Since October 2001 there has been a trend in the "mainstream" news media to cover up acts of terrorism, calling them "isolated incidents".  This attack was much too large to put on the same page with other Islamic terrorist attacks.

This attack occurred shortly after billions of dollars in frozen assets were made available to Iran, ostensibly at the direction of "President" Joe Biden.  But Joe Biden is far too senile to make such a decision, so it is reasonable to infer that Iran's old pal, Barack H. Obama, is the one who made this dreadful decision which apparently precipitated this attack.

The news media coverage of this attack is unfair and unbalanced, as usual.

Bottom line:  Islam IS NOT a "religion of peace."

Gaza Death Toll Number 'Totally Unreliable'.  You've got to hand it to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.  Their inventiveness and outright fraudulent methods of calculating the number of deaths during the war between Hamas and Israel are deserving of some kind of international recognition.  Sorry, they are already getting plenty of press.  Their bogus numbers are reported in the world's leading media outlets as the gospel truth.  A few discerning media sources add the note that the ministry is run by Hamas, and even fewer report that the numbers do not differentiate between civilian and military casualties.  The 44,000 dead Palestinians reported by the Gaza Health Ministry is pure, unadulterated propaganda.  Numbers from the ministry have always been propaganda, and the fact that the world's media pretends they're even close to being accurate is one of the more sickening aspects of the war's coverage.

Hamas Official: 'October 7 Ruined Us'.  A senior official within the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas admitted to a Saudi media outlet that the October 7 terror attack caused the destruction of the organization because of the ferocity of Israel's response.

The Editor says...
October 7 didn't ruin you.  Islam ruined you.  And if you think your situation is bad today, imagine where you'll be sitting a thousand years from now.

Nova festival survivor:  Make Iran pay for its murders all over the globe.  The Iranian regime is obsessive:  It obsessively hates Israel and the United States, it obsessively persecutes women, and it obsessively targets dissidents, Jews and politicians abroad.  Even as the Revolutionary Islamic Government's proxy forces falter, sapping the mullahs' supposed strength, they show no signs of giving up their fixations.  That is why the United States must take up an obsession of its own — one that applies maximum pressure on Iran.  On Nov. 8, three men were charged in a New York court in connection with an Iranian attempt to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.  Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former National Security Adviser John Bolton have also been on Iran's hit list.  In late October, the regime executed Jamshid Sharmahd, 69, an Iranian dissident who was a citizen of Germany and a US resident.  Sharmahd was abducted in 2020 during a layover in Dubai, taken to Iran and imprisoned on specious charges.

BBC 'portrayed Palestinian gunmen killed in Gaza as innocent civilians'.  Palestinian gunmen killed in Gaza have been repeatedly portrayed as innocent civilians by the BBC, it has been claimed.  The broadcaster has been accused of failing to inform viewers that many of the Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers were fighters with terror groups such as Hamas.  Research by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) has highlighted numerous broadcast reports and online stories by BBC Arabic, which it claims failed to reveal the full circumstances surrounding the death of more than 30 Palestinians.  Camera says that, in nearly 30 separate reports, BBC Arabic failed to give any indication that the dead Palestinians had been combatants in the conflict with Israel or were members of terror groups such as Hamas or Palestine Islamic Jihad.

Outrage at the ICC.  The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.  For "balance," the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.  The ICC says the Israeli leaders are guilty of "crimes against humanity" in connection with the war started by Gaza.  The ICC is a bad joke, but sadly, there are countries that take it seriously: [...] I take it that Netanyahu will not be able to travel to Britain or Canada for the foreseeable future, if ever.  Happily, the U.S. will treat the ICC's "arrest warrant" with the contempt it deserves:  [Tweet]

Documents found in Gaza detail Iranian sponsorship ahead of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.  Iran was an essential part of Hamas' preparations for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, according to a report released by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center on Sunday, based on documents found by the IDF in Gaza over the last year.  Though Iran has denied foreknowledge of the Oct. 7 attack, the documents cited by the Meir Amit Center report indicate Tehran's involvement in Hamas' preparations.  "Hamas documents taken by IDF forces in the ground operation in the Gaza Strip ... provide a rare glance at the extent of Iran's penetration into Hamas as part of building its 'axis of resistance' against Israel," the report states.  "The documents teach us about Iran's strategic process of establishing their foothold and influence in what happens in Hamas specifically and Gaza generally."

Biden Admin Sent Over $2B to 'Palestinians' Since Oct 7.  Kill over 1,000 people in one of the worst Islamic terrorist attacks in modern history and what do you get?  Over $2 billion and counting.  Or around $2 million for every person they murdered on Oct 7.  USAID, which has been repeatedly accused of complicity in funding Islamic terrorism around the world just bragged that it handed out another $230 million while boasting of its total of $2.1 billion in 'aid' since Oct 7.

Too Good to Check:  Hezbollah Collapsing As Desertions Skyrocket.  So much for Iran's encirclement strategy in the Middle East, if these reports turn out to be accurate.  Not only did Iran lose much of its advanced air defenses in the Israeli strike over the weekend, their forward proxy army may collapse soon as its terror troops head for Syria.  Arabic media report mass Hezbollah desertions in the face of a determined IDF ground campaign, and nearly no effective communications between command and field units: [...] To no one's great shock, the loss of thousands of command personnel to a rigged-beeper operation does not instill confidence in command.  Neither do continuous and precise Israeli strikes on key command and finance sites in Beirut.  The Israelis have clearly read Hezbollah's mail for a long time, and potential recruits have to wonder how long it will take to find them if they join up — not to mention how Hezbollah plans to pay them.

Biden-Harris Gave Over $1B to 'Palestinians' Since Oct 7.  Oct 7 marked the grim anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since Holocaust.  The terrorist perpetrators of it however could celebrate the over $1 billion in foreign aid from the U.S.  46 Americans had been murdered on Oct 7 and another 12 taken hostage, but ahead of the Oct 7 anniversary, USAID announced that it was sending another $336 million in taxpayer-funded 'aid' to the terrorist occupied territories in Israel behind the killings of Americans.  USAID boasted that this "brings the total U.S. humanitarian assistance announced for the Palestinian people to more than $1 billion since October 2023."  The terrorists had murdered over 1,000 people and gotten over $1 billion.  In 2023, ahead of the Oct 7 attacks, a Freedom Center Investigates expose revealed that Israeli deaths shot up by 900% after Biden dispensed $1 billion in aid to the terrorist areas.  Oct 7 would likely never have happened without that blood money.

Maybe our intelligence agencies have misplaced priorities.  Iran, Hamas, and other Iran-sponsored terrorist groups have targeted Israel and the U.S. for destruction for years.  But somehow, our intelligence experts never caught wind of all these meetings by Hamas for years where they planned the attack on Israel. [...] They also don't seem to spot all the terrorists coming across the border, even though they know that the Biden-Harris administration has been letting unvetted people from around the world come in.  They know that many people are coming in from countries that hate us, but we never hear a word about how dangerous that is.  Instead, we are told that Trump and his supporters are the dangerous ones.  A.G. Garland also rarely if ever says much about the gangs and cartels.  Instead, he is really focused on parents, pro-life people, Catholics, and other Trump-supporters.  I wonder why the majority of the country thinks it is going in the wrong direction.

10-07-23: evil and civilization's thin veneer.  The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel should have been a universal wake-up call, an alarm proclaiming: "civilization's foundations have crumbled; morality has fallen."  People around the world should have been horrified, if for no reason other than understanding if that attack was not absolutely condemned and all that participated exterminated, the Jews are only the first to be wantonly slaughtered.  That kind of evil waits its chance to kill everyone and anyone.  Civilized mankind should have demanded all responsible, and their deranged ideologies, be wiped from existence.

How Many US Muslims Deny Hamas' Crimes on Oct. 7?  One year after Hamas terrorists in Gaza invaded Israel, raping women and slaughtering more than 1,100 people, including infants, and after video evidence of the slaughter has spread across the world, a shocking percentage of American Muslims deny these facts and harbor disgusting antisemitic attitudes, a new poll shows.  When asked which statement "comes closest to your view," more American Muslims selected "Hamas did not commit murder and rape in Israel on October 7" than "Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on October 7."  More than a third (39%) denied the Hamas murders and rapes, while only 31% admitted them.  Another 30% said they "don't know," in the poll, provided first to The Daily Signal.

October 7: A Year of Free Press Stories.  October 7, 2023, was many things.  It was the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.  It was the beginning of a war between Israel and Iran (through its proxies, and now with the Islamic Republic itself) that shows no signs of abating.  It was a litmus test for the civilized world — one that too many have failed.  It was also, for The Free Press, a story that transformed our young company.  Since the day of the Hamas massacre, we have worked relentlessly to bring you news of the war, and its implications for the Middle East and the free world.  In the past year, our team has published and produced more than 150 stories, podcasts, and videos.  Today, on the first anniversary of 10/7, we want to present all of them for you in one place.

It's time we stood up against those who defend terrorists.  For too long we have harboured those who hate us.  We are now a year on from the October 7 massacre that saw 1,200 innocent Israeli citizens tortured, raped and murdered by barbaric Hamas terrorists.  But for the 101 hostages that remain trapped in the hands of Hamas, including a Brit, the ordeal still isn't over.  Now, as then, we must stand with Israel as they work to rescue the hostages and defeat the Islamist militant groups on their doorstep intent on their annihilation.  The response here in Britain to this evil attack exposed a profound sickness at the very heart of our society.  Thousands immediately took to the streets here in the UK to celebrate the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.  Before Israel had even responded, masked protesters were seen valorising Hamas, throwing projectiles and vandalising buildings.  Since then, our country has become unrecognisable from the liberal, tolerant nation we like to pride ourselves on.

October 7 Opened the Floodgates to Antisemitism from the Left.  Since the Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom by Hamas, antisemitism has marched around the world with the Palestinian flag.  The struggle for the rights of Palestinian Arabs comes at the expense of the rights of Israelis to live.  The struggle for the "liberation of Palestine," presented as a struggle against the "colonialism" of Israelis, has turned into undisguised antisemitism.  If antisemitism was previously taboo in the world of the Democratic Left, it is the campaign for the "liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea," that has legitimized anti-Jewish sentiment to the level of carrying out genocide against the Israelis.  Before Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism masqueraded as anti-Zionism, but after the massive Hamas-led terrorist attack, antisemitism became a "legitimate" denial of Israel's right to exist through the genocide of the Jewish people in many parts of the globe.

The choice is between civilisation and barbarism.  We are living through a seismic moment in our history and the Jewish people will never be the same again.  On October 7 — that terrible day — few would have imagined that one year later Israel would still be under attack from an eight-front war of extermination led by Iran.  Even fewer could have imagined that, far from sympathy and understanding over the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the targeting of Jews once more for genocide, the West would turn against Israel as the aggressor and war criminal and subject diaspora Jews to an unprecedented tsunami of antisemitism.  The scale and nature of this response indicate that something totally abnormal has been happening.  It's not just the street mobs chanting for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, and every other university student hurling accusations of genocide at the Israelis for trying to defend themselves against genocide. [...]

On Eve of Oct. 7 Anniversary, Kamala Harris Won't Say If Netanyahu Is a Close Ally.  Vice President Kamala Harris declined to say Sunday whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a reliable ally, in a clip released by CBS News' 60 Minutes.  Harris was presented with a series of controversial (but effective) wartime decisions made by Netanyahu against the express public demands of the Biden administration, then asked whether the U.S. still has any "sway" over Netanyahu.

We Will Not Let Our Country and Continent Be Destroyed.  The hatred of extreme left-wing agitators and parts of the left-liberal elite in politics and the media against our Jewish compatriots and the State of Israel since the barbaric massacre of innocent civilians on October 7, 2023, has directly fueled anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews.  It started immediately after October 7 with inflammatory demonstrations of millions of people with false flags and slogans in many European capitals, including many non-Western immigrants, who thereby demonstrated that they do not share any of our values and do not belong here.  Then followed the betrayal at universities and in parts of our media and politics.  Both nationally and internationally, from the [Netherlands] House of Representatives to the EU and UN, as well as in newspapers and on TV.  Every day again.  There are now even police officers who refuse to protect Jewish objects and instead of being fired on the spot, their cowardly police chiefs show understanding.  We are as strong as our weakest link.  And there are so many weak links.

Hamas, Islam, and October 7.  On October 7, 2023, Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an unprecedented attack on Israel.  This raised the legitimate question of why Hamas did it, knowing well the expected Israeli response.  In what follows, I will stress a point that is overlooked in many instances in the West regarding religious certainty, which provided the Hamas leadership with the rationale and the courage to go for October 7.  The responsibility of the attack undoubtedly lies with Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas.  A main reason is that the belief system of a fundamentally religious organization is binding for all, thereby ensuring the total obedience of the military commanders, such as the head of the military wing, Mohammed Deif, and his deputy Marwan Issa.  For a valid explanation of what happened, we need therefore to look at no more than at Sinwar's motivations. [...]

Why Is Hamas So Confident That It's Winning?  After nearly a year of suffering and grievous losses, most Israelis and Palestinian Arabs will likely observe the anniversary of the war started by Hamas on Oct. 7 with sorrow.  But not everyone.  An interview The New York Times conducted with Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas's "political wing," in his luxurious living quarters in Doha, Qatar, revealed he thinks the war has gone just fine.  As the Times put it, Mashaal thinks that Hamas is "winning the war" and is confident that the genocidal Islamist organization will, despite the battering it has received from the Israel Defense Forces, play a "decisive" role in Gaza in the future. [...] Hamas views American pressure on Israel as its ace in the hole.  As Mashaal pointed out, the way that the hostage negotiations have been handled by Washington has amounted to American "recognition" of Hamas as a diplomatic partner as opposed to a despised and outlawed terrorist organization.  He is right about that.

Dark Tunnels and Moral Beacons.  The names of Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin should be seared into the minds of anyone who wishes to live in a civilized world.  Instead, we read headlines in our most storied media outlets describing these six Israelis as having "died" in Gaza.  We are told that those defending their murderous captors "have a point."

New Walls to Tear Down.  [Scroll down]  Trump's tariffs and economic sanctions crushed Iran's financing of its terrorist proxy's ability to wage war and shut down the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.  But Biden and Harris lifted Trump's sanctions and flooded Iran with petro-dollars that then funded its proxy's October 7 attack on Israel.  October 7-type attacks don't just include the collateral civilian deaths of conventional war.  They specifically ignore military targets and instead wage war against civilian populations with the murder of children and the aged, the rape of women and girls.  Terrorism is an iteration of the hell of war that scars the human spirit.  Weakness invites aggression.  New Yorkers know that.  Trump bolted shut the door against such attacks with his peace-winning weapons of economic sanctions.  The Biden/Harris administration's policy of appeasement blew that door right off its hinges.  How do American feminists vote for the ticket that enabled that attack?

Probe reveals 6,000 Gazans infiltrated Israel during October 7 massacre — report.  A staggering 6,000 Gazans infiltrated Israel during the October 7 massacre, nearly double the previously estimated amount, according to a new probe by the Gaza Division that was submitted to IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and published on Saturday on the N12 News site.  This revelation dramatically increases the scope of what was already considered to be one of the most severe breaches of the State of Israel's security ever recorded.  Of the 6,000 Gazans who crossed into Israel, some 3,800 were identified as Nukhba terrorists — members of Hamas's elite forces.  Additionally, N12 disclosed that according to the findings, 4,300 rockets were fired by some 1,000 terrorists in Gaza, a significantly higher amount than earlier believed.

Each Man's Purpose.  What was taken from this earth on October 7 and September 11, as by the Nazis with their Final Solution, is almost beyond imagining, but it must be imagined and remembered forever so that it is not repeated.  There are elements in America today who are virulently antisemitic and who would do to Israel, with its population of 9.55 million, what Hitler did to Europe's Jewish people and other targeted populations of his day.  And once they had eliminated Israel, they would turn on the United States and other Western democracies.  Once genocide is turned loose, there is no end to it.  The antisemites of our day must be exposed and brought to heel.

The Five-State Solution?  Conservative Jews who support Israel are known to complain that, while the League of Nations created a jurisdiction called "Palestine" in 1922 to give life to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the League wound up giving 77% to the Arabs (i.e., what became in 1946 the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan).  This narrative is true according to the League's map of Palestine — except that map is a fraud, and we know that by comparing it to maps of "Palestine" as it was known before World War I.  However, there's much more to the story of who's occupying what land.  Here's the surprising truth:  While Israel is slandered today for ruling in allegedly "Occupied Palestinian Territory," the cartographical record makes clear that three Arab states are occupying 53% of the classical map of the Holy Land (not to be confused with the fraudulent Mandate map).

Why Has the Biden Administration Donated Close to One Billion Dollars in "Aid" to Hamas since the October 7 Massacre?  The US has donated close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money to Gaza, ruled by the officially designated terrorist group, Hamas, in the eight months following October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iranian proxies that invaded southern Israel, carrying out this act of war on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  There, they brutally murdered 1,200 people, raped and mutilated women and children, burned children to death in front of their parents, and abducted more than 250 people into Gaza.  Also, starting on October 7, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — in close cooperation with their allies in Iran's terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon — have launched more than 19,000 rockets, missiles and attack-drones at Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey.  And yet, since October 7 the Biden administration has rewarded Hamas with the gift of close to a billion dollars in US taxpayer money, disguised as "humanitarian aid", most of which clearly ends up in the hands of Hamas.

IDF Eliminates Oct 7th Mastermind, Senior Hamas Leader Mohammad Deif.  The terrorist who Gazans dubbed "the man with nine lives" has been taken out by the IDF. Mohammad Deif, the mastermind behind Hamas' terror tunnels and the massacre of Oct. 7th, has reportedly been targeted in a successful IDF strike in the Khan Younis area.  Initial reports claim Deif was above ground, something previously considered to be rare, and was positively identified and confirmed not to be surrounded by hostages.  He lived in a building in an open and forested area near civilian displacement tents.  Others were killed in the strike.  The IDF claims that they weighed the risks of causing other casualties, and afterward, they believe that the other deaths consisted of mainly his security detail.  Hamas has yet to confirm the death of the senior official and of course, claim that all the "martyrs" were innocent civilians.  The IDF said "dozens", and Hamas says "hundreds" wounded or killed — an inflation that should surprise no one at this point.  Deif had been a mysterious figure that the IDF attempted to assassinate multiple times before.

The Folly of Basing American Gaza Policy on False Hamas-Reported Casualties.  The American administration continues to apply immense pressure on Israel to stop its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza, and to pivot to a "diplomatic option" under which it would negotiate with Hamas and agree to a "two-state solution" which would impose on Israel yet another hostile Arab state.  This "second state" would present a long and indefensible border to Israel's east.  The administration also looks to Israel to accept Arab administration of a post-war Gaza, to include participation of the Palestinian Authority (PA).  The administration states as its motive to justify this pressure by claiming that "too many" people are dying in Gaza, but this conclusion is based on false casualty information and statistics provided by Hamas itself.  It is convenient, albeit tendentious and unethical, for the Administration to accept Hamas propaganda as the driving force to pressure Israel to stop defending itself.

Biden's Costly Failed Floating Gaza Pier to Be Scrapped For Good.  Worth an estimated $230 million, the floating pier project was conceived by the Pentagon as a "stopgap measure" before Israel opened land routes for aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip.  The construction meant to offer a "humanitarian cover" for Biden's support of Israel in its war on Hamas turned out to be too fragile to handle rough seas.  The giant US floating pier off the Gaza shore that was once touted as a magnanimous humanitarian gesture is about to become history.  After being out of service most of the time anyway, battered by inclement weather due to original miscalculations, it will now be shut down, said US officials.

Pier for Hamas Cost Us $11 Million/Day.  Cost is no object when other people pay.  So the Biden Regime probably has no regrets about virtue signaling its sympathy for Hamas with a botched floating peer that ended up costing us $11 million per day:  [Tweet]

Why Are Hamas's Crimes Ignored by Western Media?  If you think that the Palestinian Authority (PA) or any Arab state would agree to take control of the Gaza Strip as long as the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas has not been totally destroyed and removed from power, you would be wrong.  Removing the military and governing capabilities of Hamas, however, unfortunately cannot be achieved as long as the Biden administration and Western countries keep exerting pressure on Israel to halt the war, which erupted after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack that resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the abduction of more than 240 others as hostages.  The Palestinian Authority and other Arab governments have been reminded in recent days of the reasons why entering the Gaza Strip after the war would be risky, if not impossible, unless Hamas's military capabilities are first destroyed and the terrorist group is completely ousted from power.

The Gaza Famine That Never Was.  New evidence indicates that, contrary to claims by top U.S. officials and international media, the Gaza Strip is not on the precipice of a widespread famine that Western experts claimed would endanger millions of innocent Palestinians.  "Famine is imminent" in northern Gaza, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a network of Western governments, the United Nations, and nonprofit groups, warned in March, prompting unfounded accusations that Israel is using starvation as a war tactic.  The IPC's report was quickly amplified by outlets like the Washington Post, which foretold "imminent famine" in Gaza.  Politico, the New York Times, and CNN alleged Israel is guilty of war crimes.  But on Tuesday, the IPC revised its initial assessment, saying that the projected famine in Gaza did not come to fruition in May.  "The available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring," the organization said in its latest report, which notes that Israel has significantly increased aid and that conditions as a whole in Gaza have drastically improved.  This is the latest example of an international agency walking back its initial assessment of the situation in Gaza.

Boko Haram, Hamas, and Caveman Sex.  [Scroll down]  Muslims seem prone to a sexual criminality never known in history.  Yes, raping the females of a defeated enemy has been known, but concluding the horror by shooting the victim in the head, then ejaculating into her corpse?  Whoever heard of such behavior?  Or, laughing that day, the Muslims enjoyed slicing off a Jewish woman's breast to throw around like a softball.  The Israeli recovery teams that dealt with the 1,200 victims of the massacre often could not identify the sex of the victim because the Muslim Brothers liked to fire their automatic weapons into their genitalia.  Some girls were also shot in the face so many times that there was no more face.  Boko Haram and Hamas are just the latest evidence that Islam religiously justifies what is essentially antediluvian behavior characteristic of Homo Sapiens 1.0, i.e., pre-Flood humanity.  They license themselves to kidnap and rape and turn their victims into sex slaves.  They lack a conscience and human empathy, laughing about and celebrating their cruelty.  This behavior is a kind of group psychopathy.  Boko Haram and Hamas are psychopathic cults.

U.S. gives up on failed $230 million Gaza humanitarian aid pier — disassembly to begin as early as July.  More government waste is making headlines after the Biden regime announced that it is giving up on the $230 million Gaza humanitarian aid pier boondoggle in the Middle East.  After operating for just 10 days at a cost of $23 million per day, the Gaza aid pier is being deconstructed in the latest example of federal government tomfoolery, compliments of U.S. taxpayers.  Remember back in March when President Biden rattled off from his teleprompter during his State of the Union (SOTU) address about how important the pier was to alleviating the humanitarian catastrophe imposed by Israel in the Gaza Strip?  Well, it seems the pier was not important after all.  "The pier will go down as one of history's costliest publicity stunts," reported Zero Hedge.

Biden's Pier in Gaza Has Been a Complete Failure.  It has only been about 3 months since President Biden announced a plan to create a floating pier for emergency aid to Gaza. [...] It took about 2 months to get the pier in place but almost exactly a month ago the military announced that the pier had been completed and was ready to start delivering food aid from ships to trucks. [...] Since then almost nothing about it has gone as planned.  Just over a week after the announcement that it was completed, the pier broke apart. [...] The pier was towed away and repaired and then returned to duty, but it was only a matter of days before rough seas prompted the US military to detach it again to prevent another disaster.

U.S. Pier for Gaza Aid Is Failing, and Could Be Dismantled Early.  The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected.  In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days.  The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns.  The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure while the Biden administration pushed Israel to allow more food and other supplies into Gaza through land routes, a far more efficient way to deliver relief.  But even the modest goals for the pier are likely to fall short, some American military officials say.

Sensationalist blabber from the Washington Post.  In The Washington Post's "Genocide is our redline" (6/9/24, before the title was changed), there are so much manipulation, distortion, and outright lying that it's hard to encompass it all in a short response.  Israel is not only innocent of this sick crime, but is facing an enemy that boasts in its charter about committing it.  This inversion of thought is right out of George Orwell's 1984.  The title is an absolute lie — even if it's a quote from a Palestinian who makes this charge of Israel.  There is no genocide in Gaza.  And no matter how many times it's repeated in chants, legacy media articles, legacy TV reports, many forms of social media, it doesn't make it so. [...] One can't rightly be the aggressor and then claim that the other side is committing genocide when it fights back.  What an absurdity.  Hamas and Gazan civilians are getting killed because they initiated a war and are continuing to fight — even if they are losing terribly.  It's on them.

They turned into monsters.  In most narratives about the war in Gaza, the war does not begin where it began.  The war did not start in Gaza.  The war began on October 7, exactly 50 years after Egypt and Syria invaded Israel.  Palestinian Hamas terrorists committed an unimaginable massacre in Israel.  They filmed themselves as heroes and celebrated their bloodbath.  Their victory celebrations continued back home in Gaza, where the terrorists dragged severely abused hostages and presented them as spoils of war to the jubilant Palestinian population.  This macabre jubilation extended all the way to Berlin.  In the Neukölln district there was dancing on the streets and the Palestinian organization Samidoun distributed sweets.  The internet was buzzing with happy comments.  More than 1,200 people died in the massacre.  After torture, mutilation and rape, 239 people were abducted.  This massacre by Hamas is a total derailment from civilization.  There is an archaic horror in this bloodlust that I no longer thought possible in this day and age.  This massacre has the pattern of annihilation through pogroms, a pattern that the Jews have known for centuries.  That is why the whole country has been traumatized, because the founding of the state of Israel was intended to protect against such pogroms.  And until October 7, it was believed to be protected.

What will be the impact of Gantz's departure from the government?  Barring any unforeseen events, War Cabinet member and Minister-without-Portfolio Benny Gantz is expected to take his eight-member faction out of the Netanyahu government on Saturday night.  With his departure, the national emergency government and the war cabinet formed last October after he joined forces with Netanyahu will be dissolved.  What precipitated Gantz's departure?  Are new elections upon us?  How will his decision affect the trajectory of the war?  Two forces are responsible for Gantz's move: the Biden administration and the far-left, anti-government political campaigners popularly known as the Kaplan force.  Gantz joined the government in response to U.S. pressure and a call from the far left to undermine the government from within.  He is leaving due to pressure from both.

Hostages Rescued, and Many Truths Revealed.  "There was a knock on the door.  A voice said, 'It's the IDF.  We've come to take you home.'"  This is how former hostage Noa Argamani described her rescue from Hamas on the Sabbath — Saturday, June 8 — which also happened to be her father's birthday.  Israelis spent the weekend cheering her rescue, along with the rescues of three other former hostages — Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv.  All four, ranging in age from 22 to 41, were kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7, Hamas's notorious day of atrocities.  Israeli intelligence recently determined with certainty that they were being held in two separate buildings in Nuseirat, in the Gaza Strip.

Why Did CNN Say the Israeli Hostages Were 'Released?'.  This is a story of two contrasting headlines.  When Karen wrote about the rescue of four Israeli hostages by the IDF, she said "IDF Heroes Rescue Four Israeli Hostages Still Alive."  However, CNN initially took a very different approach during a segment featuring Victor Blackwell and Ian Bremmer.  A chyron appeared during the segment declaring, "Gantz postpones news conference after hostage release." Pardon me?  Did you say... "release?"  Hamas didn't release anyone.  The IDF undertook a bloody, dangerous mission to retrieve those four hostages and slay the monsters who had been holding them as prisoners and terrorizing them for eight months.  One soldier died as a result of the effort.  The only people "released" were the souls of the Hamas terrorists who are no doubt currently on their way to rot in hell.  The New York Post noted that plenty of people "pounced" on CNN's blunder.

A Daring Rescue and a Surprise from the Ninth Circuit.  In a daring feat masterfully executed, the Israeli Defense Force rescued four of the hostages in Gaza.  Most touching of all was the rescue of Noa Argamani, whose mother is dying of brain cancer, who had prayed she'd be reunited with her daughter before she died. [...] The hostages were held by Hamas guards in homes of Arab families (Hamas paid the families to hold the hostages — indicating there are no innocent bystanders). [...] Over 100 hostages still remain, though their fate remains unknown.  Among them are five Americans, about whom the administration remains silent.

Biden's Gaza "Pier to Nowhere" a Disaster and National Embarrassment, Breaks Apart.  We have been following the evolution of the Biden Gaza pier disaster right from the beginning announcement, Biden to Announce Plans to Build Port in Gaza for Humanitarian Aid Shipments, to planning, Gaza Pier Will Take Around 60 Days and 1,000 Troops to Complete, to criticism of that plan, Biden's Gaza Floating Port Plan Generating Concern Among Military Professionals.  That criticism, including this gem, "I don't know a single maritime professional who thinks this is a good idea given the location and conditions ashore, but orders are orders," was, it turns out, totally justified.  First, the concept itself was ridiculous, given the fact that it was entirely predictable that Hamas would steal any aid provided before it could get to the Palestinian "civilian" population, meaning that the plan had nothing to do with aiding the Palestinians, as the few decent Republicans in Congress, and Professor Jacobson, recognized:  [Tweets]  Second, even while it was under construction, the stupid Gaza pier came under attack: [...]

Biden's $320M Gaza Pier Has Detached & Drifted Onto Israeli Beach.  A section of the $320 million floating pier built and erected off Gaza's coast has broken off and floated onto an Israeli beach.  The Saturday mishap is the latest setback for the US humanitarian aid project, after three US troops were reported injured aboard the pier two days prior, including one critically.  The Times of Isreal's military correspondent Emanuel Fabian has reported that "An American vessel used to unload humanitarian aid from ships into the Gaza Strip via a floating pier disconnected from a small boat tugging it this morning due to stormy seas, leading it to get stuck on the coast of Ashdod, eyewitnesses say."  [Tweet with video clip]

The pier to nowhere.  At the end of April, Hamas mortared Joe Biden's pier under construction in Gaza.  Supposedly, no one was injured, though there was much "running for cover."  But on May 23, three US troops were injured, one critically.  News reports characterize those injuries as "non-combat." Surprisingly (snicker), no specific details have been released.  How much has this floating pier cost?  Stripes.com, at the end of April, provided this:  ["]The U.S. military's initial cost of the temporary floating pier off Gaza's coast is about $320 million, a Pentagon official said Monday.  'We've been very clear this is a temporary solution to help get humanitarian aid into Gaza.  This is just one other way of getting aid in,' Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters.  The figure, first reported by Reuters, has not previously been disclosed about the operation that includes about 1,000 American troops.["]

Nearly 70% of Gaza aid from US-built pier [was] stolen.  Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new $320 million floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse, Reuters reported on Tuesday.  Eleven trucks "were cleaned out by Palestinians" on the journey to the World Food Programme warehouse in Deir El Balah in the central Strip, with only five truckloads making it to the destination.  "They've not seen trucks for a while," a U.N. official told Reuters.  "They just basically mounted on the trucks and helped themselves to some of the food parcels."  According to the United Nations, no aid was delivered to the warehouse from the U.S. military's pier on Sunday and Monday.  [Tweet]

The Gaza Pier:  Humanitarian aid or distraction?  The recent construction of a humanitarian aid pier in Gaza has been widely touted as a crucial lifeline for the citizens of Gaza.  However, few people realize the true nature of this initiative.  This pier is nothing more than a photo op, a charade akin to fake wrestling on steroids, suggesting that Israel is failing to provide for Gaza's needs and that the U.S. had to step in.  This narrative distracts from the real issues at hand and misleads the international community about the situation in Gaza.

Why Did The US Spend $320 Million On A Rube Goldberg Pier For Gaza?  While in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves for 29 years, I thought I had seen some pretty stupid things the military was told by politicians to do.  It always begins with politicians deciding the easiest, most sensible solution to a problem would have too much political baggage and cost them votes in the next election.  So, they look for a politically expedient solution, one that is invariably very expensive and convoluted.  In this vein, all too often, politicians turn to the U.S. military for a solution to a non-military problem.  Then some A-type personality in the military presents a hair-brained idea to the politicians, probably never thinking that the idea would be accepted.  Then it is accepted to get the politicians out of a jam, and the next thing you know is that the Rube Goldberg, crazy idea is being funded.  This unbelievable scenario is what has happened with getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for the starving survivors of the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

Report: US withholding 'sensitive intelligence' on Hamas from Israel.  The Biden administration will share key intelligence with Israel about the whereabouts of Hamas's leadership in Gaza if Israel agrees not to go ahead with its military operation in Rafah, according to The Washington Post.  "The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance if it holds back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group's hidden tunnels, according to four people familiar with the U.S. offers," said the report.  The United States is seeking to delay the operation, concerned that Israel is not doing enough to ensure the safety of the over one million Gazans sheltered in Rafah should a full-scale invasion move forward, according to the sources cited by the Washington Post.

