Hamas and Fatah Compete by Shedding Jewish Blood

During the past four weeks, there has been a rash of violent attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. These are not a response to any Israeli actions, nor are they spontaneous outbursts. Rather, as Itamar Marcus and Maurice Hirsch explain, the violence is the result of deliberate incitement by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which began when its president, Mahmoud Abbas, realized he was unlikely to win the upcoming national elections. The violence, write Marcus and Hirsch, was originally a way to win votes, and is now a way to maintain popularity after Abbas’s decision to postpone the elections in definitely:

The intensified incitement started on The Tune of the Homeland, a quiz show broadcasting highly violent, pro-terror songs. To ensure maximum effect, the show was broadcast during the 4:00-5:00 p.m. time slot for children’s programming. From March 13 to March 17, The Tune of the Homeland repeatedly broadcast the song “My Machine Gun Is in My Hand.”

As the holy Muslim month of Ramadan approached, the PA TV’s machine guns were replaced with suicide belts. From April 2 to April 10, The Tune of the Homeland broadcast, on at least twenty occasions, a clip in which Palestinians declared, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts. . . . My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.”

Primed by this PA incitement, soon after Ramadan started, Palestinian youth and Jerusalem Arabs started indiscriminately attacking Jews and uploading the videos of the attacks to TikTok, a social-media platform particularly popular with young people. . . . As the violence erupted, Abbas’s Fatah [party] took to social media to fuel the flames.

Not wanting to be upstaged by the new anti-Israel “uprising” coming from Abbas’s Fatah, Hamas realized that it had to compete with Abbas or lose political points. And so, one night without warning, Hamas competed with Fatah in the manner that it knows has the most influence, and launched more than 40 missiles at southern Israel in “defense of Jerusalem.”. . . For Abbas, Fatah and Hamas, violence directed at Israel “in defense of Jerusalem” is just another one of the methods of playing internal Palestinian politics and campaigning before elections. While Hamas fires rockets, Abbas, the PA, and Fatah prefer the more subtle approach of inciting and recruiting Palestinian youth and sending them out to attack Israelis, as part of the PA’s child-terrorist army.

Read more at JNS

More about: Fatah, Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian terror

 

How Senator Schumer Put Short-Sighted Partisan Interest over Jewish Concerns

Last week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce reported on its investigation into anti-Semitism on college campuses. Among the revelations therein is information about the role played behind the scenes by the Senatate majority leader Chuck Schumer, who often touts his own role as “protector” (in Hebrew, shomer) of his fellow Jews in the halls of power. Seth Mandel comments:

The leaders of Columbia, where the anti-Semitism was and is among the worst in the country, eventually came before Congress in April. Three months earlier, President Minouche Shafik met with Schumer, and the supposed shomer told her that Democrats had no problem with her and that only Republicans cared about the anti-Semitism crisis on campus. His office advised Shafik not to meet with Republicans on the Hill. When the Columbia Trustees co-chair David Greenwald texted the previous co-chair Jonathan Lavine about the situation, Lavine responded by saying, “Let’s hope the Dems win the house back.” Greenwald wrote back: “Absolutely.”

This is the message that Schumer had sent about anti-Semitism on campus and that message came through loud and clear: investigations into Jew-hatred would only occur under a Republican majority. Putting Democrats in charge would put a stop to the government’s efforts to help Jews on campus.

Though the Jewish vote is, as always, unlikely to cost Democrats the election, it is simply undeniable that non-Republicans and non-conservatives are fairly disgusted with the type of behavior displayed by Schumer.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Anti-Semitism, Chuck Schumer, Israel on campus, U.S. Politics