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US Ambassador to Brazil’s Silence on Anti-Semitism Under Congressional Ire

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AP

Adam Kredo- FReew Beacon

The U.S. ambassador to Brazil’s silence on a series of anti-Semitic comments by far-left Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has led to mounting concerns on Capitol Hill about the Biden administration’s failure to confront a wave of anti-Semitism in Latin America.

Elizabeth Bagley, the top U.S. diplomat in Brazil who once decried the pernicious “influence of the Jewish lobby” in politics, has spent weeks avoiding public comment on Lula’s comments, in which the Brazilian president accused Israel of behaving like Nazis and conducting a genocide in the Gaza Strip. The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that Bagley would not condemn the rhetoric or make herself available for an interview about them.

The Free Beacon’s reporting drove bipartisan concerns late last week during a House hearing on anti-Semitism in the Western Hemisphere, where far-left leaders like Lula are building relations with the Jewish state’s top enemies, including Iran. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R., Mich.) expressed concern about Bagley’s silence, saying the diplomat must more forcefully condemn anti-Semitism in Brazil, particularly in light of her own past comments about the “Jewish factor” in politics and its “money.”

“I’m concerned about our own ambassador to Brazil, Elizabeth Bagley,” Huizenga said during a Thursday House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s anti-Semitism envoy. “She has had some documented, very hateful comments she’s made about Jews, and my understanding from my Senate friends [is] it nearly derailed her Senate confirmation. Does her track record of those types of comments—has that somehow affected her ability or the U.S. ability to forcefully condemn da Silva’s comparison of Gaza to the Holocaust?”

“What I’ve seen from our post is that Post Brazil, Embassy Brazil, takes this issue very seriously,” Lipstadt said, declining to comment on Bagley’s past remarks on Jews and money in politics.

While Secretary of State Antony Blinken and State Department spokesmen have condemned Lula’s comparison of Israel to the Nazis, Bagley has not issued any public statement on the matter, even after the Free Beacon’s report and Thursday’s public hearing.

“I guess I’m more concerned about we having a forceful voice when we see this,” Huizenga said, adding that the lack of public condemnation sends the wrong message to our allies across Latin America. “I want to make sure our ambassadors are not just speaking out. I want them to be forcefully screaming about this.”

Rep. Kathy Manning (D., N.C.) also expressed how she “was shocked” by Lula’s anti-Semitic comments—for which the Brazilian president has refused to apologize—and asked Lipstadt to explain how the State Department is responding.

“What does the State Department have to say about this sort of anti-Semitic rhetoric?” she asked.

Lipstadt said that Blinken “spoke to [Lula] directly” about the comments and that “on the ground, there has been a significant body of people, political leaders, government leaders, who have taken issue with this statement. But it’s very disturbing.”

It remains unclear why the U.S. ambassador to Brazil has not publicly spoken out against Lula’s remarks, particularly since the State Department at large has publicly disputed them.

Bagley narrowly passed her Senate confirmation hearing after facing widespread opposition from Republican lawmakers who cited her past remarks about Jews.

In a 1998 interview first reported by the Free Beacon, Bagley decried “the influence of the Jewish lobby because there is major money involved.”

“The Democrats always tend to go with the Jewish constituency on Israel and say stupid things, like moving the capital to Jerusalem always comes up,” Bagley said. Political support for these issues is due to “the Jewish factor,” she said at the time, “it’s money.”

 

MIT Faculty Member Goes on Anti-Semitic Tirade After House Ed Committee Requests Documents From School

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MIT postdoctoral associate Afif Aqrabawi (Twitter)

Jessica Costescu- Free Beacon

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty member went on an anti-Semitic tirade after the House Committee on Education and the Workforce pressed the school to provide internal documents about its response to the outbreak of anti-Semitism on campus.

A postdoctoral associate working in MIT’s Tonegawa neuroscience lab, Afif Aqrabawi, derided the committee chairwoman, Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), as “a treasonous Zionist tool, a genocide enabler, and a disgusting shit stain of a human,” and described other members of the House as “Israeli bootlickers.”

Aqrabawi also referred to American politicians as “loyal prostitutes of Netanyahu,” lamented the influence of Jewish political groups, and referred to Israelis as “parasites.”

“I make it clear your representatives are eager cucks for defense contractors and AIPAC,” he wrote. “My words are dangerous because they may alert a distracted American public to the parasites using their country as a host species.”

Aqrabawi’s tirade came in the wake of a letter from Foxx to MIT president Sally Kornbluth that panned Kornbluth’s response to several anti-Semitic incidents on campus and pressed the school to provide internal documents shedding light on its policies and code of conduct.

The committee’s letter cited several tweets Aqrabawi sent, including one in which he said Israel “has no future in this world.” In other posts highlighted by the committee, the MIT faculty member accused Israelis of “harvesting” the organs of dead Palestinians and called Zionists “Jewish fundamentalists who want to enslave the world in a global Apartheid system.”

As a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Aqrabawi earns a minimum salary of $66,950 and works under a “faculty mentor,” according to MIT’s website. The head of Aqrabawi’s lab is Susumu Tonegawa, a professor of biology and neuroscience.

It is unclear whether Aqrabawi is an American citizen. A self-identified “Palestinian-Canadian,” Aqrabawi graduated from the University of Toronto, according to an online bio, and his social media tirade refers to American politicians as “your representatives.” Neither MIT nor Aqrabawi responded to requests for comment regarding whether he teaches undergraduate students or his citizenship status.

Aqrabawi is no stranger to anti-Semitic rhetoric, having referred to Israelis as mentally ill Nazis, language that he acknowledged is “hateful.”

“Hail the man leading an industrial-scale slaughter of an occupied, defenseless people!” he wrote in response to an Oct. 25 address from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanayhu. “Zionism is a mental illness.”

“Dear ZioNazis of Israel, particularly those supporting this genocide, I hope you never find peace and comfort in life,” he wrote in December. “I hope the ghosts of our 30,000 killed haunt you until you rot out of existence.”

