Hamas has attacked Israel

A good roundup to end the year:

 

'A silent epidemic may be spreading among parts of the liberal and progressive population. Many people who considered themselves committed to social justice and the betterment of the world through intersectional ideas about group identity, equity, and inclusion are confronting an excruciating cognitive dissonance: Many of those they once considered allies are excusing mass murder and rape of civilians in the name of a shared ideology. Those afflicted find themselves racked by doubt and internal conflict – atrocities and antisemitism were not what they had in mind in the quest for justice and equality.'

Thinking it through

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...s_causing_a_mass_kronstadt_moment_150259.html

 

Reminiscent of the post 9/11 era:

 

We Can't Ignore the Depravity of Hamas' Sexual Atrocities

'On Thursday, The New York Times recounted in awful detail the sexual atrocities the men of Gaza committed during Hamas’s October 7 raid into Israel.'

'The Times’s descriptions of these crimes nearly beggar belief. They go beyond rape, or gang rape, or even the execution of prisoners. As described by witnesses who survived, and confirmed by video and forensic evidence, Hamas’s attackers turned murder and torture into can-you-top-this sport:'

Why did the men of Palestine act this way toward these young women?

'the way the men of Palestine acted on Oct. 7 to the women they had taken stands out. These were not merely rapes, not merely torture, not merely executions; they were an almost sui generis combination of the three.'

 

To be expected:

 

2023 Exposed the Moral Depravity of the Radical Left

'not to say that all left-wingers are anti-Semitic. But the Jew hatred is undoubtedly coming from inside the house. Anti-Semitic leftists aren’t falling under the spell of dashing jihadists, they are imbibing malign intellectual trends that have been festering, largely unchallenged, on the radical left for decades.'

'Leftists have come to see capitalism not as a structure of economic relations, but as a plot hatched among nefarious bankers – a manichean vision which maps all-too-neatly on to age-old anti-Semitic tropes. Their deranged hatred of Israel – and their patronising tendency to treat Muslims as the violent, benighted children of world affairs – means they now treat anti-Semitic pogroms as the voice of the unheard.'

'Meanwhile, the left’s embrace of woke racial identity politics has merely replaced the old racism, which treated Jews as scheming genetic inferiors, with a new racism, which treats Jews as the hyper-white butchers of Palestinians. This strips Hamas of responsibility and refuses Jews the status of victims, even when the former is waging an apocalyptic assault on the latter.'

'The socialism of fools, the anti-imperialism of fools, the anti-racism of fools… in 2023, we learned that these ideologies represent a kind of intellectual and moral death for the left. As the left has disappeared up its own fundament, further into academia and the media and away from the civilising influence of ordinary people, it has come to embrace some truly depraved ideas.'

And this depraved nest of infection needs to be exposed to the sunlight, and Congress has the power to investigate, so long as they are accepting public money and/or violating the rights others.


And after, hope and celebration.

 

Smoke bombs at Macy's:

 

Have there been any more Israelis killed by Hamas since Oct 7?

 

Yes.

 

I've seen very little reporting on it that's so. Is the media surpressing it? What are the cases? Is it hostages or does it go beyond the hostages? Have there been further Hamas attacks into Israel?

 

Hostages and soldiers have been killed in Gaza, but there are many attempts, some successful, to kill civilians in Israel. Three Israelis were killed in a terror attack in Jerusalem while standing at a bus stop, six others were injured. An Israeli was killed by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon. Another Israeli was shot while driving his car.

There were several attempts by Hamas and Hezbollah to send terrorists into Israel. They were stopped. We are also fighting against Hamas, and other terrorist organizations, in Judea and Samaria,

Here's a list of Israeli victims of terror attacks. It doesn't include the names of those killed on October 7th, probably because that list is not complete yet. Remains of dead people are still found scattered on the sites of the attack.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel

There are rocket attacks every day. There was a huge rocket attack at midnight on 12/31-1/1.

