America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Nazi Revivalism in America
THE GREATEST THREAT TO AMERICA IS ISLAM!
YOU'VE FORGOTTEN THE SAUDIS MUSLIM INVASION OF AMERICA SEPT 11 2001???
When Palestinian-American and Democrat Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib posted a video saying from the river to the sea, she was promoting a “rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people.” This call for Jewish genocide was the same call the Nazis made. It’s disturbing to realize that many pro-Palestinian and, inevitably, antisemitic protesters know nothing about the history of the Jews and Israel. They have no sense that Jews, rather than controlling the world, have been its victims for millennia, enduring an incomparable history of persecution that has led to repetitive bouts of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and racist laws that make Jim Crow seem tame.
In 1492, the Spanish monarchs’ Alhambra decree gave the Sephardic Jewish population, which had Iberian roots stretching back almost a millennia, four months to convert or be banished. Most migrated to Poland or the Ottoman Empire.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the descendants of those Sephardic Jews who had relocated to Poland found their new Russian overseers sanctioning or condoning pogroms. The Jews were being cleansed again. Many fled to the United States. Almost simultaneously, in answer to Theodor Herzl’s renewal of the Biblical precept that Jews should return to Zion, many Jews embarked on a First and Second Aliyah (incoming or, literally, “going up”) to lands that were then part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans welcomed the arriving Jews, happily selling them land in a mostly barren desert or a swamp infested with malaria and yellow fever.
During WWI, the Ottomans were courted by the Allied Powers, but they chose to ally with the Axis Powers. After the war, per routine spoils of war protocol, the losing empires were dismantled, and the victors determined the recipients of the spoils. The Ottoman Empire was broken up into many future Middle Eastern nations but, first, they had to be prepared for nationhood. To that end, temporarily, they became protectorates or mandates of France or Britain.
The Mandate for Palestine was the answer to halting the ongoing heinous history of racism against the Jews. The Jews would be given their own nation. The land chosen was not arbitrary. The Ottomans had conquered this land in the 16th century, and now the Allied Powers reconquered it and were returning it to the Jews who had lived their continuously since roughly 1800 B.C.
In 1912, Albanian lands that the Ottomans had seized in the 14th century were similarly returned to the Albanians as the spoil of another war. They, too, would have their own nation.
The Mandate for Palestine supercharged Jewish hatred in the Middle East. Muslims had been content to have Jews living amongst them as a productive subordinate population but rejected their being equal with Muslims. At the same time, petty British bureaucrats feared Jewish threats to their power, so they also fomented anti-Jewish hatred amongst the Arabs.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Hitler was supercharging hatred for the Jews. The Nazi-led execution of over 6 million Jews from 21 countries was and remains the most heinous act of racism in history. Between WWI and WWII, the third through fifth Aliyah took place, and 368,000 Jews migrated from Europe and the Middle East to the Mandate for Palestine. Many more would have migrated, but the British restricted entry. Many Jews would have also fled to the United States, but FDR had to weigh saving Jews against appeasing his anti-Semitic constituents. The latter prevailed.
Responsibility for the Mandate for Palestine shifted from Britain to the UN in 1947. The UN decided that the mandated lands, which included Jordan and parts of would accommodate a Jewish and a Palestinian nation. Israel was supposed to be a place where Jews could live securely in peace. Some of the very people who rejected the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East would now be Israel’s neighbors. The United Nations, by its charter, is committed to preventing future wars, but it set Israel up for war.
On May 14, 1948, Israel became an independent nation. The population of Israel/Palestine was 82.1% Jewish. On May 15, 1948, a coalition of Arab nations attacked Israel and leveraged the territories allocated for a Palestinian nation. Their hatred for Jews increased after suffering a humiliating loss to this fledgling nation of people that Muslims historically stereotyped as merchants—not soldiers. The violence against Jews in the Middle East was now ratcheted up, with Muslim Nations evicting 900,000 Jews, many of whom had lived in those lands since Roman times. Israel took in every refugee.
Surrounded by Arab (and one Iranian) nations seeking its demise, Israel needed the UN to deter Muslim nations from invading it. But this did not occur. Most UN member nations are antisemitic or anti-Zionist (as if there is any real difference). In 1975, the UN passed a resolution that declared “Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
The UN was encouraging hatred against Jews and, for all intents and purposes, denying the right of a sovereign UN member to exist. An organization with a charter to protect the sovereignty of members and peaceful coexistence was a pawn of Muslim aggression, and it still is. On October 24, UN General Secretary Gutierrez, like President Obama, disgracefully rationalized the murder of 1,400 Israelis because of Israel’s “occupation.” Framed as occupiers, Israelis become synonymous with white supremacists, and per Biden and Gutierrez this is one of the greatest threats in the world. This makes punishment justified, and Hamas propagandists know that.
Obama’s and Gutierrez’s characterization of Jews as occupiers is even more disturbing because both know the Jews stopped occupying Gaza in 2005, and Hamas became the ruling power in 2007. If Israel were an occupying or ruling power in Gaza, the October 7 massacre might not have occurred.
Further, both know that, in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority governs, and Israel’s settlers and settlements are a reasonable defensive measure, given the circumstances. If the settlers weren’t there, the massacre of October 7 could have been many times worse. Is Obama a product of his mentor, Jeremiah Wright, or his admired racial brother, Louis Farrakhan? Is Gutierrez, as alleged, a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda?
By appealing to their antisemitic constituents, the current presidential administration is scarcely better. Team Biden told Israel that after winning the war (which it is doing), it cannot occupy Gaza. But the administration knows this is a recipe for future wars. Incredibly, the White House reported on October 16 that hate crimes against Jews are more than 50% of total religious-based hate crimes. T, on November 1, the White House announced, “taking on hate is a national strategy,” and, further, that it had created the first National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia.
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. I posited at the beginning of this essay that many pro-Palestinian protesters are ignorant about Jewish history. However, if they don’t have that excuse, then God help America because it indicates that a visible portion of America’s youth and the left is immoral and inhumane. That should frighten all Americans.
A federal program to help nonprofit groups protect against terrorist attacks has given millions of dollars to mosques and Islamic groups that have praised terrorists and called for the destruction of Israel, according to a Washington Free Beacon review.
The Department of Homeland Security awarded the California-based Masjid al-Ansar mosque $100,000 on March 9 under the Nonprofit Security Grants Program. Moustafa Kamel, the imam at Masjid al-Ansar, earlier this year called Jews a "bigoted and arrogant breed of people" and prayed they "will be annihilated" in a war over the Holy Land, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Then there is the Islamic Center of Detroit, which received $150,000 on Oct. 12, 2022. Its head imam, Imran Salha, said at a pro-Palestinian rally days after Hamas’s invasion of Israel that Muslims have a "fire in our hearts that will burn that state until its demise." During a sermon in March, he referred to the "sick, disgusting Zionist regime" and prayed: "may Allah eradicate them from existence."
The rhetoric could fuel the sorts of hate and terrorist attacks that the Homeland Security grants aim to prevent. Anti-Semitic hate crimes have surged 400 percent since Hamas’s attack, in which 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered. A bipartisan group of senators called for additional funding under the program last month to protect against "a potential rise in anti-Semitic threats."
There is little oversight over which organizations receive funding under the program, which is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state agencies. A majority of the grants have gone to synagogues, churches, mosques, and temples that do not support violence or promote terrorist organizations.
But there are also grants to outfits like the Islamic Center of San Diego, a mosque best known as the home to two 9/11 hijackers. Days after the Hamas attack, Imam Taha Hassane defended the attack on Israel as an act of self-defense.
"When people are occupied, then the resistance is justified," he said in an Oct. 20 sermon. "We cannot accuse somebody who is fighting for his life to be a terrorist. The terrorist is the one who started the occupation, not the one who is defending himself."
The mosque received $150,000 under the grant program on Aug. 15, according to federal spending records.
At the Flint Islamic Center, which received $300,000 in grants on Oct. 12, 2022, an Islamic scholar asserted in a sermon last month that Jews "literally live for the purpose of genocide" of Palestinians.
"These people … their businesses have foundations just to serve their objectives. They literally live for a purpose of genocide in an occupation like this," said Shaykh Adbullah Waheed.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group identified as a co-conspirator of Hamas, has mounted a public awareness campaign to urge mosques and Islamic nonprofits to apply for the Homeland Security grants. CAIR noted that fewer than 50 Islamic organizations had received funding under the program, largely due to "concerns about the potential strings attached" to accepting the federal funds.
CAIR, which received grants under the Homeland Security program, blamed Israel for the "root causes" of the Hamas attack. Its executive director, Nihad Awad, condemned President Joe Biden for criticizing Hamas instead of Israel.
