Tag Archive for: jihad

Parents of Americans Held in Gaza: ‘We Are All Hostages of Hamas’

They know the underground of the U.S. Capitol like the back of their hands. “I have walked more distance in these corridors than I have in my own house,” Ronen Neutra says wistfully. “I can’t believe this is our life.” The 135 days since her son was taken hostage by Hamas have been a sleepless nightmare. “We don’t have day and night,” she admitted. “… It all becomes very blurry to us.” And like the other five American families waiting for word about their loved ones, there’s no end in sight.

Omer was just 22 when he was pulled out of his IDF tank by terrorists and marched to Gaza. A dual citizen who grew up in New York City, he was born just a month after 9/11 — the last time the world was rocked by such unspeakable evil. Omer decided to join the Israel Defense Forces during his gap year before college in the U.S. He picked the tank brigade because he heard “it was among the army’s toughest jobs.”

His unit was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades, the Neutras pieced together from online videos and information from the two governments. That’s when his fate became linked to Edar Alexander, another American-Israeli citizen, who grew up a short train ride from Manhattan. At just 20, he decided to join Garin Tzabar, which trains young people from around the world who want to join the IDF. He was assigned to the infantry at the same base, one month before the attack. Not far from Omer’s tank, the young 20-year-old was surrounded by Hamas militants, standing alone with his rifle.

Now, the two families, who lived a handful of miles apart in New York, are linked by something far more tragic: the unknown fate of their sons. Almost every week, The New York Times reports, the families are on a plane to either Washington or Israel, meeting with international leaders. There’s no certainty that Omer or Edar — two of the six remaining American hostages — are even alive. Of the 130 hostages still in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal estimates that at least 50 may be dead.

“Every day has been like five days,” Orna tells reporters. Friday nights, Shabbat, are the hardest. That’s when she and her husband Ronen, both children of Holocaust survivors, would video chat with Omer at his army base. With hope they don’t feel, the families bought “new, larger dining room tables” for happier times when they’re all reunited. Willing him to be okay, the Neutras even flew to Israel to rent an apartment so that Omer will have a place to go when he’s released. “We wanted to create the reality that he is coming home very soon,” she said.

They wait, fear, and prepare for a reunion they pray will come. At rally after rally, Orna reads a variation of the same words, “We miss your laugh, and your beautiful smile, so, so much, Edani,” While they try not to think about what Omer and Edar are enduring at the hands of Hamas, both sets of parents can’t help but worry. “We are very fearful,” Ronen told The Daily Caller, “130 days without a sign of life, without knowing his medical condition, without any medical crew — including the Red Cross — allowed to go and visit him and the rest of the hostages. Who knows what his condition is? We have no idea … So how should we feel? I don’t know. I mean, we are very fearful, very nervous.”

But honestly, he said, “We don’t have time to think about ourselves and feel pity about the situation, or anything else for the most part.” Their sole focus is spending every waking second working to bring their sons home.

While the rest of America goes about its days, the Neutras and Alexanders try to keep the government focused on the innocents 5,600 miles away. As recently as last Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that the U.S. is “working intensely with Egypt, with Qatar, on a proposal to bring about their release.” He talked about meeting with the families like Ronen and Orna’s. “The agony that they face … — not knowing the fate of their loved ones — is beyond our imaginations.”

Just as torturous, they admit, is watching the world turn on Israel — their one hope for eliminating the terrorists. Omer’s dad argues, “Get rid of Hamas and give us back our hostages [and] Israel will stop immediately.” Until then, he lamented, “It feels like Hamas is holding hostage the whole Western world. “They’re holding onto our kid. We are definitely hostages. And everyone’s hands are tied…”

Right now, Israeli leaders say, Hamas’s demands are “delusional.” “We want a deal very much and we know we need to pay prices,” a former IDF commander told CNN over the weekend. “But Hamas’s demands are disconnected from reality.”

Past negotiations were not executed in good faith, they point out. In other deals, Hamas promised to deliver medicine to the hostages, only for IDF soldiers to find those medications untouched “with the names of Israeli hostages on them” during the rain on Nasser Hospital.

To the people who say Israel should just back off and leave Gaza alone, Ronen and Orna say it’s time for the world to learn some history and the longtime “abuse of power by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.” “Israel has been fighting for its survival since [its founding]…” Orna insisted. “They still need to fight for their survival,” Orna told the Daily Caller. “Take the time and look at the issues before you take a stance on them.”

The important thing is for Israel to ignore the naysayers, focus on the job at hand, and eliminate Hamas. “It’s time,” Ronen urged. “It’s so urgent [for the hostages]. Every day that there is a delay in reaching a deal is putting a death sentence on some of them.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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.

Nigerian bishop says Muslim attacks on Christians are ‘very definition’ of genocide

No Jews are involved, however, and so no one cares.


Is the Persecution in Nigeria a Christian Genocide? This Bishop Says ‘Yes’.

by Peter Pinedo, CNA, January 30, 2024:

Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Nigeria shared details of the worsening persecution of Christians in Nigeria, accusing members of the government there of being complicit in what he called a Christian “genocide” and an erasure of the Christian presence from the country.

Bishop Anagbe, who leads the Makurdi Diocese, warned that if greater action is not taken he believes the Christian population, which currently numbers over 86 million, roughly half of the total Nigerian populace, could disappear entirely in the next few decades.

Though the Nigerian Christian population is massive and is known as having some of the most devoted faithful in the world, Bishop Anagbe said the Christian presence in Nigeria is “gradually and systematically” being reduced by radical Islamists through “killings, kidnappings, torture, and burning of churches.”

In the last decade alone, since taking up the leadership of his diocese in Nigeria’s central Benue state, the bishop said that he has lost 160 churches because of attacks that he said are being perpetrated by radical members of a Muslim tribe known as the Fulani.

Bishop Anagbe is in Washington, D.C., this week to bring attention to the crisis in Nigeria and to participate in the International Religious Freedom Summit, taking place Jan. 30–31.

He gave his remarks Tuesday morning at a breakfast in the House Rayburn Office Building. The event was organized by the papal relief group Aid to the Church in Need….

Some Western politicians and media outlets posit that the crisis in Nigeria has been brought on by climate change, which they say is forcing nomadic Fulani herdsmen to fight with Christian farmers over scarce land. Bishop Anagbe, however, condemned this narrative as “lies and propaganda.” He said that the Fulani terrorists are motivated by hatred of Christianity first and foremost.

Bishop Anagbe told CNA that the attacks, which often kill hundreds at a time, are “targeted at Christian Indigenous groups in Nigeria” as “a way of eliminating this group of people who have the same faith from different places.” This, he said, is the very definition of a religious genocide.

“I keep asking how many mosques have been attacked versus Catholic churches? How many pastors and reverend fathers have been kidnapped versus imams?”

“They’re doing this systematically,” he said. “When you eliminate people who are not confrontational to you, who didn’t provoke you, and there’s no war, it’s an agenda they have to do.”

The agenda, Bishop Anagbe said, is the “extermination” of Christianity from Nigeria.

Read more.

AUTHOR

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

GOP Reps Mock DOD Special Ops Office For Hosting Talk On ‘Far-Right’ Domestic Terrorism

  • GOP lawmakers said the Pentagon shouldn’t be focusing on domestic terrorism while an alleged Iranian influence agent holds a high-ranking position in an exclusive statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.
  • The DCNF previously reported the DOD agency overseeing special operations held a book talk on “far-right” domestic terrorism in the U.S.
  • The office “is supposed to be focused on deterring future attacks by Iranian-backed terrorist proxies, not employing an acolyte of the regime,” Republican Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Elise Stefanik of New York told the DCNF.

