#hamas leadership

[eretzyisrael]

[girlactionfigure]

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Gaza’s sky is black but Qatar is always sunny. A new video from Israeli satire show @eretznehedert (What a Wonderful Country)

eretznehederet

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Emanuel Fabian

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirms many Hamas members have surrendered to troops in the Gaza Strip today, saying they have revealed intelligence information on the terror group’s functioning amid the ground offensive.

“In Shejaiya and Jabaliya, terrorists who surrendered handed over weapons and equipment,” he says, confirming footage that leaked today.

“From the interrogations of the terrorists who surrendered, the following intelligence has emerged: The situation of the operatives on the ground is difficult, and the Hamas leadership, led by [Yahya] Sinwar, denies the reality even though it is updated on the details,” Hagari says.

“The operatives complain that the Hamas leadership is out of touch with the tough situation they are in on the ground,” says.

Hagari says there is a “widespread feeling that the Hamas leadership underground does not care about the public in Gaza who are above ground,” adding that this also worries the Hamas operatives.

“The intelligence that emerges from the interrogations creates more targets and aids us in the operational activity,” Hagari adds.

[head-post]

Hamas leader to visit Egypt for Gaza ceasefire talks

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh will visit Egypt on Wednesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap with Israel, a source close to the Palestinian Islamist group said.

Haniyeh, who is in Qatar, will lead a “high-level” Hamas delegation to Egypt, where he will hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and others. The discussions will focus on “ending aggression and war to prepare an agreement to release prisoners (and) end the siege of the Gaza Strip.”

Last month, 80 Israeli hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails as part of a week-long truce that Qatar helped broker with Egyptian and US support.

A Hamas source said the talks in Egypt would focus on “the delivery of humanitarian aid, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip and the return of displaced people to their towns and villages in the north.”

Read more HERE

[underdoug]

Israel at War: Hamas a Prelude to Coming Prophetic Events

Israel at War…again. Hamas attack leads to War declaration On the last Saturday of 2023, an unprecedented attack came from Hamas, the Gaza-based terrorist organization. The result– Israel at war. In a shockingly effective breach of Israeli security, Hamas militants overwhelmed unprepared and ineffective defenses. As happened once before in the nation’s history, the attack came on the last…

[commonsensecommentary]

“If you’re not willing to accept the punishment that might come with defending your supposedly deeply held beliefs, it’s not actually political protest—it’s cosplay complete with keffiyehs.”

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I had to walk away from my own parent tonight because after we saw the sat images of Gaza's cities before and after the invasion I asked how any of this could be justified and they said without any hesitation and irony: "Well Maybe Hamas was hiding under those buildings". I can't... The restraint it took me to keep from screaming my lungs horse.

At a certain point, you have to realize that Hamas has likely only increased in membership since this started, which was probably exactly why they did the October 7th attack to begin with. If we decide civilian lives are acceptable collateral damage, we might as well be terrorists ourselves.

[infiniteglitterfall]

i/p discourse in a nutshell

I'm reading this long-form article about Edward Said, the guy who I've seen credited with imposing American views of race and ethnicity onto Israel and Palestine.

It's interesting to see how very American and privileged he was in some ways.

(When a Vietnam War protest disrupted one of his college classes, he called security. What a preppie.)

But this one line (in the article, not Said's own work) answered a question that's been bugging me for months: why do people so often say, "The West Bank has been occupied since 1967," when Jordan occupied it for nearly twenty years before that?

Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, who doggedly opposed a Palestinian state, was encouraging Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, territories seized from Palestinians in 1967.

Territories seized... from... Palestinians?

Egypt had seized Gaza, and was holding it under military occupation and treating people like crap.

Jordan had seized the West Bank, made it a part of Jordan, and called East Jerusalem Jordan's "second capital city."

Not only did it give Palestinians Jordanian citizenship, but Palestinians in the West Bank continued to be citizens of Jordan for almost 20 years after Israel annexed the West Bank in the Six-Day War.

Jordan didn't terminate their citizenship, or its claim to the West Bank, until Palestine declared independence in 1988.

Israel very clearly seized the territories from Egypt and Jordan.

It also doesn't say Israel seized them "from Palestine," the country. Because the leaders of Arab Palestine (as opposed to Jewish Palestine) chose not to declare independence in 1948, and instead to screw everyone over by lobbying the Arab League to invade, destroy Israel, and divide up the land.

It says Israel seized them "from Palestinians," the individual people in those territories.

But that's not true either; individual Palestinians kept their homes.

What it seems to mean is "from Palestinians," the collective people.

From THE Palestinians; the ones who we assume were there first and who were driven out, not by the Arab League's invasion, but by angry racist Jews stealing their homes.

