The University of Maryland will allow an on-campus protest by the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine on the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed.
SJP hosted a similar event on campus Tuesday, the university’s second day of the semester. SJP set up 15,000 flags on campus to “honor the 150,000+ martyrs who have lost their lives within the past year.”
Although Hamas estimates 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the terror attack and Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, SJP used the larger figure of 150,000 because “the health ministry has been unable to keep count of the dead.”
“We are approaching 11 months of genocide against the Palestinians,” the University of Maryland SJP posted to Instagram. “It has been almost a full year of genocide and terror as death tolls continue to rise.”
“The zionist entity has committed some of the most egregious criminal acts of our century,” the group claimed.
Rabbi Israel told Jewish parents with students at the university, “We did voice our concerns with senior UMD leadership” and “apprised them of the emotional load SJP’s callous behavior will bear on our Jewish community if they protest on the greatest Jewish day of mourning and tragedy since the Holocaust.”
The University of Maryland SJP chapter did not respond to a Daily Wire request for comment. The university did not provide SJP’s application materials for the event or a justification for allowing the event.
Gerard Filitti of the Lawfare Project, which fights campus anti-Semitism, demanded the university cancel the event. Filitti, a lawyer, claimed the event violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
“No campus should permit SJP or any similar organization to hold any kind of event on October 7th,” he said. “Would any university allow a student organization to burn crosses on its campus to celebrate the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.? To celebrate the anniversary of 9/11 by calling for new Al Qaeda attacks? We all know the answer to those questions is an emphatic no.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)2024-08-31 14:58:352024-08-31 15:02:03University of Maryland Approves of Pro-Hamas Protest Celebrating Anniversary of October 7
“Three Columbia Deans Placed on Leave Pending Investigation,” by Eliana Johnson, Washington Free Beacon, June 20, 2024:
Three of the Columbia University deans caught exchanging dismissive text messages during a May 31 panel on anti-Semitism have been placed on leave as the university investigates the incident, a spokesman for the school said Thursday.
As part of the college’s alumni reunion week, Columbia College administrators, knowing of the alarm expressed by many alumni at the stories of antisemitic harassment of Jewish students by anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrators on the campus, and the claims by Jews that they received no support from the administration, decided to put on a show. Jewish students would be allowed to publicly air their complaints, as participants in a panel discussion on May 31, in the presence of several Columbia College deans, faculty members, and members of the alumni reunion classes, who would be able to observe this airing of grievances, as a way to allay fears that the college administrators were not doing enough to address the Jewish students’ claims of harassment and violence.
“The Dean of Columbia College informed his team today that three administrators have been placed on leave pending a university investigation of the incident that occurred at the College alumni reunion several weeks ago,” the spokesman said.
That dean, Josef Sorett, who also took part in the text exchanges, “reiterated his commitment to learning from this situation and other incidents over the last year to build a community of respect and healthy dialogue.”
The three deans placed on leave, Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm, were captured—along with Sorett—exchanging derisive and anti-Semitic text messages. The texts included Kromm’s use of vomit emojis to refer to a Columbia University rabbi’s op-ed sounding the alarm about the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus and Patashnick’s accusation that one of the panelists, Columbia Hillel director Brian Cohen, was taking “full advantage of this moment” for its “fundraising potential.”
A Columbia spokesman said the school had no comment regarding why Sorett, who took part in the text exchanges, was not placed on leave or on the propriety of Sorett making the announcement that his colleagues are under investigation. Likewise, the spokesman declined to say who would conduct the investigation, to whom the results would be reported, and whether the results would be made public….
We still don’t know what Dean Sorett himself expressed when he took part in the exchanges among the three deputy deans. Did he join in the unseemly, unsympathetic, and downright antisemitic mocking of the Jewish students who testified? Or did he denounce the deputy deans in his own emails, and tell them to stop? His own emails will now be subject to investigation by— one assumes — an outside committee.
When the investigation — perhaps by an outside law firm — is complete, one hopes that the three deputy deans, following their display of antisemitic amusement at the Jewish witnesses testifying as to how they have been mistreated on campus, without any support forthcoming from the administration, will be discharged. As for Dean Sorett himself, much will depend on whether his emails show him scolding the deputy deans, or remaining silent, or joining in the general hilarity. If it is the latter, then he, too, must go.
We have witnessed indoctrination taking place in America’s elite universities, creating a conveyor belt of brainwashed Hamas-supporting activists.
Now evidence is emerging that Jihad promoters are poisoning the elementary educational system in America, too.
The jihadi savagery of Oct. 7, 2023, when thousands of Palestinian armed terrorists, eagerly followed by Gaza’s citizens, stormed across their border into Israel in an orgy of murder, torture, rape, robbery, and hostage-taking.
This had been predicted by organizations dedicated to gathering the evidence of a generational anti-Semitic brainwashing in schools and summer camps across the Palestinian divide from Gaza to Ramallah. The warnings of these NGOs were ignored by Western decision-makers despite the evidence shown to them about Palestinian intentions.
