The War Against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

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A small group of American Jews who bill themselves as having “varying perspectives,” have signed a statement opposing AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The group has vowed to oppose any candidate endorsed by AIPAC in the upcoming elections.

Ironically, these Jews claim that AIPAC doesn’t speak for the Jewish people. In truth, the views of the vast majority of American Jews are aligned with those of AIPAC, while the signatories to this statement mainly represent a fringe group of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist voices in the American Jewish world.

Nowhere in the statement is there a condemnation of Hamas. Rather, in Orwellian duplicitous language, this group claims they are advocates “for peace and a new, just US policy toward Israel/Palestine.”

They fail to elaborate on how peace would come about when negotiating with a genocidal terrorist organization whose stated mission is not only to kill every Jew in Israel but also every Jew on the planet.

STRATEGIC MOVE

This statement appears to be a strategic move by a network of Jewish anti-Israel activists, many of whom have a long history of anti-Israel activism within the media and academia.

Their aim is to drive a wedge not only between the longstanding alliance of Israel and the United States, but also between American Jews and Israel, the majority of whom support Israel, its right to self-defense and the mutually beneficial relationship between America and Israel.

It is not surprising that many of the signatories of the anti-AIPAC statement have profiles on Canary Mission for their extremist views which often involve promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and spreading outright lies about Israel.

Signatories on Canary Mission who signed the anti-AIPAC statement include:

Simone Zimmerman

Simone Zimmerman was suspended from her position as the Jewish outreach coordinator for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, in 2016. Zimmerman co-founded the anti-Israel group IfNotNow.

Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman spread anti-Semitism, expressed support for terrorists and spread hatred of Israel. She was also on the advisory board for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) since 2010.

Rebecca Vilkomerson

Rebecca Vilkomerson, in her capacity as executive director of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization, has been arrested for trespassing at the offices of the Friends of Israel Defense.

Naomi Dann

Naomi Dann has demonized Israel, endorsed violent protests, spread incitement and was arrested at an anti-Israel protest. Dann is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Brant Rosen

In 2010, Brant Rosen founded and became co-chair of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). He is involved with the group’s chapter at the University of Chicago (JVP UChicago).

Alissa Wise

Alissa Shira Wise has expressed support for terrorists, spread incitement, harassed a Philadelphia-based philanthropist and demonized a Jewish organization. Wise has also whitewashed anti-Semitism, endorsed anti-Israel agitators, demonized Israel and engaged in anti-Israel activism.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Canary Mission column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WATCH: Biden Regime Blames Trump For Biden’s Illegal Immigration Border Invasion

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Immigration under President Trump was at it lowest in decades. From day one, the Biden regime undid all of Trump’s immigration policies.

The Democrats are flying them in. Half a million.

DOOCY: “Most of the border crossers accused of beating up Texas National Guardsmen in a riot last month were released on their own recognizance Sunday. How does that make people in this country any safer?”

KJP: “So, I have to refer you to Department of Justice and DHS on that particular reporting. I will say this: As the event unfolded, the Border Patrol was able to act quickly and get the situation under control and apprehend the migrants and we were grateful that the Border Patrol was able to do their job. Look, there is a challenge at the border, right? Our immigration system has been broken for decades before — even before this President became President, obviously, three years — more than three years ago. And this President, a couple of months ago, worked with the Senate in a bipartisan fashion to get a negotiation done — right — and what we saw is from the last President — President Trump told Republicans in Congress not to move forward with this negotiation, this agreed negotiation, this agreed plan disagreed proposal because it would help Joe Biden. That’s what was reported by some of you and we can actually deal with this. We could actually deal with what we’re seeing and because they didn’t move forward — right — because we didn’t move forward with this proposal because of the last President and because they — he — they put politics ahead of the American people, we are seeing chaos. And so, we want to get this done. We did. We worked with Congress to get this done to deal with the challenges at the border. President Trump got in the way and because President Trump got in the way Republicans are now getting in the way.”

WATCH:

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Facebook (Meta) Goes Jihad: Board Moves To Allow Users To Glorify Islamic Terrorists as Martyrs in Accordance With Sharia

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After suspended, deleting, shadowbanning those of us working in defense of freedom, Facebook (Meta) goes jihad.

Homicide bombers and mass murderers are being repackaged in accordance with sharia.

Why now? To expedite Jew killing.

Meta Oversight Board Recommends Loosening Standards To Allow Users To Glorify Terrorists as Martyrs

‘At such a precarious moment for Jewish communities … it would be irresponsible to reduce safety measures online,’ Jewish group says.

By Jessica Costescu, Washington Free Beacon

Meta’s oversight board is recommending the company loosen its standards regarding the glorification of terrorists. Under the board’s recommendation, Facebook and Instagram users can refer to terrorists as “shaheed,” an Arabic word for “martyr.”

The board released its recommendation Tuesday, calling Meta’s current policy “overbroad.” As of now, Facebook and Instagram posts that refer to “designated dangerous individuals”—such as Hamas terrorists—as “shaheed” are removed under a Meta policy that bars users from glorifying terrorists. Those posts would be allowed under the board’s recommended policy, so long as they do not include other “signals of violence,” such as an image of a weapon.[…]

The move comes amid a spike in online anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. Anti-Semitic posts increased 28 percent in the week after the attack, according to Anti-Defamation League (ADL), while such posts increased 919 percent on X, formerly Twitter. The difference between the two platforms suggests Facebook “enforced their hate speech policy more robustly and/or their content moderation tools were more effective at removing violative content,” the ADL found.

For the World Jewish Congress, the Meta oversight board’s recommendation is misguided.

“There must be no confusion as to where Meta stands when it comes to praise of terrorists, terror groups and acts of violence [on] its platforms,” the group’s technology director, Yfat Barak-Cheney, said in a Tuesday statement. “[A]t such a precarious moment for Jewish communities and many others around the world, it would be irresponsible to reduce safety measures online.”

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. Its oversight board consists of 40 “diverse” members, according to its website, and was created in 2018 to “bring accountability” to content moderation decisions.

The company pledged to respond to the board’s recommendation in 60 days. Meta has “committed to observing board rulings that apply to specific posts and users,” according to Axios.

For years, Hamas has used the term “shaheed” to glorify suicide bombers. In 2016, for example, it announced the “martyrdom of Shaheed Abdel Hamid Abu Srour,” a teenaged boy who carried out a suicide bombing that targeted a bus in Jerusalem.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Misunderstanding Iran

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Periodically, the United States or Israel makes a concession to an adversary, planning—or hoping—for reciprocity. The underlying assumption is that, as the stronger party, they can afford to be generous and even, on occasion, to miscalculate. This is a fundamental misreading, not of the strength of the American or Israeli position, but of how the Muslim world will understand the concession. In the Muslim world, only weak people make concessions. An offer to compromise is a sign of weakness, encouraging those receiving one not only NOT to reciprocate, but to increase the pressure against their adversaries.

The frameworks are different.

For the US, the Cold War had a lot to do with the Western presumption of superiority. After decades of conflict with the Soviet Union around the globe, the balance of the West and its allies against the USSR and its allies tipped in favor of the West. The nuclear war everyone feared never happened, the Soviet Union collapsed, the “Captive Nations” were freed, and Russia became an acceptable trade and political interlocutor. For a while.

The US now seeks a balance with Iran, making the Islamic Republic an acceptable interlocutor in the region rather than an enemy of America and its allies. This sometimes is referred to as Security Architecture (whatever that means). On the surface it seems admirable/positive, but the idea of bringing Iran into a balanced relationship with its adversaries is not how things work in the Middle East.

