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.”
One of the sessions at the United Nations Conference on Counter-Terrorism in June 2023 was called “Building Effective and Resilient Member States’ Institutions in the Evolving Global Terrorism Landscape.” One of the speakers, Colin Smith from the United Kingdom, spoke (44:35) of the changing landscape of terrorism over the past twenty years and covered:
a focus on al Qaeda 20 years ago versus local terrorist groups today
a secretive counter-terrorism community vs. an open forum where countries share information and resources
immature counter-terrorism agencies vs. more sophisticated organizations
centers of terrorism vs. geographically diffuse operations now
Smith said “Since 2018, there’ve been nine successful terrorist attacks in the UK and one failed attack but none of them were directed from overseas. They were all self-initiated terrorists. So an individual or perhaps a small group getting together being radicalized by what they saw online or what they heard and turning to a terrorist attack in perhaps a very short of time, perhaps radicalizing in weeks, and not in months or years; perhaps days or weeks. Very low sophistication attacks using knives and cars. So since 2018, there have nine such attacks killing six people and injuring 23 in the UK but we’ve had no externally-directed attacks. In fact, the last time there was an externally successful attack in the UK was back in 2005.”
It begs the question as to the nature of home-grown terrorism in the UK since 2005.
Colin Smith of the United Kingdom talking at the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in June 2023
A quick review of some of the attacks:
On May 22, 2013, two Muslim men killed and hacked to death a British soldier stating that they did so “because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers. And this British soldier is one…. By Allah, we swear by the almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone.“
Quite a heavy toll between 2005 and 2018, and certainly more violent than only “using knives and cars.”
Smith’s UN comments were seemingly dismissive of the news when he said that the attackers were “radicalized by what they saw online or what they heard,” making it sound like the attackers were being fed disinformation and preyed upon. However, it was a well known and reported fact that the United Kingdom participated in fighting Al Qaeda and ISIL. The British Muslims who committed the terrorist attacks simply showed a greater love for co-religionists than for their fellow citizens whom they saw as co-conspirators killing Muslims.
Smith highlighted that the UK published a counter-terrorism document called CONTEST in 2018. Importantly for the UN conference, he spoke of the broad coordination happening amongst different agencies and the public sector to combat terrorism holistically, as called for in the report.
Yet he avoided discussing that between 2013 and the 2018 counterterrorism report, British police “foiled 25 Islamist plots since June 2013, and four extreme right wing terror plots in the past year alone…. The war in Syria, which was in its infancy when the last Strategy was published, has created both a haven and a training ground for British and foreign terrorists. UK citizens have been targeted in attacks overseas, for example in Sousse in 2015,” when 30 British tourists were killed in Tunisia.
The CONTEST publication was explicit about the serious threats facing the UK: “Daesh’s ability to direct, enable and inspire attacks still represents the most significant global terrorist threat, including to the UK and our people and interests overseas. Daesh’s methods are already being copied by new and established terror groups. Using pernicious, divisive messaging and amplifying perceived grievances, Daesh and Al Qa’ida exploit the internet to promote warped alternative narratives, urging extremists within our own communities to subvert our way of life through simple, brutal violence.”
In the setting of the United Nations panel, Smith avoided mentioning Islamic extremism, despite being the root cause of the British developing its comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. He alluded to disinformation, rather than point out that terrorists had grievances about actual facts. He did not discuss the end of British troops fighting in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan (or at least the media covering such events) as cause for the pause in jihadists killing British citizens in recent years.
Significantly, Smith also did not talk about the United Kingdom’s refusal to repatriate perhaps as many as 400 British citizens back to its shores after fighting alongside terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq.
CONTEST was explicit, writing “Daesh’s initial state-building narrative persuaded thousands of people, including women and families, to travel to Syria from around the world, including from Europe and North Africa. This includes around 900 people of national security concern from the UK. Of these, approximately 20% have been killed while overseas, and around 40% have returned to the UK. The majority of those who have returned did so in the earlier stages of the conflict, and were investigated on their return. Only a very small number of travellers have returned in the last two years, and most of those have been women with young children.” That leaves 40% of the 900, or about 350 Britons still abroad as of 2018.
