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Ruth King

Pro-Hamas protestors shut down New York’s Grand Central By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/11/prohamas_protestors_shut_down_grand_central.html

The pro-Hamas protestors are at it again, bolder than ever, this time shutting down Grand Central train station on a Friday rush hour in New York and forcing the cops to hole up in their own police station.

According to Fox News:

Service at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan was temporarily suspended on Friday after a mob of pro-Palestinian demonstrators flooded the streets of New York City to protest Israel’s war in Gaza, creating chaos as some tried to break into the closed station.

The pro-Palestinian rally began at 5 p.m. Friday with over a thousand individuals marching through the streets. Some were seen tearing down posters of the hostages being held by Hamas terrorists and crumbling them up while other demonstrators burned an Israeli flag.

According to an Instagram post from pro-Palestinian organizations Within Our Lifetime and the City University of New York for Palestine, the protest was to “flood Manhattan for Gaza.”

As Fox News’s Bill Melugin aptly put it:

And why is this even legal?

The Catholic Church Against Slavery: Setting the Record Straight By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/the_catholic_church_against_slavery_setting_the_record_straight.html

The Catholic Church, like many ancient institutions, has a checkered past.  Its record has been marred by the horrors of the Inquisition, its ambivalence towards the Nazis and the Holocaust, and its complicity in – and even cover-up of – child abuse by priests.  To its credit, however, the Church – despite some lapses – has a long and consistent history of opposing slavery.

That is the thesis of The Worst of Indignities: The Catholic Church on Slavery, the latest book by Paul Kengor.  A professor at Grove City College, Kengor is the bestselling author of over a dozen works, such as The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration; Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century; and Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left has Sabotaged Family and Marriage.

Citing scriptural depictions of Jesus healing slaves, Kengor asserts that an exemplary, forward-thinking role against slavery can be traced to the very beginnings of Christianity – as early as the first century.  Since then, the Church’s stance has been consistent.  Papal bulls and encyclicals have condemned the abominable commerce in humans, which soared during the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 1480s through much of the 19th century. 

The stance continues to this day.  Early in the 20th century, in an encyclical called Lacrimabili Statu (Latin for in tears), Pope Pius X described slavery as “the worst of indignities,” from which the book draws its title.  Pope John Paul II, whose papacy ran from 1978 to 2005, apologized for slavery and warned against “new forms of it, often insidious.”  In the encyclical Veritatis Splendor,  he condemned slavery as “intrinsically evil,” and in a 2002 letter to Archbishop Jean-Louis Touran described human trafficking, organized prostitution, and forced labor as a “modern plague.”  The current pontiff, Pope Francis, has often condemned sex trafficking, low-paid labor, organ trade, the drugs and weapons trade, war, and organized crime.  In Fratelli Tutti, he described them as “scourges.”

NYC parent, teacher groups promoted pro-Palestinian student walkout: Kids yelled ‘F–k By Deirdre Bardolf and Susan Edelmanthe Jews!’

https://nypost.com/2023/11/11/news/a-brooklyn-parent-advisory-board-promoted-and-organized-a-student-walkout-for-palestine-this-week-a-clear-violation-of-state-regulations-

A Brooklyn parent advisory board promoted and organized a student walkout for Palestinians this week — a clear violation of state regulations, outraged critics told The Post.

The Community Education Council for District 14, which covers ultra-liberal Williamsburg and Greenpoint, used its platform to encourage the 700-student protest involving 100 schools — and even shared resources including antisemitic signs proclaiming, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Recommended chants included, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied” and “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here!”

Students protesting on Thursday near Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, were captured on video yelling, “F–k the Jews!”

Jewish students were horrified.

One Fort Hamilton High School mom said her daughter didn’t go to school Friday out of fear.

When the mom called the school, an administrator told her it’s “complicated.”

A toolkit created by parents, teachers, and activist groups provided protest signs with graphics supporting Palestinians.toolkit

“I know firsthand what antisemitism is but I never in my life thought my daughter would have to go through something like this,” the mom said.

The Latest Antisemitism on College Campuses Is Beyond Sickening Matt Vespa

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/11/10/all-the-young-kids-want-to-do-is-intimidate-or-kill-jews-n2631079

Jewish people are running for cover, and can you blame them? In America, most Jewish communities probably never thought they’d have to arm themselves—ever. That all changed when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, butchering 1,400 Israelis and leading to an outpouring of antisemitism not seen since the rise of Nazi Germany. There are no rallies with disciplined men and women wearing swastikas. Still, the disjointed rabble that has gathered on college campuses and in our cities speaks the same language as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party: kill all the Jews.

The phrasing and messaging are different; many will claim they’re anti-Zionist, not antisemitic—all while holding a sign showing the Star of David in a wastebasket with the caption “Keep the world clean.”  That’s a distinction without a difference. And when pressed, it’s an incoherent mess about how they don’t hate Jews but want everyone in Israel to die. 

