Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas massacres in southern Israel and amid the ongoing war with Gaza, the State Attorney’s Office has indicted 34 Israeli citizens and residents of East Jerusalem for incitement to terrorism and identification with terror organizations, mostly for social media posts in which they praised or supported the unprecedented terror attack against Israel.

The indictments have been filed against social media users who posted pictures of the Hamas fighters who perpetrated the October 7 atrocities and described them as “heroes,” praised the massacres in different ways, called on people to participate in confrontations with Israeli security forces and called for Hezbollah to attack Israel.

(full article online)

34 people indicted since Oct. 7 for incitement, praise of Hamas and Hezbollah

The State Attorney’s Office has filed charges against citizens, East Jerusalem residents for social media posts lauding the October 7 atrocities and other offenses

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

An Orthodox mother of 10 who works for the Border Police voluntarily jumped into the murderous fray of rockets and gunfire on the Jewish Sabbath, October 7, to help save young people fleeing from an all-night party near the Gaza border.

Superintendent Shifra Buchris, 45, commands the patrol unit of the Border Police Southern Brigade.

After Hamas terrorists crossed the border from Gaza into Israel and embarked on a killing spree that was to leave more than 1,400 dead, most of them civilians, Buchris and colleagues drove in two personal, non-armored vehicles, towards the site of the Supernova all-night rave, near Kibbutz Re’im.


Terrorists descended upon the festival on Saturday morning, spraying the thousands of revelers with gunfire as they attempted to escape by car and ran through an open field.

More than 260 were killed.


(full article online)

Orthodox mother of 10 worked for 12 hours to rescue revelers from party of death

Shifra Buchris and colleagues from the Border Police rescued young people from Supernova party while it was still under Hamas attack, determined to reunite them with their families

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[rylah]

How cool is that!

Syrian rebels launch an attack against Hizballah and the Assad army in Latakia:

"for our brothers in Gaza"

 

[Sixties Fan]

Hamas rocket launchers found by Israeli troops within a playground and amusement park compound in the northern Gaza Strip, November 5, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday the death of a soldier killed a day earlier during the ground operation in Gaza, and the military said it had located Hamas rocket launchers in close proximity to a swimming pool and a playground in the Strip.

Sgt. Yehonatan Maimon, 20, of the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, from Ofakim, was killed during fighting in the northern part of the enclave. His death brings the toll of slain soldiers in Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza to 29, and 346 since the massive Hamas terror attack on October 7.

Additionally, another soldier of the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit and a reservist officer in the Armored Corps were seriously wounded during the fighting, the IDF added.

Meanwhile the IDF shared footage of its troops locating rocket-launching positions in civilian areas, amid efforts to uncover and destroy Hamas infrastructure. The terror group uses such sites to fire rockets at Israeli population centers.

Troops found four underground launchers some five meters (16 feet) from a children’s swimming pool, and around 30 meters from residential homes in the northern Gaza Strip, footage showed. Another clip showed troops locating a number of rocket launchers within a children’s playground and amusement park compound.


(full article online)

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-troops-found-hamas-rocket-launchers-near-playground-swimming-pool-in-gaza/

 

[Sixties Fan]

Inside our collective trauma

The day will come when 'how are you?' will no longer be a loaded question. That day is not here yet

blogs.timesofisrael.com

 

[rylah]

Inside our collective trauma

The day will come when 'how are you?' will no longer be a loaded question. That day is not here yet

blogs.timesofisrael.com

 

[rylah]

Without much attention, an incident between Jordan and Iraq develops

The Shiite militias advance units to the border of Jordan in an attempt to reach Israel.

The Jordanians make it clear that there is no way this will happen.
The former minister Muhammad al-Momani said in a demonstration on the weekend:
If you (the Shia militias in Iraq) get close to Jordan, it will become your cemetery.

 

[rylah]

The EU still wants to boycott Israel?

 

[Shusha]

There are things in this conflict that make the refugee situation more complicated and that has been Israel’s historic actions regarding Palestinians, current unresolved refugee issues (the solution of which is going to involve multiple nations making some changes)...

