Tag Archive for: terrorism

Franklin Graham after Seeing Hamas’s Carnage: ‘It’s Like Every Demon in Hell Was Let Loose’

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Warning: Graphic descriptions of Hamas torture are included below.

Everyone who’s witnessed the aftermath of Hamas — who’s stepped inside the charred houses or walked the bloody streets of a kibbutz after October 7 — has been changed. Like so many people who’ve seen pictures of the destruction on news sites across America, nothing prepared Franklin Graham for the sight of real graves, of bullet-holed walls, and haunted survivors. “These communities are empty,” he said somberly, but the echoes of their tragedies live on.

Back from the Israel-Gaza border, Billy Graham’s son tried to put into words the barbarity and destruction he saw. “The people have had to flee,” he explained to “Washington Watch” guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice. “They can’t live that close to the border with the fighting, so they’re in hotels throughout the country.” Instead, Graham said, “The Israeli army is there — a lot of them.”

Scanning what remained of the houses — some in rubble from rockets, others black from fire’s ash — Graham walked through the ravaged neighborhoods. “They took me to the command centers to show me the video pictures from just their surveillance cameras on that day.” He remembers seeing truckloads of people, streaming across the borders “with “heavy machine guns in the back of the trucks, with soldiers or terrorists that jump out and just shoot people on the side of the road and go on.”

“And then you meet people and talk to people that lived through this and somehow escaped, but they lost loved ones.” That was difficult, he admits. “I met a woman whose husband was a doctor, and they remember they didn’t know what was going on. At 7:30 in the morning, they just heard some gunshots. And this doctor said, ‘Please come to the clinic.’ And so he runs to the clinic, which was maybe a block away, and there he was shot. All the patients were shot.”

Graham relayed horror after horror. “Hand grenades were thrown into the clinic. Women were captured, raped. One was raped, and while the man was doing this act, he takes a gun and shoots her in the head. And then things like cutting their breasts off and throwing their breasts like a like a football to each other.” He stopped. “I’ve never witnessed brutality like this. And some of the terrorists that were captured were asked, ‘Why did you kidnap children? Why did you take children as hostages so that they could rape them?’ And it’s like every demon in hell was let loose.”

He met with families still stunned by shock and grief. “It’s had a huge impact,” Graham insisted. “And I just pray for these families that have lost their loved ones. I pray for the families who have loved ones down in those tunnels that were taken hostage. One lady who lost her daughter, whose daughter was killed in that [same] clinic, she said, ‘I’m so glad my daughter is dead.’ She said, ‘I wouldn’t know what to do if she was a hostage. I wouldn’t know how to handle that.’ But just the fear that’s in people’s hearts.”

Graham says he tried to pray with “everybody I met.” “I would quote Old Testament Scripture to them and remind them of God’s promises and His love. … And they were so appreciative of prayer.” He tried to remind them that “the only one that can heal their hearts is God, and He’s the God of all comfort.”

Meeting with the parents whose sons and daughters were kidnapped and taken into Gaza was especially heart-wrenching. “I prayed for these mothers,” he told Hice, “for their children and loved ones that are down in those tunnels that are being held hostage. I said, ‘[They’re] not down there alone. God is there with them.’ And we would pray that God would put his loving arms around those hostages, and that they would sense the presence of God as we prayed. And everyone was so appreciative of prayer. [Their] people are hungry spiritually. They don’t have any answers. They’re not getting answers from anyone. And when you pray for them, it touches their heart.”

Including, Graham said, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “First of all, I wanted to encourage him. … And so we talked for a while. But then I asked him, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, is it okay if I pray for you?’ And he was very appreciative of that. And we prayed and just prayed that God would give him wisdom and strengthen him and guide and direct him as they move forward here in these next few weeks and months. It’s going to be very difficult, and I just pray that God would just be with him and strengthen him.”

For now, the evangelist wanted people to know, Samaritan’s Purse is going to be “working there for some time.” “We’ve got great teams on the ground helping those [who] are stuck in the hotels and have no place to go.” But for everyone here at home, he said there’s one thing we can all do: pray. Pray for the hurting families, pray for Israel’s leadership and America’s leadership, but most of all, Graham urged, pray for the church and volunteers. “Pray that we will be faithful to lift up Christ wherever we go.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

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

RELATED ARTICLE: What Does Osama bin Laden’s Viral Moment on TikTok Mean for America?

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.

GUEST: America Must Stand with Israel

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In 1945, when Allied troops liberated the concentration camps in Germany and they witnessed firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust, the world cried, “Never again.” The Holocaust led to the tragic ending of six million innocent lives. Men, women, and children suffered and died only because they were Jews. The horrors of the Holocaust were detailed by those who survived and evidenced by those who lost their lives. Shock waves reverberated around the world at the massive destruction and death. In 1933, only 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe, and the Holocaust brought that number to a devastating low. By 1945, two out of every three European Jews had been killed.

The tragedies were mind-boggling and left the Allies questioning how these things could have happened. At the Nuremberg trials, the world learned more of the horrendous atrocities Holocaust victims suffered. Survivors spoke of how people were herded like cattle, and how men, women, and children were driven to their deaths in the Nazi gas chambers. These victims suffered only because of their Jewish heritage.

The Jewish people were not new to suffering, as they for nearly 2,000 years were without a homeland. They wandered the world seeking a place to belong, and the Holocaust nearly wiped out the entire European Jewish population. Upon the discovery of Nazi Germany’s slaughter of the Jewish people, the Allies rallied to establish the nation of Israel and give the Jewish people back their homeland. In 1948, the Jewish nation-state of Israel was established.

Since regaining their homeland, the Jewish people have been a stalwart Middle Eastern ally of Americans. Israel remains a counterweight against radical forces in the Middle East, including radical Islam and violent extremism. Israel has also prevented the further proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the region by thwarting Iran, Iraq, and Syria’s nuclear programs. This makes Israel our greatest ally and friend. Israel and America work together to ensure peace throughout the Middle East. Hamas, Hezbollah, and others surrounding Israel have no desire for peace, and the recent war in Israel is a reminder of that.

Since 1948, the Jewish people have fought to protect their homeland from various wars, daily encounters with terrorists, and a constant fear of losing their land. In this way, the current crisis in Israel is like other crises in Israel over the last 75 years. The Jewish people are resilient in their defense of their homeland, and with the reminder of the

Holocaust less than 100 years ago, it is imperative America stands with our ally and friend, Israel, and the Jewish people.

Last year, my wife, Haley, and I had the honor of visiting Israel and meeting the country’s incredible people. We are appalled by the actions of Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization. Hamas’s deliberate, gruesome attacks on innocent Israeli citizens are despicable acts of war, and I support Israel’s right to self-defense as the nation protects its

people and homeland.

I have joined bipartisan legislation supporting Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists. This legislation condemns these horrific acts and reinforces support from the U.S. House of Representatives to help Israel in this time of distress, and I am pleased that the resolution was approved in a bipartisan vote recently. I also have joined letters to President Biden expressing concern about his administration’s decision to unfreeze $6 billion in assets for Iran, and I have cosponsored legislation that would refreeze and ultimately redirect the $6 billion to support victims of terrorism.

You have likely seen news reports regarding Americans held hostage in Gaza. I, too, am closely monitoring the crisis, and I am in communication with our State Department and military authorities regarding Hamas’s continued terrorist activities. Please know that we will continue to work non-stop to see that all Americans return home safely.

Now, more than ever, the United States must support Israel. It is in the national security interest of the United States to unequivocally stand behind our longtime friend and greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel. I hope that you will join Haley and me as we “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). May we, as a great and prayerful people, continue to offer our support to our Israeli brothers and sisters in their time of unexpected challenges.

AUTHOR

Michael Guest

Michael Guest represents Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district in U.S. House of Representatives.

RELATED ARTICLE: A ‘Critical Moment’: Broad Coalition to March against Anti-Semitism on National Mall Tuesday

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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.

Report: U.S. Colleges Received $13 Billion from Mostly Authoritarian Regimes

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On Monday, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) released a report revealing that American colleges and universities have received approximately $13 billion in undisclosed funds from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian regimes such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. As the report and experts are noting, there appears to be a correlation between colleges that received money from Middle Eastern regimes and increased levels of anti-Semitic campus violence.

The report found that from “2015-2020, Institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors, had, on average, 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not.” Two of the top four countries who gave the most money to U.S. colleges were Qatar (number one on the list with over $2.7 billion) and Saudi Arabia (number four with other $1 billion), both of which are ruled by authoritarian regimes that use Islamic Sharia law as the basis for governance.

Notably, two of the top three universities that received the most undisclosed funds from foreign governments were Cornell University (number two on the list with over $1.2 billion) and Harvard University (number three with almost $900,000,000). At Cornell, the campus has been shaken by a series of anti-Semitic incidents, including the arrest of a student who threatened to “shoot up a dining hall that caters to Jewish students and execute other Jews with an ‘assault rifle.’” This followed the discovery of anti-Semitic graffiti on campus and a professor who stated that Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,400 mostly civilians was “exhilarating.”

Meanwhile, Harvard has seen numerous anti-Semitic incidents proliferate on its campus. Immediately following the October 7 attack, 34 student organizations signed a statement blaming the “Israeli regime” for “all unfolding violence.” In an open letter to Harvard’s president on November 4, alumnus Bill Ackman described what he discovered during a townhall he held with Jewish students on campus:

“Jewish students are being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on, and in several widely-disseminated videos of one such incident, physically assaulted. Student Slack message boards are replete with antisemitic statements, memes, and images. On-campus protesters on the Widener Library steps and elsewhere shout ‘Intifada! Intifada! Intifada! From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free!’”

On Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” FRC’s Senior Fellow for Education Meg Kilgannon expressed alarm at the number of universities that are illegally hiding the acquisition of funds from foreign governments.

“You’re dealing with a university system in the United States that has completely been absorbed by moral relativism,” she contended. “They’re certainly mostly anti-Israel, and definitely a lot of them are anti-American. So the fact that they’re taking this money and they’re not disclosing it, it’s evidence that they consider themselves above the law or they just don’t care to be held accountable for what they’re doing.”

