Three, But Not On A Match

While the pro-Hamas mobs seem to be infiltrating everywhere they don’t belong — their most recent screaming appearance was at a Chinese Lunar Year celebration in Manhattan — those who argue in defense of Israel do so soberly, quietly, not trying to drown anyone out or to hijack meetings having nothing to do with Israel or “Palestine.” Here are three examples:

#1. Hussain Abdul-Hussain on “death cult militias” such as Hamas and Hezbollah:

All these Arabic-speaking pundits (including #Iran regime loyalists) who take deep dives into Israeli politics to explain the mechanics of Israeli decision-making, argue that #Israel PM can do this and this, but not that or that, otherwise his cabinet might collapse, NEVER notice the irony that their own Arab leadership of Hezbollah, Hamas, PA are not accountable to them or to anyone. Nasrallah does not have to worry about what the Lebanese think or not. He rules Lebanon with his speeches broadcast from his bunker hideout, and take Lebanon to war at will. The Lebanese learn about their fate by watching TV, like everybody else, and there is nothing they can do about it. And yet, they blame “Israel’s far right and the radicalism of Netanyahu” for war in Gaza. Khamenei describes any dissent as paid-off Western instigation. Palestinian Abbas is 20 years into his four year term. Sinwar surprised both Israel and Gazans when he took everyone to hell. If Hamas leadership had any concern over what Gazans want, it’d have surrendered, yesterday. Who’s more trigger-happy then? An accountable Israeli government that understands the cost of losing 230 troops, watching the economy contract by 20 percent, but must do what its citizens expect it to do (protect them)? Or death cult militias like Hezbollah and Hamas who tell Lebanese and Palestinians that the yardstick of policy-making is martyrdom and eternal life?

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is an Iraqi journalist who now works as a researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. You can follow him on X.

#2. Seth Mandel on Hamas’ incitement to sadism:

I don’t know that I’ve ever made my way through something as hard to read as the comprehensive report released last week by the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel. Titled “Silent Cry: Sexual Crimes in the October 7 War,” the report lays out in gruesome detail what we know—not what is theorized or assumed, but what is known—about Hamas’s depravity on and after October 7.

People who still doubt and deny these atrocities aren’t searching for evidence, and it’s clear they never were. Despite that, the value in documenting Hamas’s barbarousness for posterity is obvious. In addition, the report was delivered to the United Nations, which has a special obligation to read it and act on it because it has a unique level of culpability in the crimes.

I don’t mean simply the fact that UN employees participated in the attacks, though that is certainly part of the picture. The report reveals something truly catastrophic about the society over which the UN has presided as its primary steward.

Palestinians in Gaza have been brainwashed beyond hatred to the point of sadistic reprogramming, and it is incumbent on the world to intervene.

The report is available online here, and readers can decide for themselves the level of detail they are prepared to handle. But one quote in particular has haunted me ever since I first read the report. An emergency responder on the scene described the mutilation of the victims this way: “There’s almost no body they were satisfied with (just) shooting.”

There is abundant eyewitness testimony, but the Gazans who carried out those crimes went to great lengths to leave no doubt. Victims—both men and women, but mostly women—were found with nails, grenades, knives, iron bars, and gunshot wounds in their genitals. There was, in fact, an overriding obsession with sexual torture and mutilation along with rape, and often with family members forced to watch. It is all consistent with the many videos Hamas took themselves of terrorists dragging mostly naked women through the streets as onlookers cheer. Internal organs were mutilated as well, and some victims were beheaded.

Put it this way: You know something is truly demonic when phrases like “just murdered” or “just raped” appear in a report.

Seth Mandel is a senior editor at Commentary.

#3. Elder of Ziyon: Lebanese protests, not IDF retaliation, could silence Hezbollah

After Israel’s airstrike killing a Hezbollah terrorist in Baalbek, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah, said in a televised address that the attack “will not push us to retreat, it will rather increase our determination.”

Israel’s “aggression on Baalbek or any other region will not remain unanswered, and the resistance will respond in the appropriate manner,” he added.

This is a Lebanese lawmaker who is openly speaking on behalf of an Iranian militia that acts against Lebanese interests. He is inciting the country he supposedly represents into a war that no one in Lebanon wants.

The pattern on the Israel-Lebanese border has been consistent since October 7. Hezbollah started firing, and Israel responded proportionately. Israel wants to deter Hezbollah from attacking, so it is aiming at major Hezbollah members. Hezbollah does not want to appear weak so it responds in its own ever-increasing ways.

Hezbollah’s main motivation in its attacks is not to achieve military goals . It is not support for “Gaza.” At this time, Hezbollah’s motivation is honor: it absolutely does not want to be seen as capitulating to Israeli force.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said yesterday , “If the Israelis go too far, we will retaliate more. All what we have used until now in the fighting is the minimum of what we own.”

This is the honor/shame mindset, and it is more powerful than all other considerations….

The only way to stop this very real cycle of violence is to find a motive for Hezbollah to want to de-escalate and still fit into the honor/shame paradigm….

If the Lebanese start a protest movement against Hezbollah, with rallies and demonstrations that receive decent publicity, that would shame Hezbollah more than not responding to Israeli attacks would….

Elder of Ziyon runs a remarkable website full of information on Israel, antisemitism, the Palestinians, and Islam, including the article excerpted just above.