This was an event by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel,…. NO VIOLATIONS here except those committed by the anti-Jewish MOB,
“It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” one protest leader told the crowd….. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared!” [….]
So, 24 yrs after 9/11 …. the largest Jewish population … outside Israel … voted to elect an anti-Israel/anti-Jewish Muslim, Zohran Mamdani, the next MAYOR of NYC.
Seems they FORGOT what was NEVER to be Forgotten ….
This flashback to April 4, 2025 revisits the “Gaza Unbreakable: Week of Rage”. (March 31 to April 4) … primarily organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and related student activist groups on university campuses demanding Institutional Divestment from Israel and to protest the ”War on Gaza.”
The NYPD , under Mayor Eric Adams, allowed both sides to co-mingle outside the main Public Library on Fifth Avenue and the pro-Gazans were not pleased (saw many grumbling).
Flickr slide show of a healthy counter-protest with much truth and fact to challenge the Gazan lies…
The “Week of Rage” slogans “Gaza is Unbreakable” and “The Student Movement is Unbreakable” aimed to show solidarity with “Palestinians” in the face of the ongoing “humanitarian crisis” at the hands of Israel and the IDF aka IOF (Israel Occupying Force) …. leaving the gullible snookered by claims of a GAZA GENOCIDE and looking to the future with Zohran Mamdani as NYC’s next Mayor.
Six short videos follow in a you tube playlist
And the LIES continue as .Palawadawarns of another LAND SALE coming up. Will No Fair Play under Mayor “Mamdoomie” become the norm?
On December 1, the Palis used barricades that were shoved between the NYPD and Pro-Palestine Protesters outside of John Jay College on West 59th Street, as they protested the event inside featuring Stav Cohen, an Israeli IDF reservist listed as the evening’s speaker.
.Bret Baiercalled it the “Occupied West Bank.” … It isn’t “occupied,” it belongs to Israel, and it isn’t the “West Bank,” it is Judea and Samaria.
.IMPORTANT: Whenever and wherever this crap appears, every decent person should rise up and strike it down: the territory known by the media as the West Bank is actually known by its historic and biblical names,Judea and Samaria. Am Yisrael Chai !
Do not cede ground.
[Where indicated pictures and videos property of Pamela Hall-VSB]
Just a few days before our presidential election, the palis and their socialist contingent were on the streets of NYC- again- with their latest chants and signs making it clear. They HATE America.
So, Why Vote?
Nov 2, 2024 Shutitdown4palestine gathered in Union Square to encourage NO Votes for Genocide – for the U.S. politicians COMPLICIT in genocide on Nov 5th. So… I guess they won’t be voting.
Always obedient , the chanting is well -rehearsed in the echoing of the leader: “Imperialism will Fall. Brick by Brick.Wall by Wall. Every Fascist State will Fall.” and “Refugees will return. In our thousands in our millions. We are all Palestinians….From the Sea to the River. Palestine will live forever.”
New (for me) was an odd group-chant of SHAME that was creepy. A bit like a cow-mooing in between the laundry list of why they should not VOTE.
Flickr slideshow of the pali’s and their socialist comrades before they marched uptown ( they always march)
Because it was still shabbos there wasn’t usual counter protest. Found one confident fellow who stood tall with his Israeli flag.
I left thinking how interesting, the palis are threatening us by not VOTING. …. And this is the solution? “Imperialism will Fall. Brick by Brick.Wall by Wall. Every Fascist State will Fall.”
“Shame on all who send weapons.And shame on all who plan and provide political support At the head of them. Shame on the U.S. ruling class. Since day one has been leading this genocide onslaught on our people, “(SHAME)
This is the mind-numbing repetition from their propaganda machine that is pounded in to the heads of our young.- it’s all they hear. It’s all the read. It’s criminal.
[Where indicated pictures and videos property of Pamela Hall-VSB]
“From the River To The Sea” what else is this but a “genocidal campaign” to empty Israel of the Jews. So WHOSE Genocide did this young man die for?
“I’m an active duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide…
I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.” Aaron Bushnell,
.Bushnell then doused himself in a flammable liquid, setting himself ablaze in the driveway of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. screaming as he burned: Free Free Palestine.
