Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[Sixties Fan]

Sources in the Arab media report the cooperation of thousands of Gazans with the IDF in handing over locations of Hamas forces, locations of tunnels and IDF (Hamas, not IDF) warehouses and launch sites.

The cooperation began after the IDF distributed leaflets calling for the provision of information about the location of the Israeli abductees while promising financial compensation and safety for informants.

The sources report that, most of the information transmitters do not demand money but safe passage for them and their families.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Tulane University Censors Pro-Israel Voices, but Allows Hamas-Supporting “Free Speech”
@Tulane

Last night, SSI students met on campus to post flyers of hostages in Gaza.

“We taped the flyers extremely well and wrapped tape around the entire pole.

We then smeared Vaseline all over to deter people from ripping them down,” a student leader explained. In a chalk-permitted area, students wrote the following messages:

"There was a ceasefire on October 6

""Stand here if you support terrorism" in the meeting area for the anti-Israel march.

"Walk this way if you are a Zionist" where protesters are presumed to march.

"Love hummus, not Hamas"

"Free Gaza from Hamas"

"HaMASS MURDERS"- pictured below the only chalk not wiped away because it is in the street- on the crosswalk.

This morning, a student arrived at the chalking location and saw Tulane Cleaning Services hosing down the pavement. When asked why, they received orders from "higher ups" to remove SSI at Tulane’s chalking.

"Palestinians killed in Gaza," followed by names, written by pro-Hamas students are still up.The cleaning staff ONLY erased the part added by SSI students: "by Hamas."

Students met with administration who referred to the pro-Israel chalk as, “political.”

Students argued that it is not acceptable to erase only the chalk created by Israel-supporting students and allow the chalk of the opposing narrative.

The administrative representative noted that the school would continue to hose off the students’ chalk, and recommended that they consider how much time they put into chalking. As this newsletter is being typed, students are witnessing administration removing the posters of hostages…
Tulane University administration is eager to silence the pro-Israel voices on campus.

Let Tulane University know that this blatent bias is UNACCEPTABLE: contact the office of the President https://president.tulane.edu/office

 

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[Sixties Fan]

Ishaan Tharoor, of the Washington Post's "Today's Worldview" column, has been using every opportunity to attack Israel under the guise of journalism.

Earlier this week we showed how he tried to mainstream the utterly malicious and false charge that Israel was committing "genocide" in Gaza. (Petra Marquardt-Bigman demolished a piece of his in 2017 as well.)

Now, he is spreading the lie that Israel is purposefully damaging Gaza civilian targets for no military reason:

A few days after Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 rampage through southern Israel, a top Israeli military official was blunt about his nation’s military response. Israeli security officials repeatedly stress the steps they take to minimize civilian harm and claim they are only striking legitimate military targets. In recent days, Daniel Hagari, spokesman of the Israel Defense Forces, accused Hamas of “cynically” deploying its assets in civilian areas and near critical infrastructure, like hospitals. But when speaking in the offensive’s early stage, Hagari revealed that the “emphasis” of the IDF’s reprisal was “on damage and not on accuracy.”

Tharoor then builds this article around the theory that Israel is implementing the so-called "Dahiya doctrine:"

There are reams of commentary on what Israel’s strategy and endgame may be as it seeks to nullify the long-standing threat posed by Hamas and purge the Islamist militant faction from its Gaza redoubts. But looming behind it — and implicit in Hagari’s “emphasis” on damage over accuracy — is a long-standing Israeli military doctrine that appears to be in play now.

The so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” took shape in the wake of the bruising 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahiya refers to the southern Beirut suburbs where Hezbollah maintained its strongholds and which were pummeled by Israeli jets after hostilities began when Hezbollah fighters abducted two Israeli soldiers. The onslaught then took Hezbollah by surprise, whose senior leadership had not expected to see their headquarters turned into rubble nor had planned for such a relentless bombardment. “I said that we shouldn’t exaggerate, that Israel will just retaliate a bit, bomb a couple of targets and that would be the end of it,” a Hezbollah operative told former Washington Post reporter Anthony Shadid in 2006.

Tharoor is implying that Israel is no longer attacking military targets but instead is just trying to cause widespread damage for the sake of deterrence in future wars.

Of course, instead of looking at what Hagari actually said that day, he only links to a Guardian article that gave no context. Because it is too good to check.

Hagari was specifically speaking about causing massive damage to Hamas targets, not to civilian targets. He added, "We are taking a toll on every Hamas position and structure, dozens from every pilot in every Air Force strike. Among other things, the IDF attacked a weapons warehouse located in a mosque, and homes of activists (Hamas members)."

Later that day, Hagari clarified this further:

The IDF has shifted to a different counterattack method and is striking in waves. Tens of IAF aircraft have struck aerially every 4 hours over the past 36 hours. The IAF has all its reserve personnel manning aircraft both in the headquarters and the squadrons on a wide scale. These strikes on thousands of terrorist targets using thousands of munitions. We are using every piece of intelligence to maximize damage to meeting spots for terrorists planning to invade Israel, houses belonging to senior Hamas commanders, terrorist operational centers and headquarters and terrorist infrastructure.