In regards to children still overseas, as of April 2023, as many as “60 British children are believed to be detained in al-Hol and Roj, two sprawling detention camps in northeast Syria primarily holding family members of Islamic State (ISIS) suspects” according to Human Rights Watch. Those children are among 37,000 foreign nationals held in the camps who are being refused re-entry into their home countries, many of whom have been stripped of their citizenship.
The UK published its goals of reintegrating returnees from the conflict in CONTEST, noting that its Desistance and Disengagement Programme (DDP) was “to reduce the risk from terrorism through rehabilitation and reintegration… will aim to more than double its current capacity to accommodate up to 230 individuals…. Through the DDP, we provide a range of intensive tailored interventions and practical support, designed to tackle the drivers of radicalisation around universal needs for identity, self-esteem, meaning and purpose; as well as to address personal grievances that the extremist narrative has exacerbated.” It was unclear whether addressing the terrorist’s grievances meant discussing why the UK fought ISIL or changing policy and having the UK abandon the fight.
Further, if there were still as many as 60 British children held in detention camps in Syria as of April 2023, it stands to reason that the UK has left almost all of the 350 adults in the camps as well, repatriating no one.
CONTEST also spoke of the government’s intention of pursuing would-be terrorists “including covert human intelligence sources, surveillance assets and the lawful intercept of communications. In addition to these capabilities, we also use a wide range of tools to constrain the ability of terrorists to act, for example working to proscribe organisations, freeze and seize their financial assets, and break up networks and associations in prison.” Even before the effort was launched, the report noted the government had contained “approximately 700 prisoners… who have been identified as engaged in terrorism or extremism, or about whom there are extremism concerns.”
Incarcerating would-be terrorists was also excluded from the panel discussion at the United Nations.
In summary, the UN forum was devoid of mentioning Islamic extremism, keeping terrorist in prisons at home and abroad, and blamed disinformation on the Internet for spawning attacks rather than actual grievances from a warped ideology.
It also did not mention acceding to terrorists’ demands which the United Kingdom may have already done, such as abandoning the fight on Islamic terror, whether ISIL, Taliban, al Shabab and Boko Haram, and resuscitating terrorist groups like Hamas.
The United Nations panelists on counter-terrorism did not speak openly, honestly or comprehensively about various approaches countries have implemented to tackle the global scourge and opted instead to parrot politically correct non-controversial narratives. Perhaps honest dialogues exist in private but the public spectacle of the UN is a ghostly version of reality.
The United Nations is holding its 2023 Counter-Terrorism Week from June 19 to 23. It is an annual ritual held since 2001 which attempts to combat the violence plaguing many parts of the world.
Some countries like the United Kingdom spoke about terrorism being bred inside its borders, while others like those in Africa, noted that “the spill-over of terrorism from the Sahel to the northern regions of the West African coastal countries is no longer a risk; it is a reality.”
A few speakers spoke of “lone wolves” who become radicalized online in just days, as opposed to fifty years ago when it took months or years of planning by organized groups to commit an attack. Few commented that terrorism has become more institutionalized, capturing the attention and intoxicating academia.
The overall theme was that terrorism is not uniform but all of the countries fear its impact in the near and longer term.
So various nations came together to figure out how to prevent the scourge through the exchange of ideas, best practices and sharing of information. Topics ranged from stopping the flow of weapons and blocking financing for violent groups, to building forums for inclusivity and preventing poverty.
The UN said little about the appropriate penalties for terrorism. The global body relies on its “four pillars for combatting terrorism,” three of which are prophylactic and the fourth, a wrapper of respecting human rights.
It is a monstrous hole in its strategy, atop failed prescriptions, such as the notion that fighting poverty prevents terrorism which has been disproven in multiple studies.
It leaves the agency as unsullied, with an easy perch to admonish those who live in terrorism’s trenches of park benches.
