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An annual remembrance of the Holocaust at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps was protested on Monday by Palestine flag-flying activists.
The post Pictures: Palestine Protesters Disrupt Memorial Ceremony at Auschwitz appeared first on Breitbart.
Interim Harvard University President Alan M. Garber threatened to place pro-Palestinian protesters on campus on "involuntary leave."
The post Harvard President Threatens to Place Protesters Involved in Encampment on ‘Involuntary Leave’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) threatened to place protesters involved in an encampment on "interim academic suspension."
The post MIT Threatens to Place Protesters Involved in Encampment on ‘Interim Academic Suspension’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The Biden administration is refusing to comment on if it is withholding aid from Israel after a Sunday report said that it was.
The post Biden Administration Refuses to Say if It Is Withholding Aid from Israel appeared first on Breitbart.
Vice President Kamala Harris ignored questions from reporters about Hamas suddenly begging Israel for a ceasefire.
The post Kamala Harris Reacts to Hamas Calling for Ceasefire: ‘Shrimp and Grits’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Catholic League President Bill Donohue ridiculed the “cowardly” pro-Hamas demonstrators for their spineless approach to revolutionary protest.
The post Catholic League: Pro-Hamas Protesters Are Like ‘Cowardly’ Ku Klux Klan appeared first on Breitbart.
The Israeli war cabinet voted unanimously on Monday to continue the attack on Hamas's last stronghold in Rafah -- while also sending diplomats to Cairo, Egypt in an effort to explore whether Hamas is really interested in ceasefire.
The post Israeli War Cabinet Votes Unanimously to Continue War in Rafah, Reopen Talks appeared first on Breitbart.
The Biden administration welcomed Hamas's sudden declaration Monday that it accepted a ceasefire in Gaza -- though the White House would not say what terms, exactly, Hamas had accepted.
The post White House Refuses to Say or Speculate What Is in Hamas Ceasefire ‘Deal’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Columbia University said Monday it has canceled its graduation ceremony after anti-Israel protests erupted on its campus and others across the nation.
The post Columbia University Officials Cancel Commencement Ceremony in Wake of Anti-Israel Protests appeared first on Breitbart.
The Palestinian Hamas terror organization rushed Monday to claim that it had accepted a ceasefire -- just hours after Israel warned residents of Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza, to evacuate due to an imminent invasion.
The post Hamas Suddenly Begs for Ceasefire, with Israeli Attack on Rafah Looming appeared first on Breitbart.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday highlighted that donors of President Joe Biden are fueling the anti-Israel protests at a host of American colleges.
The post Donald Trump Slams Biden Donors Fueling Anti-Israel Protests: ‘Are You Listening, Israel?’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Monday that Israel's warning to residents of Rafah to evacuate was not a bluff and marked the beginning of a long-promised operation by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to win the war.
The post Israel: Rafah Operation Imminent, Not a Bluff; ‘Liberate Gaza from Hamas’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) agency reported Sunday that it had been told by international organizations that there was too much aid being sent to northern Gaza, and it should be reduced.
The post Report: Too Much Aid in Northern Gaza; Int’l Orgs Request Reduction appeared first on Breitbart.
Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz stepped into a bit of hot water when she appeared to defend the treatment of LGBTQ people by the terrorist organization Hamas by literally comparing them to states like Texas.
The post Watch: Washington Post Reporter Taylor Lorenz Defends Gaza Treatment of LGBTQ, Don Lemon Corrects Her appeared first on Breitbart.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged residents of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, to evacuate to nearby "safe" zones on Monday as a long-delayed attack by Israel against the last Hamas strongholds appeared to be imminent.
The post IDF Urges Rafah Evacuations; Drops Flyers in Gaza; Attack Imminent appeared first on Breitbart.
A shipment of U.S. ammunition bound for Israel last week was halted by the Biden administration for reasons yet to be made clear, a report Sunday claimed.
The post Report: Biden Administration Halts Ammunition Shipment to Israel appeared first on Breitbart.
An anti-Israel protester interrupted a commencement ceremony for Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday evening.
The post Pro-Palestinian Protester Interrupts Commencement at Northeastern University appeared first on Breitbart.
Three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were left dead after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets towards the Kerem Shalom border.
The post Three IDF Soldiers Killed by Hamas Rockets at Border Crossing Biden Demanded Israel Open appeared first on Breitbart.
As many universities and colleges around the nation are preparing for summer break and commencement ceremonies, anti-Israel protesters show no signs of giving up.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Prepared to Stay Put for Summer: ‘Nothing That Will Deter Us’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The pro-Palestinian, antisemitic protests on university campuses across the nation are funded by President Joe Biden's own political donors -- which could explain why he hesitates to condemn them and won't investigate them.
The post Pro-Hamas Protests Funded by Biden’s Own Political Donors appeared first on Breitbart.
Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns is heading to Doha, Qatar, in a last-ditch effort to save talks on a potential hostage deal between Israel and Hamas after the terror group balked at Israel continuing the war against it.
The post CIA Chief Heads to Qatar as Hostage Deal Talks with Hamas Near ‘Collapse’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that President Joe Biden "was absolutely too late" condemning the college campus protest against Israel's war on Hamas.
The post Cotton: Biden Was ‘Absolutely Too Late’ Condemning Anti-Israel College Protests appeared first on Breitbart.
Hamas claimed responsibility Sunday for a barrage of rockets fired from the town of Rafah toward the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which is responsible for the entry of trucks of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
The post Hamas Fires on Kerem Shalom Crossing, Where Humanitarian Aid Enters Gaza appeared first on Breitbart.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video statement on Sunday insisting that Israel will not agree to Hamas's demand that it end the war as a condition of a deal to release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza.
The post Netanyahu: We Will Not Agree to Hamas Demand to End the War in Hostage Deal appeared first on Breitbart.
The time has come for student visa holders in America expressing support for Hamas to be expelled, according to Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who called such a policy “common sense.”
The post Sen. Marco Rubio to Hamas-Supporting Student Visa Holders in U.S: ‘Time for You to Go!’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Democrat FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan has ties to a Marxist organization, the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project, which supported the pro-Palestinian protesters involved in the encampment at Columbia University.
The post FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan Linked to Marxist Organization Supporting Columbia University Protesters appeared first on Breitbart.
Arne Duncan, former President Barack Obama's Secretary of Education, was photographed at an anti-Isrel encampment next to a Chicago alderman who has received criticism for speaking in front of a burned American flag.
The post Former Obama Education Secretary Attends Chicago Encampment with Radicals Connected to Burning U.S. Flag appeared first on Breitbart.
Anti-Israel protesters interrupted the main graduation ceremony at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Saturday.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Disrupt Main Graduation Ceremony at the University of Michigan appeared first on Breitbart.
Oregon's Portland State University (PSU) library has shut down after anti-Israel protesters occupied the building and damaged it.
The post VIDEO: Portland State University Library Closes After Anti-Israel Protesters Trash Building appeared first on Breitbart.
Anti-Israel protesters projected President Joe Biden's face over an American flag that was hanging from a building behind their encampment at George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters at George Washington University Project ‘Genocide Joe’ over American Flag appeared first on Breitbart.
Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted a commencement ceremony that took place at the University of Michigan (UM) on Friday.
The post Pro-Palestinian Protesters Interrupt Commencement Ceremony at University of Michigan appeared first on Breitbart.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik broke her silence days after the New York Police Department (NYPD) conducted a raid on pro-Palestinian protesters who had taken over an academic building. In a video posted to X on Friday afternoon, Shafik described
The post Columbia University President Speaks Out After NYPD Raid: ‘We Have a Lot to Do’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The United States diplomat who quit over President Joe Biden’s handling of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas spoke out, saying she feels that the U.S. is on the “wrong side of history.” Hala Rharrit, the first U.S. diplomat
The post U.S. Diplomat Who Quit Over Biden’s Approach to Israel Speaks Out: ‘Wrong Side of History’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed reports on Friday that Ankara will ban all imports from and exports to Israel in support of the jihadist terror group Hamas.
The post Turkey Announces Trade Embargo on Israel appeared first on Breitbart.
An organizer involved in the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas encampment at the University of Chicago released a list of needed supplies.
The post University of Chicago Anti-Israel Encampment Demands HIV Tests, Dental Dams, Plan B appeared first on Breitbart.
NYT Columnist and Duke Professor Frank Bruni said Friday on PBS's "Firing Line" that a lot of young progressives never acknowledged how horrific the October 7, 2023 terror attack in Israel was.
The post Bruni: Young Progressives Never Acknowledge Horrific October 7 Attack, They Advocated for Hamas appeared first on Breitbart.
Pro-Palestinian protesters taking part in an encampment at Princeton University began a hunger strike to raise awareness for starving people in Gaza.
The post Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Princeton University Begin Hunger Strike for Gaza appeared first on Breitbart.
The organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest reiterated that Palestinian flags are not permitted at the event.
The post Eurovision Song Contest Warns Protesters: No Palestinian Flags appeared first on Breitbart.
A lawsuit filed this week by seven Israeli victims of the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023, alleges that American groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, active in many campus protests, is a propaganda front for Hamas.
The post October 7 Victims Sue ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’: ‘Propaganda Arm’ of Hamas in U.S. appeared first on Breitbart.
Former ESPN personality Jemele Hill took exception to a video of frat boys counter-protesting left-wing pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were marching on the campus of the University of Mississippi.
The post ‘That Frat Should Be Barred from Campus’: Jemele Hill Blasts Frat Boys After Confrontation with Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators appeared first on Breitbart.
Former ESPN personality Jemele Hill was triggered by a video of white frat boys counter-protesting left-wing Hamas supporters who were marching on the campus of the University of Mississippi.
The post ‘That Frat Should Be Barred from Campus’: Jemele Hill Triggered After Frat Boys Confront Hamas Supporters appeared first on Breitbart.
New York Police Department (NYPD) Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard told Fox News' Neil Cavuto on Thursday that pro-Palestinian "encampments" at many universities are run by "outside agitators" with funds from "around the world."
The post NYPD: Funding for Pro-Palestinian ‘Encampments’ Comes from ‘Around the World’ appeared first on Breitbart.
A Madison, Wisconsin, comedy club handed the local Hitler Youth a win with its decision to cancel an appearance from Michael Rapaport.
The post Nolte: Madison Comedy Club Hands Hitler Youth Win by Canceling Michael Rapaport appeared first on Breitbart.
Officials at two universities run by radical jihadist terror entities -- Iran's public Tehran University and the Houthi-controlled Sanaa University in Yemen -- offered enrollment this week to students in America and Europe facing disciplinary action for supporting the Hamas terrorist organization.
The post Pro-Hamas U.S. Students Receive Offers from Houthis, Tehran University appeared first on Breitbart.
Colombian far-left President Gustavo Petro announced on Wednesday that he would cut diplomatic relations with Israel on Thursday over its "genocide" in Gaza.
The post Colombia’s Marxist President Cuts Ties with Israel on May Day appeared first on Breitbart.
The government of Turkey announced on Wednesday that it is seeking to become a party to a case accusing Israel of "genocide" against the terrorist organization Hamas at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The post Islamist Turkey to Join South Africa’s ‘Genocide’ Complaint Against Israel at the Hague appeared first on Breitbart.
The anti-Biden uncommitted movement has spread to Maryland as left-wing groups work to mobilize a protest vote against Joe Biden.
The post Leftist Groups Hold Anti-Biden ‘Vote Uncommitted’ Rally in Maryland Before Primary appeared first on Breitbart.
Former President Donald Trump cast doubt on the possibility of a Palestinian state this week, given the hatred that Palestinians have displayed against Israel and Jews, and with which they have indoctrinated their children.
The post Trump Casts Doubt on Palestinian State, Given ‘Hatred’ Against Jews appeared first on Breitbart.
Police officers behaved admirably by arresting "radical left," anti-Israel "lunatics" at Columbia University and UCLA, Donald Trump said.
The post Donald Trump Praises Police for Arresting ‘Radical Left Lunatics’ on College Campuses appeared first on Breitbart.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have pushed Israel into a position where it must accept defeat in its war against Hamas terrorists -- in return for just a fraction of the remaining Israeli hostages.
The post Biden, Blinken Push Israel to Lose War — for a Fraction of the Hostages appeared first on Breitbart.
Pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Southern California (USC) took steel barricades destined for the university's main graduation ceremony and used them for their encampment.
The post USC Protesters Use Barricades from Canceled Graduation for Encampment appeared first on Breitbart.
See scenes from inside the anti-Israel encampment set up by students on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC.
The post Watch Live: Inside the Anti-Israel Encampment at George Washington University appeared first on Breitbart.
Anti-Israel activists have continued to set up new pro-Palestinian encampments, even as others are removed by police, with the latest sites going up at the University of Texas-Dallas and University of California San Diego (UCSD).
The post Pro-Palestinian Encampments Spread: UC San Diego, UT Dallas (Busted) appeared first on Breitbart.
Columbia University Professor Joseph Slaughter said Wednesday on MSNBC's "Chris Jansing Reports" that the school's administration's "gross mismanagement" caused the New York Police Department to have to clear the encampment and arrest the protestors.
The post Columbia Professor Slaughter: Protests Escalated Because of ‘Gross Mismanagement’ appeared first on Breitbart.
World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday that Israel’s proposed “full-scale invasion on Rafah” would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
The post W.H.O. Chief Tedros Demands Israel Stop Pursuing Hamas appeared first on Breitbart.
What Americans are seeing on college campuses with the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests is simply "radial leftism," Sen. Ron Johnson said.
The post Exclusive — Sen. Ron Johnson: What Americans Are Seeing on College Campuses Is ‘Radical Leftism’ appeared first on Breitbart.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel on Wednesday as the world awaited an answer from Hamas on whether it would accept an Israeli offer on a hostage deal that grants almost all of the terrorist group's demands.
The post As Blinken Visits Israel, World Awaits Hamas Answer on ‘Very Generous’ Hostage Deal appeared first on Breitbart.