The UN Should Not Reward the Palestinians for Oct. 7th.  The United Nations General Assembly is expected to vote Friday on one of the worst resolutions to come before that body — one that would confer upon the "State of Palestine" many of the rights and privileges reserved for member states.  The U.S. and other U.N. member states should reject it.  The resolution is based on false premises, for one thing.  It would also invite financial distress on the UN, throw chaos into the membership process of the General Assembly, and, most importantly, reward terrorism.  Considering the ongoing support for indiscriminate violence against Israeli civilians by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, a majority vote of the General Assembly in favor of this resolution is tantamount to encouraging terrorism and endorsing hostility toward a fellow UN member state.

Oct 7 was 'managed and planned' by Iran's Quds Force, expert claims.  Hamas' invasion and massacre in southern Israel last October was managed and planned by the current and former commanders of Iran's Quds Force, according to U.S.-based Iran expert, Dr. Hassan Hashemian.  In an interview with the Saudi news channel al-Hadath on Wednesday, Hashemian said, "I believe that everything that happened on October 7 was managed and planned during the era of Qasem Soleimani."  Soleimani was the former commander of the Quds Force, the secretive foreign arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) until he was killed by the United States in 2020.  His successor, Esmail Qaani, has been coordinating the attacks on Israel by Hamas, Iran's terror proxy in Gaza.

Lebanon: Hezbollah Escalates Rocket Fire on Israel After Biden's Weapons Embargo Threat.  Emboldened by President Joe Biden's decision to cut off weapons supply to Israel amid its ongoing war against terrorist group Hamas, Iran-backed Hezbollah terror militia has ramped up rocket attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel.  "Hezbollah fired a barrage of 35 rockets from Lebanon at the northern city of Kiryat Shmona sparking fires in the surrounding areas Friday, while the military responded with a wave of strikes on the terror group's positions," The Times of Israel reported Saturday.  [Tweet with video clip]

Biden Commits To Saving Hamas.  We reported earlier how Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed earlier reports of a a 'pause' in almost $1 billion in weapons shipments to Israel over its plans to invade Rafah, Hamas' last stronghold where it's remaining leadership and battalians are located, along with the hostages.  Hamas has been firing rockets from Rafah, and killed four Israeli soldiers at a border crossing used to ship humanitarian aid.  In a CNN interview today, Biden went even further.  He threatened that if Israel entered Rafah, the U.S. will halt all offensive weapons supplies to Israel, incuding bombs and artillary shells.  [Tweet with video clip]

The Moral Imperative of October 7.  Strangely, anti-Jewish malevolence has accelerated in the USA following the October 7 atrocities by Hamas.  This is because of the equivocations and partial blaming of Israel by the Democrats.  Further, the anti-Israel madness has ballooned to include outpourings of Jew hatred on our campuses fully reminiscent of pre-war Nazi Germany.  This outpouring of anti-Semitism and Israel hatred has been fostered and to some degree embraced by the Democrats who have not pictured Israel as the victim it actually was on Oct. 7. [...] Anti-Israel sources have even questioned the truth that the Oct. 7 massacres occurred.  The Washington Post ran an article raising the question of whether the events of Oct. 7 were a "false flag."  American social networks have censored it and vainly attempted to cover it up by vilifying Israel as a colonial power and aggressor.  These are false but familiar tropes which ought to be repudiated.

Saving Hamas:  Why is the Biden administration throwing the full weight of the U.S. government at Israel?  Reports are circulating that the Israelis are planning an operation in Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza.  If so, the Netanyahu government will be acting against the very public wishes of the Biden administration, which has spent the last half year moving heaven and earth to save a terrorist organization from destruction.  Bizarrely, the White House's statements and actions show that Hamas' survival is more important than the security of a traditional American partner, Israel; more crucial to American interests than the preservation of the U.S.-led order of the Middle East; more precious than the dozens of American lives that Hamas ended on Oct. 7; more valuable than however many Americans and Israelis are still alive in the terror army's tunnels.  Why?  As the money and prestige that the U.S. has invested month after month in protecting Hamas demonstrate, the Biden administration sees the terror group as a valuable asset.

The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama is a Muslim.  Barack H. Obama is no friend of Israel.  Joe Biden is too senile to make any meaningful decisions, so Barack H. Obama is apparently acting as Joe Biden's puppeteer.  We are living in Barack H. Obama's third term.  That's the answer (to the headline above) in a nutshell.  Connect the dots.

As Debate Heats Up, the Masks Come Off.  Israel has shown incredible restraint in trying to separate Hamas fighters from the general Gaza population, using its excellent intelligence capability to direct precision strikes and targeted raids.  Civilian casualties are a tragic part of any war, especially in urban areas where the people are openly in support of Hamas.  But again, only Hamas has genocide as its declared policy backed up by brutal behavior.  So, when activists declare "I am Hamas" and fly their flag and repeat their genocidal slogans, no sympathy can be accorded them.  It is no surprise that leftists would take this stance.  There is a large network of well-funded organizations that side with every enemy of the West. [...] That there were Israelites 2,000 years before Mohammad was born, making the Jews an indigenous people to the region, is written out of "progressive" history.

War is Not Law Enforcement.  [Scroll down]  The current war between Israel and Hamas is in fact an exception to everything I just wrote.  The vast majority of the combatants who died in the Second World War, even on the Axis side, were ordinary people who would have otherwise returned to their families and civilian occupations to contribute to their societies.  Terrorists who disguise themselves as civilians, commit a mass shooting at a peace concert, slaughter people in their own homes, gang-rape women, and burn babies in ovens are war criminals who deserve to be killed wholesale.  The world is better off without them, and Israel is simply taking out the world's trash.  Another analogy consists of the eradication of cancer, which almost always involves collateral damage to healthy tissue.

Media Hoax:  No, Israel Did Not Dig 'Mass Grave' At Gaza's Nasser Hospital.  Another day, another Hamas hoax amplified by Democrats and the mainstream media.  This time around, the story is about a mass grave at Gaza's Nasser Hospital that was allegedly only recently discovered, according to workers for the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense.  CNN, of course, was among the numerous media outlets to breathlessly report on the story, which strongly insinuated the IDF dug the graves and, in the process, committed war crimes.  Make sure to take note of the framing:  [Advertisement]  ["]The United Nations has called for an 'independent, effective and transparent investigation' into the discovery of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals that were besieged and raided by Israeli troops this year.  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement he was 'horrified' by the scenes reported from both the Nasser and Al Shifa medical complexes in the besieged enclave.["] [...] Hamas Caucus leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pounced and seized, and demanded to know where the media coverage was, apparently ignoring the fact that national news outlets had already picked up the ball and run with it:  [Tweet]

Why Isn't the MSM Talking About the Hostages?  If you only paid attention to the MSM coverage, you could be forgiven for not realizing that there are still American hostages being held by Hamas.  It's not that the fact is exactly hidden; rather, they are barely mentioned.  It's almost as if the media considers them as unimportant as the Americans left behind in Afghanistan.  Remember them?  Few do, because the media dropped that story like a hot potato.  [Advertisement]  Perhaps is they were transgender, they would get a mention.  But no, they are only Jews for the most part, and Jews are settler colonialists.  [Tweet]  When I saw this tweet I decided to do a Google News search for "American Hostages in Gaza" and was struck by the paucity of coverage and the fact that the stories are so infrequent.

The Truth About Israel.  Hamas is a violent spinoff of the Muslim Brotherhood which has been deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, and the European Union due to its use of suicide bombings and rocket attacks against civilians.. It has perfected the military strategy of embedding their soldiers under hospitals, schools, mosques and children's play areas so that any attack will cause collateral damage of innocent citizens.  The 300 miles of tunnels to Israel they've constructed under restrictive buildings are meant to shelter their soldiers, not their citizens, because Hamas does not care for Palestinian lives any more than they care for Israeli lives.  It is one of the most evil, barbaric organization that has ever existed and I would include the Nazis in that vile collection.  They rape, behead babies, slaughter children and women and I wish the ignorant and brainwashed Americans crying about Israel committing "genocide" would get their heads out of their butts and actually answer this question — what choice does Israel have except to eliminate Hamas?

Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over failure to prevent Oct. 7 attack.  The head of Israeli military intelligence resigned on Monday over the failures surrounding Hamas' unprecedented Oct. 7 attack, the military said, becoming the first senior figure to step down over his role in the deadliest assault in Israel's history.  Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva's decision could set the stage for more resignations among Israel's top security brass over Hamas' attack, when militants blasted through Israel's border defenses, rampaged through Israeli communities unchallenged for hours and killed 1,200 people, most civilians, while taking roughly 250 hostages into Gaza.  That attack set off the war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its seventh month.

Iran Insanity.  Two friends of mine comment on the Obama/Biden administration's bizarre partiality toward Iran. [...] I would like to see Biden endorse massive retaliation by Israel with a view toward trying to bring about regime change in Iran.  But, as I wrote here, I will be satisfied if Biden stays out of Israel's way.  And I assume Israel's leaders will ignore pro forma calls for "restraint."  I hope so, anyway. [...] Israel is in an existential fight for its survival.  It cannot go on, year after year, subject to terrorist attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas, financed and supported by Iran.  Its position will, I assume, be even more untenable once Iran obtains nuclear weapons, which will be soon.

Hamas Wants The Land of Israel, But It Also Wants Much More Than That.  As I write this, more than one hundred, (mostly Israeli) Jews are still being held hostage.  They have been imprisoned and are tortured 24/7.  They are deprived of food; the males are beaten just for fun, and the girls, women, and boys are raped.  We know this thanks to Arabic language documents IDF soldiers found when they cleared out Hamas nests.  The documents contain explicit instructions about how to torture and maim and the best way to kill a Jew with a knife by stabbing him in the neck and/or spine.  The same orders tell the captors to keep the captured Jews on the most meager rations.  These instructions also order the captors to show no tolerance to any hostages who show even the slightest resistance or objection to doing what they are told.  If they do, they must be killed.

Oct. 7 Massacre:  Six Months Later.  Six months ago today, on October 7, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel to inflict horrific atrocities on civilians of all ages, committing the worst single day of massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.  Yet six months later, much of the world is sympathizing with the guilty and attacking the victims in the Hamas-Israel conflict! Six months ago, babies were burned alive and/or beheaded, whole families were gunned down, women were raped to death, and civilians of all ages were kidnapped.  Gazans celebrated the mass murder, and the Palestinian Authority rewarded the jihadis with cash.  How much clearer does it need to be?  Yet leftists have gone wild with anti-Semitic hatred and jihad-empathizing vitriol.  Even a disturbing number of conservatives are repeating Hamas propaganda and falsely accusing Israel.  It is a sad reflection on how divorced many Westerners, including Americans, are from reality — and how perilously close we are to another Holocaust.

Israel:  GPS [has been] disabled and IDF leave cancelled over Iran threat.  GPS is being blocked across swathes of Israel in order to disrupt missiles and drones, as tensions rise with Iran.  Iran has vowed to respond after a strike on its consulate building in Syria on Monday — which Israel was widely believed to be behind — killed 13 people, including a senior general.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also announced it was halting all leave for soldiers serving with combat units.  It comes a day after reservists were called up to bolster air defence units.

The Editor says...
What is a "senior general?"  Are there any junior generals?

October 7th and the Future of the United States.  As we approach the six-month anniversary of the attacks against Israel of October 7, 2023, we must take stock of the reaction and aftermath of such attacks and how they impact our own nation.  Many of us were rightly outraged at the October attacks as we compared them to the attacks against America of September 11, 2001.  We have seen the horrifying videos, expressed our solidarity with the Israelis and cheered on long overdue pushback against media and academic enablement of terrorist sympathizers.  But the leftist response to the October attacks has been more brazen, more immediate, and more entrenched in recent months than it ever was in response to September 11.

Hamas Treats Captive Israeli Women as Animals.  The Hamas terrorists behind the Oct. 7, 2023 jihadist raid literally view their female Israeli captives as horses and other animals — to be "ridden."  During a recent press conference, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari stressed that Hamas members could be heard in their own (now captured) recordings referring to their female captives as sabi (or sabiya), an Arabic word that in Islamic jurisprudence refers to non-Muslim female slaves, whom Muslim men could freely copulate with — in a word, concubines.

Military Experts Warn of Extreme Dangers to American Troops Building Floating Pier off Gaza Coast.  Military experts are sounding the alarm over President Biden's floating Gaza pier plan, where the administration will construct an offshore pier to be used to get more food and supplies to refugees in the war-torn region.  Biden announced the operation during his March 7 State of the Union speech, but it was received with mixed reaction.  The Washington Post revealed in a Sunday piece that military experts have told them the mission will put our forces at risk: [...]

Gaza:  Truths Behind All the Lies.  [Lie #1]  "Occupied Gaza."  Prior to October 7, there were roughly two million Arab citizens of Israel but no Jewish citizens in Gaza.  Gazans in 2006 voted in Hamas to rule them.  It summarily executed its Palestinian Authority rivals.  Hamas cancelled all future scheduled elections.  It established a dictatorship and diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in international aid to build a vast underground labyrinth of military installations.  [Lie #2]  "Collateral Damage."  Hamas began the war by deliberately targeting civilians.  It massacred them on October 7 when it invaded Israel during a time of peace and holidays.  It sent more than 7,000 rockets into Israeli cities for the sole purpose of killing noncombatants.  It has no vocabulary for the collateral damage of Israeli civilians, since it believes any Jewish death under any circumstances is cause for celebration.  Hamas places its terrorist centers beneath and inside hospitals, schools, and mosques.  Why?  Israel is assumed to have more reservations about collaterally hitting Gaza civilians than Hamas does exposing them as human shields.

America's Stunning Embrace Of Paganism Signals The End Of This Country As We Know It.  It's hard to survey the state of our country and not conclude that something is very wrong in America.  I don't just mean with our economy or the border or rampant crime in our cities, but with our basic grasp on reality itself. [...] But even less contentious issues are now up for grabs, like mass rape.  After Hamas terrorists filmed themselves raping and murdering Israeli women on Oct. 7, boasting about their savagery to a watching world, vast swaths of the America left still cannot bring themselves to condemn Hamas.  The same progressive college students who insist that the mere presence of a conservative speaker on campus makes them "unsafe" are unable to condemn one of the worst instances of mass rape in modern history.  Some even declare openly that they stand in solidarity with the Hamas rapists.

The Democrats Have Crossed the Bridge into Unabashed Nazism.  In March of 2023, I wrote an article detailing eight inescapable and disturbing ways the Democrat Party emulates the Nazi Party of 1927-34 in their underlying ideology and, more importantly, tactics.  Subsequently, Mr. D. Parker further detailed eight additional indisputable similarities.  All but two of these sixteen commonalities (irrational obsession with race, and state/private ownership of all means of production) also apply to the proponents of Communism.  Nonetheless, there had been no basis to emulate the crudity of the American Left and label them Nazis as there was one bridge they had yet to cross: unabashed and overt antisemitism and acquiescence to repeating the Holocaust while mindlessly setting the table for an inevitable global conflict.  That bridge now has been crossed and the time has come to call out these reprobates for what they are:  Disciples of National Socialism or Nazis.  A date that will live in infamy in the annals of Judaism's three-and-a-half millennia, October 7, 2023, has also exposed the Democrat party and the American left's hitherto unknown depths of antisemitism and de facto support for the underlying beliefs of Hamas, whose declared sole reason for existence is the elimination of Israel and the slaughter of all Jews.

The losers in Biden's America.  Prior to October 7 of last year, many Jews believed they were part of the intersectional fraternity of leftist victimhood, enjoying the benefits of education, commerce, and the arts without much scrutiny.  The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the rape, murder, and kidnapping of many of their fellow religionists/countrymen have caused many American Jews to come to terms with the fact that they, in the eyes of the left, are "oppressors."  Their allegiance to liberal causes has been overshadowed by the left's binary view of oppressed/oppressors.  Some Jews (Chuck Schumer, and others) are leftists first and Jews a distant second.  If you're not a hardcore leftist, you will be attacked and derided. "Never again" is happening again.

Battles rage around Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, Israel says 170 gunmen dead.  Fighting raged on Saturday around Gaza's main hospital where Israel says it has so far killed more than 170 gunmen in an extensive raid, which the Palestinian Health Ministry says has also resulted in the deaths of five patients.  The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters were engaged in battles with the Israeli forces outside and around the vicinity of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City.  Hamas denies any presence inside the facility.

About those innocent Palestinian civilians...  Among the heart-breaking scenes from the Middle-East are video reports showing civilian casualties of the current war.  In the West, we cringe at those images, especially the ones showing small children — dead, grievously wounded, or orphaned.  In Gaza, there seems to be little reciprocity of sympathy.  Newsmax reports that more than seventy percent of Gazans approve of the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed, many by unspeakable torture.  More than eighty percent deny that the atrocities were committed, even after watching the videos sadistically, and boastfully, recorded by the terrorists themselves.  This reminds us of the self-contradiction that might be stated as "We did not commit the crimes, and we are glad that we did."  This is a case of not cognitive dissonance, but rather moral depravity.  It is lethal hypocrisy.  In seeking to justify acts of evil, the evildoers soon discover that neither have they justification for them, nor do they need it.

Over 70 Percent of Palestinians Support Hamas's October 7 Terror Attack.  Seventy-one percent of Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank believe Hamas made the right decision in attacking Israel on October 7, according to a new poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an organization primarily funded by the European Union and the United States-based Ford Foundation.  The percentage of West Bank residents who support the Hamas attack has decreased slightly since December, when 82 percent of West Bank respondents said they agreed with the decision, though support for the terror attack has increased in Gaza, rising from 57 percent in December to 71 percent in March.  When asked whether "the war on Gaza since October 7 has revived international attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it could lead to increased recognition of Palestinian statehood," three-quarters of respondents in the West Bank and Gaza said "yes."

This could be the devastating proof that Hamas is faking its death figures.  One of the marks of anti-Semitism, George Orwell observed in 1945, is "an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true".  Which brings us smartly to Hamas and how the broadcast media, aid organisations, international bodies and world leaders take its disinformation as gospel.  Last week it became clear that this gullibility may have led to a crime against reality.  A new analysis of the group's casualty statistics indicates that the rag-tag terror army may have pulled off one of the biggest propaganda coups of modern times.  The figures, repeated by everyone from the White House to the BBC, are freighted with familiarity: 30,000 dead in Gaza, 70 percent of whom are women and children.  Yet it now seems overwhelmingly likely that these statistics are fabricated.  Professor Abraham Wyner, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted a thorough analysis.  He found that Hamas's official civilian death toll was statistically impossible.

Qatar Offered to Expel Hamas; Blinken Said No.  I have long been wondering about Qatar's willingness to host Hamas' leadership post-10/7.  As non-Western as Qatar is, the Emirate has been working assiduously to court Western approval and is hardly a radical Islamist state.  This is not to suggest the regime is liberal or Liberal, but rather that they aren't exactly Iranian-style fanatics.  The state is pretty much what you would expect in a country that is in a dangerous region filled with radicals but with an elite who are Western-educated and resolutely capitalist.  I had long suspected that Western governments had given implicit approval for Qatar's hosting of the radical Islamist terrorist group's leaders in order to use it as a back-channel to Hamas.  [Tweet]

Biden's 'Trojan Pier' for Gaza:  It's not about delivering aid, it's about giving the terrorists a gateway to the world.  Six Americans are still being held hostage by Hamas, and Biden has sent no troops to help them, but at the State of the Union address, he promised to send troops to build a pier for Gaza.  The estimated over 1,000 troops will spend as long as 2 months laboring to build a floating pier in a war zone under potential attack to help transfer aid to the Hamas supporters living in Gaza.  Nothing about this plan makes sense.  The media has taken to falsely claiming that the Arab Muslims occupying parts of Gaza are starving.  Vice President Kamala Harris attacked Israel, claiming that she had "seen reports of families eating leaves or animal feed."  Social media videos however show the locals gorging themselves on shawarma and other foods in preparation for the Islamic period of Ramadan.  But if the Biden administration really believed that Gazans were starving right now, what would be the purpose of spending two months building a pier to deliver aid?  A program with a two month lead time will not help people who are starving right now.  It would be a grim joke.  And the pier plan only gets stranger from there.

The Temporary Pier and the Question of Why.  Since Oct. 7, 2023, external humanitarian aid has primarily had to enter the Gaza Strip via the land crossing at Rafah, which is run by Egypt. [...] But ever since Hamas's horrific attacks on Israel on October 7 that started this long-needed police action, the global anti-Israel lobby has declared that they need another way to bring in humanitarian aid — one outside Egypt.  They need a seaport, they tell us, to bring in aid directly from the Mediterranean.  Why?  The answer is obvious.  The terrorists of Hamas and their fellow travelers have allies in Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Iran, and the United Nations.  Anyone else who might ship cargo to Gaza would — intentionally — have weaker security checkpoints than Egypt has.  There's a reason, after all, why Israel hasn't been allowing relief vessels to serve Gaza, and it dates back to long before October 7.  Israel has frequently caught weapons caches being smuggled into Gaza by sea in the past — always under the guise of humanitarian aid.

A pier for Gaza.  The Biden administration's plan to construct a floating pier in Gaza to deliver aid represents a significant logistical and humanitarian effort. [...] In contrast, the Biden administration's approach to domestic border security, particularly the completion of a border wall, has been markedly different.  The wall, intended to enhance national security and manage illegal immigration, has seen delays and reduced prioritization under the current administration.  Critics from conservative and pro-Israel viewpoints argue that this reveals a discrepancy in policy prioritization, where significant resources and military expertise are deployed internationally for a humanitarian mission in an area controlled by a group with a history of conflict with Israel, while domestic security measures like the border wall face stagnation.

The left's sickening betrayal of Israeli women.  [Scroll down]  Surely, I thought in my naivete, Western leftists would see themselves reflected in these music-loving young people, who looked like they had stepped out of Haight-Ashbury in the 1970s.  Surely, the sight of 26-year-old Noa Argamani, begging for her life as the butchers ride off with her, would inspire in the left a sense of identification with these Israelis, and a corresponding fear of Hamas.  How could it not?  It did not.  Leftist women found nothing in their hearts to say about it.  For months.  There was a total failure of the international feminist community to stand up for the Israeli women who had been sexually brutalised by Hamas.  Despite the preponderance of evidence for mass rapes, there was a code of silence from the usual suspects.

Hezbollah Ramps Up Ramadan Attacks; Biden Hardest Hit?  So much for that strange demand that Israel observe Ramadan during its war against Hamas and other Islamist terror networks.  Hezbollah has 'celebrated' Ramadan by increasing the pace of its attacks in the north of Israel, ramping up the intensity of both sides.  Overnight, Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets at Israel, prompting another round of answering attacks on their positions.

The Biden administration is trying to topple Netanyahu's government.  Biden has never made a secret of his hatred for Bibi Netanyahu (and it's easy to see why a stupid, draft-dodging man would hate an intelligent, accomplished warrior).  Still, he's now taking that hatred to new levels as he actively works to interfere in Israeli politics.  For decades, leftists told us that it was morally wrong to try to affect a nation's internal politics, but that doesn't apply when the nation is a liberal democratic ally, and the world's only Jewish state. [...] The same essay notes that Biden is undermining Netanyahu with his pier-building plan and the Gaza supply airdrops.  As I have pointed out (and currently seem to be the only one saying), the pier effectively forces a ceasefire on Israel.  That's because Gaza is so small, Israel cannot risk an errant rocket hitting American troops anchored off of Gaza's coast.  Leftists used to hate it when America interfered in the internal politics of another nation, especially nations that were hostile to America.  Now, though, it's a good thing because Israel is the left's enemy.

Report: Biden Trying to 'Collapse' Netanyahu Government, Mid-war.  U.S. President Joe Biden is reportedly attempting to force the "collapse" of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the middle of a war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza and a potential war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Biden has been increasingly hostile to Netanyahu in his public remarks, recently saying that Netanyahu is "hurting" Israel more than he is helping it through his conduct of the war.  (Netanyahu fired back, saying that Biden was "wrong.")  Now, New York Magazine reports that the Biden Administration is actively looking for ways to force Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which has been remarkably unified, to fall apart, which would bring about early elections.

Joe Biden Marks Ramadan with Sympathies for Muslims and Their 'Immense Pain'.  President Joe Biden marked the beginning of Ramadan by issuing a statement recognizing the "moment of immense pain" for many Muslim Americans while affirming his efforts to deliver humanitarian aid into Gaza.  Biden, who says he is pushing to establish a truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, wrote in the statement Sunday evening:  ["]Tonight — as the new crescent moon marks the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan — Jill and I extend our best wishes and prayers to Muslims across our country and around the world.  The sacred month is a time for reflection and renewal.  This year, it comes at a moment of immense pain.  The war in Gaza has inflicted terrible suffering on the Palestinian people.["]

Biden Is Spreading Hamas Propaganda.  The Gaza Health Ministry's casualty numbers, incessantly repeated by our media, are fake.  Anyone with an ounce of sense or basic comprehension of the situation knows they're fake.  They have always been fake.  So, we must assume one of three things about people who spread Hamas' claims:  They are 1) irredeemably stupid, 2) propagandists for terrorists, or 3) both.  Make what you will of the president, but in a speech celebrating Ramadan, Biden repeated the claim that "30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children."  The president of the United States now not only rejects the claims of our allies in Israel but accepts the declarations of a group that is not only on the Justice Department's terror list — one that recently murdered, raped, and kidnapped American citizens.  A few weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, as Jeryl Bier reminds us, Biden admitted Hamas casualty numbers were fake, saying he had "no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using."

How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers.  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.

Hamas Is Seizing Food Aid Meant For Gazans and Selling It on the Black Market.  According to a new report, the terrorist-backed group Hamas is seizing food supplies from Gazan civilians and selling it on the black market for extraordinary prices.  The editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post Zvika Klein told a senior Israeli defense official that Hamas is exaggerating the country's food shortage, saying that every family has enough food to survive.  However, Klein pointed out that Hamas is using the supply to its advantage.  "The food shortage and use of the word 'hunger' have been exaggerated," the defense official told Klein.  He said that the food Israel has shipped to Gaza has "immediately been taken by Hamas terrorists, who then sell some of the supplies for ten times more than what it's worth."  The official reportedly told Klein that gangs working for Hamas seize the food and aid supplies that are delivered by Israel and the United States at gunpoint.

Joe Biden makes it clear whose side he's on.
Biden to announce US military-led mission to build port on Gaza coast to boost aid.  President Biden will announce during his State of the Union address Thursday that he's directing the U.S. military to lead the construction of a port along the coast of Gaza on the Mediterranean Sea to boost the amount of aid getting to Palestinian civilians.  "We know the aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough and nowhere near fast enough.  The president will make clear again this evening that we all need to do more, and the United States is doing more," a senior administration official said on a call with reporters.  The port would be able to receive large ships that can bring in food, water, medicine and other supplies into Gaza, which has been under fire for months as Israeli forces carry out shellings and military operations in response to Hamas's attacks last October.

Israeli envoy:  'UNRWA must be defunded, dismantled'.  The head of UNRWA, the scandal-plagued, Palestinian-only refugee aid agency, told the U.N. General Assembly that his agency is "at a breaking point" after the United States and others suspended funding, pending an investigation of UNRWA staff's ties to Hamas.  The Israeli envoy to the global body told UNRWA good riddance.  "After all that has been exposed about UNRWA, it's very clear," Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told the General Assembly on Monday.  "UNRWA will never again operate in Gaza as it has prior to Oct. 7.  Its role in Gaza is finished and it must be replaced immediately.  UNRWA must be defunded and dismantled."

UN finally says Israeli women were raped by Hamas terrorists on October 7.  Areport published by the United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict indicated that the international body had "reasonable grounds" to believe that Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women on October 7, according to the Associated Press.  The international body also suggested that Hamas used "sexualized torture" and other cruel treatment of women during its surprise attack against the Jewish state.  The development comes after Hamas defenders have insisted that the rapes never happened.  The report went on to note that in some of the horrific incidents, the Israeli victims were raped just before being killed.  And in other cases, Hamas terrorists raped women after they killed them.

It's chilling how quickly the October 7 massacre is being forgotten.  he sight of anti-Israel propaganda, especially stickers and posters about "Israeli apartheid" and various spins on this slander, is utterly commonplace — and has only become more so since October 7.  Whenever I can, I peel this nasty stuff off station walls, benches, lampposts and the like.  At the end of last week, I plucked a big round one off a bike rack outside a university in London.  It consisted of a giant blue Star of David crossed out with a red bar reading: "Boycott Israeli genocide". It also featured a red rim around the circle that said: "Boycott Child Killers... Boycott Terror... Boycott Liars... Boycott Thieves".  It was a lot of anti-Semitic tropes to pack into one sticker.  The Jew-menacing tenor of such material has become considerably more pronounced in the past month or so, as Israel's programme of eradicating Hamas continues.  It is beginning to feel as if the world has dropped all pretence of acknowledging what started the whole thing in the first place.

Hamas Isn't a Terror Group, Says UN Relief Chief.  No sooner had Martin Griffiths, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, declared that Hamas was not a terrorist group than it came it light that at least 30 UNRWA employees actively participated in Hamas' Oct. 7 jihad massacre of 1,200 Israelis.  So now we see:  of course Hamas isn't a terror group.  It's a UN agency.  The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday that Griffiths said: "Hamas is not a terrorist group for us, as you know, it is a political movement."  Yeah, sure, that's it:  Hamas is a political movement that engages from time to time in mass rape and murder.  Really, how far off from that are the Democrats?  Give our sinister stateside authoritarians a few years, and they could be giving Hamas a run for its money.

While Biden Pushes Ukraine To Fight, He Demands Israel Surrender.  Joe Biden has not only promised to veto any standalone Israeli aid, but he's reportedly circulating a draft resolution within the United Nations Security Council that would compel the Jewish state to stop its ground offensive in Rafah and, effectively, give Hamas a pass.  Beyond that, the U.S. is also reportedly thinking about circumventing Israel and formally recognizing a Palestinian state.  In other words, while Ukraine is prodded by the United States to fight for every inch of its land, Israel is prodded to commit suicide.  Indeed, anyone who dares to suggest the United States push Ukraine to negotiate a settlement with Russia is framed as a democracy-hating Putin shill.  Yet, before we even knew exactly how many Israeli women and children had been murdered, raped, and kidnapped by Hamas, Democrats were demanding Israel negotiate with Palestinians to create a potential three-front Iranian-proxy terror state on its border.

Radical Democrats Want The Same Fate For America As Hamas Does For Israel.  After I attended a recent screening of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack footage, it became clear to me that Americans are overwhelmingly taking the wrong message away from the still-unfolding Israel-Hamas war. [...] The Oct. 7 footage largely reiterates what we already know:  Jihadis find delight in murder.  They quite literally have a religious obligation to slaughter innocent people — in this case, Israelis — who belong to ethnoreligious groups outside their own.  If you followed along with the events of Oct. 7 as they occurred or viewed social media footage of the attack in its immediate aftermath, this will sound familiar.  Islamist soldiers gleefully decapitated noncombatants, burned people alive, and slaughtered people in their homes.  They butchered parents in front of their children, giddily stomped on the heads of those they massacred, and shot people in their backs as they attempted to escape.  When they returned home, they were greeted as heroes.  Gazans flooded the streets to run alongside pickup trucks filled with bodies — some lifeless, some alive for political capital.  All of this was done to victorious shouts of "Allahu akbar."

And the Winner Is — Hamas!  What will happen if Hamas is allowed to win this war?  If Hamas is permitted to accomplish what it intended by its mass murders, kidnappings and rapes?  If the victims of these atrocities — the people of Israel and all countries fighting terrorism — lose?  If the prospects for peace in the region and the Free World are seriously damaged?  If the relationship between the US and Israel, and the loss of faith in the US as the guarantor of freedom, continues to be fractured?  Instead, the Biden administration may be rewarding Palestinian terrorists by unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state, which will, of course, soon become militarized.  The failures of UNIFIL to keep peace in South Lebanon and UNRWA to counter terrorism in Gaza should suggest caution.

Biden Regime Plans to Give Hamas a Grand Reward for Murdering 1,200 Israelis.  It has been clear for quite some time that the Biden regime, despite its show of support for Israel, is really on the side of Hamas.  Now the regime is in serious talks to respond to Hamas' brutal and inhuman murder of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023 by giving it the biggest reward of all: a Palestinian state.  If you are skeptical that Old Joe and his henchmen are really on Hamas' side, consider the fact that, in November, they enabled the release of ten billion dollars in frozen funds to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas' primary financier.  That followed $100 million in "humanitarian aid" to Gaza and the West Bank on Oct. 18, less than two weeks after the massacre.  Biden huffed and puffed about how that $100 million better not end up in the hands of Hamas, but really, who else was there in Gaza who could receive it and keep it from the jihad terror group?  Hamas-linked UNRWA?  As if all that weren't bad enough, now the Biden regime is planning to follow it with the worst betrayal of all of our most loyal ally in the Middle East.

