Tag Archives: Palestinians

Three Years Ago ‘Never Again’ Happened

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From 1948 to 1967, Egypt controlled Gaza. At that time, the people living there were not clamoring for their own country–they were content to be under Egyptian control. In 1967, during the 6-day war, Israel gained control of Gaza. The majority of the population in Gaza at that time was Arabs from various countries. There was no cry for a Palestinian state during the time Egypt, Jordan, and other nations controlled the land that Israel won back in the 6-day war. Why was it, Bethlehem resident Walid Shoebat once stated, “that on June 4th,1967, I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?” In June 2004, the Israeli government approved Ariel Sharon’s plan for disengagement from Gaza. In 2005, that plan was carried out. Israelis were forcibly removed from their homes. The greenhouses that the Israelis had built that fed much of the country were left behind. The Israeli government believed that moving Israel out of Gaza would reduce friction between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as free up vast sums of money (then being spent on the small settler population) to advance other issues on the national security agenda. Unfortunately, that was not the way it worked out. The residents of Gaza dismantled the greenhouses, the source of economic stability in the area, and used the pipes in the greenhouses to make rockets. In 2005, Palestinians began rocket attacks on Israel. Those rocket attacks have continued. The last rocket fired from Gaza to Israel was October 7, 2025.

On October 7th, 2023, the unimaginable happened.

Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, massacring thousands of Israelis and foreign nationals and taking hundreds more hostage, launching Israel into an unprecedented year of threats, attacks, assassinations, protests, and war.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 massacre. Over 250 people were kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. As of October 7, 2024, 101 of them were still being detained in captivity.
The first sirens began at 6:29 the morning of October 7.According to The Jerusalem Post:

…IDF field observers at the Nahal Oz outpost identify two gunmen running towards the fence. They also see terrorists detonating parts of the border fence. At 6:45 a.m., system disruptions at the outposts lead to some 70 terrorists raiding the base, with more joining the murderous raid later in the morning.

In Kfar Aza, Ynet photographer Roi Idan takes the first footage of Hamas paragliders entering Israel. Minutes later, his wife, Smadar, is killed before he himself is murdered while holding his three-year-old daughter, Abigail.

Some 3,500 revelers attended the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im the night before. When the first interceptions and blasts were heard, they were told to lie on the ground and protect their heads with their hands despite no sirens being triggered in the area. At 6:32 a.m., party organizers announced the event had ended and called on everyone to leave. Most left towards the car park.

The Jerusalem Post reports that at 6:50:

Hundreds of terrorist invaders begin entering Israeli towns, from terrorists on jeeps seen driving through Sderot to infiltrations of Be’eri, Kissufim, Ofakim, and Nahal Oz. By 7:20 a.m., an emergency standby squad of the kibbutz near the Erez crossing identifies some 20 terrorists making their way towards the kibbutz.

A traffic jam ensues at the exit from the Re’im festival area as only one route, Route 232, leads out of the car park. Terrorists who infiltrated the Gaza Strip and saw the movements of cars in the area opened fire at the vehicles shortly before seven, barring the exit. Hostages were taken on the scene.

The attack continues:

9:00: Ronen Engel is killed by terrorists while attempting to defend his family. His body is taken to the Gaza Strip. At 9:26 a.m., Ronen’s wife, Karina, is taken captive, while their two daughters, Mika and Yuval, are taken captive.

9:06: An Israeli woman is killed by rocket debris in Tel Aviv, marking the first death on October 7 that did not occur in the South.

9:30: Terrorists begin a mass massacre and mass murder of whoever is on site of the Nova festival. 364 civilians, Israelis, and foreign nationals were horrifically murdered as videos of fleeing party-goers flooded social media. During this time, terrorists who had infiltrated Kfar Aza began massacring and kidnapping residents….

12:15: Terrorists take control of areas and homes in kibbutz Be’eri and begin to de-facto occupy much of Israel’s south and Gaza border area. In these hours, Nira Sharabi saved seven other kibbutz residents that terrorists were attempting to take captive. Nira’s husband, Yossi Sharabi, and her brother-in-law Eli are kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.

1:00: Israeli troops arrive at Kissufim, after hours of Hamas occupation.

2:00: Israel’s security cabinet convenes for the first time in the day, seven-and-a-half hours after the invasion begins. In Be’eri, some 40 terrorists embedded themselves in homes, transferring the 15 hostages they had taken in the kibbutz to houses under their control.

2:17: The first group of IDF soldiers reach the site of the Nova party. 

2:30: Officers from the Border Police’s YAMAM counter-terrorism unit rescue police officers who were in a police station that was surrounded and subsequently torched by Hamas terrorists.

Evidently the plan of the terrorists was to have allied terrorist groups attack Israel from the north and east. The plan was to overrun the country and achieve the Islamist goal of ‘driving Israel into the sea.’ That was the beginning of the war that began in Gaza and now has migrated to Iran, the major financial resource for all of these terrorist groups. Can you imagine what Iran would be like with a nuclear weapon? Is it a stretch to believe that Iran would share nuclear weapons with terrorist groups?

Never again happened on October 7th. We need to remember those who fought bravely to end the attack and those who were taken captive in the attack. Support for Israel is not optional–it is support for the only true democracy in the Middle East where people of all races and religions have the freedom to practice their religion and to participate in the government.

Actions Have Consequences

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Prior to October 7, 2023, many Palestinians crossed into Israel to work. Jobs in Gaza were scarce and often depended on who you knew or who you gave money to, and work in Israel was available and paid well. Unfortunately, many of the people who worked alongside the Israelis before October 7th were the same people who attacked them on October 7th. Now the people in Gaza are complaining because Israel will no longer allow them to cross into Israel and work there.

On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

From what little contact I have had with Palestinians in the United States, they can be entrepreneurial, hard-working, and decent enough people to be around.

Of course, these are generally Palestinians with the wit to leave the hellholes that the Palestinian leadership has created, and are also in jobs where a middle- to upper-middle-class guy like me is likely to meet them. So they are probably not representative.

But still, I can think of no inherent reason why, other than culture, that Palestinians in the Middle East are such a poisonously dangerous population, but there is not one Arab country that wants anything to do with them, and for good reasons. They destroy every place where they congregate.

Ask the Jordanians. The Lebanese. The Egyptians. The Palestinian “refugees” from the war have all wound up in European countries too stupid to defend themselves against any threat. They are stupid enough to take in Syrians, Pakistanis, and Afghans as well, and have lived to regret it.

