“Oct 7 2023”

It feeds into everything that’s been reported about Israel’s Arab neighbors and why they don’t want Palestinian refugees roaming wild in their country: they bring trouble. The late King Hussein had to declare war on them and successfully drove them out. The problem is the Palestinian Liberation Organization set up shop in Lebanon, where they caused problems for the government while also attacking Israel from the southern part of the country. Israel had to invade in 1982 and remained in Southern Lebanon until 2000. Egypt has closed its border with the Gaza Strip in Rafah due to terrorism concerns.

h/t X — Formerly IB_Joe

The Israeli military’s coming push into southern Gaza is driven by the belief that intelligence gleaned from hundreds of militants captured during the fighting in the north will allow them to find and kill leaders of Hamas.

Israel’s politicians and generals believe that taking out top commanders – and leader Yahya Sinwar – is their best chance of forcing the collapse of an organisation that is deeply embedded in Gaza, after nearly two decades controlling the enclave.

Two serving military officials with knowledge of strategy for the next phase confirmed there would be an intense focus on using new intelligence to target Hamas leaders.

Israel is recalling its negotiating team from Qatar after talks with Hamas reached a “dead end.”

“Due to the dead end in negotiations, and following instructions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad head David Barnea ordered the negotiating team in Doha to return home,” a public statement released Saturday afternoon noted. “The Hamas terror group did not fulfill its obligations under the agreement that included releasing all the women and children that were on the list provided to Hamas that had authorized it.”

And talking about ‘anti-Semitism’ is part of the problem.

After the Holocaust, the American Jewish community, like most liberals, reduced the mass murder of millions of Jews to a problem of intolerance and prejudice. A massive effort was undertaken to educate about what had happened rather than what was happening.

While the first Holocaust museums were being built, the persecution and killing of Jews had mostly shifted over to the Soviet Union and its allies in the Arab Muslim world. American Jews failed to grapple with this shift much as they failed to come to terms with the reality that black nationalist groups were quickly eclipsing the KKK when it came to the domestic hatred of Jews.

These are the key ingredients that led to the current open climate of Jew-hatred in America.

When I was initially invited to present this talk, I was asked to highlight the rise of antisemitism in Europe. Even then, I suspected it might be rather short, given the overwhelming evidence that antisemitism appeared to be growing more than any other racial prejudice. And then we had the attacks of October 7, 2023. Quite possibly the talk is now moot.

I would like to preface this address with a personal experience, which bears on all we are discussing, particularly from my perspective as a Catholic priest. Some know of my work during the last 9 years—full time since 2016—working for aid/advocacy for persecuted Christians throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. I am certainly the only Catholic priest in the English-speaking world doing this work full time, and I am grateful to the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham for allowing me to pursue this ministry and vocation: allowing me but not paying me.

The terrorists were ‘on a mission’ to carry out sexual attacks on October 7. Campaigners have asked why the UN stayed silent

She had, he says, the face of an angel. Night after night Yoni Saadon, 39, wakes in anguish to the faces of women.

First, that of the young woman hiding next to him under the stage of the Supernova festival where he had been dancing to electronic music as the sun rose on October 7 and Hamas militants opened fire.

“She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too,” he said. “I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying ‘I’m sorry’.”

Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah’s impartiality is in question

In the weeks since Israel launched its offensive against Hamas, one doctor’s reports from Gaza’s hospitals have proved more valuable to the media than any other: those delivered by Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British-Palestinian surgeon. Indeed, when Abu-Sittah held a press conference in London this week after a 43-day stint in Gaza, almost every leading outlet turned up.

So there I was, in the middle of the opening night of Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera, when the shouting started. “Climate protesters,” or “climate activists”—the usual grotesques—were shouting “No opera on a dead planet,” and other such inanities. They placed themselves around the theater, timing it so that when one was arrested, another started shouting somewhere else. I counted five interruptions, though the first press reports say there were only four; did I get it wrong? The audience was displeased; I heard shouts of shame! and even, briefly from one member of the audience, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! The management finally announced that the program would go on no matter what, keeping the lights on so that security could remove people more quickly; either the thugs were exhausted, or the remainder figured that it wasn’t worth bothering with. So we finished the opera, with too much light, and (at least for me) some nervousness at every loud noise, thinking it might be another interruption.

The lies, denials and innuendos about Israel distributed by the United Nations and its affiliated agencies have long been outrageous. But this week, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reached a new low that illustrates its veracious appetite to take advantage of the war by spreading lies to raise money.

Actress Susan Sarandon has apologized for her recent comment at a pro-Palestinian rally where she claimed that American Jews are now “getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”

In a statement issued Friday, Susan Sarandon said her phrasing was “a terrible mistake,” adding that she regretted belittling the history of Jewish persecution.

I’m going to forgive her. I can’t help myself.