm at the United Nations. People need to feel the bonds of community and discuss ways of supporting each other and the Jewish State at this difficult time.
Pray
Some people like to go to synagogue and pray. Some recite chapters of Tehillim / Psalms to pray for the wounded, hostages and families directly impacted. Others join global WhatsApp groups to show a global unity reciting prayers and Psalms together.
The prayers should help all of our positive actions have the desired effect of returning the hostages safely, healing the sick and injured, and deliver appropriate punishment to the evil perpetrators who inflicted such barbarity.
Stay Informed
There are many websites like Arutz Sheva and Jerusalem Post which will have the latest news, many of which will likely get targeted by Jihadists. The Palestinian Authority posts its propaganda at Wafa. For analysis which incorporates the various news feeds, historical context, actions of the United Nations and more, subscribe to the FirstOneThrough blog below.
Social media sites like Facebook have enabled features for people to post whether they are safe when a particular crisis hits. It is meant as a quick tool to alert friends and families in real-time that one has escaped tragedy.
When war strikes Israel – especially on a holiday – Jews around the world await the pain of loss.
The popular Palestinian Arab political-terrorist group Hamas launched a massive attack against Israel while Jews celebrated the end of their holidays celebrating the Torah. This year, the two-day religious observance of Shemini Azeret/ Simchat Torah in the diaspora outside of Israel, coincided with the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas deployed thousands of missiles and militants into Israel to mark the day in a new war.
As horrible news leaked into synagogues about the war in Israel over the holiday, many Orthodox Jews had to wait until Sunday night to learn about the status of friends and family inside the Jewish holy land, as they do not use any electronic devices over the holiday.
A friend’s son serving in the army killed.
A friend’s cousin taken hostage.
A friend’s best friend killed.
A friend’s child’s roommate killed.
Each frantic call and review of social media was one of trauma.
There are few Jews in the world. While there are 8 billion people who are at most six degrees of separation from any other person, the 15 million Jews are at most two degrees of separation for one another. When hundreds of Jews are murdered, everyone is touched. Everyone mourns.
The Hamas website, which operated openly for years proclaiming its war against the Jewish State, was blocked as it posted videos of its grisly operation killing and kidnapping civilians. Its effort to let Jews know that they are never safe was viewed as too cruel to be given air at this time.
Palestinians pose with the Palestinian flag on an Israeli tank that was destroyed in an attack launched by Hamas on October 7. Behind the tank, the fence separating Gaza from Israel can be seen as destroyed, allowing more inflitrations. Photo: Hani Alsahaer/Anadolu Agency)
But information slowly dribbles in. And it continues to be horrific.
In addition to the over 700 dead are over 100 who have been taken captive, spread throughout the terrorist enclave of Gaza. Children as young as three. Wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivors.
The scale of the loss of life is difficult to comprehend. The number of hostages taken means that the current dangerous situation will be present for a long time.
There is no hashtag for Jews to mark themselves safe, nor an emoji to relay the deep pain at the loss of life and trauma felt for friends trapped at the center of evil.
As Jews around the world wait for bad news, they assess the actions each can take to seize the day from the implacable foe.
ACTION ITEM
Write White House “Support Israel. Cut all funding to Palestinians immediately.”
Palestinians have violently opposed Jews living in Israel for a century. The occasional massacres of the 1920s gave way to multi-year pogroms in the late 1930s. When the British announced their intention to leave the region and terminate their mandate, the local Arabs rejected the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan and enlisted neighboring Arab countries to destroy the Jewish State.
The loss of part of the land to Israel was balanced by the capture of Gaza by Egypt and much of Judea and Samaria by Transjordan. The Arab armies assembled to destroy Israel again in 1967 and in 1973 on Judaism’s holiest Day, losing their wars again. On their own, the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) continued the mayhem, killing Jewish Olympians, blowing up synagogues and hijacking planes in their persistent effort to eradicate the presence of Jews in the Jewish holy land.
The SAPs seemingly were willing to turn a new page in favor of coexistence with Jews in 1991 with the Madrid Conference which eventually developed into the 1993 Oslo I and 1995 Oslo II Accords. Despite ongoing Arab violence, Israel facilitated the creation of Palestinian governmental institutions and handed over significant sections of the area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49) to Palestinian control. The goal was to finalize all matters by September 2000, at the five year anniversary of the Oslo II signing.
The SAPs chose to return to their violent ways instead of concluding an agreement.