Since the West Bank and Gaza are terrible places to do any business, largely because the “governing” bodies are horrifically corrupt and only interested in graft and jihad, Palestinians get work in Israel. Or did, until October 7th, when many of the people welcomed into Israel to work turned out to have been spies who helped develop the intelligence necessary to commit the atrocities of that day.

…Israel has always had this problem. On the one hand, they want the Palestinians in the formerly occupied territories to become more prosperous and less inclined to genocidal fantasies, and on the other hand, Palestinians as a group want to have their cake and eat it too.

They want to live well, and thus need to work outside the crapholes created by their leaders, but on the other hand, they are bloodthirsty and want to kill Jews.

After October 7th, Israel cut off access to the country for Palestinians, and now we are supposed to cry for the Palestinians who lost their jobs and blame Israel for not being interested in seeing its citizens raped, murdered, or blown up.

The article concludes:

When The New Yorker leads with a phrase like “justified in the name of security,” they are trying to say that the real cause is racism or prejudice, as if the fear of Palestinian terror is irrational.

That is absurd, of course. As many people have noted, proportionally the October 7th massacre was far more deadly than 9/11, so of course it has scarred the Israeli psyche. And, unlike the United States, Israel has lived with Palestinian terror for its entire existence as a country. To this day, its citizens contend with rocket attacks essentially daily.

The transnational elite-types are indifferent to that, of course. As we have seen over the past year or two, even New Yorkers have embraced Islamists in the name of “diversity,” and elected as Mayor a man who campaigned with an unindicted co-conspirator with the World Trade Center bombers, and speaks at mosques where they pray for “Death to America.”

Gad Saad calls the impulse to defend people who declare themselves enemies of our civilization “suicidal empathy,” and surely there is much truth in that diagnosis. But I think that only captures one variable; many supporters of Palestinians quite consciously want our civilization to fall. They approve of the violence as it is a necessary component to their larger agenda.

The AWFLs (affluent, white, female, liberal) may be besotted with “empathy,” but the Bolsheviks just want to destroy what they hate.

Actions have consequences.

Wisdom From Someone Who Knows

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On Sunday, Breitbart posted an article about an exclusive interview they did with Mosab Hassan Yousef — the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Please follow the link to read the entire article–it is amazing. I will post a few highlights here.

The article states:

Speaking in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Mosab Hassan Yousef — the son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who later broke with the terror group and worked covertly with Israeli intelligence as “The Green Prince” — delivered a sweeping warning to Western progressives as global sympathy for the Palestinian cause reaches historic highs.

The former Hamas insider’s warning comes as Israel marks two linked anniversaries: 78 years since the U.N. Partition Plan on November 29, 1947 — when the Arab world rejected a Jewish state and launched a war — and its November 30 national day commemorating the departure and expulsion of nearly 900,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim countries and Iran, after Arab regimes turned on their Jewish populations in the wake of the U.N. vote and Israel’s creation and stripped them of citizenship, property, and basic rights.

“The world forgets history,” Yousef said. “But history is repeating itself — and this time the liberal West is helping it happen.”

“This Is Their Strategy — Sacrificing Children to Cry Genocide.”

Drawing on his upbringing inside Hamas’s inner circle, Yousef said the terror group’s approach on October 7 — and throughout what he called “77 years of Palestinian violence” — was never about land, borders, or “occupation,” but about producing maximum civilian suffering for political gain and Western consumption.

“This is their strategy,” he warned. “Put children in harm’s way, weaponize civilians, endanger both sides, and use the blood to ignite endless war.”

Hamas, he stressed, knows it cannot defeat Israel on the battlefield.

“They know they cannot win a conventional war,” Yousef said. “So they try to defeat Israel in the court of liberal Western opinion — by creating as many civilian casualties as possible and then screaming ‘genocide.’”

This was his comment about Palestinians:

The former Hamas operative reserved some of his sharpest criticism for what he called the “manufactured Palestinian identity,” insisting it was invented for political utility and continues to fuel violence that Western progressives now excuse.

“There is no such thing as Palestinian,” he said. “There is no such thing as Palestine. These are terms borrowed from the Romans — from conquerors. At most, what they call ‘Palestinians’ are Arabs, and Israel already has two million Arab citizens.”

He described the Palestinian national narrative as “a mask,” constructed to justify rejecting peace, rejecting coexistence, and ultimately rejecting Israel’s right to exist — even as the same narrative is now chanted on American campuses.

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

Never Again Is Now

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Hamas recently released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave in a tunnel underneath Gaza. He looks like the people the allied forces rescued from the concentration camps in the 1940’s. Yet somehow there is no outrage–only cries for a Palestinian state. That makes no sense. Where were those cries when the land in question was owned by Egypt and Jordan?

On Saturday, Breitbart reported:

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas filmed Israeli hostage Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave in a tunnel underneath Gaza, in a propaganda video meant to pressure the Israeli government to end the war.

The war will end when Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages.

The article concludes:

Images of starving Palestinian children, many of them fake or misleading, have flooded the international media, though the only people confirmed to be starving are the remaining 20 or so living Israeli hostages.

It is telling that none of the countries in the region or Israel are interested in taking in the Palestinian refugees.

The article contains a video released by Hamas.

Why The Palestinians Cannot Have Their Own State

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On Thursday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about a recent poll taken in the “West Bank.” The poll is disturbing to say the least.

The article reports:

Most Palestinians in West Bank support mass-murder, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israelis by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, a latest poll shows.

“59% of Palestinians polled in the “West Bank” still think that Hamas’ made the “correct decision” to torture, rape, burn alive, murder, and kidnap hundreds of hostages—even including children,” the media watchdog Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) observed, citing the poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Having learned nothing from the October 7 massacre and its aftermath, nearly 80 percent of all Palestinians were opposed to the dismantling of Hamas as a terrorist fighting force, poll numbers show. “77% of Palestinians overall (and 85% of Palestinians in the PA-controlled “West Bank”!) “oppose the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on Gaza,” the media watchdog added.

…The poll results should not come as a surprise if one recalls how thousands of Palestinians flocked to greet Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 as they rode back on their pick-up trucks after massacring and raping Israeli men, women and children —  brandishing their weapons and parading their captives.

The macabre display was not limited to Hamas-ruled Gaza; the Palestinian Authority-run West Bank witnessed hideous celebrations on the streets and in schools over the mass-murder of around 1,200 Israelis.

