First Israeli hostages of Hamas released from captivity

At least 13 of the Israeli and even several Thai/Filipino hostages taken by Hamas to Gaza were released and returned to families:

Images and video of the first reunions between the first group of Israeli hostages released on Friday and their families has been released by the Schneider Children’s Hospital near Tel Aviv.

The hostages, all women and children, as old as 85 and as young as two years old, were released by the Palestinian Hamas terror group as part of a deal after being brutally kidnapped amid the murder of their relatives and neighbors in the October 7 terror attack.

In one video released by the hospital, father Yoni Asher asks his daughter: “Did you think about Daddy? Did you think about good things?” She replies: “I dreamed about going home.” He replies: “Your dream came true! … Soon, we’re going home.” [...]

The Jerusalem Post reported that most of the freed hostages were in good physical condition, and had not been abused after the initial physical abuse of their capture, though they had to sleep on plastic benches. They received some news from Israel during their captivity, including news about the murder of their relatives in the October 7 terror attack.

Many of the first group of hostages were from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a quarter of the population of 400 was murdered or kidnapped. 11 foreign nationals workers, including 10 Thai and one Filipino, were released along with the initial group of 13.

A second group of 13 hostages is set to be released Saturday, reportedly mostly from Kibbutz Be’eri, where over 100 were murdered.

These people are very fortunate to be released. Mainly because, as the following indicates, Joe Biden is not helping the situation. Here's more on the hostages who were freed. Now, we must hope that all hostages will be released, and that the IDF will be ready to continue combat accordingly.

Update: some more over here about the subject.

Update 2: a second group of hostages is now on their way home too.

Martin Gilbert, Israel

At Amazon, Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History.

Also, Martin Gilbert, The Story of Israel: From Theodor Herzl to the Roadmap for Peace. #CommissionEarned

What took place at the NY Jewish Comics Experience

The JTA/New York Jewish Week covered the new Jewish Comics Experience convention at Manhattan's Jewish History Center:

More than 400 comic book lovers flocked to Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History on Sunday for the first-ever Jewish Comics Experience, a pop culture convention that was billed as the “ultimate comics and pop culture event.”

Some 35 comics creators participated in the inaugural JewCE, including “Sin City” creator Frank Miller and underground comics legend Barbara “Willy” Mendes. Others participating were artists who specialize in depicting Torah stories, creators of Jewish superheroes, autobiographical writers who just happen to be Jewish and non-Jewish authors and artists who create Jewish content.

Seeing that Miller attended this convention, it raises some important and relevant queries: does this mean he's willing to own and defend Holy Terror once again, recalling how 5 years ago, he kowtowed to the far-left by not only expressing regret for conceiving Holy Terror in the first place, he even apologized for condemning the Occupy movement, and added insult to injury by attacking Donald Trump, all in the pages of a paper as anti-Israel as the UK Guardian. And despite the incredibly stupid apology, he was still disinvited from a British convention. It remains to be seen if he's sorry he acted so stupidly now. Otherwise, what's the use of his attending this convention? Lack of courage is exactly what leads to all these tragedies, including 9-11, and even the terrorist attacks in France back in 2015. Similarly, if the convention doesn't have the courage to raise the issue of Islamofascism itself, that'll be a serious weakness.

“It’s high time that Jewish creators are recognized for their contribution to comic culture, a culture that was for the most part created by Jewish people,” JewCE co-founder Fabrice Sapolsky told the New York Jewish Week.

Though the event was planned long before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war, the continued violence in the Middle East and its reverberating effects was resonant across the convention. In myriad panel conversations and in one-on-one discussions, the situation in Israel, increased antisemitism across the globe and the acute need for Jewish joy were frequent themes. For many creators and attendees, “showing up” and supporting the Jewish community was at the top of mind, while others noted the camaraderie among individuals who all shared a a love of Jewish culture.

According to Miriam Mora, the co-founder of JewCE and the director of programming at the Center for Jewish History, the difficult moment made a Jewish comic convention more relevant than ever. “Comics are worth paying attention to because there’s no better way to lift up our community and to fight antisemitism than to educate people about Jewish contributions, Jewish identities, Jewish stories than to celebrate them,” she said.

Indie “comix” icon Mendes, best known for the classic comic “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” agreed. “We just need people to know how wonderful we are because there’s a lot of propaganda out there that we’re terrible,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “We need to counteract that with proof that Jews are wonderful, and that’s what this is all about — and that’s why I’m so happy to be part of the convention.”

On this, those attending did the right thing. After such a horrifying bloodbath that the Hamas jihadists committed, it's vital to convey a message of solidarity with the Jewish people, and uphold the memories of famous creators like Siegel/Shuster/Lee/Kirby. However, this convention, unfortunately, has traces of PC to be found in the coverage, if anything:

The history of Jews and comics is a long and rich one, beginning with the earliest comic book creators — nearly all Jews — to the continued presence of Jewish stories in both popular comics and more esoteric ones. For example, Marvel briefly had a Jewish Black Panther character, while, more recently, author Yehudi Mercato drew upon his Mexican-Jewish family for his middle-grade graphic memoir, “Chunky.” Meanwhile, some traditional Jewish texts have gotten the graphic novel treatment, including Mendes’ recent takes on the weekly Torah portion. [...]

That creativity was on full display Sunday as creators spoke at panels such as “Jewish Folklore in Comics,” “Queering Jewish Comics” and “Getting Past Ashkenormativity and Secularism in Comics.” Jewish publishers sold a variety of books and individual creators signed their work and mingled with fans. One table was run by the mother of a writer of a Holocaust education comic who couldn’t make the trip from Los Angeles.

It's regrettable they've continued sugarcoating BP material that builds on some atrocious storytelling, right down to Ta-Nehisi Coates' own propaganda. And Coates is one of the worst far-leftists to ever be welcomed into the entertainment industry. If he could speak as abusively as he did about 9-11, there's no telling what he could say about Jews. I wouldn't want to own any of his comics based on what a far-left ideologue he happens to be. And that part about "queering" is quite telling on its own. It echoes what only so many far-leftists have been pushing and indoctrinating at schools, even going so far as to distort the Bible with it. Does that sit well with them?

Now since we're on the subject, The Forward followed up on the news about Arnon Shorr and Joshua Edelglass's Brother's Keeper. I hope this GN's been highlighted at the convention, because, as noted again by the Forward:

“One of my friends pointed at the screen and he said, ‘We need this. We need this now. We need this yesterday,’” Shorr recalled. “I was too close to it, I think, to see it or to recognize it,” he said. But his friend helped him realize that “this is a reminder that we’ve been here before and we’ve survived this before.”

As Edelglass kept pace with the drawings and Tomić with the colors, Shorr tried to figure out how to make the book widely available sooner rather than later. They’d bring copies to JewCE as planned, but they also made the comic available to order in hard copy online and to purchase as an e-book. Shorr is also working with his parents to translate the story into Hebrew and is looking into options for sharing Brother’s Keeper in Israel. [...]

But sitting down to draw night after night in the days and weeks following Oct. 7 was therapeutic for Edelglass. “The story moves from battle and turmoil to great hope,” Edelglass said. And he and Shorr hope it can be a source of comfort and hope for readers as well.

Let's hope it'll be translated into Hebrew, and practically as many other languages as possible; everyone and anyone the world over who's a realist needs to know this kind of history. And again, let's hope the convention at Manhattan's History Center stands solidly by it. That said, it's still a shame said convention is pushing leftist propaganda, and the JTA once again sugarcoated how the Jewish Black Panther was crafted.