Dar al-Hijrah, the mosque of Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki and Nidal Hisan, has received funding under the grant program. An imam at the mosque appeared to condone Hamas violence against Israel during a sermon last month, saying: "When the hypocrites say, ‘those people are deluded by their beliefs, they think if they kill their enemies, they go to paradise.’ Well, you don’t have to accept it. It’s not your faith. But we are free to believe what we believe."
The Muslim American Society’s Chicago affiliate, which received $149,000 on Sept. 1, was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical Islamist group that spawned Hamas. The Muslim American Society regularly hosts anti-Semitic speakers. Yasir Qadhi, an Islamic scholar who has said that "Hitler never intended to mass-destroy the Jews," is slated to speak at its annual convention next month.
The head imam at the Islamic Organization of North America, which received $450,000 on Nov. 3, 2022, said at a rally last month that Palestinians were being "slaughtered by the Israeli Zionist government." The event was emceed by Amer Zahr, an activist who has said, "We stand with every resistance against Israel and every resistance against the occupation … whether it’s called Hamas, whether it’s called Hezbollah."
Other grants have gone to ICNA Relief USA, whose religious director, Rafiq Mahdi, has expressed "support" for Hamas and said it is "difficult to blatantly condemn [suicide bombers]."
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite his longtime support for former President Barack Obama, HBO’s Bill Maher admitted to feeling disappointment while “struggling” with the Democrat ex-president’s “moral equivalency” between the Jewish state and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas.
On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s Real Time, host and political commentator Bill Maher expressed his dismay over Obama’s recent remarks regarding the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“I must say I am struggling with people’s moral equivalencies, still,” Maher said during a panel discussion.
“I mean, Barack Obama, who has rarely disappointed me, did so this week,” he continued. “His statement — I mean, it’s not a horrible statement — but he said, ‘If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth and then you have to admit nobody’s hands are clean.’”
Last week, Obama told his former staffers on Pod Save America that “all of us are complicit to some degree” in the violence in Gaza, as he appeared to describe a moral equivalence between Hamas murdering Israelis and the Israeli “occupation” of Gaza.
Some referred to his remarks as a version of “very fine people on both sides.”
Admitting that the 44th president’s comments were “literally” true, Maher offered two examples of why they were nonetheless unhelpful “at this moment.”
“First of all, the attack was only a month ago. A more savage attack than we’ve ever seen in reverse,” he said. “There’s a big difference between collateral damage and what Hamas did.”
In addition, the liberal comedian contrasted Israel’s humane gestures with Hamas’ brutal conduct.
“Secondly, the Israelis are now allowing a four-hour pause for people to get out,” he said. “So people say ‘oh, wow, big of them.’ Ok, but it is a war that the other side started!”
“It’s so interesting. When they fire at Israel, it’s a war. When Israel fires back, it’s a war crime,” he added. “Little crazy.”
WATCH — Jake Sullivan: 9 Americans Still Missing After Hamas Terror Attack:
He contrasted Hamas’ practices with Israel’s attempts to minimize casualties by pausing military actions to allow civilians to evacuate, questioning whether or not the terror group would undertake similar humanitarian actions.
“Also, would Hamas do that? Would they give four-hour pauses?” he asked. “No, no pausing.”
Maher then highlighted the response of the Israeli government to controversial statements made by its own officials, referencing an instance where a minister who mentioned using a nuclear weapon against Gaza was removed from the Cabinet.
In contrast, he argued, such accountability is unlikely to be seen from Hamas.
“And then Israel’s heritage minister was asked in an interview about using a nuke on Gaza. And he said ‘that’s one of the possibilities.’ He was fired, not allowed in the Cabinet meeting anymore, disavowed by the Prime Minister,” he said.
“Would that happen in reverse? So enough with the moral equivalencies, please,” he added.
WATCH — Netanyahu: Hamas Taking Babies Hostage Is “Savagery of the Highest Order”:
He also claimed media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war “couldn’t be more pro-Hamas than it is now.”
Despite Obama’s remarks about Israeli “occupation,” Gaza has not been “occupied” by Israel since 2005, when Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and civilians in a “disengagement” that aimed to reduce violence in the region.
In response, Hamas launched thousands of rockets at Israel and started several wars.
Though last month, in the wake of the October 7 massacre which saw Hamas perpetrate the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, Obama said that Israel must “dismantle” Hamas; he has since spent the last several weeks backtracking in the face of anti-Israel and antisemitic activism emanating from the “progressive” left.
Responding to Obama’s comments, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) issued a blistering response, accusing the former president of being “complicit” in terror and war.
In addition, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) head Morton Klein called Obama a “monstrous and dangerous Jew-hater and Israel-hater who must be condemned, delegitimized, and removed from polite society.”
WATCH — Maher: Media “Couldn’t Be More Pro-Hamas than It Is Now”:
The October 7 attack saw Hamas terrorists gun down hundreds of young participants at an outdoor music festival while others hunted Jewish men, women, and children in local towns, who were then subjected to torture, rape, execution, immolation, and kidnapping.
The onslaught resulted in more than 1,200 dead inside the Jewish state, over 5,300 more wounded, and at least 241 hostages of all ages taken.
The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include dozens of American citizens.
Last month, Maher argued that anti-Israel and pro-Hamas sentiment is a majority view on elite college campuses, describing them as “the mouth of the river from which most of this nonsense flows.”
“And they’re very influential and those are the people who graduate and become the assholes in society,” he said.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
Glorifying Hamas and Teaching Palestinians’ Blood Libel to Children
Members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) teaching and administrative staff celebrated Hamas’ massacre of 1400 Israelis and abductions on October 7th. UN Watch, a human rights organization that monitors the United Nations’ compliance with the principles of its own Charter, has just issued a blistering report exposing this scandalous endorsement of the actions of genocidal terrorists
For example, an UNRWA principal, Iman Hassan, praised the massacre for “restoring rights” and “redressing” Palestinian “grievances.”
An UNRWA teacher, Osama Ahmad, posted, “Allah is Great, Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams” on the morning of October 7th as news of the genocidal attacks was spreading,
An UNRWA English teacher, Asmaa Rafiq Kuheil, posted, “7th, October, 2023! Sculpture the date!” To make sure that nobody missed the point, this Hamas supporter added a heart emoji to his post.
Another UNRWA English teacher, Mohammed A. Adwan, justified Hamas’ deliberate slaughter of the most Jews on a single day since the Holocaust as “resistance, regaining our rights and defending our land.” He propagated the blood libel that Israeli Jews are European colonizers who “occupy” the Palestinians’ homes and “displace our ancestors with massacres.” According to this false victimhood narrative, the Jewish people who live in Israel today have no historical connection to the land of Israel, the Jewish homeland where Jews have lived continuously for nearly 4000 years. This false narrative also castigates the Jewish inhabitants as white European “colonialists” – a racist accusation that ignores Israel’s actual demographics. A higher percentage of Israeli Jews today are categorized as Mizrahi (descendants of African and Middle Eastern Jews) than Ashkenazi (descendants of European Jews). Mizrahim, who were welcomed to reside in Israel and became Israeli citizens, were often fleeing persecution of Jews in the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries. Arab countries, on the other hand, have been far less hospitable to so-called Palestinian “refugees.”
Mohammed Al-Shaikh Ali, who has identified himself as an UNRWA employee, posted an ominous warning on October 10th to any Gazans thinking of escaping Gaza to Egypt: “Anyone who talks about taking refuge in Sinai is a traitor, and such people, along with anyone who tries to flee to the south, should be treated the way we ought to treat traitors.”
An UNRWA Gaza psychological school counselor, Niveen Afana, posted her prayer the day after Hamas’ savage attacks on Israeli civilians: “Allah, have mercy on our martyrs, heal our wounded, free our prisoners, strengthen our mujahideen (holy warriors), and grant them victory over the unbelievers.”
These examples and others that UN Watch’s report describes of UNRWA staff’s hate speech, blood libel against Jews, and support for the Hamas terrorists are sickening but not unexpected, given UNRWA’s anti-Semitic track record. But this evil phenomenon is spreading throughout the world, including across America.
Even in New York City, home to the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, public school teachers are spouting the same hate speech and demonization of Israel as the pro-Hamas UNRWA teachers do.
A Manhattan pre-K teacher, Siriana Abboud, for example, “offers social-media guides on how to talk to 4-year-olds about ‘land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing,’” the New York Post reported. “She proselytized online that ‘teaching can never be radical or revolutionary, so long as you deny the ongoing and violent colonization of Palestine by Zionism’ and that early education can be a ‘tool for liberation.’” Abboud called Israel a “fascist ethnostate.”