“Yes, this is hateful language,” he continued.” Don’t expect me to be full of love and professionalism as this holocaust continues to unfold against my deeply oppressed people.”

Three days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, meanwhile, Aqrabawi compared Israel’s retaliatory war to “Nazism, disguised as Israeli self-defense.” Last month, the MIT faculty member said Hamas members did not rape Israelis on the day of the attack.

“Can you point to a single report/victim?” he wrote. “Not only can you not substantiate your perverted rape fantasies, you won’t allow any third-party investigations of their allegations.” Roughly one month later, a United Nations report confirmed evidence of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli victims.

MIT’s internal deliberations regarding Aqrabawi and other student groups and faculty members may eventually make their way to Foxx and her committee: Foxx’s letter requests internal communications between MIT leaders on the school’s disciplinary decisions, among other records. Should MIT refuse, Foxx’s committee could subpoena the school, as it has done to Harvard University.

“MIT is committed to providing a response to the committee’s questions,” the school said in a Friday statement. “We don’t have any further comment at this time.”

Who should we fear more, Biden or God?

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President Joe Biden slammed America’s conduct during the Second World War in a conversation with Israel’s war cabinet, arguing that the Allied bombings of Nazi Germany led to the “United Nations and all these rules”. Credit: AP

(A7) Who do you fear more, Israel, US President Joe Biden or God?

Who do fear more, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Biden or God?

It is nice to have a Compassionate Father in Heaven, whom we can pray to and rely upon for all our needs, while not feeling overly pressured or fearful of Him directly, but this is a false sense of security. More than any friend or foe, we must fear and revere the Lord our God foremost.

So, we have a ruthless Amalekite enemy hiding out in its last strongholds in the Gaza Strip, and Biden says not to route them out. Biden says, don’t you dare attack Rafah. The Hamas leadership is likely in Rafah, and perhaps the remaining hostages, but Biden forbids us from entering that terrorist enclave. Should we listen to him?

With all respect to you, Joe Biden, who are you to tell us not to route out evil? Are you now a supporter of terrorism?

And with all respect to you, Bibi Netanyahu, who do you fear more, Biden or God? And who do you serve, America or Israel? Are you the Prime Minister of Israel or a US agent? You’ve committed a whole nation, and hundreds of thousands of its fighting men, to a war against Hamas, to rid the earth of this evil. Will you call it off?

Biden might be on the last legs of his political journey, and he is likely in the twilight of his life, but he remains the commander-in-chief of what is regarded as the strongest army on earth. His word certainly holds clout in this world, but nothing compared to God.

And Biden is allegedly on our side, helping us defeat Hamas, so what is he talking about? Why would he ask us not to finish off the job? Could he really be serious? He’s certainly not making any sense. Is he trying to save Hamas?

In situations like these, as with all consequential decisions in anyone’s life, you need only look to God. What would God have us do? Spare evil? Betray your people? Serve someone else in place of God?

Biden might be the US President, but he is wrong. We do not need to make the same mistakes that he does. Hamas is evil and must be wiped out. We are obligated to destroy them and to do justice. We must learn to fear people less and to fear God a lot more. That is the way of righteousness.

Coup Plot: Biden’s Intel Agencies ‘Expect’ Protests to Topple Netanyahu for ‘Moderate’ Leader

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President Joe Biden (l) warmly greets Benjamin Netanyahu at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, July 14, 2022. (Social media/Benjamin Netanyahu)

Joel B. Pollak

U.S. intelligence agencies are claiming that they “expect” protests to bring down the Israeli government and replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been an obstacle to President Joe Biden’s plans for the Middle East.

The claim emerged in the latest “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” and was published by both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Monday evening, suggesting a coordinated leak to the media.

The assessment says:

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has publicly stated his opposition to postwar diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward territorial compromise.
Netanyahu’s viability as leader as well as his governing coalition of far-right and ultraorthodox parties that pursued hardline policies on Palestinian and security issues may be in jeopardy. Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to rule has deepened and broadened across the public from its already high levels before the war, and we expect large protests demanding his resignation and new elections. A different, more moderate government is a possibility.

Netanyahu was elected to his current term in office in November 2022 with a right-wing coalition that had the largest majority of any Israeli government in decades. His approval dropped during nationwide protests over his proposed judicial reforms, and in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 terror attacks, but recent polls suggest that his support has recovered, as he has led Israel to the edge of victory over Hamas while resisting international pressure.

Most important, there is no sign of division among the right-wing parties forming Netanyahu’s coalition. While some opposition parties have called for early elections, Netanyahu has successfully pushed back against the idea, noting that there is nothing Hamas and its Iranian sponsors would like more than to see Israel divided politically during the war. The next elections are scheduled for 2026, if the current government completes its allotted four-year term in office.

Netanyahu has withstood U.S. pressure to accept the Iran nuclear deal; to accept a Palestinian state as the outcome of the war — which he says would be a massive reward for Hamas; and to retreat from its own border in the face of missile attacks from Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in northern Israel. As Breitbart News noted earlier Monday, reports have already emerged that the Biden administration is seeking Israeli consultants to help topple Netanyahu’s coalition.

Many observers have long suspected the Biden administration of working to bring down the Netanyahu government through a “color revolution.” A State Department-funded group was at the core of opposition to Netanyahu’s judicial reform, and then-Ambassador Tom Nides was described as the “arsonist-in-chief,” as he openly supported the Israeli opposition movement and the protests. President Biden also froze Netanyahu out, refusing to meet him for months.

