Saturday, February 10, 2024

Links - 10th February 2024 (1 - Hamas Attack Oct 2023)

Top Israeli TikTok employee resigns over antisemitism - "paid video campaigns about the plight of the Israeli hostages captured on Oct. 7 were rejected for being “too political” while paid campaigns for “humanitarian campaigns that serve Hamas’ narrative, while fundraising for children in Gaza” were accepted. Additionally, the memo alleged that content uploaded by users showing graphic pro-Palestinian content were not removed, despite violating safety policies on the platform, due to biased and politically motivated moderation teams... Other Jewish employees at TikTok have claimed that the work environment is hostile, citing antisemitic posts on Lark, the company’s internal messaging system. Additionally, they said that a support group for Palestinians was created at the company after the war, but not one for Israelis... Jewish content creators on the app have long complained about antisemitic harassment on their accounts, which has risen since the war began. Antisemitic videos often remain up even after being flagged to moderators"

Meme - M.A. Rothman @MichaelARothman: "WE ARE HIRING. Naive college students needed to serve as human shields for ongoing terror campaign. No experience, skills, or intelligence needed. Foreign travel required. Contact: Hamas Human Relations, tunnelvermin@deathcult.com"

Meme - Avi Mayer @AviMayer: "Friday morning in Gaza’s Khan Yunis Sector. An incident that took place with one of the battalions operating under the 4th Brigade:  Before carrying out a raid, the force sent up a drone after spotting a suspicious figure. Through the drone they saw an elderly woman bound to a bed.  The investigator called out to her in Hebrew and Arabic.  The suspicion of a luring event [i.e., an attempt to lure the soldiers into an ambush or a trap] was ruled out. The force went up to the apartment together with the investigator.  They found a 75-year-old woman bound by her arms and in very poor health. Her arms were extremely swollen, and she was severely dehydrated.  The investigator questioned her (the incident has been documented by the IDF) while a doctor treated her on site.  According to the woman, her family fled south. Two Hamas operatives in IDF uniforms arrived, bound her to the bed, and told her to say that the IDF did it. She lay like that for two days.  There are more and more monstrous and insane cases of bound elderly women, boobytrapped elderly men, and other outlandish things.  The time has really come for the IDF Spokesperson to start releasing these materials.  Via @avishaigrinzaig , a reporter for KAN."

Meme - James J. Marlow: "Eight years ago a BBC reporter was given access to the terror tunnels under Gaza. Later in October and November 2023 the BBC claimed that they had "no evidence of tunnels" and they "could not verify Israel's claims". You decide what to believe..."

Hen Mazzig on X - "Once again, Egypt is building up its border with Gaza. Where are the protests? Marches? Cries of "inhumanity," "apartheid," and "open air prisons"? The world is silent because Egyptians are allowed to protect themselves against radical Islamic Jihad, and Jews are not."
The cope is that this is to prevent Israel from ethnically cleansing Gaza.

Mossad Commentary on X - "An Egyptian journalist on government television made an unusual and harsh statement to the residents of Gaza:  If the residents of Gaza try to get close to the Egyptian border and enter our country as refugees, they are doomed. They will die after being shot. You can enter our territory but you will return in death bags. We have no time for your boredom.  They truly hate them"
Why would Israel do this?

Jordan says it beefs up army presence along borders with Israel - "Jordan said on Tuesday the army had beefed up its presence along its borders with Israel and warned that any Israeli attempt to forcibly push Palestinians across the Jordan River would represent a breach of its peace accord with its neighbour."
Good way to stop Palestinians from entering Jordan and demonise Israel at the same time

Visegrád 24 on X - "The student who was harassed by woke activists in Berlin a few weeks ago suffered serious injuries this weekend after an Arab, who recognized him from the video below, attacked him The student is the grandson of an Israeli who was killed by terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics"