Sadly, we don’t understand how people in that part of the world think. And more importantly, we seem almost never interested in learning. And in this case, our policy is based on a misunderstanding of how Iran sees itself.

Iran’s View

(Shiite) Iran doesn’t want a “balanced” policy with its neighbors, nor with us. It is pursuing a policy aimed at defeating and humiliating its Sunni Arab neighbors. And America is helping Iran do so.

How do we know? If we knew how to listen to and understand Iran’s subtle propaganda and nuances toward its Arab neighbors, we would realize that what concerns Iran most of all is to prove that its version of Islam – Shi’ism – is the correct one and to eviscerate Sunnism.

This battle may seem unimportant, even marginal to Westerners—that is, to us—but it is paramount to Iran and its Arab neighbors.

(Shiite) Iranians and their Arab (mostly Sunni) adversaries/enemies have been fighting this battle since their Prophet Muhammad died in 531 CE. We ask ourselves: Why can’t they sit down and find a compromise they can live with?

They Don’t Do Compromise

The Western concept of compromise does not exist in the Middle East. In that part of the world, giving in on issues before defeating one’s enemy means the person offering the compromise is humiliating/shaming himself. For those rooted in this culture, humiliation is worse than death. This, along with the historical enmity between Arabs and Persians, looms large in the background and percolates up to the surface, often to explode into the open when one side perceives a weakness in the other. This is all predicated on a tremendous sense of history and memory.

The Western concept of history is to bury it. “Let bygones be bygones.” Abraham Lincoln tried to set aside the raging emotions of the American Civil War in his second Inaugural Address, saying, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” Americans often say, “that’s history” meaning something that happened in the past is of no importance.

This is alien to the Middle Eastern way of thinking. In that region, people have long memories.

Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s public berating of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan (MbS), holding him personally responsible for the murder of a Saudi journalist in Turkey. Almost two years later, Biden went to Saudi Arabia to beg MbS to increase oil production.

The Saudis knew exactly why Biden was coming. So, before the president arrived, MbS publicly announced the Kingdom would not increase oil output. The Saudis were humiliating Biden, who either didn’t understand why MbS announced this before his arrival—because to the American administration, Biden’s blistering accusation against the Saudi leader was “in the past”—i.e., “that’s history” – and therefore of no importance.

Saudis, like Iranians, harbor grudges and wait for the appropriate time to get even. And that is exactly why the Saudis who loathed Biden waited to get back and humiliate him for what Biden had said before he became president.

Another incident, this one involving Iran, comes to mind. From an Iranian perspective, the United States had been pro-Saudi for decades. So, when in 1988 the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner carrying more than 200 civilian passengers flying from the Arab side of the Gulf to Iran, the Iranians “knew” America shot it down intentionally. They “knew” because they “knew” America loathed the Iranian regime. The US government went out of its way to apologize profusely and wanted to pay restitution, but Iran never believed Washington’s sincerity.

Broken Mirror-Imaging

Despite America’s protestations, some years later then-Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani in an interview mentioned that Iran knew for sure that America had intentionally shot down the plane. Some Iran specialists in the US government were flabbergasted by Rafsanjani’s claim. Some even had no memory of the incident. After all, it was “history.”

It is essential for us to understand the Iranian regime as it sees itself. How we define Iran’s interests is secondary. Iran has a long sense of history dating back more than 2600 years of which it is extremely proud. This is meaningless to us.

On the other hand, the Iranian government is filled with senior officials who do know Western/American culture and have learned to use it to their advantage. One of Iran’s former foreign ministers – Javad Zarif – was intimately familiar with American culture. Zarif “negotiated” with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barak Obama in 2015 for the Iranian nuclear weapons deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Zarif wrapped Kerry around his little finger and wrote about how he did it in a “tell-all” book in Persian.

Kerry, during part of the talks, had injured his leg and was walking with crutches. Crutches are a sign of weakness in Middle Eastern culture, though certainly not in America’s. And Iranians love cynical cartoon caricatures. The more Kerry submitted to Iran’s demands, the larger Kerry’s crutches grew in the cartoons. And we were clueless.

When some Westerners, steeped in Iranian culture, tried to explain what these cartoons meant to our “negotiating partners,” the people dealing with the Iranians either responded that they are “only cartoons,” or belittled those who tried to warn our side.

Even worse for the US, Iranian culture sees lighter/whiter skin color as a sign of beauty. Darker skin, on the other hand, is a sign of inferiority. Interestingly, the depiction of President Obama’s skin color darkened in these disgusting cartoons the more we conceded to Iranian demands.

Clearly, we cannot stoop to the level of Iranian indignities, nor should we.

Understanding the Shiite-Sunni Rift

There are things we can do to make life difficult for Tehran by using Iranian culture to create discord within the senior levels of the regime. And that requires an understanding of the different forces at play, which seem not to be understood in the West. The US instead appears adamant about its “rightness” and declines to understand how the Shiite religious establishment works. It seems esoteric to Westerners and is therefore ignored.

An important – crucial, even – example is as follows: In Iranian Shi’ism, there is a question of when and how the return of their messiah (the 12th Imam – the Mahdi, descended directly from their prophet Muhammad), will reappear. The Mahdi is the only true leader of the Shiite world, which is to say the Islamic world from their perspective. He disappeared (went into occultation) in 870 CE. These Shiites “know” he will re-appear, but the overwhelming majority of senior clerics have historically believed that they cannot do anything to hasten his return. Until then, for them, all political rule is illegitimate. The senior clerics, therefore, cannot rule.

The most senior Grand Ayatollah – Ali al-Sistani – who has been living in Najaf, Iraq (one of Shiism’s two most important holy cities) since 1951, strongly supports the view that clerics should NOT hold political power. Their job, he believes, is to tend the spiritual and related needs of his flock.

After the Revolution

From time to time throughout history, a tiny group within the Shiite clerical establishment had argued that a cleric could rule until the Mahdi returns.

Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was one of them. He believed in the concept of Velayat-e Faqih (the Rule of the Jurisprudent) which almost all of the Shi’ite 12er religious establishment opposed. But Khomeini had power, military and political, so the Shiite establishment (called Quietists) remained silent. History had taught them that it is dangerous to publicly confront power.

But then, an even tinier, even more extreme group emerged from within this small clerical class. They argued that if they provoked a conflagration, they could force their awaited 12th Imam to come down and save them, and thus show the rest of the Muslims world that their view of Islam was correct.

Khomeini strongly opposed them, believing that if they provoked a conflict, the reaction from the outside world could be so violent that Iran would not survive. He therefore did his utmost to keep them constrained and out of power.

But when Khomeini died in 1989, this extremist group managed to wrest power from those who had Khomeini’s view. Which is why the late Prof. Bernard Lewis often said that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, a Cold War concept) might very well not work with the Iranian regime. As he stated, “a conflagration might be an incentive, not a deterrent.”

To Westerners, and to most Shi’ites, and Sunnis as well, this might sound preposterous – even absurd, but that’s how Iran’s present rulers see things.

A Western Response

Could we use this dispute to our advantage, just as Zarif used American culture to his advantage against us?

From time to time, internal differences among the senior clerical establishment has led to violence – sometimes serious violence. Surely, we could use these fissures to our advantage, but it would require us to study and understand how the Shi’ite clerical establishment functions, to learn about its internal disagreements, etc., which are totally alien to our way of thinking.

These fissures might hold the key to aiding those Iranian Shiite figures who believe that the Iranian regime has seriously damaged the survival of their beloved Shiite 12er Islam. Yes, Iranians are overwhelming Shiite, but from what we can tell, they by and large seem to want all their clerics to return to their seminaries and worry only about the spiritual and economic needs for their flock.

