Category: Israel

Mosab Yousef, son of Hamas founder Hassan Yousef, recently addressed the European Union Parliament. Mosab is a strong spokesman against Hamas terrorism. 

In his piercing and fiery style, he states that much of what people say about Hamas is detached from reality. From his childhood, Mosab witnessed the atrocities of this terror organization firsthand.  

Here is my summary are some of his salient points:

• Fundraising – Massive funding from both Arab oil countries and Western liberal nations has gone to the terrorists. This has caused enormous destruction.

• Narratives – This war is a war of narratives. The truth about the situation has been ignored and twisted because of wrong agendas.

• No Palestinian Ethnicity – I was told as a child to be Palestinian. But that is not true. We are Arabs. There is no ethnic group called Palestinians. There is no Palestinian language, race, or religion.

• Colonialism – The Ottomans colonized Palestine. They invaded and ruled from 1517 to 1917. Then the British invaded and ruled from 1917 to 1947. During those two periods, Arabs come to the Land. They were part of the colonial process. Palestine is an invention of the Ottoman and British colonialists. 

• Jewish Immigration – The Jews who returned to the Land were limited by the two colonial empires. The limitation of Jewish immigration was the real criminal part of the colonial period.

• No Palestinian Nation – In 1948, the Jews fought to establish their state. There was no Palestinian State between the Ottoman and British empires. There never was a Palestinian State at any time. In the Palestinian colonial entity, there were Arabs, Jews, Christians, Druze, etc. Jews were also “Palestinians.” 

• Palestinian Ideology – Palestinianism is an ideology. It is a hostile movement to annihilate the Jewish people in the Land. People are in denial of this ideological element of the conflict.

• Muslim Intimidation – No one is willing to look at the truth because there are more than a billion Muslims who would be angry and violent about any criticism of Islam. 

• Islamic Belief – The Quran and the Hadith say that the Mahdi (the Muslim end times’ savior) will not come until the Muslims kill all the Jewish people. This is a fundamental belief: Allah chose the Jewish people. They were disobedient. Allah is punishing the Jews. The Muslims are now the sword of Allah to destroy them.  

• Submission to Islam – This conflict is worldwide, not limited to Palestine. All non-Muslims must submit to Islamic law. All land that belonged to Muslims is forever theirs. For instance, southern Spain was once Muslim, so it still belongs to them. Every mosque in every country is Muslim territory. No Western country can ever close down any mosque lest it bring on a violent international conflict. 

• Peaceful Religion – Anyone trying to sell the West that Islam is a peaceful religion is lying. It is the very violence of Islam that makes it too controversial even to bring up the topic. However, this ideological dimension is the most important part of the conflict despite everyone’s fear of dealing with it.

• Yassir Arafat – The person who led the false Palestinian identity and ideology was Yassir Arafat. He was a con artist. He was Egyptian, born in Egypt, with an Egyptian accent, and Egyptian citizenship. Arafat became addicted to money, power, fame, and prestige. 

• Global Terror – Arafat globalized the idea of terrorism: blew up airplanes, killed Jewish athletes at the Munich Olympics, etc. Political rivals were assassinated. The West cannot understand this terror mentality. They keep giving more finances to assuage it, but that makes it even worse. 

• Child Manipulation – As a child in the first intifada of 1987, I was told by unknown masked men, hired by Arafat, to leave school and go throw rocks at Israeli tanks at the checkpoints. Palestinian terrorism is anti-children. However, it photographed well to see a child throwing a rock at an Israeli tank. 

• Free Hostages – On October 7, 2023, Hamas broke through the fence and wiped out 20 peaceful, liberal communities, who believed in coexistence. Hamas murdered and took hostage innocent civilians, mostly farmers. Why is not all the world united around a demand to return the hostages?

• False Morality – Many are posing as being on higher moral ground, crying “free Palestine,” when they don’t realize they are supporting a false, violent ideology. 

• Ethnic Cleansing – Genocide is not determined by number of people killed but by the intent. The only people being killed because of their ethnic background in this conflict are the Jews. There have been 1,400 years of Jew hatred in Islam.   Islam is a religious majority that wants to kill a religious minority, the Jews.

• Civilian Victims – Israel has done everything in its power to reduce civilian casualties. They even alerted civilians two weeks before a military action to allow civilians to evacuate. The civilian victims in Gaza are a result of Hamas hijacking schools, hospitals, aid centers, and mosques. Hamas did not leave any safe zones in Gaza for civilians. They purposely used civilians as human shields, sacrificing them in order to make Israel look bad.