Israel has faced Palestinian Arab terrorism since modern Zionism took root in the Jewish holy land in the 1920s. Instigated and rewarded by its leaders to this day, Palestinian individuals shoot, stab and run over innocent Israeli Jews because they object to the basic presence of these non-Arabs.
Israel takes a number of preventative measures to stop the terrorism, some within the UN playbook and others outside. It tries to stop the flow of weapons and financing to terrorist groups, while it also facilitates the flow of people and goods to help the local Palestinian economy.
However, that is not enough to stem the daily barrage. Israel actively monitors terrorists and launches raids to arrest them before the attacks. It punishes the terrorist by destroying their home, an action the United Nations condemns as “collective punishment” for the terrorist’s family.
Lost in the rebuke is acknowledging that terrorism is inherently a collective attack on a community, not just the parties personally injured. A proportionate response to terrorism must, therefore, include accounting for those who aided and abetted the crime.
Two Jewish cousins, Aviel and Biyamin Hadad, as well as three guards were gunned down near the Djerba Synagogue in Tunisia. The cousins were part of a large Jewish contingent which came to the synagogue as part of Lag B’Omer festivities.
Binyamin Haddad, left, and his cousin, Aviel Haddad, who were killed in a shooting in Djerba, Tunisia on May 9, 2023. (Courtesy of the family)
The Jewish community in Tunisia is a shadow of its former self, as the Islamification of the country at its independence in 1956 made the Jews unwelcome, as they were relegated to second class “dhimmi” status. For example, from that time, all Jewish businesses were forced to take on a Muslim partner.
In 1957, the old Tunis Jewish cemetery was expropriated, and in 1960, the great Tunis synagogue was destroyed. Jews began to flee the country in 1961 as they were throughout the Muslim Arab countries. Tunisia only allowed Jews to take one dinar with them, as the country confiscated the rest of their possessions, in a massive theft as part of its ethnic cleansing.
These are plain facts. All rewritten in The New York Times telling of the horrific shootings.
According to the Times, the killer “shot indiscriminately near the synagogue”, “killing two visitors and two guards.” It then added color that there was “no motive for the shooting, in which a 42-year old French national, whom the authorities described as a French-Tunisian, and a 30-year Tunisian were killed.”
No mention that the two visitors were Jews and no mention of anti-Semitism.
Instead, the synagogue is referred to as a tourist site, which came under attack much like other tourist sites had been attacked in Tunisia. The synagogue was simply a “tourist attraction” which had also been attacked in April 2002, “killing 21 Western tourists.” The Times worried that “Tuesday’s shooting could harm the country’s crucial tourism industry,” a real problem, as the country is “in a political and economic crisis.”
In regards to the routing of the country’s Jews, the paper said that the “community shrank as Djerban Jews migrated to Israel or France,” and “in general, the Jews and Muslims of Djerba have coexisted peacefully.”
A complete disregard of the Islamic nationalism which routed the Jewish community.
As for that attack in 2002 which the Times said “militants detonated a truck bomb at the synagogue,” it is worth telling some uncomfortable truths about that event, as detailed by Aaron Zelin in his work “Fifteen Years after the Djerba Synagogue bombing.” To summarize:
The mastermind of the April 2002 attack was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), one of the masterminds of the attacks of 9/11 and responsible for the beheading of Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl.
The attack was conducted by a Tunisian, Nizar Nawar in conjunction with al Qaeda. While trained in Afghanistan, he received logistical support in Spain and France.
A statement of responsibility was released after the attacks by Jaysh al-Islami Li-Tahrir al-Muqadisat (JITM, or the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites, a front name for al-Qa`ida) via fax to the Arabic newspapers Al-Hayat and Al-Quds al-Arabi, “that Nawar carried the attack out in the name of Palestine against the Jews”
Zelin noted a connection between the training and choice of targets of jihadi attacks. “Global jihadis have retained a focus on Jewish-related entities. Nawar chose to attack a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia, while more recently, Mehdi Nemmouche attacked the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. Part of this trend is due to the continuing resonance of the Palestinian plight within the broader Muslim world, which jihadi groups co-opt to gain legitimacy, support, and new recruits.”
“In the aftermath of the Djerba synagogue bombing, the Tunisian government was initially dismissive of any ties to terrorism, suggesting the attack was only an accident. A sense of denial about the threat contributed to a fundamental lack of understanding within Tunisia’s political establishment of jihadism.”
“Tunisians have long been involved in international terrorism plots, attacks, and foreign fighting. This trend is likely to continue, especially as so many Tunisians have gone to train in Libya, Iraq, and Syria over the past six years. The Nizar Nawars of today are finding a melting pot of contacts and networks they can tap into, just as Nawar himself did more than 15 years ago.”
The 2002 attack was clearly an antisemitic attack by pro-Palestinian global jihadists, not a generic al Qaeda attack against tourists the way the Times portrayed. As in 2002, the Tunisian government denies the charge of antisemitism, saying “Tunisia will always remain a land of tolerance and coexistence,” and that the purpose of the attack was to “sow the seeds of discord, damage the tourist season and damage the state.”
The Global Intifada has begun, and the media will not even say that Jews died or antisemitism exists, and the Arab world is narrowly focused on the impact to their pocketbooks.
The United Nations marked the “International Day for the Prevention of Violent Extremism as and when Conducive to Terrorism” on February 12, 2023. To mark the occasion, the head of the U.N., Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres condemned the scourge when he led that “Terrorism is an affront to humanity.”
It is indeed heinous and evil to the core.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, January 2023
The leader of the global body unfortunately then went woke and counterfactual when he called out only one variety of the evil: neo-Nazis.
“Terrorist and violent extremist groups are finding fertile ground on the Internet to spew their vicious venom. Neo-Nazi, white supremacist movements are becoming more dangerous by the day. They now represent the number one internal security threat in several countries — and the fastest growing.“
The neo-Nazis and White Supremacist movements are absolutely evil and dangerous. But they are a small fraction of violent extremism that has infected the world.
In 2020, an estimated 22,847 people were killed by terrorism, below the previous decade annual average of roughly 26,000 deaths. The leading countries were Afghanistan; Nigeria; Congo; and Ethiopia by a wide margin. The countries with the next highest number of deaths from terrorism were Syria; Yemen; Somalia; Mozambique; Burkina Faso; Mali and Iraq.
The data for 2021 from another source listed the worst countries as: Afghanistan; Iraq; Somalia; Burkina Faso; Syria; Nigeria; Mali; Niger; Pakistan; Cameroon; India and Mozambique. An almost identical set of countries.
It may not surprise anyone that the none of these murders were from Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists. By far, the leading cause of deaths from terrorism every year is from the noxious evil of radical Islam.
The leading cause of deaths from terrorism every year is from the noxious evil of radical Islam
The world is so cowed by the power of radical Islamic jihadists that it refuses to confront it, let alone call it out directly. Instead, it bows to its master, as over 25% of the United Nations’ member countries have a Muslim majority which may not take kindly to being called out. So the timid Portuguese U.N. Secretary General gives them cover and beats up Europeans and other western countries.
It is time to admit that the United Nations is hopelessly broken, when it becomes a vehicle to protect the worst regimes in the world.
It is time to admit that the United Nations is hopelessly broken, when it becomes a vehicle to protect the worst regimes in the world.
As we watch Islamic extremism kill tens of thousands of people and decimate societies every year, we bicker about White supremacy and nationalism. It is through that jaundiced lens that leftists at the United Nations and mainstream media berate Israel, blind to the radical jihadist neighbors attempting to destroy the Jewish State, and acutely sensitive to a false notion of White Israeli Privilege (when less than one-third of Israelis are Ashkenazi Jews).
US President Joe Biden announced on July 31 that he had ordered the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a mastermind of several terrorist attacks against the United States. In his comments about the targeted assassination of one of the leaders of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Biden said “Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more.”
Biden added that “We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.” However, it is unclear whether al-Zawahiri posed any current threat to the United States. Biden administration officials made no attempt to relay any planned attacks and did not offer whether there was any attempt to arrest al-Zawahiri instead of killing him.