Kilgannon further observed that the influence of Islamist regimes on college campuses has a long history. “[A]fter 9/11 … you had universities and colleges looking for Islamophobia everywhere they could find it. … And so a lot of this funding was happening through programs where they were trying to educate Americans about how Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all just get along … [T]hat was 20 years ago. Here we are now. And they’ve got a lot of money streaming through those channels and organizations that they set up on campus.”

The overall conclusion of the NCRI report stated that “A massive influx of foreign, concealed donations to American institutions of higher learning, much of it from authoritarian regimes with notable support from Middle Eastern sources, reflects or supports heightened levels of intolerance towards Jews, open inquiry, and free expression.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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.

Anti-Semitic Protestors Attempt to Breach White House Fence, Deface Historic Statues with No Consequences

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“Allahu Akbar” chanted the army-sized crowd at the White House on Saturday afternoon, who cursed the U.S. president, waved the flag of a foreign adversary, and endeavored to breach the White House compound. Despite ubiquitous defacement of public property, attempted intrusions onto White House Grounds, and calls for genocide, law enforcement made only one arrest.

Tens of thousands — some unofficial reports estimate 100,000 — pro-Hamas demonstrators from all over the U.S. gathered near the White House on Saturday, denouncing President Biden’s show of support for Israel and demanding that he cut their army off at the ankles as they prepare to root Hamas militants out of northern Gaza. Some demonstrators carried signs implying they worked for Congress or the Biden administration.

The Palestinian national anthem blared at a massive rally in Freedom Plaza, southeast of the White House, site of the national World War I memorial.

“It is right to rebel! Israel can go to hell!” said one speaker, Marte White with Community Movement Builders, who insisted that Palestinians have a right to fight “by any means necessary … and I do mean any means necessary!” Another speaker, representing the U.S. Palestine Community Network’s Chicago Chapter, claimed, “Israel does not have the right to exist as a racist state.”

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Muslim Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), threatened that Muslim Democrats will refuse to vote for Biden in 2024 if he fails to obtain a ceasefire. “No cease-fire, no votes!” chanted the crowd. “In November, we remember!”

“I’ve heard a lot of people in the states criticizing the way that Israel is going about this, but I haven’t heard those same people give any actual suggestions of what Israel should do,” war correspondent Chuck Holton, who is on the ground in the Middle East, said on “Washington Watch.” “And it makes one think that they just believe Israel ought to just lay down and die.”

“Israel is not disposed to do that in any way, shape or form,” Holton added. “The soldiers who are going to go do the fighting … keep saying, ‘Ceasefire? We haven’t even started fighting yet.’”

Although the protest was nominally anti-Israel, many of its attendees manifested a hatred toward Jews in general. As The Washington Post interviewed one anti-Israel Jewish New Yorker at the rally, they recorded, “a protester walked by and told him, ‘See you in hell.’”

After the rally, a large crowd moved to Lafayette Park, north of the White House, which was the site of nightly stand-offs between Black Lives Matter rioters and Secret Service police in the summer of 2020.

A demonstrator wearing a keffiyeh scarf climbed partway up the White House fence and waved a Palestinian flag above it. Other demonstrators, similarly garbed, stuck Palestinian flags through the fence and waved them from side to side.

The demonstrators demanded that President Biden force Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. However, their chants struck a most hostile and militant tone. They chanted, “Allahu akbar,” “F*** Joe Biden,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Long live the Intifada.”

Demonstrators plastered the fence with posters depicting Gazan civilians who have died in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack on Israeli civilians. The posters provocatively described the victims as “Murdered by Israel,” despite evidence that Israel goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties, while Hamas actively places civilians in harm’s way. Some protestors taped a giant banner up to the White House fence, blocking the view of Secret Service officers on the north lawn, prompting them to momentarily step forward and tear the banner down while protestors shouted “shame” and cursed the officers.

The protestors smeared red paint on the White House fence and pushed on the gates. One reporter on the scene said, of all the protests he has observed, “this one was distinguished by the defacing of the gate and pushing on it. … When gates were swaying tonight, one protester said to me, ‘It’s going to be all over’ if they were to open. In the moment, it wasn’t hard to imagine hundreds going through the gate.”

Demonstrators mocked or defaced at least seven statues of influential figures in American history. To cheers and applause, one protestor, wearing either a grotesque mask or bizarre face paint, climbed onto a statue of Benjamin Franklin and draped it in a keffiyeh scarf. General John Pershing’s statue was accessorized with a keffiyeh armband, while youths hanging from his side posed with a Palestinian flag.

In Lafayette Park, protestors placed Palestinian flags on statues of Andrew Jackson, Count Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette, whom they also covered with posters. Protestors graffitied at least four statues in Lafayette Park — General von Steuben, General Kosciuszko, Rochambeau, and Lafayette — with the message “Free Palestine,” which remained on the statues as of Monday afternoon.

Rochambeau’s statue, in the southwest corner of the park, was also graffitied with messages such as, “Stop genocide in Gaza, free Gaza, Palestine will be free, and F*** Joe Biden.”

Graffiti messages on other structures in Lafayette Park which remained until Monday included “Death to USA,” “Amerikkka = pigs,” “Destroy empires,” “Kos om Israel” [according to Google translate, Arabic for, “who is Israel?”], “Israel is a b****,” “T***** f*** [crude ways to describe people who identify as LGBT] 4 Palestine,” anarchist symbols, and, “Free Ireland.” Protestors also affixed stickers with messages including, “Community watch area, police not welcome” and “Every time media lies a neighborhood in Gaza dies.” Some of the messages were written in red paint, smeared to resemble blood.

Over an information board describing the history of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the word “Gaza” was sprayed in large, red letters.

The U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement maintained a heavy presence near Lafayette Park on Monday, with an extra 40 police vans and SUVs parked in an area of Pennsylvania Avenue often open to pedestrian traffic. Police had completely blocked off the avenue in front of the White House, the apex of the protest, while crews with pressure washers were still employed cleaning off the White House fence.

The pro-Hamas protestors did not confine their destructive actions to the White House complex. Across 17th Street from the White House, demonstrators spray-painted “Gaza” on the windows and broke one. Despite the damage, the McDonalds was open for business on Monday.

Blocks away from the White House, protestors vandalized a bus stop with the messages, “Kill the empire” and “Free Palestine,” as well as stickers demanding, “Resist colonial power by any means necessary.”

The message echoes the words of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad who argued last month, “We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 — everything we do is justified.”

“For generations on our elite college campuses … we’ve been teaching young people to look at the world through the worldview of critical theory … that fundamentally sees the world through the lens of ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed,’ said David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, on “Washington Watch.” “Part of that also is this ideology of settler colonialism … this idea that the Jews, the Israelis, somehow don’t actually have a moral claim to their land, and because of that their enemies … can use any means whatsoever to evict them from the land.”

“We have now turned a corner into a place where we are kind of excusing, justifying, trying to understand mass rape, mass murder, putting babies in ovens, because the people who are doing it have been identified as the oppressed,” lamented Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council and guest host of “Washington Watch.”

“We saw this in the U.S. in the ‘Summer of Love’ of 2020, where we saw people rioting and looting and destroying their neighbors’ businesses,” Backholm continued. He referenced the infamous headline, “mostly peaceful protests,” which a mainstream media outlet ran in front of a burning building. When “we defined people and categorized them based on their skin color,” he said, a subtle effect was “changing the moral framework that we use to determine what is right and wrong.”

Protestors also tore down posters of the Israeli victims kidnapped by Hamas and replaced them with more “Murdered by Israel” posters. They placed posters and stickers on parking meters and utility boxes with messages such as, “Zionism is terrorism” and “There is only one solution: Intifada! Revolution!”

Protestors placed flyers on car windshields falsely claiming, “Palestinians in Gaza are facing genocide at the hands of the Israeli government, and the United States is funding it.” The flyer included a QR code and web address for New York City Democratic Socialists.

Despite the destructive actions of protestors, the response by law enforcement was extremely limited. D.C. Police said in a press release that only one person was arrested for Destruction of Property in the 700 block of 17th Street NW — this is the location of the vandalized McDonald’s. They were also “investigating acts of vandalism” to a metro station near the White House and “several police vehicles.”

Meanwhile, U.S. Secret Service officers made no arrests. “As of now, no arrests have been made by Secret Service personnel,” confirmed Secret Service communications chief Anthony Guglielmi. “The attempted gate trespass from earlier was handled without incident.” According to this statement, an “attempted gate trespass” is not an incident.

Under D.C. Code, it is unlawful “to write, mark, draw, or paint” without the owner’s consent on any public or private property, including statues, monuments, and fencing. The penalty for doing so is a fine up to $1,000 and “not less than $250,” as well as jail time up to 180 days. The penalty for breaking or destroying private property exceeding $1,000 is a fine up to $25,000 and imprisonment up to 10 years.

“I never envisioned we would see mobs at the gate of the White House chanting, ‘Allahu Akbar,’” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. U.S. officials have warned of a heightened risk of radical Islamist terror attacks inside the United States, due to the porous nature of the southern border. U.S. Border Patrol recently discovered an improvised explosive device (IED) at the southern border, and they have encountered 736 people on the U.S. terror watchlist this year.

Perkins warned that these left-wing protests are increasingly connected, hearkening back to the nightly BLM riots at the White House in the summer of 2020. Many of the pro-Palestinian protestors have been funded by left-wing not-for-profits that command millions of dollars. “We always treat these as a one-off. This is a march,” he said. After the summer of 2020, which led to repeated injuries of Secret Service officers, the White House installed an enormous iron fence around the compound, in evident anticipation of repeat occurrences.

But another feature struck Perkins as even more concerning. “The first thing that jumped out at me: no arrests. That’s amazing, when there were people who didn’t even step foot in the Capitol, who were arrested for conspiracy on January 6,” he pointed out. “I guarantee, if that were Moms for Liberty, they would have sent paddy wagon after paddy wagon.”

Days earlier, a White House spokesperson called anti-Semitic protests at college campuses “the definition of unacceptable.” When a much larger protest of the same type took place at the White House, law enforcement took minimal action to enforce infractions of either federal law or D.C. code.