• Numbers of Casualties – Are there 40,000 casualties in Gaza? No one really knows. There are no official counts, and no death certificates. Humanitarian agencies just accept what Hamas tells them. The numbers may be greatly exaggerated in order to discredit Israel. 

• Equal Rights – There are no equal rights in Islam. Women are seen as property. Suppression of women leads to other types of oppressive behavior. Muslims want to come to the West to enjoy the freedom there. But you can only have equal rights if you respect the rights of others. 

Whether one agrees with Mosab or not, his perspective must be considered seriously because his life experience is unique and authentic. His testimony is valid because of its authenticity. 

My leftist friends (and I do have a few) accuse Israel of genocide.  This is because of the pictures of civilians, women, and children killed in Gaza.  However, not only is the definition of genocide abused by them, but the figures of civilian deaths are exaggerated.  In an Orwellian reversal, those nations and parties calling for the genocide of the Jews are given a pass, and Israel defending itself against genocide is called the perpetrator of genocide. 

Here is the definition of genocide in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (No. 9, 1948).  

Genocide is the carrying out of one or more of five specific war crimes with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious groups.”  

It includes killing people simply because they are members of a group.  The second is “causing bodily or mental harm to members of the group.”  Inflicting “conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction,” preventing births, and abducting children.”  

One can readily see how this definition is so connected to the Nazi regime in Germany.  

Let’s then look at Gaza.  South Africa (very anti-Israel due to Israel’s relationship with the apartheid regime in the past) asserts in its war crimes case before the International Criminal Court, that Israel deliberately killed 23,570 innocent Gazans.  Hamas claims the number is 41,000.  But Professor Abraham Wyner, a statistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that these figures are wrong.  Even the U.N. has not accepted these figures and asserts the lower number. Hamas blames every death in Gaza on the Israel Defense Force and does not distinguish between civilian and military deaths.  Estimates are also that friendly fire deaths from Hamas misfired rockets are many,  plus natural deaths of 2.9 percent average would be 6,200 plus.  We are looking at over 8,000.  The estimate is that 17,000 Hamas soldiers have been killed.  

Adding all this up, the non-combatant deaths in Gaza are close to 1.2% which is far lower to the average of 1.9% in modern urban warfare.  John Spencer, the West Point urban war expert, notes this as the lowest percentage in urban war in history. On the issue of babies, 5,522 babies have been born per month in Gaza according to Save the Children NGO.  The pre-war rate was 4,783.  

These statistics are in spite of the fact of the massive human shield operation by the terrorist Hamas organization.  We see the same strategy with Hezbollah.  Seek genocide against Israel while gaining the worlds sympathy when human shields are killed.  It brings us to Golda Meier’s famous statement that peace will come when the terrorists are more concerned about protecting their children than killing ours. (my slight paraphrase) NO, THERE IS NO GENOCIDE BY ISRAEL, NOT EVEN CLOSE. 

But where is the UN on real genocide against the Kurds, Syria, Darfur from Sudan.  South Africa leader posed with the Sudan general Daglo who murdered 15,000 beloinging to the ethnic minority.  Turkey exacts a terrible toll on innocent Kurds. Where is their self-determination?  The Syria kills over 500,000.  But the world is largely silent but very loud against Israel.

 

I was aided in research by Iam Neubauer.  His article in the Oct. 25 Jerusalem Post gave a good summary. 

Three attempts were made for a two-state solution. First was the attempt during the administrations of Barak and Clinton. Clinton told Arafat that he made him a failure.  Arafat walked away and started an uprising/intifada. Then A. Sharon tried unilateral withdrawal, which would lead to a two-state solution. Gaza was completely freed.  He hoped this would be a first step and then he would do the same with his chosen areas of the West Bank.  He had a stroke and never was able to finish his plan.  Hamas kicked out The Palestinian Authority, killed several of them, and then turned Gaza into a military base to destroy Israel.  Effort #2 failed.  Olmert and Abbas worked on effort #3.  He offered 97% of the West Bank and land swaps for the other 3%.  He offered East Jerusalem as the capital for them. Abbas walked away and made Bush a failure as well.  This led to the death of the left as a serious power in Israel.  Her parties have less than 10% of the vote now.