Organizations, such as the Center for Near East Policy and UN Watch, documented the Palestinian schoolbooks filled with Jihadi indoctrination in classrooms and summer camps, leading children to pledge themselves to the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews.
The material, the evidence, is freely available, but Western organizations and governments continued to plow millions of dollars and euros into the Palestinian industry of hate and death.
Hamas propaganda on elite American campuses is well known, but now the target is American schoolchildren.
This brainwashing is being introduced into high schools and even into the elementary educational system in America.
One example, quoted in a Jerusalem Post article on June 7, 2024, titled ‘Portland’s teacher union creates anti-Israel program,” reported that the Portland Association of Teachers are promoting an indoctrination program for children as early as pre-kindergarten to high school in which the next generation of Americans will be brainwashed to delegitimize Israel, describing it as an “illegitimate settler-colonial state.”
American children are being taught to participate in Palestinian protests turning them into anti-Israel activists.
Together with a group known as Oregon Educators for Palestine (OGP) they have created a curriculum that includes courses such as “Know your Rights in Teaching,” “Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools,” and “Teach Palestine! Resources for Portland Public Schools” lesson guide.
Their document provides counter definitions to reduce the legitimacy of Israel by using key terms. For example, they deduce Anti-Semitism as being a “European Christian phenomenon” and Zionism as “a settler colonial political ideology and movement.”
Their guide recommends teachers to have the academic freedom (restriction) to select (reduce) writings on Palestine only to that written by Palestinian authors, as they put it, “to offer content and context based on the authors backgrounds and opinions.”
Part of their indoctrination removes words such as “terrorism” particularly when applied to acts of Palestinian terrorism. Instead, they replace it with the word “resist.”
Everything is wrapped around concepts such as “Occupation” even if that applies to areas from which Israel withdrew its citizens in the search for peace.
Based on that novel concept, the barbarous attacks of Oct. 7, or mass killing by Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen, can be translated into acts of “resistance to the occupation,” even when committed by Palestinians emerging out of their self-governing territories to kill thousands of Israelis in their hometowns inside Israel.
I know. I became one of the members of the Netanya Terror Victims Association after a procession of suicide bombers and gunman targeted my hometown that hugs the clifftops of the Mediterranean, the sea defined by their slogan of a Palestine “from the River to the Sea.”
In the quest for this homeland, they murdered dozens of Netanya folk, some of whom I knew.
Now social studies lessons for grades 3-5 in America will include a week-long curriculum on “settler colonization and Palestine.”
The Portland Association of Teachers represents over 4,500 educators. In their description of the events of Oct. 7, we can clearly define what they consider progressive to be utterly regressive.
PAT educators handed out documents claiming that the horrendous massacres, tortures, rapes, and hostage-taking were, in the words of PAT, justified “resistance.”
In May, Mosaic magazine featured an article entitled “Anti-Israel Indoctrination Starts in Elementary Schools.”
This is the opening phase of a Jihadi education in America. One that accurately copies Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad brainwashing.
There is a battle going on in the California school system. Last September, a law suit claimed that a California school district tried to impose an anti-Israel curricula.
As I predicted, the Jihadi indoctrination has leapt across the pond from the Middle East, engineered and financed by people with an agenda to convert America based on a curriculum practiced in schools and summer camps under the regimes of Hamas and the PLO Palestinian Authority.
This is the brainwashing that has prevented the mutual peace once desired by Israel but killed by incessant hate-educated Palestinians, a blind hatred that has blocked all hope for a better future for frustrated Israelis and hated-filled Palestinians.
It is now taking root in the American elementary education system.
It must be stopped before it inflicts permanent damage both to the children, to the American psyche, and to American Israeli relations, which is the ultimate aim of the haters.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Barry Shawhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngBarry Shaw2024-06-14 04:18:582024-06-14 14:47:35Jihadi Indoctrination of American Children is Active and Spreading
Since the October 7 attack, Hamas’s leaders have been managing the war from Doha, Qatar, and conveying their messages mostly via the Qatar-owned Al-Jazeera TV channel. The network has been operating as a propaganda outlet in the service of Hamas 24/7, with hardly any coverage of other topics. It expresses unreserved support for Hamas, justifying the deadly attack, showing footage from it obtained from the terrorists’ bodycams, and celebrating it as a victory that has brought pride and honor to the Islamic nation.[1]
It therefore comes as no surprise that it was in the home of Al-Jazeera journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal, in Nuseirat in the Gaza Strip, that three Israeli hostages were held captive.
Some Al-Jazeera journalists have recently been “outed” as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters. A Palestinian journalist working for Al-Jazeera, Muhammad Wishah, appears to have also been a commander in the military wing of Hamas, according to documents on a laptop found by the Israeli army in a Hamas base in northern Gaza. Wishah, from Al-Buriej in the central Gaza Strip, has featured in Al-Jazeera broadcasts in recent months, with the station identifying him as one of their journalists. According to Israeli military sources, however, Wishah is a prominent commander in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit, who in late 2022 began working in R&D for the terror group’s air unit. A photo that emerged of Wishah together with Yahya Sinwar suggests warm relations between the two.