Two prominent GOP representatives mocked the Pentagon for hosting a book talk on domestic right-wing extremism in the same office where an alleged Iranian influencer holds a high-ranking position, according to a statement provided exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.

The Department of Defense (DOD)’s Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) office, which oversees global special operations, invited two experts to discuss their new book on far-right terrorism in the U.S. for all staff who wanted to join on Tuesday, screenshots obtained by the DCNF reveal. The event highlighted the DOD’s unfounded focus on far-right extremism while ignoring other threats, Republican Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Elise Stefanik of New York told the DCNF.

“Joe Biden’s woke Department of Defense (DoD) wasted $900,000 of taxpayer dollars on a baseless witchhunt to root out ‘Far Right extremism’ in the military and paid Leftist professors to speak on the subject yet took no action against an employee who is a known agent of Iranian extremism,” they said.

Ariane Tabatabai, the chief of staff in SO/LIC, was recently investigated for ties to an Iranian influence network. Tabatabai served as a founding member of the Iran Experts Initiative, a group of U.S. analysts who reportedly cooperated with the Islamic regime to promote Tehran’s preferred perspective of the threatening nuclear program while negotiations on a nuclear deal were ongoing.

“SO/LIC is supposed to be focused on deterring future attacks by Iranian-backed terrorist proxies, not employing an acolyte of the regime. Enough with the woke politics – the DoD should focus on deterring future attacks against American troops,” they said.

The invitation for Tuesday’s event appeared to go out via email to “all” staff of SO/LIC, the screenshots show. Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Jacob Ware, a research fellow at CFR, were scheduled to present their book, which purports to trace right-wing domestic terrorism through U.S. history, characterizing the Ku Klux Klan and some groups involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots seeking to reverse the 2020 election as part of the same narrative.

The KKK was a vehicle for southern Democrats to resist the Republican Party reconstruction policies, according to History.com. None of the Jan. 6 rioters have been convicted on domestic terrorism laws.

“Serious acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the book synopsis, which was also included in the email, read.

The Pentagon initiated a stand-down after the Jan. 6 riots and ordered a review of extremism present within the ranks of U.S. military personnel.

But a DOD-funded study released in December found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military was disproportionate to the number in the general population, and most of the few service members charged for engaging in prohibited extremist activity included evidence of violent action or plans for violent action. Despite two years of work, the Pentagon failed to understand domestic extremism and likely inflated the issue, to the possible detriment of cohesion within the ranks.

The office said the event was the first in what was intended to be a series of events featuring guest speakers on a variety of topics, the screenshots show.

The Pentagon did not respond to the DCNF’s previous request for explanation of how approved the event and why. It did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment Thursday on the lawmakers’ statements.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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Meet Linda Tigani, NYC’s Anti-Semitic Director of the Commission on Racial Equity

Linda Tigani is the latest bureaucrat to be rising high in the diversity-equity-inclusion racket (NYC Division). She was recently appointed by New York Mayor Eric Adams to direct the city’s Commission on Racial Equity. When it comes to Jews her presumed commitment to “diversity-equity-inclusion” seems to evanesce.  She has quite a history, caught on videos proudly uploaded to social media, of urging, chanting, shouting at rallies “from the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free,” which means, of course, that the one tiny Jewish state must disappear, to be replaced by a 23rd Arab one. More on Linda Tigani can be found in a story from late October; unfortunately, since then nothing has changed.

New head of NYC racial equity commission has spewed antisemitic rhetoric

by Matthew Sedacca and Deirdre Bardolf, New York Post, October 28, 2023

Mayor Eric Adams’ new appointee to lead the city’s Commission on Racial Equity, Linda Tigani, has posted antisemitic messages for years, The Post has found.

Her views on the Israel-Palestine war aren’t so equitable.

Mayor Eric Adams’ new appointee for chair and executive director of the city’s Commission on Racial Equity has a history of spewing antisemitic rhetoric.

Linda Tigani, who raked in $143,938 in fiscal year 2022 as acting chief equity and strategy officer for the city Health Department, has repeatedly shared posts on X that include the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which is call by Hamas terrorists and their anti-Israel backers for the eradication of the Jewish state.

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA! PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!!” Tigani wrote in a July 1, 2020, post, which also included a clip from the “Day of Rage” rally in Brooklyn, where protesters reportedly chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” in Arabic in response to Israel announcing plans to annex parts of the West Bank.

Tigani shared a video of a Palestinian artist and cook, along with a variant on the antisemitic phrase again in a November 2022 post, writing “Beautiful. From the River to the Sea #PalestineWillBeFree.”

Tigani has also shared a slew of posts highlighting Israeli attacks on Palestinians earlier this year.

The city’s appointed leader of its new Commission on Racial Equity has repeatedly posted antisemitic messages on social media.X @LindaTigan

Tigani has also championed Palestinians in the Middle Eastern conflict on her Facebook page, with her banner image currently reading “Free Gaza!!! Ethiopian for Palestine.”

Read more.

Gaza has been “free” of Israelis since 2005, when every last Israeli, of some 8,500 who had been living in Gaza, left the Strip. Within two years, the Gazans were most unfree, suffering under the barbaric rule imposed by Hamas, the terror group which has ruled Gaza ever since. The people of Gaza owe their impoverishment to two things. First, the leaders of Hamas, most of whom are now living in five-star hotels in Doha, Qatar, watching the fighting from a safe distance, have long been engaged in the massive theft of aid money. Mousa Abu Marzouk has a fortune of $3 billion, Khaled Meshal has $4 billion, and Ismail Haniyeh has $4 billion. Just three Hamas leaders have helped themselves to eleven billion dollars. Second-echelon figures in Hamas have not been idle, either; they have grabbed a few million dollars apiece.

The second explanation for the wretchedness of life in Gaza is that the billions that were not stolen by Hamas leaders were spent, not on the wellbeing of ordinary people, but on buying weapons and constructing more than 1,300 tunnels that are 311 miles in total length, more than half the total length of the New York City subway system.

“Ethiopian for Palestine” writes Linda Tigani. This is Tigani’s quaint way to signal that she is Afro-American. She doesn’t realize, of course, that the only Ethiopians who may right now be in Gaza are not fighting “for Palestine.” They are Ethiopian Jews, Falashas, fighting in the IDF to protect the people and state of Israel.

Tigani has yet to post publicly on her social media accounts in the wake of Hamas slaughtering 1,400 people in Israel on Oct. 7….

Now that her antisemitic posts from the past have been revealed, she is likely to be very careful not to add more incriminating posts. I expect that from now on she will maintain a discreet silence about Israel and the Palestinians. But she’s left ample proof of her deep anti-Israel animus —and some would say, of her antisemitism.

Tigani and City Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

What can she say? More importantly, what will Mayor Adams do now? When he appointed her, he was unaware of Tigani’s bigotry. I think he’ll do the only thing a sensible person can do, and fire her from her new job as Director of the Commission on Racial Equity. Don’t worry about Linda Tigani. Al Jazeera may well snap her up as a commentator on “Racism in America.” Or she could write a column for the Tehran Times. Or she could become an English-language journalist for the Palestinian News Agency Wafa. She’ll land on her feet, this Linda Tigani. Such people always do.