Perkins warned that anti-Semitism is an early warning sign of religious persecution in general. “If we step aside, all hell will be unleashed on orthodox, biblical faith,” he warned.

However, Closson insisted that Christianity provides the only effective antidote to the moral relativism of critical theory. “It doesn’t matter your skin color. It doesn’t matter who you’re married to. [It] doesn’t matter — all these superficial categories. What matters is, there are things that are right, and there are things that are wrong,” he said. “And so, a return to understanding objective truth, objective morality — which again is a byproduct of a Christian worldview — that’s something we need to hold on to. That’s something the church needs to insist on.”

Christianity teaches that “even when you are legitimately a victim, you cannot do whatever you want,” Backholm agreed. “We must bless those who curse us, pray for those who spitefully use us. And of course, a big reason for that is the fact that Jesus was the greatest victim of all, yet still laid down his life for us.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden: Pro-Israel by Day, Pro-Hamas by Night

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.

You Can’t Have Your Theocracy and Eat It Too

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“Ah, thank God for Salon, the voice of reason,” said no one ever, and former “senior White House correspondent for Playboy” Brian Karem’s latest article there is demonstrative of why.

In a piece published Thursday and subtly, tastefully entitled “MAGA and Christian nationalism: Bigger threat to America than Hamas could ever be,” Karem argues that so-called Christian nationalists (by which his fustian smear piece makes clear he means any devout Christian elected to public office) pose a greater threat to the U.S. than Islamist terrorists like Hamas — you remember them, the little ragtag band who attacked Israel last month and slaughtered over 1,400 Israelis in a single day and have been torturing hostages every day since. No, Hamas is nothing more than a Middle Eastern bogeyman, Karem would have you believe. The real threat to the American way of life is that devious religion founded on the principle of self-sacrificial love: Christianity.

In an interesting rhetorical choice, Karem chooses to begin his argument by noting that “the FBI issued a warning that the chance of staged terrorist attacks in the United States has grown since the war began in Gaza.” He further mocks Fox News’s White House correspondent Peter Doocy for asking national security officials if they’ve considered the possibility of a terrorist entering the U.S. via the nation’s wide-open southern border. “Obviously they have,” write Karem, “or the FBI wouldn’t have issued the warning.”

For a few paragraphs, Karem does some adroit fund-the-war-in-Ukraine cheerleading, somehow manages to praise Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for betraying his voter base and shipping American tax dollars overseas, and speculate whether or not Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) or Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) are “fans” of Russian president Vladimir Putin — all of this amidst a smattering of pop culture references of which I’m sure Karem is proud, and equally sure he shouldn’t be.

Then he reaches the crux of his argument: “While the world burns, Johnson and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party … seem determined to convert the U.S. into a theocracy run by people who will thump you with the Bible, but haven’t read much of it.” This coming from the former White House correspondent for Playboy.

“Lord, how they love to preach fire and brimstone. But the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes? Forget it,” Karem opines. “Not a chance. They’ve embraced only the Old Testament angry God and the apocalyptic parts of Revelation brought on by ergot poisoning.” Most devout Christians are no doubt familiar with this age-old approach: the admitted non-believer who doesn’t read his Bible cherry-picks a handful of Scripture passages that, taken out of context, he thinks prove his point, and proceeds to berate the Christian for failing to live up to his arbitrary standard of Christianity based on an English translation of an out-of-context Bible verse, or two, if he’s feeling particularly cocky.

Karem would do well to remember that the Beatitudes include “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8) and “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you for my sake” (Matthew 5:11), which is exactly what the leftist-dominated media, including Salon, has been doing to Mike Johnson, ridiculing him for his Christian faith, his fidelity to his wife, and even his adoption of an African-American teenager.

In classic anti-Christian form, Karem disregards roughly 2,000 years’ worth of theological scholarship, debate, and clarification to roughly cite a Bible verse and implicitly declare himself a knowledgeable arbiter of all things Christian. He claims that Johnson and his MAGA ilk “want no separation of church and state. They want an isolationist country surrounded by walls and dedicated to the proposition that the First Amendment guarantees them the right to worship any way they want — while forcing the rest of us to worship the way they choose.” He adds that “modern Republicans seem hellbent on returning to the Middle Ages, driven there by the first Christian nationalist House speaker.”

Of course, Christians do support the First Amendment. It’s the legal mechanism that protects our right to worship the Triune God and to live so we that might be more and more like Him, in the hopes of one day being united wholly with Him in Heaven. While Karem rightly notes that the U.S. Constitution forbids “respecting an establishment of religion,” he wrongly interprets this to mean a “separation of church and state.”

The leftist’s or progressive’s notion of the constitutional amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion seems to demand that lawmakers leave their religious beliefs — which, for the devoutly religious, are the very core of their being and the moral fabric upon which they base their every decision — at the door of the statehouse or capitol building. At no point anywhere in the U.S. Constitution is this explicated or even implied. If it were, a substantial sum of religious Americans of all creeds would be barred from public service, leaving the running of the nation to those with, essentially, no beliefs beyond the merely material world.

As the great author C.S. Lewis elegantly elucidated in his book “The Abolition of Man,” those who do not profess some kind of eternal or religious belief essentially have no beliefs, and therefore have no basis for forming value judgments. It is the eternal, the immutable which is the standard against which all things are measured, which serves as the source of value itself. Without such a belief, there can be no deciding this policy or that is “good” for the nation or “bad” for the country because there is no basis for declaring anything “good” or “bad.” Lewis, of course, explains the concept far more authoritatively and far more intelligently than I, and as I’m sure there would be some copyright issue with quoting the entirety of his book here, I strongly recommend you read (or re-read) it.

Back to Karem’s postulation that Christian nationalism is a bigger threat to America than Islamist terrorists. Citing Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a rabid abortion advocate whom Karem classifies as “a constitutional scholar,” the Salon columnist quips, “The framers taught us that the biggest threat to religious freedom comes from theocrats who try to establish their own sect over everyone else.” Karem adds, “None of that matters to the Republicans. They revel in their own chicanery. They despise free thought and independence…” Nevermind that the vast majority of censorship efforts come from the Left, never mind that the preponderance of America’s founders were Bible-believing Christians, nevermind that “free thought and independence” in America were pioneered by those who put their faith in Someone other than the president or their local congressmen, nevermind that God Himself is the source (and, indeed, summit) of freedom and independence.

If Christian conservatives seem “hellbent on returning to the Middle Ages,” then Karem (and many a leftist like him) is “hellbent” on proliferating a self-defeating argument. Anti-Christian leftists deride “theocracy,” while simultaneously insisting that Christians aren’t being properly Christian. Leftists jettison the bulk of the Christian moral code and stick to the platitude “Be nice to people,” which Christ notably never uttered. Leftists fear a Christian “theocracy,” but also try to tell Christians we’re doing theocracy wrong. Which one is it, Mr. Karem? Is Christianity a violent, threatening, oppressive religion that cannot be tolerated openly in the public square? Or is it a peaceful belief proclaiming niceness and tolerance to all men? It can’t be both.

And let the record reflect that at no point does Karem address how Christian nationalists might launch an attack on America that slaughters over 1,400 in a single day, nor which book of the Bible condones taking and torturing hostages, nor indeed where in Scripture Christ promised his disciples any number of virgin-afterlife-brides in exchange for suicide bombings. At the end of the day, Hamas and other Islamist terrorist organizations pose an infinitely greater threat to America than devout Christians striving for the good of the nation.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news 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.

Elite University Hosting Biden Center Took Money From School That Settled With US Gov’t Over Alleged Hezbollah Ties

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The University of Pennsylvania, which hosts the Penn Biden Center, took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2022, roughly five years after AUB paid a settlement to the United States government in connection with its alleged ties to Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terror organization.

UPenn received $474,947 from AUB in 2022, with the donations earmarked as “Education/Tuition/Scholarship,” according to a 2021-2022 foreign gift disclosure obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. AUB settled a lawsuit with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, paying $700,000 and promising to revise its policies, following a suit alleging the university assisted organizations linked to Hezbollah, Reuters reported.

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed terror organization that has attacked U.S. and Israeli embassies, was implicated in the assignation of a Lebanese prime minister and has carried out suicide bombings, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The United States designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, according to the State Department.

Federal prosecutors said that AUB admitted to training members of al Nour Radio and al Manar TV, media outlets designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as branches of Hezbollah in 2006. “Al Manar and al Nour are the media arms of the Hizballah terrorist network and have facilitated Hizballah’s activities,” a press release from the Treasury Department reads.

“Hizballah” is an alternative way to transliterate “Hezbollah.”

The media organizations solicited donations for Hezbollah, aided in the terrorist group’s recruitment efforts and had their budgets managed and overseen by the secretary general of Hezbollah, according to the Treasury Department.

Prosecutors also said that AUB connected students to Jihad al-Binaa, a construction company the Treasury Department says was “formed and operated by Hizballah.”

AUB provided video production and blogging training to representatives of terrorist-linked groups alongside journalists, Reuters reported.

Some American universities have partnered with Israeli-designated terror organizations or had ties with Palestinian colleges that released pro-Hamas statements. Nonprofits financed by George Soros paid out millions to fund a partnership between Bard College and a Palestinian university that praised Hamas the day after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, law schools encouraged their students to work at organizations deemed to be terrorists by the Israeli government and Georgia State University cut ties with a college in the West Bank after the Daily Caller News Foundation reported on it praising deceased Hamas terrorists.

The University of Pennsylvania didn’t refer to Hamas as a terrorist group following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks until after a prominent donor said his family would cut off financial support to the university.

UPenn received millions in donations from Chinese donors tied to Hunter Biden.

The Penn Biden Center, established on Feb. 8, 2018, in honor of now-President Joe Biden, exists to “convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and strengthen the national debate for continued American global leadership in the 21st century,” according to its website.

While UPenn received money from Chinese donors linked to the president’s son and AUB, there is no way to know whether that money funded the Penn Biden Center.

The University of Pennsylvania and AUB did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SCHMAD

Contributor.