Another Al-Jazeera correspondent, Ismail Abu Omar, who participated in the October 7 attack and who documented it from within the Gaza Envelope, was airlifted to Doha for medical treatment on February 19 after being wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah a week earlier. He has been identified as a Hamas platoon deputy commander.
Mustafa Thuraya, an independent journalist who worked with Al-Jazeera TV and Agence France-Press, was, according to documents found by the Israeli army in Gaza, an operative in the Al-Qassam Brigades’ Gaza City Brigade, and he specialized in developing drones. Hamza Al-Dahdouh, another Al-Jazeera journalist and photojournalist, was a member of the electronic engineering unit of the PIJ’s Northern Gaza Brigade.
Since the recent Israel-Hamas war began, Al-Jazeera has been providing the following services to Hamas:
Broadcasting threats by Hamas leaders and leaders of other terror organizations
Celebrating and praising the terror attack and missile attacks on Israel
Airing videos of hostages to pressure the Israeli government
Broadcasting near-daily military announcements
Airing footage on military encounters and killings of IDF soldiers
Broadcasting near IDF troops and airing analysis by military experts in order to advise Hamas fighters on recommended tactics and maneuvers
Pinpointing potential quality Israeli targets
Fabricating anti-Israel propaganda
Fabricating information designed to thwart Israel’s instructions to the Gaza population
Silencing any criticism of Hamas, and constantly rebroadcasting Hamas propaganda focusing on: IDF soldiers killed in the fighting; Hamas statements in Hebrew inciting the Israeli public against its government, including with scenes from the current hostage families’ demonstrations in Israel; and Hamas propaganda referring to every city, town, and community in Israel as a “settlement”
Describing the hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 as “convicted prisoners” – equating them with the convicted Hamas terrorists in Israeli prisons – and referring to Palestinian young adults in Israeli custody as “children”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Middle East Media Research Institutehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMiddle East Media Research Institute2024-06-10 13:03:102024-06-11 05:50:22Al-Jazeera Journalists By Day, Hamas Commanders By Night
The French Foreign Ministry advanced two claims as the rationale for its decision to support the ICC—both equally risible and ridiculous.
The French Army burned 326 houses and murdered more than half of the village’s residents. French soldiers raped many women and girls before murdering them…—an account of the massacre of civilians by French forces in the first Indo-China war.
Atrocities committed by the French during the Algerian War during the 1950s against Algerians include deliberate bombing and killing of unarmed civilians, rape, torture, executions through “death flights” or burial alive, thefts and pillaging—an account of the atrocities committed by French forces during the Algerian War of Independence.
The latest surge in antisemitic sentiment has once more pushed the issue of Judeophobia to the epicenter of public debate.
The animosity towards the Jewish people –aka antisemitism—has been described as the oldest form of hatred, mutating over time from one form to another.
Gallic gall
In recent decades, the focus of anti-Jewish bias has shifted from the Jewish individual to the Jewish collective-i.e. the Jewish state. Lately, yet another mutation has emerged… “judicial antisemitism.”
One of the most blatant examples of this was the recent support France expressed for the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Karim Khan, to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
In a statement late last month, the French Foreign Ministry stated it supported the independence of the ICC, and its fight against “impunity”.
Significantly, this astounding step by France reflects a stark break from the positions of its Western allies, such as Britain and the US, where President Biden denounced the decision as “outrageous.” British PM Rishi Sunak described the ICC move as “deeply unhelpful”, remarking that it would not advance a durable ceasefire or enhance the humanitarian situation in Gaza. According to Sunak, it would do nothing to improve the provision of aid to Gaza or the prospect of reaching a sustainable ceasefire.
What is particularly galling about Paris’s decision is that France has, arguably, the worst post-WW-II record of any Western nation regarding the preservation of human rights, with a chronicle of gory atrocities stretching from Indochina to North Africa (see introductory excerpts).
Risible rationale
The French Foreign Ministry advanced two claims as the rationale for their decision—both equally risible.
Regarding the first— “impunity”: As Col. Richard Kemp (former commander of British forces in Afghanistan) remarked, no other army has ever exercised such care in avoiding civilian casualties, achieving what is the lowest ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths in the history of modern urban warfare. Similarly, chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer, described Israel’s minimizing collateral casualties as “unprecedented,” asserting that it was setting the “gold standard” for avoiding civilian casualties. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find any other example of a country supplying food and humanitarian aid to an enemy population as Israel is doing in Gaza.