The article concludes:

The poll also showed that nearly half of Gaza’s residents would prefer to leave the Hamas-infested enclave. The mainstream media was outraged when President Donald Trump in February suggested relocating large number of Gazans to neighboring Arab states for the post-war reconsecration of the enclave to take place.

“Almost half of Gazans may be willing to apply to Israel to help them leave to other countries, according to a survey released Tuesday,” The Times of Israel reported. “The poll (…) showed that for the first time since the Gaza war was sparked by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, more Gazans thought Israel rather than Hamas would emerge victorious, though a plurality thought the war would end in a stalemate.”

Why would you form a nation of people who have so little regard for human life and the rules of civilization?

Actions Have Consequences

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On Saturday, The New York Post posted an article about some of the consequences of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last spring.

The article reports:

Columbia University saw donations at its annual fundraiser drop nearly 29% after the spate of anti-Israel protests on campus earlier this year.

The annual “Giving Day” event brought in $21.4 million in 2024, compared to $30 million in 2022, the last time the event was held, according to campus newspaper Columbia Spectator. Giving Day was postponed in 2023 due to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing protests.

The Ivy League university also saw a nearly 28% drop in the number of gifts, falling from 19,229 in 2022 to 13,870, the lowest since 2015, the paper said.

The article concludes:

“Columbia is fortunate to have a dedicated community of alumni, parents and friends who recognize the impact their financial donations, volunteer time, talents, advice and mentoring make in assisting students and supporting the mission of the university and its schools,” a Columbia spokesperson said. “Their participation and support is ongoing and sincerely appreciated, and they continue to ensure the ongoing success of the university.”

The school has faced criticism for its mishandling of the demonstrations.

Anti-Israel protests resumed in September as the 2024-2025 school year commenced.

Columbia was one of the Ivy schools to be investigated by the Department of Education for civil rights violations under Title VI in December.

Someone needs to sit down with our university students and give them an honest history of Israel and the ‘Palestinians.’

Consider the following:

“We considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians – they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag.” ~ Walid Shoebat

Walid Shoebat is also credited with saying:

One day during the 1960’s I went to bed a Jordanian Muslim, and when I woke up the next morning, I was informed that I was a Palestinian.

This is the original mandate for Palestine:

The ‘Palestinian refugees’ should be asking for land in Transjordan–not at Israel. If you study the history of Israel, you discover that the Palestinian refugees are not actually refugees–they left their property in Israel in 1948 because the Arab nations promised them that the Jews in Israel would be driven into the sea and the ‘Palestinians’ could then have the entire country to themselves. Obviously, it didn’t work out that way.

Knowing History, Religious Practices, And Cultural Norms Can Save Your Life

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article reporting that a group called the New Tolerance Campaign has offered $1,000,000 to any LGBTQ advocacy organization to hold a gay pride parade in Gaza or the West Bank! As of now, no one has accepted the offer.

In Iran, another Muslim-controlled area, people who belong to the LGBTQ community are thrown off of buildings with their hands tied behind their backs. In some Muslim countries they are stoned. Under Sharia Law, it is illegal to be gay.

The article notes (rather tongue-in-cheek) that no group has accepted their offer:

It’s a mystery because so many of these groups have expressed solidarity with Hamas and the Palestinian authority. You would think they would be chomping at the bit to show their undying (pun intended) support for their brothers and sisters in arms.

The article concludes:

Obviously, I don’t want anybody to actually go to “Palestine,” because I don’t want anyone killed just to make a point. But making the offer is a good way to remind these idiots that their “solidarity” with people who want to kill them is stupid.

Even if it were true–and the opposite is true–that both Palestinians and alphabet people were equally “oppressed”–it makes no sense for “Queers” to align themselves with the terrorists of Hamas. Their interests diverge in almost every way.

But they don’t see it that way because both hate America. It really is that simple. Hating America is the great unifying force of the radicals.

Kumbaya.

Maybe it’s time to remind some people how much freedom we have in America and to encourage them to be grateful for that.

Risking Americans’ Safety

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about one impact of our open southern border–we have no idea of who is in our country and why they are here.

The article reports:

This is turning into an unpleasant pattern that continues to repeat despite assurances from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that they have the situation under control. Last month, border agents caught three Palestinians whose names appear on the terror watchlist coming over the southern border into California. On Monday, CBP found another one, this time in New Mexico. Omar Shehada turned out to be a doozy. He’s from the West Bank and he landed on the watchlist because he had already been convicted of terror attacks involving “explosives and firearms.” (Probably against Israel.) And now he has crossed the world and very nearly entered our country undetected. Are we honestly expected to believe that he was the only one?

The article concludes:

We are unable to get any background information on these people. It’s something of a miracle that we were able to flag these last four. You can’t simply send an email to Hamas Headquarters or the Palestinian Authority and expect them to tell you what all of their militants have been up to. We run into the same situation with Venezuela and many other nations that are plagued with terror issues. This leaves us unable to vet them properly even when we do manage to catch them coming over the border.

These Hamas terrorists can keep tabs on the international news just like anyone else. They clearly know that the United States is somewhat divided at the moment and they have supporters out there on college campuses. It probably wouldn’t be all that hard for them to find some financial and logistical support for their plans right here among our own people. But just make sure that somebody hands a voter registration form to Omar Shehada. I’m sure he’s just the sort of person that the Democrats want showing up at the polls in November.

We are inviting a terrorist attack.

Mistreating An Ally

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On Sunday, The Gatestone Institute posted an article about the slow-walking of the weapons Congress promised to Israel. It seems that the Biden administration is working very hard to undermine Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and that withholding the weapons he needs to defeat Hamas is part of that problem.

