Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

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[ Not difficult to guess. To be expected ]

A Hamas terrorist reveals a troubling tactic: members of Hamas reportedly disguise themselves as medical staff in Shifa Hospital.

The terrorist’s admission corroborates longstanding Israeli claims that Al-Shifa Hospital serves as a base for Hamas activities, underscoring the validity of those concerns.

This revelation supports Israel’s position regarding the potential misuse of essential institutions for terrorist purposes and is a serious war crime.

(full article online)

Alarming Revelation: Hamas Members Conceal Identities as Medical Staff in Shifa Hospital | United with Israel

A terrorist discloses that Hamas operatives masquerade as medical personnel at Shifa Hospital.

unitedwithisrael.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

False Narratives Persist: Hamas’ Ongoing Fake News Campaign | United with Israel

The instances presented provide only a glimpse into the continuous endeavor to disseminate deceptive content.

unitedwithisrael.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Every day the Western media run one after another story moaning about the “innocent Palestinians.” I am immunized. First, there is no such thing as “Palestine” or “Palestinians.” Rather, they are “Arabs of Gaza” and “Arabs of Judea and Samaria.” Second, they are not “innocent.” They danced and celebrated when 9/11 happened. They danced and celebrated over the Shabbat Shmini Atzeret Massacre of October 7 when Hamas slaughtered and raped young peace activists at a Trance Dance Rave festival, then went on an orgy of murder, slaughtering families, chopping off heads, beheading babies, placing them in ovens and burning them alive, cutting fetuses out of pregnant women and stabbing the fetuses and the mothers. The “innocents” of Gaza were among those who broke into Israel and engaged in that very orgy of slaughter and were among those celebrating and dancing when Jewish corpses later were trucked into Gaza for display and added humiliation.

Those “innocents” elected and reelected Hamas. They knew Hamas was building tunnels under their homes and storing rockets and drones in their residential apartment buildings, outside their schools and inside and under their hospitals. People know when their neighbors remodel their kitchen. They all knew Hamas was building those tunnels. Hamas dispatches hospital personnel to pick up “humanitarian” fuel, food, and water — and all of that gets transferred from the hospitals to Hamas to power their tunnel ventilation and feed and quench them.

So I am vaccinated. I read the papers, see the TV scenes of Gaza rubble and destruction, and my reaction is: “It’s weekday havdalah time! Borei m’orei ha-eish.” (“[Blessed is G-d] Who created fire,” a blessing recited when viewing the kindled havdalah candle after Shabbat ends). All hostages not freed yet? Keep bombing their tunnels and wherever they may be hiding. Destroy them.

No surrender? Dresden them.

And, meanwhile, back on the campuses, fight back. If Ron DeSantis could ban the pro-Hamas “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) in Florida’s state universities, then Jews should demand that every other governor follow suit. Sit-in. Demand it. And if two billionaires convinced Columbia to ban SJP, then Jews at every other Ivy League college should be demanding that their campuses ban SJP, too. Sit-in, just as everyone else but nice Jews do. Stop being Nice Jews. Be mean, nasty Jews until everyone else stops being mean and nasty. Don’t whine, but instead demand.

Martin Luther King sat-in and got arrested; America honors him with a national holiday. Jews need to sit-in at their university presidents’ offices if that is what it takes to gain equal rights. Sit-in like Martin Luther King in the offices of the racist anti-White and anti-Semitic DEI directors and demand the DEI departments be closed.

As I have written before, Columbia University’s “College Walk” is not Dachau, and Harvard Yard is not Auschwitz. Jews need to fight back, and Israel this time is modeling the lead.

Lambs to the slaughter? Been there, done that. This time Dresden them.

(full article online)

On Dresdening Gaza and Being Vaccinated Against Anti-Semitism

Those “innocents” elected and reelected Hamas. They knew Hamas was building tunnels under their homes and storing rockets and drones in their residential apartment buildings, outside their schools

www.jewishpress.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Not for the Faint of Heart: Israeli-Run Hamas.com Shares Uncensored Images of October 7 Atrocities

Most of the tweets responding to the new website believe it’s genuine Hamas propaganda.

www.jewishpress.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Answering Your Questions About the War Against Hamas

Plus: Finding more weapons in children's bedrooms

idfspokesperson.substack.com

 

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According to @ynetnews
, plans for the hospital included a basement OR and offices. @nytimes cites anonymous Israeli officials explaining that after Hamas took over Gaza, they began building a command center and tunnels in and around the basement of Shifa.

A 2006 documentary from
@PBS showed Hamas terrorists roaming the halls of Shifa, intimidating staff, and restricting access to parts of the hospital.

A 2007 report from @hrw
acknowledges that Shifa Hospital was attacked in clashes between Fatah and Hamas. Fatah gunmen fired mortars and RPGs at Shifa, where Hamas fighters were holed up; Hamas returned fire from inside the hospital.

A report from
@amnesty similarly reported battles between Fatah and Hamas at Shifa Hospital, as well as at UNRWA facilities and other hospitals.https://amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/mde210102007en.pdf

(full tweets and videos online)

 

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Palestinian students in the so-called “moderate” Fatah-controlled West Bank have been expressing open support for Hamas and the murder of Jews.