AUTHOR

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

Bethlehem Church Makes Christmas All About Hating Israel

Christmas used to be the season of joy, hope, and renewal, but all that is so pre-October 7. The new Christmas spirit is one of lies, rage, and hate. In that new spirit of the woke twenty-first century victimhood Christmas, the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem has set out a figure of the baby Jesus not in the traditional cradle in a manger, but surrounded by rubble meant to indicate buildings destroyed by the Israelis. Because nothing says Christmas more beautifully than hating Jews, right?

According to a Religion Unplugged report, the Rev. Dr. Munther Ishaq, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, explained: “This is what Christmas looks like in Palestine.” The report adds that “his crèche featuring building debris was a gesture of solidarity with Gaza’s beleaguered civilians caught between Hamas gunmen and Israeli Defense Forces.”

The Religion Unplugged report by Gil Zohar makes no mention of the fact that Gaza’s citizens are “beleaguered” because of Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians on Oct. 7. Instead, it presents the plight of Bethlehem’s Christians as entirely the fault of the terrible Israelis. Ishaq, whom Zohar further identifies as a “Palestinian theologian,” laments: “Christmas celebrations are canceled this year — for it’s impossible to celebrate Christmas while our people in Gaza are going through a genocide. Usually, it’s Jesus in the manger surrounded by the shepherds, surrounded by the Holy Family Joseph and Mary and the magi who came from the east.”

There is no indication that Zohar challenged Ishaq for his fantastically libelous claim that Israel is carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza. The source for the generally accepted casualty figures in Gaza is the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas. To take their figures at face value would be akin to trusting the word of Josef Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry for information about the conduct of World War II. Hamas has a vested interest in exaggerating the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, because it knows how effectively civilian casualties turn international opinion against Israel.

In service of that goal, Hamas has lied repeatedly. On Oct. 19, for example, the total casualty number increased by 307, from 3,478 to 3,785. Yet at the same time, the total number of children killed went from 853 to 1,524, an increase of 671. Nor was that the only time such a thing happened. On Oct. 26, the total number of casualties increased by 481, while the number of children casualties went up by 626. Clearly, the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza is not too concerned that people will study these numbers closely; the idea is simply to shock and appall people with Israel’s alleged inhumanity, and that is working well enough.

Munther Ishaq is not in Gaza at all, as Bethlehem is in Judea and Samaria, now known as the West Bank. But he nevertheless wanted to claim some coveted victim status for himself and his congregation. “Here we wanted to say,” he explained about his crèche, “that it is as if they are looking for Jesus in the midst of the rubble. We wanted to send a message to the world – a message that while the whole world is celebrating Christmas in festive ways, here in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus where Christmas originated from, this is what Christmas looks like to us.” Zohar tells us that this craven cleric “preached against the IDF offensive from his pulpit at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the adjoining town of Beit Sahour,” but doesn’t say anything about his preaching against the Oct. 7 jihad murders.

Zohar adds that “the sermon followed the IDF’s strike on Gaza City’s oldest active church, the historic St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church. The bombing killed 18 people, injured others and displaced about 400 civilians who were taking shelter in the church complex.” He gives no hint, however, of what even the Washington Post, never a friend of Israel, reported: “The Israel Defense Forces said in an emailed statement that a strike targeting a Hamas control center ‘damaged the wall of a church in the area’ and that it was ‘aware of reports on casualties’ and was reviewing the incident. They declined to provide further information and reiterated, ‘It is important to clarify that the Church was not the target of the strike.’”

Undaunted by facts, secure in the knowledge that his distortions would go unchallenged, Ishaq also said: “Christmas is the solidarity of God with those who are oppressed, with those who are suffering, and if Jesus is to be born again, this time this year he will be born in Gaza under the rubble in solidarity with the people of Gaza.” He doesn’t explain how he reconciles Jesus’ own recorded words with the oft-repeated genocidal statements of Hamas leaders, or the Gazans’ enthusiastic support for Hamas. In the world that Ishaq and Zohar inhabit, the facts don’t matter, only the narrative does. And the hatred for Jews and Israel that narrative is designed to elicit.

AUTHOR

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

VIDEO: The Road To October 7 – Education For Jihad And Martyrdom

Palestinian Authority | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 558

This extensive collection of MEMRI TV clips exposes educational materials that encourage Palestinian and Muslim youth to wage jihad and to become martyrs, in the spirit of Islamic fundamentalism. These materials are taught at kindergartens, schools, and other educational settings, as well as by mothers and fathers at home, by religious scholars, in mosques, and by political leaders in various settings.

To view this collection below:

AUTHOR

Yigal Carmon

Yigal Carmon is Founder and President of MEMRI.

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

Goodness, What an Unpleasant Little Creature This Greta Thunberg Turns Out to Be

Greta Thunberg has been commenting on the climate conference just held in Dubai. Her appalling remarks can be found here: “Greta Thunberg slams COP28 climate deal and Israel, waves Palestinian flag,” by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman, Jerusalem Post, December 17, 2023:

Thunberg, 20, has been “standing with Gaza” since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, not only on social media but also at rallies. She was recently filmed chanting “crush Zionism” at a pro-Palestinian rally in Sweden.

When Greta Thunberg slams the COP28 climate deal and Israel, while she waves the Palestinian flag and cries “crush Zionism,” does she have any idea that Israel is, climate-warningly speaking, on the side of the angels, and the Arabs on the side of the devils? I doubt that Thunberg is aware that Israeli scientists have made their tiny country a leader in solar technology, and Israeli solar companies work on projects all over the world; the Jewish state has done more to help the world move away from fossil fuels than all 22 members of the Arab League combined. But it probably would have no effect; Ms. Thunberg has made up her mind: Israel is the oppressor, the Palestinians are the oppressed, and there’s an end on’t. Please don’t try to confuse her with facts.

Goodness, what an unpleasant little creature this Thunberg turns out to be. She’s not for a “two-state solution.” She’s not for a “ceasefire.” No, she wants to “crush Zionism,” which means she wants to put paid — violently — to the tiny Jewish state. And what about the Israeli Jews? Oh, they can scatter to the winds. Why should she care? She’s saving the world.

It takes a moral idiot to “stand with Gaza,” which means “stand with Hamas,” when that same Hamas has just provided the world with a catalogue of horrors. Hamas, the terror group that Greta Thunberg stands with, on October 7 had 3,000 of its operatives swarm into Israeli kibbutzim, where they killed more Jews than had been killed at any time since the Holocaust. But it was not simple killing. No, it was diabolical in its insensate cruelty. Hamas operatives beheaded babies, burned children alive, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered young girls, sliced the breasts off women, gouged out the eyes, and cut off the genitalia off men, murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, sliced open the stomach of a pregnant woman, pulled out the fetus before killing the mother. They videotaped each other, as they raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered. They called home, to excitedly tell their proud parents that “I killed ten Jews with my own hands!” These are the people Greta Thunberg is “standing with” when — after October 7 — she “stands with Gaza.”

“The final outcome of #COP28 is not a ‘historic win,’” Thunberg tweeted. “It is yet another example of extremely vague and watered-down texts full of loopholes that in no way is even close to being sufficient for staying within the 1.5° limit and ensuring climate justice.

“Phasing out fossil fuels is a bare minimum,” she wrote in the three-part thread. “We need drastic immediate emission cuts and binding commitments from the largest contributors of [sic]the climate crisis to finance loss and damages, adaptation and a just transition in the most affected areas.”…

Running off at the mouth, is Greta Thunberg. It’s all very well, what she says — she’s asking for the moon and sixpence — but she’s like the Miss America contestant who solemnly tells the judges that when she is not reading Camus and Dostoyevsky, she is “working for world peace” and hopes “to achieve it by the time I’m thirty.” Thunberg offers a wish list — and so can I, and so can any man — but not a single hint as to how her desired climate future will come about. She wants a “phasing out of fossil fuels.” Okay. But which ones in what order? By what date? And to be replaced by what other sources of energy? How do we choose between, say, nuclear power and solar energy? Or solar and wind? Questions, Greta, questions you are incapable of answering..