Israel claims dozens more UNRWA staff took part in October 7 attacks.  Israel has identified dozens more UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) workers who it claims took part in the October 7 Hamas attacks, the country's defence minister told The Telegraph.  Speaking at a briefing for journalists in Tel Aviv, Yoav Gallant also said more than 1,400 workers from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees were members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  The figure amounts to around 12 percent of the agency's workforce.  Several countries, including the UK, suspended their financial aid to UNRWA after Israel provided the agency with evidence showing that a dozen of its members were involved in the Hamas massacre.  Mr Gallant shared what he said was evidence that more UNRWA workers were involved than previously claimed.  "In addition to these 12 workers, we have significant indications, based on intelligence, that over 30 UNRWA workers participated in the massacre, facilitated the taking of hostages, looted and stole from Israeli communities, and more," he said.

Lots of people work two jobs these days.
'Journalist' Moonlights As Hamas Operative (Or Is It the Other Way Around?).  Many leftists have made their allegiances clear in the war between Hamas and Israel.  This includes members of the mainstream media who have sought to equivocate between Islamic terrorists and the Jewish state — and sometimes report outright lies.  One journalist has taken his bias toward Hamas to an extreme, and it won't shock you when you find out what outlet he works for.  The Times of Israel reports that "A Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera appears to also be a commander in Hamas's military wing, according to images and documents recovered by the IDF in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing war against the terror Palestinian terror group."  [Tweet]

Directly beneath UNRWA's Gaza headquarters, IDF uncoverstop secret Hamas data center.  Beneath the Gaza Strip headquarters of the controversial United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known commonly as UNRWA, the Hamas terror group hid one of its most significant assets, the Israeli military has revealed.  The subterranean data center — complete with an electrical room, industrial battery power banks and living quarters for Hamas terrorists operating the computer servers — was built precisely under the location where Israel would not consider looking initially, let alone target in an airstrike.  The revelation of the server farm comes amid other accusations of UNRWA collusion with the Gaza-ruling terror group and the entanglement of the UN body that provides welfare and humanitarian services for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 wars and their descendants.

Double Exposure.  Every day the Israeli Defense Forces find more proof of the perfidy of the UN and UNRWA.  Did you guess that the UN's demand for a quick ceasefire was intended to conceal this?  If so, you guessed right.  This week, among other things, the IDF discovered Hamas Intelligence Headquarters and an enormous tunnel beneath UNRWA HQ in Gaza equipped with a huge server and data farm which was receiving its electricity from UNRWA sources.  I'd hate to prejudge the honesty of the UNRWA officials who claim they'd no idea what was going on under their feet — I mean, they might have thought there were giant hordes of very big moles under their HQ.  Still, their denials strain credulity.  Indeed, tunnels and tunnel entrances and weaponry and sometimes even terrorists have been found in every UNRWA facility in Gaza.  Ha

UNRWA, the Greatest Welfare Scam Ever.  UNRWA's brief for 75 years has been supporting millions of "Palestinian refugees" when, truth be told, there is nothing Palestinian about these people.  And neither are they refugees.  The historical record is clear:  There never was in the Promised Land a people calling themselves "Palestinians" and were called that by others.  A Biblical generation prior to the first Zionist Congress in 1897, American novelist Herman Melville in 1857 made a pilgrimage to the Land, then under Muslim rule for twelve of the previous fourteen centuries, that he described as "a caked, depopulated Hell."  A decade later, that other American writer Mark Twain made his pilgrimage and likewise reported the land "sits in sack cloth and ashes."  Neither in writing of his pilgrimage mentioned running into any "Palestinians."  Prior to the Zionist movement under the Turks, there was no such living political entity called Palestine.  Jerusalem no less was a neglected shamble.  It never meant anything to Muslims except for a miracle story about Mohammad flying in one night on a flying horse.

Biden Opened the Floodgates of Hell.  President Joe Biden's foreign policy has collapsed. [...] Hamas leaders have fled Qatar and are now hiding out in Qatari diplomatic missions in Morocco, where they are unwanted by the King, and in Algeria, where they are welcomed by the regime.  Iran, therefore, effectively has operatives at the western end of the Mediterranean.  In December, the regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) publicly threatened to close off that body of water, just as it has essentially crippled shipping through the Red Sea.  With terrorists close to the Strait of Gibraltar, the IRGC might be able to make good on what otherwise appears to be a wild boast.  Hamas operatives have also fled Qatar for Turkey, which controls access to the Black Sea, and Lebanon.

Students at School Run by UNRWA Boast about Wanting to Murder Jews in Shocking Video.  Students at a school in East Jerusalem run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) were recorded in a recently resurfaced video explaining how they've been taught to murder Jews and take part in the generational struggle to reclaim land which they believe belongs to Palestinians.  The documentary was shot in 2022 in a school in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem and recently resurfaced amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.  In the video, students who appear to be as young as seven or eight years old tell an interviewer "we have been taught that the Jews kill our children."  "Stabbing and trampling Jews brings respect to the Palestinians," says another child.  Another student explains that she is "ready to carry out a suicide attack."  [Video clip]

'Holy' War Against Israel.  On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a religious, "holy" war against Israel, known as Jihad.  The principle of Jihad rejects all laws of the Old World of infidels and calls for a revolutionary struggle for the triumph of Islam.  At the same time, Jihad is interpreted as the use of violence in various forms to achieve a religious ideal.  Hamas called this war the Al Aqsa Flood after the name of Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque.  This war was not started under the slogan of liberating Palestine, but as a war with a religious goal at its core.  Hamas is a Sunni organization belonging to the Muslim Brothers current.  The goal of the Muslim Brothers is to remove non-Islamic governments and establish Islamic rule on a worldwide scale by recreating a Great Islamic Caliphate. The terrorist organization Hamas, a branch of the Muslim Brothers, has turned the Palestinian struggle into a religious struggle.

UNRWA is worse than you think.  This is the story of UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.  On Friday, it announced that it was investigating allegations that 12 of its employees in Gaza took part in the Hamas pogrom of 7 October.  Israel alleges that these UNRWA staff, people literally on the payroll of the UN, carried out acts including abduction, distributing ammunition, coordinating attacks and actual murder.  UNRWA says it has dismissed the suspects and is investigating the claims.  In response, some Western nations, including the US, the UK and Australia, have suspended funding to UNRWA.  As well they might.  Who wants their hard-earned tax dollars going to an organisation that reportedly harbours neo-fascists?  Which allegedly counts among its workforce Jew-haters of such a twisted, devoted nature that they're willing to assist in the worst anti-Semitic rampage since the Holocaust?  Suspending the flow of money to UNRWA while officials figure out whether its staff really did take part in that racist, rapacious onslaught against Jewish men, women and children seems a reasonable decision to me.

UNRWA staff took part in Be'eri massacre, kidnapping.  Israeli intelligence material handed to the United States reveals the extent of United Nations Relief and Works Agency staff participation in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.  The New York Times on Sunday published details regarding the involvement of 12 UNRWA employees in the Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel — 10 Hamas operatives and one affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  The Wall Street Journal also reviewed the dossier, publishing additional findings from the Israeli intelligence reports on Monday, including that around 10% of the U.N. agency's 12,000-strong Gaza staff have ties to Islamist terrorist groups.  One of the UNRWA workers is accused of kidnapping a woman, another of participating in the Kibbutz Be'eri massacre in which nearly 100 people were murdered, and a third of distributing ammunition.  "UNRWA's problem is not just 'a few bad apples' involved in the October 7 massacre.  The institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas's radical ideology," a senior Israeli government official told the Journal.

Several Countries Halt U.N. Agency Funds over Alleged Involvement in October 7th Terror Attacks on Israel.  The United Kingdom, Italy, Finland, Canada, and Australia have all announced that they will suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) over allegations that staff actively participated in the October 7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel.  On Friday [1/26/2024], UNWRA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini that his agency has fired several staff members after receiving Israeli intelligence claiming that at least 12 UNWRA staff members participated in the Hamas terror attacks on Israel that saw the Palestinian Islamists butcher around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and kidnap over 250 more, some of whom remain in captivity to this day.

Why Biden Wants Israel to Scale Down Its War in Gaza.  Young voters are already frustrated that Joe Biden couldn't deliver on an actual student loan bailout.  Biden didn't have the votes in Congress to pull off something of that scale, and doing so by executive decree was later deemed constitutionally questionable.  He did so on a smaller scale because Joe, like crackhead Hunter, thinks the rules don't apply to him.  Still, it hasn't masked the fact that young voters are souring on Joe; they think he's too old, and now he's enabling genocide in Gaza.  You know there's no genocide in Gaza.  Still, the kiddos and the Muslim voters here think Treblinka 2.0 is unfolding before our very eyes, blinded to the fact that Hamas committed an actual genocidal terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.  Israel is killing terrorists.  The Palestinian people support Hamas and their attacks.  I'm not crying over the death toll.  Nevertheless, Biden dared to ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose nation experienced the equivalent of a dozen 9/11 attacks in proportion to population, to scale down the war... because it's hurting his re-election chances[.]

10 Questions That Will Determine Who Becomes the Next President of the United States.  We can't predict everything, but here are ten critical things to watch as the year goes on. [...] [#3] How soon does the Israel/Palestinian war end?  Biden has both a lot of prominent liberal Jews and diehard anti-Semites in his base and they're at each other's throats over the war between the Israelis and Palestinians.  He desperately needs to shut that fighting down and gave his base time to get distracted by something else.  So, how long until this war ends?  The sooner that happens, the better it is for Biden and the longer it drags on, the better it is for Trump.  Because of this, you can be certain that the Biden administration is applying heavy pressure on the Israelis to wrap the war up in the next 30-60 days.  We'll have to see how that works out.

A world war, not a civil war.  Consider the Western world's reaction to the October 7th invasion by Palestinian soldiers, who broke a cease-fire and entered Israel.  They proceeded to rape, torture, murder and mutilate 1,400 Israelis and foreign visitors.  They also took 240 hostages.  Every one of these acts is a war crime.  Instead of universal condemnation of this horror, the world condemned Israel for retaliating.  The world demanded a cease-fire, effectively saying Palestinians may attack Israel without consequence.  The Biden administration then gave the Palestinians billions in aid knowing full well the money would be used to re-arm.

Kafka at the International Court of Justice.  Hamas recently beat the competition with a demonstration of savagery unlike the earlier improvised pogroms in Europe to which it has been compared.  October's slaughters were plotted with crucial input from Gazans employed in Israeli homes they had scouted and mapped for the purpose, making this the first military campaign designed to culminate in acts of beheading, torture, and rape of predetermined victims.  As attempts to destroy Israel through conventional warfare had only made Israel militarily stronger, the new tactics aimed at destroying the Jews' will to remain among antagonists sworn never to leave them in peace.  More than to intimidate, these attacks were made to demoralize.  Survivor-witnesses describe new refinements of psychological warfare.  Hamas murdered parents and children in each other's presence so as to sharpen the survivors' agony.  They took hostages — not, as others do, for eventual exchange — but to taunt the country with images of prisoners' suffering, and fear that many would never be returned.

Oct. 7 Was Worse Than a Terror Attack.  It Was a Pogrom..  Eyal Barad was in the safe room of his home in Nir Oz for more than 12 hours on Oct. 7 while Palestinians went on a rampage of his Gaza envelope kibbutz, eventually kidnapping or murdering more than a quarter of its residents.  Every so often, Barad, 40, was forced to cover his 6-year-old daughter's mouth with his hand to stifle her squeals.  The little girl, who is autistic, thought the whole thing was a game.  Most of the time, though, Barad was glued to his phone, watching the live feed of a camera he had recently installed outside his home to monitor speeding cars.  Images from the feed, which I obtained, show Palestinian women and children — some appearing as young as 8 years old — taking part in the horror of that day.  Survivors' accounts, video evidence, and the interrogation recordings of apprehended Palestinians paint a [condemnatory] picture of the complicity of Gazan civilians both in the Oct. 7 attack, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and 240 people were abducted to Gaza, and its aftermath.

Biden [is] Forced to Stop Funding UNRWA After Evidence of [its] Agents Participating in Oct 7 Terrorist Attack.  Evidence has been shown to the Biden administration and the United Nations that 12 members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) were actual participants in the October 7th Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The U.N. was an actual participant in the premeditated slaughter of Israeli citizens.

Compilation of California Imams in Support of October 7th Hamas Attack.  Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded southern Israel, murdered over 1,200 people, and took nearly 250 hostage, the MEMRI research team that monitors imams' sermons in mosques in the U.S. as well as speeches and statements by U.S. Muslim leaders and organizations has been finding, and exposing, some very disturbing content.  This content has included antisemitic and pro-Hamas statements, expressions of support for the October 7 attacks and calls for further violence, denial of the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas, and anti-Israel and anti-U.S. statements.  It is notable that in our extensive monitoring, our researchers have not found a single sermon denouncing Hamas or the October 7 attacks.  [Video clip]

Setting Good Money on Fire After Setting Bad Money on Fire in Gaza.  We've been told that, in the slightly over 100 days since the beginning of this war, there have been more than 24,000 civilian casualties at the hands of the IDF. Given that that information is coming from Palestinian "authorities" which, in Gaza is Hamas, that number is likely highly exaggerated.  Even so, if the actual number is 10% of that total, it's a tragedy.  One civilian death, never mind 2,400 or 24,000, is a tragedy.  It's not genocide, but it's a tragedy nonetheless.  Simply, it's war, and most wars include civilian deaths, many of them.  And how did we get to this war?  As everyone knows, it started on October 7th when Hamas sent terrorists ("freedom fighters") into Israel who raped, tortured, and murdered some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, with victims ranging from 10-month-old babies to 80-plus-year-old men and women.  And they kidnapped 200 more.

Hamas Leader:  We Reject a Two State Solution.  We Demand It All.  Consider this the one point of agreement between Israel and the terror network that has conducted war against it for nearly 20 years.  Although perhaps there could be another point of agreement now as well — that October 7 changed everything.  For Israel, it finally woke them from their fantasy that Hamas would turn into a governing entity rather than a genocidal terrorist network.  For Khaled Mashal, it marked the first time that Hamas successfully turned the West into cheerleaders for their genocide, which fuels their fight in Gaza to this day. "From the river to the sea" means exactly what it states, Mashal asserts in this interview caught by MEMRI — and that is a radical-Islamist Palestinian state replacing Israel entirely:  [Tweet]

'I was so naïve to think the UN would help us uncover Hamas' rape atrocities'.  It has been over three months since Hamas's attack on Israel, during which terrorists moved through a music festival and 20 villages and towns, murdering men, women and children.  Unequivocal evidence has since shown how entire families were burned, people were beheaded, how there was the systematic raping and mutilation of girls and women, along with the dragging away of 240 hostages.  Hamas filmed in real time and streamed it on social media.  The death toll currently stands at 1,200.  When the news flashes appeared on Israeli television on Oct 7, 40-year-old Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy was at the hospital bedside of her 69-year-old father, who was deteriorating with Alzeimher's.  She was just back from a family holiday in Egypt with her husband and children, two boys and two girls, aged two through to 13.  She had read and swam, practised yoga and meditated, a last break before her new semester at the Davis Institute for International Relations at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, where she teaches international law, gender and the protection of human rights.  But with Oct 7, her life was to change overnight.

Gazan 'Civilians' [were] Involved in Every Stage of Hamas Hostage Scheme, Freed Israelis Say.  Israeli women and children have in recent weeks begun speaking publicly about what they experienced during nearly two months in Hamas captivity late last year.  In primetime Hebrew TV interviews, the released hostages have confirmed that ordinary Gazans were deeply complicit in every stage of the hostage scheme.  Unarmed teens helped to abduct Jews from their homes on Oct. 7, while Gazan women and children held some of the Israelis captive.  In other cases, Gazan doctors collaborated with Hamas terrorists to covertly treat kidnapped Israelis and imprison them in hospitals.  When the Israelis encountered Gazans on the streets, the results were often terrifying.  The revelations underscore the urgency of Israel's 100-plus-day war to destroy Hamas and bring home the 132 hostages who, officials believe, remain captive in Gaza.  At the same time, though, the released hostages' accounts indicate how difficult it could be to extricate either the remaining hostages or Hamas from a radicalized population.

Uncomfortable Truths about 10/7.  First, recognize the cause of 10/7.  Although it is comforting to believe that Hamas, a specific group in a relatively small area, was the cause of 10/7, this is incorrect.  The snarky among you will quickly respond that Hezb'allah and Iran were also responsible.  This is also incorrect.  The correct answer is that Islam was the cause of 10/7.  Second, to understand why Islam was the cause of 10/7, study its history.  Briefly, Muhammad spent the first part of his career as a prophet in Mecca, where he attracted few followers.  Even revealing the verses in the Koran on the virgins in paradise failed as a recruiting scheme.  As a failed prophet, Muhammad moved to Medina, where the verses in the Koran changed from patience and tolerance to legalization of the murder, rape, and robbery of non-Muslims.  With the new revised Islamic moral code, the number of Muhammad's followers rapidly increased, and they started attacking caravans and raiding villages.  One of Muhammad's first "successes" was the capture of a caravan going to Mecca, after which he ordered some of the captives beheaded.

Hamas tunnels are 100s of miles longer than thought with 5,000-plus entry points.  Hamas's network of terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip is even more extensive than previously thought, The New York Times cited senior Israeli defense officials as saying on Tuesday, with new assessments indicating it has upwards of 5,700 entry shafts.  In the wake of intensive counterterror combat operations in the southern Hamas stronghold of Khan Yunis during recent weeks, Israel now believes the Islamist group built between 350 and 450 miles of subterranean terror infrastructure, up from a previous estimate of 250 miles.

Reuters and AP 'Journalists' Live-Streamed Themselves Encouraging Gazans to Invade Israel.  In an escalation of earlier reporting that showed multiple "journalists" working for the Associated Press and The New York Times participating in the October 7th attack on Israel, live-stream footage has now been uncovered that illustrates even more direct coordination with Hamas terrorists.  As RedState originally reported, Hassan Eslaiah, who was freelancing for CNN, Reuters, and the AP, filmed himself riding into Israel on October 7th carrying a grenade.  Another "journalist" was also implicated, though the Times defended his work despite evidence he had advance knowledge of the attack.  The claim from the Times was that these "journalists" had simply been caught up in quickly unfolding events and were merely trying to do their jobs.  That claim has now been proven false.

Our Incompetent Elite Is Opening Up America to Attack.  When October 7 happened, we saw the Israelis caught unawares by an asymmetrical attack where a determined and cunning foe leveraged all its limited strengths against the Jewish state's very few weaknesses, allowing Hamas to execute a short but bloody rape and murder spree.  Understand that 10/7 was not a military assault, though it used violent means.  It was an information operation, an operation designed not primarily to destroy the combat power of the IDF but to attack the will of the Israeli people and force Israel to change its policies.  That did not work.  Israel was stronger than Hamas imagined, and it hit back harder and more consistently than the terrorists expected, despite the shameful backstabbing by the Biden administration and the screaming of the terrorist wing of the Democrat Party here at home.

Hamas Retreats in Hostage Negotiations As IDF Seizes Key Intel Center.  Hamas had insisted in recent days that it would release no hostages until the IDF withdrew from Gaza, a position that left the Israeli government in firm position to reject.  After more losses on the battlefield, however, Hamas has had second thoughts.  Now they want a day of cease-fire for every hostage released, but without an IDF withdrawal. [...] Hamas still wants to wring strategic value from the hostages that remain in their hands, but Israel clearly wants to disincentivize future hostage taking by reducing that strategic leverage.  They are still negotiating on a disproportional 1:3 basis, according to reports at the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media, but even that's limited to inmates arrested over less-serious charges.  And even the 1:3 ratio is another retreat by Hamas, which had demanded thousands of prisoners exchanged for an estimated 133 hostages captured on October 7.

The Girl with Six Identities.  Since Oct. 7, the public has been inundated with allegations of Israeli atrocities and human rights abuses.  Israel, we're told, is committing a "genocide" in Gaza, and, in fact, has been through all the years in which the Gazan population has grown steadily.  The strange story of one young woman, or really, one photograph, is an object lesson in why such claims of Israeli evils should be taken with a large grain of salt.

What Purpose does Hamas Serve?  Gaza is the singular example of a totally welfare-supported state that would collapse without this eternal 'humanitarian aid.'  To my knowledge, no other such completely dependent national entity exists.  That makes Gaza an artificial statelet with little hope for future prosperity.  Why does Gaza merit this special status?  Why is Gaza not allowed to evolve or devolve towards its natural state of productivity like all other states?  Its status as a beloved ward of international bodies becomes evident from the wails of pain emitted in sympathy for the Gazans by people like Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.  He had no words of comfort for Israel immediately after October 7th.  It appears to be the contention that even before the holocaust of October 7th, prosperous Israel has always been the cause of Gaza's poverty.

Innocent Civilians?  Ever since Israel began to retaliate against Gaza's infamous attacks of October 7, the "international community" has been wringing its hands over the danger to innocent civilians in Gaza.  But few have asked the question, how many innocent civilians are there in Gaza?  Are there any?  Mia Schem is an Israeli who was held captive in Gaza for 54 days, and released as part of last month's prisoner exchange.  This weekend she gave interviews to two Israeli television stations.  She described how she was shot in the arm and taken prisoner at the Supernova music festival.  She was taken to Gaza, where a veterinarian operated on her injured arm.  Thereafter she was housed with a Gazan family, who tormented her.

All cultures are equally valuable: a deadly delusion.  The October 7, 2023 Islamist massacre of Israeli men, women, children and even animals, has had a sobering effect on some possessed of the conceit that all cultures are equally valuable, and none have the moral standing to criticize another.  Seeing women serially raped, tortured, mutilated, beheaded, burned alive and kidnapped, seeing babies burned alive in ovens, seeing inhuman atrocities thought no longer possible in "civilized" humanity so gleefully committed and celebrated, tends to make an impression, at least on those willing to recognize reality.  That the demons were not only Hamas terrorists, but ordinary Gazans, supposed victims of Hamas, was just a little more jarring.  Observing — assimilating — the anti-Semitic "protests" in colleges and streets, Americans now know exactly how and why the Holocaust happened.

You can't be a settler or occupier in your own land.  The Jewish people's 3,800-year history in and tie to their ancestral homeland is memorialized in the Hebrew Bible and other writings.  Archaeological findings throughout this tiny land confirm the centuries of history of the Jewish people in their land.  An overview must suffice here.  Learn it, share it, defend it, speak about it, proudly and loudly.

Israel Is in a Strong Position, Not a Weak Position.  At first glance, Israel appears to have no choice but to buckle under U.S. pressure.  After all she needs the resupply of munitions and the protection of the U.S. veto at the United Nations Security Council. [...] But I submit they do have a choice.  Time is on her side.  Let us assume that Israel switches to the tactics demanded by Biden but takes her time in finishing off Hamas.  In the meantime, Israel should agree to nothing.  She should refuse to discuss the day after and she shouldn't agree to a ceasefire.  If so, it is Biden who is left with few choices.  Since Israel is abiding by Biden's demands but slow walking the war, Biden has no option but to wait for the destruction of Hamas however long it takes.

Media Omit Criticism, Glorify the Red Cross's Role Amid Israel-Hamas War.  Two stories on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)'s handling of the Israel-Hamas war deserved coverage last week:  Comments on the situation in Gaza by the organization's head and the filing of a lawsuit against it over its failure to help Israeli hostages.  Unfortunately, major news agencies echoed the former but were completely silent on the latter.  This selective omission focused all attention on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza at the expense of the suffering of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.  This view was further promoted by two factors:  The media's blindness to the Red Cross's responsibility for the Israeli hostages and the glorification of the organization's humanitarian role.

Waste Treatment.  The Gazans have once again chosen the path of oblivion — and let's be accurate by calling a spade a spade, because this is the group of "civilian" men who elected Hamas to govern, these are the women who waved their brothers and husbands good-bye on October 7th praying for a "successful" jihad, and these are the children who talk of killing Jews.  Having eschewed the opportunity to turn their advantageous strip of Mediterranean coastline into the showplace of prosperity, independence, and comfortable living it might easily have been, they instead committed tremendous sums of seemingly endless aid money and other needed construction resources into creating an extensive sewer system that under normal circumstances might have been the envy of any teeming metropolis.  The human waste of this incredible subterranean network yields rifles, grenades, and other deadly implements of warfare, and now it has swallowed innocent hostages within its threatening vastness, under the most hideous of conditions.  It's an artery for the spread of implacable hatred, murder, and corruption of the human spirit.  It offers nothing but the promise of death.

Hostages, Hospitals, and War.  Almost twenty years ago in Iraq, U.S. and coalition forces were faced with a scenario eerily similar to what is occurring in Gaza today — noncombatants who desperately needed healthcare were being used as pawns by insurgents with an agenda.  This has happened at al-Shifa, al-Quds, al-Ahli Arab and Kamal Adwan Hospitals, where their director just admitted that Hamas has been using the facility as a safe haven to hide high-ranking military operatives.  Doctors, nurses, clerks, and even the director were members of Hamas' military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.  It is more than likely that these Hamas loyalists have been willing participants in the misinformation campaign regarding casualty counts, which have been unreliable and do not differentiate between civilian and terrorist numbers.

Gaza Hospital Boss Admits He's a Hamas Commander, Used Medical Facility as Terror Base.  Ahmed al-Kahlout, the manager of the Kamal Adnan Hospital in northern Gaza, admitted during an interrogation with Israeli security forces that Hamas used the medical facilities to advance its military operations.  "I know 16 employees in the hospital — doctors, nurses, paramedics and clerks — who also have different positions in the Qassam Brigades," Kahlout told Israel's Shin Bet in a video clip released on Tuesday afternoon, referring to the military of Hamas.  "They hide in hospitals because, for them, a hospital is a safe place."  Kahlout, whose hospital is located in the Jabaliya neighborhood of northern Gaza, explained to Israeli security officials, "They [Hamas] won't be targeted when they are inside a hospital."

Hamas Admits to Shelling Israeli Hospital.  So much for the "white flag" from Hamas.  Last night the Times of Israel reported that rockets were fired from Gaza into Jerusalem and Hamas has admitted to the attack.  One rocket struck near Ramallah hospital.  Thankfully no deaths or serious injuries were reported and the Iron Dome intercepted several of the missiles.  These were the first reported rockets launched across the border into Israel since October 16.  This proves yet again that there is no "ceasefire" in place that Hamas would ever recognize and it also goes to show that more work remains in Israel's effort to completely wipe Hamas off the map.

What to Do With the Terrorists?  One of the critical questions emerging among the Western commentariat regarding the Israel-Gaza war is what to do with the Hamas terrorists captured by the IDF.  Should these be detained as POWs and treated tolerantly, as specified by the Geneva Conventions of 1949?  A second question on which the answer to the first depends entails the professional nature and capacity of the captives, that is, are they indeed "soldiers" as understood by the term — members of a nation's armed services that conduct military operations?  Are they members of a resistance "army" who continue to abide by the rules of war, treating captives humanely, caring for the wounded, and sparing vulnerable civilians?  Or are they something else, requiring the question to be reformulated or dismissed as immaterial or peripheral?

What Innocent Civilians?  The Biden administration is demanding that Israel take even more extraordinary measures to avoid harming "innocent civilians" as it tries to eradicate Hamas.  Around the world, politicians and others express dismay at the alleged number of innocent civilians who have been killed by Israeli bombardments, even while admitting that Hamas's casualty numbers include its own terrorists, people killed by terrorists' awol missiles, and so on.  But my complaint is more fundamental.  Watching videos of Israeli captives being paraded through Gaza, and seeing "civilians" spitting on them, hitting them, joyously celebrating their capture, I have asked:  where are these innocent civilians we keep hearing about?

State Department bypasses Congress, OKs sale of tank shells to Israel.  The State Department used an emergency authority to allow the sale of approximately 14,000 tank shells to Israel, bypassing a congressional review process, the Pentagon said on Saturday.  According to the State Department and an online post by the Defense Department on Saturday, the review process is generally required for arms sales to foreign nations, The New York Times reported.  The sale of the shells is valued at more than $106 million.  In its notification, the Defense Department stated that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had informed Congress on Friday that "an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale."

WH Quickly Distances Itself From CAIR After Exec Director Admits He Was 'Happy' Hamas Attacked Israel.  The White House is frantically trying to distance itself from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) after its executive director Nihad Awad claimed he was "happy" to watch the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack unfold.  Speaking at the 16th Annual Convention for Palestine in the U.S. on Nov. 24, he said that the people of Gaza were merely "breaking the siege": [...] Now if that's not openly endorsing the savage terror attacks, the rape and torture of women, the beheading of babies, and the wanton killing of civilians, then I don't know what is.  The Biden administration launched an anti-Islamophobia initiative several weeks after the Hamas assaults — even though antisemitism is a far worse problem in the country right now — and listed CAIR as "one of several independent organizations" involved in the effort.  The White House is now "removing their commitment" from the initiative after Awad's comments went viral.

There Never Has Been a State of Palestine.  There never has been an independent, self-governed national entity called "Palestine."  In Biblical times, the region now encompassing Israel was known as Canaan, which included the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  The term "Palestine" originally referred to a small area occupied by the Philistines (as one theory has it), from whence comes the name "Palestine."  In Roman times, the area was known as Judea and was ruled by Jewish kings, and, under the Roman Emperor Constantine, became a Christian province generally known in Europe simply as "The Holy Land."  The name "Palestine" was not legally applied until the British occupation starting in 1915.  And, of course, following the Second World War and the Holocaust, the region was established as Israel, a Jewish state, although Arab Muslims have full civil rights in that nation.  But an independent, self-governed state of "Palestine" did not exist.

This should have been done six weeks ago:
IDF Chief Suggests Israel May Flood Hamas Tunnels with Seawater.  Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi suggested Tuesday that it might be a "good idea" to flood the Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza with seawater, commenting on a report in the Wall Street Journal that Israel was thinking about it.  The Journal report stated:  "Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas's vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten Gaza's water supply, U.S. officials said."

Flush the Tunnels with the Sea:  Israel to Flood the Gaza Tunnels.  Jazz pointed out yesterday that Israel seemed to be preparing to flood the so-called Gaza Metro, the tunnels that Hamas uses to hide themselves and the hostages from Israel.  Today, it seems they are moving forward with the plan. [...] Of course this whole situation is only happening because of Hamas.  There's no way to guarantee what they'll do when their hideout is flooded.  Maybe they'll execute the hostages and blame Israel.  But this approach also seems to be one that will have the fewest civilian casualties, since as we all know the tunnels are only for Hamas fighters not for Gazan civilians who were not allowed to use them as shelters.

Biden Admin Pays Anti-Israel Group That Spreads Lies About Gaza War To Fight 'Disinformation'.  The Biden administration, in its efforts to fight the spread of disinformation in the Middle East, awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to an anti-Israel nonprofit that has pushed fake news about the Israel-Hamas war.  The State Department gave $573,000 on Oct. 1 to MENAACTION Inc., a Virginia-based nonprofit, to protect "media and society against disinformation" and to train Jordanian journalists how to identify "fake news," according to federal spending records.  It's a topic that MENAACTION's founders know all about.  Cofounder Chris Aboukhaled pushed Hamas's claim that Israel bombed Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.  The rocket that struck the hospital was actually fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group in Gaza.  MENAACTION's other cofounder, Mohammed Abu Dalhoum, who also suggested that Israel was behind the bombing, claimed Israel's military response to Hamas "isn't self-defense" and accused Israel of "genocide."  Experts agree that Israel's targeted retaliatory strikes against Hamas do not constitute genocide.

CBS shows that its goal is to support the Socialist Democrats, not report the truth.
CBS Fears Supporting Israel/Opposing Hamas Will Cost Biden Muslim Vote.  On Monday, CBS Mornings joined ABC and NBC with a hair-on-fire warning for President Biden that if he continued to support Israel and oppose Hamas, he risked losing the Muslim vote and possibly losing the 2024 election.  Of course, the source of CBS's moral cowardice in standing up to the terrorist organization was the fear that Democrats could lose the key state of Michigan and former President Trump could become president again.  Co-anchor Tony Dokoupil kicked off the network's kvetching by warning that "The latest CBS News poll, in fact, finds most Americans do not approve of President Biden's handling of the conflict" and "that could make a big difference in Michigan, the swing state where some 200,000 Muslim-Americans live."

American Kristallnacht?  A few weeks ago, I lamented how Americans had gone to bed on October 7 in 2023 and woken up in Nuremberg 1933.  All across the country, activists flooded the streets and especially college campuses to protest not the bloody massacres of civilians by a self-professed genocidal terrorist government in Gaza, but to blame the Jewish victims of the murders, rapes, and kidnappings.  Could this possibly get worse, I wondered?  Wondered is probably the wrong word.  Predicted is more apropos.  Yesterday, America moved from Nuremberg 1933 to Kristallnacht 1938 or something very close to it, especially in the City of (ahem) Brotherly Love.  Palestinian activists took aim at a Jewish business that have no connection to Israel, other than the birthplace of its owner:  [Tweet with video clip]

Terror group's associates are accused of making more than $900 million by shorting shares in Israel's biggest bank.  Hamas-linked financiers made hundreds of millions of dollars of profits by shorting Israeli stocks before the October 7 massacre, two analysts say.  One unidentified trader 'shorted' 4.43 million shares in Israel's largest bank, Leumi, between September 15 and October 5, meaning they gambled that the price of Leumi's shares would fall.  After the October 7 attack, Leumi's share price did indeed plummet as its operations were paralyzed, earning a $900 million profit for the trader, who is believed to have links to Hamas.