Shiraz University, a public institution in Iran, announced that it would offer scholarships and jobs to American college students and professors facing disciplinary action for participating in violent pro-terrorist actions at home, the state-run Iranian propaganda site PressTV reported on Wednesday.
The post Iran Offers Scholarships to Pro-Hamas American College Students, Jobs to Professors appeared first on Breitbart.
An anti-Israel encampment was established at Fordham University in New York City on Wednesday, hours after ones at other colleges were raided.
The post Anti-Israel Encampment Established at Fordham University Hours After Police Raided Others appeared first on Breitbart.
Law enforcement officials began clearing an anti-Israel encampment that had been established at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The post Police Begin Clearing Anti-Israel Encampment from University of Wisconsin appeared first on Breitbart.
The University of Florida campus is "not a daycare," the University of Florida said in a statement following the arrest of protesters on Monday.
The post UF After Arrest of Anti-Israel Protesters: Campus ‘Not a Daycare’ appeared first on Breitbart.
A rare miss on profits for the fast-food chain.
The post McDonald’s Earnings Dragged Down By Inflation And Israel-Hamas War Boycotts appeared first on Breitbart.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would reject any attempt by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict Israeli officials over the war in Gaza -- and that it would destroy Hamas regardless.
The post Netanyahu Blasts ICC, Vows to Destroy Hamas — Deal or No Deal appeared first on Breitbart.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said on Tuesday that representatives from the two main Palestinian factions, the terrorist organization Hamas and Fatah, made progress at recent “unity talks” held in Beijing.
The post China Hosts ‘Unity’ Talks Between Palestinian Fatah and Hamas Terrorists appeared first on Breitbart.
Columbia University announced that students occupying Hamilton Hall face expulsion after protesters seized the building.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Occupying Building at Columbia University ‘Face Expulsion’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Anti-Israel protesters vandalized a statue of George Washington on the George Washington University (GWU) campus in Washington, DC.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Vandalize George Washington Statue on GWU Campus appeared first on Breitbart.
Three janitors claim the pro-Hamas insurrectionists at Columbia University temporarily held them hostage, reports Fox News.
The post Nolte: Three Columbia University Janitors Claim Hitler Youth Held Them Hostage appeared first on Breitbart.
Americans overwhelmingly support Israel in its war against the Hamas terrorist group by a margin of four-to-one despite pro-Palestinian protests roiling streets and campuses across the country, a poll released Tuesday reveals.
The post Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Back Israel over Hamas Terrorists appeared first on Breitbart.
The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done it better, though, to be fair to Faber College, Dean Wormer would make a better secretary of state than Blinken.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Hoodie) is having none of it:
I’m starting to think that instead of banning hoodies on the Senate floor, maybe we should require them. At least for Democrats.
Chaser—I’m finding it harder to dislike this guy for his otherwise liberal views:
dibs on your parking space https://t.co/o9QUhIbKyF
— Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) March 21, 2024
Chaser—Fetterman does have some competition this week, from the Ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville: “A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females [dominating the culture of the Democratic Party].”
The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda.
In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded according to “the Hamas-run health ministry,” but adds: “The terror group’s figures are unverified, don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.”
These are obvious points, yet the numbers are taken (or repeated) at face value by President Biden and others. Here is Biden performing his Big Brother shtick earlier this month: “You can’t have another 30,000 Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas]. There are other ways to deal with Hamas.”
In his invaluable March 6 Tablet column, Professor Abraham Wyner explains “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers” and even Biden must “know” this. It’s yet another sign of Biden’s turn against Israel and/or support for Hamas.
Let me add today’s sign, per Vice President Kamala Harris: “We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I have studied the maps — there is nowhere for those folks to go. So we’ve been very clear that it would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any kind of military operation.”
VP Kamala Harris takes a tougher line against Israel (re: going after remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah) on ABC’s “This Week”:
“We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake. Let me tell you, I…
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) March 24, 2024
It is widely believed that Joe Biden’s anti-Israel, pro-Hamas policy is driven by his desperate need to carry Michigan if he is to have any hope of re-election. That seems like a reasonable assumption, although, to be fair, it is also possible that he shares his old boss’s anti-Israel animus. But here is another one:
Scoop: The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning senior SBU and GUR officials that drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation.
w/ @hallbenjamin @felschwartz @mylesmccormick_ https://t.co/DRussu4cAs via @FT— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) March 22, 2024
Biden’s team knows that Americans have had about all the Bidenflation they can stand, and a spike in energy prices between now and November could well doom Joe’s chances. Would Biden be willing to throw the Ukrainians under the bus, along with the Israelis, to improve his odds? I think we all know the answer to that one.
Joe Biden turning against Israel puts Scott “in mind of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac.” That was the time when Hitler’s National Socialist regime was allied with Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They signed their Pact on August 23, 1939, and Stalin began handing Jews directly to the Gestapo. In September, 1939, both powers invaded Poland, effectively starting World War II.
In November, 1939, Stalin invaded Finland and in April of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. On May 10, 1940, Hitler invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The genocidal maniac then turned his sights on England, standing alone during the Stalin-Hitler Pact. The American Communists, then collaborating with the pro-Nazi German-American Bund, picketed the White House to keep America out of the conflict, and fomented strikes in defense industries.
In the Battle of Britain (July 10, 1940 – October 31, 1940), England got some help from unofficial sources. Fliers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, Belgium, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and even the USA, threw in with the Royal Air Force. As the Imperial War Museum explains:
Germany’s failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War. It was able to stay in the war and lived to fight another day.
In the style of John Lennon, “imagine” if the American president had been sending millions of dollars in cash to the Nazi regime. Imagine if the American president told Churchill to back off his military campaigns. Imagine if the American president and prominent senators had called for an election to remove Winston Churchill, and so on. Had such moves taken place, England might not have lived on to fight another day. The parallels are lost on Joe Biden, who in a 2020 debate said “Hitler invaded Europe,” like something from the drunk at the end of the bar.
As Scott notes, Biden and his brain trust “support the survival of Hamas,” genocidal maniacs pushing for a second Holocaust. The History of Jihad author Robert Spencer has thoughts on what this might mean for America:
What do Biden regime apparatchiks think will happen if Hamas defeats Israel and survives this war? Do they think that the jihadis will be so overflowing with gratitude to the U.S. that they won’t ever strike Americans or U.S. interests? They’re in for a rude surprise.
Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.”
Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and demands that Satloff clean up his critique. Satloff publishes Buzbee’s response in his disappointed postscript “Sadly, WaPost Admits No Error in Story Filled with Them.”
This episode had me thinking back to my own examination of the Post’s reporting in this vein on Israel’s 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense. Mr. Satloff, I see your 5,000 words and raise you 5,000 words. I wrote several posts and well over 5,000 words on the story featuring the aptly named Jihad Masharawi. Forgive me for saying that those posts have stood the test of time! As the song goes, “same as it ever was.” I have retrieved this March 11, 2013 post from our archives.
* * * * *
I wrote about the photograph of BBC Arabic editor Jihad Masharawi holding the shrouded body of his 11-month-old son, Omar, in posts here, here, here and here. The photograph depicted Masharawi outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City early in Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense. The young Masharawi’s death was attributed to an Israeli airstrike.
