911 Families do not want Zohran Mamdani at memorial service

911 Families are speaking out, and rightfully objecting to having NYC's Muslim mayor Zohran Mamdani at the upcoming 911 Memorial service:

Families of 9/11 victims are demanding NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani be banned from the 25th anniversary of the attacks at Ground Zero, branding him an apologist for Islamic terror whose presence would be an insult to the memories of nearly 3,000 people murdered.

“Our objection is based on his public record — his failure to meaningfully acknowledge the horror of that day, and his employment of, support for, or association with individuals who have minimized 9/11, defended terrorists, or even suggested America ‘deserved’ the attacks,” said Giovanni Galante – whose 29-year-old wife Grace Catherine Galante was among 2,977 innocents killed by al-Qaeda terrorists.

Galante, 55, is one of the organizers of a petition drive that has collected over 1,100 signatures in a little over a week, including from at least 300 victims’ families.

Here's a link to the petition, which everybody who recognizes what's wrong with Mamdani should sign. And it's not just him who shouldn't be allowed at the 911 Memorial site and service. It's also anybody who blatantly voted for him to start with. All who voted for Mamdani did a terrible disservice to the victims of al Qaeda, should be ashamed of themselves, and have no business being anywhere near the site.

As Catherine Salgado says:

Some families of 9/11 victims don’t want commie Mayor Zohran Mamdani to attend the annual memorial for the New York City victims of the devastating Islamic jihad attack. And they have very good reasons for their opinion.

The 2026 memorial for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is of particular importance, because it will mark exactly 25 years. Naturally, some family members of those who died as a result of Islamic terrorism exactly a quarter century ago do not want an apologist for Islamic terrorism as a featured speaker at the memorial. Mamdani has defended jihadis, publicly joined prayers for killing infidels, appeared at events and mosques with pro-terror radicals, and fueled violent antisemitism. He represents the evil ideology that caused the al-Qaida 9/11 attacks.

That's precisely why he should be shunned. Here's more:

The petition catalogues a series of concerns about Mayor Mamdani, the city's first Muslim mayor, who has been in office since January.

Among them is his refusal to condemn the "globalise the intifada" rallying cry, and his association during last year's mayoral campaign with Imam Siraj Wahhaj - a Brooklyn cleric who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Petitioners also take issue with his appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city's chief counsel, noting Kassem previously defended al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi - who admitted involvement in a 2002 plot to bomb a French oil tanker.

Further grievances include Mayor Mamdani's endorsement of Democratic Socialist of America member Aber Kawas for a state Senate seat, despite her having once characterised the September 11 attacks as something "a couple of people did."

Cheri Sparacio, another organiser whose husband Thomas died in the attacks, said there were "so many other examples" of why his attendance would be "disrespectful" that "we couldn't fit them on the list."

The Staten Island resident pointed to the mayor's longstanding ties to left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who once said America "deserved" the 2001 attacks.

Mamdani should be denaturalized and deported too, as should all the offenders he associated with. And any 911 Families who speak at the service should publicly condemn him in the sternest terms possible. Mamdani's colleagues, appointees and other associates who uphold evil like he does should also not be allowed at the 911 Memorial service.

Possible Muslim convert in NYC stabbed 2 victims

One Asian man and one Jewish man were stabbed by a criminal who called out a common exclamation by jihadists:

A 51-year-old man is in custody after he allegedly stabbed two people Thursday on New York’s Upper West Side, according to police.

Raul Morales was arrested in connection with the incident, according to a Thursday statement shared on X by New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch. He allegedly stabbed an Asian male and a Jewish male in two separate attacks.

One victim was found near Amsterdam Avenue and West 86th Street, while the other victim was found near West 84th Street and Central Park West, according to FOX 5 New York. Witnesses allege that the suspect shouted “Allahu Akbar” before the incident, Tisch said.

Both victims were transported to a local hospital and are expected to survive. There is no link between the suspect and the two victims or between either of the victims. The suspect was arrested at 89th Street and Amsterdam Avenue thanks to the help of a Good Samaritan, police said.

The NYPD is investigating and believes mental health may have played a role in the incident. They are also determining whether the incident is a hate crime.

Democratic New York Assemblyman Micah Lasher was at the scene of the incident and said the Jewish victim was wearing a kippah, the Times of Israel reported. The incident occurred on Tisha B’av, the Jewish day of mourning, which is marked by prayer and fasting, according to the outlet. Tisha B’av was observed from sunset on July 22 to nightfall on July 23 this year, according to Chabad.org.

It's possible the criminal is a Muslim convert, yet the police, rather predictably, choose to avoid any challenging issues, all for the sake of pleasing their new master, mayor Zohran Mamdani, whom some have blamed for worsening the dangerous atmosphere with his own anti-Israel rhetoric. Yet he refuses to take any responsibility for what he's led to:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday rebuffed mounting pressure from Jewish community leaders urging him to apologize for past anti-Israel statements.

The refusal followed Thursday’s attack on the Upper West Side where a man wearing a kippah was stabbed on the fast day of Tisha B’Av by an attacker who yelled “Allahu Akbar" during the stabbing. [...]

Mamdani has long come under fire for his anti-Israel stance. This week, he published a video in which the mayor conceded that he lacked the authority to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City - a pledge he had made repeatedly during his campaign - while maintaining his characterization of Netanyahu as a "war criminal."

All that says is that Mamdani has no remorse over what he's led to, including racist attacks on Asians. He doesn't deserve to be a mayor.

Update: confirmation's come in that Morales had a koran and a biography of Che Guevara in his house.

