You can’t get Tom Gross‘s informative (and yes, pro-Israel) newsletter, but I am chuffed to receive it and be allowed to duplicate it here. Gross is described by Wikipedia as a “British-born journalist, international affairs commentator, and human rights campaigner specializing in the Middle East.” What he says is passionate but sensible, so here you go. All photo captions and bolding are Gross’s, and his text is indented.
DON’T BE FOOLED BY HAMAS PROPAGANDA, JUST BECAUSE THE WESTERN MEDIA IS
[Notes below by Tom Gross]
Just a collection of quick notes below, though I would suggest watching the video clips below if you have time.
Several people have written to me “The released Israelis don’t look as if they spent 50 days as hostages. I mean they look well!”
To which I replied:
“Of course, Hamas are only releasing the ones they have looked after well. Others have been beaten and raped. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda. For example, it’s probably why Hamas did not release the younger brother of one of the hostages yesterday when they were meant to according to terms of their agreement with Israel.”
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In several cases, the freed hostages have been forced at gunpoint (while their relatives are still being held in Gaza) to smile and wave as if they have been some kind of guests of Hamas. See this very short clip, for example:
Pointing guns at them, Hamas force released hostages to wave and smile for the cameras
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CHILD HOSTAGES RELEASED WITHOUT MOTHERS, BROTHERS – STILL IN CAPTIVITY
The BBC and other stations have said “the hostages have been joyfully reunited with their families.”
This is very misleading.
See this short clip from Israeli TV:
Child hostages released without mothers, brothers, as Hamas breaks yet another ceasefire condition
[Note that Hamas agreed, in this swap of terrorists for hostages, not to separate children from their mothers or siblings. They violated this condition.]
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EMILY WASN’T “LOST AND FOUND”
Israeli-Irish girl Emily Hand, who turned 9 while being held hostage in Gaza and who was released late last night, wasn’t “lost” as the Irish prime minister told the world (see his tweet below, as well as press statements). She was kidnapped by a bloodthirsty terror group, who murdered her mother* and her school friend on October 7.
And she wasn’t “found,” as as the Irish prime minister claims. claims. She was released last night after Israel provided substantial amounts of fuel yesterday to that very same terror group so they could fire more rockets at Israeli civilians, and after Israel’s release of convicted violent Palestinian criminals yesterday, mostly young men aged 17 and 18, several of whom had been arrested for stabbing attacks or assembling bombs.
[JAC: Yes, below is the tweet from Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister). For some reason I can’t fathom, the Republic of Ireland seems inordinately fond of Hamas. Emily Hand was presumed dead, and initially her father said that he would rather have had his daughter dead than be taken hostage by Hamas. On October 31, the IDF told him that no remains of Emily had been found at Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived, and that gave him hope again. I presume he regrets his initial statement.]
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THE WESTERN MEDIA FAIL TO EXPLAIN THAT EMILY’S MOTHER WAS MURDERED ON OCT. 7
Also not reported by western media:
Now Emily (pictured below last summer in Israel before her kidnapping) will find out that the Israeli woman who raised [her] as her own – Tom Hand’s ex-wife – was murdered* by Hamas on October 7. (Emily’s own Israeli birth mother died of cancer when Emily was two.)
Other stuff from the newsletter:
HAMAS’ TREATMENT OF WOMEN
As we know from Hamas’ own videos and statements, some Israelis were selected for murder on October 7, some for kidnapping and some for rape.
Demonstrators in Los Angeles make the point:
[JAC: notice that this demonstration is absolutely peaceful. And I think the bloodied woman makes a very effective statement. She’s likely modeled on this Hamas video, which now blurs the blood on her rear end, almost certainly the result of rape.]
JewsToo. Jewish women in LA show what is happening to Israeli Jews
ISRAEL CRITICIZES UN’S WOMEN’S OFFICE FOR 50-DAY DELAY IN COMMENTING ON HAMAS SEX CRIMES
The Israeli Foreign Ministry strongly criticized the “UN office for women’s issues” for taking 50 days to comment on the sexual violence against young girls and women perpetrated during Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
The UN finally issued a brief and highly inadequate statement yesterday (Saturday) expressing “alarm”.
“We remain alarmed by gender-based violence reports on 7 Oct & call for rigorous investigation, prioritizing the rights, needs and safety of those affected,” the UN office for women’s issues said.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded: “For almost 50 days UN Women has been SILENT on the rape, murder and kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli women and girls. Seven weeks later and all they can muster is ‘alarm.’ Disgraceful.”
The American National Council of Jewish Women called the UN Women’s statement “reprehensible.”
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“THE MEN WERE BEATEN AND STOMPED ON BY RESIDENTS BEFORE BEING HUNG UP FROM AN ELECTRICAL TOWER AND THEN DUMPED IN A SKIP” Some newspapers, have now reported on the Hamas murder of Palestinians on Friday evening, which I mentioned in my dispatch yesterday (Saturday) morning.
For example, the London Telegraph reports:
Two men accused of spying for Israel were executed in the West Bank, with their bodies dragged through alleys in Tulkarem before being hung from a pylon by a cheering mob.
A Palestinian journalist, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the men were beaten and stomped on by residents before being hung up from an electrical tower and then dumped in a skip.
Videos show hundreds of Palestinians crowding around the entrance of the camp and filming the violence with their phones.
JAC: I will add this from Palestinian Media Watch. The text is from the site:
Released terrorist hopes for more kidnappings to “empty the prisons,” blesses Hamas for her freedom in exchange for Israeli hostages
One of the Palestinian female terrorist prisoners who has been released in exchange for 26 Israeli hostages who had been held captive by Hamas in Gaza since they were brutally taken from their homes on Oct. 7, is hoping for more kidnappings “to empty the prisons.”
Welcomed by a crowd of cheering Palestinians after her release, terrorist Hanan Barghouti praised Hamas – “the resistance” – for her freedom, thereby blessing their terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the taking of over 200 hostages. She implicitly called for more kidnappings when she expressed hope that “the resistance will release all the female prisoners, and will empty the prisons”.
Barghouti has been in Israeli prison for two months, detained without being arrested or charged. This kind of administrative detention, which can last for a long time in Israel, is something I object to strongly, and is illegal in the U.S. Nevertheless, Barghouti’s statement that more Israelis should be kidnapped to empty the prisons of terrorists who have been tried and convicted is still reprehensible.
I’ll also add this, which shows how Hamas is “playing the world like a violin”. The guest (yes, on Fox News) is former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland. Her prognostication seems about right to me, is Hamas’s recipe for staying in power by having the world, including the U.S., making the cease-fire permanent.
For me personally, one if the most frustrating things is when media uses, and then social media parrots, the term “children” either in Gaza or “being released from Israeli prison.” Child is defined by the UN as anyone under 18. So 16 and 17 year old gun-toting militants are “children”. But the image in everyone’s mind is an innocent four year old who has no idea what’s going on. We need to get rid of the term vague and meaningless and frankly propagandistically abused term “child” and replace with teen, toddler, or adolescent.
I gather that the released Palestinians include 18- and 19-yr-old “boys” (though they may have been children when they committed the acts for which they were imprisoned).
Israel does not kidnap children.
A quick look at the backgrounds of those to be released reveals that most of them seem to have been convicted of terrorist offenses where their victims survived the attack, although often with terrible injuries.
Terrorism is a career move for Palestinian youth. If they manage to receive a sentence of more than five years in Israeli jail, they get a decent wage of over $1000 usd per month, plus a system of bonuses and grants. There is an elaborate bureaucracy dedicated to paying the families of terrorists.
“I’ve accumulated large debts… if my son wants a shekel, I have nothing to give him… I decided to do something serious, such as committing murder, something in which I will both kill and die, and then my family will get money (i.e., from the PA) and will live comfortably… If I’m not able to kill soldiers, I’ll try settlers, guards – in other words any Israeli target – the important thing is that I will die and they will kill me, so that my children will receive a [PA] allowance and live happily.”
https://emetonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Pay4Slay_Fact-Sheet-FINAL.pdf
And there is some sly disinformation in the mainstream headlines (you’ll see this on the BBC and CNN websites) wherein they state the number of hostages released, the number of Palestinians released, and say there is supposed to be a one to three ratio. The numbers don’t add up (or rather, multiply) correctly and it gives the impression Israel is not keeping up its end of the deal. In fact the foreign nationals released are not included in that calculus and there are three Palestinian criminals released for every one Israeli, but the media will take every opportunity to make Israel look bad.
Fortunately most people these days can’t do arithmetic and it goes over their heads.
No, they’re literal children. 5000 deaths. But nice try justifying genocide.
“16 and 17 year old gun-toting militants”
It’s amazing how people can justify the most barbarous things through lies and suppositions…
We eagerly await further public comments from statesmen of the caliber of Ireland’s Leo Varadkar. The Taoiseach himself will probably nominate Hamas for a Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of its help in locating lost and found children.
Perhaps he should invite them to come and police the streets of Dublin?
The tweet by the Irish prime minister about child hostage Emily (who’s mother, by adoption, was executed by Hamas), it would be hard to make this up. Well, Andrew Doyle’s alter ego, Titania McGrath could. And, of course, George Orwell wrote a classic essay on it: Politics and the English language (1946).
How a slice of the left can celebrate and cheer on a self-avowedly genocidal organization like Hamas that aims to establish another nasty theocratic dictatorship (like Iran) on the ruins and bones of the only democracy in the Middle East is just mind-boggling.
Of course you’re a zionist. How predictable…