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We Defeated Pro-Hamas Protestors By Proving They Support Rape and Terror

Hamas terrorists kidnapping Israeli women at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

I recently witnessed something I haven’t seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews.

The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt he and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.

On August 16, 2024, the pro-Hamas activists conducted their retreat from Lexington in two stages.

First, they walked away from the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street, where they have been protesting on an intermittent basis since October 7. Then, after they retreated a couple of hundred feet down Mass. Ave. (while tenacious, but peaceful, pro-Israel protesters followed them), the Hamas supporters packed up their signs and withdrew altogether, leaving an Iranian-born American citizen to conduct a solitary rear-guard action. Once the pro-Israel protesters took pity on the police officers charged with keeping the peace and got ready to leave, the pro-Hamas supporter also left — clearly a little bit worse for wear.

The pro-Hamas folks did not abandon the site of their weekly standout because they were outnumbered. The two groups were evenly matched. In fact, the pro-Hamasniks may have even enjoyed a slight numerical advantage over the pro-Israel folks who challenged them. Nevertheless, it was the anti-Israel folks who retreated.

The pro-Israel activists, who had coalesced around a core of Iranian human rights activists associated with From Boston to Iran, used a very simple message to break the resolve of the pro-Hamas activists: “You are on the side of rapists and murderers.”

The pro-Hamas protesters tried countering with the lie that Israel is committing a “genocide” in Gaza, but it didn’t work on the pro-Israel folks who just kept repeating their message: If you’re pro-Hamas, you’re siding with rapists and murderers. They offered this message in chants and individual conversations.

The pro-Israel folks didn’t bother reminding their opponents that Hamas attacks civilians while hiding behind civilians, thereby making civilian casualties inevitable. They didn’t waste their breath reminding the pro-Hamas folks that Arab and Muslim leaders have killed millions of Arab and Muslim civilians without much comment from the progressive left in the United States. The pro-Israel folks knew these facts–  but didn’t waste their time repeating them on the streets of Lexington. They just kept repeating the central truth of the conflict in Gaza: Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers, and many leftists and anti-democratic radicals in the US have taken their side.

Most importantly, our strategy worked.

By repeating the simple truth of what’s happening in the Middle East, a gathering of pro-Israel Jews and Iranians stripped a gathering of pro-Hamas protesters of the moral superiority in which they have wrapped themselves since October 7. By sticking to the “Hamas is a bunch of rapists and murderers” message, pro-Israel activists reminded any self-proclaimed progressives who joined the Hamas supporters, that the October 7 massacre was not performed to “liberate” the Palestinians — but to build a social order in the Middle East in which terror and violence is the dominant culture, as opposed to peace, tolerance, and full rights for all religions, genders, and minorities.

It is no accident that Iranians who oppose the theocratic leadership in Tehran have become a powerful force of anti-Hamas activism in the United States. Having to deal with the rapists and murderers who oppress their friends and relatives, Iranian human rights activists understand that the violence against moderate Muslims, non-Muslims, and women in Iran has a common root with the violence of October 7 massacre. They know that the violence perpetrated against Iranian and Israeli women is justified by radical Islamism, a supremacist ideology that privileges the rights of Muslim men over non-Muslims and women.

Although leftists should know this as well — many don’t, and they need to be reminded repeatedly, and publicly, of the true nature of the radical Islamist movement they help support. One day, they will be the target of the Islamist oppression endured by Iranians and Israelis and when it happens, they won’t be allowed to say no one told them.

Dexter Van Zile, the Middle East Forum’s Violin Family Research Fellow, serves as managing editor of Focus on Western Islamism.

The post We Defeated Pro-Hamas Protestors By Proving They Support Rape and Terror first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: IDF Probes Whether Houthis Used Iranian Cluster Bomb-Bearing Missile

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

i24 NewsThe Israeli military said Saturday it launched a probe into the failure of its defenses to fully intercept a missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, parts of which struck not far from the Ben Gurion airport on Friday night.

According to the Ynet website, one of the hypotheses being examined is that the projectile contained cluster munitions, similar to those used by Iran to fire at Israeli cities during the 12-day war in June. Cluster munitions pose a challenge to interceptors as they disperse smaller explosives over a wide area.

In June, Iran fired several missiles carrying scattered small bombs with the aim of increasing civilian casualties.

The IDF said on Saturday that its initial review suggests the ballistic missile from Yemen likely fragmented in mid-air. Five interceptors from various systems engaged with the missile, including THAAD, Arrow, David Sling & Iron Dome.

Authorities said that shrapnel impacted a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton, yet no one was hurt, with the fragment landing in the house’s backyard.

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Iran Forces Kill Six Militants, IRNA Reports, Israel Link Seen

The Iranian flag is seen flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Iranian security forces shot dead six militants in a clash in southeastern Iran on Saturday, a day after armed rebels killed five police officers in the restive region, the official news agency IRNA reported.

IRNA said evidence showed the group was linked to Israel and may have been trained by Israel‘s Mossad spy agency. There was no immediate Israeli reaction to the allegation.

Another two members of the militant group were arrested, the report said. All but one of the militants were foreign, it added, without giving their nationality.

Iranian police said this month they had arrested as many as 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war with Israel in June.

Iran’s southeast has been the scene of sporadic clashes between security forces and armed groups, including Sunni militants and separatists who say they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy.

Tehran says some of them have ties to foreign powers and are involved in cross-border smuggling and insurgency.

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Benny Gantz Urges Time-Limited National Unity Government to Further Chances of Hostage Deal

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz attends his party’s meeting at the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, June 27, 2022. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

i24 NewsBlue and White Party leader Benny Gantz on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition politicians to form a temporary national unity government to further the chances of bringing home the hostages held in Gaza.

Addressing Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Avigdor Liberman, Gantz said that the proposed government’s two supreme priorities would be the release of Israeli hostages held by the jihadists of Hamas and instituting universal conscription in Israel by ending the exemption from military service enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox.

Upon attainment of the goals, the government would dissolve and call an election.

“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” Gantz said in a video address. “Within weeks, we will formulate an enlistment outline that would see our ultra-Orthodox brethren drafted to the military and ease the burden on those already serving. Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset [Israeli parliament] accordingly. This is what’s right for Israel.”

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