Hamas kidnappers “were trying not to leave [physical] marks … But they would still punish him this way or the other. Very often for trivial things.”

Posted on June 11, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Hostages were beaten, abused ‘almost every day,’ says doctor who treated rescuees
June 10, 2024

The doctor in charge of treating the hostages rescued from Gaza on Saturday tells CNN that the abductees were regularly beaten by their captors. “It was a harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day,” Dr. Itai Pessach of Sheba Medical Center says. “Every hour, both physical, mental and other types, and that is something that is beyond comprehension.” According to the American outlet, Pessach says the eight months the hostages spent under Hamas captivity “left a significant mark on their health,” despite them appearing outwardly to be in good shape. “They had no protein, so their muscles are extremely wasted, there is damage to some other systems because of that,” he says, adding that they said the supply of food and water varied, and that they were moved a few times and dealt with different guards. READ MORE

CNN Israeli hostage faced ‘punishments’ during eight months in Hamas captivity, family says A Russian citizen, Kozlov moved to Israel almost two years ago. He was working as a security guard at the Nova music festival on October 7 when he was kidnapped and taken into Gaza. In an interview with CNN, Kozlov’s family revealed some details of their son’s ordeal, including that he initially believed the Israeli forces who saved him had been sent to kill him. Kozlov’s father, Mikhail Kozlov, said his son was “very scared” because Hamas militants had for months falsely said that “Israel wanted to kill them all” claiming “they were a problem for Israel”. “He was told that Israel wants to kill him. He didn’t understand why the IDF came. He was afraid that the IDF came to kill him. It took him some time to realize that they came to rescue him.”

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Hungary’s government is despised by liberals. But Budapest is Israel’s only real ally in the European Union and, as long as Viktor Orbán remains in power, the Jews there are safe.

Posted on June 10, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Notes from the safest place in Europe for Jews
Jonathan S. Tobin
June 11, 2024

…Spend a week in that Eastern European country [Hungary], as I just did, and the one thing you can count on is that you won’t see its landmarks being the site of mass demonstrations of supporters of jihad and Hamas terror, as is the case elsewhere, including the United States. That is something that would be unimaginable right now in America, but the reason is that the Hungarian government has banned pro-Hamas demonstrations. They’ve deemed it an open expression of antisemitism and a threat to public order. Their rationale is to treat pro-Hamas activism as morally equivalent to open advocacy for Nazism, which in Hungary and most other places in Europe is illegal. As I discovered in conversations with both liberal and Orthodox Jews, as well as non-Jews, the Jewish community in Budapest feels safe in a way that is not the case in London, Paris or Berlin. When you visit Hungary, no one tells you not to wear kippahs or Jewish stars in public. READ MORE

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Hundreds of Israeli attendees applauded and joined in chanting the slogan “Bring them home.”

Posted on June 10, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

I24NEWS
Coldplay mentions Israeli hostages during Bucharest concert
June 13, 2024

During a recent concert in Bucharest, Romania, the band Coldplay brought attention to the plight of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The group’s singer, Chris Martin, directed the audience’s focus towards an Israeli spectator wearing a medallion dedicated to the abducted individuals. The concert’s large screen prominently displayed the image of the Israeli spectator, drawing attention to the cause. Martin engaged with the spectator, prompting her to reveal the inscription on the pendant. In response, hundreds of Israeli attendees applauded and joined in chanting the slogan “Bring them home.” READ MORE

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The Nova Music Festival Exhibition in New York City is an in-depth remembrance of the brutal October 7th massacres at the “Tribe of Nova” festival in southern Israel

Posted on June 9, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
From Euphoria to Living Hell: Honoring the Now-Infamous Nova Music Festival
Gary Rosenblatt
June 7, 2024

It is emotionally hard to visit the Nova Music Festival Exhibit in Lower Manhattan knowing its goal is to provide you with the experience of shock, trauma, and terror that thousands of young Israelis endured the morning of October 7th. With it all, it is even harder to leave. My wife and I came away both saddened and inspired, having witnessed scenes of the brutal tragedy, but also learning of the heroism of survivors who saved lives that day, and others who tended to the wounded and dying. Several survivors, in video interviews, expressed a life-changing commitment to bring light into the world in memory of the 364 people who were murdered that day. READ MORE

The Nova Music Festival Exhibition, October 7th | 06:29am This show has been extended until June 22

NEW YORK JEWISH WEEK White House, local politicians denounce anti-Israel protest targeting Nova massacre exhibit in NY Anti-Israel activists took their roving protests on Monday to the street outside a Lower Manhattan exhibition commemorating the victims of the Nova music festival massacre on Oct. 7. The protest, during which some protesters displayed banners supporting pro-Palestinian terror groups, elicited condemnation from local officials as well as the White House, which called it “heartbreaking.” The exhibit’s organizers announced that it would be extended as a result. Hundreds of protesters, led by the hardline pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, gathered outside the exhibit on Wall Street, lighting flares and smoke canisters in the colors of the Palestinian flag. 