No, I agree with Sixties here. There are no unresolved refugee issues that Israel is responsible for solving. UNWRA needs to be dismantled. This unending counting of the refugees under circumstances that apply ONLY to Israel must not be allowed to continue. International law must apply to everyone equally. Any person who remains in the territory, that is: within the borders of the Mandate of Palestine is - by definition - not a refugee. Any person who has obtained citizenship (or should have obtained citizenship) in another state is - by definition - not a refugee.

The problem with refugees and camps and asylum-seekers and migrants - worldwide - is a MUCH bigger issue. I don't believe it can be solved by the current understanding of international law. But the law must apply to everyone equally. Israel can't be singled out.

In regards to the Gazans fleeing into Egypt…will they be allowed back to their homes? For this population, this will be a second Nakhba...

Yes. I'm certain they will. This is a difficult and delicate subject. Perhaps too much so for this mode of communication. But it is a very different worldview.

Why would Egypt take that on if there are no guarantees the Gazans will be allowed back?

Well, why would any nation take that on? Why does any nation accept refugees? Or not?

The reality is that there is no guarantee the people of Gaza will be permitted to return. Why? Because we can't permit Hamas to fester again. We can't allow people sympathetic to Hamas, to jihad, to "from the river to the sea, by any means necessary" return to Gaza. That is a hard nope. Otherwise, we will just be asking ourselves the very same questions next year, or the year after, or ten years from now. After more people are dead.

Is it possible to screen the returnees? Permit only those willing to work towards peace living in an independent state side-by-side with Israel? How could we screen them effectively? What if we get it wrong? How do we counter-educate the children? Would we permit willing Jewish residents to foster a sense of trust and mutual respect?

A lot of things are frowned upon including what could be viewed as “ethnic cleansing”. Why not allow refugees to go to the Palestinian controlled West Bank?

Well, a lot of ethnic cleansing, and mutual population exchange has occurred in the world. Sometimes, with great success. I don't think this is as evil as it is made out to be. (And it does seem to only be considered evil when Israel does it. No one bats an eye at all the Jew-free places in the world.)

Assuming that the people of the West Bank have not reached the sort of level of jihadi savagery that Hamas has, I can't see why we should invite them. The point is to destroy Hamas, not take them to their new castle where they can grow their membership. If Israel can't contain Hamas in Gaza, with a well-defined and controlled border, with no Jews living there, with a blockade in place, and only a tiny border with Egypt, I can't possibly imagine how Israel would contain Hamas in the West Bank, let alone in a city like Jerusalem, or at Al-Aqsa. Seems like the worst possible idea.

I am not sure we are going to agree here. I am seeing this in terms of human cost and rights and the costs can be multigenerational.

Sure. I absolutely agree. This is why we need a solution, and a drastic change to the status quo.

 

[Sixties Fan]

In recent years, a growing number of anti-Israel rallies began chanting a now-common refrain: “globalize the intifada”.

Referring to a period of Islamist terrorism in Israel called the intifada, anti-Israel followers are growing increasingly bold in calling for Jews to be targeted around the world, as they have been, most notably in Russia’s far south, where a flight from Israel was mobbed by fanatics looking to assault any Jew they could find.

On November 2, our Executive Director, Mike Fegelman, was published in The National Post about how in the face of this pernicious and resurgent hatred, the news media and society writ large, must strongly condemn this evil that has taken root in our midst.

---

‘Globalize the intefadeh’ campaign paved way for Dagestani Jew hunt​

In a 2022 anti-Israel rally in New York City, in front of Israel’s consulate, hundreds of protesters chanted “globalize the intefadeh.”

The rally was organized by multiple groups, including Samidoun (an organization with alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a recognized terrorist organization in Canada). Although it received relatively little media attention, it was part of a larger, significant shift in the messaging at anti-Israel demonstrations, which were increasingly calling on supporters to “globalize the intefadeh.”

But what does “globalize the intefadeh” mean, and why is it so dangerous?

Intefadeh is the Arabic term for “shaking off,” which has come to refer to violent uprisings against Israel. The first intefadeh took place between 1987 and 1993, and the second, which took place between 2000 and 2005.

