RSS
Media Lies About Hamas Harm the United States
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
JNS.org – Former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh explained why he has no problem when Palestinians in Gaza are killed: “The blood of the women, children and elderly … we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”
Haniyeh was recently assassinated in Tehran. Despite his monstrous deeds over the decades, some prominent media lamented the passing of what they called a “moderate.”
Likewise, many media attempt to whitewash Hamas terrorists and the group itself, which is designated by the United States, Canada, the UK, EU and Japan as a terrorist organization. Strikingly, mainstream media doggedly avoid the label, preferring to call Hamas terrorists “fighters,” “militants” or “gunmen.” Encyclopedia Britannica says felicitously that Hamas is a “militant Palestinian nationalist and Islamist movement,” avoiding the terrorist designation.
But the word terrorism means something. It describes violent acts directed at innocent civilians to achieve a political or military objective. It’s the precise word for what Palestinians—and especially Hamas—do on a daily basis.
Indeed, Palestinians have honed their terrorism tactics over decades to a gruesome, deadly skill, which they’ve used to kill and injure thousands of Israelis in suicide bombings of public buses, restaurants and religious events.
But Hamas has taken terrorism to new levels—from their targeting of some 10,000 rockets at Israel’s civilian centers to the barbaric Oct. 7 massacre, in which they mutilated, raped and kidnapped some 1,500 innocent children, elderly, mothers and fathers.
When a media organization chooses not to describe such acts as terrorism but rather to use words like “resistance”—they are lying. But more than lying: Under the cover of “journalism,” they promote a radical-left political line, which in Hamas’s case is justification to kill Jews as part of a global Islamist jihad.
Indeed, much media coverage of Hamas supports the terrorist group’s false narrative that it is a liberation movement fighting for Palestinian independence, rather than for the Islamic state clearly described in its official charter.
The media’s whitewash of Haniyeh, Hamas and its savage terrorist minions openly serves to support campus radicals who call for genocide in Israel “from the river to the sea.” These media lies also falsely excuse the Biden administration’s restrictions on weapon shipments to Israel and its calls for an immediate ceasefire, preventing Israel’s destruction of Hamas.
Haniyeh was no “moderate.” For 30 years, he developed an organization of monsters. While media in the 1930s often made excuses for Adolf Hitler’s aggression, they never called him a moderate. But that’s exactly what the BBC and The Washington Post called Haniyeh. CNN called him a “moderating force,” while The Wall Street Journal described him as “the strongest voice advocating for a ceasefire.”
Yet Haniyeh bore responsibility for all Hamas’s evils—from expelling the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007 to throwing members of the Fatah ruling party from rooftops and bombing Israeli population centers to the Oct. 7 mass murder. Haniyeh is an undisputed war criminal for headquartering Hamas military forces in and under civilian residences, schools, hospitals and mosques. No wonder the US named him a “specially designated global terrorist.”
The media disguise Hamas as if they are not terrorists at all. Indeed, Al Jazeera describes the group’s genocidal acts as “armed resistance,” as does PBS, which used the same term to describe Hamas in an article published just three days after the Oct. 7 massacre.
The BBC justifies not calling Hamas terrorists by saying, “It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn—who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.” This moral agnosticism is arrogant nonsense. The dictionary definition of terrorism is not subjective; it does not take sides: The term applies unequivocally to Hamas’s actions, which are evil.
The Hamas Charter clearly defines the group as a genocidal terrorist movement. Its preamble reads: “Israel … will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” It continues: “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by jihad.” Furthermore, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” Hamas doesn’t only advocate “armed resistance.” It advocates armed genocide.
Hamas has the blood of thousands of innocents on its hands. Even before Oct. 7, Hamas terrorist attacks killed thousands of Israelis and citizens of other countries. The terrorist group purposely targets civilians with suicide bombings, shootings, stabbings, car-rammings and thousands of rockets launched at Israeli communities.
Hamas ruthlessly oppresses its own people. Though Gazans are oppressed by the cruel tyranny of the Hamas dictatorship—with no civil liberties or rule of law, arbitrary arrests, torture, oppression of women, theft of humanitarian aid and use of human shields—the media unconscionably ignore these conditions. Nor do they mention that Hamas repeatedly provokes war against Israel and is responsible for tens of thousands of war dead in Gaza.
The media’s whitewash of Hamas and their crimes encourages the “ceasefire hoax.” Media coverage of Hamas promotes the terrorist group’s false narrative that they are fighting for Palestinian self-determination—and the lie that Israel is responsible for Gazans killed in the war that Hamas started. These myths also support the Biden Administration’s pressure on Israel for an immediate ceasefire and cutting off weapon supplies.