It's striking because it illustrates how successfully the entire history has been retconned to focus solely on one very specific, ahistorical narrative.

And how easily you can fill people's lack of knowledge about the subject with implication and innuendo, if you choose just the right wording.

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth J. Frantzman

Here's a question. Let's say we compare Israel's apparent partnership or alliance with the US and the West to other similar examples. It's comparable probably to the close ties that South Korea or Japan have to the US and the West.

Now let's say there was an October 7 type of attack on a US partner like Japan or South Korea. And let's say the group that did it was hosted by a US ally…that would be really strange wouldn't it. You'd probably be perplexed…as in "wait, a US ally is hosting a group that just massacred 1,000 people in S. Korea that's awful, why would we have our ally host a group that does that"?

But when it comes to Israel it's considered normal policy for US allies to host and support Hamas.

I've come to the conclusion, and I'm sorry to say this and I never thought I'd believe this, that the West is partly or responsible for October 7 and that they empowered systematically Hamas. It's really sad but one has to begin to wonder…why are western governments backing Hamas? Why is it the same governments that were outraged by massacres in the Balkans in the 1990s, actually support an ally that backs Hamas and led to massacres far worse in a single day than what happened in the Balkans in most cases.

Is it usual that western allies host groups that massacre 1,000 people and take 250 hostage? I mean do we support Boko Haram also? I don't think so.

I think, tragically, that a decision was made many years ago to back Hamas and that some in the West see Hamas as their preferred group to take over Gaza, the West bank and Israel and that they were are working slowly toward this end, just like they decided back in around 2005 or 2010 that they needed to bring the Taliban back to run Afghanistan. They knew they couldn't do it overnight, so they moved the Taliban to their ally and had it wait and then they made a deal to bring it back.

Israel is seen today by some (and definitely by Western allies in the Middle East) not as a meaningful ally like South Korea, but rather the next country they want to Afghanistan. And so Hamas is being groomed. October 7 was the first shot in a long war, but the goal is clear. The Hamas leader flew from the Western ally to Iran this week to plan the next stage and he celebrated the UN vote for a ceasefire. Hamas is preparing its return to the West Bank. 134 hostages are still held with no end in sight…and Israel will be prevented from taking Rafah, either by its own leadership or other pressures.

It's sad but this is the case. And you have to ask tough questions…why is the West backing a group that committed genocide on October 7? Why are Hamas leaders living it up in a western ally rather than on trial for war crimes? Why is it that Hamas is less isolated today than on October 6? Why is it that western countries make statements backing Israel, but in essence they continue to hedge by also backing the countries that back Hamas? Hamas filmed its murder of civilians, they paraded dead bodies in the streets of Gaza but no one has charged them with war crimes? In fact even in Israel none of those captured in Gaza are being charged for crimes against humanity.

I feel that it's a kind of global "old boys agreement" that Hamas is being backed, it is being prepared to run the West Bank, and return to Gaza, and that none of its members will be charged with crimes…and October 7 will never be investigated, and that within a year Israel will declare victory in Gaza and Hamas will return to Gaza and the rocket fire will increase again and it's unclear if Israelis will even be able to return to the north and south, but there will be victory and huge achievements will be described and the hostages will mostly be left in Gaza for years.

It's sad but it's hard for Israel when it's up against a group backed by a western ally and basically backed by the West.

No one knew this on October 6 when they went to sleep. They didn't know that this would be allowed to happen, they felt secure, they had listened to the speeches at INSS and IDC and other conferences about Israe'ls capabilities and Hamas deterred and how strong Israel was and the 3-D chess that underpinned the logic behind letting Hamas and Hezbollah grow massively powerful and doing a deal with Lebanon and having cash flow to Gaza and how smart and 3-D chess it was to have Hamas hosted by western allies��we all believed this…and people were abandoned on October 7…but five months of war and everyone is told this is amazing victory…while Hamas relaxes in Iran and also thinks it is winning.

When two sides believe they are winning, they can't both be winning. And one thing is for sure…I don't think the West would back allies that host groups that carry out a massacre like October 7 in Japan or S. Korea…or basically anywhere. The West thinks that October 7 was fine. We said "never again"…but it was an empty promise, what we meant was "again and that's ok and the West will host the group that does it again."

I mean this isn't even like the Shoah…because during the Holocaust the West didn't back as an ally the country where the Nazi leadership lives. Today it's different. The West's closest ally hosts Hamas, and Hamas massacres more Jews than at any time since the Shoah, and the West thinks that is ok. So it's worse than the Shoah because during the Shoah the West fought Nazism…and maybe it didn't do it fast enough but there was moral clarity by Churchill and others. They spoke out about the hate of Nazism. Today I don't think any western leader really condemns Hamas crimes or wants Hamas members charged like Nuremburg.