Thread by @The_Bear_Jew18 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Hamas' social media fans were accusing Israel of genocide on Oct. 7, BEFORE any IDF response.  Just as mass demonstrations in the streets spontaneously materialized within hours of the massacre, so did mass claims of "genocide".  As if organized, on cue.... This is October 7 in Berlin. Celebrations & calls for the destruction of the world's only Jewish state....  What other cause is able to mobilize people to rally this quickly? Long thread of mass, spontaneous demonstrations on October 7 in Turkey, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and Jordan.... It took up to 24 hours for western cities to organize mass rallies for Hamas, calling for the destruction of Israel... On "X" (Twitter) as if following a Hamas script written in advance, they all fell into line accusing Israel of genocide while the Oct 7 massacre was still raging; before any IDF response. Hamas appeared ready in advance to deploy its social media "armed" wing of useful idiots & Jew-hating cranks in order to slow down the imminent IDF response... Not only predictions of imminent genocide from October 7, but assertions that it's ongoing for decades, as "Hulk" Mark Ruffalo and other cranks postulate. It's a "decades" long genocide....  Obviously the worst, most incompetent attempt ever on record considering Palestinian population growth over the same time period...  So what exactly is going on here with "genocide" accusations pre-dating October 7 and before any IDF response to Hamas' massacre?  What's with spontaneous Nazi rallies worldwide?"

Douglas Murray on X - "My event in central London tonight has been moved after the theatre that was meant to be hosting it cowered to a campaign of intimidation. We have arrived at the point where theatres in London no longer feel safe to support free speech - or at least not when the subject is about Jews or Israel. When even the threat of a threat is enough to cause such fear amongst staff members that they refuse to show up to work, we all have a very big problem. Meantime the event will still be going ahead. I have no intention of buckling to extremists, even if the theatre in question has."

IDF publish footage of rocket launches from a school in the Gaza Strip, later bombs the launcher : CombatFootage
Why would Israel kill children?
Hamas = Hiding among mosques and schoolchildren

Israel-Hamas war misinformation on social media is harder to track - "In the days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, researchers flagged dozens of accounts pushing a coordinated disinformation campaign related to the war, and a separate report from the Technology Transparency Project found Hamas has used premium accounts on X to spread propaganda videos... “One of the things that is touted for that [premium] service is that you get prioritized algorithmic ranking and searches,” Technology Transparency Project Director Katie Paul said. Hamas propaganda is getting the same treatment, she said, “which is making it even easier to find these videos that are also being monetized by the platform.”"

South Africa asks ICC to exempt it from Putin arrest to avoid war with Russia
Clearly they care greatly about international law, which is why they brought the case against Israel to the ICJ

Hillel Fuld on X - "I am not going to say that anyone protesting against Israel has actual mental issues but I’m kinda saying that.   If you are one of those people yelling to globalize Intifada, ask yourself whether you’d call for murder and rape if anyone else besides the Jews were on the receiving end.   Literally these people have a distortion field that is created by deep hatred of Jews.   How else do you explain the same people calling for a ceasefire and then in the same breath, calling for violence against Jews? Make up your mind. Those two things are by definition mutually exclusive. You can’t have both.   How else do you explain the same people saying they’re not antisemitic and then attacking actual Jews even though they have never stepped foot in Israel? How is that not antisemitic?   How else do you explain them yelling about occupation when there was not a single Jew, dead or alive (Israel actually dug up its dead in 2005 when they left Gaza) in Gaza since 2005?   How else do you explain them yelling about genocide when the ratio of terrorist to civilian is the lowest in almost any war?! And mind you, that is based on Hamas numbers! In reality the civilian death count is significantly lower. Not to mention the fact that the Palestinian population has multiplied by 6 since Israel was established. How else do you explain adults, otherwise normal people, ripping down posters of innocent babies and children abducted by Hamas while claiming to care about human rights?  How else do you explain otherwise intelligent people attacking Jews unprovoked knowing full well they will be held accountable for their actions either by the law or by history?  I’m telling you, they say hatred blinds, but the hatred of Jews is a whole other level.    People protesting against Israel, people who stand with Hamas who are rapists and pedophiles, have serious mental issues and need to seek help immediately.   There. I said it. Look at this monster. Look into his cold murderous eyes. You side with him, you side with evil. We see you and won’t forget it.   The good news for you? It’s not too late to stand with Israel and join us as we eradicate evil. You are welcome into our club at any time.   This is one of those moments in history in which not choosing a side is choosing a side. This is one of those moments that you’ll look back and regret not standing with the Jews.   Open your eyes and stand with the forces of light as we extinguish the darkness of radical Islam."