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Anti-Semitic and Pro-Hamas Rallies Reveal the Need to Teach Truthful History

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Since October 7, many of us have been deeply impacted and heartbroken seeing images, hearing news, and realizing what has happened to thousands of individuals and families in Israel. In addition to sympathizing with our brothers and sisters, it has been eye-opening and tragic to see how many college students sympathize with — not the Israeli victims — but the Hamas terrorists who delighted in brutally attacking and murdering them. This reality brings to light the importance of teaching children accurate history, natural law, and, for Christians, a biblical worldview.

The United States is a unique, blessed nation that was founded upon prayer and the wisdom of men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Jay, Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. These men shared Judeo-Christian values which they referred to as “self-evident truths” in the Declaration of Independence. Political philosophers refer to America’s founding political philosophy as “classical liberalism”: limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law. The Founders’ understanding that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness” results from the Jewish and Christian understanding that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).

Tragically, in recent decades, America’s mainstream media and public education system have devalued our country’s relationship with Israel and our shared, Judeo-Christian values based on the Ten Commandments in favor of viewing history and current affairs in the Middle East from the perspective of Palestinians and even radical Islamist terrorists such as Hamas. While it is important to view the Palestinian people as human beings made in the image and likeness of God, we must also defend and declare the sacredness of the Jews’ lives and their right to defend their homeland of Israel.

In 2021, FRC’s Chris Gacek and Lela Gilbert detailed how anti-Semitism and Marxism have tragically spread throughout America, especially on college campuses. They described how there is an aggressive antisemitic outlet among foreign and U.S.-born students on American campuses via the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Movement (BDS).

BDS targets Israel for isolation and economic ostracism because Israel is “purported to be an ‘apartheid state’ akin to South Africa with Zionism being its supporting ‘racist’ ideology,” Gacek and Gilbert write. “Worse yet, the BDS Movement has extensive ties to Islamic radicalism in the Middle East including Hamas. To promote BDS on campus, the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) was founded in 2010, but numerous individual campus chapters existed for at least a decade prior. The BDS/SJP movement accepts nothing about Zionism or the State of Israel. …Now, SJP has over 200 college and university chapters which are administration sanctioned. …Jewish students are intimidated from public displays of religious or Zionist belief …”

“This modern adaptation of antisemitism is a manifestation of [Marxist] critical race and ethnic theories that cast Jews ‘uniformly as powerful white oppressors.’ This ‘critical’ variation ‘doesn’t single Jews out, ethnically or otherwise, as distinct categories.’ Instead, by lumping Jews together with other ‘dominant majorities,’ it ‘effectively creates an erasure, diminishing the Jewish voice in defining Jewish identity,’” the duo warns.

On the October 19 episode of “Washington Watch,” Dean of the Regent University School of Government Michele Bachmann explained, “There’s a real change that’s happened in the United States Congress, and there’s a real change that’s happened throughout America, and that’s where Christians need to wake up, too, and take stock of what’s going on because our … Christian young people are being targeted with this propaganda … that really Israel and Hamas, they’re coequal partners. [Or that] Israel’s just as much at fault as Hamas. This is an absolute lie.”

Bachmann continued, “And so we’re swimming in a sea of lies, and it’s important that churches, that Christian schools and universities teach the truth about what the Bible says about Israel and also the historic truth, the political truth, the legal truth about Israel’s right to her land. And there is never any justification … for what Hamas has done and is doing even today to Israel.”

To help your kids learn the history of Israel and Palestine, PragerU has some very helpful videos at prageru.com.

WATCH: History Gaza Explained

AUTHOR

Kathy Athearn

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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.

Senator to Biden: ‘You Can’t Be Pro-Israel and Pro-Iran. You Have to Choose.’

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A month ago, the idea of U.S. troops doing live-fire exercises in Iraq would have seemed like something out of 2002. But almost three weeks removed from one of the bloodiest days in the modern Middle East, war is closer than it’s ever been. With more than 18 separate attacks launched at American soldiers last week, it’s clear: Israel is no longer the only target.

“My warning to [Iran],” President Biden said Wednesday, was “be prepared.” “If they continue to move against those troops, we will respond.” Whether the Ayatollah takes the message seriously is anyone’s guess. After all, Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) pointed out, it’s not like this White House’s position has been one of strength.

“Iran does not know if this president has any red lines,” the Kansan argued on “Washington Watch,” “and I’m afraid that they could be right. And that’s why I’m saying we need to retaliate and teach them a lesson. We need to hit the bully across the nose really hard the next time they do anything whatsoever. As long as we have ships in harm’s way, which we do, it’s very possible that one of those drones or one of those underwater attacks get through. So of course, I’m very, very concerned about the situation there.”

And it’s not just Republicans who are sounding the alarm. After 24 Americans were wounded on bases in Iraq and Syria, hard-core Democrats like Senator Chris Coons from the president’s own state have expressed frustration with Biden’s lack of spine. “There needs to be pressure back against Iran,” he insisted to Fox News’s Bret Baier. “… Iran funded, supplied, and trained the fighters of Hamas and is behind these other proxies that are in the north of Israel, in the south of Lebanon, in Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula, in Iraq. So, we need to be striking back — and we need to be prepared for the very real prospect that this will get harder before it gets easier.”

In conversations with some of the Syrian rebel commanders, Biden’s weakness is only feeding Iran’s aggression. “There has been absolutely no response to these attacks,” one told a Washington Post reporter, “which has resulted in the fact that the Iranian-backed militias are getting much braver.”

Much as this White House has tried, you can’t be “pro-Israel and pro-Iran,” Marshall insisted. “You have to choose one or the other.” But if we think back to what’s happened under Biden, the senator explained, “… [H]e’s empowered their nuclear weapon program. He’s unfrozen this $6 billion [dollars] … three months ago. He unfroze $10 billion [dollars]. And he’s now allowing them to sell $1 billion [dollars] of oil every week.” Under this administration, Iran’s reserves have climbed from $6 billion dollars to $60 billion dollars.

“This is what’s happening under Joe Biden’s watch,” Marshall shook his head. “He’s allowed Iran to once again be a force, to be a power. And again … You have to choose Israel or you have to choose Iran. Iran is the one that says, ‘Death to Israel. Death to America.’”

If Biden doesn’t act, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins asked, could we see this escalate into a “global conflict?”

“Absolutely,” Marshall answered. “We’re [all] looking [for] some type of clarity from this president, some type of priorities. [No one understands] what the president’s priorities [are] under this situation. To me, the priorities should be very, very clear. Number one, we want to get all the Americans back safely. We need to secure our southern border. By the way, we need to cut the head off the snake of Iran, and we need to eliminate Hamas. … We need a president who’s going to put our first, our best, best foot forward to stand with peace through strength.”

Frankly, Perkins pointed out, “I wish this president had the same clarity on issues such as this, as he does for abortion, the whole LGBTQ agenda, and climate change. [Those seem] to be the only three issues this administration has clarity on. It’s frightening.”

And look, the senator replied, we’re not “warmongers.” “I don’t want this war,” he admitted. “But let’s face it — over the next days, weeks, and months, it’s going to get really ugly there in the Gaza Strip. And Israel needs to know that we have their back, that unequivocally we’re going to stand with them.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and 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.

Should SPLC List Its Own Employee Union as a Hate Group?

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After weeks of silence from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Hamas’s October 7 terror attack that killed more Jews than any event since the Holocaust, the SPLC employee’s union released its own statement via X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming to stand “strongly in solidarity with the Palestinian people.” The statement may cause the SPLC union to meet SPLC’s own criteria for an anti-Semitic hate group.

“What we see in Gaza is the violent imperialist desecration of a people — the beginnings of a genocide,” alleged the SPLC union, which claimed to stand for “anti-oppression and decolonization” and accused Israel of “occupation” and “apartheid.”

“How is Israel occupying Gaza? They’ve turned the keys over to them. There aren’t any Jewish people living in Gaza,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch.” “They were forced out. They had to leave their homes, their businesses, and they gave complete control lock, stock, and barrel to Hamas — well, to the Palestinians, who elected Hamas as their leaders.”

“They’re simply rewriting history,” responded Jewish Rabbi Yaakov Menken on “Washington Watch.” “There are no Jews in Gaza except for [dozens of] hostages, right? Those are the only Jews allowed in the country.” The SPLC union made no mention of the hostages taken captive by Hamas.

While no Jews are allowed in Gaza, Arabs are allowed in the rest of Israel. In fact, Arabs comprise approximately 20% of Israel’s population, and they enjoy full rights as citizens. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip “had their own government [Hamas], and they’re the ones that have facilitated this terror that is now running Gaza and has spilled over into Israel, attacking innocent civilians,” said Perkins. If there is a system of “apartheid” — race-based segregation — it isn’t carried out by Israel.

“Palestinian Lives Matter. Palestinian families matter. Palestinian histories matter,” the SPLC union protested.

“Just calling Arabs Palestinians is racist and exclusionary,” Menken replied. “It says that Jews are not Palestinians, where that’s kind of inverting 2,000 years of world history. Ever since the Romans applied that European, colonialist name [‘Palestine’] to the Land of Israel, it was primarily Jews who were known by that title. So, the whole thing is fiction from beginning to end.”

“We support the ongoing call for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation,” continued the SPLC union. “We hope to move toward peace and freedom.”

“Exactly what does a cease fire mean in this context?” asked Menken. “It means allowing Hamas to regroup and rearm without releasing the hostages — so that further atrocities can happen. It’s very clear that what they’re after is not peace, but actual barbarism.”

In a speech Friday, President Biden stated, “Hamas — its stated purpose for existing is the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people.” A note found on the body of Hamas terrorist encouraged him that “the enemy is a disease that has no cure, except beheading and removing the hearts and livers.” Since Hamas will never accept peace, the SPLC union’s call for a ceasefire implicitly applies only to the nation of Israel.

By denying Israel the right to self-defense against an adversary devoted to their destruction, the only peace the SPLC union can “hope to move toward” would be one succeeding the destruction of the state of Israel. This is also implied in their use of the word “freedom,” evoking the chant at pro-Palestinian rallies, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” National Review Online Editor Philip Klein argued that anyone who utters this phrase “is advocating genocide,” as it implies the elimination of Israel and the killing of millions of Jews — half the world’s Jewish population, in fact.