We might think about using these internal and potential dangers of descent into an apocalyptic war to our advantage, and thus help the Iranian people liberate themselves from their tyranny and re-join the international community as a member of the forces of good, where the Iranian passport is again respected, and its holders welcomed throughout the world.

But here in the West, almost no one thinks about using these fissures to our advantage. Perhaps this is because we don’t take our own religions seriously anymore, and don’t take Islam seriously either.

©2024. Harold Rhode. All rights reserved.

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Gallup Poll: America Is Still a Christian Nation

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Reports of American Christianity’s death are wildly exaggerated, according to a new Gallup poll.

Despite years of coverage that Americans have lost their faith, three out of four Americans not only believe in God but belong to a specific religion, according to a Gallup poll released on Good Friday. “By far the largest proportion, 68%, identify with a Christian religion, including 33% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 13% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a ‘Christian,’” Gallup reported on March 29. Another seven percent “identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 1% Muslim and 1% Buddhist, among others.” Only 22% said they did not identify with any religion.

Moreover, faith exercises a pivotal role in most Americans’ lives, with 71% saying that religion is “very important” (45%) or “fairly important” (26%) to them. The share of Americans who placed a high premium on their faith fell below a majority for the first time in U.S. history in 2019.

That does not mean that church membership has rebounded completely: 45% of Americans formally belong to a church, synagogue, or religious congregation. That number fell below a majority during 2020. “Slightly more than one-third of U.S. young adults have no religious affiliation. Further, many young adults who do identify with a religion do not belong to a church,” noted Gallup. “But even older adults who have a religious preference are less likely to belong to a church today than in the past.”

Yet even these numbers may overstate the number of unbelievers, as 69% of Nones (people who do not identify with any particular faith) believe in God, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Still, a separate poll from the left-leaning Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released March 27, found, “While the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as ‘nothing in particular’ is similar to a decade ago (16% in 2013 to 17% in 2023), the numbers of both atheists and agnostics have doubled since 2013 (from 2% to 4% and from 2% to 5%, respectively).”

Overall, the new Gallup poll revealed that one out of three Americans (32%) have attended a church or other religious service in the last week. That represents a modest increase from the historic low of 29% in 2021 during the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns. About the same percentage say they attend church weekly (21%) or “almost every week” (9%). Larger shares say they attend church monthly (11%) and seldomly (26%). Another 31% say they “never” take part in religious services.

The most liberal churches have experienced the steepest losses in membership, numerous reports found. Ryan Burge, research director at Faith Counts, tracked the membership of numerous U.S. denominations between 1987 and 2021. “The mainline is just a bloodbath,” wrote Burge last June. “Five traditions are down by at least 30%. The ELCA is down 41%. The United Church of Christ is less than half the size it was in the late 1980s. The United Methodists are already down 31%, but with over 15% of their churches disaffiliating just this year, I wouldn’t be surprised in membership is down 40% or more by this time next year.”

Southern Baptists have also lost 4% of their membership, but the decline began only recently, Burge said.

The overall decline in church attendance stems not just from those leaving Protestant congregations but also “decreasing weekly attendance among U.S. Catholics,” Gallup relayed last week. PRRI stated that “Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain, though the retention rate for Hispanic Catholics (68%) is somewhat higher than for white Catholics (62%). White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants also continue losing more members than they replace and at higher rates than other Protestants.” Black Protestants (82%), Jews (77%), and white evangelicals (76%) have the highest retention rates, per PRRI.

Yet more conservative churches continue to grow. “The Assemblies of God has grown by over 50% in the 35 years,” wrote Burge. The Presbyterian Church in America “has doubled in size, as well.” Oriental Orthodox churches such as the Coptic church reported a 67% membership surge between 2010 and 2020, nearly all due to increased immigration from northern Africa and India.

Overall, the data paint a complicated picture. “The trends are clear that we are secularizing in some sense. There is a decline in participation in organized religion and in belief in God, but those are not necessarily the same thing,” Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The one clear thing is that some belief in a higher power is persistent. People can’t shake the idea that the universe didn’t create itself.”

“That may be where the consensus ends,” he added. “Even within Christianity, we see such radically different opinions about what that means that it’s difficult to believe everyone identifying as a Christian shares the same faith.”

David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at FRC, agreed. “What we’ve learned from FRC’s own research, as well as George Barna’s research with the Cultural Research Center, is that the percentage of those who hold a consistent biblical worldview is around 6%,” Closson told TWS. “Thus, it is probably more accurate to say that Gallup is helpfully illustrating the loss of cultural Christianity. But this is an important observation in itself; the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian is decreasing rapidly, which means that basic Christian beliefs will increasingly be seen not only as outdated or old-school but dangerous and subversive. We are still living on the fumes of a post-Christian culture, and this is reflected in the large percentages of Americans who still identify as Christian even though many of them don’t go to church or profess any specific theological viewpoints.”

All parties conceded that America’s religious atrophy and eroding biblical worldview will likely impact the policies enacted at a national and local level. “Compared with all Americans, the unaffiliated are notably more likely to identify as Democrats (35% vs. 29%) and independents (38% vs. 30%), and substantially less likely to identify as Republican (12% vs. 29%),” PRRI noted.

The declining share of Americans who hold a worldview “shouldn’t matter” when it comes to public policy, but it “ultimately will,” said Backholm. “The First Amendment requires that we treat small groups of religious individuals the same as big groups, but in reality cultural dominance, or the lack thereof, matters. That’s why we see pro-life activists being punished for public speech and business owners repeatedly sued for behavior that was uncontroversial 20 years ago.”

“Being a minority religion has always come with challenges, even in America,” Backholm told TWS. “The politically dominant religion in America is becoming a hybrid of secularism and progressive Christianity defined by the belief that people should be free to do whatever makes them happy.”

“Those who don’t embrace those creeds are going to have problems,” he warned.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

80% of Americans Support Israel Over Hamas

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We hear constantly that Israel is losing the information war, that the nightly scenes of buildings reduced to rubble in Gaza, and the latest Hamas-concocted numbers of “dead civilians” or, alternatively, and even more misleading, of “women and children killed,” are leading to a significant loss of support for the Jewish state.

This turns out to be false.

Israel is doing the very best it can to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. It continues to warn civilians away from targets the IDF is about to hit, through leafleting, messaging, and telephoning. So far the IDF has dropped six million leaflets, made 14 million prerecorded phone calls, and 72,000 personal calls. Those warnings, of course, reach not only civilians but also Hamas operatives. No other army in the history of the world has warned its enemy of exactly where impending attacks will take place. It is this practice, among others, that led British Colonel Richard Kemp to describe the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.”

These concerns [about civilian casualties in Gaza] are fueled by Biden’s low approval rating on the issue — as only 39% of voters say that they approve of his handling of the war — along with large-scale anti-Israel protests across the country and pressure from within the administration.

However, that number is primarily driven by Republican opposition to Biden, as only 19% of Republicans say they approve of his handling of the war and 61% of Democrats approve. Additionally, New York Times polling from December found that among those who disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war, nearly as many say it is due to being too pro-Palestinian as it is due to be too pro-Israel (16% vs 19%).

So much for all the talk of a groundswell of opposition to Biden for not doing enough to pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire. In fact, Israel has just offered Hamas a two-month ceasefire, in exchange for the release of all the hostages. Hamas turned the offer down flat.

