A person stands in front of a montage of images of hostages seized by Hamas during a demonstration in Tel Aviv demanding their release. Photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen

As US voters headed to the polls on Tuesday to select their next president and representatives in Congress, supporters of Israel issued reminders that seven Americans were unable to join their fellow countrymen because they were still being held hostage in Gaza by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

On Oct. 7 of last year, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 45 Americans and abducted 12 into Gaza during their massacre across southern Israel. As of now, seven American hostages remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza. Four of them — Keith Siegel, Omer Neutra, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and Edan Alexander — are thought to still be alive. The other three — Itay Chen, Gad Haggai, and Judi Weinstein Haggai — are believed to be murdered by the terrorist group with their bodies still in the Palestinian enclave.

On Tuesday, election day in the US, some pro-Israel voters urged the electorate to keep the American hostages in mind as they made their selections.

“Remember that while you are voting today, there are a lot of people who can’t — like the American hostages who are being held captive by Hamas,” Seattle radio host Ari Hoffman posted on X/Twitter.

“As we exercise our democratic rights, we will not forget those denied theirs,” added the American Jewish Committee. “For 396 days, US citizens Itay, Eden, Keith, Sagui, Gadi, Judith, and Omer have been held hostage by Hamas — three of them have been murdered. Remember them as you and millions of Americans exercise your right to vote.”

Over the weekend, Jewish actor and comedian Michael Rapaport expressed similar sentiments, saying his election “endorsement” is for the hostages.

“I’ve endorsed ISRAEL, JEWS, & the HOSTAGES. My endorsement is for the 101 Hostages to be freed. My endorsement is for the 7 American Hostages to be released. I endorse all Jews & Zionists,” he posted on social media.

The Biden administration, in which Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris currently serves as vice president, has faced criticism from both sides of the political aisle for being unable to secure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

Criticism spiked when American-Israel hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin was murdered by Hamas terrorists two months ago right before Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers could rescue him. He was found along with five other hostages  in a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Hamas terrorists had executed them prior to a raid by Israeli forces.

Both Harris and her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, have promised to prioritize the return of the American hostages if they were to win the White House. 

While speaking at an event focusing on antisemitism in August, Trump suggested that Hamas would suffer consequences if he wins the presidency and the hostages are not returned.

“We want our hostages back, and they better be back before I assume office,” Trump said. “They’re not going to keep people around for now three years; they’re not going to be taking care of them for three years.”

One month earlier, Trump called for the release of all American hostages around the world during the final night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump has also repeatedly blamed Harris and incumbent President Joe Biden for the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, arguing that their supposed weakness emboldened Hamas to attack the Jewish state. 

Harris has also made the release of the hostages a focal point in many of her campaign speeches. The vice president has also met with the families of the American hostages, promising that she would do everything in her power to ensure their safe return home. 

“[The Israel-Hamas war] must end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal, and we need the hostages out,” Harris said during her presidential debate with Trump in September. 

Securing the freedom of the hostages remains a priority for Americans invested in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. According to an Harvard-Harris poll from last month, nearly 7 in 10 Americans said they believe that Israel should only strike a ceasefire deal with Hamas after the hostages are freed.

According to the poll, Americans believe Trump will be more “effective” at resolving the Israel-Hamas war than Harris by a margin of 47-37 percent.

The post As US Voters Cast Ballots, Seven Americans Are Still Being Held Hostage by Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Demonstrators wearing masks depicting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Democratic presidential nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris hold signs, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 7, 2024. Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne via Reuters Connect

School textbooks in Ireland foster antisemitic hatred, downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust and portraying Israel as the obstructive party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a new report.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli education watchdog group, on Monday released the report, titled “European Textbooks: Ireland Review,” which revealed negative stereotypes and distortions of Israel, Judaism, and Jewish history.

The findings were unveiled amid a surge in anti-Israel animus in Ireland and even the promotion of antisemitic conspiracies by government officials. Against this backdrop, Impact-se found that Irish textbooks authors have stuffed their works with contextt likely to further fuel such an environment.

In one example cited by the report, a history textbook for eleventh graders describes Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland where 1 million Jews were murdered during World War II, as a “prisoner of war camp” rather than an “extermination,” “concentration,” or “death camp.” Such a description “minimizes the unique and horrific nature of the Holocaust and the systematic extermination carried out there,” according to Impact-se.

In other textbooks — including Inspire – Wisdom of the World, a religious studies book distributed to students as young as 12 years old — Judaism is described as a war mongering religion which “believes that violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.” Christianity and Islam are more favorably judged as aiming for “peace and justice” and, in the latter, resorting to war only in “self-defense, to defend Islam but not to spread Islam and to protect people who are oppressed.”

The same book goes on to negate the charitable endeavors in which Jewish civil society organizations engage to ease the plight of the marginalized and poor, omitting them entirely from a section discussing efforts to combat homelessness.