MSM outlets had reporters embedded with Hamas during terrorist attack

Some very horrific discoveries have been made about the AP Wire and Reuters, demonstrating just how evil journalists can be:

Photographers from the Associated Press and Reuters appear to have been embedded with Hamas terrorists as they executed terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, according to a new report from Honest Reporting, a media watchdog.

Photos posted by the news agencies of the surprise terrorist attack on Israel include ones showing terrorists breaking the gates to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where residents were caught completely off guard and dozens were murdered. Photos also show that photographers were on the scene as terrorists took civilians such as Shani Louk hostage, and attacking Israeli tanks on the other side of the Gaza border.

The photos raise serious questions about whether the news agencies had advance knowledge that the terrorist attacks were taking place. The four individuals credited by the Associated Press for images of the attacks — Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali — are all photographers based in Gaza, where it was revealed in 2021 that the Associated Press shared office space with the terrorist group.

One of the photographers, Hassan Eslaiah, has reportedly been pictured getting kissed by a top Hamas operative who is said to be one of the chief architects of the deadly terrorist attacks, which killed over 1,400 and have led to a massive war with Israel.

This is seriously offensive, and any and all reporters involved are guilty of participation in a crime, not to mention failure to report/prevent one. This whole catastrophe even led to the recent murder of a USA-born policewoman in the past week. The AP/Reuters reporters who were part of the massacre must be arrested and imprisoned for being party to a heinous crime. This recent horror practically makes clear journalists and photographers are more than fully capable of committing evil in their own ways, and if the 2 aforementioned news agencies won't weed out these monsters from their staffs, they should be boycotted and ostracized.

Update: speaking of the policewoman, it turns out a colleague of hers abandoned his post when this occurred, and enabled the tragedy to take place more easily. He's been removed from his position, as a result.

A history comic whose subject is even more relevant today

Arnon Shorr, a screenwriter and author originally from Haifa, wrote a column for Jewish Boston telling about a graphic novel he developed about Israel's war of indepdence in 1948, discussing how the armies of the Arab Legion attacked the country, and points out that, in the aftermath of the horrific jihad bloodbath the Hamas committed on October 7, it's even more relevant a subject than ever. The title of the GN he's publishing is "Brother's Keeper":

It sat on a hard drive for several years, until this summer, when an opportunity arose to collaborate once more with Joshua M. Edelglass, the illustrator of “José and the Pirate Captain Toledano.” I shared several story ideas with Josh, who immediately gravitated toward “Brother’s Keeper.” We decided we’d work together to reimagine the story as a single-issue (or “one-off”) comic book. The goal was to have something ready to debut in mid-November, at the Jewish Comics Experience, a new and exciting convention of Jewish comics at the Center for Jewish History in New York. So, in August, with only a few months to get the job done, I began to write.

I went back to old interviews that my uncle Yoav had recorded. My grandfather’s accounts of the battle and its aftermath are riveting, and revealed surprising details that I had forgotten over the years. I also found this very detailed description of the battle. I drew from every account that I could find to create a composite representation of this small piece of that old war. [...]

Ramat Rachel is a small kibbutz on a strategically significant hilltop just south of Jerusalem. In 1948, its residents found themselves surrounded on three sides by three very powerful Arab armies. The Egyptian army approached from the west, the Arab Legion came up from the south, and the Jordanian army, along with local Arab fighters, applied pressure from the east. They all wanted to drive the Jews out so they could attack Jerusalem from this high ground.

My grandfather was sent to help defend this kibbutz, and when that appeared impossible, he oversaw the evacuation and retreat.

When I wrote these scenes, they were fascinating pieces of history. It was hard to imagine an army attacking a kibbutz, with bullets and artillery shattering the bucolic quiet.

And then I was confronted by the grim horrors of Oct. 7, 2023.

What I wrote as history had suddenly become current events. A terrorist army rampaging through Israel, attacking kibbutzim along the Gaza border. Residents, once again, forced to flee.

The book was already written, and Josh was working hard on the illustrations. For him, the experience was even more surreal. He was drawing an attack on a kibbutz while watching one unfold on the news.

Initially, all of this seemed like a horrible coincidence. “Brother’s Keeper” is supposed to be historical. It’s supposed to reflect on something that happened a long, long ago. Never in my darkest nightmares did I imagine that it would become contemporary again.

And yet, here we are.

We continued our work on the book. With the Jewish comics convention about a month away, we had some hard print deadlines to meet.

But I felt as though the book we were working on had fundamentally changed. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but it seemed suddenly more significant. A friend who stopped by for coffee one morning was able to articulate what I couldn’t. When he saw a few of the illustrations, he declared, “We need this. Now!”

He went on to explain: Most of us weren’t born the last time a kibbutz was attacked. Many of our parents weren’t born yet, either. Part of the pain of the Oct. 7 attacks was that we had never experienced anything like it before.

Then my friend pointed at the illustrations I had shown him. He said, “But we have been through this before. We’ve survived this before.”

The moment he pointed that out, I realized that my grandfather’s story was no longer “just a story from a war.” It suddenly had meaning.

It wasn’t the meaning I intended. It certainly couldn’t have been my grandfather’s meaning. How could we have imagined we’d need such a reminder again?

And yet, there it is.

My grandfather, surviving an attack on a kibbutz in 1948, reminds us of what we can overcome in 2023.

Josh and I had no plans for an immediate wide release of this comic book. We expected to print a bunch of copies to sell at the convention, and then to figure out a release plan from there.

But now, the story carries a new, urgent purpose. We are working very hard to make the book available as broadly as possible when it debuts in New York on Nov. 12, 2023.

The guy's doing the right thing to raise the issue at a time when a horrifying incident struck Israel anew. Surely most important, however, is that the publishers and the conventions had better make absolutely certain they stand by his production rock solid, and not cower in the face of any threats that could be made against them by antisemitic sources. The same could be said regarding comics and GNs discussing September 11, 2001.

I'm very glad Mr. Shorr made the effort to develop a GN like this. There's been far too much censorship of subjects involving Islamofascism ever since 9-11, and that includes subjects involving Israel. The time's come for more of all concerned to prove they have the guts to produce comics tackling these vital issues and focus upon them convincingly. For now, let's hope the aforementioned convention along with the publishers are going to stand by Mr. Shorr from A to Z.

Veteran actress laments the sorry state in the USA after the Hamas massacre

Veteran actress Mayim Bialik spoke about the terrible antisemitism that's now poisoned the USA following the Hamas bloodbath on October 7:

Mayim Bialik said that “nothing has prepared” her for the anti-Semitism she’s seeing across America — and made it clear that there was “no excuse” for any of it — following the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 Israelis.

The 47-year-old actress posted an emotional 10-minute video on TikTok — which was shared on X — in which she speaks out as a Jewish American against the anti-Semitism she’s witnessing, blasting it as “unacceptable.”

“Imagine if there was a massacre of an ethnic group or a religious group, the equivalent of 50,000 Americans,” she said. “And imagine if what happened after that was that all over the world, there were marches of tense of thousands of people calling for further massacre of those people … That’s what it feels like right now as a Jewish person.”

“There has not been an experience in my lifetime that has prepared me for this,” she added. “I have heard from many people my whole life that anti-semitism is growing. That the Holocaust, while we say we’ll never forget, many have forgotten. And the swiftness with which the global population has seized upon the massacre of Jewish civilians living inside of a border. The swiftness with which the world has stepped up to redefine terrorism, to redefine statehood, to redefine the right of a people to exist.”