Meanwhile, all the claims that Israel has been engaging in “genocide” have not done a great deal to lessen support for Israel among Americans. The Jewish state has never engaged in “genocide,” so the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where South Africa preposterously opened a case against Israel on this charge, need not worry on that score. The ruling handed down by the ICJ in The Hague on January 26 could have been much worse. The Court might have agreed with South Africa’s contention that in Gaza the Jewish state is engaged in “ethnic cleansing” or in “genocide.” It might have ordered an “immediate ceasefire” or, still worse, a complete withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. The ICJ did none of those things. Israel has not been told to pull out of Gaza; the ICJ recognized the atrocities of October 7 and the right of Israel to self-defense. It also spoke of the need for Hamas to free the hostages. Nor did the ICJ seek to impose a ceasefire, of any length, on the Jewish state. For those decisions by the ICJ, just announced, as to what it condemns and what it condones, Israel should now breathe a sigh of great relief.

More on the latest opinion poll on Israel and Hamas can be found here:

Poll: 80 Percent of Voters Support Israel Over Hamas

by Jack Elbaum, Algemeiner, January 23, 2024:

A new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows the vast majority of Americans still support Israel over Hamas, suggesting concerns about the electoral impact of President Joe Biden’s decision to stand with Israel may be overblown.

The poll found that 80 percent of respondents said they support Israel over Hamas in the current war, while only 20 percent support Hamas over Israel. The majority of every sub-group polled supports Israel more than Hamas — including those aged 18-24, where the split is 57% support of Israel and 43% support of Hamas.

These numbers are released within the context of mounting concern in recent months that young people, Muslim voters, and the progressive wing of the Democratic party may be so upset with Biden over his support of Israel that it will reconsider their support for him in the 2024 election and thus put his chances for re-election in jeopardy.

US President Joe Biden has fully supported Israel and its military campaign to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages since Hamas’s October 7th terrorist attack, but has also pressured Israel to take additional humanitarian measures in Gaza to reduce civilian casualties.

[ … ]

This suggests that while there is a minority of the Democratic party that substantially disagrees with Biden’s approach to Israel, it is much smaller than metrics such as issue approval rating let on. At the same time, a small number of votes can be a deciding factor in an election.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll was conducted online between Jan. 17-18 and garnered responses from 2,346 registered voters.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Muhammad — A Critical Biography: ‘A groundbreaking work that will revolutionize the popular understanding of Muhammad’

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Muhammad: What can we really know about him?

We know a great deal about Muhammad—or so it seems. Islamic tradition contains an astonishing wealth of information about the founding figure of the Islamic faith, and most historians take for granted that this material is generally reliable.

In his latest book, historian and Islamic scholar Robert Spencer shows that there is no agreement in the earliest Islamic sources about the most fundamental details of this towering figure’s life. There are conflicting accounts of key details of his life, including the circumstances and contents of the first revelation he claimed to have received from Allah; the year of his birth; the length of his prophetic career; the name of the angel who supposedly appeared to him; and even his own name.

Muhammad: A Critical Biography takes a detailed look at the Islamic traditions regarding Muhammad and lays bare their contradictions, inconsistences, and incoherence. Spencer continues the groundbreaking research he began in The Truth About Muhammad and Did Muhammad Exist?, exposing the shocking reality of how shaky Islam’s foundations really are. He meticulously explains why competing traditions may have been invented and definitively demonstrates that, contrary to the complacency of establishment historians, the Muhammad of Islam is more legend than history, more fable than fact.

Muhammad: A Critical Biography does the work that mainstream academics—who are either bought by Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or too afraid to depart from the herd—should have done long ago. Not for the faint-hearted, this book will do nothing less than rock the Islamic world to its very core.

“Ernest Renan famously claimed that Islam emerged in the ‘full light of history.’ Spencer’s startling non-biography biography finds quite the reverse. When it comes to Muhammad’s life, ‘we appear to have precise and detailed historical information, but what we actually have is myth, fable, folk tales, sermonizing, factionalism, and guesswork.’ This fascinating book by an accomplished scholar establishes that, in place of Muhammad’s supposedly minutely detailed biography, from birth to death ‘what he said and did, and who he really was, is … thoroughly lost in the mists of time.’ This has immense implications for Islam – and the world.” (Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum)

“Robert Spencer’s Muhammad: A Critical Biography offers not just an overview of the singular life of the founder of the Islamic religion; it is also a unique evaluation of the historical value of the traditions regarding Muhammad’s life that most historians take for granted as being historically accurate. Spencer demonstrates that virtually every aspect of what Islamic tradition teaches about Muhammad, including the circumstances of his first revelation, the identity of the being who appeared to him, and even the Islamic prophet’s very name, is controverted by other Islamic traditions. He proves definitively that the accounts of Muhammad’s life, which he examines in detail, are not historical records, but the product of mythical and legendary development, with the renowned aspects of Muhammad’s biography being the result of selection from a great mass of material rather than of remembrance by his contemporaries. This is a groundbreaking work that will revolutionize the popular understanding of the figure of Muhammad and the circumstances of Islam’s origins.” (Ibn Warraq, author, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad)

“The always brave Robert Spencer offers his readers once again an amazing opportunity to look at the history of Muhammad — and the stories that have been told about him — in a thought-provoking manner. Spencer is a genius and this book historical. What is simply accepted by many as the historical truth, deserves further consideration. How trustworthy can a narrative be that was written decades and sometimes even centuries later? This paragon of critical literature shows that not everything always has to be accepted at face value, especially when the consequences of what is said and written can be disastrous. This book a must read for anyone interested in the truth.” (Geert Wilders, Party for Freedom, Netherlands)

“What an amazing book! This was such a joy to read, and with all the ‘marking-up’ I’ve done with it, I’ll be using it for decades to come. This latest book studies the biography of Muhammad’s life through the prism of historical criticism, something which has never really been done adequately before, possibly due to the controversy such an endeavor will cause any author who dares take on such a task (something Spencer is well accustomed to and refers to in his closing statements). Yet because this book is so unique, it will, I believe, be foundational for anyone who wants to really understand who this man Muhammad was (or was not), and why so many millions in the world today choose to follow him. This is certainly a ‘must have’ book for your library, not only because it is so interesting and readable, but because Spencer has taken the time to amalgamate the best research by the best scholars, and put them all into one book.” (Dr. Jay Smith, Pfander Films)

“Robert Spencer has once again produced a scholarly tour de force. Muhammad: A Critical Biography is a searching enquiry of the earliest islamic texts pertaining to the ostensible prophet of Islam, demonstrating that these are not and cannot be viewed as first-hand historical sources, but at best as posterior apocryphal hagiography. He perspicuously shows their many contradictions, disparities, and sundry inconsistencies. This book is an accessible yet thorough and comprehensive introduction to the overwhelming difficulties that the early Islamic literary traditions present to those wishing to discover the authentic words and deeds of this towering yet mysterious persona who even so remains firmly enshrouded in the shadows of lore.” (Prof. Robert M. Kerr, Research Director, Inârah Institute for Research on Early Islamic History and the Qur’an, Saarbrücken, Germany)

Muhammad: A Critical Biography, will be out October 22, and is available for preorder now: click here.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

“Truly, This Man Was the Son Of God”

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Randall Smith: If this man is God, it fundamentally alters our understanding of the cosmos and human life.

One of the strangest lines in the Gospels is uttered by the centurion at the foot of the Cross. In Mark, we are told that when he saw that Jesus had “breathed his last,” he said: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (15:39)

One would have thought this was the last thing a person would say after seeing a man die.  Everyone knows that the one thing gods don’t do is die.  Thus, it would have made more sense if, the moment the centurion saw Jesus die, he had said: “Well, clearly that guy wasn’t a god.”