Biden went further, “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and innocent Palestinian families are suffering greatly because of them.” Yet when the SPLC union chanted, “Palestinian Lives Matter,” “Palestinian families matter,” they were blaming the nation of Israel, not Hamas.

“Anybody who really cares about Palestinian Arabs would not want them under totalitarian rule,” urged Menken. “In Gaza, they can’t choose what to believe. They can’t choose what to say. They can’t choose whom to marry. Everything is controlled for them by Gaza’s rulers.” He said Hamas is “not promoting the rights of Palestinian Arabs or anything good for them. They’re just promoting further killing of Jews and Christians.”

The SPLC union added one final absurdity to their statement, “Already, the horrors of Gaza have fueled aggression in our own country in the forms of attacks against Muslims and Sikhs, and outbursts of antisemitism.”

The cause-and-effect hypothesized here is pure fantasy. The triggering event for increased threats against Jews and Muslims was not “the horrors of Gaza” but “the Hamas attack on Oct. 7,” as the left-wing New York Times said earlier this month. (Sikhs, meanwhile, are a religious group based in India, with no connection to the land of Israel, and recent anti-Sikh attacks bear no particular relation to the events in Palestine.)

A review of recent anti-Semitic incidents further undermines the SPLC’s theory. Left-wing activists glorified Hamas’s terrorist paratroopers. Activists tore down posters showing the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas. Mainstream media immediately accused Israel of bombing a hospital, when the U.S. intelligence community now assesses “with high confidence that Israel was not responsible for the explosion at the hospital and that Palestinian militants were responsible.” Most anti-Semitic incidents seem to be inspired by radical Islamic militants, including a former Hamas chief who called for a worldwide “Day of Jihad [Holy War].”

Much of the anti-Semitism was expressed on university campuses.

Ironically, the SPLC defines anti-Semitism as a feature that “undergirds much of the far right,” although university campuses are often hotbeds of radical leftism. “The same people who are oppressing Jews on campus are the ones pushing Christian organizations off of campus,” said Menken. Perkins agreed, “Anti-Semitic behavior is the canary in the coal mine … when it comes to religious freedom.”

Speaking of the SPLC, their definition of “anti-Semitism” includes “efforts to subvert and misconstrue the collective suffering of Jewish people,” as well as “racialize” and “vilify” them. Surely their employee union qualifies under this definition.

The SPLC union’s Palestinian solidarity statement made no mention of a brutal terrorist attack against Jewish people in Israel that involved more than 1,400 lives lost, more than 200 hostages captured, and untold amounts of burning, rape, destruction, and suffering. “Over here you have people justifying rape on a mass scale that also included crimes like beheading, not only beheading soldiers, but beheading babies,” said Menken. That sounds like subverting and misconstruing Jewish suffering.

Adding insult to injury, the SPLC brands Israel as oppressors, imperialists, and occupiers — not to mention committing genocide — all because they dared to respond to this unprovoked barbarity and fought back against an extremist group pledged to annihilate them. That sounds like a vilification campaign.

Why did the SPLC union side with Palestine — actually, Hamas — instead of Israel, when any honest observer knows Israel is the aggrieved party? According to their statement, because “SPLC Union is and will always be rooted in the legacy of anti-oppression and decolonization led by Black and Indigenous leaders.” (On a side note, do Jews not count as indigenous to Palestine, having been there 3,500 years?) In other words, it comes down to skin color, and Arabs have a slightly darker tint. That sounds like an effort to “racialize” the Jewish people.

Elsewhere, SPLC defines a “hate group” as an “organization that … has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” It sounds like their employee’s labor union attacks and maligns the nation of Israel solely for being Jewish.

Not that the SPLC’s hate group definitions or designations should be taken too seriously. It’s notorious “hate map,” which lists mainstream conservative organizations and just about anybody it hates, has been linked to at least one anti-religious terrorist attack of its own — against Family Research Council in 2012. And the organization lost even more credibility in 2019 when its founder Morris Dees faced “complaints of workplace mistreatment of women and people of color” — a discrimination scandal which led to the ousting of all its (predominantly white) top leadership.

“Logically, a ‘hate group’ should be defined as one whose members 1) actually say that they hate a particular group of people; and/or 2) engage in or condone violence or other illegal activity toward such a group,” an FRC issue brief explained in 2012. “The SPLC, however, uses much broader criteria,” acknowledging that “alleged ‘hate group’ activities include constitutionally protected activities such as ‘marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing.’” Furthermore, SPLC “do[es] not distinguish between racist or violent groups and legitimate organizations that participate peacefully in the political process — tarring all with the same label.”

The SPLC union’s Palestine solidarity statement was constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. In America, people have the right to be wrong, and to let others know how wrong they are. The fact that the SPLC union’s constitutionally protected statement could conceivably be grounds for putting the organization on their employers’ own “hate group” list — if they were so inclined — only serves to further undermine the organization’s credibility and expose its bizarre definition of “hate” for the fraud that it is.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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.

Israel Screens Raw, Unseen Hamas Footage for Reporters to Understand ‘What We’re Fighting For’

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You didn’t have to be in the roomful of international journalists to understand the sheer horror of what they saw. For all of the grisly, stomach-turning images posted online, nothing compared to the 43 minutes of torture screened for reporters on an Israeli military base Monday. Afterward, many, including Breitbart’s Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollack, could only lean against a wall and weep. Replaying the victims’ terrified screams in his mind, he writes, “There is no moment of redemption in the footage. We do not see the end, when the good guys arrive and save the victims.” The only comfort, Pollack admits, “is the knowledge that the footage, at least, was retrieved from the terrorists after they were killed or captured.”

Like so many Israelis, government official Eylon Levy is appalled his country has to prove that terrorists brutalized innocent Jews when the evidence lies in morgues across the country. “I can’t believe we as a country are having to do this,” he shook his head, “… [but] we are witnessing a Holocaust denial-like phenomenon evolving in real time as people are casting doubt on the magnitude of the atrocities that Hamas committed against our people and, in fact, recorded in order to glorify that violence.”

With just pen and paper, dozens of journalists sat frozen through the raw and agonizing scenes from October 7 — videos Levy called “gruesome and as yet unseen.” Pollack was ready to quit 17 minutes in. “Make it stop,” he heard a reporter whisper, as others openly cried. In one of the most heart-wrenching moments, a boy whose father was just butchered by Hamas sobs, “Why am I alive?” — a haunting echo Pollack couldn’t shake.

In stunned silence, reporters filed out of the room to retrieve their laptops, phones, and other electronic devices they weren’t allowed to bring in. Pollack kept replaying the moment two sons became fatherless in front of their very eyes, one wailing, “Daddy, Daddy.” The killings were savage enough to make one journalist heave. It was, as The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood wrote, “pure, predatory sadism … an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims.”

Incredibly, Pollack pointed out, what these reporters witnessed is “just a small part of what the IDF still possesses.” And while Major General Mickey Edelstein admitted the government has evidence of brutal rape, “we cannot share it,” he told them somberly.

Still, the question that lingered in everyone’s minds was Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari’s: “Why does a person take a GoPro [to such an attack]?” he asked the press later. “Because he’s proud of what he does.”

As difficult as the decision was to play the footage for reporters, Hagari believes it was important, because “we want to understand, ourselves, what we are fighting for.” It is their duty, he said, to build a “collective memory,” so that when Israel is challenged, it can point back to these atrocities.

Already, the global pressure is on to back off the ground invasion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been preparing. “Israel’s the only country that has a stopwatch on it when it needs to defend itself,” CBN News’s Chris Mitchell warned from the ground.

But, as Chuck Holton reported from Israel on Friday’s “Washington Watch,” the fighting “really has not stopped in the last two weeks.” “It’s not like they just attacked on October 7th and then nothing’s happened since then. The Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah terrorists have been attacking Israel nonstop every day since then.”

While so many international outlets are focused on the Palestinian casualties, Holton explained that the Israel’s enemies are actively shelling innocent people. “There was just a massive rocket attack in Ashdod and Ashkelon out on the coast — and that’s quite a ways from Gaza. So they are still firing rockets and they’re firing them out of civilian areas.”

In talking to IDF soldiers, Holton says that every one of them agrees that there is only one option at this point, “and that is to go in and to absolutely demolish and dismantle the entire organization of Hamas.” Of course, Hamas “is working very hard to hide behind the civilian populace, to weaponize the civilians against Israel and the West, and to weaponize whatever aid comes in there so that they can continue to fight.”

As to whether the ground campaign is imminent, “that is one of the most closely guarded secrets,” the freelance correspondent told guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice. “But I’ll just say this. This is going to be a massive, absolutely massive, combined arms operation on the scale of the Shock and Awe campaign into Iraq in 2003. We’re talking about up to a half a million troops that will likely be engaged in combat before too long — and this is not planned over a course of years or even months. This is going from a standing start just two weeks ago. The logistics alone behind this kind of an operation are absolutely mind-boggling.”

As to why more boots aren’t already on the ground in Gaza, Holton explained, “You’re talking about having to coordinate all the moving parts of aviation and armor and artillery and infantry and signal and intelligence — and figure out what targets to hit and figure out who’s supposed to hit them and figure out how they’re not going to shoot each other in the process. This is an absolutely unbelievable undertaking that they’re about to do. And they realize that the more time they spend preparing, the less time they’ll have to spend fighting.”

In the meantime, fears of an even bigger conflict are spreading with the news that China is sending six warships to the Middle East. In the U.S., Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is prepping the troops for possible deployment. “What we’re seeing is a prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region. We’re going to do what’s necessary to make sure that our troops are in that position and they were protected and that we have the ability to respond,” he said over the weekend, adding, “We won’t hesitate to take the appropriate action.”

“If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see. Our advice is don’t,” Austin warned. “We maintain the right to defend ourselves…” If that happens, Secretary of Antony Blinken echoed, “we’re ready for it.”

For now, Israelis struggle to cope — not just with the nightmare of such enormous loss, but with the world’s perception that they are somehow to blame. “I can tell you that we are already used to it, unfortunately,” Idan Rakovsky said regretfully. Still, “seeing the coverage outside of Israel is very, very hard,” he admitted.