Polls suggest that the vast majority of Israelis support Netanyahu’s positions — opposing a Palestinian state; backing the continuation of the war until Hamas’s complete defeat; and preparing for possible war against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. Polls also indicate that the vast majority of Americans support Netanyahu’s approach to the war — and oppose Biden’s approach, which has sought to appease terror and dissenting left-wing and Muslim-American voters.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

IDF Spokesman: Hamas number 3 targeted, death unconfirmed

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Speaking at a WZO conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari vowed to get to Sinwar “dead or alive.” He told attendees that “We are fighting Hamas from the north to the south. We will finish in Rafah; it is an important city—there are hostages in Rafah.” (Photo: Shalev Shalom)

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed that Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing and the third-highest-ranking Hamas official in Gaza, was targeted in an airstrike in central Gaza yesterday (Sunday), but did not confirm that Issa was eliminated.

“On the night between Saturday and Sunday, fighter jets attacked an underground compound of senior Hamas officials. We are still examining the results of the attack and no verification has yet been received regarding them,” Hagari said at a press conference this evening (Monday).

“When we know for certain, we will update the public,” he said.

On the negotiations for a possible hostage release deal, Hagari said that “Hamas has chosen to thwart any attempt to reach a deal and is trying to set the area on fire through false propaganda and incitement.”

Ariana Grande Enrages Pro-Palestine Activists With Simple, One-Word Oscars Post

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(Daily Caller) Ariana Grande pissed off activists with a single-word tweet, Sunday, after seemingly complaining that she was stuck in traffic because of pro-Palestinian protests in the nearby vicinity.

The famous singer featured a photograph of her oversized necklace and jewel and wrote the word “traffic” in her Instagram caption. That was enough to ignite rage, as protesters called her out for her privilege and took aim at the star for being tone deaf in her messaging. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated near the Dolby Theater, Sunday, calling for an immediate cease fire in Gaza.

“We will not be distracted by the entertainment industry. We WILL continue to call for a permanent ceasefire and Palestinian liberation,” they wrote in an Instagram post.

Grande seemed annoyed by the inconvenience of not being able to get to the glitzy award show with ease, and failed to make mention of the reason she was snarled in traffic. Social media users immediately called her out on her post and slammed Grande, accusing her of not caring about the war.

“The traffic in question was a Palestinian protest against the genocide,” someone named Lee wrote to Instagram.

“Oh i am sorry miss ariana grande, you were late to your little privileged ppl party because ppl dared to protest against the fckn gen0cide of Palestinians,” someone else wrote.

“Sorry that the protest to end the killing of innocent people was “inconvenient” for you” a user named Sammi wrote on Twitter.

Social media users laced into Grande in a flurry of angry posts.

“This stupid homewrecking bitch is getting on my last nerve like you know damn well why there was “traffic” there,” one person said.

“Someone needs to give her ponytail a good tug and get her brain working properly,” wrote another.

Some fans made it clear that Grande’s tone-deaf messaging was going to flip their loyalty and they would no longer be supporting her music.

“Lmfao i will not be streaming eternal sunshine anymore oh ari you’re my biggest disappointment,” wrote a fan named Aila.

Grande has not publicly addressed the backlash.

‘This is our red line’ – Netanyahu fires back at Biden’s warning

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Make no mistake about it, there is a vicious media assault that is targeting Netanyahu for standing firm and not buckling under to nefarious forces that could care less about Israel’s survival. Photo Credit: AP

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded Monday to President Joe Biden’s recent warnings to Israel against carrying out a ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, saying that his government would not leave the last standing Hamas stronghold under the terrorist group’s control.

Speaking with Fox News Monday morning, Netanyahu attempted to minimize the spat with the Biden administration, after President Biden warned Netanyahu that a ground incursion into Rafah would be a “red line,” and said on a hot mic that Netanyahu needs a “come to Jesus moment.

“The president and I have agreed that we have to destroy Hamas. We cannot leave a quarter of the Hamas terror army in place there in Rafah. This would be equivalent to saying after the Allies fought back, got through Normandy, got through Germany, then said, ‘Well, we’ll leave a quarter of the Nazi army in place and won’t go into Berlin.’”

Netanyahu emphasized, however, that Israel would not heed Biden’s “red line” warning, and that the Rafah operation would take place.

“It is either Israel or Hamas. There is no middle way. We have to have that victory. We cannot have three-quarters of a victory…because Hamas will reconstitute itself with these four battalions in Rafah, reconquer the Gaza Strip, and do the October 7th massacre over and over again.”

“That’s a red line. We cannot let Hamas survive.”

“We have our agreements on the basic goals, but we also have disagreements on how to achieve them. Ultimately, it is Israel that has to decide. Our neck is on the line. Our people were murdered, our women were raped and beheaded.”

When asked whether pressure from the Biden administration would deter Israel, Netanyahu said the IDF would not be “getting off the gas,” in its war on Hamas.

Netanyahu responded to Biden’s comments to Democratic lawmakers caught on a hot mic after his State of the Union address Thursday evening, saying he did not understand what the president meant by a “come to Jesus moment.”

“I’m not familiar with that term.”

The prime minister added that his government’s resolve to destroy Hamas, including in Rafah, has wide backing from the Israeli public.

“The overwhelming majority of Israelis support my policy. We have to eradicate Hamas… get the hostages back, and make sure Gaza does not form a threat anymore.”

Netanyahu also noted a recent Knesset vote backing a resolution rejecting unilateral Palestinian statehood, which passed the 120-member legislature by a margin of 99 – 9.

“So when people say we have to have this talk with Netanyahu because he is holding back the prospect of this wondrous peace with a Palestinian state; you don’t have an issue with me, you have an issue with the entire people of Israel.”

Deadspin Lays Off Every Staffer After Accusing 9-Year-Old Of Racism, Getting Hit With Lawsuit

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ByNicole Silverio (Daily Caller)

Deadspin, a popular sports website, laid off every staffer after being sold to a new startup firm just months after one writer accused a child of racism.

Deadspin staffers received an email informing them that G/O Media, who owned Deadspin until Monday, sold the sports website to the newly formed European startup firm Lineup Publishing “after careful consideration,” according to screenshots of the email. Lineup Publishing reportedly decided to get rid of Deadspin’s existing staff, leading the company to part ways with all of its current staff.