Had Jesus shot fifty feet up in the air and shot laser beams out of his eyes, then we might imagine the centurion saying, “Uh oh, that was the son of God.” After which, he might have run for cover, reasoning that the man, now so revealed, would not be entirely pleased with those who treated him so badly — what with the whole spitting, taunting, scourging, crowning with thorns, and nailing him to the Cross business.

But Christ didn’t shoot fifty feet in the air and shoot laser beams out of his eyes.  That’s comic book stuff.  No, He died: something “gods” are never supposed to do.  And yet it was at that moment the centurion said: “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

We have to imagine that Mark included this odd story in his Gospel, well, first, because it happened. It would be a strange thing to include it if it hadn’t, since most readers would be inclined to conclude, as I did, that it made little sense for a down-to-earth Roman soldier to conclude from a man’s death that He was “the son of God.”

But second, Mark likely included the story because it represented something important about the faith of the early Church. The apostles weren’t proclaiming the divinity of Christ in spite of His death on the Cross, but because of it. They weren’t hiding the fact of Christ’s death; rather, they were proclaiming that, contrary to what anyone would imagine, His death on the Cross was the decisive revelation of his divinity and His role as our divine Redeemer.

This is so strange; it really should give us pause. A God who dies?  What kind of God is that?  Either a powerless one, or a really, really devoted one.  But if He is that devoted, and if He can undergo death – not avoid it, not pretend it, but really undergo it – and still beat it, then He has fundamentally altered our entire idea of what it means to be “powerful.”  A power so great that it transcends even death, but then submits itself to death?  A God who reveals Himself as a servant?  We don’t sacrifice to Him; He sacrifices Himself for us?  It bursts all our categories.

But if this is true, it fundamentally alters our understanding of the cosmos and human life. Galaxies upon galaxies extending into the abyss; atoms and quarks and neutrinos, and fundamental quantum forces so complex they boggle the mind – and yet all of it made as a free act of love by a God who loves us so much that He was willing to take on our death to give us life?  Could that possibly be true? And if it were, how would God communicate that truth to us?  Lighting storms?  Earthquakes?  Beautiful sunsets?  We have those, but for many of us, “we had the experience but missed the meaning.”  But death – now that’s something whose meaning is hard to miss.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, its looming presence threatens whatever meaning we might have thought we had.

Consider the situation of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales. Those of us who have had a cancer diagnosis, as she has, know that it changes everything.  The future becomes uncertain.  The plans one had made for next week, next month, and next year become irrelevant.  As a mother, she is undoubtedly worried about her children.  Her struggles are not more important, just more public.  But the questions are the same. Is there any meaningful future for me at all?  It’s excruciating – like a cross.

Faced with the darkness of death, the fundamental questions of life are posed with remorseless urgency:  What could overcome an uncertainty so great and a darkness seemingly so complete? Could anything restore light and peace and set life on a surer, less precarious foundation?

We can’t heal the universe.  But maybe its Creator can.  But if He were to heal it, how would He do that?  Laser beams?  Light shows?  Those are silly magic tricks.  Or would it have to be by imparting a love so great that it illuminates the darkness?

If this were “A Charlie Brown Easter,” and Charlie Brown cried out: “Does anyone know what Easter is all about?”  Linus might step forward and say, “Yes, Charlie Brown, I know what Easter is all about.”

God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  Because there is no greater love than this, that man should lay down His life for His friends.  And the “good news” is that no power on the earth, above the earth, or below the earth, can separate us from that love and from those we love.  And if that’s true, then the universe isn’t empty and meaningless and human life isn’t empty and meaningless, even in the face of suffering and death.

If someone loved you so much that he had been willing, freely, to sacrifice his life for you, would it change the way you live?  Would the revelation that you were loved that much make you think differently about your worth and the meaningfulness of your life?  That much love and devotion – for me?  It’s almost too much to believe.  But why fight spring?  If that’s the universe God has made, and if He wanted to share His love with us that much, why say no?

AUTHOR

Randall Smith

Randall B. Smith is a Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His latest book is From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2024 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved.

For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

THEOLOGICAL BUTCHERS: John Calvin

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“After the Holocaust we need God more than ever. For there is no limit to the evil men may do when they no longer believe that anything is sacred.” —  Rabbi Jonathan Sachs

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” —  Primo Levi, Auschwitz Survivor

“He could be vain of himself and not be ashamed of it.  Yes, he could be excused for it.  The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away.  The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise.  They are gone.  Other peoples have sprung up and held the torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight or have vanished.  The Jew saw them all, beat them all and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no dulling of his alert, aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jew.  All other forces pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his immortality?” —  Mark Twain

Mark Twain fell in love with Joan of Arc and wrote a beautiful book about her.  Did he come to faith?  We don’t really know, but his statement about the Jewish people stands the test of time and truth.  The secret of Israel’s mortality is the Lord God and His love for His chosen people.

  • The king of Egypt could not diminish him.
  • The waters of the Red Sea could not drown him.
  • Balaam could not curse him.
  • The great fish could not digest him.
  • The fiery furnace could not devour him.
  • The nations of the world could not assimilate him.
  • The dictators cannot annihilate him.

It is interesting that a minority group like this retained its identity for 2,500 years without a flag and without a government.  No other ethnic group has remained intact that long.  Israelites stand as a miracle people throughout the world today.

God had made it very clear that they would survive:

“For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.”  Jeremiah 30:11

The Lord will not allow them to be destroyed.  And his original promises from the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant are still at work today.

Author Oliver Melnick, in his book, They Have Conspired Against You, writes, “Jewish suffering is not a new concept.  While it is true that anti-Semitism hasn’t remained the same over the centuries and has morphed from theological anti-Judaism in theory to racial anti-Semitism in practice, it is still a tragic witness of Jewish suffering.  An unfortunate factor in this suffering has been the wrong interpretation of the Scriptures as they pertain to Israel.  It has led to an exponential increase in hatred of the Jewish people and the passing of many anti-Jewish laws.”

Another early church father who failed to follow the Golden Rule of Interpretation was John Calvin.

John Calvin

Calvin was born in Noyan, France in 1509 and died in Geneva, Switzerland in 1564.  He was a pupil of Augustine, who tortured the text of the Bible “to confess that which was never in it.”  Like Augustine, who in matters of church discipline, was a totalitarian, and hardly a benevolent father, Calvin ordered brutal methods in sixteenth century Geneva, even to the point of sanctioning the death penalty for “heretics.”  Chrysostom and Augustine still speak through the replacement sentiments of Calvin with their prejudicial Christian attitudes to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish people.

John Calvin was the man who did more than any other to ensure that no vestige of premillennial truth made its way into the emerging theology of the Reformation.  He was a formidable amillennial champion who for nearly five hundred years, has commanded obeisance across the entire spectrum of the Christian church.

For those who believe in Calvin’s doctrine, I have no desire to alienate or be confrontational, but the truth must out.  The theological and historical facts where they have a bearing on the development of replacement theology are littered throughout Calvin’s doctrine.  He did more than probably any other Reformer to further the predatory doctrine of “replacementism” that has so mercilessly targeted the Jewish people throughout the ages.

Calvin was the most prolific and influential writer of his day.  He dominated the theological landscape of Reformation Europe, and his works are available in many languages.  His doctrine has had a huge resurgence in the evangelical church and points to the antisemitism of today.  His amillennial views are widely disseminated, not only through his writings and sermons, but also through the marginal notes in the Geneva Bible, and catechisms and confessions of the Protestant church.