Traders with prior knowledge of Hamas attacks made millions shorting Israel, claims report.  Investors with prior knowledge of the Oct 7 Hamas massacre earned at least tens of millions of pounds short-selling Israeli stocks in the days before, according to a report.  Traders with potential links to Hamas put huge bets against the Israeli economy in the run-up to the attack and could have made more than $100 million (£79.3 million), said the 60-page study by Robert Jackson Jr, of New York University School of Law, and Joshua Mitts, of Columbia Law School.  While the report did not name the investors, the report said they were understood to be "informed traders anticipating and profiting from the Hamas attack".  Mr Mitts told The Telegraph: "It's not inconceivable that the profits are above $100 million based on the inferences from the current evidence."  The shorts were unusual as they occurred during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, a very quiet period in Israel both in terms of news events and financial activity.

UN and Hamas:  Partners in Crime.  Since October 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel and massacred at least 1,200 and kidnapped another 240 Israelis and people of other nationalities, the United Nations has been acting as the unofficial propaganda arm of the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist organization.  The propaganda campaign's main aim — besides smearing Israel — appears to be to build overwhelming international pressure on Israel to agree to an indefinite ceasefire, which will give Hamas the needed time to regroup and replenish to continue its terrorist activities and to avoid being eliminated by the Israeli Defense Forces.  To understand how the UN effectively runs the Hamas propaganda war, it is important to know that the UN, through its agency for Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), is effectively embedded with Hamas in the Gaza Strip: it can be difficult to make any meaningful distinction between the two organizations.  On October 7, in fact, as the Hamas massacre of civilians in Israel unfolded, UNRWA employees in Gaza celebrated.

Reporter claimed Gaza couldn't use cell phones, spokesman proves her wrong.  Major Doron Spielman from the IDF spoke to Sky News about the resumption of fighting against Hamas in Gaza. [...] On the question of Gazan residents being notified of IDF targets while not having power to power up their mobile phones or Wi-Fi, Major Spielman responded, "I think that you and all of your viewers saw our hostages being paraded through the streets as they were released to Israel over those seven nights.  Hundreds of Gazans were holding their phones and videoing them, so clearly, there's enough power to power their phones when they're parading our hostages throughout Gaza.  Now that same power to their phones will be used to get the maps downloaded and look at the flyers [giving them information on IDF attacks]."

Why Anything Short of Total Eradication of Hamas Isn't Enough.  There is the concrete threat of the convicted terrorists freed from Israeli prison.  Among those freed during the Shalit swap was Yahya Sinwar, the current leader of Hamas in Gaza and mastermind of the Oct. 7 pogrom.  (He is subordinate to Hamas' Qatar-based top brass.)  On Thursday, in his first publicized statement since the assault, Sinwar minced no words:  "The leaders of [Israel] should know, Oct. 7 was just a rehearsal."  That's quite a threat.  How many future Yahya Sinwars have already been freed this go-around?  The Times of Israel noted that 55% of the first 117 terrorists released during the current swaps had been held for violent crimes, including attempted murder, and 21% belonged to a jihadist outfit.  Tragically, it is not difficult to see what this looks like in practice.  On Thursday morning, two terrorist brothers killed three Israelis and wounded six others at a Jerusalem bus stop.  Hamas claimed credit, and it turns out the brothers had previously been imprisoned for planning terrorist attacks on behalf of Gaza-based jihadists.

The Torture Stories are Starting to Trickle Out and It's Gut-Wrenching.  It was inevitable.  The propaganda campaign by Hamas to force its young hostages from Israel to pretend that they were treated well in captivity is coming to an end.  The truth tells a different tale.  As I have said before, Hamas is winning the propaganda war.  Biden is cowed by Muslim voters threatening to abandon him in the 2024 presidential election.  He's gone wobbly in his support of Israel.  The hard truth is that we have a feeble old man in the White House who is unable to be the commander-in-chief.  He is historically wrong on foreign policy.  His underlings are running the show and a lot of them are anti-Israel.  Joe Biden is only interested in winning re-election.  Jill Biden isn't ready to retire to Delaware.  This is a mess, y'all.  Hamas forced the hostages to wave and smile for the media covering their release.  With the release of the first group of hostages, the press reports noted that the older women were appreciative of how well they were treated by their captors.  One woman gave a little hug to one of the Hamas animals and the press swooned.  It was sickening.  Who in their right mind would believe that that poor woman did that on her own?

Women's Groups Silent As Rape Is Used As an Act of War.  The United Nations is useless.  In case you needed another example of that statement, look no further than the silence from the organization as women's groups document the use of rape as a weapon of war.  Israeli women were raped by Hamas during the October 7 attack.  The silence of the United Nations has been deafening.  For example, Sarah Weiss Maudi, a senior diplomat and legal adviser in Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently said that women's rights groups and Israeli officials have documented the stories of women in Israel who were raped by Hamas and shared graphic documentation with the United Nations and groups that claim to protect and empower women.  Weiss Maudi said they have received nothing but silence.  "Their silence is so deafening that it's sickening."

Hamas Also Slaughters Muslims.  The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7 did not slaughter Jews alone.  The terrorists also murdered and kidnapped scores of Muslim citizens of Israel, including members of the Bedouin community.  The terrorists' murder spree made zero distinction between young and old, Muslim and Jew.  More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered in the massacre, while another 240 were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip as hostages.  Of these, scores of Arab Israelis were murdered, wounded or taken hostage.  Among the kidnapped is Aisha al-Ziadna, a 16-year-old Muslim citizen of Israel.  The first wave of Hamas's attack hit a music festival at Kibbutz Re'im which had an estimated 3,500 young people in attendance.  The magnitude of the onslaught became apparent as bloodied and panicked people staggered into the medical tent screaming for help.  Finally, the medical staff was ordered to flee along with everyone else.

Blacklisting is no longer enough, now the goal is justifying mass murder.  It seems the rising effort of many — mostly on the left but not entirely — to blackball and censor their opponents in the past decade is no longer satisfied with these ugly goals.  Now it seems the goal is to justify mass murder and the rape and torture of women and children.  We can see this by what happened during a city council event in Oakland, California yesterday.  When one Jewish council member, Dan Kalb, attempted to add language condemning Hamas to a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, he was greated by boos and an unrelenting stream of locals not only opposing his amendment but denying that the mass murder by Hamas had even occurred, that it was instead committed by Israeli troops, and that anyone who dared disagree with them was a "white supremacist."  The video below provides a quick selection of this hate and ignorance:  [Video clip]

The American kidnap victim released by Hamas is a great-niece of Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a major Democratic party donor who paid handsomely for Hunter Biden's art.  The American kidnap victim released by the terrorist group Hamas during its ongoing ceasefire with Israel is a great-niece of Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a major Democratic party donor who paid handsomely for Hunter Biden's art and won an appointment to a plum cultural post from President Biden.  Hirsh Naftali had publicly advocated in a series of nationally televised interviews for the release of her 4-year-old grandniece, Abigail Mor Idan, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen whose parents were murdered by marauding jihadists in southern Israel on Oct. 7.  She is the only American thus far among the 61 mostly women and children exchanged for Palestinian Arab prisoners in a fragile negotiated truce.  While noting that the Biden administration has worked with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to free all the hostages, a senior administration official told RealClearInvestigations that "U.S. officials insisted that Abigail be included on an early list as well as the other two Americans in this category [of women and children]."

Top CIA official posted pro-Palestine picture on Facebook two weeks after Hamas' terror attack on Israel.  A growing revolt within the Biden administration at his handling of the Israel-Hamas war has reached the top ranks of the CIA after a top analysis chief changed her Facebook profile to a Palestinian flag.  More than 400 administration staff signed an anonymous letter earlier this month demanding the President seek an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.  Another 1,000 employed by the US Agency for International Development echoed the call, but State Department officials have refused to crack down on the dissent, instead holding 'listening sessions' with staff as unrest grows.

A Primer for the Perplexed:  The Nine Big Lies Against Israel and What They Really Mean.  While fabricating here and there may be every general's pastime, Palestinian terrorists and their enablers have taken lying to a whole other level.  Yet, despite building so much of their case on a foundation of falsehoods, they keep conning the world.  Everyone "knows" that Israel occupies Gaza — despite disengaging from it in 2005; that "From the River to the Sea" envisions a democratic Palestine — when it envisions an exterminated Israel; and, most outrageously, that hundreds of innocent Israelis, young and old alike, deserved to be massacred, maimed, raped, and terrorized — while others denied all the evidence that the atrocities happened.  This primer picks nine of the most popular New Big Lies Palestinians and their enablers propagate.  Let's leave the number ten for more godly commandments, while stressing that despite being debunked repeatedly, these lies have countless lives.

The UN's rot laid bare in Israel-Hamas war.  The United Nations is again underlining its systemic moral and political rot.  Since Hamas's Oct. 7 atrocity, an assault of murder, rape, and kidnapping which took approximately 1,200 Israeli lives, the U.N. has utterly failed in its core mission to preserve international peace and justice in service of sovereign nations.  Instead, under the waffling weakness of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the U.N. has presented Israel as the guilty party in this crisis.  Disregarding Hamas's battlefield tactic of using schools and hospitals as arms depots and closing his eyes to Hamas's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, the U.N. chief claims that Israel is committing war crimes.  Addressing Israeli military action in Gaza, he asserted this week that "We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since I have been secretary-general."

Cotton: Biden 'Weakness' Resulted in Americans Being Taken Hostage, Iran Attacking.  Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on this week's broadcast of "Fox News Sunday" that President Joe Biden's "weakness" has resulted in "Americans being taken hostage" and Iran attacking American assets in the region.  Cotton said, "It seems like President Biden puts more pressure on Israel than he does on Hamas."

Israel and Gun Control.  There are recent headlines and talk about Israel relaxing gun control laws and arming citizens since the Hamas terrorist attacks October 7th.  But these narratives can be deceiving.  One Israeli tactical expert, Yonatan Stern, has exposed some concerning actions on behalf of the Israeli government that tell a different story. [...] According to Stern, "almost nobody is allowed to own guns at all" in Israel.  But most citizens enter the Israeli military at 18, and they are issued a rifle.  Americans who enter the military are also issued rifles, but the difference is that American soldiers aren't permitted to keep their rifles in their possession off base.  "But in Israel it doesn't work like that, in Israel, the soldiers usually leave their bases carrying their rifles with them," says Stern.  Upon discharge from the IDF, however, the rifle is taken from the Israeli soldier.  And from the sounds of it, that soldier may never be able to even get a handgun, never mind a rifle, again.

The Insidious Reason Why Hamas Is Releasing Hostages.  13 Israeli hostages are now under Israeli supervision and on their way home, and 39 criminals are returning to Gaza.  Israel made this exchange because of the Jewish value of treasuring each individual life.  But given that Hamas repeatedly demonstrates that they have no respect for life, even for their own civilians whom they use as human shields, why is Hamas actually making this exchange?  There is the obvious reason that it gives Hamas days to recover and regroup, but there is another, more insidious and dangerous reason for Hamas to make this exchange.  A reason that has nothing to do with the military war against Israel that they cannot win.  This is regarding the war that they can, God forbid, win: the war to hurt the world's opinion of Israel.  Hamas has been winning that war of public opinion since the moment Israel started going into Gaza after the depravities of October 7.  Quickly, the world forgot and ignored the horrors they perpetrated in favor of focusing on the "innocent victims in Gaza" who were being killed in the crossfire with Israel.

Where Are the Americans?  On October 7, Gaza murdered 31 Americans and is believed to have kidnapped 13 more, including a three-year-old child.  Yesterday an initial exchange of hostages for prisoners was carried out.  Ten Thais and one Filipino were let go, but no Americans were released:  ["]The U.S. does not know when the Americans held hostage would be released or all of their conditions, Mr. Biden said.["]  We don't know what their conditions might be, because they have been held incommunicado by murderous, anti-American thugs for more than a month and a half.  This is a disgrace.  The U.S. currently has two Carrier Strike Groups, bearing almost unimaginable striking power, in the eastern Mediterranean.  If our president were not a senile, half-witted fool, he would have told Hamas long ago that if all Americans were not freed within 12 hours, Gaza would be reduced to rubble.  Not to mention that Gaza would never get another nickel of American money.

Manipulating with Lies and Manufactured Sob Stories.  As has been the case since the barbarous attack on Israel by Hamas aided by Palestinian civilians, international organizations have chosen by their silence to ally themselves with the butchers instead of condemning the 10/7 attack.  Canary Mission, which tracks anti-Semitism (and these days it's not untoward to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, because it comes from the same fetid font:  hatred of Jews and the globalists' anti-nationalism) notes the silence of those entities from whom we were led to expect more:  Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking as head of the WHO (World Health Organization); Amnesty, the International Red Cross, the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, the UN Special Rapporteur, Human Rights Watch, the EU Commission, Malala Yousafzai, chief of UN women.  Canary Mission is not alone in this observation.

A Monstrous Conundrum in the Middle East.  Rather than be filled with joy that some of the hostages in Israel are released, I'm sick to my stomach at the monstrous nature and sheer audacity of the "deal."  Biden is squarely on the backs of the Israelis, who know better than to become handmaidens of Hamas.  Dozens more, perhaps hundreds more of Israel's soldiers and thousands more civilians in Gaza will be killed as a result of this "kindness."  Seven-plus weeks into what history may eventually consider one of the most sadistic, cruel, and calculated terrorist events in world history, the Free World's common sense will continue to be in question. [...] Examine for a moment the crazy reversal of priorities and strength we are witnessing:
  •   Israel values life; Hamas does not.
  •   Israel is a pluralistic, democratic country, and Hamas is a Hitler-like autocracy.  Copies of Mein Kampf have been found in the tunnels under Gaza.
  •   Israel grants the same rights and responsibilities to its Arab citizens, while Hamas kills Arab collaborators, whether Arab citizens in Israel, Gaza, or the West Bank.
  •   Israel provides free advanced medical care for Arabs, from the West Bank, Gaza, and from within Israel.  Hamas kills any Jews it gets its hands on and will often prevent its people from accessing hospitals and medical care in Israel.
  •   Israel teaches its children (including Arabs) about the world at large and without hate.  Hamas teaches the destruction of Israel and the Jews from birth. [...]
  •   Israel is Western-facing and life-affirming.  Hamas is a death cult.

Hamas broke the ceasefire about 15 minutes after it began.  The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, per the deal to release hostages, went into effect last night.  Shortly after it began, it was reported that Hamas broke the ceasefire.  According to those reports, rockets were fired into southern Israel 15 minutes after the ceasefire started:  [Tweet]

U.N. adopts eight resolutions condemning Israel, none condemning Hamas — or anyone else.  The U.N. recently adopted eight resolutions condemning Israel for various alleged human rights violations, yet made no condemnation of other nations or groups, including Hamas.  This, after Hamas slaughtered nearly 1,500 innocent Israelis during a surprise attack on October 7.  And at a time of inexplicably rising anti-Semitism.  This tells you all you need to know about the "world body."  It is nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said via press release: "The U.N.'s assault on Israel with a torrent of one-sided resolutions, just one month after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and on the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, is surreal."  And morally repugnant.

Taking Pride in Murder.  [Scroll down]  In other words, 97.8% of Gazans were proud of the attack that murdered 1,200 Israelis, including many babies, women, and elderly — the vast majority unarmed civilians.  The pride question shows what Palestinians feel in their gut about murdering Israelis.  Another question asks about supporting the attack itself, letting the respondent deal with the possibility that murdering Israelis may prove counterproductive to Palestinian interests.  When asked if they thought the attack was a good idea, or as the poll expressed it "do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas," the results were therefore more mixed.  In Gaza, 46.6% strongly support the attack and 17% "somewhat" support it.  About 35% show various levels of reservation regarding the attack, apparently because of its devastating results in Gaza.  In the West Bank, where Palestinians have not felt anything like the power Israel has used in Gaza, about 83% support "the operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas."

What the 'Hostage Release' Ceasefire Proves.  For the first time since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, a temporary ceasefire has been announced, and the details confirm everything we knew or suspected about the contradictory cultures of the Israelis and the so-called "Palestinians."  It has been reported that the deal was brokered by Qatar.  Not a quite a client state of Iran, Qatar is nevertheless one of Iran's few friends and is often therefore not on speaking terms with its other muslim neighbors.  When we refer to Hamas as a client terror group of Iran, they like to protest that they're really an independent group, but whom do they turn to whenever a mediator is needed?  Funny how often it's either Qatar or some other country in Iran's orbit.

IDF Arrests Director of Shifa Hospital over Evidence of Terror at Facility.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrested Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, in connection with an ongoing terror investigation, as he attempted to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip along a humanitarian corridor.  In recent days, the IDF uncovered the terror tunnels beneath the hospital, which had tapped into the hospital's own electricity and water supplies.  The IDF also concluded that soldier Noa Marciano, who was taken captive by the Palestinian Hamas terror organization on October 7, had been murdered in the hospital.  The IDF also discovered surveillance footage of other hostages being moved through the hospital by armed Hamas terrorists on the day that they were abducted from Israel during the attack.  And the IDF had uncovered weapons stored within the hospital[.]

Hamas admits it has no idea how many hostages it has — because plenty are held by actual criminals.  Amid all of Hamas's bluster and gun-waving as a bigshot military organization taking on the Israeli war machine, negotiations for its hostages have revealed that actually, Hamas isn't quite sure how many hostages it's holding, owing to the fact that actual criminals are holding some of them.  What?  What is Israel dealing with here?

Congress Must Investigate Antony Blinken, The Great Traitor.  Antony Blinken is a despicable con who is organizing Arab and European countries and the U.N. around the backs of our Congress and Israel to carve up Israel and gift the Palestinians massive swaths of Israel's country, including Judea and Samaria.  That's his response for the Palestinians' murderous slaughter of Israelis!  Blinken is using Israel's need for weapons to threaten and blackmail Israel diplomatically and impose his policies and will.  Utterly contemptible.  This is not how foreign policy is conducted — as a weapon against our great ally in the middle of a war.  Blinken's driving the Obama-Thomas Friedman agenda, continuing to rearm Iran, prop up the PLO, sabotage Israel's war effort, and deceive the American people.  Blinken is a dangerous ideologue and stupid man as John McCain warned years ago.  He is obsessed and unrestrained.  He was also the architect of the disastrous and deadly surrender in Afghanistan, but has no capacity for circumspection or recalculation.  He's a committed ideologue.

IDF Releases Extensive Footage of Hamas Tunnels Under Hospital — Bathrooms, Weapons, Even A/C.  Stunning video posted to social media by Israel Defense Forces shows extensive Hamas tunnels underneath the Shifa Hospital complex, complete with air conditioning, bathrooms, and large caches of weapons.  In the first clip, a young soldier faces the camera and says the footage proves that Hamas used the hospital as a terrorism base: [...] She starts by showing a massive trove of weapons Israeli forces discovered.  "We see all the equipment that the fighters found here," she says.  Then she descends into a "major shaft" of the tunnel system, which she says connects to the larger network under Gaza.  Watch as she takes us down into the subterranean lair, passing multiple rooms, extensive wiring, sinks, an A/C unit, even toilets:  [Tweet with video clip] 

How many aid groups knew Hamas was hiding in a hospital and lied about it?  Hamas used Gaza City's Shifa hospital as a base of terror operations.  That's the obvious conclusion following Sunday's discovery of a large terror tunnel under the hospital along with videos of Hamas bringing Israeli hostages inside.  Now comes an important question for Congress:  Which US-funded international organizations knew the truth about Shifa and helped Hamas conceal its war crimes?  The Israel Defense Forces this weekend discovered a tunnel beneath Shifa hospital that extends 10 meters down and 55 meters across — leading to what might be a booby-trapped door.  Special units that specialize in handling explosives have been summoned to break through to the next section.  Meanwhile, Israel also released security footage showing two hostages brought through Shifa by Hamas terrorists following the Oct. 7 massacre as hospital workers looked on — suggesting a widespread conspiracy to conceal both the presence of hostages at Shifa and Hamas' terror infrastructure within the compound.

IDF Reveals:  Hamas Murdered Noa Marciano in Shifa Hospital [and] Abducted Hostages [are] There.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released evidence Sunday that Hamas murdered captured soldier Noa Marciano at Shifa Hospital in Gaza.  It also showed surveillance footage of terrorists taking other hostages to the hospital.  As Breitbart News reported last week, the IDF recovered Corporal Marciano's body during operations near Shifa Hospital.  Hamas had forced her to make a propaganda video in which she appeared alive one moment, and was shown dead the next moment.  Hamas claimed that she had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.  On Sunday, IDF spokesman Rear Adm.  Daniel Hagari revealed that forensic analysis of Marciano's body showed that she had minor injuries on October 7 and had been murdered at the hospital.

The BBC's Israelophobia is out of control.  Never trust a Jew.  That was one of the adages that we thought had mostly faded into history.  But it has been back in vogue ever since 7 October, when 1,200 Jews in Israel had the temerity to be massacred in their homes and hundreds got themselves taken hostage.  For years, it has been common knowledge that Hamas's subterranean command centre in Gaza lies underneath al-Shifa hospital.  It even appeared in season two of the Netflix show, Fauda.  Yet, as Israeli forces entered the hospital yesterday and then shared pictures of weapons and tunnels, the world was still sceptical.  The IDF's images 'have not proved the existence of the sprawling Hamas base that the Israeli military said the hospital had concealed, and which Hamas and the hospital leadership have denied', insisted the New York Times.  'That claim has been central to Israel's justification for the death toll in Gaza... which has killed more than 11,000 people, according to Gazan health officials.'  Gazan health officials?  You mean Hamas, the same lot that decapitated the babies?  Great source.

Israel finds Hamas rockets under children's beds, in strollers.  Israeli forces found rockets hidden underneath the beds in a child's bedroom at a Hamas terrorist's Beit Hanun home, the IDF said on Thursday.  The raid was carried out by the IDF's 551st Reservist Brigade following intelligence gathered amid Operation Swords of Iron.  In addition, dozens of kilograms' worth of explosive material and devices were found in the terrorist's home.  The explosives were safely detonated following the raid.  The IDF previously reported that it uncovered a weapons production site near schools in Gaza, publishing footage showing the weapons storage site next to rooms where children sleep.

Biden Admin Pushing Coup in Israel.  The Biden administration keeps talking about the urgent need for Israel to have a post-war plan for Gaza.  What that really means is that it wants the PLO to take over Gaza.  Netanyahu has opposed that for now.  The Palestinian Authority is run by Fatah, the body behind the PLO, and is just another Islamic terrorist group.  And parts of it claimed to have taken part in the Oct 7 massacres.  But none of that is stopping the Biden administration from its obsession.  The thinking is that if the Palestinian Authority takes over Gaza, it can force negotiations on a Two-State Solution and finally bring peace by empowering terrorists.  A policy that has brought nothing but terror for 30 years.  And now that Israel's government is in the way, it's time to get it out of the way.

Marching Arm in Arm.  [I]n the aftermath, of October 7th, when Hamas, funded by the ideal faith of Iran, invaded Israel and took the lives of 1,400 people — 1,100 of whom were unarmed, 539 of whom were too young to fight, and 83 who were too old — while 5,400 other Israelis were wounded and an unaccounted number of young women raped, we should not be surprised that Hegelians in the American Democrat party are defending the carnage and vowing support for the murderers.  The socialist media of the United States is doing its part, [condemning] the Israelis for defending themselves, while acting as the marketing arm of Hamas in America, taking every statistic Hamas announces at face value and every photo image they send in attempts to demand an immediate cease-fire, claiming any further fighting is inhumanity on the part of the Jews — the invaded, murdered, and assaulted nation!  While the unofficial leader of the Democrat party, Barack Obama, openly states with an unabashed face that "everyone," including Israel, "has blood on their hands."

Israel says it found evidence of Hamas base at al Shifa hospital during raid.  Israel officials claimed they found "concrete evidence" of Hamas operating a military facility beneath al Shifa hospital during their overnight raid — as the military released photos Wednesday showing a jaw-dropping cache of weapons and combat gear recovered during the search.  The IDF carried out a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas" Tuesday night inside the hospital complex, which is housing more than 600 patients, 600 staffers and thousands of refugees displaced by the war.  The Israeli military claimed it killed several Hamas gunmen during the raid and recovered a stash of weapons hidden around an MRI lab, including automatic weapons, grenades, ammunition and flak jackets.  A laptop was also discovered and taken for study.

Hamas' Hospital Hideout.  Turns out Hamas was always doing what Israel and opponents of jihad terror accused them of doing:  Operating out of hospitals to avoid being bombed (in violation of international law). [...] There should be no cease in Israeli operations until they've finished the tasking of killing or capturing every Hamas terrorist they can lay their hands on.

Democrat Media Arm Scrambles As It Becomes Clear They Knew About Hamas Invasion Of Israel Before It Happened.  Reports have been bubbling up that the various tentacles of the Democrat hacktivist media actually had pro-Hamas activists 'journalists' embedded with Hamas before and on October 7th. [...] What were they thinking?  What were they doing?  Why didn't they alert Israel about the impending attack or alert Israel when the true evil taking place in front of their "embedded with Hamas" eyes became crystal clear?  Obviously, U.S. intel knew about these intel-directed 'journalists' embedded with Hamas, so there was no need to alert the White House.  They already knew.

Nazi Revivalism in America.  Until October 7, Jews were living relatively free of religious persecution within Israel but in a region rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionism.  Responses to the October 7 massacre indicate that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are global.  Shamefully, this includes the United States, where politicians, college students, and other protesters, many of whom were BLM protesters who protested to end racism, now participate in protests that stoke racism and incite violence against the most persecuted people in the world.

October 7 revealed the new Nazis.  [Scroll down]  As for Israel, the Neo-Cons side with the people who broke the ceasefire, turned the Rave for Peace into the Rape for War and hide behind (actually beneath in tunnels) women and children to shield them from a counterattack.  Our support for Israel no longer can be financial.  We ran out of money somewhere in the second Bush administration.  But certainly American should stand by Israel and instead of calling for a ceasefire, lobby to finally end the Palestinian terrorist war by destroying the terrorists.  International law should require it.  Let us review the war crimes of the Palestinians.
  [#1]   Attacking civilians instead of military targets.
  [#2]   Not wearing uniforms.
  [#3]   Rape, torture and mutilation.
  [#4]   Taking civilian hostages.
  [#5]   Using schools, hospitals and mosques to shield military personnel, equipment and bases.
But marchers and rioters for Palestinians portray Israel as the war criminal because that fits their narrative.  This is dangerous.

Be sure to check for another one under the orphans' home.
IDF: Hamas command center found under Gaza children's hospital; hostages were likely held there.  IDF Spokesman Rear Adm.  Daniel Hagari says the Navy's elite Shayetet 13 commando unit and the 401st Armored Brigade have raided Gaza City's Rantisi Hospital, which treats children, and that Hamas operatives were holed up there.  He says he has just returned from the hospital, having filmed there, and that the IDF has evidence indicating that hostages were held there.  "Underneath the hospital, in the basement, we found a Hamas command and control center, suicide-bomb vests, grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, explosive devices, RPGs, and other weapons, computers, money, etc," Hagari says, in an English-language press conference.  "We also found signs that indicate that Hamas held hostages here," he says, adding that "this is currently under our investigation," but that the IDF has intelligence to verify it.

It's an open secret what's really going on in al-Shifa Hospital.  Reports of al-Shifa Hospital coming under siege by the IDF are not the only fishy thing going on.  The media has conveniently been leaving out the well-known fact that Hamas uses the site as a base of operations.  As Israel fights Hamas, Hamas hides behind civilians and has even been preventing the hospital from receiving fuel offered by Israel — all while Israel has been attempting to evacuate civilians from the tyrannical rule of Hamas terrorists.  [Video clip]

No surprise here.  It would be news if the subterranean infrastructure had NOT been found at mosques and schools.
Hamas terror infrastructure found in Gaza university, mosque.  Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza continue to find Hamas terrorist infrastructure located within civilian sites, including at Al-Quds University and the Abu Bakr Mosque, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday.  Israeli forces uncovered a section of the mosque housing a large number of explosive devices and flammable materials, according to the IDF.  Soldiers also confiscated dozens of weapons, military equipment and Hamas operational plans.  [Tweet with video clip]  IDF troops also found a "large number of weapons" inside the children's room of the home of a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist.  During operational activity in Beit Hanoun in the northeastern Gaza Strip, IDF troops located a tunnel shaft, Hamas intelligence materials and weapons.  IDF Spokesman Rear Adm.  Daniel Hagari said during his regular evening press briefing on Sunday that "troops continue to strike the Hamas strongholds in the heart of the Shati Camp and to deepen the raids in the heart of Gaza City."

It's not about Israel:  We are the target.  Realize that Israel is a distraction; the U.S. is the target.  The October 7 atrocities were not a spur of the moment attack, but a deliberate plan to force Israel into war.  The attack was not initiated by Hamas.  Iran uses Hamas as a tool in their quest to destroy Israel and the United States and further their plans to take over the world.  Using deception to turn an enemy's focus away from a sneak attack, and corrupting leadership from within, are tactics recognized by both the Iranians and the Chinese, who signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement in 2021.  Israel is the "Little Satan," but the United States is the "Great Satan."  We are the real target.  Something more devastating than 9/11 will happen soon and it will be blamed on Hamas, not Iran and/or China.

Israel Pushes Back on 'Misinformation' on Fighting near Gaza Hospitals, Hamas HQ.  Israel pushed back on what it called "misinformation" about fighting near hospitals in Gaza such as Shifa Hospital, where Hamas has established its headquarters, saying that it was not targeting hospitals and was helping patients and personnel to evacuate.  It has been undisputed fact for more than a decade that Hamas uses the hospital site for its underground headquarters, and also as a facility to to torture and kill political dissidents.  The IDF also presented evidence of Hamas tunnels underneath other hospitals, and Hamas rocket launches near hospital facilities.

If America Does Not Win, Its Enemies Do.  [Scroll down]  As the Israeli military started targeted strikes in the Gaza Strip to destroy rocket launchers and other weapons, Hamas broadcast images of destroyed buildings and injured Gaza residents, the Hamas leaders in Gaza began to present themselves as the "real victims".  "Forgetting" the atrocities that had just taken place in Israel, Western European leaders started to say that Israel's response must be "proportionate".  None of them, however, explained what a "proportionate response" is.  What proportionality is not, is that Israelis should be permitted to kill the same number of babies and rape the same number women as the Palestinians did.  It simply means that any strike has to be proportionate to a legitimate target.  It is not proportionate, for instance, to use a nuclear bomb to take out a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile.  While it is important to try to ensure that there will be as few civilian causalities as possible, it is a war crime to use civilians as "human shields".

Israel is Defending the Living, Not Avenging the Dead.  Israel, like any civilized society, is not retaliating for the unspeakable crimes committed against those who are now dead, who were tortured and burned alive in the most savage and systematic fashion on October 7.  No amount of warfare will bring them back.  Israel is defending the living, not avenging the dead.  After the wildfire of savage butchery was extinguished by Israeli personnel, security services discovered that Hamas was turning the killing fields into staging grounds for an even greater assault on the rest of Israel.  Massive ammunition dumps, field hospitals for jihadists, and other bases of forward operations showed that their goals were the annihilation of Israeli civilization.  So how are we to judge the way Israel conducts its war in Gaza?  On what basis are we to decide whether the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is making correct ethical decisions?  What other wars can we compare it to?

This Is Iran's Mullahs' War Against Israel and the United States.  The Biden administration continues to turn a blind eye to Iran's involvement in the war against Israel, the Jews and in fact all "infidels" — not least of which is "the Great Satan," the United States.  In recent weeks, Iranian proxies have attacked not only Israel and the Jews, but also at least 41 strikes against US forces in Syria and Iraq, during which 46 US servicemen were wounded and one was killed by a drone; and with more than 83 attacks on US troops since Biden became president.  These assaults came in addition to an attempted assassination on US soil by the Iranian regime of a foreign diplomat in 2012, and threats to assassinate former US officials, complete with a $1 million bounty, in 2022.  The US responded to these attacks by cancelling sanctions on Iran, thereby enabling it to reap close to $60 billion by exporting its oil and gas — and comfortably to finance its terrorist proxy war on Israel and attacks on US forces in the Middle East.  The US also issued countless bland warnings and struck four unmanned weapons depots in Syria.

