RSS
When Will the Need to Proclaim, ‘Never Again’ Ever End?
People with Israeli flags attend the International March of the Living at the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
The familiar mantra “Never Again” echoes through the ages as often as Jews have been set upon by their enemies. Will the need to proclaim, “Never Again” ever end?
Let us scroll back to the era of the First Temple in Jerusalem, 2,600 years ago. The Babylonians, under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, destroyed the holy temple and drove the Jews from the Kingdom of Judea into exile. Forty-eight years later, during the reign of Cyrus the Great, the Jews returned to Jerusalem and under King Solomon’s sovereignty were able to build the Second Temple. Then in 70 CE, the Jewish people suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Titus of Rome, and — except for a remnant who managed to remain in Israel — Jews were exiled, enslaved, or murdered by the conquerors.
The surviving Jews found themselves a landless people, sometimes welcomed or begrudgingly tolerated by the inhabitants of foreign lands. The First Crusade erupted in 1096 in Western Germany along the Rhine River, a thousand years after the Jews lost their homeland. The Crusade led to the mass slaughter of Jews who had settled in Rhineland, and the same fate awaited them later in the Holy Land.
One of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages took place in England in 1190; it is known as the York pogrom. The city’s entire Jewish community was trapped by an angry mob inside the tower of York Castle. Members of the Jewish community were forcibly baptized or murdered by the attackers. The survivors of the carnage were summarily expelled from England.
For over two millennia, we Jews have suffered a long and woeful history of oppression, expulsion, and murder. What began in Babylonia, continued in Rome as a never-ending stream of persecution that persisted during the Crusades which flowed into the infamous Spanish pogrom of 1391, when Sephardic Jews were given the option of conversion to Catholicism or death. By 1492, any Jews fortunate to survive, were expelled from Spain.
Following those dark and dangerous days, the remaining Jews scattered throughout the world in what is called the Diaspora. Unfortunately, instead of receiving a friendly and neighborly welcome, they were greeted by Eastern Europe populations with a succession of attacks and massacres in their small villages, known as shtetls. Most notable was the uprising of Cossacks in what is known as the Khmelnitsky pogrom that swept through Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Jews were brutally murdered during the massacres between the years 1648 and 1667.
Two-hundred years passed before Europe’s festering antisemitism once again erupted into violence. Beginning in 1881, the renewal of pogroms plagued the Jewish communities in southern Russia, when thousands of shtetls and their inhabitants were eliminated, culminating in the murder of 250,000 Jews in Ukraine between the years of 1918 and 1920.
Then came the Holocaust. From 1933 to 1945, Germany, with the assistance of all too willing European collaborators, embarked upon the state-sponsored persecution and industrialized murder of six million European Jewish men, women, and children.
Three years after the end of World War II, the modern State of Israel was established. But only one day after Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948, five Arab armies sought to purge the region of Jews. This time it was different; the Jews once again had a homeland to defend. They successfully defeated the existential threat of annihilation posed by the neighboring Arab countries.
The question of, will “Never Again” ever end, was abruptly and savagely answered again on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when approximately 1,200 people were murdered and 250 others abducted into Gaza, including children and infants. Today, the vulnerable Jewish shtetls of yesteryear no longer exist because the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), world Jewry, and morally driven Gentiles, have Israel’s back.
The Oct. 7 jihad occurred because of the genocidal aims of Hamas and its supporting cast of radical Islamist terrorists to rid Israel of its Jews. After thousands of years of being murdered simply for who we are, a vital lesson has been learnt. Elie Wiesel expressed it best: “I learned to trust the threats of enemies before the promises of friends.”
The post When Will the Need to Proclaim, ‘Never Again’ Ever End? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Falsified Polling Data to Indicate Higher Support for Oct. 7 Among Gaza Civilians, IDF Says
Palestinians gather near damage, following what Palestinians say was an Israeli strike at a tent camp in Al-Mawasi area, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that runs Gaza, has been secretly fabricating polling results from civilians of the war-torn enclave in order to hide that the Islamist organization enjoys far less support than previously thought, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The IDF revealed on Thursday that it obtained documents in Gaza showing that Hamas falsified polling data from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). The IDF said that it found the documents while conducting military operations in Gaza.
“The IDF just exposed Hamas for manipulating public opinion surveys by the Palestinian polling institute (PSR) to fake support for its leaders, especially after the October 7 massacre,” the IDF posted on X/Twitter.
#busted : The IDF just exposed Hamas for manipulating public opinion surveys by the Palestinian polling institute (PSR) to fake support for its leaders, especially after the October 7 massacre.
The documents, found during operations in Gaza, show how Hamas altered PSR’s March… pic.twitter.com/Y2AoAy1bBv
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 29, 2024
According to the IDF, the March 2024 polling results were doctored by Hamas “to falsely boost Yahya Sinwar’s popularity,” referring to the terrorist group’s top leader.
A striking 71 percent of Palestinians in Gaza said that Hamas was “correct” in its “decision to attack Israel on October 7th,” according to the allegedly faked polling data. In reality, 31 percent of Gazans expressed support for the Oct. 7 attacks, according to what the IDF characterized as the accurate polling data, representing a difference of roughly 40 percentage points.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas slaughtered roughly 1,200 people throughout southern Israel, captured roughly 250 hostages, and engaged in a systematic rape campaign against women.
Only 23 percent of Gazans indicated that Hamas made the “incorrect” decision to execute the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to the original data. In contrast, over 64 percent of Gazans responded that Hamas made the wrong decision to attack Israel, according to the allegedly accurate data.