The justice was seemingly solely based on al-Zawahiri’s past actions killing thousands of innocent lives.
Biden’s view of justice served to terrorists is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Authority that same day.
To mark the twentieth anniversary of Palestinian Arabs blowing up a cafeteria at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, murdering nine and injuring over 80, the Palestinian Authority raised the salaries of four terrorists by 14.29%.
As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, “Four of the members of the terrorist cell that carried out the attack – Wael Qassem, Wassim Abbasi, Alla Aldin Abbasi and Muhammed Odeh – were arrested shortly after [the bombing], in August 2002. Having now spent 20 years in prison, this month, the PA will give each of the terrorists a 14.29% rise in their basic salary, from 7,000 ($2,251) to 8,000 shekels/month ($2,572). Since the terrorists were residents of Jerusalem, the PA pays them an additional supplement of 300 shekels/month ($96). To date, the PA has paid each of the these four terrorists a sum of 1,034,500 shekels ($332,637). Four of the other terrorists convicted for their part in the attack on the university and other attacks include Muhammad Arman, Walid Anjas, Abdallah Barghouti and Ibrahim Hamed. Each of these terrorists is similarly receiving a monthly salary from the PA.
“To date, the PA rewarded the terrorists responsible for the bombing 8,022,600 shekels ($2,579,614).”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas defended these payment before the United Nations in September when he said “Why should we have to clarify and justify providing assistance to families of prisoners and martyrs, who are the victims of the occupation and its oppressive policies? We cannot abandon our people and we will continue striving to free all our prisoners.“
US President Joe Biden and PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, July 2022. The leaders have very different views of how to deal with terrorists. (photo: Reuters)
The murder of innocent civilians is reprehensible. While it is unfortunate that the offending terrorists are killed instead of tried and imprisoned, it is often necessary. Justice requires as much.
The stain of inhumanity is not confined to the terrorists but permeates those who support, encourage and incentivize them. The Palestinian Authority has shown its moral code in its twisted definition of justice as rewarding terrorists.
In the United States, justice for terrorists and their victims means punishing terrorists. For Palestinian Arabs, justice requires cash compensation for the murderers and falsely labeling the slain victims as foreign invaders.
Reuters is a global news agency whose stories are picked up and disseminated around the world. Its reporting is thereby magnified as it is often the only source about events in many parts of the world.
The agency has a history of actively choosing to whitewash the terrorism of Palestinian groups, opting instead to call them “militants” while simultaneously calling out other organizations.
Consider the P.K.K., the Kurdistan Working Party:
July 21, 2022: “...militants of the Kurdish PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups…. Cavusoglu said reports blaming Turkey for the attack were attempts by the PKK to hinder Ankara’s counter-terrorism…. ‘Following this attack, which we believe the (PKK) terrorist organisation carried out,‘”
June 29, 2022: “… it views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which is also deemed a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.“
May 14, 2022: “…engaging with PKK and YPG. These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops…. ‘it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation’“
April 21, 2022: “The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, both regarded as terrorist groups by Ankara.“
Reuters similarly treats the terrorist group al-Shabaab in a similar fashion by clearly stating its objectives:
July 19, 2022: “…two al Shabaab terrorists were killed in action,“
April 5, 2022: “The al Shabaab group linked to al Qaeda…. Violence by the group, which aims to topple the central government and impose its own severe version of Islamic law,” didn’t specify terrorism but linked it to a well known terrorist group ad stated the groups goal to topple the government of Somalia.
Meanwhile, articles about Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas, Al-Aqsa Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are cleansed of the terrorist label and instead referred to as “militant groups” and “Islamists.”
July 24, 2022: “The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group claimed the two Palestinians slain… which is ruled by Hamas Islamists.“
June 7, 2022: “…the enclave now governed by Hamas Islamists.“
May 27, 2022: “The Islamist group Hamas in Gaza has warned of another war…“
April 15, 2022: “…the armed Islamist group Hamas, which rules the enclave,“
People around the world reading Reuters are left with an impression that Hamas is somehow not out to destroy Israel, nor a designated terrorist group by the United States, European Union and many other countries. The group thereby becomes legitimized, in sharp contrast to how the media portrays other terrorist groups when it informs the world about the violent threats such groups pose.
