Again, with Tom Gross’s permission, I am putting up most of his latest newsletter (from Saturday), which consists largely of photos and videos. I put the first picture below on my Facebook page with the first paragraph of the caption, and some “friend” immediately wrote a response that Israel was inflicting casualties on Palestinians “disproportionately.” In response to a picture of a dead kid, on Facebook! I don’t usually argue about politics on facebook, so he had his say (and I didn’t respond), but he’s no longer a FB “friend”.
Anyway, from Gross:
TAMAR WAS NINE
[Note by Tom Gross]
This is Tamar. She was 9 years old. She died last night of a cardiac arrest while running for her life in the Israeli coastal town of Ashdod south of Tel Aviv, as Hamas rockets hurtled towards her. She had no history of heart disease. I mention her because not a single media outside of Israel, as far as I can tell, has mentioned her.
Hundreds of rockets continue to rein down daily on towns all over Israel, including Tel Aviv. Today on Sky News a pundit accused Netanyahu of “adopting an extremist position for demanding that no single rocket was fired any more from Hamas at Israeli civilians”.
Only in the twisted world of western journalism could such a view be regarded as extremist.
DEALS WITH PUTIN
This evening Israeli troops are again risking their lives entering Gaza to try and stop rocket launches from Gaza and to rescue hostages being held there – at least 229 Israelis (including dozens of children) and many others too, including 51 Thai citizens according to the latest figures from the Thai authorities.
Hamas indicated that it might release the 8 hostages who hold Russian citizenship following Hamas talks in Moscow yesterday with Vladimir Putin.
I attach several more videos below that I posted yesterday. They are very short and you might want to try to watch them all before YouTube remove further videos from my account, as social media continue to restrict people such as myself for political reasons.
— Tom Gross
[JAC: I’ve embedded the videos instead of giving the links, and I’ve put a few comments in brackets.]
“Name an important Palestinian in history” (Palestinian nationality, invented in 1964 by Arafat) [JAC: Gross’s point, I think, is not that important Arabs can’t be named, but that “Palestinian” is a recent nationality.]
Ordinary New Yorkers have had enough of pro-Hamas activists denying Jewish kids have been kidnapped (& ripping down their photos). [JAC: I don’t think the “ripper,” misguided though he is, should be threatened with violence.]
NYU students: “We don’t want two states, we want all of Israel wiped out” (Manhattan, yesterday) [JAC: I find this scary]
NYU students anti-Israel night out, over five blocks long (Manhattan, last night) [JAC: Note the “from the river to the sea. . .” chant, which means the same as above: “Israel should be erased.”[
An Argentine-born researcher at NYU despairs at the level of hatred against Israel/Jews allowed to flourish on campus [JAC: This woman is scary eloquent, and speaks without notes.]
This cartoon is by Plantu, a famous French cartoonist whose work has appeared in Le Monde newspaper since 1972 — Tom Gross
A very apposite piece by Gabriel Noah Brahm:
https://fathomjournal.org/opinion-after-the-hamas-pogrom-we-can-see-what-american-universities-have-become/?fbclid=IwAR2s1lS8nhnWuj2th5Ri1RqgZPyCwxrMmYwxTWtqQDcrzB-C2BoPrm_cUUQ
I really fail to understand the wave of antisemitism that has been shown in the past couple weeks. Hamas invades Israel and kills hundreds, tortures others, kidnaps hundreds to what sort of fate we would rather not imagine but get enough graphic details to be assured that there are fates worse than death. Hamas continues to fire rockets into Israel. Israel responds with far superior firepower as, I think, it should. Why such sympathy for the Hamas inflicted invasion and what amount to war crimes? Is there really that much antisemitism embedded in American culture? Why?