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How Hamas Uses Words and Manipulation as Weapons
I spent the first two weeks of the Hamas war in Jerusalem, with life punctuated by screaming air-raid sirens and the blessed booms of Iron Dome interceptions. Since then, back in Washington, D.C., I wish we had an Iron Dome device to shoot down the bad ideas and bogus phrases that play a crucial role in Hamas’ strategy to generate hatred of Israel, spark Arab and Muslim uprisings, derail Saudi Arabia’s normalization policy, and, ultimately, kill all of Hamas’s enemies (a category of which the Israelis are only a part). Let’s try to intercept a few of them.
Hamas knows it cannot defeat the Israeli army, so it fights an asymmetric war. It kills Israeli civilians and cruelly hides among Palestinian civilians so that Israelis, in defending themselves, get blamed for unintentionally killing those unfortunate civilians. The war aim is not military. It is to influence public opinion around the world. The internet is a key front. News stories, ideas, memes, and words are essential.
When American journalists fall for Hamas tricks, it is hard to tell if they are gulls or confederates. The Wall Street Journal now points out that Hamas runs the Ministry of Health in Gaza. The New York Times now explains that the ministry is “part of the Hamas government.” But The Washington Post continues to cite that ministry for casualty information, at times without acknowledging that it is an arm of Hamas. Do Post reporters really think that a group that organizes mass rapes and the knifing of babies is credible in reporting about its enemies?
The war against Israel involves bizarre contortions of political terminology. Consider the terms “moderate” and “extremist.” The Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs almost all the Arab residents of the West Bank and is reputed to be moderate, is backing Hamas in this war. The PA president denounces Israel for “aggression,” and the PA prime minister accuses Israel of “genocide” in Gaza. Having said America is “with Israel,” President Biden cannot be happy that these “moderates” are accusing him of supporting aggression and genocide. His enraged denunciations of the October 7 massacre suggest that it changed his views of Hamas. He now seems aware that the Palestinian extremists are even more extreme than he had previously understood. Perhaps he will see also that the Palestinian “moderates” are far less moderate than he understood.
In every speech, President Biden pleads for a “two-state solution,” implying that Israel could achieve that goal if it wanted to. But what keeps such a peace out of reach are the extremism, hatred, and unwillingness to compromise of Palestinian leaders in the PA as well as Hamas. All of this should be easier to discern now than before October 7 — and it all warns against giving the PA control over Gaza after Hamas is destroyed. The Palestinians need new leaders altogether. Otherwise, there cannot be peace.
Similar word games are played with the term “refugee.” Take Gaza’s Jabaliya “refugee camp.” The astute Bret Baier of Fox News wondered aloud why it is called a refugee camp, as it is full of permanent structures. Good question. The answer is that the United Nations defines “refugee” differently for Palestinian Arabs than for anyone else. There is one UN refugee office for Palestinians (UNRWA) and one for the rest of the world (UNHCR). Displaced people who are not Palestinian Arabs are refugees only until they find a place to live for an extended time, which is usually within a year or two, maybe three.
According to UNRWA, however, Palestinian Arabs from Israeli-controlled land remain refugees for their whole lives, and their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on also qualify as refugees. By that definition, Tel Aviv is a refugee camp. New York too, for that matter. And London and Paris.
One of the most potent verbal missiles fired at Israel by its enemies is the accusation that it is “colonialist.” This is an especially gross case of the fraudulent manipulating the stupid.
Colonialists staked claims on behalf of their imperialist motherlands. Think of the British in India or the French in their African colonies. After Zionists began urging a “return” to Zion in the late 19th century, the typical Jew who came to build a Jewish-majority state arrived as a refugee, with little to no money. He staked no claim for the country he came from, and thought of that country as anti-Jewish and oppressive — by no means his motherland. He saw Palestine, which he called the Land of Israel, as his motherland. Jews are indigenous there. Arabs also think of themselves as indigenous, though it was relatively recently (in A.D. 7th century) that they colonized Palestine on behalf of the Arab Empire founded by the Prophet Muhammed. Since then, whenever Arabs or Muslims controlled Palestine, the land was a colonial province of a non-Palestinian empire based in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, or Istanbul. Who, then, are the colonialists?
And now, Israel is being pressed to make “humanitarian pauses” to ensure that food and other supplies make it into Gaza. Is there another case in the annals of the human race when a country at war was duty-bound to sustain a population under enemy control before the enemy surrendered? Wars have often been decided by which side most effectively cuts supplies to the other side. That was how the Allies won the First World War. Remarkably, when Germany surrendered unconditionally in 1918, there was not a single Allied soldier on German soil. The Allies won not by taking Germany over, but by preventing supplies from getting in. If a foreign diplomat had told British leaders that they had a humanitarian duty to feed the Germans before they surrendered, he would have been dismissed as clueless, if not crazy. Even so, Israel is allowing massive quantities of humanitarian aid into Gaza, though there seems to be wall-to-wall opposition in Israel to any kind of cease-fire, even one that is labeled a “pause.”
The promoters of pauses also commonly express fear that Islamophobia is surging in the West. The warning is better received if it comes from principled opponents of bigotry. But Hamas supporters denounce anti-Muslim bigotry while championing obliteration of the Jews. In any event, is there anything that generates hostility toward Islam and Muslims more than committing mass rape, burning live people, and butchering babies, at the hands of people who proclaim that they are acting in the name of Islam? Nothing will help the fight against Islamophobia more than the destruction of Hamas.
Let’s end on a hopeful note. People naturally wonder what will come after this round of war ends. The nothing-gets-accomplished-by-violence school argues that, no matter how many Hamas members Israel kills, other Palestinians will replace them, and in any event, Hamas’ ideas can’t be killed. But that’s not necessarily true.
Hitler’s defeat effectively ended Nazism in Germany (at least it has for nearly 80 years). Likewise, when the Tokyo military regime was destroyed, its extremist ideology went with it. And though Marxism-Leninism is still alive in China, the USSR’s demise buried that ideology in Russia and the other former Soviet states. Ideas, as a practical political matter, can actually be killed and buried, perhaps never to be resurrected. Another example, closer to home: The American South’s pro-slavery ideology died with the Confederacy and never came back. Ideological movements tend not to regenerate after they spawn wars in which they are devastatingly defeated. This is an optimistic thought for Gaza.
As Israel defeats Hamas — despite the terrorists’ rockets, jihadist ideology, and dishonest propaganda — Gazans have an opportunity to rise up and create a better government, not run by murderous ideological extremists. “Free Palestine” could be reinterpreted to mean that the Arabs there should be freed from the corrupt tyranny of their own bad leadership. Palestinian leaders actually interested in improving the life of their people would treat Israel as a partner, not an enemy.
Douglas J. Feith, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and as under secretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration. This article was originally published at National Review.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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