In trying to look at an overall picture, Israel was shocked on October 7th in the most tragic of all circumstances. Even if much of the fault lies with many of the leaders of the military and intelligence, Netanyahu still is the commander in chief of the Military, and therefore bears ultimate responsibility for what transpired. 

Nevertheless, there has never been a war that one country fought on seven fronts simultaneously as effectively as Israel had to after October 7^th. The conventional wisdom was that Israel would do everything it could to contain it’s battles with Hamas to the southern front. It did not want to have to split it’s Army into two – south and north. This was especially the case as the Hezbollah to Israel’s North posed a massive threat with more than 100,000 missiles aimed at Israel.

In the end, Israel had to face attacks from Hamas in the South, Hezbollah in the North, Syria on its northeast border, Iraq to the east, Yemen to its southeast, and of course – Iran. Israel, due to much of the Army and Intelligence, effectively repelled the attacks from Iran and dismantled most of Iran’s missile defenses in a follow-up attack. This crippling combo will probably be studied for decades.

But the beeper operation in Lebanon against the Hezbollah, an operation that has been in the works for around a decade, is the jewel in the crown of Israel’s recent clandestine operations. In one fell swoop, Israel decapitated nearly the entire Hezbollah leadership. This placed Hassan Nasrallah in an impossibly secluded position without any support from his senior leadership. Then Israel simply needed to decide if it would be best to rid the world of this terrorist or wait a bit. Once the die was cast, and Nasrallah as eliminated, the entire northern border of Israel was changed. Israel took over another critical part of the Hermon mountain range, but it dominates much of Lebanon and Syria, thereby greatly enhancing Israel’s control over its enemies. 

One day, i believe everyone will see that this was one of Israel’s most successful wars in its history of fending off its enemies despite October 7th.  

Azerbaijan’s Entry into Israeli Waters May Open New Export Routes with Turkey

The decision by SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, to press ahead with a gas exploration license in Israeli waters marks another significant step in the ever-deepening partnership between Israel and Azerbaijan.

 In addition to the economic opportunity, it provides to discover new gas, the involvement of SOCAR carries significant strategic weight in a region where energy projects can forge new ties or rekindle old rivalries. SOCAR’s role as the project’s operator may facilitate a more stable multilateral energy framework in the Eastern Mediterranean due to Azerbaijan’s close relations with Turkey, which enable it to serve as a mediator.

 Azerbaijan’s involvement may also offer Israel a viable route for future gas exports to Turkey that buffers the volatile relations between Jerusalem and Ankara, mirroring the current oil trade arrangements between the sides. For a full report go to https://besacenter.org/azerbaijans-entry-into-israeli-waters-may-open-new-export-routes-with-turkey/

Thinking of the Hostages

 The war against the Jewish nation by those who would annihilate us continues. Iran's proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen continue to fire missiles and rockets at Israel's civilian population.  IDF soldiers continue to battle Israel's enemies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yehuda and Shomron. And 59 hostages remain prisoners of barbaric Hamas, the PIJ and Iran.

While we can joyously celebrate our liberation from slavery in Egypt, there are many who cannot, for whom this Pesach will be a time of longing, sorrow and loss.  The above-mentioned hostages, the families whose sons, husbands, fathers and brothers fell in battle defending Am Yisrael.  Please remember all of them and in their memory and honor, please consider the following:  

• Set an extra place at your Seder table(s) for the 59 who cannot celebrate our Festival of Liberation because they remain prisoners of barbaric Hamas, PIJ and Iran.

• Donate whatever you can to the following organizations, which provide a variety of assistance to serving IDF soldiers, those wounded in combat and the widows and orphans of IDF heroes fallen in battle:

• IDF Widows and Orphans Organization https://www.idfwo.org/en/

• The Association for Israel's Soldiers (אגודה למען החייל) https://www.usafis.org.il/en/

• Association of Friends of the IDF Disabled Organization Ltd. https://www.jgive.com/new/en/ils/charity-organizations/9834 (this site is in Hebrew only https://yedidim-inz.org.il/about/  )

Impact Nation - Regrow Israel

 ReGrow Israel is the Agriculture Development Fund

securing the future of Israel’s southern farmlands

and communities, revolutionizing farming practices

with innovation, and creating higher profitability, climate

resilience, and sustainability.