“Nothing has prepared me or any of us for this,” the “Jeopardy!” host continued. “Because it is clear, we get it. It is clear that there is a strain of antisemitism that is alive and well. It is thriving at my Alma Mater where the chant ‘We want a Jewish genocide’ was echoed in the quad in front of Royce Hall.”

Bialik, who got her doctoral from UCLA, said students of all backgrounds were chanting on that very campus, calling for a “Jewish genocide” — and she responded, calling it “unacceptable” and “not normal.”

“We should not normalize it,” the actress said. “There is no excuse for calling for a genocide of an entire people. Period. Full stop.”

Her son wants to go to college, yet there's only so many that're epically failing to condemn antisemitism, let alone Islamofascism, and as a result, very few that'd make a good choice, if at all. But now that there's younger folks who're studying without getting college degrees as a way to start a career, do folks like him really need to go to college at all? Something to ponder.

And, when it comes to said colleges, some of the terrible cases included Cornell, where a student was arrested and charged with making threats of violence:

A student who allegedly made threats of a mass shooting and antisemitic violence at Cornell University has been criminally charged, Fox News reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, court documents show that 21-year-old Patrick Dai, a junior at Cornell, has been federally charged in connection with the threats following an investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Earlier it was reported that a suspect is in custody for posting the threatening statements.

The menacing messages, posted over the weekend on a forum about fraternities and sororities, alarmed students at the school in upstate New York and led to students being advised to stay away from the school’s kosher dining hall.

“We can confirm that a subject has been identified as a suspect in the antisemitic threats made against our Jewish students on Sunday and is currently in custody,” Joel M. Malina, vice president for university relations, said in a statement.

[...] Notably, the threats to Jewish students at Cornell came amid an escalation in anti-Israel sentiments and incidents on campuses in the US.

Last Wednesday, Jewish students at Cooper Union College in New York City were forced to lock themselves inside the library as a mob of anti-Israeli protesters blocked the doors.

About 40 minutes later, security escorted the students out of the building via a tunnel.

According to this followup news, the student is now facing 5 years in prison for his horrific behavior:

Patrick Dai, 21, a junior student at the university originally from Pittsford, New York, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of New York.

The complaint against Dai alleges he posted threatening messages to the Cornell section of an online discussion site, which included calling for the deaths of Jewish people and carrying out a mass shooting of the 104 West building, which is a Cornell University dining hall that caters predominantly to Kosher diets, located next to the Cornell Jewish Center.

“In another post, Dai allegedly threatened to ‘stab’ and ‘slit the throat’ of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and to behead any Jewish babies,” authorities said in a news release. “In that same post, Dai threatened to ‘bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.'”

Dai faces a maximum term of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a term of supervised release of up to three years if convicted.

He's apparently a Chinese-American student, and one could wonder if he's also sympathetic to China's communist party. Of course, let's consider that one of the reasons he got where he is now could be due to indoctrination at colleges themselves. If they're capable of disseminating propaganda that bad, there's no telling how much worse it gets anywhere.

Update: another case of evil university staffers to ponder is a woman calling herself "non-binary", working at CUNY, who tore down posters of kidnapped Israelis:

A “non-binary” college educator went viral after attacking a bystander who recorded her ripping down posters of Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas.

Callen Zimmerman, a biological female who identifies with “they/them” pronouns, was listed as an adjunct professor within the City University of New York (CUNY) system until backlash resulted in her online biography being taken down.

The disturbing footage, taken by a couple of onlookers, shows Zimmerman tearing down signs of missing civilians who were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attack on Israeli soil. In the video, she tells them to “go colonize somewhere else.”

When the camerawoman attempts to follow Zimmerman across the street to capture what she is doing, the academic can be seen reaching and hitting her.

This serves as another example of how only so many LGBT ideologues are antisemitic, and ironically have no issue with Islam's opposition to their lifestyles. And the woman is even desensitized to violence, in addition to clearly hating her own gender.

The official entry begins, and could last a considerable amount of time

The IDF's official entry into Gaza has begun, and will obviously not end within a fortnight:

They’re heading into Gaza. Israeli forces, which have been amassing along the border for days, finally went into the Hamas-controlled area to wipe out the terror group. This operation goes beyond past ground assaults—Israel seems poised for the long haul, occupying the area until every Hamas terrorist is eliminated.

The IDF announced today that the next phase has begun and that ground troops are now operating in Gaza.

Make no mistake, this will be a long war. It could last years, as there are reportedly 40,000 Hamas terrorists waiting in terror tunnels to attack IDF forces. Israeli military units had conducted raids into Northern Gaza ahead of the main assault, taking out terrorists, defensive structures, and anti-tank positions. The latest incursions involved tanks and heavy equipment that laid the groundwork for the larger invasion force. This massive operation comes in the wake of Hamas' brutal invasion earlier this month.

With Iran's assistance, the invasion comes after Hamas launched a devastating and barbaric terror attack from Gaza on October 7. Over 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Torture, rape, and kidnapping were also inflicted upon the civilian population, where we saw whole families slaughtered by these radical Islamic animals. Babies were beheaded and set on fire.

It's firmly clear this operation will last a considerable length of time. But the end result will hopefully be one we can be relieved and proud of, and the tunnel network is one of the biggest problems other than the troglodytes dwelling there that must be eliminated. And we must avenge the sadistic murders that occurred on October 7.

Why do LGBT ideologues support anti-Israelism?

It's an important question made all the more worth pondering when creeps like a "non-binary" cast member of Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex & the City sequel on TV, And Just Like That, participated in an antisemitic rally:

And Just Like That star Sara Ramirez was spotted carrying a trans rights flag as they joined thousands of protesters at a 'free Palestine' rally in Brooklyn on Saturday.

The 48-year-old non-binary actor wore a keffiyeh - a monochrome patterned scarf which is a patriotic symbol of Palestinian identity - with a black North Face jacket, cap and dark sunglasses as they marched through the Bay Ridge neighborhood.

The use of LGBT paraphernalia at pro-Palestine protests has baffled many, since the Islamic Middle Eastern state follows sharia law, and as noted by Amnesty International, it is not safe for the queer community.

To be sure, many such practitioners are aware of that, and their reasons for taking LGBT lifestyle is more for the purpose of destroying western society as a 5th column. That's quite possibly the explanation for why these scum are willing to sell their souls to the Religion of Peace's antisemitic agendas. By contrast, look at what happened abroad:

A march in London on the same day saw what appeared to be a group bearing the Palestinian flag tear down an LGBT flag, sparking a conflict.

Palestine is not an LGBT-friendly nation. An Amnesty report last year highlighted how 'authorities failed to prevent and investigate homophobic and transphobic threats and attacks' in the country.

Outlining an example of homophobia in the nation, the report said: 'On 9 July (2022) security forces stood by and watched as a mob beat youths and children participating in a parade organized by Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah that included rainbow flags.

'The attack came amid a wave of incitement to violence and hate speech against LGBTI people and feminists that the authorities failed to investigate.'

If they're alluding to the PLO, of course they wouldn't. What does one expect from an autocracy? But shame on the UK Mail for sticking with the position there's such a thing as an Arab/Islamic state by the name of "palestine" when that's not the case. Though admittedly, it's not a surprise in Britain this kind of propaganda could still prevail. Also disgraceful is the use of the word "patriotic", which the PLO symbols most definitely are not.

And that somebody who's presumably a woman disrespecting her own gender would be involved so blatantly in an antisemitic march is just the tip of the iceberg, because And Just Like That, the sequel to Sex and the City, builds on some alarming antisemitic stereotypes itself:

“Sex and the City” (SATC) fans appropriately expressed outrage after SATC’s reboot “And Just Like That” (AJLT) made an offensive joke about the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day. They further charged that the show was permeated with overdone “woke-ism.”

