Votes
have consequences. President Obama directed the U.S. to abstain on a
vote by the UN Security Council in December 2016 – just before leaving
office – called Resolution 2334, which condemned Israel for its
settlements In occupied territories. In previous votes on this matter,
the U.S. vetoed said condemnation.
This
abstention in effect branded Israel as a violator of international law
at the expense of the Arab population living within its borders since
the Israeli victories of 1967 and 1973 (the Yom Kippur war). The enemies
of Israel have never tired of stating that Israeli Jewish settlements
in occupied territories, especially in the south of Judea and Samaria,
were expanding too rapidly in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Judea and Samaria were the original names of the land areas of
present-day Israel – names that were abolished by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Romans re-named the land area Palestine. That is why the residents
of that area, prior to the recognition by the United Nations of Israeli
statehood, were called Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
Many
uninformed persons today do not realize that the United Nations also
authorized the creation of a state for the Palestinian Arabs at the same
time the State of Israel was authorized, but the Palestinian Arabs,
coached by the neighboring Arab countries, turned down the offer.
Instead, the Arabs in the region, intent on destroying the new Jewish
state and annihilating all the “Palestinian Jews” (now properly called
Israelis), called upon all Arab residents of the newly formed state of
Israel to flee so they could wipe out all of Israel. After the intended
“wipe out,” those who fled could return to the homes and property they
had left – as well as take over all the property of the Jews.
It
was an all-or-nothing plan, and they ended up with nothing. The
fledgling state of Israel that was completely outmatched in terms of
equipment nevertheless won the war in 1948, and the Arabs who had fled
from Israel now found themselves living in camps and unable to occupy
the homes they had left in Israel (“Eretz Yisrael”). Some observers,
like this writer, believe that not only was that victory a David vs.
Goliath-type of event, but that it was the fulfillment of the prophecy
found in Ezekiel Chapter 37 – wherein the prophet is taken to the Valley
of Dry Bones and the bones are resurrected by the power of Almighty
God, thus ushering in the soon-to-be return of Christ.
Some
commentators, in particular Shalom Lipner, saw Obama’s abstention on
the vote condemning Israel as more of a personal confrontation between
Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Further, like so many
elitist commentators, he expressed his understanding in opaque, highly
educated language. He wrote:
Lacking
critical texture, the resolution paints the entire parcel in question
with the same truth, effectively equating the most isolated of Israeli
settlements – which Israel would surely dismantle in the even of a bona
fide peace agreement….
He
is thereby disagreeing with the resolution but sees it as a finesse to
favor Obama’s perspective over that of Netanyahu. Yet the florid
language obscures the reality that Israel was betrayed.
However, although Obama was president, there was considerable backlash against his decision to abstain. Obama
found himself opposed by Sen. Tom Cotton, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen.
Cory Gardner, President-elect Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham,
and even Democrat Senator Charles Schumer. Obama’s decision was not only
pro-Islamic, it also represented a twisted interpretation of the Fourth
Geneva Convention which was supposed to be the reason for the
abstention.
The
Fourth Geneva Convention has an entire section about the legal
treatment of occupied territories going from Article 47 to Article 78.
These articles cover such topics as children, repatriation, and hygiene
in occupied territories. Section 47 is the one section that may seem to
apply to the Israeli occupation per se . It states,
Protected
persons who are in occupied territory shall not be deprived, in any
case or in any manner whatsoever, of the benefits of the present
Convention by any change introduced, as the result of the occupation of a
territory….
Reviewing
the articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention, this writer concludes
that the meaning inferred by Obama was that the increase of settlements
by Israelis in lands acquired in earlier wars with Arab states deprive
local Arabs in those territories “of the benefits…by any change
introduced as a result of the occupation….”
To
me, this is an extreme and hostile view of the Israeli settlements in
lands taken during wars. Arabs in those lands are in no way oppressed by
the presence of Jewish Israelis in expanded numbers in neighboring
acreage. Thus, Israel is right in conceiving of this interpretation of
Section 47 of the Convention as illegitimate, and it is clear that Obama
sacrificed truth for the sake of the Islamic false claims. The Arabs
simply did not want to live near increasing numbers of Jews. No
international law was breached.
By
failing to veto the false claim of the terrorist world that surrounds
Israel, Obama opened the door to a fundamentally false understanding of
the Israeli settlements in lands taken during the horrible wars that
beset that wonderful country. This was an encouragement to Hamas and to
all those bitter murderers who deny the right of Israel to exist as a
country. The Arab bias is driven by an irrational sense of Islamic
hegemony as being valid in any lands they had conquered at one time.
Whatever
President Obama may or may not have thought, Israel is not in violation
of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Horrible murders of the residents of
Jewish settlements and towns in no way validate the Obama agreement. It
is a bloodthirsty and primitive reaction that must be smashed.
Hamas and the Politics of Hell
A
profound irony of Israel’s latest grim suffering is that the knife- and
gun-wielding Palestinian (Hamas-sponsored) terrorists and their leftist
cheerleaders in the American academy reveal a deplorable collusion
between what ordinarily would be antagonists.
The collaborative condemnation by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee that
held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for” the October 7
slaughter suggests a bewildering collusion between far right and far
left: fundamentalist Islamists supported by woke, neo-Marxist radicals.
A rebarbative synthesis
It
is as if, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War that
pitted Israel against Egypt and Syria, Hegel’s dialectic (actually
Johann Fichte’s) overcame the diverging ethos of antagonists. Thesis:
Islamofascism; Antithesis: neo-Marxism (submission to Allah versus a
godless war on exploitation). The rebarbative synthesis: death to
Jews.
It
appears there is a metastatic malignancy perfusing elite universities
all across the country, as the emerging generation of America’s
foreboding political future (young Democratic Socialists of America) celebrated in Times Square amid
reports of the beheading of toddlers and the rape and murder of young
women in their parents’ homes. Can it really be that Ivy League and
other prominent universities are graduating Nazi youth? Are there in
fact neo-Nazis reimagining the Barack Obama/Joe Biden wing of the
Democrat party?
Matriculating radicals
A
perspicuous rationale is needed to explain the pitiless way the woke
Harvard student radicals blamed the victim for the latest Hamas
intifada. Why, sane people want to understand, do Ivy League students
hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding
barbarity?
We are struck by the irony of Harvard admissions officers recruiting
applicants who “have demonstrated concern for others ... can be
graceful ... under pressure ... [and] open to learning new ideas. [I]t
[is] important for you to treat others with kindness and demonstrate
that you care for others in addition to caring for yourself.”
Left-leaning moral concerns
As the research of Jonathan Haidt in The Righteous Mind illuminates,
the left’s two (almost exclusive) moral concerns — for care/harm and
fairness/cheating — which, Haidt explains, “means equality to the left
but proportionality to the right” (emphasis added), almost guarantees
that Harvard’s students will empathize with their partisan professors’
perspective on the Middle East.
Taught
by impressive and persuasive progressive professors to see the
Palestinian issue through Haidt’s care/harm, fairness/cheating lens of
lamb versus lion, rabbit versus wolf, or (ironically) David versus
Goliath, the weaponized professorial casuistry often tracks the
calumnies recited by Amnesty International :
that Israel is a Zionist, apartheid bully state that (with the backing
of American money and weapons) has swaggered between the Mediterranean
and the Dead Sea for seventy-five years.
What
young person of idealistic bent doesn’t root for an
underdog? Unfortunately, this saga is about two very different
underdogs that appear to be fighting over the same bone.
Given
that openness is considered a particularly progressive personality
trait, one would expect a commitment to the diversity of ideas in
academe. Instead, The Harvard Crimson 2022 survey of
faculty found that “more than 80 percent of Harvard faculty respondents
characterized their political leanings as ‘liberal’ or ‘very
liberal.’” Sixteen percent labeled themselves “moderate,” while “only 1
percent of respondents stated they are ‘conservative.’”
Progressive student psychology
Jonathan
Haidt explains the students’ likely primary moral concerns for
care/harm, fairness/cheating. But what explains their wildly inhumane
demonization of the innocent victims of utter savagery?
The
answer is a matter of psychology, about human tendencies that have been
understood and written into the characters of plays and novels long
before Freud gave them a nomenclature, before human behavior became a
clinical profession or an academic discipline.
The
Harvard student groups that published their deplorable statement
blaming the Israeli victims responded in a way that is consistent with
their prejudices and philosophical assumptions about humanity. They
believe, in the abstract, that all human beings are basically
good...except, perhaps, recently realized (post–George Floyd) exceptions
such as white (especially conservative) Americans and Israelis.
There
is an unquestioning belief by these young, care/harm, fairness/cheating
idealists that Hamas terrorists — what they have been conditioned to
believe are only dispossessed freedom fighters — are just as righteous
as the Harvard students consider themselves to be. The students project
their own relative decency onto the objects of their political
concern. And their feelings, even if not articulated, are very real.
Preposterous translation
When
the radical young Ivy-Leaguers hear about or see video of the savagery
of innocents by the barbarism of Hamas terrorists, their reaction is
determined by a translation.