The main strike conducted last night targeted the Rimal area in Gaza. The area is a symbol of luxury in the center of Gaza and has very significant meaning to senior Hamas leaders and operatives. Afterwards, we struck further targets in Khan Yunis, includingterrorist intelligence infrastructure, apartments used for operational purposes and a spot where terrorists have been gathering before attacking Israeli territory. Hundreds of Hamas terrorist organization operatives have been neutralized during these strikes.

In other words, the IDF didn't only target official command and control centers but also places where Hamas leaders were known to meet in civilian areas like luxury hotels, with the intent to make it difficult for them to meet and plan. Targets are chosen strictly based on intel.

The targets were always Hamas. All of them are considered military targets under the laws of war.

As we have reported before, there are multiple layers of legal review before Israel does targeting. Nobody is even hinting that those procedures aren't in place now.

As far as generalizing the "Dahiya doctrine" to Gaza, the Lebanese strategy was to dissuade Hezbollah from considering future attacks. Israel has used this strategy since the 1950s, because it makes more sense in a small country to proactively deter attacks than to be on a constant defensive posture where mistakes could be catastrophic.

The Gaza strategy is to destroy Hamas. That goal requires a radically different strategy, and "Dahiya" - (where Israel also only attacked military targets) is not relevant here. The purpose isn't deterrence but total destruction of Hamas capabilities.

Once again, Tharoor - pretending to be some sort of brilliant analyst - reveals that he is no journalist to begin with. He doesn't check sources. He has a predetermined notion of the truth and tries to fit the facts to his theories. He assumes malice from Israel.

He is an anti-Israel propagandist, nothing more.

The @WashingtonPost @IshaanTharoor again tries to smear Israel based on lazy journalism

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Sirens were sounded in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas on Friday as Hamas said it fired rockets deep into Israel in what the Palestinian terrorist group described as a response to mounting deaths in the Gaza war.

Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from the salvo, which followed a relative lull in rocket fire as Israeli forces press a ground offensive in Gaza in the fifth week of the war.

The military said some 9,500 missiles, rockets, and drones were fired at Israel from Gaza and other fronts since Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel and massacred 1,400 people, mostly civilians, sparking the current conflict. About 2,000 of the launches from Hamas-controlled Gaza had been shot down by air defenses designed to ignore projectiles on a course to land harmlessly in open areas.

Some 12 percent of Gaza rockets had fallen short within Palestinian territory, the military said.

Hamas Fires Rockets Deep Into Israel, Setting Off Sirens in Tel Aviv - Algemeiner.com

Sirens were sounded in Tel Aviv and surrounding areas on Friday as Hamas said it fired rockets deep into Israel in what the Palestinian terrorist group described as a response to mounting deaths in the Gaza war. Medics reported two women in Tel Aviv suffered shrapnel wounds from the salvo, which...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The rockets prompted the near-total evacuation of multiple municipalities close to Gaza, including Sderot and nearly all of its population of about 30,000 people. Eilat now has about 10,000 residents from Sderot — the largest concentration of Sderot residents in exile — living in government-afforded accommodations in several of Eilat’s hotels.

They are part of about 60,000 evacuees staying in Eilat — whose own population is roughly 50,000 — from around the northern Negev region and the border with Lebanon, where Hezbollah and other terrorists are also targeting civilians.

Whereas Sderot’s residents may have left the city, “the city has not left its residents,” said Sderot’s deputy mayor, Yehudit Oliel Malca, who oversaw the belated Simhat Torah celebrations for Sderot residents in Eilat last week.

The celebrations consisted of the convoy of three pickup trucks driving from hotel to hotel, with staff handing out the flags of Simhat Torah and the trinkets to Sderot residents and others who came out to dance and sing around the vehicles as they blasted cheerful music from large speakers mounted on the rear cabins. Some particularly enthusiastic revelers, like Noam Shlomo, a 47-year-old music teacher and father of three, followed the convoy around, dancing as they jogged behind it, some wearing Israeli flags around their shoulders as a cape.

(full article online)

In Eilat, 10,000 evacuated residents of Sderot form a ‘city within a city’

Municipality of the rocket-battered border town continues to provide service to its 30,000 residents, a third of whom are staying in Eilat

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

When the Jewish group IfNotNow asked educator and musician Shoshana Jedwab whether it could include her song “Where You Go” in its songbook, Jedwab offered a cautious yes.

The year was 2018, and the song, which Jedwab had officially released on the first anniversary of then-US president Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, had taken off at progressive protests.

The lyrics were easily adaptable to the most pressing issues of the moment, including immigration, women’s rights and Indigenous rights — all issues that IfNotNow, which had been founded in 2014 to press American Jews to more harshly criticize Israel, was widening its scope to tackle. Jedwab knew that IfNotNow was further to the left on Israel issues than she was, but she decided to grant permission nonetheless.

“I thought, ‘I need to open up, I need to be braver, I need to reach out here and give my blessing to people who put energy into the anti-occupation movement,” she said. “I had my father ringing in my ears, a Holocaust survivor and an ex-Palmachnik who looked at the occupation in the West Bank and said this is a shame, this is a shanda, we cannot be occupiers. So that’s why I did it.”