“Deadspin’s new owners have made the decision to not carry over any of the site’s existing staff and instead build a new team more in line with their editorial vision for the brand,” the email reads. “While the new owners plan to be reverential to Deadspin’s unique voice, they plan to take a different content approach regarding the site’s overall sports coverage. This unfortunately means that we will be parting ways with those impacted staff members, who were notified earlier today. I would like to thank them for their hard work and efforts that helped make Deadspin stand out in the crowded sports media space.”

 

Deadspin senior writer Julie DiCaro said staffers received a “half an hour’s notice” about the sale and have already been locked out of company laptops and Slack, according to a screenshot posted by Front Office Sports.

The sale comes just four months after senior writer Carron Phillips allegedly attempted to ruin the life of nine-year-old Holden Armenta, baselessly accusing him of racism for wearing a headdress and black and red face paint to cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs. Phillips used pictures that only showed the side of the boy’s face covered in black face paint in his November article, accusing the child of wearing blackface and of being racist against Native Americans.

Armenta’s family later revealed that their son is Native American. His grandfather, Raul Armenta, is a business committee member at the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, according to a short bio of the elder Armenta.

The article, initially titled “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress,” said the child found a way “to hate Black people and the Native American at the same time.” The outlet later updated the story to remove all of the photographs and any other “identifying information” about Armenta and assured readers it was not attacking the fan.

“We regret any suggestion that we were attacking the fan. To that end, our story was updated on Dec. 7 to remove any photos, tweets, links, or otherwise identifying information about the fan. We have also revised the headline to better reflect the substance of the story,” the editor’s note reads.

Armenta’s parents sued Deadspin and G/O Media in early February after the outlet failed to retract the story or apologize for “maliciously and wantonly” attacking their son. The suit describes how their son suffered “a devastating loss” of his “innocence of youth” and an “encumbered love” of his favorite sports team as a result of Phillip’s article.

“Sadly, H.A. will never know a life in which his face and name are not inextricably linked to false accusations of racist conduct,” the lawsuit said. “When you Google H.A.’s name, the first result states that he has ‘been accused of racism by a reporter’ for Deadspin. The second alleges that the ‘article alleged that [the Armenta’s] son, [H.A.], exhibited racist behavior[.]’ The third describes what happened to H.A. as a ‘viral hit piece.’”

The suit said Phillips wrote the article “viciously race-baiting” Armenta simply to “generate clicks.”

Phillips has a long record of making baseless racism allegations against sports leagues. In one piece, he accused fans of the National Basketball League (NFL) of “white supremacy” for cheering on black players competing in the G7 following the race-related mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. He also accused Michael Lewis, the author of “The Blind Side,” of having a “slave owner’s mentality” for writing about a white family who adopted former NFL player Michael Oher.

Bernie Sanders compares Netanyahu to Hamas

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Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (AP/Paul Sancya)

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders denounced the Netanyahu government, arguing that Israel will never have peace so long as Benjamin Netanyahu – the Jewish state’s longest-serving premier – remains in power.

Speaking with CBS News Sunday, the 82-year-old senator and former presidential hopeful drew a direct comparison between the Netanyahu government and the Hamas terror organization, claiming that peace will never come to the region if either remains in power, slamming Israel’s demand that Hamas must be dismantled.

“What you need right now is a ceasefire tomorrow so that the trucks, the massive amount of humanitarian aid can come in to feed the people who are starving,” Sanders said.

“But you have Hamas dedicated to destroying Israel. You have the Netanyahu government, which is dedicated to destroying Hamas. I think at the end of the day, Hamas cannot be continuing to run Gaza. And Netanyahu government cannot continue to run Israel, if we’re going to ever leave- bring peace to that region.”

Sanders called for the U.S. to halt military aid to Israel, and to massively increase the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip, while demanding Israel halt its war against Hamas, initiated following the massacre of 1,200 Israelis on October 7th.

The senator also accused Israel of the “mass slaughter” of civilians in Gaza.

“America cannot be complicit in this mass slaughter of children… That should be clear, no more money to Netanyahu’s war machine to kill Palestinian children.”

Turning to Israel’s planned operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah – the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip – Sanders said the Biden administration should leverage American aid to Israel to pressure Netanyahu not to carry out the incursion.

“One-point-seven million Palestinians, 80% of their population have been driven from their homes and displaced. Many of them end up in Rafah. To go in there and to displace them again and start a major military campaign would be an unmitigated disaster. So my view is, of course, we cannot support an attack of that kind on Rafah. Bottom line is, though, Netanyahu has got to be told no more money for his war machine, unless there is humanitarian aid coming in to feed the people.”

 

Orthodox woman punched in the head in Crown Heights

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Serge Attal/FLASH90

(A7) An Orthodox Jewish woman was assaulted in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on Friday.

 Footage from the scene shows the Vhabad-affiliated woman standing at a street corner when an African American man walks up to her and punches her in the head without provocation.

The woman attempted to flee from her attacker. She was later hospitalized for bruises suffered in the assault.

Yaacov Behrman, a Chabad businessman, Tweeted in response to the incident, “I’m deeply troubled to hear about this incident. On Friday morning, around 11:30 AM, at Lefferts Ave and Troy Ave, surveillance footage captured a disturbing act of violence. The footage shows a man casually walking past a Jewish woman standing on the corner, then suddenly punching her in the head. As a result of the attack, the victim sustained bruises and sought medical attention. This kind of behavior is unacceptable and has no place in our community.”

‘Violent’ anti-Israel protest targets Teaneck synagogue

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FLASH 90

(A7) A pro-Hamas demonstration targeting a Teaneck Synagogue turned violent on Sunday when protestors hurled objects and sprayed red paint at counter-protestors, commuters, and pedestrians, according to the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee (BCJAC). Teaneck police arrested at least two protestors during the demonstration, which drew an estimated 1,000 protestors, most non-Teaneck residents.