Regarding the second—preserving ICC independence: Despite its prime facie merit, this also has a distinctly hollow ring to it. After all, if this means granting the ICC unlimited discretion to make any fanciful decision, unshackled by constraints of veracity, fairness, or decency, what is to prevent it from sentencing some luckless defendant to be burnt at the stake for disputing that the world was flat? Or that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon… in Gaza” despite regular conveys of trucks bringing in thousands of tons of food to the Gazan population—many of whom took an active part in the October 7 atrocities.
Blatant bias
This gross anti-Israel bias is reflected in France restricting its military supplies to the Jewish state, precisely after it was subjected to a barbarous attack from Gaza…in which much of the general public participated, or at least, endorsed.. Thus, the French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu stated he had ordered government officials to be “even stricter” in examining exports to Israel following October 7—leaving one to ponder how France, with a population about seven times that of Israel, might have responded, had it suffered an unprovoked attack that, proportionately, left almost 10, 000 of its citizens dead!
This sense of anti-Israel animosity is reflected in the perceptions of France by the Israeli public. In a recent survey of 1,000 Israeli adults, 55% said French society was antisemitic, significantly higher than their rating of such sentiments in Poland, Germany, and Britain.
This blatant bias seems to have encroached into other areas as well. Recently, I published an analysis that underscored some of Paris’s “adverse” patterns of conduct, detrimental both to Israel and its strategic ally, Azerbaijan. In it, I underscored the danger of French military equipment sent to Lebanon falling into the hands of Hizballah, the prospect of French armaments provided Armenia, a bitter Azerbaijani adversary, falling into the hands of Russia, or Iran and Syria, Israel’s most dangerous foes. Ironically, Paris is trying to shore up lingering remnants of its colonial past by undermining the indigenous population of its Pacific possessions of New Caledonia. Indeed, its anti-Azerbaijan animus appears to lurk behind its claims that Baku instigated recent pro-independence rioting there. Indeed, as the NYT sardonically commented: France provided no specifics to support the allegation which Azerbaijan vehemently denies.
Difficult to decipher.
It is difficult to decipher the logical code for what appears to be rash, and myopic behavior on the part of Paris. Indeed, last week, France barred Israeli participation in a premier arms exhibition, yet welcomed countries with more-than-questionable democratic/humanitarian credentials…including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and China!!
But whatever the rationale, as I wrote previously, ominous clouds of Franco-Israeli tensions appear to be gathering on the horizon.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Martin Shermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Martin Sherman2024-06-09 04:30:162024-06-09 09:52:49Fickle Feckless France — Egalite, Fraternite … Antisemitisme
“Basically the terms by which Hamas was prepared to move forward.”
Biden’s Friday afternoon speech laid out a proposal giving Hamas everything it wanted.
That’s not surprising because rather than being the Israeli proposal, it was actually the Hamas proposal.
And if you doubt that, a White House official said it in a follow-up call over and over again.
“It’s nearly identical to Hamas’s own proposals of only a few weeks ago” and that “what is now in front of everybody is basically the terms by which Hamas was prepared to move forward.”
Again, he repeated, “Hamas has said they’d be prepared to do deal X, and what is now on the table is basically that with some very minor adjustments.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initial response to International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s announcement that he intends to issue international arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders was brief and to the point: “The international arrest warrants won’t deter me. This is a political, biased decision. It is a disgrace and a shame. We will continue on until victory.”
Netanyahu’s response was correct but too narrow. True, Khan’s accusation that Israel under Netanyahu and Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is deliberately starving Gazans and intentionally targeting civilians for death is a blood libel. Far from starving or deliberately killing civilians, Israel is doing more to protect the lives of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip than any military has done to protect the lives of civilians in war zones in human history.
The ICC’s goal in propagating this slander against the Jewish state is to criminalize the State of Israel and pave the way for its annihilation by denying it the right to self-defense.
While it’s true that Khan’s move is a shameful, nakedly political disgrace, it is also illegal. The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel. Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Treaty, which founded the ICC, and set out its powers and jurisdiction. To get around that fact, the ICC illegally accepted “Palestine” as a signatory to the treaty.
The political entity that presents itself as the “Government of Palestine” is the Palestinian Authority. The P.A. was established in 1994 by force of the bilateral agreements the Palestine Liberation Organization signed with Israel during the 1990s. Those agreements—popularly known as the “Oslo agreements”—bar the P.A. from seeking membership as a sovereign state in international bodies, including the ICC.
The ICC’s lack of jurisdiction is only part of the legal problem with its move against Israel. In his statement on Monday, Khan drew a false moral equivalence between the crimes against humanity and acts of genocide Hamas committed on Oct. 7—meaning, the terror group’s invasion of Israel and slaughter, rape, torture and abduction of thousands of civilians and soldiers on the one hand, and the lawful acts of war that Israel has conducted against the Hamas terrorist regime and its terror army in response to that invasion and commission of atrocities.
Hamas is bound by its charter to commit genocide against the Jewish people worldwide and to annihilate the Jewish state. Khan’s allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant—and against the State of Israel more broadly—are predicated on blood libels originating from the Hamas regime in Gaza. In so acting, the ICC is providing material support for Hamas. That is, it is providing material support for a genocidal terror group engaged in a genocidal war against the Jewish people.
