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Eitan Fischberger 365 Days of October 7 The defense of Israel and of Western civilization are one.

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.city-journal.org/article/365-days-of-october-7

How do you commemorate something still unfolding? That question looms large, on the 365th day since October 7, as we grapple with the brutal reality of a world irrevocably changed. How do we honor the lives lost on that terrible day and in the ensuing war for Israel’s survival, while also committing to build a future defined not by tragedy but by strength and resilience? We might never find a satisfactory answer. But to begin our search for one, we must recognize that the struggle spans both physical and ideological battlefields.

First is the literal battlefield. The horrific attack by Hamas on October 7 was not just a terrorist assault; it was an attempt to break the spirit of a nation, to humiliate and destroy it. That day will be forever etched into our collective memory, a deep national wound. But out of that darkness, and perhaps because of it, Israel has risen with a fierce resolve, fighting an existential war that has now spread far beyond its original borders, as the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies besiege the Jewish state from all sides.

And yet, the tragedy of October 7 has been followed by victories that nobody could have imagined. Hamas, whose brutality knows no bounds, is now on its knees. Hezbollah, until last week viewed as an existential threat to Israel, has been defeated in what will inevitably be viewed as the most jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign in history. The targeted killings of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran serve as a stark warning to the Grand Ayatollah that nowhere, not even within the heart of Iran, is safe.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The woke dehumanisation of Jews Why the ‘anti-racist’ left keeps making excuses for anti-Semitic barbarism. Frank Furedi

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/08/129680the-woke-dehumanisation-of-jews/

That there is more to identity politics than just preferred pronouns or demanding more culturally sensitive university courses has been amply demonstrated since the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Woke activist groups – including LGBT activists, Black Lives Matter, feminists and eco-zealots – responded to this barbaric event by becoming Hamas cheerleaders. They had no hesitation in communicating their hatred for Israel in a language riddled with anti-Semitic tropes.

The narrative promoted by the identitarians rarely recognises Jews as a historically oppressed people. On the contrary, Jews are frequently cast in the role of oppressors and even as white supremacists. This outlook echoes the age-old trope that asserts that Jews possess vast global power. It fuses this traditional claim about Jewish power with contemporary identitarian obsessions about white privilege and white supremacy.

Since the ascendancy of identity politics, Jewishness has become what sociologist Erving Goffman characterised as a ‘spoiled identity’. A spoiled identity is one that lacks any redeeming moral qualities. It is an identity that invites stigma and scorn.

Since the turn of the century, anti-racist activists have gone to great lengths to associate ‘whiteness’ with negative characteristics and unattractive features. Mention the term ‘white men’ on a university campus or TV show and it will be met with groans and sneers. This negative framing of white identity has also impacted how Jewish identity is perceived and represented. In an interesting account of this development, Pamela Paresky has coined the term the ‘hyper-white Jew’. Jews are often portrayed as a unique, hyper-white community who have far more privileges to check than others – including other white people.

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The Palestinian Tradition of Celebrating the Death of Jews by Bassam Tawil

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20998/palestinians-celebrate-death-of-jews

Palestinians have a custom of celebrating in the streets every time Israel is attacked or a Jew is murdered by terrorists.

It is hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to criticize his own people for celebrating terrorist attacks. It is also hard, if not impossible, to find one senior Palestinian official who is willing to condemn the October 7 atrocities and massacres against Israelis. Palestinian leaders have good reason not to speak out: they are afraid of being killed by their own people.

Last month, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, ignored the Hamas attack and instead accused Israel of committing “massacres,” “crimes,” and “genocide” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, Abbas also ignored the fact that a large number of Palestinians expressed support for the Hamas-led October 7 attack and took to the streets to celebrate the brutal mass-murder of Israeli women, children and the elderly.

Palestinian leaders who do not have the courage, or are unwilling, to denounce terrorism will never be able to call on their people to recognize Israel’s right to exist, let alone make peace with it. Palestinians who celebrate the murder of their neighbors are not ready for a state, which will undoubtedly be used as a springboard to slaughter more Jews and to try to destroy Israel.

There is no excuse for celebrating murder. A society that celebrates murder will never be a partner for peace. True peace will only come when Palestinian leaders values their people’s lives more than celebrating the murder of Jews.

Palestinians have a custom of celebrating in the streets every time Israel is attacked or a Jew is murdered by terrorists.