“In this chapter, we are going to look at how some Christians and Muslims have responded to this issue by putting their faith into action. We are also going to look at how some non-religious people and organizations respond to homelessness,” Inspire says before continuing to show a series of graphics which present Christians, Muslims, and secular organizations as altruistic and conscientious.

Irish curricula is perhaps most aggressive in discussing Israel and the Palestinians, according to Impact-se. Citing Inspire again, the report revealed that the textbook’s authors chose to propagate the misleading claim that Jesus Christ lived in “Palestine,” a piece of disinformation that has been trafficked by anti-Zionist activists both to diminish Jesus’ Jewish heritage and deny the existence of a Jewish state in antiquity.

“Historical references to Jesus living in ‘Palestine’ without appropriate context can contribute to narratives that challenge Israel’s legitimacy and undermine the Jewish historical connection to the land,” wrote Impact-se, which also noted that a textbook for younger children on the story of Jesus included a comic strip with the words, “Some people did not like Jesus.” The people shown  in the comic are visibly Jewish, wearing religious clothing such as a kippah.

“This portrayal aligns with antisemitic stereotypes that have wrongly blamed Jews collectively for the death of Jesus,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, Impact-se noted that Inspire uses the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan to accuse Jews of lacking concern for non-Jews and of oppressing Palestinians for believing that God favors Jews above other groups — baseless claims which the text explicitly applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Having attacked Israel with theological arguments, it moves to the realm of the secular, framing the losses of territory from what would have been a Palestinian state under United Nations Resolution 181 had not Palestinian Arabs — and their allies — launched a series of failed wars to expel Jews from the region as the “Shrinking of Palestine.”

“Similarly, the textbook oversimplifies the issue of Palestinian refugees, neglecting to clarify that the 5 million UN-recognized refugees are mainly descendants of the original refugees, rather than individuals who directly fled their homes,” Impact-se wrote in response to Inspire World‘s portrayal of the historical record. “This crucial distinction overlooks the fact that this is the only case in international law where refugee status is inherited through generations. As a result, the refugee crisis is portrayed as ongoing and substantial, while under normal international law, most of these 5 million people would not be considered refugees.”

In a press release accompanying the report, Impact-se chief executive officer Marcus Sheff called on Irish lawmakers to be an antidote to the poisons of antisemitic bias and blood libel.

“Textbooks are a window into what societies will look like in years to come. As such, Irish textbooks are deeply troubling,” Sheff said. “The Holocaust is glossed over and at times minimized, in an age where the butchering of Jews is fresh in the memory. The Irish curriculum views Jews and Judaism as a lesser part of Ireland’s social fabric, while Israel is exclusively portrayed as antagonistic. In this context, the worrying growing hostility that Jews and Israelis in Ireland are experiencing, should come as no surprise. If Ireland’s leaders wish to reverse this trend, then they must place the country’s curriculum high on their agenda.”

The report came out almost a month after an Irish official, Dublin City Councilor Punam Rane, claimed during a council meeting that Jews and Israel control the US economy, arguing that is why Washington, DC does not oppose Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Ireland has been among the most vocal critics of Israel since Oct. 7 of last year, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded the Jewish state from neighboring Gaza. The terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and abducted over 250 hostages in their rampage, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling the terrorist group’s military and governing capabilities.

Antisemitism in Ireland has become “blatant and obvious” in the wake of the Hamas onslaught, according to Alan Shatter, a former member of parliament who served in the Irish cabinet between 2011 and 2014 as Minister for Justice, Equality and Defense.

Shatter told The Algemeiner in an interview earlier this year that Ireland has “evolved into the most hostile state towards Israel in the entire EU.”

Ireland officially recognized a Palestinian state in May, prompting outrage in Israel, which described the move as a “reward for terrorism.”

Israel’s Ambassador in Dublin Dana Erlich said at the time that Ireland was “not an honest broker” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Last week, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris called on the European Union to “review its trade relations” with Israel, after the Israeli parliament passed a law banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, due to its ties to Hamas.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Irish School Textbooks Disparage Judaism, Defame Israel, Watchdog Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv , Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: Abir Sultan/Pool via REUTERS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, citing a lack of trust as Israel continued its military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Unfortunately, over the past months, the trust between me and the minister of defense has been broken,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “There were significant gaps regarding the management of the [military] campaign, and these gaps were accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted the decisions of the government.”

In a letter reported by Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu told Gallant that his dismissal would be effective 48 hours after delivery of the note. “I would like to thank you for your work as defense minister,” the premier wrote.

Netanyahu appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to succeed Gallant as defense minister, and Gideon Saar will become the new foreign minister.

The government shakeup came amid not only Israel’s ongoing military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah but also the looming threat of another direct attack from the Islamist terror groups’ chief backer, Iran.

Last Sunday, Gallant said in remarks to a memorial ceremony in Jerusalem that Iran was no longer able to effectively use its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel.

The post Israeli PM Netanyahu Fires Defense Minister Gallant: ‘Trust Has Been Broken’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.