In the second intefadeh, roughly 1,000 Israelis were massacred by Palestinian terrorists, including in suicide bomb attacks and other mass murders which intentionally targeted innocent civilians in city buses, restaurants, discotheques, grocery stores and more.

Accordingly, calls to “globalize” the intefadeh represent an unmistakable encouragement of violence against Israelis — and Jews — anywhere in the world.

The message appears to have been received.

Over the last three weeks, the world has witnessed not only anti-Israel protests, but demonstrations with unambiguous antisemitism.

In the days following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, in Sydney, Australia, a group of anti-Israel protesters chanted “gas the Jews” and “f–k the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House, leaving little room for uncertainty about their meaning.

In Milan, Italy, anti-Israel demonstrators shouted “open the borders to us, so we can kill the Zionists.”

In Berlin, an anti-Israel demonstration featured harrowing scenes of protesters chanting “Death to the Jews! Death to Israel!”

In Calgary, anti-Israel activists held signs calling for Jews to go to Auschwitz, an unmistakable call for Jews to be burned in ovens again.

In Vancouver, anti-Israel activists lauded the “amazing, brilliant offensive” waged by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In Winnipeg, police believe the recent shooting of a home in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood may have been a hate crime.

In Kingston, Ont., police contend that a man intentionally drove his truck into a crosswalk, almost hitting participants of the city’s Jewish community rally, a hate-motivated crime.

In rallies around the world, including Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators openly displayed the emblem of Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Canada, the United States, the European Union and elsewhere.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, crowds in New York City gathered to celebrate the massacre, chanting “resistance is justified” and “globalize the intefadeh.”

And in perhaps the most shocking scene, on Oct. 29, a mob made up of hundreds of people stormed onto the tarmac of an airport in Russia’s Muslim-majority Dagestan region, yelling antisemitic slogans and searching for passengers whose flight had recently landed from Israel. Surreal footage of the pogrom shows the crowd of crazed demonstrators charging throughout the airport in search of Jews.

While Russian security forces eventually arrived and were able to disperse the crowd before there were any injuries, the scene was eerily reminiscent of Holocaust-era pogroms where Jews were hunted down by their neighbours.



(full article online)

https://honestreporting.ca/hrc-published-in-the-national-post-globalize-the-intefadeh-campaign-paved-way-for-dagestani-jew-hunt/?utm_source=Honest+Reporting+Canada&utm_campaign=d57ce733fa-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_01_01_06_22_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c2395b4f14-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

 

[Shusha]

It is highly unlikely that all would leave if they could or that Egypt could absorb millions into refugee camps. Given that, there will be a devastated Gaza, much like the towns and cities in the parts of Ukraine that have been taken by Russia or liberated from Russian occupation. No infrastructure, no economy, no water or food or the means to produce any, no anything but rubble and possibly unexplored munitions. It would also be likely that there would be a complete breakdown or absence of civil authority.

Yes.

BUT…shouldn’t that decision be made by the residents themselves, in conjunction with a larger, multinational plan to govern it and rebuild?

Well, yes and no. Of course(!) the residents should self-determine their own future. Here's the problem, the future they've built for themselves is one of jihad and butchery. That's a problem. Yes, I know you are going to make the "not all Gazans" argument. Of course(!) not all Gazans. BUT ... enough Gazans that it's a problem. The whole point of the mandate system was to provide support and protection until a population could develop the infrastructure and will to self-govern. Gaza (nor the West Bank) has not reached that capability yet. They could. They haven't. And yes, I know, the mandate system was fraught with concepts of imperialism and the demands that others take on a Western worldview. I am entirely sensitive to that. But I can only type so many words in a sitting on this kind of platform. And there are very few who are interested in my words at any rate.

Some ideas that have been floated are a group of countries (in particular regional countries) administering Gaza. That might address the vacuum in power as well as help counter tbe remnants of Hamas

Yes. This is a possibility to explore. One distinct advantage would be to remove Israel from the immediate equation, which hopefully, in turn, will lead towards a less ... jihadist ... view of Israel. The people of Gaza could avert blame to Japan, or Ireland, or Germany.