The reason why the great majority of Israelis reject a two-state solution is that they know for sure that such a state would become a radical Hamas military base like Gaza.   Therefore their solution is autonomy.  Israel keeps overall security, the Palestinians in the West Bank have passports from Jordan or Israel but no citizenship, no army, and no statehood.  It would be like Puerto Rico.  They would choose local governments and the Palestinian government but not have a state.  The West Bank would have Jewish areas and Palestinian autonomous zones.  This is the best we can hope for but it is a long shot for there to be any solution.  Also, Palestinian education would have to be deradicalized.

We see this in the response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh and the idea that he was negotiating for hostages and should not have been killed.  But he was responsible for hundreds of deaths and then the 1200 killed on October 7.  I would love to see a doctrine in the West and Israel that terrorist leaders forfeit their right to live and are legitimate targets.  That would include Iranian leaders. 

 

Two articles in the Jerusalem Post Weekend edition noted the lack of moral courage in the West.  The Biden administration allows Iran to be supplied with tens of billions of dollars even now through evading oil sanctions and this finances their proxies and terrorism.  The idea of living with terrorist nations and having accommodations is foolish and temporary and will lead to much greater loss.  They are pledged to destroy the United States and the West. Believe them!  The lesson of appeasement with Hitler has not been learned. One article by strategic think tank thinker David Weinberg was especially powerful.  I read him every week. It was entitled “Getting strategically “unstuck.”  The West accommodates Iran.   Israel sought to accommodate Hamas and Hezbollah and find ways to just live with them.  Iran should never have been permitted to move toward an atomic bomb and regime change should have been policy.  Israel’s policy should be that no terror regime will be allowed to rule in a nation on the border of Israel.  Also, any nation threatening Israel’s existence is a legitimate military target.  Weinberg hopes that the killing of Haniyeh will now open the way to get unstuck since Iran’s response and Israel’s response to that get us unstuck.  Even a pre-emptive strike before that response comes to full fruition gets Israel unstuck as painful as that will be.  Finally, Israel seems delivered from its delusion of living with Hamas Hezbollah on its border.  

 

A second amazing article was by Marziyeh Amirzadeh, an Iranian now in the United States.  She was arrested and sentenced to death for converting to Christianity.  The article did not say how she escaped after 9 months in prison, but her husband and best friend were tortured and lost their lives. Here she rightly rails against a Jewish Israeli historian, Alon Ben Meir.  He writes about the opportunity to get along with a more moderate Iran now that a more moderate President has been elected, President Pezeshkian.  What a delusion!  But this is window dressing for the West.  She is stunned that Israel allowed Hamas to be funded and armed and now the West falls for such a foolish response to Iran.  Iran is totally under the Ayatollah and no other official will make a difference. When they tell you what they want to do believe them and fight them before they have great power.  But as Weinberg says, the West has lost its moral courage.  Is it possible that this loss is rooted in postmodern leftism that cannot grasp a battle of good against evil?  Morals have fallen to a terrible degree.    

 

One other article also showed the moral bankruptcy of the West.  Gil Hoffman reports on news coverage of the terror missile bombing on the Druze Village of Majdal Shams in the Golan.  In several major papers, what happened just was not represented.  It was emphasized that this was occupied territory.  It is not.  Tell the Druze who live there and are pro-Israel.  The articles did not clearly note the Hezbollah attack and wrote as if Israel was somehow responsible and that this was a response to Israel’s attack on Hamas and Haniyeh.  One writer noted that when Netanyahu visited after the attack he was shouted at (as if they were anti-Israel) but their shouts were demanding that he take revenge for them. (This total misreporting was from Sky News in Britain).  U. S. papers in the legacy press simply are so anti-Israel that they could not report it right. 

 

These are very dark days, and we need so much prayer support in Israel as we prepare for an attack from Iran.  Some of the weapons that were delayed from the United States are dearly needed now.  Why? Again, the lack of courage and fear of escalation.  God help us, really.  May our Christian supporters have a clear moral vision and make a difference. 

The Hamas plan in the war against Israel has been amazingly intelligent, brilliant, evil
and demonic at the highest level. Let’s review.

1. First, Hamas created a military fortress of weapons and tunnels the lengths of
the New York subway system, under civilian areas with the means to come
above ground to fire rockets and other ordinance at Israel. The tunnel shafts are
in civilian homes, schools and hospitals.
There has never in history been such concentration of military weapons so
concentrated in civilian areas. It is human shield strategy on steroids. Hamas
knows that it can use the death of civilians in propaganda to turn the world
against Israel. This was all brilliantly pre-planned. It is the strategy of Hamas to
get a significant number of civilians killed. Hamas lies about statistics, and about
attacks that did not happen (remember the hospital in the early days?) Its lies
are reported by a corrupt western media as truth.