BCJAC spokesman Yigal Gross strongly condemned the demonstration, which was held outside an informational program on real estate in Israel being held at Congregation Keter Torah, an Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Teaneck, as “a cynical attempt to target a religious institution under false pretenses as part of a coordinated and malicious campaign to harass Teaneck’s Jewish community”.

According to Gross, “these protestors knowingly misrepresented, and made utterly unfounded and inflammatory claims about, the event in an attempt to mask what was little more than the targeted harassment of a peaceful religious community by a violent mob.”

The BCJAC stated, “As they have elsewhere in the United States and abroad in the wake of Israel’s defensive war against the terrorist group Hamas following the October 7th massacre, pro-Hamas demonstrators have escalated their attempts to target Jewish communities. Teaneck, where Jewish residents number as much as 40 percent of the population, has seen numerous protests over these past months.”

“It is no coincidence that this random quiet New Jersey town has become such a flashpoint for pro-Palestinian activism,” said Gross. “These protestors are here because we are here. They are seeking out and targeting Teaneck’s Jews.”

Even so, according to Mr. Gross, “by targeting a local synagogue, these protestors have now taken their pattern of bigotry and harassment to a new level. We support citizens’ right to free speech, but the right to worship is equally sacrosanct. Every American should be able to enter a house of worship without fear of intimidation.”

‘As a Jew’ Oscar moment shows how woke antisemitism works

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British Film director Jonathan Glazer attends “The Zone of Interest” premiere during the 67th BFI London Film Festival at the Royal Festival Hall on Oct. 12, 2023. Credit: Fred Duval/Shutterstock.

(JNS) By Jonathan S. Tobin

Unless you’re a film buff, you may not have heard of Jonathan Glazer before his viral moment at this year’s annual Academy Awards ceremony. After “The Zone of Interest”—a highly-praised film about the commandant of the Auschwitz death camp that is very loosely based on a Martin Amis novel with the same title—was named the winner of the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, Glazer appeared on the stage along with the rest of the production team to accept their trophies. Standing with producer James Wilson and their billionaire financial backer Leonard Blavatnik, Glazer, who wrote and directed the movie, chose not to speak extemporaneously but instead read the following prepared statement:

“Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness in a Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza—all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

The tortured syntax of his comments notwithstanding, what Glazer said wasn’t merely deeply offensive. It marked a new low in Hollywood’s descent into fashionable rationalizations of hatred for Jews. It also showed us how the new woke antisemitism works, especially when its standard-bearers are Jews with little or no connection to their heritage. As such, it was the quintessential “as a Jew” moment in which persons invoke their Jewish identity to denounce other Jews.

Who ‘hijacked’ the Holocaust?

Glazer had made a movie about the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz, and on Sunday night was being showered with praise and all the financial, professional and social benefits that go with it. But he was not content with that. He decided to use his invocation of the most painful moment in Jewish history to smear Israel and the Jews.

To link the Holocaust to Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip to eradicate the organization that perpetrated the atrocities committed in Jewish communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7 is to turn history on its head. Pretending that it is the Jews who are today’s Nazis, rather than Hamas and its Palestinian supporters, is a big lie. It is the Palestinians of Hamas who are the contemporary torch-bearers for Adolf Hitler’s plans for the genocide of the Jewish people, as made explicit in their charter and all of their propaganda, which seeks Israel’s destruction and the slaughter of its population. This sort of inversion tactic is—as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of the term makes plain—textbook antisemitism.

To speak of the “occupation” in this context is to use the word in the way that Palestinians deploy it. When they say “occupation,” they refer to the Jewish state’s rebirth in 1948 and are referencing all of Israel, as Hamas makes explicit.

Moreover, by speaking of an “occupation” that had “hijacked” the Holocaust, he was using carefully chosen language to back up the canard that the existence of the one Jewish state on the planet was the result of Jews exploiting the Nazi campaign of extermination that he had depicted on film. Zionists didn’t “hijack” the Holocaust to help create a Jewish state. They had asserted Jewish historical rights to their ancient homeland which they had never abandoned. The murder of 6 million Jews who lacked the power that a sovereign state would give them and who had no safe haven to go to was proof that the establishment of one was necessary and just.

If anyone “hijacked” the Holocaust, it was Glazer.

To say that the “occupation” led to the current conflict is also a lie if it is a reference to Israel’s gaining control of Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem or the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War or whether Jews have the right to live there. The Gaza Strip wasn’t “occupied” on Oct. 7. Israel had withdrawn every soldier, settler and settlement from it in 2005, and it had been an independent Palestinian state in all but name since then. And to treat the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust in the Palestinian orgy of slaughter, rape, torture and kidnapping on Oct. 7 as analogous to Israel’s efforts to eradicate the terrorists is as absurd as it is immoral. That puts the murderers on the same moral plane as those who wish to stop them from murdering again.

 

And what else could he have meant by saying that he and his colleagues “refute our Jewishness” in connection with this “occupation” other than to try to disassociate Jews and Judaism from Israel and its efforts to defend itself?

But that is the point of such “as a Jew” virtue-signaling. Such protestations that seek to differentiate the “good” Jews who want to tell the world that they want nothing to do with the “bad” Jews in Israel and those who support them are particularly important right now. They are an essential element of the new version of antisemitism that is rooted in the toxic ideas of critical race theory and intersectionality in which the world is divided between two perpetually warring groups: “white” oppressors and “people of color” who are their victims.

In this worldview dictated by the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), it is incumbent that members of the oppressor class—who are all deemed as guilty of racism as the worst neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan member—must repent of their crimes by embracing “anti-racism.” DEI deems Jews and Israel to be “white” oppressors” of Palestinians, even though the conflict isn’t racial and half of all Jewish Israelis are themselves “people of color” since they trace their origins to North Africa or the Middle East. So “good” Jews must condemn Israel, regardless of what it or those who wish to destroy it do.