The photograph went viral on the second day of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, being featured on the Web and in newspapers around the world. One such among many was the Washington Post, which ran it at the top of page one. The photo is below.
Washington Post ombdudsman Patrick Pexton devoted a column to complaints about the photograph. Paul Mirengoff explicated the manifest animus in Pexton’s column.
Everything Pexton asserted directly or indirectly as a matter of fact was wrong. When a major newspaper ombudsman is this utterly clueless, who ya gonna call? Not Ghostbusters. Power Line, I guess.
Paul Danahar is the BBC Middle East Bureau Chief and Masharawi’s colleague. He spent much of the day at Masharawi’s house on the day on the day Masharawi’s son was killed, tweeting a photo of the hole in the roof of Masharawi’s house. The house wasn’t bombed, Pexton to the contrary notwithstanding. Danahar described the munition that did the damage as a “shell.”
I tweeted Danahar to ask him on what basis he identified the munition as Israeli. I wrote at the time on Power Line that I doubted it was. I thought it was more likely to have been a Hamas rocket that failed to hit its intended target in Israel. (As I recall, something like 10 percent of the Hamas rockets landed in Gaza.) Danahar failed to respond to my tweet, although he relentlessly propagated the line that Israeli forces had killed Masharawi’s son.
Everything about the photograph looked phony to me. Was Masharawi sobbing? His face doesn’t even look like he has shed tears. Masharawi looks like he’s enacting grief. I understand that Masharawi in fact lost his son as a result of the munition that hit his house, but I found the photo odd (as I did the other photos in the series of Masharawi parading around for the cameras).
I thought that Masharawi was engaging in an opportunistic bit of Terrorist Theater, the kind I wrote about in the Weekly Standard article “He didn’t give at the office.” The article demonstrates how news service stringers in Gaza work as an arm of the terrorist authorities on whom they purport to report. By the way, the staged photos of Arafat that I wrote about in the Standard article were the work of an AP stringer. The photo of Masharawi that the Post ran was credited to the AP.
Terrorist Theater is a function of the sinister authority wielded by terrorist forces in the areas where they hold sway. Gaza is of course under the thumb of Hamas, one such terrorist power.
We held that the death of Masharawi’s son was a tragedy and offered our condolences to Masharawi on the loss of his son. We acknowledged that we didn’t know to a certainty what had happened or who is responsible for the death, and therefore asked readers to keep an open mind.
I hope you will forgive me for rehearsing what must seem like ancient history, but it really is necessary to put this report in context, as they say: “UN clears Israel of charge it killed baby in Gaza.” The Times of Israel has the story, based on this UN report:
United Nations report cleared Israel in the death of the infant son of a BBC employee during Operation Pillar of Defense in November, instead fingering a misfired Palestinian rocket for the tragedy.
The November 14 strike left 11-month-old Omar Jihad al-Mishrawi and Hiba Aadel Fadel al-Mishrawi, 19, dead. The death of Omar, the son of BBC Arabic journalist Jihad al-Mishrawi, garnered more than usual media attention and focused anger for the death on Israel, which was initially blamed for the death.
Rather, the report suggests, a 19-year-old woman and a baby were hit by shrapnel from a rocket fired by Palestinians that was aimed at Israel, but missed its mark.
Omar is dead, and Hamas killed him, but both Jihad and jihad live, and the BBC and the Washington Post among others are their willing tools.
President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill — though the thought appears not to have crossed the mind of the Economist.
The IDF has yet to complete its mission in Gaza. Yesterday IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari conducted a briefing on the IDF’s return to Shifa Hospital to root out a large band of terrorists that had come to think of the place as home. Hagari conducted the briefing in Hebrew, but the video below superimposes the English translation, which the IDF has also posted here. This is the text per the IDF:
Good evening.
The operation at the Shifa Hospital continues. This is the operation with the largest aggregation of terrorists we have apprehended since the beginning of the war. So far, we have apprehended over 500 suspects, 358 of which are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
They are surrendering, we are interrogating them, and they are providing us with very valuable and important intelligence.We apprehended the chain of command of the Islamic Jihad, including:
1. Muhammad Jundia – Commander of the Shejaiya Battalion of the Islamic Jihad and the Deputy Commander of the terrorist organization’s Northern Brigade
2. Samir Ziad Abd Abu Odeh – Commander of the Al-Shati sector in the rocket unit of the Islamic Jihad.
3. Ahmad Samara – responsible for tunnels and underground terror infrastructure of the Islamic Jihad in the Northern Gaza Strip.We apprehended senior Hamas figures, including:
1. Hamdallah Ali and Omar Azida– Azida, a senior official in the West Bank Headquarters, responsible for directing Hamas terrorist activity in the area of Nablus. Ali, who advanced Hamas activity in the Qalqilya area. The two are senior officials in the West Bank Headquarters of Hamas, they acted within their roles to advance terrorist attacks from Judea and Samaria, directed the transfer of weapons and funds to terrorists. This group operated under Saleh al-Arouri.
2. Mahmoud Kwasma – an operative in the Hamas West Bank Headquarters, planned and financed the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in 2014, Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, may their memory be a blessing.In addition, we apprehended additional senior officials in Hamas’ Internal Security forces. Many terrorists in Shifa, especially from the Islamic Jihad, surrendered to our forces. This is a very hard blow to the Islamic Jihad – many of its operatives in the north, who are the majority of its significant operatives, either surrendered or were eliminated in the operation so far. With a number of them, we exchanged fire until they surrender or are eliminated.
During the last 24 hours, we entered the Qatari Building [in the Shifa compound]. This is a building that we also operated in during the previous operation in Shifa. This time, terrorists were hiding there. Shayetet 13 searched the building. During the scans on the basement floor, they encountered a terrorist cell. Our soldiers eliminated the terrorists without our forces being harmed. In another battle, another terrorist surrendered; after these battles, several terrorists surrendered. Among them are very senior officials – I still cannot publish their identities because they hold significant intelligence – after we finish interrogating them and find the intelligence with them, we will publish the identities of these terrorists. Senior Hamas officials understand well the significance of the operation and as the picture of the apprehended and of the eliminated terrorists becomes clearer – the pressure on them will increase.
At the beginning of the war, we destroyed the underground infrastructure dug under the hospital, and we confiscated military equipment and weapons hidden in it. The terrorists’ command center at the Shifa Hospital was dealt with then. The terrorists fled in the previous operation when we called to evacuate the compound.
This time we operated differently. This time we operated by surprise. We raided the compound by surprise. The operation, led by the 162nd Division and carried out by special forces units led by Shayetet 13, in full cooperation on the ground, shoulder to shoulder with the ISA and Unit 504 for intelligence extraction in the field. We used deception tactics in this operation, and it was this that led to the success and apprehension of all 358 terrorists and there are more still inside this compound who haven’t managed to escape. This led to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad being severely damaged as a result of the operation. Those who did not surrender to our forces fought against our forces and were eliminated. Among them also the head of the Special Operations Directorate of Hamas’ General Security – who chose to fight against our forces openly and our forces eliminated him.
