Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Palestinian children in Gaza are being killed by Israel, which is denying them the right to grow up and commit another massacre like October 7. This is the shocking message from PA Chairman Abbas’ Fatah Movement on its Bethlehem Telegram channel, which Palestinian Media Watch has confirmed is promoted by Fatah officials.

Fatah has routinely blamed Israel for the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza, even though it is Hamas who is using them as human shields and is solely responsible for every death.



What is unique about this post, is that Fatah is upset because Israel is not allowing Palestinian children to grow up to “repeat” the massacre of October 7. Fatah presents a repeat of the murder of over 1,200 people, wounding of over 4,800 and the capture of 243 hostages as a Palestinian goal and right:

“This [Israel’s] war is against children, so that they won’t grow up and October 7 won't repeat.”

[Fatah Movement – Bethlehem Branch, Telegram, Oct. 23, 2023]​

Fatah did not complain that Israel’s war prevents Palestinian children from growing up to be doctors, engineers, or farmers, raise a family, travel the world, or any other positive goal in life. Fatah sees children in Gaza being killed as a tragedy because they won’t be able to commit another slaughter of Jews, and for this, Israel is to blame.



This corresponds to another Fatah message documented by PMW that children should not expect happiness in life because they are merely ammunition destined to die as “Martyrs.”



Another PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, also disseminated the libel that Israel is targeting Palestinian children:

Abbas’ Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “The fact that they [Israel] are targeting the [Palestinian] children is as if they are trying to target the Palestinian future, as these children are the future. But I say to them and to others and to those who stand behind them: We are the future, Palestine is the future. Palestine will remain and they will go and the occupation (i.e., Israel) will leave.”

Posted text: “Al-Habbash to [Egyptian] channel ETC [TV]: “… Women and children are the occupation state’s targets in the war of annihilation that it is waging against us.”

[PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 29, 2023] ​

Combining the two messages shows that the PA/Fatah are upset that many Palestinian children are being killed in Gaza, because it denies them the opportunity to commit additional October 7 style massacres of Israelis/Jews in the future to achieve their goal that Israelis “will leave.” During the current war, the PA has been repeating its fundamental ideology that Palestinians are an ancient nation while Israel is a colonial implant with no right to exist. As Muhammad Abbas’ advisor said at the beginning of this war, only when Israel is destroyed will there be peace:

Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “Once the occupation (i.e., Israel) comes to an end there will be no violence or bloodshed from any side. As long as the occupation exists, they must understand that they have no hope of living securely and safely... For more than seven decades already (i.e., since Israel's establishment in 1948) the Palestinian people has been in this situation and wants to be rid of the occupation and achieve its freedom, honor, and state.”

[PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page,
Oct. 9, 2023]​

Fatah upset: Israel denies Palestinian children their right to slaughter Jews | PMW Analysis

Fatah upset: Israel denies Palestinian children their right to slaughter Jews

palwatch.org

 

[bendog]

Is there news about whether Hamas has tunnels into and out of the Al-Quds hospital?

 

[Sixties Fan]

Being "even-handed" between Israel and Hamas is not journalism. It is antisemitism. ​

On one side we have a mature, professional government and army in a democracy with a vigorous free press unafraid to call out abuses and lies.. One that has are checks and balances, a strong judicial system and an independent legal branch of the army to ensure that the law is upheld.

On the other side we have kidnappers, murderers, rapists - people who literally brag about targeting Jews. An internationally recognized terrorist group whose very charter says its goal is to eradicate all Jews. A group that has a record of jailing or murdering critics, and threatening anyone who says anything they don't like. Their military forces' major defensive objective is to cynically use and endanger their own people to protect themselves.

The track records of both sides telling the truth - and correcting mistakes - are not remotely comparable. Yet we have the media that treats the claims of both sides with exactly equal weight.

The New York Times says:

In a video taken at the hospital, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, displayed caches of guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which, he said, had been hidden behind M.R.I. machines and others in nearby storage units.

The New York Times was unable to verify the provenance of the weapons and equipment in the images or assess the claim of the command center’s existence.