Hamas [is] Shooting Civilians to Prevent Evacuation.  Hamas desperately needs "martyrs" in order to carry on their propaganda campaign.  I was a bit skeptical of the claim until I saw a number of videos demonstrating that it is, in fact, almost certainly true.  I was skeptical because, in war, all sides engage in narrative building.  Hamas has proven quite adept at it, and as far as I can tell Israel has no version of "Pallywood" (can you imagine what kind of fine-toothed comb the MSM would subject Israeli propaganda to?), but it is important to do your best to avoid seeking things that confirm your priors.  We all do it, of course, so I try to be skeptical when possible.  Hamas representatives themselves have made clear that civilian casualties are not their concern, and even that they consider them a good thing since "martyrs" go to heaven.  [Tweet]  Hamas' plea to the world for a cease-fire is based on the claim that Israel is committing a "genocide" in Gaza.  Such a claim is absurd on its face for many reasons, not the least of which is that Hamas is all in favor of genocide as long as the victims are Jews.

Associated Press Cuts Ties with Gaza Freelancer Accused of Being Embedded with Hamas Terrorists.  The Associated Press (AP) issued a statement Thursday in response to serious allegations against freelancers who contributed to AP's coverage of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration is demanding answers from several prominent news agencies after criticism emerged of their photographers and their links to Hamas on the day of its barbaric attack.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters accuse Biden of backing 'genocide' as they swarm NY Times building.  Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters descended on Bryant Park Thursday afternoon and later occupied the lobby of the New York Times building as they called for the elimination of the Jewish state and accused President Biden of backing "genocide."  The crowds of demonstrators labeled Israel a "terrorist state" while chanting "From river to the sea, Palestine will be free" — a phrase known to call for the eradication of Israel — as they marched through midtown on Thursday evening.  The large rally is the latest in a series of fiery protests to engulf the Big Apple since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack that led Israel to launch retaliatory strikes.

Journalist Participated in Hamas massacre, Ecstatically Displayed Soldier's ID Card, Helmet and Magazine.  This video shows Gazan journalist and actor Ali Nasman ecstatically celebrating the abduction or killing of an Israeli soldier, by displaying the soldier's ID card, helmet and ammunition magazine, while he participated in Hamas' massacre on October 7. [...] This journalist who participated in the terror attack was subsequently killed by the Israel army in an airstrike.  Other journalists also reported live from the invasion and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office has demanded clarifications from the bureau chiefs of the media organizations that employed them, among them AP, Reuters, CNN and The New York Times.

Squeezing the World's Vulnerable Peoples.  The population of Israel is about 10 million.  This represents about half of the world's Jewish people.  The founding idea of modern Israel was to offer a sanctuary for Jews in their biblical home in the Middle East, in the aftermath of Nazi Germany's mass murder of 6 million Jews.  Yet currently, 78 years after the Holocaust, anti-Israel protestors throughout the Middle East, the great cities of the Western world, and iconic American universities chant death threats and "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea."  Their signature slogan is shorthand for the erasure of the Jewish state and everyone in it.

If Palestinians Wanted Peace And Prosperity, They'd Already Have It.  In 2005, Palestinian Arabs were given autonomy over the Gaza Strip for the first time in their history.  To make it happen, the Israeli government forcibly removed thousands of Israelis from the area.  Without military protection, Jews would be murdered by Palestinians, who prefer their land Judenfrei.  As Jews were being evicted from their homes, some began to dismantle the farms and hothouses they'd built, reluctant to hand over years of hard work.  In the name of peace, however, American Jewish donors purchased the 3,000 remaining greenhouses that stood over 1,000 acres for $14 million and gave it to the Palestinian Authority, gratis.  A large portion of the donations were earmarked for "crucial equipment like computerized irrigation systems" and other modern farming systems for Palestinians.  As soon as the Jews were gone, mobs of Palestinians showed up and broke windows, stole irrigation hoses, water pumps, and everything else they could get their hands on, destroying everything they could, as "police" stood by and watched.  This happened before Hamas came to power.  Before any blockades.

Israel Shoots Down Ballistic Missile Fired From Yemen in Huge First.  On Monday [11/6/2023], Israel shot down a ballistic missile in flight outside of the Earth's atmosphere.  This marks a historical first time that an anti-ballistic missile has successfully intercepted a target in space during combat.  The missile was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen and was targeting Israel.  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used their Arrow anti-ballistic missile defense system, which is a joint American-Israeli project first deployed in Israel over 20 years ago.

Welcome to Biden's Kabuki Theater starring Hamas.  While the Hamas wing of the Democrat party takes to the streets to unabashedly support the annihilation of Israel, Biden and Shadow President Obama keep playing the "two-sides" equivocation game. [...] Don't let the equivocators continue in the bad faith arguments.  Time to speak the truth to power and shut them down.  This ain't just Hamas.  Everyone who mouths the phrase "Free Palestine" takes Hamas' side in the wholesale murder of Jews because they are Jewish.  Time to confront Democrats on their their perfidy.

His Name is Mr. FAFO, Crisis Actor.  The other day I wrote about Hamas' use of crisis actors to generate sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza and by extension Hamas.  One man in particular stood out, both for his ubiquity and for his less-than-Oscar-worthy acting skills.  He now has a name:  Mr FAFO. [...] Well Mr. FAFO has been popping up all over the place, including in a New York Times story and a video clip on the BBC.  In both cases, he was presented as a victim of Israeli aggression.  German TV, on the other hand, did an entire story about FAFO's fraud.

Geert Wilders: "It is an Ideological Conflict, Not a Conflict Over Land".  Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) in the Netherlands, is a well-known philosemite, possibly due to the fact that he lived in Israel during his formative years when he was a teenager.  In the following clip from Dutch TV, the interviewer uses Mr. Wilders' experiences in Israel as the jumping-off point for a discussion about his views on the Jewish state and the war in Gaza.  [Video clip]

Was October 7 an Earthquake for the Democrats?  [Scroll down]  Then Hamas attacked Israel, and everything changed.  October 7 was "the big one."  It was the tectonic shift needed to reveal the cracks in the foundation of [the average] Joe's worldview.  Now he's watching the nightly reports (including pictures and video) of all manner of depravity.  In the name of "freedom fighting" Hamas had committed genocide, femicide, infanticide, kidnapping, and torture.  It was far too much savagery for the propagandists to hide.  Hamas screwed up.  It showed the world what true evil looked like.  Didn't the Palestinians just want to be free?  Why burn a baby in an oven to achieve freedom from Israelis?  In Joe's mind, such acts were not relative or even necessary evil.  They were absolute, unacceptable evil.  The earth shifted beneath Joe's feet a bit.  Then a major aftershock happened.  A huge number of Joe's political brethren came out in support of the attack — because it was against Jews.  They said that the attack was Israel's fault.

Is Hamas Caving?  It looks like Hamas realizes that is is outmatched by Israel's military power, and is getting desperate.  According to recent reports, Hamas is now offering to release civilian hostages in exchange for a short, five-day ceasefire.  "Although the terms have varied in recent weeks, Hamas has indicated most recently that it would release all civilian hostages in exchange for a five-day pause, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive matter.  Israeli military captives, whose precise number is unknown, would be retained, possibly to eventually be offered in trade for Palestinian prisoners in Israel," reports The Washington Post.

Flood the Gaza Tunnels.  The biggest problem confronting Israel in its war on Hamas is how to destroy the Gaza tunnel networks and the terrorist operations therein.  Bombing works — mostly — but there's a better way.  Not only would it dramatically reduce Israeli military and Gazan civilian casualties, but it would effectively destroy the tunnel systems for the long term.  That solution is to flood the tunnels with seawater from the adjacent Mediterranean. [...] The geography of Gaza argues strongly for the stratagem of flooding the tunnels.  It would force the enemy above ground where they can more easily be destroyed, dramatically reduce the Israeli casualties required to accomplish that task and resolve the problem of dealing with parts of the tunnels that are too deep to destroy through bombing.  Most importantly, flooding is a permanent or near-permanent solution to the Gaza tunnel problem.  Once accomplished, pumping them out enough to be usable again would be both extremely costly and — especially in conjunction with bombing — exceptionally difficult.

One word explains the ugly of hypocrisy of Hamas apologists: antisemitism.  Throughout European and American cities and campuses, tens of thousands of Middle East immigrants and students, and radical leftists chant nonstop "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea."  More recently, they are also yelling, "Israel, you can't hide, we caught you in genocide."  Consider the hypocrisy of that dual messaging.  Hamas and its supporters are openly and eagerly calling for the genocidal end of Israel by wiping it out from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.  Yet at the same time they also claim it is Israel that is committing genocide — the very current self-described agenda of Hamas and its expatriate community of devotees!

Barbarism: Hamas guns down its own people fleeing to safety in south Gaza.  Every day a new bottom drops out on the depths of Hamas depravities.  Now we learn that Hamas is gunning down its own people for fleeing to refuge in the south of Gaza.  [Tweet]  The logic of Hamas is pretty straightforward:  They want those people to serve as their human shields.  Fleeing to a safer refugee camp in the south outside the war zone throws a spanner into the works on that plan.  They wanted their human shields and those human shields did not consent, so they gunned them down.  Civilians are being forced to decide whether they should flee to safety where they will become targets along the way, or take their chances in the war zone.  It shows what a sick, psychopathic organization this is.

IDF Has No Plans to Enter Hamas' Tunnels, So What Are the Options?  The Washington Post has a story today about the network of tunnels dug beneath Gaza by Hamas fighters.  The entire network is estimated to stretch over 300 miles despite the Gaza strip being on[ly] 25 miles long.  It's where Hamas fighters have been hiding out since the start of Israel's military response to the 10/7 attack.  But the IDF has no intention of entering the tunnels which are likely booby-trapped.

China Joins Hamas, Erases Israel From Map.  No greater proof of John Dalberg-Acton's famous quote about power tending to corrupt and absolute power tending to corrupt absolutely exists today than the leadership of the People's Republic of China.  Lord Acton added in his letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, "Great men are almost always bad men."  Well, the "great men" who rule the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have achieved what Hamas, despite its endless chants of "From the river to the sea," was unable to do.  They have wiped Israel off the map — literally.  The Wall Street Journal reported:  "Internet users in China are expressing bewilderment that the name Israel doesn't appear on leading online digital maps from Baidu and Alibaba, an ambiguity that matches Beijing's vague diplomacy in the region and contrasts with its attentiveness to maps generally."

Who Gave Hamas the Cement for Tunnels?  Hamas has built "a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza, as wide as a city," CNN reported on October 14.  The tunnels were used to facilitate the Hamas pogrom, and the 150 Israelis whom Hamas kidnapped probably are being held there.  So how did Hamas acquire the cement, despite Israel's blockade of such materials?  Apparently Hamas had some help from former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross — according to Ross himself.  Ross has been appearing as an expert commentator on major media outlets in recent days, including on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" on October 8, CNN's "Amanpour and Company" on October 13, and Fox News on October 14, among others.  Yet Ross did not think it was relevant to mention in any of those interviews that he himself pressured Israel to let Hamas obtain the cement — a role he admitted in a Washington Post op-ed on August 8, 2014.

Hamas Official:  We Will Repeat October 7 Terror Attack Until Israel is Annihilated.  A senior political official in the Palestinian Hamas terror organization told Lebanese television last week that the group intends to repeat its October 7 terror attack until Israel is annihilated.  The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the interview.  In it, Hamas political official Ghazi Hamad says that attacks on Israeli civilians are justified; that the cost in terms of Palestinian "martyrs" is worth the ultimate goal of ending Israel; and that Hamas will continue to mount such attacks.

Hamas Official:  We Will Repeat the October 7 Atrocities Again and Again.  "Israel is a country that has no place in our land," Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told the Middle East's LBC International news network on Tuesday.  "We must remove that country."  "It constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation and must be finished."  Hamad added, completely unnecessarily after the attacks on Israeli civilians we all witnessed on the weekend of October 7, "We are not ashamed to say this, with full force."  Selections from LBC's interview with Hamad were translated and posted by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).  I've been relying on their good work since shortly after 9/11/2001.  [Tweet with video clip]

Hamas Keeps Making a Clear Case for Destroying Hamas.  Those of us who harshly criticize Islamic terrorist groups are reflexively called "Islamophobic" by leftists who inhabit an alt-reality where suicide bombers are simply misunderstood and the people they blow up probably had it coming to them.  The thing about the Islamic terrorists is that almost all of them are pretty clear about why there is nothing "phobic" about being concerned that they might start killing innocent people.  Maybe American leftists should establish some sort of "Adopt a Jihadi" program that, for just a few dollars a month, would allow them to get to know these killers they champion.  They'd soon find out that their pet terror projects hate Americans too and the "Islamophobia" nonsense might finally come to an end.

Remarkable Report: 300 Miles of Hamas Tunnels, 200 ft Below Gaza.  Again, something not feeling right about this story from The Daily Mail relay.  Apparently, at some recent moment before the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack, a reporter from Russia Today was given a tour of Hamas tunnels below Gaza.  According to the article, there are approximately 300 miles of the tunnels, with some reaching 200 ft below the surface.  The engineering to build tunnels at a depth of 200 ft (60 meters) below the surface is a remarkable claim (think proximity to sea level).  The scale of the tunnels at 300 miles under such a small geographic region is another element that seems quite remarkable.  The report, originating from Russia Today, coming on the heels of western intelligence trying to frame Russia in connection to an alignment with Hamas, puts another element into the Suspicious Cat review.  The report almost seems too defensive and conveniently timed.  That said, it's not impossible, just remarkable if true.

When History is Rewritten, Look Out.  With bodies yet unburied, millions of people believe that the attack by Hamas never happened or is overblown.  How is this different from the belief that the Holocaust never happened or that the number of dead was wildly inflated or was no worse than for other groups during that war?  Freedom of speech is no longer universally true.  Words and meanings are being twisted as was done in Germany during the run-up to World War II. [...] Are we so stupid and insular that we no longer recognize our enemies?  Enemies like Iran use the Koran to justify butchery, deceit, lying, and holy war against the infidels.  Iran hides behind Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and over a dozen other named front organizations.

"The White House Admitted Hamas Is Holding Nearly 500 Americans Hostage in Gaza".  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) spoke the plain truth about the nearly 500 Americans in Gaza not being allowed to leave by Hamas:  They are being held hostage by the Islamist Palestinian terrorist group.  The nearly 500 are in addition to the "less than ten" Americans known to have been taken hostage in the October 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israel.  The Biden administration has said Hamas has been making demands for their release that the U.S. is not prepared to meet.  Only two American have been allowed to leave Hamas-controlled Gaza since the October 7 attack that saw 1,400 Israelis and 33 Americans killed.  Over 200 Israelis and "less than ten" Americans were taken hostage in the attack and are being held by Hamas.  Four hostages have been released: the two Americans referenced above and two Israelis.  One Israeli was rescued this week by the IDF and Shin Bet.

I think option #2 is more likely to produce permanent results.
Israel to Hamas:  No Cease Fire — Surrender Unconditionally or Die.  "This machine cannot be stopped," declared Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant earlier today.  At the very least, Israel will not stop the IDF, now fully unleashed in Gaza, short of total victory.  Instead, Gallant offered Hamas a different deal, which sounds remarkably like Hamas' true 'offer' to the Israelis.  "Die or surrender" sums both up nicely, no?  [Tweet with video clip]  This is the same 'deal' that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran have offered Israel for decades.  It's the same deal that the other Arab nations offered between 1947 and roughly 1979, too.

Israel's war against Hamas is a battle for civilization.  The most barbaric and widescale terror attack in decades took place on October 7, when Hamas Nazis invaded southern Israel and embarked on a killing spree, massacring 1,400 Israelis and taking over 220 hostages.  I will never forget the unfathomable images of death and destruction.  Hamas is a jihadi terror group and the atrocities they committed were exactly like those of ISIS and al Qaeda.  It deliberately targets civilians and children.  It is savage.  And these terrorists are solely responsible for the situation in Gaza.  In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, removing all Israeli civilians and soldiers from the territory.  Instead of becoming a peaceful entity alongside Israel, Gaza became a terror machine.  Hamas is internationally recognized as a terror organization by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and many other countries.

Netanyahu tells foreign press:  Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas.  "Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities after the horrific attacks of October 7," says Netanyahu in comments in English to the foreign media. "Calls for a ceasefire are a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terror, to surrender to barbarism.  That will not happen.  Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war.  This is a time for war."  Netanyahu says nobody would have called on the US to agree to a ceasefire following the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II.

Hamas Chief Tells Gazans to Die Fighting While He's Safe in Qatar.  The evil madman who leads Hamas lives in luxury with his family in Qatar.  Yet he said, "Women, children, and elderly" must die in Gaza to help our fight against Israel.  He lives the good life and tells his people to die.  They should tell him to go to Hell.  Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for Palestinian civilians to die in Israel's strikes against Hamas terrorists inside of Gaza.  Why doesn't he come to die with them?  The man's a psychopath.  Hamas has been committing war crimes against its own people.  They shoot people in the back as they try to leave because they use them as human shields.  They continue to falsely claim Israel bombed a hospital.  They did it to themselves with a misfired rocket.

Report: Biden Admin Threatens to Quit Supplying Rifles After Israel's Ben Gvir Purportedly Arms Civilians.  The Biden Administration became upset and threatened to quit supplying rifles to Israel after photos emerged of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir passing them out to "community security squads," according to Haaretz.  Photos of the rifles being passed out were posted on Ben Gvir's social media and "led to a diplomatic incident that threatened to stop the arms shipments from the United States to Israel."  The Biden Administration reportedly does not want guns passed out to civilians nor distributed during "political events."

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  Unless the "political event" is in Ukraine.

The West is Facing Another Munich Moment.  The world is yet again staring at the near inevitability of another global conflagration.  The flashpoint is in the Middle East and the Hitler of our time: the Mullahs of Iran.  The West, led by Barck Obama and Joe Biden, have chosen to follow in the footsteps of the self-absorbed European leaders of the 1930's in dealing with Iran and their terrorist legions of Hamas, Hezb'allah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Ansar Allah (Houthis) among others.  The Obama/Biden policy in dealing with Iran has been to facilitate Iran in becoming a dominant player in the region in the naïve belief that if the West, and in particular the United States, treats the Mullahs of Iran as equals, they will evolve into non-belligerent leaders who can be trusted.  Even if that means the acquisition of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles and sacrificing America's only resolute ally in the region, Israel.

Looks Like Some Of These Palestinian Dead People Are Having A Hard Time Staying Dead.  Palestinian crisis actors hamming it up for an adoring media.  [Video clip]

How to Defeat Hamas Fast, Cheap and Easy.  According to the reports, the IDF is evaluating two distinct options.  The first option involved a full-scale assault on Gaza by infantry and Special Forces supported by tanks, heavy artillery, and aerial bombardment aimed at destroying Hamas positions, the infrastructure, and a wide network of tunnels with deep-penetrating bombs.  The problem with this approach is that the tunnels in Gaza are fairly sophisticated.  They boast an impressive level of engineering, constructed from reinforced concrete, divided into separate self-contained sections by steel doors, and reaching depths up to 100 feet.  The tunnels are also equipped with modern ventilation systems powered by generators.  They were built under buildings, hospitals, schools, and other civilian projects. [...] To eradicate Hamas and ensure safe passage for the hostages, the IDF should flood the tunnels with seawater.

The Editor says...
Just flood the mosques with seawater.  My guess is that all the tunnels connect to mosques, since the Muslims assume nobody would dare attack a mosque.

This Halloween, ask yourself "What am I celebrating?".  [Scroll down]  Animals living in the stink hole they made for themselves invaded one of the most civilized nations on earth, a civilization founded by the survivors of a Holocaust that murdered six million of their wives, fathers, children and friends for nothing other than their religion.  The animals invaded that Jewish nation to shoot people in cold blood, to laugh as they raped daughters, to cheer as they burned elderly women alive, and to celebrate as they slit the throats of fathers in front of their children.  And then just for amusement, they beheaded babies in front of their mothers.  Such premeditated, grotesque, sadistic atrocities had not been seen in this world since the rape of Nanjing nearly a century ago.  The animals took hundreds of civilian hostages, and still hold them in underground tunnels.  They took the hostages not as prisoners — they still plan to murder them — but for their own sick fun and to use them as bargaining chips.  These acts are not just allegations.  The terrorists (oops, the media now disavows that pejorative word in favor of "militants") admit it.  Nay, they boast of it.  They wore Go-Pro cameras to record it all, and posted the recordings on the internet.

Chomp Chomp, Gulp Gulp.  Of course, you realize that if this tragic business in the Middle East gets out of hand millions of people might die, maybe even you and me.  Any way you cut it, looks like Islam wants to rumble.  Basic problem: the little slab of land on the Mediterranean at issue is in the possession of one group of people and another group of people wants to drive them out.  There is no "two state solution" because there is only one place in that place.  The world has already forgotten the butchery of October 7.  Islam won't even go so far as to acknowledge that something happened there, or that it matters.

It's not really about Israel; It's about God!  [Scroll down]  Oh, but to even declare a binary world of good and evil makes global elites and leftists foam at the mouth decrying any mention of morality.  The world hates black and white assessments insisting everything is grey because they embrace relativism — that amorphous space where anything can be rationalized.  They assert morality is individual and pliable, so any rigid concept of right and wrong is oppressive.  It's a cynical ruse to give the wicked license to excuse their depredations and enslave their people.  At its core, man just wants to do what he sees best in his own eyes without being encumbered or obstructed by the universal axioms of a higher power; or in short, the world rejects God.

October 7th was the manifestation of the left's foreign policies.  Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and all the rest of the Democrat Inc. worked very hard to secure financial stability for Iran with the Iran nuclear deal.  Why would you ever give a country that spreads terrorism around the world, pledges death to Israel and death to America, access to hundreds of billions of dollars?  What, in their history, have Iranian tyrants done to indicate that they should be trusted on anything, no matter what piece of paper they sign or what promises they make?  Obama even shipped $1.7 billion in cash to the tyrants to help facilitate the deal.  I am sure the tyrants used that money for humanitarian purposes for the people.  In its efforts to sweeten the deal with Iran, which is the biggest terrorist sponsor in the world, Obama put the kibosh on a years-long investigation into the terrorist organization Hezbollah and its billion-dollar-a-year crime syndicate activities.

Biden is Obstructing Israel's Fight Against Hamas.  Biden and administration officials began pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli officials to avoid civilian casualties almost right after the Hamas attacks.  Warnings that were initially relayed in phone conversations were leaked to the media.  And shortly after they became public warnings.  During his speech, three days after the attacks, Biden introduced the emphasis on following the "laws of war" that everyone in his administration would echo.  Administration officials took up the theme with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin lecturing Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on "the importance of adhering to the law of war, including civilian protection obligations, and addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza."  Avoiding civilian casualties while fighting terrorists whose defensive strategy is hiding behind civilians and embedding their infrastructure around mosques, schools and hospitals is impossible.  But as a result of Biden's pressure campaign, Israel issued more warnings, allowing civilians, but also Hamas terrorists, to abandon areas and infrastructure they knew were targets.  But that still wasn't good enough.

Ten more statistics to ruin your day.  [#2] We read in Breitbart that a poll shows that a majority of Americans aged 18-24 say the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians was 'justified.'  Note, this is not because they don't know what Hamas did:  "62 percent of that same group say that the attacks were "genocidal," ...and 51 percent said it was still justified."  This doesn't seem fair to me.  If you or I go and murder, or decapitate, or burn people alive, we would not get a pass.  But Hamas is about 'decolonization', bursting out of an 'open air prison,' paragliding to annihilate people you don't like — so that's justice!

House Passes Resolution Condemning Hamas For 'Unprovoked War On Israel'.  The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution in support of Israel on Wednesday following terrorist attacks on the country by Hamas that began on Oct. 7.  House Resolution 771, titled "Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists," condemns Hamas for beginning an "unprovoked war on Israel" and accuses them of "slaughtering Israelis and abducting hostages in towns in southern Israel, including children and the elderly."  After the House elected Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana's 4th District as its speaker following a three-week deadlock over the position, the resolution was quickly brought to the floor under a motion to suspend the rules, which required a two-thirds majority to approve. [...] Those who opposed the resolution included Democratic Reps.  Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York — some of whom have been criticized by Democrats for their apparent support for Gaza and criticism of Israel's response to the attacks.  One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted against the resolution.

How the Hamas Attack Took Israel by Surprise.  The agreement reached between Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, and Sukkot, the conclusion of the High Holy Days season, offered an end to the explosives and rocks being hurled at Israeli soldiers on the border and the incendiary balloons starting fires on Israeli farms.  And terrorist attacks on civilians like the murder of Batsheva Nigri: a kindergarten teacher shot and killed while driving in her car with her 12-year-old daughter.  Qatar, a state sponsor of Hamas and an ally of the United States, claimed that it had "succeeded in de-escalating the situation in the Gaza Strip by mediating an understanding."  Hamas ended the border riots and Israelis went into the Sukkot holiday with an apparent calm.  The Israeli army and security forces continued to focus on the West Bank, where much of the violence appeared to be coming from, rather than the Gaza Strip which seemed quiet.  But the border attacks and the negotiated ceasefire had all been part of a feint.  Hamas had been working on a large-scale attack for two years.  During this time it had calculatedly tamped down some of the violence and appeared amenable to informal truces in exchange for benefits.

A Record of Pure, Predatory Sadism.  This afternoon [10//23/2023], at a military base north of Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces held a grisly matinee screening of 43 minutes of raw footage from Hamas's October 7 attack. [...] It was, as IDF Major General Mickey Edelstein told the press afterward, "a very sad movie."  Men, women, and children are shot, blown up, hunted, tortured, burned, and generally murdered in any horrible manner you could predict, and some that you might not. [...] The videos show pure, predatory sadism; no effort to spare those who pose no threat; and an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims.  In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead.  They count corpses, taking their time, and then shoot them again. [...] "What we shared with you," Edelstein said, searching for words, "you should know it."  And he said he struggled to understand how some journalists could present the IDF and Hamas as comparable.  This footage would refute that false equivalence.  "We are not looking for kids to kill them," he said.  "We have to share it with you so no one will have an idea that someone is equal to another."

All Options Grim.  On October 7, thousands of Hamas terrorists together murdered over 1,300 Israelis in villages near the border of the Gaza Strip.  Most of their victims were civilians.  Among their infamies, the terrorists torched the homes of families hiding in in-home bomb shelters, burning the families to death; they killed 260 partygoers at a music festival and raped many of the young women in attendance; and they took some 200 Israelis into captivity in Gaza, including toddlers and grandmothers.  All told, Hamas was responsible for the largest and most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust ended in 1945.  Two days after Hamas's murderous raids, Israel announced that it was shutting off the Gaza Strip's water, gas, and electricity supplies.  World leaders soon warned that the Israelis were creating an "untenable" humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while a European Union official condemned Israel's "indiscriminate attack on civilians."

San Francisco Suburb's City Council Stands With Hamas.  The City of Richmond, California became the first city in America to openly choose sides in the Israel-Hamas war, and unsurprisingly it chose the wrong side.  Richmond was the first city, but rest assured: it won't be the last.  Leftist-dominated cities will begin adopting resolutions like this soon enough.  It was your typical virtue-signaling move, enhanced by the slander of Israelis and the embrace of Hamas lies about a supposed "ethnic cleansing" of Gaza.  Gaza, which houses no Jews at all, is supposedly being ethnically cleansed by Israel, which has Arab citizens with full civil rights and representation in its parliament.  The "facts" put forward in the resolution are a perverse inversion of the truth on the ground.  Insane.  [Tweet]

Obviously Obama never "left off."  He's still pulling the strings.
On Israel, Biden Picks Up Where Obama Left Off.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken contends that Hamas would gain no "greater" victory "than allowing its brutality to send us down a path of terrorism and nihilism.  We must not let it."  You can hear echoes of Barack Obama's insufferable moral equivalencies imbued in that statement.  The contention is a not-so-subtle warning to Israel, who will almost surely enter Gaza and try to dismantle the Hamas terror state — which has been indirectly and directly funded not only by Iran, the European Union, and the United Nations but also by the Obama and Biden administrations.  The insinuation, of course, is that Israel needs to temper its inclination to engage in "terrorism and nihilism."  It is a blood libel.  It is not "terrorism" to seek justice for the pregnant woman who had her baby cut from her body or the elderly couple who was burned alive.  And eliminating those who committed Nazi-like atrocities against your citizens is no more nihilistic than tracking down Eichmann or demanding Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrender.  Yet, only days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Biden was already lecturing Benjamin Netanyahu on how "democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law."  The insinuation, again, is that there is something nefarious about winning a war against those who massacre your citizens.

Israel withholding visas for UN officials after Hamas comments.  Tensions between Israel and the United Nations are heightened after a series of comments about Hamas led to U.N. visas being denied.  U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Tuesday during a meeting of the Security Council the terrorist attacks against Israel Oct. 7 "did not happen in a vacuum."  Supporters of Israel took offense to the assertion, and critics claimed the U.N. was blaming the Jewish state for the slaughter of its own civilians by Hamas.

Israel Delays Ground Invasion Because US Is Unprepared to Defend Itself.  The story about why Israel has yet to make a ground invasion of Gaza is becoming clear, and it is yet another embarrassment for the United States under Joe Biden.  Israel has been prepared to enter Gaza to eliminate Hamas, but the ground invasion keeps getting delayed.  The reason why?  The US is unprepared to defend US military installations in the area.  [Tweet]  This is pathetic.  Absolutely pathetic.  However, I am not sure that the Biden Administration isn't just pressuring Israel to delay for other reasons as well, given their neverending expressions of concern for Gaza.

Anti-Semitic Nuts are Coming Out of the Woodwork in California [and] New York.  We've seen this sort of thing happen before.  Just a couple years ago there was a wave of anti-Semitic attacks with notable incidents in New York City and Los Angeles.  Now it seems to be happening again.  Last night a deranged man broke into a Jewish family's home in Studio City, CA and threatened to kill them.  The couple's four children were home at the time. [...] Was this guy trying to reenact the murder of Jewish families is Israel?  Fortunately, the husband forced the man outside where police found him still ranting when they arrived.  He was armed with a kitchen knife and kept shouting "Free Palestine!" as he was arrested.

Dershowitz: The Gay and Trans 'Students for Palestine' Should Go Volunteer in Gaza.  On Wednesday's broadcast of Newsmax TV's "The Record," Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz urged the students who have blamed Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks against it to go volunteer in Gaza, especially members of groups representing gay and transgender students for Palestine.  He also argued that the willingness of these groups to overlook Hamas' treatment of women, gay people, and transgender people is the "best proof that this is all antisemitism" because "these protestors are willing to give them a pass on these core issues, as long as they also hate Jews and the nation-state of the Jewish people."  [Video clip]

Magically Disappearing Missiles in Gaza.  Now that the New York Times has issued something that sort of looked like a correction, though not an apology over their front-page coverage of the explosion at the al-Ahli hospital, in Gaza City, we can get down to a serious investigation of what really happened there.  Or so you would have thought.  After all, something clearly came down in the hospital's parking lot, damaging the pavement and some cars.  So allowing an independent group of journalists and weapons experts to examine the remnants from the site should clear things up in a reasonable amount of time.  But that's not on the Hamas agenda, apparently.  You see, there are no remnants from the alleged missile or rocket.  They've simply vanished or, as the Free Beacon describes it, they were "conveniently vaporized."  There's literally nothing to see here so it will apparently remain a mystery shrouded in the passage of time.

Not the time for a ceasefire in Gaza, says US, with Hamas still holding hostages.  The US has said now is not the time for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as the UN reports that some Palestinians who fled their homes in the north of Gaza have returned due to a lack of food and shelter in the south.  The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told CNN on Monday that Israel still had "work to do to go after Hamas leadership", echoing comments from the US president, Joe Biden, that any discussions of a ceasefire could only take place if Hamas freed all its hostages in Gaza.  The statement from the White House was at odds with comments from UN and EU officials who on Monday called for a humanitarian pause in fighting so that aid could be delivered into Gaza.

Guess What 'Dangerous' Info Big Tech and Big Media Fought to Suppress This Week?  Every mainstream media outlet in America fell for a Hamas propaganda hoax eight days ago, reporting that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza and demolished it, killing over 500 people.  Our MSM "misinformation" censors amplified that hoax and sent it around the world before the sun rose in Gaza, touching off riots at US embassies and violent demonstrations here in the US.  Most of these media outlets began retracting the story when the sun rose and the hospital clearly remained standing.  The New York Times — the "paper of record"! — still hasn't yet admitted to being a Hamas repeater station.  As of yesterday, the most that the NYT would admit was that Hamas had not yet "made its case" on an Israeli attack, despite ample evidence that the parking lot damage came from a stray rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Meanwhile, the rest of the media seems more interested in circling wagons than in admitting complicity in a hoax that touched off violence around the world.

Leftwing Cancel Culture Devours Its Own, and the Cries for Help Are Pathetic.  Amidst a rash of antisemitism emanating from the left following the deadly terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7th, those who championed cancel culture are now being devoured by it.  Somewhat surprisingly, corporations have decided that championing the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust is a bridge too far.  Most would consider that a justified standard.  Yet, the same people who once lauded cancel culture as a necessary consequence are now demanding that conservatives come to their aid.  Claims of hypocrisy are ringing out, claiming that because the right broadly opposed cancel culture, they should now go to bat for those who created it.