Three videos of West Bank students chanting in the streets show in all clarity their support for Hamas, the massacre of Israelis and slaughter of Jews, and the continued war.

In Jenin, students shouted the infamous slogan “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!” This is a direct call to murder Jews as Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army in 628. Many Jews were murdered in the battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see this event as a precursor to future wars against Jews. At extremist gatherings and rallies, this slogan is often chanted as a threat to Jews warning them that they should expect their coming defeat and slaughter by Muslims.

While students in Al-Mughayyir north of Ramallah vowed that “there is no god but Allah,” and that Israelis are “Allah’s enemy,” students in Nablus pledged allegiance to Hamas terror leader Muhammad Deif:

Leader of chant: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews!”
Students: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews!”
Leader of chant: “The army of Muhammad will return!”
Students: “The army of Muhammad will return!” …
Students: “With spirit, with blood, we will redeem you Al-Aqsa Mosque!” …
Leader of chant: “O [Hamas’ spokesman] Abu Ubeida, O dear one”
Students: “O [Hamas’ spokesman] Abu Ubeida, O dear one”
Leader of chant: “strike and burn Tel Aviv!”
Students: “strike and burn Tel Aviv!” …
Leader of chant: “O Muslim, call out ‘Allahu Akbar’ (i.e., “Allah is greatest”)”
Students: “O Muslim, call out ‘Allahu Akbar’”
Leader of chant: “and blow up the Zionist’s head!”
Students: “and blow up the Zionist’s head!” …
Leader of chant: “We are the people of Muhammad Deif (i.e., Hamas terror leader)!”
Students: “We are the people of Muhammad Deif (i.e., Hamas terror leader)!”

[Quds News Network (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, Oct. 31, 2023]​

Leader of chant: “There is no god but Allah”
Students: “There is no god but Allah”
Leader of chant: “and the Zionist is Allah’s enemy!”
Students:“and the Zionist is Allah’s enemy!”

[Quds News Network (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, Oct. 31, 2023]​

Students: “We are the people of Muhammad Deif (i.e., Hamas terror leader)! …
Millions salute… with knives!”

[Quds News Network (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, Oct. 30, 2023]​

During the current war, Palestinian Media Watch has exposed several expressions in support of Hamas and slaughter of Jews by Palestinian West Bank students. A teacher led schoolgirls in a chant that taught the girls their “path is Jihad” – holy war, while Fatah’s student movement has called on Allah to murder Jews. Students in Ramallah have been urging people owning guns to "shoot Jews" or hand their guns over to Hamas.

This is the next generation of Palestinians. If the PA becomes rulers of the Gaza Strip and again responsible for education, once Hamas has been eradicated by Israel, in a few years, Israel might be facing more of the same: Terror.

Texts posted with the videos by the Quds News Network, which is identified with Hamas:

Posted text with 1st video: “News coverage: Female school students in Jenin continue the processions supporting the Gaza Strip (i.e., Hamas’ terror war on Israel).”

[Quds News Network (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, Oct. 31, 2023]​

Posted text with 2nd video: “News coverage: A procession of students as a sign of support for the Gaza Strip (refers to Hamas’ terror war on Israel; see note below -Ed.) in Al-Mughayyir village in the Jenin subdistrict.”
Posted text with 3rd video: “#Watch
School students’ calls during a procession that they held a short while ago in central Nablus as a sign of support for the Gaza Strip and the resistance (i.e., Hamas’ terror war on Israel)”

[Quds News Network (Hamas), X (Twitter) account, Oct. 30, 2023]​

Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army in 628. Many Jews were murdered in the battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see this event as a precursor to future wars against Jews. At extremist gatherings and rallies, this slogan is often chanted as a threat to Jews warning them that they should expect their coming defeat and slaughter by Muslims.

Muhammad Deif – Palestinian terrorist and chief commander of the Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas' military wing). He organized several terror attacks, including the first Jaffa Street suicide bombing in Jerusalem (27 murdered, 35 wounded, Feb. 25, 1996), the second Jaffa Street suicide bombing in Jerusalem (18 murdered, over 40 wounded, March 3, 1996), the Ashkelon Junction suicide bombing (1 murdered, 35 wounded, March 3, 1996), the Elei Sinai shooting attack (2 murdered, 15 wounded, Oct. 2, 2001 and the Atzmona shooting attack (5 murdered, 15 wounded, March 7, 2002). He also led the cell that kidnapped and murdered 3 Israeli soldiers: Shahar Simani (April 20, 1994), Aryeh Frankental (July 7, 1994), and Nachshon Wachsman (Oct. 9, 1994).

The Palestinian students from the West Bank chanted this during Hamas’ terror war on Israel:

Hamas war on Israel October 2023 -

School students call to murder Jews, “strike and burn Tel Aviv,” “blow up the Zionist’s head,” “The Zionist is Allah’s enemy!” | PMW Analysis

School students call to murder Jews

palwatch.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

By Andrew Pessin, Continued from yesterday)
3. How Would You Respond To An Openly Genocidal Terror Group That Doesn’t Care About Its Own Civilians?