But other deeply disturbing things about AJLT received little to no notice. First, AJLT repeatedly promoted the dangerous George Soros-funded Israel-bashing propaganda organization Human Rights Watch (HRW). This became even worse in the just-aired AJLT Season 2, which also displays giant HRW signs in numerous scenes.

The show also included a joke portraying Israel’s Mossad as random assassins; propagated the false “Muslim ban” myth; disparaged Jews’ physical appearance and behavior; and mocked concerns about kosher food. It thus compounded the negative, antisemitic portrayals of Jews and Israel in the series “Suits,” “Quantico” and too many other shows.

This is extremely harmful to Jews in an era of skyrocketing antisemitism, which is often manifested as Israel-hatred.

And that's just the beginning. The show turns out to be stunningly politicized, maybe even more than the original TV series was. Although, if the following alludes to the original series, something very disturbing turned up there too:

SATC portrayed the Jewish character Harry Goldenblatt as so physically unattractive that, during the early part of his relationship with the gorgeous character Charlotte York, Charlotte is repulsed and embarrassed to be seen in public with Harry.

Related episodes focused on Harry’s hairy back, Harry sloppily eating and then spitting out a bagel into his hand and Harry leaving skid marks on the sofa from sitting on it naked. Even after Charlotte falls in love with Harry’s humor, warmth, compassion (and sexual ability), and converts to Judaism so he will marry her, Charlotte yells at Harry: “Do you know how lucky you are to have me? Do you know how we look? Do you know what people out there think when they see us together? Do you?”

Harry leaves after that outburst, and Charlotte is then set up with two other Jewish men, described as “a meeskite and a faigela”—Yiddish terms for an ugly man and a gay man. Charlotte then attends a Jewish synagogue singles event populated with unattractive singles and only one good-looking Jewish man. The good-looking man leaves the event after Charlotte rejects him, and the other women then lament that “all that’s left is the fatties and the baldies.”

The other significant Jewish character, Carrie’s gay friend Stanford Blatch, is short, bald and portrayed as unattractive.

By contrast, virtually every non-Jewish SATC event attendee and date is good-looking—often extraordinarily so. Years ago, I saw SATC taping an outdoor scene in New York City’s Bryant Park. Even the extras were remarkably attractive.

AJLT continues SATC’s habit of disparaging Jewish character Harry Goldenblatt’s looks. In AJLT’s season one, episode one, Harry asks, “What? Bike helmet not a good look on a 58-year-old Jew?”

Harry’s physical abilities are also disparaged in stereotypical fashion. After Charlotte knocks Harry over during a tennis game, Harry says: “I’m OK, I’m OK. Just an old Jewish guy tryin’ to play sports.”

I guess if the homosexual character is Jewish, it's okay to depict somebody like that as ugly too, huh? Not to mention that depicting a Jewish man as gay is also an insult to Jewish manhood. Wow, this makes me glad I never saw it. I do recall reading some movie reviews of the 2 film expansions in the late 2000s, where it was told there were some crude jokes made to boot, and have to wonder what anybody sees in a TV show where the women were reportedly meant to be absurd metaphors for homosexual men?!? All this does is make clear Hollywood really is a repulsive place to be - and regrettably has been for a long time. And now, SATC and its sequel have a cast member who's going miles out of her way to align with antisemitic movements. When the TV show is as horrific as the above makes clear, you can't be shocked if any of its contributors are by extension. Let's also not forget one of the original series' actors, Chris Noth, was accused of sex offenses a few years ago, which only tarnishes the TV program even more. We can only hope more people will be willing to boycott AJLT now that it's been exposed as the atrocity it sadly is.

Update: here's another example of a LGBT advocate who was arrested at one of Jewish Voice for Peace's anti-Israeli rallies in Florida.

A very difficult military campaign ahead

A vital point is made why destroying the Hamas, and freeing hostages, if possible, will be very hard:

Israel is preparing to invade Gaza, a task that will require its military to engage in grinding warfare through an urban setting and defeat a Hamas organization that is stronger than ever, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Israel’s objective is to wipe out all remnants of the Iran-backed terrorist organization whose members brutally murdered 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians, in an unanticipated intrusion on Oct. 7, Israel’s leaders say. While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is better armed than Hamas and has trained for exactly the kind of operation it plans to execute in Gaza, the coming fight will present new challenges it has not yet dealt with in combat, experts said.

Michael Knights, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), explained the challenges the IDF will face before achieving its war aims. Gaza is packed with secretive tunnels, deteriorating buildings that can be used as strongpoints for attack and thousands of “fanatical” fighters, he said, not to mention civilians.

“Any environment like this — ruins, dents, building quality, lots of civilians— it’s complicated. Then you’ve got hostages, then the three dimensional component [of] tall buildings and really extensive underground spaces,” Knights said. “And then you’ve got an enemy that is probably more advanced than anything we’re seeing outside of the Ukraine environment.”

Hamas is a “fanatical defending force that is actually very well armed,” Knights told the DCNF.

The operation will be like “moving through a minefield” while under fire the entire way through the city, he said.

Without any doubt, it'll be severely dangerous. But for the sake of safety, that's exactly why the enemy's reign can't be allowed to continue.

Update: in the meantime, Naomi Ragen makes a sad point that nothing will be the same now.

Hamas planned to use chemical weapons

Israeli president Isaac Herzog reported details were found of plans by Hamas to use poisonous chemicals:

Israeli security forces found instructions for producing cyanide gas on the body of one of the Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed on Sunday.

Speaking with Sky News, Herzog said that troops found a USB flash drive with instructions for preparing a device to disperse the poisonous gas, once used for mass murder in Nazi gas chambers.

"This is material that was found on the body of one of those sadistic villains. It's Al-Qaeda material, official Al-Qaeda material," Herzog told the British TV network.

"When dealing with ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Hamas, this is what we're dealing with," added the Israeli head of state.

Late last week, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's weapons of mass destruction non-proliferation department informed embassies around the world of "Hamas's intention to use chemical weapons" in a classified cable, according to Axios.

The cable reportedly instructed ambassadors to share the file with their host governments privately. "This discovery indicates that Hamas intended to use chemical warfare agents as part of its series of terrorist operations against the civilian population," read the missive.

Cyanide is one of the most dangerous chemicals around, and it's to be hoped the authorities now have a grip on this situation, and will make sure such evil plans cannot be committed.

USA government trying to delay Israeli ground incursion into Gaza

When the USA government, as currently led by Democrats, is the one doing this, something is terribly wrong:

The US government has pressed Israel to delay its imminent ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to allow for the release of more Hamas hostages and aid into Gaza, CNN reported on Sunday, citing two sources briefed on the discussions.

“The [administration] pressed Israeli leadership to delay because of progress on the hostage front” and the need to get trucks of aid into Gaza, one person familiar with the discussions said.

The National Security Council did not immediately respond for comment.

When US President Joe Biden was asked Saturday if he was encouraging Israel to delay the invasion, he responded: "I'm talking to the Israelis."

In the meantime, the President on Sunday took to social media in an attempt to cool off Israel's battle plans. "Israel has the right to defend itself. We must make sure they have what they need to protect their people today and always," Biden wrote on X.

"At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu and I have discussed how Israel must operate by the laws of war. That means protecting civilians in combat as best as they can," he added.

The President continued, "We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace. That’s why I secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And we cannot give up on a two-state solution."