In other words, according to the NYT, the IDF may have faked the entire video. They may have planted AK-47s in the hospital. The entire operation of going into Shifa Hospital may have been an elaborate scam, just to smear Hamas' sterling reputation by accusing them of hiding militants in a hospital, which has been reported by independent sources for 15 years.

There is no problem with being skeptical - both sides realize this is an information war and try to get their narratives in the forefront. But only one side suffers consequences if they are found to be deceiving the media. The downside of Israeli statements like this one being found out to be untrue are huge, and the upside of lying is fairly minimal.

For Hamas, there is no downside of lying. Because the media still gives everything they say the same legitimacy as Israel's statement, no matter how many times they have been shown to maliciously and repeatedly lie.

Casting doubt on the veracity of IDF claims, especially in Gaza, is saying that Jews cannot be trusted. The Israelis spokespeople are just as reliable as those of genocidal Hamas, no more and no less. Context and history and motivation are all irrelevant.

In fact, to the New York Times, IDF claims are much less reliable. They have mounted multiple investigations questioning IDF claims during this war, but as far as I can tell they have not given serious resources to proving Hamas war crimes since the events of 10/7.

This is not even-handedness. This is slyly accusing Jews of subterfuge and lies while giving a terrorist group equal, or sometimes greater, legitimacy. I cannot recall the newspaper being this skeptical about official government statements from the UK or France. Only the Jewish state is given such treatment. Only for Jews is the audience told that their statements cannot be corroborated, and are therefore suspect.

Placing a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas is antisemitism hiding under the pretense of honest journalism. And it stinks just as bad as all other antisemitism does.

Being "even-handed" between Israel and Hamas is not journalism. It is antisemitism.

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

The IDF announced on Thursday evening that it had found the body of Yehudit Weiss, an Israeli civilian thought to have been taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.

The remains of Weiss, a resident of the southern kibbutz of Be'eri, were found near a structure adjacent to the Al-Shifa Hospital which serves as a military weapons cache, the IDF said.

Her body was found by the IDF's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion operating in Gaza as part of Operation Swords of Iron.

(full article online)

Israel finds body of Gaza hostage near Al-Shifa hospital

Her body was found by the IDF's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion operating in Gaza as part of Operation Swords of Iron.

www.jpost.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Douglas Murray: 'I don't remember demands to fuel ISIS’ war machine'​

In interview with Ynet, British journalist says the West will have to face the outcome of pro-Hamas protests and surge in antisemitism amid war​

(full article online)

Douglas Murray: 'I don't remember demands to fuel ISIS’ war machine'

In interview with Ynet, British journalist says the West will have to face the outcome of pro-Hamas protests and surge in antisemitism amid war

www.ynetnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

A woman kidnapped from Israel and brought to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 has given birth while in captivity, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a letter released on Wednesday by the premier’s office.

“One of the kidnapped women was pregnant. She gave birth to her baby in Hamas captivity,” Sara Netanyahu wrote in a heartfelt letter addressed to US First Lady Jill Biden.

“You can only imagine, as I do, what must be going through that young mother’s mind as she is being held with her newborn by these murderers,” Netanyahu wrote. “We must call for the immediate release of them and all those being held … The nightmare that began over a month ago must end.”

Netanyahu wrote that she was writing not only as Bibi’s [the prime minister’s] wife but first and foremost as a mother.”

“For over a month now, 32 children have been held kidnapped in Gaza, brutally torn from their parents and their homes,” she added. “These children are surely suffering from untold trauma, not only by being kidnapped, but having witnessed the brutal murder of their parents and siblings on that horrific October 7th.”

(full article online)

Hostage Gave Birth in Hamas Captivity, Netanyahu’s Office Confirms - Algemeiner.com

A woman kidnapped from Israel and brought to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 has given birth while in captivity, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a letter released on Wednesday by the premier's office. "One of the kidnapped women was pregnant. She gave birth to...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ How many Universities have been bought by Qatar and other anti Jews money? For the past 50 years, too many]

Part 1

Hamas gleefully livestreamed to the world its orgy of violence and cruelty against some 1,400 Israelis – including women, children, the elderly, the disabled, and even Holocaust survivors. Nearly 79 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we’re once again seeing innocent Jews burned alive by believers of a genocidal ideology. And whereas many Germans at least had the sense to feign ignorance of the death camps next door, academics are now openly declaring atrocities against Jews as ‘exhilarating.’