So far I’ve argued that every decent human being must answer (Q) with an unqualified, full-stop “no,” and that the “no” answer reveals the true nature of the Palestinian movement as a genocidal Islamist movement seeking to murder all Jews and destroy the West. Once you understand this then everything about the “conflict” looks different including, now, how one might think about Israel’s response to October 7.

If you can’t answer “no” to (Q) then you cannot understand the actual threat that Israel faces, and thus cannot understand (and ought not to criticize) Israel’s response.

It’s common for anti-Israelists to insist that people have the right to “resist” their oppression, adding “by any means necessary” as a sanitized way to answer “yes” to (Q), thus justifying violence against Israel and Israelis. But now if people have the right to “resist” their oppression, people surely have the right to “resist” their extermination, and “by any means necessary.” On this view there would literally be no moral limits to what Israel can do in response to Hamas. The only people who deny that right to the Jews have already dehumanized them to the point where Jews no longer enjoy the “human rights” all other humans have, as we’ll explore below.

That the threat Hamas poses is precisely that of extermination is indisputable. From its founding charter to nearly every action and statement in the 35 years since, as we’ve seen, its goal has been clear. Hamas murdered and wounded many thousands of Israelis throughout the 1990s and 2000s in suicide bombings and other attacks. Israel then withdrew from Gaza in 2005 at great financial and emotional cost to itself partly as a gesture toward peaceful coexistence. In response Hamas took over the enclave by a violent coup in 2007 and immediately began firing rockets at Israel, each one a double war-crime (fired from within a civilian population toward a civilian population). In the past 16 years Hamas has launched tens of thousands of rockets and started five full-fledged wars in addition to many smaller skirmishes, in addition to perpetrating many individual terrorist attacks. Each war ended the same way, as a stalemate, with Hamas still in power—after which Hamas then took the intervening time to rearm and get militarily stronger. October 7 escalated their program to a whole new, barbaric level, and they have promised to do it again and again until every Jew is eliminated.

It is indisputable that Hamas will never accept any peaceful “solution,” beyond the elimination of all Jews. They say that openly and every behavior confirms it. If Israel is to defend itself from this genocidal program, then, it can only be by the elimination of Hamas. And since Hamas gets stronger with each interval, there is no longer any reasonable option but to eliminate Hamas—now, because next time they might even have nuclear weapons, supplied by Iran.
If the State of Israel is to protect its citizens, then, it has the moral obligation of eliminating Hamas.

The question is how.

Well, how would you fight a genocidal enemy that has no concern for its own civilians, and would even be happy to sacrifice them as long as it destroyed you? By conceding to them?

Empowering them? Giving them a state?

Or would you fight them “by any means necessary”?

Of course most anti-Israelists condemn any measure that Israel takes to contain Hamas’s genocidal threat, including the non-violent ones. These include the blockade Israel imposed after Hamas took power and began firing rockets, which, in an inversion of reality, anti-Israelists now claim is a justified cause of the violence Hamas perpetrates against Jews rather than its justified effect. These also include many of the policies and actions that anti-Israelists attribute to “the occupation,” such as the separation fence, checkpoints, even some of the settlement activity in Judea and Samaria (which they refer to by the Jordanian colonial name of “West Bank”). When you answer “no” to (Q) and thus recognize the actual threat Israeli Jews are up against, these measures are more accurately seen not as “the mechanism of occupation” but as necessary measures of self-defense.
Still, these non-violent measures obviously don’t test the limits of the phrase “by any means necessary,” so it’s Israel’s military responses that draw their special ire, for example due to the civilian casualties that result. And indeed, in each of the five wars and other skirmishes started by Hamas, Israel’s military responses have caused civilian casualties.

That topic requires its own substantive essay, but here just a couple of brief points.
First, again, those who answer “yes” to (Q) are not in much position to complain of the other side killing civilians. If they endorse civilian casualties when these are the direct target of the attack—as they were in the October 7 slaughter—they can hardly object to civilian casualties as collateral damage from the targeting of military threats. Or if they may resist oppression “by any means necessary” they can hardly object when Israel resists its extermination “by any means necessary.”

More importantly, if anyone can figure out how to eliminate Hamas without any civilian casualties at all then Israel would be all ears. That is obviously impossible both by all the general norms of warfare—has there ever been a war, in all history, that didn’t involve civilian casualties?—and all the more so by the fact that Hamas embeds itself among civilians, uses them as human shields, blocks their efforts to evacuate, has rockets that misfire and kills them itself, and more. These multiple war crimes in fact make Hamas morally and legal responsible for any civilian casualties that result from strikes targeting Hamas.
Does that then license the unlimited slaughter of civilians, the utter destruction of Gaza?

Of course not, at least to those who answer “no” to (Q).

In fact Israel, unlike Hamas, makes extensive efforts to follow the international “laws of war,” which allow civilian casualties in the relevant proportions and under the relevant conditions. This is not the place to defend that claim, except to note (1) how remarkable is the degree to which Israel conforms to international law in a conflict with an enemy who flouts it entirely—the October 7 massacre of civilians including children being just one example of thousands—at the same time as (2) the international community relentlessly charges Israel with flouting those laws while ignoring Hamas’s actual blatant violations. It actually isn’t difficult to show that Israel takes more care to protect Gazan civilians than does Hamas, the enclave’s ruling authority.
The “no” answer also gives one more important result.