Five years later, Jedwab has changed her mind. She recently asked IfNotNow to remove “Where You Go” from its literature. The trigger for that reversal, she said, was the group’s claim that Israel is committing a “genocide” in its war against Hamas in Gaza. Some protests trumpeting that accusation have also featured her song.

“I gave them permission. I trusted them,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It breaks my heart thinking that this organization that thinks it’s doing good is putting Jews in danger by saying a falsehood, an incredibly dangerous falsehood.”



(full article online)

Jewish musicians want Jewish Israel critics to stop singing their songs at protests

Rabbi Menachem Creditor and Shoshana Jedwab are among artists who don't want anti-Zionist groups, such as IfNotNow, using their works in wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

No one knew what to expect at 6:30 a.m. on October 7 when the initial rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip began pounding Israel. But veteran, war-hardened residents of the Gaza envelope sensed immediately that something was different this time.

They had no idea what was to come.

Adele Raemer has lived on Kibbutz Nirim since 1975. Just 2 kilometers from the Gaza border, on the morning of October 7, beginning at the start of the Hamas barrage, she hosted several Facebook live sessions. Her social media posts, collected into a blog, document the unfolding evolution of Israelis’ awareness of the horrifically brutal invasion.

While Raemer and her family survived the multi-pronged attack, five Israelis were murdered at Kibbutz Nirim on October 7 and another five are missing. Her son-in-law shot one terrorist dead.

Today, Raemer and the rest of Kibbutz Nirim are in a hotel in Eilat for an undefined period. The former teacher is a cherished Times of Israel blogger — and a trained medical clown who always has a red nose in her bag. She has now made it her life’s mission to tell the world about what happened on October 7.

This week on What Matters Now, we speak with Kibbutz Nirim member Adele Raemer about the events of October 7 and how she and her community are faring now.

The following conversation has been very slightly edited.

The Times of Israel: Adele, thank you so much for joining me today from your hotel in Eilat.

Adele Raemer: Thank you for having me.

We are going to talk about life before, during and after the horrendous October 7 attack on Israel. The massacre that saw 1,400 people dead, mostly civilians, some of whom were your friends. I first of all would like to talk about, however, the kibbutz and how you joined the kibbutz. You joined the kibbutz in 1975, is that correct?

That’s right.

So tell us about Kibbutz Nirim.

So Kibbutz Nirim is a kibbutz that was founded, it’s one of the 11 points of the Negev that were founded in 1946. One night in 1946, after Yom Kippur was out, 11 different communities set out on the same night to have a presence in the Negev so that when the state would eventually be declared we would have people, communities in the Negev.

Obviously, our listeners can hear from your accent that you are not a native, Israeli-born woman. How did you arrive at Kibbutz Nirim?

So, I was in the Young Judaea Zionist youth movement and after high school, I went on a year program, a Young Judaea year course in ‘72-73, and I fell in love with the place. I went back to the States, to New York in August ’73. And I had intended to go to NYU Theater School, but I was in Israel when they were having the auditions. So I was just waiting for the winter term to come along and doing odd jobs. And then in October 1973, the Yom Kippur War broke out and I said, well, what am I doing in the States? Israel needs me. And that’s when I started the procedure for making aliyah through the Jewish Agency.

I finally made aliyah to Kibbutz Ketura in December 1973, near Eilat, not far from where I am now. As soon as I landed, because I just turned 19 and it was still wartime, I got my draft papers and was told to show up at the draft board within a year. I went into the army and in the middle of my army service I realized that I wasn’t really happy on Ketura. And that’s how I got to Kibbutz Nirim, because I could only move someplace the army would approve of. Nirim, because it was on the border and it was a small kibbutz [was suitable]. When I was in the army, already on Nirim, my army service was there. I was stationed on Nirim. So it was like already home base.


(full article online)

What Matters Now to Oct. 7 survivor Adele Raemer: Telling the world

She's lived near Gaza at Kibbutz Nirim for almost five decades and while sadly accustomed to rocket attacks, the thought of terrorists entering her home was always 'inconceivable'

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Treating Jews as if they were Dhimmis. Once Dhimmis, forever Dhimmis]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Islamic Summit on Gaza????? And people keep saying that it is about Palestinians. And they show it again and again.......IT IS about ISLAM !!!!! Watch out West !!!!! ]

Iran’s president will attend an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Sunday, in another sign of the rapprochement between the two rival Gulf states amid renewed conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

Iranian regime media outlets reported on Friday that President Ebrahim Raisi will fly to Saudi Arabia for Sunday’s meeting, which will address “ways to stop Israel’s savage war machine against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip,” according to Iran’s official English language broadcaster Press TV.

Raisi’s announcement of his trip to Riyadh came as the regime’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched another attack on US support for Israel in its military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in which more than 1,400 people were murdered and more than 200 seized as hostages. Iran is the main international sponsor of Hamas.

“Since the very first days of the Zionist regime’s attacks, all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war,” Khamenei declared on Friday.