The article reports:

    • It is with good reason that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains that the US is withholding, or “slow-walking,” military supplies. In Ukraine, for instance, badly needed arms are always “being delivered” but somehow never manage to arrive until long after they might actually have helped.
    • Although Israel’s leaders are well aware of the immense danger presented by Iran, the US and other Western allies evidently cannot be relied upon to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program. The US appears to like talking, and talking about talking, diplomacy backed up by talking, verbal “understandings” so long as they have no teeth, then paying what looks like bribe money for adversaries not to “make waves,” presumably at least not before the America’s upcoming November election.
    • The Biden administration, it seems, would rather deal with threatening situations via… worthless promises from Iran, Russia, China, the Taliban, the Palestinians or whoever else will offer appeasements.
    • The critical point is that Israel is fighting to safeguard not just its own nation, but the West and the Free World as well. The battle at the moment seems between preserving freedom or having it extinguished by the forces of barbarism, autocracies and theocrats, but most of all by the passivity of the West…. Silky, stealth aggressors include Qatar — the consigliere of all Islamic terror groups — which uses money and its media network Al-Jazeera, not military aggression, as its means of persuasion.
    • Sadly, the Biden administration appears to view Israel not as a sovereign nation but a US satrapy. It is hardly a secret that the US has been trying to oust Israel’s elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and replace him presumably with a subordinate. That US puppet would supposedly be delighted to have a terrorist Palestinian state next door administered by the terrorist godfather, Qatar, and be delighted to see Iran have as many nuclear weapons as it likes.
    • If Obama ostensibly conceived of this arrangement [the 2015 “nuclear deal”] to “balance the influence” of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, the plan has failed colossally. Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, has not tried to enlarge its territory….

The battle against Hamas is America’s as well as Israel’s. However, there has been a strong infiltration into American government in recent years (on both sides of the aisle) of people who do not support Western civilization. President Obama was one of those people and is one of those people probably holding the reins in the Biden administration. We need to remember that if Hamas (actually Iran) can defeat Israel, America is their next target. The Biden administration is playing with fire.

Why Are We Funding Terrorism?

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On July 1st, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about a ruling by a U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The article reports:

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled on Friday that the lawsuit brought by victims of Palestinian terrorism can proceed, marking the second time the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss the case has been rejected. The court, in its latest decision, said there is evidence the Biden administration continued awarding taxpayer cash to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—the leading aid organization in Gaza—even after Congress blocked funding to that group due to its support for Hamas’s military infrastructure.

The lawsuit, originally filed in December 2022 by American victims of Palestinian terror attacks and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), alleges the Biden administration violated federal law when it restarted aid to the Palestinians, including for programs in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. This money, they argue, subsidized terrorism and contributed to the Palestinian government’s “pay to slay” program, which provides imprisoned terrorists and their families with monthly stipends.

The latest decision paves the way for the case to “move forward, tearing away the veil from the Biden Administration’s illegal and dangerous $1.5 billion terrorism subsidy program for the Palestinians,” America First Legal, a watchdog group handling the lawsuit on behalf of terror victims, said in a summary of the case provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

In September 2023, Medill News Service reported:

Members of Congress and top experts disagreed yesterday about whether the Biden administration has been complying with the Trump-era law to withhold economic assistance from the Palestinian Authority.

The 2018 Taylor Force Act ended economic aid for the Palestinian Authority over the Palestinian Authority’s controversial policy of compensating the families of terrorists who died or have been imprisoned. Critics of the policy dub it “Pay to Slay,” and say it incentivizes terrorism against Israeli citizens and visiting Americans.

Congress passed the Taylor Force Act to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from incentivizing or funding Palestinian terrorism by cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority until the organization ceases to operate a fund providing salaries for families of deceased and imprisoned terrorists. During the hearing representatives of both parties expressed support for the Taylor Force Act, and questioned the witnesses on whether the Biden administration is complying with provisions of the Trump-era law.

“It is clear the Biden administration is not in compliance. The Palestinian Authority still has this fund in operation,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-NY. “The Biden administration resumed levels of payments and encouraged the Saudi government to do so.”

However, when asked by Rep. Dean Phillips, D-MN, the three witnesses disagreed on whether the Biden administration is complying with the law.

Elliott Abrams, President George W. Bush’s deputy national security advisor, said the Biden administration is “not fully” in compliance, but he said “our money is not going to the PA,” referring to the Palestinian Authority. Abrams believes the Biden Administration is not following the law’s requirements to highlight the issue of the Palestinian Authority funding terrorism at the United Nations and in relations with other countries.

America is funding both sides of the Israel/Hamas war. It is time we stopped. Please read both articles–they explain the details.

Skewing The Facts

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On Sunday, Yahoo News posted an article reporting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s statement about the rescue of the Israeli hostages.

The article reports:

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that “innocent people were killed” in the Israeli military operation that rescued four hostages over the weekend.

The Israeli military said it rescued four hostages in a special operation in central Gaza on Saturday. CNN’s Dana Bash asked Sullivan on “State of the Union” whether the U.S. can confirm how many people were killed in the operation, noting that two separate hospitals in the area said at least 236 people were reportedly killed.

Sullivan explained that the Gaza Health Ministry and the Israeli military have put out differing numbers and that the U.S. could not confirm how many casualties there were.

“We, the United States, are not in a position today to make a definitive statement about that. The Israeli defense forces have put out one number. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has put out another number,” he said.

“But we do know this, Dana. Innocent people were tragically killed in this operation. The exact number we don’t know, but innocent people were killed. And that is heartbreaking. That is tragic,” he added.

The appropriate reply to that statement was posted on Twitter by Caroline Glick:

Which operation? What was it for? Why don’t you mention that the mission was to rescue 4 Israeli hostages, held by Palestinian “civilians” in the heart of a “civilian” neighborhood? Why don’t you mention that the taking and holding of hostages is a war crime and there is no distinction between militants and complicit civilians under international humanitarian law? Why don’t you mention that you’re thrilled the hostages, whose lives were in imminent danger every minute of every day since they were illegally kidnapped from Israel on October 7, are free and safe and with their families? What is wrong with you?

As usual, the Biden administration totally misrepresented what actually happened. Have they forgotten that Americans are still held hostage? Have they forgotten October 7th? Have they forgotten who was behind October 7th and that America’s border is open to the terrorists involved?

This Is How Propaganda Works

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On Sunday, Clarice Feldman posted an article at The American Thinker about the rescue of the Israeli hostages. The article also deals with a Ninth Circuit court case about vaccine mandates, but I am going to focus on the rescue and the propaganda surrounding it.

The freeing of the hostages is good news. However, it really messes up the picture that much of the media is trying to paint that portrays Israel as the bad guys and Hamas (the Palestinians) as victims. The thing to remember here is that the hostages were held in the homes of ordinary citizens (obviously working with Hamas). However, somehow a lot of the facts surrounding the rescue are being skewed.

For instance, Reuters reported on June 9:

CAIRO, June 9 (Reuters) – Hamas’ armed al-Qassam Brigades said in a video posted on its Telegram channel on Sunday that three hostages were killed, including a U.S. citizen, in an Israeli military operation on Saturday in which some hostages were freed.

