Tom Nichols on Trump’s Recent Rhetoric: “An Actual Fascist Has Shown Up” | Amanpour and Company
Jesuit Priest Thomas Reese Says Donald Trump Is ‘Antichrist’
Jesuit Father Thomas Reese has asserted that Donald Trump is not only a lawless brigand but a true figure of the antichrist.
“If we compare the Gospel message with that of Trump and other authoritarian leaders, we can only conclude that he and they are antichrists,” Father Reese wrote for the leftwing Religion News Service (RNS) this week.
In his piece titled “In a World Where Christ Is King, Authoritarian Leaders Can Only Be Antichrists,” Father Reese asserted that “anti-democratic leaders” like Trump are promising to “deliver justice by any means necessary.”
Last Sunday the Catholic Church celebrated the annual liturgical feast of Christ the King, and Reese made reference to the holiday to contrast Christ’s kingdom with that of “antichrists” like Donald Trump.
“Today, as between the two world wars, authoritarian leaders around the world are promising justice by any means necessary,” Reese said, perhaps also in reference to recent democratic elections in Italy, Brazil, and the Netherlands, which yielded populist leaders.
“They portray themselves as the heroes of their narratives where they alone can save the nation,” he added. “They will destroy our enemies and protect us from outsiders. They will not be slowed down by democratic niceties or laws.”
“Each promises that if we put him in power, if we make him king, he will save us. We will have success and prosperity,” he said.
In 2020, Father Reese stumped for Joe Biden, urging his fellow Catholics to join the “grassroots” group “Catholics for Biden.”
The launch event sought to “engage Catholic voters” and whip up enthusiasm for the Biden-Harris ticket.
Father Reese also attempted to convince Catholics that it is okay to vote for Catholic candidates who openly flout Church teaching on issues such as abortion.
“A Catholic Democrat might feel impelled to vote for Biden despite his position on abortion and gay marriage because of other morally grave reasons, for example, his positions on racism, immigration, global warming and COVID-19,” Reese argued.
Father Reese acknowledged that most Catholic Democrats disregard the Church’s moral teaching and “agree with Biden that abortion should be legal,” which removes any moral obstacle for supporting him.
Voting for Donald Trump is obviously another matter altogether, since how can anything justify voting for the “Antichrist”?
Ceasefire in Gaza: Boon for Hamas Nazis
And can you guess what Biden is pressuring Israel to do?
[Make sure to read Joseph Klein’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Israel and Hamas reached an agreement brokered by Qatar to pause their fighting for four days following what a senior Biden administration official described to reporters as an “extremely excruciating five-week process” of negotiations. Under this agreement, Hamas committed to release fifty women and children the terrorists had taken captive on October 7th, in groups spread out over the four days and selected from the terrorists’ two hundred forty or so captives. In return, Israel agreed to free one hundred fifty Palestinian women and teenagers imprisoned in Israel. For each subsequent day of a pause in fighting agreed to by Israel and Hamas, an additional ten hostages would be released.
The agreement between Israel and Hamas also calls for a substantial increase in humanitarian aid and fuel allowed into Gaza during the four-day pause, supposedly to be used for the benefit of Gazan civilians.
In an entirely separate arrangement announced by Qatar, Hamas also released captured Thai nationals and a Filipino.
Hamas is exploiting for propaganda purposes images of joyful reunions of the freed Israeli hostages, especially children, with their families. Hamas wants the world to view it as a legitimate resistance movement that has taken the high moral ground by releasing vulnerable women and children from captivity. These genocidal terrorists want the world to forget that they viciously slaughtered and abducted women, children, babies, and the elderly in the first place when they invaded Israel on October 7th.
The deal between Israel and Hamas for the initial four-day pause took effect on November 24th, a day later than originally scheduled, with Hamas’ release of thirteen hostages and Israel’s release of thirty-nine Palestinian prisoners. No abducted American citizens were among the first group of women and children whom Hamas set free – not even a little American girl, Abigail Mor Edan, whom Hamas refused to release on her fourth birthday.