Christians in Africa Subject to Jihad - The West Averts its Eyes

 Full report available at https://tinyurl.com/y66cbp24

• Jihadists are murdering, raping, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and, in some instances, burning people alive — across Africa, and now in Syria.
• Local jihadist organizations go by different names, but the ideology that drives them is the same: Every one of them deeply believes that Allah wants him to wipe the world clean of the kuffar (infidels).
• More than 16.2 million Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been driven from their homes by jihadi violence and conflict, reports the human rights organization Open Doors.
• Women and girls are abducted, forced into "marriage," forced to convert to Islam, raped, and subjected to forced labor. Several girls have been forced to act as suicide bombers or human shields at the hands of jihadis.
• In Sudan, a current genocide includes race-based slaughter of indigenous Africans by Arab jihadists... with the RSF forces targeting ethnic African minorities for extermination... According to the organization "Operation Broken Silence," more than 150,000 civilians are estimated to have already perished from violence and hunger.
• In Libya, slavery, forced labor and human trafficking are still widespread, as seen in video evidence of an auction of sub-Saharan Africans in the country.
• In Somalia, no area is safe for Christians... [al-Shabaab] maintains a commitment to eradicating Christianity from Somalia and often murders Christians on the spot.
• Nigeria has seen a dramatic increase in the abduction of Catholic priests, seminarians and religious women — for ransom, as Vatican News noted.
• All decent people.... need urgently to address this question: Why does the liberal West turn a blind eye when Islamic jihadists abduct, abuse, rape, enslave, forcibly convert or murder millions of darker-skinned people in Africa and the Middle East? A refusal to address such lethal moral blindness signifies that the West has chosen a path to its own demise, and will be abandoning countless innocents as it goes.

European Aggression against Israel

 by Jake Wallis Simons

-  The EU has built more than 1,000 buildings on the West Bank without planning permission, as well as roads and other infrastructure

- They are at 40 locations in Area C, which were placed under Israeli jurisdiction by international law

- The buildings are given to Palestinians and paid for using aid money from European countries, including Britain

- But the EU is claiming diplomatic immunity to avoid being taken to court, MailOnline has learnt

-  An EU spokesperson said its actions were not illegal because they were ‘humanitarian’

The EU is claiming diplomatic immunity after using taxpayers' money to build unauthorised settlements and roads on Israeli parts of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank), MailOnline can reveal.

An Israeli NGO launched legal action after photographing EU flags flying above buildings on land placed under Israeli jurisdiction by the Oslo Accords, to which the EU is a signatory. EU bureaucrats are avoiding court by citing diplomatic rules.

The buildings, which are given to Palestinians, are intended to 'pave the way' for more land to be brought under Palestinian control, according to EU official papers. Many are bulldozed by Israel only for the EU to repeatedly rebuild them, generating more costs for their taxpayers.

Leaked documents obtained by MailOnline show that the EU – which receives £350 million per week from Britain – is using diplomatic rules to place officials above the law, foiling attempts to hold bureaucrats accountable.

“It is deeply concerning that the EU falls back on diplomatic immunity after breaking planning regulations,” Jacob Rees-Mogg MP told MailOnline. “The UK Government would take a very dim view of a friendly state doing that to us.”

“Diplomatic immunity is there to protect envoys from unjust treatment, not to protect the high-handed behaviour of arrogant (anti-Semitic) bureaucracies.”

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, an international lawyer from the North-western University School of Law in Chicago, said: ‘There’s no question, the EU is openly in violation of international law.'

The Oslo Accords are a series of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, made in the 1990’s, which divided Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) into Areas A, B and C.