Herzog reveals to Sky News:  Hamas had instructions on how to produce chemical weapons.  President Isaac Herzog reveals in an interview with Sky News that Hamas had planned to use cyanide agents against Israeli civilians.  Herzog shows off materials recovered from USB drive on the body of a Hamas terrorist in Israel which was copied from al-Qaeda and included "detailed instructions on creating chemical weapons," including "precise instructions for preparing a device for dispersing cyanide agents," the President's Office says.  "This is material which was found on the body of one of those sadistic villains.  It's al-Qaeda material, official al-Qaeda material," Herzog tells the TV network. "When dealing with ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Hamas, this is what we're dealing with.  And in this material, there were instructions, how to produce chemical weapons."

Gun Control:  The End Results.  [Scroll down]  The BBC adds, "Israeli gun ownership is low at about 2% of the population. ... Usually citizens are allowed to hold a pistol and a limit of 50 bullets" which underscores the gross incompetence of the Israeli legislators who were responsible for the laws in question.  Ongoing attacks and infiltration by Hamas made the events of last week easily foreseeable but the government left this law in place.  Israel's "commonsense gun laws" resulted in hundreds of preventable fatalities which brings to mind phrases like "dereliction of duty."  Israeli voters need to hold those responsible for this disaster accountable in the next election.

Hamas Fighters Were Promised $10,000 And An Apartment For Taking A Hostage, Captured Terrorist Tells Israelis.  A captured Hamas terrorist told Israeli interrogators the terrorists were promised $10,000 and an apartment for taking hostages, The Jerusalem Post reported Monday.  "[W]hoever brings a hostage back [to Gaza] gets $10,000 and an apartment," one captured Hamas fighter who stormed Israel on Oct. 7 told his interrogators, the outlet reported.  Israeli intelligence announced their interrogations resulted in a number of similar themes.  While Hamas commanders remained in Gaza, all Hamas agents who breached Israel's borders Oct. 7 were given instructions to kill and kidnap Israelis, The Jerusalem Post reported.  When it came to killing Israelis, the agents were reportedly told not to distinguish between civilians and soldiers.  When the Hamas terrorists were pressed on whether Islam permitted the acts they carried out, they responded, "No.  Islam does not permit the killing of women and children," The Jerusalem Post noted.

"Formerly clandestine Nazis will continue protesting, sometimes violently".  The headline sums up the situation.  It is a quote from an article about the Israeli army's green light to invade Gaza and take as long as necessary in order to utterly destroy Hamas.  In its conclusion that article couldn't help noting the expected and guaranteed enraged protests from all the usual suspects when that invasion begins.  The attempt by Israel to defend itself after a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas, torturing and killing what appears to be more than a thousand people, including many women, children, and babies, has accomplished one and only one good thing:  It has caused the Nazis among us — almost all of which are on the left — to finally make clear their true feelings and goals:  It's all right to kill Israelis, especially if they are Jews.  And it's also all right to torture little children before you do it.

Hamas in 'No Way' Would Have Invaded Israel under Trump.  Hamas's unprecedented invasion of Israel would in "no way" have transpired under the presidency of Donald Trump, according to world-renowned military historian and professor Dr. Victor Davis Hanson, who also argued that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine and China would not have sent spy balloons over the U.S., as he urged America to take back its international standing.  Speaking on former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia John Anderson's "Conversations" podcast Wednesday, Dr. Hanson suggested that "to his credit," former President Donald Trump demonstrated American deterrence and determination through his assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and destruction of the Islamist terror group ISIS.  In response, "Iran did not do anything," and "there would be no way Hamas was doing this between 2017 and January of 2021," he argued.  "They had a small war, but they never did anything like this."

The European Union Rewards Terrorism.  Israel had not even buried its dead from the horrifying jihadist pogrom that Hamas terrorists unleashed on Israeli civilians in south Israel — beheading babies, burning them alive, torturing, raping, kidnapping, murdering — before the European Union decided to reward the terrorists by tripling its assistance to Gaza.  "The Commission will immediately increase the current humanitarian aid envelope foreseen for Gaza by 50 million euros," European Commission President Ursula van der Leyen said.  "This will bring the total to over 75 million euros.  We will continue our close cooperation with the UN and its agencies to ensure that this aid reaches those in need in the Gaza strip."  Oh really?  How?  The terrorist group Hamas, a proxy of Iran, the "worst state sponsor of terrorism," is wholly in control of Gaza and will take what shows  up and dribble it out slowly to a chosen few, mainly in their military.

Evidence on Display at Israel's Forensic Pathology Center Confirms Hamas' Atrocities.  Warning:  Graphic images.  Stifling the urge to retch became a difficult task as I walked through the lower levels of Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine (Abu Kabir) in Tel Aviv.  The smell of rotting human remains, much of which was completely unrecognizable as human due to the brutality of the attack, was at times too much to bear.  In light of the growing international interest in (and denials of) the Palestinian terror group Hamas' October 7 massacre in southern Israel, representatives of the global press were invited to see the horrors for themselves.  Forensic pathologists, including Israeli staffers as well as volunteers from abroad, were visibly disturbed by the evidence before them.  Despite every effort to remain objective and detached — as called for by the profession — many broke down into tears throughout the day.

Israeli army releases footage of first operational use of 'Iron Sting' munition destroying rocket launcher.  Israeli forces released footage of the "Iron Sting" system launching a mortar bomb to take out a rocket launcher in its first-ever use in an operation on Sunday.  The Iron Sting, described as "an innovative and accurate mortar bomb," is one of a variety of weapons being used to thwart dozens of terrorists, the Israeli Air Force posted on X, along with video it said showed the 120mm mortar decimating an enemy rocket launcher.  The Israeli army used the weapons system in conjunction with the Israeli Air Force.  The weapons system uses a "precise, laser and GPS guided mortar munition" to engage targets in dense, urban environments while "reducing the possibility of collateral damage and preventing injury to non-combatants," Elbit Systems, which developed the system, said in a 2021 news release.

Israel Foils 'Significant And Imminent Terror Attack' By Striking Terror Tunnels Under Mosque.  Israeli officials say that they executed an aerial strike on a mosque inside Gaza that was being used as a command center for terrorists who were preparing to carry out "a significant and imminent terror attack."  The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it launched the attack on the command center located under the Al-Ansar Mosque early Sunday local time in conjunction with Shin Bet, an Israeli intelligence agency.  "In a joint IDF and ISA activity, the IAF conducted an aerial strike on an underground terror compound in the Al-Ansar mosque in Jenin," the IDF said in a statement.  "The mosque contained a terror cell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror operatives who were organizing an imminent terror attack."  The statement said that these were the same terrorists who were responsible "for several terror attacks over the last months."

The Editor says...
I'm sure there's a really good explanation for the tunnels under the mosque, but a lot depends on the descriptions and the contents of the other buildings connected to the tunnels.

Gaza Hospital Misinformation Is One More Reason To Destroy The Censorship Complex.  "Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say," The New York Times proclaimed on Tuesday, following an explosion outside a Gaza hospital.  Two sitting congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, quickly spread the story on X, with Tlaib posting, "Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that."  The Israel Defense Force or IDF promptly countered the claims, stating Hamas was responsible for the rocket.  Throughout the afternoon, IDF provided evidence that the explosion resulted from a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, including videos of the rocket launch, pictures of the parking lot of the hospital which showed only minor damage from the explosion, inconsistent with IDF weapons, and an intercepted communication between Hamas terrorists discussing the Islamic Jihad misfire.

Mike Pence says U.S. boots should be on the ground in Gaza to free American hostages from Hamas.  Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said Sunday he would send troops into the Gaza Strip to free American hostages from the grips of Hamas if he were in the White House.  "We've got Americans being held by bloodthirsty terrorists in Gaza, and if I was president of the United States, I would have directed the Joint Special Operations Command to stand up Delta Force, to stand up the Navy SEALs, who do the best hostage rescues in the world," the former vice president said on NBC's "Meet the Press."  While the U.S. has not sent troops into the Middle East region — at least to the public's knowledge — the Biden administration has reaffirmed its support to Israel and is pushing for a military and humanitarian aid package.

China Moves Six Warships into the Middle East Amid Rising Tensions.  Please remember the global economics of the thing always aligns with the motives and outcomes of the thing.  Remember, Saudi Arabia just joined the BRICS coalition, BRICS+.  A new report shows China is moving six additional warships into the Middle East amid concerns the Israeli War could expand into a larger regional conflict.  China is aligned with multiple interests; and cunning Panda also supports the Biden administration end goal of a two-state solution in Israel.

China is Clearly Winning the Israeli-Hamas War.  Early on 7 October, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli border communities through the fortified border fence separating the Gaza strip and Israel, killing over 1,200 people including at least 29 Americans and committing barbaric atrocities on innocents.  Israel subsequently declared war on Hamas a day later and conducted air strikes on 800 targets in the Gaza strip, killing at least 400.  Israeli Defense Force ground assets are preparing for a massive counter-strike into Gaza.  Hezbollah appears to be conducting sporadic attacks from Lebanon.  Pro-Israeli and pro-Hamas protests have erupted around the world.  The UN Security Council called a closed-door emergency meeting.  The US response has been modest to date.

The First U.S. Military Engagement in an Expanded Israeli War Has Begun.  Today, the sketchy Pentagon statements about the USS Carney are starting to make sense.  The initial suspicions within the originating statements are well founded.  Today, the Pentagon is admitting the events in the Red Sea were "much more significant" than originally outlined. [...] The USS Carney is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer assigned to USS Ford Carrier Strike Group 12.  As part of the October 8th deployment into the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Carney took up a defensive position for the strike group by going through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.  Fortunately, the Carney arrived in the Red Sea, on mission, Wednesday, just hours before four cruise missiles and 15 drones entered the established defensive perimeter airspace.  The Carney's interceptions, the defensive activity against the missiles and drones, took place over 9 hours on Wed/Thursday.  All of the interceptions happened in commercial airspace, meaning the drones and missiles were targeted to fly at altitudes of commercial air travel.

Open Sources Demolish the Legacy Media.  In the days before online media, particularly Elon Musk's X, the storyline was a familiar one.  Israel would be attacked and the mainstream media would be flooded with accounts from local reporters and photographers and embedded compromised national reporters of civilian injuries and deaths during any response.  The emotional response would follow:  a call would come for Israel to pull back before taking effective charge of the enemy, and the United States would force its hand.  Not this time.  This time, we could see accounts from both sides, from the pictures and bios of the murdered, injured, and kidnapped civilians, who hailed from countries around the world.  This time we could see the videos of the Israeli response.  This time we could see the pictures of the bloodshed and hear the accounts of among others, the forensic scientists who examined the butchered bodies of the victims.  This time we could hear the voices of, not only Jews, but Bedouins, Moslems, and Druze in Israel and Moslems in neighboring countries as anti-Hamas as you can find anywhere.  This time we could see who was supporting this butchery in the West.  This time, those who spread the blood libel are fully exposed.

Report: Israel Creates Special Unit to Hunt and Kill Every Participant in Hamas Terror Attack.  Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet, has created a new unit, "Nili," whose mission is to find and kill every single individual who participated in the Hamas terror attack on October 7, which saw over 1,400 Israelis murdered. [...] Israel has carried out such operations before, notably in the effort to track and kill every Palestinian terrorist who participated in the kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich, Germany, in 1972.

Shin Bet has new unit to eliminate perpetrators of the Hamas massacre.  In Israel's ongoing effort to track down all those involved in the brutal terrorist attack that left more than 1,400 Israelis murdered, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) has established a new unit named Nili, an acronym in Hebrew for "The Eternity of Israel Will Not Lie."  The unit is dedicated to hunting down and eliminating every individual who played a role in the massacre in the western Negev settlements two weeks ago.  This force was specifically set up to target members of a special commando unit within Hamas's military wing called Nukhba ("elite") who infiltrated Israel, executed mass killings in various villages and IDF outposts, and then returned to the Gaza Strip.

U.S. sends additional air defense missiles to the Middle East and Pentagon orders more troops to prepare for potential deployment.  Washington pledged more air defenses to the Middle East in response to recent attacks on U.S. troops in the region after Israel pounded southern Gaza with air strikes early on Sunday and promised to intensify its attacks in the enclave's north.  The U.S. said it would send more air defense assets, including a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and additional Patriot air defense missile system battalions to the Middle East and would ready more troops.  Drones and rockets targeted two military bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq last week, the latest in a series of attacks after Iraqi militants warned Washington against intervening to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza.

Gaza Hospital Misinformation Further Undermines Public Trust in Media.  Most people trust the mainstream news media far more than social media.  The percentage of people in the United States who say they have "some or a lot" of trust in the information they get from social media is just 36% among those between the age of 30 and 49, 25% among those between the age of 50 and 64, and 20% among those 65 and older, according to a new poll from Pew.  But younger people trust social media significantly more than their elders.  Fifty-percent of 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed told Pew that they have some or a lot of trust in from social media sites.  That's almost the same share as the 56% who say they have some or a lot of trust from national news organizations.  And given that young people are, by definition the future, it suggests the social media revolution, is still just beginning.

Hamas Massacres:  The New Face of Gun Control.  On October 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel, Inbal Rabin-Lieberman, a 25-year-old security coordinator at the Kibbutz Nir Am settlement located near the Gaza Strip, saved lives because she had a gun.  After the kibbutz came under attack, Inbal hurriedly opened the armory and distributed guns to the twelve-member security team.  She caught the Hamas murderers unawares because they were not expecting to meet armed resistance.  Lieberman killed five terrorists while the others gunned down twenty-five before the Israeli Defense Force arrived.  Because of her actions, Nir-Am was the only settlement bordering the Gaza Strip that did not suffer Israeli casualties during Hama's attack.  The number of Israelis killed in the terrorist attack is over 1,400.  How many of those deaths could have been averted had more Israelis owned guns?  Israel has draconian gun-control laws, worse than those in New York City.  Only three percent (3%) of Israeli citizens own guns (compared to about thirty-two percent (32%) of U.S. citizens).

The Internal Boil Of Israel.  More and more, one sees people saying that, given Israel's massive intelligence failures in the lead-up to the Hamas massacre, perhaps what happened wasn't an accident.  Perhaps discontented political factions in Israel wanted it to happen as a way to force political change. [...] Regardless of military malaise, the elaborate border protection system that had been built over the years should have worked, at least in some places.  However, it turned out to be totally paralyzed absolutely everywhere, in all areas.  Completely and simultaneously!  This simply couldn't happen, but it did happen!  I suspect that there was a good reason for this, and the name for it is "sabotage."  History knows cases when the top leadership of a certain country, to achieve some political goals, deliberately exposed their country to attack and made sacrifices among their own population.

Our utterly bankrupt "mainstream" press.  The so-called bombing of a hospital in the Gaza strip yesterday has revealed better than anything the utter bankruptcy of our modern press.  Without any confirmation mainstream sources like CNN and MSNBC accepted without question the claims by Hamas that the bombing was an "Israeli strike" and that 200 to 500+ people were killed.  The graphic to the right illustrates CNN's dishonesty.  The report itself seemed eager to accept the Hamas claims, without any checking, while simultaneously treating the Israeli reports (that evidence showed that the impact was caused by a misfired Hamas rocket) with great skepticism and doubt requiring double and maybe triple verification.  MSNBC immediately reported the claims of Hamas, without any verification, while also exaggerating the damage incredibly, as shown by the second graphic to the right.  The reporter first claims "the images coming out of Gaza are absolutely harrowing," then notes that the known damage was in "the courtyard area of this hospital," even as the video being shown during his report shows no damage, just ambulances arriving at a hospital with a variety of patients.  The irony is that not only have video and audio evidence confirmed without question now that the rocket was from Hamas (including audio of Hamas' agents admitting to this fact), the impact itself didn't appear to hit the hospital itself, just that courtyard/parking lot.  As noted at the tweet, "How did 500 people die in a parking lot?"  In fact, the death toll remains very unclear indeed.  It could very well be that very few were killed, though determining that fact will not be easy.

Intelligence Failures — Again.  In light of the devastating and deadly terrorist attack executed by Hamas against Israel on October 7, many are correctly calling the failure to intercept and prevent the assault an "intelligence failure."  Many are especially surprised given the vaunted, basically legendary, status almost universally accorded Israel's national security apparatus.  This, however, is not the only recent intelligence failure, or failure by political leaders to anticipate emerging threats.  According to a Brookings report examining the U.S. intelligence failure and reorganization following the 9/11 terrorist attacks against America:  "In the aftermath of 9/11 everyone, from elected officials and national security experts to ordinary citizens had one question:  how could this happen to a nation with such an enormous and expensive military and intelligence architecture?"  Despite warnings from the U.S. Intelligence Community, the Biden administration failed to anticipate or plan for the dramatic and quick collapse of Afghanistan's government when U.S. troops were withdrawn.  And while the Intelligence Community correctly and publicly warned of Russia's impending invasion of Ukraine, it failed to predict the tenacity of Ukrainian fighters defending their homeland and instead forecast an almost Afghanistan-style collapse in a matter of days.

Who Is — and Isn't — Ready To Change Their Minds About the Gaza Hospital Blast?  [Scroll down]  It is considered to be a reasonable default position that all Muslims in the region believe the hospital bombing was Israeli "genocide" (as labeled by Hamas), a "hideous war crime" (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas), or "the latest example of Israel [being] devoid of the most basic human values" (President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of NATO member Turkey).  Only an unattainable standard of evidence could begin to pry open minds currently snapped shut; until then, let those embassies burn.  The Israelis, with some level of detail, say that their bombs leave much bigger craters than the divot in the parking lot, that video evidence shows a Gaza-fired rocket that exploded and went sideways, that the damage is consistent with how Hamas rockets damage Israeli targets, that there is no physical evidence of Israeli munitions on the scene, that they have no record of firing anything in that time/place, and that they have intercepted Hamas audio from Gaza discussing the misfire in real time.  The best case against Israel's hospital claims ("about as good as it gets," says the disgraced NBC "disinformation" hunter Ben Collins) comes down to saying that the audio sounds fake, some of the information was contradictory, and that the Israelis have lied in the past.  The exculpatory evidence on the Gaza side is far less impressive.  But as can be observed every day in less consequential political discourse, we just don't believe you is among the most potent of overrides when it comes to assessing factual claims.

The road ahead for Israel, America, and everyone else.  The Hamas attack seems to have ignited the possibility of a new era of global jihadism, following several years of relative global calm.  Simply put, the continuing ramifications of the October 7 attack cannot be understated.  It has sparked a fervor that may have a global spillover effect. [...] Over the course Israel's military campaign, there will be all kinds of chaos consuming the Palestinian Territories and the broader region.  As we witnessed on social media Tuesday, with the attempts in the corporate media and elsewhere to blame Israel for a malfunctioning Hamas rocket smashing into the vicinity of a hospital, it's not difficult to spark outrage in the Islamist world.  This is especially true when it involves the "Zionists," the preferred pejorative of the English speaking jihadi crowd, so as not to make their motives so obvious.  So you can expect much more propaganda and fake news to come from the "Pallywood" apparatus, with the hopes to further activate Islamist fundamentalists and turn international sentiment against Israel and the West as a whole.

Rashida Tlaib Repeats False Claim that Israel Bombed Gaza Hospital in Speech to Pro-Palestinian Protesters.  Videos show Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) riling up a crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters outside of the Capitol on Wednesday by spreading the false claim from Hamas terrorists that an Israeli airstrike killed 500 Palestinian civilians at a hospital in Gaza.  "We cannot continue to watch people think it's okay to bomb a hospital with children," she told the crowd through tears.  "... And so I'm telling you right now, President Biden, not all America is with you on this one, and you need to wake up and understand that."

Where There is No Respect for Life, Evil Flourishes.  The heinous actions of the Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 can unequivocally be described as evil.  It had as its genesis the inculcated belief that Jews are malevolent and subhuman, therefore, they are deserving of death, destruction and being conquered by any means possible including the unconscionable and premeditated slaughter of women, children and the elderly.  In keeping with a tactic almost as old as mankind itself, the self-appointed leaders of Middle Eastern Islamic terrorist groups and the political leaders of nations such as Iran have manipulated their maleducated followers or citizenry into believing Israel and the Jews have either taken what is rightfully theirs, are the personification of evil, or are responsible for their misery.

The UK doesn't have a duty to take in a single Gazan refugee.  Pity the people of Scotland.  Humza Yousaf is their First Minister, but the beleaguered SNP chief appears to have mistaken himself for head of the UN, and is busy telling the world that the UK should be first in line to welcome Palestinian refugees.  What utter madness, when this country is worryingly divided over the dreadful conflict, and unable to cope with all the refugees and asylum seekers we already have.  With his wife's parents and other close relatives trapped in Gaza, Yousaf is feeling this crisis very personally, and is naturally desperate to do whatever he can to help.  It would take a peculiarly cold heart not to be moved, as he is, by the fate of all the innocent civilians cowering in Gaza as their homes and streets are reduced to rubble.  Living on a strip of land no bigger than the Isle of Wight, many are without food, water or light, and have no way out.  As a mother, I too wish there were a way of scooping up all the terrified little ones and whisking them to a place far from the terrible reach of Hamas.  Such safe havens must be found — but emphatically not here.

European Commission Announces Triple Funding for Palestinian/Hamas Effort.  EU President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to provide the Palestinian/Hamas effort with $50 million in supplemental assistance to support the resistance effort against Israeli retaliation.

There's More to the DeSantis Airlift Story Than We Realized.  Yesterday, we reported that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cut through the red tape to rescue Floridians stranded in Israel.  What we didn't know is that he's also planning to pick up non-Floridian Americans, as well as those Joe Biden dumped in Greece.  On Monday night, DeSantis told Megyn Kelly, "We knew there'd be people that wanted to get back, many hundreds, maybe even more than 1,000.  And they were not getting any luck with the State Department or with the embassy.  So I did an executive order last week, activating Florida emergency response to be able to bring planes in there and take people back home."  "So we had the first plane of 271 on Sunday night," he added, noting that there were 91 children onboard.  "You know, I had mothers that were stranded with three or four kids.  I had one family with ten kids that they were trying to get back to Florida."

Walter Russell Mead:  The Obama-Biden Policy on Iran Led to Hamas-Israel War.  Wall Street Journalist [sic] columnist Walter Russell Mead published a column Monday in which he argues that the policy of trying to appease Iran, followed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, led directly to the Hamas terror attack on Israel and the war.  While Biden is currently showing strong support for Israel, saying it has a "duty" to destroy Hamas, and sending two aircraft carriers to deter Iran from expanding the conflict, his policies encouraged terror after four years of calm under Donald Trump.

Ramaswamy funds charter flight getting Americans out of Israel.  Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has joined the effort to get Americans out of Israel as war rages in the region following Hamas' horrific attacks.  Appearing on "The Faulkner Focus," Ramaswamy revealed he had partnered with Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., to fly over 200 Americans from Tel Aviv to Cyprus on Monday.  "I believe in standing as an American for our fellow Americans to get them out of harm's way," Ramaswamy told FOX News' Harris Faulkner on Tuesday.  "And we were proud in our version of having lived the American dream to do our part to help those fellow Americans."

Report: NYT Twice Changes Reckless Headline.  The New York Times reportedly edited a headline twice on Tuesday about a blast that blew up a Gaza hospital, changing the title each time to reflect less blame against Israel for the tragic explosion.  After the blast, multiple pieces of evidence emerged from the Israel Defense Forces and the media that suggested the blast was an errant rocket fired by Hamas, not an Israeli airstrike.  As the evidence came to light, the Times altered its headline.

The Hamas 'Inside Job' Truthers Don't Understand Israel or War.  There have been two kinds of conspiracy theories circulated by 'truthers' after the Hamas massacre of Israelis.  The first kind essentially denies there was an attack or nitpicks the details.  Those arguments are made in obvious bad faith by people who simply hate Israel and side with the terrorists.  Any evidence presented to them is dismissed as fake.  The second kind of conspiracy theory is of the "inside job" variety most often involving a "stand down" order that allowed Hamas to massacre over 1,000 people without any military intervention.  Some of the people pushing this stuff are the usual suspects, alt-righters and anti-semites, some of it's coming from anti-war leftists and libertarians who treat every war as a vast conspiracy, and some from fringe figures in Israel.  The idea that Prime Minister Netanyahu or top generals would have issued a "stand down" (apart from being horrifying) makes no sense.

Biden's Weakness and Incompetence Strengthened Iran — and Hamas.  The barbaric and evil terrorist attacks on Israel are a horrific reminder that the world is safe when America is strong — but when we have a weak president in the White House, the costs can be greater than our worst nightmares.  If we hope to prevent further shedding of innocent blood, the United States must learn the painful lessons of these savage atrocities.  As we pray for the Israeli people in this hour of anguish and give them our complete and total support, we must also confront the absolute failure of the Biden administration, whose incompetence and ignorance invited this heinous and deadly assault on civilization itself.  The only thing Biden is good at is the weaponization of the justice system against his political opponents.

Israel's Work Permits for Gaza Enabled the Hamas Attack.  Among the litter of guns, korans, and maps discarded by the Hamas terrorists whose bodies lie alongside bullet-riddled vehicles and dusty roads are green Gaza IDs with work permits.  Normally residents of the Hamas territory can't enter Israel, but work permits allowed over 20,000 Gazans to enter Israel.  When some returned, it was as Hamas rapists and killers.  The Hamas invasion succeeded so well because the terrorists had an intimate knowledge of the communities they were targeting because they had worked there or had intelligence from those who had worked there.  The attackers had detailed maps and building layouts.  One woman whose husband and son were murdered said that the Hamas terrorists knew the names of the people, how many children they had and even which of them owned dogs.  Last year, Secretary of State Blinken addressed a J Street even and told the anti-Israel lobby that the Biden administration had pushed Israel to "improve the lives of Palestinians" by, among other things, "issuing thousands of work permits for Palestinians in Gaza".

The Rocket Hit the Parking Lot — NOT the Hospital.  On Tuesday evening a rocket reportedly hit the Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza causing a massive explosion and resulting in the deaths of allegedly several hundred Palestinians.  The Palestinians, Islamic Jihad terror group and Western media immediately blamed Israel for the explosion.  This comes ten days after the largest slaughter of Jews since World War II.  Over 1,300 Jews were massacred by Hamas and another 200 Jews were taken hostage back to Gaza on October 7.  The international media immediately blamed Israel for the rocket attack "on the hospital."

When Gaza has Money, Hamas has Rockets.  On Oct. 7, 2023, a horde of Islamofascist terrorists known as Hamas launched simultaneous, carefully coordinated attacks on Israel.  Hundreds of rockets were fired into civilian communities in Israel.  Crowds of terrorists charged across the border and attacked private residences, shooting up apartments and houses, raping and beating innocent individuals and families.  Squads sought out the partygoers at a music festival, slaughtering the unarmed with abandon.  Hamas killed or injured thousands that day — mostly unarmed, unsuspecting civilians. [...] Someone is buying Hamas all these missiles.  Someone provides them with training and gear, intelligence and equipment, rifles and grenades.  And these people who ship them money and weaponry, fully intending that the recipients will use them against innocent Israeli civilians, are just as guilty as the homicidal maniacs pulling the trigger. [...] And where exactly does Gaza's funding come from?  The governments of Iran and Qatar are major donors, plus a global network of expats who either identify with the Gazans (a mixture of arab ethnicities, but primarily Egyptian) or with Hamas' very public goal of destroying Israel and emptying it of Jews.

PA to immediately reward families of Oct. 7 terrorists with nearly $3 million.  The Palestinian Authority will pay nearly $3 million to the families of slain Hamas terrorists who slaughtered civilians in Gaza border communities on Oct. 7, Palestinian Media Watch reports.  The corpses of 1,500 Hamas terrorists were found after the massacre in which more than 1,400 Israelis were killed and more than 4,100 others were wounded.  At least 199 captives were taken back to Gaza.  [Tweet]  Under P.A. law, every Palestinian terrorist who is killed attacking Israelis is classified as a "martyr" and the family is rewarded with a 6,000 shekel ($1,511) grant and a monthly stipend of 1,400 shekel ($353) for life.

Very bad things are about to happen, on all fronts.  [Scroll down]  For example, for the last week decent people on the right found themselves being forced by the left to debate the absurd question of whether Hamas terrorists beheaded babies or merely killed them, as if that distinction mattered.  And in Gaza the destruction of a hospital by a missile is immediately being used as a propaganda weapon against Israel.  First the claim by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that "500+" people were killed is immediately accepted without question, without evidence.  Second, it is immediately accepted that the missile likely came from Israel, though there is evidence otherwise.  You need to read the AP report at the link to grasp the full flavor of this anti-Israeli propaganda.  Somehow only Israeli is killing civilians, while Gazans huddle in fear and helplessness against that evil empire throwing bombs and missiles at them.  The bottom line however is that none of these details should matter.  Hamas, with the support of the people of Gaza, declared a merciless war of genocide on every Israeli, no matter how old.  Why should anyone expect that this declaration should not be met with equal force from the other side?

Misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad Rocket Responsible for Hospital Explosion, IDF Says.  The IDF said Tuesday that a hospital blast that reportedly claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians earlier in the day was caused by a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a terrorist group operating within the Gaza Strip.  "On October 17, at around 19:00, the PIJ fired a missile salvo toward Israel," Israel's Foreign Ministry wrote in an official statement.  "One of the missiles misfired, landing on the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, causing severe damage, killing at least several Palestinians and injuring many more."  "According to intelligence information, from several sources we have, the PIJ organization is responsible for the failed [rocket] fire that hit the hospital," the IDF said.  According to the Israeli military's analysis of "operational systems, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed in the vicinity of the hospital, when it was hit," the statement added.

Israel denies it was responsible for blast at Gaza hospital that 'killed 500'.  Israel has denied it was responsible for the blast at a hospital in Gaza that the Hamas claims killed at least 500 people and has more trapped under rubble.  Intelligence information revealed that the strike which hit al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was a rocket misfired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, the Israeli army has claimed.  But a spokesman for Islamic Jihad has said this is 'completely incorrect' and accused the IDF of 'trying to cover for the horrifying crime and massacre they committed against civilians'.

The media run with Hamas propaganda about a bombed hospital.  Thanks to support from Iran, Hamas is fairly well-armed and, of course, it makes up in viciousness what it lacks in technical sophistication.  However, Hamas's greatest weapon is propaganda.  In the latest conflagration, it engaged in a single orgy of killing.  Now, though, it's looking forward to weeks of anti-Israel propaganda that the world's media will unhesitatingly accept and relay.  The latest example is Hamas's claim that Israel killed 900 innocent people in a Gaza hospital.  The story was almost instantly debunked but don't expect that to change the narrative.

King Abdullah II of Jordan Lays Down the Hammer, No Palestinian Refugees in Jordan or Egypt.  King Abdullah of Jordan is speaking directly, forcefully and without pretending on the eve of Barack Obama and Joe Biden launching an effort to use the Gaza crisis to stir up regional trouble.  This video snippet is absolutely perfect, from the position of those pragmatic nationalists who want a long-term solution that applies pressure on the Palestinian people to solve their own problems.  They want Hamas; they have Hamas.  King Abdullah, along with Egyptian President al-Sisi, are not going to be pawns in the refugee games Obama and Biden intend on playing.  Germany's chancellor Olaf Scholz had requested Jordan take in Palestinian refugees; Abdullah shut that down immediately and without equivocation.  King Abdullah, speaking on behalf of President al-Sisi, just crushed Scholz in front of the international media and draws a red line.  [Video clip]

King of Jordan tells Olaf Scholz:  We won't take refugees from Gaza.  The king of Jordan poured cold water on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's hopes that neighboring Arab countries could take in Palestinian refugees who are fleeing the Gaza Strip ahead of an anticipated ground offensive by the Israeli army.  The rebuff by King Abdullah II was made Tuesday morning at a press conference with Scholz following a meeting in the chancellery in Berlin, which Scholz also used to issue a warning to Iran and to Hezbollah against intervening in the Israel-Hamas conflict.  "I think I can speak here on behalf of Jordan ... but also our friends in Egypt:  This is a red line ... no refugees to Jordan and also no refugees to Egypt," King Abdullah said at the press conference.

IDF official statement:  It is clear that the IDF did not strike the hospital in Gaza.  The IDF Spokesperson officially confirmed on Tuesday night that the IDF did not attack the Ahli Baptist Hospital in central Gaza and that the explosion was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket.  "Following an additional review and cross-examination of the operational and intelligence systems, it is clear that the IDF did not strike the hospital in Gaza," the IDF Spokesperson's Unit said in a statement.  "The hospital was hit as a result of a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization."  "The terrorist organizations within the Gaza Strip fire indiscriminately toward Israel.  Since the beginning of the war, approximately 450  rockets launched toward Israel have fallen within Gaza, endangering and harming the lives of Gazan residents," the statement said.

Evidence Suggests Misfired Hamas Rocket Hit Gaza Hospital, Killing Hundreds.  In the aftermath of a blast at a hospital in Gaza City, Hamas accused Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of launching a strike against innocent civilians.  However, something wasn't adding up.  Contrary to the claims made by Hamas, which obviously can't be trusted, there has been evidence contradicting the allegations being made against Israel's military.  In fact, evidence suggests that Hamas may have been responsible for the rocket that hit the hospital, causing a potential mass casualty event.