In March a vigil was held outside the U.S. Mission to the U.N. for Air Force serviceman, Aaron Bushnell, who self-immolated as he opposed the U.S. support for Israel.
”May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop the genocide in Gaza.” (@Dr Jill Stein Green Party candidate for President)
The vigil was sponsored by CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, Pal-Awda, Answer, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Palestinian Youth Movement, Mamas 4 a Free Palestine, Green Party USA, Green Party NY, and numerous others. Pro-Palestine activists anointed Aaron Bushnell as a martyr for their cause. They idolize him.
”The oppressor-oppressed dichotomy — which has been popularized by neo-Marxists and the social justice movement — is often alluring to young radicals.”
Analyzing complex conflicts through the lens of “good guys” and “bad guys” affords an activist like Bushnell a simplistic righteousness, and absolves him of the obligation to dig deeper and actually engage with both sides of an issue.
.
“Bushnell did what he felt he had to do to oppose the U.S./Israeli genocidal war in Gaza. We hope his act will persuade more people to follow him, not to commit self-immolation, but follow him in rejecting the status quo...” [https://www.workers.org/2024/03/77428]
Israel is defending its right to exist and following international humanitarian war law while doing so. Israel is not attempting to destroy the Palestinian people.
Hamas, however, wants to wipe Israel off the map and has made it clear it won’t stop until that happens, saying October 7—when terrorists killed and mutilated more than 1,400 innocent people—will happen again and again.
Hamas, not Israel, violated the 1948 Genocide Convention on October 7 and has continually been clear on its intent: to destroy Israel. Hamas’ end goal is genocidal.
.As for the VIGIL for the martyred Aaron Bushnell, it began with lots of chants and then the obligatory muslim prayers. While waiting for the endless intoning to end, the media should have ask the pali protestors (which they never do)’ Wasn’t the October 7th assault proof of genocidal terrorism against Israel?”
INSTEAD the press feeds on the lies and misinformation as they choose to highlight the need for an immediate cessation of US funding, arming, and political support for Israel,“which is committing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.” (so they claim over and over) .
.
Part 1 Flickr slide show:
Part 2 Flickr: Pro Israel side. A handful of pro-Israel counter-protesters were also there. Although originally billed as a vigil, it seemed more like an anti-Israel protest with both sides yelling back and forth; not sure I witnessed much of vigil.
.The main speaker, besides Linda Sarsour, was Green Party candidate for President, Jill Stein. The media was blocked by the police, keeping most away from the pali’s enclosure, to film at a distance. No matter, Stein was loud and clear: spewing the type of agitprop that encourages tragic Revolutionary Suicides like Aaron Bushnell’s.
“The Spirit of Aaron Bushnell Lives in US. We will not stop until Palestine is Free. THE WORLD IS WATCHING. THE WORLD IS WAKING UP. …. It is not Okay to commit GENOCIDE for ANYONE.” ( Jill Stein)
As Stein ended her speech:
.“In the words of Frederick Douglass,”Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has (did) and it never will.’ We must bring that demand to the Halls of Power. … Nothing speaks like a challenge to power.… The biggest way that people give us power is by not realizing we have it to start with. We have it. We must use it. Thank you so much. And in the spirit of Aaron Bushnell: Thank You (her fist held high)”
“Rest in power Aaron Bushnell,” Dr. Stein posted on her social media “May his sacrifice deepen our commitment to stop genocide now. It is truly tragic that the horrific actions of the US and Israel have provoked such a desperate sacrifice.”