New York’s Department of Education rewarded Ms. Abboud earlier this year with the Big Apple Award for 2023-2024 as a “liberation-inspired educator” who advocates “global consciousness.” The only “consciousness” she possesses is her hatred of Jews. The award entitles this anti-Semite to engage with the School Chancellor’s Teacher Advisory Council where she will have the opportunity to advocate for incorporating her blood libel against the Jewish State of Israel in citywide education policies and programs.
Ms. Abboud should not be anywhere near pre-K children with her poisonous ideas, let alone being in a position to influence any citywide education policies and programs. She should be required to forfeit her award and be kicked out of the School Chancellor’s Teacher Advisory Council.
Mr. Ahmad called New York City Chancellor David Banks a “white supremacist, imperialist scumbag” for daring to condemn Hamas’ October 7th terrorist attacks. Ahmad praised Hamas’ dastardly massacre of young people at a music peace festival and Hamas’ slaughter of families, young children, and even babies as “a successful military campaign.”
Ahmad also wrote on X: “So-called ‘Israel’ is a settler colony that was invented and only continues to exist through terrorism, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and ongoing incremental genocide.” And he displayed a pro-Hamas paraglider photo online.
“How can Jews feel safe in Mohammad’s classroom?” Justin Spiro, a New York City school social worker, asked. They can’t. This pro-Hamas Jew hater does not belong anywhere near a classroom, but he is counting on his teachers’ union to protect him.
New York City school teachers, staff, and students walked out of the city’s schools to participate in a pro-Palestinian rally on November 9th, in concert with a nationwide “Shut it down for Palestine” protest. The Palestinian Youth Movement, the National Students for Justice in Palestine, the ANSWER Coalition, the People’s Forum, and the International Peoples’ Assembly were the organizers of the nationwide walkouts. Their stated purpose was to “keep building momentum and increase the pressure with more marches, walk-outs, sit-ins, and other forms of direct action directed at the political offices, businesses, and workplaces that fund, invest, and collaborate with Israeli genocide and occupation.”
New York City public school teachers participating in the walkout ignored Chancellor David Banks’ warning that “When speech and action — even on one’s personal time — undermines the mission or core functions of NYCPS [New York City Public Schools], we will review and take appropriate action on a case-by-case basis.” He made it clear in his e-mail to teachers and staff that even out-of-school political activity can violate city rules if it “disrupts … the school environment.”
In this case, New York City teachers walked out of school during their working hours, along with students and staff, to incite hate against Israel with their scurrilous accusation that Israel is committing genocide of the Palestinian people. By their actions, they have contributed to creating a more hostile “school environment” for Jewish students who are pro-Israel. The teachers especially deserve punishment for shirking their educational responsibilities to spread hate.
In Massachusetts, a school superintendent sent an e-mail just days after the Hamas massacre to teachers in her district directing them to a site that states: “Contrary to the standard mythology, especially in Israel, Israeli terrorism has been significantly worse than that of the Palestinians.”
On the Left Coast, the Oakland Education Association responded to the October 7th terrorist attack and aftermath by condemning Israel. This union accused Israel of maintaining a “75 year long illegal military occupation of Palestine” and espousing “genocidal rhetoric and policies against the people of Palestine.”
The Oakland Education Association recommended to its members that they should use the “Teach Palestine” website as a resource. This website points to several examples of lessons for teachers to use in brainwashing their students with pro-Palestinian propaganda.
In one example, a third-grade teacher describes how she coaches her students to believe the false narrative that Israel was created as “a European colony” resulting in the forcible removal of “750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands.” This teacher indoctrinates her students to view the Palestinians’ experience as equivalent to the Native Americans’ loss of land in the United States.
The third-grade teacher says not a word to her students about the continuous presence of Jews in their historic homeland for nearly 4000 years because such a fact would contradict her colonization fabrication. She skips over the fact that the Arabs rejected the opportunity for the Palestinians to have an independent state of their own in 1948, as well as the Palestinian leadership’s rejection of Israel’s generous land for peace offers several times since. She omits any mention of Hamas’ declared mission to destroy Israel altogether and kill as many Jews as possible.
The pro-Hamas teachers are stuck in their own web of lies and vicious slurs with their attempts to rationalize, even celebrate, Hamas’ savagery. They are complicit in egging on the Palestinian terrorists to conduct more vicious attacks against Israeli civilian women, children, infants, and the elderly in what a Hamas media adviser said will hopefully become a “permanent” state of war.
Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer, and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, The United Nations & Radical Islam.
Reader Interactions
Muslim Woman Jokes About ‘Seasoning’ the Israeli Baby Baked in an Oven
Who says Muslims don’t have a sense of humor? In France, Warda Anwar posted a video on Instagram in which she discussed the Israeli baby baked alive by Hamas murderers at Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. Did the “cook” use salt, pepper, a bit of thyme, she wondered, and “what fat did they roast it in?” And what were the side dishes that accompanied the main dish — the traditional pommes frites, with ketchup and mayonnaise as condiments, or something else?
More on this surpassingly evil young woman and her sense of humor can be found here: “France Takes Legal Action Against Woman Joking About Jewish Baby Cooked in an Oven: ‘Did they Use Salt, Pepper, Thyme, what Fat Did They Roast It In’ (Video),” by Amy Mek, RAIR Foundation, November 4, 2023:
A recent Instagram video, posted by an individual using the pseudonym ‘Haneia Nakei’ but identified as Warda Anwar, has sparked outrage and condemnation. The footage contained offensive jokes about a Jewish baby allegedly burned in an oven by Muslim terrorists during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has taken legal action in response to this disturbing content, fueling a broader discussion about freedom of speech and the efforts of left-wing governments to restrict it.
The video featured “Haneia Nakei” [the social media alias used by Warda Anwar] jokingly discussing the recent murder of a baby, humorously speculating about the “accompaniments” for the baby’s leg, and even facetiously declaring, “Each time I come across the story of the baby that was put in the oven. I wonder if they put salt pepper, did they add thyme, and what (fat) did they roast it in? And what were the side dishes… You don’t ask yourself the question? I don’t know. The side dish to this baby leg was just a classic plate of fries with a ketchup and mayonnaise. And we marinated it in salt, thyme, and a barbecue sauce, and paprika. Not bad! I think it’s a rather nice menu!” These highly insensitive remarks have provoked widespread outrage by non-Muslims and pro-Israel supporters.
The offensive video prompted swift condemnation from many leaders, including the Israeli ambassador to France, who strongly denounced the “filthy denialist and antisemitic remarks of the young woman.” The Israeli embassy issued a statement calling for the removal of “Warda Anwar” (a.k.a. Haneia Nakei) from social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok. The video made light of a grave incident during the Israel-Hamas conflict when Hamas executed over 1,400 people, including babies, pregnant women, and elderly individuals, in a barbaric manner.
An Israeli first responder to the October 7 Islamic terror attack reported that Hamas terrorists roasted a baby in an oven in shocking video testimony. Asher Moskowitz of the United Hatzalah first responder group published a video of himself speaking to a camera, delivering his eyewitness account.
In it, he claims he saw the remains of a baby who had been baked to death in an oven at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where more than 100 civilians were killed
The gravity of the woman’s video led to a significant response from the French government. Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on November 3 that he had referred the case to the national prosecutor’s office in Paris, invoking “Article 40 of the Criminal Code.” This action raises important questions about the boundaries of free speech in France, as many argue that such measures may infringe on the principle of freedom of expression.
The woman behind the offensive video, “Haneia Nakei” [Warda Anwar], now faces potential legal consequences. The referral to the national prosecutor’s office means that the legal authorities will review the case to determine whether her comments violated any laws, such as those related to France’s hate speech or incitement to violence. If her actions are found to have breached these laws, she could face criminal charges, fines, or other legal penalties.
Is it conceivable that this kind of grotesque and evil hilarity would not be considered hate speech? It makes light of the murder of a Jewish baby. And think of all the jokes that will now be circulating in “can-you-top-this” competitions on social media, possibly about the kinds of mutilations — the eyes gouged out, the genitalia cut off, the breasts sliced off — that the Israeli victims suffered that day.
The incident highlights the persistent contentious issue of content moderation on social media platforms. It emphasizes the various ways governments exert influence on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat and the increasing pressure placed on them to take action against what governments consider “hate speech” and “offensive” content. Notably, the Israeli embassy has explicitly called for the removal of Warda Anwar’s accounts from these platforms.
Can there be any doubt that Warda Anwar should not just have her accounts removed from social media, but also should be prosecuted for hate speech, and receive not only a stiff fine, but also a prison term, where behind bars (let her sentence be as long as the law allows, and ideally one to be served in solitary confinement), she can indulge her sense of humor to her heart’s content, telling her thigh-slapping jokes to her only audience, the four walls of her cell?