Anti-Zionism is pervasive, and the media is an active participant in whitewashing the terrorism and genocidal aspirations of many Palestinian Arabs.
The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres addressed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on March 22, 2022. He heaped praise on an organization that mocks the very values and actions he cherishes.
Guterres led with:
“The United Nations and the OIC enjoy a close, decades-long relationship rooted in trust and based on the shared belief in the values of multilateral cooperation, dialogue, and solidarity. Across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and beyond, our two organizations have worked together to nurture a culture of peace, tolerance, and understanding.
“In recent years, we have successfully deepened our collaboration on key areas of mutual concern — including mediation, countering terrorism, preventing violent extremism, combating anti-Muslim hatred, and promoting religious tolerance. Today, the imperative to join forces, devise common strategies, and draw on our comparative advantages is more urgent than ever.”
The UN and OIC almost seemed bound at the hip. Using the phrases “close”, “relationship rooted in trust”, “shared belief”, “solidarity”, “worked together”, “deepened our collaboration”, “mutual concern” and “common strategies” in just two paragraphs appeared as an embarrassing overuse of a thesaurus.
In political circles, this is called “bending the knee” to a powerful group.
The list of subjects highlighted as being a focus for shared collaboration with Islamic countries is laughable:
Countering terrorism and preventing violent extremism. The worst terrorist groups in the world today are all Islamic, including: ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, al-Shabaab, Lashkar, Haqqani and al-Nusra to name a few.
Promoting religious tolerance. Islamic states are the worst at promoting peace between religions. Changing religions is a basic human right, but apostasy is illegal in Afghanistan, Brunei, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Edicts to that effect have happened in Morocco and Pakistan. Islamic countries are by far the most anti-Semitic in the world. Palestinian Arabs – 93% of whom are anti-Semitic – voted the terrorist group Hamas to a majority of parliament, with full knowledge that the group has the most anti-Semitic charter ever written.
And Guterres not only ignored these facts, not only whitewashed them, not only absolved them – but promoted the Islamic nations as defenders of the crimes they actually commit! No wonder that the heads of the United Nations promote the idea that Hamas should be a legitimate part of the Palestinian Authority.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the High Level Segment of the 37th Session of the Human Rights Council. 26 February 2018.
This phenomenon existed with Guterres’ predecessor Ban Ki Moon as well. He stood in Istanbul, Turkey at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit and heaped praise on Turkish leader Recep Erdogan despite the fact that he jailed more journalists than any nation in the world. Ban Ki made Ahmed Al Meraikhi of Qatar his “Humanitarian Envoy“, despite many human rights abuses.
So why do the heads of the United Nations prostrate to the Islamic world, erasing their human rights abuses?
Could it be that there are between 1.6 and 1.8 billion Muslims in the world? That there are 57 Islamic states? Due to the fact that a huge percentage of the world is Islamic, the United Nations must bend to the whims of these autocrats and dictators who trample on the founding principles of the UN.
Further, the UN is always in need of money, and the Islamic sheikdoms control an enormous amount of the world’s energy supply and riches.
So the world listens and complies with Islamic demands regardless of being immoral or non-factual. It agrees that Jews should not be allowed to pray at their holiest location or live in certain parts of their holy land because radical Islamists demand as much. It echoes nonsense that Israel is an “apartheid” state, seemingly having no idea what the word means. It ignores thousands of years of Jewish history in the land of Israel and calls Israeli Jews “colonialists.” And most importantly, it will allow the Islamic Republic of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which called for the destruction of Israel, to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons.
Its unearned wealth and enormous size confers power to the Islamic world to which the head of the UN must submit. He dutifully bows to their entitled status and defecates on decency and human rights. Joining him is the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, who will enable an Islamic terrorist state to obtain nuclear weapons.
The sole Jewish State is unique in many ways. One situation that causes constant strain is that it is surrounded by armed terrorist groups.