The persistence in talking about 2-state solutions is another serious problem that can't be approved of. And nobody should underestimate that Biden and company are doing everything they can to sabotage the war and rescue efforts. The Israeli government must not let this be the case.

Update: see also this article, telling what it's like now for a lot of Israelis in view of the new, horrifying reality (via Front Page Magazine).

Update 2: Vanity Fair, leftist as they are, notes that Anthony Blinken avoided questions about whether they're trying to delay a ground raid. It goes without saying that's very disgraceful.

Update 3: a writer named Tova Herzl says the Hamas' National Socialist-style sadism makes clear they don't care about political solutions.

Dave Chappelle was not worth supporting at all

A few years ago, the comedian Dave Chappelle came under attack for a show where he wanted to do jokes about LGBT ideologues. Now, it's clear that, if his career is still intact, it's because of ideologies considered ranking above even that:

Comedian Dave Chappelle went on a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rant at a show in Boston on Thursday evening — and was cheered by the crowd, causing Jews present in the audience to walk out.

A source posted on Facebook:

Hello my friends. This is my first FB post in nearly 7 years. With that said, it is also the only social media platform I have, so I hope people still use FB.

I would like to share with you an experience I had last night. [My wife] and I went to the Dave Chappelle-Standup Comedy show at TD Garden with three other couples. What started out as a funny and joyful evening for the 8 of us ending with disgust and fear.

Towards the end of his act, Chappelle mentioned the war in Israel and how he as a Muslim denounces Israel for its treatment of the people in Gaza and started to add in lots of false and unsubstantiated claims. A gentleman towards the front yelled out “You should shut the F up”. Chappelle lost it on the man yelling, “You do not tell me to shut the F up at MY show”. Chappelle then started on a tirade of his beliefs leaving comedy behind and focusing purely on the politics.

While that was awful in itself, what made my heart sink and started to invoke fear was when the crowd of nearly 20,000 people started yelling out “Go Palestine. Go Hamas.” and other related hatful jargon. The audience was cheering Chappelle on during his tirade. I was sick. We were sick. I turned to my friends and wife and said I think it is time to go. We walked out and met up with many other Jews leaving the show. Never in my life have I felt so unsafe and so fearful of what I was witnessing. The words alone were horrific, but we were vulnerable in a public forum. How could we know what would happen? Could violence against the Jewish members in the audience break out?

Here in Boston, how was there so much hate for Jews. How could a comedy show provide such a mechanism for people to verbally shout our their hatred for Jews? The unfortunate icing on the cake was that all cell phones and communication devices had to be locked up so there is no video or audio evidence. With that, I am hoping social media can spread this word.

If you have made it this far and know how to use social media better than me, please share and see if we can get this to the Boston Globe. Thank you.

Unfortunately, chances the Globe will say anything about this are minimal, and if memory serves, they're owned by the awful New York Times. The Wall Street Journal did give a report though:

Chappelle first condemned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, but criticized what he said were war crimes in Gaza, according to people in attendance.

The comments came up when Chappelle said he didn’t think students should lose job offers for supporting Palestinians. An audience member’s command for the comedian to shut up drew an emotional response from Chappelle, who criticized the Israeli government for cutting off water and other essentials to Gaza and accused it of killing innocent people, according to the attendees.

Some audience members cheered Chappelle on and shouted “Free Palestine,” while others yelled, “What about Hamas,” the attendees said. Some in the crowd got up and left.

Boston is becoming one of a number of places in the USA where I once wanted to visit, and no longer do. Chappelle's vulgar tirade also explains why he opposed Donald Trump 5 years before. The Netflix management said they screwed up defending Chappelle because of his alleged stance on LGBT issues. No. This latest atrocity in Boston is why. When somebody takes the side of the barbarians - and the audience takes his side in turn - it destroys everything, because he makes himself no different - and easily worse - than the perverts.

Giving Gazans work permits within Israeli parameters enabled them to plan the massacre

One of the reasons the Hamas was able to conduct such a horrific attack on October 7 was because of the work permits Israel made the grave mistake of providing:

Among the litter of guns, korans, and maps discarded by the Hamas terrorists whose bodies lie alongside bullet-riddled vehicles and dusty roads are green Gaza IDs with work permits. Normally residents of the Hamas territory can’t enter Israel, but work permits allowed over 20,000 Gazans to enter Israel. When some returned, it was as Hamas rapists and killers.

The Hamas invasion succeeded so well because the terrorists had an intimate knowledge of the communities they were targeting because they had worked there or had intelligence from those who had worked there. The attackers had detailed maps and building layouts. One woman whose husband and son were murdered said that the Hamas terrorists knew the names of the people, how many children they had and even which of them owned dogs.

Last year, Secretary of State Blinken addressed a J Street even and told the anti-Israel lobby that the Biden administration had pushed Israel to “improve the lives of Palestinians” by, among other things, “issuing thousands of work permits for Palestinians in Gaza”.

The number of exits from Gaza into Israel rose sharply under the Biden administration and the left-wing Bennett-Lapid government which handed out an unprecedented number of work permits.

In 2021, there had been a total of only 7,500 exits a month from Gaza, but by July 2022, there had been 35,370 exits.

The massive increase was due to the work permits that the Biden administration had sought and that Bennett, Lapid and Gantz had willingly provided. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made the decision to increase the number of work permits from 5,000 to 15,000. Defense Minister Benny Gantz assessed the security situation and approved the move which embedded Hamas terrorists into Israel. By late 2022, the number had expanded to 17,000.

While Lapid and Gantz, along with Biden and Blinken, obviously have to shoulder much guilt, even Bennett - and Ayelet Shaked - have to shoulder much blame for enabling this, by pulling a coup d'etat, all because they didn't like Netanyahu, and come to think of it, they clearly didn't like Donald Trump either. Now, untold damage has occurred by enabling terrorist moles to gather information for planning the massacre that could've been avoided if they really cared about safety. Now, it's crystal clear they don't. And, lest we forget, even Israeli employers must be utterly ashamed of themselves for employing these monsters to begin with.

In another related subject, an insurrection led by pro-Hamas demonstrators took place at Capitol Hill, and unlike the pro-Trump protestors on January 6, 2021, nobody's calling these criminals for what they are:

About one hundred pro-Palestinian insurrectionists occupied a federal House office building in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, chanting “ceasefire now” and “let Gaza live.”

The insurrectionists, many who wore face masks and dressed in black and flew a banner demanding that Israel stop defending itself from rocket attacks against civilians, occupied the ground floor of the Cannon Office Building, one of three main buildings where congressional staff and lawmakers work.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib was leading the protest:

No shock at all. And the Democrats will continue to be okay with this, and do nothing to expel her from their repulsive ranks.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was on the scene and noted a double standard between the pro-Palestinian insurrectionists and the protestors on January 6. “There’s an insurrection happening now on Capitol Hill,” her video caption read of the event. “They are claiming they want peace but they want money to go to terrorists.”

Some news reports noted that the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace was involved. No shock that self-haters would participate either. What next, will Neturei Karta turn up? And what are the chances that nobody who took part in this left-wing insurrection will ever be prosecuted?

USA government hires pro-Hamas PLO spokesperson to help bring Gazans into the country

While Republicans oppose bringing Muslims from Gaza into the USA, the Biden administration is making sure that's what'll be done, as they hired a PLO employee to handle such affairs:

The U.S. immigration enforcement agency hired a former spokeswoman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and put her in a position to determine who gets to come into the country as an immigrant or “asylum seeker.” Now the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer is repeatedly posting pictures of Hamas terrorists parachuting in with guns and writing, “F*** Israel and any Jew who supports Israel,” a Daily Wire investigation found.