Hamas Provides a Clarifying Moment.  Do you think that things have clarified somewhat over the last week since the Hamas massacres in Israel?  I get the feeling that our beloved leaders are caught, just a little, between a rock and a hard place.  They would like to equivocate on the Palestinian Question, but the Hamas atrocities make it just a little more difficult.

A Time for Good People to Fight Back.  It took Iran-appeaser (and embarrassingly undeserving Nobel Peace Prize awardee) Barack Obama three days to condemn Hamas's butchering of Israeli women and children.  Pompous student groups at elite universities across the U.S. continue to ignore the barbarity of Islamic supremacists and instead blame Jews for their own murders.  John Kirby, a former rear admiral in the Navy and a longtime national security spokesman for both Obama and Biden, assessed the carnage in the Middle East and concluded that "climate change" remains humanity's most dire threat.  A former American president is not capable of moral leadership.  Students at some of the best schools in the world are not intellectually prepared to comprehend anything of history or geopolitics beyond trite political slogans written on cardboard signs.  And a military man fears the weather more than the prospect of regional tinderboxes in Israel, Ukraine, and the South China Sea igniting widespread nuclear conflagration — an event that would, indeed, affect the world's "climate" dearly.  Taken together, these weak and grotesque reactions to the bloodiest attacks on Israel in half a century show how a vacuum in American leadership has left the next generations dangerously unmoored from reality and unprepared to survive the threats from our increasingly volatile world.

The Problem Of Totalitarians Using Our Freedoms Against Us.  Like most Americans, I was shocked by the vicious inhumanity that the coward terrorist group Hamas carried out in Israel last weekend.  Unfortunately, organized evil is neither unique nor surprising.  The Nazis were equally evil across Europe, as were the Japanese at Nanking, Stalin with Ukraine, and Mao with his own people.  Sadly, evil happens, devils exist, although, thankfully, they are rarely celebrated.  But "rarely" doesn't mean never, and the most shocking thing last week wasn't the evil Hamas perpetrated but, rather, the extraordinary support it has received.  Not only is Hamas's evil finding exuberant support in places like Iran and Qatar where you might expect it, but there were tens of thousands of Muslims — and their liberal comrades — in places like New York, Detroit, and Washington out en masse vocally demonstrating their support for these monsters.  And it wasn't just on the streets, in places like Harvard and Yale and NYU, you had students and professors and organizations blaming Israel for Hamas's inhumanity.

What does a 'proportionate' response to Hamas look like?  As the world stumbles through the fog of war following the savage attacks on Israel by Hamas last week, I thought it might be worth pondering two things.  First, since the news is full of headlines warning against Israel's conducting a "disproportionate" response, I wonder what a "proportionate" response to the wholesale murder and mayhem perpetrated by Hamas would look like?  Second, I know that I am not alone in sensing that the attack, though brutal, was but the opening gambit of a plan whose origin and course is, as of this writing, still unknown to the public.

There Is No Such Thing As 'Palestinians'.  The patterns of the anti-Semitic/Marxist/"Palestinian"/LGBTQ/BLM/hate-filled alliance are nothing if not predictable.  After expressing shock and dismay that their Palestinian friends in Gaza specifically targeted civilians, in under a week, they have quickly shifted back to their repeated old rhetoric.  They are now blaming Israel for the horrific attacks from Hamas, calling Israel's counter-attacks on Hamas a "terrorist siege," blitzing the media with images of wounded from Gaza, and attacking Israel in all ways as an 'apartheid state' and, as Ocasio Cortez defined Israel, a nation devoted to "ethnic cleansing".  We cannot let them try to control the narrative with their blatant lies.  The best way to dismiss falsities is to educate.  And so the purpose of this piece is to do just that: to give accurate information that is in direct contradiction to the lies of the Marxist alliance that seeks to destroy Israel, the United States, and Western Culture.

It's Time to Crush Gaza.  When a country is invaded by a foreign power, the only sane response is to retaliate with massive, overwhelming, disproportionate force.  And when an invader commits the kinds of atrocities that we have seen over the last week, unprecedented in modern times, vengeance must be the order of the day.  War is a terrible thing.  But the Gazans started this war, and war is what they are going to get.  Every resulting casualty should be laid at the foot of Hamas and all Gazans who have supported and collaborated with Hamas — a large majority, by all indications.  But there is something else going on, something beyond even Israel's need to win the war or the entirely appropriate desire to exact revenge.  The Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, have the sickest culture on Earth.  Little productive work is done; Gaza exists largely as the beneficiary of international welfare.  Instead of goods and services, the main product of Gaza is ideology — the perverted ideology of Jew-hatred.

Reports: Hamas Kills Palestinian Civilians Trying to Flee; Won't Let Americans Leave.  Reports are emerging that the Hamas terrorist group is preventing civilians from evacuating northern Gaza, killing innocent Palestinians who try to leave, and preventing American citizens from using the Rafah border crossing to escape to Egypt.  Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus has been warning for days that Hamas is preventing civilians from leaving Gaza ahead of an anticipated ground war.  He cited both Israeli and international sources in an interview on CNN Sunday:  [Tweet with video clip]

The Attack on Israel is Religious, Meant to Awaken Islamic Messiah Mahdi.  It's entirely understandable that most Westerners believe the current 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel is simply lust for revenge and anger over Gaza's conditions.  But, wait!  Instead, it's astounding to know the ultimate impulse in Iran funding Hamas is to usher in the age of the Mahdi, as their mighty savior.  This war to utterly destroy Israel is now led by Iran's Shia Islam and seeks to bring the End of Days.  So,Biden's gift of $6 billion to Iran guaranteed war would result, given their theology.

Reality Sets In and Iran Walks Back Its Threat to Enter the Israel-Hamas War.  Iran has made a significant move to back away from the threat of war with Israel, which it made only Saturday.  On Saturday, it was reported that Iran had threatened Israel that a ground invasion of Gaza would bring Iranian Intervention. [...] While I'm not sure anyone took Iran's threat of military intervention seriously — I know I didn't — seeing the public walk-back of a patently ridiculous threat is interesting.  Iranian troops can only reach Israel overland unless they want to risk running the gauntlet of flying into Syria.

Israel: No Negotiations over Hostages; We Are Eliminating Hamas.  The Israeli government said Saturday that it would not negotiate with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas over the release of between 100 and 200 Israeli and international hostages, because it was destroying the organization and not trying to save it.  Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel's National Security Council, said that the days of negotiating for hostages were over.  While Israel was trying to rescue the hostages, it would not hostage prisoner exchanges or stop its military operation in Gaza.

Biden Claim About Halting $6 billion Dollars In Terror Funds Appears to Be a Ruse.  Yesterday it was reported that the U.S. and (terror sponsor) Qatar were halting the obscene six billion dollar payout to Iran.  U.S. officials and the Qatari government have agreed to stop Iran from accessing a $6 billion account for humanitarian assistance in light of Hamas's attack on Israel, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told House Democrats on Thursday.  The deal, financed by Iranian oil sales, allowed Iranian entities — not the Iranian government — to access the funds, and only if they provided extensive documentation showing the money will be used for humanitarian purposes.  U.S. officials would have to approve each transaction under the agreement.  The money had been transferred to Qatar from banks in South Korea to facilitate the arrangement.  Now that appears to be a ruse.

There are no civilian bomb shelters in Gaza.  There is one reason why Gaza citizens are in the line of fire, why they are being subject to bombings, why they will be in the streets during vicious street-to-street fighting shortly, and why their hospitals and schools are getting destroyed:  Hamas wants it that way.  Hamas builds bunkers and tunnels, stores ammunition in schools and hospitals, and plans its evil among civilians.  It tears up its water infrastructure to build rockets.  It demands citizens act as human shields and parades the bodies of Palestinians who got killed for the sole purpose of providing propaganda benefits.  They do it so that their allies in the West can claim that Israel is the real aggressor.  [Tweet with video clip]  Hamas is pure evil.  Not only does Israel have to fight its way through the human shields to get to the terrorists who slaughter innocents, but they have to do so because Hamas demands that Gazans be part of the Jihad whether they want to or not.

Detailed planning and practice went into the Hamas attack on Israel.  It's becoming clear that Hamas had been preparing and planning for the attack which took place last weekend for a long time, more than a year.  Last night, CNN reported on videos released by Hamas which show the group practicing for the attack at six sites prepared for that purpose inside Gaza.  As you'll see, they built a mock-up of one of the border gates and practiced getting through it and taking hostages.

MSNBC Ratings Nosedive as People Slam Their Horrible Israeli-Hamas Coverage.  We've seen a lot of problematic responses from the left when it comes to the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.  But some of the worst from media have come from MSNBC.  People have called them out for their horrible takes, including trying to "both sides" the attack by Hamas on Israel. [...] I love this network," [Jonathan] Greenblatt said.  "But I gotta ask, who's writing the scripts?"  "Hamas, people who did this are not 'fighters,'" Greenblatt said.  "They are not militants, and I'm looking right at the camera.  They are terrorists."  Newsmax summed up how the ADL leader was calling out the network for their coverage, except the Newmax person tagged them as "MSDNC" for their coverage.  Many others were also clearly troubled by the coverage if the ratings are any judge.

UN still does not label [and/or] sanction Hamas as terror group despite murderous attacks.  As Israel reels from the deadliest terror attack in years by Hamas, the United Nations Security Council still does not recognize or sanction Hamas as a terror group — despite multiple other nations declaring it to be so.  "The U.N. Security Council votes to impose sanctions and designations on groups like al Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIS.  But no such sanctions or designations exist for Iran's axis of terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah," Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.  The Council, under resolutions passed in 1999, 2011 and 2015, sanctions ISIS and al Qaeda, along with associated individuals and groups.  The Council's committee on those resolutions oversees sanctions measured imposed by the council.

Everything You Need to Know About the Israeli Occupation (That Is, Everything the Left Won't Tell You).  There would be peace in the Middle East if Israel just ended its occupation, right?  That's what the Squad wants you to think, anyway.  The statements of the three primary members of this winsome leftist House coalition on the Hamas massacres in Israel had the distinct odor of canned talking points.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Make Mine A Double) issued a statement that said, "I condemn Hamas' attack in the strongest possible terms."  That was a good start, but she then turned on a dime to blame it all on Israel: "No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region."  Ongoing oppression and occupation, see?  If Israel would just ease up on the poor Palestinians, Hamas jihadis would all open restaurants and shops, and peace would dawn upon the region.

What Hamas Was Really Out To Do.  After the Hamas atrocities, experts scurried to explain why it had embraced "ISIS tactics."  Many saw the attacks purely as a way of sabotaging Israel's talks with Saudi Arabia.  Others argued that Hamas had tried for a small attack that escalated when Israel failed to promptly respond.  Some express bafflement at what Hamas could have hoped to gain from such an attack.  The experts as usual are wrong because they don't understand Hamas.  And their ignorance stems from their inability to grasp Islamic terrorism because they don't understand Islam.  Hamas, like the PLO and other Islamic terrorist groups, had spent much of its existence promising to do exactly what it tried to do, invade Israel, and seize and occupy its territory, taking Jewish villages and towns by stages over the years until one day besieging Jerusalem.  The Palestinian Authority, funded by American taxpayers, still airs Arafat's old speeches in which he calls for "millions of martyrs marching to Jerusalem".  Americans and Israelis refused to take such rhetoric seriously.  The cost was over 1,200 lives when Hamas tried to carry it out.

Minnesota Woman Who Advocated for Palestinians Was Murdered by Hamas.  Cindy Flash — a 67-year-old Minnesota native — and her 66-year-old husband, Igal Flash, were among more than 1,300 people murdered by Saturday's brutal Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.  Flash's family described her as a "staunch advocate for the rights of Palestinians" and an outspoken opponent of Israeli military action.  Cindy Flash hailed from St. Paul, Minnesota, while Igal Flash was the son of Holocaust survivors and an Israeli citizen.  She relocated to the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel many years ago after visiting as a college student.

Hamas Awakens Celebrities from CNN-Induced Coma.  Hamas is too embroiled in its perverse cycle of barbarity to understand it is perpetuating its own public-relations nightmare.  The events of the past week have made it abundantly clear — even to brainwashed celebrities — the true nature of Hamas' endgame.  They have jolted many of the A-List celebrities out of their CNN-induced comas to condemn the atrocities of Hamas.  The violence unleashed by Hamas was best viewed from the vantage point of the terrorists who brazenly filmed or live-streamed their grisly crimes.  The Nazis attempted to keep a lid on their atrocities, but Hamas had a different strategy in mind.  One can only guess at the mentality behind the terrorists picking and choosing the footage to upload on social media:  The graphic scenes (some live) ranged from slaughtering entire families, including at least 40 babies and small children, and releasing the most incomprehensible act of beheading some of the children.

You Cannot Coexist With Evil.  No sane person would behead babies (unless he's an abortionist, but I repeat myself).  Then, add in raping women in the presence of the bloody bodies of their babies, then killing the women.  I don't care who you are, this is not the act of a civilized entity.  It is the act of sub-humans devoted to the service of a false god who demands obedience at the point of a sword.  It is pure evil.  No words can properly convey how utterly depraved such a god and his followers are.  And this is where our compassion must be replaced by cold calculation.

Why the Left can't think straight on Hamas.  The sheer depravity of Hamas's attack on Israel, during which its terrorists murdered close to 1,000 people and beheaded babies, is causing acute discomfort and splits in America's Left.  For many, this is not the same discomfort as is felt on the Right and in the center, where there is simple horror and instinctive sympathy with terrorized people who otherwise live freely and peaceably in a high-functioning democracy under the rule of law.  For them, appalling cruelty and sadistic gloating by Hamas murderers unambiguously distinguish evil from good.  Common decency and humanity incline ordinary people to side with the victims.  These swift reflexes are supported by inescapable conclusions based on considered assessment of the facts.  Most people see nothing about which to equivocate — and they are right.

Report: Hamas Began Planning Attack on Israel Two Years Ago — After Afghanistan.  Hamas began planning Saturday's terrorist attacks across Israel two years ago, according to an interview Sunday by a senior Hamas official.  Senior Hamas official Ali Baraka told Russia Today on Sunday (via the Middle East Media Research Institute) that Hamas had been secretly planning the invasion of southern Israel for two years — which would mean after President Joe Biden took office, and after the disastrous, deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Joy Reid and Her Guests Blame Israel for Hamas Massacre.  Hamas's barbarism was on full display last Saturday. [...] At one news outlet, however, the most prominent feature of its reporting was victim-blaming.  On Monday evening, October 9, MSNBC aired an episode of Joy Reid's program that would have been right at place if it had aired on Iranian state TV instead.  Her guests Peter Beinart, Ayman Mohyeldin, Ali Velshi and Lt. General Stephen Twitty ignored Hamas's dedication to genocidal violence as expressed in its charter and in its leaders' rhetoric, omitted any mention of offers of Palestinian sovereignty and independence, and sought to imply that the carnage was inevitable due to Israel's actions — therefore excusing and justifying Hamas's barbaric attack.  For all of the complaints about the closed border between Israel and Gaza, or the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank (the so-called "apartheid wall,") now it's undeniable what happens when those walls are breached.  The prevention of atrocities like those we saw Saturday was exactly the reason such measures existed.  But Joy Reid and her guests continue to reverse cause and effect.

A Few Years Ago, The EU Funded New Water Pipelines In Gaza Which Hamas Dug Up And Made Rockets Out Of.  Hamas is using European Union-funded water pipelines in Gaza for manufacturing missiles.  The first article supporting this claim has been made in the UK-based Telegraph by its Brussels correspondent Joe Barnes.  In the article, Ben writes, "The European Union helped to build more than 30 miles of water pipelines for Palestinians despite Hamas terrorists boasting of their ability to forge an arsenal of home-made rockets from pipes."  [Video clip]

Bill Ackman wants Harvard to name the students blaming Israel for the Hamas attacks so that he and other CEOs don't hire them by accident.  Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, has asked Harvard University to reveal the names of students who signed a statement holding Israel "entirely responsible" for the deadly conflict in the country.  Ackman put pressure on Harvard University in a post on X, saying he — and other high-profile CEOs — wanted to see the names so that "none of us inadvertently hire any of their members."  A Harvard graduate himself, Ackman continues, "the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known."  Critics pushed back on Ackman, saying he was acting against the students' right to free speech.  But Ackman, reportedly worth $3.6 billion, shot back that he is "100% in support of free speech," adding: "I do, however, object to students putting out a statement holding Israel 'entirely responsible' for terrorists' heinous and despicable acts, but doing so anonymously under a corporate veil while leveraging the Harvard brand."

The Editor says...
As a practical matter, the students have the right to free speech, as long as it isn't conservative speech.  Do they also have a license for hate speech?  When they publish hateful messages, is their anonymity guaranteed?

Also posted under Islamic indoctrination and favoritism in schools.

The Intersection Of Evil:  Hamas, Antifa, BLM, Harvard And Barack Obama.  [Scroll down]  While Antifa conspicuously stays out of sight, Black Lives Matter, the darling of the Democrats, shows up in party hats and whistles, with "chapters across the country," Mediaite reports, "celebrating the terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives in Israel."  Harvard students made a splashy appearance, as well — nearly three dozen campus groups have sided with the barbarians.  According to the media, a coalition of 34 Harvard student organizations issued a joint statement in which they said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence," as "millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison," and "the apartheid regime is the only one to blame."  Harvard President Claudine Gay says that the groups don't speak "for Harvard University or its leadership." But don't they?  Aren't they saying out loud what most administrators and professors — not just at Harvard but at universities and colleges across the West — want to say, but don't yet feel free to publicly voice?  Isn't contempt for Israeli Jews exactly what the students have been taught?

Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer quits Harvard board, blasts university's president over Hamas student letter.  Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife are resigning their posts on the executive board of Harvard's Kennedy School in protest of school President Claudine Gay's belated lukewarm response to the student letter blaming Israel for the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists on Saturday.  Ofer, the shipping and chemicals magnate whose net worth was valued by Forbes at $14 billion as of Thursday, said that he and his wife were quitting the board, according to the Hebrew-language news site TheMarker.  Ofer and his wife, Batia, who is also a member of the executive board, said they resigned "in protest of the shocking and insensitive response by the president of the university, who did not condemn the letter by student organizations who blamed Israel for the massacres."

13 Basic Facts to Defend Israel.  [#1] Until 1964, the word "Palestinian" rarely described Arabs who once lived in Israel.  That was when KGB Agents of Communist Russia created and funded a terrorist group called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).  Its leader, Yasser Arafat, was born and raised in Egypt.  The PLO was as artificial as other effective and deadly groups communists used during the Cold War to take over Algeria, South Africa, Kenya, Vietnam, and Cuba.  During this time, the KGB even gave money, weapons, and training to the IRA in Ireland.  [#2] "Palestine" was never an Arab nation.  Until the Roman Empire crushed a Jewish revolt there in the year 132, the land was known as Israel, Judah, or Judea.  The Romans renamed the province Palestine to punish the Jews.  The Arabs and the Turks kept that name when they conquered and occupied the province.  However, they ruled it from distant Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, or Istanbul.  [#3] Israel or Palestine was ruined and mostly empty after the Jewish revolt.  The Arabs and Turks did little to rebuild its cities or irrigation canals.  The goats and camels of Arab nomads or Bedouins stripped the land of trees, vegetation, and topsoil.  Once rich farmland became malaria-infested swamp or dry wilderness.

Hamas pounds city of Ashdod with rockets and death toll from conflict climbs past 2,200.  Hamas launched a fresh wave of rocket attacks in Israel this afternoon, destroying a children's hospital and a supermarket.  Shocking footage from the southern city of Ashkelon shows the Barzilai Medical Centre in ruins with the children's wing taking a direct hit.  Pictures also show the remains of a supermarket in the city, surrounded by debris and marked by a large crater.  The strikes were among many launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who targeted multiple locations across the country.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later shared a harrowing image of a child's bed with its sheets soaked in blood, along with the caption: 'Hamas is worse than ISIS.'

On Israel, Hamas, and what happens now.  The world will hate Israel no matter what it does.  As Hamas showed yet again on Saturday, the world is not a friendly place for Jews who can't defend themselves.  All the peace treaties in the world don't mean anything unless Israel can guarantee its own security.  Its conventional weapons go a long way toward ensuring that countries like Jordan and Egypt won't attack it.  Its deeper security comes in the form of a nuclear arsenal that spells the destruction of Amman and Cairo if Arab armies take Tel Aviv.  No one talks about this.  No one needs to.  Nor does Saudi Arabia threaten Israel's existence.  Saudi Arabia has not attacked Israel since the initial 1948 Arab League war on Israel.  No, the real threat to Israel these days comes from Hamas — and Iran.  For 15 years, Israel has tried to manage Hamas, precisely because it does not want to have to invade Gaza.  But Hamas cannot be managed.  Iran is doing everything possible to create its own nuclear arsenal and negate Israel's.  And Hamas believes Israel is soft and weak and ripe for slaughter.  The Hamas attack Saturday had an element of sexual brutality that cannot be papered over:  we will take your women.  Can you stop us?  Are your men men enough to stop us?

Years of subterfuge, high-tech barrier paralyzed:  How Hamas busted Israel's defenses.  Israel long thought the high-tech security barrier dividing it from the Gaza Strip — bristling with razor wire, cameras and sensors, and fortified with a concrete base against tunnels and remote-controlled machine guns — was impenetrable.  But in the aftermath of the devastating surprise Hamas onslaught that killed over 1,200 people — the vast majority of them civilians — Israeli military officials speaking anonymously to media outlets have revealed some of the severe intelligence and operational deficiencies that enabled the surprisingly easy mass breach of the fence.  Meanwhile, IDF soldiers who were on guard duty have been recounting the shocking moments when the terrorists launched their complex operation to breach Israel's "Iron Wall" around the enclave in multiple locations.

Biden admin will only rescue American citizens in Israel if they agree to sign a promissory note.  Joe Biden's state department will only rescue American citizens in Israel if they agree to sign a promissory note to repay the money it costs to get them out. [...] The Biden administration spends tons of our money on all kinds of crap, including student loan forgiveness, but when it comes to rescuing American citizens who are in harm's way because an evil terrorist organization is raping and murdering jews just because they are jews, they won't spend a dime to do it.  Unbelievable.  I thought Biden's top priority was the safety of Americans, whether home or abroad.  Doesn't sound like it.

The Qatari elephant in the room.  Three days ago, militants from the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas launched a large-scale invasion against several Israeli communities on the Gaza border, proceeding to massacre an untold number of Israeli civilians, indiscriminately butchering women, children, and the elderly.  Early reporting on the massacre continues to investigate the possibility that the invasion was planned, directed, and funded by the regime that rules Iran, which has long acted as a financial and political benefactor for Palestinian jihadists and several of Israel's additional neighboring jihadist entities.  While much attention in U.S. political circles has been paid to Iran, notably, lots of policymakers and influential D.C. actors and organizations are failing to mention the Qatari elephant in the room.  The political leadership of Hamas does not live in Gaza, nor do they live in Tehran.  They live in Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world, where they are protecting by the jihadist-allied regime in Doha.

This should have been done no later than October 8.
Senate Republicans Introduce Bill to Freeze $6 billion in Iranian Funds.  In the wake of recent Hamas attacks on Israel, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced a new bill Wednesday to immediately freeze $6 billion in Iranian funds.  The funds currently are being held in South Korea and are due to be released to Iran following a prisoner swap with the United States.

Update:
US blocks Iran from $6 billion fund after Hamas attack:  Report.  The Biden administration is preventing Iran from accessing the $6 billion the U.S. recently transferred after Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, launched a brutal attack against Israel, The Washington Post reported Thursday.  The Biden administration originally cut a deal with Iran to transfer $6 billion in previously frozen assets in exchange for five American prisoners.  The administration is now working with fund manager Qatar to hold up the $6 billion after Iran's ally Hamas launched a wave of attacks against Israel on Saturday, killing over 1,200 Israelis and at least 25 Americans and kidnapping hundreds more.

Biden Blocks $6B Iranian Bribes After Embarrassing Pressure Campaign.  President Joe Biden has made the decision to block the release of $6 billion in frozen assets that were recently transferred to Iran as part of a contentious prisoners' swap.  The move follows the barbaric terrorist attack against Israel by Hamas, an Iranian-backed group based in the Gaza Strip.  These funds were granted in the wake of Iran's agreement to release six American citizens from custody.  Bipartisan congressional critics suggested Iranian involvement in the recent terrorist attack on Israel.

How Hard Is It to Condemn Atrocities?  After Hamas terrorists murdered 260-plus mostly young people enjoying a "peace" concert near the Gaza border and slaughtered families in their homes, normal people were utterly outraged and sympathetic to the Israeli victims.  Others — mostly university professors, progressive activists and "journalists," and even some members of Congress — couldn't bring themselves to condemn the violence.  Some even excused it. [...] Even if you have no sympathy for the Jewish victims, despise the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians, and have no problem with Hamas extremism, it's still wise to offer a statement acknowledging that murdering and kidnapping ordinary people is horrific.  Otherwise, you sound like a terrorism-supporting barbarian.  It's hard to, you know, complain about the very real suffering of ordinary residents of Gaza when you make clear that you have no real problem with civilian suffering as a general principle.

The US Has Poured Hundreds Of Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars Into Gaza Since Hamas Took Over.  The United States has sent hundreds of millions in taxpayer money to the Gaza Strip since the territory has been under the control of the terrorist group Hamas.  Hamas, which took over Gaza in 2007, launched a series of attacks against Israel starting on Saturday, resulting in the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis and the kidnapping of hundreds of others, some of whom have been tortured or raped.  The U.S. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to improve Gazans' welfare, and the Biden administration plans to send more taxpayer funds to the region in the coming years despite the risk that some of it is being stolen by Hamas, according to a review of publicly available records.

Anyone Who Rejoices Over the Butchering of Babies and Children Is Evil.  The Daily Wire reported that, "The largest network of campus anti-Israel groups is organizing a 'Day of Resistance' on Thursday to rally support for the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, calling the murder of nearly 1,000 Israelis, including women and children, a 'historic win for the Palestinian resistance.'"  Babies beheaded by Hamas.  A win!  Little children slaughtered in front of their weeping mothers.  A win!  Ninety-year-old grandmothers shot in the head.  A win!  Women raped and abused.  A win!  And all this in the name of "justice," as indicated by the name of this network:  Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).  They stated, "Our people choose resistance over negotiated cages on our homeland.  Fearlessly, our people struggle for complete liberation and return."  Resistance?  The willful, intentional, even gleeful butchering of whole families in cold blood is resistance?  And it is "fearless" to murder hundreds of unarmed people pleading for their lives?

Hamas and Fatah Explain What Their War Against Israel Is All About.  Why are the Islamic jihad groups fighting against Israel?  Why do they think that committing the dismaying actions we saw in Israel on Saturday is the right, and indeed the righteous, thing to do?  As the death toll from Saturday's jihad massacres in Israel continues to mount, the world looks on in horror at the atrocities that were committed — the wanton massacre of people at a peace concert, the beheaded babies, and so much more.  It is hard for Americans and Europeans to fathom how or why any human beings would do such things.  Now, however, two jihad groups, including the one that was behind the massacres, Hamas, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, have issued statements that clarify exactly what they think they're doing.  As you might expect, they both make for chilling reading.

Leftists Want the Same Massacre to Happen Here.  Understand that our foreign and domestic enemies not only eagerly support the frenzy of rape and murder we saw in Israel but that they want it repeated here in America.  When they talk about "the consequences of colonialization" or complain that Israel has defended itself, they are normalizing mass atrocities by their purported allies against their actual enemies.  Their enemies in Israel are Jews — men, women, and children — and here, their enemies are normal Americans — again, men, women and children.  Denial simply empowers these monsters, and attempts by the goo-goos to appeal to our enemies' morality, or to point out facts and argue in good faith, will end in abject failure.  What matters to our enemies is that we suffer and die.  Nothing less will satisfy them.

Rep. Michael McCaul Confirms Egypt Sent Warning To Israel Three Days Before Attack.  Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas in a press conference Wednesday confirmed Egypt warned Israel of a possible attack three days before Hamas breached Israel's southern border.  "We know that Egypt had warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen," Rep. McCaul said after a classified briefing.  An anonymous Egyptian official also claimed his country had warned Israel in advance something big was coming, per The Associated Press.  Rep. McCaul also expressed his uncertainty over how both Israeli and American intelligence missed this.

True Justice For Israel Is Executing All Members Of Hamas.  The deeds of Hamas — rape, torture, murder, even beheading babies — are comparable to the worst of the Holocaust, and the perpetrators of these acts deserve to be executed just as much as the Nazis who were running extermination camps.  This extends to all members of the terrorist organization.  Every member of Hamas merits prompt execution, and only deliberate mercy or Israeli self-interest should spare them.  Only Hamas sympathizers could possibly dispute that the Israeli military has the moral right and duty to kill Hamas members on the battlefield.  The more complex question is whether the guilt extends only to the personnel that actively participated in rape and baby murder or whether the entire terrorist organization is complicit in these evils.

The Savagery of Hamas.  Over the coming weeks, Israel will likely seek to depose the Hamas government that attacked it — and rightly so — and civilians will die.  Israel must ensure that as few as possible do.  Each death will be as gruesome as the deaths of Israeli civilians at the hands of Hamas — for there is no pretty death and there is no pretty war.  Leftists will see in the equivalence of death the equivalence of cause.  This will be wrong.  The last bomb America dropped on its way out of Afghanistan did nothing but kill ten innocents, seven children among them.  This made America incompetent, perhaps even callous, and certainly reckless.  But, it did not make it the Taliban.

The problem with fences.  [Scroll down]  Talking of fences, an obvious failure was on October 7, when Hamas terrorists bulldozed the fence separating Gaza from Israel, and came across on motorcycles and in pickup trucks.  They also bypassed the fence on paragliders and boats.  Once in, they successfully killed over 1,000 people, wounding thousands more, and even killed 40 babies (many decapitated) in one kibbutz alone.  Hamas had shown imagination in the past when dealing with the Israeli security fence — they've dug tunnels under the fence, launched rockets over the fence, and finally, in the invasion a few days ago, they simply bulldozed over the fence.  Israel thinks of itself as a place where Jews can defend itself, but it also has strict laws regarding gun ownership.  There was no second line of defense when the fence was breached.  Behind the Gaza fence had long been a growing tsunami, an enemy that indoctrinated its children and trained from their early years to use weapons.

Biden administration gave money to Hamas-linked groups.  President Joe Biden's decision to restart aid programs for Palestinians has drawn fresh criticism this week amid questions about how Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization in control of the Gaza Strip, acquired the resources to launch an attack on Israel.  Biden has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward Palestinians since taking office, reversing a decision by former President Donald Trump to cut off nearly all aid to Palestinians, in part because of concerns about Hamas's influence.  Whether U.S. aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank ended up boosting organizations linked to terrorism remains a key question after Hamas fighters killed more than 1,000 Israelis, most of them civilians, in a surprise incursion into Israel on Saturday.  Less than a month before the attack, a Biden administration watchdog warned that there was not enough transparency surrounding the influx of funding that Biden approved for Palestinians starting when he took office in 2021.

The Forever War.  Israel has declared war for the first time in 50 years.  At least 260 bodies were recovered from a music festival, just one of the places attacked by Hamas near the Gaza strip.  Given Israel has a very short mobilization endurance, they may immediately strike the enemy center of gravity which, for both the proxy forces Hamas and Hezbollah, is thought to be Iran.  This may widen the war from COIN to regional conflict with incalculable results.  Reports that Tehran was deeply involved in planning the attack added fuel to the speculation.  Even if Iran is not involved directly but the IDF takes the hammer to Hamas, the ayatollahs will be under pressure to save their proteges.  That hammer arrived in the form of news the Israelis would besiege Gaza.  No electricity, food, or fuel would be allowed into the city of two million.  Not since the nine-month siege of Mosul in which ISIS was destroyed have there been urban operations of this magnitude in the world.

AOC-Backed Starbucks Union Cheers for Hamas Terror Attacks.  As armed Hamas terrorists are beheading Jewish babies, raping innocent women, and executing civilians in the street, Starbucks union workers — backed by far-left Squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-VT), socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and brain-dead Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) — have proudly signaled public support for the terrorist invasion of Israel.  Starbucks Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), voiced "Solidarity with Palestine!" in a series of since-deleted posts across social media.  Over the weekend, Starbucks union chapters in progressive strongholds, such as Iowa City, Chicago, and Boston, promoted "Long Live Palestinian Resistance" rallies supporting the Hamas attacks.

Democratic senators break with Biden and call to refreeze $6 billion Iranian 'ransom' funds after horrific Hamas terror attack on Israel.  Influential Democratic senators have publicly pressed the Biden Administration to try to find a way to freeze $6 billion in Iranian funds over Tehran's support for Hamas.  The pressure from within the president's own party comes as the White House says there is no confirmation of Iran's support for the gruesome Hamas attack — even while acknowledging Iran's longstanding support for the group.  Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a Democratic centrist who is up for reelection in 2024, is among those calling for the funds to be refrozen.