The group did not release the names of those said to be killed, but the video showed what appeared to be three unidentifiable corpses using censor bars over their faces.

“Your captives will not be released unless our prisoners are freed,” the video added.

Just for the record, the prisoners they are referring to are known terrorists in Israeli jails.

The article at The American Thinker noted:

Lieutenant Colonel Arnon Zamora, may he rest in peace, led the team in breaching the building where three hostages were held (Noa was held in another building about 200 meters away). Zamora was injured during the confrontation with the terrorists and later succumbed to his injuries at the hospital.

    • The hostages were held by Hamas guards in homes of Arab families (Hamas paid the families to hold the hostages — indicating there are no innocent bystanders).
    • The IDF entered Nuseirat in trucks and civilian vehicles with Gazan license plates.
    • Many terrorists from Nuseirat fired upon the IDF, including anti-tank missile fire, resulting in a firefight where many Palestinians were killed.
    • The confrontation occurred near Nuseirat’s market.
    • The rescue vehicle was hit, caught fire, and became stuck.
    • Forces from Brigade 98: Paratroopers, Kfir, Givati Brigade, Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, and Shayetet 13 attacked Nuseirat from multiple directions under heavy bombardment from the Air Force, helicopter fire, Navy ship fire, and artillery fire, successfully bringing the hostages to a waiting helicopter landing zone.
    • The terrorists fired several anti-tank missiles at the helicopters in an attempt to shoot them down — unsuccessfully (the firing was carried out by activists of the Popular Front who claim they hit the helicopter).
    • Noa Argamani told her family: ‘There was knocking on the door — ‘It’s the IDF, we’ve come to rescue you.’

The article also notes:

Hamas: “We will not surrender”: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh the fat billionaire living in comfort in Qatar fumes after Israel frees hostages.

The AP and CNN keep reporting the Hamas handouts as if true. Indeed, one CNN chyron referred to this as a “release” of the hostages.

Please follow the link to read the article at The American Thinker. Hamas has used propaganda successfully for a long time. Unfortunately many Americans (and much of our government) have believed the propaganda.

I’m Shocked! Shocked!

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On Tuesday, The Jewish News Syndicate reported the following:

Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new $320 million floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

…The United Nations said that 10 truckloads of food aid from the pier arrived at the warehouse on Friday, its first day of operation. It was transported by U.N. contractors.

 “We need to make sure that the necessary security and logistical arrangements are in place before we proceed,” said the U.N. official.

According to Israeli estimates, Hamas has been stealing up to 60% of the aid entering the Gaza Strip, and a Channel 12 report last week revealed that the terrorist organization has made at least $500 million in profit off humanitarian aid since the start of the war on Oct. 7.

Considering the fact that the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees is largely staffed by Hamas, I don’t find these thefts at all surprising. At some point the Biden administration needs to realize that they are not working with honest partners when they call for a cease-fire. However, considering that the Biden administration has shown more support for Iran than Israel, this actually might be going according to plan.

The article notes:

USAID and the U.S. Department of Defense are leading the effort, alongside Cyprus, the United Nations and international donors, including the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Romania and the European Union, CENTCOM said. The aid is transported via sea from Cyprus where it is screened, and the United Nations receives the aid in Gaza and coordinates its distribution

Israel is also helping to facilitate the entry of aid via the pier.

Reuters also reported that “food and medicine for Palestinians in Gaza are piling up in Egypt because the Rafah crossing remains closed.”

Israel took operational control of the crossing weeks ago, but Cairo so far has refused to cooperate with Israeli authorities to facilitate the entry of aid through Rafah. The Israeli government wants to allow aid into Gaza through the crossing but is unable to do so without Egyptian cooperation.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz last week placed the responsibility for averting a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip squarely on the shoulders of Egypt.

Katz said he had spoken with his British and German counterparts “about the need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah Crossing to allow the continued delivery of international humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

The Middle East is a mess of plots and sub-plots. It is a difficult place for diplomacy and positive action. Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s actions have not furthered the cause of peace.

When The World Is Upside Down

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The recent pro-Palestine protests on American college campuses were a disgrace. The students were not only overlooking the fact that there are still Americans held hostage by Hamas, but many of the homosexual students who were part of the protests have no idea how they would be treated in a Sharia Law compliant country. Ignorance is bliss, but it is not always safe or healthy.

On Saturday, Front Page Magazine posted an article about some of the Biden administration’s actions in response to the protests (some of which definitely overstepped the boundaries of peaceful protest). The subject of blocking Jewish students from attending class does not seem to be covered in the Biden administration’s response to the protests.

The article reports:

After weeks of bias intimidation by Hamas supporters aimed at Jewish students and faculty, including Khymani James, an encampment leader who had talked to Columbia University officials about killing Jews, the Biden administration’s Department of Education, with the inevitability of a rigged slot machine in Reno, is launching a “civil rights investigation” into the university for “extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment”.

The complaint comes from ‘Palestine Legal’, the same group providing advice to the encampment protesters.

It complains that “Columbia has reinforced the hostile anti-Palestinian environment, including by suspending Students for Justice in Palestine — a student organization that advocates for Palestinian human rights — for engaging in speech activity supporting Palestinian rights”

What sort of “speech activity” did Columbia University’s SJP chapter engage in?

After Oct 7, Students for Justice in Palestine hailed the Hamas rape of girls, murder of babies and kidnapping of children as a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance”.

The national organization which has 200 chapters on campuses across North America put out a ‘toolkit’ which explained that the Jewish victims were “not civilians” and could be freely targeted.

Its poster for a ‘Day of Resistance’ featured an image of the paraglider that Hamas terrorists had used to massacre and rape young Israelis at a music festival.

Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated the “unprecedented historic moment for the Palestinians of Gaza” and asserted their “full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance”. It was also a signatory to the “victory or martyrdom” statement signed by the national organization.

The article concludes:

The Department of Education refuses to protect Jewish students from Hamas supporters, but rushes to protect Hamas supporters from Jewish students.

This is much more reminiscent of Germany in the 1930’s than the values of most  Americans. Remember that Germany began enacting anti-Semitic laws in 1933, followed by the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. In March 1933, Dachau, the first concentration camp opened. The anti-Semitic actions of the German government also spawned Kristallnacht in 1938. I do not want to see America go down that path.