And why is it, Greta Thunberg, that you did not discuss the real obstacle at the COP28 meeting — the opposition of the Arabs to anything less vague than that adopted promise “to transition away from fossil fuels” in a “just, equitable, and orderly manner”? Or are these mere “details” too trivial for Greta Thunberg, World’s Greatest Authority, to think about?

In October, she posted a photo on X in which she and her friends held signs like “Free Palestine,” “Stand with Gaza,” “This Jew Stands with Palestine,” and “Climate Justice Now.” After that post, the Education Ministry said it would remove any mentions of the climate activist as a “role model” from the nation’s public school curriculum.

Good for the Swedish Education Ministry, that has determined that her anti-Israel remarks disqualify her from being held up as someone for schoolgirls to emulate. Keep on saving the world, Greta. Stick to that. You’ll do less damage that way. And for god’s sake, leave little Israel, now fighting for its survival, alone.

AUTHOR

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RELATED VIDEO: This Week In Jihad with David Wood and Robert Spencer

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

Life-Size Nativity Scene Figures Beheaded

On Sunday night, all the nativity figures were decapitated: Joseph, Mary, the Three Wise Men and even the donkey.

Life-size nativity figures beheaded in the migrant stronghold of Rüsselsheim, Germany

By: Medforth, December 18, 023;

Attack on the life-size nativity scene in the city of the Opel car. On Sunday night, all the nativity figures were decapitated: Joseph, Mary, the Three Wise Men and even the donkey.

The people of Rüsselsheim are shocked: the nativity scene is located at the Protestant market church in the heart of the city, right next to the town hall, during the Advent season. The figures of the Holy Family with Jesus are life-size. Surrounded by two Christmas trees. Donated by the Rüsselsheim Trade Association 1888 e.v.!

But on the morning of December 17, the nativity scene looks like a battlefield. All the figures have had their heads cut off. Joseph has been kicked over, Mary beaten away. Jesus is first missing, later found under the rubble.
The trade association tries to play down the incident: “Unknown perpetrators have obviously allowed themselves a macabre joke and cut off the heads of the figures.”

This does not necessarily make the situation any better for the trade association. The situation is beginning to flare up in Rüsselsheim. A local resident told the newspaper BILD: “A joke is when you can laugh about it. What’s funny about beheading Mary and Joseph?”

People on the Internet are also stunned by the violence directed at the nativity scene. People are angry at the perpetrator(s). One person posted on Instagram under the trade association’s publication: “It’s a barbaric act! Criminal offences must not be trivialised.”

Some figures had their heads chopped off in 2021 and 2022. There were no such incidents in the many decades before that.

The trade association comments: “Despite the regrettable incident, we would like to try to face this situation with humour (…) We see this ‘headless night’ as an opportunity to stand together and bring light into the darkness.”

The police will bring light into the darkness. A spokesperson confirmed to BILD that charges have been filed and investigations are already underway – including into a religiously motivated offence.

Read more.

AUTHOR

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

Empire State Building Honors Country That Was Involved in 9/11

“Even Osama bin Laden was allowed to pass through Qatar.”

After Islamic terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, the Islamic terror state responsible for saving the mastermind of the attack bought 10% of the city’s surviving major skyscraper

Now, the Empire State Building is bowing to its Qatari masters.

Here’s a section of the 9/11 Commission Report which addresses the Qatari role in 9/11.

(Ramzi) Yousef (one of the key figures in the World Trade Center bombing) was captured in Pakistan following the discovery by police in the Philippines in January 1995 of the Manila air plot, which envisioned placing bombs on board a dozen trans-Pacific airliners and setting them off simultaneously. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—Yousef’s uncle, then located in Qatar—was a fellow plotter of Yousef’s in the Manila air plot and had also wired him some money prior to the Trade Center bombing. The U.S. Attorney obtained an indictment against KSM in January 1996, but an official in the government of Qatar probably warned him about it. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed evaded capture (and stayed at large to play a central part in the 9/11 attacks)

The 9/11 Commission Report is a bit cagey about specifics, but there were news reports that went into more detail.

American officials say the FBI and CIA just missed capturing the al Qaeda leader believed to have organized the 9/11 attacks — and now believed to be planning a new attack against Americans — because it appears he was protected and tipped off by a member of the royal family in Qatar, Abdullah Bin Khalid al-Thani.

In 1996, the FBI tracked Mohammed, under indictment on charges of terrorism, to Qatar’s capital city, Doha, and was within hours of capturing him.

Cloonan, who was the lead FBI agent on the case, said a specially equipped government executive jet, complete with blacked-out windows, was standing by to transport Mohammed.

“We had located Khalid Sheikh,” Cloonan told ABCNEWS. “We were prepared to fly the plane in and to take him out.”

But Cloonan says Mohammed was tipped off shortly after Qatar officials were told of the plan and headed for the airport.

The FBI then wrote a stern letter to Qatar after the Clinton administration nixed a plan to just grab KSM.

The C.I.A. officer believed, however, that if the United States officially asked for the assistance of the Qatar government, Mr. Mohammed would be tipped off, since it appeared that he was living in Doha under the government’s protection.

Back in Washington, counterterrorism officials at the National Security Council said they shared that worry. Senior counterterrorism officials already knew about the past support for Islamic extremists by one Qatar official, Sheik Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, Qatar’s minister of religious endowments and Islamic affairs. This was the same official who had repeatedly allowed Arab extremists who had fought in Afghanistan to live on his farm.

White House officials agreed with the C.I.A. about the inadvisability of going directly to the Qatar government for help. So they began considering a plan to grab him secretly.

At the request of the N.S.C., the Pentagon developed a plan calling for the military to snatch Mr. Mohammed. That plan was taken to the Deputies Committee, an interagency group during the Clinton administration that was made up of high-ranking officials from major departments and agencies, including Justice, Defense, State and the N.S.C. But Pentagon had devised a plan on such a large scale that it was was rejected, according to former counterterrorism officials. The only alternative was to go to the Qatar government…

But Qatar never paid a significant diplomatic price for its support of Mr. Mohammed. About the only rebuke it received was a private one in the form of a stinging letter from Louis Freeh, then the F.B.I. director, to Qatar’s foreign minister.

One government minister is believed to have harbored as many as 100 Arab extremists — including many veterans of fighting in Afghanistan — on his farm in Qatar during the mid-1990’s. There have been reports that even Osama bin Laden was allowed to pass through Qatar.

These days, Qatar is in the headlines over its backing for Hamas, but it’s always been a state sponsor of terror. And yet it’s bought up so many of our political elites, that none of them dare to speak out against it.

After the Taliban betrayal and Oct 7, Qatar is still treated as an ally, rather than the enemy that it is, and Al Jazeera like a news organization instead of the terrorist propaganda network that it is.

A regime with ties to Al Qaeda, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood is getting the Empire State Building to shine its lights.