Already in the first days of Israel’s response to October 7 the calls for “de-escalation,” and “ceasefire,” began. Anti-Israelists called for these increasingly vociferously as the days then weeks of the campaign went on, condemning alleged Israeli “genocide” in the form of civilian casualties. But wasn’t Hamas’s mass sadistic slaughter of some 1200 mostly civilians itself an escalation? And part of an explicit campaign of, literally, genocide? How does one come out for “de-escalation” only after the Jew-slaughterers have finished their slaughter, without even acknowledging that slaughter? How does one come out against “genocide” only after the openly genocidal group has finished its round of genocidal activity, and do so without acknowledging that genocidal activity? Think about what that behavior reveals: they have no objection when Jews are attacked, but they condemn Jews when they respond. Or maybe: genocide is dreadful, except when it’s perpetrated against Jews.

Further, to call for ceasefire now simply means that Hamas wins, and can just use the interim once more to increase its military might for the next round of conflict. That’s not a genuine ceasefire; that is in the long term to prolong the fighting with almost surely a much greater civilian toll overall. Empirical experience, after five wars in 16 years, clearly demonstrates that to be true. Nor is such a call respecting the power of the “no” answer to (Q): as Hamas openly declared, that atrocity is exactly what is going to happen again and again, unless Hamas is eliminated.

Moreover, there is a whole other mode of de-escalation, and genocide prevention, that these anti-Israel activists are presumably intentionally ignoring. They could be demanding that Hamas return all the hostages immediately and surrender, and then the war is over, instantly. You don’t get more de-escalating and anti-genocidal than that. It is extraordinarily telling that this is not the mode they are calling for.

Their calls for ceasefire are, then, calls for the victory of Hamas.

If you answer “no” to (Q), and condemn the Hamas slaughter full stop, then you recognize the absolute unacceptability of the continued existence of Hamas, which in turn justifies a massive Israeli response to Hamas even despite tragically significant civilian casualties—which are in any case entirely Hamas’s responsibility.
And if you answer “yes”?
Then by your own reckoning the Jewish people may “resist” their own extermination “by any means necessary,” and you have no standing to object.

The One Simple Question That Determines Everything: "Is it acceptable to slaughter, rape, behead and burn people in pursuit of a political aim?" (Part 2) (Andrew Pessin)

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

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[Sixties Fan]

4. Delegitimization and Dehumanization

We turn now to the next result from a full stop “no” answer to (Q): we are compelled to examine exactly how it has come to pass that so many on our campuses can find themselves answering “yes” instead.

Let’s begin with this observation from Vassar College professor of Russian history Michaela Pohl from 2016:

The atmosphere at Vassar … is troubled. I am not Jewish, but even I have experienced an increase in hostility and strained silences among students and colleagues … I have been called a “f--king fascist,” “Zionist” and “idiot” for speaking out against Vassar’s BDS resolution and speaking up for Israel and for US policy. I have seen Jewish students profiled and singled out at a BDS meeting. I have felt the icy silence that reigns in some departments … Academics who suggest that Israel is harvesting organs … earn [approving] tweets and clicks—and deal in hate speech … It is speech that angers and mobilizes and that relishes its effects but denies that the effect was ever the intention.

As for the long-term effects of such an environment, Pohl noted that “students look down at their desks when I say things about Jewish emancipation [in Russia] … [there are] embarrassed silences in class while discussing Jewish history.”

This may be America in 2023, but what we’re seeing is an old story, dressed up fresh for the 21st century Western world.

Years of lies, fertilizing the soil, all deliberately designed to delegitimize and dehumanize the Jew, to label the Jew as inhuman, demonic, pure evil. Once you are convinced that the Jew represents evil, then persecuting Jews, even killing Jews, becomes not only acceptable but even obligatory. If the Jew is evil, then you in turn must be a very good person in persecuting and killing him. The ancient and medieval Christians did this for centuries, portraying the Jew as the fleshly embodiment of evil for their rejection and crucifixion of Jesus. The Germans and the Nazis did this for decades in racial terms, inspired and justifying their actions by the antisemitic forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, even developing a whole academic discipline to demonstrate the evils of the Jews and thus inspiring the book title, as apt today as ever, Hitler’s Professors. After some decades of this program, killing actual living Jews isn’t merely easier but becomes an act of virtue.

The newer lies, now also several decades old, are merely superficial variations on the older lies, aiming to better reflect the specific evils of today. The charges of “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “settler colonialism,” “apartheid,” and more recently, right out of Goebbels’ playbook, “Jewish supremacy”—not to mention probably every single thing most people believe about Gaza—all of these are lies, in fact easily documentable and demonstrable lies for anyone who takes a few minutes to honestly evaluate them. (Many people for example don’t know that rather unlike most “open air prisons” or “concentration camps” Gaza has four-star hotels and restaurants, luxury cars, ritzy malls, affluent neighborhoods, fancy beach resorts, and an obesity problem, not to mention a massive military infrastructure.) These charges don’t have to be true, they just have to be widely circulated, widely repeated, and widely believed, so that the Jew becomes the embodiment of whatever is considered most evil today.