How did we get to this point?

To illustrate, consider Brown University and its Center for Middle East Studies (CMES), which houses an endowed professorship in ‘Palestinian Studies.’

Far from a rigorous, scholarly study of Palestinian history or the region, what one finds at Brown’s CMES is an attempt to indoctrinate students in an all-encompassing ideology in which colonialism is the ultimate evil and the Jewish people and their history are synonymous with ‘colonialism.’ Violence, including terrorism, is justified as a legitimate measure against that evil.

It’s thus no surprise that university students, including those at Brown, responded to the 10/7 massacre by justifying and even glorifying Hamas’s barbarity. Given that much of the horrendous rhetoric in CMES programming comes from guest speakers and lecturers from other universities, one can be confident that what is found at Brown University can be found at other universities.

So how exactly are these extremists radicalising students?

It begins with pseudointellectual activists twisting Jewish history and identity into a conspiracy theory, not unlike how neo-Nazi ideology operates.

At Brown, it begins with students being taught that Jews aren’t a distinct people; they are either ‘Europeans’ or ‘Arabs.’ According to one Brown University professor, Ariella Azoulay, they can even be ‘Muslim Jews’ whose Muslim identity has been repressed by colonialism. Whatever Jews are, they are not really Jews, the messaging goes. It’s only a slightly more sophisticated version of the Khazar Jews conspiracy. The intended point is that Jews aren’t a legitimate people, let alone a nation, and therefore cannot have a right to self-determination. Jewish history is thus also erased. As one invited faculty speaker told students, Jewish history in the Land of Israel is nothing more than a ‘mythology.’

The logic proceeds, then, that if Jews are not actually a people, then their belief otherwise is based on a lie, a conspiracy. Sure enough, that is another message being delivered at Brown. Zionism isn’t a genuine belief; it is instead a cover for European colonialism.

In one syllabus, Professor Beshara Doumani, who holds the endowed professorship in Palestinian Studies at Brown, told students that Israel’s creation is just ‘another tragic example of a global phenomenon of European capitalist expansion and imperial conquest that has devasted indigenous populations.’ In the words of another Brown University professor, Tony Bogues, rather than a movement for self-determination, Zionism is ‘a business of theft.’ The logic echoes that in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which proclaimed that Zionists were trying to ‘slyly dupe the dumb Goyim’ to build a ‘central organization for their international world swindle…’ The Jews have duped the world into believing they’re a people so they could steal some land, goes Bogues’s logic.

Universities in Crisis | Glorifying Atrocities: The Case of Brown University

David M. Litman examines Brown University and its Center for Middle East Studies (CMES). After the Holocaust, many bought into the idea that the best way to prevent the reoccurrence of similar horr...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

The antisemitic conspiracy theorising goes even further. A consistent theme in Middle East Studies events and course syllabi is that the fight against antisemitism is a conspiracy by Jewish ‘colonisers.’ Students are taught that the problem isn’t antisemitism, but rather ‘anti-anti-semitism,’ as they call it. The ‘war against antisemitism,’ explained one lecturer, is a ‘significant tool of neocolonialism and coloniality.’ In October 2022, the Brown Center for Middle East Studies Director Nadje Al-Ali spoke at a panel on antisemitism about how she’s concerned that the ‘conversation about antisemitism excludes Palestinians’ and ‘the way that the discussion around antisemitism has often been instrumentalised.’

Consider that the professor who taught a course this year on ‘Anti-Semitism, Racism, Anti-Zionism: Debates, Contexts, Stakes’ and was recorded in 2021 telling students that ‘Jewish mob,’ which he also refers to as ‘Kristallnachtmobs,’ were ‘thirsty for Palestinian blood.’ Combining a blood libel with Holocaust inversion is quite a feat of moral depravity. Somehow, that made him the perfect moral authority at Brown University to talk to students about antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

But it doesn’t end with crude antisemitism and conspiracy theories of sinister, thieving Jews. In Middle East and Palestinian Studies courses and events, students are taught that violence and terrorism are justified against ‘settler-colonialism’ and Israeli civilians.