Not
only are they predisposed to see the Palestinians as surrounded by
merciless gorgons, but they interpret the pitiless terrorism of Hamas as
a desperate, understandable response to decades of intolerable abuse by
Israeli masters. The students think: What unspeakable degradation
these poor Hamas freedom fighters and their loved ones must continually
suffer to be willing to risk their lives and the contempt of the world
to express their agony in such sadistic acting out!
Absurd
and unreasonable as they obviously are, the Harvard student radicals
reimagined the Israeli victims as vile oppressors and the Hamas
barbarians as recipients of torture beyond toleration.
In
short, the students who support Hamas are identifying with Hamas
“freedom fighters,” enabling the Ivy-Leaguers not only to explain away,
but even to celebrate their sadistic actions.
Educational dereliction
The
students’ care/harm and fairness/cheating moral outrage is purely in
defense of the Palestinians, but their assumption that Palestinians are
good and Israelis are bad is due largely to the imbalance of their
Harvard education. This monolithic distortion in the political posture
of American university faculty is to blame for so many of our
increasingly violent political divisions.
What
is a poor (actually often wealthy) Harvard student to make of life’s
political dilemmas, especially when he is not taught to think
critically, not taught to grapple with contrasting points of view, and
often encouraged to ignore views that do not fit his leftist
narrative? Sometimes they just close their eyes, plug their ears, and
yell.
So
many young Ivy-Leaguers are unaware that the perfect is the enemy of
the good, informed primarily by partisan dogma, unable to reason from
cause to effect, incapable of paying it forward, and willing to see
Hamas only as the champions of downtrodden Palestinian refugees. So
what do the radically woke Hamas-loving students really want?
In their ignorant, soft-souled, underdog-loving, decency-projecting hearts, they demand heaven on earth — the politics of hell.
Hamas-loving
Harvard student radicals illuminate a criminal neglect: the failure of
the American educational complex to represent history with reasonable
balance. This dereliction of U.S. higher education, especially since
WWII, is particularly evident in its failure to inform students how in
the recent century, men with utopian and totalitarian impulses (dreamers
with power) slaughtered scores of millions of human beings that the
woke generation is hardly aware of.
As Whitaker Chambers wrote in 1961 , “[i]t is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western civilization. It is already a wreck from within.”
Douglas Hackleman has a Master’s degree in psychology from Pepperdine University.
Image: scottgunn via Flickr , CC BY-NC 2.0 .
The Inevitable Fracturing of the Democrat Party The
Democrat Party is not a homogenous entity, but an amalgamation of
various left-wing factions now overwhelmingly dominated by its smallest
and most radical element, the avowed anti-Semitic and racist American
Marxists. However, the largest group and underpinning of the Party are
the credulous, patronizing, and narcissistic liberals who, in their
naiveté, willfully allied themselves with any group virulently opposed
to conservatives and Republicans. While living in their cocoons among
the likeminded, they chose to ignore the Marxist’s inexorable
infiltration of the Democrat Party as well as their declared intention
to transform America into a socialist “paradise” which will devour these
same liberal elites.
With
so many on the Left celebrating the premediated slaughter of women,
children, and the elderly in Israel, many of these gullible fools have
been shocked at the vast number of young people that have been
indoctrinated and the depth of anti-Semitism that has its home in the
Democrat Party.
Apparently,
far too many so-called educated elites fail to understand that their
American Marxist allies are virulently anti-Semitic and racist. They
fully accept Karl Marx’s unequivocal belief that Jews are part and
parcel of the oppressor class that must be eradicated. Marx further
amplified this position in an essay published in 1844 titled, On the Jewish Question , when
he wrote: “Money is the jealous God of Israel, in face of which no
other God may exist.” He argued that in the final analysis, the
emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from the Jews.
In other words, Jews can only become free when, as Jews, they no longer
exist.
Further
amplifying his overt racism, in a letter Marx wrote to his co-author
and friend Friedrich Engels in 1879, Marx described one guest at a
resort he was visiting as a “Jewish ni**er.” A vile racist epithet often
used by Marx in his writings and conversations as documented by Diane
B. Paul in an essay published in The Journal of the History of Ideas (1981).
The current American mélange of Marxist-inspired activists and narcissists are little different than Karl Marx in their racist and anti-Semitic outlook.
In
the United States, the current iteration of Marxists began their
ascendancy into the nation’s mainstream when they insinuated themselves
into the popular Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protests of the
1960s. Today, these radicals are the dominant force in the nation’s
culture, education, and governing class as well as being in de facto
control of the nation’s largest political party.
After
eight years of Barack Obama, the liberal elites or ruling class viewed
their ultimate objective of assuming near-permanent political power as
being within reach. However, their erstwhile allies, the American
Marxists, viewed the eight years of Barack Obama as the opening salvo in
their ultimate objective of permanently transforming America.
The
transformation the Marxist radicals seek will subsume their liberal
allies, as there is no room in the structure they are building for the
elites and their wealth, as well as their unfettered and hedonistic
lifestyles. While some have awakened to this reality, the vast swath of
self-described progressives and liberals have been blissfully oblivious.
Thus, the Marxist radicals currently have power far beyond their
numbers.
Their
power has further been abetted by the current president and presumptive
Democrat nominee in 2024, Joe Biden, who has been overtly and
willingly blackmailed by the Marxists , into acquiescing and pursuing virtually all their policy positions.
However,
Biden is becoming increasingly unelectable due to scandals, his age,
senescence, and failed policies. The American Marxist faction of the
Democrat Party is faced with the reality that Biden will have to be
replaced during the 2024 campaign season.
However,
those who might be considered for the nomination and ordinarily viewed
as more moderate or liberal are roundly criticized if they stray too far
from Marxist dogma and thus stand virtually no chance of winning the
nomination unless approved by the party’s Marxist overlords who are
convinced they can nominate virtually anyone as they believe the
presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is so unpopular among the
general electorate that he cannot win in November of 2024.
However,
trepidation is now creeping into the higher reaches of the liberal
establishment wing of the Democratic Party as they look across a barren
landscape of potential nominees promoting, by necessity, Marxist
ideology. However, they are essentially powerless, having gradually
ceded their dominance of the Party to their radical allies over the past
three decades. Allies who now dominate academia turning out armies of
mind-numbed activists. Their number in turning out to support Hamas and
the slaughter of Jews has been an eye-opening bucket of cold water for
not only the Democrat Party establishment but all Americans.
Thus,
it is too late for the Party to turn back toward any semblance of
moderation. If the Democrats were to win the presidency in 2024 and
control both house of Congress, the Marxist wing would be more
determined than ever to implement their Marxist/socialist agenda.
Ultimately,
while the nation would unduly suffer under Democrat/Marxist control and
in all probability move beyond the point of no return, the tension
between the two factions in the Democrat Party will eventuate in the
implosion of the party allowing the American Marxists full and permanent
control of the Party as well as near-perpetual control of the levers of
government. Additionally, they will, in all likelihood, marginalize the
Republican Party by use of executive orders and legislation to
nationalize all elections while third parties will effectively cease to
exist.
In
an ironic turn of events, either a Trump or DeSantis presidential
victory in 2024 and Republican control of both Houses of Congress is the
single event that would not only save the nation but be the opportunity
for the Democratic Party to recover a sense of moderation, assuming
that the liberals or so-called moderates have the intestinal fortitude
to use that outcome to divorce themselves from their long-term
incestuous bed partner, the American Marxists.
The
question then becomes, would the liberal elites be too squeamish to
confront their Marxist allies for control of the Party, as it is highly
likely there would be excessive political bloodshed resulting in the
ultimate creation of a third party to replace the Democrat Party.
The
2024 election is not only critical to the future of the nation and the
future of both parties but in particular the Democrat Party as the
cracks in the façade are beginning to widen.
Image: William Warby
Alex Marlow: Joe Biden Bears Responsibility for Hamas’s Terror Attack on Israelis Yousef Masoud/AP; Abir Sultan/AFP via Getty Images; BNN 8:40
We can’t say we weren’t warned. Joe Biden’s abject incompetence at foreign policy is legendary.
“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up,” former President Barack Obama reportedly warned a
fellow Democrat during the 2020 primary. Former Defense Secretary
Robert Gates said in 2014 that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every
major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four
decades.”
Biden’s record somehow has only gotten worse since he became president.
President
Barack Obama, standing with Vice President Joe Biden, gives a press
conference about the Iran Nuclear Deal, on July 14, 2015, in Washington,
DC. (Andrew Harnik – Pool/Getty Images)
His
Afghanistan withdrawal strategy lead to chaos, horror, and death –
including for children and American servicemen. His Ukraine/Russia
policy undoubtedly played a major role in Putin’s decision to invade.
China has routinely humiliated the U.S. on the world stage. Biden is
more responsible than any single person for the humanitarian crisis at
the U.S./Mexico border. His efforts to keep America’s Southern border
opens confirms that, stunningly, national security is simply not a
priority for the U.S. President.
So, yeah, he’s wrong on every major foreign policy decision.
He staffed his foreign policy machine with grifters, dissemblers, and ideologues. Those who didn’t spend the Trump years hawking their services to the highest bidder were perched at think tanks, where they were no less at the mercy of foreign interests. Just last week, the Pentagon announced a
probe into a Biden appointee over her cozy relationship with Iranian
officials while promoting the nuclear deal as a scholarly “expert.”