Visegrád 24 on X - "Fathi Hamas, a Hamas leader and former Interior Minister speaking in 2019:  “We mustn’t just kill Jews in Israel, we need to kill them across the world”  Ceasefire and leaving these guys in charge of Gaza? It won’t happen. No chance…"
Eylon Levy on X - "When you say, “Globalize the intifada,” this is what it actually means, courtesy of the people who do the intifada."

Meme - Renée @dntrefertome: "HAMAS IS MY ARMY
SOMALI PIRATES IS MY NAVY
HOUTHIS ARE MY AIR FORCE
WE SALUTE OUR HEROES IN THIS HOUSE"
Renée @dntrefertome: 25 I genderfucked girlthing I it/its I talks in 3rd person sometimes I queer & trans I autistic I anti hero-worship I condones violence and revenge I $rennbyars"

Port of Vancouver blocked by protestors - "Dozens of demonstrators temporarily blocked entrances to the Port of Vancouver in East Vancouver Thursday, calling for an “immediate arms embargo on Israel.”"

Pro-Israel British MP says he won't seek reelection due to relentless threats, attacks - "A British lawmaker who represents a mainly Jewish area and holds pro-Israel views has announced he will not seek reelection, because of a spate of threats and an arson attack on his office.  Mike Freer’s decision comes as antisemitic incidents surge in the UK in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas...   Since he was first elected in 2010, Freer has been targeted by Muslims Against Crusades, which the UK government has banned as a terror organization. That, and the 2021 murder of fellow Conservative MP David Amess, had placed “intolerable stress” on his husband and wider family, he writes.  Amess’s killer Ali Harbi Ali, an Islamic State group follower, had visited Freer’s constituency office but he was not there."

Langara College instructor who praised Hamas attack has been fired - "A Langara College instructor who praised the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas is no longer an employee at the Vancouver school.  But Natalie Knight, an English instructor and Indigenous curriculum consultant, was apparently not dismissed for her controversial statement about the Hamas attack, which killed about 1,200 people, but for her conduct at a rally this week. Knight went on leave after referring to the attack as an “amazing, brilliant offensive” during a pro-Palestinian rally outside the Vancouver Art Gallery in October.  She was quietly reinstated after an investigation by Langara College found her comments “were not clearly outside the bounds of protected expression.”  On Friday, Langara announced Knight was no longer with the college.  In a letter to students, faculty and staff, Langara said Knight was allowed to return to work with the expectation she would comply with the college’s policies and would “take care to ensure any future remarks could not reasonably be interpreted as celebrating violence against civilians.”  “The employee proceeded to engage in activities contrary to the expectations laid out by the college and as a result this employee is no longer an employee of Langara College,” it said... According to the student paper Langara Voice, Knight told a crowd at a rally on campus Tuesday that she had been reinstated as an instructor without any disciplinary action: “It means we won. It means I did nothing wrong. It means none of you are doing anything wrong.”  Knight told the Voice she would return to work “very soon.”"
Naturally, terrorism supporters claimed she was fired for supporting Palestinians. This tells you what they mean when they talk about supporting Palestinians / supporting Palestine.

