Who Are The Druze?

By Pesach Benson, TPS

A deadly Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children playing soccer not only pushed Israel and the Iran-backed terror group to the brink of war, it also thrust the little-known Druze community into the international spotlight.

“In recent years, there has been a very positive change among the Druze of the Golan. They are Israelis today in every way. If you listen to them in recent days since the disaster, they speak fluent Hebrew, and everyone speaks in terms of ‘an attack on the Golan Heights is an attack on Israel,’” Nadim Ammar told The Press Service of Israel.

Ammar is the founder and president of the Ohr-Israeli Druze Foundation for Academic and Cultural Advancement, located in the northern district Druze village of Julis.

“The shift towards integrating into Israel began since the war in Syria. More and more people want to connect. Since yesterday, we see that the total solidarity of the general society and the Jews with the heavy disaster revealed how the Druze are an inseparable part of Israeli society,” Ammar explained.02:24

The Druze living in the Galilee and Mount Carmel areas sided with the Jews in 1948 during Israel’s War of Independence, opted to be part of Israeli society and established themselves in all areas of public life.

But when Israel captured the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967, the Golan Druze refused Israeli offers of citizenship, believing Syria would recapture the plateau. So for nearly 40 years, Golan Druze students studied in Syrian colleges, married Syrian Druze women, and even brought them back to the Israeli Golan to settle down.

“Since October 7, many Druze from the Golan who had not served in the army decided to enlist, and they are serving in emergency squads protecting the settlements. This is a very noticeable change that has happened in the last decade,” he added.

‘We Were Hidden For Many Years’

The Druze communities of Israel, Lebanon and Syria regard themselves as descendants of the Biblical Jethro –who they call Shuaib — the father-in-law of Moses. They speak Arabic but are not Muslim.

In Israel, Druze serve in senior positions in public and military life, and the bond between Jewish and Druze soldiers is referred to as the “covenant of blood.” According to figures released by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics in April, the Druze have grown tenfold from a community of 14,500 in 1949 to 152,000 today.

Secretive about their beliefs, the Druze neither intermarry nor accept converts. But Kamilia Falah told TPS-IL that this doesn’t contradict the community’s social advancement.

“We are a community that protects itself from everything, guarding our village and our families. However, despite our conservatism, we are also very open to progress. We have many scholars in our community. Among our women, there are impressive scholars, professors, and Knesset members. You can find us in every business sector. We have everything, just like everyone else,” said Falah, who runs the The Dr. Salman Falah Druze Heritage Center in the Western Galilee village of Sumei.

“As Druze, due to our secretive religion, we were hidden for many years. We lived this way because of the hostility of the societies we lived alongside. But in Israel, this changed. Israel gave us the respect and freedom we deserved, and so we integrated into it,” she explained.

Falah told TPS-IL, “We integrate here with all communities while maintaining our traditions. Whoever respects us, we give back even more respect. That is the story of our community.”

One particular gesture of solidarity that struck a chord among Israelis was Basma Hino, who made her restaurant kosher so she could distribute free food to soldiers passing through her village of Julis to the northern border. “I want to feed all the Israeli soldiers! They all are like my children, doesn’t matter, Druze or Jewish,” Hino explained to The Press Service of Israel in December.

Hino was later honored with lighting a torch in the annual Independence Day ceremony.

Ten Druze soldiers have fallen in duty since October 7, including eight near or in Gaza, and two in northern Israel. Since Israel’s founding, 439 Druze soldiers were killed in action.

Since Saturday’s attack, Ammar told TPS-IL, “We see that the total solidarity of the general society and the Jews with the heavy disaster revealed how the Druze are an inseparable part of Israeli society.”

New BBC Slogan

With thanks to Ben Herskowitz

 

Cultural Blindness

Gad Saad was born in Lebanon and fled to Canada with his family when he was 11. He understands Arab mentality.

In an article he refers to a “suicidal empathy” and he is working on a book that tentatively will have that title.

In the book he will argue that empathy must be regulated (emphasis added):

“Western leaders tend to ‘exhibit compassion in an orgiastic manner’ and expect other nations to reciprocate that empathy. But in the Middle East, ‘if they sniff empathy or compassion, it is seen as a vulnerability and you are weak.’