More than harming Israel, the media cover-up of Hamas’s monstrosities betrays the United States. Only a tiny minority of nations have democracies as strong as Israel’s; no nation so consistently supports US security interests on the ground in the Middle East and international forums; and few nations engender so strongly the political and religious values on which the United States was founded. Any narrative that portrays Hamas as the “good guy” and Israel as the “bad guy” is not just false, it betrays the US.
Whitewashing the evil of the Hamas terrorist group is not only a travesty and an injustice against the Jewish state, it’s a betrayal of America’s interests and values. As surely as Hamas opposes Israel, it’s also a proxy of global jihadist Iran and, as such, viciously wishes death to the United States.
The post Media Lies About Hamas Harm the United States first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Attacks Sanaa, Al-Jawf in Latest Strikes on Houthis in Yemen
Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 10, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck the Yemeni capital Sanaa and the northern province of al–Jawf on Wednesday, with the Iran-backed Houthis rebels who control much of Yemen saying it killed nine people and wounded 118 others in an initial toll.
The strikes are the latest in a series of attacks and counterstrikes between Israel and Houthi terrorists in Yemen, part of a spillover from the war in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it had struck military camps, the headquarters of the Houthi military “propaganda” department, and a fuel storage site.
The Houthi’s military spokesperson denied in a statement later that Israel targeted missile launchers. “Its strikes targeted purely civilian targets,” he said.
He added that two newspapers were targeted, with journalists and passers-by falling between dead and wounded.
Sanaa residents told Reuters the attack was on a hideout between two mountains that is used as a command and control headquarters. The extent of any damage was not immediately clear.
The Israeli strikes also targeted the Houthi defense ministry, witnesses said.
The attack came days after an Aug. 30 strike on Sanaa killed the prime minister of the Houthi-run government and several ministers, in the first such assault to target senior officials.
“The strikes were carried out in response to attacks led by the Houthi terror regime against the State of Israel, during which unmanned aerial vehicles and surface-to-surface missiles were launched toward Israeli territory,” the Israeli military said.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, an internationally designated terrorist group, have attacked vessels in the Red Sea in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
They have also fired missiles towards Israel, most of which have been intercepted. Israel has responded with strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port.
RSS
Liberation Day Postponed
A damaged building, following an Israeli attack on Hamas leaders, according to an Israeli official, in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
There is still confusion about the ultimate result of Israel’s strike in Doha, which struck a meeting of Hamas leaders. Israeli government sources have said they are “not optimistic” about having decapitated the terror chiefs. Qatar and the allies it pays for are moaning about Israel’s “war crime.” Two things to note:
- Even if Hamas leaders survived, they are now aware that there is no safe haven. The rules have changed.
- If you didn’t wail about France’s strike in Mali that killed 16 people at a wedding, or the US strikes against Osama bin Laden and Qassem Soleimani, don’t start now. It is not a violation of international law to strike terrorists hiding in third countries – the third countries assumed the risk; Qatar rather publicly.
Equally important, consider the strikes in relation to the condition of Palestinians actually living in Gaza — imprisoned there by the “leaders” living in the luxury of Qatar. Check voices NOT funded by Qatar.
Start with Kareem Jouda, a Palestinian resident of Gaza, posting on X:
What makes me happiest about what happened in Doha is that the Qataris and those living there have tasted, even for a moment, what is called the “fire belt” — those successive explosions that we lived through every day.
I am glad the fire has reached Qatar. For two whole years, the media backed by Doha did nothing but silence my voice, promote the war, support its continuation, and give legitimacy to the parties that destroyed our lives. They turned our blood into material for their propaganda shows, and our suffering into fuel for their false narratives.
He was talking about Hamas and rightly so. Early in the war, Moussa Abu Marzouk of Hamas’s “political bureau” was recorded by MEMRI.org:
We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels. Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. According to the Geneva Convention, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services as long as they are under occupation.
In other words, it’s not our problem if they die. The opposite. On Lebanese television, Ghazi Hamad, again of Hamas’s “political bureau,” said:
We will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood [the Oct. 7 atrocities] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
Not him, of course — Palestinians living above the massive Hamas tunnels in Gaza, more than 500 miles under mosques, schools, homes, and hospitals. Palestinians not permitted to leave the battle zone when Israel provided the warning and the means to escape. Palestinians deprived of food when Hamas stole international aid either to sell it at exorbitant prices or feed its terrorist troops.
All funded by Qatar.