Area C was placed under Israeli control, while Areas A and B were Palestinian. The agreements were ratified by the international community, including the EU, and intended as a step toward a two-state solution.

More than 1,000 EU-funded Palestinian homes, as well as roads and other infrastructure, have been erected in the Israeli Area C, without permits from Israel...

England – Its Educational Future

 For full article, see https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/england-could-become-an-islamist-state-with-nuclear-weapons

The English government has just appointed the new head of Ofsted, the body that inspects public schools. His name is Hamid Patel and he is a mufti. And then they say that “Islamization does not exist”.

Patel was the headmaster of a school in Blackpool, the first in the country to ask pupils to wear the hijab outside of school, to “recite the Koran at least once a week” and to “not carry stationery containing non-Islamic images”. And while he was at it, Patel also invited a Saudi imam to speak badly of Jews, which never hurts. A sort of emirate in Lancashire.

The Oftsed thus gets its “first religious leader in history” and since there will soon be more practicing Muslims than Christians in England why not get ahead of the curve a little?

“England and Europe are sinking into decline, naivety and fear” writes imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who knows what he’s talking about since in France he has to wear a bulletproof vest and go around with an armed escort like a head of state. “An Islamist to head Ofsted, the UK’s leading education body… This is the result of the appeasement of political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. We would never see such an appointment in the Arab and Muslim world, except in Afghanistan and Iran. The Islamist grip is no longer just on our doorstep, it is now within the system.”

I looked at Patel’s photo several times and then pinched myself, thinking it was a joke. A mufti with a Salafi beard and in Islamic robes appointed to head the UK’s most important education body? “The UK could fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists” and become “an Islamist state with nuclear weapons.” It is not the usual alarmist Meotti who says this, but Suella Braverman, former British Home Secretary.

Demographic change is the defining megatrend with the most important implications for Europe’s societies, culture and governance structures. Just look at the percentage of Muslims in the country’s major cities:

London, 15 percent Muslim

Birmingham, 1,149,000 inhabitants: (29.9 percent)

Bradford: 536,000 inhabitants (30.5 percent)

Manchester: 553,000 inhabitants (22.3 percent)

Leicester: 357,000 inhabitants (23.5 percent)

Nottingham: 331,000 inhabitants (12.2 percent)

Blackburn: 148,000 inhabitants (35 percent)

Luton: 218,000 inhabitants (32.9 percent)

Slough: 164,000 inhabitants (29.4 percent)

Pendle: 91,000 inhabitants (26 percent) hundred)

Oldham: 237,000 (24.4 percent)

Rochdale: 211,000 (18.8 percent)

Kirklees: 438,000 (19 percent)

Sheffield: 556,000 (10.3 percent)

It’s not hard to imagine what they’ll look like in, say, 20-30 years: the judge, the police chief and the TV presenter will be wearing shalwar kameez.

In the post-war period, British elites launched an experiment. They wanted to prove that multiculturalism was compatible with Britain’s great liberal tradition. They created modern British exceptionalism: the mixture of liberalism and multiculturalism would solve the problems of a multi-ethnic nation. But multiculturalism and liberalism are only compatible as long as minority groups are committed to liberal values, and in Britain, minority groups clearly are not. So multiculturalism and liberalism have proven incompatible. And now multiculturalism, not liberalism, rules Britain.

Mufti Patel is from Blackburn.

Among the areas Ed Husain visited to chronicle the Islamisation of England in his magnificent book “Among the Mosques” is Blackburn. “It has the largest Muslim population outside London and is the global hub of the Deobandis, the movement that created the Taliban in Afghanistan,” he explains in the book. White people told him they were afraid to enter “no-go areas” of the city. “The main street is full of Hajj shops, gender-segregated restaurants, Islamic bookshops and a number of mosques.”

There are more than 40 mosques in Blackburn and a quarter of the population is already Muslim, reports Daily Mail reporter Neil Tweedie. The whites are leaving. The first church in Blackburn that was used as a mosque was in 1978.