AUTHOR

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A Tight Embrace

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

Islamic scholar in 2018: Muslims have the right to capture infidel women and use them as sex slaves

This is what we have seen with Hamas, as from Boko Haram and the Islamic State. It shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). The Qur’an says that a man may have sex with his wives and with these slave girls: “The believers must win through, those who humble themselves in their prayers; who avoid vain talk; who are active in deeds of charity; who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or the captives whom their right hands possess, for in their case they are free from blame.” (Qur’an 23:1-6)

The rape of captive women is also sanctioned in Islamic tradition:

Abu Sirma said to Abu Sa’id al Khadri (Allah be pleased with him): O Abu Sa’id, did you hear Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) mentioning al-’azl? He said: Yes, and added: We went out with Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Bi’l-Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing ‘azl (Withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid conception). But we said: We are doing an act whereas Allah’s Messenger is amongst us; why not ask him? So we asked Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), and he said: It does not matter if you do not do it, for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born. (Sahih Muslim 3371)

It is also in Islamic law: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.” (Umdat al-Salik O9.13)

The Egyptian Sheikh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni declared in May 2011 that “we are in the era of jihad,” and that meant Muslims would take slaves. In a subsequent interview he elaborated:

Jihad is only between Muslims and infidels. Spoils, slaves, and prisoners are only to be taken in war between Muslims and infidels. Muslims in the past conquered, invaded, and took over countries. This is agreed to by all scholars—there is no disagreement on this from any of them, from the smallest to the largest, on the issue of taking spoils and prisoners. The prisoners and spoils are distributed among the fighters, which includes men, women, children, wealth, and so on.

When a slave market is erected, which is a market in which are sold slaves and sex-slaves, which are called in the Qur’an by the name milk al-yamin, “that which your right hands possess” [Koran 4:24]. This is a verse from the Qur’an which is still in force, and has not been abrogated. The milk al-yamin are the sex-slaves. You go to the market, look at the sex-slave, and buy her. She becomes like your wife, (but) she doesn’t need a (marriage) contract or a divorce like a free woman, nor does she need a wali. All scholars agree on this point—there is no disagreement from any of them. […] When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her.

Around the same time, on May 25, 2011, a female Kuwaiti politician, Salwa al-Mutairi, also spoke out in favor of the Islamic practice of sexual slavery of non-Muslim women, emphasizing that the practice accorded with Islamic law and the parameters of Islamic morality.

A merchant told me that he would like to have a sex slave. He said he would not be negligent with her, and that Islam permitted this sort of thing. He was speaking the truth. I brought up [this man’s] situation to the muftis in Mecca. I told them that I had a question, since they were men who specialized in what was halal, and what was good, and who loved women. I said, “What is the law of sex slaves?”

The mufti said, “With the law of sex slaves, there must be a Muslim nation at war with a Christian nation, or a nation which is not of the religion, not of the religion of Islam. And there must be prisoners of war.”

“Is this forbidden by Islam?” I asked.

“Absolutely not. Sex slaves are not forbidden by Islam. On the contrary, sex slaves are under a different law than the free woman. The free woman must be completely covered except for her face and hands. But the sex slave can be naked from the waist up. She differs a lot from the free woman. While the free woman requires a marriage contract, the sex slave does not—she only needs to be purchased by her husband, and that’s it. Therefore the sex slave is different than the free woman.”

In January 2016, a female al-Azhar professor stated that Allah allowed Muslims to rape non-Muslim women in order to humiliate them.

“Senior Saudi Islamic Scholar Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan In 2018: According To Islamic Law, Muslims Have The Right To Take Captive Women As Concubines And Have Sex With Them Even If They Are Married To An Infidel – Archival,” MEMRI, February 22, 2018:

Senior Saudi Islamic scholar Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan said in a lecture posted on February 22, 2018 on Min Aqwal Al-Ulama on YouTube that Muslim men have the right to keep women as concubines and have sex with them. He explained, that while Islam forbids having sex with a married woman, if she is a war captive, she is in the possession of the Muslim and he is permitted to keep her as a concubine, because her marriage contract to an infidel is annulled.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan: “The Muslims captured women in the [630] Battle of Awtas.

[…]

“They took from the [infidels] money and women as booty. The Companions of the Prophet Muhammad became confused. It was customary for the owners of women captured at war to take them as concubines. They have the right to take them as concubines and have sex with them, by virtue of possessing them. The possession of a captured woman outweighs her marriage contract. It allows the master to have sex with the woman he owns. This is called concubinage.

“But the Prophet’s Companions were confused, because Allah has made married women haram, and these women had infidel husbands. So Allah sent down the verse ‘married women except those you possess.’ When a woman is taken captive, her marriage contract to her [infidel] husband is annulled. If she is taken captive, she becomes property of the Muslims, and the infidel’s marriage contract with her is annulled. She becomes the property of the Muslim, and he can take her as a concubine.”

AUTHOR

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

Israel Targets Hamas Commanders as Terror Group’s Atrocities Are Exposed

Israeli forces surrounded the house of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza on Wednesday, demonstrating just how quickly they have advanced southward. “Our forces can reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The war is still far from over, with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant predicting two more months of major fighting, followed by “mop up” operations to “tak[e] out pockets of terrorist resistance.” But Israeli leaders “definitely feel that they’re racing against that clock because that pressure is mounting from all around the world,” even as further evidence of Hamas’s atrocities emerge, veteran war correspondent Chuck Holton said Thursday on “Washington Watch.”

The Israeli military is scoring military victories both high and low. Israel has begun flooding Hamas’s tunnel network in northern Gaza with seawater, with the dual aim of destroying military equipment and forcing Hamas fighters to come to the surface, Holton explained. So far, it has proved “a fairly effective strategy,” and the Israel Defense Force (IDF) is “taking prisoner many Hamas fighters who are giving themselves up,” he said.

By late November, the IDF had killed five senior Hamas military leaders, about half of the 11 depicted in a photo taken from a tunnel in northern Gaza. The IDF also believes it has “significantly degraded” at least 10 out of an estimated 24 Hamas battalions (of 1,000 or more fighters each) “by taking out midlevel commanders,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

“When they say they’re going to take out Hamas, … what they are planning to do is just destroy any infrastructure that could be used for military purposes, and to kill the leadership of Hamas and replace them with something that’s a little bit friendlier,” Holton explained.

The problem is, the IDF is finding that “the whole of Gaza has been militarized in some way, shape, or form,” said Holton. “The whole of Gaza is not a bunch of civilians in cities, with some military things sprinkled around there. It’s actually a giant military base with 2.5 million civilians living in it.” This means that, “in order to destroy Hamas’s capability to make war, … they may have to just raze the whole thing and start over. And obviously that would take a much, much longer campaign to accomplish.”

But Israel needs to achieve victory as soon as possible, said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch.” He pointed out, “you have the international community and the United Nations repeatedly saying we need a humanitarian ceasefire, which is essentially another name for allowing Hamas to regroup.” The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took the extraordinary step of forcing the Security Council to vote on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. vetoed the resolution on Friday afternoon, with 13 out of 15 members voting for the measure and the U.K. abstaining.

“Definitely, they feel that they’re racing against that clock because that pressure is mounting from all around the world,” Holton agreed.

“Also, the Biden administration is really starting to show its true face,” he added. “At the beginning, they were standing up and saying, ‘We stand with Israel, they have the right to defend themselves.’ And now they’re saying, ‘Israel, you cannot take longer than the first week of January to complete this.’ ‘We will not allow you to replace the government in Gaza with anything other than Palestinian people,’ etc., etc.”

On the other hand, “the Israeli leadership is saying, ‘Well, there’s one other group of people that has more power over us than you do. That’s our own electorate.’ And the voters here in Israel are saying, ‘Absolutely not. We are not going to put up with more Palestinian Authority in Gaza or anywhere else,’” said Holton. “Israel knows that the Israeli people are not going to let up the pressure on their own politicians until they accomplish this mission.”