In September 2000, under the command of Yasser Arafat, Arabs committed waves of terrorist attacks, blowing up men, women and children in pizza stores, parks, on buses and in synagogues. The Arab brutality was seemingly without end, and was only curtailed in 2004 when Israel erected a security barrier to stem the flow of Arab killers and the death of Arafat.
In an effort to reengage, Israel handed Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, with assurances from the United States that it would support Israel’s positions on retaining some land in E49 and that all Palestinian refugees would be settled in a new Palestinian State.
The SAPs would fail to capitalize on this second chance at peace as well.
First, the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of the Palestinian parliament in 2006, and then had the political-terrorist group take over all of Gaza in 2007. The Palestinians used Gaza as a launching ground for missiles in the air and tunnels below ground to attack Israelis. Full blown battles from Gaza erupted in 2008, 2012 and 2014.
Rather than Gaza proving a model for coexistence of two states living side-by-side in peace, it showed that Palestinians will never accept the presence of Jews nor existence of a Jewish State.
There is an old adage “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” meant to convey that it’s not nice of the perpetrator to take advantage of someone one time, but by the second time, the fault lies with the victim who should have known better than to reengage.
There is no line for “fool me three times”, as no rational actor acting on free will would ever consider such preposterous notion.
Which is precisely why the anti-Israel community is calling for BDS resolutions against Israel and electing anti-Israel candidates like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), to force Israel to reengage yet again with Palestinians who have repeatedly shown they have no interest in coexistence.
Alt-Left anti-Israel members of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman
“Fool me once or twice is a matter between parties; fool me thrice is a hostage situation” in which the victim is compelled to undermine their own well-being. Such is the situation today among those pressuring Israel to advance a DOA peace process.
Coercion is the polar opposite of freedom, and it is gaining strength while oblivious Israelis ponder how much power to leave in judiciary’s hands. Israel’s internal debate about democracy is shrouding the potential loss of freedom from external actors.
Three leaders of the terrorist group, Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were assassinated by the Israeli military this week. As such, on May 10, The New York Times decided to devote an article to inform readers about the organization.
The Times’ description stands in sharp contrast to that supplied by the US State Department.
Issue
NY Times
State Department
Year founded
1980s
1970s
Purpose
“to fight the Israeli occupation“
“committed to the destruction of Israel and to the creation of an Islamic state in historic Palestine, including present-day Israel.”
Backers
N/A
“PIJ receives financial assistance and training primarily from Iran. PIJ has partnered with Iran- and Syria-sponsored Hizballah to carry out joint operations.”
History
Limited to last summer, when “Israeli military began the hostilities when it assassinated a leader of Islamic Jihad…. Islamic Jihad responded…”
“PIJ terrorists have conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets…”
New York Times and the U.S. State Department offer starkly different descriptions of Palestine Islamic Jihad
According to the anti-Israel NY Times, PIJ merely fights “the Israeli occupation,” while the State Department correctly notes that the group is “committed to the destruction of Israel.” The gap in understanding the nature of the group is enormous, and renders the entire review by the Times as a deliberate whitewashing of the terrorists’ activities.
The paper went on to describe the attacks of last summer, which it pinned on Israel killing one of its leaders making PIJ simply retaliating to the Israeli provocation. The paper paints Israel as the aggressor, when in fact, as described by the State Department, PIJ has long conducted “numerous attacks, including large scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilians.”
All of the terrorist group’s activities are bankrolled and supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. That important point about a group which launches thousands of missiles into Israel, went unmentioned in the Times article.
The New York Times correctly labeled PIJ as a terrorist group but turned the narrative upside down, making Israel the aggressor against an organization merely opposed to “Israeli occupation.” To read the Times, one might think that the State Department incorrectly labels PIJ as a terrorist group instead of Israel, a narrative being orchestrated by left-wing extremists in Congress, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
One manifestation is that despite the country’s enormous size, it has only two bordering countries. One of them, Canada, is so closely tied to the U.S. in terms of language, culture, trade and military reliance, people often joke that it can be viewed as the 51st state, with 90% of its population living within 100 miles of the U.S. border.
In sharp contrast, small Israel is surrounded by several entities, all of which have gone to war to destroy the country within the last decades. Two of them – Lebanon and Syria – are broken and broke states, with Syria still engaged in its own civil war.