Anyone in their right mind reading about Patel’s appointment doesn’t see a respected educator but a harbinger of a future in which more and more of the people who matter will be dressed like this while they’re chairman of the BBC or governor of the Bank of England or headmaster of Oxford.

The number of Muslims in the UK has risen to 6.5 per cent of the total population, up from 4.9 in 2011, according to the 2021 census. What makes this shift even more striking is the age demographic: an overwhelming 84.5 per cent of Muslims are under 50, compared to just 62 per cent of the overall population. In other words, Islam isn’t just growing, it’s shaping Britain’s future.

Sharia courts are growing in the country. People pray to Allah even inside Westminster.

Today’s churches will be tomorrow’s mosques: Christians, even nominally, are no longer the majority. In ten years, Islam has doubled, and for the first time in 1,300 years, Christianity is no longer the majority.

Demographics have started to shift rapidly. Muhammad has become the most popular name among newborns in the United Kingdom for the first time. London has become the world capital of Islamic investment.

Before the end of this decade, we will be in a completely new phase, the Anglican church will be a Pakistani mosque, the pub a halal butcher’s shop, the clothes shop a hijab warehouse and the bookshop a travel agency to Mecca.

Judge for yourself whether the liberal multiculturalism experiment has been a success.

Is Gaza exodus happening? 1,000 left the Strip in March

 From  World Israel News

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories  (COGAT) reports that 1,000 Palestinians left Gaza in March, with 600 in the process of leaving this week.

Every week, there between 200 and 300 requests are filed by Gazans to leave the Strip.

The trend is consistent with a plan unveiled by President Donald Trump calling for a voluntary exodus of Palestinians from Gaza so it can be rebuilt.

On Saturday night, the government voted to formally establish a new authority within the Defense Ministry to help facilitate mass migration by Gazans out of the Strip to third-party countries by coordinating travel through Israeli territory to the Port of Ashdod and Ramon Airport.

The 1,000 recent emigrants are in addition to 35,000 others who are estimated to have permanently left the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, according to Israel’s Channel 12, which did not provide a source for this figure.

According to current regulations, Gazans requiring medical treatment along with their family members and those with dual citizenship or destination visas are allowed to leave Gaza.

Israel has expanded permission to allow more than one family member to leave with those seeking medical attention.

According to Defense Minister Israel Katz’s directives, the military will accompany those leaving the Strip for their safety.

When Gazans plan to emigrate, they leave their homes and go to an assembly point, where they are inspected before heading to the Kerem Shalom crossing and then to either Rafah or Ramon airport.

Although those leaving Gaza may not be allowed to return, given the dire security situation, many nevertheless are still willing to go and establish a new life for themselves and their families in another country.

A British Telegraph survey shows that 52% of Gaza residents would leave the Gaza Strip either temporarily or permanently if given the opportunity.

The Gallup survey, which includes 532 Gaza residents aged 18 and older in March, found a divided population. Residents under the age of 34 and those living in the most heavily damaged areas of Gaza City and Khan Younis expressed the keenest desire to leave.

Ambassador Reveals Truth About Media Coverage of Israel

 Former Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger talks about

a) how the international media cover the war in Gaza

and the limitations put on them by Hamas and other

terrorist entities. He discusses the impact that

this reporting has on the conflict in the Middle East.

b) Ambassador Ettinger then reviews recent

demographic studies that impact the perceptions

of the threats to democracy in Israel.

Beware - UK Culture under Threat

The facts speak for themselves!

-  80 Shariah Courts

-  Rampant Muslim Child Sex Slavery (since 1987)

-  Jail for Islamic Blasphemy

-  Over 1,500 Mosques

-  Almost 1,300 Acid Attacks in 2023

-  Islam is the second largest religion 

-  Mohammed was the top boy’s name

-    Muslim population in 2021 - 3.9%

-    Expected Muslim population in 2030  - 8,2%

 

Syrian activist to UN: “I testify before God: Israel is not the problem!”