The Geneva Bible is often promoted by those within the Dominion/Reconstructionist Christian heresy.  Dominion is seen as the right to dominate and to possess absolute control over the entire earth.  One of the original authors of Dominion heresy was Dr. Gary North and his Holocaust denying father-in-law, Rousas Rushdoony, the author of Reconstructionism.  The latter wrote the following, “The fall of Jerusalem, and the public rejection of physical Israel as the chosen people of God, meant also the deliverance of the true people of God, the church of Christ, the elect, out of the bondage to Israel and Jerusalem.”

The origins of the Presbyterian Church descend from Scottish Calvinism.  Extreme Calvinism slithers over into the full-blown heresy of Dominionism/Reconstructionism.

As the major architect of Reformed amillennialism, Calvin’s belief in a future thousand-year reign of Messiah on earth was, “a fiction too foolish to need or deserve refutation.” There is no doubt that Augustine’s “concept of the kingdom,” in which the Roman Catholic Church ruled triumphant upon the earth, is firmly rooted in replacement theology.  He was steeped in humanistic scholarship, which formed the basis for his biblical exegesis.  He drew from the poisoned wells of Plato, Cicero, and Aristotle.  Calvin’s lifelong favorite was John Chrysostom, the “Golden Mouth” master of anti-Jewish invective.

Calvin firmly believed that by applying “methods of humanistic scholarship to the Bible,” he would discover “the exact meaning of a text and the circumstances of the history involved.”  The term for this form of exegesis is “accommodation,” from classical Greek rhetorical theory.  Origen used it, and his influence on Calvin’s own system of interpretation is beyond question.

John Calvin spiritualized everything in the Bible, from creation to the thousand-year reign of Messiah, twisting and replacing the truth of the Lord’s Word to His people, both Jew and Gentile.  The end result is a catastrophic teaching of hatred for God’s chosen people.

Like Luther, a similar mixture of innovation and hatred toward the Jews marked Calvin’s doctrine.  His use of anti-Jewish invective was clear in his sermon on 2 Samuel 24:24 where he declared: “Now the Jews are cut off like rotten limbs.  We have taken their place.”  He repeatedly referred to the Jewish people as “profane unholy sacrilegious dogs,” describing them as a “barbarous nation,” and “the people of Israel rejected by God.”

Like his mentor and teacher, Calvin imitated Augustine’s totalitarian style of government and advocated the use of military force to compel church attendance.  He not only believed in Augustine’s philosophical doctrine, but adopted the same brutal methods as his mentor, even to the point of sanctioning the death penalty or exile for heretics.

This was particularly true of his treatment of Michael (Miquel) Servetus (1511-1553), who Calvin denounced to the civic authorities, signing Servetus’ death warrant.  The Spaniard was condemned by the ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in Geneva.  The murder of Servetus exposes the vindictive streak which disgraced the Reformer.  The cruelty of Calvin was condemned by Protestant circles and opened the door for greater religious freedom which also applied to the Jewish people.

“Calvin was the man most responsible for the preservation and propagation of the Augustinian doctrine of the Kingdom of God, upon which the amillennial pulpits of Reformed Europe were erected and from which Jewish hopes of national restoration have been so relentlessly and cruelly dashed.”  (Andrew Robinson, Israel Betrayed, Volume I: The History of Replacement Theology.)

The perpetuation of amillennialism was a feature of John Calvin’s doctrine.  He believed society should be constructed in line with the Mosaic Law, which “he tried to imitate as much as possible in his new Christian republic in Geneva. (Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 5, 66.)  His autocratic and unbending policy censured all doctrinal opposition, disciplined the profligate and punished the “heretic” who disagreed with Calvin’s authoritative and totalitarian doctrine.  He used the ecclesiastical court to discipline.  Calvin’s handiwork can also be seen in the ecclesiastical court sessions of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.  Calvin repeatedly demanded assent and threatened banishment to the unyielding.

The chilling declarations and harshness against anyone who was not conscripted to Calvin’s doctrine and who might believe in free will or adult baptism, were anathema to Calvin.  Calvinists have more than proved the point that they “are the most violent and intolerant of all the Protestant Christians.” (“An Attempt to Shew the Folly and Danger of Methodism in a Series of Essays,” The Examiner, No 22, London, May 29, 1808, 349.)

Many scholars conclude that Hitler’s violent antisemitism was enabled by a wake of anti-Jewish theologies of church heroes like Calvin and Luther, but as we’ve seen, it goes back to the second and third centuries with Origen and Tertullian.

It is difficult for modern Christians to believe that antisemitism was flowing in the lifeblood of the Church for thousands of years, but John Calvin stated, “Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.”

Can you imagine a pastor uttering these words from the pulpit today?

This age-old heretical doctrine of Replacement theology has spawned numerous offshoots, but all are equally destructive and unbiblical.  This heresy turns Israel and the Jewish people into “God’s ex-wife.”  God chose one group of people, the Jewish people, and made an eternal covenant with them.

He said, “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” (Genesis 17:7)

If the Lord were to simply change His mind due to shortcomings on the part of His “wife” (Israel), and then takes a new covenantal partner (the gentile church), it is an absolute assassination of His faithful character.

We have been warned by the Lord’s solemn Word in Romans 11:18, “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”

The olive tree is the place of privilege that was first occupied by the natural branches (the Jews).  The wild branches are Gentiles.  The root of the tree is the Abrahamic Covenant that promised blessings to both Jew and Gentile.  “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Far too many who call themselves Christians, are not blessing the Lord’s people, Israel.

The Golden Rule of Interpretation

The church fathers in this series have failed to follow the Golden Rule of Interpretation.

David L. Cooper (1886-1965), one of the greatest conservative theologians and Bible scholars who ever lived, left a legacy of Bible teaching that to this day is helping many understand and apply God’s Word to their lives.  In his attempt to understand Scripture the way it was meant to be understood, Cooper came to the conclusion that in light of past prophecies fulfilled, only a literal approach to the Bible would be appropriate to understand God and His plan for mankind.  He eventually came up with a rule of interpretation still used by many Biblical scholars today, known as “The Golden Rule of Interpretation.”

“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.  Moreover, one must be guided by the principle thus stated: ‘A text apart from its context is a pretext.’”

Conclusion

This abridged history in a few short articles has told the tragic story of the church and the Jewish people.

Truly, our hands are stained with blood.

 Lagniappe

On Saturday of Holy Week, I received an email from a Jewish friend.  He basically wrote that he hated Christ.  I was stunned at his insensitivity and hurt at his lack of empathy.  Yet, by Sunday evening, I understood.

I remember listening to one of my favorite teachers, Mottel Baleston, lecturing on the Holocaust, and he mentioned that his great-grandparents had lived in a Jewish village earlier in their marriage, but had moved.  A year later, the entire village was murdered.  Mottel told us that his grandfather said never to touch a Bible; it would burn him.

The Jewish people have lived with hatred, not only from Ishmael and Esau, but by those calling themselves Christians throughout the Middle Ages and the crusades.

The twentieth century recorded the worst genocide of European Jews in modern history. It started in Germany, a nation of Catholic and Lutheran Christians.

Today that age old satanic evil has raised its ugly head once again. The horror we’re seeing throughout America is reminiscent of 1933 Nazi Germany.

With this history, is it any wonder that our Jewish brethren would mistrust and detest Christians, and the Christ we call our Savior?  Many Crusaders left in their wake the bodies of hundreds of Jews as they made their way to the Holy Land. Jews lost their homes, families, property, and lives in a frenzy of anti-Jewish feeling among many European Christians.