Once in power, these phony “experts” have rarely even hinted at progress toward Middle East peace of any kind.
In fact, the region has been markedly more chaotic than the relative calm of the Trump years.
Despite Biden’s campaign promise for a return to “normal” foreign policy, this weekend’s blood bath carried out against
Israelis by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists may well be his biggest
foreign policy failure. For starters, Biden’s team appears to have been blindsided by
the attacks. This should shock no one, since these same people have
spent most of his term wrangling with allies in Saudi Arabia and Israel
while trying to appease Iran (which wants us all dead).
Hamas
militants celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the Gaza Strip fence
east of Khan Younis Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Eslaiah)
Rockets are launched by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, on Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
A
man passes the scene where a rocket fired from Gaza strip hit a
building on October 7, 2023, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Amir Levy/Getty
Images)
In fact, in response to Hamas attacking Israel, the United States’ Office for Palestinian Affairs called for Israelis to “refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.” (They have since deleted the offending tweet.)
There is a word for granting moral equivalence between terrorists and their victims: evil.
Upon
taking office, Biden chilled the U.S.-Saudi alliance. President Joe
will rarely, if ever, defy his left-wing base, and his base had become
obsessed with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudis. This made it
impossible for Biden to engage with the Saudis at a level necessary to
forge a stronger peace in the region. Additionally, as my colleague Joel
Pollak has noted, Biden paused arms
sales to Saudi Arabia and “reopened negotiations with Iran toward a new
nuclear deal over Saudi (and Israeli) objections.” Russia would be a
key partner if a new Iran deal takes shape. The same people who told us
that Vladimir Putin is the world’s greatest threat are perfectly fine
pushing for a deal that elevates him on the world stage while empowering
Iran. This is incoherent and irresponsible.
Since Biden has been president, the U.N. nuclear watchdog found that Iran has enriched uranium to near weapons-grade.
That
doesn’t seem to bother Joe Biden, who recently released $6 billion in
frozen funds to Iran as part of deal that included a prisoner swap. Iran
funds and arms Hamas. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared “victory”
after the latest terror attack in Israel. While the $6 billion hasn’t
arrived yet, and it is supposed to be used specifically for peaceful
purposes, money is fungible and padding Iran’s bank account obviously
frees them up to fund more terror. Only liars and demagogues would pretend this is not how money works. What’s more, people (and countries) spend when they have the expectation of money coming in; they don’t necessarily wait for the check to arrive. That’s basic economics.
In fact, the Iranian President has said he’ll do whatever he wants with the money.
He is laughing at us. Literally .
Iran’s
President Ebrahim Raisi speaks during a rally outside the former U.S.
embassy in the capital Tehran on November 4, 2022, to celebrate the 43th
anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis against Americans. (ATTA
KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
But wait, there is more: Biden inexplicably revoked the
terrorist designation of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group. He
also pulled U.S. support for Yemen’s government against the Houthi
rebels — in a country that sits across a narrow strait from a key U.S.
naval base in Africa. All of this strengthens Iran.
Meanwhile, Biden has been icy to
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, despite Bibi’s efforts to engage
productively with President Joe. Biden and his team refused to meet with
Israel’s duly elected government. They also restored funding to Palestine over internal objections that the aid could be diverted to Hamas.
U.S. weapons abandoned in Afghanistan — another catastrophe Joe Biden failed to see coming — are also believed to now be in the hands of Hamas.
As I document in my new book, Breaking Biden (the
definitive book on Joe Biden’s record with a strong emphasis on his
disastrous foreign policy), the Pentagon reported that the U.S. left
$7.12 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan upon our
departure. This includes aircraft, air-to-ground weaponry, other military vehicles, munitions, and communications equipment.
Here is some of what has reportedly fallen in the Taliban’s lap:
208 aircraft, including UH-60 Black Hawks and M-17 helicopters, between 2003 and 2016 61,000 military vehicles of all types, including more than 2,000 armored vehicles and Mine-Resistant, Ambush- Protected (MRAP) vehicles 258,000 rifles, including M-16s and AK-47s 56,000 machine guns 31,000 rocket-propelled and handheld grenade launchers 18,000 “gravity” bombs 16,000 aviation rockets 1,845 D-30 mortar systems with more than a million mortar rounds 224 D-130 howitzer artillery guns 30 million rounds of ammunition 17,400 night-vision devices 95 small drones body armor biometric security equipment There
were likely other beneficiaries of this bounty besides the Taliban. As I
note in the book, sophisticated weaponry and convoys of military
vehicles could easily have fallen into the hands of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps or other hostile actors in the region. Two
months after the evacuation, in October 2021, U.S. supplies were already for sale by Afghani gun dealers.
Hummers
from the U.S. Army left behind at Bagram air base in Kabul,
Afghanistan, are seen on September 1, 2021. (AFP via Getty Images)
Armed
Taliban security personnel ride a military vehicle as they parade near
the U.S. embassy in Kabul on August 15, 2023, during the second
anniversary celebrations of their takeover. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty
Images)
Men
watch as an armed Taliban security personnel rides a vehicle convoy as
during a parade near the U.S. embassy in Kabul on August 15, 2023, as
Taliban celebrates the second anniversary of their takeover. (WAKIL
KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Taliban
security personnel display seized weapons in Mazar-i-Sharif on July 13,
2023. (Atif Aryan / AFP) (Photo by ATIF ARYAN/AFP via Getty Images)
An
Afghan shopkeeper sells used U.S. military headphones and vests at
Mujahideen Bazar in Kabul, Afghanistan, on October 12, 2022. (WAKIL
KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
It looks like we now know who got some of them: exactly the people we all feared.
As the disasters in the Middle East have mounted, the typically stubborn Biden has occasionally reversed course, meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks. We were finally back on track for an historic deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the framework for which was established under the Trump administration.
But
this is all far too little, far too late. After Hamas’s terrorist
attack, it would be a miracle if such a deal gets done now.
If
it were in a vacuum, all the brutality would already be unthinkable.
The systematic slaughter and murder of women. The preying on innocents.
The stacking of bodies in the street. All of this is horrifying even for
a region of the world known for constant war.
Yet
it’s not in a vacuum. There is context. And the context is that the
United States government under Joe Biden has signaled a weakening of our
relationship with our allies in Israel, it has elected to fund the
funders to terrorism, and it has repeatedly entertained a nuclear deal
with the hideous Iranian regime that hopes to eviscerate both us and
Israel.
We can’t say we weren’t warned.
Alex Marlow is the Editor-in-Chief of Breitbart News and a New York Times bestselling author. His new book, Breaking Biden: Exposing the Hidden Forces and Secret Money Machine Behind Joe Biden, His Family, and His Administration , is available now. You can follow Alex on Facebook , Instagram , and Twitter at @AlexMarlow .
OBVIOUSLY WHEN IT COMES TO TERRORISM IN CHICAGO ONE NEEDS TO LOOK AT THE BLACK ON BLACK WEEKEND SHOOTINGS!
Terrorism’s Local Supporters Take Over Downtown Chicago
Getting
around downtown Chicago is a challenge at the best of times. Weekdays
feature a constant flow of carefully and swiftly moving traffic;
weekends all the more so.
But
it is a city of 2.5 million people, in a tri-state metro area of 9
million. Back in the days when Chicago was known as “The City that
Works” – a generation ago, at least – the city fathers took great care
to minimize any event that threatened to jeopardize that title.
We
had parades occasionally; we had demonstrations all the time. The
Constitution guarantees American citizens’ right to such things.
So
the city always allowed them – it had to – but made sure they were kept
under control, usually on the front courtyard of the Daley Center or
some similar easily-confined location.
The
goal of the demonstrators was never to disrupt traffic, in those days.
As fellow Chicagoans, demonstrators knew that their own neighbors,
parents, or siblings had to get to work. So demonstrators would hold
picket signs and recite pithy slogans, and the police would make sure
fights don’t break out.
The
regular population of downtown – the businessmen and the shoppers, the
tourists and suburbanites in town for lunch or a show – could get on
with their day unimpeded, but they would receive the message of the
demonstrators while walking or driving past. See? The city still
works, and the demonstrators reach an audience. Win-Win.
Not anymore.
On
the afternoon of Saturday, October 21, A.D. 2023, Gentle Reader, this
writer had to venture into the city to see a friend’s world premiere
performance in an iconic downtown venue. With the Kennedy under
construction and the usual traffic of a Saturday, it was sure to be an
unpleasant drive, but nobody knew how unpleasant it was going to get.
There
was already a big event scheduled for Saturday– the Halloween Parade,
attracting some 50,000 spectators. Back in the days when the infamous
Machine still functioned, they would not have granted a permit for a
competing event two blocks away on a Saturday afternoon.
But
at about 3:00 p.m., thousands of pro-Hamas protesters – both
pedestrians and vehicles - converged on Chicago’s downtown, centering
around the intersection of Ida B. Wells Drive (named for a famous black
Republican journalist of the 19th century) and Michigan Avenue (named
for our own Great Lake), mere blocks to the east).