The fighting continues inside the hospital buildings – inside the buildings at the hospital. There are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who decided to barricade themselves – they are currently barricading themselves in the area of the emergency room. At this stage, we are evacuating the patients – there are about 220 patients there – to another building. We are creating infrastructure for them, with appropriate medical equipment so that all the patients and doctors can be safe. For the past 24 hours, we continue to call upon the terrorists in the building to surrender, those who surrender will stay alive, those who do not we will fight against until we eliminate them.
Even at these hours, our soldiers are scanning the buildings, evacuating the wounded, and continuing to operate in the compound. There will be more ongoing combat here – there will be several more days to this operation.
Last night, when we visited the soldiers in the field during the operation, from all the special units – as I said, the Commander of Shayetet 13 briefed us, but there was also the ISA, also Unit 504 and also the senior command that came with us to the field. They told us something very very important – they emphasized to us, the soldiers and the commanders, that they will do everything necessary in this operation or another in order to bring about the release of the hostages. They emphasized – this is the most important thing to us.
We do not forget that in Gaza there are 134 hostages. It is our duty to continue and make every operational and intelligence effort, and also in negotiations, in order to bring them back home. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will continue to do. This is our responsibility.
I want to also send encouragement this evening to the families of the hostages. You and your loved ones are with us all the time.
Hagari’s remarks convey a seriousness and dignity in the face of a barbarous enemy. It is a seriousness and dignity that is conspicuous by its absence in the Biden administration.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari delivered a speech in which he confirmed 600 arrested and over 140 terrorists killed in the Al-Shifa operation pic.twitter.com/g2RDbl8qcH
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) March 21, 2024
In a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.”
Jonathan Tobin places Schumer in the context of his career to date: “He’s been in public office continuously since the age of 25, and the 73-year-old Senate Majority Leader has spent his adult life grandstanding for the cameras and the press while always seeking some momentary political advantage as he schemed, back-stabbed and bloviated his way to the top of his profession.”
We can infer that Schumer now approves of foreign interference in another country’s elections. Only yesterday that was a big no-no for purported thought leaders toeing the Democrat Party line.
In this case the government Schumer seeks the replacement of a government that was democratically elected and formed by a close American ally fighting for its life under extremely difficult circumstances. That’s no way to treat a friend.
Schumer pretends that the relevant policies of the Netanyahu government are peculiar to Netanyahu and his coalition. That does not seem to be the case.
Schumer gives aid and comfort to Hamas and its friends in the Democratic Party. We can infer that the obstacle posed by Netanyahu is to the political objectives of the Democratic Party as conceived by President Biden.
Biden has just renewed his sanctions waiver on $10 billion held for the genocidaires of Iran. See Richard Goldberg’s New York Post column “Biden continues Iran’s access to $10 billion just weeks after its proxy killed three American soldiers.” Biden — he doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.
One has to wonder about the impact of Schumer’s speech in Israel. It can’t help but demoralize Israelis fighting for their lives. However, they are unlikely to think they need Schumer’s help to assess their own best interests. In articulating and pursuing Israel’s war aims, Netanyahu speaks for the people of Israel. They do not support surrender to Hamas or adoption of the two-state final solution.
Senator Tom Cotton has posted a statement responding to Schumer. Senator Cotton sees the unstated obstacle Schumer is addressing: “[T]he main elections that worry Chuck Schumer aren’t Israel’s but our elections because the rampant antisemitism that the Democratic Party has allowed to fester in its ranks is massively unpopular with the pro-Israel American public.” Senator Cotton adds this “come to Jesus” element to his statement for Schumer’s benefit: “Chuck Schumer should remove the log in his own party’s eye before he whines about the speck in Israel’s eye.”
Dennis Ross is a scholar and diplomat of unmatched experience in the vagaries of “the peace process.” His 2005 memoir The Missing Peace: Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace runs to 880 closely printed pages. He served in both the Bush (41) and Clinton administrations. He also served as special assistant to President Obama and worked on National Security Council in both the Reagan and Obama administrations. He currently serves as a distinguished fellow on the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His impressive Washington Institute profile is posted here.
On a personal note, I would like to add this. When I was working on the 2007 Weekly Standard article “How Arafat got away with murder,” I caught Ambassador Ross by telephone in his office late on a Friday afternoon. He was on his way out the door and didn’t know me from Adam, yet he took my question and responded as quoted in the article. He seemed to me a straightforward and decent gentleman.
Ross was invited by the MIT Jewish Alumni Alliance to speak at MIT’s “Standing Together Against Hate” program launched in the aftermath of the the October 7 massacre. MIT president Sally Kornbluth trumpeted the program as an effort aimed at “community building.” She put MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles in charge.
A Hamas apologist is scheduled to speak at MIT as part of the program on March 18. Jewish alumni reached out to Ross and confirmed his willingness to participate in the program’s speaker series. When attempts were made to move forward, however, program planners informed the alumni that Ross is not an appropriate speaker because they deem him “a politician.” The alumni group has posted its March 12 open letter to Kornbluth here.
The Washington Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu now takes a deep dive into the story under the headline “MIT Refused To Host Dennis Ross. It Invited a Hamas Apologist Instead.” Subhead: “Dalia Mogahed, who described Hamas terrorism as legal ‘resistance,’ slated to speak as a part of MIT’s ‘Standing Against Hate’ Initiative.”
What’s the trouble with Dennis Ross? It’s not that he is a politician. He has never run for office:
Like Ross, Mogahed has served as a presidential adviser, albeit to fewer presidents and in more junior roles. She served as an adviser to former president Barack Obama in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
For Matthew Handel and Lori Ullman, two Jewish Alumni Alliance members, MIT’s refusal to host Ross—and its excuse for excluding him—are insulting.
“It’s already patronizing for anyone to say we’re at MIT, so we think we’re smarter than you,” Handel, who co-founded the group, told the Free Beacon. “It’s beyond arrogant that they would say, ‘We work at MIT, so as MIT alums, we’re smarter than you; MIT students, we’re smarter than you; Congress, we’re smarter than you.'”
Costescu gives the reader everything he might need to understand the story and the actual trouble with Ross, including this valuable note: “MIT did not return a request for comment.”
The Biden administration obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The administration has released our intelligence community’s assessment that Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy,” according to the annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday. I assess that the wish is father to the thought.
The assessment provides: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections,” according to the report. “A different, more moderate government is a possibility.” I assess that the wish is father to the thought and that the assessment bears the trademark of “Our Democracy.”
Netanyahyu’s voice can be heard in the response attributed to a “very senior” Israeli official in a statement issued to the media: “Those who elect the prime minister of Israel are the citizens of Israel and no one else. Israel is not a protectorate of the US but an independent and democratic country whose citizens are the ones who elect the government. We expect our friends to act to overthrow the terror regime of Hamas and not the elected government in Israel.”
The intelligence community could not be reached for comment.
President Biden is reportedly “thinking” about imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if the IDF assault on Hamas’s redoubt in Rafah proceeds as planned. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by video to AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu’s office has posted the video clip below on X and a six-minute video here on YouTube (with an echo for the first minute).