The small sliver of a country has 1,068 kilometers of boundaries with adjacent countries and territories. The breakdown is as follows:
region
boundary (km)
percentage
Lebanon
81
7.6%
Syria
83
7.8%
Jordan
307
28.7%
Egypt
208
19.5%
West Bank
330
30.9%
Gaza
59
5.5%
Length of Israel’s boundaries
To apply these percentages with the United States’ lower 48 state’s 9,560km land border with Canada and Mexico, would yield the following map:
Imagine such a neighbor for the states of Washington and Idaho!
It doesn’t get better.
Syria has even a longer border with Israel – it would equivalently cover the Montana-Canadian border. Syria’s genocidal leader slaughtered over half a million of his own citizens, in a civil war that has seen millions of people flee the country and millions of others internally displaced. The destructive leader attempted to build a covert nuclear weapons facility with North Korea a few years ago. The country remains in an active state of war with Israel, as it has been since the modern Jewish State came into existence.
At least not that many people in Montana!
Much of the rest of America’s northern border would be with two countries with a cold peace, Jordan and Egypt. While not at war, little economic activity or tourism exists, and the two countries almost always vote against you at the United Nations. A far cry from friendly Canada.
At America’s southern border, there is strain of millions of migrants coming into the country from Central America. They are coming looking for a better life than they had in Mexico, Nicaragua and elsewhere. They are not looking to upend the United States and overthrow it.
Not so with Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza. Hamas is actively looking to destroy its neighbor from its vantage point south of California and half of Arizona. The Palestinian Authority pays its people who kill its neighbor’s citizens and claim the country as its own.
This ugly theoretical snapshot of America’s neighbors were based on keeping America’s huge water boundaries. If one were to use Israel’s actual percentage of coastline, the map would look like this:
Lebanon would cover almost all of America’s northern border. Syria would wrap Maine’s land and water boundaries. Jordan would abut the New England states down to Virginia, while Egypt would extend southward to Georgia. The Palestinian Authority would envelope all of Florida and the Gulf states and the terrorist enclave of Gaza would border much of Texas. The balance would be coastline.
Now further imagine that instead of a large, tall and wide country that is the USA, it was flattened into a pancake with those same neighbors.
If you think Texans like guns now, imagine if they had Hamas digging tunnels under their homes and firing rockets at their schools!
This is Israel’s reality every day. Terrorist-led broken countries and territories surrounding a small sliver of land, attempting to destroy the only Jewish state through a variety of means, including militarily, economically, legally and via public opinion.
On March 5, 2022, there will be races in Brooklyn, NY and Washington, DC to raise money for the mental health of the children in Gaza. Unfortunately, the fundraiser is to promote mental and emotional dysfunction.
Promotion for “Gaza 5K” run in Prospect Park, Brooklyn
The Gaza 5K race is sponsored by UNRWA, the Palestinian-political agency that masquerades as a global humanitarian organization. The fundraiser aims to raise $350,000 to:
“Your fundraising can enable UNRWA to employ mental health counselors recruited locally from the Palestine refugee population. UNRWA counselors provide psychosocial support to address the mental health needs of refugee children and families in Gaza. The people of Gaza suffer from trauma due to repeated Israeli military assaults and the continued blockade. Counseling offers kids in Gaza a safe space to express their emotions and fears and a way to learn valuable coping skills.“
Almost the entire UNRWA staff of 29,000 are local Palestinian Arabs. To say that the counselors are “recruited locally” serves to further the lie that UNRWA is run by a bunch of peace-loving Europeans, and these counselors are an aberration.
These days, as people watch over a million people flee the war in Ukraine, as well as the wars in Syria and Afghanistan, it is shameful to use the concocted phrase Palestinian “refugee children.” These kids aren’t fleeing a war zone. They, their parents and their grandparents were all born in Gaza. They live next to cousins – many, who are not refugees – with the same language and culture. The fact that their great-grandparents lived for a few years about 20 miles away in what is now Israel does not make them refugees.
Further, the “repeated Israeli military assaults and the continued blockade” are in REACTION to the aggressive goals and tactics of the Gaza leadership. The political-terrorist group Hamas that runs Gaza is a genocidal anti-Semitic group that has repeatedly engaged in crimes against humanity in their attacks on Israeli civilians. UNRWA’s distortion reverses cause-and-effect and therefore, perpetrator-and-victim.
Further, the lie once again proves that UNRWA is not a humanitarian aid agency that simply seeks to simply provide healthcare and education to Gaza’s youth, but a charged anti-Israel political group.
The children of Gaza do need mental health counselors – to deal with their society that instills hatred for Jews and women.
Gaza is one of the worst places in the world for “honor killings,” in which family members kill a woman in the family that brings shame to the family “honor.” Palestinian courts routinely give a pass to family members who engage in the heinous act.