Hamas initially delayed its release of a second group of hostages on day two of the pause, but the snag was eventually resolved. Thirteen Israelis and four foreigners were released. However, no Americans were included in this second group either – another day that Americans kidnapped by the terrorists were left behind.
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists killed at least thirty-one American citizens on October 7th and abducted about ten Americans. Yet President Biden, who has taken credit for his personal involvement in the hostage negotiations, failed to secure the release of a single American in the first two tranches of freed hostages.
Finally, on the third day of the pause, Hamas released Abigail Mor Edan, the little American girl whom Hamas forced to spend her fourth birthday in captivity. But thanks to the Hamas murderers, Abigail Mor Edan, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, has no parents to reunite with. She will not be free for the rest of her life from the trauma she experienced in witnessing the slaughter of her mother and father.
President Biden pointed to Hamas’ release of Abigail Mor Edan and of other hostages, and the sharp increase in humanitarian aid going into Gaza, as proof that the pause is a success. “Critically needed aid is going in and hostages are coming out,” Biden said in remarks to reporters that he delivered on November 26th from Nantucket where he was staying for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. “And this deal is structured so that it can be extended to keep building on these results. That’s my goal,” the president added.
However, President Biden admitted that he does not know when all the remaining American hostages will be released nor their conditions in captivity. He did not call Hamas out for violating its deal with Israel by refusing so far to allow the Red Cross to visit the hostages and report on their well-being.
While the release of any hostages is certainly a good thing, the deal as a whole benefits Hamas and places Israel at a major strategic disadvantage. The initial pause, coupled with multiple extensions as the price for the release of more hostages, stops Israel in its tracks from continuing to pursue and kill the Hamas fighters while they are on the run. Israel’s momentum in destroying Hamas’ infrastructure is stalled. In short, Israel agreed to what amounts to a de facto ceasefire, which gives Hamas an undeserved timeout to regroup and rearm with Iran’s help.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu originally vowed that there would be no ceasefire until all the hostages were released. But he agreed to accept the freeing of far less hostages, along with the military pause and other concessions, under intense pressure from the Biden administration.
Indeed, according to a senior U.S. official, the Biden administration was involved in “daily, sometimes hourly, senior level of engagement with Qatar, with Egypt and with Israel on the issue of the hostages.” President Biden himself “was engaged daily as extremely difficult talks and proposals were traded back and forth,” the official said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu undoubtedly sensed a shift in the political winds in the United States, evidenced by more Democrats turning against the U.S.’s continued military support for Israel’s counter-offensive and ratcheting up their calls for a ceasefire. The Biden administration, responding to President Biden’s declining poll numbers among young voters sympathetic to the Palestinians, expressed deepening concerns regarding Israel’s conduct of the war against Hamas and the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza.
President Biden and senior administration officials called for more Israeli restraint and for humanitarian pauses in the fighting. Prime Minister Netanyahu had reason to worry about the backlash if he did not listen to his most important ally. Moreover, Prime Minister Netanyahu had been under intense pressure at home from families of the kidnapped Israelis to secure their release.
Thus, one can understand the Israeli prime minister’s reluctant acceptance of the deal for an initial four-day pause in fighting with Hamas and the return of some hostages. But that does not make it the right decision in the long run. Hamas remains a very formidable threat to the lives of Israeli civilians and has threatened to repeat their October 7th savagery over and over again if given the chance. Israel has lost the initiative in executing its mission to destroy Hamas.
Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to assure the Israeli people that the war “will continue” after the partial release of hostages is completed until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are released. But Israel has painted itself into a corner with this seriously flawed deal.
So long as Hamas dangles the prospect of releasing additional hostages for every day that Israel continues to halt all military operations in Gaza, the pressure will only intensify on the Israeli government to prolong the pause. This is part of Hamas’ continuing pattern of psychological and propaganda warfare. Moreover, as the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza expands during the initial pause, President Biden will face increasing demands at home and abroad to join other world leaders in calling for an indefinite ceasefire. He is already pushing hard for an extension of the pause.