The Prime Minister’s Office has posted Netanyahu’s text here along with these further remarks in a Churchillian vein:
Some people would make you believe that the people of Israel are disunited. In fact, some people would have you believe there is the prime minister and then there is the people of Israel.
The truth of the matter is that the people of Israel overwhelmingly support the policies set forth by myself and my government. They overwhelmingly support the need for total victory. Overwhelmingly. They overwhelmingly oppose the idea of having a Palestinian state rammed down our throat.
We just had a vote in the Knesset, to illustrate the point I just made, 99 to 9 supporting this position. And you know what? It’s not irrational. It’s because they think that giving now a Palestinian state after the October 7th massacre will be the greatest reward for terrorism in modern times.
They overwhelmingly reject the idea that we should implant, after we’ve destroyed Hamas in Gaza, the PA that still inculcates its children towards terrorism and the annihilation of Israel. They want a future of peace, a future of security that is purchased by a resounding victory.
And as I say, the possibilities for this victory, the possibilities that are opened up are immense but they require that one word: victory. And I will repeat it again, victory, victory, victory. No substitute for that and we will achieve it together.
Netanyahu knows he represents the consensus of Israeli popular opinion on this point and he gives no sign of backing down.
We will finish the job. Watch my speech at the AIPAC policy conference >> pic.twitter.com/QvPEyzfQvc
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 12, 2024
President Biden apparently thinks the IDF should observe Ramadan as it seeks to eliminate the genocidaires of Hamas. By contrast, the genocidaires of Hamas find Jewish holidays the right time to do their thing. It’s enough to make a sane man vomit.
Wall Street Journal letters editor Elliot Kaufman is not too choked up about Biden’s Ramadan recess. His column on the subject is datelined Tel Aviv and runs with the headline “Hamas’s ‘Operation Ramadan’—and Ours.”
The headline works a witty variation on the title of Norman Podhoretz’s classic Commentary essay “My Negro Problem–and Ours.” By the same token, it could have been headlined “My Biden Problem–and Ours.” However, it would require more than 800 words to lay it out. It would take a book.
Elliot’s column is behind the Journal’s paywall. Here is the heart of it:
There is an idea that it is wrong to fight an Islamic country during the holy month of Ramadan, which this year starts Sunday night. It’s nonsense: Look at Egypt and Syria’s 1973 Ramadan War against Israel or Iran’s 1982 Operation Ramadan against Iraq. Conversations with senior Israeli political, military and legal officials, however, suggest that the taboo is a weapon—and every player in the Gaza war has an Operation Ramadan of its own.
For more than a month, the Biden administration has set the start of Ramadan as the deadline for a deal to release Israeli hostages and stop the war. “There’s got to be a cease-fire because Ramadan,” the president said Tuesday. “If we get into circumstances where this continues to Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous.” The danger, in his formulation, is all on the Israeli side, so Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had better cut a deal.
Israel’s leaders lamented privately that every day in February and early March seemed to bring a new U.S. shot across Israel’s bow—an unprecedented sanctions regime; new strings attached to weapons transfers; Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for a “timebound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state”; a turn against the war effort, which Mr. Biden called “over the top”; loud opposition to an offensive in Rafah, now termed a “red line”; a new policy deeming all settlements illegal; blame pinned on Israel for humanitarian aid problems; calls for an “immediate cease-fire”; and leaks that the U.S. could demand its weapons not be used in Rafah.
Meanwhile, the president no longer speaks about defeating Hamas, let alone destroying it. Victory is off his list of priorities—and Israelis worry that Mr. Biden is the most pro-Israel member of his administration. Where American words gave Israelis succor after Oct. 7, they now confound and demoralize the country. According to a senior Israeli official, Mr. Blinken “says it right in your face: ‘You can’t win.’ ”
This was America’s Operation Ramadan: Spook and threaten Israel into accepting a hostage deal that would end the war much sooner than Mr. Netanyahu wants, because victory is unattainable anyway.
The administration misread Israel. Its pressure tactics have allowed Mr. Netanyahu to rally even his rivals around his positions on Rafah and against unilateral U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state, an idea Israelis find criminally insane right now. The prime minister’s chief opponent, Benny Gantz, has publicly agreed with him on both, and reportedly told U.S. officials that “finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah is like sending in firefighters to put out 80% of a fire.” As retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, tells me, “All the Hamas leaders are there. All the hostages are there. The fighters, the munitions—they’re in Rafah.”
It may not exactly fit the IDF’s timetable, but taking Rafah for Ramadan would be the right way to observe the holiday this year.
President Biden’s animus against Israel was patent in his State of the Union Address this past Thursday evening. The White House has posted the text of his remarks as given here.
JNS editor Jonathan Tobin sets forth a rounded view of “the moral failure” of Biden’s remarks on Israel. Tobin separately addresses and elaborates on Biden’s demands on Israel, the floating harbor for Hamas, the two-state final solution, the lack of any statement on the explosion of anti-Semitism in the United States, and the appeasement of Israel haters. We have noted these deficiencies in our own way, but nothing said here does justice to the points that Tobin makes.
NRO’s Philip Klein characterized the SOTU as “the most anti-Israel presidential speech in history.” Klein posted his comments in a hot take on the evening of Biden’s speech. Among other things, he notes that “[a]fter a perfunctory mention of October 7 and the hostages, Biden then launched an extended attack on Israel’s response to the war and the conditions in Gaza that accepted, whole cloth, Hamas casualty figures that his own administration had previously questioned as unreliable.”
We have noted this point as well. Biden and others in the administration have adopted the numbers retailed by the Gaza Ministry of Health — i.e., Hamas. It represents their adoption of the Hamas point of view.
What’s wrong with this picture? Hamas is not known for the accuracy of its statements of fact. Hamas, for example, does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and Hamas genocidaires. The Gaza Ministry of Health promotes a line that supports Hamas’s war aims.
Biden hectors Israel. He repeatedly implies that Israel violates the laws of war. This is another lie that promotes Hamas’s war aims. As Israel sacrifices the safety of its soldiers to protect civilians intentionally placed in harm’s way by Hamas, it is perversely false.
In the State of the Union Biden asserted: “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed — [AUDIENCE MEMBER: Says who?] — most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents — women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned.”
Abraham Wyner homes in on the casualty numbers in the Tablet column “How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.” Subhead: “The evidence is in their own poorly fabricated figures.”
Wyner, by the way, is Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Faculty Co-Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative. He knows what he is talking about. His column is worth your time, but Biden et al. don’t need his analysis. As Klein implies, they know it’s true. They lie without a conscience.
Wyner introduces his analysis this way (emphasis in original):
The number of civilian casualties in Gaza has been at the center of international attention since the start of the war. The main source for the data has been the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which now claims more than 30,000 dead, the majority of which it says are children and women. Recently, the Biden administration lent legitimacy to Hamas’ figure. When asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week how many Palestinian women and children have been killed since Oct. 7, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the number was “over 25,000.” The Pentagon quickly clarified that the secretary “was citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.” President Biden himself had earlier cited this figure, asserting that “too many, too many of the over 27,000 Palestinians killed in this conflict have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children.” The White House also explained that the president “was referring to publicly available data about the total number of casualties.”
Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.
If Hamas’ numbers are faked or fraudulent in some way, there may be evidence in the numbers themselves that can demonstrate it. While there is not much data available, there is a little, and it is enough: From Oct. 26 until Nov. 10, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry released daily casualty figures that include both a total number and a specific number of women and children.
The first place to look is the reported “total” number of deaths. The graph of total deaths by date is increasing with almost metronomical linearity, as the graph in Figure 1 reveals….
Wyner persuasively establishes that “the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily.” See Figure 1 and other graphs along with the rest of the column here (data posted here).
JOHN adds: Abraham Wyner testified as an expert witness on behalf of the defendants in the Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn case. We saw his testimony when we were in D.C. for the trial. Wyner presented a statistical analysis that showed that Mann’s famous hockey stick graph was, in fact, fraudulent. His analysis was persuasive and Wyner was a great witness, but unfortunately neither his testimony nor the other evidence presented by defendants was enough to overcome the decades of propaganda that underlie climate hysteria. At least, not with a D.C. jury.
It turns out that President Biden has a red line. It applies to Israel. In an unlocked story, the Wall Street Journal reports that “Biden Warns Netanyahu an Assault on Rafah Would Cross ‘Red Line.’”
Biden apparently seeks to depose the Netanyahu government. He thinks that Netanyahu is the problem. He also seeks to preserve Hamas. He finds them easier to deal with than Netanyahu. Biden’s daycare minders in the White House may indeed be malevolent or stupid enough to believe these propositions. They certainly explain a lot. They explain what Biden meant about having a “come to Jesus” meeting with Netanyahu. The animus behind that statement is patent. Now we see what Biden had in “mind,” so to speak. Israel does not fit comfortably inside what the Democrats are pleased to refer to as “our democracy.”
Biden and his minders purport to understand Israel’s national security interests better than the Israelis. The Daily Mail reports “Biden Administration consulted Israel expert on how to ‘force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse’ as president accuses the prime minster of ‘hurting Israel more than helping’ and insists Rafah invasion is ‘red line’ that must not be crossed.” The headline says it all.
Politico reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu sees things slightly differently. When asked whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah in an interview on Sunday, Netanyahu replied: “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”
It may be time to revisit Robert Gates’s assessment of Biden’s foreign policy chops: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Gates made that assessment in 2014. It therefore predates Biden’s Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran and other debacles. We can now revise Gates’s assessment to the past five decades.
The Biden administration now distinguishes between Israel’s democracy and the people who elected it. While I cannot defend all of our government’s policies, I will absolutely defend the democracy that elected it. Our democratic ally must respect that. https://t.co/8z5MJQgqIz
— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) March 10, 2024
In the video clip from his interview with Jonathan Capehart below, President Biden explains why Hamas wants a ceasefire. He forgets that he’s not supposed to explain how it promotes their goals. He seeks to backtrack but can’t figure out how, except by falsely implying that Israel is violating the laws of war. What a disgrace.
Watch Biden say the quiet part out loud. This is actually kind of amazing. Perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu will find it of use in the “come to Jesus” meeting with which Biden is threatening him.
Biden makes the blunder of answering whether and why Hamas would want a ceasefire.
He then notices his terrible blunder in saying the truth, and goes off on a tangent. pic.twitter.com/ypqX7H8D6o
— David Shor (@DYShor) March 10, 2024
Politico reports that President Biden has a big announcement to make tonight. During his State of the Union address, he will order the military to establish a temporary port in Gaza so more humanitarian aid can get to Palestinians in need. Enough with the airdrops, or to supplement the airdrops. We’re going in big time to keep Hamas in business.
It’s not clear to me if this slam comes from the administration sources briefing Politico, but it sounds like it: “The U.S. is resorting to this military mission because Israel isn’t letting in enough aid to alleviate the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israel-Hamas war plaguing 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza.”
And then we have this: “Planning for the maritime corridor [to supply the port] still faces many execution challenges, namely how to offload, secure and distribute the aid.” Hamas will lend a hand. Of that we can be sure.
They are still working out the details, but you can’t be too cynical: “Arguably the hardest part is dispersing the aid throughout the whole of Gaza. The multinational coalition will rely on the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and other groups to ensure the assistance gets to the right places.” It’s good to know they will have the friends of Hamas within the UN on board with the plan. It only makes sense.
How do you say gag me with a spoon in Arabic?
Israel’s war on Hamas has had several side effects. One such is the exposure of UNRWA a functional arm of Hamas. As Michael Rubin puts it:
The rot surrounding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East keeps accumulating. Not only did the UNRWA allow Hamas command posts under local hospitals and the UNRWA’s own headquarters, but UNRWA employees hid weaponry in their homes and then reportedly participated in the Oct. 7 kidnappings in Israel. Some employees held Israeli civilians hostage in the aftermath of the mass kidnapping. Israel alleges that 10% of UNRWA employees are Hamas members, a figure that, if anything, seems low.
Yesterday the IDF played a recording of an UNRWA employee boasting about kidnapping an Israeli woman on October 7. The UNRWA employee is only one of several hundred UNRWA employees in Gaza who are operatives in Gaza terrorist groups. Yesterday IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari held a press briefing to play the recording. Here is his introduction to it:
The information that I am about to share is distressing and some people may find it triggering, but we have an obligation to share the truth about what happened on October 7th, 150 days ago. We have a duty to expose the truth about those who took part in this brutal massacre.
Today, we are declassifying a call that we intercepted, made by Yusef Zidan Salimam Al-Khuairl, a Hamas terrorist who took part in the massacre of October 7th.
But he is not just a Hamas terrorist, he is also an UNRWA employee working as a teacher in a UN elementary school in Gaza.
The terrorist is heard speaking on the phone roughly 7 hours after Hamas began invading Israel:
Murdering; mutilating; massacring; kidnapping; raping; and burning entire families alive.On the call, you can hear him bragging about the Sabaya is a female captive that he got his hands on.
He’s talking about one of our girls. He is talking about one of the women. The term “SABAYA” used by this UNRWA worker is an Arabic term, meaning ‘female captive’ with a possession, a possession of a captor.
“Sabaya” is exactly the same word used by ISIS to describe the Yazidi women they captured, and did horrific things to.
I want you to listen to the conversation, I want you to hear the tone… how they brag…how they laugh…how they talk about women…How they call her a “noble horse”…
Listen.
The IDF has posted text and video of the briefing here. Below is the video.
Below is the recording of the call Hagari plays in the briefing. “Listen.”
This is an @UNRWA teacher.
This is a proud @UN employee.
This man's paycheque is paid by YOUR taxes.
This is a man sharing his successes.
This is a man who sees women as #sabaya, the term ISIS used for slaves.
This is the terrorism of #October7massacre
This is UNRWA… pic.twitter.com/VcPOkz49Yf— Lt. Col. (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) March 4, 2024
Via Richard Kemp/X.
JOHN adds: the UN is a hopelessly corrupt and immoral organization. We should get out.