Consider how the Middle East Studies center responded to the last Israel-Hamas war in 2021: with a ‘teach-in’ entitled ‘A Third Intifada? Palestinians and the Struggle for Jerusalem.’ As Hamas rockets were still raining down on Israeli civilians, Brown professor Adi Ophir glorified the terrorist organisation, proclaiming that ‘Hamas is fighting for the residents of Jerusalem and those who pray in al-Aqsa [mosque]…’ The quote might as well have come from Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.

Rana Barakat, a Palestinian professor invited to lecture Brown students, glorified the May 2021 violence by comparing it to a series of massacres, which she called ‘uprisings,’ carried out in 1929 by Arab mobs that left over 130 Jews dead (19 years before the State of Israel even existed).

At the same event, Professor Doumani approvingly spoke of the ‘amazingly wide range of forms of resistance’ over ‘the past two weeks.’ Another invited Palestinian speaker, Birzeit University professor Weeam Hammoudeh, rhetorically asked: ‘Is the bad form of resistance the unacceptable form, this violent form of resistance?’ Not a word of condemnation was issued for Hamas’s targeting of Israeli civilians. It should go without saying that if you’re not sure whether the intentional targeting of innocent civilians is bad or not, you don’t belong anywhere near civilised society, let alone in a position of influence over impressionable young minds.

Yet these are academics influencing young minds, and that is what they were telling students the last time Hamas tried to murder Jews en masse.

And it didn’t stop after 10/7.

Universities in Crisis | Glorifying Atrocities: The Case of Brown University

David M. Litman examines Brown University and its Center for Middle East Studies (CMES). After the Holocaust, many bought into the idea that the best way to prevent the reoccurrence of similar horr...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 3


At an October 20, 2023 ‘teach-in,’ co-organised by the Brown Center for Middle East Studies, nearly a dozen speakers addressed the ongoing events. Only one of them had anything negative to say about the 10/7 massacre, which she still managed to blame on Israel. One speaker, Noura Erakat, even proclaimed that it is a ‘dehumanising, crude, very racist talking point’ to say ‘that this is about Hamas.’ It’s another common theme one finds in Brown events and syllabi: there is no Palestinian responsibility for the lack of peace or their lack of statehood. Another speaker, University of Chicago professor Lisa Wedeen, similarly claimed, ‘Israel is a machine for the conversion of grief into power; it transmutes grief into violence,’ and ‘we see that grief machine hard at work in the coverage of major newspapers…’

Jews aren’t even allowed to grieve, let alone defend themselves.

Of course, no such event could pass without glorifying the brutal massacre. Barakat – a regular guest at Brown University events – proclaimed that ‘2023 will be recorded historically as the year that Palestinians stood boldly in the face of colonial fascism.’

The hideous irony of claiming that burning innocent Jews alive was an act of standing against fascism apparently never dawned on any of the other speakers.

Is it thus any surprise that Brown University students held a march chanting to ‘free Palestine from the river to the sea,’ a call for the destruction of the Jewish state? They’ve been indoctrinated in a worldview in which the Hamas terrorist is the victim, and the Jewish children he raped and executedare the oppressors. That ‘resistance,’ they are being taught, ‘is justified.’

Brown University’s administration is only fueling this extremism. Three days after the Hamas massacre, Brown University President Christina Paxson responded by tellingthe community, in part:

‘The issues that underpin the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are complex, and scholars from multiple academic units at Brown bring significant expertise. We expect ample opportunity in the coming days and weeks for community members to learn about and discuss these issues…I hope we do so in a way that reflects Brown’s values and our academic mission — with empathy, compassion, and a commitment to advancing knowledge and understanding.’

If only those scholars at Brown expressed ‘empathy’ and ‘compassion’ for the victims instead of the butchers.