 

Why Arabs don’t want to receive Palestinian ex-prisoners

 By Khaled Abu Toameh, the full report at https://tinyurl.com/3t5u3a7a  

Most of the Arab countries are refusing to receive Palestinians released from Israeli prison as part of the US-brokered Israel-Hamas ceasefire-hostage deal.

In the past few weeks, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — many of whom were imprisoned for acts of terrorism — in return for Israeli hostages who kidnapped to the Gaza Strip during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.

Many were released to Egypt, with the hope that other Arab countries would host them.

According to Palestinian sources, the Egyptians have agreed to allow only a handful of ex-prisoners to remain in Egypt, while dozens of others are searching for countries that will agree to receive them.

With the exception of Qatar and Turkey (a non-Arab Muslim country), most of the Arab countries have reportedly refused to allow the released prisoners into their borders, the sources revealed.

The ex-prisoners, many of whom belong to the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, are stuck in Cairo, where they are staying in hotels and hospitals.

It seems the Arab states are not eager to provide shelter to Islamist jihadists who could join forces with other terror groups and pose a threat to the regimes that have taken them in.

The Jordanians and Lebanese, for their part, have not forgotten how Palestinians sparked civil wars in their countries in the 70s and 80s.

After the Palestinians tried to overthrow their host, King Hussein of Jordan, in 1970; then started a civil war in Lebanon right after that; then, when welcomed into Kuwait, took the side of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait in 1990, it is hard to blame any regime.

Tunisia and Jordan refuse to receive any of the released deported prisoners stuck in Egypt, and Algeria has not responded yet, while Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan will each receive 45 prisoners.

Algeria gave initial approval to receive a number of prisoners from a specific faction [belonging to the ruling Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], while Tunisia refused to receive any of the released prisoners.

“The prisoners who were released and deported from Palestine and now stuck in hotels in Cairo. They are still wearing their prison clothes and have not changed them.

There is no Arab country willing to accept them, not even those countries that were crying over the Gaza Strip, the Gazans and Palestine [during the Israel-Hamas war], and even keyboard heroes are unable to pressure their governments to accept the prisoners.

Most of the Arab states did almost nothing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the war, which was triggered by the October 7 massacre of Israelis.

Their refusal came about partly because those countries despise Hamas and, unsurprisingly, consider it a threat to their national security.

The refusal to take in Palestinian prisoners probably arises from the fact that these countries actually do not care about the Palestinians and even consider them an ungrateful people and troublemakers.

Many Arabs also seem to have lost faith in the Palestinians’ ability to implement reform and end rampant financial and administrative corruption in their governing bodies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the past few decades, many Arab states, despite repeated pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars, have significantly reduced financial aid to the Palestinians.

According to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Finance Ministry, the PA’s funding from Arab countries dropped from $265.5 million in 2019 to $40 million in 2020.

The biggest cut was from Saudi Arabia, which reduced its $174.7 million aid to the PA in 2019 to only $32 million in 2020 — a decrease of 81.4%.

Many of these Arabs understand that Hamas and many other Palestinians have no intention of abandoning the fight against Israel, a move that will result in more violence, bloodshed and destruction.

That is also probably why no Arab country is going to invest one dollar in the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas remains in power and as long as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to murder Jews.

 

Is it Time to Declare the Failure of the Oslo Accords?

 

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch March 3^rd 2025

For full report see https://jcpa.org/article/is-it-time-to-declare-the-failure-of-the-oslo-accords/

•             The Oslo Accords were designed to achieve lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) used the Palestinian Authority (PA), created as part of the Accords, to cultivate ever-deepening Palestinian hatred of Israel and promote terrorism. As a result, the Oslo path has been disastrous for Israel and the Palestinians alike.

•             The Oslo Accords, that provided self-governance for Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, were predicated on the assumption that the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist and abandoned violence and terror as a means to achieve Palestinian aspirations. Yet the PLO-PA have consistently perpetuated a narrative, both within Palestinian society and in international organizations and fora, of Israeli delegitimization.