The OIC summit will include Arab states that signed historic peace deals with Israel in 2020, among them the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. While Saudi Arabia still resists diplomatic relations with Israel, rumors of a peace deal brokered by the US administration were widespread in the weeks prior to the Hamas onslaught, with some observers arguing that derailing the rapprochement between Jerusalem and Riyadh by sparking a new war was a key reason behind the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Additionally, Arab Gulf states are “very worried that they’re going to be targeted by Iranian proxy groups who are seeking retaliation against Israel and the United States,” Elham Fakhro of the London-based Chatham House think tank told a panel discussion at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

One Saudi political analyst predicted that Sunday’s OIC meeting would demonstrate the support for the Palestinians beyond the Arab world, drawing in Muslim states in Africa and Asia.

“Non-Western countries are not accepting this any longer and not buying the American narrative, the Western narrative of the conflict,” Aziz Alghashian told broadcaster France 24.

Iranian President Will Travel to Saudi Arabia for Islamic Summit on Gaza - Algemeiner.com

Iran's president will attend an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Sunday, in another sign of the rapprochement between the two rival Gulf states amid renewed conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The slanderous “settler violence,” accusation seeks to draw a moral equivalence between Israelis and Hamas by demonizing Jews in Judea and Samaria.

Hakol Hayehudi news service has exposed how Hamas-financed anarchists in South Hebron Hills generate anti-Semitic propaganda that ends up in presidential speeches.

I put it together in In Focus.

The Massacre Coming to Judea and Samaria - CarolineGlick.com

The slanderous "settler violence" accusation seeks to draw moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel by demonizing Jews in Judea and Samaria. I show the way it's done.

carolineglick.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1 Uriel Baruch works in construction, selling sand and other supplies to contractors. At his wedding in Jerusalem six years ago, guests danced until 3 a.m. He is 35 years old, a fan of techno music, and the sort of person who invites someone dining alone in a restaurant to join his table. For his son Ofek’s 5th birthday yesterday, there was a blue-and-white balloon arch, a mural featuring a life-size unicorn and many, many cakes. The only thing missing was Baruch. He has not been home since Oct. 7, when Israeli officials believe he was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova Music Festival. “We are wearing the shirts with pictures of Uriel — we want him to stay with us, so we have the pictures on the shirts,” Baruch’s father-in-law, Dan Anteby, told me. “We prepare ourselves for everything. I hope he will come back alive, but you don’t know.”

(Photos by Jodi Rudoren/Collage by Odeya Rosenband)​

I’d never heard or seen Baruch’s name until last Sunday, when I covered a vigil for the hostages in Montclair, the New Jersey suburb where I’ve lived since 2016. Local Israeli ex-pats spent more than three hours meticulously setting a long Shabbat-themed table on the street I walk down to get to the train into the city, between two cafes where I sometimes meet friends for breakfast. The plastic plates and goblets were taped down in case of wind. There were bottles of grape juice, candles, fresh red roses and 240 empty chairs, each with the photo, name, age and nationality of a hostage believed held in Gaza. The kids’ places had highchairs and sippy cups. The idea of these displays — whether at the Tel Aviv art museum or the Lincoln Memorial — is to shock viewers with the staggering number of innocent people who were abducted. It is effective but also overwhelming. I walked slowly around the table before the vigil began, trying to absorb the information on each of the 240 KIDNAPPED signs, trying to imagine each individual’s story. But the faces blurred together in my mind; I couldn’t remember the names. Then the organizers handed out wallet-sized cards, each with a single hostage’s picture, name and age on one side, and a short prayer on the other. Rabbi Elliott Tepperman, who leads the Reconstructionist synagogue in town, urged us to each tuck our card into a pocket or tack it up on a bulletin board, to stick it in the frame of a bathroom mirror or carry it in our wallet. To learn whatever we could about the person — and to tell others about them. “Our tradition teaches that every human life is holy — that to take a single life is to destroy the world, and to save a single life is to save the world,” Tepperman said, referencing one of the most cited lines from the Talmud. “Keep these cards in the way you might treat a sacred text,” he added. “It might not be possible to think about all 240, but to think about this one person, to pray the prayer. To do what we can to save that person and that world.” My card said Uriel Baruch, 35 years old, kidnapped by Hamas.

– Dan Anteby, father-in-law of Uriel Baruch​

He is the third of four sons who grew up in Tiberias, Kfar Saba and Jerusalem. He is the father of two boys; the older one, Shalev, is 7. And he is the husband of Rachel, a hairdresser who also works as a secretary at the catering company where Anteby, her father, is a chef. She has not been to either job since Oct. 7. “She stopped crying,” Anteby told me, because she has run out of tears. “She is doing nothing, nothing. She is waiting at home. And looking for him.” Nobody is even sure Uriel Baruch is in Gaza. He went to the all-night desert dance party in Kibbutz Re’im with a neighbor. Around 9:30 or 10 a.m. on what Israelis now call Black Shabbat, Anteby said, the family saw videos on social media showing Baruch’s car — “and his friend dead inside the car.” “And we saw Uriel on the ground, but we don’t know if he’s alive, dead, shot, not,” he told me. “It’s very short,” he said of the video clip. “We saw him near the car on the ground. Later, he disappeared.” The Forward