Nejwa Ali worked in 2016 and 2017 as a public affairs officer for the Palestinian Delegation to the U.S., which according to its own website, served as the “PLO office in D.C.” That office was expelled from the country by the Trump administration, but Ali landed on her feet, according to a screenshot of her LinkedIn profile, securing a job at DHS as an “Asylum Officer,” where she was tasked with “applying immigration laws and regulations to asylum applications.”

This January, she moved over to being an Adjudication Officer for the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (CIS). People with that job, according to the agency, “analyze new or amended legislation and policy, prepare written reports of findings, and review and make determinations on cases for immigration benefits.”

Though Ali’s job at DHS included vetting people to make sure they were not a threat to the country before letting them in, it’s not clear that anyone from the agency vetted her. That her primary allegiance was to the Palestinians, not the United States, was evident from her social media profiles, where she posts as “Falastine Mi Amor.”

She has posted extremist rhetoric continuously to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for years — rhetoric that intensified this month as Palestinian terrorists murdered over 1,000 Jews on October 7 and Ali cheered. “F*** Israel, the government, and its military. Are you ready for your downfall?” she wrote on Instagram after the attacks.

According to her social media profiles — which say she is “American born, Palestinian @ heart” — Ali is from Dearborn, Michigan, a hotbed of unassimilated immigrants where thousands reportedly took to the streets in support of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.

Ali has made several posts glorifying the terrorist attacks on Israel, including one depicting armed terrorists paragliding into the Jewish state with the caption, “Free PALESTINE.” [...]

USCIS declined to say why it would hire someone who previously worked for a foreign quasi-government that was expelled from the United States and put them in position to determine who was allowed to come into the country. [...]

The United States is facing pressure from the political Left to welcome Palestinian refugees into the country amid Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It is officers like Ali who would be tasked with advising the government whether or not it would be safe to grant entry to an applicant.

This of course contradicts Biden's alleged positions, no matter how you view the issue. Making matters worse is that Scotland's Muslim First Minister, Humza Yousaf, is welcoming these Gazans into the northern UK, as he announced on social media:

In the past, people in Scotland and across the UK have opened our hearts and our homes.

Scotland is ready to play her part.

To be the first country in the UK to offer safety and sanctuary to the people of Gaza.

To treat the injured men, women and children, where we can. pic.twitter.com/VMvszfZD4U

— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 17, 2023

The people of Gaza are a proud people.

Many don't want to leave, and shouldn't have to.

But for those displaced, who want to leave, there should be a worldwide refugee scheme.

Scotland is willing to be a place of sanctuary and be the first country to take those refugees. pic.twitter.com/5RbZpJsGHX

— Humza Yousaf (@HumzaYousaf) October 18, 2023

This has got to be one of the worst things about this Trojan horse who got in mostly as a result of previous First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's pandering to LGBT ideology. He's enabling horrible personalities to enter the UK, where they could infest the rest of the country by extension.

Schools in USA desensitize children to violence, and employ rotten apples

Michele Exner warns of the serious topic of universities and schools alike in the USA that have clouded their students' judgement when it comes to Islamic jihadism, and practically desensitized them to violence:

There should have been a resounding and unified condemnation against these barbaric attacks, but shockingly, the statements from student groups and universities across the U.S. like Harvard, Columbia, Stanford and George Washington University, showed many young Americans siding with Hamas terrorists instead of standing up for the innocent people targeted and killed.

Much attention has been given to the radical protests and anti-Israel rhetoric coming out of college campuses, but it would be naive to think these students developed this warped sense of morality in just a few years or in a few classes at college. What we are witnessing is the manifestation of hate-filled indoctrination that has taken root in K-12 classrooms across the country.

Schools have become infatuated with teaching children that the entire world exists in a paradigm of oppressed versus oppressor. This hierarchy of oppression has replaced moral teachings of right and wrong. It has programmed students to wrongly believe violence is justified if it is carried out against a group deemed the “oppressor” by prevailing progressive ideologues.

Parents Defending Education has tracked dozens of incidents of school districts incorporating these reprehensible lessons into curriculums and teacher training sessions.

In New Haven Unified School District’s Ethnic Studies & Social Justice Academy, which is part of James Logan High School in California, the course’s objective was to teach students to challenge and criticize “power, oppression, capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism.”

In a proposed ethnic studies curriculum in Jefferson Union High School District in San Mateo County, California, students are expected to learn “systems of oppression” with lessons on the “Four I’s of Oppression,” power and privilege, and colonialism. One example included in the lessons focuses on “Palestinian dispossession of lands/identity/culture through Zionist settler colonialism.”

[...] In Boston, public schools incorporated an ethnic studies curriculum focused on oppression and examining the so-called “pillars of white supremacy.”

If it was not bad enough this propaganda was being forced on American kids under the guise of “ethnic studies,” there have been accounts of school officials and even school board members who have promoted hateful rhetoric.

On May 13, 2021, Abrar Omeish, who continues to serve as a sitting member on the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Board, uploaded an antisemitic post on her Facebook page accusing Israel of being an apartheid state and colonizers. The account she used is also the one she uses for her official duties.

And all these years, nothing was done to get these kind of people out of the public school system. You can't be shocked it could come to this then. There've even been similar cases occurring with movements like the ADL, which degenerated into a cesspool of wokeness some time ago, and following offensive incidents in which Hamas supports in the USA tore down posters featuring pictures of victims of kidnap/rape/murder, it also turns out one of those who did such a truly abominable act was an employee at ADL:

One of the NYU students who brazenly ripped down posters of Israeli hostages is an activist “extremely passionate about fighting racial profiling” who blamed her behavior on misplaced anger.

Yazmeen Deyhimi — a junior at the top university who once worked for the Anti-Defamation League — admitted to tearing apart banners that were plastered outside NYU’s Tisch Hall, in a shameless act that was caught on video.

Deyhimi came clean on her Instagram account after the action ignited social media outcry and calls for the school to hold the perpetrators accountable.

“I have found it increasingly difficult to know my place as a biracial brown woman, especially during these highly volatile times,” she wrote.

What she's doing is a truly shameless display of victimology. What's really weird here is that:

According to her LinkedIn profile, Deyhimi is an advocate against Muslim bigotry and spent a summer working with the ADL as a CSC Education Intern when she was just 15 years old.

If she means she's opposed to bigotry espoused by Muslims, she lied via her behavior. And it's not going to be easy to excuse her even now. She should be ostracized, and told to repost the advertisements she and her cronies tore down. The accomplices must be identified and ostracized as well.

“After review, we can confirm that one of the participants was part of an ADL high-school level summer internship in 2019,” a spokesperson for the organization told The Post.

“We fully condemn her actions and hope that the apology she issued is the first step towards working to repair the harm and deep hurt her actions caused.”

The ADL has since taken down a blog post announcing the Long Island native as one of the 12 student leaders joining the program, describing Deyhimi as “extremely passionate about fighting racial profiling and championing gender equality.”

As noted here:

While Jonathan Greenblatt has performed okay during the current crisis, I warned that the changes he made to the ADL have actually infected the group with extremists who hate Israel and Jews. [...]

If the ADL doesn't part ways with them collectively - say, if there's 20, to make sure all 20 are completely dismissed - then they shouldn't even continue to function as a movement at all. It's clear at this point they've failed their mission.