And this is what the Palestinian movement, along with its many “progressive” allies, has successfully accomplished.

After almost twenty years of the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement against Israel, orchestrated on campus by the more than 200 chapters of SJP, their short-term goal, that of damaging Israel economically, was a bust; but the long-term goal, the real goal, has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Whether or not a particular BDS resolution passes or fails on a given campus, the campaign itself soaks the campus in all the lies above for weeks on end, year after year. Most students don’t really follow the details, but come away thinking, man, those Jews with their genocide, apartheid, and supremacy, must really be pretty evil.

And now in 2023 no one blinks when SJP asserts boldly, baldly, as if factually, on their recent social media celebrating the slaughter of 1200 mostly Jews, that every single Israeli Jew is a "settler"—even the ones who live within the internationally recognized borders of the U.N. member State of Israel, even the ones whose lineage in that land might well trace back to Biblical times. In today’s campus vernacular the label “settler” is a slur rivalling in evilness the slur “Nazi” (which they also repeatedly sling against Israelis). If every Israeli Jew is a settler, then every Israeli Jew is evil, and therefore legitimately murdered. That includes the babies, and the grandmothers, and the unarmed dancing teenagers, and by the way it also justifies torturing them and raping them before you murder them.

Nor is an eye blinked when George Washington University’s SJP, for example, goes even further and openly declares that “We reject the distinction between 'civilian' and 'militant' … Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor, a soldier, and an occupier even if they are lounging on our occupied beaches.” The assault on language and intelligence here is almost as bad as the physical assault on Jewish civilians that it justifies. It is so shocking that it must be repeated: “Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor even if lounging on the beach.” That adorable four-year-old boy, born in that land to parents who were born in that land to parents who were born in that land (and beyond), splashing in the waves as his loving mother looks on: that small boy is an aggressor, a soldier, an occupier, a—settler.

Every Israeli Jew is guilty. And if every Israeli Jew is guilty, is evil, then so is every other Jew who supports them and may even be related to them. Since approximately half the world’s Jews live in Israel and the significant majority of the other half supports Israel, feels connected to it, has relatives and acquaintances who live there, and so on, then the result is clear:

There are no innocent Jews.

The actual Nazis couldn’t have orchestrated it better.

But even this is only part of the story.

To this now two-decade-old propaganda campaign was added, in the past decade or so, another ideological movement. Going by various names—Wokeness, Critical Race Theory (CRT), Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)—this ideology has taken campuses (and many other institutions) by storm, thoroughly exploding after the infamous George Floyd affair in 2020. The antagonism this movement shows not merely toward Israel but towards Jews in general is well documented, but the simple summary is this. Members of Western societies, including America, divide into two basic classes, they say, the oppressor and the oppressed, with one’s membership determined primarily by one’s race. As such, “white supremacy” is understood as the fundamental evil responsible for all sorts of disparities between white people and all people of color. Where there are such disparities (in wealth and income, in health, in education, in admission to Ivy League universities, in police interactions, etc.) these are due to white privilege affording benefits unavailable to people of color. Ideas such as “merit,” “equal opportunity,” and “color-blindness” are derided as either illusions or mechanisms by which to enforce white supremacy.

What does this have to do with the Jews?

Since Jews, on average, “do well”—never mind that many Jews are poor, unhealthy, not prosperous, and have long been disproportionately targeted for discrimination and violence etc.—then Jews are in the class of “white supremacist oppressors of people of color.” (Never mind too that actual white supremacists, going back to the Nazis and earlier, persecuted Jews for not being white, and that many, many Jews are racially indistinguishable from other people of color.) In fact since Jews “do well” on average compared to other “white” groups, Jews are sometimes considered uber-white: the worst of the oppressors. If the SJPers and BDSers label Jews with the defamatory slur of being settlers, the CRTers and DEIers label them with the equally defamatory slur of being uber-white.

Between these two sets of ideologies so dominant on campuses then, Israeli Jews, American Jews, European Jews, Jews simpliciter—are simply evil, full stop, the same full stop that should accompany the “no” answer to (Q).

There are no innocent Jews, not in Israel, not elsewhere.

Those “decent” administrators, faculty members, who say nothing while 1200 Jews are slaughtered—and livestreamed, with the most horrific recordings circulating the globe getting millions of views and shares and likes and celebratory comments—do they remain silent because they too believe these Jews actually—deserve this?

One liberated kibbutz included the bodies of 40 babies.

Babies.

Some beheaded.

Are there no innocent Jews, who don’t deserve this fate?

If you can’t condemn this with a full stop “no” to (Q)—if you remain silent—then you must believe these Jews deserve it. I can draw no other conclusion. Is it possible that my academic colleagues, sophisticated, educated, refined, “experts” in values—for do they not daily proclaim their expertise in values, in their anti-racism, their anti-hate, their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion?—is it possible that the people we work with, share offices with, who teach our children, share the belief and value system of the ancient and medieval Christians, the modern Nazis?