When will humanitarian aid be sent to Israel for the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the war zones in southern and northern Israel? Anything about this issue in the media that doesn't report on dead Israelis?

 

It's not just American colleges protesting, here's a short report out of India that is pretty good about Israelis trying to protest.

 

Soldiers getting themselves killed while trying to kill others I really wouldn't count. I am curious how many hostages Hamas has intentionally killed (ie, not killed by Israeli bombing inadvertantly killing the hostages) since they are Hamas' only bargaining chip. Lebanon isn't Hamas, so that's not relevant to my query. The bus stop killing you speak of is more what I was asking. How frequent and how many have died from these?

I'm curious how many and how we know about it, and especially if it is more than just the IDF's say so.

This is interesting and alarming. Thanks for posting it.

Are you certain humanitarian aid hasn't been sent for them? It may have been.

 

The report is crap.

 

Israeli soldiers in Gaza are protecting Israeli citizens. They are our husbands, fathers, children, grandchildren, siblings. Each and every one of them counts.

It doesn't really matter if the dead hostages were intentionally killed by Hamas or not. Hamas is responsible for their deaths anyway. They'd still be alive if they weren't kidnapped.

I don't know how many of the hostages have been killed by Hamas. Nobody knows. Hamas is not exactly forthcoming with information. Bodies of dead hostages have been found by soldiers, but there's no way to be sure there aren't more dead hostages in other places.

Hamas armed wing says it fired 16 rockets at Israel from southern Lebanon
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023...ed-16-rockets-at-israel-from-southern-lebanon

They're all on the list linked in my post. I really don't want to google more for details. It hurts.

What do you mean, how we know about it? There are people whose job is to monitor borders and events near borders. That's how we know.

I don't know how many infiltration attempts took place. There were several from Lebanon and Syria, and I know of one from Gaza. I don't know if all such attempts were reported by the media.

I'm really curious how many of these attacks have made headlines in MSM.

Yes, I'm certain. International bodies and various so-called human rights NGOs are blind and deaf to Jewish suffering.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-777223

 

True. But also true that they may still be alive if Israel wasn't doing so much bombing, and even killing escaped hostages waving white flags in that one case.

I tend to doubt that Hamas would kill the hostages, since the hostages are their only leverage in the conflict.

I wouldn't put much stock in anyting coming out of IDF self reporting, and no, that isn't a bias against Israel. I would not put much stock in any military's self reporting. Such is likely to be very steeped in propaganda. I would be more interested in seeing any sort of 3rd party reporting (not Hamas or Israel) or physical evidence.

Do you think there are efforts within Israel to hush such reports of Hamas incursions? That's possible though I'm not sure what the motive would be. Israel is already well on top in terms of power, so has little need to bluff on that front. But I guess it may help avoid public panic.

I don't think that is true. I think there are charitable organizations that help out Israeli people who are victims of terrorism just as there are for other victims. Israel is a modern and fairly wealthy country, and has US backing. If there was no charity for these victims I would be very surprised.

 

Explosion in Beirut Kills Top Hamas Official

Meetings with Hamas officials are high risk affair.

'Hamas confirmed that Arouri was killed in the explosion along with two leaders of its militant wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) later said that Arouri was killed in a strike targeting a meeting of Palestinian factions. Six others were killed and 11 injured, NNA said.'

https://www.al-monitor.com/original...ut-lebanon-israel-tension-soars#ixzz8NiR8qibI

 

This is an incredibly evil, albeit typical for anti-Zionists, inversion of victim and perpetrator. The dead hostages may still be alive if they were not kidnapped and killed by Hamas. Hamas is the culprit, not Israel, not IDF, not the Zionists.

