The West’s fractured response reveals our weakness
How could Israel let this happen? As footage of Gazan motorbikes pelting through holes in Israel’s “smart” border fence started to circulate, of paragliders descending on a desert rave, of entire families being kidnapped or butchered in their homes, that was the question on every Western analyst’s lips: how could Israel let this happen?
The more important question, however, is this: what will the West itself do now?
On Saturday, as the raping and murdering and kidnapping were happening in Israel, Najma Sharif, a writer for Soho House magazine and Teen Vogue, posted on X: “What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers.”
So far, Sharif’s post has been liked 100,000 times and reposted nearly 23,000 times—by, among others, The Washington Post’s global opinions editor, Karen Attiah.
The point was: Don’t be squeamish. Never mind the Jewish girl being pulled by her hair with blood streaming between her legs. Never mind the women being raped beside the corpses of their friends at a music festival. Never mind the children and babies snatched from their parents.
Imagine justifying the raping and murder of women, babies being beheaded, children burned alive, and over 900 innocent people murdered because “decolonization.”
Now just imagine what else they would do in the name of “decolonization”… pic.twitter.com/yB0DJIB2c1
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 10, 2023
At Kfar Aza, a kibbutz a mile from Gaza City, babies’ bodies are among the dozens being pulled from the devastation left by Hamas
All day, military chaplains and search teams tenderly wrapped tiny bodies, carrying them to waiting stretchers that bore them away from the nightmare of Kfar Aza.
The horrors that Israelis endured at the hands of Hamas in this kibbutz, a mile from the suburbs of Gaza City, defy belief. As they surged through Israeli defences, the Palestinian militants attacked Kfar Aza from four directions, starting with the “youngster’s quarter” on the western side, closest to Gaza.
Israel scrambles to focus on the immediate crisis, but questions about how Hamas pulled off its unprecedented assault won’t wait forever.
Israelis are calling it “our 9/11.”
The parallels are all too chilling, as Americans, especially New Yorkers, know well. But the devastation for Israel is proportionately even higher than it was for Americans. Adjusted for population, 700 murdered Israelis—the current estimate—would be the equivalent of 21,000 dead Americans. And now the Israeli-Hamas conflict risks widening.
The scope of Hamas’s attack against Israel was unprecedented and the US response reflects that.
It already supplies its Middle East ally with $3.8bn (£3.1bn) of military aid every year.
And it has always backed Israel’s right to defend itself when conflicts with Hamas erupt, albeit intervening with ceasefire calls after a few days or weeks of Israeli air strikes.
But this Hamas offensive will trigger a wide-ranging Israeli campaign and could lead to an escalation in other parts of the region.
Remember them when the left tosses ‘disproportionate response’ around.
The vids have an avid fan base in North America of course.
Palestinian supporter shows off videos and pictures of the atrocities towards Israelis on his phone and laughs about it. pic.twitter.com/6zobZFGAox
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) October 10, 2023
h/t patthedog
The considerations that constrained Israel in the past are no longer relevant.
One could argue that Israel sustained increasingly deadly Hamas rocket fire for close to two decades because it has refrained from re-occupying Gaza.
Former defense and foreign minister Avigdor Liberman has long pressed this point, stating “We either have to completely occupy it, or reconcile ourselves to endless rounds of rockets.”
In the past he was almost a lone voice, even though it was a prophetic one.
From October 7, 2023 forward, anyone who says, writes or supports “Free Palestine” in any way must bear the burden and acknowledge that they are openly advocating for continuation and expansion of the depravity and brutality of the Hamas invasion of Israel. It has long been known by most Israelis and people who understand the conflict that Free Palestine has always meant the elimination of the Jewish state. What the videos and pictures coming out of Israel this week have done is to give a realistic picture, a live stream if you will, of what horror “Free Palestine” would visit upon the world.
After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, hundreds rejoiced on the streets of New York.
Young girls in hijabs waved Palestinian flags in the street. Men in ski masks hung from scaffolding chanting, “Israel, go to hell.” And pamphlets rained from the sky, lauding the recent violence by Hamas as “heroic.”
This wasn’t the Middle East. This was Midtown Manhattan, home to the second-largest Jewish population in the world after Israel, just days after Israel was ambushed by Hamas in the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history. More than 900 Israelis are now dead, more than 2,000 wounded, and an estimated 100 held hostage.
Below is the original i24 ‘BABIES’ report.
'About 40 babies were taken out on gurneys… Cribs overturned, strollers left behind, doors left wide open'
Our correspondent @Nicole_Zedek continues to survey the horror scenes left behind in Kibbutz Kfar Aza where Hamas invaded and murdered dozens of Israelis in their homes pic.twitter.com/ZZCwDGkV8z
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 10, 2023
Hours after the State of Israel came under attack by Palestinian terror outfit Hamas, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday (7th October) condemned the killing of Israeli civilians.
In a tweet, he said, “Canada strongly condemns the current terrorist attacks against Israel. These acts of violence are completely unacceptable. We stand with Israel and fully support its right to defend itself.”
Foreigners find it odd that Justin Trudeau coddles terrorists at home and abroad.
A young Israeli couple was murdered by Hamas terrorists who broke into their home — but not before the parents hid their 10-month-old twins, who were found alive about 14 hours later, according to reports.
Itai and Hadar Berdichevsky, both 30, were attacked in their home in Kfar Gaza, a kibbutz in southern Israel located about three miles east of Gaza, according to Israeli outlet Walla.
The parents, who hid their babies in a bomb shelter, tried to fight off the terrorists but were murdered, the news outlet reported.
More than a thousand people congregated at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square Monday afternoon, many saying they were there to support the Palestinian people and not to glorify the deadly attacks launched by Hamas against Israelis over the weekend.
Still, many also refused to condemn those attacks that have reportedly killed more than 900 Israelis, saying instead the focus should be on how Israel has mistreated Palestinians and occupied Palestinian land for decades. They also pointed to the nearly 700 Palestinians who have been killed by Israel in response to the attacks.
Beheading babies? I wonder if CBC will cover that?
I24 reporting that Hamas beheaded babies. pic.twitter.com/EptIOaiUA8
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) October 10, 2023
h/t Mauser
The bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters have been recovered in southern Israel days after a bold and bloody attack that has placed the Israeli government and military onto a war footing.
The toll came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to finalize the composition of an emergency unity government with opposition parties, Israel’s air force continued pounding targets in the Gaza Strip and Hamas, in retaliation, threatened to start executing hostages.
A massacre is a “Bold & Bloody attack” according to the Star, sounds like glorification of terrorism. Won’t somebody think of the raping murdering terrorists!
WATCH: This armed terrorist squad from Gaza was identified on their way to kill Israeli civilians inside of Israeli territory.
We made sure to stop them before they could attack our civilians. pic.twitter.com/8GpQOAji7z
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 10, 2023
Mark Muhannad Ayyash is a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, and one of Canada’s most prominent peddlers of anti-Israel disinformation and hate.
Ayyash has published opinion columns on Al Jazeera falsely accusing Israel of attacking Palestinian worshippers on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and has claimed that Israel expelled 750,000 Palestinians to create the Jewish State, when in reality many were forced by Arab leaders to leave.