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

For the next 11 days, Anteby said, “nobody tells us nothing.” Uriel’s brothers and Rachel went “to all the hospitals in Israel,” he said, imagining — hoping — that he might be lying in one of them, unconscious and without identification. “In the north, in the south, in the west, in the east,” Anteby said. “In Beersheva, in Ashkelon, in Ahdod, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, all the hospitals, to look, maybe he’s there.” He was not. Eleven days after the attack, Anteby said, the army finally called, and then came to see the family. They had identified the body of the friend Baruch had been with. They’d found no blood on the road next to the car where Baruch had been lying, so they thought he was alive. But there were no photos or video showing him being taken. The officials said Baruch was “missing,” not that that was news. Another week passed, Anteby said, before Baruch was officially added to the list of the kidnapped. Remember when the numbers kept going up? Anteby, who is 60, said Baruch is more like a son than a son-in-law, always asking if he can help the older man with things around the house. He recalled the vacations he takes the young family on every year to a hotel on the Sea of Galilee. He said Baruch once told him he cannot handle seeing blood. And he told me this story: About a week before the attack, before the start of the Sukkot holiday, Uriel and his brother Ohad — who was visiting from his home in New York — went to a restaurant for dinner, and saw a woman sitting alone. Uriel went over to the woman and asked why she was alone. The woman said she was celebrating her birthday. “He said, ‘Alone?’ She said, ‘Yes, this is my life,’’’ the father-in-law recounted. “He said, ‘No, you’re not alone.’ He said come to my table. He got a cake for her, they sang ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ she said thank you and cried.” Ofek, Baruch’s son, was also not alone for his birthday. Volunteers poured into Giv’at Ze’ev, a settlement of about 20,000 people a few miles from Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, to make the party and dozens of children attended. There was a bouncy house, music, games, bundles of snacks adorned with Ofek’s picture, and a cake with a picture of Noa Kirel, an Israeli pop star who placed third in Eurovision last spring with a song called “Unicorn.” Anteby said Kirel herself was coming to sing to Ofek this weekend. It will be hard to top this birthday. Unless, when Ofek turns 6, Uriel is there to celebrate with him. No unicorns necessary.

Thanks to Odeya Rosenband for contributing to this newsletter, and Adam Langer for editing it. ​

The Forward

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ At Last !!!! Next !!!! Let's suspend them for good. Keep Universities for Learning ONLY !! ]

Columbia University in New York City has suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups on campus through the end of the fall semester.

Gerald Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university, made the bombshell announcement in a statement on Friday afternoon.

“This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated university policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” said Rosberg, who also serves as chair of Columbia’s Special Committee on Campus Safety.

Hundreds of students walked out of class at Columbia on Thursday, demanding an immediate ceasefire to the fighting in Gaza, for school officials to falsely call Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians a “genocide,” and for the university to boycott and divest from Israeli institutions. The protesters did not mention Hamas or demand the release of the more than 240 hostages still being held in Gaza who the Palestinian terrorist group kidnapped during its Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli communities.

The prior day, dozens of students from Columbia’s School of Social Work staged an over nine-hour sit-in, claiming they were expressing solidarity with local and national Palestinian resistance movements.

Rosberg called in university officials to tell students that they were in violation of a rule in the university code of conduct which prohibits actions that “interrupt, shout down, or otherwise disrupt an event or to obstruct the view of the speaker.”

Both SJP and JVP have been instrumental in organizing anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus since Hamas invaded Israel last month and killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.

“Like all student groups, SJP and JVP are required to abide by university policies and procedures,” Rosberg said in his statement on Friday. “This ensures both the safety of our community and that core university activities can be conducted without disruption.”

He noted that suspension means the two groups will not be eligible to hold events on campus or receive university funding. “Lifting the suspension will be contingent on the two groups demonstrating a commitment to compliance with university policies and engaging in consultations at a group leadership level with university officials.”

Columbia has come under intense scrutiny for its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom and the resultant war between Israel and the terror group. Several students and professors have released multiple letters seemingly blaming Israel for the current conflict and rationalizing the Hamas atrocities.

One professor, however, went viral on social media for calling the school’s president a “coward” for refusing to condemn Hamas apologists and anti-Israel demonstrations on campus.

(full article online)

Columbia University Suspends Campus Groups Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace - Algemeiner.com

Columbia University in New York City has suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups on campus through the end of the fall semester. Gerald Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university, made the bombshell...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Chief Rabbi of South Africa Warren Goldstein lambasted the South African government in a new video for “betraying” Israel and being the “useful idiots” of Iran and its proxies, including the Palestinian terror group Hamas, following Pretoria’s decision to recall its diplomats from the Jewish state.

South Africa’s government has strongly opposed Israel’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip and on Thursday called in Israeli Ambassador Eliav Belotsercovsky to formally reprimand him and discuss what the government described as his recent “unfortunate conduct” linked to the war in Gaza.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has been steadfast in its support of the Palestinians, with President Cyril Ramaphosa recently comparing Hamas’ war on Israel with his own country’s struggle against an apartheid regime that ended in 1994. South Africa does not have an ambassador in Israel and does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The African country has also repeatedly boycotted Israel over the years, including in sports and in the cultural sphere.

“The South African government and all of the global opponents of the state of Israel are on the wrong side of history,” Goldstein said in a 25-minute video address shared on YouTube on Thursday. “In its most recent actions, withdrawing South African diplomats from Israel and threatening the Israeli ambassador to South Africa with expulsion, this government is supporting Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to destroy the State of Israel and spread global jihad.”