In London on Saturday, pro-Hamas demonstrators once again screamed “Khaybar, khaybar, ya yahud, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud,” – Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the Army of Muhammad shall return. This is an increasingly common feature of pro-Hamas rallies in the U.S. and Europe, while non-Muslim authorities generally remain either ignorant of what it portends, or indifferent to that meaning. Nowadays, those authorities may even be sympathetic with those who chant this. But make no mistake: this is a threat of a new genocide of the Jews.
As The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS explains, Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad led a Muslim force against the Khaybar oasis, which was inhabited by Jews — many of whom he had previously exiled from Medina for not converting to Islam and for supposedly conspiring against him, although the early Islamic sources place his demand that they convert before any such alleged conspiracies.
When Muhammad attacked Khaybar, he was not responding to any provocation. The Jews were no threat to him. But he had just concluded a treaty that was disadvantageous to the Muslims, and to quiet his disgruntled followers had promised them massive spoils in the near future. Khaybar offered that.
One of the Muslims later remembered: “When the apostle raided a people he waited until the morning. If he heard a call to prayer he held back; if he did not hear it he attacked. We came to Khaybar by night, and the apostle passed the night there; and when morning came he did not hear the call to prayer, so he rode and we rode with him….We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets. When they saw the apostle and the army they cried, ‘Muhammad with his force,’ and turned tail and fled. The apostle said, ‘Allahu akbar! Khaybar is destroyed. When we arrive in a people’s square it is a bad morning for those who have been warned.’”
When they entered Khaybar, the Muslims immediately set out to locate the inhabitants’ wealth. A Jewish leader of Khaybar, Kinana bin al-Rabi, was brought before Muhammad; Kinana was supposed to have been entrusted with the treasure of on of the Jewish tribes of Arabia, the Banu Nadir. Kinana denied knowing where this treasure was, but Muhammad pressed him: “Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?” Kinana said yes, that he did know that.
Some of the treasure was found. To find the rest, Muhammad gave orders concerning Kinana: “Torture him until you extract what he has.” One of the Muslims built a fire on Kinana’s chest, but Kinana would not give up his secret. When he was at the point of death, one of the Muslims beheaded him. Kinana’s wife Safiyya bint Huyayy was taken as a war prize; Muhammad claimed her for himself and hastily arranged a “wedding” ceremony that night. He halted the Muslims’ caravan out of Khaybar later that night in order to consummate the marriage, or more precisely, to rape Safiyya.
Muhammad agreed to let the people of Khaybar to go into exile, allowing them to keep as much of their property as they could carry. The Prophet of Islam, however, commanded them to leave behind all their gold and silver. He had intended to expel all of them, but some, who were farmers, begged him to allow them to let them stay if they gave him half their yield annually. Muhammad agreed: “I will allow you to continue here, so long as we would desire.” He warned them: “If we wish to expel you we will expel you.” They no longer had any rights that did not depend upon the good will and sufferance of Muhammad and the Muslims. And indeed, when the Muslims discovered some treasure that some of the Khaybar Jews had hidden, he ordered the women of the tribe enslaved and seized the perpetrators’ land. A hadith notes that “the Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives.”
Thus when modern-day Muslims invoke Khaybar, they are recalling an aggressive, surprise raid by Muhammad which resulted in the final eradication of the once considerable Jewish presence in Arabia. To the jihadists, Khaybar means the destruction of the Jews and the seizure of their property by the Muslims. The fact that modern pro- “Palestine” demonstrators want exactly that is unclear only to the willfully blind.
More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war
SYLVIE CORBET and BARBARA SURK
Updated
1 / 16
France March Against Antisemitism
Thousands gather for a march against antisemitism in Paris, France, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023. French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in a month since the conflict in the Middle East began. (AP Photo/Sylvie Corbet)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS (AP) — More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron's party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday’s march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism.”
However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of “friends of unconditional support for the massacre” in Gaza.
The interior ministry said at least 182,000 people marched in several in French cities in response to the call launched by the leaders of the parliament's upper and lower houses. No major incident has been reported, it said.
Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.
France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars.
Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel said marching against antisemitism is “more than a duty.”
“It's a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist,” the 67-year-old said.
Family members of some of the 40 French citizens killed in the initial Hamas attack, and of those missing or held hostage, also took part in the march, which Paris police said drew 105,000 participants.
Patrick Klugman, a lawyer and a member of “Freethem” committee working to obtain the release of people held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, said the large participation in the march is meaningful and symbolic in reassuring Jewish communities in France.
“I am very proud of my country because of this mobilization,” Klugman said. “I feel less alone than in the past weeks and days.”
Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France known as CRIF said he was encouraged Sunday's show of support, but the question remains, he told French broadcaster BFM at the march, “what will be done (against antisemitism) tomorrow?”
Tomer Sisley, an Israeli and French actor insisted the massive show of solidarity proves that majority of French citizens are against violence and hate against any religious and ethnic group.
“We’re not Jews, we’re not Muslims, we’re not Christians,” Sisley said. "We are French and we are here to show that we are all together.”
French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began.
Former French president Francois Hollande said “there are many French flags in the protest but what unites us is not just a flag, it’s what it represents, it’s the value of freedom and the value of human dignity."
In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished.
“A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France,” Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain “united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East.”
Macron said he will attend “in my heart and in spirit,” but not in person. “My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values,” Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday's march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy.
After arriving to the march with the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen dismissed critics and said that she and the party members are “exactly where we need to be.” She called on other politicians “to take a break from fomenting political controversies” during the march.
Le Pen and other far-right officials showed up at the end of the march, hundreds of meters away from government members and other officials who led the demonstration.
Borne, who is the daughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, tweeted “the presence of the National Rally is not fooling anyone.”
The president of the Paris region council, Valérie Pécresse, a former conservative presidential candidate, denounced “hypocrisy,” saying that National Rally officials ran against her in past elections “who were clearly antisemitic people and Marine Le Pen never sanctioned them.”
As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry.
Sunday's march in Paris appears as the biggest gathering to denounce antisemitism in France since a 1990 demonstration against the desecration of a Jewish cemetery.
France has banned a number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in a protest in Paris last Sunday.
————
Surk contributed from Nice, France. Video journalist Nicholas Garriga in Paris contributed reporting.
Pro-Palestinian Demonstrators Smash Grand Central, Vandalize New York Times
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators smashed a door at New York City’s Grand Central Station on Friday night and briefly forced the closure of the transportation hub as they marched through the streets of Manhattan for the second night in a row.
ABC-7 New York reported:
Service at Grand Central was limited on Friday after pro-Palestine protesters flooded the streets.
The pro-Palestinian rally started at 5 p.m. Friday at Columbus Circle, with thousands marching through the streets demanding a ceasefire overseas.
Marchers then made their way to the New York Times building, vandalizing the front with a red tint before heading to Grand Central.
CBS New York reported that there were several arrests, and violence elsewhere related to the demonstrations:
The NYPD says demonstrations are being held just about every day in the city and stretching police resources. Each precinct now has one supervisor and eight uniformed officers on standby, ready to respond to planned or pop-up demonstrations, according to police sources.
…
Police say around 9:30 p.m., some demonstrators staged a sit-in at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue and refused to comply with officers’ orders. Police also say there were altercations between some demonstrators and bystanders. A number of people were detained for disorderly conduct.
The New York Postreported that the protesters also spattered the front of the New York Times building with red paint, burned an Israeli flag, and chanted for the destruction of Israel:
The mob was part of a “Flood Manhattan for Gaza” protest that initially converged on Columbus Circle earlier in the evening, where they set fire to an Israeli flag and taunted a small faction of counter-demonstrators before marching through Manhattan and splattering fake blood on the New York Times building.
“We don’t want a Jewish state. We want ‘48!” the anti-Israel protesters chanted at the starting point, referring to Palestine before the establishment of Israel.
On Thursday night, pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the lobby of the New York Times itself. They vandalized police cars outside the building, painting “FREE GAZA” on them.
UNITED STATES -November 9: Pro Palestinian protesters invaded the lobby of The New York Times, set off a smoke bomb, and vandalized a police vehicle. Hundreds of New York City high school students walked out of class Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023, to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. (Photo by Kerry Burke/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
The Timesnoted that several of its own employees were among the demonstrators:
As the protest wound its way up Eighth Avenue toward Times Square, it paused in front of The New York Times, where a group of journalists and writers had also gathered in the lobby to demand The Times’ Editorial Board call for a ceasefire.
Outside the building on West 40th Street, a police cruiser’s back window was smashed, and the vehicle was graffitied with the words “IDF KKK.”