You can check this out and look into it…but the fact is the Nazi leadership was put on trial. Hamas members literally live and thrive in a western ally and there is no attempt by the West to put them on trial…even though they murdered citizens of many western countries. Strange, isn't it…almost like there is a gentleman's agreement behind the scenes to support Hamas or at least tacitly accept its crimes as normal.

It's sad but that's how it is. And if there was any evidence to the contrary you would see Haniyeh at the Hague like Ratko Mladic…but Haniyeh lives OPENLY in a western ally country…Mladic was on the run…consider these facts.

Fact 1: The West warned Russia against the ISIS attack, the West did not warn Israel. Fact 2: The West's closest ally in the Middle East hosts Hamas. Fact 3: Hamas members have not been charged for crimes against humanity. Fact 4: Hamas members live openly in a Western ally and go back and forth to Iran and plot their next moves. Fact 5: There is no real condemnation of Hamas in the West, or a desire to see its leadership charged with crimes and the group dismantled. Fact 6: Hamas, hosted by a western ally, carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and there are no repercussions for Hamas. Fact 7: During the Holocaust the Nazi leadership was not hosted by a Western ally. Hamas is. Fact 8: During the war on ISIS, Iraq was supported to fully defeat ISIS. Israel is told to ceasefire and let Hamas control Gaza again.

[butwhypants]

I have a question and I’m not trying to be annoying. I just want to understand because I feel like I have been misunderstanding how Zionism should work.

Obviously, Zionism is the belief that a Jewish state should exist in Israel. The thing I’ve been misunderstanding is how this can be achieved while protecting the Muslim arabs.

What I mean is, there are a lot of Arabs in West Bank and Gaza, and if Israel gave full citizenship to these people, they would outnumber Israeli jews, and this it would no longer be a Jewish state.

How, realistically, would the Jewish state, protect the rights of the Arabs while remaining fundamentally Jewish?

The main solution I have seen is a two-state solution, but I feel like that would force Jews to leave their homes in the West Bank.

I understand if you aren’t comfortable answering this - I’d just like to try to understand both sides. It’s hard to get unbiased info from the news.

Thanks for the polite question.

The problem with the question I think here is twofold, first Zionism is a very specific word. Zion is the name for the hill that Jerusalem is built on, and was used by the Israeli people when we were taken as slaves to Babylon in the 5th century BC. Zionism isn't inherently about a Jewish state existing, but about the right of the Israelite people to return to Zion, now known as Jerusalem.

The second problem, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, is that you've fallen for the Great Replacement theory as espoused by Ben Shapiro and Elon Musk. It's a very common and very insidious idea, which is based on the idea that if "foreign" cultures were allowed to come in to a society that they would outnumber and overthrow the people currently there. That's not true, and in fact a majority of the Palestinian people ARE Israeli citizens, with full legal and voting rights. Israel is not a theocracy (significantly more religious diversity then the US has for example), and maintaining a religious majority should not and can not be our goal. Allowing the Jewish people self determination in our homeland does not have to correlate with oppression or discrimination against the Palestinian people who also live there.

This current war betrays the fact that there is a long history of cooperation and conflict between all these groups - Eretz Israel is the most contentiously fought over piece of land in the history of the world, and this current war isn't even in the top one hundred most deadly. On the other hand though, cooperation has happened before and it will happen again. Muslims and Jews are not automatically enemies - we've both been willing to make sacrifices on hardline religious interpretations for the sake of peace before, and I hope we can do so again.

Fundamentally, the Jewish people have a long history of living in Israel and we have the right to live there safe and free. However, the Palestinian people ALSO have a long history of living in Israel and have the right to live there safe and free. There is no solution here that will create a mono-state of any culture or religion, and especially not when it is the most important place to 4 billion disparate people.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Olivia Reingold

Here are just three individuals highlighted in the report.

Mohammad Hannoun, a 62-year-old Jordan native who the report describes as “the epicenter of Italian actors operating or sympathizing with Hamas,” has sent at least $4 million to the terrorist group over the past decade via the Charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The U.S. Treasury Department recently said the Italy-based organization, which Hannoun founded in 1994, “ostensibly raises funds for humanitarian purposes, but in reality helps bankroll Hamas’s military wing.” Just three days after October 7 of last year, Hannoun told an Italian journalist that Hamas’s invasion of Israel was “self-defense.” Hannoun, who lives in the northern Italian city of Genoa, has helped promote anti-Israel rallies throughout the Mediterranean country on his Facebook page, often posting about what he calls a “Nazi Zionist genocide in Palestine.”