Exactly What Are They Supporting?

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The Avalon Project is part of Yale Law School. Below is their statement of purpose.

Statement of Purpose and Document Inclusion Policy

The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text.

The Avalon Project will no doubt contain controversial documents. Their inclusion does not indicate endorsement of their contents nor sympathy with the ideology, doctrines, or means employed by their authors. They are included for the sake of completeness and balance and because in many cases they are by our definition a supporting document.

I downloaded their copy of the Hamas Covenant 1988 to see exactly what our college protestors are supporting.

Below are a few items from the Covenant:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

…Article Two:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

…The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders. It goes back to 1939, to the emergence of the martyr Izz al-Din al Kissam and his brethren the fighters, members of Moslem Brotherhood. It goes on to reach out and become one with another chain that includes the struggle of the Palestinians and Moslem Brotherhood in the 1948 war and the Jihad operations of the Moslem Brotherhood in 1968 and after.

…”The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

This is what the protesters are supporting. In case you still have doubts, this is the link to “An Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America 5/22/1991.”

Take heart when you link to the above document–only the first part is in Arabic.

As The Israeli War Continues

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As the war in Gaza continues, we need to remember what started the war and what was celebrated in Gaza when the war began. On Friday, The American Thinker posted an article that provides some perspective.

The article reports:

Among the heart-breaking scenes from the Middle-East are video reports showing civilian casualties of the current war.  In the West, we cringe at those images, especially the ones showing small children — dead, grievously wounded, or orphaned.

In Gaza, there seems to be little reciprocity of sympathy.  Newsmax reports that more than seventy percent of Gazans approve of the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, many by unspeakable torture.  More than eighty percent deny that the atrocities were committed, even after watching the videos sadistically, and boastfully, recorded by the terrorists themselves.  This reminds us of the self-contradiction that might be stated as “We did not commit the crimes, and we are glad that we did.”

This is a case of not cognitive dissonance, but rather moral depravity.  It is lethal hypocrisy.  In seeking to justify acts of evil, the evildoers soon discover that neither have they justification for them, nor do they need it.

Antisemites declare that every Jew should be killed.  The rest of us do not have that same genocidal fervor toward Palestinians.  While antisemites insist that there are no innocent Jews, sane people recognize that some Palestinians are indeed innocent of terrorism.  I recall a news item from years ago in which a Palestinian immigrant to the U.S. explained his reason for leaving his homeland: the people there are crazy, he said, and worse, they demand that all Palestinians join with them in their insanity.  We do not want that for our children.  We want them to live.

It should also be noted that the money given to create a self-sustaining economy in Gaza was instead spent on tunnels and weapons. Somehow the focus in Gaza has always been on killing Jews–even the kindergarten classes are involved (article here). As long as Arab children in Gaza are taught that martyrdom and killing Jews are a goal, there is no point in even considering a two-state solution. Gaza must be tightly controlled until that point (if it ever comes) when generational hatred is no longer the dominant way of thinking.

Us or Them?

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Author: R. Alan Haarrop, Ph.D

George Washington warned us to avoid getting involved in foreign wars. Like most concerns of the Founding Fathers, his warning was right on target. We are fast approaching the two year anniversary of the war between Russia and Ukraine. It appears to be at a stalemate. The spending bill recently passed by the Senate (with the support of North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis) would provide another $60 billion in addition to the $ 75 billion already authorized and spent. This is the most amount of U.S. foreign aid to a European country since the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII during the Truman administration. Of course, this is borrowed money which will only add to the current national debt of over $34.3 trillion and counting (see U.D. National Debt Clock). Thanks to the Biden regime, the interest payments on the national debt are now more than the entire military budget.

The question we must ask is, “What is the endgame of our involvement in Ukraine?” Biden’s comment that we are committed to funding Ukraine  “ …As long as it takes” is just not acceptable. We cannot afford to fund endless wars! In addition to the monetary cost, there is real danger of a widening war with Russia which could lead to a nuclear conflict. As history has shown on many occasions, so-called limited wars readily escalate into total war where there are no restrictions or limits. This is especially dangerous in the age of nuclear weapons. It should be noted that this is the closest we have come to a direct war against Russia which has a nuclear arsenal equal to ours.

So what should we do about this omnibus foreign aid bill that actually totals $95 billion? First, the Biden regime must be required to tell us what their endgame objective is. Second, no more aid to Ukraine without a strict accounting for all expenditures. For example, we are being told that some of the aid money will pay for the pensions of Ukrainian government employees. Third, Ukraine should be required to enter into negotiations to end the war, or no more funds from us.

The other disturbing aspect of the $95 billion bill passed by the Senate is the $10 billion slated to go to Hamas. They start a war with one of our allies with a brutal, savage attack against defenseless civilians and we are going to give them money? This would be the equivalent of us sending money to Japan right after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Unbelievable. The Palestinians voted for Hamas as I recall.

Finally, there is no funding in this bill to seal our southern border or to begin deporting the millions of illegals who have entered this country under the Biden regime. Our country’s security should always come first, as George Washington advised.

Believe Them When They Tell You Who They Are

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On February 12th, PJ Media posted an article about a recent comment by Elham, described as a Member of Hamas and a Planner of a Suicide Bombing.

The article reports:

The video is of a hijabed woman, identified as “Elham, Member of Hamas, Planner of a Suicide Bombing,” explaining matter-of-factly that “we don’t only fight against occupation. Our goal is to spread Islam to all, everywhere.” This suggests that Hamas would not be satisfied with a Palestinian state, but would continue its war against the diminished Israel that would remain after the creation of a Palestinian state until the remainder were Islamized as well. What’s more, Elham’s statement amounts to a declaration of war against every state that is not governed under Islamic law.

Of course, there is no indication that Elham speaks for Hamas as a whole. However, many other Hamas spokesmen have said essentially the same thing. Last December, Fathi Hammad, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, also spoke of Hamas as having a universal mission beyond the destruction of Israel. He explained that “the [Palestinian] people have been soldiers throughout history. They are now preparing to liberate Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and I am saying this loud and clear: [The Palestinian people] are preparing to establish the Caliphate, with Jerusalem as its capital city, Inshallah. Jerusalem will not only be the capital city of Palestine as an independent state – it will be the capital city of the Islamic Caliphate.” 

The link above will allow you to view the video.