The latest Palestinian celebrations took place on October 1, 2024, when Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel. The celebrations occurred even though some of the missiles fell in Palestinian areas in the West Bank and the only person killed was, ironically, a Palestinian man in the city of Jericho.

In one West Bank village, Palestinians erected a monument from the tail of an Iranian missile to celebrate Iran’s attack on Israel.

Similar celebrations took place in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in many countries when Iran launched its first direct missile and drone attack against Israel in April. According to a report by Iran’s Tehran Times:

“It was also a sleepless night in Ramallah and other cities in the occupied West Bank, that saw excited crowds of Palestinians gathering in the streets and pointing to the skies amid the visible trails of Iranian missiles flying, with a celebratory mood until the early hours of Sunday morning.”

The largest celebrations occurred a year ago, on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Iran-backed Hamas terrorists and “ordinary” Palestinians invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip and murdered 1,200 Israelis. During the attack, thousands of Israelis were raped, tortured, and burned alive, while more than 240 others were kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. A year later, 101 Israeli hostages are still being held by Hamas terrorists.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The West has turned its back on Jews A year on from 7 October, the Jewish diaspora has rarely felt so isolated. Joel Kotkin

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/10/07/the-west-has-turned-its-back-on-jews/

In the wake of last year’s 7 October pogrom, and amid rapidly rising anti-Semitism, most Jews are even more convinced of the importance of the Jewish State and the need for greater solidarity. As researchers such as Tufts Eitan Hersh and others have demonstrated, the Hamas assaults have led many in America to emphatically embrace their Jewish identity.

Yet, increasingly, these same Jews find themselves isolated and widely demonised. This reflects how much Jewish influence in the US, as I suggested almost a year ago, is itself ‘peaking’. Certainly it’s clear that Jewish media power has faded, as evidenced by the consistently biased coverage against Israel in places like the New York Times, the BBC and the Washington Post. Similar bias has become embedded in the internet, as seen by Wikipedia’s new negative description of Zionism.

As Israel faces an existential challenge, diaspora Jews confront a rising wave of anti-Semitism unseen since the 1930s. Politicians and the media alike emphasise the parallel rise of Islamophobia. Yet two-thirds of all religious hate crimes in America were directed at Jews, despite them accounting for just two per cent of the population. Last year in New York, there were over 100 anti-Semitic crimes in November and December, almost 10 times the number of equivalent crimes committed against Muslims.

Jews are frequently discovering that any sympathy for Israel now means cancellation. The progressive political and cultural establishment increasingly seeks to eliminate ‘Zionists’ and elevate those Jews, like journalist Joshua Liefer, who excoriate the Jewish state, and non-Jews like Ta-Nehisi Coates, who embrace a radical, anti-Israel perspective.

Even in traditional haunts, such as Brooklyn bookstores, elite campuses and big Jewish cities like Los Angeles, Jews no longer feel safe. Today, they are inextricably identified with Israel, whether they like it or not.

This merging of Jewish and Israeli interests seems inevitable. Already, a majority of all Jewish children live in Israel. By 2030, Israel could become, for the first time since early antiquity, the home to a majority of all Jews. This is somewhat hard to digest for left-of-centre or secular Jews, given the nature of the current Israeli government with its dependence on messianic nationalistic and ultra-religious allies. Yet, despite the relative unpopularity of Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration, the vast majority of diaspora Jews – 80 per cent in America – support the Jewish State, as do the vast majority of Jewish college students.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hundreds of Anti-Israel Protesters Demonstrate at Columbia on Anniversary of 10/7 By Alex Welz

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hundreds-of-anti-israel-protesters-demonstrate-at-columbia-on-anniversary-of-10-7/

Anti-Israel demonstrations returned to Columbia University on Monday, marking one year since Hamas’s 2023 massacre and kidnapping of innocent Israelis.

These came as part of a wider protest known as Students Flood NYC for Gaza, organized by the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime. This followed a coordinated student walkout in support of the Palestinians that included hundreds of students. Nearby, pro-Israel demonstrators could be seen waving Israeli flags and calling attention to the hostages taken by Hamas. Pro-Palestinian protesters later swarmed the 110th Street subway station, expanding their activities beyond campus.

In the days leading up to the protests, Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong introduced additional security measures in anticipation of campus clashes. “We anticipated and have been preparing for a period of uncertainty in the coming days,” university spokeswoman Samantha Slater told the Columbia Spectator. Barricades were erected across campus in an attempt to quell any ensuing unrest.