The flower table memorializing this tragic, misguided young man
(unknown photographer from Bushnell protest)
Elad, the terrorists attacks of October 7th, will you condemn the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th …
Stein : I always condemn all violations of Human Rights….. it’s important for people to remember this didn’t come out of no where.; that was a response to 75 years of murderous occupation… none of this is justified…. I understand where these Zionists were coming from … standing way back, you can say this is violence propagating violence… We must stop it
Elad asks again re terrorist attack…
Stein: I feel as though you want to extract October 7th as though it didn’t have 75 years leading up to it. [She will NEVER Give In to the TRUTH)
**
And now, to conclude, a look at he Next Generation, from a high school in Minnesota, repeating the lessons learned from the agitprop machine as they claim to understand Bushnell’s actions:
”Bushnell wanted the extremity of his actions to combat the downplayed narratives across network news broadcasts. He wanted America to witness his protest and feel a level of discomfort that could not be achieved through the mainstream media. I challenge anyone to watch his video in its entirety, or look down at that soot-stained driveway, and still ignore the afront to humanity that is the Palestinian genocide. As long as we honor his sacrifice by continually educating ourselves about what’s happening in Palestine from independent sources, Bushnell’s death will not be in vain.‘‘[https://www.shsoutherner.net/features/2024/05/15/aaron-bushnell-the-consequences-of-american-complacency/] The Southerner is the student-written and student-produced newspaper of South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
**
“Bushnell’s story is a loud alarm bell, reminding us all where radicalism, fueled by the internet and pervasive ideology, can lead.” [NY POST]
Aaron Bushnell was a Revolution Suicide,
a martyr for the COMPLICIT media.
BUT, IN REALITY a tragic example of MORAL Collapse.
.“His death should not be celebrated, nor should it be ignored. … But insights can be gleaned for how to prevent similar copycat displays of such extreme proportions.” [NY POST]
.
[Where indicated, Pictures and videos property of Pamela Hall-VSB]
Update: AS THE LIES ROLL-ON, nurtured and spewed from the Within Our Lifetime machine, they continue their FLOOD Campaign, this time aimed at THE UNITED NATIONS FOR GAZA.
.
Thursday Sept. 26th “Protest Butcher Benjamin Netanyahu in NYC will address the UN General Assembly Turn the city into a frozen zone for actions all day using this map.“
“The NYPD, embroiled in federal investigations, resignation and scandal, has said that all pedestrian traffic during the UNGA will be shut down east of 2nd Avenue, showing just how afraid they are of losing control with so many eyes on NYC.“
“… show the world that street closures won’t stop us.
Move like water, split into streams and take action throughout the day using the map above. … we will flood the streets for Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and all our people resisting around the world. “
“The fact that Netanyahu is wanted for war crimes yet allowed to speak at the U.N. shows how international institutions are a blatant joke. Human rights has always been used as a tool to support some while creating genocide for another. They don’t think of Palestinians as human. ”
[Nerdeen Kiswani Sept 18, 2024)
Nerdeen Kiswani and Within Our Lifetime
Flooding NYC for GAZA
“We call on all those who stand with Palestine to take
to the streets to collectively demand an end
to U.S. sponsored genocide in Gaza.
“Repression Breeds Resistance” LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA
Sept 2, 2024. Labor Day in the U.S. Within Our Lifetime posted on Twitter-Xthattheir Labor Day actionwas to raise awareness about work place discrimination in the tech and health care industries against employees who support the “palestinian” people. [Nurse fired in NYC for wearing pali flag]
Open in New Tab to enlarge next poster for a
closer look at who endorsed this action
“The RCA (Revolutionary Communists of America) is a party of class-fighters committed to the overthrow of capitalism. We fight for a world of superabundance and reject the artificial scarcity of a system based on the pursuit of profits. We fight to establish a workers’ government to tackle the roots of war, inequality, oppression, and climate catastrophe.”
As we remember today’s meme (some light reading that was handed out)
“Repression Breeds Resistance” LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!
W.O.L.published a series of posters detailing accusations of criminal actions by the NYPD (a tool of Israel) against the the Palestinian Liberation Movement. (approx 10 seconds a slide/ pause video to read more info)
.“Israel is comparable to ISIS, just like how they (ISIS) hijacked Islam. And so we know Israel is a terrorist state. Israel’s a genocidal state. Israel is a colonial project and Palestinians will only get justice when Israel ceases to exist”WOL founder Nerdeen Kiswani said to the crowd on Labor Day. (always long winded, this vid is approx 17 minutes of agitprop) …. with captions….
“Note to @WOLPalestine‘s @Nerdeen Kiswani & her lackeys: If Israel ceased to exist, Hamas would rule & there would be no justice for Palestinians.”
Flickr Slide Show Part 1, begins with posters that were put up and then quickly torn down by the palis
.”The peacefulprotesters carried Palestinian, Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah flags, one man waved a banner emblazoned with the images of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and PFLP general secretary Ahmad Sa’adat. The logo on the banner belonged to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a PFLP-tied NGO.”
