Lion's Den | First One Through

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.

This Is Actually A West Bank War (December 2023)

Israel May Have Stopped A Bigger Massacre From The West Bank (November 2023)

How Many Terrorists To Target? Between 1,500 and 1.5 Million (October 2023)

The UN Continues To Grossly Minimize Palestinian Terror (September 2023)

US Equates Jews Living In West Bank With Terrorism (August 2023)

UNRWA’s West Bank Terrorists (July 2023)

A New Low: UN Saddened By Deaths of Terrorists (February 2023)

NY Times Repeatedly Tells Its Readers That An Israeli Supported A Mass Murderer, But Never That Many Palestinians Embrace Many Terrorists (December 2022)

The UN Continues To Absolve Palestinian Attacks Against Israelis In The “West Bank” (November 2022)

Arabs have been murdering Jews in the holy land since 1920, when the British took over the region from the Ottomans. The number of Jews killed by local Arabs spiked during riots such as those in 1929, from 1936 to 1939 and from 2000 to 2004.

Jews have been deliberately targeted for death every year. In some years, the Arabs are more successful.

In 2014, as the U.S.-sponsored peace talks collapsed, the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas abducted and killed three teenagers, which sparked Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. The Palestinian Arabs in Areas A and B in the West Bank soon joined the carnage in what became known as the “stabbing and car ramming intifada,” using an Arabic term which means “resistance” to whitewash the anti-Semitic blood lust.

In September 2015, Mahmoud Abbas, acting-President of the Palestinian Authority called for a holy war for Jerusalem, blessing Muslim Arab “activists” who harassed Jews visiting their holiest site of the Temple Mount. He said “We bless you; we bless the Mourabitoun and the Mourabitat. We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward. All of their steps, we will not allow them. All these divisions, Al-Aqsa is ours, and the (Church of the) Holy Sepulcher is ours, everything is ours, all ours. They (the Jews) have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet and we won’t allow them to.“

Thirty-three of the 37 people killed by Palestinian terrorism in 2015 occurred after Abbas’s incitement.

Fortunately, Palestinian terrorism was less successful in the following years. The four years of the Trump Administration – which included the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy there – had the lowest toll from terrorism in any four year period over the past many decades.

Regrettably, the trend would not continue.

In May 2021, more Palestinian Arabs took up arms against their Jewish neighbors. On May 5th, Palestinians shot three 19-year old Jewish students on the road, killing one, Yehuda Guetta. Israel commenced a search for the killer near Nablus with the assistance of the Palestinian Authority which angered many Palestinians. That action, together with Jews purchasing homes in the Sheik Jarrah-Shimon HaTzadik section of Jerusalem, set the region aflame once again.

While Hamas was launching rockets into Israeli towns from Gaza, two new terrorist groups were born in the West Bank. Jenin Brigades (or Battalion) and the Lion’s Den have been attacking Jews in Israel, Judea and Samaria ever since.

While not directed by the PA, they have broad public support on the Arab street. According to a December 2022 Palestinian poll, while 59% think that the PA is a burden for Palestinians, 72% support the two new terrorist groups, and 87% are against the PA arresting anyone from those groups.

The poll is alarming showed that fifty percent of Palestinians support killing Israeli civilians inside of Israel (57% in Gaza and 46% in the West Bank).

That eleven percent gap between Gaza and the West Bank is important.

During the 2000-2004 Two Percent War / “Second Intifada”, the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank had very similar approaches to murdering Israeli Jews, with Gazans even more in favor of murdering by about ten percentage points. That gap began to widen with Israel’s completion of the separation barrier, and really opened up between 2018 and 2020 to over 40 percentage points with few West Bankers favoring killing Israelis (not surprisingly, terrorism plummeted).

As described above, that gap now stands at only 11% as of December 2022, a level not seen since the Second Intifada.

Hamas-controlled Gaza has long supported terrorism against Israeli Jews, and while the Palestinian Authority incited terrorism, the territory under its control moved away from supporting it until 2021. Those days are now over, and the new terrorist groups in the West Bank have the people’s support to slaughter Israeli Jews with impunity.