“I would think, if I were in Israel, there is only one thing to do. That is, to eliminate this threat,” said Perkins. “As [the hostages] come back and discuss their treatment, and [as] more and more information comes out about what happened on October 7 — the atrocities, the brutality, just demonic activity.”

“They’re hoping to be able to free more of those hostages,” Holton offered. “They found out some absolutely terrible things from the hostages that were released during the ceasefire last week. And that is, that the vast majority of those women were raped, some of them many, many times, even while the bombs were falling around them, … and even some of the men.”

As Perkins met with members of Congress on Capitol Hill this week, he said he witnessed “many of them brought to tears by the reports that they got.” Members of Congress have screened a 43-minute video that features uncut footage of the events on October 7, taken either from surveillance cameras or by Hamas militants.

“Killing the leadership of Hamas as quickly as possible is [Israel’s] quickest route to some sort of victory that they can claim,” said Holton. “And the pressure that they’re putting on the civilian population is … actually helping the IDF, because now the civilian population is starting to understand that, if Hamas would just give themselves up and lay down their weapons, all of their suffering could end. And they’re starting to blame Hamas — rightly so — [rather] than to blame the Israelis.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 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.

The Rape, Butchering of Israeli Women

Genocide is what the Turks committed against the Armenians and the Nazis committed against the Jews.

Since October 7th, 2023 we have been in the presence of a crime without a name.

Read this article from The Wall Street Journal and explain to me why Israel should be sending humanitarian aid to the civilian population of Gaza which, if not stolen by the Hamas killers, will help many of the Gazan civilians who followed the Hamas terrorists on a rebarbative, grisly, subhuman and gleeful torture and killing spree of their own.

Explain that to me; explain that to me; can somebody damn well explain that to me?!

The Rape of the Israeli Women

Wall Street Journal

At first I didn’t understand. Among Hamas’s crimes of 10/7: little children and babies murdered, some burned to death; children forced to watch parents chased, beaten and shot. Old couples murdered in their homes; families who’d taken refuge in safe rooms burned out and killed. Hamas attempted to behead a kibbutz worker, and killed old women standing at a bus stop. Women were abused—raped, it seemed certain. But I didn’t understand why, from day one, the last received such emphasis. Defenders of Hamas kept demanding proof and claiming there was no evidence. It was as if they were saying: Sure we behead people and kill infants but raping someone, that’s crossing a line!

But now I understand what was done. It was grim and dreadful, but it was also systematic and deliberate. And since there’s going to be a lot of 10/7 trutherism—there already is—we have to be clear about what happened.

In the days after the attack, chaos reigned in the attack areas. At least 1,200 people had been murdered, their bodies scattered through kibbutzim and on the site of the Nova music festival. The crime scene was huge; the priority was identifying the dead and informing their families. Documentation of crimes was incomplete, forensic evidence not always recorded, evidence perishable. The testimony of witnesses, body collectors and morgue workers came in unevenly. It has built and is becoming comprehensive.

A stunning report appeared last weekend in London’s Sunday Times, by reporter Christina Lamb. Bar Yuval- Shani, a 58-year-old psychotherapist treating the families of victims, told Ms. Lamb she has been told by several witnesses of rape at the music festival. A police commander told Ms. Lamb, “It’s clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning, and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.” Ms. Lamb quotes Yoni Saadon, 39, a father of four and shift manager in a foundry who was at the music festival. He said he hid as a young woman was raped, and saw Hamas fighters capture another young woman near a car. “She was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her. They threw her to the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her.”

“We didn’t understand at first,” Ms. Lamb quoted Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a Hebrew University expert on international law, who heads a commission into the Hamas crimes. She said survivors arriving at hospitals weren’t asked about sexual abuse or given rape kits, but those who volunteered to collect bodies started reporting that many of the women were naked and bleeding from the genitals. The commander of a unit of a volunteer religious organization that collected the remains of the dead told Ms. Lamb they collected 1,000 bodies in 10 days from the festival site and the kibbutzim. “No one saw more than us. . . . It seemed their mission was to rape as many as possible.”

Israel Defense Forces sources told the paper that Hamas fighters caught in Gaza reported in police interrogations that they had been instructed by superiors to “dirty” and “whore” the women.

A few days after the Sunday Times report came one on the mounting evidence of violent sexual abuse from BBC correspondent Lucy Williamson. Several of those involved in collecting and identifying the bodies of the dead told the BBC that they had seen “multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears, and that the victims ranged from children and teenagers to pensioners.” Video testimony of an eyewitness to the music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, “detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim.” The BBC saw “videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack.”

The gallant gents of Hamas were filming their own war crimes.

Israeli police have privately shown journalists filmed testimony of a woman at the music festival. She describes Hamas fighters gang-raping a woman and then mutilating her. The last of her attackers shot her in the head. She said the men cut off parts of the woman’s body during the rape. In other videos, Ms. Williamson writes, women carried away by the terrorists “appear to be naked or semi-clothed.”

Reuters on Dec. 5 quoted an Israeli reservist who worked at a makeshift morgue. “Often women came in in just their underwear,” she said. “I saw very bloody genitals on women.” Reuters spoke to seven people, first responders and those dealing with the dead, who attested to the sexual violence. Reuters quotes written testimony from one volunteer, who said he saw dozens of dead women in shelters: “Their clothing was torn on the upper part, but their bottoms were completely naked.”

This Monday a meeting at the United Nations laid out proof of the violent abuse. In the New York Times, reporters Katherine Rosman and Lisa Lerer quoted the testimony of Simcha Greinman, a volunteer collector of remains at the kibbutzim. He said the body of one woman had “nails and different objects in her female organs.” A person’s genitals were so mutilated “we couldn’t identify if it was a man or a woman.” Other women had mutilated faces. The head of the International Crime Investigations Unit of the Israeli police was asked how many women were abused. He said, “I am talking about dozens.”

If half of this testimony is true, then what was done to the women at the music festival and in the kibbutzim wasn’t a series of isolated crimes. It happened at scale, as part of a pattern, and with a deliberateness that strongly suggests it was systematic. The rape, torture and mutilation of women looks as if it was part of the battle plan. Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon.

Why has the progressive left in the West, for two months now, been disbelieving, silent or equivocal about what Hamas did to women? One answer is that the progressive left hates Israel and feels whatever is done to Israelis is justified. Another is that the sick brutality of Hamas’s actions undercuts its position in the world, undercutting too the cause they falsely claim to represent, that of the Palestinian people. Why have women’s groups of the progressive left been silent? Because at bottom they aren’t for women; they are for the team.

All of this makes more remarkable the exchange between Dana Bash of CNN and Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle. Ms. Bash pressed Ms. Jayapal on why she wasn’t condemning what had been done to women on 10/7. Ms. Jayapal was evasive, tried to redirect, said rape is “ horrific” but “ happens in war situations.”

“However,” she said, “I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.”

Balanced? How do you balance a story like the horrors of Oct. 7? You don’t, you just find and tell the truth. Some stories don’t have two sides. This is one of them.

Why is it important? Because it happened. Because it reveals something about the essential nature of Hamas and reflects its ultimate political goals. Progressives admiringly quote Maya Angelou’s advice that when people show you who they are, believe them. Oct. 7 was Hamas showing you who they are. Believe them.

AUTHOR

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

Israeli Doctor Treating Released Hostages Suffering From ‘Unprecedented Level of Extremely Severe Abuse, We Have to Rewrite the Textbooks of Post-Trauma’

How does one see unimaginable depravity up close and not be forever marred by it?