Flickr Slide Show Part 2 exposing more of the dangerously pathetic misdirection of so many tools….
.There is no shortage of radical propaganda
aimed at these gullible followers.
“Zionism is the Catastrophe” Seven months and seventy-six years of Nakba
They claim unwarranted censorship :Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, shut down the Instagram account of WOL in early February. In early July, Meta also shut down the Instagram account of the Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Network, and in the last week shut down the accounts for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and NYU’s People’s Solidarity Coalition.” (VICTIMIZED by META )
“People are still either failing or refusing to grasp that this genocide is equally the product of US imperialism and Israeli democracy.”
RISE UP for palestinian LIBERATION NYPD=KKK=IDF
They never rest from the agitprop that genocide is and has been against GAZA.
”Those in power have doubled-down, sending more money and more weapons to the Zionist entity.The seemingly intractable appears at once daunting and hallucinatory, personally painful too, for those in our movement whose families and friends have spent their long October transmitting fear and rage from America’s extermination camps. If there is any solace to be found it is in those dreams and words and rockets that have remodeled the land —76 years of assembly and disassembly, 76 years too long, but also proof that with Gaza as the heart, there will be courage and with Gaza as the eyes, the aim will be true.”
[Where indicated pictures and videos property of Pamela Hall-VSB]
“🎗️Hxmxs has rejected another ceasefire deal, and Blinken is pressuring Bibi…A deal would lead to more Israelis getting killed and getting kidnapped. Just like history repeating itself and this vicious cycle that Israel seems to can’t get out of. Mostly because of the constant pressure from d@mb a$$ liberals, in Israel and around the world.It’s time to stop appeasing the terr0rists, and end this cycle once and for all.“
Day 319 / Aug 20, 2024 109 (?) hostages Thank you @idf for heroically
rescuing the bodies of:
May they all rest in peace and their memory forever be a blessing 🙏🏻 August 20, 2024 (Rachel Herman)
Looking back to March 8, 2024 illuminates the pattern of relentless indoctrination – globally. The LIES that make Israel and the Jews the terrorists” “…. history repeating itself and this vicious cycle that Israel seems to can’t get out of“
From March 2024 Anti-Israel materials –
“As the zionist entity has used lies of sexual violence to legitimize the ongoing genocide in Gaza, while there is no accountability for the real sexual violence that Palestinian women have experienced at the hands of occupation soldiers for decades, we are going to flood New Yorkto show the world that Palestinian liberation is inextricably linked with women’s liberation. ALL OUT FOR GAZA“
SO: “To commemorate International Women’s Day and answer the call from women in Palestine, we are mobilizing as part of a Global Strike for Gaza in Union Square.” [Within Our Lifetime]
Nerdeen Kiswani’s keynote Women’s Day speech is like a doctorate in Pali-propaganda: take the truth, FLIP it upside down. LIE. No one will challenge you. They are too SCARED.
This longer than usual speech by Nerdeen , 27 minutes, is not something I would usually take the time to record, but I was curious and then….since I had started recording, I finished the task. (I did my best to add captions for some clarity)
August 2024. 10 months later. Colleges were turned in to encampments. Jews denied access to their own schools. Marching hoards through the streets. Making them impassable. Relentless propaganda leading the way.A growing anti-semitism is their legacy.
Anti-Israel Protesters Used International Women’s Day to Praise Female Terrorists
A graphic distributed by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) celebrating International Women’s Day released a similar statement saying that the group “would like to emphasize showing solidarity with the brave and courageous women of Palestine as they fight not only for their own lives, but for the lives of their families and all the people of Palestine struggling against Zionist oppression.”
“… Islam has been taking over many of the US states, replacing their state flags with Islamist symbols.
— including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Houthis (Ansar Allah). Protesters have also glorified notorious leaders of these groups, including Leila Khaled. [ADL]
……appeasement seems VERY unlikely.——
Do not look to the United Nations for any help. Appeasement. Or peaceful resolutions.
@unitednations you are a despic@ble organization.