View trailer for Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre The first minute-by-minute chronicle of the traumatic events of October 7, 2023, details the attack on Israel’s Supernova music fest, including real-time footage and survivor accounts.

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The Hamas charter is antisemitic to its core, blaming the Jews for most of the world’s evils, from the French and Russian revolutions to both of the two world wars: “There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.”

Posted on June 9, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Palestinianism began with Nazism and today is based on Antisemitism, Sexism, Homophobia and denial of human rights. So why is the Left so in love with it?
Alan M. Dershowitz
June 9, 2024

The founder of the Palestinian movement in the run-up to the Second World War was a proud Nazi and friend of Adolf Hitler. Haj Amin al-Husseini was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the religious leader of the Muslims in what is now Israel but was then called Palestine, and, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, governed under a British Mandate. It was Husseini who turned the Arab-Jewish dispute from a resolvable conflict over land to an irresolvable conflict over religion. Husseini decided it was against Islamic sharia law to allow Jewish sovereignty over even an inch of what had previously been Ottoman territory, which he decreed was forever religious Muslim land, part of an endowment, or “waqf,” to be held in trust for Allah. READ MORE

JNS Dumisani Washington: The NAACP sides with Biden in protecting Hamas  How the media uses Black people to gaslight you…On Thursday, June 6, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued an official press statement entitled “NAACP Urges Biden-Harris Administration to Stop Shipments of Weapons Targeting Civilians to Israel, Push for Ceasefire.” Sadly, with this official statement, the NAACP has joined the growing ranks of biased Israel critics who have been deceived by Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood propaganda, one of the single greatest contributing factors in the rise of antisemitism in the United States.

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“Leaked documents indicate that the World Economic Forum plan would keep Hamas in power in some kind of political capacity, a move which insulates Arab partners from Hamas retribution, but is a non-starter with Israel”

Posted on June 8, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

CLARITY WITH MICHAEL OREN
Why Israel should NOT have a “day after plan” for Gaza
Daniel Pomerantz
June 6, 2024

…For its part, Israel is now fighting its fifth war against Hamas, and after every previous engagement Hamas has remained in power. The October 7 massacre triggered a significant policy shift, with Israel for the first time declaring its commitment to removing Hamas from power. Yet US threats to stop providing military support, tribunals at the Hague, and widespread calls against invading Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah, send a clear message to Gazans and the Arab world: Hamas might win. Under such a threat, partnership is impossible, and without partnerships, a “day after” plan that actually makes sense is also impossible. There are relatively few examples of successful post-war reconstruction in history, yet the two most prominent are the rebuilding of Germany and Japan after World War II. In both cases, post-war planning did not begin in earnest until after the prior regimes were fully and reliably removed from power…READ MORE

JPOST ‘Nasrallah realizes the IDF can kill him’: Hezbollah leadership shaken after Israeli elimination “The powerful elimination worries Hezbollah members. They now understand that the IDF knows much more about them than they know about us,” says Professor Amatzia Baram. Approximately 250 rockets were launched on Wednesday towards northern Israel, disrupting the holiday calm with successive alerts. Rockets that exploded in open areas caused fires. In the city of Tiberias, a siren was activated for the first time since October. These launches come after the assassination of senior Hezbollah official Sami Taleb Abdullah, whose rank was equivalent to a brigadier general in the IDF…Yesterday, following attacks on Kfar Blum and after recent intelligence gathering on him, the IDF precisely assassinated Taleb using a fighter jet. 

COMMENTARY Seth Mandel: Saving Sinwar The war began with an agreed-upon goal: the dismantling and defeat of Hamas. President Biden, along with our European allies, abandoned that goal. The international community now works assiduously to preserve Sinwar’s control in Gaza. In doing so, they have essentially forced Hamas’s leadership-in-exile to back Sinwar to the hilt. That, in turn, has weakened Qatari leverage over the terror group. It has forced Egypt to reconcile itself to Hamas’s survival on its border. In effect, everyone except for Israel has recalibrated its approach to the conflict in a way that, directly or indirectly, prioritizes Hamas’s survival.

