“Oct 7 2023”

Israel’s prime minister missed the chance to starve Hamas of cash, years before its murderous attack last October, according to a former senior Israeli intelligence officer.

Udi Levy has told BBC Panorama he advised Benjamin Netanyahu to target Hamas’s finances.

He believes this would have hampered the group’s military build-up, but says the intelligence was not acted upon.

The Israeli prime minister’s office has not responded to the allegations.

For satirical newspaper columnists, this kind of thing is very discouraging. No matter how hard we try, there is simply no way our imagination can compete with Western reality.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has sparked outrage from the left and the newspapers. Sunak joked about Labor leader Keir Starmer’s “definition of woman” in the past. Sunak listed all the times Starmer has changed his mind on some political position. “He even changed the definition of woman – said Sunak – although we must admit that in that case he only changed them 99 per cent”. The joke was alluding to when Starmer said that 99.9 per cent of women don’t have male organs.

Strange West, right? Sunak causes scandal but not Starmer.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, leaders of the Iran-backed terrorist group have been trying to distance themselves from the atrocities by holding Palestinian civilians responsible for some of the crimes, including the murder, beheading, rape, torture, kidnapping, mutilation and burning of hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children.

These are the same civilians that Hamas has long been using as human shields in its Jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and obliterate Israel.

First, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, then it accuses them of perpetrating atrocities against Israelis.

Israel has threatened to invade Gaza’s Rafah by the start of Ramadan if Hamas does not return the remaining hostages in a dark ultimatum condemned by international observers.

The United States and other governments, as well as the United Nations, have issued increasingly urgent appeals to Israel to call off its planned offensive on Rafah, where three-quarters of the displaced Palestinian population has fled.

Some 1.2 million people are now taking shelter in sprawling tent encampments without access to adequate food, water or medicine in the city that used to be home to just 250,000.

Progressive groups and Arab American grassroots organizations in Michigan are taking their protests over President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war to the ballot box ahead of the key battleground state’s primary later this month.

A concerted effort is underway to sway Democrats away from voting for Biden on Feb. 27, with some groups urging their supporters to cast their ballot for “uncommitted.”

A statue of Jewish singer Amy Winehouse wearing a Star of David pendant has been “defaced” with a pro-Palestine sticker.

The sculpture, which depicts the late star with a hand on her hip, was unveiled in Stables Market, Camden, close to where she lived in her last few years.

Optometry students at the University of Waterloo raised funds for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) amid allegations that some employees of the UN agency aided Hamas during the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Continuing a Valentine’s Day tradition of picking a charity to support, third-year students chose UNRWA and posted a group photo shared across the program’s social media channels. The image was later deleted, Stan Woo, the director of the School of Optometry and Vision Science, told the Post in a statement.

During the night of Oct. 7, my wife Laureen woke me to show horrifying images from Israel appearing on her cellphone. Like millions in Israel and around the world, we were shocked and sickened on multiple levels.

We had already spent a year and a half watching the unprovoked onslaught of the Russian military on its peaceful Ukrainian neighbour. We had seen the dead bodies, the broken families, and the shelled-out communities. It is sadly, only one of many violent conflicts in the world today. Each such image wounds our hearts.

Oh my.

338Canada federal update | February 18, 2024

Details → https://t.co/IQaKoGJaEl

Sign up to receive every update → https://t.co/sb8G5jPDxq pic.twitter.com/XCqU6ABZAM

— Philippe J. Fournier (@338Canada) February 18, 2024

h/t DS

Israel is ignoring the tremendous toll of homegrown pro-enemy propaganda on Israel’s diplomatic and military position abroad and at home. Why is this allowed during a war?

The most frustrating aspect for a Gentile of defending Israel is realizing that the nation one defends is shamelessly defamed by its own citizens. That is the reason I suspended my Hasbara engagement on social media and why a pro-Israel Pakistani friend did likewise, considering absurd the danger of drawing the attention of his country’s secret police in order to defend a foreign country that tolerates a fifth column.

Imagine defending Great Britain in America at the height of the London Blitz, while London’s most prestigious newspaper claims that Winston Churchill is a warmonger; that successive British governments rebuffed any reasonable accommodation with Hitler; and that British racism is even worse than Nazi racism.