Majed Al-Zeer, who has been co-designated as a Hamas operative by the U.S. and Israel, is “the mastermind of the Hamas-affiliated activity” in the UK and Germany, according to the report. In 1996, Al-Zeer, a 62-year-old British-Jordanian citizen, founded the Palestinian Return Centre, which lobbies British Parliament and holds a special status at the UN that allows its members to attend meetings and “mobilize support for the Palestinian cause in the UK and overseas.” In 2010, Israel declared the Palestinian Return Centre an “unlawful association,” stating that “it is part of the Hamas movement.” Even though German authorities have identified the Palestinian Return Centre as a likely front for Hamas activity, Al-Zeer continues to live and organize anti-Israel rallies in Berlin, where he moved from the UK in 2014.

Amin Abou Rashed, who Dutch authorities arrested last year for allegedly sending about $6 million to Hamas, has a pattern of “hiding behind politics” and “alleged humanitarian efforts” to “promote Hamas’s ideology” through purported charities like the now-defunct Al-Aqsa Foundation. According to the report, Rashed gained asylum to the Netherlands in 1992, and has been pictured with now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other officials for the terrorist group. 

The report identifies five European countries where Hamas is most active outside of Gaza: the UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. (via European Leadership Network)

The European Leadership Network was able to link these charities and individuals to Hamas through publicly available information such as social media posts and nonprofit registration filings. Mark Sachs, a U.S.-based director of the European Leadership Network, told me “most of the world has absolutely no idea what is taking place right beneath their noses.” 

“It is essential that we in the West start to wake up to how deeply embedded this infrastructure is and how sophisticated Hamas is in taking advantage of the West,” Sachs said.

U.S. regulators have estimated that since early 2024, Hamas has received as much as $10 million a month from these fraudulent groups, most of which are located in Europe, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. 

“Hamas has exploited the suffering in Gaza to solicit funds through sham and front charities that falsely claim to help civilians in Gaza,” the U.S. Treasury Department said last week. “Hamas considers Europe to be a key source of fundraising and has maintained representation across the continent for many years in part to raise funds through sham charities.”

[curator-on-ao3]

Text:

DGA Statement on the Terrorist Attacks on Israel

October 11, 2023

Los Angeles – The Directors Guild of America released the following statement regarding the terrorist attacks on Israel.

“The DGA unequivocally condemns terrorism and joins the many voices in our community decrying the recent Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and violence against innocent civilians. We stand against the growing spread of antisemitism here in the US and abroad, and remain committed in our actions, words and deeds to supporting the Jewish people.”

This is a clear, helpful, relevant statement of care.

Love and light to the DGA and to all who co-sign these sentiments.

[tmarshconnors]

ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders.

Are you serious? The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks arrest warrants for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of Hamas? What kind of parallel universe are we living in? It's absolutely mind-boggling that the ICC, which is supposed to uphold justice, is even contemplating this action.

First of all, let's talk about Netanyahu. Whether you love or hate his politics, he's the democratically elected leader of a SOVEREIGN nation. Israel, a country that is at WAR! If it wasn’t for the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas (a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organisation, led surprise attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip. Where 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed they wouldn’t have had this war they brought it upon themselves! The idea that Netanyahu, a head of state, should be arrested for actions taken in defence of his nation is preposterous and hypocritical. It's not like he's some rogue warlord—he's accountable to the Israeli Knesset, the judiciary, and ultimately, the Israeli people. How about focusing on real war criminals instead of targeting a nation's leadership for making tough decisions in a volatile region??!?!

And Hamas leaders? Let’s get real. Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation by many countries around the world, including the United Kingdom and the United States. They routinely launch rockets at civilian populations, use human shields, and perpetrate suicide bombings. These actions are not justifiable under any circumstances, and equating their leaders with a sitting prime minister of a democratic country is not only absurd but also dangerously misleading. 

What message is the ICC sending here? That there's no difference between a democratic leader trying to protect his country and terrorists who deliberately target civilians? I am so sick and tired of this blunt hypocrisy! This false equivalency undermines the credibility of international law and disrespects the victims of real war crimes. The ICC MUST be held accountable! Should have acted on Hamas years ago!! 

The ICC needs to get its act together. Instead of indulging in politically charged prosecutions that do nothing but fan the flames of conflict, it should concentrate on clear-cut cases of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity where there is no ambiguity about the perpetrators. The court's credibility and relevance depend on it acting judiciously, not politically or it has no reason for being whatsoever!

[cavalryrush]

erm….