•             These policies include the constant radicalization of the Palestinian education curriculum, thereby brainwashing and poisoning the minds of generations of Palestinians, and adopting and implementing a multi-billion-dollar “Pay-for-Slay” program that promotes, incentivizes, and rewards terror.

•             As a result of the Oslo Accords, the PLO-PA was given autonomous rule of extensive areas in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Instead of building a functioning, democratic, and prosperous society, these areas were turned into safe havens for terror and an incubator for Palestinian terror groups.

•             Despite being given the funding, the opportunities, and the capabilities to establish a functioning and prosperous Palestinian economy, the PLO, the PA, and the Palestinian leadership abused international aid, including substantial U.S. and EU aid, to promote Palestinian national aspirations to destroy Israel.

•             Recognizing and accepting the Oslo Accords’ failure would allow all the relevant actors to re-evaluate and develop alternative solutions.

Where are the "innocent" Gazan civilians?

 

At this hostage release "ceremony", the Gazans young and old

are relating to the hostages in the worst possible demeaning way.

The War in Gaza is Over - NO IT'S NOT

The Gaza war is practically over and all that's left are a few hostage - prisoner ransom swaps and, hoopa, it's all over "'cept the cryin'" – NO IT’S NOT

Reporter Yoav Zeiton in this morning's Ynet daily: "This morning in Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet we are revealing what can be published about the IDF's extraordinary preparations in the south, and it is worth putting on the table:

1. Hamas was not defeated in the war - far from it; the month-long ceasefire caused it to reorganize and not abandon the idea of ​​attacking Israel

2. Many thousands of its operatives returned from the south of the Gaza Strip to the north with the withdrawal from the Netzarim axis and were among the half million Gazans who did so

3. Those thousands of terrorists found many hundreds of terrorists there in Gaza City and its suburbs, and they rebuilt company and battalion structures

4. Hamas collected a large amount of explosives from the remnants of the retreating IDF in the past month, thus trapping explosive sites and creating new weapons for its forces

5. In addition, Hamas has networked surveillance cameras at key points in the Gaza Strip, raised drones for collection and scanning, and re-manned Its units with new commanders

‏6. Hamas also located and targeted quite a few rocket launchers that remained in the Gaza Strip, in the background of the 4 launches in the past week in Buraij and Rafah

‏7. The military wing's operatives are preparing tunnels that the IDF did not locate, also for possible targets for attack, and are renovating damaged tunnels

‏8. Let us recall:

‏a. There are commanders in Hamas that the IDF and Shin Bet were sure had been eliminated, and who have come back to life

‏b. The strategic decision made by Hamas in the first month of the war when it realized that Hezbollah had abandoned it: to withdraw most of its terrorists to the cities of the displaced and to preserve as much weaponry as possible

9. In addition, Hamas is also strengthening its control through the municipalities in the Gaza Strip, providing municipal services to the Gazans and collecting taxes from the distribution of food and fuel aid that Israel brings in, in order to pay its operatives

10. The IDF, on the other hand, is completing preparations for a broad ground and air operation, including with reserve brigades: "Hamas is very damaged with gaps in manpower and weapons, but there is still a lot of work to overcome it militarily”

40,000 Palestinians evacuated from Refugee Camps in Samaria

 For full article see https://worldisraelnews.com/40000-palestinians-evacuated-samaria-as-idf-deploys-tanks-in-jenin/

IDF tanks rolled into the Palestinian Authority city of Jenin in northern Samaria on Sunday, marking the first time since the Second Intifada that Israeli armored units have operated in the area.

An IDF spokesperson later confirmed that tanks were operating in the area as part of the ongoing Israeli counter-terror operation in Samaria.

Since January 21st, Israeli forces have killed more than 70 terrorists and detained 300 suspects in Operation Iron Wall, carried out in the Jenin district of northern Samaria and Tulkarem and nearby Nur al-Shams in western Samaria.