And of Hamas, as we have already discussed?

“We are all Hamas!” the young woman in North Carolina screamed—speaking, perhaps, for all these administrators, faculty members, students who remained silent.

Is there any other identity group about which it would be acceptable to celebrate their mass slaughter, and campaign to bring that slaughter to your campus? What exactly are all those diversity and inclusion administrators paid to do, if not to prevent this?

Or at least condemn it?

But silence is what we got on my campus, and on many campuses—like the silence in Prof. Pohl’s class whenever the topic of Jews come up.

Silence is complicity—and equivalent to a “yes” answer to (Q), at least when the victims are Jews.

(Part 3/conclusion tomorrow)

The One Simple Question That Determines Everything: "Is it acceptable to slaughter, rape, behead and burn people in pursuit of a political aim?" (Part 2) (Andrew Pessin)

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Last year, I wrote about Francesca Albanese, who bears the weighty title "UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967." In that article, I focused on her declaration of objectivity and impartiality. I contrasted that with her accusations about the influence of the "Jewish Lobby," in addition to other issues that called her moral authority and credibility into question.

Those questions are still pertinent today, following the Hamas Massacre and Israel's retaliation. Back in 2014, Albanese made her feelings about Hamas clear:



Last year, she made clear that applying the "resistance" label sanitized whatever Palestinian terrorists did:

As Hillel Neuer pointed out at the time, since the Palestinian call for "resistance" is a call for violence, this UN human rights expert was deliberately inciting violence.

Let's take a look at this human rights and international law expert in action.

On November 15, The Project interviewed Francesca Albanese and asked her what would have been the right and legal way for Israel to have responded to the Hamas massacre of 1,400 men, women, and children and the kidnapping of 240 others.

--------
Here is the transcript:

Interviewer: So, Israel was always going to respond to the attacks of October 7. In your view, what would the correct response have looked like?

Albanese: The response was to be given in terms of law enforcement because Gaza is occupied, and it's under belligerent occupation. So Israel has powers to enforce the law and to pursue all security measures that are deemed necessary, considering that this is occupied territory. It could have relied on the United Nations to demilitarize Hamas, if this was the target. Instead, he does wage the war claiming the right of self-defense under Article 51, which is the right to wage a war, the right to use military force against another state. But again, we are talking of the people that Israel occupies and it has occupied for 56 years now.

Albanese is making 3 basic claims:

o Israel should have responded to the Hamas terrorist attack by sending in the police
o Gaza is under belligerent occupation by Israel and is not allowed to reply militarily
o Israel could have relied on the UN to demilitarize Hamas

Let's take the second claim first.

Is Gaza Really Occupied?​

-----------------

Call The Cops on Hamas?​

She is nothing if not consistent. Last year Albanese denied Israel's right to defend itself from terrorist attacks:

“Israel cannot claim self-defense while illegally occupying and while directing an act of aggression against another country,” she said. “Those who have the right to self-defense are the Palestinians.”

Last week at the National Press Club in Australia, she doubled down:

"What Israel was allowed to do was to act to establish law and order, to repel the attack, neutralize whomever was carrying out the attacks and then proceed with law and order measures ... not waging a war," she added.

So what can Israel do in the face of terrorism? Call the cops! And if that sounds absurd, Albanese goes one better.

The UN To The Rescue!​

If it is difficult to imagine policemen going into Gaza to arrest Yahya Sinwar, try to imagine the UN demilitarizing Hamas. But in order to pull that off, you have to forget about the historical failures of the UN to keep the peace.

But Eugene Kontorovich has a reminder of the UN's disastrous failings:

The idea of international forces in Gaza repeats decades of mistakes.

In every single case, UN forces and agencies failed to provide Israel any security and were coopted and used by its enemies.

For example:

o The UN Security Council created the United Nations Emergency Force after the 1956 Suez War to keep the peace on the border between Israel and Egypt. But when Nasser demanded they leave in 1967, the UN just left.

o Similarly, the UN Truce Supervision Organization in Jerusalem fled when Jordan attacked Israel during the war in 1967.

o After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the UN Disengagement Observer Force was created on the border between Israel and Syria. But during the Syrian Civil War, they pulled out when Islamist militias moved in.

o The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon did nothing to prevent the PLO from attacking Israel.

o After the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the Security Council required UNIFIL to disarm Hezbollah in south Lebanon. But Hezbollah has on grown stronger in that area since and act with impunity, firing rockets on Israeli homes despite the "presence" on the largest peacekeeping force outside of Africa.

Yet in the face of the obvious failures of the UN as a peacekeeping force, Albanese absurdly insists that Israel "could have relied on the United Nations to demilitarize Hamas."

Her farcical claim that Israel has no right to defend itself after the Hamas Massacre only leads her to the foolish, and deadly, claims that Israel should send the police into Gaza or have the UN stroll into Gaza to disarm Hamas.

This is what happens when a law degree is used as a tool to pursue a personal, biased agenda. But this is what we have come to expect from the UN.