The increasing vehemence and violence of pro-Palestinian protests has gained attention around the world — including in Israel, where it has, ironically, reinforced a sense that Israel has no choice but to fight Hamas terrorists, since nowhere else in the world is safe for Jews.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
The whole world experienced the attacks of September 11, 2001, in real time. Videos, photos, and audio captured the horror inflicted by Islamic jihadists and the heroism displayed by ordinary Americans.
In our effort to never forget, Breitbart News offers you this visual and audial remembrance of that fateful day when the world changed forever.
We will always remember.
***
From the time of its opening in 1973 to that fatal day in September 2001, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center dominated the skyline of Lower Manhattan’s Financial District, as seen in this photo taken on September 5, 2001, just six days before the Towers fell:
(Jamie Squire/Allsport/Getty Images)
Designed by Detroit architect Minoru Yamasaki, the Twin Towers were famously disparaged by New York Times’ architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable, who offered this eerie and unintentionally prescient prediction in 1966: “The trade center towers could be the start of a new skyscraper age or the biggest tombstones in the world.”
Those words were long forgotten on that bright September morning before death rained down from cloudless skies.
A view from the Hudson River of Lower Manhattan’s Financial District, including the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. (Getty Images)
Betty Ong, the flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11, was the first person to notify authorities about the Islamic hijackers.
The audio of Ong’s call to the American Airlines emergency number was included in this audio/video montage released by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2018 to commemorate the 17th anniversary of 9/11:
The following video captured the moment of impact when Islamic hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower (1 WTC) at 8:46 a.m.
The first images of the burning North Tower quickly flashed across television sets.
This video shows the first five minutes of cable news coverage:
Four minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade Center, Christopher Hanley, 35, called 911 from the 106thfloor of the North Tower, where he was attending a conference at the restaurant Windows on the World that morning.
This is the audio of his 911 call:
The whole world watched in stunned horror as a second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, flew into the South Tower of the World Trade Center (2 WTC) at 9:03 a.m.
The second plane removed any doubt that this was a terror attack, not a pilot error, and America was indeed at war.
This video shows the ABC News coverage the moment the second plane struck:
United Airlines Flight 175 flew low over Manhattan on a direct path for the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/ William Kratzke)
Islamic hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center (2 WTC) at 9:03 a.m. (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor/File)
A fireball exploded from the South Tower. (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor)
Smoke billowed from the North Tower of the World Trade Center and flames and debris exploded from the South Tower. (AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong)
(AP Photo/Todd Hollis)
(AP Photo/ABC via APTN)
Plumes of smoke poured from the World Trade Center buildings. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.
He was informed about the attacks when his chief of staff, Andy Card, whispered in his ear: “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.”
President Bush’s Chief of Staff Andy Card whispered in his ear: “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” Bush was visiting Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, that morning. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
(Fabina Sbina/ Hugh Zareasky/Getty Images)
(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Debris fell from the burning Twin Towers. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Smoke poured from the World Trade Center after both planes strike. (Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
People watched the burning towers from the street below. (Getty Images)
People hang out of broken windows of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Richard Pecorella has spent years searching for an image he says will bring him peace: a photograph that proves his fiancee, whom he believes could be in this photo, jumped to her death from the burning World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
A man leaps to his death from a fire and smoke filled Tower One of the World Trade Center. (Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images)
A person jumps from smoke and flames at the World Trade Center. (Robert Giroux/Getty Images)
People in front of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral react with horror as they look down Fifth Ave towards the World Trade Center towers. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)
A man jumps from the North Tower. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The controversy surrounding the publication of the image below of a man falling from the North Tower, and the subsequent quest to identify the man depicted in this photo, inspired a 2006 documentary called 9/11: The Falling Man. You can watch it here.
A person falls headfirst from the North Tower. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A woman cries watching the World Trade Center go up in flames. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
At 9:37 a.m., the Islamic hijackers on board American Airlines Flight 77 crashed it into the Pentagon.
A helicopter flies over the Pentagon crash site. (AP Photo/Heesoon Yim)
A helicopter flies over the burning Pentagon. The Washington Monument can be seen at right, through the smoke. The White House roof is visible in the trees of Washington at left. (AP Photo/Tom Horan)
Vehicles are seen traveling on Interstate 395, leaving Washington, in front of the Pentagon. (AP Photo/Tom Horan)
Rescue workers look over damage at the Pentagon. (AP Photo/Kamneko Pajic)
At 9:45am, the FAA ordered the United States airspace shut down. No civilian flight was allowed to take off and all aircraft in the air were ordered to land at the nearest airport. In this photo a screen at the American Airlines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport shows that all flights have been canceled as the airport is shutdown. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
A board at the Los Angeles Airport announced the closing of the airport. (GERARD BURKHART/AFP/Getty Images)
The South Tower of the World Trade Center began to collapse at 9:58 a.m.
The South Tower of the World Trade Center began to collapse at 9:58 a.m. (AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova)
The Millenium Hilton hotel is seen in the foreground of this photo showing the South Tower collapsing. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
The South Tower collapses. (AP Photo/Jim Collins)
(Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images)
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The South Tower collapses. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
People flee the falling South Tower. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Were it not for the heroism of the passengers who stormed the cockpit, the Islamic hijackers would have crashed the plane into either the United States Capitol dome or the White House.
Officials examine the crater at the crash site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. (DAVID MAXWELL/AFP/Getty Images)
At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.
This photo of the North Tower of the World Trade Center shows the building 30 seconds before its collapse at 10:28 a.m. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People run from the collapse of one of the Twin Towers. (AP Photo/FILE/Suzanne Plunkett)
This is a view of the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn after the World Trade Center towers collapsed. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Smoke rises from the New York skyline. (JOHN MOTTERN/AFP/Getty Images)
(AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)
(Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Flags flew at half-staff at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, New Jersey, as a large cloud of smoke billowed from the fire at the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer)
Thick smoke billowed into the sky from the area behind the Statue of Liberty where the World Trade Center towers stood. (AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer)
The Statue of Liberty guarded the harbor as smoke engulfed lower Manhattan’s World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)
The remains of the World Trade Center stands amid the debris. (AP Photo/Alexandre Fuchs)
People run from the debris of the collapsed towers. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)
Pedestrians on Beekman St. flee the area of the collapsed World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta,FILE)
Survivors make their way through smoke, dust and debris on Fulton St., about a block from the collapsed towers. (AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova,FILE)
Marcy Borders covered in dust as she takes refuge in an office building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed in New York. Borders was caught outside on the street as the cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the area. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
A police officer helps a woman to a bus after she fled the area near the World Trade Center towers. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
People flee the collapsing World Trade Center. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Dust swirls around south Manhattan moments after a tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Police escort a civilian from the scene. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
People walk in the street in the area where the World Trade Center buildings collapsed. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
People evacuate the area around the World Trade Center. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
(Jose Jimenez/Primera Hora/Getty Images)
A car sits on its side amid rubble at the World Trade Center. (Ron Agam/Getty Images)
Cars are covered in rubble after the collapse of one of towers. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)
The debris and wreckage. (Getty Images)
A man walks through the rubble. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)
Edward Fine covering his mouth as he walks through the debris after the collapse of one of the World Trade Center Towers. Fine was on the 78th floor of 1 World Trade Center when it was hit. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
A man helps evacuate a woman through rubble and debris. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
An unidentified New York City firefighter walks away from Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers. (Anthony Correia/Getty Images)
People cover their faces as they move across the Brooklyn Bridge out of the smoke and dust in Manhattan. (AP Photo/Daniel Shanken)
People flee lower Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge. (AP Photo/Daniel Shanken)
(AP Photo/Daniel Shanken)
Pedestrians crossing the Brooklyn Bridge as they flee Manhattan after the collapse of the South Tower. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)
Traffic in Washington, DC, gets gridlocked, as U.S. government workers are released and the city is shutdown following the attacks. (TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)
President Bush watches television as he talks on the phone with New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York Gov. George Pataki aboard Air Force One. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
President Bush talks with Chief of Staff Andrew Card aboard Air Force One during a flight to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
An F-16 fighter flies just off the wing of Air Force One on a flight back to Washington, DC. (DOUG MILLS/AFP/Getty Images)
A trader outside the London Stock Exchange reads the evening paper with “Terror war on USA” on the front page. (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)
Newspaper vendor Carlos Mercado sells the “Extra” edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. (SCOTT OLSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Deputy U.S. marshal Dominic Guadagnoli helps a women after she was injured in the attack on the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova)
A shell of what was once part of the facade of one of the Twin Towers rises above the rubble that remains after both towers collapsed. (AP Photo/Shawn Baldwin)
New York City firefighters rest during rescue operations at the World Trade Center. (Ron Agam/Getty Images)
New York City firefighters’ search and rescue efforts at the World Trade Center. (Ron Agam/Getty Images)
New York City firefighters take a rest from rescue operations. (Ron Agam/Getty Images)
An unidentified New York City firefighter walks away from Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers. (Anthony Correia/Getty Images)
Rescue workers make their way through the rubble of the World Trade Center. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)
An exhausted police officer rests on a car covered in dust near the World Trade Center. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
Late afternoon, smoke rises in the distance before the Long Island and the Throgs Neck Bridge between the Bronx and Queens, NY, following the destruction of the Twin Towers. (MATT CAMPBELL/AFP/Getty Images)
Smoke billows from where the World Trade Center Twin Towers once stood, as evening descends on the city. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Patricia Petrowitz falls to her knees in prayer in Seattle’s St. James Cathedral during a prayer service on September 11, 2001. The Cathedral was filled to standing room only. (Tim Matsui/Getty Images)
Kellog Metcalf closes his eyes during the prayer service in Seattle’s St. James Cathedral. (Tim Matsui/Getty Images)
From front left: Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Majority Leader, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Rep. Richard Gephardt, House Minority Leader, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and other Congressional members address the public on the evening of September 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Kenneth Lambert)
Democrats and Republicans stood shoulder to shoulder on the steps of the Capitol that evening in a show of national unity.