ONE WORLD/ONE GOVERNMENT is NOT the answer
“Trump and the Republican Party are the *only* ones who stand up for the hostages, Israel and the Jewish people, and against R@dical Isl@mist Terr0rism.
Vote for Trump-Vance, to save Israel and save America 🇺🇸🇮🇱” (R Herman)
[Pictures and videos as indicated property of Pamela Hall-VSB]
November 19, 2023
“My article shows new evidence of Gazan savagery: even very young children and women participated in the Israeli pogrom. The assumed innocence of most Gazans must be questioned.” [Madeline Brooks]
Westerners must understand the undiluted savagery of the Gazastinians
It is gut-wrenching to have to revisit the events of October 7 in southern Israel. But new evidence emerges that should shake our foundational thinking about Gazan civilians’ presumed innocence.
The Free Beacon has collected survivor reports. One of the survivors filmed the attacks:
Eyal Barad and his family hid in the safe room of their house from about 6:30 a.m. until the Israeli military evacuated them 12 or so hours later. But Barad, an engineer, had a rare view of the outside world thanks to a speed camera he had recently set up to bust his neighbors for driving on the sidewalk.
On the camera’s livestream, Barad watched three types of Gazans pass by his house: uniformed Hamas commandos carrying automatic weapons, RPGs, and grenades; casually dressed gunmen; and ordinary-looking men, women, and children. Barad said the ordinary Gazans vastly outnumbered the armed terrorists. He estimated that he saw at least a dozen children, who were between the ages of 10 and 15, and 30 women from Gaza. {snip]
“I can say with 100 percent certainty that [the women and kids] were not just innocent bystanders or looters. They were part of the massacre. They were part of the horrors that we endured that day.”
A mother describes hiding in her safe room with her children while a Gaza woman spent hours eating her food, serving meals to the Gazan men, and stealing the Israeli woman’s personal items, including her underwear.
Another survivor says he saw children between six and ten wearing Hamas military outfits, riding with a group of Hamas commandos. (my emphasis). Some of the boys were given rifles and told to kill the Israelis, which they did. The combatants’ young age would be surprising if one were not aware of how early military training begins in Gaza. In this video, we watch kindergartners execute a complex takeover of an Israeli outpost by killing a soldier. It is a graduation ceremony, and we see the whole family in proud attendance:
Tender-hearted people plead that these women and children are innocent. They are merely ‘brainwashed” and can be re-educated. Maybe. Perhaps some can.
But that argument makes the mistake of projecting one’s own values onto others, whose values may be substantially, and unchangeably, different. In this case, the decency and respect for human life that characterizes non-Muslims get projected onto a military/religious organization that values success at jihad more than anything else—more than one’s own life and certainly more than regard for an enemy’s life.
That sadistic contempt for Israeli life is displayed very ominously in a movie showing the October 7 atrocities that was watched by a vast audience of Gazan men in, of all places, the al Shifa hospital. The Gazans cheered wildly. So much for the notion that hospitals are only about saving lives:
The uproarious delight of the entertained jihadis should be chilling. Consequently, Israel and her supporters must think realistically about what to do with the Gazans—and their hideous ideology—once they win the war. [american thinker]
Madeline Brooks, M.A., is the former head of the New York chapter of ActforAmerica and is a conservative and counter-jihad writer. Her articles have been published in AmericanThinker.com, CanadaFreePress.com, FamilySecurityMatters.org, and elsewhere. Her book, What You Need To Know About Islamic Jihad: Information The Main Stream Media Is Not Giving You, is available on Scribd. She can be reached at ResistJihad@aol.com.
“I write about what could stop the bombing if they took responsibility for themselves, and I look at them through a family systems lens. They are like the very troubled child living off Daddy who wants to burn the house down. Let us not buy into their self pitying smokescreen.” MB
Madeline is a conservative and counter-jihad writer. She can be reached at resistjihad@aol.com
.The latest moral confusion about the Hamas/Gaza problem is whether or not to continue bombing. The plea is that civilians are innocent and must be spared. A mainstream TV broadcast showed a wide-eyed Gaza man saying, “I was as surprised as the Israelis by the October 7 attack. So why punish me with bombing?”
This is a message for you, Mr. Average Gazan, and any other Gazan like you. Here’s why Gaza is still being bombed.