Jewish faustian pact-makers

A sad but valid point is made about the role left-wing Jews had in Zohran Mamdani's election as NYC's first Muslim mayor:

Since Hamas' surprise October 7 attack, even before Israel itself grasped the massacre's full magnitude, Jews and Israelis worldwide shifted into "hasbara mode." Calls for Palestinian liberation that morphed into violent anti-Israel protests on the world's most prestigious university campuses emerged within hours, while Israel hadn't yet begun processing its wounds, and more than two years later, it's clear Israel experienced a spectacular failure concerning its global image.

However, a widespread opinion in Israel is that antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment will be our lot in the world, so there's no need to invest such extensive efforts in repairing the tiny state's reputation in the international arena. However, the outcomes of the elections in New York, Virginia, and New Jersey make it clear that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.

The Israeli "it'll be fine" attitude won't cut it, facing the historic victory of Muslim, socialist, and anti-Israel candidate Zohran Mamdani, who became the first Muslim mayor of America's largest city. His election – anticipated after a widely successful campaign – clarifies the American public's mindset, and more troubling, the separation of many Diaspora Jewish community members from the Jewish state.

Vote analysis shows approximately 33% of New York Jews voted for Mamdani. This is an astonishing figure. How do we explain it? By dividing into two voter groups. The first voted for Mamdani despite his anti-Israel positions – refusing to recognize the necessity of disarming Hamas, declining to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, threatening to halt economic cooperation with the state and Israeli companies, and advancing slogans like "globalize the intifada" – a decision driven by opposition to Trump, and possibly support for Mamdani's New York City affordability campaign. The second voter group, which some argue raises even deeper concern, voted for Mamdani precisely because of his anti-Israel positions, with which they identify.

"NYC Jews for Zohran," according to the group's members, organized for months to secure the socialist candidate's victory, with some even donating to his campaign. They comprise part of Mamdani's 38% of voters, including non-Jewish residents, whose anti-Israel stances drew them to support him. Put differently, the appeal of Mamdani as a New York mayoral candidate was partially unconnected to his actual city policies.

Well even before this sorry election, there was only so much about NYC that made me decide I'd rather not visit there again, and this is just compounding my viewpoint. There are Israeli citizens who live in areas like NYC too, replete with voter registration, and no doubt, there's plenty of them who're just as guilty of electing Mamdani as any of his other minions. As I may have noted before, one of the worst things about this election is that it's also a defeat for 9-11 Families, whom we must hope won't associate with Mamdani, and any memorial services in coming years should not be done with him around. NYC's on its way to becoming a cesspool, and this election just precipitates where it's going.

Update: also worth reading, there's this item that voices concerns at how socialism is making gains as a belief in the USA.

Update 2: there's now discussion among the Republicans of barring federal funding to NYC for as long as Mamdani's mayor.

Andrew Tate sides with Hamas

Muslim convert Andrew Tate continues to prove why he's a dangerous influence (via Jihad Watch):

Controversial social media personality Andrew Tate posted on X/Twitter on Saturday that he was praying to die a death like former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

"I can only pray for a death as heroic as Yahya Sinwar," Tate wrote. "Brave, defiant in the face of evil and dedicated to his lifes purpose. He deserves eternal rest. He earnt it."

[...] Who is Andrew Tate?

A self-described misogynist, social media influencer Tate has gained millions of fans by promoting an ultra-masculine lifestyle that critics say denigrates women, according to Reuters.

When somebody openly describes himself as a misogynist, it's clear the issue is not feminism, leftist or otherwise, and that, much like he's antisemitic, Tate also hates women as human beings. As for Reuters, it sure is odd they seemingly care, considering they've written reports before that are both hostile to Israel, and unhelpful to women. And "masculine"? For heaven's sake, he is anything but "masculine" if that's how he's going act. All he's done is prove he's not a gentleman and doesn't respect women's dignity and honor.

Tate sure has proven himself one of the worst influences and examples of the 21st century.

OneFamily, much like 911 Families, is something Europe needs

This article talks about the Israeli support group OneFamily, which has a similar purpose to movements like 911 Families for a Safe and Strong America:

On Monday, May 13, sirens will sound again in observance of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Remembrance Day for the fallen soldiers and victims of terror, reopening the wounds of the thousands who are reeling in the aftermath of the horrific October 7 massacre and ongoing war with Hamas. For Shira Mark-Harif, this day symbolizes the endless cycle of loss and pain that she has endured for more than eight years.

In 2016, at the age of 24, Shira was a new mother of two living in Har Hevron, surrounded by her large, enveloping family, 9 siblings and loving parents, when her entire world came crashing down. On July 1, 2016, Shira’s father, Rabbi Miki Mark was driving his car along Route 60, along with his wife and two of his children, when terrorists opened fire, killing Miki and injuring Shira’s mother and two siblings. Her mother suffered extensive brain damage, leaving Shira, the second oldest child, to assume the role of the primary guardian for her younger four siblings.

With her life shattered and faced with the impossible task of now caring for six children, along with her mother, Shira began to lose herself.

“My father was my entire world, but because I was over the age of 21, I fell through the cracks,” Shira shares, just ahead of Yom Hazikaron, adding that aside from basic support as a foster parent and emotional therapy, she was not entitled to any other support from the Israeli government, “It was through the support of OneFamily that I felt that there was somebody to check on me, to feel connection and that community has helped me build strong lifelong friendships.”