The purportedly fabricated polling results suggested that a plurality of Gazans support the use of violence to achieve “Palestinian goals.” The authentic polling data indicated far higher support for non-violent methods, the IDF said.
According to the allegedly fabricated polling results, 39 percent of Gazans support engaging in “armed activity” against Israel. Comparatively, according to the faked data, only 23 percent and 27 percent of respondents believe Palestinians should pursue their goals through “political negotiations” and “non-violent popular resistance,” respectively.
Almost 50 percent of Palestinians in Gaza support engaging in “political negotiations” with Israel, according to the authentic polling data, and nearly 21 percent of Gazans support “non-violent popular resistance.” Only 28 percent of Gazans back “armed activity” against the Jewish state, the same polling data showed.
Moreover, the allegedly authentic polling data suggested that Palestinians are far less bullish on Hamas’s chances of defeating Israel than previously thought.
The faked data indicated that 56 percent of Gazans believe Hamas would “win” the ongoing war in Gaza. The same data set also showed that 18 percent of Gaza civilians think that Israel will defeat Hamas.
In what the IDF described as the accurate data set, only 30 percent of Gaza civilians believe the terrorist group will trounce the Jewish state, and more than 51% of Gazans think that Israel will defeat Hamas.
The IDF argued that the Hamas terrorist group doctored the polling results to bolster the appearance of its own popularity, noting there’s no evidence to suggest PSR was complicit.
“There’s no evidence PSR was involved — Hamas did this on its own. This just proves how far Hamas is willing to go to keep up the appearance of strength,” IDF posted on X/Twitter.
The data appears to undermine the belief that the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas and its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The post Hamas Falsified Polling Data to Indicate Higher Support for Oct. 7 Among Gaza Civilians, IDF Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Treasure Trove explores Israel’s treatment at the United Nations
On May 11, 1949, after the Security Council concluded that Israel is a peace-loving nation, the General Assembly of the United Nations decided to admit the Jewish state as the 59th member of the United Nations. The UN now has 193 members. United Nations Resolution 181 dated Nov. 29, 1947 called for the creation of […]
The post Treasure Trove explores Israel’s treatment at the United Nations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
RSS
Israel Blasts UN Chief for Demanding Stop to West Bank Operation Amid Threat of Return to Suicide Bombings
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the UN headquarters in New York City, US, before a meeting about the conflict in Gaza, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon took a swipe at UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for demanding an end to the Jewish state’s counterterrorism operations in the West Bank at a time when Palestinian leaders have called for a return to suicide bombings against Israel.
Danon on Thursday morning defended the West Bank operations, saying intervention by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is necessary to thwart potential terrorist attacks.
“Since Oct. 7, Iran has been working vigorously to introduce into Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] sophisticated explosive devices that are intended to explode in the centers of cities in Israel,” Danon posted on X/Twitter, referring to the aftermath of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Iran is the chief international sponsor of Hamas, providing the terrorist group with weapons, funding, and training.
“The State of Israel cannot sit idly by and wait for the spectacle of buses and cafes exploding in city centers,” the ambassador continued. “The activity of the IDF forces … is intended for the clear purpose of thwarting terrorist attacks and acts before they are carried out under Iranian direction.”
Danon was responding to Guterres, who hours earlier condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in the West Bank, arguing that they endanger the lives of innocent civilians.
“Latest developments in the occupied West Bank, including Israel’s launch of large-scale military operations, are deeply concerning. I strongly condemn the loss of lives, including of children, and I call for an immediate cessation of these operations,” Guterres posted on X/Twitter.
Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli forces killed several Palestinian terrorists who hid in a mosque during counterterrorism activities in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. One of the men killed was Muhhamad Jabber, also known as Abu Shujaa, the head of the Nur Shams terrorist network, according to a joint statement from the IDF, Israel Security Agency, and Israel Border Police. Jabber, a local commander of the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, was one of the most wanted men in the West Bank involved in planning attacks against Israeli targets, Israeli authorities said.
Guterres’s condemnation came shortly after top Hamas official Khaled Mashal on Wednesday called for a resumption of suicide bombings in the West Bank. According to Arabic media, Mashal said during an address at a conference in Istanbul, Turkey that Palestinians should implement “actual resistance against the Zionist entity [Israel].” He also reportedly said that Hamas wanted to “return to [suicide] operations.”
Mourning the elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, Mashal added, “The enemy has opened the conflict on all fronts, seeking us all, whether we fight or not.”
While Hamas’s core terrorist infrastructure is in Gaza, it has operatives in the West Bank.
Last week, the military wings of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a failed suicide bombing near a synagogue in Tel Aviv. In a statement, Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades said its “martyrdom operations” (suicide attacks) inside Israel would continue as long as the “occupation’s massacres and assassination policy continue” — a reference to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and and the killing of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital last month.
Israeli officials have long accused the UN of having a bias against the Jewish state. Last year, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel twice as often as it did all other countries. Meanwhile, of all the country-specific resolutions passed by the UN Human Rights Council, nearly half have condemned Israel, a seemingly disproportionate focus on the lone democracy in the Middle East.
Just weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, the UN adopted a resolution calling for a “ceasefire” between the two sides. The UN failed to pass a measure condemning the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.
In June, the UN put Israel on its so-called “list of shame” of countries that kill children in armed conflict. Israel is considered to be the only democracy on the list.
Since Oct. 7, top Israeli officials have called on Guterres to resign as secretary-general of the UN, arguing he is unfit to lead and emboldening terrorism.
The post Israel Blasts UN Chief for Demanding Stop to West Bank Operation Amid Threat of Return to Suicide Bombings first appeared on Algemeiner.com.