And that is why Glazer, as well as those who wore red pins—which bear an eerie resemblance to the bloody hands of a Palestinian Arab who had participated in the lynching of two Israelis at the start of the Second Intifada in 2000 in an iconic photograph of that awful moment—in support of an immediate ceasefire, was doing at the Oscars this year.

Politics at the Oscars

There is nothing new about Oscar winners using the internationally televised ceremony to virtue-signal their political beliefs or to highlight the causes they support. We’ve come a long way from the moment in 1973 when Marlon Brando decided to have Sacheen Littlefeather accept his Best Actor Oscar for appearing in “The Godfather” to highlight his support for the plight of Native Americans. When the buckskin-dress-clad woman took the podium, she was booed by the audience. But like everyone else in Hollywood, Littlefeather was just playacting. It turned out that she was not, as she claimed, a member of the White Mountain Apache tribe or any other sort of Native American, though that only became known after her death.

Five years later, when Vanessa Redgrave accepted her Best Supporting Actress award for “Julia,” she used her moment to denounce “Zionist hoodlums” who had protested her support for the terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Organization that sought Israel’s destruction. Later in the show, the writer Paddy Chayefsky—himself a three-time Oscar winner, as well as a wounded combat veteran of the war against the Nazis and an ardent supporter of Israel—repudiated Redgrave to the applause of those in attendance.

 

But what seemed shocking then is commonplace now. In recent years, as just about everyone associated with the entertainment industry has become more and more concerned about demonstrating their adherence to fashionable leftist causes (or determined to hide their actual beliefs if they don’t), politics at the Oscars is a given. And the best way to curry favor with the woke mob that’s always ready to tear apart anyone in the public eye who dissents from the current orthodoxy is to proclaim one’s fealty to its causes. There was no audible booing and no refutation of Glazer’s statement from any of the actors and filmmakers who subsequently were seen on stage.

That is why so many in Hollywood are following the lead of political progressives and wrongly characterizing Israel’s efforts to ensure that there will be no more Oct. 7 pogroms as “genocide.” They treat the war in Gaza as an unpardonable crime rather than a campaign that is a necessity if peace is to ever have a chance in the Middle East.

Fighting Nazis, then and now

It is no small irony that the only way the mass murderers who are depicted in “The Zone of Interest” were defeated and brought to justice was by Allied soldiers and airmen who were presented with the same dilemma faced today by Israel. In 1945, as American, British and Soviet troops closed in on the last Nazi strongholds, the Germans refused to acknowledge their inevitable defeat and fought to the bitter end. As they did elsewhere, they made the Red Army fight for every street and house in Berlin. Two million German civilians were killed in Allied bombing campaigns and the conquest of the Third Reich, and as many as 125,000 were killed in the last weeks of the war in Berlin alone.

As horrible as those numbers may sound, decent people everywhere understood that the future of civilization required the defeat of the Nazis, and if that meant German civilians must die, then so be it. They knew that massive civilian casualties—far outstripping even the dubious figures supplied by Hamas of those killed in the current war—were the price that the nation had to pay for allowing itself to be led by a genocidal movement that most of its citizens had supported so long as the Nazis were winning the war.

The Palestinians and Hamas are in a similar position today. Their ideology of hatred for Jews is hardly different from that of the Nazis depicted in Glazer’s movie. Their crimes on Oct. 7 were committed with a shameless embrace of barbarism that those who administered Auschwitz actually sought to conceal from the world. But because woke ideology deems the Palestinians to be intersectional victims and Israelis as their oppressors, fashionable opinion is adamant that the war to eradicate Hamas must stop and the Jews must be subjected to more atrocities in the future, if not killed and robbed of their homeland “from the river to the sea” as the pro-terror mobs demand.

Sadly, in 2024, there was no proud Jew who would refute and denounce Glazer later in the ceremony as Chayefsky did to Redgrave in 1978. Steven Spielberg had the chance to say something but chose to stick to his script. In contemporary Hollywood, complaints that Jews are being erased by the woke catechism that is inextricably linked to antisemitism in the new Oscar “diversity” rules going into effect for next year’s awards are ignored. It is the “as a Jew” celebrities who have the bully pulpit and those who would speak for the justice of Israel’s cause who are marginalized.

 

Those, like Glazer, whose efforts are aimed at helping contemporary practitioners of Jewish genocide survive and win—and do so “as Jews”—are a disgrace and deserve to be remembered throughout history with opprobrium along with the worst examples of those who betrayed their own people. They also illustrate the moral depravity of artists and intellectuals who have been captured by an ideology that enables a virulent form of antisemitism that masquerades as advocacy for human rights.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.

 

 

Biden cites Hamas data in Ramadan statement, says ‘appalling resurgence’ of US anti-Muslim hate

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(JNS)  U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden sent their best wishes and prayers to Muslims stateside and worldwide on Sunday, ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“The sacred month is a time for reflection and renewal,” the president began. “This year, it comes at a moment of immense pain. The war in Gaza has inflicted terrible suffering on the Palestinian people.”

Biden again cited official statistics used by Hamas—which Washington has designated a terror organization for nearly 26-and-a-half years—claiming that “more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children.”

“Some are family members of American Muslims, who are deeply grieving their lost loved ones today,” he said. “Nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced by the war; many are in urgent need of food, water, medicine and shelter.”

“As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many,” he said. “It is front of mind for me.”

Biden stated that Washington will “continue to lead international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza by land, air and sea,” noting that the United States plans to create “a temporary pier on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments of aid” and is airdropping aid in the Strip.

‘Insisting’ that Israel provide aid

“We’ll continue to work with Israel to expand deliveries by land, insisting that it facilitate more routes and open more crossings to get more aid to more people,” Biden said.