Langara college and BCNDP are stifling free speech on Palestine: Knight in! Burns out! | socialist.ca - "The same day that the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, the President and CEO of snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ - Langara College, Dr. Burns, fired English Instructor Dr. Natalie Knight for participating in a rally against that same genocide.   It looks like Dr. Burns is trying to remove all opposition to genocide in Palestine from campus... The President’s email seemed to directly contradict the college’s free speech policy...  Clearly the goal of the college President is not a campus where it is safe for differing views to be expressed, but one where only the views of the President may be championed. Those who are opposed to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Apartheid, starvation, wanton bombing of families in their homes, and all the other horrors by Israel that Canada supports, must fear for their jobs.   Now is not the time to back down. College and university campuses have always been places where progressive students battle the defenders of reaction in the admin offices. And the students and workers on campus can win. Right now, on campus solidarity with Palestine is very popular. In just a few weeks last fall, over 700 students and workers signed a petition to the federal government calling for Canada to call for a ceasefire, an end to the siege, and an end to arms and aid to Israel. We can build on this movement on campus as part of the wider movement to force the Canadian government to take action against the genocide. It’s time for a cross campus walkout to confront the college admin and the provincial and federal governments who support genocide."
This level of delusion is impressive, given that the ICJ did not rule that. The left is also very keen to claim that hate speech is not free speech

The university teacher facing firing for daring to denounce Hamas - "The 59-year-old marketing lecturer at the University of Guelph-Humber came across a post from an educator in Pakistan, who was using what Finlayson considered genocidal language about the conflict in Gaza, by calling for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.” Incensed, Finlayson responded with a post that he admits was “hot-headed and unwise.”  Most reasonable people would probably consider the response to be slightly over-caffeinated but well within the bounds of fair comment.  But most reasonable people do not work as administrators at North American universities in an age when the illiberal left has deemed that anything that makes students or faculty feel “unsafe” must be rooted out and destroyed.  A student who saw the post, responded: “REPORT, REPORT, REPORT.” Another said he or she was “absolutely ashamed” by her professor’s comments, “filled with hate and Islamophobia.” Finlayson has no right to work in academia in future, the student said, a position that appears to correspond with that of the Guelph-Humber administration, which called him in and told him he was suspended with pay, pending an investigation. Courses that he was scheduled to teach next semester are no longer being offered... “It is frightening that an educator is essentially a pro-Nazi zealot,” Finlayson wrote. “If you say ‘from the river to the sea’, you’re a Nazi. I’m not neutral. I stand with Israel. I stand against anti-Semites who want nothing but dead Jews; who take millions from their education and health care budgets and spend it on making war. Israel has a full right to their land. You stand with Palestine means you stand with Hitler. You don’t want peace, you want dead Jews. Just like Palestinians who freely admit this to pollsters. They murdered 1,400 innocents and took 250 hostages and the people celebrated rapist monsters as heroes. They want a barbaric, primitive Islamic caliphate and hate all post-Enlightenment values. They murder their own people for being gay and you stand with them. Disgusting. Move there.” Some people might take issue with the interchangeable use of Hamas and the Palestinian people. President Joe Biden has said that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians.  On the other hand, an opinion survey published last week by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research suggested 72 per cent of Palestinians believe that Hamas was “correct” when it slaughtered Israelis on Oct. 7, and a majority would vote for the terror organization if elections were held across the Palestinian territories today. As for the rest of it, it’s all verifiably true: Hamas boasts proudly that it wants nothing more than to kill Jews; it robs its own education and health budgets to fund its war; its murderers and rapists were celebrated like heroes when they returned to Gaza on Oct. 7; its founding charter states is goal is the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state; and being gay in Gaza is illegal, with Amnesty International reporting that the authorities do not prevent or investigate any threats or attacks on the LGBTQ community.  So, what is so distasteful that the Guelph-Humber speech police have been persuaded to investigate? The statement: “I stand with Israel”? Is that now considered “unsafe” for the delicate ears of our coddled student cohort?... Finlayson says there is now a concerted campaign by a group of students to oust him. “I’m hearing ‘hate speech’ and ‘unsafe environment,’ with no concept of free speech. It is a cacophony of uninformed, screaming buzzwords,” he said... The opaque rules of university justice will now run their course, absent much in the way of due process. Finlayson is represented by unions OPSEU and CUPE, whose Ontario president Fred Hahn memorably celebrated “the power of resistance” the day after Hamas slaughtered hundreds of Israeli men, women and children. “I don’t know how anyone who agrees with Fred Hahn can be on my side,” Finlayson said.  Once again, a career is threatened with ruin because all the emphasis is on the impact on the listener or reader, rather than on the intent of the speaker or writer.  The lesson that appears to be lost is that, while students should be physically safe in the corridors of our higher education establishments, they are not in jeopardy when they hear something with which they may disagree."
Is saying that denouncing terrorism and ethnic cleansing is Islamophobia an Islamophobic claim, since it links terrorism and ethnic cleansing and Islam?