Founded in 2001 by Marc and Chantal Belzberg and inspired by their daughter after the Sbarro Suicide Bombing, OneFamily steps up where others do not bring together Israel’s victims of terror into one, national, self-supportive family. For Shira, like the more than 7,200 families supported by the organization since 2001, it helped her find herself again.

Understanding the emotional complexities of the families of the victims of terror, OneFamily took the initiative to gradually reach out to Shira and her siblings, first attending the shiva of her father, and then over time developing a budding relationship that has turned into the central force that has allowed the Mark family to continue living.

“At first, it is just chaos,” she recalls. “I had no idea what I needed, but OneFamily continued to reach out and provide us with everything we needed.”

“My mother and I began to attend ceramics classes in Jerusalem and group activities with other families of victims of terror,” Shira explains, adding that her mother continues to travel two hours to Jerusalem from their new home in the Golan Heights each week just so she does not miss a single ceramics class. “They truly see you, and give us strength, the ability to breath and a connection with the larger community.”

But unfathomable tragedy struck again, just two and a half years after the death of her father, as Shira’s oldest brother, Shlomi, was killed in a traffic accident while on his way to work at the Prime Minister’s office in 2019.

That's absolutely terrible more tragedy occurred. And people like her should have the backing of the government considering what they've been through.

While OneFamily has created a model for national support in the face of terrorism, a stark reality that many Western countries do not share, more than 60,000 Israelis have joined the list of victims of terror will statistically leave thousands to fall through the cracks, just as Shira would have without the immediate response of the organization.

Well this is something European countries need to emulate, not to mention Latin American and Asian countries that could've been struck by similar tragedies too. So let's hope somebody in said countries will draw some ideas from this, since there's only too many there who've suffered enough and need a good movement's backing for a change.

More news coverage of the horror of sexual violence Hamas inflicted on October 7

Here's another report (via Front Page), repulsive as can be, about the sexual violence the Hamas committed along with graphic gore on October 7 this year:

Israeli investigators probing the fallout of the brutal October 7 attacks have found evidence that men as well as women suffered sexual violence and rape at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad attackers, activists have claimed.

Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for Israel's Survivors of Sexual Violence advocacy group, said there was physical evidence as well as eyewitness accounts of sexual violence perpetrated against both sexes amid the attacks.

'There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in the south of Israel... we have a few living survivors - not a lot - of both genders. It didn't only happen to women, it happened to men as well,' she told BBC Radio 4.

'Aside from finding bodies of people who were murdered, a lot of the bodies were mutilated... terrorists made sure to disgrace these people and dishonor them,' she added.

It comes as Israeli police opened up the biggest investigation into sexual violence and crimes against women ever in the nation.

The leader of the investigation, Shelly Harush, said: 'It's clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.'

Police have collected thousands of statements, photographs and video clips that have been called unbearable to watch from a mother's perspective and include 'girls whose pelvises were broken they had been raped so much'.

The irony in this is that those Hamas jihadists who raped men were bound to be homosexual. In which case, there's definitely a contradiction when it comes to homosexuality and Islam. Is that why some of the most antisemitic LGBT ideologues aren't against the Religion of Peace?

Joe Sacco's anti-Israeli graphic novel is going back to press

The UK Guardian, a very bad MSM outlet themselves, published a puff piece about Joe Sacco's GN titled "Palestine", which was intended as anti-Israel propaganda, and is now seeing new print, clearly for the sake of obscuring the Hamas' savagery on October 7, and pandering to the crowd of creeps supporting them:

An acclaimed nonfiction graphic novel about Gaza, which pioneered the medium of “comics journalism”, has been rushed back into print after surging demand since the fresh outbreak of the conflict two months ago.

Palestine, by Joe Sacco, was originally released in comic book form by the American publisher Fantagraphics 30 years ago, then published as a single volume by the company, and by Jonathan Cape in the UK in 2003.

It was created by Sacco, a Maltese American journalist and cartoonist from Portland, Oregon, as a record of his own journeys around Gaza in 1991, and has since then won a clutch of awards and been included on university courses as a primer for the whole conflict. Edward Said, the Palestinian American academic and critic, said in his introduction to the book: “With the exception of one or two novelists and poets, no one has ever rendered this terrible state of affairs better than Joe Sacco.”

Gary Groth, the co-founder of Fantagraphics, said that after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the subsequent bombing of Gaza demand for the book had soared.

He said, “We blew out of our inventory of several thousand copies quickly and are reprinting now. Retailers and wholesalers began ordering the book in far greater quantities than in the recent past, which indicates that every element down the chain – consumers and retailers – are expressing demand for it.”

Well, this is certainly telling about Groth to boot, the same disgrace and shame who did a sugarcoated interview with Maurice Sendak years ago. Of course, one must also wonder where any and all comic retailers stand on a subject involving Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Will Eisner and Gil Kane's Israeli brethren. If any are seeking to capitalize on the tragedy that struck many Jewish women and children in particular, that's offensive in the extreme, and they have no business associating even remotely with the creations of famous Jewish artists. Sacco, along with the article writer, makes clear he remains sympathetic to followers of Islam, and shows no sign of horror over what followers of the Religion of Peace in Gaza did to innocent and defenseless women and children. That's what really makes this Guardian article repulsive. Unshockingly, they didn't even see fit to mention that Edward Said falsified his history. None of which matters to Sacco, sadly, nor to Groth. I absolutely do not want to buy from Fantagraphics if this is the kind of graphic novels they're going to market.

And Sacco's GN didn't so much pioneer comics journalism as it did propaganda, and exploiting the medium for that specific goal. It's sickening to think how many GNs of this sort came down the pike in the past 2 decades that did more harm than good for the comics medium's image overall regarding political issues.