Unlike the libelous accusations Khan raised against Israel’s elected leaders, Khan’s provision of material support for Hamas’s war of genocide is an actual war crime.
Both houses of Congress are now advancing bills to sanction the ICC and its personnel for their illegal prosecution of Israel, a U.S. ally. It is essential that these bills be fast-tracked through the legislative process.
Caroline B. Glick is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. She is a senior columnist at Israel Hayom and the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown Forum, 2014). From 1994 to 1996, she served as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Center For Security Policyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCenter For Security Policy2024-05-30 14:09:472024-05-30 14:17:51The ICC’s War Crimes
The Biden administration and European Union were equivocal from the start regarding Israel’s response to Hamas’s genocidal pogrom. Despite initially offering moral support, the Europeans immediately began exhorting Israel to respond “proportionately” while voices from the White House imperiously demanded an untenable two-state “solution.”
Joe Biden at first spoke sympathetically about Israel’s need to eliminate terrorists and destroy their infrastructure, but administration mouthpieces soon began to blather about the need for restraint, citing as justification false Gaza casualty statistics lifted directly from Hamas propaganda.
And despite his initially supportive words following Iran’s air attack on April 13th, Biden immediately demanded caution and implored Israel not to retaliate, though it was his own weakness, appeasement, and attempts to disrupt Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas that emboldened Iran to attack.
These attempts included VP Kamala Harris’s threat of “consequences” in the event of an incursion into Rafah and Biden’s collusion on a feckless UN ceasefire resolution (to the benefit of Hamas) and proposal to require the labeling of goods produced in Judea and Samaria which will facilitate anti-Israel boycotts. Most recently, he announced a “pause” in arms shipments to Israel in a clear attempt to placate anti-Israel Democrats ahead of the 2024 election, and in the process encouraged Hezbollah to step up missile attacks from Lebanon.
Biden was supported in this policy madness by Senator Chuck Schumer, who had previously called on Israel to oust its duly elected government and accede to a two-state solution that most Israelis believe is impossible.
In trying to placate anti-Israel progressives, prominent Democrats clearly have no compunction against undermining an ally and sacrificing truth to do so.
Real truth, however, is neither relative nor subjective, but rather implicates immutable fact; and the truth regarding the attacks perpetrated against Israel is neither ambiguous nor reinforced by false comparisons to alleged Israeli conduct, as many on the political left — including Barack Obama — disgracefully asserted before Israel could even bury her dead in October.
Truth is not acquitted by unprincipled ideologues hawking moral equivalency, but by eyewitnesses and survivors — particularly those speaking from personal experience about what they saw and heard. And this was demonstrated in a recent program at a synagogue in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in conjunction with the organization StandsWithUs, featuring two young Israelis who witnessed firsthand the horrors of October 7th.
The first speaker, Aviv, was from Kibbutz Re’im before moving to Yesha, several miles from the Gaza border. He served as an IDF battalion medic while on active duty and, like many young Israelis, did some travelling after his service ended, before returning home for work and school.
He recounted how his family was together during the Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah weekend when Hamas attacked and how they had to rush for shelter. His younger brother, who had served in special forces, was killed by terrorists while protecting civilians in Yesha, and Aviv found his body — along with those of several friends — who had fallen together near a synagogue. Aviv described in sharp detail how he and his father guarded over them while the battle raged until they could be moved and prepared for burial. He then joined his reserve unit.
The second speaker, Avital, is an eighth-generation Israeli on one side of her family and grandchild of Holocaust survivors on the other. Avital explained that she served as an IDF company commander and was visiting her parents that weekend. She knew war had broken out by the sound of sirens on Shabbat/Yomtov. Both she and her older brother were called up, and her job upon activation was to manage the growing missing persons list, determine who was wounded, dead, missing, or kidnapped, and notify families.
She told of curating phone calls from witnesses and distraught people looking for news of missing loved ones, and said it was difficult learning who would not be returning home but having to maintain strict secrecy before notifying families.
These speakers’ words were direct, emotional, and deeply profound all at once. Despite their military backgrounds, they came across as just a couple of young Israelis who were intensely affected by what they experienced, and they told their stories straight and without political varnish. They also spoke of how Israeli society, which had seemed so fractured before the attack, was unified by a sense of common heritage and national resolve thereafter.
The truth they conveyed provided stark contrast to the pro-Hamas propaganda, anti-Israel vitriol, and racist Jew-hatred that are driving the narrative in the US – where classical stereotypes and conspiracy theories abound and atrocities against Jews are legitimized as “resistance” without shame or embarrassment in colleges and universities, city and town councils, Hollywood, and even the halls of Congress.