German police seize bomb-making material in raids on Hamas suspects - "German police have removed boxes of ice pack gels used to make explosives from properties linked to four men arrested on Thursday night over a Hamas plot to attack Jewish institutions in Europe... The ice pack gel contains ammonium nitrate which can be used to make improvised explosives, German tabloid Bild reported.  All four suspects were members of Hamas with links to its military wing, German prosecutors said. Three of them were arrested in Berlin and the fourth was held in the Netherlands."
Security agencies expose Hamas operatives planning terror attacks in Europe
"Resistance" means Jews all around the world need to be killed. The terrorism supporters want to "globalise the intifada" after all

No European country more than Germany is going further in clamping down on Hamas - "According to The George Washington University, charitable organizations are one of the most common vehicles used by Hamas networks in the West to collect funds.  Matthew Levitt, a director at pro-Israel American think tank the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former U.S. official specializing in counterterrorism, told CNN that Hamas is using Europe as a “cash cow.”  “Hamas is pretty good at laundering funds and masking what it is doing,” he said.  “The majority of people who are donating to these charities don’t know [they are supporting Hamas] because they present themselves as charities that are just helping Palestinians.”...   Schindler believes that Hamas has been increasing its propaganda efforts in Europe because it knows it cannot win a conflict by conventional means.  “Hamas understands that there’s no way militarily that they can prevail against the IDF [Israel Defensce Forces]. So they have to have a couple of building blocks in place in order to make sure that Hamas as an organization has a chance to survive”"

No chance for a two-state solution until Palestinian leadership change - "Israel has no partner for peace on the Palestinian side... “To tango, you need two sides,” former Knesset lawmaker Shakib Shanan told myself and the group of journalists I was travelling with through Israel last week... Shanan, a former advisor to the government of Ehud Barak and longtime peace activist is one of many who expressed the same opinion last week, there is no possibility for a two-state solution at the moment because Israel has no partners on the Palestinian side.  That’s the main point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was making earlier this month when he was blasted for rejecting a two-state solution... Hamas is still currently in control of Gaza and quite frankly if elections were held in the West Bank, they would win there as well. The leadership of Hamas have been clear, they plan to attack Israel over and over again without stopping until they have what they want, which is all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.  The Palestinian Authority, supposedly in charge of the West Bank, is often seen as a more moderate force but they aren’t exactly a partner for peace either. The PA still engages in a policy known as pay to slay. Families of those who commit suicide attacks or who are killed while attacking Israel receive pensions paid for by the Palestinian Authority. Those who go to jail as part of the armed struggle against Israel are paid a stipend, given a military rank and promoted the longer they are in prison.  These payments are higher than the average wages earned from working in the West Bank, meaning the PA, the moderates, encourage attacks on Israel in more ways than one."

Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation in History - "No military fighting an entrenched enemy in dense urban terrain in an area barely twice the size of Washington D.C. can avoid all civilian casualties. Reports of over 25,000 Palestinians killed, be they civilians or Hamas, have made headlines. But Israel has taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that's fought an urban war.  In fact, as someone who has served two tours in Iraq and studied urban warfare for over a decade, Israel has taken precautionary measures even the United States did not do during its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... precision guided munitions (PGMs). This term was introduced to nonmilitary audiences during the Gulf War, when the U.S. fired 250,000 individual bombs and missiles in just 43 days. Only a very small fraction of those would fit the definition of PGMs, even though common perceptions of that war, and its comparatively low civilian casualty rate, was that it was a war of precision.  Let's compare that war, which did not ignite anywhere near the same level of outrage internationally, to Israel's current war in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Force has used many types of PGMs to avoid civilian harm, including the use of munitions like small diameter bombs (SDBs), as well as technologies and tactics that increase the accuracy of non-PGMs. Israel has also employed a tactic when a military has air supremacy called dive bombing, as well as gathering pre-strike intelligence on the presence of civilians from satellite imagery, scans of cell phone presence, and other target observation techniques. All of this is to do more pinpoint targeted to avoid civilian deaths. In other words, the simplistic notion that a military must use more PGMs versus non-PGMs in a war is false.  A second misperception is a military's choice of munitions and how they apply the proportionality principle required by the laws of armed conflict. Here there is an assessment of the value of the military target to be gained from an act that is weighted against the expected collateral damage estimate caused by said act. An external viewer with no access to all information cannot say such things as a 500-pound bomb would achieve the military mission of a 2,000-pound bomb with no mention of the context of the value of the military target or the context of the strike—like the target being in a deep tunnel that would require great penetration. Third, one of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare is to provide warning and evacuate urban areas before the full combined air and ground attack commences. This tactic is unpopular for obvious reasons: It alerts the enemy defender and provides them the military advantage to prepare for the attack... By contrast, Israel provided days and then weeks of warnings, as well as time for civilians to evacuate multiple cities in northern Gaza before starting the main air-ground attack of urban areas. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) employed their practice of calling and texting ahead of an air strike as well as roof-knocking, where they drop small munitions on the roof of a building notifying everyone to evacuate the building before a strike.  No military has ever implemented any of these practices in war before. The IDF has also air-dropped flyers to give civilians instructions on when and how to evacuate, including with safe corridors... Israel's use of real phone calls to civilians in combat areas (19,734), SMS texts (64,399) and pre-recorded calls (almost 6 million) to provide instructions on evacuations is also unprecedented. The IDF also conducted daily four-hour pauses over multiple consecutive days of the war to allow civilians to leave active combat areas. While pauses for civilian evacuations after a war or battle has started is not completely new, the frequency and predictability of these in Gaza have been historic.  Another historical first in war measures to prevent civilian causalities was Israel's distribution of IDF military maps and urban warfare graphics to assist civilians with day to day evacuations and alerting them to where the IDF will be operating. No military in history has ever done this... The reality is that when it comes to avoiding civilian harm, there is no modern comparison to Israel's war against Hamas. Israel is not fighting a battle like Fallujah, Mosul, or Raqqa; it is fighting a war involving synchronous major urban battles. No military in modern history has faced over 30,000 urban defenders in more than seven cities using human shields and hiding in hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites, while holding hundreds of hostages.  Despite the unique challenges Israel faces in its war against Hamas, it has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in history... To be clear, I am outraged by the civilian casualties in Gaza. But it's crucial to direct that outrage at the right target. And that target is Hamas.  It is outrageous that Hamas spent decades and billions of dollars building tunnels under civilian homes and protected areas for the sole purpose of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. It is outrageous that Hamas does not allow civilians in their tunnels, that Hamas says and takes actions to create as many civilian deaths as possible—both its own and Israeli. The atrocities committed on Oct. 7 are outrageous. That Hamas fights in civilian clothes, intermixed within civilians, and launches rockets at Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas is outrageous.  The sole reason for civilian deaths in Gaza is Hamas. For Israel's part, it's taken more care to prevent them than any other army in human history."
Most of the terrorism supporters hate the US too, so saying Israel takes more precautions than the US doesn't mean anything to them

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