Terrorism
January 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Houthi terrorist group is an Iranian proxy that Iran has found increasingly useful. The Houthis have attacked American assets stationed in their vicinity at will and disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea. American forces sunk three Houthi boats attacking a commercial freighter this past Sunday. The Biden administration has politely warned the Houthis to knock it off. Going a step further, the Biden administration has organized Operation Prosperity
»
December 31, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The Christmas/New Year season is one of heightened terrorism alert in Europe. Today, German authorities announced that they had stopped an intended Islamic attack on Cologne’s (Koln’s) historic cathedral: German police have arrested three people suspected of planning a New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on Cologne Cathedral, which was reportedly to be carried out in a car loaded with explosives. Officers had first been informed of an attack planned for
»
December 25, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The latest from the Gaza Strip includes the discovery of child-size suicide vests from a Gazan kindergarten: Israel finds explosive belts made for kids, toy chests with warheads in Gaza. Israeli soldiers found Hamas explosive belts adapted for children and toy chests hiding warheads at a Gaza kindergarten, the army said over the weekend. The Israel Defense Forces said a sweep of a Hamas-operated area near schools, a mosque and
»
December 14, 2023 — John Hinderaker
That is one of the mantras recited by Hamas supporters across the Western world. And, as usual, we should assume that terrorists mean what they say. The Telegraph reports: “Hamas plot to attack Jews across Europe is foiled by police.” A Hamas plot to kill Jews in Europe was foiled by German and Danish police who uncovered the terrorist group’s alarming change of tactics. Three people were arrested in Germany,
»
December 7, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
Ivy League college presidents and congressional Democrats aren’t the only ones having difficulty escaping a false moral equivalence between anti-Semitism and supposed “Islamophobia.” It’s a longstanding problem. Let’s revisit: As Americans, we are unified in our commitment to protect our country from terrorist attacks, and we must seek justice for those who lost their lives in the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. That was California attorney general Kamala
»
December 3, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
On December 2, 2015, workers at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, gathered for a holiday party. For 14 of the workers, the event would be their last. American-born Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, a green-card holder born in Pakistan, shot down Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas
»
November 26, 2023 — Scott Johnson
We followed the removal of the Ramirez “Human Shields” editorial cartoon depicting the Hamas way of war from the Washington Post’s site in “Ramirez on the record.” The cartoon is posted at Ramirez’s Substack site in “Free speech dies in darkness” with a collection of links to comments on the episode. I posted the cartoon here. We learned from the Free Beacon’s Collin Anderson’s story that Washington Post opinion editor
»
November 21, 2023 — John Hinderaker
An agreement between Israel and the government of Gaza for a partial hostage release apparently is about to be finalized. The details are not yet clear, but it looks something like this: Various reports of the deal have indicated that somewhere between 50 and 100 Israeli and foreign hostages would be released, in exchange for a five-day break in fighting and the release of somewhere between 150 and 300 Palestinian
»
November 17, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Liel Leibovitz is editor at large for Tablet. Everything he writes is worth reading. His City Journal column “Anti-Semitism Is a National Security Threat” takes up a question that has been on my mind. What is to be done about the millions of imported Nazis in our midst? His column is difficult to excerpt and this excerpt is too long, but consider this: How should we amend our immigration policies
»
November 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
According to their publisher, Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey collaborated to help achieve the biggest electoral success for socialism in recent British history. They think that’s a good thing. Corbyn is the former Labour leader. McCluskey is the British trade unionist and author of the memoir Always Red (now available in paperback). Corbyn and McCluskey have also collaborated on the new anthology Poetry For the Many. Warning: All royalties from
»
November 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I’m working on a post about AP photographer Abed Khaled. Khaled’s current work from Gaza put me in mind of what I discovered when then Weekly Standard managing editor Richard Starr commissioned me to analyze Charles Enderlin’s 2008 assertion that certain post 9/11 photos of Yasser Arafat had been staged. The Standard ran my article “He didn’t give at the office” in its February 4, 2008 number. I invite readers
»
November 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Kelly Jane Torrance was my editor when she worked for the great Richard Starr at the Weekly Standard. Now serving as commentary editor at the New York Post, Kelly Jane stepped out from behind the curtain to report on “Hamas horrors you luckily won’t see — glimpse of terror too sick for Israel to air.” Here is one section of her column: It was hard to watch. Harder still for
»
November 3, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Matt Continetti’s weekly column for the Washington Free Beacon is “Let Israel win.” It couldn’t be more timely. He writes: Less than a week has passed since Israel launched a ground campaign in the Gaza Strip, and already there are calls for a ceasefire. Not only should these calls be ignored. They should be denounced. Why? Because calls for a ceasefire reward barbarism. The usual double standard is hard at
»
November 1, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Saul Bellow wrote To Jerusalem and Back after a visit of several months’ duration in 1975. Published in 1976 and still in print, it is full of observations that remain on point as Israel fights for its survival today. This passage is from pages 135-136 of the original hard cover edition: The 1973 war badly damaged their [i.e., the Israelis’] confidence. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal. Suddenly the abyss
»
October 31, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he focuses on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, and the geopolitics of the Levant. Tablet originally published his illuminating column “Eyeless in Gaza” on October 18. FDD has cross-posted it here with Badran’s many links. The column provides an illuminating account of “how the U.S. blinded Israeli intelligence gathering efforts on Hamas and other Palestinian groups inside Lebanon.”
»
October 31, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Saul Bellow’s To Jerusalem and Back was published in 1976, but it is still in print and full of observations that bear on Israel’s current war. I quoted one passage from page 15 of the original hard cover edition here yesterday. This is from pages 25-26: Here in Jerusalem, when you shut your apartment door behind you you fall into a gale of conversation – exposition, argument, harangue, analysis, theory,
»
October 19, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
Ammar Campa-Najjar, the self-described “Palestinian Mexican-American,” was previously known as Ammar Yasser Najjar after his father, an official with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza who supposedly “migrated to the United States on a student visa.” As outlined here previously, Ammar is also the grandson of Muhammad Abu Yousef al-Najjar, mastermind of the Palestinian terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. The terrorists not only
»