Goldstein called the South African government and those marching against Israel around the world “the useful idiots of Iran.”

“In supporting Iran and Hamas … what the South African government is doing is not only betraying the State of Israel and the Jewish people, not only betraying democracies throughout the world, they are betraying black Christians in Africa,” he argued. “Because part of what Iran is doing is sponsoring global jihad, which is spreading in Africa and causing more human suffering and deaths in Africa than in any other place on the globe.”

“Those who oppose the state of Israel,” he added, “those who are supporting Iran and Hamas, what in fact they are doing is supporting jihadism in Africa.”

One by one, Goldstein slammed the various “absurd and bizarre” lies and “laughable” accusations made against Israel regarding occupation, colonialism, and apartheid, including what he called “the most grotesque allegation of all” — the claim that Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians.

“It is bizarre beyond the realm of any reasonable discussion to even have to defend such an allegation,” he stated. “But … in our history we are used to people accusing us of the worst things. We’ve been accused of killing God. We’ve been accused of murdering babies to take their blood to make the unleavened bread for Passover … We’ve been accused of everything, and what we’ve learned from these lies is firstly they are very dangerous, and secondly, you have to speak out against them, because people start to believe them.” He further called theses claims “lies that are fabricated in a return to a Dark Age of irrationality and non-adherence to facts.”

Throughout the 25-minute video, Goldstein not only defended the Jewish people’s presence in Israel but also the Israel Defense Force’s actions against Hamas, which launched the current war with its Oct. 7 terrorist onslaught against southern Israeli communities. The chief rabbi said Israel has a “moral legitimacy” to defend itself and that the Israeli army is doing everything in its power to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza.

At least two South African women are among the more than 200 hostages seized by Hamas during the pogrom unleashed by its terrorists on Oct. 7. Pro-Israel advocates in South Africa have slammed the South African government for its silence on the two hostages and not clearly condemning the Hamas atrocities.

Goldstein called on South Africans to voice support for Israel and said the South African government has “turned its back on the values of the Bible and is bringing a curse upon South Africa,” referring to a passage in Genesis where God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”

“This government has lost its moral right to govern this country. It has led our nation down a path of curse,” he added. “Its support of Iran and its proxies to destroy Israel, it’s turning its back on our brothers and sisters on this continent, leaving them vulnerable to the attacks of the jihadist terrorists.”
Goldstein last month amended the traditional prayer for the government of South Africa in light of South Africa’s conduct in recent weeks. The original prayer called for divine guidance for South Africa’s political leadership, but Goldstein’s amended version reads: “Lord we beseech You, bestow Your guidance and protection upon all the people of this country.”

(vide video online)

South African Chief Rabbi Calls Out Government for ‘Supporting’ Hamas: You Are Iran’s ‘Useful Idiots’ - Algemeiner.com Chief Rabbi of South Africa Tells Government Siding With Hamas: You Are Iran's 'Useful Idiots'

Chief Rabbi of South Africa Warren Goldstein lambasted the South African government in a new video for "betraying" Israel and being the "useful idiots" of Iran and its proxies, including the Palestinian terror group Hamas, following Pretoria's decision to recall its diplomats from the Jewish...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

I Rescued a Muslim Father and Son Following the October 7th Attack That Killed the Man’s Wife; This Is Their Story​

Ariel Pachima with the father and son he helped during the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas. Photo: provided.

On that fateful morning of October 7th, I was asked by the head of the Be’er Sheva branch of United Hatzalah to go to Soroka Hospital in the city, to see if they needed help due to the sheer quantity of patients being brought there.

When I arrived near the entrance to the ER, an EMT came out of an ambulance and started throwing up. I was immediately asked to fill the gap and replace him in the ambulance. I didn’t think twice and jumped into the ambulance, which was now staffed with the driver and myself. We drove toward the Gaza periphery and started receiving patients who were brought to us by security forces, or that we found in the field.

Two patients that I will forever remember were Hamed and his baby boy. We encountered them in the field after they managed to escape the inferno. Hamed had shrapnel injuries to his back, and the young boy had shrapnel injuries to his shoulder and upper torso, and they were both bleeding. I began the crucial initial treatment, cleaning and bandaging their wounds. Meanwhile, our ambulance driver raced to Soroka Hospital, knowing that we would need to come back and treat and transport others.
“They murdered my wife!” Hamed kept repeating, hysterical. He went on to explain that early in the morning, Hamed and Fatima, residents of the Bedouin town of Arara BaNegev, had been driving to Mivtachim, a town close to the Gaza border, where Hamed works in a greenhouse growing tomatoes.

They had brought their young boy in the back of the car. As Hamed stopped the car at an intersection, Hamas terrorists on motorcycles who had infiltrated Israeli territory, opened fire on Hamed and Fatima. Hamed’s wife was killed almost immediately. Hamed and their infant son sustained injuries from shrapnel. Hamed told me that his wife, whose body had to be left in the field, was wearing a hijab, a head covering worn by Muslim women, which was obviously visible to Hamas terrorists and did not prevent them from murdering her savagely.