What begins with Jews never ends with them

Ron Jager reminds everybody of the Islamic connections with the National Socialists during WW2, and how it never ends with just Jews:

The common thread unifying the desire for the total destruction of Jews is shared by both the radical Islamism of Hamas and Nazi ideology. This common bond of “purifying” humanity of any Jewish presence promoted and upheld by radical Islamism and Nazi ideology began during the early decades of the previous century. One cannot deny the nearly identical ideological and doctrinal models used by the Nazis and todays Hamas who promote the total annihilation of Jews and the state of Israel. Nazi ideology spoke of “redemptive anti-Semitism”, namely a form of anti-Semitism that explains all in the world by offering a form of “redemption” by exterminating and purifying humanity of the Jews. Hamas provides the same rational for murdering Jews and Israelis in particular. Hamas religious and political leaders broadcast daily sermons of incitement to murder Jews promising heaven and redemption for those that carry out this call to rid the world of Jews. [...]

The connection between the Palestinian Arabs and the Nazi regime in Germany however runs much deeper. A key player was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini who met covertly with representatives of the Nazi SS intelligence arm during the late 1930s, and not coincidently with Otto Adolf Eichmann, who was a German-Austrian Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major implementers of the Holocaust’s systematic annihilation and extermination of European Jewry. An interesting footnote to Al-Husseini’s family lineage; Yasser Arafat, deceased leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, an organization that was dedicated to the murdering of Jews and the destruction of the State of Israel, was a first nephew of Al-Husseini.

What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The first airplane that was hijacked was an Israeli airplane, and today at every airport at every country in the world, we now line up for security checks, so the world should be concerned. The danger of dismissing the axis of Jew hatred as personified by the Palestinian Arab Hamas terror organization, the heads of the Iranian Regime, their paymasters in the Qatar Regime and the Palestinian Authority lead by Mohammed Abbas lies in there inherent danger for the whole world as today’s modern torch bearers of Nazism.

This is information that nobody sensible should overlook.

Joshua Muravchik, Making David into Goliath

At Amazon, Joshua Muravchik, Making David into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel.

Also, See, Michael Curtis, Should Israel Exist?: A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community.

* I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 

Your purchases through my affiliate links are greatly appreciated. Thank you.

What Larry Hama says following the Hamas bloodbath against Israelis

I dicovered veteran GI Joe comics writer Hama commented on the Hamas abominations against Israeli victims on the 12th of October, with the following: And I may as well post the text plain below too, along with some screencaps:

How do certain people equate deliberately murdering children and decapitating babies with the targeting of terrorist infrastructure that results in collateral death of civilians? How do you ignore intent?

I'd really like to appreciate that he recognizes that gory murders of infants are repulsive and inexcusable. But then, he dampened the impact with a response to somebody offering a perceptive viewpoint. First, what the respondent says:

Because the pathological belief that the Palestinians are oppressed underdogs rather than what they are- a generalized menace to the region.

A very perceptive viewpoint. But, what did Hama say in return? This is, quite honestly, disappointing:

I think the Palestinians have as legitimate a beef as Native Americans. And I think the current Israeli government should not be confused with the Israeli people. Every single Israeli I know personally hates Netenyahu. Nothing good has ever come of partition. It is a complex issue, rife with what-aboutisms, and bad players on both sides. But, the creeps who are cheering for people who cut the heads off infants are pieces of shit in my book. We dealt with Calley and Medina. If you don't police your own bad apples, you are no better than them.

I wonder why he doesn't have the courage to verify whether the Israelis he knows are as left-wing as he is? That's the problem with men of his sort, they won't look beyond those they already know, nor do they consider what the Koran's built upon. He also takes a viewpoint that ignores a sizable majority elected the parties comprising the current Israeli government, denies any validity to Israel's historical residency in areas like Gaza, and even clearly buys into the propaganda first begun in the mid-20th century of a "palestinian people" of Arab/Islamic background. He might also want to consider even Indians of the north American continent have blame to shoulder for being part of slavemongering against Blacks. But if he believes in the vitality of policing your own side, does he have any complaints about how leftists are failing to do so, when there's universities allowing horrific movements to dominate there, and turning their backs on Jewish targets? Not to mention the continuing deterioration of USA cities under Democrat control, including New York City, and even Philadelphia and Chicago, to name but some. Hama's apparent disinterest in considering all these issues and commenting on them unambiguously is only prolonging the problem. Which includes even Ta-Nehisi Coates, who signed onto a letter supporting Hamas. If Hama's worried about whether the left pays attention to its own, will he complain how this despicable man was/is still allowed to write mainstream comics? The commentor said:

The problem with the Palestinians as a group is they have backstabbed every Arab government thar ever tried helping them out. Jordan invited them in, and they thanked King Hussein by almost getting them into another war with the Israelis then trying to assassinate him twice. Black September, 1970. Then Jordan's expulsion of the PLO dumped them in Lebanon, which started their civil war and doomed them as a country. The Egyptians already have a jihadi problem and rightfully refuse to import more. So the Palestinians have to accept, but won't, that their own leaders have sold them out for fifty years, Arafat alone having stole billions, Hamas and Hez are Iranian puppets, and they're going to get used as cannon fodder in a war that may get them all killed. Which sucks, but even the Israelis who felt bad for them don't care after this.

While there are some impressive points to be made here, I still can't help but wonder if even this particular respondent isn't as well-informed as he could be, which dampens the impact of this too as a result. Another said:

It's impossible to empathize with anyone that commits the atrocities that Hamas has committed. I just don't see where they see this going. What support they had is surely reduced as the world unites by the horrors committed.

It definitely should be, but there's still alarming portions who support these abominations around the world, even in Britain, and that's just the beginning. It's also crucial to consider how the Democrats welcomed delegates like Rashida Tlaib into their ranks. Here's another reply to Hama:

Everything I know about the region and its troubles pointed to fault on BOTH sides....UNTIL....Saturday's events and the following days... I was willing to listen to both sides....I'm not now. Murdering babies...nearly 40 babies I'm told, means that any complexity in the issue just got a whole lot simpler....fuck Hamas....light them up.

One more person so far says:

I believe people cherry pick the facts that fit the narrative they want it to be

Something leftists like Hama have to consider. His continued associations with the left in any way after horrors like this only makes this all the more galling and deplorable, and will not improve the situations at hand. I've got a sad feeling that despite all he says, he won't ever travel to Israel specifically to meet with anybody considered right-wing, let alone religious/Zionist, may not even meet with victims of Islamic terrorism, nor will he ever study the Koran's contents, or even publicly condemn far-leftists unambiguously. All because his stature as a GI Joe writer, or even the most significant writer for Wolverine's 1st volume, is apparently so important he must remin within the left's "good graces" for eternity. At least, that's what people like him seem to believe.

Michael Curtis, Should Israel Exist?

See, Michael Curtis, Should Israel Exist?: A Sovereign Nation Under Attack by the International Community.

More disturbing details about pseudo-creators who've supported anti-Israelism

Some more clues have turned up as to the vile conduct of at least a few of the comics writers previously mentioned here, such as past posts on X/Twitter by Saladin Ahmed. For example, as discovered through here, here and here, and seen in the following screencap:

There's also a bit more involving Nadia Shammus, which appears to be from more recently, before she shut her page, and it even includes people who interacted on the same thread:

This is some of the most truly repulsive stuff I've ever seen littering social media, and again beggars the queries how much longer the Big Two, along with any indies employing these 2, in example, will continue to associate with them. Already, Playboy parted ways with a Lebanese-American "media influencer" named Mia Khalifa, and Marvel would do well to follow their example by parting ways with Ahmed. Lest we forget, all other comics creators who recognize the seriousness of the issues here must also end any and all contact they've had with Ahmed and Shammus until now. In view of the savagery the Hamas committed, this is exactly why no self-respecting comics creator should ever associate with people like them again. Also, lest we forget, Ahmed injected some bad stereotypes into Daredevil.