As a guest of the Jewish Community Relations Council I attended a private showing of the atrocity video compiled by the IDF in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre this past December. Several of the clips compiled in the video had previously been posted to social media. The sadistic glee of the Hamas savages is apparent throughout the 45-minute video. They shriek in ecstasy as they perform their barbaric deeds. They take sensual pleasure in committing acts from which we recoil in disgust and horror.
Now Professor Alvin Rosenfeld seeks to capture the Hamas spirit in the Tablet column “Longing for Auschwitz.” What’s it all about? Professor Rosenfeld seems to me to get at the mania that is otherwise beyond our verbal grasp if not our human understanding. This is just the opening slice of his column:
Hamas’s assault on Israelis on October 7th was not an act of war as we normally think of it but something far worse. We don’t have an adequate term for what occurred on that day, so people use words like “terrorism,” “barbarism,” “atrocity,” “depravity,” “massacre,” and so on. All are correct, and yet all fall short of capturing the annihilationist fury set loose at the Nova music festival and in the kibbutzim and small towns of southern Israel. The people attacked in those places were not only to die, but to die in torment. In addition to the merciless torture, killings, slashings, burnings, beheadings, mutilations, dismemberments, and kidnappings, there were gang-rapes and other forms of sadistic sexual assault, including, according to some reports, the cutting off of women’s breasts, nails driven into women’s thighs and groins, bullets fired into their vaginas, and even intercourse with female corpses. Unimaginable? For most normal people, yes. But before going into Israel, the Hamas assassins were instructed to “dirty them” and “whore them.” And that’s precisely what many of them faithfully did.
If it were possible to encapsulate all the evil of that day in a single image, it would be that of the violent seizure of a young Israeli woman, Naama Levy, 19, barefoot, beaten, and bloodied, her hands tied behind her back, the crotch of her sweatpants heavily soiled, possibly from being raped, dragged by her hair at gunpoint into a Hamas car, and driven off to Gaza to suffer an unspeakable fate among her captors there.Her assailants filmed every second of her ordeal; and as one watches the clips of her being taken away, one sees crowds nearby loudly shouting “Allah-hu Akbar” – “Allah is the greatest”—a victory cry that offers religious sanction to the malign treatment of Naama Levy and countless others seized, slaughtered, and abducted on that horrific day.
All wars cause human suffering, but the cruelties visited upon Israelis on October 7th far surpasses what normally happens when armies go to war. Hamas’s actions had a different aim: not conquest but the purposeful humiliation of Jews by people who detest them and were sworn to degrade and dehumanize them before murdering them. For those familiar with Jewish history, the mass violence enacted against Jews in Kishinev in 1903 came instantly to mind, as did the Farhoud in Iraq in 1941 and Chmielnicki’s savage decimation of Ukrainian Jewish communities in the mid-17th century. With memories of those earlier massacres newly revived, October 7th instantly evoked the word “pogrom.” With cause. But how could such a catastrophe occur in today’s Israel? The country’s military has been hailed as one of the strongest in the world and was regarded as invincible. And yet on October 7th, it failed to protect its southern border and prevent the ruthless assault on Jews in the Gaza envelope. Responding to Hamas’s bloody deeds, one Israeli woman summed up the reactions of virtually every Jew in the country and millions of others abroad when she said, simply and incontrovertibly, “Every Israeli’s worst nightmares have come true.”
October 7th, 2023 was the most destructive day of mass violence against Jews since the end of the Holocaust. The carnage carried out on that day, far from being a by-product of war, was a religiously sanctioned, orgiastic display of unrestrained Jew-hatred. One cannot begin to understand it if one ignores the Hamas Charter and other Islamist teachings that make Hamas the organization it is and inspires it to do what it does.
Hamas originates as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is and always has been a jihadist organization, which sees the existence of the State of Israel as an intolerable intrusion into the Domain of Islam (“dar al-islam”) and is committed to removing Israel by whatever means necessary. The preamble to the Hamas Charter declares that “Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam obliterates it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The “Palestinian problem,” it affirms, “is a religious problem” and is not amenable to a negotiated political settlement. The only way to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” is through “jihad,” a holy war that is a “duty for every Muslim wherever he may be.”
After watching the atrocity video, I wondered: Has Dementia Joe or blind Tony Blinken seen this? (Kelly Jane Torrance reported in her New York Post column on it that Biden has seen it.) If so, what are they doing hectoring Israel, yammering about a two-state solution, and disparaging a country acting in self-defense while in the throes of a crisis that goes to its reason for being? If that’s the best they can do, why won’t they shut up?
The “solution” is part of the problem. A people must have civilized norms and civil institutions on which to predicate a state. It can’t be created ex nihilo or ex worse than nothing.
Israel exists as a homeland and refuge for the Jewish people. The events of October 7 belie its reason for being. In other words, it won’t remain a refuge if Israelis aren’t safe from such atrocities in their homeland. Thus the war on Hamas in which it is currently engaged. Israel, by the way, also has to contend with Iranian proxies including Hezbollah and the Houthis as well as Iran itself. The day of reckoning is coming.
No government freely elected by the people of Israel can tolerate what Israel withstood on October 7. There can be no return to the status quo ante or its functional equivalent under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority, whose president for life himself supports terrorism with funds generously provided by his supporters among the Biden administration and elsewhere.
Reading about the ceasefire negotiations that the ceasefire negotiations with which the Biden administation hopes to engineer a Hamas victory requires a certain kind of immunity to savagery. Hamas seeks to trade kidnapped Israelis for terrorists who can help Hamas finish the task it undertook on October 7. The Hamas terrorists are murderers and genocidaires. The Israelis are, well, you know, Jewish. Hamas seeks ten terrorists in exchange for every kidnapped Israeli and Israel seems okay with the proposition and the ratio.
However, the Israelis declined to show up in Cairo for further negotiations so long as Hamas refuses to provide a list of living kidnap victims. The Israelis assess that 31 of the kidnap victims taken by Hamas on October 7 are now dead. This is either elided in mainstream news accounts or referred to euphemistically as one of the “sticking points.” The Times of Israel summed up the status of negotiations yesterday:
Israel has said that 31 of the 130 hostages held since October 7 are dead. The first phase of the mooted deal is reported to provide for the release of 40 of the living hostages, including women, children, the elderly and the sick, in the course of a six-week truce, and in exchange for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners. The outline reportedly provides for negotiations on the further phased release of the remaining hostages, living and dead, in return for longer pauses in the fighting and many more Palestinian prisoner releases.
On Sunday afternoon, a Hamas official told CNN that the group will not agree to a deal without Israel consenting to an end to the war in Gaza, a non-starter for Israel.
Citing “a highly placed source” in the terror group, CNN reported that the two other areas of disagreement holding up a deal are the withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza, and Gazan civilians being allowed to return to the northern Gaza Strip.
Vice President Harris found this a good time to hammer Israel yesterday in Selma, Alabama (White House transcript here). Israel is apparently responsible for “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Why, “just a few days ago, we saw hungry, desperate people approach aid trucks, simply trying to secure food for their families after weeks of nearly no aid reaching Northern Gaza. And they were met with gunfire and chaos.” The savages of Hamas have their allies among the idiots, useful or otherwise, of the Biden administration.
Vaunce News 