First of all, it’s hard to know if you are telling the truth. The terrorists planning the attack acted for two years as if they were peaceful, all the while stockpiling weapons. Taqiyyah, or lying to your enemies, is endorsed in the Koran (3:28) and in other Muslim writings. An apparent peacemaker, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, who was responsible for the Gilad prisoner exchange, turned out to be totally treacherous. While fooling the leftist chump he bargained with, Hamad talked about negotiating peace. Now Hamad shows his true colors, vowing to repeat the October 7 massacre over and over until Israel is eliminated, as Caroline Glick points out.
Also, Mr. Ordinary Gazan, although you may not have known the exact date of the latest massacre, all Hamas has been screaming about is death to Israel from the start. So don’t play innocent.
Secondly, you have been receiving food, water, electricity, and medicine mostly from Israel, your so-called oppressor. Actually, Israel has been your daddy, and you have let yourself live like a ward of the state — a supremely ungrateful ward. When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, it left you orchards and sophisticated greenhouses, which produced income for the Jews who developed them and could have for you, too. But you tore them down out of spite. You also could have developed your beautiful beaches into profitable resorts. There was no Israeli “occupation” preventing your economic development, since Israel was not there. But Hamas was, and you apparently accepted Hamas’s dictatorial, one-party control.
Wake up to how your Islamist leaders have been taking international money that was meant for you and using it for their own luxurious living as well as for secret armaments. That is a big part of why you are poor.
Thirdly, Israel has offered peace to you on multiple occasions, but you preferred war, and a continuation of your hostile dependency. Looking at this mess from a family systems dynamic, you are the deeply troubled child refusing to help himself, relying totally on others to support him, and staying emotionally and financially crippled, taking pride not in accomplishments, but in destruction. Beyond that is your insane conviction that your host country must die, even as you bite the hand that feeds you. Apparently, neither you nor the world has noticed yet how untenable your demands are. You have successfully put up a smokescreen of self-pity and victim hood, which does nothing to help you getting well.
Playing the victim card right now, begging the world to make Israel stop the war, is a continuation of the smokescreen, giving Hamas more time to get strong and renew the attacks it has announced it will resume.
Fourthly, Gazans owe the world and especially Israelis an apology for all of the above. You must declare that you reject Hamas’s goal to kill all the Jews and take over Israel and the world. Tell the worldwide “hate Jews” movement yelling in support of you that it’s time for them to grow up, too. If you, Mr. Average Gazan, really want the bombing to stop, you must cooperate with Israel and help the Israelis find Hamas operatives and weapons caches, and whatever else will help the Israeli war effort.
In short, Gazans must take full responsibility for their support of Hamas and do all they can to disable it. Otherwise, Israel has no good reason to stop the bombing. You, Mr. Average Gazan, have been given the benefit of the doubt as an innocent victim. And you have shown you don’t deserve it.
Prove otherwise. Work now with Israel to halt the war and then develop a peaceful way of life. Or get bombed. The choice is yours.
Will this happen? Not very likely. But it is the moral path forward. Stating it can help you get clear on your need to take responsibility for yourself. It can also help the guilt-ridden international community make a decision to no longer let themselves be manipulated by your endless irrationalities.
My Flickr slideshow from October 13, 2023, in Times Squarefocuses on the obnoxiousInternational Day of Action for “palestine”.
The “palis’ and their Commie supporters ALWAYS put on a good show. Posters, marches, chants. The media loves them. BUT what is MISSING?
These are LIES. ALL lies.
Adding two addendums that compliment Madeline’s post:
Seventy-five years ago, my husband’s family was part of Egypt’s flourishing Jewish community. After Israel’s establishment in 1948, their community was destroyed. Egyptian Jews fled anti-Jewish persecution or were expelled.
But, speaking to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi recently denied this well-documented history. Instead, he audaciously claimed:
“I grew up in a neighborhood side-by-side with the Jews of Egypt. They were never subject to any form of persecution whatsoever. They were never targeted in any way whatsoever…. Maybe they were targeted in Europe, in Spain, in other countries, but in our Arab and Islamic region, nothing like this ever happened.”