The urgency of combatting this is enormous. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll found that while the overwhelming majority of Americans side with Israel, a disturbing 48 per cent of 18-24-year-olds side more with Hamas. That is, nearly half of 18-24-year-olds sided with the organisation that just murdered, raped, mutilated, tortured, and kidnapped over 1,600 Israeli men, women, and children.

How Western society reacts to this disturbing reality will be an important test of whether this country learned anything from the horrors wrought by Nazi ideology. Will society stand up to the modern day ‘big lie’ being promulgated in our own universities?

Universities in Crisis | Glorifying Atrocities: The Case of Brown University

David M. Litman examines Brown University and its Center for Middle East Studies (CMES). After the Holocaust, many bought into the idea that the best way to prevent the reoccurrence of similar horr...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

That Zohar was supposedly “was working on that day” is apparently a green light for CPJ to whitewash his murder as death at the hands of a “political group” while he was carrying out a “dangerous assignment.”

But, according to the Associated Press, which previously employed Zohar, the Israeli photographer was killed at home, alongside his family, and not while on a “dangerous assignment.” AP reports (“Former AP videojournalist Yaniv Zohar killed in Hamas attack at home with his family“):

Yaniv Zohar, a former Associated Press videojournalist and beloved colleague who covered conflicts and major news in his native country for three decades, was killed in his home during Hamas’ bloody cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 along with his wife and two daughters. He was 54. …
Zohar and his family were on the frontline of the massacre in their border kibbutz. He was killed along with his wife, Yasmin, 49, and his two daughters, Tehelet, 20, and Keshet, 18. Zohar’s 13-year-old son Ariel, who had gone for an early-morning jog, escaped alive.
Yasmin’s father, Haim Livne, was also killed in the attack. [Emphasis added.]

Furthermore, about the photographer’s alleged work that day, Haaretz reported that Zohar’s

manager, Ami Shuman, told Haaretzabout the communication between them that Shabbat: “At 6:30 in the morning I wrote him ‘Get ready,’ when the sirens started. ‘There are sirens, take cover, and when it ends — go out and photograph.’ The family was in the safe room, we spoke the whole morning, and he told me that there’s shooting outside. I saw a message that he sent to a different friend, ‘There are terrorists in the house, call [the elite undercover unit] Duvdevan, I’m signing off.’ They found them with his wife and daughters. A man of gold, it’s a tragedy.” [Translation from the Hebrew by CAMERA.]

So much for CPJ’s baseless claim that Zohar working when he was killed — much less that he was deployed on a dangerous assignment. To the contrary, his employer told him to shelter, and that’s exactly what he did, at home with his family. Not that it helped him.

His colleague, Ynet photographer Roee Idan, was outside his Kfar Aza home holding his three-year-old daughter when Hamas terrorists shot him and kidnapped the toddler. His wife Smadar was murdered inside the family home and his two surviving children (ages 6 and 9) spent more than 12 hours in a storage closet before Israeli forces managed to rescue them. As Ynet reported on Oct. 19 (translation from CAMERA):

(full article online)

Committee to Protect Journalists Protects Hamas Murderers of Israeli Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists falsifies that Israeli journalists murdered by Hamas while sheltering at home or enjoying themselves at a dance party were

www.camera.org

 

[surada]

Right. The side which was willing to do a partition with the Arabs since 1937, which was attacked 3 times as a country from 1948 to 1973, and then attacked many more times. And gave up living in Gaza.

Right, that side, Israel, is as worse or not as bad as the other.

That is one happens when people read what they want and could not tell the story of the region as it happened if their lives depended on it.

There isn't an endless settler attack on Arabs, as there is of Arabs on Jews.


The settlers are fed up with being attacked.

The Arabs are gleeful when attacking Jews, especially meaning if they kill a Jew, or are killed.

And being killed by a Jew is the Jackpot. Martyrs who get 72 virgins to spend all eternity with.


Yeah, one side IS worse, it is barbaric, always has been, which is exactly why Israel always has to be more powerful than all the Muslim countries put together, since a number of them want Israel destroyed.