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was successfully applying overwhelming force to eliminate Hamas’ senior officials, destroy Hamas’ command centers, tunnels, and weapons caches, and drive Hamas fighters out of their positions in northern Gaza. As a result, the Jerusalem Post reported, “Hamas morale has been dealt a significant blow, causing many terrorists to retreat southward in Gaza, abandoning guns after clashes with IDF soldiers.” The report added that “after the IDF successfully targeted Hamas brigade, battalion, and company commanders, the terrorist group’s armed wing struggled to execute attacks against Israeli forces infiltrating terrorist strongholds.”
Before Israel agreed to the de facto ceasefire, the IDF controlled the battlefield in Gaza and ran the clock on its own timetable. Israel retained the power to unilaterally pause the fighting in localized areas for limited hours of its choosing while the IDF’s counter-offensive continued in full swing.
All this has now come to an end for who knows how long. Israel’s agreement to a de facto ceasefire, with the whole world watching, gives Hamas an invaluable reprieve before the IDF has come anywhere close to eliminating the terrorist cancer in Gaza. Hamas is undoubtedly using the prolonged halt in fighting throughout Gaza to regenerate, reorganize, resupply, and reposition its fighters to regain the advantage of surprise over its Israeli targets.
As part of the deal, Israel has halted all air traffic over the southern portion of Gaza, including drones for surveillance purposes, and is allowed only six hours a day to conduct flights in northern Gaza. Many of the terrorists had fled to southern Gaza to escape IDF’s relentless attacks in the north, but Israel’s hands are tied in being able to use aerial surveillance to effectively track their movements.
Moreover, the exchange of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel for hostages abducted by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups – in a three to one ratio no less – incentivizes the terrorists to kidnap more Israeli civilians as bargaining chips. Hamas, Hezbollah, and their terrorist state sponsor Iran will not hesitate to seize ever more hostages as leverage.
Hamas is releasing grannies and little children whom the terrorists forcibly abducted on October 7th. In exchange, Israel is releasing Palestinians who were in jail for attempted murder or other violent crimes and who will now be free to join Hamas in conducting further attacks against Israeli civilians.
One should learn from history, not repeat it. The 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in 2011 whom Israel exchanged for one Israeli soldier captured by Hamas five years earlier, Gilad Shalit, included Yahya Sinwar, a founding member of Hamas who became its top commander in Gaza. This bloodthirsty terrorist said he had learned, according to a Guardian article, that “the capture of Israeli soldiers was the ‘only way to free prisoners.’” Sinwar is said to be the mastermind behind Hamas’ genocidal attacks in Israel on October 7th and no doubt was behind the strategy of kidnapping so many hostages.
Every day that Israel releases three Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one hostage captured by Hamas is a day that Israel is releasing more recruits to join Hamas’ declared “permanent” war against Israel.
Every day that the IDF continues to lay down its arms is a day that Hamas will exploit to rebuild its terrorist network while making it harder for Israel to resume its military mission to destroy Hamas. So long as Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups survive to fight another day, the Jewish state’s population remains in mortal danger.
President Biden appears to be moving away from his initial full support for Israel’s objective to eliminate Hamas completely. He is adopting a softer position that would tolerate Hamas’ continued existence so long as it does not “control” any portion of Gaza. This is a recipe for disaster. Unless the terrorist cancer is removed root and branch entirely, it will metastasize.
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Pro-Hamas Rallies Have Twice Targeted LA Holocaust Museums
There's a reason this keeps happening.
When pro-Hamas supporters rioted outside the Museum of Tolerance for screening footage of Hamas atrocities on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Mayor Karen Bass and the media, including most shamefully the JTA, described it as clashes between both sides and denounced “violence”.
Now some of the groups behind that protest, which have openly defended Hamas, decided to head to the site of another local Holocaust museum, the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum in Pan Pacific Park for their pro terrorist hate rally.
There’s a reason this keeps happening. And there’s a reason that no one actually condemns it.