This evil isn’t from the Jewish Savior we worship; it is the work of men throughout history who have come against the Lord’s people. Their allegorizing of Scripture to fit their own desires has produced demonic hatred and jealousy of the Jewish people.

Replacement theology is a lie from the very pit of hell.

The Lord told us He will bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them.

Which will you choose?

As for me and mine, we choose the blessing of loving the Lord’s people.

©2024. Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

Al-Jazeera’s Gaza Script Sabotaged By Their Ally Hamas

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Qatar, Palestinians | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 587

One way of telling the difference between a credible news outlet and a propaganda source is the subservience of news coverage to an ideological narrative. Given the dynamic nature of news, coverage would flow in all sorts of directions, a propaganda narrative only flows in one direction. In a normal, free media environment, the misdeeds of the offspring of the powerful are an irresistible topic. And yet in 2020 (and beyond) we saw the dominant news media outlets and social media companies in the United States intentionally suppress reporting on Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The “Biden Laptop” scandal is a signal example of the triumph of narrative over journalism, the narrative in this case being Joe Biden’s rise to the presidency.

Narrative beating out journalism used to be a staple of foreign authoritarian regimes, and it still is. It now often flourishes in the West. But nowhere has narrative reigned over journalism more completely – propaganda over actual news – than in the Middle East, especially in Arabic-language media. Almost all outlets do it, but if there was a champion in the narrative business, it would be Qatar’s Al-Jazeera Arabic Satellite Channel. This makes sense because everything Al-Jazeera disseminates or produces is seen through an ideological framework, an Islamist lens, and serves Islamist causes, including the agenda of terrorist groups like Hamas.[1]

On March 23, 2024, Al-Jazeera ran a report alleging that Israeli soldiers had raped Palestinian women during an Israeli attack on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters holed up at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The report ran for more than 24 hours before it unraveled. The network then quietly deleted the content with no explanation given.[2]

Additional detail on the incident came from an interesting source – Jordanian journalist Yasser Abu Hilaleh, who had been Al-Jazeera Arabic’s general manager from 2014 to 2018 and before that had served as the channel’s bureau chief in Amman for many years. Abu Hilaleh noted on Twitter in Arabic (in a tweet with almost two million views) that the news was fabricated, according to an investigation conducted by Hamas.[3]

Abu Hilaleh, a veteran journalist who is also a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and opponent of Israel, explained that “the woman who spoke about rape justified her exaggeration and incorrect talk by saying that the goal was to arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood!”[4]

Of course, Al-Jazeera has circulated false or exaggerated information before, information that has served an ideological agenda. It has continued to serve up propaganda throughout this entire Hamas-Israel War as both the channel and Qatar who funds it play a key role in the war as banker, host and propagandist for Hamas.[5] Early on in the war both Al-Jazeera and much of the world’s press (including the BBC and the New York Times) promoted and amplified a lie, that Israel had intentional struck a hospital in Gaza and killed hundreds of people.[6] It turned out that not only had Israel not struck the building, a PIJ rocket struck nearby, but hundreds had not been killed in the blast.

In this particular case, an accusation of rape is powerful because it would have served as a perfect riposte to multiple claims by Israeli eyewitnesses and victims of rape and sexual assault carried out by Hamas both on October 7 and afterward against female Israeli hostages. It would have served the narrative by, at the very least, “muddying the waters” by implying that either both sides do such things, or that the side – Israel – complaining vociferously about rapes, was actually the real rapist.

While such charges would have been useful in the larger context of the propaganda war being waged in both the Middle East and the West (where the extent of how much rape occurred on October 7 has become a controversy),[7] the initial false charge, which went viral on social media – that Israel was raping women in a hospital and burning families alive – had unintended “ripple effects” leading many Gazans to flee the northern part of the Gaza Strip and head south, a result that Hamas definitely does not want to see. An emptier northern Gaza is one that is easier for Israel to control and more difficult for Hamas cadres to hide in.

This is always the danger in propaganda. The narrative can turn out to have unexpected consequences.[8] So pro-Hamas protesters worldwide call for a Gaza ceasefire while Hamas actually rejects ceasefires that do not meet its demands. The thrust of Al-Jazeera’s narrative on Hamas and Gaza is built on conflicting claims that must be passed over to avoid any sort of real critical scrutiny: the war launched on October 7 is both a disaster for Gaza and a great victory for Hamas, Israel has been fatally weakened and is destroying Gaza with impunity, the Arab and Islamic masses are with Gaza and yet no one will help them. A war that began gleefully with the parading of dead Israeli bodies by gloating Gazans now seeks to parade dead Palestinian bodies in Gaza to gain the world’s sympathy.

As Ilan Benatar has noted, Hamas mastermind Yahya Sinwar has written a script where Israel is the villain and the goal was to “harness the entire world as a force multiplier to fight Israel on Hamas’s behalf.”[9] The fuel for such a scenario is Palestinian suffering – real or imagined – in Gaza (and anywhere else that serves the narrative).

If you thought that Al-Jazeera had learned anything from this latest embarrassing debacle, you would be mistaken. On March 28 the channel headlined “Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa under the protection of the Israeli police” while the television footage actually showed an Israeli man being forcibly removed, dragged away, by the Israeli police from the premises of Al-Aqsa.[10] The narrative, above all else, must be served and burnished.

AUTHOR

Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez

Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.

 [1] See MEMRI Inquiry And Analysis Series No. 1751, Al-Jazeera Arabic: The Qatari-Owned TV Channel That Promotes Islamist Terrorism Worldwide, February 29, 2024.

[2] Jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793560, March 25, 2024.

[3] Twitter.com/abuhilalah/status/1771996521312973088, March 24, 2024.

[4] Twitter.com/abuhilalah/status/1771996521312973088, March 24, 2024.

[5] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10872, Qatar Enabling Hamas’ War Against Israel, October 15, 2023.

[6] Theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/gaza-hospital-explosion-misinformation-reporting/675719, October 23, 2023.

[7] Msn.com/en-us/news/world/squad-member-bowman-backtracks-comment-calling-accounts-of-rape-in-israel-on-oct-7-propaganda/ar-BB1kzUM9, March 26, 2024.

[9] Medium.com/@ilanbenatar/the-story-is-the-war-f6482ab94c1f, March 17, 2024.

[10] Twitter.com/hahussain/status/1773336199026860253, March 28, 2024.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Israel Passes Law To Temporarily Shut Down Al Jazeera

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The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed a law Monday that would allow the government to temporarily close foreign news networks deemed a national security threat, The Times of Israel reported.

The law — known as the Al Jazeera law — is geared towards shutting down the popular Arabic news channel Al Jazeera in Israel, according to the outlet.

The law itself will reportedly allow shut downs for a period of 45 days but could be extended in additional 45-day increments, the outlet reported.

“There will be no freedom of speech for Hamas mouthpieces in Israel. Al Jazeera will be closed in the coming days. We have brought an efficient and quick tool for action against those who use the freedom of the press to harm Israel’s security and IDF soldiers and incite terrorism in times of war,” Israel’s Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi tweeted in Hebrew.

“We will act immediately!” Karhi vowed.

“Al Jazeera harmed Israel’s security, actively participated in the October 7 massacre, and incited against IDF soldiers. It is time to remove the shofar of Hamas from our country. The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the channel’s activity,” Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew.

Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news network, is particularly accused by Israeli officials of glorifying Hamas and terrorism against Israelis.  One example cited by critics of the Arabic news outlet’s protection of Hamas was when one of its reporters attempted to cut off an elderly wounded Gazan who was speaking critically of Hamas for hiding among civilians, according to the English translation.

