Broadway stars raise awareness of Hamas hostages with new rendition of ‘Bring Him Home’ from ‘Les Miserables’
‘Bring Them Home: A Broadway Prayer’ released with music video to raise awareness of the roughly 240 people held prisoner in the Gaza Strip after being abducted by Hamas on October 7th.
By Shiryn Ghermazian, The Algemeiner
Broadway performers have recorded a rendition of the song Bring Him Home from the famed musical Les Miserables to draw attention to the more than 240 people abducted and taken hostage by Hamas terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7.
Billy Porter, Jeremy Jordan, Annaleigh Ashford, Tovah Feldshuh, Debra Messing, and many others contributed to Bring Them Home: A Broadway Prayer. The track was recorded in honor of the hostages “to send our love to their families and our prayers for their safe return,” according to an introduction for the song’s music video, which was released on Wednesday.
The clip features all the singers recording the song, sometimes alone and sometimes together, while the bottom of the video features the names and ages of the captives held by Hamas.
A young boy sings the track’s final lyrics before the screen turns to show pictures of all the hostages.
The music video for Bring Them Home: A Broadway Prayer premiered on Wednesday night at a private screening in Los Angeles for the film Bearing Witness to the October 7 Massacre, which is a compilation of raw videos from the Oct. 7 terrorists attacks in Israel captured mostly by the body cameras and cellphones of Hamas terrorists but also of the Israel Defense Forces.
Bring Him Home is an emotional ballad sung in the first act of Les Miserables by Jean Valjean, the storyline’s protagonist, who prays for the safe return of Marius to Cosette, his adopted daughter, when Marius goes to fight with revolutionaries in France.
Source: World Israel News
Netanyahu Gives Broad Interview About The Israel-Hamas War On Fox News
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave a wide-ranging interview to Fox News on Thursday that touched upon various aspects of the IDF’s all-out war on Hamas, as well as peripheral issues and concerns that have arisen from the conflict.
Netanyahu told the network that Israel does not want to displace Gazans, and explained why civilians are being told to evacuate.“We don’t seek to displace anyone,” Netanyahu said. “What we’re trying to do is get the Gazans in the northern part of the Gaza Strip where the fighting has taken place to move one to four miles south where we have established a safe zone,” the prime minister continues. “We want to see field hospitals. We’re encouraging and enabling humanitarian help to go there. That’s how we’re fighting this war.”
He also gave details on what Israel envisions for Gaza once the Hamas terrorists are fully toppled from power.
“What we have to see is Gaza demilitarized, deradicalized and rebuilt. All of that can be achieved,” he said. “We don’t seek to conquer Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy Gaza. And we don’t seek to govern Gaza… We’ll have to find a civilian government that will be there.”
He added that “In the foreseeable future… We have to have a credible force that if necessary, will enter Gaza and kill the killers. That’s what will prevent the emergence of another Hamas-like entity.”
He also said there are no considerations for Israel to enter a ceasefire with Hamas, as doing so would be tantamount to declaring surrender.
“A cease-fire with Hamas means surrender to Hamas, surrender to terror and the victory of the Iran’s axis of terror, so there won’t be a cease-fire without the release of Israeli hostages,” Netanyahu said.
“[The army] is fighting the terrorists both above ground and below ground,” Netanyahu told host Bret Baier, pushing back against claims the IDF is indiscriminately attacking Gaza. “We’re doing everything in our power to reduce civilian casualties: We’ve managed safe zones and safe corridors so civilians can hear our call to leave, even though Hamas is trying to keep them in.”
“Not only do they murder and mutilate, rape and murder women burn children alive, take hostages of toddlers, babies, elderly, Holocaust survivors, the worst savagery perpetrated on the Jewish people since the Holocaust … Not only do they do that, but they actually target their own civilians,” Netanyahu said. “That is, they want to keep their civilians as a human shield.”
He also discussed the sickening statement of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who has been vociferously pro-Hamas, even adopting their genocidal call of, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – for which she was censured by the House of Representatives this week.