At the end of their remarks, they sang “God Bless America.”
President George W. Bush walks down the steps of Air Force One as he arrives at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. (DOUG MILLS/AFP/Getty Images)
(AP Photo/Doug Mills)
President Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office that evening.
“Today, our nation saw evil — the very worst of human nature,” he said. “And we responded with the best of America.”
As the nation prayed, the search for survivors began…
Volunteers donate blood at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, at a blood donation station set up to help victims of the World Trade Center attack. Sadly, the donations were largely unnecessary because there were so few survivors rescued from the collapsed towers. (Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
In the days that followed, people returned to Ground Zero with photos of their loved ones, searching for any news of their whereabouts. In this September 13, 2001 photograph, a woman poses with a picture of a missing loved one who was last seen at the World Trade Center.(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
In this September 15, 2001, photograph, a woman poses with a picture of a missing loved one who was last seen at the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Charlie Krupa)
A woman is comforted as she holds a picture of a missing loved one who was last seen at the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
A woman looks at missing person posters of victims from the World Trade Center attacks. (AP Photo/Robert Spencer)
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani became America’s mayor during 9/11. In this photo, he consoles Anita Deblase, of New York, whose son, James Deblase, 44, was missing, at the site of the World Trade Center disaster. “He’s at the bottom of the rubble,” she said. James Deblase worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Military and fire personnel get set to unfurl a large American flag on the roof of the Pentagon on September 12, 2001. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
Firefighters unfurl an American flag from the roof of the Pentagon on September 12, 2001. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
A makeshift altar, constructed for a worship service, overlooks the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 16, 2001, in Shanksville, PA. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
An American flag is posted in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 13, 2001. (AP Photo/Beth A. Keiser)
On September 14, 2001, President Bush visited the first responders and rescue workers at Ground Zero and delivered an impromptu speech that captured the sentiment of the country:
The massive clean-up efforts at Ground Zero spanned months…
Among the rubble, a cast iron cross was found rising out of the destruction at the World Trade Center. The cross fell intact from Tower One into nearby Building Six on September 11.
The cast iron cross found in the rubble at the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/Pool)
On Thursday, Oct. 4, 2001, rescue and construction workers gathered around Father Brian Jordan, second from left, who blessed the cross of steel beams found amidst the rubble of the World Trade Center by a laborer two days after the collapse of the Twin Towers. (AP Photo/Pool, Kathy Willens)
One of the damaged connecting pedestrian walkways of the World Trade Center complex still stands at Ground Zero in New York on September 19, 2001. (AP Photo/Cameron Bloch)
A New York Fire Department Chief, firefighters from various municipalities, and other rescue workers take a break Thursday, September 13, 2001, from the rescue/recovery effort at the World Trade Center site. (Andrea Booher, FEMA via AP)
A worker examines a beam of tower one of the World Trade Center, on November 2, 2001, as the cleanup and recovery effort continues at ground zero in New York. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)
In the weeks and months that followed, we buried our dead…
The coffin of New York Fire Department Chaplain Rev. Mychal Judge is carried from St. Francis of Assisi Church on September 15, 2001, following his funeral mass in New York City. Judge, who was a Franciscan friar, died administering last rites to a fallen fire fighter in the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. (Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
Firefighter Tony James cries while attending the funeral mass for New York Fire Department Chaplain Rev. Mychal Judge. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Firefighters carry the flag-covered casket of fellow fireman Lt. Dennis Mojica during a funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on September 21, 2001, in New York City. Mojica, who was with Rescue Company 1, was one of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attack. (Joe Raedle/Gettyimages)
Firefighters stand atop a fire engine with the flag draped casket of fellow fireman Lt. Dennis Mojica following his funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. (Joe Raedle/Gettyimages)
New York City firefighters stand at attention as the casket of FDNY Capt. Terence Hatton is placed on a fire engine outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral on October 4, 2001, in New York City. Hatton was one of the 343 New York firefighters killed in the line of duty on September 11, 2001. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A joint service honor guard marches through the colonnade at Arlington National Cemetery with a casket containing the unidentified remains of victims of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, following a funeral ceremony on September 12, 2002. Of the 184 who died in the Pentagon attack, 64 have been buried at Arlington. (MIKE THEILER/AFP via Getty Images)
In the years that followed, we sought justice…
Nearly two years after the attacks, the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003.
His death penalty trial by military jury is set to start on January 11, 2021, at Camp Justice, Guantanamo Bay.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) handout photos of suspected al Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were marked with the word “Located” after his arrest on March 1, 2003 in Pakistan. (FBI/Getty Images)
And finally, ten years after the attacks, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was brought to justice.
On May 2, 2011, President Barrack Obama announced to the nation that bin Laden was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
A large, jubilant crowd at the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, adjacent to Ground Zero, reacts to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death on May 2, 2011, in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
A crowd in New York’s Times Square reacts to the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
And over the years, the country rebuilt, the memorials arose, and each year we remember…
Father Brian Jordan blesses the Ground Zero Cross at ceremony with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in attendance, on July 23, 2011, before the Cross was moved to its permanent home at the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Visitors to the Flight 93 National Memorial pause at The Wall of Names, containing the names of the 40 passengers and crew who died in the crash of United Flight 93 following a memorial service in Shanksville, PA, on September 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
President Barack Obama delivered an address at the dedication ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York on May 15, 2014. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)
The South reflecting pool is viewed at the Ground Zero memorial site during the dedication ceremony of the National September 11 Memorial Museum on May 15, 2014. The museum spans seven stories, mostly underground, and contains artifacts from the attack on the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001, that include the 80 ft. high tridents, the Ground Zero Cross, the destroyed remains of Company 21’s New York Fire Department Engine, as well as smaller items such as a letter that fell from a hijacked plane and posters of missing loved ones projected onto the wall of the museum. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
On May 15, 2014, a rose is placed on a name engraved along the South reflecting pool at the Ground Zero memorial site during the dedication ceremony. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A quote from Virgil fills a wall of the museum prior to the dedication ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial Museum on May 15, 2014. (John Munson-Pool/Getty Images)
On May 21, 2015, the National 9/11 Flag is displayed for the first time at the National September 11 Memorial Museum. The flag was recovered nearly destroyed from Ground Zero and was restored in “stitching ceremonies” held across the country. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
On October 29, 2014, One Word Trade Center as seen from the 9/11 Memorial grounds where the fallen towers once stood. (Diane Bondareff/Invision/AP Images)
On September 11, 2016, people visit the Pentagon’s 9/11 Memorial Park in Arlington, Virginia. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
On September 9, 2018, people attend the dedication stand around the 93-foot tall Tower of Voices at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the tower contains 40 wind chimes representing the 40 people that perished in the crash of Flight 93. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
The Tower of Voices display at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2018, the day before thousands of victims’ relatives, survivors, rescuers, and others joined President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a commemoration ceremony on the 17th anniversary of 9/11. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Thousands of flags representing each of the 9/11 terrorist attack victims wave on a lawn overlooking the Pacific at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, on September 8, 2019, in a display that is now an annual tradition commemorating the fallen. (AP Photo/John Antczak)
People walk by a memorial to fallen firefighters near the World Trade Center Memorial in lower Manhattan on September 9, 2019. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
An exact replica of the wall of the compound that Osama bin Laden was hiding in is displayed at the new exhibition “Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden” at the 9/11 Memorial Museum on November 7, 2019, in New York City. The exhibition features declassified documents, testimony, and objects to tell the story of the decade long hunt and capture of Bin Laden. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A poster and picture used to identify Osama Bin Laden is displayed at the new exhibition “Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden at the 9/11 Memorial Museum” on November 7, 2019 in New York City. The exhibition uses both digital and physical displays to show visitors the complexity of the search and eventual raid on Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound that led to his death. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The Tribute in Light to commemorate the 18th anniversary of 9/11 is seen next to the One World Trade Center on September 10, 2019, in New York City. (Johannes EISELE / AFP/Getty Images)
Firefighters and police participate in the start of ceremonies at the National September 11 Memorial on September 11, 2019, in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Alexandra Hamatie, whose cousin Robert Horohoe was killed in the 9/11 attacks, pauses at the National September 11 Memorial during a morning commemoration ceremony on September 11, 2019, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
People gather at one of the pools at the National September 11 Memorial following a morning commemoration ceremony on September 11, 2019, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) take part in a moment of silence on September 11, 2019, on the Capitol Steps with members of the House of Representatives during an observance and campus wide moment of silence for the National Day of Service and Remembrance honoring victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and his wife Leah Esper, lay a wreath during a ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, on September 11, 2019, at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump presents the Presidential Citizens Medal to Susan Rescorla, the wife of Richard Cyril Rescorla, during an East Room event at the White House on November 7, 2019. Richard Cyril Rescorla, the former director of security for Morgan Stanley, was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal posthumously for his implementation of evacuation plans that help to save thousands of lives during the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joins his Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America in a ceremony for the resumption of construction on the new Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center on August 3, 2020, in New York City. On September 11, 2001, St. Nicholas was the only other building besides the Twin Towers to be completely destroyed during the terrorist attack. Saint Nicholas Church, which began services in 1922, was named after Agios Nikolaos, the Patron Saint of Sailors. Before the Covid-19 outbreak halted all non-essential projects statewide for months, construction at the church was set to resume in the spring. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images).