Pediatrician treating freed hostages: Reports of their good condition are misleading

Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg provides new details about physical and psychological states of 19 children and seven women brought to Schneider Children’s Medical Center

By Renee Ghert-Zand, Times of Israel, 4 December 2023:

Dr. Yael Mozer-Glassberg, director of Israel’s pediatric liver transplantation service at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, has seen some difficult things in her 25-year career. However, nothing in her experience prepared her for treating Israeli hostages freed from Gaza after nearly two months in captivity.

“From the medical point of view, this was a terrible event. Reports that everyone is giving that the returnees are in more or less stable condition are not true,” Mozer-Glassberg.

Without breaching privacy about the conditions and experiences of specific hostages, she divulged in an online press conference Monday some new details.

Mozer-Glassberg is part of a team of six female physicians, as well as nutritionists, psychologists, and social workers who have attended to the 19 children, and seven women who were brought to Schneider after being released from Hamas captivity in a deal brokered by Qatar and Egypt with American backing.

On October 7, Hamas breached the border with Israel and attacked more than 20 towns, kibbutzim, and IDF bases. The onslaught resulted in terrorists murdering more than 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostage to Gaza.

Like dedicated teams at several other Israeli hospitals, Mozer-Glassberg and her colleagues began preparing as early as October 8 to provide initial treatment to returnees, using protocols created by the Health Ministry and the Welfare Ministry.

Mozer-Glassberg confirmed that the hostages Schneider received had lost 10-15 percent of their body weight. The statistic was similar to one shared by Prof. Itai Pessach at Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, where other freed hostages were brought.

“The hostages shared with us stories about how limited the food they were given was. If they were given food at all, it was sometimes only a cup of tea and a biscuit or a single dried date in the morning and rice in the evening,” Mozer-Glassberg recounted.
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In cases where siblings were alone without their parents, the older sibling would not eat until the younger one did. For all the hostages, access to drinking water was limited.

“The captors would inflict psychological terrorism on them by forcing them to eat everything given to them after their stomachs had shrunk and hunger pains diminished after having eaten nearly nothing for days,” Mozer-Glassberg said.

As a result of deprivation in Gaza, some hostages exhibited unexpected eating habits when reintroduced to proper nutrition at the hospital. The staff had been primed to prevent the undernourished returnees from overeating and succumbing to the dangerous Refeeding Syndrome. But instead, they ate very little of the wide variety of foods offered, some of them only consuming crumbs they pulled from pieces of bread.

“It wasn’t like what we prepared for,” Mozer-Glassberg said.

The doctor reported that with access to water so limited in captivity, the hostages cleaned themselves only a few times during their 50-plus days in Gaza. Some did not bathe at all.

“They returned with extremely deficient hygiene. I have never seen hygiene this bad,” Mozer-Glassberg said. “Their head lice was the worst I have ever seen. Even with five or six treatments, the lice were not gone.”

Read more.

AUTHOR

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

Palestinian poll shows overwhelming support for terrorism, and suggests that international attention is misplaced

An extraordinary survey of Palestinians shows widespread popular support for the Hamas massacres of October 7, with nearly all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank feeling a sense of national pride since the attack.

The Arab World for Research and Development sociological center, or AWRAD, published the results on November 14 from its offices in Ramallah, West Bank. The main findings reveal a strong sense of unity and high morale:

  • 75 percent of residents in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank support the massacres of October 7;
  • 98 percent feel pride as Palestinians in light of this terrorist attack;
  • only 9 percent believe that reaching a peaceful agreement with Israel is possible;
  • a mere 7 percent consider the possibility of coexistence between the Arab and Jewish peoples;
  • contrary to demands of Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, only 17 percent support a two-state solution;
  • nearly 75 percent support the creation of an Arab state “from the river to the sea,” meaning the physical destruction of the state of Israel;
  • almost 70 percent expect the continuation of war;
  • nearly 73 percent believe the Arabs will prevail;
  • only 3% think that Israel will emerge victorious.

The survey of 668 people was evenly conducted across the entire territory of the West Bank and Jerusalem. The conflict in Gaza limited the survey to Palestinians in Rafah, Khan Yunis, and Deir al-Balah, the southern and central parts of the territory.

Answers to questions, as a percentage of respondents:

Questions Sector Gaza West Bank Total
How much do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 7th? 63.6 83.1 75.0
Considering the ongoing events, do you feel a sense of pride as a Palestinian? 97.8 98.2 98.0
Now, has your commitment to a solution based on the restoration of historical Palestine as a final resolution increased? 66.4 74.4 71.1
Now, has your conviction in the possibility of achieving a peaceful solution with Israel increased?   9.0   9.2   9.1
Now, has your conviction in the possibility of coexistence between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples increased?   7.9   6.6   7.2
Do you support the solution of establishing one state or two states in the following formats:

Two-State Solution for Two Peoples

A Palestinian state from the river to the sea

 

 

22.7

70.4

 

 

13.3

77.7

 

 

17.2

74.7

Do you believe that Palestine or Israel will emerge victorious from this war?

Palestine

Israel

 

 

66.4

6.5

 

 

77.0

0.8

 

 

72.6

3.1

The overwhelming majority of those surveyed in Gaza and the West Bank rejected proposals expressed by Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden for the peaceful coexistence of Arab and Jewish states.

The survey also gives an idea of the levels of support among the population of Gaza and Ramallah for various current parties, terrorist groups, organizations, news media, and foreign countries. The United States and Israel rank dead last.

Positive assessment of the following parties/organizations/media/states, as a percentage of the number of respondents

Parties/Organizations/Media/States Sector Gaza West Bank Total
Al-Qassam Brigades 79.1 95.2 88.6
Islamic Jihad 71.9 92.9 84.2
Al-Aqsa Brigades 69.7 86.9 79.8
Hamas 59.6 87.7 76.0
Arabic media 37.5 56.0 48.4
Hizballah 44.1 45.8 45.1
Russia 34.7 43.0 39.5
China 35.3 33.2 34.4
Turkey 31.1 36.1 33.9
Iran 32.9 32.5 32.6
International Red Cross 26.7 27.8 27.3
Fateh, or Al-Fatah 18.4 26.6 23.2
Egypt 18.8 10.7 14.0
Jordan 13.0 11.5 12.1
Palestinian Authority   8.3 11.7 10.3
Western media 12.6   6.4   9.2
United Nations 14.8   5.1   9.1
EU   8.0   2.6   4.7
Saudi Arabia   1.4   4.1   2.9
UAE   1.5   3.3   2.5
UK   1.8   0.5   1.0
US   0.7   0.3   0.4
Israel   1.1   0.0   0.4

Among the Arabs of Gaza and Ramallah, Hamas ranks high but not at the top. In terms of the level of public support, other terrorist organizations –the al-Qassam Brigades, Islamic Jihad, and al-Aqsa Brigades – are at the top of the list.

Russia under Vladimir Putin enjoys support substantially higher than any Arab country in the survey. Qatar, which supports Hamas and other terrorist groups in addition to hosting a vital United States military facility, was not mentioned in the survey. Russia is also more popular than the Fateh Party, the old party of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, also known as Al-Fatah; and the wildly unpopular Palestinian Authority. Survey results show that Russia is more highly regarded than Islamist-run Turkey and Iran, and almost as popular as the Hezbollah terrorist group.

Conclusion

West Bank residents surveyed show markedly more support for violence and extremism than residents of Gaza, site of nearly all the combat during the conduct of the survey from October 31-November 7.