Consider the mental health of a Palestinian child who participates in the killing of his sister, and is celebrated by the community.
Hamas runs summer camps for children where they are taught to make “sacrifices” in the war against Israel. These child soldiers are as young as 10 years old. A spokesperson for the terrorist defended the practice saying “The Al-Qassam Brigades has organized the Vanguard of Liberation camps for over ten years, as it believes that the youth have a significant role and that it has a responsibility towards the generation that all sides are trying to tempt and divert their attention from their cause and priorities.”
Palestinian children compelled to participate in a Hamas military parade. Photo: Twitter.
Girl schools in Palestinian territories are named after Dalal al-Mugrahbi, a terrorist who killed 37 Israeli civilians, including a niece of a U.S. senator and 13 children in the infamous Coastal Road Massacre in 1978.
Yehuda DimentmanIn February 2022, Palestinian Authority TV airs ethnic cleansing comments of daughter of Palestinian terrorist who shot and killed unarmed Israeli in December 2021.
Consider the mental health of a Palestinian child who is brainwashed that killing Jews is a cause to be celebrated.
UNRWA is a disgraceful anti-peace organization disguised as a humanitarian agency. If you are at the UNRWA 5K race on Saturday, wear an Israeli flag to demand radical changes in the UNRWA-HAMAS alliance.
In November 2021, the United Kingdom took the long overdue step of recognizing the entirety of the Palestinian Arab group HAMAS to be a terrorist organization. In making the decision to mark the ‘political wing’ as no different than its ‘military wing,’ British Home Secretary Priti Patel said “Hamas is fundamentally and rabidly antisemitic” and that the group has “significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities.“
This has long been plain to see for anyone who read the group’s foundational charter which includes such noxious declarations as “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and “In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised“, “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people,” and “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
The immediate ramification of the British action is to make it illegal to be a member of Hamas or to express support for the group, including by flying its flag or wearing a T-shirt to that end. The maximum penalty would be 14 years in prison.
But the impact should have much greater consequences.
By recognizing that the entirety of Hamas is a rabidly antisemitic terrorist group, it marks the Gaza Strip, which is administered by Hamas, as a terrorist enclave. It is a new term that needs to be properly institutionalized as an expansion of established governmental terms like Foreign Terrorist Organizations, State Sponsors of Terrorism and Terrorist Safe Havens.
Hamas winning parliamentary elections in 2006Hamas meeting with Taliban to congratulate them for expelling western forces in 2021Masked Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, March 2008. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)Hamas drags a suspected ‘collaborator’ through the streets of Gaza in 2012Hamas schools and camps train children to kill JewsHamas is a terrorist organization which runs the Gaza Strip from which it has launched repeated wars and terrorist attacks
The United States had long ago marked Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), along with other Palestinian groups operating out of Gaza including the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC). The list of Palestinian Arab groups hell-bent on killing Jews is long and the designation enabled the government to block funding of such terrorists and to block their assets with EO 13224 of 2001. Subsequent amendments to that executive order limited the travel of members of these groups, and enabled monitoring agencies to track their activities with the support of numerous western countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and Switzerland.
The U.S. State Department similarly maintains a list of countries which are State Sponsors of Terrorism, including Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. These countries are subject to a variety of sanctions.
State also recognized the threat of terrorist safe havens in its reports which defined them as “ungoverned, under-governed, or ill-governed areas of a country and non-physical areas where terrorists that constitute a threat to U.S. national security interests are able to organize, plan, raise funds, communicate, recruit, train, and operate in relative security because of inadequate governance capacity, political will, or both.” These locations enable terrorist to operate freely, threatening civilized society at any time they choose.
In summary, the U.S. government identifies terrorists, countries that support terrorists, and areas that enable terrorists to flourish. But Gaza, governed by Hamas (an FTO) and supported by a state sponsor of terrorism (Iran), doesn’t exactly mean the criteria of a “terrorist safe haven” because it HAS the political will and directive to commit terrorism. As such, it sets a new low water market in depravity and requires a new category designation: a terrorist enclave.
Actions Against Terrorist Locations
The U.S. State Department developed “Long-term Programs and Initiatives Designed to Counter Terrorist Safe Havens and Recruitment.” Its stated goals include “protecting the United States, our interests, and our allies by reducing the ability of terrorists to radicalize, recruit, mobilize, and inspire acts of terrorism.” But the department has been seemingly tepid in taking forceful actions.