Emblematic of the banalization of antisemitism were the red bloody-hand pins worn by actors and artists at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, who claimed the pins were a humanitarian symbol advocating ceasefire in Gaza, though the image they bore actually commemorated the murders of IDF soldiers Vadim Nurzhitz and Yossi Avrahami by a bloodthirsty mob in Ramallah in 2001. The graphic motif used depicts the hands of terrorists covered with blood from the two Israelis they murdered and is recognized for its odious symbolism throughout Gaza and the territories — where most people surveyed support Hamas and its atrocities.
Though this imagery was originally used to glorify the savage murder of Jews, it was embraced by fatuous Hollywood “A-Listers” who can always be counted on to promote any and all progressive causes without demonstrating the slightest capacity for critical thought, moral decency, or just plain common sense.
As antisemitism in the US continues to skyrocket unabated, with Jews suffering more abuse than any other minority, the Biden administration’s response is to soft-pedal or claim beyond reason that Islamophobia is an equivalent (or greater) threat to moral order. Considering US law enforcement statistics showing that Jews are victimized by hate-crimes far more frequently than any other ethnic or racial minority group (including Arabs and African-Americans) and are at least six times more likely to be harassed than Muslims, the premise is ludicrous and insulting.
It also begs the question of why most Democrats refuse to concede the existence of virulent Jew-hatred on their side of the aisle. As a collective, Republicans are not bowing to pressure from anti-Israel, antisemitic zealots who dictate party zeitgeist. Democratic leadership is. Prominent Republicans are not publicly denying that Hamas terrorists raped and brutalized Jewish women and girls. Notable Democrats are.
While Congressional Republicans have condemned antisemitism and commenced investigating its ubiquity on college campuses, radical Democrats have belittled these efforts in order to appease antisemitic progressive and Islamist elements within their base. For his part, Biden will not chastise progressive party members by name for egregious anti-Jewish rhetoric or stop taking campaign contributions from donors who are also funding anti-Israel, antisemitic campus riots.
But minimizing antisemitism only encourages it.
The administration’s cognitive dissonance (or artifice) has international ramifications, as evidenced by its recent support for a UN resolution on “Measures to Combat Islamophobia,” which implies that anti-Muslim animus fuels the most pervasive forms of religious, ethnic, or racial hatred, persecution, or strife. It also implicitly prioritizes Islamophobia over global antisemitism, which in contrast truly has religious, ethnic, national, and racial overtones and is indeed the world’s oldest hatred.
Perhaps the resolution was intended to obscure the plethora of human rights abuses and acts of aggression committed by Islamist terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and the Houthis, and by oppressive regimes like Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran.
Or perhaps it was intended to trivialize the reality of antisemitism, of which the UN is the most significant global facilitator.
Whatever its motivation, the Biden administration refuses to acknowledge progressive responsibility for the wave of antisemitism pervading leftist academia, liberal political society, and allied identity communities, where rioters champion Hamas and its genocidal aims. Biden has failed to identify the progressive instigators or the complicity of radicals from his own party. These failures are stunning in their implication that Jewish lives do not really matter; and the liberal tendency to draw moral equivalency between Hamas’s barbarism and Israeli self-defense is positively obscene.
George Orwell once said that some ideas are so absurd only intellectuals could believe them. That sentiment still resonates today, particularly when amended thus: “Some hatreds are so twisted that only persons with preconceived, intellectualized biases could accept them.”
And so it is with those who mock truth by supporting Hamas, degrading its victims, calling for another Holocaust, and cheering on Iran with chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”
Amid polls showing that President Joe Biden’s wavering support for Israel is alienating voters on all sides, another major poll released Monday has revealed that former President Donald Trump has opened up a significant lead over Biden in five key battleground states as the November elections loom.
A New York Times/Siena/Philadelphia Inquirer survey found that Trump is leading Biden among registered voters by a substantial amount outside of the margin of error in four prominent swing states, including Arizona (49%-42%), Georgia (49%-39%), Michigan (49%-42%), and Nevada (50%-38%). In addition, Trump leads Biden in Pennsylvania 47%-44%.
The poll also found the presumptive Republican presidential nominee leading Biden among likely voters in Arizona (49%-43%), Georgia (50%-41%), Nevada (51%-38%), Pennsylvania (48%-45%), and Wisconsin (47%-46%).
“These results cannot be dismissed,” Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, told The Washington Stand. “If I’m the Biden campaign I’m hitting the panic button. With less than six months until Election Day, and early voting starting in closer to four months, voters are making up their minds as to whom they will support, and increasingly they are shifting away from Biden in the states he needs to secure reelection.”
Carpenter added, “What’s more, segments of the electorate that historically back Democrats are leading the shift away from Biden — young, black, and Hispanic voters — which explains why states with higher non-white populations like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Nevada have a bigger gap than do whiter states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
A Gallup poll conducted in April confirmed this shift, as affiliation with the Republican Party saw an 11-point swing against the Democratic Party when compared to the numbers from 2016. The survey found that 47% of Independent voters leaned toward the GOP, a five-point increase since 2016.