Barbarism against infancy

One of the most horrifying things the Hamas did when they invaded the southern border towns in Israel was murdering infants:

I24NEWS Correspondent Nicole Zedek reported that when security forces retook the town of Kfar Aza from the Hamas terrorists who massacred over a thousand Israelis on Saturday, they found the bodies of 40 babies throughout the town.

Some of the infants were decapitated.

Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv described the scene to i24NEWS: "It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. You see the babies, the mother, the father, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them. It's a massacre."

As many as 200 victims were found in Kfar Aza, where Zedek said the air was full of the "smells of death."

Those who refuse to condemn such graphic barbarism should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

Update: here's more on the subject.

Saladin Ahmed's Daredevil story builds on antisemitic tropes

There've been at least a few other cases of antisemitic imagery turning up in Marvel's stories in recent years, with at least one other example in X-Men produced by a Muslim adherent, Ardian Syaf, and now author Saladin Ahmed, on the week when Israel was struck by a horrific massacre by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, turned out another example, as reported by Religion News Service:

“Daredevil,” the popular Marvel Comics series, was relaunched this month with a new creative team and several innovations, including a new adversary for its swashbuckling blind superhero that has drawn fire from interfaith scholars.

Starting with a new issue #1, Daredevil, whose civilian identity is Matthew Murdock, is now a Catholic priest in New York City. The nameless new villain, meanwhile, has long horns, a long white beard and a hooked nose — imagery straight out of anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda, the commentators say.

“This illustration draws from an ancient tradition of demonizing Jews in literature and art to portray a clash between good and evil,” said Malka Simkovich, director of Catholic-Jewish studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

“The hooked nose and the beard, as well as the weathered and wrinkled forehead, suggest that the antagonist in question is a demonic rabbi.” It doesn’t help, Simkovich added, that Daredevil is shown fending his enemy off with a cross.

Rabbi A. James Rudin, who recently became the first rabbi granted a knighthood by Pope Francis, called it “repulsive.”

“When I first saw the illustration of Daredevil’s opponent in this new iteration of the comic book hero, I was immediately struck by his resemblance to posters advertising a Nazi propaganda film called “Der Ewige Jude” (“The Eternal Jew”),” said Philip A. Cunningham, director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “One might have hoped that the comic’s creators would have been wary of playing with such hateful imagery in these days of unabashed antisemitic rhetoric.”

Clearly, this guy hasn't paid much attention to Ahmed's own past rhetoric, but what's also offensive here is editor C.B. Cebulski's failure to prevent this. Something tells me Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso wouldn't have taken proper action against Ahmed either, the dismissal of Syaf for his own offenses notwithstanding. Speaking of which, even the artist for this DD tale has blame to shoulder, and, when contacted, defended his approach:

When reached by email on Thursday (Oct. 5), “Daredevil” artist Aaron Kuder vigorously objected to any reading of his art as antisemitic. “If you’re comparing my art to that of Nazi propaganda … Well, that’s just insane. Completely laughably insane. Also extremely and utterly insulting,” he wrote in an email.

“I will point out that in the Nazi propaganda that I’m aware of (I’m no expert) dark hair is also a key component. Also, being short in height is a key visual component. Neither of which are components in the villain design … literally any kind of person can have large facial features and long hair. There is no correlation here.”

Explaining that he never comments on ongoing stories, Kuder said he made an exception because he could not stand by and “be even passively lumped in” with other artists previously disciplined by Marvel who “slipped messages of hate past their editors.”

He may be of Jewish descent himself, but that doesn't make it impossible to be a self-hater who'd rely on vulgar stereotypes, and it doesn't help he's admitting to lack of expertise on the subjects, nor that he didn't make the villain short or have black hair. Even half the details can be pretty bad, to say nothing of subtle.

In 2017, fans discovered antisemitic and anti-Christian messages in the pages of “X-Men Gold” #1, inserted by Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf. The company removed the images from subsequent printings, digital versions and trade paperbacks. In 2021, Marvel removed antisemitic imagery from print and digital editions of its “Immortal Hulk” comic after fans noticed a panel with a jewelry store whose name was rendered as “Cronemberg Jewery” with a reverse Star of David in the window.

Regarding the issue of a Jewish-owned jewelry store in the Hulk, that might've been an overreaction, even if the idea's an easy one. But Syaf's stealthings, that's another matter, and based on his vindictive reactions, that's one more reason why it was offensive, and he thus confirmed something was wrong. Notice, however, that this article makes no serious attempt to ask if Muslim anti-semitism played any part here, nor is there any exploration of how Marvel allowed for anti-white metaphors into the pages of the Hulk, or anti-conservative ones into the pages of X-Men (or even accompanying misogynist allusions).

Some see an irony in Marvel’s history, as the superhero comic book industry was founded by Jewish creators almost a century ago out of necessity, when they were discriminated against from working in the mainstream publishing world.

What's really sad is how Jewish creations and productions were devoured by a mainstream conglomeracy with no genuine respect for their publishers and creators. One that's highly unlikely, even today, to hire right-wing Jews any more than non-Jews of the same political bent.

Gerry Gladston, chief marketing and legal officer for Midtown Comics, the industry’s leading retailer of comic books and graphic novels based in New York City, said this week he was unaware of any complaints about the “Daredevil” issue until contacted by Religion News Service but saw it as an educational opportunity.

Simkovich, meanwhile, expressed concern that without response from Marvel, the antisemitic message will continue to be promoted under the reader’s radar.

“Readers who scan these pages will become inculcated and inured to antisemitic tropes without even knowing that it’s happening,” she said. “They will become desensitized to situations in which such demonization presents an immediate danger to the health and wellbeing of Jewish people.”

At a time when Israel's under attack in many ways, Ahmed's story is practically a gift to antisemites, subtly or otherwise. It remains to be seen if Marvel will take disciplinary action against him for doing something that couldn't have come at a worse time. But back to the main article, they even made sure to inject some kind of moral equivalence:

Not everyone sees the “Daredevil” images as only antisemitic. “The image also seems to pull on anti-Arab imagery,” said Hussein Rashid, an independent scholar whose focus is religion and comics.

“The use of symbols against an adversary or The Adversary is quite common in comics,” said Rashid, adding that “comics, not just Marvel, are replete with images and storylines that continue to reinforce narratives of marginalization.”

This sounds more like somebody trying to imply Ahmed doesn't speak for him, not very convincingly, and simultaneously, he must be alluding to Bill Willingham's Fables, which had a leading villain called The Adversary years before. This strongly suggests the interviewee hated the pro-Israel metaphors in Fables, ditto any pro-conservative ones. Just what's RNS trying to prove here anyway? Also again, no mention of Islam, curiously enough, nor any effort made to explain that Arabic background has nothing to do with this, only the Religion of Peace.

I think Kurt Busiek was once a supporter of Ahmed. It'll remain to be seen if left-wing Busiek's still willing to associate in any with him after this atrocious scandal (I was able to find a result on search engines that gave a clue to Busiek's interactions with Ahmed, seen in the screencap on the side). The same goes for many other comics contributors the industry over. And once again, Marvel's proven they're not honoring the memory of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, or anybody else who did far more for comicdom than people like Ahmed ever will.