In preparation for the event, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, another pro-Palestinian campus organization, encouraged attendees to conceal their identities. This included wearing all-black clothing, covering up any tattoos/piercings, and wearing masks (allowing one to be “protected from surveillance”). The organization even urged students to avoid using the university Wi-Fi or their Columbia-affiliated email addresses to communicate.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Vance Shows the Power of a Silver Tongue Vance presented Trump’s policies in a completely different way; he was polite yet firm, steeped in deep knowledge of policy, and rich in empathy for ordinary people and their struggles. By Christopher Roach

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/08/vance-shows-the-power-of-a-silver-tongue/

J.D. Vance was my number one draft pick for vice president, and his complete slaughter of Tim Walz at the debate last week only reassured me of my choice.

Vance is a breath of fresh air for many, including conservatives still harboring misgivings about Donald Trump. Vance is appealing because he has qualities that used to be more familiar in politics and lately have become rare, as most offices have become less competitive and the American people have become less engaged in the process.

Most important of these qualities, Vance is a “good talker,” and this used to be a prerequisite to being an effective politician. By this, I mean he was articulate, organized, calm, and friendly. He also was steeped in detailed policy knowledge, avoided rhetorical traps, calmly and politely objected to the biased moderators’ fake fact-checking, and generally did circles around Walz.

Walz was tongue-tied, looked nervous, and rarely made his points in an articulate way. Even though Kamala Harris and Walz have had longer careers in public life, Vance is everything they are not.

There has not really been a skilled debater on the presidential stage since Bill Clinton. We have instead been burdened by a parade of tin-eared, rhetorical failures. Neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore were compelling speakers, nor were John McCain or John Kerry. Stilted, stammering, and just generally unsmooth and unmemorable describes them all.

Obama had a deserved reputation as a good speaker, and he was certainly more skilled than most of his peers, but all of his words were completely vaporous and forgettable. What the hell was the “audacity of hope?” Also, while Obama was a decent orator when he had a teleprompter and a good speechwriter, he was not particularly memorable on the debate stage or when speaking extemporaneously.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Inside The October 7th War What really happened then and what is really happening now. by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-oct-7-war-one-year-later/

On Oct 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. Their mission was to wipe out the Jewish population in the nearby towns, secure them and use them as forward operating bases for the next phase of the war. While the atrocities they committed in that initial assault, entire families burned alive in their homes, women raped and kidnapped, and babies killed, made it look like a terrorist attack on a large scale, Oct 7 had not been meant as a hit and run operation.

Hamas had risked too much and put too many men in the field for it to be anything other than an invasion. Its plans to continue advancing into Israel appear unrealistic only out of context.

The thousands of terrorists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah had been meant as the tip of a larger spear. Thousands of Hezbollah and allied terrorists had been in position on Oct 7. Had Hamas been able to hang on to Israeli territory, they would have invaded the Galilee, but after the initial shock and long delays throughout that first day, the Israeli military regrouped.

The Hezbollah invasion was postponed until it was briefly revived by the Islamic terror group around the time of the pager attacks and then shut down by targeted Israeli strikes.

Oct 7 had been Hezbollah’s plan before it was executed by Hamas. Hezbollah had even spent years boasting about using its network of tunnels to invade and conquer the Galilee, but the funding and plans had come out of Tehran. Yet when push came to shove, Hezbollah hesitated.

Iran had planned for an Oct 7 that would have dealt a catastrophic blow to Israel. The original plot would have seen coordinated Hamas and Hezbollah invasions backed by heavy rocket campaigns not only by Hezbollah, but by the Houthis in Yemen and Iran’s militias in Iraq targeting Israeli bases, military assets and infrastructure. Terror groups in the West Bank would have launched their own assaults creating a multi-front guerrilla war deep inside Israel. Even if Israel had beaten back the attacks, many of the Jewish communities would have been in ashes.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Classical v. Unclassical Curricula Welcome to the school-based culture wars. by Larry Sand

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/classical-v-unclassical-curricula/

Chad Aldeman, a Virginia-based researcher who focuses on education-related issues, recently detailed the educational experience of his daughter, who completed sixth grade in June. He writes that her teachers didn’t use textbooks, assign homework, or expect kids to study at home for tests, didn’t teach kids to sound out words, and didn’t drill times tables. He also mentions that there were no spelling tests, students didn’t practice handwriting of any kind, cursive or otherwise, and didn’t learn the 50 states and their capitals, let alone world geography.