“Saad sees that Islamists use Western naiveté to their advantage… 

 

‘I grew up in that world, I understand that language,’ says Saad

“’What shocks me to no end is when I see all these Western politicians exhibiting this cultural blindness. They project exactly the values that are important in their society, and presume that others will understand them and read them as the same.’

 

“When he discusses this detail of the Middle East with diplomats, they are ‘blown away,’ he says.

“’It’s as if they’re running into a Martian, because literally, their brains can’t comprehend those realities,’ he said.”

 

Living in Canada, he says the he is increasingly feeling unsafe. “I’m not at the point where I’m afraid to leave my house, but there are certainly neighborhoods that you want to avoid. “There are certainly campuses in Montreal that are more problematic to be Jewish in general, and to be a high-profile, outspoken Jewish professor in particular.”

 

Canada is reaching a “tipping point,” Saad believes.

Hamas’s Secrets Uncovered

For full article see https://tinyurl.com/5yvmaxna 

The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) have uncovered a treasure trove of Hamas intelligence, consisting of stacks of documents, files, and computers, including guidelines on what to do if someone is suspected of being part of the LGBTQ community and a phrasebook of Hebrew words to help terrorists communicate in Hebrew, which included phrases such as "Take off your clothes."

Among the findings were operational tables, equipment lists, classified maps, and instructions on what to do if captured, leading to the conclusion that Hamas's military wing has transformed into a professional army right under the nose of Israeli intelligence.

"The amount of intelligence accumulated so far in the hands of Shin Bet and Military Intelligence allows us to dismantle Hamas from within," said a senior security official exposed to the heaps of documents.

The intelligence included Excel tables showing the readiness levels of special units, companies, battalions, and brigades, including the scope of training, weapons, and ammunition. It also included documentation of orders in the various units and the review of equipment lists for each fighter, protocols of meetings, discussions, and the decision-making process at senior and junior levels.  

The order and organization enforced by Hamas was based on a "rulebook" that was not accessible to everyone and was maintained by the senior command, which issued directives and operations across the Gaza Strip. 

Procedures of Hamas for those in the LGBTQ community 

The official documents of Hamas's "rulebook" reveal brutal behavior against anyone suspected of belonging to the LGBTQ community. Additionally, documentation of interrogations and testimonies about aggressive questioning focused solely on sexual preferences and orientations was found, indicating that those suspected of being part of the LGBTQ community faced a single fate – death.

Documents were also recovered that held detailed plans by Hamas on how to operate worldwide in regions such as Europe, Jordan, Egypt, the US that were far from the eyes of foreign intelligence organizations and under the radar of the media. The documents revealed that Hamas developed a plan tailored to the population in each country. 

Another document detailed a plan to ignite unrest in the West Bank and undermine the Palestinian Authority (PA) by infiltrating its security mechanisms and encouraging internal rebellion to overthrow and take control of the PA gradually.

Hamas and UNRWA

Some documents also revealed the corruption within Hamas, showing how they not only accumulated assets but also used them. United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) apartments were registered in the name of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif's wife.

Apartments of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas head Yahya Sinwar's brother, were found to be received from UNRWA and then rented to Palestinians, according to rental contracts in possession of Military Intelligence.  Documentation of Hamas operatives working for UNRWA was also found. 

To sow fear that will remain in Israeli memory

The effort for collection and documentation was divided between routine and war times, which explains why all the Nukhba fighters entered with GoPro cameras on their heads. "Hamas wanted the atrocities and the spread of fear to remain in Israeli memory. If it's not clear, on October 7 and for weeks afterward, Israeli citizens feared that terrorists would come to their homes because they saw the videos. 

The purpose of documenting the videos was to create a psychological impact. They invested a lot of learning, practice, and effort into this," a security source explained to Walla.

This is how a Hamas operational photographer should act

Hamas operational documentation photos were found, capturing the activities of forces, military infrastructure, and classified assets on masts, posts, tanks, APCs, and jeeps, which the IDF has classified as "top secret." 

During the training phase for the photographers, two key points were emphasized: the selection of the operational photographer - "must be precise, tactically disciplined, patient, not hasty, able to keep secrets about his role, avoid gossip, and ensure his details and missions are unknown, making it easier for him to move around without raising suspicion."