The U.S. president also said that Washington will “continue working non-stop to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire for at least six weeks as part of a deal that releases hostages” and that it will push for a “two-state solution,” which he called “the only path toward an enduring peace.”

In the United States, Biden said that there has been “an appalling resurgence of hate and violence toward Muslim Americans.”

“Islamophobia has absolutely no place in the United States, a country founded on freedom of worship and built on the contributions of immigrants, including Muslim immigrants,” he stated. “No one should ever fear being targeted at school, at work, on the street, or in their community because of their background or beliefs.”

“To Muslims across our country, please know that you are deeply valued members of our American family,” he added. “To those who are grieving during this time of war, I hear you, I see you and I pray you find solace in your faith, family, and community.”

The president drew criticism for his statement.

“Not only is Biden using Hamas talking points but he’s using Hamas statistics. The Jews have officially been abandoned by this White House,” wrote Dovid Margolin, senior editor at Chabad.”

“Biden administration working very hard to recapture the CAIR, Code Pink, JVP demographic,” wrote Alberto Miguel Fernandez, a former U.S. State Department official and current vice president at the Middle East Media Research Institute.

“Biden’s Ramadan  message is all about Gaza and ‘Islamophobia.’ Of course,” he added. “This is pandering. But completely predictable. While a majority of Americans are pro-Israel, here Biden seeks to appeal to a very specific single (or dual) issue demographic he needs to win back and hopefully energize before November.”

Hamas is massively inflating civilian casualties, says expert

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Gazans wait to receive the bodies of their relatives who were killed in an air strike, at Al-Najjar Hospital, in Rafah, February 10, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

By World Israel News Staff

A new analysis of death tolls in the Gaza Strip suggests that the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry is massively inflating the number of civilian casualties in the current war between Hamas and Israel.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a department of Hamas’ de facto government in the Gaza Strip, since October 7th, there have been 31,112 people killed in the coastal enclave as a result of the war with Israel, which began following Hamas’ invasion of southwestern Israel and massacre of some 1,200 Israelis.

Of the 31,112, the majority, according to the Gaza Health Ministry figures, are civilians, with more than two-thirds, or over 21,000, being women and children, with 1,049 more listed as elderly.

While the figures provided by the Hamas-run ministry have not been independently verified, they have been cited without caveat not only by Western media outlets covering the war, but also by foreign governments, including the Biden administration.

President Biden himself lamented that “too many of the over 27,000” Gazans reportedly killed up that point according to the Gaza Health Ministry “have been innocent civilians and children, including thousands of children.”

Yet the figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry contain clear contradictions, says Abraham Wyner, professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and faculty co-director at the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative.

In a recently-published analysis featured in Tablet Magazine, Wyner noted that based on the Gaza Health Ministry’s own figures released in the first month of the current conflict, some of the claims regarding daily casualty totals are impossible, while others are highly improbable.

From October 26th and through November 10th, the Healthy Ministry released daily casualty reports, with breakdowns including the numbers of women and children allegedly killed in the fighting.

Subtracting both from the total number of fatalities, Wyner was also able to determine the number of men reportedly killed each day.

Comparing the breakdowns by gender and age revealed some highly improbable instances, in which male and female fatalities appeared to show an inverse relationship.

With the number of male fatalities spanning both civilian and combatant male fatalities, the numbers of fatalities among children, women, and men would be expected to generally rise and fall together, with days of more intense fighting tending to result in more casualties in all three groups and days of less intense fighting producing lower casualty counts in all groups.

Yet Wyner noted an inverse relationship between fatality figures between men and women, while the counts for children remained largely stable.

The discrepancy between the stable rate of fatalities reported among children and the wildly differing numbers among women, Wyner noted, is a “circumstantial piece of evidence suggesting the numbers are not real.”

Even more suggestive, however, is the inexplicable pattern of adult fatalities, with gender rates fluctuating massively as female fatality figures soared one day, only to plummet to zero the next, while men’s rates appeared to soar on days when fatalities amongst women were low, and vice versa.

On October 30th, the Gaza Health Ministry reported 304 total deaths in the war, of which 133 were children, zero were women, leaving 171 as adult male casualties.

The day before, however, all of the 302 deaths were either women or children.

In fact, the fatality breakdown contradicted the total death count, with 129 children reported as dying, along with 199 women, or 328 – 26 more than the total death toll. That would also assume that not one of the fatalities that day – terrorist combatant or civilian – was a man.

Other days reflected the same improbable pattern: One November 6th, 96 children were reported as dying, while not a single woman was declared dead, with 156 men being listed as dying.

A day later, the figures were virtually inverted, with 169 women reported as being killed, while just 4 men were listed as killed.

On October 31st, just six men died in the fighting, according to the Health Ministry figures – plummeting from 171 a day earlier – while the number of women killed surged from 0 the day before to 125.

“Taken together,” writes Wyner, “what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers.”

“Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily. We know this because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real.”

“Then they assigned about 70% of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.”

While the Hamas-run Ministry’s figures are highly suspect, estimating the real number of civilian casualties is more difficult, Wyner writes, but suggests that based on the Israeli military’s estimates of terrorist loses, the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths is likely “remarkably low,” suggesting it could be 1.4 to 1, or even as low as 1 to 1.

 

Houthis Open Ramadan with Promise to Stage More Red Sea Attacks

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Hani Mohammed/AP

By Frances Martel (Breitbart)

The head of the Yemeni Houthi terrorist organization, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, issued remarks on the eve of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan on Sunday guaranteeing to his supporters that he would continue to orchestrate terrorist attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea despite the holiday season.

“We will continue our operations and many of our fundamental and necessary activities must continue,” Houthi promised, according to the Iranian state Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

Houthi’s terrorist group, formally known as “Ansar Allah,” began a campaign of drone and missile strikes against seemingly random ships attempting to navigate in the greater Red Sea region at the end of 2023, allegedly in an attempt to hurt the economy of Israel. The Houthis have controlled a significant percentage of Yemeni territory since 2014, when they took over the national capital of Sana’a and forced the legitimate government to move south to the port city of Aden. Yemen has been in a state of civil war since and both the Houthis and the internationally-recognized government refer to themselves as the government and military of Yemen.