Hamed managed to exit the car and sought refuge with his child, remaining in hiding for several hours. At one point he and his son were caught in a crossfire between Hamas terrorists and IDF soldiers, and he thought they were going to die. After the soldiers eliminated the terrorists they found Hamed hiding and first viewed him as a suspect. The company commander, noticing the child, and Hamed speaking some Hebrew, told the soldiers not to shoot as he was Israeli. “I saw my death right in front of me until the commander said I was Israeli,” Hamed told me.

After the soldiers left, Hamed decided to leave the area with a car he found and drive to the Ofakim intersection nearby, where we found him.

After we transported Hamed and his son to the hospital, I lost contact with them. But I work at a cement factory in Be’er Sheva, and last week I was approached by a fellow employee who lives in Arara BaNegev and is Hamed’s neighbor, who reconnected us.

On Wednesday last week, I arrived with a basket of fruit at Hamed’s house to extend condolences for the passing of Hamed’s wife and support for him and his son. It was incredibly moving for me. Hamed expressed his gratitude, stating, “Thank you. The situation was completely crazy, and despite it all, you risked your life to save others. We will be strong, and I wish you to continue to be strong also.”

This is how peace will come; when our shared humanity triumphs over the hate of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Ariel Pachima is a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT. He lives in Be’er Sheva with his wife and three children.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Two conflicts are currently dominating the geopolitical and media landscape: the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many attempts have been made to create moral equivalencies between the protagonists, dependent on the politics or ideology of those involved.

CNN’s graph, based on World Health Organization data, makes a direct comparison between “attacks on health care” in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza during a set timeframe to demonstrate surges in such “attacks.”

While it looks impartial and purely statistical, it serves as an example of how visual aids can be misconstrued due to lack of context.

Why is the above so problematic?

• Russia deliberately and indiscriminately attacks Ukrainian healthcare facilities. Israel does not deliberately target such facilities unless they have, according to the internationally recognized laws of war, been militarized by Palestinian terrorists. Quite simply, there is no moral equivalence between Russia’s blatant war crimes and Israel’s adherence to international law.
• According to a note attached to the graph by CNN, the WHO defines “attacks” as “any act of verbal or physical violence or obstruction or threat of violence that interferes with the availability, access and delivery of curative and/or preventive health services during emergencies.” What does this mean in practice? Is the suspension of Gazan hospital services due to a lack of fuel treated as an Israeli “attack?”Has the WHO considered the Hamas tunnels and operations center underneath Shifa Hospital as an “attack” on health care by virtue of Hamas turning the facility into a legitimate military target? We consulted with Israel’s Ministry of Health and were told that the WHO does not report the militarization of health assets. And what if an ambulance is commandeered to transport terrorists and is, as a result, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike? Are both considered “attacks,” even though the latter would be against a legitimate target?
• The graph includes attacks on “Occupied Palestinian territory.” Presumably, CNN has therefore included both the West Bank and Gaza even though Gaza has not been occupied since Israeli forces left in 2005.
• According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, the WHO considers all Israeli security checks on Palestinian ambulances to be denials of service and are thus included in the statistics. Given the number of times over many years that Palestinian terrorists have abused ambulances for their own ends, Israel has a responsibility to stop Palestinian emergency vehicles at checkpoints as they would any other vehicle.
• Where does the WHO get its statistics from? In the same way that the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza provides casualty figures, so it also submits so-called “attacks” on Palestinian medical facilities. This is clearly open to abuse. As for verification, the WHO is reliant on checking media reports, not all of which are accurate.
• The graph fails to differentiate between acts carried out by Israel and those of Hamas and/or other Palestinian terrorists. Clearly, the number of attacks on Israeli medical facilities is tiny compared to the Palestinian numbers. The obvious conclusion for an uninformed reader is that Israel has carried out a hugely “disproportionate” number of “attacks” compared to the Palestinians. In this particular case, the figures are also dependent on when each side has submitted details. We have been advised by the Israeli Ministry of Health that the statistics from the Israeli side are not up-to-date.
• This means that three direct rocket strikes on Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center are not registered, including one on the hospital’s child development center. Not to mention over 1,000 instances of rocket sirens being triggered in the area of the hospital. Not only have these incidents not been covered by the WHO or CNN’s graph but CNN itself has no mention of attacks on Barzilai anywhere on its website.

Ultimately, the above points demonstrate that a visual aid like CNN’s raises more questions than it answers. Reducing the issue down to numbers and making a direct comparison with another conflict simply doesn’t work. Moreover, it creates false moral equivalency between both Israel and Russia and between Israel and Palestinian terrorists. The statistics effectively absolve Palestinian terror groups of any responsibility for their actions.

Graphs and charts may look pretty and are used to simplify complicated issues. But sometimes, a situation like the Israel-Hamas war is just too complicated to be reduced to a visual aid.

Ukraine and Gaza: How a CNN Graph Reduces ‘Attacks’ on Medical Facilities to a False Moral Equivalence - Algemeiner.com

Two conflicts are currently dominating the geopolitical and media landscape: the Israel-Hamas war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many attempts have been made to create moral equivalencies between the protagonists, dependent on the politics or ideology of those involved. CNN’s graph, based...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

One of the things about moments of intense darkness is that it’s difficult to pull back and look at the long arc of history.