Aldeman is very concerned by this shift, arguing that her educational experience has “reduced instructional time devoted to science and social studies and emphasized isolated skills such as critical thinking or reading comprehension over teaching students a coherent body of knowledge and facts.”

The scenario spelled out by Aldeman is hardly an isolated case, as traditional pedagogical fads have replaced tried and true methods. Additionally, political causes in education are frequently front and center to the detriment of traditional learning. In a 2022 statement, the National Council of Teachers of English declared: “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” Instead, teachers are urged to focus on “media literacy” and short texts that students feel are “relevant.”

In many places, the curriculum has taken a Marxist turn. In New York City, students now receive lessons critical of capitalism, that black Americans should receive reparations, that student loans are equivalent to “debt peonage,” and the feasibility of abolishing the police.

In Evanston, IL, the district is loaded with Critical Race Theory bilge. Schools there are committed to equity and to “identifying practices, policies, and institutional barriers, including institutional racism and privilege, which perpetuate opportunity and achievement gaps.”

One of the many new trends in education is the teaching of ethnic studies, which means different things in different locales. In the state of Washington, where ethnic studies is a graduation requirement, its main goal is to “dismantle white supremacy.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

“If It Takes a Thousand Years: From Al-Qaeda to Hamas, How the Jihadists Think & How to Defeat Them” Jesse Petrilla

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

An inside look into the mindset of jihad, including firsthand interviews with some of the world’s most sinister terrorists.
During an interrogation in Afghanistan, when asked how long the jihadists intended to fight, a Taliban commander uttered the words, “If it takes a thousand years.” This chilling statement illustrates both how terrorists of this level operate and the generational approach they take when it comes to bringing destruction to the world.
The West is facing a determined enemy with a fundamentally different world view. Author and former Army Captain Jesse Petrilla provides unique insight into the jihadist mind, featuring interviews with Taliban and Al-Qaeda members just after their capture, interviews with international journalists and professors, warnings from European politicians, as well as experiences from travels throughout the Islamic world.
If It Takes a Thousand Years delves into the policies which have enabled our enemies both at home and abroad, providing positive solutions as to how America and the West can confront this threat and protect their way of life.
About the author:
Former Army Captain Jesse Petrilla has traveled worldwide on fact-finding missions, researching the mindset of the jihadists and the policies that enable them. These places include Jordan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Israel (including the West Bank), Egypt, England, France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, meeting with members of parliament, mayors, and everyday citizens. He has served as a civilian advisor to the U.S. Department of State, and was a Liaison Officer in the Army to the Afghan secret police, facilitating the interrogations of over 400 captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda members. Jesse has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, and other media on numerous occasions, and has published articles in FrontPage Magazine, Breitbart, and other publications.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Let Israel Decide How To Respond To Iran’s Missile Attack Lawrence J. Haas

Posted By on October 8th, 2024

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/let-israel-decide-how-to-respond-to-irans-missile-attack/

President Biden pushes Israel not to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile attack by targeting its nuclear or oil sites, while former President Trump blasts Biden and suggests that, in fact, Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear sites.

Their public disagreement over Israel’s proper course reminds us that, notwithstanding Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s dictum of the early Cold War years that politics should stop “at the water’s edge,” it rarely has.

Presidents have long shaped their foreign policy with domestic politics in mind. FDR promised the nation just days before his re-election in 1940 that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars,” though he knew that America’s entry into World War II was both necessary and inevitable. JFK planned to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam but not until his second term, fearing an earlier withdrawal would ignite a “who lost Vietnam” backlash that threatened his re-election in 1964.

Now, a month before our Election Day, Israel is battling Iran and its terror proxies on multiple fronts, civilian lives are at risk in multiple nations, global leaders are pushing for ceasefires and “de-escalation,” and Vice President Kamala Harris is battling Trump for Jewish and Muslim votes in a razor-close contest.

But, however understandable in political terms, Biden and Trump’s comments are nevertheless badly misguided in geopolitical terms because they undercut our closest regional ally at an ominous moment.

Consider, by way of historical example, the absurdity of such public counsel to any nation under siege.

“We shall carry the attack against the enemy,” FDR told Congress a month after Pearl Harbor, with nearly 2,500 service members and civilians dead and the United States now at war with both Japan and Germany. “We shall hit him and hit him again wherever and whenever we can reach him.”