A history comic whose subject is even more relevant today

Arnon Shorr, a screenwriter and author originally from Haifa, wrote a column for Jewish Boston telling about a graphic novel he developed about Israel's war of indepdence in 1948, discussing how the armies of the Arab Legion attacked the country, and points out that, in the aftermath of the horrific jihad bloodbath the Hamas committed on October 7, it's even more relevant a subject than ever. The title of the GN he's publishing is "Brother's Keeper":

It sat on a hard drive for several years, until this summer, when an opportunity arose to collaborate once more with Joshua M. Edelglass, the illustrator of “José and the Pirate Captain Toledano.” I shared several story ideas with Josh, who immediately gravitated toward “Brother’s Keeper.” We decided we’d work together to reimagine the story as a single-issue (or “one-off”) comic book. The goal was to have something ready to debut in mid-November, at the Jewish Comics Experience, a new and exciting convention of Jewish comics at the Center for Jewish History in New York. So, in August, with only a few months to get the job done, I began to write.

I went back to old interviews that my uncle Yoav had recorded. My grandfather’s accounts of the battle and its aftermath are riveting, and revealed surprising details that I had forgotten over the years. I also found this very detailed description of the battle. I drew from every account that I could find to create a composite representation of this small piece of that old war. [...]

Ramat Rachel is a small kibbutz on a strategically significant hilltop just south of Jerusalem. In 1948, its residents found themselves surrounded on three sides by three very powerful Arab armies. The Egyptian army approached from the west, the Arab Legion came up from the south, and the Jordanian army, along with local Arab fighters, applied pressure from the east. They all wanted to drive the Jews out so they could attack Jerusalem from this high ground.

My grandfather was sent to help defend this kibbutz, and when that appeared impossible, he oversaw the evacuation and retreat.

When I wrote these scenes, they were fascinating pieces of history. It was hard to imagine an army attacking a kibbutz, with bullets and artillery shattering the bucolic quiet.

And then I was confronted by the grim horrors of Oct. 7, 2023.

What I wrote as history had suddenly become current events. A terrorist army rampaging through Israel, attacking kibbutzim along the Gaza border. Residents, once again, forced to flee.

The book was already written, and Josh was working hard on the illustrations. For him, the experience was even more surreal. He was drawing an attack on a kibbutz while watching one unfold on the news.

Initially, all of this seemed like a horrible coincidence. “Brother’s Keeper” is supposed to be historical. It’s supposed to reflect on something that happened a long, long ago. Never in my darkest nightmares did I imagine that it would become contemporary again.

And yet, here we are.

We continued our work on the book. With the Jewish comics convention about a month away, we had some hard print deadlines to meet.

But I felt as though the book we were working on had fundamentally changed. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but it seemed suddenly more significant. A friend who stopped by for coffee one morning was able to articulate what I couldn’t. When he saw a few of the illustrations, he declared, “We need this. Now!”

He went on to explain: Most of us weren’t born the last time a kibbutz was attacked. Many of our parents weren’t born yet, either. Part of the pain of the Oct. 7 attacks was that we had never experienced anything like it before.

Then my friend pointed at the illustrations I had shown him. He said, “But we have been through this before. We’ve survived this before.”

The moment he pointed that out, I realized that my grandfather’s story was no longer “just a story from a war.” It suddenly had meaning.

It wasn’t the meaning I intended. It certainly couldn’t have been my grandfather’s meaning. How could we have imagined we’d need such a reminder again?

And yet, there it is.

My grandfather, surviving an attack on a kibbutz in 1948, reminds us of what we can overcome in 2023.

Josh and I had no plans for an immediate wide release of this comic book. We expected to print a bunch of copies to sell at the convention, and then to figure out a release plan from there.

But now, the story carries a new, urgent purpose. We are working very hard to make the book available as broadly as possible when it debuts in New York on Nov. 12, 2023.

The guy's doing the right thing to raise the issue at a time when a horrifying incident struck Israel anew. Surely most important, however, is that the publishers and the conventions had better make absolutely certain they stand by his production rock solid, and not cower in the face of any threats that could be made against them by antisemitic sources. The same could be said regarding comics and GNs discussing September 11, 2001.

I'm very glad Mr. Shorr made the effort to develop a GN like this. There's been far too much censorship of subjects involving Islamofascism ever since 9-11, and that includes subjects involving Israel. The time's come for more of all concerned to prove they have the guts to produce comics tackling these vital issues and focus upon them convincingly. For now, let's hope the aforementioned convention along with the publishers are going to stand by Mr. Shorr from A to Z.

More disturbing details about pseudo-creators who've supported anti-Israelism

Some more clues have turned up as to the vile conduct of at least a few of the comics writers previously mentioned here, such as past posts on X/Twitter by Saladin Ahmed. For example, as discovered through here, here and here, and seen in the following screencap:

There's also a bit more involving Nadia Shammus, which appears to be from more recently, before she shut her page, and it even includes people who interacted on the same thread:

This is some of the most truly repulsive stuff I've ever seen littering social media, and again beggars the queries how much longer the Big Two, along with any indies employing these 2, in example, will continue to associate with them. Already, Playboy parted ways with a Lebanese-American "media influencer" named Mia Khalifa, and Marvel would do well to follow their example by parting ways with Ahmed. Lest we forget, all other comics creators who recognize the seriousness of the issues here must also end any and all contact they've had with Ahmed and Shammus until now. In view of the savagery the Hamas committed, this is exactly why no self-respecting comics creator should ever associate with people like them again. Also, lest we forget, Ahmed injected some bad stereotypes into Daredevil.