Some street interviews also exposed an appalling ignorance that causes one to do double-takes. How can kids be unaware that Hamas is a terrorist organization? Some didn’t even know Hams invaded Israel. Of all people, Bill Maher delved into this nonsense, wondering where all this illiberal, illogical, and antisemitic sewage is coming from, and that would be colleges. The kids want to kill Jews. They call for it daily since the Israeli operations against Hamas commenced in earnest after October 7, even going so far as to claim Israel is worse than Nazi Germany. 

It’s not about ideas; you see that with these interactions. It’s about the oppressed/oppressor paradigm that leads to painfully stupid takes from these people, notably the members of the LGBT community who stand with Palestine. Hamas would chuck these people off the roof if they could. Women can’t travel outside the home without a male companion. The sexual liberation that these anti-Israel women also preach would lead to an epic stoning so complete that Gaza City’s streets would be knee-deep with their blood if they ever said one-eighth of the woke nonsense they peddle here. The irony is that Israel’s minorities fare the best in the Middle East for obvious reasons: they’re the only beacon of Western values in that part of the world.

Jewish students at MIT blocked from attending classes by ‘hostile’ anti-Israel protesters By Patrick Reilly

https://nypost.com/2023/11/10/news/jewish-students-at-mit-blocked-from-attending-classes-by-hostile-anti-israel-protesters/

Jewish students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they were prevented from attending classes by a “blockade” of hostile anti-Israel students — and fear the school is “not safe for Jews.”

An open letter penned by the MIT Israel Alliance alleges that Jewish and Israeli students were “physically” obstructed from classrooms by a “hostile” pro-Palestinian group called the Coalition Against Apartheid (CAA).

“This is after students from the CAA harassed MIT staff members in their offices for being Jewish and interrupted classes in the past few weeks,” the letter read.

“Many Jewish students fear leaving their dorm rooms and have stated that they feel MIT is not safe for Jews,” the letter continues.

“This message is compounded by the public and private warnings of Hillel [the school’s graduate Jewish community] and many faculty that Jewish students should not enter MIT’s main lobby today.”

Four hours after the CAA protest began, the administration told students to leave the lobby and threatened them with suspension — but only the Jewish students who were there to counterprotest left, according to the group.

“Indeed, the CAA proceeded to invite more students and non-MIT protestors to join them in calling for a violent uprising (“Intifada”) and justifying the terror attacks of Hamas on Israeli civilians,” the alliance said.

Jews Get Kicked Out of the Progressive Club By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/jews-get-kicked-out-of-the-progressive-club/

To sustain the alliance between leftists and Islamists, something had to give. And that something was Jews.

After a while, it became a parody worthy of classic comedy skits: the Biden administration’s reflexive need to launch into a condemnation of “Islamophobia” every time the discomfiting topic of antisemitism came up — which, you may have noticed, it does quite a bit these days.

Progressives hate antisemitism. Not, unfortunately, the concept . . . the word. It holds a mirror up to their internal contradictions.

Jews have been among the most consequential, cutting-edge progressives in history. A few months back, I reviewed Democratic Justice, Brad Snyder’s biography of Felix Frankfurter, who may have been as responsible for forging the dominance of American progressivism as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president he zealously served. Alas, Frankfurter would not be welcome today in what’s become of his movement — not least because of another project on which he collaborated with his mentor and fellow Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis: Zionism. That project is anathema to today’s progressives. It honors the old order and the uniqueness of a people reified in their ancestral homeland, one in which they dwelled for millennia — before Islam existed and, 14 centuries later, the notion of “Palestinians” was conceived.

Moreover, to highlight antisemitism is intolerably inconvenient to the collaboration of highest priority for modern progressives: Their partnership with sharia supremacists — so-called Islamists, adherents to “political Islam.”

TODAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2023 IS VETERANS DAY

September 2, 1945; At the conclusion of the Surrender Ceremony, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, broadcast this speech:
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won. The skies no longer rain death — the seas bear only commerce -men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace. The holy mission has been completed. And in reporting this to you, the people, I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever stilled among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific which marked the way. I speak for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of that future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster.”

Kristallnacht Anniversary and Surge in Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Catherine Salgado

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2023/11/10/kristallnacht-anniversary-and-surge-in-anti-semitic-hate-crimes-n4923805

Today marks the anniversary of the devastating anti-Jewish Nazi rampage of Kristallnacht. As we see anti-Semitic hate crimes rising both here in America and abroad, we have to ask ourselves — could Kristallnacht happen again? And are we ready to stand with our Jewish friends and neighbors (as we must) if it does?

Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night” or “Night of Broken Glass”) happened on Nov. 9 and 10 in 1938 in Nazi Germany. The rioting Nazis “torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and murdered close to 100 Jews,” according to History.com. 

Of course, tragically, the Nazi hatred for Jews led to the Holocaust, in which between 5.8 million and 6.6 million Jews were murdered. “Never again,” was the slogan that museums used about the Holocaust. But it’s starting to happen again, both in the heinous Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and in the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests around the world.

Hamas, its funders in the Palestinian Authority (PA), and multiple Muslim countries that back it (including Iran and Qatar) are just as determined to commit genocide against the Jews as ever the Nazis were. The thousands in America and other countries who marched cheering the “martyrs” (i.e. terrorists) and endorsing the violent and unjust seizing of Israel’s land (“from the river to the sea…”) are in sympathy with that bloody anti-Semitism. 

As we see anti-Semitic hate crimes on the rise, we have to wonder if Kristallnacht could happen right here in America. And if it does, we must be ready to take a stand against it, even at risk to ourselves. The global Jewish population never recovered from the Holocaust. We cannot allow such a staggering massacre to happen a second time.

The Scenes of Genocide I Saw in Israeli Morgues This wasn’t an emotional frenzy of killing like the pogroms of the 1880s. It was methodically planned. By Qanta A. Ahmed

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-scenes-of-genocide-i-saw-in-israeli-morgues-hamas-oct-7-77d45c23?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

A fetal heartbeat flutters and then stills, a bullet lodged in the embryonic heart. The mother survives the shooting and her child’s stillbirth. A body that has been decomposing for almost three weeks lies on the autopsy table, riddled with knife and bullet wounds. Another is nearby, the man’s bluetooth receiver still clipped onto his shirt. Death came as a surprise.

This is Israel. I arrived on Oct. 19 to spend 10 days as a human-rights observer with the permission of the nation’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and help from Israel Defense Forces officer Kobi Valer. As an observant Muslim, I felt a duty to come and bear witness. What I saw will remain with me forever.

Hamas waged its attacks in the nation’s south, but hundreds of its victims have since been moved north. I encountered many of them at the morgues at the Shura military base near Ramle, some 15 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. I toured the Sammy Ofer Fortified Underground Emergency Hospital in Haifa, visiting the neonatal units whose tiny patients had recently been relocated in anticipation of further conflict. I examined bodies and ashes, incinerated teeth and bones. I saw toddlers, teens and adults, young and old, many of them bound, tortured and burned alive.

One word continually came to mind: genocide. No matter how it emerges, the monster is easy to recognize. As a doctor, I had a rare and panoramic view of the aftermath: the targeted people’s long, agonizing journey to death.

This isn’t the first time I have seen Islamist jihadism or even Islamist genocide. I’ve been to northwestern Pakistan and met child Taliban operatives groomed for suicide missions. I still attend to 9/11 first-responders in New York. I’ve been to post-ISIS Iraq to meet with Kurdish and Yazidi survivors of genocide. I’ve spoken with former ISIS child soldiers and the Peshmerga veterans of that brutal and bloody three-year war.

The Oct. 7 genocide was different, more barbaric than anything before it. The attacks were cloaked in the language and metaphors of Islam, yet corrupted with cosmic enmity for the Jewish people, Judaism, global Jewry and the Jewish state.

Biden Keeps the Billions Flowing to Iran Choosing not to enforce oil sanctions finances Tehran’s terrorism.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-iran-oil-hamas-israel-gaza-df192c53?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

You’d think the Biden Administration would have realized by now that enriching the Iranian regime is a dangerous mistake. You’d be wrong. Relaxed U.S. enforcement of oil sanctions continued through October, refilling Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s coffers even after the Oct. 7 slaughter and the more than 40 attacks on U.S. troops by Iran’s proxies in the weeks since.

Iran exported nearly 1.4 million barrels of oil per day in October, sustaining its average for 2023. This is up 80% from the 775,000 barrels per day Iran averaged under the Trump Administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy, according to United Against Nuclear Iran, the group of former U.S. Ambassador Mark Wallace and Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose Tanker Tracker generates the best public data we have.

The Iranian surge in oil exports since President Biden took over has brought Iran an additional $32 billion to $35 billion, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The calculations are tricky, but the cause of the Iranian windfall is clear: As part of Mr. Biden’s quiet diplomacy with Iran, the U.S. has curtailed sanctions enforcement. Customers and middlemen have concluded the risk is low and the discount on Iran’s oil is too good to pass up.

This transfer of funds to Iran is cumulatively more significant than the President’s recent $6 billion ransom payment in return for five hostages. And it keeps growing, even as the money fails to moderate Iranian behavior. Instead it finances Iran’s aggression abroad via proxies such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the front groups in Iraq and Syria that shoot at American bases almost daily.