We’re living through such a moment. Ever since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and brutally massacred 1400 souls on Oct. 7, our focus has been on the present—our feelings and our actions.

Emotions of intense grief, rage, shock and fear have collided in our consciousness. Meanwhile, our minds and our hands have been consumed with action—what can we do to help?

When all one can see and feel is the urgency of the moment, there’s not much room left to see history.

And yet, that is what I did this morning when I came across this quote from the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

“To be a Jew is to be part of the most remarkable story ever lived, by any people, covering more countries, more adverse circumstances, more triumph and tragedies than any other story. Every one of us has a chapter to write in that story and hand the book on. That is what it is to be a Jew.”

What struck me about the quote is its radical inclusivity. It’s all in there. Every aspect, every moment, every drama of the Jewish experience since time immemorial is included. Tragedies, triumphs, everything in between.

In addition to every moment, Sacks makes sure to include every Jew. Every Jew is part of “the most remarkable story ever lived” and “has a chapter to write in that story and hand the book on.”

It’s more pleasant, of course, when we’re writing a triumphant chapter like the creation of the state of Israel, or the success of Jewish comedy in America, or a spiritual renaissance among the new generation. Those are fun to write.

This chapter isn’t.

Since Oct. 7, we’ve been living through perhaps the darkest time of our Jewish lives. Many of us are still dizzy and numb from the shock of the massacre, not to mention the alarming rise in Jew hatred throughout much of the world. It’s hard to even know what we’re writing.

There is a human tendency to take such moments of extreme darkness and treat them as extreme exceptions. We want to file them away in a special box so we never have to experience them again. But there is an opposite tendency to allow the darkness to invade our souls and blind us to the presence of light.

This is why I found the quote from Rabbi Sacks so powerful—it embraces the darkest darkness and the brightest light. It elevates light without underplaying darkness. It reminds us that they are both part of the most remarkable story ever lived.

It reminds us that Oct. 6 is just as important as Oct. 7.

Rabbi Sacks entered my life this morning to remind me that all these extremities of Jewish life are part of our story. They have shaped us into we are. And just as a horrible tragedy may have befallen us, there are chapters of triumph yet to be written.

Shabbat shalom.

Seeing October 7 Through the Long Arc of the Jewish Story

Rabbi Sacks reminds us that all these extremities of Jewish life are part of our story. They have shaped us into we are.

jewishjournal.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1


Anyone who knew how Palestinian journalism works probably could have predicted that it would happen. And, yet, like all of the other horrifying details about the Oct. 7 murderous attacks on Israel, most of the world prefers to look the other way. The fact that the Hamas terrorists were—as a report published by HonestReporting documented—accompanied during their pogroms carried out in Jewish communities in southern Israel by photographers who work for CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press and The New York Times still ought to shock the people who watch and read these outlets.

The Times is denying that it had any advance knowledge of the atrocities, though no one is saying it did. Indeed, Hamas operatives didn’t even know the date of the assault in advance. The issue is that people who work for these outlets became part of the terrorist attack—embedded with those who actually carried out the murders, rapes and torture—in much the same way that Western journalists cover armies during wars.

The point those dismissing this story refuse to acknowledge is that legitimate journalists don’t tag along with criminals in the commission of their crimes and take pictures of them as if they were paid to record a wedding for posterity. It’s not good enough to say that these people were merely doing their jobs reporting the news when they worked to help facilitate the barbaric assault on innocent people. Those who do so—and in some cases posted since-deleted pictures of themselves waving grenades or being kissed by a terrorist leader—are, as Israel has rightly noted, not just complicit but no different from the terrorists themselves, and can and should face the same justice meted out to the killers and rapists.

Declining credibility of journalists everywhere

The credibility of corporate mainstream journalism couldn’t be much lower, with Gallup showing in its last yearly survey that only 34% of respondents fully trust the national media. Indeed, a subsequent studyfrom Gallup and the Knight Foundation published earlier this year showed that a full 50% of respondents said they thought that national news organizations intentionally deceived them. The reason for this is that many journalists have discarded even the pretense of objectivity for partisan cheerleading.

Yet it’s still likely that most of their readers and viewers believe that the people who work for the brand names noted in the HonestReporting story are legitimate journalists, rather than fellow travelers actively aiding and abetting the mass slaughter of Jews. But for most of what is published and broadcast from Hamas-controlled Gaza, the assumption that terror groups are not in control of what mainstream outlets report as the truth has always been a myth.

As former AP journalist Matti Friedman noted in an article published in The Atlantic in 2014, the Western media has always been pursuing an agenda in its coverage of Israel.

Part of the problem is the one demonstrated by the way the photographers who work for mainstream American outlets in Gaza tagged along with the terrorists on Oct. 7. Those who report about Palestinian life in Gaza and the territories are in thrall to terror groups.

Since Israel is a democracy with a lively and largely adversarial press corps—most of which, as is the case in the United States, leans hard to the left—there is no shortage of critical coverage of the Jewish state from its own outlets. Foreign journalists have no problem echoing the most hostile Israeli reporting about the country’s government.

Journalists who aid terrorists help mainstream Jew-hatred - JNS.org

Documentation that freelance photographers working for mainstream outlets helped facilitate the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre shows why coverage of Israel has always been skewed.

www.jns.org