We mustn't forget how Ariel Sharon led to this year's tragedy

As this article reminds everyone, the late "prime minister" Ariel Sharon led to this disaster by retreating from Gaza in 2005:

After Sharon unilaterally disengaged from Gaza, Rav Ovadia Yosef said about Sharon, "He will sleep and never wake up." Soon after, Sharon fell into a coma, a sleepless state, and later died only after Rav Ovadia Yosef passed away.

Giving away Gaza was a death sentence for the Jews of Israel as we have seen in the past and as we see now.

A rav said that due to the current circumstances, one should have extra kavanah in the last beracha of Shemoneh Esrei, “hamevarech es amo Yisrael bashalom - that blesses His people, Yisrael, with peace.” This is logical as the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 21:1) and Talmud Yerushalmi both say, “Ein kli machzik bracha eila shalom – the only vessel to contain blessing is peace.” If we are showered with peace from Above, we can withstand as a nation and as individuals.

It's interesting that in Bereishis many divisions in the creation process take place, yet on most occasions the days are called tov. It seems there can still be peace amidst dividing parts, with a message that separate individuals can come together despite differences; a core message for these times.

It may be argued that shalom is even a life-and-death proposition, for the Misha (Avot 1:12) says, we should be "ohav shalom v'rodef shalom - love peace and run after it." Many are bothered by the word rodef in regard to the message of peace. Perhaps the language is most fitting as a rodef in Jewish law may be stricken fatally, indicative of the fact that we should see our pursuit of peace as an imperative proposition that is essential to survive.

We now hope that peace will prevail over barbarism and hope over despair. But first, the cancerous growth that is the terrorists of Gaza must be completely destroyed.

Let's also remember George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice also pushed for it nearly 2 decades ago, even condemning the Danish Mohammed cartoons, and gave conservatism a very bad name as a result. The saddest part is how, years after that atrocity, there's no chance they'll apologize, and if we haven't heard them address the issue now, there's no chance they ever will.

Complete failure of intel has responsibility for leading to this situation

Lilach Shoval looks at the issue of how Israeli intelligence services failed to see this tragedy of the Hamas assault coming:

The Simchat Torah attack is the 2023 version of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The complete surprise – the governing paradigm, the collapse of the lines of defense – is very reminiscent of what happened here exactly 50 years ago.

In a well-synchronized and orchestrated move, Hamas managed to surprise even the best and brightest in Israeli intelligence and completely toppled the Gaza Division's doctrine, which relied in recent years on the security barrier that gave a false sense of security.

A similar scenario, involving infiltration, kidnapping, and a killing spree carried out under the auspices of massive rocket fire, has been discussed in recent years by the top brass in the IDF, only in regard to the northern border, after Hassan Nasrallah publicly announced in that he intends to "conquer the Galilee" – that is, to cross the border, enter residential towns and villages and kidnap civilians and soldiers. But no one expected that the evil would start from the south, and without any intelligence warning.

Ten hours after the start of the events – these are several of the difficult questions that someone will be forced to give answers at the investigative committees that will be established when the disaster is over.

Q: Where was the intelligence?

This is the first question that cries out to the sky. Just like 50 years ago, even if the intelligence had real signs of such an operation, these were not converted into actionable intelligence, and this complacency blew up in our faces with a colossal intelligence failure.

In the last few weeks, and even in the last few days, senior army officials have been heard talking about the fact that Hamas is not interested in escalating its relations with Israel and emphasized that the fact that thousands of workers enter Israel every day restrains the organization's leaders that are controlling Gaza, which wants to ensure the welfare of its residents.

Even though Hamas carried out a live drill of a crisis on the fence in the last two weeks, the intelligence assessment did not change. As part of that exercise, Hamas sent hundreds of rioters to violent demonstrations, similar to the violent Friday protests held in the months before the COVID-19 pandemic. A few days ago, and after several pinpointed signal attacks, the IDF believed that the problem had been solved when the minister of defense gave the order to continue permitting the entrance of workers into Israeli territory.

Not only that but according to a military assessment of the situation, the IDF, the strongest army in the Middle East, which prides itself on good intelligence in our region and perhaps in the entire world, reduced its forces in the Gaza Strip in recent months and transferred them to Judea and Samaria in order to deal with the wave of murderous terrorism. And when the intelligence did not give any warning, even not a hint, the IDF top brass did not train the troops, did not order the deployment of Iron Domes, and this most serious incident caught most of the senior IDF commanders at home.

Like in the Yom Kippur War, the entire political and security leadership is accountable for the failure. The dire result is that even hours after the start of the attack, which erupted at 6:30 AM, there were still besieged towns, terrorists barricading themselves in houses, and a significant number of civilians and soldiers who had been kidnapped and taken into Gaza.

There's more to ponder, but for now, this is very grave, right down to how the army themselves don't seem to have been present at the Gaza perimeter, or seen the enemy approaching it. A really responsible intel service would've recognized and even made publicly clear that letting down our guard anywhere and everywhere could lead to such a situation. Instead, they downplayed the seriousness of the issue. Those responsible will have to resign and apologize. The IDF may have cleared all towns of vermin. But this fiasco is going to have a terrible after-effect for years to come.