The thing we need to understand is that up until 1922 there was an Islamic Caliphate. It was the Ottoman Empire. When the Empire fell, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) set up the secular state of Turkey in what remained of the Ottoman Empire. Some members of the global Islamic community were not happy about the fall of the Empire or with Turkey becoming a secular nation. Hassan al Banna, who lived in Egypt, formed the al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood was to unify all the Islamic states under a new caliphate and put all lands under Sharia Law. In the quote above, Elham is simply restating that goal. This basic philosophy is the reason Hamas will never be at peace with Israel.

 

The Whoppers Of 2023

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On Thursday, The New York Post listed twelve of the most outrageous lies told by politicians and the media during 2023. Please follow the link to the article for the details, I will simply post the  list.

This is the list:

#1

“The Middle East . . . is quieter than it has been for decades.”

— National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Foreign Affairs, November/December (print edition)

#2

“We ended cancer as we know it.”

— President Biden, July 25

#3

“Age jokes can’t diminish Biden’s unrivaled experience and wisdom.”

— The Hill, Dec. 11

#4

“Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say

— The New York Times, Oct. 17

#5

“Let’s always take a moment to also see what we have achieved thus far, while we clearly see the moment that we are presently in. So we have achieved a lot.”

— VP Kamala Harris, June 23

#6

“In the Hanukkah story, the Jewish people were forced into hiding. No one thought they would survive.”

— Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Dec. 11

#7

“Floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink.”

— The Washington Post, July 13

#8

“We have seen the effectiveness of our approach [to the border].”

— Homeland Security boss Alejandro Mayorkas, May 10 

#9

“We have been [in Israel] for more than 1.5 million years.”

— Palestinian National Council President Rawhi Fattouh, May 22

#10

“There would be no climate crisis if there was no racism.”

— Jane Fonda, May 27

#11

“People Are Getting Real Heated Over a Gas Stove Ban That Isn’t Even Happening.”

— The New Republic, Jan. 12

#12

“Biden is extremely well-liked.”

— MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski, Feb. 10

Reality is merely a state of mind.

 

Why A Two-State Solution Is Impossible

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On December 27th, Prophecy News Watch posted an article about the Biden administration’s push for a two-state solution to the Gaza War. I wonder if America would be willing to set up a terrorist state on its border. It’s very hard to coexist with people who have stated that they want to kill you, eliminate your country, and drive you into the sea. These are not people who are negotiating for peace.

The article notes:

One fundamental problem with the two-state solution, from Biden’s perspective, is that the PA is too weak, corrupt, and incompetent to hold the government together. “The Palestinians have been not governed well at all,” Biden admitted.

These factors combine to make it quite unpopular. In polling conducted during the recent Thanksgiving ceasefire, 88% of Palestinians wanted the PA’s longtime leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to resign, and nearly 60% said the PA should be dissolved entirely. In a hypothetical electoral matchup, the polling showed Abbas would be trounced in a two-way race by exiled Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, while both men would lose a three-way race to an imprisoned paramilitary leader, Marwan Barghouti.

Another problem that complicates the PA’s weakness is that terrorism is surprisingly popular in the Palestinian territories. When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2006 and Palestinians held their first and only free elections, Hamas won a parliamentary majority (before seizing complete power in 2007 in a bloody coup).

Nearly two decades later, a new generation of Palestinians have grown up in Hamas-run schools with pro-terror textbooks; it turns out that many Palestinians are still pro-terrorism. Only 10% of Palestinians told pollsters they believed Hamas had committed war crimes against Israel in its October 7 attack, while 57% of Gazan respondents and 82% in the West Bank believe the attack was justified.

One thing to be aware of is how much land in the Middle East is controlled by Arabs (or Persians) and how much is controlled by Israel. Why haven’t any of the Arab countries (or Iran, which is Persian) been willing to take in the ‘Palestinians’ after they have been ‘refugees’ for more than half a century. Could there be another agenda at work?

This Isn’t Really A Surprise

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If you are expecting a ‘two-state solution’ that will bring peace to the Middle East, don’t hold your breath waiting for that solution. We already know that the Palestinian Authority (PA) was firing rockets into Israel as early as 2001. They are no more partners for peace than Hamas.

On Monday, Breitbart reported the following:

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Monday that Iran and Israel have only one thing in common: neither believes in a “two-state solution” for the Palestinians.

Other Iranian officials jumped in to clarify that Tehran believes all of Israel should be given to the Palestinians, annihilating the Jewish state.

Amirabdollahian told a forum in Doha devoted to the Israel-Hamas war that a state of “Palestine” should be created via referendum, with “only descendants of those who lived there prior to 1948 being permitted to vote.” 

The Iranian foreign minister was not referring to the descendants of Jews who have lived in the area since ancient times — he meant holding a “referendum” in which only the Palestinians would be allowed to vote. Iranian state media portray this proposal as a “peaceful” resolution to the Palestinian problem, but in practice, it would amount to the Palestinians voting to dissolve the state of Israel. 

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is the reason Israel must fight Hamas until Hamas is destroyed. Then it must do the same to Hezbollah. At some point in the future there will be a showdown between Israel and Iran.

Troubling News About The Red Cross

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The Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton on May 21, 1881. Most of us have believed that the organization was a politically neutral group working for the protection of prisoners and helping victims of war. I guess that is no longer the case.

On Friday (updated Saturday), The Jerusalem Post posted an article about a recent meeting with Red Cross representatives in Israel.

The article reports:

Families of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas were reprimanded by representatives of the Red Cross in a meeting earlier this week, with the Red Cross telling one family they need to “think about the Palestinian side,” KAN reported on Thursday night.

Roni and Simona, the parents of Doron Steinbrecher who was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from Kfar Azza on October 7, were invited to a meeting with the Red Cross earlier this week.

Doron needs a medication she takes daily and her parents thought that the Red Cross was finally willing to transfer the medication to her, but instead they were sat down and reprimanded by representatives of the Red Cross.

“Think about the Palestinian side,” the representatives of the Red Cross told Simona, according to KAN. “It’s hard for the Palestinians, they’re being bombed.” 

Did it occur to this representative that the reason the Palestinians were being bombed was that they attacked Israel on October 7 and took hostages? Would it occur to this representative to think about the hostages or the brutality of the attack on Israel? I suspect it is very hard for the hostages also.

The article concludes:

Dr. Nadav Davidovitz, who treated Elma after her release, said “We were in meetings with the Red Cross and asked them to make every effort to bring the medications to her, because some hostages are just dying. From a medical and nursing standpoint, what we witnessed is unlawful neglect.”