There
was no room for this massive, unsanctioned demonstration, so it tied up
traffic for hours, as thousands of people carrying full-size flags of
the imagined nation of Palestine that the supporters of the terrorist
groups Hamas and Fatah hope someday to establish in place of Israel.
I
don’t know when people started bringing full-size flags to
demonstrations; I certainly don’t recall them in the days when I used to
watch (or counterprotest) such things, many years ago. Conservative
demonstrations might have two or three full-size American flags to lead a
parade and give the crowd a direction to face for the Pledge. Leftist
demonstrations would have dozens of picket signs. But it’s not like the
demonstrations of the 1970s and 80s had hundreds of Soviet or ChiCom
flags flying around. Even those enemy nations’ own paid agitators (and
yes, during the Cold War, there were plenty) knew better than to make
their allegiance so blatantly obvious.
But
in recent years, it has become common enough for people to drive around
Chicago with a full size Mexican flag – or flags of other immigrants’
homelands - sticking out of the sunroof of a car, driving down our city
streets, or even sticking out of a side window, presumably held in place
by the passengers.
So
at this pro-terrorist demonstration, there were indeed hundreds of
people with these huge flags cluttering the streets and sidewalks of
downtown Chicago on a Saturday afternoon. Visibility is never all that
great downtown, with the crush of humanity on the sidewalks, and the
SUVs and buses and trucks everywhere else. Add in all this random
fabric flapping in the breeze, and traffic slowed to a crawl, as even
our most confident Chicago drivers had to hesitate at every
intersection, taking each turn more slowly than usual, from fear of
hitting a car or pedestrian because of such obscured sightlines.
The
short demonstration tied up the city for hours, because both before and
after the actual speeches or chants, all the participants – with their
cars and leaflets and flags and signs – were added to the already dense
numbers of people downtown.
One is reminded of an anecdote from the late, great P.J. O’Rourke’s classic work, “Parliament of Whores.”
Not
long after Andy (Ferguson) and I met, we were driving down Pennsylvania
Avenue and encountered some or another noisy pinko demonstration. “How
come,” I asked Andy, “whenever something upsets the Left, you see
immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and
rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the
Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a
six-inch American flag?”
“We have jobs,” said Andy.
-- Parliament of Whores, copyright 1991 P.J. O’Rourke
O’Rourke
was making a different point than I am here, since this was a Saturday,
making it far easier for even people with jobs to attend a rally. But
it is worth noting that a related aspect still applies. This
pro-terrorist rally disrupted the commerce of the city of Chicago, the
downtown commerce in fact, which – outside of the airports and our
various stadiums on game days – is really the commerce that Chicago
counts on to survive.
Why wasn’t this protest broken up immediately, as soon as it was clear that it was going to disrupt traffic?
When
you add an hour in traffic to the tens of thousands of individuals,
couples, and families in downtown Chicago on a Saturday, what you’ve
done is shortened their day in town by an hour. You’ve caused them to
miss the first hour of a performance they had paid to attend (or that
they were to be paid to perform in). You’ve caused them to miss the
dinner or drinks or dessert or appetizer that they were planning on
enjoying at one of the restaurants or bars on their day’s agenda. Or
you’ve caused them to skip one or two or three of the shops they were
planning on visiting during their day downtown, likely costing each of
those businesses a sale.
Every
hour of unnecessary additional traffic in Chicago costs the Chicago
business community – that means their proprietors and clerks, cashiers
and musicians, bartenders and waitresses – hundreds of thousands of
dollars at least, but more likely, millions of dollars.
That’s
the real result of this traffic-snarling demonstration. That’s what
its organizers costs us, and therefore, what our city leadership cost us
by failing to properly enforce the permitting requirements and location
limitations traditional for Chicago. This wasn’t a sudden change with
Chicago’s rabble-rousing new mayor; Chicago has been careening on a
downward track for years. They long ago forgot the importance of smooth
traffic flow to the business of the city; they never did really
understand how dependent their constituents are on a smoothly operating
downtown business and entertainment district.
(Perhaps
this tells us something about the supporters of Gaza as well. For
generations now, especially for the past sixteen years of self-rule, the
leaders and residents of the Gaza Strip itself have concentrated on
protests and violence instead of on jobs and commerce. Had their own
focus been on seeking honest prosperity instead of blood, we might have
found peace by now.)
Perhaps
the police were afraid that if they utilized the normal tactics of
crowd control and actually tried to enforce the law, violence would
erupt. This shouldn’t be a fear, but considering the crowd in question,
it can’t be discounted.
This
was, after all, a crowd of tens of thousands of Hamas supporters, just
two weeks after Hamas committed one of the most horrific pogroms in
history (yes, for all intents and purposes, most of the Hamas attacks on
October 7 met or exceeded the definition of the worst of history’s
pogroms).
Many
spectators assumed that after the word came out of the unspeakable
horrors of October 7 - the terrorists shooting up a music festival, the
tortures and rapes at a kibbutz, the desecration of the bodies of their
victims – Hamas would be sure to lose its vocal supporters. Surely
nobody would admit to siding with such demonic villains in this day and
age. This attack beats most of the barbarity of ancient times.
But
no. It is now clear that Hamas supporters know no shame. Still they
charged into downtown Chicago, as they have filled demonstrations in
other cities as well for the past week, furiously calling for an end to
American support of our friend and ally Israel. They have the audacity
to call Israel the monsters. To claim that Israel practices apartheid,
of all things. Even chanting their ghastly song of genocide against the
Jews, calling for clearing the country “from the river to the sea.”
We remember our history books. We know about the Third Reich. We know exactly what “from the river to the sea” means.
Still
the supporters of independent nationhood for the Arabs of the Gaza
Strip, Judea and Samaria are willing to show their faces in public, even
after all that their heroes have done to thousands of innocent victims
in Israel in the past two weeks.
And we remember – for we can never forget – that under U.S. Law, those who support terrorists are terrorists themselves . Know your enemy.
John
F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation
professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican
Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review
since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration ( Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II ).
Image: Screen shot from NBC News Now video, via YouTube
Video: Turning Point USA Employee Attacked by Pro-Palestinian Mob Charlie Kirk/screenshot 3:05
A
staffer at the conservative student group Turning Point USA was
attacked by a pro-Hamas mob near a pro-Israel rally in Skokie, Illinois,
on Sunday, the organization said. The attack in the heavily Jewish
suburb of Chicago, which included the staffer being hit with a flag
pole, was caught on video.
Turning
Point USA founder Charlie Kirk explained that his employee, Peter
Christos, “was violently attacked while he and another TPUSA staffer
were trying to escort an elderly Jewish couple away from a pro-Israel
rally.”
Watch Below:
“On
the way to their cars, they encountered pro-Hamas supporters who
assaulted them, punched them repeatedly, and hit them with a flag pole
before cops could pull them away to safety,” Kirk continued.
“All of these thugs need to be arrested and charged with hate crimes,” the TPUSA founder added.
The attack occurred in Skokie, Illinois, a heavily Jewish suburb of Chicago that is home to more than a dozen synagogues.
Additional video footage posted to social media shows moments before the attack, when Christos was thrown to the ground.
Watch Below:
“Peter
Christos and his colleague were simply trying to do a good deed; they
saw an elderly Jewish couple that was turned away from an over-capacity
pro-Israel event and wanted to help keep them safe from a gathering
pro-Palestine crowd outside the event,” TPUSA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet
told Breitbart News.
“They’re
not even Jewish, but Christians who stand with Israel,” the TPUSA
spokesperson continued. “It’s absolutely unacceptable that America has
violent mobs terrorizing Jews, their Christian friends, and pro-Israel
gatherings.”
“That
should not happen in this country, and the fact that it is, should be a
wakeup call to our leaders about the type of people we allow to live
here,” Kolvet added. “This is a hate crime and we intend on doing
everything we can to ensure these criminals are prosecuted.”
In a separate incident , a gunshot was fired into the air at a pro-Palestinian protest by a man claiming self defense.
Protestors
have been acting out ever since the terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas
on October 7, which left more than 1,300 Israelis dead, and also
resulted in rape, beheadings, bodies being set on fire, and kidnappings
perpetrated by the Palestinian terror group.
As Breitbart News reported ,
the reaction from pro-Palestine students across the U.S. has also
opened the eyes of many who now find themselves shocked to see how
widespread antisemitism is on college campuses.
The
massacre of Jews in Israel has galvanized students across the U.S. into
putting on pro-Palestine, anti-Israel demonstrations on their college
campuses, with one student at Ohio State University even referring to
the slaughtering of Jews by Hamas as “a resistance movement.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo , and on Instagram .
‘Glory to Our Martyrs:’ George Washington U. Students Project Pro-Terror Messages on Campus Building @StopAntisemites/Twitter 2:38
Students
at George Washington University projected pro-terror, anti-Israel
messages onto a school library in the wake of the Palestinian terror
group Hamas murdering more than 1,300 Jews in Israel.
The
messages displayed on the campus building in Washington, DC, read,
“Glory to our martyrs,” “Divestment from Zionist genocide now,’
and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” according to a social
media post by the X/Twitter account @StopAntisemitism.