The Hezbollah in Lebanon is just as dangerous as Hamas

Rick Moran reminds everyone that Hezbollah's bound to willing and ready to attack Israel, just like the Hamas did this weekend:

The Hamas invasion of Israel is the most significant military action against the Jewish state ever carried out by a terrorist group. The planning for this attack must have begun months ago in Tehran where the bulk of the funds used to arm and train fighters for the attack originated.

Anyone who refers to Hamas as “freedom fighters” should have their head examined. The terrorists kidnapped dozens of civilians — infants, old people, women — and are holding them somewhere in Gaza. As the IDF looks to turn back the terrorists who have invaded seven different areas in the South of Israel, they must contend with the eventuality of a Hezbollah attack in the North.

Already, Israel has exchanged artillery fire with Hezbollah, and the terrorist’s masters in Tehran have given fulsome praise to Hamas for the attack.

Might Hezbollah join Hamas and hit Israel in the North while the IDF is occupied in the South?

Sarit Zehavi, the founder of the Alma Center, which is a research center in Israel dedicated to understanding their national security situation, told the Washington Examiner that there’s a chance Hezbollah could soon attack Israel with the country’s attention focused on the south.

“It’s just a matter of decision for Hezbollah, whether it wants to join in or not. I believe this decision was not made yet, and that’s why we’re not there yet, but maybe we’re not that far from this place,” she said.“Here in Israel, we are preparing for the scenario of war also from the north because we understand it was within the interest of Iran and Hezbollah to escalate the Israeli-Lebanese border. We see what is happening in the south as a part of a bigger plan to attack Israel and weaken the state of Israel from multiple fronts, and I guess this is what the Iranians now are trying to create.”

Iran’s motives are clear. They want to disrupt the movement toward peace between Israel and their Arab neighbors, begun by Donald Trump. Tehran sees peace — quite rightly — as a massive loss of influence for Iran.

Obviously, they want to destroy chances of peace with Saudi Arabia (though lest we forget, even today, the House of Saud can still be very shady), along with quite possibly other such countries. But that's still nothing compared to the hostage crisis caused by the kidnappings of Israelis by Hamas that's now causing a serious issue. We must hope that won't deter the government from taking serious ground action in Gaza.

Update: Melanie Phillips addressed the crisis, and she makes some vital points:

How could this possibly have happened? Clearly, there has been a massive Israeli intelligence failure. It’s hard not to see a connection with the enormous anti-government protests over the past nine months, which saw Israelis trying to undermine the economy and even refusing to do army reservists’ duty.

Such a paralysing internal battle may have taken official eyes off the security ball. What’s undeniable is that the ferocity and length of these internal convulsions sent a signal that Israel was weakened. Many Israelis have been wondering over these past difficult months just when Israel’s mortal enemies would seize this opportunity to take advantage of this weakness. Now we have the dreadful answer.

And this barbarism has been paid for by the US and EU. What did they think all the money they were channelling into Gaza for “humanitarian” purposes would actually be used for? Now we have the answer.

What did the Biden administration think would be the result of appeasing, grovelling to and funding Iran, the paymasters of Hamas and Hezbollah? Now it has its answer.

America, the EU and Britain have consistently undermined Israel’s attempt to defend itself against attack. For the past century, the west has incentivised exterminatory Palestinian Arab terror against Israel by rewarding it with the promise of statehood — which the Palestinians always made plain they wanted only as a staging post towards Israel’s destruction — and punishing Israel for objecting to this existential threat.

The whole notion army reservists would refuse service over petty issues like judicial reform certainly damaged morale, and from a local perspective, also has to shoulder blame. Why, those would-be reservists should be fired by the army and not welcome to serve ever again, if that's their way of thinking.

Update 2: more news on the issue of kidnap victims.

Update 3: here's information on how the IDF smashed targets in Gaza. There's extra information here too.

7 murdered in Neve Yaakov by Islamofascist from east Jerusalem, and 2 injured near City of David

A tragedy's struck the Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov, leaving 7 murdered:

At least seven people were killed and several others were injured, including one critically, in a shooting attack on the Ateret Avraham Synagogue in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood of Jerusalem on Friday evening.

Magen David Adom paramedics evacuated five injured people to hospitals, including three who were evacuated to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and two who were evacuated to Shaare Zedek Hospital. These include a man about 30 years old in critical condition and a woman about 60 years of age in moderate condition.

Initial reports indicate that a terrorist got out of a vehicle and opened fire at people who were gathered outside the synagogue, opened fire at them, and then continued to pursue frightened worshipers who were fleeing the scene.

The terrorist eventually fled the scene in a white Toyota and was met by police officers who shot him dead.

The terrorist has been identified as Alkam Khairi, a 21-year-old resident of eastern Jerusalem.

He should go to hell. Now we have to contend with terrorist attacks in neighborhoods like these that could've been prevented. And to make matters worse, there was another terrorist attack near the City of David area:

A father and son were injured in a shooting terror attack near the City of David archaeological site in Jerusalem.

The attack to place this morning, the shooter, reportedly a 13-year-old resident of east Jerusalem, was shot by two civilians.

MDA EMTs and Paramedics treated and conveyed two patients to the Shaare Tzedek Hospital. A 23 year old male in serious condition and his fatger, a 47 year old male, in moderate to serious condition, with gunshot wounds to their upper bodies.

MDA paramedic Fadi Dekidek: "We were quickly on scene and saw two gunshot victims. A 47 year old male and 23 year old male. They were fully conscious and had gunshot wounds to their upper bodies. We quickly moved them to the MICUs and conveyed them to Shaare Tzedek Hospital, with the young male in serious condition and the other male in moderate to serious condition."