2. The Hamas invasion and slaughter of October 7 th was an act of evil horror. But it
did not end there. Rather, Hamas took hostages. Sinwar rightly understood that
the hostage issue could eventually be used to undermine the willingness of
Israelis to fight the war against them. While in the early months the Israeli public
by a clear majority supported prosecuting the war over getting the hostages out,
though this was really important too for all Israelis. The pain of the hostages
would wear down the will to fight. Sinwar knows the Israeli mentality well enough
to have anticipated this in his strategy. In addition, the hostage strategy would
divide Israel between the prosecute the war faction and the get the hostages out
at all costs faction even if it means Hamas remains in power. Sinwar anticipated
this and he plays Israel like a master.

3. Hamas depends on media to distort the reality of fighting an urban war. Civilians
will always die in such a war and according to the expert from West Point,
Jonathan Spencer, Israel’s casualty rate is the best in history on protecting
civilians in urban war. Hamas depends on the fact that Israel can be accused of
genocide apart from its legal definition. The genocide and war crimes are on the
side of Hamas. But people do not carefully read the conventions that were
approved that define war crimes, and who bears the responsibility for civilian
deaths. Hamas is responsible for almost all such deaths. They kill their own
people over food distribution, over criticism of Hamas and more. They depend
on the ignorance of people to make claims not based in law. The actual law is
too nuanced and requires real thought. Those accusing Israel are radically
misinterpreting the law. But Sinwar and Hamas knows that people will by the
definitions of propaganda and not respond according to the actual law.

This level of intelligence shows a brilliant demonic inspiration. It has to be defeated by
much prayer as well as by military might.

The Jerusalem Post was filled today with evaluations of the state of the war with Hamas and what we should do.  Not all agreed, but there was a good deal of very good commentary.  My own reflections this week agreed with some of the commentators.  This week I was on a leaders’ retreat in the desert (Sde Boker) and also got the perspective of other leaders.

When Israel went to war after the terrible atrocities, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that the goal was to end Hamas rule in Gaza and to dismantle the terror organization. Once this became the stated goal and was repeated numerous times (can anyone think it is less than 100 times?) anything less will be seen in the world especially the Arab world as a Hamas victory and will discredit Israel and empower Hamas.  Some years ago, Lee Smith wrote the book The Strong Horse on the mentality of the nations in this part of the world.  They want to bet on the strong horse and a weak-looking nation will not gain their alliance.  The Abraham Accords was a bet on Israel as the strong horse to counter Iran’s power.  New accords probably require Israel to defeat Hamas despite what these nations may publicly say.

However, I believe Israel’s leaders have fallen into a Hamas trap.  One of the world leaders in game theory, a Nobel Prize winner, saw this trap clearly.  By getting Israel to delay the war and focus on the hostages, the nation actually diminishes the chances of getting the hostages out and winning the war.  With the Hamas propaganda machine estimated to reach 100 million, the more time that goes by the more Israel is under international pressure to end the war, which would be a disaster.  Israel’s leaders originally said they had till January to win the war and then they would lose international support.  But here it is April. Wow!  And we are still dithering and talking about a cease-fire with only a third of the hostages released. 

If Bibi had in the beginning said that Israel would punish Hamas badly and then withdraw, he could have declared victory.  But now Israel is in danger of being the weak horse due to the claim.  But Bibi was right in the goals because Israel had to end Hamas rule and the periodic terror in the south from Hamas rockets.  But why did Bibi and his leaders think time was not on their side?  Because the pictures of the destruction and civilian casualties would move the world against Israel since it was Israel’s bombs.  Yes, Hamas is the real culprit and the one responsible for it.  Despite the lying narratives about Israel violating International laws of war, the truth is that Israel does not violate the actual written laws, and although we do not know the civilian casualty numbers (we only have Hamas reports), Israel receives the brunt of the outrage, not Hamas. It is wrong and unjust and as John Spencer, the retired West Point expert on Urban warfare argues, Israel’s program to protect civilians and the proportion for urban war especially with civilian human shields, is very good. 

Donal Trump tells Bibi, to get on with it, finish the job, and end Hamas rule.  That seems like good advice and only such an advance might lead to a pause with hostage release.