Hamas and Iran: Slaughtering Jews for Decades.  Hamas's October 7 war on Israel did not surprise those who have been following the actions of Iran and its regime-backed Islamist terror group since it was founded in late 1987.  Since then, Hamas, with Iran's help — Hamas does not have a productive economy in Gaza — has carried out countless terrorist attacks, killing and wounding thousands of Jews by suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings and car-rammings, as well by firing tens of thousands of rockets into Israel, a country the size of New Jersey (roughly 22,000 km²).  In 2002, Hamas committed one of its deadliest massacres during the Jewish holiday of Passover in the Israeli city of Netanya.  Thirty civilians were murdered and 140 wounded when a Hamas terrorist, disguised as a woman, detonated a suitcase filled with powerful explosives in the dining room of a hotel where Jews were celebrating the Passover holiday.  Most of the victims were senior citizens (70 and over).  The oldest victim was 90 and the youngest, 20.  Over the past three decades, Hamas officials never concealed their group's ambition to destroy Israel through Jihad (holy war).

Black Lives Matter Group Deletes Tweet Showing Support for Hamas.  The Black Lives Matter Chicago chapter on Wednesday deleted a controversial pro-Hamas tweet, but doubled down on its support for the Palestinian cause as Hamas launched a violent terror attack on Israel.  The BLM Chicago chapter posted a graphic online Tuesday that said, "I stand with Palestine."  The graphic also featured a paraglider with the Palestinian flag, which is notable because Hamas terrorists paraglided into a music festival in Israel and attacked the attendees.

Donald the Inevitable.  People have asked me what the difference between Israel and Ukraine is.  It's simple.  Bibi ain't running around the world in a green shirt demanding money.  He is in Tel Aviv fighting a war.  This isn't a grift; this is a battle for survival. [...] This weekend's massacres by Iran and Palestine against Israel — funded by Biden and the deep state — proves we need a President of America, not a bribed career politician beholden to Muslim terrorists and Red China.

Bernie Sanders criticizes Israel's offensive in Gaza, calls it 'serious violation of international law'.  Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., criticized Israel on Wednesday for cutting off electricity, fuel, food and water to residents in the Gaza Strip, calling it a "serious violation of international law."  "The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter who does it.  Israel's blanket denial of food, water, and other necessities to Gaza is a serious violation of international law and will do nothing but harm innocent civilians," said Sanders.  Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday ordered a "complete siege" on Gaza following the killing and kidnapping of civilians in southern Israel by Hamas terrorist fighters on Saturday.

Rashida Tlaib Has No Comment When Asked About Hamas Beheading Israeli Babies.  On Tuesday morning we learned that the bodies of 40 babies slaughtered by Hamas had been found in the southern Israeli town of Kfar Aza, some of them having been beheaded.  Throughout the day, mainstream journalists and Hamas sympathizers accused Israel of having made it up, and claimed it was propaganda.  However, the CBS News and CNN eventually reported on the horrific discovery, and President Biden referenced it in his address to the nation.  Fox News' Hilary Vaughn asked Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was visibly emotionally distraught while talking about migrant children being separated from their parents at the U.S. border in 2019 and called it "traumatic" and "inhumane," about Hamas beheading babies and burning children alive, and she had nothing to say.  [Tweet]

Israel Reaps What Jimmy Carter Sowed.  The war launched by Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel has roots that go back centuries, but a more recent critical node in the story is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when militant Islam achieved state power in the ancient Persian land.  Then, the world watched as a longtime American ally — the shah of Iran and the Pahlavi dynasty — was ousted from power with the tacit acceptance of the Carter administration, which had been critical of the shah (and other American allies) for "human rights" violations.  The revolutionary regime backed "students" who seized the U.S. embassy and 52 American hostages for 444 humiliating days, while President Jimmy Carter belatedly responded with a deeply flawed rescue mission that ended in disaster and further humiliation for the United States.  Since then, the Islamic regime that has governed Iran, as Michael Ledeen noted in 2008, has been at war with Israel and the United States.  Today, Israelis (and Americans in Israel) are reaping what Jimmy Carter sowed.

How The US Funded Hamas.  Millions of dollars from the United States ended up in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, despite the Biden administration's best attempts to keep the topic primarily under wraps.  Israel has been the target of numerous terrorist assaults.  There have been about a dozen conventional wars against the Jewish state, all of varying sizes.  And both have been present more frequently in combination.  However, no gangs of hundreds of killers in black have ever planned to flood Israel with the intention of picking up random Jews off the street and out of their houses, killing them, and then throwing their bodies in the street.  In fact, the Rwandan mass murder of 1994, when hordes of Hutu militia killers went on a preplanned killing spree against thousands of Tutsi people, is the closest analog to the methodology Hamas is today embracing.  The bloodlust of the Gaza audience is a recurring motif in these horrifying films of the murder of young women.  There doesn't seem to be a single Gazan objecting to the collective killing of a civilian, despite a natural desire among ordinary Gazans to record the mutilations, an embrace of spitting on the dying, and a frantic endeavor to mutilate the dead.

All the feminist leaders are silent about this.
Rashida Tlaib Silent When Asked to Condemn Hamas for Decapitating Babies, Raping Women.  Rep. Rashida Tlaib stayed silent when asked to condemn Hamas for decapitating 40 babies raping women in the street.  I remember in 2020 when people said "silence is violence" and if you remain silent, you agree with the travesties around you.  I guess Tlaib is okay with Hamas.  Then again this is the same woman who has the Palestine flag outside her office.  A map in her office has a Post-It note with Palestine on it covering Israel.  Former Rep. Justin Amash is a Palestinian-American.  I only see him talking about his heritage on the anniversary of his father coming to America.  I only see Amash praising America and loving the Constitution.  I wish Tlaib had the same appreciation as Amash.  [Tweet with video clip]

Israeli Soldiers Show Journalists Aftermath of Hamas Terror.  Israeli soldiers report finding the bodies of babies, some of them decapitated, in the ruins of a town ravaged by Hamas terrorists in their surprise attack on Saturday.  Israeli Defense Force soldiers took dozens of foreign journalists Tuesday to Kfar Aza, a town about 1.5 miles southeast of the Gaza border.  Journalists surveyed the devastation, with explosions and artillery fire occurring in the background.  "It's not a war," Gen. Itai Veruv, head of the IDF's Depth Command, told reporters.  "It's not a battlefield.  You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists kill them."  "It's not a war ... it's a massacre," Veruv added.  [Tweet]

Biden Administration Accused of Illegally Funding Hamas.  A new interesting bit of information has surfaced in Israel's war against Hamas, which began when it launched a surprise attack on Saturday, killing more than a thousand people and taking hostages.  The Biden administration has faced scrutiny over its release of $6 billion in frozen funds to Iran, which has been found to have helped Hamas plan and execute the assault.  It appears the White House also helped to fund Hamas directly, despite being warned about the consequences of doing so.  America First Legal published a post on social media in which it announced that it was filing a lawsuit against the Biden administration and was initiating the discovery process to find out what the White House knew about their plan to send aid to Palestinians.

Hamas' Terrorist War Against Israel:  There Is No 'On the Other Hand'.  Fact one:  Hamas openly declares it hates Jews.  It is an openly bigoted, anti-Semitic organization.  Its public charter, which it calls its "Covenant," states: "Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious." The Covenant actually endorses the notorious fraudulent anti-Semitic rant, used in part by Hitler to justify the Holocaust, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."  Fact two:  Hamas' invasion is not about supporting an independent Palestinian state.  Hamas denies Israel's right to exist.  It rejects a two-state solution.  The head of its political bureau, Khaled Meshal, stated this plainly at a 2012 rally in Gaza: "Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north.  There will be no concession on any inch of land."

Iran's Role in Hamas' Attack on Israel.  On Saturday, Israel suffered the worst attack on its civilian population in 50 years.  Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers and stormed through the security barrier into Israel where they massacred hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children.  An untold number were also taken captive and thousands are seriously injured.  Fifty years ago, Israel was also caught by surprise when Arab armies invaded on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.  This time, the Palestinian terrorists chose to attack on Simchat Torah, the most joyous holy day in the Jewish calendar, when Jews celebrate the completion of the annual cycle of studying the Torah and then immediately begin it again.  Their choice of this date is no coincidence.  It is a sign that Hamas, like their predecessors, sees itself at war not only with the government of Israel, but also with the Children of Israel and the God of Israel — the Jewish people and Judaism itself.

Iran sends deadly message to Biden with Hamas attack on Israel.  The U.S. has yet to confirm a direct involvement from Tehran in the operation, but officials acknowledge Iranians are indirectly complicit in training, funding and supporting Hamas.  The Hamas invasion, the worst attack on Israel in 50 years, shows Tehran is increasingly willing to damage U.S. allies and, in effect, try to weaken American influence through proxy groups.  It comes as Iran's influence as a regional power appears on the rise.

Ted Cruz Speaks Hard Truths on Hamas' Attack on Israel: 'Paid for By Joe Biden and the Democrats'.  On Saturday, Hamas attacked Israel, making it the bloodiest day in the country's history and resulting in more Jews dead since the end of the Holocaust.  Meanwhile, the Biden administration's response was less than ideal in many ways.  This is especially with regards to the $6 billion that the United States released to Iran as part of a prisoner exchange, a move that was announced on the anniversary of September 11, no less.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in his Monday edition of "The Verdict," was among those calling out the administration for this, but also other, moves.  Early on in the podcast, Cruz emphasized how "infuriating" the brutal attack on Israel was.  And, it has to do with the role Democrats played.  "I'll tell you what is infuriating about this.  This was paid for by Joe Biden and the Democrats," Cruz pointed out, mentioning "this is something that the corporate media desperately wants to avoid," though he nevertheless wished to "be clear."

Starbucks Union Backed By Prominent Dems Claims 'Solidarity With Palestine' After Hamas Terror Attack.  A Starbucks labor union with past ties to prominent members of the Democratic Party expressed "solidarity" with the people group that backed an unprecedented terrorist attack on Israel.  A social media account for Starbucks Workers United posted "Solidarity with Palestine!" following the deadliest terror attack on Israeli soil in the nation's history, according to The Washington Free Beacon.  The attack was carried out by Hamas, an Iran-backed terror group elected to lead Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.  The attack left over 1,200 civilians dead and thousands wounded, marking the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.  The union has since deleted the post, made on X, formerly known as Twitter, according to the Free Beacon, which captured a screenshot of the image.  Starbucks Workers United is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and represents roughly 9,000 baristas.

Did Hamas just jump the shark?  Just as the latest invasion began in Israel, swarms of the usual suspects began protesting in front of Israeli consulates in various American cities.  Some of the anti-Israeli demonstrators were themselves Jewish... being committed leftists first and Jews second.  They were of particular interest to the mainstream news media.  Then news of horrific atrocities being carried out by the Hamas militants began to surface.  Shooting up a harmless music festival is way too much for even woke progressives — let alone flaunting the naked bodies of freshly murdered women.  As I write, the revulsion on the Left is still lurking below the radar.  But there really is no turning back.

$6 Billion in Iranian Assets Buys What, Exactly?  In mid-September, the United States authorized the release of $6 billion to Iran in the form of unfrozen Iranian assets to help secure the return of five U.S. citizens.  Seeing as how we provided a metric crap-ton of money to a country that literally funds Hamas and Hamas executed hundreds of innocent Israelis, we should probably know a little bit about these people.

Take this for what it's worth:
Evidence Mounts That Israeli Intelligence Allowed Hamas Attack to Occur.  [Scroll down]  Of course, one should not need confirmation from Egyptian intelligence or any other source to understand that an attack emanating from the most surveilled region on Earth roughly the size of two Washington D.C.s involving tens of thousands of operatives, months if not years of planning, tons of equipment including tens of thousands of rockets imported and stockpiled in Gaza, and an influx of cash to make it all happen could have possibly occurred without the tacit blessing if not active facilitation by Mossad and/or the CIA[.]  Almost immediately after the attack, the corporate state media launched a propaganda blitzkrieg to offer all manner of excuses for how Israeli intelligence "failed" to detect the most obvious buildup possible, precisely because it's so patently obvious to anyone with common sense that nothing of the sort was possible that such a PR blitz is necessary to get out in front of the narrative.  The provable untruth is any corporate state narrative is directly proportional to the intensity with which is is forced down the American public's throat.  They claimed the IDF was caught off-guard because of Yom Kippur — despite the fact that Israel's enemies launched a surprise attack decades ago on the same holiday.  They offered the excuse that the IDF had moved its forces to the West Bank to quell uprisings against settlers.  The excuses defy basic logic.

President Pallets-of-Cash Pretends to Care About Dead Israelis.  If your goal is a pile of dead Israelis, send money to Iran.  The more money you give to Iran, the more dead Israelis.  Former President Barack Obama knows this, and still he sent the terrorist state of Iran pallets of cash.  "On Tuesday, the Obama administration finally admitted something its critics had long suspected," my colleague John Hayward reported in late 2016.  "The entire $1.7 billion tribute paid to Iran was tendered in cash — not just the initial $400 million infamously shipped to the Iranians in a cargo plane[.]"  "[A]t the same moment," Hayward adds, "four American hostages were released."

Democrats support Palestinians over Israel, GOP overwhelmingly stands with US ally: 2023 poll.  More Democrats in the United States support Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank than Israel, the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East, according to a 2023 poll.  Democratic sympathies for Palestinians has increased over the last decade, and a Gallup poll published in March 2023 found their affinity toward the Palestinians finally eclipsed their support of Israel, 49% to 38%.  The attitudes from March reflected a continued decline in Israeli support, from 40% to 38% and an 11-point surge of support for Palestinian people, from 38% to 49%.

Hamas and the Military Logic of Sexual Violence.  Hamas broke through a fortified border, had unchallenged freedom of movement inside Israel for a shockingly long time, and attacked a dance music festival and some kibbutzim.  Not airfields, not fuel depots, not power stations, not army motor pools to deny mobility to the enemy.  They went after soft targets first, and focused especially on women and children.  Eyewitness reports and footage of female hostages are telling us that Hamas engaged in sustained sexual violence, and took care to make it known. [...] Hamas is dirtying the memory of the Jewish spaces bordering on the Gaza Strip.  They're marking southern Israel in the memory of future families, and especially women of childbearing age, with the deliberately cultivated images of murdered children and the mass rape of young women, so that young women regard the place with dread and don't return to have children there.  They're making a dead zone, and they intend to make a dead zone.

Israel's intelligence failure is a warning for America's politicized agencies.  Some people are calling it "Israel's 9/11."  That makes sense, in that Hamas' massacre was a totally unexpected massive terrorist attack with a huge body count of innocent people.  Not as many people died as on 9/11 (though proportionately to Israel's population it was worse than 9/11 was for America).  Because the assault involved shootings, rapes and kidnappings, it seems somehow more personal than the jets of 9/11.  But there's one way in which it was identical, and that's the "totally unexpected" part.  Like American intelligence agencies before 9/11, Israel's security services were caught flat-footed.  Both American and Israeli officials have said it was a complete surprise.

The real problem is Elon letting people see what Hamas videotaped themselves doing.  Hamas operatives made the videos of the wholesale, wanton slaughter.  Hamas made and distributed the videos of kidnapped babies in cages, of dragging screaming women off, stripping and defiling a girl's corpse in a truck before trawling it through the streets.  Hamas made the videos abusing a young boy and laughing, of terrorizing a captured geriatric, crippled, reported Holocaust survivor.

Israel Loosens Strict Gun Control Laws To Arm 'As Many Citizens As Possible'.  Israel, the tiny democracy in the Middle East with terrorists along all its borders, has more stringent gun-control laws than anywhere in the United States.  Unlike our Second Amendment, there is no recognition of the right to keep and bear arms.  After the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas from Gaza, Israel's government suddenly made it slightly easier for its citizens to own firearms for self-defense.  Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir announced Sunday in Hebrew an emergency declaration that will "allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves."  Currently, a mere 1.5 percent of the civilian population has a license to own a gun.

Palestinians' War on Israel and US Senators' Delusional 'Two-State Solution'.  Less than 48 hours after 20 US Democratic Senators urged President Joe Biden to push for the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran's Palestinian terror proxies launched a massive attack on Israel, killing more than 700 Israeli men, women and children, and wounding thousands more.  An unknown number of Israelis (estimated at more than 100), including infants, toddlers and an elderly Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair, have also been kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.  This war, as reported on October 8 by the Wall Street Journal, was caused directly by Iran, which has made no secret of its desire to "eradicate" Israel — and America — and which funds and directs Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and by the appeasement of the Iranian regime by the Biden administration and its allies.

Now Hamas Wants a Truce.  Here's Why Israel Shouldn't Give Them One.  Just hours after the Hamas jihad massacres began, the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs tweeted an astonishingly tone-deaf statement:  "We unequivocally condemn the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred.  We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.  Terror and violence solve nothing."  The Office deleted this tweet after people started to point out how monstrous it was to urge that Israel not retaliate after being hit with the most devastating attack in its history.  Despite this embarrassment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted Sunday that he had met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; he added, "I encouraged Túrkiye's advocacy for a cease-fire."  (Túrkiye is the new official name of the country formerly known as Turkey; [...])  Blinken later took that one down as well, but other leftists continued to call for a ceasefire at a time when that could only have meant that Hamas would hit Israel and Israel would do nothing in response.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Socialist Ditzville) released a statement on Saturday afternoon, as Israeli authorities were still tracking down all the Hamas jihadis who had managed to get inside the country and start killing indiscriminately.  AOC said, "An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives."

Leftists Come Out in Support of Hamas Massacres, Send Money to Palestinians.  After the horrifying images of what Hamas did in Israel on Saturday went around the world, it's hard to believe that anyone came out in support of the Palestinian jihad.  But numerous leftists found a way and seized the opportunity of the bloody massacre of hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians to advance anti-Israel talking points.  Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) led the way with a statement that was a masterpiece of blame-shifting and displacement of responsibility.  After seeing ordinary Israelis massacred wholesale at a peace festival, on the street, and in their homes, Tlaib began by putting the perpetrators and their victims on equal footing: "I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day.  I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity."

Israel Must Treat Gaza like Berlin and Hamas like Nazis.  After the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Israel has three choices:  First, Israel can do what it's done in the past, and that's retaliate until the Jew-hating Christiane Amanpour crowd starts their pressure campaign with words like "disproportionate."  The result will be what it's been for 50 years... Islamic terror attack after Islamic terror attack against Israeli civilians until another massive attack is brought off.  Second, Israel can follow America's lead and launch a namby-pamby forever war.  Year after year, decade after decade of "humane war" resulting in a humiliating defeat, more dead Israelis and civilians than an all-out war could ever cause.  But at least the Military Industrial Complex and cable news get fatter and happier.  Or.  Israel can do the smart and humane thing:  Remember World War II, which means treating Gaza like Berlin and Hamas like the Nazis they are.

CNN Hosts Hamas Propagandist, Airs His Deranged Claims About Israeli Targets.  Israel has already begun an assault on the Gaza Strip in response to the brutal invasion by Hamas terrorists that left upwards of a 1000 civilians dead.  The largest number of dead came from an attack on a dance festival, with Hamas gunmen mowing down people in cold blood as they retreated.  Many of the atrocities committed have been documented on video, leaving no doubt as to what occurred.  Still, some people are shameless enough to pretend otherwise.  [Tweet with video clip]

Hamas Terrorists Threaten Mass Execution of Civilian Hostages (Including Americans) on Live TV as Joe Biden Takes the Rest of Monday Off.  Hamas is threatening to escalate their war crimes further while Joe Biden refuses to perform his sworn duties as commander-in-chief.  As Cristina Laila previously reported, the Biden regime called a lid before noon.  The so-called president will be prioritizing nap time over doing his job.  The Regime made this move for the feeble Joe even as Hamas kidnaps young women, abuses the bodies of the victims, beheads Israeli soldiers, and slaughters innocent civilians at peace gatherings.  The news gets even worse, though.  Hamas is now threatening a mass execution of innocent hostages in Israel on live television each time an Israeli defense force strike hits a "civilian" in Gaza.

Muslims In New York City Celebrate The Slaughter In Israel.  Pro-Palestinian protesters took over New York City's Times Square on Sunday, just one day after terrorist organization Hamas callously attacked Israel, leaving hundreds of civilians dead.  Irate counter-protesters waving Israeli flags clashed with 300 seething placard-clad demonstrators, one of which was spotted on the front line holding up a swastika.  [Video clip]

Is Hamas a state actor?  Hamas is not a recognized state actor or national military force.  It is designated as a terrorist organization by countries including the U.S., EU, Canada, and Japan.  The Geneva Conventions only give prisoner-of-war status to combatants captured in armed conflict between two or more states.  The conventions do not apply to non-international conflicts with non-state actors like terrorist/rebel groups.  People detained by Hamas have not necessarily engaged in lawful combat against Hamas.  They could be civilians rather than enemy combatants.  POW status requires being a lawful combatant.  Hamas does not follow the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of detainees.  So it does not confer POW rights even if detainees would otherwise meet the criteria.  The circumstances and motives surrounding Hamas detentions are often illegal (kidnapping, extortion, political leverage).  This differs from lawful detention of combatants.  Individuals captured and held by Hamas are hostages, detained civilians, or unlawfully detained combatants denied their rights under international law.  But they do not meet the legal definitions to be granted prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions.

Biden Admin in the midst of crisis: climate change still the biggest threat US and world faces.  The Biden Administration is the biggest threat to America right now.  Not Russia.  Not China.  Not Iran or North Korea.  Biden.  Why?  Because the Biden Administration is profoundly stupid and evil and keeps creating disasters wherever it turns its attention.  Biden could easily mumble, stumble, and bumble us into a world war at any moment.  Biden has made every other threat to the country much worse.  Those guys may be the enemy, but Biden is better placed to actually harm the US and is too stupid to keep our foreign adversaries at bay.  In the midst of all the crises America and the world face, listen to what Admiral John Kirby says is the biggest problem America faces.  It is the most profoundly stupid thing I have heard since AOC opened her mouth and spoke.  [Tweet with video clip]  I would have expected Kirby to resign in disgust, but he has instead defended Biden's "successful" exit from Afghanistan, his failure to prevent the Ukraine war, and his border policies which have invited millions of military-age men and even terrorists into the US through an open border, and just handed billions of dollars to Iran as it planned and authorized an invasion of Israel.

Why Hamas Attacked, and Why Israel Was Taken by Surprise.  On the morning of Saturday, October 7, the Palestinian group Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israel on an unprecedented scale: firing thousands of rockets, infiltrating militants into Israeli territory, and taking an unknown number of hostages.  At least 100 Israelis have died, and at least 1,400 have been wounded; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was "at war."  As Israeli forces responded, around 200 Palestinians were killed and around 1,600 wounded.  For insight into what this means for Israel, the Palestinians, and the region, Foreign Affairs turned to Martin Indyk, the Lowy Distinguished Fellow in U.S.-Middle East Diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Indyk has twice served as U.S. ambassador to Israel, first from 1995 to 1997 and again from 2000 to 2001.  He also served as U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014.  Earlier, he served as special assistant to President Bill Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council, and as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State.  Indyk spoke with Executive Editor Justin Vogt on Saturday afternoon.

What's Behind Israel's Intelligence Failure?  Israel is known for its excellent intelligence capabilities and its high tech tools.  But there was a fatal mistake.  Israel believed that it had hermetically sealed off Gaza and contained the threat from there.  Even the rocket threat was understood to be controlled by Israel's Iron Dome, minimizing the chance of damage to Israeli population centers.  This belief is the root cause of what has just happened in Israel.  It has let things fester in Gaza for decades.  Israel never wanted to send in ground forces and clean out the enemy.  Now the people of Israel are paying a terrible price.  Indeed, the slowness of the ground forces response is indicative of unpreparedness because attacks like this were not supposed to happen.  There were plenty of reasons why Israel adopted a defensive, passive policy on Hamas and the threat from Gaza.

Did the Biden administration withhold intel from Israel?  Palestinian terrorists (no, that's not necessarily redundant) in Gaza launched a brutal terrorist attack on Israel yesterday.  They slaughtered at least 800 Israelis, many of them unarmed women and children.  Some were taken hostage back to Gaza where they were paraded through the streets and beaten.  It was a massive and highly coordinated attack with incursions by land, air and sea.  From a thousand miles away, Iran was likely funding and coordinating it.  There had to be a lot of cyber chatter preceding the attack.  Yet Israel was apparently caught by complete surprise.  The question being rightly asked is, how could Israel's intel operations — one of the most sophisticated in the world — have been caught so off-guard?  The answer may be in Washington.  The Biden administration has never gotten along with the Israeli government, nor did the Obama administration where Biden ws Vice President.  Biden and Obama have both seemed determined to let Iran — a terrorist state that has vowed to destroy Israel — get a nuclear bomb, and experts think that at any given moment they could have one in a matter of months.  Biden just gave Iran six billion dollars in exchange for American hostages that Iran had taken.

No, the Hamas Invasion Was Not an Israeli 'Intelligence Failure'.  One would have to be almost hopelessly naíve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion yesterday morning was an Israeli "intelligence failure."  Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.  It routinely shares intelligence, furthermore, with the "Five Eyes" intelligence services.  It has its tentacles deep inside of every ally and foe of import.  Its spies are littered across the Gaza Strip, which is an effective open-air prison into which goods do not flow but for the blessing of the Israeli state.  The Gaza Strip is arguably the most heavily surveilled geographic area on Earth.  The Hamas invasion of Southern Israel yesterday was an operation involving tens of thousands of operatives, at least, across land, sea, and air, using all manner of equipment and weaponry — drones, thousands of rockets, countless firearms, and even bulldozers that were positioned to knock down Israeli fencing.  And MSNBC and CNN would have you believe this was all a big "intelligence failure" by Mossad.

Report: U.S. Weapons from Afghanistan Ended up with Palestinian Groups Operating in the Gaza Strip.  A claim in a news report that American weapons seized in Afghanistan have ended up in the hands of Palestinian groups operating in the Gaza Strip has taken on renewed significance after Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group, launched an attack on Israel on Saturday.  According to a Newsweek report published in June, an Israeli commander said some of the U.S. small arms seized in Afghanistan have already been observed in the hands of Palestinian groups operating in the Gaza Strip.

Stop Pretending — It's Not the "Fungibility," It's the Location of the $6 Billion Returned to Iran.  You want to go deep weeds, let's go deep weeds.  Almost all of the conversations about the $6 billion given back to Iran have focused on the fungible aspect of money.  While true, that focus misses the key and essential point, where the money was delivered.  The captured $6 billion was held in a South Korean bank, the result of sanctions violations.  What the Biden/Blinken crew did, was move the money from South Korea to a bank in Qatar.

Code Pink Endorses Hamas Attacks on Israel.  The masks are finally completely off of the communist front groups that have led the "anti-war" movement the past two decades.  The communist group Code Pink, founded in 2002 to oppose the U.S. liberation of Iraq from the regime of the mass-murdering, genocidal, war-mongering tyrant Saddam Hussein, posted the group's endorsement of the Hamas attacks on Israel Saturday as other "anti-war" groups announced plans for pro-Hamas rallies to be held across the U.S. over the long Columbus Day holiday weekend.

Iran helped plan Hamas attack on Israel.  Senior members of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah claimed that Hamas' surprise attack on Israel that killed at least 700 people was given the green light by Iranian security officials.  Hamas plotted the air, land and sea invasions with help from officers of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a Wall Street Journal report.  Israel has since branded Iran a 'terrorist state.'  The official go-ahead for the attack was allegedly given at a Monday meeting in Beirut.

The Blood Deal.  Iran and its proxies state that Israel is a pariah nation with no legal standing to exist, and that Allah has promised them that they will be returned to their "rightful" lands.  This is the basis for all the terrorism that has been the hallmark of the Palestinian experience since 1948.  Missing from the debate is that there has never been a Palestinian country...ever.  Upon the creation of Israel in 1948, the grand mufti in Egypt ordered all Arabs living in the new State of Israel to leave or be killed.

Yom Kippur War 1973, Gaza 2023 — Anniversaries Matter To Palestinians.  Back on June 5, 1968, Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had just won the California Democratic presidential primary by promising 50 fighter jets to Israel, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Six Day War (June 5-June 10, 1967) in which Israel attacked its Arab neighbors.  It took me the rest of the century to figure out Sirhan's motivation.  On October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, Egypt under Anwar Sadat attacked Israel's occupation troops in the Sinai, crossing the Suez Canal in a brilliant feat of arms by using two-man teams of infantry, one firing a shoulder-launched wire-controlled anti-tank missile, the other controlling the joystick, to demolish Israeli tanks.  The Egyptian Army had trained intensively to win this battle to overcome the shame of 1967.  But they won so quickly, sending much of the Israeli government into a panic, that it suddenly became a problem that the Egyptians didn't have much of a plan for what to do next.  There were hundreds of miles of bad road across the Sinai between them and Israel proper, plus an increasing number of angry Israelis.

CAIR, SJP, American Muslim Groups Back Palestinians After Terror Attack in Israel.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a variety of other Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups in the United States failed to condemn the Hamas terror attack on Israel on Saturday, and instead offered their support.  The Palestinian terror attack happened on the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, the final day of the annual High Holy Day cycle.  In a statement, CAIR expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, and did not condemn violence against Israel.  Over 300 Israelis were murdered, and over 1,500 wounded, in an unprecedented terror attack on civilian targets.

Biden NSC Spox Claims $6 Billion in Funds Joe Biden Sent to Iran Have "Absolutely Nothing to do With" Hamas Attacks Against Israel.  Joe Biden's NSC spox on Saturday went into damage control after Hamas surprise ambushed Israel in a horrific terror attack.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Hamas after the militant group fired over 5,000 rockets at Israel on Saturday.  [Tweet with video clip]  Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, catching the country off-guard during a major Jewish holiday.  The attack involved thousands of rockets and dozens of fighters infiltrating Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.  Horrifying footage has emerged showing women being marched into vehicles, bloodied and bruised.  Earlier reports showed Israeli civilians including children, being captured and taken into the Gaza Strip, Daily Mail reported.

Joe Biden's $6-billion war on Israel.  In 2015, under then-Democrat president Obama, the United States danced around Iran's overt hostility toward Israel and the United States and encouraged Iran to temper its work toward creating a nuclear bomb.  As a result, two months later, Iran entered into a soft agreement with the five members on the U.N. Security Council plus Germany.  This agreement was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA.  In return, against Republican opposition and even some Democrat misgivings, Obama dropped U.S. sanctions on Iran in return for Iran's purported slow-walking its quest for a nuclear bomb.  Wink, wink.  Additionally, Obama displayed overt antagonism toward Israel.  He refused to acknowledge an American Embassy in Jerusalem and declared, obnoxiously and illegally, that Jewish children born in Jerusalem were not considered Israeli and could not be issued Israeli passports, as they had not been born on Israeli ground.

Republicans blast Biden for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iran funds ahead of Hamas attack on Israel.  Republicans in the House and Senate are tearing into the Biden administration for unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets months before Hamas terrorists launched a deadly and massive attack on Israel early Saturday — criticism that the Biden administration called "false and misleading."  "Just weeks ago, the Biden administration handed over $6 billion to Iran, and today, innocent Israelis were murdered by Iran-backed terrorists," Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement.  "We must continue to support our strongest ally in the Middle East and their right to defend themselves against these unprovoked, horrific attacks."  Blackburn spoke after Hamas terrorists invaded areas of southern Israel.  Thousands of rockets were fired into Israel and dozens of fighters infiltrated through the border.  Local Israeli media reported that at least 100 people have been killed in the assault.

Top Biden Adviser Bragged Of Quiet Middle East One Week Before Hamas Attacked Israel.  One week before Hamas launched a surprise attack in Israel, a top aide to President Joe Biden touted a relative calm in the Middle East.  "The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades," said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, according to The Atlantic.  He went on to stress that "challenges remain," citing Iran's nuclear weapons program and "tensions" between Israel and the Palestinians, but added, "the amount of time I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced."  Sullivan, a former Obama administration official, was speaking at The Atlantic Festival.  He had just talked about how the larger region had reached a semblance of peace after the Biden team "walked into" a chaotic situation dating back to the prior administration.  "And what we said is we want to depressurize, deescalate, and ultimately integrate the Middle East region," Sullivan said, as seen in a video of the remarks.

Wiping Israel off the map.  [I]t appears that Islamic Jihad and Hamas (and no doubt others) in Gaza have conspired to destroy Israel and wipe her off the map, something they have been threatening to do for ages.  They took the first step today in a massive, unprovoked attack on civilian areas inside Israel.  More than 2,000 rockets managed to overwhelm Israel's famous Iron Dome defense.  [Video clip]  Foaming-at-the-mouth bloodthirsty Jihadis have gone into Israeli neighborhoods and taken dozens of men, women, and children hostage.  [Video clip]  Armageddon has begun and it's going to get worse fast.  Israel will be swift to retaliate and it will be devastating.  One of the finest fighting forces on the planet, Israeli soldiers, pilots, warriors will fight and destroy large swathes of Gaza and beyond.