So this one appears to have been the doing of a young teen. Which shows even younger kids indoctrinated with the Religion of Peace can be extremely dangerous, and that it's possible for them to be trained with firearms. Utterly horrific.

Update: the way the White House press secretary spoke about this, laced with moral equivalence, is also atrocious.

Another Murderous Migrant (Germany)

Ali Bashar

From 14-Year-Old Jewish Girl Murdered by Muslim Refugee in Germany: Another innocent girl pays the price for Europe’s open borders by Daniel Greenfield (June 8, 2018):

On May 22, Susanna Maria Feldman went missing. It was the day after the Jewish holiday of Shavuot which celebrates G-d’s revelation of the Ten Commandments to Moses and a nation of freed slaves.

The fifth commandment is, “Honor thy father and mother.” The sixth is, “Thou shalt not murder.”

And in the German city of Mainz, whose Jewish community dates back to Roman times, a worried mother waited for the worst. Susanna had gone off with her friends. They came home. And she didn’t.

Her mother received a WhatsApp message from her daughter's phone on the afternoon of the 22nd. "Mom, I'm not coming home. I went to Paris with my friend. Don't look for me. I'll come back after 2 or 3 weeks. Bye."

According to Diana, Susanna’s mother, the message sounded nothing like her daughter. 4 hours later, the teenage girl’s phone was switched off. There was nothing more.

"I hope and pray that nothing bad has happened to her," she posted on Facebook. "Please help me find my daughter safe again."

The police reassured the frantic mother that her daughter had just gone off with some friends and would come back on her, but she feared the worst while the authorities stonewalled.

On June 1, she published an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel in which she wrote, "I feel abandoned by the German state."

Two weeks passed. The police searched. Dogs sniffed around but found nothing. And then someone noticed a flash of white among all that brown and green. It was the white of a clothing label.

They found her body between the railroad tracks and Autobahn 66. The killer had stashed the girl under a bush and covered her over with twigs to keep the body out of sight and to buy him some time.

Susanna’s body had been dumped a few hundred meters from the refugee shelter where her alleged killer had been living. The traffic noise of the highway would have covered any sounds the young Jewish girl might have made as a Muslim refugee brutally raped and then strangled her to death.

[...]

Ali Bashar, one of the six sons, had come to Germany through Turkey and Greece. He had arrived in Germany in the fall of 2015 at the height of Merkel’s migration crisis. Since then, he had been accused of raping an 11-year-old girl in a refugee shelter, attacking a policewoman and robbing a man at knifepoint

His asylum application had been rejected at the end of 2016. Bashar claimed to have been threatened by the PKK, a Kurdish group fighting against ISIS and Turkey.

But he appealed, and was allowed to stay on in Germany until he finally killed.

[...]

The brand new Weisbaden refugee shelter built in 2016 has become the gateway to a cemetery.

And the same is true of every refugee shelter.

The 20-year-old Muslim refugee boasted of his crime to a 13-year-old in the refugee shelter. Ali’s younger brother had known Susanna and that may have made the rapist and killer’s work easier.

With that information, the police began searching around the refugee shelter and found Susanna.

[...]

As the search for Susanna wrapped up, a Jewish teenager in Germany was attacked by Muslim thugs who heard the music he was listening to. “Berlin is ours now,” they shouted, “and you won’t listen to crappy Jewish music here.”...

Read the entire appalling story HERE.

To understand the evil of the Goldstone report...

There is a new website now called Understanding the Goldstone Report specially dedicated to pointing out the flaws in the biased committee formed by the corrupt South African judge, and how it violates international standards for inquiries. I strongly recommend checking it out.

Goldstone commission conclusions made up in advance

Melanie Phillips writes about the Richard Goldstone commission of the UN, appointed by the alleged Human Rights Council, their umpteenth show-trial set up solely for the purpose of condemning Israel as the villain in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza earlier this year. They're simply not interested in how the Hamas caused chaos with rockets, or is suppressing Gaza with Shari'a law, or anything remotely challenging to investigate. Nor are they interested in the fact that the huge majority of those killed in Gaza were terrorists, and they obviously do not respect international law that recognizes Israel's right to self-defense.

This farce perpetrated by Goldstone and company must be fought as best as possible. The UN has got to be taken to task over their biases and it's got to be shown how they're dominated by leftists. Goldstone was a member of the board of directors of "Human Rights Watch". The "senoir analyst" of HRW is one Marc Garlasco, who's an avid collector of nazi war memorabilia. More info on this available at Solomonia, Emet m'Tsiyon and Soccerdad.

The Holcaust Never Happened

Meryl Yourish reports in her blog entry Swedes: Who cares about old, dead Jews when Gazans died last month? today:

See if you can follow this logic, because it’s pretty much escaping me. A town in Sweden has decided to cancel its Holocaust remembrance procession because of the Gaza war.

A northern Swedish city has decided to cancel a planned Holocaust Memorial Day torchlight procession due to the recent IDF offensive in Gaza, it was reported Tuesday.

The official reason given for the decision, made by the municipal board and local church in Lulea, was safety concerns, but Bo Nordin, a clergyman and spokesman for the church, cited the war in Gaza.

“It feels uneasy to have a torchlight procession to remember the victims of the Holocaust at this time,” Nordin told Swedish National Radio. “We have been preoccupied and grief-stricken by the war in Gaza and it would feel just feel odd with a large ceremony about the Holocaust.”

I’m sorry, could you please explain that logic to me again? It would feel wrong to remember the victims of the Nazi genocide because Palestinians died in Gaza last month? Do you mean that it would feel wrong to remember people who were killed because they were Jewish because people who were Jewish killed Gazans?