On the flip side, the Democrats suffered a six-point loss since 2016 with voters who said they leaned toward their party. The swing is likely fueled by black and Hispanic voters leaving Biden’s party. A February Gallup poll recorded a 20% decrease in black support of the Democratic Party in three years. It also found that Hispanic support the president’s party among voters aged 18-29 had plummeted by almost the same amount.
The poll results come as Biden’s policy decisions surrounding Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorist group prove to be increasingly unpopular with supermajorities of U.S. citizens. As noted by National Review, “The latest Harvard-Harris poll found that people support Israel over Hamas by 80-20, and believe that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, 67-33. Even voters ages 18-24 support Israel in this survey, 57 to 43, and believe that Israel is trying to minimize casualties, 64-36.”
“At this stage in the election, the Biden campaign should be focusing on persuading swing voters and identifying base voters to drive to the polls,” Carpenter remarked in comments to TWS. “Instead, they have what looks like a mutiny on their hands. The Trump campaign cannot afford to rest on their laurels, however. In 2022, Democrats succeeded in halting what appeared to be a red wave by running campaigns focused on the election process — requesting and collecting mail-in ballots. At the end of the day, the only poll that matters is the one on Election Day.”
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.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-05-15 15:19:552024-05-15 15:47:43Voters Move Away from Biden’s Israel Policies in Droves as Swing State Poll Numbers Crumble
The first Palestinian to have visited a Nazi concentration camp was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el Husseini, the leader of the Palestinian Arabs from the 1920s to the 1940s, who spent the war years in Berlin. He had a nice chat with Hitler on November 28, 1941, captured in a famous photograph here. Al-Husseini expressed to Hitler his enthusiasm for the Final Solution. He was befriended by Heinrich Himmler, and there is some evidence, not conclusive, that the Mufti may have been taken to Auschwitz by Himmler, or possibly by another person he had befriended, Adolf Eichmann, to see how swimmingly things were proceeding there. It is certain that the Mufti visited the concentration camp at Tebbin, for there are numerous photographs of him at the site together with high Nazi officials, as can be seen here.
As his contribution to the Nazi war effort, Hajj Amin el Husseini is known to have raised several Waffen SS battalions consisting of Bosnian Muslims. He also broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda to the Arab world throughout the war.
In January 2020, in quite a different spirit to that exhibited by the Mufti, a group of 25 Muslim faith leaders visited Auschwitz, in what was at the time called a “groundbreaking” visit. “To be here… is both a sacred duty and a profound honor,” the Saudi head of the Muslim World League said during a tour of Nazi death camp with members of the American Jewish Committee.
Now another Palestinian has just been in the news for his visit to Auschwitz, not undertaken In the spirit of sympathy for the victims that the delegation of Muslim faith leaders exhibited but, rather, in a triumphant mode, demanding that Jews everywhere “return” to where they belong — that is, to the Nazi death camps. Robert Spencer wrote about this briefly here, and more on this latest example of a Palestinian expressing murderous antisemitism can be found here: “Palestinian man visits Auschwitz, publicly calls on Jews to return there ‘where they belong,’” Jerusalem Post, May 2, 2024:
A video was posted on X earlier this week that showed footage of a Palestinian man visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he called on Jews to return to the site of the extermination camp, a place he claimed where they belonged.
Footage of the man can be seen walking through the Auschwitz memorial, calling to free Palestine.
“From these ghettos from which the Zionists came, I say Allah have mercy on all the Palestinians and our martyrs. Free Palestine,” he exclaimed….
These were not ghettos, but death camps. And so very few survived them. But that doesn’t bother the unnamed Palestinian who filmed his visit. He only sees these as places from where “the Zionists came” to inflict pain on poor Palestinians. And he wants “the Zionists” — the Jews — ideally to return to Auschwitz where they can be dealt with appropriately, that is, put to death. But if that is not possible, then at least the Jews must leave the land they stole from the Palestinians and go back, he says “to your countries.”
Though the campus brats accuse Israel of a “genocide” in Gaza, the only “genocide” that has been attempted was that carried out by Hamas on October 7, when 3,000 Hamas operatives smashed into Israel from Gaza, in cars, on motorbikes, and on paragliders, and proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children. A great many Palestinians — 82% — have expressed approval of what Hamas did on that day. Now we have a Palestinian, cheerfully videotaping himself as he tours Auschwitz, so that his fellow Palestinians, and indeed all Muslims, can see him calling for “the Zionists” — he means “the Jews” — to “all [be returned] to the concentration camps” where, Allah willing, they can be put to death.
Would any of the thousands of campus nitwits now chanting “Say No To Genocide” care to comment on this Palestinian’s heartfelt desire to send Jews back where he knows they belong — to Auschwitz?
Screams Before Silence is a harrowing, yet sensitively crafted and ultimately viewable, documentary film about the weaponisation of rape by Hamas during the atrocities committed on October 7 last year.