Maybe what Pollack and others saw will help change minds. But even if it doesn’t, “At the end of the day, we know it’s a war between the light and the darkness,” the former IDF soldier insisted. “And we know that life will prevail — even though people might say differently.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Perkins, Leaders Call Believers to Pray and Stand for Israel ‘Until We See Victory’

RELATED VIDEO: The full Shin Bet interrogation of Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7th.

Middle

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.

Biden Pact Would Force U.S. Soldiers to Die for Saudi Arabia

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Even before anti-American ideologues held public rallies justifying terrorist violence in the name of “decolonization,” Joe Biden sought to hammer out an agreement that could force American soldiers to fight and die for Saudi Arabia. The terms could also give the Saudis, the world’s foremost funders of radical Islam, access to a “civilian” nuclear program and rein in Israel’s response to terrorist attacks.

The Biden administration has sought to build on President Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords by getting Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel. But in exchange, the Gulf states hope to receive an “ironclad” mutual defense agreement: If they are attacked, the U.S. will come to their aid. The Saudis also seek increased arms sales and U.S. assistance in developing “peaceful” nuclear technology. Each step would be counterproductive — as would unequally yoking Washington with Riyadh.

Marching to Mecca?

History proves an enlarged U.S. military presence provides a tantalizing target for Muslim terrorists. In a prelude to 9/11, al-Qaeda killed 19 American servicemen by blowing up the Khobar Towers in 1996. Osama bin Laden later said he intended the bombing “to drive out the enemy who has occupied our land … and to rid the land of the two Holy Mosques from their presence.” Increasing the U.S. military footprint would present no less incitement or excitement for the region’s bountiful extremists 25 years later.

America certainly does not need a defense pact with the Saudis because we lack opportunities to intervene in irrelevant or counterproductive foreign wars. According to Tufts University professor Michael Beckley, by 2015 the U.S. had some form of defense pact with 69 nations around the world, requiring the U.S. military to protect two billion people, or one-quarter of the Earth’s population. Yet the pronoun-obsessed U.S. military cannot fight two wars at the same time.

Remember, too, that any U.S. military conflict in the Middle East will be presided over by President Biden, who considers the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan one of his foreign policy successes, who abandoned U.S. civilians in Afghanistan, and who has taken exacting time in rescuing American citizens from war-torn Israel. After miring the military in a fruitless proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that depleted our munitions stockpile, Biden now seeks to open a second front in the Middle East. China may determine it has become an opportune time to open a third front in the South China Sea, possibly punctuated by a North Korean nuclear explosion over the Sea of Japan. This could be followed by the attack of a Hamas sleeper cell in the American heartland.

While a Biden defense pact might fall short of a NATO-style agreement, it could resemble Barack Obama’s plan to confer Major Non-NATO Ally status. Among other things, that would make Muslim states “eligible for consideration to purchase depleted uranium ammunition.”

Revving Up the Mideast Nuclear Arms Race

Biden’s negotiators are more likely to approve the Saudis’ request for help with their nuclear program — purportedly intended to provide nuclear power for a nation that sits atop 259 billion barrels of untapped oil. History should be a guide here, as well. The Saudis could violate the agreement’s strictures to develop nuclear weapons, as North Korea did after Bill Clinton agreed to a 1994 deal hammered out by former President Jimmy Carter giving Pyongyang two light water nuclear reactors. Barack Obama incorporated a similar model into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran. Now Biden would like to widen the circle by furnishing Saudi Arabia with access to fissile nuclear material, bolstering the Saudis’ nuclear arms race against Iran … and Israel.

‘Can Two Walk Together, Except they be Agreed?’

To sustain such potentially catastrophic risks, this agreement would have to promote significant U.S. interests. Yet it is unclear how enhancing Saudi aims advances U.S. values. No fewer than 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 hailed from Saudi Arabia. While the State Department classifies the kingdom as “a full partner and active participant” in counterterrorism efforts, Saudi Arabia is also the world’s leading funder and exporter of Wahhabi Islam — the fundamentalist Islamic ideology that fueled the terrorism of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. Saudi Arabia has reportedly spent $86 billion promoting Wahhabi Islam globally over the last 50 years, funding 24,000 madrassas in Pakistan in 2016 alone.

Although then-candidate Pete Buttigieg branded Islamism as “not unlike Christianity,” wiser analysts understand no president should risk U.S. troops to promote Saudi interests. “Saudi Arabia is actively undermining American interests in the Middle East while the United States continues to provide security for the kingdom,” writes Jon Hoffman of the Cato Institute. “Unwavering U.S. support has emboldened Riyadh to pursue reckless and destabilizing policies because it is comfortable in the assurance that the United States will come to its aid and not hold it responsible for its actions.”

Why would the U.S. enter a pact with such a nation? “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3:3). What fellowship hath the Land of the Pilgrim’s Pride with the cradle of al-Qaeda?

Subverting the Will of the People

No wonder a majority of Americans (58%) say a mutual defense agreement with the Saudis would be a “bad deal for the U.S., and there is no justification for committing U.S. soldiers to defend Saudi Arabia,” according to a Quincy Institute/Harris poll taken last month. Pollsters found “no significant differences on views of this deal among political affiliation.” But then, the will of the American people rarely rules anything, especially foreign policy. Most Americans opposed our undeclared wars and military interventions against Serbia, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria, as well as additional foreign aid to Ukraine. All proceeded apace.

President Biden has already subverted democracy by pursuing a policy 180-degrees away from his 2020 campaign promises. “I would make it very clear we were not going to in fact sell more weapons to” Saudi Arabia, Biden assured Democratic primary voters during a 2019 debate. “We were going to in fact make them pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.” But Biden has since announced that he will not, in fact, do that. Last July, Biden fist-bumped the blood-soaked hand of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who ordered his military to murder Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and dismember him with a bone saw inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

The Biden administration seems ready to sideline the American majority once again. When Biden officials signed a similar defense agreement with Bahrain last month, they did not submit it for Senate ratification. The agreement, which an administration official described as “legally binding,” requires the U.S. to “implement appropriate defense and deterrent responses as decided upon by” the two nations. Instead, Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the document, and perhaps its adoption process, as “a framework for additional countries” to follow.

Sapping U.S. Strength for Saudi Success

History, too, should make us realize that needless foreign military interventions degrade America’s power and prestige. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal ran an article titled “How the Israel-Hamas War is Tilting the Global Power Balance in Favor of Russia, China.” It explained the Israeli conflict is already “affecting the global balance of power, stretching American and European resources while relieving pressure on Russia and providing new opportunities to China.” That came before the United States tapped 2,000 U.S. troops for possible deployment to the Middle East — and sent an additional 2,000 members of the Marine Expeditionary Unit moving toward Israel via the Red Sea. The ground forces are poised to join two U.S. aircraft carriers, the USS Ford and the USS Eisenhower, in patrolling the region.

If this is true of a war that had not yet formally embroiled U.S. troops, imagine a war fought alongside a member of BRICS. In August, Saudi Arabia and five other nations asked to join BRICS — the Chinese-led global coalition intended to become a regional counterweight and eventual successor to U.S. global hegemony. The new members will form “BRICS plus six” on January 1, 2024.

A treaty with Saudi Arabia fulfills the typical leftists’ criteria for waging war: It serves no U.S. interests; it pursues Marxist “decolonization”; it advances fundamentalist Islam; and it increases the power of the president and/or international bodies at the expense of constitutional checks-and-balances and American sovereignty, respectively. But, in true progressive fashion, this treaty would go further: It would force U.S. soldiers to actively war against American interests.

A Tool of Left-Wing Foreign Policy

The Left also hopes to use the Saudi defense agreement as an additional locus of pressure against Israel. Two weeks ago, 20 Democratic senators — including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Raphael Warnock, and John Fetterman — signed a letter tentatively opposing the measure. “A high degree of proof would be required to show that a binding defense treaty with Saudi Arabia — an authoritarian regime which regularly undermines U.S. interests in the region, has a deeply concerning human rights record, and has pursued an aggressive and reckless foreign policy agenda — aligns with U.S. interests,” they wrote. But they eventually got around to their real concern: the fear that the Biden administration would be too pro-Israeli. “[T]he agreement should include meaningful, clearly defined and enforceable provisions” aimed at “preserving the option of a two-state solution,” especially “a commitment by Israel not to annex any or all of the West Bank.”

The U.S. has no formal treaty commitment to defend Israel from military attacks. Should we sign such a treaty with Saudi Arabia, U.S. soldiers could one day fight in the Middle East to “defend” Riyadh against Tel Aviv.

The Israeli-Hamas conflict has momentarily scuttled the Saudis’ interest in pursuing the agreement as it stands. MBS kept Blinken “waiting several hours” Sunday night, according to The Washington Post, arriving the next morning. Instead, the Saudis entered talks with Iran. But Biden officials remain optimistic they can foist this pact on the American people. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “There’s not some kind of formal pause” in the talks,” because “the long-term goal” of inking a mutual security defense pact with the Saudi kingdom “remains very much a focus of U.S. foreign policy.”

A U.S. defense pact with Saudi Arabia would be a ludicrous policy under any president, worthy of being invalidated by any Congress. Should Biden’s team approve the pact, Congress should pass legislation annulling it at once. U.S. soldiers should never become the janissaries of the Wahhabi Islamic kingdom.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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.

Companies like McDonalds and Starbucks Become another Front of the Israeli Conflict

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As officers stood outside the Texas Capitol Thursday evening, waves of people flooded the area for rallies. One group was clad in black, white, green, and red — the colors of Palestine — and the other with white and blue, standing for Israel. While no violence broke out between the two groups, it was a clear demonstration of the increasing division around the world caused by the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.

In Israel, a McDonalds has given away thousands of free meals to support Israel Defense Forces soldiers (IDF). They posted on Instagram, “[W]e donated 4,000 meals to hospitals and military units, we intend to donate thousands of meals every day to soldiers in the field and in drafting areas.” While it has received support and praise for its generosity, some have expressed their disapproval of McDonalds’ support for Israel and have called for people to boycott.