Would someone kindly tell me again how criticism of Israel is not related to anti-Semitism, because I’m really missing that vital blind spot.

The decision drew fierce criticism from various organizations as well as residents of the city, and a defiant group of Lulea locals has decided to hold the torchlight procession anyway.

Good for you. And hey, Bo Nordin, way to show the compassionate side of Christianity—by being unable to feel sympathy for two disparate groups at the same time. You’re some religious leader, all right.

I will give explaining a try. This is the typical German way of thinking, which has been more or less adapted by the rest of Europe as well. It has to do with the psychological mechanism of self-exculpation that lets every single misdeed by Jews, real or perceived, and by Israel, the über-Jew, somehow magically lessen the German/European guilt of the Holocaust. Therefore every single misdeed by Jews, real or perceived, has to be duly noticed, given its due "importance", and charged up against the genocide of the European Jews.

This thinking is, too, based on the deeply antisemitic premis that Auschwitz was a reformatory, a premis that has always been an accepted fact for the German-, and now for the European mainstream as well.

It seems that what Israel, the über-Jew, has done in Gaza has finally nullified the Holocaust in the mind of the Nordins of this world. The charging-up has finally come to a satisfactory end. I don't think that it will remain an isolated case. Watch Roncesvalles and this space for more.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles!

A bully pulpit to hard-core anti-Zionist Jews

Being Jewish and an "anti-Zionist" is a recipe for media fame that always works out in Germany, however maginal or obscure the protagonist. Doesn't any "crime" of the Jewish state, however subjectively perceived or however marginal, somehow lessen the burden of our own past? And if somebody who is "a Jew himself" says it, it will get acclaim even from those who would otherwise never believe a thing "a Jew" says, or as Benjamin Weinthal and my good friend Alex Feuerherdt put it in more sophisticated words in their Jerusalem Post article from last Thursday:

...major German and European media outlets, as well as university forums and politicians ... seem unable to resist the temptation to offer a bully pulpit to hard-core anti-Zionist Jews.

In Does Jewish anti-Semitism exist? they shed light on a bizarre phenomenon.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

A Delicious Sense of Toying with the Forbidden

or: The Gutter in the Salon

At the blog Z-Word, associated with the American Jewish Committee, Ben Cohen informs us:

An almighty row has broken out in Norway following a monologue by comedian Otto Jespersen - and broadcast on national TV - which resulted in a man who lost nine relatives during the Holocaust phoning the police.

Here’s the joke:

”I would also like to take the opportunity to remember all the billions of fleas and lice that lost their lives in German gas chambers, without having done anything wrong other than settling on persons of Jewish background.”

That’s about as sophisticated as the interminable joke popular among American white supremacists about black people (”if we’d known they were gonna be this much trouble, we’d have picked the goddam cotton ourselves.”)

As an aside: I fail to see any qualitative connection between Jews being murdered in the gas chamber and blacks picking cotton non-consensually, and thus between jokes about both, but that is not the point here anyway. Ben Cohen goes on:

Ha’aretz reported that a former Norwegian Prime Minister, Kåre Willoch, responded that these claims amounted to “a traditional deflection tactic aimed at diverting attention from the real problem, which is Israel’s well-documented and incontestable abuse of Palestinians” - a Norwegian version of what David Hirsh calls “The Livingstone Formulation.”

Willoch did not respond to the specific examples raised by Gerstenfeld which, interestingly, included a number of newspaper cartoons designed to raise the same dismissive, morally superior sniggering as Jespersen’s mangled joke. One cartoon showed an ultra-Orthodox Jew engraving “thou shall murder” into an alternative Decalogue. Another cartoon showed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dressed up as a guard at a death camp, smiling and holding a rifle.

All of this is illustrative of a wider point. These days, racist jokes about blacks and other minorities are largely - and correctly - regarded as an embarrassment, the preserve of failed comedians performing to inebriated audiences in seedy clubs. But transfer these same themes to Jews and all of a sudden, they acquire a delicious sense of toying with the forbidden. What is reactionary becomes radical, what is stupid and insulting becomes pathbreaking. Thus does the gutter enter the lofty heights of the salon.

The highlighting was added by me. I took the header, the pictures and the following explanation from the German blog Lizas Welt with Liza's permission.

The cartoon about the "New Decalogue" appeared in the leftist newspaper Dagsavisen on January 7, 2004. The caption says: "The Seven Synonyms for Death". The scroll lists things like: "To murder", "to kill", to "finish", "to expire", or "to execute". The other picture showing Olmert as a death camp guard appeared on July 10, 2006 in the newspaper Dagbladet.

So one Jew found that offensive. I don't know how things are in Norway, but in Germany, under similar circumstances, one can safely hold one's breath while waiting for the first "It isn't allowed to criticise the Jews anymore."

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Phillipe Karsenty asks for Sarko's intervention in al-Durah hoax case

Phillipe Karsenty, who led the way in unmasking the Mohammed al-Durah blood libel as a hoax, is going to press on for French president Nicholas Sarkozy to get France 2 to apologize:

Despite the fact that the 41-year-old French Jew won a major court battle earlier this year against the France 2 television station, Karsenty told a local audience that he would press on until French President Nicholas Sarkozy intervenes and orders the station to apologize.

He's right, the crappy TV station should be pressed to apologize and confess - in public, and if Charles Enderlin hasn't been fired, he should be. Why, he should be practically ostracized everywhere and anywhere for his role in the blood libel.