The Jerusalem Institute of Justice recently sent a letter to the ICRC pointing out that it had made several social media posts about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, but not a single one about the plight of the hostages and other Israeli victims from the October 7 massacre.

About three weeks after the attack, 1,200 lawyers across the world signed a letter written by the Israeli human rights group Shurat HaDin, condemning the Red Cross for not doing enough to help the hostages. The attorneys accused the organization of repeating the mistakes of indifference and inaction that it admitted to having made during the Holocaust.

The Prisoners Exchanged

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The news is doing a lot of reporting about the children kidnapped by Hamas and held captive since October 7th. Israel is rejoicing at the return of the hostages. Gaza is also rejoicing, but I suspect it’s for different reasons–they will now have more terrorists to deploy.

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported:

A Palestinian woman who disfigured herself in a suspected bomb attack in Jerusalem has been reunited with her family after being released from an Israeli prison.

Israa Jaabis, 38, had been imprisoned since 2015 after being convicted of detonating a gas cylinder that wounded an Israeli police officer. The attack left her with severe burns on her face and hands.

She was released on Saturday as part of the agreement with Hamas that will see Israeli hostages freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Jaabis was given a flower crown and seen embracing her family upon her release. She told the Al Jazeera tv network that she was ‘shy’ to hug her son whom she hadn’t seen in eight years.

Israel freed 39 Palestinians – six women and 33 teenagers – from two prisons on Saturday during the second round of the exchange after an hours-long unexpected delay set nerves on edge. 

Hamas had accused Israel of breaking the terms of the agreement. Israel denied the allegation.

…The deal risked being derailed when Hamas’ armed wing said on Saturday it was delaying releases until Israel met all truce conditions, including committing to let aid trucks into northern Gaza.

Saving the deal took a day of diplomacy mediated by Qatar and Egypt, which President Biden also joined.

Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades also said Israel had failed to respect terms for the release of Palestinian prisoners that factored in their time in detention.

COGAT, the Israeli agency for civilian coordination with the Palestinians, accused Hamas itself of delaying trucks trying to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Gaza at a checkpoint.

‘To Hamas, residents of Gaza are their last priority,’ it said on Sunday.

As much as I rejoice in the return of some of the hostages, this is a sad time for Israel. Because of international pressure, Israel was forced into a deal with Hamas which Hamas will use to manipulate public opinion. We can also expect more hostage-taking in the future since this has unfortunately worked very well for Hamas. Understand the people doing the negotiating are not on Israel’s side–Qatar is the home of the head of Hamas and funds Hamas generously. Even though I rejoice in the release of the hostages, I hope Israel will quickly go back into Gaza and eliminate Hamas.

The History Explains A Lot

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Obviously there will be a lot of refugees from the war in the Gaza Strip. The infrastructure has been destroyed and peoples’ homes have been destroyed. So why are the other Arab nations in the area unwilling to take in the Palestinian refugees?  The history of the refugees explains a lot. Understand that the refugee problem began in 1948 when Arabs who were living peacefully in Israel were told that if they left their homes to fight Israel they would get their land back plus land owned by the Jews who would be ‘driven into the sea.’ Well, it didn’t work out that way. The refugee problem was further exacerbated in 1967 when Israel reclaimed more of the land it had been promised in agreements with the League of Nations.

On Sunday, Townhall posted an article that explains some of the reasons the neighboring Arab countries are unwilling to take in the refugees from the Gaza Strip.

The article notes:

As the Left rages against Israel, hurling antisemitic slurs and chanting for more Jews to die, some might want to consider why the civilians have nowhere to go. Okay, maybe these folks do know but don’t care, but liberals are historically illiterate, so who knows? It goes beyond geography. The Palestinians bring trouble and have a long, sordid history of fomenting mayhem and terrorism in other Arab nations. 

…Egypt is the logical destination for these Palestinians, but Cairo doesn’t want them, and for good reason: terrorism. The border crossing at Rafah remains closed, with tanks now deployed to ensure their border is secure. Egypt’s prime minister even said his country is willing to sacrifice millions to ensure no Palestinians ever enter Egypt en masse (via WSJ):

The article concludes:

If Hamas and the Palestinians aren’t freely moving into Egypt, they’ll be okay with it. Also, Israel has resisted ceasefires and has continued to chip away at the terror group’s infrastructure in Gaza, but a humanitarian crisis could still emerge. 

As the tweet above mentioned, the Palestinians tried to take over Jordan in the 1970s, leading to the late King Hussein declaring war on them and driving them out. They were booted from Kuwait after collaborating with Saddam Hussein’s forces before the Gulf War. They set off a powder keg in Lebanon, a nation that has yet to recover from its brutal civil war that lasted 15 years. No Arab country wants these people because they bring instability and trouble. They’re not importing terrorism; that’s what we’re doing wholesale.

What country wants to import a bunch of dedicated terrorists?

Hudna?

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In a recent article, I explained the concept of “hudna.” Basically, the principle is “please stop attacking me so that I can re-arm.” Another tenet of Islam is “taqiyya” which says that it’s okay to lie to infidels for the sake of the advancement of Islam. We are seeing both of these concepts at work after the horrific attack on Israel on October 7th.

On Thursday, The American Thinker reported:

Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report, identifying an arms-trafficking scheme in which “Iran and its allies” have been smuggling heavy weapons and small arms to the jihadi terrorists occupying certain areas of Israel; see the lede below:

Long before Hamas militants burst out of their Gaza stronghold to massacre scores of civilians with handguns and assault rifles, Iran and its allies had accelerated efforts to smuggle weapons into a different part of the Palestinian territories, the West Bank.

What was most explosive though, given current circumstances, is that the arms flowing from the terrorist regimes to the smaller terrorist groups, often comes disguised as aid packages. The authors of the Journal item recount that after the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Iran “began hauling large quantities of weapons to Syria” in shipments disguised as aid; as we see, a “humanitarian crisis” or an “emergency” is a great cover for arming terrorists.

On a separate and totally unrelated note… From a Politico report last week:

The U.S. will send $100 million in aid for humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.

‘This money will support more than 1 million displaced in conflict affected Palestinians, including emergency needs in Gaza,’ Biden said Wednesday during a speech in Tel Aviv.

We are arming the enemies of Israel while we claim to be supporting them.