The Houthis declared war on Israel in October in support of fellow jihadist terror organization Hamas, which executed the deadliest attack on Israel in its modern history on October 7. Hamas terrorists invaded residential communities, killing entire families in their own homes and engaging in gang rape, infanticide, extensive torture, and abducting over 200 people. Like the Houthis, the Sunni-led Hamas organization received generous funding from Iran, which celebrated the killing of an estimated 1,200 people on October 7 with street parties featuring fireworks and free lemonade.

 

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi spoke on Sunday on the occasion of preparation for Ramadan, a month during which Muslims around the world typically fast during daylight hours and engage in other acts of fasting as a form of worship. Many radical Islamist terrorists consider Ramadan an ideal time to engage in more acts of jihad, believing that their killings will be rewarded more greatly during the holy month. Multiple Mideast countries confirmed on Sunday that the official start of Ramadan would take place on Monday.

Houthi told his followers from Sana’a on Sunday that his terrorists would “continue their retaliatory strikes in the Red Sea” during Ramadan “in solidarity” with Hamas, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV. Houthi also celebrated the many Yemenis forced into thousands-strong demonstrations in support of Hamas on a weekly basis.

“The demonstrators, who converge on the al-Sabeen Square [in Sana’a] every week, are doing a great and epic job. They are treading the righteous path,” PressTV quoted the leader as saying.

“It is a matter of pride for Yemenis to be recognized as noble warriors, with a clear understanding of the Muslim world’s sufferings and miseries of the oppressed Palestinian nation.”

The Houthis organized rallies reportedly attracting thousands of people on Friday in support of the Red Sea terror campaign. Participants published a statement via Iranian state media in which they declared Ramadan “a month of jihad before it is a month of worship” and demanded “a total boycott of American and Israeli goods and the companies that support them.”

Houthi warned on Sunday that all Muslims would allegedly face “a perilous situation if [they] … fail to do a jihad.”

The Houthis first announced a campaign against commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea meant to disturb commerce heading to and from Israel; they have since extended their targets to ships with ties to America and Britain in response to those nations engaging in airstrikes on Yemeni soil meant to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack vessels in the region.

Houthi leaders have also issued public statements claiming they would avoid targeting ships with links to China and Russia, Hamas-friendly nations that have taken anti-Israel stances at the United Nations.

In reality, however, the Houthis have bombed ships with links to Russia, China, and its patrons in Iran, among other nations with no overt relevance to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The Media Line, a Middle East news outlet, reported on Sunday that Abdul-Malik al-Houthi claimed his terrorists had engaged in 96 missile and drone attacks since October 7. The attacks have sunk one ship so far, the Belize-flagged, Lebanese-operated MV Rubymar, and killed three last week aboard the Barbados-flagged, Liberian-owned MV True Confidence.

As in his comments on Sunday, al-Houthi has insisted repeatedly in the past two months that the terrorist organization would escalate the number of acts of terrorism in the future.

“Our military operations will continue and advance and we have surprises that our enemies will not expect at all,” al-Houthi proclaimed on February 29.

Houthi also boasted that the American and British airstrikes against his group had made no significant impact on the Houthis’ ability to target ships in the region.

“The Americans are now admitting their failure to achieve their aggressive goals against our country and are surprised by our strength,” he said.

American President Joe Biden appeared to agree with al-Houthi in remarks in January after journalists asked him if the airstrikes meant to weaken Houthi capabilities were working.

“Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”

Biden nonetheless boasted of his decision to order the airstrikes during his State of the Union address on Thursday.

“Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran. That’s why I built a coalition of more than a dozen countries to defend international shipping and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea,” Biden said. “I’ve ordered strikes to degrade the Houthi capabilities and defend U.S. Forces in the region.”

“As Commander in Chief, I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and military personnel,” he promised.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Oscars 2024: Billie Eilish, Rami Youssef Demand ‘Permanent Ceasefire’ in Gaza

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David Ng

Hollywood celebrities used the Oscars red carpet on Sunday to demand a “permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, with Billie Eilish, Rami Youssef, and Ava DuVernay among the attendees sporting red lapel pins in support of the group Artists for Ceasefire.

Some attendees even wore pins showing the Palestinian flag. Cast members from best picture nominee Anatomy of a Fall  were seen wearing the flag pins on the red carpet outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

The Hamas terrorist organization is pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza that would allow them to re-arm and replenish supplies to continue its stated goal of wiping Israel off the face of the map.

 

Poor Things actor Rami Youssef explained his support for a “permanent ceasefire” in a red carpet chat with Variety.

“We’re calling for immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for peace and lasting justice for the people of Palestine,” Youssef told Variety.

“It’s a universal message of, ‘Let’s stop killing kids. Let’s not be part of more war.’ No one has ever looked back at war and thought a bombing campaign was a good idea. To be surrounded by so many artists who are willing to lend their voices, the list is growing. A lot of people are going to be wearing these pins tonight. There’s a lot of talking heads on the news, this is a space of talking hearts. We’re trying to have this big beam to humanity.”

Billie Eilish, who is nominated this year for her song for Barbie, was photographed wearing the pin, as was filmmaker Ava DuVernay.

Meanwhile, Anatomy of a Fall actors Swann Arlaud and Milo Machado-Graner were photographed wearing Palestinian flag pins.

Hollywood celebrities have been demanding a ceasefire in Gaza since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, murdering 1,200.

As Breitbart News reported, a group of A-list Hollywood celebrities including Joaquin Phoenix, Cate Blanchett, Channing Tatum, Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, and Kristen Stewart signed a letter to President Joe Biden calling for a ceasefire less than a month after the Hamas attack.

 

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at [email protected]