The @StopAntisemitism
account is now calling on George Washington University President Ellen
M. Granberg “to immediately expel those involved.”
The
students’ pro-terror messaging comes after the mass murder of Jews in
Israel by Hamas, which also resulted in rape, beheadings, bodies being
set on fire, and kidnappings of Israelis.
A second post by the same account shows four people allegedly responsible for the projection arguing with police.
George
Washington University students are not the only students to have
reacted this way to the mass murder of Jews on October 7.
More than 30 student groups at Harvard reacted to the terrorist attack by issuing a
joint statement in which they declared, in part, “We hold the Israeli
regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
As Breitbart News reported, the students wrote:
“We,
the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely
responsible for all unfolding violence,” a joint statement by dozens of
Harvard student groups read.
“Today’s
events did not occur in a vacuum,” the statement continue. “For the
last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to
live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates
of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.”
The reaction from pro-Palestine students across the U.S. has also opened the eyes of many who are now shocked to see how widespread antisemitism is on college campuses.
As Breitbart News reported ,
the massacre of Jews in Israel has galvanized students across the U.S.
into putting on pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations on their
college campuses, with one student at Ohio State University even
referring to the slaughtering of Jews by Hamas as “a resistance
movement.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo , and on Instagram .
Hamas Terrorists Found with Instructions to Decapitate Jews and Remove Hearts, Livers MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images 2:09
Hamas
terrorists were urged to decapitate and remove the hearts and livers of
their Jewish victims during their raid on Israel, as detailed in a
handwritten note found at the scene of the horrific attack.
The
note contains words of encouragement from Hamas commanders declaring
the religious importance of massacring Jews wherever they are found.
It
further draws lessons from historical Muslim leaders who massacred men,
sold women and children into slavery and decimated cities across the
Judeo Christian world.
Tamar,
Yonatan, and their children — Shachar (6), Arbel (6), and Omer (4) —
were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Nir Oz. (@EladStr
Twitter/X)
Sixteen-year-old
Ruth Peretz and father Erick at the site of the Supernova music
festival before they were murdered on October 7 by hordes of Hamas
terrorists, who killed hundreds more at the event. (Supplied)
Israel’s Government Press Office set out the contents of the note in a statement, saying:
Note
found on Hamas terrorist: “Know that this enemy of yours is a disease
that has no cure, other than beheading and extracting the hearts and
livers!”
On
October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and carried out a
massacre in communities in southern Israel. A handwritten note was found
on one of the terrorists which was given to him before the invasion.
The
words from Hamas commanders consist of an order to kill Jews and
encouragement to decapitate their victims and tear out their hearts and
livers.
Please find attached a copy of the note in the original Arabic.
As
Breitbart News reported, over 1,000 Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel
on the morning of October 7, infiltrating Israeli towns near the Gaza
border and IDF bases.
LISTEN: Hamas Terrorist Calls Parents, Brags About Killing 10 Jews
Israel Defense Force
More
than 1,400 Israelis have been killed since the first attack began, with
some 220 people also kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas terrorists and
their allies in the Gaza Strip.
Forensic
evidence of the victims’ bodies and video footage captured by
terrorists have shown that Israeli women and children were raped and
beheaded while others were dismembered.
The war between Israel and Hamas, which began with the Oct. 7 attack, is now in its third week.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
‘Glory to Our Martyrs:’ George Washington U. Students Project Pro-Terror Messages on Campus Building @StopAntisemites/Twitter 2:38
Students
at George Washington University projected pro-terror, anti-Israel
messages onto a school library in the wake of the Palestinian terror
group Hamas murdering more than 1,300 Jews in Israel.
The
messages displayed on the campus building in Washington, DC, read,
“Glory to our martyrs,” “Divestment from Zionist genocide now,’
and “Free Palestine from the river to the sea,” according to a social
media post by the X/Twitter account @StopAntisemitism.
The @StopAntisemitism
account is now calling on George Washington University President Ellen
M. Granberg “to immediately expel those involved.”
The
students’ pro-terror messaging comes after the mass murder of Jews in
Israel by Hamas, which also resulted in rape, beheadings, bodies being
set on fire, and kidnappings of Israelis.
A second post by the same account shows four people allegedly responsible for the projection arguing with police.
George
Washington University students are not the only students to have
reacted this way to the mass murder of Jews on October 7.
More than 30 student groups at Harvard reacted to the terrorist attack by issuing a
joint statement in which they declared, in part, “We hold the Israeli
regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
As Breitbart News reported, the students wrote:
“We,
the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely
responsible for all unfolding violence,” a joint statement by dozens of
Harvard student groups read.
“Today’s
events did not occur in a vacuum,” the statement continue. “For the
last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to
live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates
of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced.”
The reaction from pro-Palestine students across the U.S. has also opened the eyes of many who are now shocked to see how widespread antisemitism is on college campuses.
As Breitbart News reported ,
the massacre of Jews in Israel has galvanized students across the U.S.
into putting on pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations on their
college campuses, with one student at Ohio State University even
referring to the slaughtering of Jews by Hamas as “a resistance
movement.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo , and on Instagram .
Obama Criticizes Israel over Gaza: ‘Don’t Harden Palestinian Attitudes for Generations’ (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) 3:52
Former
President Barack Obama originally said Israel should “dismantle” Hamas,
but has now criticized Israel for the way it is “dismantling” the
Palestinian terror organization.
In a statement Monday, Obama wrote:
As
I stated in an earlier post, Israel has a right to defend its citizens
against such wanton violence, and I fully support President Biden’s call
for the United States to support our long-time ally in going after
Hamas, dismantling its military capabilities, and facilitating the safe
return of hundreds of hostages to their families.
But even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters.
…
Still,
the world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any
Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately
backfire. Already, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the
bombing of Gaza, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands have been
forced from their homes. The Israeli government’s decision to cut off
food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens
not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further
harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for
Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term
efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.
A siege of Gaza would be lawful under international law, as an expert recently noted. Moreover, as Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, has noted , Gaza only obtains 7% of its water from Israel in any case.
Obama ignored Israel’s long record as one of the best, if not the best,
countries in the world in upholding human rights and international
humanitarian law in war against a ruthless, terrorist enemy.
As Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has said : ““No other country with comparable internal and external threats has as good a human rights record as Israel.”
Obama’s own approach to terrorism came under criticism when he was president for being ineffective. Foreign Affairs wrote :
[W]hereas
[George W.] Bush’s approach was sometimes marred by an overly
aggressive posture, Obama has sometimes erred too far in the other
direction, seeming prone to idealism and wishful thinking. This has
hampered his administration’s efforts to combat the terrorist threat:
despite Obama’s laudable attempts to calibrate Washington’s response,
the American people find themselves living in a world plagued with more
terrorism than before Obama took office, not less.
Obama allowed the rise of ISIS, the so-called “Islamic State,” after a hasty retreat from Iraq and after mocking the
group as the “JV team” in explaining why his adminstration was not
being more assertive in standing up to radical Islamic terror — a phase
he almost never used.
Politico reports that
Democrats are starting to worry about a backlash among Arab-American
voters in swing states like Michigan, who are upset that most elected
Democrats — with very prominent exceptions — have supported Israel
against Hamas.
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
ISSUE IS NOT LIMITED TO HAMAS. HAMAS IS MERELY ONE FRONT FOR ISLAM. IT
IS A GLOBAL TERRORISM WE ARE, AND HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH. REMEMBER SEPT
11 AND THE SAUDIS TAKE DOWN OF THE TWIN TOWERS IN NYC.
French
President Emmanuel Macron travelled to Jerusalem on Tuesday to reaffirm
his country’s support for Israel and called for an international
“coalition” of nations to combat the scourge of Islamist terrorist
groups such as Hamas.
Appearing
alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Macron said in a
speech that the world must remember that Israel has a “legitimate right
to defend itself,” adding: “This cause is just, period.”
The
French leader, who expressed solidarity with Israel as the leader of a
country that has also faced deadly Islamist attacks, said that the
priority of Western democracies should be to defeat terrorism, saying per Le Figaro :
“I propose to our international partners that we can build a regional
and international coalition to fight against these terrorist groups
which threaten us all.”
It
is not precisely clear what form of a “coalition” Macron envisages for
the future, however, with the French military largely retreating from
its presence in Africa, the French leader could be eying the Middle East
as another venue to exert military power.
While
there are growing calls from within the European Union to pressure
Jerusalem into a ceasefire — before the expected ground invasion of Gaza
has even begun — Macron seemed to reject such notions, saying that
Israel’s fight against Hamas should be “merciless”.
He
did caveat, however, that the war should still be fought along the
rules of combat and that humanitarian aid should be allowed to reach
civilians in Gaza.
Macron
also doubled down on his call to Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, the
Islamist regime in Iran, and the Houthis in Yemen to refrain from taking
“reckless risk of opening new fronts” in the war and risk destabilising
the entire region.
Finally,
the French president called for a restart of political negotiations to
finally come to a settlement between Israel and Palestine on a two-state
basis.
“Israel’s
security cannot be sustainable without a decisive relaunch of the
political process with the Palestinians,” he said, adding that Israel
will have to accept “ the legitimate right of the Palestinians to have a
territory and a state in peace and security alongside Israel.”