While astonishing that Sisi, the leader of a U.S. ally, would spread ahistorical propaganda — many on the extreme political left promote similar lies.
The reason is simple: Middle Eastern and North African Jews do not fit a neat narrative about Israel’s supposed evil as a symbol of Western colonialism. The culpability of Jews and the “eternal innocence” of those who brutally resist the West by murdering civilians does not allow for Jewish victimhood when the perpetrators are not white or European.
But the history of Jewish life under hundreds of years of Islamic rule paints a different picture.
Jews under Islamic regimes were dhimmi, or a “protected people of the book” permitted to live in Muslim societies. They were however subject to regulations, such as paying the jizyah tax levied on non-Muslims, exclusion from certain professions, restricted habitation in ghettos, and often forced to wear distinctive clothing meant to demonstrate submission to Muslims.
Even with this “protected” status, Jews were under threat as a minority. Fanatics who rejected tolerant Islam often perpetrated anti-Jewish violence, including the slaughter and expulsion of Jewish tribes in the 7th century, the Almohades’ persecution in the 12th century, 17th-century forced conversion of Jews in Isfahan and manifold other expulsions, massacres and forced conversions — all of which are often erased in historical retellings like Sisi’s.
Modern history of anti-Jewish violence by fundamentalist Islamists is also denied or ignored. Before Israel was established, more than 800,000 Jews lived across the Middle East and North Africa. After Israel’ s establishment, hundreds of thousands of Jews left, fled or were expelled from Islamic-majority countries, threatened by rising Arab anti-Jewish sentiment and violence.
This persecution — ironically — resulted in todays’ Israeli Jewish population whose majority is made up of “Brown” Mizrahi Jews, indisputably indigenous to the region even for those with a penchant for denying ancient Jewish ties to Israel. With a few exceptions, their families’ former countries have largely become Jew-free. Today, as a Jew, I cannot safely visit most of the countries that generations of my extended family once called home.
But why is anti-Jewish violence and antisemitism in both pre-modern and modern Middle East and North Africa denied or ignored?
The reason is simple. Erasing Middle Eastern Jewish history and historical oppression of Jews sets up a bedrock of falsehoods to support the justification for terror: The decolonization argument, the belief that Hamas’ terror serves as legitimate resistance to a colonizing power.
Proponents of this false theory argue that Zionism grew directly from Western colonialism. Jews who settled Israel are seen as white European colonizers who carry the West’s moral stains and re-victimize its Muslim innocents. The Holocaust, typically understood as a key event in the legitimization of Zionism, is construed as yet another crime of European colonialism that indirectly led to the persecution of Palestinians.
Seeing this conflict as merely a question of colonialism is based on historical lies and allows for grotesque moral conclusions.
First, any violence against Israelis is legitimized and becomes the fault of the colonizers — either Europeans or Jews themselves — but never fundamentalist Islamists who perpetrate them.
Second, Jews cease to be innocent civilians. Whether adults or babies, whether they support a two-state solution or not, whether Israelis or Jews living in countries outside of Israel, they are legitimate targets for “freedom fighters” engaged in a prolonged anti-colonial struggle.
This false narrative assumes that Israelis should be viewed strictly as colonizers and Palestinians strictly as their resisters. It assumes that fundamentalist Islamists bear no responsibility for their actions. It ignores anti-Jewish violence by Islamists around the world. It denies agency to the very people whom it claims to speak for — Palestinians. It assumes that if only Israel were to dismantle itself, Jews would live peacefully again in the Middle East.
The events of Oct. 7 — and their aftermath — show the utter folly of that idea.
The NYPD , under Mayor Eric Adams, allowed both sides to co-mingle outside the main Public Library on Fifth Avenue and the pro-Gazans were not pleased (saw many grumbling). 
On December 1, the Palis used barricades that were shoved between the NYPD and Pro-Palestine Protesters outside of John Jay College on West 59th Street, as they protested the event inside featuring Stav Cohen, an Israeli IDF reservist listed as the evening’s speaker.
The flower table memorializing this tragic, misguided young man
They never rest from the agitprop that genocide is and has been against GAZA.
Prove otherwise. Work now with Israel to halt the war and then develop a peaceful way of life. Or get bombed. The choice is yours.