KKK rallies outside black churches would lead to an immediate response. Supporters of murdering Jews protesting outside Holocaust museums hardly even rates a mention.
This comes at a time when the DSA and other leftists, and their members, like this Bernie Sanders supporter, feel increasingly emboldened to attack Jews in Los Angeles.
A home invasion suspect reportedly shouted “Free Palestine!” and threatened to kill a Jewish family in Studio City Wednesday morning.
According to various local reports, a man broke into a home on the 3000 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard sometime around 5 a.m. The suspect, who was armed with a kitchen knife, allegedly threatened to kill the family “because you are Jewish… Israel kill people,” per KTLA. The homeowner is reportedly from Israel. All the doors to the house are also reportedly adorned with mezuzot.
The family, which according to KTLA consisted of two adults (one of whom is nine months pregnant) and four children, hid in a safe room until the father came out and pushed the man into the backyard, where the suspect was subsequently arrested.
The suspect can be seen in video footage shouting, “Free Palestine” repeatedly and “brown lives matter” as he was being taken into a police vehicle.
Then we had this in Brentwood.
This is the work of a leftist movement that learned in 2020 that it could terrorize people with impunity. There’s no political or criminal accountability and little in the way of critical coverage. Behavior like this has become legitimized. And it won’t end here.
When pro-Hamas supporters rioted outside the Museum of Tolerance for screening footage of Hamas atrocities on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Mayor Karen Bass and the media, including most shamefully the JTA, described it as clashes between both sides and denounced “violence”.
Now some of the groups behind that protest, which have openly defended Hamas, decided to head to the site of another local Holocaust museum, the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum in Pan Pacific Park for their pro terrorist hate rally.
There’s a reason this keeps happening. And there’s a reason that no one actually condemns it.
KKK rallies outside black churches would lead to an immediate response. Supporters of murdering Jews protesting outside Holocaust museums hardly even rates a mention.
This comes at a time when the DSA and other leftists, and their members, like this Bernie Sanders supporter, feel increasingly emboldened to attack Jews in Los Angeles.
A home invasion suspect reportedly shouted “Free Palestine!” and threatened to kill a Jewish family in Studio City Wednesday morning.
According to various local reports, a man broke into a home on the 3000 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard sometime around 5 a.m. The suspect, who was armed with a kitchen knife, allegedly threatened to kill the family “because you are Jewish… Israel kill people,” per KTLA. The homeowner is reportedly from Israel. All the doors to the house are also reportedly adorned with mezuzot.
The family, which according to KTLA consisted of two adults (one of whom is nine months pregnant) and four children, hid in a safe room until the father came out and pushed the man into the backyard, where the suspect was subsequently arrested.
The suspect can be seen in video footage shouting, “Free Palestine” repeatedly and “brown lives matter” as he was being taken into a police vehicle.
Then we had this in Brentwood.
This is the work of a leftist movement that learned in 2020 that it could terrorize people with impunity. There’s no political or criminal accountability and little in the way of critical coverage. Behavior like this has become legitimized. And it won’t end here.
Daniel Greenfield
Reader Interactions
MUSLIMS ARE THE MOST VIOLENT CULTURE ON THE PLANET. WE WILL EXPOSE THEM AND THEY WILL GO BACK TO THEIR CAVES
Maryland Hate Crime Commission Official Likens Israel to Nazi Germany
November 21, 2023A Maryland state official tasked with addressing hate crimes compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
"That moment when you become what you hated most," wrote Zainab Chaudry in an Oct. 17 Facebook post accompanied by two photos of Germany's Brandenburg Gate, one with the landmark lit up with the Israeli flag after Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks and another with it draped in Nazi flags in 1936, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday. Chaudry, the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations's Maryland office, serves on the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, to which Maryland attorney general Anthony Brown (D.) appointed her in August.
Brown said at the time that Chaudry and the other 19 appointees to the commission would help by "stepping up for all Marylanders, creating structure for our governing authorities to stem the tide of underreported crimes and bias incidents, and providing relief to people affected by these divisive acts." He added that the commission would "give a voice to those who may have been too afraid to speak up."