In response, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) produced a plan in 2011 as it noted that the State Department had “multiple reporting requirements,” but failed to provide a “list of its efforts to address terrorist safe havens.” Therefore, the GAO took the important step to “identif[y] eliminating safe havens as a priority action against which all elements of national power – including military, diplomatic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement – should be applied.”
One of the most important resources to extremists is safe haven. Safe havens provide the enemy with relative freedom to plan, organize, train, rest, and conduct operations.
U.S. Department of defense, national military strategic plan
The United States has long understood that Hamas is a terrorist group supported by state sponsors of terrorism. It is therefore past time to label the Hamas fiefdom of Gaza as a terrorist enclave, and to develop a comprehensive set of actions against this noxious hotbed of extremists.
The United Nations, liberal media and politicians are bemoaning the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza, arguing that it is a form of “collective punishment” and is creating an economic disaster in the small coastal enclave. Those articles and arguments all fail to describe why the blockade exists and why it is essential for it to continue.
The landside blockade of Gaza began in June 2007, shortly after the political-terrorist group Hamas ousted its rival Fatah from the area. A naval blockade went into effect in January 2009 to further clamp down on the region, after the December 2008-January 2009 war against Israel launched by Hamas.
Ruled by a Terrorist Organization
Hamas is an extremist Islamist terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews. It is a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States and many western countries. Its 1988 founding charter is the most anti-Semitic political document of the modern age, a combination of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Russian forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to a majority of the Palestinian parliament in 2006. The organization calls for the destruction of Israel in any form and calls for a global jihad against the Jewish State.
Repeated Warsfrom Gaza
Hamas has launched wars from Gaza against Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014 and May 2021. When not sending missiles all over the Jewish State, it launches arson balloons to burn Israeli fields, digs tunnels into Israel to abduct Israelis, and attempts to destroy the separation fence and infiltrate Israel.
Gazans Want To Kill Israeli Civilians
The Anti-Defamation League did global polls in 2014 and 2015 and found the Palestinian Arabs were by far the most anti-Semitic in the world, with 93% of the population harboring anti-Jewish attitudes. However, while almost every Palestinian Arab is anti-Semitic, the Gazans and West Bankers have different views about physically attacking Israeli civilians.
The gap in attitude between Gazans and West Bankers about violently attacking Israeli civilians inside of Israel has continued to grow (source: Palestinian PCPSR polls)
Palestinians poll themselves every quarter about their attitudes on a variety of topics. One of the questions asked each poll is “Concerning armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, I…” with choices ranging from “strong support”, “support” to “oppose”, “strongly oppose” and “I don’t know.” The fact that the poll asks such question says a lot about Palestinian society generally, but an analysis of the trend in the chart above is important.
Between 2001 and 2008, the attitudes among Gazans and West Bank Arabs were much the same, with Gazans preferring killing Israeli civilians inside of Israel by an average of 11.6% more than West Bankers. After the 2008-9 Gaza war and the implementation of the naval blockade, the gap in attitudes widened. Between 2009 and 2017, Gazans preferred attacking Israeli Jews inside of Israel by a gap of 22.1%, almost double the 2001-8 period. Between 2018 and today, the gap has become even more pronounced, with Gazans voting for violence by a difference of 43.9%, nearly doubling again. Further, after the 2014 and May 2021 wars, Hamas’s popularity soared as did the uptick in Gazans desire to see more Jewish blood.
The difference in attitude is stark and the sentiment is frightening. And it is not theoretical.
In March 2011, after a the horrendous slaughter of a family of five by Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, Gazans celebrated the murder (51.0%) while West Bank Arabs did not (75.6%).
Palestinian poll taken shortly after slaughter of Fogel family in Itamar, including an 11 year old, 4 year old and 3 month old, all stabbed to death.
This attitude was not an outlier. In August 2019, Palestinian Arabs blew up a 17 year-old girl, Rina Shnerb, while she was on a family hike. Over 80% of Gazans supported the attack.
Palestinian poll taken shortly after bomb blew up and killed Rina Shnerb.
It is hard to imagine that there are any places in the world where there would be any support for stabbing to death a 3 month old lying in its crib, or for blowing up a 17 year old girl going on a nature hike. But in Gaza, the MAJORITY support the slaughter of innocent Jews.
For people who want to counter and prevent violent extremism, and who care about peace, justice and the sanctity of human life, it is well past time to pull all support from the terrorist enclave of Gaza, including shutting UNRWA in the area. Human rights and decency demand it.
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