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The Horrible, Unspoken Truth About October 7 — Terrorism Works

An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg

I had been meaning to watch Sheryl Sandberg’s film about the events of October 7th, Screams Before Silence, ever since it came out on YouTube roughly two weeks ago. It has taken me those two weeks to muster the courage and will to endure what I knew would be a painful and harrowing 57 minutes.

I have now watched the film. It was, indeed, painful and harrowing. Not because it provided information I didn’t already know; I knew that on October 7th, Hamas terrorists murdered and raped and mutilated (sometimes in that order) hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Israeli men, women and children. But hearing about it directly from the mouths of those who witnessed and experienced it was absolutely gut-wrenching.

Hearing a young girl tell of having to step over the body of her father, who had just been murdered, as the family was led out of their safe-room by kidnappers, only to have her young sister shot in the face and killed as well, because she kept fainting, thus inconveniencing the kidnappers, is something I don’t think I will ever forget.

Sandberg’s focus, however, is not the murders of the fathers and children, but rather the rapes and sexual assaults of the women. And as horrific as the individual stories are, perhaps even more shocking is the picture the film paints of the degree to which these rapes and sexual assaults were not spontaneous acts of barbarity. They were planned and orchestrated.

At one point, Sandberg interviews Shari Mendes, an IDF reservist at the October 7th military morgue who helped process the hundreds of body bags that came in. As Mendes describes the evidence of sexual violence she discovered in so many of those body bags, Sandberg asks: “Did this feel systematic to you?”

Mendes replies: “Yes, it did seem systematic, to use sexual violence as a weapon of war. I can’t imagine why anyone in the world would have a reason to shoot a woman in the vagina or in the breast — a deliberate genital mutilation of this specific population of women.”

Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a former Vice-President of the UN Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, tells Sandberg: “The bodies whose breasts were cut were found in several other locations. That could not have been unless it was premeditated and preconceived by Hamas themselves.”

Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, head of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, further tells Sandberg: “It wasn’t incidental, it wasn’t just happening. They learned, they did their homework. This is kind of a pattern that we’re seeing, that it’s not only sexual abuse, but it’s sexual abuse in its worst form. It’s like they wanted to inflict pain in the cruelest manner possible.”

Sandberg follows up, asking Professor Halperin-Kaddari why Hamas would use sexual violence “as part of their remit for this attack?” The Professor answers: “Using sexual violence as a tool of war, of weaponizing women, sadly is [as] old as the history of humanity. Because when the body of the woman is violated, it symbolizes the body of the whole nation.”

It is possible that this is precisely the explanation for why Hamas undertook a raid of rape and mutilation with a brutality more consistent with the tactics of Genghis Khan than of any modern army. It is possible that the depth of their hatred of Jews, coupled with a religious fervor, resulted in a desire to inflict as much pain, not just physically but emotionally, on the Israeli populace as they could. They clearly thought using sexual violence to “weaponize women” would help achieve that goal.

But as I watched Screams Before Silence this week, in the context of more recent news — the widespread campus protests, the Biden administration stopping military aid to Israel — I was struck by a disturbing thought: the actions of Hamas on October 7th worked.

They worked not just in terms of inflicting pain upon their enemies, but in terms of leading to tangible public relations and geopolitical gains.

It was the very brutality of the attack on October 7th that resulted in the massive scale of Israel’s response, and it is the scale of Israel’s response that has resulted in unprecedented pro-Palestinian (and even pro-Hamas) protests on college campuses and throughout the United States and Europe. Protests of this magnitude have never occurred in the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

It is also the scale of Israel’s response that has driven a wedge between Israel and the US — as reflected in the US failing to veto a UN ceasefire resolution biased against Israel, in Biden halting military aid, and in the recent Biden administration report making the preposterous claim that Israel had likely violated international law during the Gaza war.

Further, it is clear that there is now more pressure on Israel from the US and the international community for a two-state solution than there has been for decades. This would also qualify as a major victory for Hamas, were it not for the fact that Hamas opposes a two-state solution. Still, if history is a guide, the pressure will all be directed at Israel to make concessions, not at the Palestinians, so in that sense, it very much is a Hamas victory.

In order for Hamas to reap the rewards for their October 7th atrocities, there was one thing they counted on in addition to the scale of Israel’s response — they counted on the equally predictable anti-Israel bias of the UN, most of the Western press, and most of the Western leaders. Everyone played their part in a very predictable manner.