This is an interesting read. We’ve commented before on North American Jewish organizations embracing CRT/DEI and signaling out White people as Jew hating supremacists simply because they hold scary “right-wing” views like opposition to mass immigration. Meanwhile the anti-semitism of the left was given a pass and the threat posed by the Muslim diaspora played down. It’s no wonder people may second guess their support.

I don’t know that these “anti-Zionist” attitudes can be reversed and suspect the propagation of these views is driving decisions being made by governments. The Canadian contingent of this 5th column combined with a Muslim disapora of nearly 2 million significantly outnumbers Canada’s Jewish population which 5th Column included is said to number about 315K. Europe is even worse being on a path to Islamic colonization. Politicians pay attention to votes not principles.

I don’t consider any poll to be the last word and these were conducted prior to Oct. 7 which certainly served as a 911 moment for some. They may indicate ongoing trends however.

Poll shows young American Jews losing connection to Israel

WASHINGTON — Jewish parents are increasingly sending their children to Jewish camps and day schools, but the younger generation is less connected to Israel and Jewish identity than its predecessors, a new survey released Tuesday revealed. The self-selected poll of 1,874 Jews, which was conducted by Laszlo Strategies for Jerusalem U, indicated that while the majority of the youngest generation of identified American Jewish adults attended Jewish summer camp and 81 percent had a bar or bat mitzvah, their connection to Israel – and to Jewish identity – is weaker than their parents or grandparents.

The generation gap in opinions toward Israel

A survey commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats, found that 34% of Jewish respondents agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States,” 25% agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state,” and 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” When broken down by age, 43% under 40 agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States,” among 40-to-64-year old’s 32% agreed with the statement, and among those over 64, 27% agreed. When prompted with the statement “Israel is an apartheid state,” 38% under 40 agreed, compared to 23% of those 40-64, and 13% of those over 64. Finally, the statement “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians” resulted in 33% of those under 40 agreeing, in contrast to 18% of those aged 40-64, and 15% of those over 64.

Additionally, the poll found that 9% of Jewish voters agreed with the statement, “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.” Among voters under 40, that proportion was higher with 20% agreeing.

‘Israel performing genocide like Hitler’ –President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

What will happen if Hamas is allowed to win this war? If Hamas is permitted to accomplish what it intended by its mass murders, kidnappings and rapes? If the victims of these atrocities — the people of Israel and all countries fighting terrorism — lose? If the prospects for peace in the region and the Free World are seriously damaged? If the relationship between the US and Israel, and the loss of faith in the US as the guarantor of freedom, continues to be fractured?

The social worker from the U.N. agency and another terrorist are seen stuffing the man’s body into the back of an SUV and driving off.

Jerusalem on Friday publicized a video showing a United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) social worker abducting the body of a murdered Israeli man during the Hamas-led massacre of Oct. 7.

Israel has revealed that the man seen here wearing black – who abducted the body of an Israeli from Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7 – is an @UNRWA employee. pic.twitter.com/Xcr3O83kqT

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) February 17, 2024

Toronto police have charged an Ontario man who allegedly threatened to harm protesters outside of a downtown hospital earlier this week.

In a news release issued Saturday, police said the accused called them on Feb. 14 to “express frustration” towards people demonstrating in front of a Toronto hospital, which they did not name.

Police allege that the accused, a man from Ontario’s Simcoe County, threatened to attend the hospital to harm the demonstrators.

Well that was easy.

Calls to ban Israel from international sport because of the Israel-Hamas war have grown ever louder in recent weeks, with a new petition gathering significant backing, a letter in the European Parliament and a row between Israeli and Irish basketballers posing serious questions for major sporting events and organizations.

The petition, by ‘The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025’, calls on Israel to be suspended from sports and has gained over 70,000 signatures, as of February 16. And, with the Paris Olympics starting in July and Israel’s male footballers facing playoffs in March to qualify for June’s European Championship in Germany, sporting administrators are under pressure to make a decision.

One of the co-organizers of the petition, Katarina Pijetlovic, believes it is time bodies such the International Olympic Committee (IOC), world football’s governing body FIFA and their European equivalent UEFA stepped in.

The head of the main United Nations agency supporting people in Gaza alleged that Israel is intent on “destroying” the organization along with the idea that Palestinians are refugees and have a right to return home one day.

Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger of having a “long-term political goal” of eliminating the U.N. aid agency he leads, which is known by the acronym UNRWA. It was created more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 Mideast war over Israel’s creation.

I just can’t imagine why.