For
his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that terror
groups like Hamas and Hezbollah want to bring the world back to the
“Middle Ages” and therefore the war in Israel represents a civilisation
battle between the West and radical Islam.
“The
test for the West and for civilisation is Hamas,” he said. “If Hamas
emerges victorious, we will all lose, Europe will be endangered,
everyone will be endangered, civilisation will be endangered.”
“That
is why this battle is not merely our own, it’s Europe’s battle, it’s
America’s battle, it’s civilisation’s battle. It’s a battle for the
heart and soul of the Middle East and the Arab world.”
Netanyahu
also issued a threat to Hezbollah, warning that Israel would be forced
into an “unimaginable” response against Lebanon if the Islamist terror
group enters the fighting in a “significant way”.
“If Hezbollah makes the mistake of joining this war, they will regret it, they will long for the Second Lebanon War,” he warned.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter: or e-mail to: kzindulka@breitbart.com
French
police have arrested two Paris-area residents over links to the October
16th terrorist attack in Brussels which saw two people killed and a
third critically injured.
Two
people have been arrested on suspicion of criminal terrorist
association over alleged links to the October 16th terrorist attack in
Brussels, Belgium. The two unnamed individuals are said by French
specialist counter-terror prosecutors, Paris newspaper Le Figaro reports , to have complicity in terrorist “assassination”.
The
pair are being held in pre-trial detention. Six people have been
arrested in France over the Belgium attack so far, and four continue to
be held.
It
is believed that failed Tunisian asylum seeker Abdesalem Lassoued was
behind the deaths of two Swedish football fans in Brussels last Monday.
It is claimed he rode around the city on a moped while carrying an
assault rifle-type long arm and shot at members of the public while
shouting the infamous Arabic war cry “Allah hu Akbar”.
Those
killed and injured appear to have been targeted because they were
wearing the colours of the Swedish football team, which was playing a
match in the city that night. Swedish football fans have been now warned not to wear their national strip while abroad ,
and this attack follows earlier warnings from the Swedish government
that their citizens are at a heightened risk of attack while abroad.
The
increased risk specifically to Swedes has been blamed on a violent
reaction by Muslims worldwide to a series of freedom and expression and
freedom of speech demonstrations and rallies in the form of Qur’an
burnings held in Swedish cities, which Muslim hardliners see as
unacceptable.
As
revealed after the attack, alleged attacker Lassoued not only had been
denied asylum in Europe but was also the subject of an extradition
request by his native Tunisia because he had escaped from prison there.
He had been serving 26 years for attempted murder and other crimes.
Having
escaped, Abdesalem Lassoued posed as a refugee and travelled to Europe
on a small boat and evaded several deportation attempts, including one
launched after authorities became suspicious that he was becoming a
radicalised Muslim. Lassoued reportedly lived in Italy, Norway, Sweden
and Belgium during his time in Europe.
The
Belgian Justice Minister resigned last week over his failure to
deport Lassoued, saying while the decision had not been personally taken
by him he nevertheless bore ultimate responsibility for the activities
of those inside his government department.
Follow Breitbart London on Facebook: Breitbart London ‘For Palestine’ — Asylum Seeker Arrested in Britain over Alleged Terror Attack, Details Being Kept From Public: Report Getty Images 4:40
An
asylum seeker in Britain has reportedly been arrested over an alleged
terror attack to seek vengeance for Gaza, however, further information
has reportedly been withheld from the public, according to the Daily Telegraph .
A
man who arrived as an asylum seeker in the United Kingdom in 2020 has
reportedly been arrested for an alleged terror attack. He is said to
have told police that he was motivated to carry out the attack “for
Palestine” and to avenge Palestinians killed in the wake of the October
7th Hamas terror attacks on Israel that left over 1,400 dead. The man is
currently in police custody.
Further
information on the alleged terror attack, which came amid concerns of
violence stemming from anti-Israel protests being held throughout
Britain, has been withheld from the public, London’s Daily Telegraph reports .
Some
of the details of the alleged attack are being withheld for legal
reasons, however, a security source speaking to the paper suggested that
authorities “may be downplaying it so that they don’t have repeat
attacks or copycat attacks.”
British
lawmakers have called for the public to be informed about the alleged
attack, with former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith
saying: “I think the public does have a right to know that something has
happened. If they are worried about reaction, people need to know
whether their streets are safe.
“It
would be helpful to know these things are happening. I understand the
sensitivities. The issue is whether people have a right to know whether
things are going on on their streets. It needs to be carefully done but
we need a greater level of clarity about whether we have a problem about
extremists on our streets.”
When
questioned on if he believed the reluctance to publish information on
the alleged terror attack came as a result of reticence to link
terrorism to immigration, the former Tory leader said: “All these things
are connected. I understand the sensitivities but the police need to be
clear if this was an attack by an extremist. We need to know that.”
Speaking
to the paper, a senior counter-terror official also stressed the
dangers of Britain’s mass migration policies: “It just illustrates the
risk when you get stressed individuals coming from all parts of the
world, including places where they will have participated in or
witnessed savagery. It is linked to migration. As a result of
full-scale migration, we are getting a lot of people.”
The
alleged attack came amid suspected Islamist attacks in Belgium and
France, with two Swedish men being shot to death in Brussels on Monday
by an ISIS-inspired Tunisian migrant who had avoided multiple attempts
from multiple countries to deport him back to his homeland in Africa.
Just days prior, a French middle school teacher in the city of Arras was
stabbed to death in another suspected Islamist attack by a migrant who
had also successfully avoided deportation.
With
countries throughout Europe on high alert amid the conflict in the
Middle East between Hamas and Israel, national leaders have begun
calling for reforms to the lax immigration systems in place in the EU.
This week, the prime ministers of Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden
all called for stepped-up efforts to deport radicalised migrants.
On Saturday, the Times of Israel reported that
an explosive device was set off outside the Israeli Embassy in the
Cypriot capital of Nicosia. The attack, which was carried out with a
homemade device, thankfully did not result in any injuries. Police in
Cyprus have so far arrested four Syrian nationals on suspicion of
involvement in the attack.
The director-general of MI5 Ken McCallum warned that terror attacks in Britain may occur due to the Gaza conflict, saying :
“There is clearly the possibility that profound events in the Middle
East will either generate more volume of UK threat and/or changes shape
in terms of what is being targeted.”
A
spokesman for the UK’s Counter Terrorism Policing force denied that the
public has been “misled or that information has been deliberately
withheld”, arguing that the alleged terror attack in Britain referred to
by The Telegraph is “subject to active legal proceedings,” adding: “We
have issued several public statements in relation to this matter
previously.”
“We
routinely share and publicise information about ongoing investigations,
arrests and charges, through our online channels, and by updating the
media direct. Communities defeat terrorism. Sharing information with the
public and encouraging them to report anything that doesn’t feel right,
is a vital part of our mission.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter: or e-mail to: kzindulka@breitbart.com
Belgian Police Shoot Dead Tunisian ‘Radical’ After ‘Allahu Akbar’ Terror Killings in Brussels Getty Images 2:58
The
alleged Islamist perpetrator of Monday night’s terror attack who
boasted of sacrificing “souls and blood” was shot dead Tuesday morning
by Belgian police at a Cafe in Schaarbeek.
45-year-old
Abdesalem Lassoued, a failed Tunisian asylum seeker with a serious
criminal history and known to be radicalised was shot dead in the frequently terror-linked Brussels neighbourhood of Schaarbeek on
Tuesday morning. Lassoued is the main suspect in what police say was a
terrorist attack in central Brussels on Monday night where three Swedish
citizens visiting the city for a football game were gunned down.
As reported ,
two people were killed and a third injured critically in the attack, in
which a man riding on a scooter fired at pedestrians with a
Kalashnikov-type rifle while shouting “Allahu akbar”.
Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reports of
the slain suspect that he applied for asylum in the country in 2019 but
was rejected the following year. Yet he was never deported. Lassoued
posted videos to social media after the attack in which he stated he
believed himself to be a “warrior on ther way to Allah” who had lived
and would die in “the way of our faith” before proclaiming: “I killed
three Swedes, praise be to Allah”.
The
cafe at the Eugene Verboekhovenplein/ Place Eugene Verboekhoven in
Schaerbeek/ Schaarbeek, Brussels, where the suspected perpetrator of the
attack in Brussels was probably shot during a police intervention,
Tuesday 17 October 2023. (Photo by JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE/BELGA MAG/AFP
via Getty Images)
Aftermath
of a shooting incident in the Ieperlaan – Boulevard d’Ypres, Brussels,
Tuesday 17 October 2023. (Photo by JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE/BELGA MAG/AFP
via Getty Images)
The
Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said of the suspect
this morning that as well as being known for being a threat to state
security, the government had been sent a tip-off that he had become
radicalised and wanted to travel to fight jihad. He also had a record
for human smuggling.
The
Minister said these reports came during a time of heightened terror
concern and that the state receives “dozens of reports of this nature
every day” and no evidence was found to place him on the extremism
watchlist, but it was subsequently claimed he was convicted of terror or
criminal offences in his native Tunisia.