In America alone, there have been several marches celebrating Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel. Somewhat surprisingly, there are a significant number of voices openly supporting the terrorism taking place, including Black Lives Matter, various lawmakers, as well as progressive students across college campuses. However, a CNN poll revealed there is far more support for Israel than what may meet the eye.

Despite the large number of anti-Semitic protests, the poll reported 71% of Americans “harbor deep sympathy for Israelis,” with at least 50% indicating that they believe Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks is “fully justified.” Twenty percent see it as “partially justified,” and 21% are uncertain, with only 8% claiming it is “not justified at all.” The report also noted that 96% of Americans “express at least some sympathy” regarding the October 7 attacks.

Meanwhile, members of Starbucks Workers United, a worker-led labor union, expressed support of terror attacks on Israel on Instagram. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) shared on X, “Every American should condemn the atrocities that Iran-backed Hamas terrorists committed in Israel. Boycott Starbucks until its leadership strongly denounces and takes action against this horrific support of terrorism.” And the call to boycott is spreading. Starbucks has denounced the sentiments of the union, stating that they “do not represent the company’s views, positions or beliefs.”

As further example to the backlash pro-Hamas groups are receiving, according to Breitbart, BBC News is “under fire” for reporters who have “praise[d] Hamas terror attacks on Israel.” The British new network has a history of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content, and now face criticism for their unwillingness to call Hamas terrorists. For instance, a recent BBC article titled “What is Hamas?” dodged the term “terrorist” by saying “Palestinian militant group.” BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson shared, “It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn — who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”

In response, groups across the U.S. and even the British government are standing up against BBC’s apparent anti-Semitism. Robert Jenrick, the United Kingdom Minister for Immigration, stated, “Let us be clear what the world has witnessed. These weren’t, as some in the media say, ‘militants’ or ‘fighters.’ They were terrorists. They were murderers.”

As the Christian Post’s Michael Brown concluded, “At this moment in history, the first thing that must be done is for all of us to stand together, Muslim and Christian and Jew (and people of other religions and non-religions), Israeli and Palestinian alike, and say, ‘What Hamas did is outright, unjustifiable evil. Plain and simple. We denounce it.’”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Conservatives Sound Alarm over Danger of Importing Palestinian Refugees

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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.

Anguished Families Cling to Hope that Hamas Hostages Will Be Found

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“I can’t describe such a moment in words where you watch your whole family get taken away from you,” Yoni Asher tried to explain. Summoning the courage to keep talking, he looked around the room of diplomats, U.N. officials, and other suffering families, and put himself back in the moment where his world changed forever.

“My wife was visiting her mother at one of the kibbutzim, and I stayed home,” Yoni stopped, as he probably had a million times in the last week, to let his decision sink in. “I got a phone call from my wife,” who was, “scared — scared,” he repeated, “whispering, terrif[ied], saying that she’s hearing gunshots and people are entering the house.” It wasn’t until later that he saw the video of his wife and two daughters on one of Hamas’s cars or trucks. “I recognized them,” Yoni said quietly of his two little girls, Raz and Aviv, and his wife, Doron.

As the tears fell freely down his face, Yoni finally got out the words that thousands of tortured families have said since October 7: “I woke up to the worst nightmare of my life.”

Others, like Yakov Argamani, pace around their houses, clutching a book of psalms. Surrounded by memories, he mourns that his beautiful teenage daughter’s smell is gone from the room. “Noa was here, there, everywhere,” he told The New York Times’s Jeffrey Gettleman. “All of a sudden, it’s gone. And I’m lost,” the broken father laments.

Other dads, like Hen Avigdori, try to comfort the one child who’s left — while slipping away to cry for his son’s missing sister and mom. “I’m in this endless loop of hope and despair, hope and despair,” he said. “I need some proof of life. I need to know where my wife and daughter are.”

From Thailand to France and America, the families of the 199 missing hostages are in an aching form of limbo. Between television interviews and underground meetings with government officials in Tel Aviv, they live hour to hour, haunted by their last conversations and the knowledge of what Hamas is capable of. To so many, captivity is a fate worse than death. As one heartbroken father told reporters, realizing his eight-year-old little girl had been killed was better than thinking of her in the terrorists’ hands. “It’s a blessing,” an emotional Thomas Hend told CNN the moment he learned Emily’s fate. “She was either dead or in Gaza,” he said after the 48-hour search. “And if you know anything about what they do in Gaza, that is worse than death.”

The number held by Hamas, which Israeli officials increased to almost 200 over the weekend, is complicating things for the soldiers on the ground. While teams of military teams search the 30-mile Gaza strip, terrorist Abu Obeida warned that his men have scattered the hostages — babies, grandmothers, young women, newly orphaned children, and soldiers — in “safe places and the tunnels of resistance” all throughout the area.

Brigadier General Daniel Hagari, a top Israeli military spokesman, insisted they have information on the location of the captives and sought to reassure families that the troops “will not carry out an attack that would endanger our people.” In the meantime, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, issued a stunning declaration, offering himself to Hamas if the terrorists would let the child hostages go. “I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home.”

Countless parents at the makeshift headquarters of the Families of Hostages and Missing Persons Forum would almost certainly do the same. “All we have been told is that her phone is in Gaza,” Meirav Gonen said helplessly. Romi, who was kidnapped from the music festival, stayed on the line with her mom for almost 45 minutes until her phone went dead.

“I know she was shot,” Meirav explained. “She called me at 10:15 and I was on with her until 10:58, she was fading away and I heard shooting around her coming closer to the car and then people shouting in Arabic … shouting she was alive and that they need her.”

Romi’s face is one of many lining the wall of Tel Aviv’s HaKirya government building, a horrifying reminder of the dozens of missing. “It’s so, so lonely,” Meirav chokes up. “All the thoughts and feelings that you have once you stop for a minute to listen to them.”

Lt. General (Ret.) Jerry Boykin understands the pain of hostage crises more than most. As commander of the Army’s elite Delta Force, he was one of the leaders on the failed mission to rescue Iran’s hostages in 1980. Like so many veterans, he knows the incredible lengths America will go to bring its people home. “I think most of what you see, other than the bombing and the shelling by the Israelis … is reconnaissance to try to locate the hostages,” he explained to guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice on “Washington Watch.” “This is a big issue for the Israelis because there are Americans being held. And I can assure that those people on the ground in [Gaza] include some Americans, our special operations that are experts at hostage rescue.”

But, Boykin warned, “the key thing to hostage rescue is good intelligence, and I think that’s what they’re doing [in Gaza right now]. … They’re in there looking for the hostages. And I pray that they will find them before the end of this campaign … because ultimately,” he said soberly, “these people will be killed if we can’t find them in time.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was cagey on Sunday about the involvement of U.S. special ops, saying only that the military “won’t rule anything in or out” about the hostage effort on the ground.

For now, Boykin insisted, the world needs to keep its eye on the ball. All of this, he argued, “is on the backs of Hamas.” “Hamas is responsible for everything that has happened up to this point. There is nothing, no one killed, nothing that Hamas is not responsible for. And we have to remember that. … What has happened here is a terrible, brutal, even demonic attack on the Israelis. … And we stand with the Jews.”

More than that, we pray for the Jews — and everyone affected by this unspeakable tragedy. For a partial list of hostages to remember in prayer, visit Pray for Israel by Name and join us in asking for God’s continued blanket of peace and protection on the innocents in the grip of Hamas.

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. ©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.

America’s Adversaries Are All Connected

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A day after murderous terrorists invaded Israel, critical infrastructure connecting frontline NATO allies was shut down as a “result of external activity” — possibly foreign sabotage — according to Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “Russia sympathizes with us,” senior Hamas official Ali Baraka said in a Sunday interview on the government-controlled Russia Today TV. “One war eases the pressure in another war.”

While Finnish and Estonian officials are still investigating the disruption of a pipeline and communication cable, the timing is likely no coincidence. If it resulted from foreign action, then the foreign agents took advantage of the fact that world attention was focused elsewhere to carry out an operation they had likely already planned. Did Russia have prior knowledge of Hamas’s invasion plan?

Russia has long weaponized its monopolistic position as Europe’s oil supplier to extract political concessions from dependent neighbors by cutting off energy supplies. The Balticonnector Pipeline began operations in 2020, connecting Finland to the rest of Europe via Estonia and reducing Russia’s oil leverage over both countries.

Russia would clearly benefit from disabling the pipeline. Both countries are pro-western states on Russia’s border and view the USSR’s primary successor state as their greatest threat. In April, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland officially joined the anti-Russian NATO alliance, which Estonia joined in 2004.

Yet, according to Baraka’s interview in a Russian propaganda outlet, Russia was notified prior to the assault. “In order to keep the attack secret and successful, the different factions and our allies did not know the zero hour,” he said. But Hamas did update Russia after they inquired about the Hamas attack and its intention. If Russia is responsible for the Balticonnector sabotage, they implemented the plan opportunistically.

Russia was not the only ally Hamas informed of its plans on Saturday. “After half an hour [of commencing the attack], all the Palestinian resistance factions were contacted, as were our allies in Hezbollah and Iran,” said Baraka. He added that they even notified Turkey — an increasingly rogue member of NATO — and met with them only three hours into the operation.

“Our allies are those that support us with weapons and money,” explained Baraka. “First and foremost, it is Iran that is giving us money and weapons.” For years, Western intelligence officials have known that Iran was providing military training and logistical help. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said last year that Iran had provided the group with $70 million in military assistance. On Thursday, the U.S. government and Qatar agreed to block Iran from accessing $6 billion in funds the U.S. had unfrozen as an appeasement measure.

Baraka also pointed to Hamas’s close affinity with Hezbollah, another radical Islamic terror organization funded by Iran, but which is based in Lebanon instead of Gaza. Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel on Tuesday, in an effort to divide Israel’s forces and limit the safe places where refugees from southern Israel could be temporarily relocated. Baraka also boasted that “the Arab and Islamic people … are standing by us.” Even if he presumes too much when speaking for all people who identify as Muslims, these are not idle words; on Sunday, Palestinian sympathizers staged demonstrations in support of Hamas’ barbarous tactics across the West.