There are some serious drawbacks. Israel would have to trust that Japan, Ireland, Germany (or whichever countries) would protect them. And seems, at best, unrealistic, in the foreseeable future. What if Gaza should rise up against their oppressors? And Japan, Ireland, and Germany are bringing back their diplomats, and their businessmen, and their officials in body bags? Will those countries be able to stay the course? Will those countries have the fortitude to go street-by-street and house-by-house to root out Hamas jihadis? Especially under international pressure? Israel does it because her survival depends on it. Why would Japan, or Ireland, or Germany? See that has ALWAYS been the problem with international peacekeeping.

Israel military, no. There is no appetite for that in Israel.

Agreed.

There seems to be no desire on their parts to take it on.

Agreed. But, assuming it is the BEST solution ... how could they be convinced to contribute?

 

[Sixties Fan]

A fatwa from Qatar for all Arab nations to attack Israel as PA police say they will start their own war in the West Bank tomorrow​

The International Union of Muslim Scholars, a Qatar-based organization originally founded by jihadist cleric Yusuf Qaradawi, announced a fatwa urging all Arab states to join the fight against Israel.

The Ijtihad and Fatwa Committee of the IUMS issued a significant fatwa delivering a powerful message about the duty of Islamic governments to counter this egregious assault. The session, hosted at the Union's global headquarters in Doha, highlighted the critical need for immediate action and full support to prevent the annihilation and wholesale destruction of Gaza.

The fatwa underscores the duty to support Palestine on religious, political, legal, and ethical grounds, calling for rapid and effective action by Islamic governments and their official military forces to halt the Zionist aggression. The fatwa also underlines the necessity of collaboration and coordination among Arab and Islamic nations, particularly the four neighboring states (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon), to establish global equilibrium and guard against oppression.

Notice that this jihadist cleric group makes its home in Qatar, which presents itself as a fair player yet always seems to support the worst mass murderers in the Arab world.

At the same time, another statement was issued, this one in the West Bank, where members of the Palestinian Authority security services gave a 24 hour deadline to Mahmoud Abbas to start a war with Israel or else they will do it themselves.

We are the children of this people. We are the sons of the security services... We are the sons of Fatah and we do not compromise with anyone on our belonging and our history. We are also, above all, the sons of Palestine, which is now being slaughtered from vein to vein.
We declare from today that the Palestinian leadership faces a historic responsibility to declare confrontation with the occupation within 24 hours. If Brother Abu Mazen does not issue a clear position declaring open confrontation with the occupation by all means and disavowing himself from the statements of the criminal Blinken, there is no obedience to anyone, no instructions to be implemented, and no loyalty to any apparatus.

Freedom for Palestine and victory is an hour's patience

The sons of Commander Abu Jandal...the sons of Al-Fatah...the sons of the security services
Sunday, 11/05/2023

A fatwa from Qatar for all Arab nations to attack Israel as PA police say they will start their own war in the West Bank tomorrow

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

It is insulting (and possibly antisemitic) to keep reminding Israel about "international law" when Israel is following it perfectly.​

All over the media, and with virtually all statements from politicians who claim that Israel has a right to defend itself, we hear - over and over - the caveat: "Israel must respect international law." (I'm not even discussin gthose who say Israel is violating international law.)

This is a blatant insult. Not only that, it is (mostly subconsciously) invoking antisemitic tropes.

The IDF has more layers of legal oversight than perhaps any nation on Earth. They are summarized here in a recent article (worth reading in full) by Colonel John Merriam, a U.S. Army Judge Advocate:

[T]he IDF’s MAG Corps is an exceptionally competent group of advisors on the law of armed conflict that is organized to ensure IDF commanders have access to high-caliber legal advice in real time. Once planners identify and propose targets based on anticipated or actual missions and operational goals, lawyers from the International Law Department (ILD) review each. When hostilities break out, a group of additional LOAC experts, including both active duty and reserve officers, augments the ILD; this combined task-organized entity is known as the Operational Law Apparatus (OLA). The head of the ILD commands it. Members of the OLA determine whether the proposed target qualifies as a “military objective,” identify possible proportionality concerns, and provide input on other LOAC prohibitions, restrictions, and obligations.