Lassoued
was reportedly shot in the chest at the Schaarbeek cafe by police and
died on the way to hospital. The Belgian Interior Minister Annelies
Verlinden said Tuesday
morning, per Reuters, that “The weapon with which the attacks were
committed has been found this morning where the man was apprehended in
Schaerbeek… We are checking fingerprints to be 100% sure.”
Lassoued’s wife has also been arrested.
Reuters
reports remarks by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor saying there was no
link between this attack and the Hamas terror attack on Gaza last week,
yet HLN reports Lassoued posted about the conflict and Swedish Koran burnings on his social media shortly before his allegedly launched his strike.
The Swedish government had warned its
citizens they may be targets for terrorist strikes while travelling
abroad in August because of the anger shown by Muslims about the freedom
of expression demonstrations that took place in the country.
Belgium
has increased the terrorism threat level to four in Brussels, the
highest level. The government is to have emergency meetings today to
decide further action.
Europe Let in Too Many Foreigners, Says Henry Kissinger in Wake of Pro-Hamas Demonstrations Across Continent Daniel Vogl/picture alliance via Getty Images 3:53
Pro-Hamas
demonstrations show European nations, including Germany, made a “grave
mistake”, and the continent should be concerned about future
hostage-taking raids against its own people if the idea isn’t defeated
quickly, Henry Kissinger warns.
Europe
is subject to internal pressure by groups of people “of totally
different culture and religion” because of the “grave mistake” of
admitting too many foreigners, Henry Kissinger said of the phenomenon of
demonstrations across Europe in support of Hamas terrorists this week.
Speaking to Politico in
the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on
Saturday, longtime kingpin of the globalist movement Henry Kissinger
walked back his previous position on the importance of keeping Western
nations open to refugee flows and said the events of recent days showed
nations had gone too far. He told the publication observing celebrations
in German cities in support of Hamas is “painful” to watch.
Kissinger
said: “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally
different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a
pressure group inside each country that does that”.
Europe
should give “unconditional political support for Israeli action” now
the terrorist attack has happened, Kissinger continued, and not least
because in his view European states have a vested interest in making
sure no precedent is set for raids and mass taking of hostages from
Western nations is set. He concluded: “Israel must vindicate its
sovereignty in that area, and that it cannot permit Gaza to return to a
state where it could emerge, take thousands or a large number hostage,
kill thousands, and then live in that condition side-by-side with
Israel.
“I would say every European nation has the same interest because the same attitude might erupt in the direction of Europe.”
While hostage-taking raids on Europe may seem far-fetched, they are not without ample historical precedent and match other warnings about the very high-consequence risk of the tactic coming to Europe’s shores.
Kissinger’s
comments on the “grave mistake” and danger presented by mass migration
creating alien power structures within Western nations are a
considerable shift from his previous positions, which he long
acknowledged were influenced by his own experience as a refugee from
Nazi Germany going to America in the 1930s.
In 2015 Kissinger was a co-signatory of a letter to Congress demanding
the borders be kept open to Syrian and Iraqi migrants in the wake of
the deadly Paris terror attacks. The letter said to do otherwise would
“be contrary to our nation’s traditions of openness and inclusivity, and
would undermine our core objective of combating terrorism”, because
admitting Muslim migrants is a way to defeat ISIS.
It
said: “Categorically refusing to take [Muslim migrants] only feeds the
narrative of ISIS that there is a war between Islam and the West, that
Muslims are not welcome in the United States and Europe, and that the
ISIS caliphate is their true home. We must make clear that the United
States rejects this worldview”.
Police
made multiple arrests in Berlin this past week as protesters took to
the streets to cheer the Hamas terrorist attack that is thought to have
killed at least 1,300 Israelis on Saturday. Protesters chanted “from the
river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and despite arrests the
groups have returned to celebrate on the streets in Berlin night after
night, with a fresh gathering in the diverse, left-leaning neighbourhood
of Neukölln on Wednesday night.
TAZ reports hundreds gathered
in the district despite a ban on pro-Palestinian rallies ordered by
police in Berlin and were met by several hundred police officers, who
broke up the crowd leading to some scuffles.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) lists Kissinger as an “important mentor” to founder Klaus Schwab, according to a 2010 document .
Taken from the document “A Partner in Shaping History: The First 40 Years.” (Screenshot / weforum.org)
Terror Arrest: Known Extremist Allegedly Wanted to Drive Truck Into Pro-Israel Rally Getty Images 1:36
German
police arrested a known Islamist on Tuesday following intelligence he
was planning to attack a pro-Israel rally to “kill as many people as
possible”, reports claim.
A
convicted Islamic fundamentalist who was previously jailed for
traveling to Syria to fight for the Islamic State was arrested in a
police raid Tuesday, as counter-terror police believed he presented an
urgent risk to the public. According to German newspaper Bild ,
police received a tip-off from a foreign secret service that revealed a
man identified as Tarik S., who has access to a truck, had researched
pro-Israel rallies in his city.
They
said the Egyptian-heritage German citizen wanted to “drive a truck into
such a demonstration and injure and kill as many people as possible”.
The arrest took place in Duisburg in North Rhine-Westphalia and underlines, Welt reports ,
the nervousness of the German state security apparatus about the
increased risk of terror attacks in the wake of the massive assault on
Israel this month.
Tarik
S. himself is already well known to authorities, having been arrested
in 2016 upon his return from the Islamic State, where he traveled in
2013 to join their jihad. A German court heard how he had featured in
Islamic State propaganda videos, posing with a decapitated corpse in
one, and was known to his comrades in ISIS as “Osama the German”.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 and was subsequently released.
“Of
course, one of the main reasons the nation is now “divided, resentful
and angry” is because race-baiting, Islamist, class warrior Barack
Hussein Obama was president for eight long years." MATTHEW VADUM
How Obama’s Muslim Childhood Became a Taboo Topic https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-obamas-muslim-childhood-became-a-taboo-
Reflections on when a gigantic biographical inconvenience was successfully hidden and denied. June 23, 2023 by Daniel Pipes 22 Comments
Newsletter
[Order Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America .]
Americans
have an abiding fascination with their presidents, especially with
their foibles and secrets. Who lied? Who ordered illegal operations? Who
had mistresses?
Thus
was the country transfixed by Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and the
tawdry drip-drip of their liaison. When newly declassified documents
revealed hitherto unknown CIA connections to Lee Harvey Oswald, this
made a media splash , with Tucker Carlson asking: “Did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy?”
But
that fascination dies when it comes to Barack Obama, the Left’s
quasi-sacred figure. About him, no curiosity, please, no gossip, and no
hint of impropriety. When he falsely claimed in 1991 to have been born in Kenya , and not in Hawaii, blame fell on a sloppy literary agent . When Stanley Kurtz proved that Obama lied about not being a member of Chicago’s socialist New Party and a candidate for it, the Obama P.R. machine smeared Kurtz and the story disappeared.
When
clear evidence showed that Obama had lied about having been born and
raised a Muslim, the researcher who made the case was reviled, his
investigation scorned, and his argument vaporized.
I should know, as I was that researcher. I wrote five
times on this topic in 2007-08, during Obama’s first presidential
campaign (three of those times in FrontPageMag.com) and then aggregated
all this information, plus new details, in a long and (so far)
definitive September 2012 article, “ Obama’s Muslim Childhood ,” serialized in the Washington Times .
All those writings emphasized that Obama was now a Christian. The first one began with:
“If
I were a Muslim I would let you know,” Barack Obama has said, and I
believe him. In fact, he is a practicing Christian, a member of the
Trinity United Church of Christ. He is not now a Muslim. But was he ever
a Muslim or seen by others as a Muslim?
I
answered in the affirmative and showed how contradictory evidence
concerning Obama’s religious background – from Obama’s father and name,
from years in Indonesia, from his family, and most of all from himself –
conclusively points to his being born and raised a Muslim.
Throughout,
I emphasized not the Islam issue but the character issue; if Obama lies
about something so fundamental, how can he be trusted? His other lies,
such as Kenyan birth and socialist party non-membership, confirm this
problem.
Responses came fast and hard. Ben Rhodes’ “ echo chamber ”
nearly fainted at the impudence of my lèse majesté. Like Kurtz, I was
slandered without the facts I presented ever addressed. Here’s a small
sampling of the deluge:
· Ben Smith in Politico derided my analysis as “the template for a faux-legitimate assault on Obama’s religion.”
· The Spectator called mine the “the worst article on the presidential election” and also deemed it “mad” and “despicable.”
· Martin Peretz in the New Republic said I had “simply gone bonkers … and malicious.”
· Vice ran an article “ Would You Care If Obama Were Muslim? ”
that responded to my carefully-crafted argument with “BLARGHA BLARGHA
BLARGH REPEAL OBAMA BIN HUSSEIN’S GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF OUR JOBS.”
The Atlantic published no less than three attacks on the article and me. Mark Ambinder rued “the false notion that Obama is or was ever Muslim.” Andrew Sullivan dismissed my work as “toxins.” Matthew Yglesias ridiculed
my saying that I believe Obama is not now a Muslim with “I, for
one, believe Daniel Pipes when he says he’s not a child molester.”