“Even Russia sympathizes with us,” added Baraka. “Russia is happy that America is getting embroiled in Palestine. It alleviates the pressure on the Russians in Ukraine. One war eases the pressure in another war. So, we are not alone on the battlefield.” He said that Russia, a major exporter of weapons, even gave “a Russian license to produce Kalashnikov bullets in Gaza,” allowing Hamas to procure additional ammunition for Russian-made machine guns despite international sanctions.

That’s quite the international coalition supporting a terror group, but it features the usual suspects. Nations like Iran and Russia are not friendly toward the U.S. and would jump at any opportunity to knock the U.S. down a peg.

Consequently, Hamas’ attack did not happen in isolation. “We have been preparing for this for two years,” Baraka said. In other words, Hamas began preparing to launch a major assault against Israel in the immediate aftermath of America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some unconfirmed reports have even suggested that Hamas used weapons U.S. forces left behind in Afghanistan, which evidently made their way across the Middle East through illicit arms trading. When America’s foes see us as weak, they calculate that it is time to strike.

The same actors — and even more of them — are aligned on Russia’s side of the conflict in Ukraine. After Ukraine stalled Russia’s first assault and ground down its war machine with Western aid, Russia turned to other bad actors to restock its supplies. There have been reports that Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, and even South Africa are supplying Moscow with military equipment and personnel.

In October 2022, the Pentagon said they knew that Russia was using Iranian drones in Ukraine, and they believed Iranians were on-site to help the Russians operate them. In February, the Biden administration considered releasing intelligence that showed China was supplying arms to Russia. Customs records obtained by Politico this summer show that China has shipped body armor and other military munitions to Russia. In May, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa accused the allegedly neutral country with supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, via a sanctioned cargo ship it allowed to dock at a naval base near Cape Town in December. In September, the White House said North Korea and Russia were “actively advancing” arms negotiations, and satellite photos last week detected a near-quadrupling in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border. Even distant Cuba has gotten involved, smuggling hundreds of soldiers to fight in Russia’s war.

In addition to military assistance, American rivals on the world stage also cooperate economically. An organization of second-tier economic powers, known as BRICS (for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will more than double its membership in January 2024 when it officially admits Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. The organization, which includes some of the largest economies in Africa, Asia, and South America, is actively discussing ways to move international trade away from the U.S. dollar and towards other national currencies. BRICS expansion is significant because it indicates that even U.S. military allies, like India, or economic partners, like Saudi Arabia, are increasingly willing to cooperate with adversaries the U.S. has tried to isolate.

Such interconnection in foreign policy is not a new development. Independent powers have combined into military coalitions since at least the time of Abraham (see Genesis 14:1-2). In the century between Napoleon and World War I (1814-1919), international politics particularly focused on the alliances between five to nine so-called “great powers,” which were ever-changing to maintain a precarious balance of power. This provoked a string of conflicts, culminating in two devastating world wars.

After World War II, only two great powers remained (the U.S. and the Soviet Union), which spearheaded two worldwide coalitions (countries not aligned with either side were dubbed the “third world”). Due to the invention of nuclear weapons, the two great powers did not risk an all-out war, but they still struggled together in an economic Cold War and a series of proxy wars over influence in other countries — Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Afghanistan.

When the Soviet Union collapsed after four decades, the U.S. found itself in the rare position of a global hegemon — a world power with no equal. The conflicts of this period — two Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Serbia — reflect America’s ability to go anywhere in the world and do whatever we wanted, always dealing with asymmetric opponents. In the early 2000s, President Bush could call out by name an “axis of evil,” consisting of three countries, for the whole world to shun.

But shifting alliances and changing power balances have changed the global situation once again. China’s decades-long buildup and Russia’s resurgence have placed the U.S. on the defensive in far-flung zones of influence. Part of this is from not recognizing the threat. America has largely let China’s military buildup and global friend-buying projects go unanswered, and the U.S. has become consumed with internal divisions, which other nations may have played a role in aggravating. We stopped playing the game, while everyone else was playing harder than ever.

Whatever the reason why a growing coalition of global adversaries is arrayed against America, a world in which the U.S. is not the all-dominant power is actually just a return to equilibrium, from a historical aberration. Most Americans today can’t remember anything different, but for most of history geopolitics has been a delicate balancing act, or very bloody. American ingenuity and freedoms can go a long way, at least with good leadership. But we can’t count on always being the unchallenged champion in an adversarial arena that incentivizes the rise of challengers — especially when those challengers can combine together.

The takeaway is that America cannot afford to view one hostile power or one national crisis in isolation. What is currently happening in Israel will affect the war in Ukraine, the security of Taiwan, and even the possibility of major terror strikes against American targets.

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.

‘What Starts in Israel Doesn’t End with Israel’

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“We’re trying to pull ourselves together,” a survivor said, looking around at the rubble, the charred and bullet-sprayed houses. What was once a buzzing kibbutz is now makeshift military base, where Israeli soldiers struggle to wade through the horrors left behind by Saturday’s attack. The echoes of the massacre are all around them, in black body bags of all sizes, bloodstained walls, and the stunned look of the left behind. “We’re all like zombies here,” one young woman said.

This was not war, hardened soldiers on the ground would tell reporters later. This was an act of savages, of butchers. Worse than ISIS, many insisted. “I never imagined something like this could happen,” IDF Major General Itai Veruv told CNN of the torture and execution of innocent children, women, and whole families. “Hand-bound, shot, executed, heads cut,” babies decapitated, dazed witnesses confirmed. A slaughter.

Now, as tanks roll in and forces gather for a ground invasion of Gaza — cutting off water, power, and fuel to the two million people living on the narrow slice of land — rockets and drones have started pounding Israelis from Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The sirens are sounding in every town and city in the north,” news outlets warn, “including the Golan Heights.” As troops mass toward the south, the multi-front war that experts feared seems to have arrived.

Families whose children survived the worst of Hamas are now facing another agonizing reality — parting with their sons and daughters, as reservists are called up to the frontlines by the tens of thousands. Together, they have one common sentiment: resolve.

Dr. Ari Sacher, one of the primary architects of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, sent his own sons off to war over the weekend, amazed that the army had 150% of the people they called up show up. “And what’s [unbelievable],” he pointed out, is that “we were a country for the last better part of a year [that] was fraying. Many people felt that we were on the verge of a civil war. The government was trying to pass laws that would change judicial reform laws. And there was an outcry. People were saying, ‘We’re not going to do reserve duty anymore.’”

After Saturday’s atrocities, “all of that was thrown aside,” Sacher said. At a time of crisis like this, he pointed out, “one of two things could have happened: the country could have just imploded, or we could have been galvanized. And what happened was we became galvanized.”

He talked about dropping one son off at the unit’s meeting point, stunned by the crowd. “There were so many cars. There were thousands of cars. There was nowhere to park my car. He had to walk 15 minutes to get where he needed to get. And he was walking with throngs of people — every type of Israeli, the Orthodox, the non-Orthodox, people with sidelocks, people that are bald with tattoos. We were all going for that purpose.”

Since then, Sacher said, “There’s just been an onslaught of Israelis inundating [the troops with supplies]. My sons are sending messages [saying], ‘Stop bringing us food, stop bringing us supplies. There’s nowhere to put it anymore.’ This country has been galvanized.”

And no wonder. Talking to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch” Tuesday, Sacher was somber about the task facing his people. “We have since cleared out all of the areas; we are now counting our dead. We’re burying our dead. In another half hour, one of the dead from my town up north will be taken out to be buried. We are all leaving our houses and standing on the street with Israeli flags as they take him to his to his final burial place” — a scene that will be playing out in dozens of grieving villages for weeks to come.

“And we are not looking for retribution,” Sacher insisted, “because you can’t ask for retribution for what happened. We’re looking to rid the world of Hamas.”

Others, like Carolyn Glick — Middle East expert, journalist, political advisor, and former officer in the Israeli Defense Forces — have been grateful to see the United States step up and have Israel’s back in that effort. “[President Biden] gave an important statement [Tuesday] reinstating his full support for Israel and his readiness to aid Israel in any way necessary. … So that was good.”

But what concerns her and several other Israelis are the powerful pro-Palestinian voices inside the White House.

“Just the day before the Hamas attack, Secretary of State Tony Blinken approved another $75 million in aid to the Palestinians. And advancing the cause of the Palestinians against Israel has been a central, central focus of the Biden administration,” she explained on “Washington Watch.” “People like Hady Amr, who’s the presidential envoy to the Palestinians, has a long history of supporting Palestinian terrorism against Israel, and he has [a] very senior position in the Biden administration, as does the director of intelligence and the National Security Council, Maher Bitar, and other very key people who are responsible for implementing President Biden’s Middle East policies and the National Security Council in the White House and in the State Department, among other places.”

So, yes, Glick cautioned. The support that America is showing for Israel “does empower Israel, but it’s important to realize that Biden has also made it, “until now, a key goal of their policy to what they call integrate Iran into the Middle East through nuclear appeasement. And to that end, as you mentioned, they just approved the unfreezing of $6 billion in oil revenues from the South Koreans to be transferred to Iran.”

In all honesty, she said, “Our future in this region and our existence is at stake here. … And that means recognizing that Hamas is a proxy of Iran, as is Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that Iran is directing this entire thing. They ordered the strikes. They’re paying for them. They’re providing all of the ammunition and everything that Hamas needs. Ninety-three of Hamas’s budget is paid for by Iran,” Glick told Perkins.

“We had a Holocaust-level atrocity perpetrated against the Jewish people on Saturday,” she insisted. “… And this is not just Hamas,” Glick was careful to point out. “Hezbollah has 250,000 missiles pointing at Israel. And it cannot end this war with those missiles pointing at Israel or being shot at Israel. We have to end their threat against Israel — and it goes to Iran itself.” Their regime, Glick continued, cannot be appeased by Biden. It has “to be pushed back to such a degree that they won’t ever try to do it again.”

In the end, Glick emphasized, this is not just about the Israelis. “It’s very important for … our friends abroad to [understand] that what starts in Israel doesn’t end with Israel. What starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews. The United States knows what jihad is, even if it’s pretended it away. And if we don’t defeat the forces of jihad, led by Iran, here, they will be at your doorstep as well tomorrow.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and 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.