According to the documents, the leadership of Hamas's military wing defined the act of "photography" as a central and strategic task, as important as training for war, with the goal of influencing the enemy and generating propaganda for the Palestinian public and supporters of Hamas resistance. 

This included electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operational security. 

Their training involves photographing scenarios that simulate the atmosphere of battles and military operations, including sounds of gunfire and explosions, in both open areas and built-up environments.

Hamas's Changed Tactics

With the defeat of most of its battalions, Hamas, has changed its tactics and is using the UN facilities, schools, hospitals and the civilian population to hide its remaining armed groups, often dressed in civilian clothes,  from the eyes of the IDF.

There is no other terrorist or “armed group” in the world that has systematically used UN facilities the way Hamas has done in Gaza. The systematic use of schools, for instance, is a serious crime by Hamas against the people of Gaza. Yet, throughout nine months of fighting, the terrorist group has increasingly used UN facilities and has not decreased their use.

From the start, Hamas saw Shifa hospital not just as a place to send a few men to hide but to bring hundreds of terrorists. Perhaps 1,000 Hamas terrorists were gathered in the large hospital compound and buildings nearby. This means that Hamas saw the hospital as key to its command and control of Gaza.

It’s important to see Hamas's use of the UNRWA facility and Shifa as part of a larger context. It is not just by chance that Hamas moves into these places like it is a second Hamas. Its presence is considered normal in these places because Hamas is seen as the norm, as the “governing authority” by the UN and NGOs that never mention it by name in statements.

They usually call it an “armed group.” But the armed group sends men in civilian clothes through the doors of these facilities, and no one bars their way. This is because they are perceived either as welcome guests, partners, or as a mafia-like presence that the organizations cannot say no to.

Hamas did not suspect that the IDF would return to operate there a second time in July.

Nevertheless, in spite of these tactics, the IDF, through its ground forces, its Airforce and intelligence division, is slowly but surely eliminating location after location. Further so many of the Hamas leaders have now been eliminated that there is little command and control of the remaining terrorists.

Degradation of Hamas

 

MORE & MORE TUNNELS IN GAZA

A division of the IDF has been hard at work locating and destroying tunnels in Shejaiya area of Gaza.

Located east of the center of Gaza City, the current campaign in Shejaiya represents the complexity of the IDF’s current strategy in Gaza. Once thought under IDF control, Hamas has been able to reorganise quickly within the densely packed neighborhood triggering the necessity for the IDF to reengage.

In the wide-ranging division-level operation, six terror tunnels, about six kilometers long, were located and destroyed. While the army has been able to blow up this tunnel system, it appears now that the vast tunnel network under Gaza City can still be used to help Hamas move around undetected. 

Some reports indicate that despite the above ground victories the IDF has racked up, the Gaza tunnel system is far more intricate and expansive than originally assumed. This development presents a challenge to the projection that Hamas is close to being finished. 

With Hezbollah bombarding Israel, the IDF is still stuck in Gaza and instead of launching the much-needed invasion of Southern Lebanon. Should the IDF leadership switch to a far more aggressive approach in Gaza or will they succumb to the status of comfortable indecision?

Israel can either finish this war the victor or remain locked into a decade or more war of attrition.

Hamas Kills its Rivals, While Israel Looks for a “Day After” Plan

 Hamas has reportedly murdered clan members it sees as either “collaborators” with Israel or a threat to its rule of the Strip after the war in three separate purges since December.

The latest of whom were members of the Doghmush clan, which has some Hamas ties itself. It would seem that Hamas is killing its own out of desperation.

As the “day after” is currently one of the biggest questions regarding the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, until recently, there have been no direct details divulged. 

Israeli media have, however, reported that clan members have begun to speak out on how the IDF has been in touch with them to request they provide security to aid convoys. Reports by The Times of Israel, and Reuters write that those who spoke out explicitly stated that they rejected working with Israel or against Hamas.

TOI reports that not only were these families asked for help to protect aid, but were potentially approached to take civil control of certain areas of Gaza. While this doesn’t seem like a fully formed “day after” plan, it seems to be the beginning of Israel’s search for one. But now, much of the mainstream media is ignoring it.

The fatal flaw, however, is that Hamas have threatened these families and anyone else who “colludes” with Israel. As stated above, even murdering some they accuse of being collaborators.