... I am confident that the IDF has mainstream legal positions and is equipped with first-rate legal advisors.

He's not the only US military law expert who has said this. Israel has not, and will not, violate the laws of armed conflict. Hell, Israelis are in the forefront of refining those very laws because of Israel's unique circumstances of having to fight terror groups who pretend to be civilians, use civilian vehicles, commandeer civilian ambulances and hide behind civilian objects. International law journals have lots of articles written by Israelis, and some of the top scholars of the laws of armed conflict are Israeli.

If the top US military experts say that Israel's legal position is largely in line with that of the US itself, why do so many keep reminding Israel that it must adhere to international law standards? It's like telling your friend that she has to brush her teeth every day - the very request is insulting because it implies you don't think she does.

But the repeated insistence that Israel adhere to international law also recalls antisemitic tropes - that Jews are slyly always looking to skirt the law themselves.


An early example comes from the 19th century, when Jews were routinely accused of setting fires to their own property in order to collect insurance.Some insurance companies mid-century refused to insure Jews altogether because of the perceived additional risk. But the upshot is that Jews were assumed, as a group, to be underhanded, clannish, untrustworthy and criminal. Jewish characteristics were described as "cunning, avaricious, pitiless."

This repeated demand that Israel does something that is not explicitly and continually requested from any other in any other war sounds uncomfortably like no one really trusts the Jews to be law-abiding.

The other antisemitic corollary to the repeated demands of adherence to international law is that Jews are not trustworthy. Israel has insisted from the beginning that it always follows the laws of armed conflict, but no other country seems to really believe it. It is just another Jewish trick, it seems. In order to violate the principle of distinction, and to a large extent proportionality, means one must have the intent to hurt civilians. Without intent or gross negligence, there is no war crime. Israel cannot reveal its sources of intelligence and reporters cannot understand why so many civilians have to die in any attack, but they assume that Israel has no valid reason - meaning either Israeli intent to kill civilians or basic disregard for their lives.

That means that they are assuming Israelis are liars. Which is definitely antisemitic. And when you compare this to the media's eagerness to accept Hamas information about the war, it indicates a deep-seated prejudice, not "even-handedness."

Yes, alarming numbers of civilians are dying in Gaza. But Israel is doing everything humanly possible to minimize their deaths given the imperative to destroy Hamas - sending out millions of warnings, opening up humanitarian corridors, working to use the least lethal weapons possible. Outside the US, I'm not aware of any country that has worked harder in wartime to minimize civilian casualties, and Israel's historical record of civilian to combatant death ratio is lower than in any conflict in history in urban areas.

Instead of assuming Israel is acting in good faith, the world chides Israel of not doing enough, out of malice or vengeance. This is a despicable lie, it is antisemitic, and it is an insult.

It is insulting (and possibly antisemitic) to keep reminding Israel about "international law" when Israel is following it perfectly.

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Chanukah miracle of the last drops of Gaza fuel lasting three weeks​

The World Health Organization warned that Gaza hospitals are at a breaking point.



That was October 12.

UNICEF warned that incubators were hours away from being shut down due to lack of fuel in Gaza:



That was October 22.

Now, let's look at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City last night, where Hamas held a rally, complete with huge video screen:


Notice all the lights, inside and outside the hospital.

Looks like they had plenty of fuel there, three weeks after supplies were supposed to run dry. It's a miracle!

UNICEF and WHO are useful idiots, willing to believe the lies that are told by Hamas and their partners.

And notice that none of the attendees seem at all concerned to go out in the open, publicly, when they accuse Israel of "genocide." If they really thought that Israel was hellbent on murdering all Gazans, why would they go out in the open?

They are all voluntary human shields for Hamas, whose headquarters is directly underneath them.

Notice also that all the attendees are young men of military age.

The Chanukah miracle of the last drops of Gaza fuel lasting three weeks

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

As British and other western countries are convulsed by massive, Muslim-dominated demonstrations exulting at the barbaric murder of 1400 Israelis on October 7, and as these mobs call for the destruction of Israel and the further murder of Jews, Muslim preachers in Britain’s mosques have been additionally stoking the fires of hatred against Israel and the Jewish people.