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36 people who have made the world freer for the rest of us

Posted on June 7, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
The Sinai Awards
The Editors
June 12, 2024

This week, Tablet celebrates its 15th anniversary. We can think of no better way to mark this milestone than by saluting our heroes. The following names belong to people who’ve made the world freer in the past few years—not necessarily calmer, or safer, or prettier—or whose work in previous years laid the groundwork for others to be able to fight for freedom in this moment. There is a Jewish mystical concept, rooted in the Talmud, called the Tzadikim Nistarim—or, as it came to be known via its Yiddish vernacular, the Lamed Vovniks. It refers to a Jewish belief that at all times there are 36 special people in the world; were it not for them—all of them, if even one were missing—the world would come to an end. All of which is our way of saying: We thank God for each of these human beings, and think you should, too. READ MORE

Ayaan Hirsi Ali • Masih Alinejad • Marc Andreessen • Julian Assange • Olivier Assayas • Nayib Bukele • Ted Cruz • George Deek • John Fetterman • Stephen Friend • Michel Houellebecq • Coleman Hughes • Jon Huntsman • Martin Kulldorff & Jay Bhattacharya • Mark Laita • Bernard-Henri Lévy • Conor McGregor • Douglas Murray • Elon Musk • Anonymous UPenn Student • J.K. Rowling • Christopher Rufo • Salman Rushdie • Natan Sharansky • Michael Solomonov • Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik • Thomas Sowell • Amar’e Stoudemire • Nadine Strossen • Quentin Tarantino • Ritchie Torres • Tu Youyou • Michael Walzer • Bari Weiss • Ruth Wisse

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Schanzer: “The time and space that Hamas and Iran needed to prepare these attacks, and attacks that will undoubtedly come, are the direct result of Biden Administration policies—both explicit and implicit”

Posted on June 6, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY
The Policies That Are Killing Israeli Soldiers
Jonathan Schanzer
June 1, 2024

Three soldiers from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were killed on May 28, when they encountered a Hamas booby trap in a building in Rafah. In a separate incident, three other soldiers were killed in a Hamas improvised explosive device (IED) attack on May 18. The Hamas terrorist organization is undeniably the culprit. And the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas’s top military patron, bears significant responsibility, too. But this is also the unfortunate result of Biden Administration policies that have put Israeli soldiers in greater danger. To understand why the White House bears some responsibility, we need only look back upon US Gaza policy over the last 3 months. READ MORE

TOWN HALL Bonnie Glick: What Is Hamas Hiding in Rafah, and Why Doesn’t Biden Want the IDF to Find It? In the lead up to the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operation to destroy Hamas and secure the release of over 100 hostages – including 8 Americas – believed to be in and around Rafah, leaders around the world from Joe Biden to the collective leftist leaders of the European Union to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi panicked and ordered Israel to forestall its necessary means to end the war. Why did world leaders clamor for Israel to do nothing? What are they hiding? It turns out they are hiding a lot.

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“We need clarity today that America stands with Israel” and is “not confused as to whom we support, Israel or Hamas,” Sen. Ted Cruz told JNS

Posted on June 5, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Israel supporters gather on Capitol Hill to celebrate Jerusalem Day
Andrew Bernard
June 5, 2024

More than 50 U.S. lawmakers, Israeli officials, Oct. 7 survivors, Christian and Jewish faith leaders and others gathered in the Capitol on Tuesday to celebrate Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the reunification of the city during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who spoke at the event, told JNS that the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital in 2018 reflected American commitment to the unification of Jerusalem. “It was the right thing to do because it provided clarity,” he said. “We need clarity today that America stands with Israel. That we are not ambiguous. That we are not confused as to whom we support, Israel or Hamas.” READ MORE

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A few days after October 7, sensitive and likely accurate information was received about the presence of captives in Shifa

Posted on June 4, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
IDF planned, then nixed, raid to free captives in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital
Ariel Kahana
June 4, 2024

A group of captives taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 was kept in the first week of the war in the Shifa Hospital compound in the Gaza Strip, Israel Hayom has learned. Following this information, the IDF planned a large-scale operation to rescue them, but IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi ultimately chose not to give the order. This information is part of a new book by Ido Norden, an officer who served in the “Pit” at the Kirya – the epicenter of the decision-making operation in the bunker underneath the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv – and was exposed to real-time information…The operation was supposed to involve the IDF’s most elite units in very large orders of battle. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Rich Goldberg: As Hezbollah escalates attacks at Iran’s behest, Israel must stop an ‘unsustainable’ assault Iran’s multi-front war on Israel escalated this week as Tehran’s flagship terrorist proxy rained down missiles and drones on northern Israeli towns, killing an Israeli soldier, leaving more wounded and igniting massive wildfires. While President Biden is squeezing Israel to surrender to Iran on all fronts, northern Israel is burning with the rest of the country in existential danger. “Whoever thinks that they can harm us and we will sit idly by is making a big mistake,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday. “We are prepared for a very strong action in the north.” Israel must fight back, and Americans should understand why. 

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