Survey results show that Hamas is far less popular in Gaza than the West Bank, and that three other terrorist groups are far more popular in both areas.

A conclusion to draw from the results is that international focus on Hamas and Gaza, and not on other terrorist groups and the people in the West Bank, is to miss the most crucial points of the latest war against Israel.

AUTHOR

Andrei Illarionov

Senior Analyst for Russian and European Affairs.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Muslim Lives Matter. Jewish Lives Don’t.

Attacks on Muslims and Jews are treated very differently.

On Nov 5, Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man, was killed at a pro-Israel rally in California.

A pro-Hamas protester had previously displayed a gun to intimidate the pro-Israel ralliers. While Kessler lay bleeding on the ground, the Muslim protesters chanted, “Hitler should’ve smashed you ” and threats of violence from Hamas. The media reported none of this, instead it described the killing of Kessler as an accident. Once the killer was arrested, CNN did not interview Paul’s friends, but quoted claims that his Muslim assailant was really a “man of peace.”

Few local officials, no state officials and certainly no one in the Biden administration said a word.

On November 25, three Arab Muslim men were shot in Burlington, VT, during a confrontation with Jason James Eaton, a mentally unstable Biden supporter described as “the hippie guy.”

Even though Eaton had denounced “Amerika” as “imperialist and corrupt,” was not Jewish, had no apparent interest in Middle East politics or Israel, politicians and the media without a single shred of evidence claimed that the wounded Muslim men who identified as ‘Palestinian’ had been targeted because of Israel’s campaign against Hamas and an imaginary ‘Islamophobia’.

Paul Kessler’s killer was not arrested at the scene and not arrested at all until ten days later. Bail was initially set for him at $1 million, which was cut to $50,000, and he’s out on the street.

Eaton was arrested by agents of the ATF, a federal agency, and is being held without bail. The FBI and “several other federal, state, and local agencies” are investigating the shooting of the three Muslim men. No such investigation was tracked for Kessler’s death in California.

While Biden did not comment on the killing of Paul Kessler, Biden issued a statement about the wounding of the Muslim men, declaring that, “there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America” implying without evidence that there had been some hateful motive in the altercation.

Kamala Harris, who had made no statement about Paul Kessler’s killing, even though it took place in her home state, claimed that “far too many people live with the fear that they could be targeted and attacked based on their beliefs or who they are.”

Governor Phil Scott, Senator Peter Welch, Senator Bernie Sanders, and numerous other public officials also issued statements. So did multiple senators who aren’t even from Vermont.

Sen. Welch condemned “hate and Islamophobia” and claimed that the “conflict in the Middle East have brought an alarming spike in Islamophobic incidents across the United States.”

The same media outlets which had minimized or ignored Paul Kessler’s death launched a full-court press promotional campaign for the Burlington shootings. NBC News deployed a ‘liveblog’ site to cover a few seconds of violence that quickly ended with Eaton’s arrest. NBC showed a photo of one of the Muslim men, who is 20 years old, as an 11-year-old boy.

NBC News provided a platform for the Muslim men and their Islamic allies to blame Israel for the shooting and promote the terrorist cause. This was not a privilege provided to the dozen black people shot in Chicago around the same time.

Brown University President Christina H. Paxson claimed, falsely and without evidence, that the shooting was “latest evidence of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian discrimination and hate spiraling across this country and around the world”. Despite that she was booed off the stage at a ‘vigil’ for not agreeing to boycott the Jewish State. Then a professor read a letter from the injured Muslim man claiming falsely that Israel would have shot him and left him to die.

The vast difference between how Paul Kessler’s killing and the wounding of the Muslim men were treated is a microcosm of the political bias and media narratives. The media rushed to cover the Burlington shootings, but rushed to cover up Paul Kessler’s death. Politicians issued statements about what happened to the Muslim men, but not about what happened to Paul.

The attack on Paul was indisputably motivated by hatred for Jews. It came in the context of support for the mass murder of Jews and chants about Hitler. Yet the media has refused to discuss any of that. It has however covered non-stop an altercation in which the motive is unclear as if it were demonstrably occasioned by hostility to Arabs, Muslims or “Palestinians.”

This is not anecdotal: it’s part of an ugly pattern of political and media double standards.

Since the Hamas massacres of Oct 7, there has been a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents and on campuses, 73% of Jewish and 44% of non-Jewish students described witnessing antisemitism. But those are just statistics. What does it look like on the ground?

On the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Museum of Tolerance screened footage of the Hamas atrocities, and was descended upon by a pro-terrorist mob that justified the violence. Members of the Jewish community were assaulted by the pro-Hamas mob. Neither the media nor local officials condemned one of the most brazen antisemitic campaigns in American history.

Mayor Karen Bass reposted a media report misleadingly describing a scene in which “two groups outside LA’s Museum of Tolerance” clashed and condemned “unacceptable violence” rather than the equivalent of the KKK showing up in a black neighborhood. No public officials to my knowledge issued a statement condemning an attack on a Holocaust museum on the anniversary of Kristalnacht. Some of those officials, including DA George Gascon, list endorsements from the hate groups behind the attack. Some of the leftists responsible have since targeted another Holocaust museum in the Los Angeles area with pro-terrorist rallies.

In another part of Los Angeles, Daniel Garcia, a leftist activist, broke into the home of a Jewish family and threatened to kill them, “because you are Jewish… Israel kill people.” As he was being arrested, he went on shouting, “Free Palestine” and “Brown Lives Matter”.

Despite his long history of leftist activism, which included working as a field organizer on the Bernie Sanders campaign and serving on the boards of multiple leftist groups, the official word was that he was suffering from mental illness. And that it was not a political act.

In reality, Garcia had a long history of posting anti-Israel material on social media. After being released, he went on posting it including videos from terrorists attacking Israel. His social media, with its BDS videos, Islamic propaganda, Norman Finkelstein clips and all the rest of it is easily publicly accessible. No one in the media has bothered to report on it. And it will stay that way.

The Left has not even broken ties with Garcia in the aftermath of his attack on a Jewish family.

Attacks on Jews and Muslims are treated very differently for political reasons. Unless the attacks on Jews are carried out by far-right perpetrators, they are ignored and buried. When they are carried out by Muslims or anti-Israel leftists, they’re covered up, not reported on.

A Muslim can kill a Jewish man in broad daylight and the media will try to minimize it. Leftists and Muslims can attack a Holocaust museum on the anniversary of one of the most infamous dates in the Holocaust, and politicians and the media will call it a “both sides” problem. And a Leftist calling for the murder of Jews and ‘free Palestine” can invade a Jewish family’s home and it will strictly be a local crime story. But when there is any incident involving Muslims, it automatically becomes front page news regardless of how little evidence there is to it.

Anything that bolsters the ‘Islamophobia’ narrative and the claim that Muslims are the victims is always in demand.

On Oct 23, Hesham A. Ayyad claimed that a driver hit him with a car while shouting, “kill all Palestinians,”and “long live Israel.” CAIR demanded that the police and the FBI “collect all the information they need to charge this individual with a hate crime.” Vox quickly picked it up. So did other media outlets. Police however found he had actually been beaten up by his brother.

Vox has yet to correct its story which still lists it among other “Islamophobic” crimes caused by Israel’s war against Hamas.

Why did Paul Kessler’s killer think he could get away with it? And why have there been so many open attacks on Jews, especially on college campuses, in the past month? Because politicians and the media have shown that some lives matter more than others. Jewish lives don’t matter.

Only Muslim lives do.

AUTHOR

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