The Mail has reported that sermons preached at mosques in London, Bradford, Leeds and Manchester, which have been delivered from the moment the Hamas pogrom occurred and which were monitored and translated from Arabic by the paper, have contained eye-watering antisemitic rhetoric. The paper wrote:

At Lewisham Islamic Centre, chief imam Shakeel Begg, 44, told his followers on the Friday after the attack: “Grant victory to the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza, support them over their enemy, your enemy. Punish the oppressors [Israel] … destroy them and tear them apart”…
A preacher at the Islam Bradford Centre on the same Friday prayed for the purification of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem — a revered centrepiece of the Islamic world — against the “filth of the Jews”.
The Mail also has a record of a Friday service at the London borough of Redbridge’s Islamic Centre during which an un-named speaker told the congregation in Arabic: “Curse the Jews and the children of Israel. Curse the infidels [a term that includes Christians and all non-Muslims]… tear them apart and destroy their homes” …Our footage shows Jamal Abdinasir, a speaker at the Alfurqan Islamic centre in Manchester, supporting the “mujahideen” – an Arabic term for warriors engaged in jihad or holy war.
Claiming Muslims had reached “boiling point”, he said: “Grant victory to our brothers, the mujahideen, and the poor in Gaza. Oh god support them against the enemies of Islam”.
At Leeds Al-Rahma centre on Friday, October 20, Umer Muqadem, a former teacher in Saudi Arabia, criticised reporting of the Hamas-Israel conflict and said those fighting against Israel were not terrorists.
He said: “It is Wajib [obligatory in Islamic jurisprudence] that you help, aid, bring victory to our brothers and sisters in Palestine… prepare against your enemies [using] military power and cavalry”.

None of this shocking and terrifying incitement, being carried out under the noses of the British authorities, should come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention over the years to the systematic appeasement of Islamic extremism in Britain. Back in 2006, I published my book Londonistan about the British establishment’s surrender to Islamic jihadi fundamentalism. In its refusal even today to outlaw jihadi groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Hizb ut Tahrir, the British government is continuing its long-standing supine and disastrous policy.

In an earlier blog post here, I reproduced an extract from my book which dealt with the unholy axis of evil between leftists and Islamists that was demonising and inciting against Israel and the Jewish people (an axis we are witnessing in action on the streets today). What follows below is another extract dealing specifically with how the British authorities were choosing to appease rather than confront jihadi extremism as long as two decades ago. It helps shed some light on the deeply troubling situation in which Britain now finds itself.


(full article online)

How Britain appeased Islamic extremism

Its supine policies sowed an evil wind. Now it's reaping the whirlwind

melaniephillips.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Feminists Are Consenting to Hamas' Rape Culture

And they're doing it proudly, on campuses and capitals around the world

www.tabletmag.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Israeli leaders have promised that the day after Hamas is erased — may it come speedily — there will be a vigorous, no-holds barred national and political reckoning. How could Hamas have pulled off their massive and brutal terror massacre right under our noses?

Another related question, one that also will require considerable soul searching among leaders in the Diaspora, is how did Hamas’ narrative become the narrative at so many elite American universities?

Gone are the days when campus choruses demanded that eastern Jerusalem be crowned the capital of the future state of Palestine. Gone are the robust debates on how and where the final borders between the two states would be drawn.

Everything changed on October 7th, but in ways we thought were impossible: Surely, the social media shares from Hamas terrorists celebrating the largest mass murder of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust would inspire academia and the nation’s CEOs to denounce these latter-day Nazis.

Surely the slaughter of dozens of Israeli babies and the desecration of their tiny bodies by Hamas barbarians would cause universal revulsion and force some change in the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas’ main sponsors in Tehran and Qatar.

Surely women’s groups would denounce the serial rapes and murder of young Israeli women.

Surely UNICEF and Save the Children would demand the immediate release of 30 Israeli children kidnapped and held as hostages.

Surely the United Nations would demand the release of all 240 hostages held by Hamas, without pre-conditions.

But the opposite happened.

Starting on October 8th, as the world struggled to digest Hamas’ hell on earth, its supporters were doubling down with fiery anti-Israel verbal assaults declaring again and again.