To the north is Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to recent reports, the Iranian-backed terrorist group “currently possesses between 120,000-140,000 short-range rockets (range of 25-28 miles), which cover Israel’s north, including Haifa Bay and Tiberias; several thousand medium-range rockets (range of 56 miles), which can reach the Sharon coastal plain and northern suburbs of Gush Dan; and several hundred long-range rockets and missiles (range of hundreds of miles), including Scud missiles from Syrian military warehouses, capable of hitting targets anywhere in Israel.“
To the west is the terrorist enclave of Gaza. The terrorist group Hamas has launched several wars against Israel since taking over the region.
In the east, Israel has to face Hamas as well, which has significant support in Areas A and B of the West Bank. Palestinians maintain that the best way of dealing with Israel is through armed conflict, and support a number of Palestinian terrorist groups which operate both west and east of Israel including: 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).
To the south, there is another terrorist group that operates out of the Sinai Peninsula called Wilayat Sinai, or ISIS in the Sinai. They have been fighting both Egypt and Israel.
Israel is surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism
Wilayat Sinai
Wilayat Sinai began in 2011 around the time of the “Arab Spring” under the name Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, before pledging its allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014 as that group was gaining prominence and then change its name. Like many of the terrorist groups in the region, it’s banner is jihad and the imposition of Islamic Sharia law throughout the region.
Wilayat’s main target is the Egyptian government which is viewed as too secular. Not only did Egypt make peace with Israel, but it actively opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.
The group stepped up its attacks against Egypt in 2014 when Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ascended to power after forcing out Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. With the support of Israel, al-Sisi began to clamp down on the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza which were instrumental in the Hamas war against Israel in that year. Israel would go on to allow Egypt to expand its military presence in the Sinai, above the limits set in place by the 1979 Peace Agreement. By 2018, 42,000 Egyptian soldiers were in the Sinai.
In February of that year, al-Sisi launched an aggressive “Operation Sinai 2018” campaign against Wilayat Sinai with Israeli support. The actions severely curtailed the groups ability to operate.
The attacks have not been limited to Egypt. In 2015, the group downed a Russian civilian airplane killing 224 because of Russian attacks against ISIS in Syria.
In 2011, attackers from Sinai – including some terrorists from Gaza – shot and killed Israelis near the resort city of Eilat. In 2012, rockets were fired into Eilat and later that year armed men from Hamas and Wilayat Sinai killed Egyptian soldiers and attacked Israeli Defense Forces at the Kerem Shalom Crossing near Gaza. The group would fire more rockets into Israel in 2017.
While Hamas gets most of the attention because of its vile anti-Semitic foundational charter and persistent attacks against Israel, the Jewish State is completely surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism. While each has a different take on the goals of imposing Sharia law and establishing a caliphate, they all seek a purely Islamic region and an end to the Jewish State.
On October 27, 2021, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) received a threat in the mail from a “deranged” person. It’s a terrible state of affairs that people try to physically harm others and/or threaten to do so. Omar rightfully called it out on Twitter.
Ilhan Omar tweets about threat she received in the mail
What is upsetting (repulsive) is that Omar said that she understands the “reality of having [to need] security” after receiving a threat in the mail, but could not understand or approve of helping replenish Israel’s defensive Iron Dome system which intercepts missiles from Palestinian Arab terrorist aimed at Israeli civilians. How can a paper threat trump thousands of missiles? It can’t. It’s just that she sees no value in the lives of Israeli civilians as evidenced by her ongoing anti-Israel and anti-Semitic votes and comments.
As Omar voted against Israel’s defensive system she tweeted “we continue to pay lip service to human rights, peace and a two state solution. Yet we also continue to provide Israel with funding without addressing the underlying issue of the occupation.” Omar seemingly wants to see thousands of dead Israelis because that will somehow make Israel want to give even more land to Palestinian Arabs as its worked out so well when Israel left Gaza (sarcasm).
Using her own litmus test, perhaps the United States should hold back on providing any security for Ilhan Omar unless and until she addresses her own vile underlying anti-Semitism.
First One Through 