And so it went, howling with outrage at the very thought of Obama as a Muslim, mocking and taunting me with ad hominem attacks,
speculating about my motives. So relentless was the onslaught, even the
conservative press overwhelmingly shied away from the topic. The McCain and Romney campaigns
both treated the topic like Kryptonite. The issue of Obama’s lies had
no impact on either presidential campaign, both of which – of course –
Obama won.
I
expect that, at some future time when Barack Obama loses his sacral
quality, historians will take great interest in his childhood religious
affiliation. They will wonder how, in the information-heavy,
politically-riven, and celebrity-mad culture of early twenty-first
century United States, so gigantic a biographical inconvenience could be
successfully hidden and rendered taboo. They will study how, in a
modern democratic society, a determined candidate can suppress even the
most important and relevant information.
I look forward to the vindication.
Mr. Pipes ( DanielPipes.org , @DanielPipes ) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2023 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Obama Criticizes Israel over Gaza: ‘Don’t Harden Palestinian Attitudes for Generations’ (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) 3:52
Former
President Barack Obama originally said Israel should “dismantle” Hamas,
but has now criticized Israel for the way it is “dismantling” the
Palestinian terror organization.
In a statement Monday, Obama wrote:
As
I stated in an earlier post, Israel has a right to defend its citizens
against such wanton violence, and I fully support President Biden’s call
for the United States to support our long-time ally in going after
Hamas, dismantling its military capabilities, and facilitating the safe
return of hundreds of hostages to their families.
But even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters.
…
Still,
the world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any
Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately
backfire. Already, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the
bombing of Gaza, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands have been
forced from their homes. The Israeli government’s decision to cut off
food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens
not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis; it could further
harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for
Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term
efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.
A siege of Gaza would be lawful under international law, as an expert recently noted. Moreover, as Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, has noted , Gaza only obtains 7% of its water from Israel in any case.
Obama ignored Israel’s long record as one of the best, if not the best,
countries in the world in upholding human rights and international
humanitarian law in war against a ruthless, terrorist enemy.
As Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz has said : ““No other country with comparable internal and external threats has as good a human rights record as Israel.”
Obama’s own approach to terrorism came under criticism when he was president for being ineffective. Foreign Affairs wrote :
[W]hereas
[George W.] Bush’s approach was sometimes marred by an overly
aggressive posture, Obama has sometimes erred too far in the other
direction, seeming prone to idealism and wishful thinking. This has
hampered his administration’s efforts to combat the terrorist threat:
despite Obama’s laudable attempts to calibrate Washington’s response,
the American people find themselves living in a world plagued with more
terrorism than before Obama took office, not less.
Obama allowed the rise of ISIS, the so-called “Islamic State,” after a hasty retreat from Iraq and after mocking the
group as the “JV team” in explaining why his adminstration was not
being more assertive in standing up to radical Islamic terror — a phase
he almost never used.
Politico reports that
Democrats are starting to worry about a backlash among Arab-American
voters in swing states like Michigan, who are upset that most elected
Democrats — with very prominent exceptions — have supported Israel
against Hamas.
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 .
***
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT *** ‘This Is the Gate of Hell’: Israeli
Forensic Team Shows Media Bodies of Hundreds of Hamas Terror Victims Joel Pollak / Breitbart News 3:38
SHURA
MILITARY BASE, Ramle, Israel — “This is the gate of hell.” That is
how Gilat Bahat, an officer in the Israeli Police, describes the effort
to identify the victims of the October 7 attack by the Palestinian
terror group Hamas.
Israeli
authorities brought the foreign press to this site to share the horror
of what happened to innocent civilians — and to make sure there is never
any doubt, never any attempt to deny it, or to excuse it.
Of
the more than 1,400 people murdered, 784 bodies have been delivered to
this site, in refrigerated trucks. The bodies are already bagged by
first responders; the forensic investigators then have to open the bags
to identify the victims.
They dread the moment.
Reporters
view refrigerated trucks containing hundreds of bodies of Israeli
victims murdered by Palestinian Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Shura
Military Base, Ramle, Israel, October 24, 2023 (Joel Pollak / Bretbart
News)
Michal
Levin Elad, a 25-year veteran of crime scene investigations for the
Israeli police, told reporters: “We have seen children who were
decapitated. We have seen children who were dismembered. It’s sights I
have never seen before and hope to God I never see again.”
One
particularly difficult moment, she said, was when they had to examine
the body of one of their colleagues — a forensic investigator who had
been at the Supernova music festival.
“I
went to see him so that family and friends would know how he died,” she
said. She was relieved: “He was one of the fortunate ones that was just
shot.”
Other
bodies, Bahat said, arrived in parts, having been dismembered. Some
bodies were beheaded after being shot. The worst, he said, were the
large groups of small bags — children, including infants between three
and six months old, who had been shot and burned.
“This is the enemy we are dealing with.”
Refrigerated
trucks containing hundreds of bodies of Israeli victims murdered by
Palestinian Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Shura Military Base, Ramle,
Israel, October 24, 2023 (Joel Pollak / Bretbart News)
Dentist
Dr. Ilana Engin, who volunteers as a forensic investigator, said, “The
horrors of what I saw will be etched in my mind forever.”
Some
remains were “heads without bodies that we needed to identify.” Some
bodies “ended up being two people hugging together while being burnt.”
And some bodies were little more than fragments of bone and ashes.
She spoke about the struggle to put her own emotions aside when she herself is a mother of a three-year-old.
Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart News
Natah
Katz, a commander in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in charge of
forensic investigations, said: “I’ve been trying to shield my family and
my friends from everything that has happened over the past two weeks.
But the time has come for everybody to understand what happened.”
He
spoke of whole families who had been torn to pieces when terrorists
threw grenades into the bomb shelters where they had been hiding. He
spoke of the eight Thai farmworkers whose hands had been bound behind
their backs with Zip ties, who had been forced to kneel, and who were
then executed with shots to the back of the head.
“These are things that I will never get out of my head. Nobody will.
“These are atrocities on a Holocaust scale.”
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 .
Watch: The Horror of the Hamas Terror Attack on Civilians at Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel 0:23
Breitbart
News’ Joel Pollak details the atrocities committed by Hamas against
Israeli civilians at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 and explains why
Israel’s fight against the terror group is important for peace in the
Middle East.
Why Obama Thinks All Muslim Terror Attacks Are ‘Random’ Over
the weekend, President Obama participated in an interview with Vox.com,
the website for those he termed “the brainiac-nerd types.” Sadly, those
brainiac-nerds couldn’t come up with the intestinal fortitude to press
Obama on this bizarre and disturbing comment about the murder of four
Jews in Paris by radical Muslims immediately following the Charlie Hebdo massacre:
It
is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned
when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or
randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.
Randomly
shoot “a bunch of folks” in a deli in Paris? No mention of
anti-Semitism from the president here. By this measure, Nazis randomly
broke the windows of a bunch of folks in delis in Germany right around
1938.
But
that’s the point: Were Obama to face up to the real problem of
anti-Semitism globally, he would have to stop isolating Israel, given
that global isolation of Israel is a manifestation of the same
anti-Semitism that ended with the murders of Jews in a Paris deli. Were
Obama to lump together the Jews and the victims of Charlie Hebdo , he could no longer plausibly claim that Israeli settlement policy spurs Islamic murder — as it turns out, the victims of Charlie Hebdo and those in the kosher supermarket had nothing to do with Israeli settlements. They have to do, instead, with radical Islam.
Instead, Obama prefers to see the murders as random, unforeseeable events.
Obama’s
casual dismissal of anti-Semitic murder isn’t out of character. Obama
often dismisses Islamic evil with a wave of the hand, a bothersome but
random circumstance. Less than two weeks after the murder of four
Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya, Obama
described the terrorist attacks leading to their deaths as “bumps in
the road”:
I
was pretty certain and continue to be pretty certain that there are
going to be bumps in the road because — you know, in a lot of these
places — the one organizing principle — has been Islam. The one part of
society that hasn’t been controlled completely by the government. There
are strains of extremism, and anti-Americanism, and anti-Western
sentiment. And you know can be tapped into by demagogues. There will
probably be some times where we bump up against some of these countries
and have strong disagreements, but I do think that over the long term,
we are more likely to get a Middle East and North Africa that is more
peaceful, more prosperous and more aligned with our interests.
A
month after that, Obama said that the attacks were “not optimal.” His
administration had also claimed that the attacks weren’t attacks at all,
but merely random violence inspired by a YouTube video.
Fort
Hood: a random act of workplace violence. The Oklahoma beheading of a
woman by his Muslim coworker: random. A hatchet attack by a radical
Muslim on two NYPD officers: a lone wolf. The Boston Marathon bombing:
more lone wolves.
Random, all random.
Because
if these attacks aren’t random — if they have something to do with the
system of thought guiding them — Obama might have to reconsider his
worldview. If radical Islam underlies the attacks on Jews in Israel as
well as the attacks on Jews in Paris, Obama can’t throw the Jews off of
Western civilization’s lifeboat. If the same ideology undergirds Charlie Hebdo and
the honor killing of Noor Almaleki in Phoenix, the murder and beheading
of Aasiya Hassan and the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Obama might
have to face up to reality.
He won’t. And so Americans will be told, again and again, that attacks on innocents by radical Muslims have no rhyme or reason.
Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama : The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org . Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.
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