Common calls included:

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” (i.e., the end of the world’s lone Jewish State); and
“Apartheid Israel– guilty of Genocide,” which became the mantra of protesters from Berlin to London, to New York.

The national Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement then put out a series of talking points that stated their true intentions:

Decolonization – from the river to the sea.
Not just Gaza and the West Bank, we want all of ‘48.

Put simply, they have admitted they want to destroy Israel.

So how did we get from there to here?

Just follow BDS’ four rungs of activism that started with the West Bank and landed at ground zero of full-blown, unabashed Jew-hatred.

• Step One: Remember that BDS began with loud assurances that they weren’t calling for a boycott of Israel, but this was only a boycott against Israeli settlements and “occupation.”
  • Case #1: Remember the United Methodist Church’s Sodastream boycott? Sodastream’s sin was building a plant in Judea and hiring both Jews and Arabs who were being paid equal wages. Under intense pressure, Sodastream was forced to close its West Bank plant, and as a result, dozens of Palestinian families were left without a breadwinner. There’s no indication that BDS supporters did anything to help those suddenly unemployed Arab workers and their families when Sodastream was forced to move.
• Step Two:BDS begins to rail against Israel itself, because the State of Israel is implementing the “Occupation” or “Apartheid” or “Genocide” — or whatever charge stuck to the wall of public opinion.
  • Case #2: The Kairos Palestine Document widely adopted “for study” by American mainline churches in 2009. Rifat Kassis, the document team’s coordinator, made the matter clear: “The document calls for a complete system of sanctions of Israel. Not simply a boycott of products generated by settlements or of products in general, or of institutions and organizations that are unabashedly complicit in the occupation, but a total boycott. Our occupation is not selective, and so our opposition must not be.”
• Step Three:BDS attacks Zionists, wherever they may be. That’s because avowed Zionists, be they Jewish or not Jewish, prop up a “racist,” “colonizer,” “genocidal” state.
  • Case #3: The 2015 call for the singer, Matisyahu, to be kicked off the artists’ roster of the Rototom Reggae Sunsplash music festival because of his active Zionist support.
• Step Four: BDS against all Jews, unless they wear their anti-Zionism on their sleeve. The assumption is that anything or anyone Jewish is Zionist and therefore subject to being scorned, ostracized, and boycotted.
  • Case #4 When Sunrise DC singled out for removal only Jewish organizations in 2021, organizers didn’t take the same draconian measures with non-Jewish organizations that had similar views of Israel as the Jewish organizations.

Welcome to ground zero of vile Jew hatred designed and executed in four easy steps.

Today, Jewish students are bullied at Columbia, violently attacked in public at Harvard, threatened with rape at Cornell, targeted by a University of California professor.

Such antisemitic violence is possible in large measure because we Jews are so expert at misreading the enemy. And make no mistake — this is an enemy, a genocidal maniacal enemy that wants us Jews dead.

Don’t buy the drivel that BDS is all about justice. Today, it is all about legitimizing, embracing, and promoting the destruction of the Israeli state and the death of Jewish people. Their own words prove it.

We have been fooled time and time again by BDSers, but it’s time that we Jews begin to chant our own mantra — publicly and proudly: “Never Again” and “Am Yisrael Chai.”

The Real Goal of BDS Threatens Every Jew on the Planet - Algemeiner.com

Israeli leaders have promised that the day after Hamas is erased -- may it come speedily -- there will be a vigorous, no-holds barred national and political reckoning. How could Hamas have pulled off their massive and brutal terror massacre right under our noses? Another related question, one...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

The young women who demonstrate for Hamas are surprisingly vulgar, physically aggressive and self-satisfied. Their body language is, dare I say it, rather male. They curse. They enjoy the discomfort they cause in Jewish onlookers. Some wear hijab and niqab (face masks). Others wear Queers for Palestine t-shirts or sport black-and-white checked keffiyehs as scarves.

These girls and women are super-sonic “mean girls.” They smirk as they triumphantly tear down posters that feature the faces of kidnapped Israeli civilians. They look quite happy with themselves when a Jewish student appears visibly distressed.