(full article online)

Debunking Francesca Albanese's Defense of Hamas Terrorists (Daled Amos)

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

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The evidence is overwhelming and incriminating. Hamas systematically exploited Al-Shifa Hospital and other medical centers in Gaza for command and control centers, terror tunnels, weapons storage, hiding kidnapped hostages, and murdering kidnapped hostages.

The newly released videos are disturbing, but they are not surprising. For nearly fifteen years, Israeli and American officials have publicly acknowledged the existence of Hamas’ headquarters under Al-Shifa Hospital, and the international media has reported on the active presence of Hamas in hospitals, including during rounds of armed conflict.

However, there is one network that has constantly denied Hamas’ exploitation of Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza — the influential community of ostensible human rights NGOs, humanitarian aid organizations, and their UN agency partners. Many of these groups have been actively complicit in covering up the diversion of aid by Hamas. Some of them employ Hamas and other terror operatives. At the same time, these groups have disseminated disinformation regarding Israeli operations and have likely lied to government donors in auditing and oversight processes. As documented below, the NGO strategy of denial and extensive obfuscation has continued and increased during the current Gaza conflict, despite the evidence.

Most troubling, as suggested by the videos of Hamas terrorists openly bringing hostages and captured military vehicles into Al-Shifa’s grounds, it seems likely that NGO officials – particularly those connected to self-declared humanitarian NGOs – had firsthand knowledge of Hamas’ illegal use of Al-Shifa, but remained silent. If this is proven, the NGOs bear responsibility for failing to report on these blatant violations of international law, human rights norms, and medical ethics. Any medical staff involved in covering up these activities could also face civil and criminal liability in both domestic and international courts. Donor governments to these NGOs and UN agencies must launch immediate investigations.

Relevant International Law​

Contrary to the claims of many NGOs, hospitals and other medical facilities lose their civilian status if “they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an ‘act harmful to the enemy’.” Examples provided by the International Committee for the Red Cross include “a hospital [] used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.”

Statements from NGOs​

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders)​

MSF repeatedly denied that Hamas was present in Gaza hospitals, with an official claiming that “we have seen no evidence that the hospital buildings or the compounds are being used by Hamas as a military base.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW)​

On November 14, HRW published a statement referring to “Unlawful Israeli Hospital Strikes” and stating that Israel’s claims that “Hamas uses hospitals as terror infrastructures” were “contested.” According to HRW, “Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals.” (Notably, the same statement repeated, without any caveat, claims from Palestinians who communicated with HRW “by phone.”)

Amnesty International​

On November 14, an Amnesty tweet suggested that Israel could not attack Hamas installations even if they were “near hospitals”: “Hospitals and medics must be protected at all times. No one should be conducting hostilities near hospitals or endangering the lives of the sick and wounded, or the doctors and nurses desperately trying to save lives in nightmarish conditions.”

Oxfam International​

On November 10, Oxfam published a statement, completely ignoring Hamas operations in hospitals and misrepresenting the relevant provisions of international law: “Attacks on hospitals packed with civilians in need of urgent treatment and seeking shelter are abhorrent and can never be justified….Indiscriminately firing on civilians in hospitals is not just a war crime, it’s an assault on humanity” (emphases added).

Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)​

On November 11, NRC published a statement claiming, “We are horrified by reports of relentless attacks on Gaza’s hospitals…. It is an affront to wage war around and on hospitals….The harm to patients besieged in hospitals and the lasting effects of depriving the population of major medical facilities in a time of armed conflict may very well be unlawful. Medical facilities and personnel exclusively engaged in the treatment of the sick and wounded have special protection under international humanitarian law that must be respected in all circumstances. Failure to do so amounts to a grave breach of international humanitarian law.”

Save the Children​

On November 10, Save the Children published a statement, “Hospitals and schools cannot be battlegrounds, and children cannot be targets. Yet in Gaza all three are attacked on a daily basis.…The continued, systematic assaults must end. Even during wartime, basic elements of humanity must prevail.”

Al-Haq, Al Mezan, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) (Donors include Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, EU, Norway, Netherlands, France, Denmark, UN agencies)​

On November 2, 2023, Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR published a statement, “Gaza Hospitals Are Collapsing and Can Be Targeted Anytime: The International Community Must Intervene and Stop More Israeli Massacres of Palestinian Civilians.” In it, the NGOs alleged that “on 27 October 2023, the spokesperson for the Israeli army incited for the targeting of the Al-Shifa Hospital. The pretext for this claim is the alleged presence of tunnels beneath it, a claim repeatedly made by Israel that has not been substantiated with any reliable evidence. Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR express concerns that this could be a prelude to justify the potential targeting of the hospital, as seen in previous incidents, potentially leading to thousands of civilian casualties.”

Bisan (Donors include EU, Spain, Belgium, Germany)​

On November 16, 2023, Bisan published, “Urgent Appeal to Protect Al-Shifa hospital and All Healthcare Facilities.” According to Bisan’s misstatement of international law, “…In times of war, the targeting or neglect of healthcare facilities not only violates international humanitarian law but also erodes the fundamental principles that form the backbone of our shared humanity…The deliberate targeting of hospitals is a blatant violation of these agreements and represents a reprehensible departure from International law and International humanitarian law.”

Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) (Donors include EU, Italy, Switzerland)​

On November 16, 2023, PNGO alleged that “What happened in Al-Shifaa medical complex goes beyond a flagrant transgression and is an absolute war crime.” According to PNGO, “The violent war against the Palestinian people, and specifically the Gaza Strip is continuing…the barbaric attack on the Al-Shifaa complex in Gaza City…under baseless excuses and pretexts…”

Caabu​

On November 15, in response to a report of IDF finding weapons in Al Shifa hospital, Director of Caabu Chris Doyle tweeted, “Did anyone think there was ever going to a world in which the Israeli army did not say this? It all is possible for sure, Hamas may well have done, but any ‘evidence’ would have to be properly verified. Earlier Israeli efforts were far from conclusive.”

Denying the Undeniable: NGOs Erase Hamas’ Exploitation of Hospitals » ngomonitor

There is one network that has constantly denied Hamas' exploitation of Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza -- the influential community of ostensible human rights NGOs, humanitarian aid organizations, and their UN agency partners.

www.ngo-monitor.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Let me stop you right there. What he means by “de facto authorities in Gaza” is Hamas. When he says he refuses to interrogate the accuracy of the numbers being fed to him by Hamas, he is admitting that he is not a spokesman for the global community of nations but rather a witting propagandist for a terrorist organization.

With that out of the way, we can ask: Why? Why is the UN secretary general using numbers he knows aren’t accurate? After all, the truth will come out eventually and even the UN itself is likely to publish more accurate reports.



That is, in fact, part of the answer. If the UN were to investigate this matter itself, it would almost certainly come up with findings that broadly and meaningfully contradict Hamas. We’ve seen this before, the most infamous example being the modern blood libel of the supposed “Jenin massacre” in 2002. Israel restricted press access during a particularly dangerous raid on a terrorist enclave after a suicide bomber killed nearly thirty Israelis on Passover that year. This was during the Second Intifada, a prolonged terror campaign that forced Israeli troops into the West Bank to root out those responsible. When faced with this lack of access, reporters (mostly British reporters; U.S. media handled the Jenin operation with caution) simply invented stories. “A monstrous war crime that Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finally been exposed,” intoned a particularly psychotic piece in The Independent. The report went on: “The sweet and ghastly reek of rotting human bodies is everywhere, evidence that it is a human tomb. The people, who spent days hiding in basements crowded into single rooms as the rockets pounded in, say there are hundreds of corpses, entombed beneath the dust, under a field of debris, criss-crossed with tank and bulldozer treadmarks.”

Amnesty International sent Derrick Pounder with a team of analysts to Jenin, and Pounder endorsed the rumor mill: “I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn’t lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see.”

Yet as Tufts scholar Kelly M. Greenhill wrote in a book on the messiness of counting wartime casualties, the UN itself eventually put out a report stating that there were 52 Palestinian deaths in Jenin, the majority of which were combatants. Journalists relied on faulty Palestinian sources and republished rumors as fact. They saw rubble and decided everyone was dead.

But the damage was done, according to Greenhill: “The negative image of Israel, particularly in the European press, ‘contributed to a sense of unease about doing business [t]here. There [was] a noticeable fall in business visitors—investors, analysts, and buyers. There [we]re questions about the ability of Israeli companies to supply goods to overseas customers, and concerns about fulfilling contracts for goods already sold.’ There were also calls and moves by some organizations and individuals to boycott Israeli goods… The Israel Citrus Grower’s Association reported that the export of oranges to Europe dropped 25 percent, following the operation in Jenin. The image hit was believed to have further contributed to the ongoing rise in anti-Semitism in Europe; in France, for instance, 56 synagogues and Jewish institutions were attacked within the month after Defensive Shield, a significantly greater number than in the period leading up to it.”

What Guterres is doing is adding the UN’s imprimatur to terrorist propaganda, and he doesn’t care if it’ll age poorly. It has always been the practice to issue wild accusations against Israel for the purposes of ginning up concrete economic and security consequences for Israel and for Jews around the world. And as long as everyone keeps falling for it, the game plan won’t change.


(full article online)

Lies, Damned Lies, and UN Statistics

Antonio Guterres ought to get out more. He is the secretary general of the United Nations, which counts 193 member states. Theoretically, Guterres’s mandate far eclipses the Roman Empire at

www.commentary.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

These images released by the IDF on November 21, 2023, show the inside of a Hamas tunnel found under Gaza's Shifa Hospital. (Israel Defense Forces)

The military on Tuesday said it breached a blast door at the end of a Hamas tunnel discovered by forces last week underneath Gaza’s Shifa Hospital, where Israel alleges the terror group operates a key command center.

The Israel Defense Forces published two images, one showing the open door and the other further inside the tunnel.

Earlier this week, the IDF released footage showing the inside of the tunnel shaft and part of the tunnel. After around 55 meters, the tunnel ended with a blast door, likely protecting Hamas assets below ground.


(full article online )

IDF breaches blast door in Hamas tunnel under Gaza’s Shifa Hospital

Health Ministry accuses WHO of ignoring terror activities at medical centers in the Strip; military says hostage deal won't impact mission of toppling Hamas

www.timesofisrael.com

 

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[Sixties Fan]