Dahlia Ziada of The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs points out on X:
Qatar’s Al Jazeera yesterday was celebrating the Jerusalem bus attack, and the leaders of Hamas residing in Doha made statements applauding the attack as “a heroic act” and calling for more similar attacks! If Qatar hosts Hamas terrorists, funds Hamas terrorist operations, whitewashes their crimes with its mighty media machine, and rigs “ceasefire deals” to throw them lifelines… Then, don’t preach sovereignty, now, or act surprised when the state you enabled these terrorists to attack responds inside your own territory.
Israel is the opposite of Hamas, which uses its own people as human shields. Perhaps because of that, 900 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza — as Bernard-Henry Levy wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “A genocidal army doesn’t take two years to win a war in a territory the size of Las Vegas.” John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, noted that:
Israel has taken extraordinary steps to limit civilian harm. It warns before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets, and broadcasts. It opens safe corridors and pauses operations so civilians can leave combat areas. It tracks civilian presence down to the building level. I have seen missions delayed or canceled because children were nearby. I have seen Israeli troops come under fire and still be ordered not to shoot back because civilians might be harmed.
Are there Palestinians who sympathized with, worked with, and applauded Hamas and its atrocities? Yes, and they are paying. And there are Palestinians who did not; they are paying as well. But, in the end, the horror of October 7th is on Hamas. The horror of Palestinian civilian victimization is on Hamas. And Hamas will pay.
September 9th might have been Liberation Day for Kareem Jouda. If it wasn’t, one can pray it will come.
RSS
Self-Defense: A Pillar of Our New Jewish Life
Elion Even-Esh, who served in an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Forces where he learned Krav Maga (an IDF-developed style of self-defense) and later served as a captain in the US Marine Corps, has made it his mission to “instill strength and confidence” in the Torah-observant communities of the United States. Photo: Courtesy.
The fact that the Jewish people are a minority brings with it unique and inherent risks. That minority status exposes us to dangers that others can afford to overlook.
The question is not whether Jewish communities need to protect themselves — the question is how.
October 8, 2023 — and every day since — has reminded many Jewish people around the world that these threats are very much a part of our modern reality. It’s not to say that violence against Jewish people is ubiquitous, but rather, it is a serious and ongoing threat that must be considered and dealt with.
Solutions applied to the 1990s do not necessarily apply today. Leaders of communities have a responsibility to prepare their constituencies for all eventualities. This includes the need to defend themselves collectively — but also individually — from physical harm. This is a very hard realization to internalize, but nonetheless, people who ignore this do so at their own peril.
A confident and healthy Jewish community — one that knows how to defend itself — is a community far less likely to be bullied.
Jewish institutions must integrate this mindset into daily life. Schools, synagogues, camps, and community centers should treat self-defense as part of Jewish education, no less important than Hebrew, history, or math.
Training in self-defense should be as normalized as attending a Shabbat service. It should be woven into the fabric of our institutions so that young Jews grow up with both a strong Jewish identity and the confidence to defend it. School principals, religious leaders, and youth group leaders are the ones with the responsibility to lead this charge.
There are four pillars of protection that every Jewish community should embrace.
First is advocacy — engaging elected officials, decision-makers, and civic leaders to ensure Jewish concerns are heard and addressed.
Second is influence — which comes through culture, media, and interpersonal relationships that shape public opinion.
Third is security — which is provided by law enforcement, private protection, and community-based security networks.
But there is a fourth pillar that is too often neglected: personal self-defense.
If and when the first three pillars fail, the fourth pillar — the pillar of self-reliance — should be strong.
Jewish people are not necessarily known for being “tough guys,” but maybe it’s time for that stereotype to change. The best way to deal with a bully is to confront them and let them know that there’s a consequence to their action.
Realism demands we confront the fact that not all threats can be reasoned with. Individuals and groups who harbor open hostility toward Jewish people will act on it when they believe they can do so with impunity. The only effective deterrent is strength — physical, communal, and psychological.
Options include firearm ownership where permitted by law, but it must also include physical preparedness — training in Krav Maga, boxing, judo, karate, or other disciplines that instill both skill and confidence.
Videos surface almost daily of Jews being harassed, attacked, or intimidated on the streets of major cities. This is not a call for radicalism or violence — but a call for level-headed realism.
New realities call for a new game plan. People learn self-defense so that they never have to use it. Moving forward, young people should walk with confidence through their lives. The great Hasidic Rabbi Nachman of Breslov once said, “The whole world is a narrow bridge and the most important thing is to not be afraid, it’s to not be afraid at all.”
Through defense education, this teaching will move from being just an inspirational saying to becoming a lived reality.
Daniel Rosen is the Co-founder of a Non-profit Technology company called Emissary4all which is an app to organize people on social media by ideology not geography. He is the Co-host of the podcast “Recalibration.” You can reach him at drosen@emissary4all.org