AUTHOR

ILAN HULKOWER

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Barry Shaw reporting live from Israel

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We are very pleased to again have with us on DISSENT Television Barry Shaw, who is reporting to us live from Israel.

Barry Shaw is the International Public Diplomacy Associate at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Barry was also the co-founder of the Netanya Terror Victims Organization after a wave of Palestinian terror, including numerous suicide bombings, hit his Israeli hometown of Netanya.

Barry is the author of several books, including ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS, and Anti-Semitism.”

Barry writes and speaks on issues from an Israeli perspective.

ABOUT BARRY SHAW

Barry Shaw is a Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies.

He is regularly contributes to various media outlets including the Jerusalem Post and a frequent speaker at conferences and pro-Israel advocacy events.

Shaw has been a staunch defender of Israel in the public diplomacy arena for decades and has initiated the creation of several pro-Israel grassroots groups,

He has a keen following of tens of thousands of people globally.

Shaw is the author of three books:

‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative’ rebuts fraudulent allegations against Israel with fact based refutations.

‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism’ is a thoroughly  researched exposure of the Jew hatred at the heart of the Palestinian cause from their headquarters in Gaza and Ramallah into the campuses and anti-Israel activism in too many Western countries.

His most recent book, ‘BDS for IDIOTS,’ employs ridicule as new method of countering BDS activists and repudiating their slander against Israel with facts and humor.

Barry may be found on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Telegram.

©2024. Dissent Television Channel and host Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Pro-Israel Americans need to stop cowering and start protesting

Biden Regime Declares Easter Sunday 2024 is ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’

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I just don’t understand why people are standing for this obscenity.

Easter is not just the official transgender day of visibility, but all religious symbols have been banned.

This is a war against the people of the book.

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024, as Transgender Day of Visibility.”

“I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Proclaims Easter Sunday To Be ‘Transgender Day Of Visibility’

RELATED VIDEO: Biden’s ‘Trans Day of Visibility’ | TONIGHT on TIPPING POINT

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

What Jesus’s Resurrection Accomplished

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All over the world, Christians will, this weekend, celebrate the astounding truth that a crucified rabbi was raised from the dead and, equally astonishing, would never die again.

It’s worth asking why we regard the resurrection of Christ as so important. Why did Paul tell the Corinthians, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Corinthians 15:19)?

The resurrection of Jesus was, first, a vindication. It demonstrated that He was both sinless man and fully God. The apostle Paul explains that “sin came into the world through one man [Adam] and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Romans 5:12). Our inheritance from Adam is not only physical existence but spiritual death. A morally perfect man, set in a flawless, sin-absent environment, deliberately chose to rebel against his Creator. He was a “test case,” humanity’s representative before God. In other words, Adam demonstrated that inevitably, all would sin and, therefore, God rightly judged us all in him.  From our first father, we have inherited a tainted nature, an insistent pulling away from our Maker.

Through Adam, then, we also inherit death, both temporal and eternal. “The wages of sin” — the appropriate payment for our evil and evil-doing – “is death” (Romans 6:23a). If this is the case, and if there is nothing we can do to satisfy God’s just demand for moral perfection, we are unavoidably doomed.

So, then, in what way was Jesus’s resurrection a vindication? Had He not been morally perfect, He would have remained in the tomb. But if death is the fruit of sin, then the Sinless One could not but be raised. His resurrection proves His perfection. Christ is the “second Adam,” the One Who did not fail the lifelong test of complete obedience to the Father (I Corinthians 15:45). And, of course, as fully God in human flesh, death had no hold on Him. Jesus Himself declared, “No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18).

Second, Jesus’s resurrection was a victory — indeed, the greatest and most comprehensive victory in the history of the universe. Part of this victory was the Lord Jesus’s triumph over the author of death, “that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray” (Revelation 12:9). On the cross, Christ “became sin for us” (II Corinthians 5:21), on our behalf experiencing the full and righteous rage of the Father against all human sin. Having taken the penalty for our sin, He said, “It is completed,” a reference to the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah.

Put simply, Jesus won: He defeated death. He defeated Satan and his forces. He fulfilled His Messianic mission. By His atoning death on a Roman cross, the eternal debt of punishment we owe an infinitely holy God was “paid in full.” By deciding to place our trust in Christ alone, believing that His substitution for us on the cross met completely the demand of the Father that payment be made for our deep moral sickness, we can experience new and eternal life in His presence. This is the new, second birth. Paul puts it much better than me:

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses … God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him” (Colossians 2:13-15).

Finally, the resurrection of Jesus was vibrant. Our word “vibrant” comes from a Latin term referring to something being shaken back and forth. It was a metaphor for energy and life and vitality. So with the resurrection of Jesus: “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God” (Romans 6:9-10). This is why those who have been born a second time can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4), our sins forgiven, our hope sure, our joyous eternal destiny awaiting us.

We still live in a world where the ugly taint of sin permeates. All who have lost loved ones, who themselves are suffering, who know disappointment and betrayal, trauma, and pain, long for the day when all things will be made new. Yet even in our experience of time and fallenness, we can still rejoice. The vaporous life we now know has been “swallowed up in victory” — Christ’s and, through Him, ours.

This is why Jesus could say, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer — I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). In Him, in His resurrection from the dead, so have we.

He is risen — He is risen indeed!

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Gun Groups Sound Alarm About New DOJ ‘Red Flag’ Law Center

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Gun groups are sounding the alarm about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) new center aimed at helping states enforce red flag laws.

The DOJ launched its National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center on Saturday to offer assistance to law enforcement officials, social services providers and others who implement red flag laws, which permit judges to temporarily strip individuals deemed a risk to themselves or others of their ability to possess firearms. The center, which will be run by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, was started with a $2 million DOJ grant funded through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) passed in 2022, according to the White House.

“Red flag laws are inherently a violation of the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments because they allow for the confiscation of legal firearms from law-abiding citizens without due process based on anonymous accusations,” the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Thus, they have no place in American Jurisprudence.”

President Joe Biden and the DOJ will use the center to “continue their abuse of the constitutional rights of all Americans,” NAGR said.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the center’s announcement that it was “the latest example of the Justice Department’s work to use every tool provided by the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to protect communities from gun violence.”

“The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others,” Garland said.

Twenty-one states, along with the District of Columbia, have passed ERPO laws, according to the DOJ’s press release.

NAGR Vice President Ryan Flugaur told the Daily Caller News Foundation his organization blames Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who led Republican negotiations on the bill, for the “mess.” Flugaur said it should stop Cornyn from becoming the next Republican Senate leader.

Fifteen Senate Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the BSCA in 2022.

Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston told the DCNF the office was “being created simply to pressure and bribe states into adopting these laws in exchange for more federal money.”

“For example, Michigan enacted a gun confiscation law within a few months of receiving a Cornyn-Murphy ‘grant.’” he said. “The People should demand their state lawmakers push back and never sell out your rights for 30 pieces of silver.”

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the state’s red flag bill into law in May 2023. The state was awarded a $7,945,884 DOJ grant in February 2023 “to help combat gun violence and enhance behavioral health and crisis care programs,” which was made possible through the BSCA.

Thirty-three members of Congress, led by Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall and Republican West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney, alleged in a letter last July that the DOJ illegally gave grant money to states that did not have red flag laws to “create and implement extreme risk protection order programs.”

“Every single ‘red flag’ gun confiscation law in the United States lacks due process because the government can convene a hearing and take your firearms away without you or your attorney ever being present to counter the claims being made,” Johnston told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Gun Owners Of America Comes Out Swinging Against John Cornyn After He Announced Bid For Senate Leader

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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