Hamas is counting on the international community and public opinion to stop Israel, as it always happened until today. Hostages are just a bargaining chip to release as many terrorists from Israeli prisons as possible. Hamas is also counting on the families of the hostages to put pressure on the Israeli government to obtain a prolonged ceasefire until all hostages are freed. Such a ceasefire would greatly help Hamas. Killing hostages is part of their psychological warfare, a way to shift public opinion in Israel in favor of a prolonged ceasefire until all hostages are released. They can play this game for years.

What do you call "physical evidence"? Terrorists waving at you from the border?

IDF is not a professional army, nor are they mercenaries. They are our families. I very much doubt that lies on such a scale could be kept secret for long. Besides, infiltration attempts are taking place for decades, it's not something new. Like Samir Kuntar, who murdered a family and a policeman in Israel. Such infiltrations are a common tactic used by terrorists long before 1967 when Jordan and Egypt ruled West Bank and Gaza. Google fedayeen, or Palestinian fedayeen.

No, "hush" is not the correct term. Military censure is sometimes necessary to avoid leaks of sensitive information to the enemy. The public here is well aware of all sorts of terrorist tactics. We don't panic easily.

I wasn't talking about charitable organizations. The UN bodies and major NGOs, including the Red Cross, UNICEF, and women's rights organizations, couldn't care less about Israelis.

 

Hamas Update

Tragic: Hamas Loses Two Leaders In One Day https://buff.ly/4aIMTfi

 

There is enough wrong to go around. The IDF is not flawless and should be criticized when they do bad things or make sloppy mistakes. Killing people who are surrendering, with shirts off, hands up and with a white flag, is such a case. That they were escaped hostages only makes it worse. Yes, the IDF can be held responsible for their failings, and you can at the same time recognize that Hamas is worse. It isn't an inversion of victim and perpetrator. It is different victims of different actions, and some (such as the hostages) can be victimized by multiple perpetrators in conflict iwth each other.

Correct. I am capable of recognizing Hamas doing heinous wrong, while simultaneously criticizing Israel for wrong it does. One does not excuse the other.

Professional armies and mercenaries are made up of people with families.

Such lies would be exposed eventually, yes. But such lies only need to be maintained in the moment. The whole mess post-9/11 leading to lies about WMD etc come to mind.

 

Try reading the Israeli media. IDF is heavily criticized, the government is heavily criticized, the opposition is heavily criticized, and even the media is heavily criticizing itself for past mistakes. Are you under the impression that Israel is a dictatorship that suppresses freedom of speech?

Those Israelis wouldn't have died, and Israeli soldiers wouldn't have been put in the position to make such a horrendous mistake, if not for Hamas' actions.

The soldiers are not in Gaza because they really want to. They too are victims of this war, of Hamas and other Islamist organizations.

Moral equivalence fallacy.

Professional soldiers and their families depend on the army for their livelihood. Most IDF soldiers and their families do not. Huge difference in attitudes toward the army.

Except there's no need to lie about infiltrations since infiltrations and infiltration attempts have been a constant feature of terror attacks in Israel since its inception.

Withholding information for security purposes is military censure, not a lie.

The Israeli government at the time advised against the invasion of Iraq, by the way.

Read The Times of Israel, Ynetnews, or Jerusalem Post to understand what is happening in Israel, and how information is handled. Not the New York Times, CNN, BBC, Reuters.

 

No. I was not responding to any of them. I was responding to you. I was addressing what you wrote. It is not an "inversion" to hold Israel responsible for the wrong it does and mistakes it makes. You can hold Hamas responsible at the same time.

Yes. I already agreed with you on that. I also recognize that Israel hasn't been behaving well either.

And of Israel.

No. Recognizing bad wherever it is does not mean you are equivocating. Hamas and Israel have done different wrongs and we can recognize both for what they are, rather than fall onto tribal refusal to criticize one side just because the other is worse.

 

Israel should not get carte blanche for anything and everything it does ..even if it is in response to a horrific attack. Just because one has been victimized , does not give them license to behave badly.

 

Now it's affected the NBA:

 

So sorry to hear about this in Toronto: