Friday, December 29, 2023

Bellows Bars Trump from Ballot in Maine

Bellows Bars Trump from Ballot in Maine
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
December 29, 2023

If four Colorado state Supreme Court justices was not a small enough number of unelected individuals to determine who an entire state should have the right for whom to vote, try one. Yes, in the state of Maine, one person, one person unelected by popular vote, the state secretary of state, unilaterally determined that the entire voting population of the Pine Tree State should be prevented from casting their ballot in their upcoming primary for former President Donald Trump. 

Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, singularly disqualified Trump, pending appeal, from appearing on the March 5, 2024 primary ballot. “I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it,” wrote Bellows in her statement on Thursday, December 28.

Trump has five days to challenge the Bellows decision in Maine Superior Court. His campaign already announced the forthcoming challenge.

Bellows must be clairvoyant,  citing her conclusion “Trump was aware… ” Does Bellows know what’s in the head or on the mind of the former president? She based her disqualification on a feeling, without any discernible evidence, and without either a charge or conviction of Trump of any lawbreaking. This flimsy case to remove Trump from the primary ballot in Maine is about as solid as a house of cards in front of an oscillating fan.

Bellows, a solid partisan Democrat who served in the Maine state senate before the state legislature selected her to be secretary of state, is not an attorney. She also served as one of the three Biden electors for the presidential election of 2020, and can be seen looking very chummy with Biden in a photo taken in March of this year. What is evident, is a pure case of election interference and the disenfranchisement of more than 832,000 registered voters in the state of Maine. (www.worldpopulationreview.com)

Yet, on Friday, December 29, the very next morning, Bellows suspended her ruling, pending the appeal by the Trump campaign, saying she doesn’t have the power to remove a candidate from the ballot. Her ruling is stayed until a ruling by the Maine Supreme Court.

Bellows, as also cited in the Colorado case, referenced Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution as the rationale behind her decision to exclude Trump from the primary ballot. Yet many, including legal expert Alan Dershowitz, noted Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which references “insurrection or rebellion,” had the intent of keeping former members of the Confederacy from the War Between the States from serving in elected office. 

“It’s clearly unconstitutional. The Constitution provides for the disqualification of those who fought in the Civil War. Now Trump’s old, but not old enough to have fought in the Civil War…. I’m not a Trump supporter, but I want the right to vote against Trump, just like you have the right to vote for Trump, and that right can’t be denied us by a Colorado court, or a Michigan court, or by any court. It’s just not the way the Constitution operates,” said Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School.

And while the word “insurrection” from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is bandied about so freely, and Trump has neither been charged with, or convicted of such, that same passage also says “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” In that case, why not disqualify Joe Biden from appearing on ballots for giving aid and comfort to enemies of the United States on at least three counts. Biden gave the Islamic Republic of Iran $16 billion, which has freed up the same amount to be used for expanding its potential nuclear capability - the likes of which has been threatened against the United States (the big satan) and Israel (the little satan). Biden has sold off oil reserves to the Chinese Communist Party, while Americans are being hammered at gas pumps all across the nation. Biden’s disastrous open border policy has allowed eight to 10 million illegal aliens into the United States, unvetted, of no known status, and a number of known terrorists have been captured. But, how many of the “got-aways” are terrorists plotting nefarious acts inside the borders of the United States?

Yet, neither Trump nor Biden have been charged or convicted. “If no convictions are required under Shenna Bellows’ rules then that’s why this is such a dangerous game she’s created,” said John Andrews, a Republican state representative. “She opened the door to election chaos. Even extremely progressive Democrat Jared Golden (ME-2) said she’s in the wrong, that he doesn’t like Trump, but he should be on the ballot. I applaud him for saying that because he’s correct; it’s the right move,” said Andrews.

In other words, before jumping to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, don’t skip over Section 1. “...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Due process. How about that?

Due process may have been in the back of Bellows’ mind when tweeting the following on January 4, 2022: “The fundamental right of any American citizen to vote freely, fairly and to have their vote counted is the premise of our democracy. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not values to be compromised away. #FreedomToVoteAct” But somehow, she hypocritically forgot her own words - and smart words at that, when determining unilaterally, that the former president should not appear on Maine ballots. Bellows, a former executive director with the Maine ACLU, and a potential candidate for governor in 2026, seems more than a bit power hungry.

This sort of megalomania is being exhibited in 13 additional states who have lawsuits to bar Trump from their ballots: Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Republicans are almost certain to carry Alaska, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. That’s 58 potential electoral votes Trump would be excluded from garnering, and an almost certain defeat at the polls.

Attempts to remove Trump are “the M.O. of the Democrat elite,” said former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, adding that these kinds of tactics are just one reason she left the Democrat Party.  “They will stop at nothing to try and maintain their power even if it means taking away the right to vote of Americans. There’s no issues taking Trump off the ballot. They have no issue in pursuing him, persecuting him through a weaponized and politicized Department of Justice. It’s ridiculous that we’re having this conversation here in the United States of America, when I have heard and seen how the warhawks in Washington - they will see this happen in other countries. They’ll be very quick to say, we must go and intervene, we must go and topple this banana republic or the dictatorship. Many of these same people are the people who are driving this. It’s not just Democrats. There are Republicans who are threatened by President Trump’s unwillingness to buy into their establishment ways,” said Gabbard.

Yet, even in a state as liberal as California, the secretary of state, Shirley N. Weber announced that President Trump will appear on the Golden State’s primary ballots. Michigan and Minnesota previously announced likewise. These left of center states understand what is at stake - making sure the voters, the people for whom the politicians work, have the greatest access possible to support the candidates of their choice.

This is not about liking Trump or disliking Trump. Nor is this about liking Biden or disliking Biden. This is about the will of the people to freely choose their elected officials, whether for president, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or any office down ballot to the candidates for the school board. For a single individual, or the slimmest majority of a state court to determine for millions of voters for whom they should be allowed to vote, is the kind of dangerous precedent seen in places like the Chinese Communist Party, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Russia, where roughly two dozen potential opponents to Vladimir Putin have been squelched from the ballot.

It is imperative for the United States Supreme Court to step up with a unanimous nine to nothing vote denying the states the ability to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot when there is no legal reason to do so. Anything short of total unanimity will send the wrong message. That a divided court, even at eight to one, leaves open the door for the possibility that a future court, one that leans in a different direction, will determine states can willy-nilly bar a candidate from its ballot in an effort to remain in power. This would be a most dangerous precedent, from which there is no turning back, and this republic would cease to exist. 

When the voters lose their right to choose, which is sacrosanct, the nation loses itself, giving way to despots and dictators the likes of which have been seen in the Chinese Communist Party, Cuba, the Islamic Republic of Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela. When the United States of America ceases to be that “shining city on a hill,” that beacon of hope for the truly oppressed, when people lose their freedoms of speech and religion, their right to peacefully protest their government, we become those other despotic regimes and the world as we know it, is damned. As we head into 2024, let’s fight like hell, in unison - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, even the apathetic who don’t vote, to maintain the freedoms we cherish, and remember the words of the 40th president.

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it along to our children in our bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” - President Ronald Reagan.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Corrupt Colorado Court Cancels Trump

Corrupt Colorado Court Cancels Trump
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
December 24, 2023

In these United States it is the people who determine elections - who is nominated, and ultimately, who is elected. It is third world, despotic, totalitarian, banana republics where the will of the people is shunned.

And yet, in the Centennial State, the Supreme Court of Colorado, by the slimmest of a four to three majority, decided for all the people when they barred former President Donald Trump from appearing on the primary election ballots of Tuesday, March 5, 2024.

It’s shocking that four seemingly intelligent people with law degrees could make such a myopic ruling on Tuesday, December 19. But apparently not all law degrees are considered equal. Appearing on the Fox News noon program Outnumbered, Michele Tafoya aptly noted, “When you talk about the four judges who voted in favor of this - they’re from Penn Law School, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and Virginia. And the three who didn’t vote for this, were all, I think, from Denver - University of Denver.”

Tafoya thought and remembered correctly. The four justices voting to bar Trump from the Colorado primary election ballot were Richard L. Gabriel (University of Pennsylvania Law), Melissa Hart (Harvard Law), William W. Hood III (University of Virginia Law), and Monica M. Marquez (Yale Law). The three dissenting justices, Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright, Carlos Samour, Jr., and Maria E. Berkenkotter, are, in fact, University of Denver Law graduates - and kudos to them for putting politics aside when casting their all important votes. All seven Colorado Supreme Court justices are Democrats.

This is yet, “another reflection on the Ivy League mentality of judicial activism,” said Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter.

Chief Justice Boatman “wrote that he believes Colorado election law ‘was not enacted to decide whether a candidate engaged in insurrection,’ and said he would have dismissed the challenge to Trump’s eligibility.”

Opposition to this decision came from both sides of the aisle, swiftly and strongly, as well as from several key legal scholars and constitutional experts. 

US Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) posted the following on X, on Wednesday, December 20. “Do I believe Trump’s guilty of inspiring an insurrection and doing nothing to stop it? I was there. Absolutely. Do I believe it’s wrong to ban him from the ballot in Colorado without a conviction? Absolutely. Do I believe SCOTUS must opine immediately? Absolutely.” 

Phillips is mired in his own ballot battle. He has announced his candidacy for president as a Democrat challenging Joe Biden, but the Democrat Party has all but ruled out any primary elections. Talk about a serious disenfranchisement of the voters.

That is one of the reasons Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. opted to throw his hat into the presidential ring as an independent - lack of the democratic process amongst the Democrats and their so-called leadership. Kennedy also weighed in on the disastrous Colorado court decision.

“Every American should be troubled by the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Trump from the ballot,” posted Kennedy on X, December 19. “The court has deprived him of a consequential right without having been convicted of a crime. This was done without an evidentiary hearing in which he is given the basic right of confronting his accusers. When any candidate is deprived of his right to run, the American people are deprived of their right to choose,” continued Kennedy, a graduate of the law school at the University of Virginia.

The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision… and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,” said Steven Cheung, spokesman for the Trump campaign.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the Republican nomination, posted the following on X on December 19. “I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley do the same - immediately - or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.”

Christie did likewise, adding, “Trump should be prevented from being President of the United States by the voters of this country,” in a December 19 X posting.

While DeSantis did not join Ramaswamy and Christie, he did post that the left is using “judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal  ground. SCOTUS should reverse.”

“It’s truly unthinkable,” said GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, for unelected judges to make such a decision. “The people of Colorado should be furious,” by their own state court’s ruling, said the former Ambassador to the United Nations. “We should have this race fair and square and have him on the ballot,” continued the former governor of South Carolina. Haley went on to say she will beat Trump fairly and squarely.

The Colorado Republican Party said, “we will withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand,” in a December 19 post on X.

As is typical, liberals, progressives, and Democrats, as evidenced by the Democrat Party’s reluctance or refusal to hold primary elections, believe less is more. That they have to emperil democracy in order to save democracy. This is a bizarre notion - burning down the house in order to preserve the house. Does this sound remotely logical to anyone? Limiting choices for the voters, not expanding the choices. Aren’t the Democrats all about choice? 

No, they are not. The only choice they want for the American people is that of ending the lives of their unborn children. Liberals and progressives oppose choice when it comes to educating the children they allow to be born. They oppose choice when it comes to Americans and their health care options. They oppose choice when it comes to the right to either get a vaccine or not get a vaccine. Liberals and progressives are trying to end the people’s right to choose gas-operating vehicles, the right to choose gas-run stoves and ovens.

And the same is true of liberals and progressives trying to limit for whom the American people can vote. Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said of the ruling, it is “not only historic and justified, but is  necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country.” His organization and two law firms filed the lawsuit against Trump on behalf of six Coloradans: Norma Anderson, Christopher Castilian, Claudine Cmarada, Krista Kafer, Michelle Priola, and Kathi Wright.

In the Colorado Supreme Court ruling, the majority wrote, “we conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section 3 [of the 14th Amendment] it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. Therefore the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”

How obtuse. Such a decision will only harm democracy and the evidence has come fast and furiously. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican, suggested that perhaps Texas should deny Joe Biden ballot placement for not securing the Southwestern border and allowing around 10 million illegal aliens to invade the United States. After all, according to the 14th Amendment, Section 3, which those supporting the banning of Trump from the ballot are clinging to, Biden has given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States - in two ways. One, the allowance of millions of unvetted foreign nationals to take up residence in the United States, and two, giving the Islamic Republic of Iran at least $16 billion, to be used for nefarious purposes against American troops and the troops of American allies.

And back and forth it will go. There are an additional 14 states with lawsuits to bar Trump from those state ballots. Suits from Arizona and Michigan are pending appeal. The following states are filing lawsuits: Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

There are numerous faulty ideas within the majority statement. First of all, the Colorado Supreme Court has concluded that Trump is disqualified from holding office when no other legal entity has deemed such. Trump has neither been charged with, nor found guilty of engaging in insurrection, as per Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. When does the Election Code of a state supersede federal election law? And then there’s the point about not counting write-in votes cast for Trump. While the states typically each have their own rules and/or policies pertaining to write-in votes, to not count votes cast is to completely disregard the will of the voters, disenfranchising each one casting such a ballot.

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said, “the system is being challenged,” during an appearance on the Fox News program The Faulkner Focus on December 20. “What makes us unique is our rule of law and it’s being questioned. Trump haters are now supporting Trump on the issue that he deserves to be on the ballot. He deserves to face the voters, not four judges, and this is our problem right now - our legal system being tested. This is why the Supreme Court has to rule nine to zero - those judges know what is right and nine to zero is the only ruling that they could come up with,” said Terrell.

In commenting on the Colorado decision and opinion, legal expert Alan Dershowitz said, “It’s clearly unconstitutional. Any talk or accusation of insurrection would prove enough to bar someone, but Trump was never charged or found guilty. There is nothing to this argument - it’s just a political ploy. It is the most undemocratic decision imaginable, [the] most unconstitutional decision I’ve seen in a long time. Taking away the right to vote? It’s your right to vote,” said Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School. “I’m not a Trump supporter, but I want the right to vote against Trump, just like you have the right to vote for Trump, and that right can’t be denied us. The Supreme Court should reverse this and put an end to this nonsense, ” he said.

“It is strikingly anti-democratic, in my view,” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, on The Ingraham Angle, on December 19. “In my view the court is dead wrong. This is the first  major win for the challengers. I think the opinion is really chilling and I think the Supreme Court will make fast work of this - I hope that it does. I think this court did great damage to its own integrity with this opinion. When you read this opinion, the one thing that keeps on recurring is, where’s the limiting principle here? Each of these barriers, the court could have adopted a fairly moderate, or more narrow approach, but it didn’t. On every one of these issues it really took out all the fail safes and went to the broadest possible meaning. That means that states can engage in a tit-for-tat type of series of decisions - you could have red states blocking Biden on some ballots, and blue states blocking Trump.”

In light of the Colorado decision, California’s Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis (D) wants to follow suit. In a letter to California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Kounalakis wrote, “I urge you to explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot… this is a dire matter that puts at stake the sanctity of our Constitution and our democracy.”

Kounalakis couldn’t be more wrong. But then, this is the same person who said two of the qualifications to serve as president of the United States included reaching the age of 40 and not having committed insurrection. According to Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, “No person except a natural born Citizen,… shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

Even members of the so-called mainstream media understand the jeopardy the republic would be placed in should the Colorado decision be allowed to stand. Ruth Marcus, in her editorial for The Washington Post wrote, on December 20, “The Supreme Court should toss the Colorado case…. The best outcome, for the court and the country, would be for a unanimous court… to clear the way for Trump to run.”

In the far-left Slate, Lawrence Lessig wrote on December 20, “The Supreme Court must unanimously strike down Trump’s ballot removal.” These folks, and certainly Dershowitz, will not be lining up next November to cast their ballots for Donald Trump. But they are intelligent enough to know the damage to the system of elections many other countries turn to would create not just in the United States, but for the stability of elections the world over.

Removing a candidate from a ballot is what puts at stake the sanctity of our Constitution and democracy, to borrow Kounalakis’ words. Again, Trump has neither been charged nor convicted of encouraging, coercing, or engaging in an insurrection. The attempts to remove Trump or any candidate, from ballots in any state is what is truly deleterious to the future of the republic. When the party in power attempts to remove opposition candidates from any ballot, that partisanship is the work of despots and totalitarians, and is not limited to just supplanting Trump.

Trump has said the following on more than one occasion, but last week may never have been more poignant. “They want to silence me, because I will never let them silence you. And in the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you, I just happen to be standing in their way,” he said during a campaign speech in Waterloo, IA.

“This country is the most successful and stable constitutional system in history. Now, after two centuries of that, what these four justices have done was to introduce a destabilizing element in that system,” said Turley. “This may be the ultimate challenge for Chief Justice Roberts. I don’t have much question they will overturn this decision, but they should do it unanimously. They should do it in one voice - all nine - not divide on this - it’s too important not to speak as one,” concluded Turley.

When constitutional experts like Dershowitz and Turley speak in language with such gravity regarding the future of the electoral system of the United States, it is best to heed the messengers. The partisan machinations by liberals and progressives will most certainly tear down the current system. Today they are going after Trump, tomorrow maybe DeSantis, Haley, or any yet to be thought of candidate from either side of the aisle. The Democrats have already pushed RFK, Jr. out of the party and determined there would be no primaries. When no candidates are safe from removal from the ballot by the shortsightedness and hubris of a handful of unelected judges, the system will have crumbled under its own weight and the republic will cease to exist. It is up to we the people to prevent the death of the republic by speaking out and ensuring as many candidates as possible appear on the ballots in all 50 states and thus secure the preservation and salvation of our republic. OUR republic.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Monday, December 4, 2023

This Chanukah Shine a Brighter Light on Antisemitism

This Chanukah Shine a Brighter Light on Antisemitism
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
December 4, 2023

While the war in Israel heats up once again, thanks to Hamas violating the cease fire, it is also time to focus our attention on the heat of a more serene nature. That would be the heat emanating from the lights to be kindled starting Thursday night as the Jewish community the world over ushers in Chanukah - the Festival of Lights.

Thursday night December 7 (also Pearl Harbor Day - lest we forget), Kislev 25 on the Jewish calendar is the commencement of a festival celebrating sovereignty, religious rights and freedom, as well as protecting and recapturing a homeland that had been many times invaded by Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Syrians.

The mere dates and locations of the history of Chanukah is proof positive that the Jewish people are the rightful residents in the Holy Land - the Land of Israel. The history of Chanukah dates back more than 2000 years - long before Palestinians or Muslims invaded the Jewish Biblical, ancestral, historical homeland of the Jewish people - the indigenous peoples of Israel. The history of Chanukah includes the lands of Judea and Jerusalem.

Chanukah - the Festival of Lights - where we do not hide behind masks as Israel’s and the Jewish people’s adversaries do, nor do we hide in the dark. The Jewish people shine a light as a beacon for the world to see the results of peace and freedom - the same freedom many Arab Israelis have attested that they enjoy as Israelis and not in any Arab/Muslim country.

This year, that beacon of light is ever more important to fight the ignorance that is mounting, virulent Antisemitism from coast to coast in the United States on far too numerous college campuses, in city streets, where violence and vandalism has been growing more frequent akin to Kristallnacht. (https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2023/11/jew-hating-like-its-1938.html)

This year, that beacon of light is ever more important to fight the arrogance that campus denizens who clearly have never learned a lick of history, deign to make demands of a foreign government (almost as arrogant as the Biden administration - see Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken). Their arrogance to clamor for a cease fire that heretofore existed on October 6 before Hamas shattered it with their invasion of Israel, their slaughter of 1,400 Israeli civilians, the rape of innocent girls and women, the decapitation of babies, and the kidnapping of more than 240 innocent people from Israel, the United States, Italy, Mexico, and many other nations ranging in ages from, then eight months, to 85 years old. 

It is beyond arrogance when there is video evidence of these crimes against humanity perpetrated by Hamas and uploaded by Hamas, which is then ignored by the useful idiots on campus and within the so-called mainstream media. And useful idiots they are, if they think for one second they themselves would be spared by Hamas - in their anti-Sharia dress, their signs of support for the gay and trans communities, and the self-loathing Jews siding with Hamas. Once again, this arrogance and ignorance stems from a paucity of historical data and knowledge. 

They are arrogant to think their calls for a two state solution will succeed - whether those calls come from campus or the White House - it is demonstrative of their lack of knowledge of history. All anyone need do is read the charters as established by both Hamas and Hezbollah to LEARN that a two state solution is untenable when one of the states only wants the eradication of the other state and the death of the people of that state. Those supporting a two state solution, those supporting Hamas, those chanting the death mantra of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” only seek two things - the destruction of Israel and the death of the Jewish people. They may claim to be pro-Palestinian, but they, in reality, are anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-democracy, and anti-Western Civilization. They have been indoctrinated to believe in a black and white set of options - oppressors and oppressed, that Israel with its success represents the West, represents white people, and therefore could not be the oppressed peoples, and could only be the oppressors. Once again, the lack of knowledge of history plays a key role.

The reality is that when Israel vacated Gaza in 2005, it left intact the infrastructure - buildings, green houses, schools, hospitals, that would in turn be razed by Hamas, the ruling faction elected in 2006. Hamas has not held a single election since. Hamas has prevented its own people from relocating. Hamas hides behind its children and most vulnerable using them as human shields. Hamas has used billions of dollars worth of materials designated for the infrastructure of Gaza to build more than 300 miles of rather intricate tunnel systems from which to wage war, store weapons, and ammunition under and in hospitals, children’s bedrooms, even mosques - their own holy house of worship. From the category of good versus evil, they could have used their engineering smarts for the betterment of the Gazan people and live life instead of worshiping a cult of death as Hamas does. Learning this and additional genuine history would be a great 2023 Chanukah miracle.

Israel is neither an occupier nor a colonialist as is incorrectly bandied about during the less than peaceful protests and on signs. The Greeks and Syrians occupied present day Israel more than 2000 years ago - including during 222-186 BCE (Before the Common Era), under Antiochus III, king of Syria - oppressing the Jewish people in their Biblical and ancestral homeland. Upon the death of Antiochus III, his son Seleucus IV took the reins, imposing even greater taxes on the Jewish people in an effort to pay his own debt to the Romans. Hellenists attempted to force the Jewish people to worship Hellenist idols, but the Jews resisted as “Judaism emphasizes truth and moral purity, as commanded by G-d in the Holy Torah.” (chabad.org) Seems the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas crowd, “can’t handle the truth,” to borrow from Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan Jessep in A Few Good Men (1992).

Upon the death of Seleucus, his brother Antiochus IV began his reign (174 BCE) - a worse tyrant than his brother before him - responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Jews in the Holy Land. Antiochus IV inflicted numerous Antisemitic laws against the Jewish people, such as forbidding Jewish worship (confiscation of, and burning of Torahs), prohibition of Shabbat observance, circumcisions, and kashrut (observance of dietary laws), all under penalty of death.

This occupation and the Draconian laws imposed upon the Jewish people lead to a series of military battles. The Jewish people won the war for their sovereignty and religious freedoms. (This is something the people of Gaza can do as well for themselves - against Hamas - their de facto masters.) The victory by the Jewish people came under the leadership of Judah, son of Mattityahu, the old priest. Mattityahu instructed the people to “follow the counsel of… Shimon the Wise,” and “their leader should be Judah the Strong,” a.k.a. Judah the Maccabee. (chabad.org)

Judah and his fellow Maccabees returned to Jerusalem, freed their people, and restored their Holy Temple to the Jewish people - only after clearing it of idols, properly cleaning it, and built a new altar dedicated on 25 Kislev 139 BCE. When lighting the new menorah, there seemed to be only enough oil for one night, but “by a miracle of G-d, it continued to burn for eight days,” until new oil became available. (chabad.org)

This very  brief history of Chanukah includes the freeing of Judea - recovered by the Jewish people having been overrun by Syrian armies. The Jewish people celebrated their victory with gratitude to G-d, with Psalms and offerings in a period of thanksgiving.

This second Holy Temple stood for another 210 years (420 in total) until its destruction in 70 CE (Common Era) by the Roman invaders. Jews lived under foreign rule and occupation by Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Syrians.

There are two schools of thought regarding the lighting of the Chanukah menorah. One starts with eight candles and removes one each night until there is but one candle on the eighth night. The other school of thought, and the one followed by global Judaism, is to add a candle each night until there are eight on the eighth night, thus adding to the light, making it brighter, not depleting it, making it darker. There is one additional candle for each night, plus a “leader” candle - the shamash - designated to light all the others.

This year it has been suggested that Jewish people either not light their menorahs or keep them hidden so as not to be seen from the outside in light of the war and the exponential rise in rabid Antisemitism (up 388 percent since October 7 - as per the ADL) around the globe. When the menorah is lit, it should be either in a doorway or on a windowsill so as to BE visible. 

In 2023 that tradition will be upheld once again. We will not be deterred by ignorance. In fact, there have been postings on social media that non-Jews also put a menorah or candles in their doorway or on their windowsill to demonstrate their support of Israel and their Jewish friends and neighbors. Let’s shine a brighter light to rid the world of the oldest hatred - Antisemitism, and create yet another Chanukah miracle. Wishing all a happy, healthy, and meaningful Festival of Lights with plenty of latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot  (jelly doughnuts), while praying for the miracle of the return of the remaining 137 hostages held by Hamas.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He last visited Israel in 2019 with his wife.

For proper Blessings for Chanukah, menorah, and candles, please visit: https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/5746657/jewish/Menorah-Blessings.htm 

Thursday, November 16, 2023

Rally Against Antisemitism is Peaceful

Rally Against Antisemitism is Peaceful
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 16, 2023

The oft-heard chants of “bring them home,” and “no cease fire,” that permeated the picture perfect Autumn air Tuesday in our nation’s capital presented a familiar tone conjuring up memories of another great gathering of the masses of G-d’s chosen people.

Myriad speeches given in support of an oppressed people simply wanting to live in peace; to live their lives without fear of intimidation, without fear of being silenced, without fear of being terrorized, and without fear of being slaughtered because we choose to live our lives freely as Jewish people around the world. Thousands of people carrying flags, banners, posters, and signs, then as now put forth that same message. The roughly 290,000 people who attended the rally against Antisemitism on Tuesday, November 14 did so peacefully, without incident.

Nearly 36 years ago, December 6, 1987, on a cold, bleak-looking, DC Sunday afternoon, about 250,000 people from around the globe, gathered in support of Soviet Jewry - a great concern for almost two million people trapped behind the Iron Curtain - refused permission to either live and worship as Jews, or leave the Soviet Union for the freedoms they yearned. Refuseniks, they were called in those days. 

“Those days,” like it occurred in ancient times. Perhaps to the multitude of young people rallying in Washington, DC on Tuesday, 1987 IS ancient times. That said, it warmed the heart verily to see such a throng of young people gathered to fight a seemingly never ending hate - the  vituperative evil of Antisemitism - prejudice against and/or hatred of Jews, simply because we are Jewish.

Jew hatred, in all its forms, verbal abuse, verbal and written tropes, mocking, bullying, threats via social media, physical threats, physical violence, vandalism, destruction of property and reputation, desecration of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish owned businesses and homes, as well as murder, are fears Jews face on a daily basis. These fears are not just faced in far away places, chants of “gas the Jews” at an Antisemitic march outside the Sydney (Australia) Opera House, for example, but throughout the United States. This is most prevalent on the nation’s college and university campuses.

Since the October 7 invasion by the terrorist group Hamas of Israel and their slaughter of more than 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians, Antisemitism in the United States has not just risen, but pole vaulted an astronomical 388 percent. In “normal times” the Jewish people are subjected to nearly 60 percent of all hate crimes perpetrated in the United States - 60 percent upon a people totaling 1.7 percent of the nation’s population. 

While the feckless Biden administration, feckless on so many levels, has given lip service to condemning Antisemitism it does so with the condemnation of Islamophobia with the very next breath. The two are not interchangeable, and acts of Antisemitism are six times more likely to occur than acts of Islamophobia.

The rally to support Israel and to bring home the more than 240 hostages of Israeli, American, Italian, Mexican, and a cadre of other nationalities that took place on November 14, just like the rally for Soviet Jewry in 1987, demonstrated the best of behaviors - peaceful rallying and chanting, sans violence, vandalism, graffiti, or arrests. The polar opposite has been the behaviors exhibited during the dozens and dozens of campus protests supporting Hamas, calling for the evisceration of Israel and the deaths of all Jews. Their rallying cry of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” calls for just that. 

This, along with false information still on the social media pages of members of the US Congress - Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) - who still have yet to condemn the decapitation of Israeli babies by Hamas. Jews rallying in DC chanted “bring them home,” regarding the more than 240 hostages held by Hamas - many women and children - babies as young as, now, 10 months, and even an elderly Holocaust survivor.

Meanwhile, Hamas, the Palestinians who elected them in 2006, with nary an election since, and the thousands of campus denizens are calling for barbarism and death. Jewish students from coast to coast are frightened - afraid to go to class, dining halls, or just be on campus, either alone or in groups. (https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2023/11/jew-hating-like-its-1938.html)

There is a kind of irony between the 1987 rally, in which I participated proudly as a University of Maryland senior - a volunteer to help the tens of thousands of visitors to their nation’s capital traverse the DC streets and Metro stations around the Mall where the rallies then and now occurred, and that of this past Tuesday.

In 1987 we rallied in support of Soviet Jews not allowed to leave the USSR. In 2023, while rallying against virulent Antisemitism on campuses, and for Hamas-held hostages to be released - given their freedom, there are hundreds of thousands of Gazans also not permitted to leave Gaza - by Hamas, not by Israelis. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as is their history, gives warnings to Gazans - telling civilians to leave northern Gaza - while the IDF roots out Hamas terrorists and searches for hostages, both above ground, as well as underground in the labyrinth  of more than 300 miles of tunnels engineered by Hamas. This sophisticated system houses caches of munitions, armaments, AK-47s, under homes, hospitals, and mosques, as well as in hospitals, in schools, even in mosques, knowing Israelis won’t attack hospitals, schools, or mosques. These tunnels contain bathroom and kitchen facilities, sleeping quarters, and evidence that hostages have been or are still being held there. These tunnels even have a ventilation system strong enough to not asphyxiate terrorists who are burning victims alive.

It is Israeli troops helping Gazans flee Hamas. It is Israeli troops assisting with the humanitarian aid that, once they are gone, much of the aid will end up in the hands of Hamas, and not civilians.

Sadly, the supporters of Hamas, Palestinians, and so-called Palestine, are so radically indoctrinated with lies told by professors and the so-called mainstream media, their level of Antisemitic vitriol and violence stems from ignorance of epic proportions. Ignorance of real, true history about Israel, the Biblical, ancestral, historical homeland of the Jewish people. Ignorance of the facts that Israel is neither a colonizer nor an apartheid state. Ignorance of the fact that there was a cease fire on October 6, shattered by Hamas. And ignorance of the facts that if Israel were to lay down its weapons, Israel would cease to exist, but if Hamas set down their weapons, there would be peace.

Israel loves life and wants peace - witness the Abraham Accords during the Trump administration; while Hamas opposes peace, and worships death - witness their murderous behavior, or read their charter calling for the eradication of Israel and the deaths of the entirety of the Jewish people.

Peace and freedom - the rallying  cries of the 1987 rally, and the 2023 rally. Sadly, a difference between the two, while then Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush spoke at the 1987 rally, neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris would show their faces - either in person or via video from Air Force One. Biden chose Xi Jingping of the Chinese Communist Party over the Jewish people of the United States of America. Air Force One waits for the president, not the other way around. Had Biden or Harris opted to be there they would have been welcome. His lack of leadership (on this and so many key issues) sends a message loud and clear to the myriad college and university presidents - some of whom are Jewish - who have sat on their hands as Antisemitism runs rampant under their domain, while the slightest microaggression regarding pronouns et al, are punished with impunity. The time is now to step up, squash Antisemitism like the cockroach it is, and deliver a strong message that never again is NOW.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He last visited Israel with his wife in 2019.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Setting the Record Straight

Setting the Record Straight
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 6, 2023

As the war against Israel enters its second month, following the October 7 invasion into, and slaughter of 1,400 Israeli civilians, tens of thousands rallied for so-called Palestine over the weekend in the nation’s capital - rife with vandalism and graffiti - including on White House property. The anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas rally included shouts and chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Globalize intifada.” 

To support such a notion, as US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) does, as she still refuses to condemn Hamas decapitating Israeli babies, is to support the evisceration of Israel and the death of the entirety of the Jewish population. Tlaib, as did fellow Squadite US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) posted on her social media pages the proven lies that Israel was responsible for bombing Al Ahli hospital in Gaza killing 500 civilians. None of that actually happened. The truth was known within hours, yet the false accusations remain on the two US House members’ social media pages.

To support so-called Palestine is to support Hamas - the Arab/Muslim population of Gaza voted overwhelmingly in 2006 for Hamas to be its governing body. That was their one and only free election, as none have been held since. Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005 leaving its infrastructure intact for the Gazan/Arab/Muslim people as Israel is not a colonizer, as is also falsely reported ad-infinitum. To support Hamas is to support, as is written in their own charter, the eradication of Israel and the murder of the Jewish people. (Hezbollah has the same goals written into their charter as well.) To support Hamas is to support the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the puppetmaster pulling the strings of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Islamic Republic of Iran is also the training ground for thousands and thousands of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. (Hezbollah operates out of Lebanon and fired 30 rockets into northern Israel, some reaching the outskirts of Haifa.) This is the same Islamic Republic of Iran whose government under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is feverishly working to build nuclear bombs - not for defense, but for offense. Israel’s Iron Dome, on the other hand, is for defense. This is the same Islamic Republic of Iran that consistently refers to the United States of America as the “Great Satan” and to Israel as the “Little Satan” as its supporters regularly chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Those who want you dead do not wish to negotiate a two-state solution, they only seek the Final Solution as did the Nazis during the Holocaust. 

And again, those calling Israel a colonizer, have never learned actual history. The land designated as Palestine by the British turned into what would have been the original two-state solution - Israel for the Jewish people - a return to their Biblical, historical, ancestral homeland, and Transjordan for the Arab/Muslim people - who subsequently rejected that plan. Jordan is Palestine. These were not colonies, but individual nations. This was not and is not about land, for if it had been, the Jewish people would have a genuine beef as the original Palestine, designated as the Jewish homeland, would eventually be divided into the two nations referenced above, with the Jewish people receiving but 20 percent of that land, and the Arab/Muslims the motherlode of 80 percent. This is not about land, but about a people who willingly fled what became Israel - they were never expelled, to become, what they have labeled themselves for 75 years - refugees. None of the 48 Arab/Muslim nations expressed a willingness to take in these “refugees,” why should Israel, or worse yet, why should the United States as some members of the Hamas-supporting Squad in Congress have demanded. 

Did the scant numbers of survivors of the Holocaust decry refugee status from Albania,  Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia? There literally was nothing for them to go home to, if there was even a home at all. Europe lay waste to the barbarism perpetrated by Hitler and Stalin. 

And while on the subject of lies the media likes to endorse, Israel is not an apartheid state. Its 1.5 million Arabs (700,000 in 1948) have equal rights - including women, to serve in the Knesset, to work as lawyers, as doctors, even serve on the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Jews in almost all Arab/Muslim nations had been reduced to Dhimmi status - second class citizens - in apartheid circumstances, and experienced rabid anti-Semitism. Textbooks in Arab/Muslim nations, as well as maps, would not even mention Israel. And what happened to the Jewish populations of these Arab/Muslim nations?

Nation 1948 Jewish Population      Recent Jewish Population

Afghanistan      5,000          0 (2021)

Algeria 140,000 50-200 (2021)

Bahrain               500-600 36 (2007)

Egypt 75,000   100 (2022)

Iran                 65,000+ (1956)        9,200 (2022)

Iraq      135,000          5-7 (2014)

Lebanon          5,000           100 (2022)

Libya        38,000              0 (2020)

Morocco     265,000       2,100 (2020)

Oman 0 (1900)              0 (1900)

Pakistan     2,000-2,500                  800 (2017)

Sudan  350              0

Syria     30,000                  100 (2022)

Tunisia   100,000               1,000 (2020)

Turkey     80,000         12,000-16,000 (2022)

Yemen     63,000              6 (2020)

What happened to all those Jewish populations? They were not welcome in those countries, thus relegated to Dhimmi status in those apartheid nations. Most fled to the new State of Israel, while many others either immigrated to the United States or ended up in France.

Still confused? Here’s a checklist to consider.

Subject                 Israel Palestinians/Hamas

Unilaterally invading the other NO             YES

Intentionally targeting civilians NO             YES

Warning civilians to get out of harm’s way YES             NO

Tearing down posters of hostages NO             YES

Taking hostages         NO             YES

Supporting charters calling for death NO             YES

Vandalism and graffiti of property NO             YES

Support from the United Nations NO             YES

Equal rights for women         YES             NO

Equal rights for minorities YES             NO

Equal rights for homosexuals YES             NO

Using its own people as human shields NO             YES

Beating up opposing protesters NO             YES

Intentionally raping and slaughtering women NO             YES

Intentionally decapitating babies NO             YES

Giving escort to safety to Gazan civilians YES             NO

Even Joe Biden is cognizant enough to say Hamas is worse than ISIS. Yet his former boss, Barack Obama, said both sides are to blame, despite the facts that Hamas unilaterally and without provocation, invaded Israel, slaughtered 1,400 Israeli civilians, and took more than 250 Israelis, Americans, and foreign nationals hostage. And there’s a demand for a cease fire? First of all, there was a ceasefire on October 6 until Hamas shattered it with their barbarism. And, if the same attacks occurred on American soil, on a per capita basis, there would have been roughly 48,000 murdered and roughly 7,000 hostages taken. Would the United States capitulate to calls for a cease fire? Probably not even under Biden.

“I want to make clear Israel’s position regarding a cease fire. Just as the United States would not agree to a cease fire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7,” assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. Nor should there be, at the very least, until all hostages are released and returned safely to their homes.

Netanyahu is absolutely right about not calling for a cease fire. He is also right about not listening to Biden, the perpetually useless and virulently anti-Semitic United Nations, the Hamas caucus of the Democrat Party, or the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters. None of them are actually Prime Minister of Israel, responsible for the life and death decisions such as sending young men and women into a war - even a justified war. Israel does not start wars, but they do finish them - successfully. Israel has every right to defend its G-d given, Biblical, ancestral, and historical homeland and all its people. For the day Israel loses a war, they cease to exist. Every war is a fight for survival. Israel is the one and only one Jewish state on the planet and without Israel, what guarantee of a homeland do the Jewish people have? What truly safe space do the Jewish people have to take refuge, to live, and to prosper should the need arise. While the United States has been a haven and beacon for religious freedom since before its founding, the visceral, sinister spate of anti-Semitism is akin to precious little ever experienced in this country. If need be, without Israel where will the Jews of America go to live their best Jewish lives?

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He and his wife last visited Israel in 2019.

Sunday, November 5, 2023

Jew Hating Like it's 1938

Jew Hating Like it’s 1938
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
November 3, 2023

For Jewish citizens in Germany and its “annexed” territories of Austria and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, 1938 could have been a hell of a lot better. Finishing what they started in 1933, the Nazis expelled all Jewish children from German schools. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/holocaust/children_1.shtml) And then, adding literal injury to insult, any delusions of humanity were officially shattered with the rampage known as Kristallnacht. The literal translation is Night of Crystal, but it is more historically known as the Night of Broken Glass.

Now 85 years later, almost to the day, the world is called upon to remember that grizzly period, and precursor to the infinitely worse times to be inflicted upon the Jewry of Europe. During the night of November 9-10, a wave of anti-Semitic pogroms authorized and carried out by Nazis and their Brown Shirt thugs, as synagogues, homes, and businesses owned and/or operated by Jews were vandalized to the point of utter destruction - most with smashed windows, but many set aflame. Police stood by bearing witness to the malfeasance, and firefighters on hand only to extinguish any fire that reached the business or home of a non-Jew. 

Other orders included the removal of “all synagogue archives prior to vandalizing synagogues.” The German government blamed the Jews for the Kristallnacht pogroms and fined the collective Jewish community one billion Reichsmark (roughly equivalent to $400 million US Dollars in 1938). The Reich also confiscated all insurance payouts for property destruction, thus rendering the Jews personally financially responsible.

More than 1,000 synagogues were burned or damaged. More than 7,500 businesses were destroyed or looted. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered that night with many more over the succeeding days. “During the pogrom, some 30,000 Jewish males were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. This was the first time Nazi officials made massive arrests of Jews specifically because they were Jews, without any further cause for arrest.” (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht) The majority of the arrested Jewish men were dispatched to Buchenwald, Dachau, or Sachsenhausen.

On November 12, 1938 the Nazi regime added additional restrictions on the Jewish population. Specifically, Jews were barred from economic life. This included, but was not limited to Jews being “forbidden to operate retail stores or carry on a trade. The law also forbids Jews from selling goods or providing services at any kind of establishment.” Jewish doctors were forbidden from treating non-Jewish patients. Jews were also barred from having a driver's license or even owning an automobile. 

And as stated above, further banishment of Jews from public life included expelling Jewish children from schools - those that were still attending at this late date. April 7, 1933 saw the passage of the “Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service.” Most Jewish professors lost their jobs - fired without cause. Those few retained had value to the Reich based upon the research being conducted. Just 18 days later, on April 25, 1933, the Reich passed the “Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning.” This set strict limitations on the numbers of Jewish students attending public and private schools, as well as colleges and universities. At their height, 75 percent of Jewish students attended public schools in Germany. It was at those very public schools where Jews faced increased anti-Semitism from peers - fellow students, and adults - teachers/administrators alike. Students were part of the Hitler Youth; teachers instructed students in “obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and anti-Semitism.”  (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht)

As a point of reference, on or about June 13, 1933 the Jewish population of Germany could be set at about 500,000 out of a total population of 67 million, or 0.8 percent.

But this is no ordinary annual commemoration, because 85 years later, anti-Semitism has reached fever pitch on college and university campuses all across the fruited plain of these United States. As of this date, more than 70 alleged institutions of higher learning have experienced anti-Semitic and/or pro-Palestinian/Hamas protest marches and/or rallies since the October 7 invasion into Israel, the historical homeland of the Jewish people, by Hamas and the slaughter of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians by Hamas. There are still more than 200 Israeli, American, and other foreign nationals held hostage by Hamas, presumably in Gaza. Hamas is an Islamic extremist terrorist organization whose charter literally calls for the evisceration of Israel from the planet, and the murder of all Jewish people. Hamas, like fellow terror organization Hezbollah, is a puppet of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the puppeteer, is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, Iran served as the training ground for thousands of Hamas terrorists.

This is an “information Kristallnacht,” stated former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer on Wednesday October 25, on the Fox News noon program Outnumbered. “What’s happening on these campuses and what’s happening in the protests, is a modern day Kristallnacht - and that’s the warning. This is an information Kristallnacht in America. They don’t have to break glass and break into a store to show the future if America doesn’t stand up to them. And this is a time of choosing - for Americans of good heart. Why do we have people coming into this country who reject American values and carry out pro-Hamas protests. If people from Charlottesville came onto American campuses and protested, I assure you, every university would throw them out - from the Charlottesville protesters - the people who said that ‘Jews would not replace us.’ These protesters [current] are saying we will replace the Jews,” said Fleischer.

This “information Kristallnacht” includes Hamas’s own admission that October 7 is merely the tip of the iceberg. Hamas, worse than ISIS, if that is even possible, has promised to repeat the terror attacks of a month ago, in their own words, from their own “political bureau.” In an interview on LBC TV (Lebanon) on October 24, Ghazi Hamad said "Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation, and must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

When asked by the interviewer, “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?” the response from Hamad: “Yes, of course. Everything we do is justified.” (MEMRI-TV [The Middle East Media Research Institute])

Does this sound like a cease fire makes sense? It begs the most fundamental of questions: Does Israel have a fundamental right to exist? Do the Jewish people have a fundamental right to exist? Israel, the known, proven, historical homeland of the Jewish people, roughly the size of New Jersey, is the only Jewish state on the planet. With the extreme and exponential rise in anti-Semitism in the United States, the land promising a guarantee of freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, if the Jewish people are not safe in the United States, and without its own Biblical/historical homeland, what becomes of the Jewish people?

Quite frankly, anyone supporting Hamas, which also means supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran, and those chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” calling for the eradication of Israel and the slaughter of the Jewish population, should be expelled from school. Any foreign national attending school on a student visa, with these same views, should have their visa revoked, and should be deported to their home country. This is not free speech. Speech designed to incite violence, such as these protests, and signs such as “Please keep the world clean” depicting a Star of David in a trashcan, are not protected speech. The names of these anti-Semites should be made public so potential employers know who they are considering for gainful employment and to represent their company or firm.

But these protests and rallies are going on with the silent, tacit approval of dozens and dozens of college and university presidents, provosts, boards of directors, and boards of governors. And this complicit behavior is being fomented by and in Washington, DC. The Biden administration, whenever it mentions anti-Semitism, feels compelled to refer to Islamophobia as though they are interchangeable. On Wednesday, October 25, the House voted to pass H. Res. 771, to support Israel and condemn Hamas by an overwhelming margin of 412 in favor, 10 opposed, and six cowards voting present. Of the 10 nay votes, nine are Democrats and the lone Republican being Thomas Massie (R-KY) who has made more than one borderline, if not actual anti-Semitic remarks during his House tenure. The nine Democrats include so-called Squad members Jamaal Bowman (NY), Cori Bush (MO), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Rashida Tlaib (MI) virulent anti-Semites, as well as Andre Carson (IN) who should be an honorary squad member, Al Green (TX), Summer Lee (PA), and Delia Ramirez (IL). Those voting Present, all Democrats, include squadite Ayanna Pressley (MA), Gregorio Casar (TX), Joaquin Castro (TX), Chuy Garcia (IL), Pramila Jayapal (WA), and Nydia Velazquez (NY).

These are the 16 House members, 15 Democrats and one Republican, who don’t have the moral temerity to condemn the rape and butchering of girls and women, the decapitation of babies - BABIES - in their homes and beds, the kidnapping of more than 240 men, women, and children, including an elderly Holocaust survivor, and the slaughter of more than 260 young men and women attending a music festival. The dead and the kidnapped represent Israelis, Americans, Italians, Mexicans, and countless other foreign nationals. These House members, some more than a little outspoken, are sending messages of approval to the tens and tens of thousands of students protesting, rallying, shouting anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, even anti-American epitaphs on the campuses from Brown in Rhode Island to the University of Southern California, and from the University of Florida to the University of Washington-Seattle, and, sadly, all points within. 

And beyond the shielded walls of the campuses, in cities across the nation, radical Muslim, Hamas supporters are tearing down posters of pictures of the myriad kidnapped regardless of where they call home. In its infinite stupidity, The New York Times defends the Muslims tearing down these posters of the Hamas-held hostages from Israel, the United States, and elsewhere by attempting to equate the suffering of Muslims/Arabs with that of Jews/Israelis in the current strife. There is no moral equivalence, and the history speaks truthfully to that question.

Jewish students at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City experienced a shocking display of anti-Semitism being chased through a building having to take refuge in a library for nearly an hour with anti-Semitic slogans being shouted at them while trying to get through the barricade into the library. Adding to their harrowing experience, the Jewish students were told, for their safety, they should hide in the library attic. The ATTIC? Anyone having Anne Frank flashbacks? Shameful. Has anyone heard any public comments from President Laura Sparks?

At Columbia University, also in New York City, Joseph Massad, a professor of politics and history, expressed publicly and in an article (publication not to be promoted here), his exhilaration by the Hamas attacks on Israel and the slaughter of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians. Massad called it “awesome…, a stunning victory” for Hamas. A petition to have Massad fired garnered 45,000 signatures. A letter of solidarity with Massad received a scant 600 signatures. In addition to rallies both pro- and anti-Israel, one Israeli student was beaten. (www.nypost.com) More than 100 professors signed a letter supporting Palestinian students, calling the invasion of Israel a “military action.” Columbia president Nemat Shafik has been silent on these matters.

It’s “devastating. I’m in my environment, in my home, and I’ve been told now, that this acceptance that I was feeling, is conditional,” said Columbia University graduate student Noa Fay. “The propaganda has become so insidious. Social media is the reason, if not one of the reasons why we are seeing what we are seeing. This is what happens when you get your education and your information on Instagram and Tik Tok,” she said. “We don’t get educated, we become susceptible to infiltration, and I’ve heard people use the word ‘brainwashed,’” said Fay.

Columbia University is no stranger to controversy, having hosted former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for speaking engagements. Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier, calling it “a myth,” and repeatedly calls for “Israel to be wiped off the map.” He served from 2005-13 . (www.britannica.com)

A cousin of United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on social media she is withdrawing from New York University due to the increased amount of anti-Semitism and a sense of not feeling safe on and around campus. “We don’t feel safe. It’s honestly scary,” she said via an Instagram video, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Projections shining anti-Israel messages on the outside of the library at George Washington University have read, “Your tuition is funding genocide in Gaza,” “GW the blood of Palestinians is on your hands,” “Divestment from Zionist genocide now,” and “Glory to our martyrs.”

GW issued a statement. “The projections on the university’s library violated university policy and leadership intervened to ensure these projections were removed. The statements made by these individuals in no way reflect the view of the university. We are reviewing this incident and will take any appropriate steps with respect to the individuals involved in accordance with university policies.” (Fox News Outnumbered October 25, 2023)

On October 29, the Cornell Daily Sun reported “Posts online threaten Jewish students and Center for Jewish Living…,” and “...including one that threatened a shooting at 104 West,” which is home to the Center for Jewish Living and the kosher dining hall.

Some of the texts included: (sic) “”israel” deserved 10/7… the genocidal fascist zionist regime will be destroyed. rape and kill all the jew women, before they birth more jewish hitlers. jews are excrement on the face of the earth. no jew civilian is innocent of genocide…. Posted By hamas warrior Oct. 28, 2023 9:17:49 AM”

Another text reads: (sic) “jewish people need to be killed if you see a jewish “person” on campus follow them home and slit their throats. rats need to be exterminated from Cornell…. Posted By jew evil Oct. 28, 2023 5:39:06 PM”

And yet one more text reads: (sic) “watch out jews. watch out pig jews. jihad is coming. nowhere is safe. your synagogues will become graveyards. your women will be raped and your children will be beheaded. glory to Allah…. Posted By hamas soldier Oct. 28, 2023 7:34:27 PM”

“Students are just absolutely terrified to see the threat calling out the Jewish buildings,” said Jeremy Zarge, co-president of the Cornell Center for Jewish Living. “Students are afraid to walk around campus, afraid to go about their daily lives,” Zarge said.

“Even with police, it’s still frightening, but we’re trying to go about our daily lives, and we’re trying to continue to be proud and strong as our Jewish selves, but it’s still scary,” said Molly Goldstein, co-president of the Cornell Center for Jewish Living.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul spoke at Cornell on October 30 in a show of support for the embattled Jewish community. “No one should be afraid to walk from their dorm or their dining hall to a classroom. When speech crosses over into hate speech and into hate crimes, that’s when we have to make sure that students know we’ll step up and protect them,” she said. Why wait? Students should feel safe and secure on their campuses 24/7. “If you’re going to engage in these harmful actions, hate crimes, breaking our laws, you will be caught, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Hochul.

Let’s see how true Hochul’s words are. On Tuesday, October 31 the Broome County Sheriff’s Department reported the arrest of Patrick Dai, 21, from Pittsford, NY, a junior attending Cornell. According to the Justice Department, Dai threatened to “stab and slit the throat of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and behead any Jewish babies.” Dai also threatened to bring “an assault rifle to campus to shoot all you pig Jews,” the Justine Department reported. The FBI tracked Dai via his IP address, who then allegedly admitted to authoring the threatening online posts. Dai is charged with “posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications.” Dai could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine up to $250,000, and up to three years supervised release, according to the press release issued by the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of NY. Dai, like any of those tearing down posters of hostages, and calling for the evisceration of Israel and the death of the Jewish people should all be charged as domestic terrorists.

“Universities have a legal responsibility to ensure that the environment is not hostile and target Jewish people. We are working at the Lawfare Project to provide pro-bono legal counsel to students and professors who are suffering Title VI Civil Rights violations right now,” said Brooke Goldstein, attorney and founder of the End Jew Hatred movement.

“People like me in the counter-terrorism world and in the… pro-Israel advocacy world have been warning for the last 10 years about the infiltration of our academia by pro-terror and terror-affiliated groups. Students for Justice in Palestine… who are pro-terror or terror-affiliated are operating with impunity and the Department of Education and the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are not doing enough to contain this. Because this is not just a threat for Israel of Jewish people - this is a national security threat for the United States of America - our academia is radicalized and they’re radicalizing them to be anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-American. These same people who are cheering for dead Jewish babies, are also the same people who were cheering on 9/11 and they’re going to be cheering when there are further attacks, G-d forbid, on the United States,” said Goldstein, also founder of the Lawfare Project.

Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian/Hamas protesters, on and off campuses, are so liberal, so progressive that they are seen carrying signs at these rallies saying ridiculous things like “Allah loves equality,” “Queers for Hamas.” These are the same far-left progressives demanding safe spaces on campus away from conservatives, demanding charges against anyone misgendering them with the wrong pronouns, but they will side with Hamas terrorists, worse than ISIS, against the only safe space they would experience in the Middle East - Israel, the historical homeland of the Jewish people.

Do these supporters of Hamas not realize that Hamas, like Iran, would kill the homosexuals, the members of the transgender community - they have a history of dropping homosexuals off of the rooftops of buildings to their demise. Do these liberal, progressive anti-Israel protesters think feminists and the female protesters would be treated equally or even fairly? A 16 year old girl, Armita Geravand, and a 22 year old woman, Mahsa Amini, both suffered fatal injuries through encounters with “officers enforcing the mandatory Islamic dress code” in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Geravand died October 1, and Amini died September 16, 2022 having been beaten by so-called “morality police.” The dress code has been in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. These two young women were caught sans hijabs. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/28/iranian-teenager-armita-geravand-dies-after-alleged-hijab-encounter-with-officers-reports-say) Are these the terrorists with whom the anti-Israel protesters have aligned themselves?

Hamas does not recognize the rights of their own people to have freedom, security, property, the rule of law - beliefs cherished in Israel and by Judeo-Chrisitan civilization. Another sad irony is that these protesters would be welcomed in Israel, live more productive and safer lives there, which is the most democratic, egalitarian, free nation in the Middle East. There are about 1.5 million Arabs living in Israel. Arabs have voting rights, they can be elected to the Knesset (Parliament), work in the professions, even serve on the supreme court. Women have equal rights, as do gays and lesbians, demonstrative of Israel not being an apartheid state. How many of the 48 Arab/Muslim nations can make the same claim? Israel is the antithesis of the Arab/Muslim world, but it is painfully obvious the anti-Israel protesters have been severely indoctrinated to believe the lies that are imparted rather liberally, in the schools, by the so-called mainstream media, and via the radical Islamic propaganda machine, instead of learning true facts and history. People may have differences of opinions, but they may not have their own set of facts and manufactured history. And thus an “information Kristallnacht,” as Ari Fleischer said, absolutely drives that point home. In The Guardian, September 16, 2020, Harriet Sherwood noted “nearly two-thirds of US young adults are unaware six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.”

For greater detail on real facts and history: https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2023/10/israels-911-biden-has-blood-on-his-hands.html  

Students for Justice in Palestine, with chapters on more than 200 campuses across North America, have rejected the notion that they support Hamas. They are even more insidious, actually calling themselves Hamas. Their values include the requirement to “struggle against state violence, colonialism, capitalism, and imperialism, in all of their forms.” 

Fascinating. Israel does not brutalize its citizenry. In fact Israel goes out of its way to warn civilians of their foes to seek shelter out of harm's way. Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations do just the opposite in using its most vulnerable as human shields, turning women and children into suicide bombers, paying families to have their children martyred. Israel is neither a colonizer nor an apartheid state, more often than not, surrendering land for peace, but this is not about land or peace. The current strife is about survival as a people in its homeland. For all the talk and demands of a cease fire, there was a ceasefire on October 6, 2023 that was unilaterally and without provocation, shattered by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s pawn, Hamas who invaded Israel, slaughtered more than 1,400 innocent civilians, at which point, global anti-Semitism called for restraint by Israel. Israel, who was attacked mercilessly - women and children butchered in their beds; a pregnant woman whose stomach was sliced open, her baby murdered in front of her, and finally to be slaughtered herself by the Hamas terror agents. Yes, these words depict difficult to hear scenes, and even more difficult to see, but the depravity of Hamas must be made known and understood. This is not hyperbole - there is video evidence of this, and many other acts of barbarism committed by Hamas - video filmed by Hamas terrorists. This is what Students for Justice in Palestine supports and celebrates.

As for their disdain of capitalism, that pairs well with the fact that Gazans elected Hamas as their ruling government in 2006, following the 2005 departure of Israelis from Gaza proving Israel is not a colonizer. Hamas has not held another election since. Israel seems to call for new elections every 10 minutes. The power structure of Hamas, economically and politically, begins and ends at the top. Less than a third of all the humanitarian aid sent into Gaza for their suffering people - yes, there are plenty of suffering Gazans who Hamas itself prevents from leaving Gaza - actually reaches the people. Hamas established roadblocks to prevent its own people from evacuating out of the northern part of Gaza to the southern part or even out of Gaza altogether in an effort to fit their narrative that the Israel Defense Forces are responsible for the deaths of more Gazan/Palestinians. This garners, for Gaza, media sympathy, and allows Hamas to engage in more heinous barbarism.

According to a Globes article, “Poor Gaza, Rich Hamas,” “the Hamas leadership built its wealth mainly through the booming tunnel industry, with Hamas officials imposing taxes, generally 20 percent on all goods smuggled through the tunnels.” Hamas has woven together an intricate, subterranean menagerie of 300 miles of tunnels under Gaza for which to carry out its terrorist machinations. Not to praise Hamas, but this sophisticated system is smart engineering - from a strictly structural standpoint, and not a commentary on its use, which, of course, is for demonic purposes. And that speaks to an enormous problem inside Gaza. Hamas is getting rich while starving its own people. Materials meant for Gazan infrastructure have gone straight into the tunnels. “Today more than half of the residents of Gaza live in severe poverty, but… there were reports of some 600 millionaires living in Gaza.”  (https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-Poor-Gaza-rich-Hamas-1001461154) 

The plight of the Gazans is not on Israel. Upon exiting Gaza in 2005, those who 
remained, and there are more than two million living in Gaza, again, many of whom would like to leave, are being prevented from doing so by Hamas. Under Hamas’s auspices the infrastructure, including greenhouses, were destroyed from within. Why? Why haven’t those with their engineering capabilities not built up Gaza? There’s prime beachfront real estate upon which hotels and resorts could be built for enormous profits, which can be turned into funding for legitimate schools.

Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, who spent many days and weeks in multiple Middle East countries working on the successful Abraham Accords, keenly noted that, “one of the ironies is that as an American Jew, you’re safer in Saudi Arabia right now than you are on a college campus like Columbia University.”

“I remember when I was in elementary school and I asked my teacher could something like the Holocaust ever happen again, and I remember she specifically told me, ‘I guarantee you, I promise you, nothing like this can ever happen,’ and I thought that was true. What we are starting to see today and ever since October 7, that might not be a guarantee anymore,” lamented Zarge at Cornell.

“A group that makes up 2.4 percent, roughly, of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population counts for something like 60 percent of all religious-based hate crimes. And so, they need our help,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray about the Jewish people. Wray also confirmed that terror threats have increased under Biden.

And thus made the remarks of Israeli President Isaac Herzog all the more poignant. “If it starts with Israel, if it starts with the Jews, it will never end there. Europe will be next and that is why we are fighting a battle on behalf of the entire world.”

Continue to pray for the survival of Israel and the safe return of all the hostages to their homes in whatever corner of the world they may live.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN. He last visited Israel with his wife in 2019.

There has been a 388 percent increase in anti-Semitism in the United States since October 7. At least 70 college and university campuses have held anti-Israel and/or pro-Palestinian/Hamas protests and/or rallies. These are many of those schools.

Appalachian State University Saint Xavier University
Arizona State University San Diego City C.C.
Boston University Stanford University
Brown University SUNY Binghamton
Columbia University SUNY Buffalo
Cooper Union SUNY Stony Brook
Cornell University Tulane University
CUNY Campuses University of California, Berkeley
DePaul University University of California, Davis
Emory University University of California, Santa Barbara
Florida Atlantic University University of Chicago
Florida International University University of Cincinnati
George Mason University University of Colorado
George Washington University University of Connecticut
Georgia Tech University University of Florida
Grinnell College University of Georgia
Harvard University University of Illinois
Howard University University of Illinois-Chicago
Illinois Wesleyan University University of Louisville 
Indiana University University of Mass-Amherst
Kent State University University of Michigan
Lafayette College University of NC Chapel Hill
Loyola University New Orleans University of Pennsylvania
Miami (OH) University University of Richmond
Michigan State University University of South Florida
Minnesota State University University of Southern California
MIT         University of Texas, Arlington
New Mexico State University University of Texas, Dallas
New York University/NYU Law University of Utah
Northeastern University University of Virginia
Northwestern University University of Washington, Seattle
Ohio State University Vanderbilt University
Penn State University Virginia Tech University
Purdue University Washington University, St. Louis
Rutgers University Yale University 

If anyone reading this column knows of a college or university that should be on this list, please contact me. Thank you.

Sunday, October 22, 2023

An Attack of Literal Biblical Proportions

An Attack of Literal Biblical Proportions
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
October 22, 2023

This past Shabbat, October 21, 2023, also Chesvan 6, 5784 on the Hebrew calendar, in shuls (synagogues) the world over, the Jewish people read from the Torah (the Five Books of Moses/Scripture), Parshah Noach - the weekly portion about Noah and the Great Flood from Genesis 6:9 - 11:32. This is part of the Covenant between G-d and the Jewish people.

Noah, deemed the only righteous man, is instructed by G-d to “build a large wooden teivah (ark).” G-d informs Noah that “a great deluge will wipe out all life from the face of the earth, but the ark will float upon the water, sheltering Noah and his family, and two members (male and female) of each animal species.” (www.chabad.org)

But why? Because the Torah says, in Genesis 6:11-13, “And the earth was corrupt before G-d, and the earth was filled with violence. And G-d saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And G-d said unto Noah: ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them, and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.’” Because the L-rd saw His own creation and what it had become, and it most certainly was not good in His eyes.

There’s more to this than the study of this past Shabbat’s Torah portion, but it is derived linguistically. The word violence, used several times in the Torah reading, in Hebrew, phonetically, is hamas - yes, pronounced the same as the radical, militant, Islamic terrorist group of the same spelling - Hamas. With the number of people, young, old, Jewish-Israeli, Arab-Israeli, Christian-Israeli, male, female, within the government, not part of the government, military, non-military saying Hamas is worse than ISIS, speaks volumes. A militant, Islamic terrorist organization with a name translating to mean “violence” is not coincidental - names have meanings, and dates are chosen for significance.

The heinous acts of barbarism meted out by Hamas have been compared to the savagery that was the Holocaust. The slaughter of innocent women, children, elderly, the rape of women and children, the beheading of babies on October 7, reaching beyond 1,400 murdered Israelis - non-combatants, civilians, more than 260 music festival attendees, wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivors - the enormity not seen since the Holocaust itself.

This invasion of Israel, this attack of Jewish Israelis, for one reason, and one reason only, because they believe in, and worship, the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has been celebrated en masse on college campuses and on city streets the world over. Cities including, but not limited to Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, and San Francisco in the United States, as well as Brussels, London, Paris, Sydney, and Tehran to the tune of hundreds of thousands took to the streets supporting Palestinians and Hamas, many disbelieving the realities of Hamas’s brutal crimes against humanity. 

And let’s not forget Washington, DC - where hundreds protested in the Cannon Office Building and thousands more outside the Congressional building. There are many who would call the behavior of this group an insurrection, but that won’t be reported by the so-called mainstream media. This rabid anti-Israel group is called Jewish Voice for Peace - that’s right - Jewish. This radical group of self-hating Jews supports the propaganda peddled by Hamas and their Palestinian pawns. It is the “largest Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” (www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org) 

This dangerous radical group of, it’s hard to call them Jewish, supporters of the Palestinians, calling Israel Palestine on their website, supports a Palestinian homeland, and fell prey to the propaganda arm of Hamas, as did the so-called mainstream media, falsely calling Israel an apartheid state, falsely calling Israel a colonizer. Ponder this question: If Israel is surrounded by foes, and surrenders land when signing peace treaties, what land have they colonized? Hearing crickets. And why? Because Israel does not colonize land.

Hamas, as well as the militant Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah, attacking Israel from Lebanon in the north (both funded proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran), have the same goals emblazoned into their charters - the eradication of Israel and the annihilation of global Jewry. With objectives and aspirations like these, there are no negotiations to be had with these murderers. There is no two-state solution for terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, only the Final Solution - just as the Nazis designed.

Many of the protesters against Israel and for the Palestinians and Hamas are college-educated, middle-upper class, white liberals indoctrinated on the very campuses that also held rallies. Schools such as, but not limited to Arizona State, Columbia, CUNY campuses, Harvard, Indiana, Kent State, NYU Law, Penn State, Purdue, UC Berkeley, U. of Chicago, U. of Cincinnati, UConn, U. of Louisville, U. of Michigan, U. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, U. of Pennsylvania, USC, U. of Virginia, and Yale. Jewish students on these, and many other campuses, are reporting an exponential rise in anti-Semitism, and have expressed fear in walking around campus. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas supporters hide behind masks while those rallying for Israel do so openly and with pride.

Supporters of Palestinians and Hamas deny that Hamas uses both its enemies and its so-called brethren as human shields - placing their rockets, and other weapons in schools, hospitals, civilian residential areas, even mosques. Holding more that 220 hostages supports the human shield notion. This is not the sign of a religion of peace. There would be no war had Hamas not invaded and attacked Israel. But the Hamas philosophy includes “a jihad for victory or martyrdom.”

"To Hamas: if you're not a coward, then give back every single hostage because you wouldn't  need them. You would fight like a man. You would fight eye to eye, you wouldn't need human shields to do the job," said Senator Katie Britt (R-AL).

In addition to the propaganda war Hamas is waging, its hypocrisy knows no limits. The supporters of Palestinians and Hamas demanded proof when told about the Hamas dastardly, heinous slaughter of women, children, and elderly. This includes the rape of children, the decapitation of babies and the kidnapping of wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivors. Yet there is absolute rejection of proof - even video proof by Hamas itself.

Yet, when Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza is allegedly bombed, all the same people above including the so-called mainstream media, leap in a single bound to take as gospel, the words of a terrorist organization - Hamas. As Hamas blames Israel, the media genuflects, all the protestors become apoplectic, and do not demand the same proof they expected regarding the horrifying barbarism perpetrated by Hamas. And while the proof became patently clear that Israel did not bomb the Gazan hospital, and that it was Islamic Jihad’s own misfired rocket that took out the parking lot next to the hospital, and 500 Palestinians, as initially, wrongly reported died, were not killed.

Both US Reps Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) posted immediately to social media their blame of Israel for the bombing of the hospital. Even after proof Israel did not bomb the hospital, neither Omar nor Tlaib have yet to remove their posts from social media blaming Israel. In fact, Tlaib went one step beyond her initial blame. At a Palestinian rally in Washington, DC, Tlaib ranted hysterically, “I can cry. We can cry. If we’re not crying, something is wrong,” on October 18. Just days before, Tlaib walked stone faced, and stone cold silent when asked about the Hamas decapitation of Israeli babies. She would utter nary a syllable - not even to condemn the decapitation of babies.

Tlaib, Omar, and the rest of the anti-Semitic so-called squad have also demanded that the United States allow about a million Palestinian so-called refugees into the country. So-called refugees because history proves otherwise. https://sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com/2023/10/israels-911-biden-has-blood-on-his-hands.html 

A million unvetted Palestinians?  Consider that Jordan’s King Abdullah II said neither Jordan nor Egypt would allow any of the wayward Palestinians into their countries. There are 48 Arab/Muslim nations, and none of them have agreed entry to any of the Palestinians. Yet, Israel, the lone Jewish state also says no, and Israel is blamed for all the evil in the world. Most certainly the United States should follow Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, especially with the growing number of illegals flooding the southern border of the United States coming from roughly 100 countries, including Iran, Lebanon, and Syria.

Going back to the protesters and supporters of Palestinians and Hamas, each one of them should be asked these simple questions. Do Jewish people have the right to live? Do Jewish people have the right to a Jewish homeland? Perhaps those are not simple questions as more and more of the younger supporters of the Palestinians and Hamas in the United States and overseas believe Hamas had the right to invade Israel and commit the acts of butchery they executed.

Israel does not start wars. The day Israel loses a war, G-d forbid, Israel ceases to exist. Israel is in a constant battle for survival, and that is not hyperbole. Golda Meir, Israel’s fourth Prime Minister said “we Israelis have a secret weapon - we have nowhere else to go.” Where do the Jewish people go when the rising anti-Semitism becomes too arduous under which to live in countries outside Israel, in the Diaspora? If not Israel, where?

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.