Leftist women of all ages, many of whom are Jews, and some of whom are rabbis, lead chants against Israel. They wield megaphones, blow whistles and bang drums. They are seasoned, “in your face” performers and feel utterly righteous about drowning out everything and everyone else.

Of course, the young pro-Hamas men are even louder and more menacing. They are taller and wider. They scream, mullah-style, in hoarse voices of rage and are sometimes armed with knives, sticks and guns. They use their feet and their fists to kick, hit, beat or sucker-punch anyone who dares to carry an Israeli flag, wears a Jewish star or is in any way visibly Jewish. I’ve seen this in videos and heard about it from people who were there.

This hot Jew-hatred has been brewing for a long, long time. Yet it is being experienced as sudden and unexpected. The sight of Jewish blood on Oct. 7 has activated what we may metaphorically think of as “sleeper cells” that have been well-trained in mob violence against the Jews. These mobs are now on the move around the world and on American campuses.

Young American Jewish students, both women and men, are shocked, reeling, in free fall. They are traumatized. Frightened. Students did not suspect that such Jew-hatred existed so close to home. Like Anne Frank, they truly believed that all people were basically good. (Frank never exactly believed that, however.)

Such Jewish students are not prepared for a pogrom; or for the fact that Israel is now fighting an existential battle for its survival.

From a psychological and practical point of view, here’s what the students must learn. I am now addressing them directly:

First, you must understand that you have suddenly been drafted into a war. You must think like soldiers. In particular, you must accept that it does not matter if your enemies do not like or love you. A soldier’s only duty is to fight to win.

Second, you have to learn not to take anything personally. If you are cursed as “colonialists, racists, Islamophobes, capitalists,” it has nothing to do with you, who you are or anything that you’ve done. Jew hatred/antisemitism/anti-Zionism is a sickness, a virus, a plague that has afflicted Jew-haters. The shame is theirs, not yours.

Young American Jewish students, both women and men, are shocked, reeling, in free fall. They are traumatized. Frightened. Students did not suspect that such Jew-hatred existed so close to home. Like Anne Frank, they truly believed that all people were basically good. (Frank never exactly believed that, however.)

Such Jewish students are not prepared for a pogrom; or for the fact that Israel is now fighting an existential battle for its survival.

From a psychological and practical point of view, here’s what the students must learn. I am now addressing them directly:

First, you must understand that you have suddenly been drafted into a war. You must think like soldiers. In particular, you must accept that it does not matter if your enemies do not like or love you. A soldier’s only duty is to fight to win.

Second, you have to learn not to take anything personally. If you are cursed as “colonialists, racists, Islamophobes, capitalists,” it has nothing to do with you, who you are or anything that you’ve done. Jew hatred/antisemitism/anti-Zionism is a sickness, a virus, a plague that has afflicted Jew-haters. The shame is theirs, not yours.

Third, you must accept the fact that, despite exceptions, most people, both young and old, tend to be cowards and conformists. If you stand up to evil, if you stand up for Israel, you will lose friends, teachers, employers, even family members who may strongly disagree with you. This is the price that telling this particular truth exacts.

Fourth, you—or your parents or Jewish and Christian organizations—must fund armed guards to keep each one of you safe, just as synagogues and Jewish centers require armed guards. More importantly, you must spend at least a year or more learning Krav Maga or some other form of self-defense.

Believe it or not, if civilian haters, even in mobs, know they you know how to fight, they may decide to leave you alone. It’s happened many times before in Jewish history.

Fifth, it is important that you find like-minded students and meet regularly both in person and on the internet.

You have no choice. Please realize that the sight of Jewish blood excites and thrills the Jew-haters. The sight of Jews fighting back brilliantly and methodically, as the IDF is currently doing, enrages the Jew-haters.

We are not going to win any popularity contests no matter what we do. Like Golda Mair, I say: Let’s survive. Let’s win. We are in that kind of battle.

I must thank trauma psychiatrist Dr. Larry Amsel, with whom I discussed these ideas. You will hear more from both of us soon.

What Jews must do to fight back – JNS.org

Some suggestions for dealing with hatred unleashed.

www.jns.org