Where are the media reports?

Suicide babies - the Next Muslim Tactic?

 By Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Magazine

Islamic technology, always moving forward, appeared to be turning stale as formerly fresh ideas like suicide donkeys, burning people alive in cages and beheading multiple people on video grew repetitive and tiresome.

But over in Nigeria, where an actual Muslim genocide against Christians is being forcefully ignored by the Biden administration, the media and the ceasefire crowd, Islamic terrorists proved they still have new ideas.

Behold, the world’s first suicide baby.

Coordinated suicide attacks claimed the lives of at least 18 people in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday. The Islamist group Boko Haram, which has not officially claimed responsibility for the explosions, has been waging violence in the region for more than ten years.01:092:24

At least 18 people were killed and 19 seriously wounded in suicide attacks targeting a wedding, a hospital and a funeral in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, authorities said.

And just because this wasn’t evil enough…In one of three blasts on Saturday in the town of Gwoza, a woman with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to a state police spokesman.

“At about 1545 (1445 GMT) a woman carrying a baby on her back detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) she had on her at a crowded motor park,” Borno State police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said.

Some people ask what the Islamic position on abortion is. The answer is that the baby can be killed at any time as long as…

1.     It isn’t Muslim

2.     It’s being used to kill non-Muslims

When will suicide babies come to America? THAT ALL DEPENDS ON THE RATE OF MIGRATION FROM THE MUSLIM WORLD. – EUROPE TAKE NOTE

Apartheid Israel - what rot!!

 From one of my contacts, she writes:-

Arabs are 20% of the Israeli population, but 40% of the medical profession. Why? Apartheid? NO! Israeli Arabs can get into Israeli medical school and universities with lower bagrut & psychometric scores than Israeli Jews. Meanwhile, many Israeli Jews are forced to study medicine in universities overseas because there aren’t enough places left in Israeli universities.
Apartheid??

My aunt Fanny, it’s not.
It’s ‘Positive discrimination’, intended to help Arab Israelis overcome any issues in early & high school education.

And right she is. One granddaughter has all the marks in the exams to qualify for medicine but has not been admitted to medical school on the basis of "the interview". Other friends daughters have gone overseas to study and will be unlikely to return to Israel after completing their studies.

It’s Time to Hold the BBC to Account

For a full analysis go to the David Collier blog at https://david-collier.com/the-bbc-and-abed-abubaker/

 

Abed Abubaker is a terrorist supporter. He publicly celebrates the murder of Jews and justifies the slaughter of civilians. His immediate family supports terrorism. His cousin is an Islamic Jihad terrorist. Abed’s best friend’s father was a Hamas enforcer. How did the BBC fawn over him and give him so much unchallenged airtime on at least four separate occasions?

 

So here is a legitimate question: How many times can the BBC produce fake news or be caught platforming terrorist supporters before it justifiably gets labelled as a Hamas propaganda website? 

In four separate BBC News interviews with him spread between November and February, the BBC allowed unlimited time for the Hamas propaganda to be made unchallenged: 

• 24/11/2023 Five unchallenged minutes in which he describes massacres, atrocities, soldiers shooting civilians, and babies dying from a lack of food.
• 1/12/2023 Over six unchallenged minutes in which he is free to talk about ‘Israeli occupation forces’, massacres, atrocities and pushing lies about aid.
• 11/01/24 Seven unchallenged minutes in which he spreads stories about lack of aid, water, ongoing massacres of civilians and how they are reduced to eating bird food.
• 08/02/2024 Seven more unchallenged minutes in which he can say whatever he likes to the BBC audience without fear of contradiction.

During the interviews the BBC journalists repeatedly state how important it is to hear voices like Abubaker’s – so as to tell viewers what Gazans are really living with.

Who is the real Abubaker Abed – the person that the BBC gave unchallenged time to again and again. On January 27 2023, a Palestinian terrorist Khairi Alqam slaughtered seven Israeli civilians outside a synagogue in Jerusalem. Abukaber Abed celebrat the murderous attack – and calling the terrorist a ‘hero’

And this ‘journalist’ that the BBC relies on and trusts – publicly supported and justified the killing of Israeli civilians following October 7^th.