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joins his Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America in a ceremony for the resumption of construction on the new Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine at the World Trade Center on August 3, 2020, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
A piper plays in front of the boulder that marks the impact site of Flight 93 at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA, on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020, as the nation prepares to mark the 19th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
The 9/11 Tribute in Light shines above the lower Manhattan skyline on September 10, 2020, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Her (KAMALA HARRIS) more radical positions, such as support for the Obama administration’s Iran deal, prosecuting a journalist who exposed Planned Parenthood’s collection and sale of aborted babies’ body parts (while receiving campaign donations from them), anddefending Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism, may indeed sit well with a great many leftists, but her actions as Attorney General of California may not. While in that position, Harris jailed hundreds on marijuana charges and authorized anti-prostitution sting operations which, according to SF Weekly, disproportionately targeted Latino men (a crucial Democrat demographic). In addition to this -- though she later admitted it was a mistake -- she prosecuted and jailed the parents of truant teens. She even refused to release the names of Catholic priests accused of sexually molesting children, abnegating law enforcement’s most basic and humane duty -- regardless of anyone’s opinion of the Catholic Church.
Muslim Democrats ‘Horrified’ by Plan to Halt Palestinian Immigration to U.S.
Celal Gunes/Anadolu/SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Muslim Democrats Andre Carson, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar say they are “horrified” by GOP plans that would halt Palestinian legal immigration to the United States.
This week, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) and other House Republicans introduced legislation to ban the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from providing green cards, visas, refugee status, and parole to Palestinians.
Zinke’s legislation also would revoke visas for Palestinians in the United States, thus making them eligible for deportation.
“This legislation keeps America safe,” Zinke said of the legislation. “I don’t trust the Biden Administration any more than I do the Palestinian Authority to screen who is allowed to come into the United States.”
In response, Carson, Tlaib, and Omar issued a joint statement where they called Zinke’s legislation “xenophobic, punitive, and [an] unconstitutional measure.”
“As the three Muslim Members of Congress, we are horrified by Rep. Ryan Zinke’s recently introduced bill to pause all visas, refugee status, and granting of asylum for individuals holding a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority indefinitely — and to revoke others,” they said:
Let’s be clear: using the full power of the state to target and persecute a particular ethnic group or nationality is fascism and pure bigotry. This legislation—by a former cabinet official no less—directly violates the U.S. Constitution, and would illegally destroy the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian immigrants who live in and contribute to American society. Though intended to target Muslims, this bill will also hurt Palestinian Christians, who will be targeted by these provisions. History will harshly judge this xenophobic, punitive, and unconstitutional measure. [Emphasis added]
…
We call on the leadership of both parties to vocally and specifically condemn these comments and legislation, to make clear that anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate has no place in our politics, and to name it when it happens. [Emphasis added]
Despite claims that Zinke’s legislation is “unconstitutional,” the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Hawaii that the president has extraordinarily broad discretion under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) to exclude aliens when he believes doing so is in the nation’s interests.
Since Zinke introduced the legislation, House and Senate Democrats have sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) to Palestinians in the United States — a policy that the far-left Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is currently lobbying for.
Giving TPS and DED to Palestinians would ensure they cannot be deported from the United States.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Exclusive – World-Renowned Expert on Urban Combat: Hamas ‘Creating’ Civilian Deaths to Stir World Against IDF
Despite the “nightmare” of tunnel warfare, the mission being carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) appears “very successful,” though Israel doesn’t have unlimited time, according to retired United States Army Major and urban warfare expert John Spencer, who deemed Hamas an “existential threat” whose strategy is to “create their own civilians’ deaths and get the world to react,” in order to prevent the IDF from eliminating their military capabilities — “and it is working.”
He also accused those protesting Israel’s supposedly “disproportionate” response to Hamas of having “no understanding of war, the laws of war or how the world works,” and that the terror group would “slaughter” the protesters, if given the opportunity, “for not being radical Islamic followers.”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, retired U.S. Army Major John Spencer, a world-renowned expert on urban combat who serves as chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, delved into the various warfare tactics at hand during the current Middle East conflict.
“Of course, very costly,” he said. “But it’s not unlike any other urban battle I’ve seen.”
While Gaza is a “very highly dense place,” he noted, “cities like Baghdad, Mosul, and Raqqa are more dense,” though that “doesn’t mean it’s not any harder to operate in it.”
“From the ground perspective, as somebody who teaches this to armies around the world, I think they have been very deliberate in their approach to go through the steps that would be required to accomplish the mission they have stated, whereas a lot of militaries aren’t as clear in their objectives,” he said.
Citing a Vietnam-war saying, “you have to destroy the city to save it,” Spencer said the fact is unfortunate, “but it’s the reality of urban fighting.”
The saying conveys that there is a defender inside the city, which, in order to clear out “you basically destroy the city.”
“And there’s nothing I’m seeing now that changes that paradigm,” he added.
Deeming the IDF’s battle against Hamas “enemy–centric,” in that the mission to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities is “very clear,” the retired Army officer explained that the task cannot be done [entirely] from the air, though an air campaign can be used “to attrit rocket sites, command-and-control centers, the ability to communicate, and the ability to move — even underground.”
“As far as I can tell,” he assessed, the mission being carried out by the IDF appears “very successful.”
“Now they’ve moved forward methodically surrounding the city; the step that we call ‘isolate’ the city,” he explained, with reports indicating that the northern part of Gaza is now completely cut off.
“And I’m sure that means both on the surface and underground, because isolating the surface doesn’t mean you’ve isolated the underground,” he added.
But Israel’s current conflict with the terrorist Hamas group is actually the Jewish state’s fight against an “existential threat” that’s been “allowed through U.S. encouragement” to fester, and October 7 was a result of that.
“Hamas has in their charter the complete destruction of Israel and the slaughter of the Jewish people, and it tried that on October 7 on as many as they could,” he added.
UNDERGROUND WARFARE
Despite the difficulty in fighting Hamas, Israel is not facing “mission impossible,” Spencer asserted.
IDF finds Hamas tunnel (IDF)
Having “traveled the world, and been in tunnels all around the world,” as well as having “studied the way militaries approach, or don’t approach, underground warfare,” he concluded that the IDF are “leaders of the world in developing technologies, tactics and trained personnel for this specific mission.”
“They have one of the biggest underground units, the Yahalom, which is a special forces engineering unit.”
They also have modern day “tunnel rats,” dog units, and a “complete major organization that does experimentation and research to develop things,” he noted.
Spencer highlighted the challenge of underground warfare, where “nothing that any military developed for the surface of the Earth for fighting works.”
You can’t see down underground without special night vision because there’s no ambient light, which is what most of most night vision goggles use. You can’t navigate down there because there’s no satellite transmission. You can’t communicate because there’s no satellite or line of sight radio frequency down there that will work. Many places down there you can’t breathe. Many of your munitions can’t fire down there because the concussion will blow your eardrums and give you basically a concussion, without special equipment.