I say predictable, because it is not new. Yasser Arafat figured out the formula long ago: commit terrorist attacks, then wait for Israel’s response to prompt the West to force concessions on Israel, not the Palestinians. Hamas just took it to another level.

What the Western press and political leaders don’t seem to appreciate — or more likely, don’t seem to care about — is that by rewarding Hamas for October 7th, they reinforce the notion that terrorism works. As every economist (and every parent) knows, when you reward a behavior, you will get more of it. And so, rather than breaking the cycle of violence, the appeasement of Iran and Hamas only perpetuates it.

I can anticipate an argument that some might have at this point: “If Hamas committed such barbaric atrocities in order to provoke an extreme response by Israel, then wouldn’t Israel have been wiser not to have made such a response? Couldn’t Israel have won by responding in a limited fashion and leaving Hamas looking like the bad guy?”

My answer to that argument is: watch just 15 minutes of Sheryl Sandberg’s film, and then see if you can say that Israel’s response was excessive. Furthermore, Hamas has promised to repeat October 7th again and again and again. No nation could continue to exist with such a threat hanging over its head. Israel has no choice but to finish the job of destroying Hamas, whatever the cost in terms of its international reputation or relationship with the US.

And this is the diabolical genius of what Hamas did on October 7th. It worked. But only because the Western leaders, the Western press, and college students are all playing their parts. To those who frustratedly decry the never ending cycle of violence in the Middle East — terrorism followed by reprisal followed by terrorism followed by reprisal — I’d like to suggest a solution that has yet to be tried: stop rewarding terrorism and perhaps we’ll get a lot less of it.

Michael Kaplan is a TV writer-producer, playwright, and children’s book author. For his TV work, he has been nominated for four Emmy Awards, winning one.

The post The Horrible, Unspoken Truth About October 7 — Terrorism Works first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East

A Patriot missile battery. Photo: IDF.

i24 NewsAmerican Patriot missile defense batteries will be moved from South Korea to the Middle East, according to reports in Asian media on Friday, amid speculation over a potential military action against Iran’s nuclear program and escalating bombardments of Iran-backed jihadists in Yemen.

US President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, and the United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.

Washington and Seoul have reportedly recently agreed on the “monthslong” partial deployment of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, in what is understood to be the first known case involving the relocation of United States Forces Korea (USFK) assets to the Middle East.

Iran in recent years has largely dropped the pretense of enriching uranium for a civilian atomic energy program, as it’s reportedly teetering on the nuclear precipice. Israel believes that a nuclear Iran represents a grave existential threat, consistent with the exterminationist antisemitism of the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

After the election of Trump, a known Iran hawk, the likelihood of an U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has increased precipitously.

The post US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled

The Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

i24 NewsIran enlisted the services of a Georgian drug trafficker to carry out an assassination of a prominent Azerbaijani rabbi, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing security officials.

The plot to murder Rabbi Shneor Segal, foiled by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan in early January, also involved a plan to attack a Jewish education center, the officials said.

The plot was set in motion by an officer with Iran’s Quds Force, who met with Georgian criminal Agil Aslanov, handing him a photo of Segal and detailed instructions on how to murder him, the officials cited by WaPo said. Aslanov’s fee for the foiled hit was $200,000.

The State Security Service said the two men “worked to collect information about a member of a religious community, and sent the location of his residence and workplace to a representative of a foreign special service agency via the appropriate mobile phone application.”

Iran is known to be behind multiple plots against Israeli and Jewish targets, many of which have been foiled by Israeli and foreign security services.

However a recent plot saw three citizens of Uzbekistan murder an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates on Iranian orders. The three were sentenced to death earlier this week for the murder of Zvi Kogan in November.

The post Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 2025. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 NewsIsrael’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart to Washington DC on Sunday directly from Hungary—where he is presently on an official visit—to meet with US President Donald Trump, i24NEWS learned on Saturday from an Israeli source.

The visit comes following a phone conversation between the leaders on Friday, and a call with State Secretary Marco Rubio a short while ago.

As a result, the planned visit to Washington of Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz will be postponed once again.

Topics of discussion between the two leaders are expected to include the possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Gaza war and the future of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, the US bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi jihadists in Yemen, and the recent imposition of tariffs on Israeli products.

The post Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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