The operation was launched after Palestinian Authority security forces failed to take control of Jenin from rogue terror groups and following the January 6th shooting attack in Samaria that left three Israelis dead.

Later on Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz (Likud) discussed the expansion of Operation Iron Wall, saying that some 40,000 Arab residents have been evacuated from the targeted areas of the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur al-Shams, which are now empty of residents.”

Furthermore, Katz said the Israeli military will remain in parts of Jenin and Tulkarem for an extended period of time, without giving a deadline for their withdrawal.

During the recent operations, Katz added, IDF forces have shut down operations by the terror-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). “UNRWA operations in the camps have also been halted,” Katz said.

“We will not return to the previous reality. We will continue to clear refugee camps and additional terror hubs to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of radical Islam, which were built, armed, funded, and trained by Iran’s axis of evil in an attempt to establish an eastern terror front against the settlements of Samaria, the security barrier, and major population centers in Israel.”

ISIS Beheads 70 Christians -The Media is Silent

 Total silence from International media over this atrocity.

Four Coffins

(Thanks to Rachel O'Donoghue, Jerusalem Post)

 It was not just the presence of the four coffins that made the spectacle an echo of the savagery of October 7. It was the festive atmosphere—the casual, almost celebratory way a community gathered to watch a terrorist group display the bodies of murdered Jews. A society so desensitized to terroristic violence that even the sight of coffins holding two dead babies did not shock. Did not horrify. 

Quite the opposite. It was a cause for celebration.

The mothers and fathers of Gaza brought their children to watch. To gawk. To clap. At the sight of dead Jews.

Mainstream media outlets barely acknowledged the sheer depravity of Thursday morning’s spectacle, offering only the most muted references to the macabre show in Khan Yunis.

Sky News, for instance, summarized the scene with an almost clinical detachment: “Four black coffins were displayed on a stage” before being “put into vehicles and driven away as masked members of Hamas and other factions looked on.” A bizarrely sanitized description for what was, in reality, a horrifying public exhibition of murdered civilians.

CNN at least had the journalistic integrity to acknowledge the “propaganda backdrop with slogans in Arabic, Hebrew, and English”—but conspicuously failed to mention the crude mural of Netanyahu as a blood-sucking vampire looming over the coffins. ABC News cropped its accompanying photo so that only one Hamas terrorist remained in the frame, reducing the entire event to just two paragraphs—one of which described a Red Cross official “signing documents” as part of the so-called handover.

References to the crowd were fleeting. If mentioned at all, it was merely as “crowds gathered,” with no photographs to accompany the words. One of the most honest assessments came from an AFP report, but even then, it was buried in the final paragraph:

“Large speakers blasted chants, as children and youth pressed themselves around a table where fighters displayed a large automatic rifle and its long ammunition belt, as well as anti-tank mines.”

Yet not a single major news outlet thought it relevant to report that Hamas had invited families to watch—and that they eagerly did, gathering with music and celebration. Not a single journalist spoke of the carnivalesque atmosphere. Not a single reporter noted the chilling detail that all four coffins were the same size, as though a child-sized casket would have made the heartbreak too explicit.

Israel has been repeatedly criticized for its supposed lack of a “day-after” plan for Gaza, for failing to put forward a roadmap that would lead to Palestinian statehood.

But Thursday morning’s gruesome display provides the most unflinching answer to that demand:

Israel cannot be expected to solve what is clearly a deep-rooted, generational problem in a society that treats the murder of its civilians as family entertainment.

Related Tags #Israel; #Gaza; #media; #hostagel #Hostage Deal

Hamas baby killers and a broken global moral compass

 Full article at https://www.jns.org/the-hamas-baby-killers-and-a-broken-global-moral-compass/

 As much as anything else, two little red-haired boys and their mother symbolized the barbaric cruelty of the Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The video of a terrified Shiri Bibas, 32, clutching and comforting her two children—Ariel, 4, and Kfir, just 9 months old at the time—as they were being pushed away by Hamas terrorists into captivity in Gaza should haunt the conscience of humanity in much the same way as some of the most iconic images of the Holocaust.