In addition, he explained, such depths can’t be reached with aerial technologies.
“Hamas dug deeper and deeper because of the fact that bunker buster bombs can go about 100 feet underground,” he said, “and the IDF has already found some Hamas tunnels 200 feet underground, below where any bunker buster can get to [or] any munition.”
The Israeli military believes, he noted, that there are likely tunnels even “300 feet” beneath the surface.
While the IDF “has some of the greatest equipment and little robots they can send down, drones that bounce off walls, remote control cars, and dogs,” with 300 miles of such tunnels, “you’ll quickly run out of that capability.”
“And sending somebody into a tunnel is the last resort, so you always seek a way not to go into a tunnel,” he explained.
However, he noted, the IDF has some personnel that can, including “everything from special forces throughout Sayeret Matkal, to the special soldiers that have been trained for it.”
Another issue is the presence of captives in such tunnels.
“We’re 99 percent sure all hostages, or a majority of them, are underground. So even some of the historical methods in which militaries used to deal with tunnels — whether it’s to explode them or neutralize them by putting tear gas in them or flooding them or something similar, you won’t initially be able to do because you have to map and navigate the tunnel to see if there are hostages down there,” he said.
GAZA, PALESTINE – 07/19/2023: A fighter from Izz al-Din al-Qassam stands in front of a tunnel during an exhibition of weapons, missiles and heavy equipment for the military wing of Hamas in the Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, during the commemoration of the 2014 war that lasted 51 days between Gaza and Israel. (Yousef Masoud/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Calling such a scenario a “really wicked problem” and a “nightmare to fight in,” Spencer explained why previously common methods are not feasible under current conditions:
Even the basic military, what we teach every soldier in every military in the world, is to fire and move. In a tunnel there’s no fire and move. There’s just fire down the tunnel and maybe fire back at you. You can’t flank them. You can’t move around them. You can’t surprise them. So it’s really a nightmare of a place to have to go fight or have to even enter. You can’t even breathe down there without special breathing equipment, depending on the depth that it goes and the ventilation that it has.
However, he insisted, the presence of hostages underground is not an impossible problem to solve, rather it merely means that forces must move slower and the mission will take more time.
“Israel developed the world’s first hostage rescue teams that the rest of us have now copied. So they have hostage rescue teams and many special forces units that all have underground training,” he said. “They can put a drone into a tunnel beforehand to see if there’s a hostage down there before they do something to it.”
He expressed his belief that for the IDF to accomplish its objectives, it would need several months, “based on other examples.”
“Although the hostages make this situation very unique — there’s no historical precedent for that at this scale — I would say it will take months.”
“I don’t think years, just months,” he said, “but definitely not days, and unlikely weeks.”
However, he maintained, the real question is how much time they have, and not how much time it will take.
“No military gets unlimited time, and Israel doesn’t have unlimited time,” he said. “So that means you’re going to have to make a lot of decisions about risk, and take risks and make hard military decisions.”
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
With many concerned for civilian casualties, Spencer insisted that “all the laws of war that were created — really, strengthened — after World War Two, have gotten a lot stronger.”
“No more carpet bombing of cities like the U.S. and every other country involved in WWII were trying… whether it’s the London Blitz or Dresden or what the U.S. did to Tokyo,” he stated. “The idea that you can bomb your enemy to your goals has really happened very few times in the history of wars and worked.”
In addition, he stated, such a strategy “definitely wouldn’t accomplish the Israeli mission of destroying military infrastructure and capability.”
“You have to use joint power: air, land, sea, and cyber,” he explained, “but you have to get in there and clear, destroy tunnels, destroy Hamas members, and destroy Hamas rockets.”
“So from a military analyst perspective I think they’re doing pretty good,” he added.
Regarding civilian casualty numbers, Spencer noted that they are “not unlike other battles” in recent history.
“In the Battle of Mosul, there were 10,000 civilian casualties in a city of 1.4 million civilians where ISIS kept the civilians there for a long time before they could start to evacuate,” he said. “But by sheer numbers, they evacuated 80 percent of the urban areas. And while that’s still hundreds of thousands of people, militaries are never able to empty all of the cities, it just never happened.”
“Even in WWII in the Battle of Aachen, where we cleared the city four times, there were still hundreds of civilians in the city and lots of civilian casualties,” he added.
He also pointed to when U.S. forces “surrounded Fallujah, and spent six months — that Israel doesn’t have — to empty 90 percent of the civilians there,” yet there were still many casualties.
“So there are a lot of similarities,” he noted.
According to Spencer, when an enemy chooses to defend from urban terrain and use human shields, the results we see are “not abnormal.”
“Really, the civilian casualties are 90 percent of the casualties of modern war, not military,” he explained, “because modern war fights are happening in cities, not fights for cities, which is really ancient, fighting for cities.”
Today, in contrast, militaries fight in cities for a variety of reasons, he noted. For example, Hamas militants “can gain a large amount of power [by fighting] in urban environments.”
“They take away the attacker’s military superiority, just to bring the fighting close and have a slugfest,” he said. “So that means more and more warfare.”
“But out of the last 20 years, 90 percent of the casualties of war have been civilians,” he added.
Spencer also explained that “everybody” misunderstands the notion of proportionality.
“We should not be comparing the amount of Palestinian civilian deaths to the amount of Israeli civilians killed on October 7 — 1,400 versus supposedly 10,000 (I’m highly doubtful that’s an accurate number, but it doesn’t matter),” he said. “That’s not the way war works. That’s not even close to the definition of proportionality — it has nothing to do with it.”
“Every civilian death is, of course, a loss, but people that want the end of the conflict because of the fact that it’s not ‘proportional’ to what happened on October 7, have no understanding of war, the laws of war or how the world works,” he added.
Reflecting on his having taught strategy at West Point for years, Spencer determined that Hamas’ strategy is to “create their own civilians’ deaths and get the world to react,” in order to prevent the IDF from eliminating their military capabilities, — “and it is working.”
“Despite the fact that I can tell every news agency in the world that what we’re seeing in Gaza is not unlike what we’ve seen in battles against ISIS in Mosul, Raqqa, Syria, and Marawi — nobody cares,” he said. “They’re still saying, ‘no, no, stop.’”
“That’s the Hamas strategy, to get so many civilians killed that the IDF will have to stop, and Hamas gets to live to fight another day,” he added.
Another Hamas strategy he indicated is that of buying time.
“Most defenders in history lose, but one of the goals can be just to buy time,” he said. “So Hamas is going to use guerrilla warfare, use complex urban terrain and snipers, ambushes, IEDs, and pop out of tunnels, just to slow the IDF down, so that they can’t achieve their goal quickly.”
“The IDF needs time — and Hamas’ strategy is to take that time away from them, by putting all these pressures, getting every Palestinian, every Muslim of the world, to force international leadership to try to encourage the IDF to stop,” he added.
In light of the above, Israel should “absolutely” be given the time and space to achieve its goals.
To even destroy the tunnels, you’ve gotta clear the tunnel. You’ve gotta make sure there’s no military equipment, hostages, or fighters, in them. Then they have to destroy the tunnels, and that would be historic because even some of the ways militaries have destroyed tunnels aren’t an option to fully destroy 300 miles of tunnels. One of the only options is to flood them with seawater — which would necessitate time.
And while the IDF needs to be given the time, he acknowledged, it is crucial to “not allow Hamas’ strategy of buying time to succeed.”
DEMONSTRATIONS
On protesters who have come out in large numbers against Israel’s response, Spencer suggested “they have no clue of what war looks like,” despite possibly being well-intentioned.
“War happens in cities, and though it may appear like the IDF is indiscriminately bombing the cities of Gaza, that’s not the case and I have seen nothing that shows that,” he said. “In fact, this looks very similar to most U.S.-backed operations.”
“It’s what happens when an enemy embeds itself in a civilian population and the civilians are in an urban area,” he added. “Every strike is a targeted military target, but this is what war looks like.”
Addressing the “double standards” of those who protest Israel’s fight against Hamas while ignoring significantly controversial events such as the recent move by Pakistan to expel 1.7 million Afghan refugees, Spencer explained that the IDF, for various reasons, is “held to a standard above and beyond any other standard that we hold any other military in the world.”
“It’s scrutinized and held to a standard that isn’t actually within the laws of war,” he said. “It fights in that limelight, at a standard that nobody else is held to.”
However, he noted, Hamas would “slaughter” those protesters “for not being radical Islamic followers.”
“They would slaughter them — do horrific things — just like they slaughtered the people on October 7.,” he added.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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