The BBC is ignoring its own rule book. It is platforming terrorist supporters and allowing them to spread Hamas propaganda unchallenged. The BBC is completely failing the very public it is meant to serve.

 

It is well past the time that the BBC is held to account.

Anti Semitism in US Universities

 

Black non-Muslim Africans Face Atrocities

Full article by Peter Baum https://weeklyblitz.net/2024/06/29/black-non-muslim-africans-face-atrocities /

In January 2024, a report by Bhaswani Bhattacharjee for Genocide Watch confirmed that “since 2000, 62,000 Christians in Nigeria have been murdered in genocide perpetrated by Islamist Jihadist groups including Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Fulani militias. The International Committee for Nigeria refers to this as the Silent Slaughter”.

The report details numerous atrocities such as the 50 parishioners massacred at St. Francis Church in Owo, June 2022; the four Catholic priests murdered and the 23 held hostage as being part of the attempt to exterminate Christianity. No less than 18,000 Christian Churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been deliberately set on fire. As well as the 62,000 Christians murdered by Islamists more than 32,000 moderate black Nigerian Muslims and non-faith individuals have also been massacred.

Nigeria is just one of several countries where persecution of Christians resulting in mass slaughter is very much part of a Government agenda and also where non state actors, of which is Qatar, supported by those governments are active participants.  

A Google paragraph dedicated to the Democratic Republic of Congo from a minor BBC article (reported on Africa Today) reads as follows, dated June 8, 2024.

“At least 45 civilians have been killed in a spate of attacks over the past week across the Democratic Republic of Congo’s troubled North Kivu province. Decades of fighting between armed groups over lucrative gold and mineral deposits has devastated the region, forcing millions from their homes’’.

Further cursory research suggests that since 1998 over 5.4 million black Africans have been killed as a direct result of conflict in the DCR. Now just take that in for a moment. Over five million black Africans slaughtered, and millions more ethnically cleansed since 1998. How many times have any of the international community made speeches about the atrocities committed in the DCR?

Israeli Bedouin Speaks Out

 Sophia Salma Shramko, an Israeli Arab and Stanford graduate confidently states, "99% of Israeli Arabs condemn what happened on Israel."

Sophia is actively involved in Israeli advocacy and fights against anti-Semitism in the United States. She is the daughter of the late Hussein Alhayib, who was a reconnaissance officer and the first Bedouin Lt. Col. in the IDF.

Sophia Salma says: I am an Israeli Arab. I was born to a Muslim Bedouin family in the north of Israel, in the Galilee. It’s been hard, and painful, to see the violence on the streets of Israel.

"We are truly falling behind in the narrative war. It's shocking to witness what's happening here: from Stanford to other campuses across the United States, there are calls for violence against Jews and the annihilation of the Jewish state 'from the river to the sea.'

As a Muslim woman, I am being targeted for condemning Hamas. It's hard for them to witness a Muslim woman voicing her thoughts, especially when she's speaking the truth. Israel for me is the place that has given me equal rights as a woman, and an opportunity for a better future.

I come from a Bedouin family and think that if the State of Israel had not been established, I would probably be an illiterate shepherd in an arranged marriage to my cousin. Instead, I am a tech entrepreneur with a master’s degree from Stanford University. Of course, all of this was obtained with dedication and hard work, but Israel made it possible.

Living in Israel allowed me to go into fashion modeling, despite receiving death threats from my uncle for dishonoring our family; both of us knew that I was protected by the nation’s laws. So:-

- Thank you Israel for the compulsory education law that forced parents to send girls to school, and thank you for the excellent schools and universities.

- Thank you for the justice system and the welfare services allowing women to dare and live their dreams, thank you for the social benefits that allow some families to survive, and thank you for the advanced health care and hospitals.

- Thank you for the infrastructure of roads, water and electricity (my mother as a child walked miles with a donkey to fetch water, so nothing is taken for granted).

- Thank you for the democracy that allows us to make our voices heard.

- Thank you for the economic development that allows us to contribute in high-tech, medicine, science and a variety of other professions.

- Thank you, Israel Defense Forces, for keeping us safe from the shower of rockets and cold-hearted terrorists who would also persecute Arabs like ISIS did in Syria.

- Thank you to the deeply kind and warm-hearted people of Israel who will always have your back.

Thank you, my beloved country.