But it did not. Or at least, it didn’t do so sufficiently to prevent a sizable portion of the international community from thinking of their captors as the good guys in the war that the Palestinians started on Oct. 7. Now, 500 days after that infamous and tragic date, as their fate has been revealed, we are also being forced to come to terms with the extent of the moral failure of the world to respond appropriately to this brazen act of genocidal terrorism.

To much of the world, the Bibas children were just Zionist propaganda, not human beings who were brutalized for the crime of being Jewish. Their likenesses were not to be tolerated—let alone viewed with sympathy. Posters of them and others kidnapped by Hamas were put up around the world only to be torn down by brazen antisemites.

Yet now that Hamas has announced that the bodies of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir are to be handed over to Israel this week as part of the first phase of ceasefire/hostage deal that has, at least for the moment, halted the fighting, attitudes toward the fate of the Bibas family has become an unavoidable test of our common humanity.

Vestiges of decency

That is a test that much of the international community is failing miserably. And it’s important for the rest of us, even as we mourn for the Bibas family, to take note of this and ask why it should be so.

It’s not just that Hamas wants to destroy Israel and commit genocide against its population. The terror group that, contrary to the claims of former President Joe Biden, has the backing of most Palestinian Arabs. Its “fighters” and the Palestinian civilians who followed in their wake when Israeli communities were attacked on Oct. 7, engaged in an orgy of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping in a way that made it clear that they had shed any vestige of humanity or decency.

More than that, it boasted proudly of these bestial crimes by posting photos and videos of their actions on social media to make it clear that their attack was a trailer for what they aim to do to the rest of Israel—or at least it did so before their foreign supporters perversely began to deny any of it actually happened.

When stated that way, the atrocities of Oct. 7 are, as awful as they were, still something of an abstraction. But when you look at the images of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir as they cowered in the face of their kidnappers after their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz was attacked, we see it in a different light. They are not just statistics. They are human beings with whom anyone can identify.

That’s why so many decent people came to care so much about them.

We knew that Yarden Bibas—Shiri’s husband and the children’s father—had left their house’s safe room in a futile attempt to save his family, and had also been kidnapped. 

Motivation for antisemitism

Regardless of the details of the crime that we don’t yet know, the unavoidable truth is that a toddler, an infant and their mother were all murdered by their Palestinian captors.

Once we arrive at that sad conclusion, it is incumbent on us to ponder how it is that even after learning about this so many people, including a large number of those who consider themselves progressives, humanitarians and opposed to barbarism, still support Hamas and oppose Israel.

Muslim and Arab sympathy for the Palestinians, coupled with a long tradition of Jew-hatred so prevalent in the Islamic world, is part of the reason. But throughout the West, this development is the result of the spread of toxic leftist ideologies like critical race theory, intersectionality and the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that pointedly excludes Jews from its alleged crusade for better treatment of minorities.

It is also why so many college and university students, especially those attending elite schools, have come to believe that the Bibas family simply doesn’t fall into the category of people who deserve the empathy of fellow human beings. As was the case for European fascist and Nazi ideologues a century ago, left-wing intellectuals and those who have fallen under their influence believe that Israelis and Jews are undeserving of compassion.

It didn’t matter to them that Gaza wasn’t “occupied” on Oct. 7. The fact that every Israeli soldier, settler and settlement had been withdrawn from the Strip in 2005 and that since 2007, it had been an independent Palestinian state run by Islamist terrorists was irrelevant.

A broken moral compass

For generations, decent people have wondered how it was that the citizens of what was arguably the most civilized and scientifically advanced society in Europe—Germany—behaved as they did during the Holocaust. The answer was that they didn’t believe in the humanity of the Jews. 

But at the heart of the argument are those who take the side of the Hamas baby killers and spread hatred for a moral and democratic Israel, as well as for the Jewish people. Not for the first time in world history, antisemitism has provided a justification for the murderers of Jewish children.