In another post, dated Oct. 26, Chaudry lamented that "the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to 3,000 real Palestinian babies." Another post she shared suggested it was an "inconvenient fact" that the beginnings of the conflict between Israel and Hamas could be traced back to 1948, the year of the Jewish state's founding, rather than Oct. 7, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.
Chaudry told Fox News Digital that the "Nazi post" was shared by a "close Jewish friend" and accused the Israeli government of genocide.
"I strongly and unapologetically condemn Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right, racist government for repeatedly making such genocidal threats towards the Palestinian people and killing over 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza," Chaudry said, "most of them women and children murdered in their homes. Unlike many of the Israeli government's most extreme supporters, I recognize that killing any civilians is wrong, which is why my office has repeatedly condemned the killing of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians."
She also said that there was "no conflict between condemning the Israeli government's genocidal war crimes overseas and standing up against all forms of hate here at home, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. False smears from anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists will not stop me from standing up for justice here and abroad."
The views of one member of the commission "do not reflect those of either the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention or the Attorney General," Brown's spokeswoman, Jennifer Donelan, told Fox News Digital.
"We understand that there are many viewpoints regarding current events in the Middle East," Donelan said. "The Commission will do its best to explore the impact of those events on our community, and to determine how best to address escalations in hate and bias incidents across the state." She added that the body would develop "policies and protocols" on how their members tackle such issues.
Hate crime officials have had to deal with a slew of anti-Semitic incidents since Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks, which killed about 1,200 Israelis, according to latest estimates. Such incidents have increased nearly 400 percent since the attacks, the Anti-Defamation League said last month.
A Maryland state official tasked with addressing hate crimes compared Israel to Nazi Germany.
"That moment when you become what you hated most," wrote Zainab Chaudry in an Oct. 17 Facebook post accompanied by two photos of Germany's Brandenburg Gate, one with the landmark lit up with the Israeli flag after Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks and another with it draped in Nazi flags in 1936, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday. Chaudry, the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations's Maryland office, serves on the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, to which Maryland attorney general Anthony Brown (D.) appointed her in August.
Brown said at the time that Chaudry and the other 19 appointees to the commission would help by "stepping up for all Marylanders, creating structure for our governing authorities to stem the tide of underreported crimes and bias incidents, and providing relief to people affected by these divisive acts." He added that the commission would "give a voice to those who may have been too afraid to speak up."
In another post, dated Oct. 26, Chaudry lamented that "the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to 3,000 real Palestinian babies." Another post she shared suggested it was an "inconvenient fact" that the beginnings of the conflict between Israel and Hamas could be traced back to 1948, the year of the Jewish state's founding, rather than Oct. 7, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.
Chaudry told Fox News Digital that the "Nazi post" was shared by a "close Jewish friend" and accused the Israeli government of genocide.
"I strongly and unapologetically condemn Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right, racist government for repeatedly making such genocidal threats towards the Palestinian people and killing over 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza," Chaudry said, "most of them women and children murdered in their homes. Unlike many of the Israeli government's most extreme supporters, I recognize that killing any civilians is wrong, which is why my office has repeatedly condemned the killing of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians."
She also said that there was "no conflict between condemning the Israeli government's genocidal war crimes overseas and standing up against all forms of hate here at home, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. False smears from anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists will not stop me from standing up for justice here and abroad."
The views of one member of the commission "do not reflect those of either the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention or the Attorney General," Brown's spokeswoman, Jennifer Donelan, told Fox News Digital.
"We understand that there are many viewpoints regarding current events in the Middle East," Donelan said. "The Commission will do its best to explore the impact of those events on our community, and to determine how best to address escalations in hate and bias incidents across the state." She added that the body would develop "policies and protocols" on how their members tackle such issues.
Hate crime officials have had to deal with a slew of anti-Semitic incidents since Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks, which killed about 1,200 Israelis, according to latest estimates. Such incidents have increased nearly 400 percent since the attacks, the Anti-Defamation League said last month.
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