The film features Sheryl Sandberg, who was chief operating officer of Facebook and Meta Platforms until August 2022. She is also founder of LeanIn.Org, a women’s leadership network. She has become an outspoken advocate for Israeli women who suffered the full force of the violence of October 7.
Produced by Kastina Communications and directed by Anat Stalinsky, the film provides a platform for the testimonies of survivors, eyewitnesses, first responders and forensic experts to be heard by the general public as they recount what they saw or heard and, in some cases, endured as a result of the attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel.
In a rampage of killing in streets, homes, kibbutzim and at a music festival, some 1200 Israelis were murdered, thousands more wounded and 240 hostages taken to Gaza.
Make no mistake: the subject matter is distressing in what it reveals of the extent to which the bodies of women and girls were sexually abused, tortured, slaughtered and mutilated, especially at the site of the Nova music festival.
However, Screams Before Silence is no horror film of gruesome pictures, nor a demonisation of Palestinians. It is a sensitively delivered piece of storytelling and truth-telling that showcases not only the depravity of which human beings are capable, but also examples of extraordinary courage and human resilience.
Relying largely on a series of interviews by Sheryl Sandberg and video footage from October 7, the film draws the viewer into the violent world of the massacre without plunging into a sea of traumatising images. Apart from the people speaking, most of the footage shows destroyed homes and cars, not dead bodies. Occasional images of a corpse are fleeting and have been deliberately blurred. The film carefully leads the viewer down into the depths of its dark subject matter before moving upwards towards the light (if one may call it that) of an ending that strikes a note of resilience, purpose and empowerment.
Screams Before Silence places front-and-centre what should be an uncontroversial message: that weaponisation of rape and sexual violence is never acceptable, can never be excused by a larger political “context”, and must be condemned forthrightly by every decent human being and treated as criminal conduct without prevarication.
What makes this film especially relevant is that the crimes of October 7 are not over. Some 129 hostages remain in Gaza, including women and children. From the testimony of released hostages we know that there is good reason to fear that sexual abuse of those who remain behind continues. “Bring Them Home Now!” should be on the lips of every vocal feminist protesting violence against women.
It is not wise for all people to see this film. Protection of one’s mental health must be a priority. However, I urge those who feel they can do so, to watch the film. Its content and message need to be processed, in the same way that Holocaust documentaries play a critical role in our grasp of historical and present-day events. Holocaust footage is always disturbing to watch, but it is downright dangerous for societies to turn a blind eye.
And, just as Holocaust denialism is widespread today, so too has October 7 denialism been embraced by some anti-Israel activists. Such a wilful distortion of history is inadvertently exacerbated by the tendency of good and well-intentioned people to downplay these crimes through half-hearted reporting or utter silence, whether for political reasons or simply out of discomfort, ignorance, or confusion.
Rather than wallow in a sense of helplessness, the gift of this film is that it empowers a constructive response. By simply setting aside an hour to view it, anyone can bear witness to what actually occurred on October 7. I believe strongly that non-Jewish people have a special responsibility to view the film, so that Jewish communities are not left alone to bear the burden of witness.
So, I appeal to all non-Jewish adults who are able to do so: Please, set aside an hour to watch online Screams Before Silence. Allow yourself to be confronted by the raw truth of what occurred on October 7. Deal with your emotions: your tears, grief, anger, or disbelief. Pray for the dead and the bereaved. Then, share the link; discuss the film with family, friends, and colleagues; if you have a public platform to write or speak, then write, then speak!
Be a voice for the voiceless — for the women, and for the men too, who were mercilessly abused on October 7 in unspeakable acts which appear to have been part of a calculated, targeted, systematic plan to destroy not only the bodies of women, but the soul of a nation.
If you have watched “Screams Before Silence”, tell us what you think in the comments box below.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00MercatorNet - A Compass for Common Sensehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMercatorNet - A Compass for Common Sense2024-05-07 07:50:042024-05-15 05:37:39Rape as a Weapon of War — Why Israel was Traumatised by Oct 7
Israel is fighting a war for it’s survival against Iran and it’s proxies. All while enduring a vicious propaganda assault from the radical Left. There is no one who is more qualified to speak on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And there is no better platform than a joint session of the United States Congress.
The question is how many Democrats will boycott Netanyahu’s speech?
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gave his clearest indication yet that he will invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a joint address before Congress.
He intends to sign on to an invitation Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drafted around a month ago, Schumer’s office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
“The timing is being worked out,” the spokesperson said.
The statement, which follows Johnson’s acknowledgment of the draft invitation to the Hill, is only an incremental step toward the gesture and not altogether surprising. Schumer previously indicated his openness. But the development comes amid a period of intense bitterness between Washington Democrats and Netanyahu, who has defied the White House with his casualty-heavy war in Gaza.
In March, Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, said Netanyahu had become an obstacle to peace and called for new elections in Israel…..
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2024-05-05 05:58:372024-05-05 12:57:58Israeli PM Netanyahu to address Congress for record 4th time amid Hamas war and attacks on American Jews