“From the river to the sea means there’s no Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean,” Netanyahu tells Fox News.
“What this congresswoman is calling for is… genocide, the elimination of the one and only state of the Jewish people. That’s absurd, and I salute the Congress for censuring her,” Netanyahu said.
Regarding the pro-Hamas protestors in the U.S. and across the world, Bibi said, “They’re lining up with ISIS, with Al-Qaeda, with these murderers, with these baby burners, with these rapists, with these mutilators, with these head choppers — This is what they’re aligning themselves with.”
“Can our world survive if people with such moral depravity go and support these murderers?” Netanyahu asked. “This is an indictment of higher education in many places in the West where people who are supposedly educated cannot distinguish right from wrong and good from evil. Hamas is evil and we have to defeat evil, not protest and demonstrate on behalf of evil.”
Source: (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Jewish Groups Plan Massive ‘March for Israel’ on National Mall on November 14
This Tuesday, November 14, a “March for Israel” will be held on the National Mall in Washington, DC, where American Jews and Israel supporters will unite to express solidarity with Israel in its battle against terrorism and confront the escalating antisemitism within the United States.
This massive rally is being orchestrated by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, attracting participants from across the nation, with numerous local communities organizing buses for the event.
A number of yeshivos will be participating as well, as seen in the letter, for example, from Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim above.
Eric Fingerhut, CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, outlined three primary objectives for the participants in the March for Israel. Firstly, they will be advocating for the release of the approximately 240 hostages abducted by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attack on Israel. Secondly, the rally will emphasize the urgent need to combat the surge in antisemitism globally, spurred by the recent events. Lastly, participants will demonstrate their unwavering support for Israel, acknowledging the bipartisan backing received from both Congress and the Biden administration.
Similar solidarity marches occurred in pivotal moments of history, notably in 2002, supporting Israel during the second intifada, and in 1987, backing Soviet Jews in their quest to leave the USSR for Israel, the U.S., and other destinations.
The March for Israel is scheduled on the National Mall from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, with gates anticipated to open at 10:00 a.m. Potential counter-demonstrations remain uncertain.
Source: {Matzav.com}
Israel Annihilates Nukhba Force Commandos Responsible for Simchas Torah Attacks
By Yoni Weiss
In a series of raids, Israeli forces successfully eliminated several Hamas commandos involved in the Oct. 7 massacres, as announced by the IDF on Friday morning.
Among the notable figures was Ahmed Musa, a Nukhba company commander, and Amr Alhandi, a Nukhba platoon commander, both located in the Jabaliya area. Mohammed Kahlout, leading what the IDF referred to as a “sniper array,” was also among those killed.
Musa, who commanded the assault on the IDF’s Zikim base, was actively involved in attacks on Israeli forces in the western part of Jabaliya, according to the IDF statement.
Furthermore, the IDF reported the destruction of a rocket launcher concealed in a shipping container discovered on a Gaza beach, along with another launcher located near residential buildings in Gaza’s Sheikh Ijlin neighborhood.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, speaking on Thursday night, revealed that new methods are being employed to target Hamas terrorists in attack tunnels and to eliminate subterranean passageways.
Gallant stated, “This effort will persist and see enhancements in the coming days. Our forces are dedicated to finding unique solutions for these missions, and they are achieving success. I emphasize: We will pursue every individual who has acted against the citizens of Israel — those who have kidnapped and harmed women and children. We will apprehend them all, whether it takes a week, a month, a year, and if necessary, even longer. No one will be exempt. We will eradicate all of them; there is no place for terrorists under the sun.”
Source: Hamodia
Israeli Officials Angered That Press May Have Had Advance Knowledge of Hamas Massacre Plans
Jerusalem, 9 November, 2023 (TPS) — Israeli officials reacted with anger to a report suggesting that photographers associated with international news services may have had advance knowledge of Hamas’s plan to attack Israeli communities on Oct. 7.
They were reacting to a report by HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog, which identified six freelance photographers from Gaza who were present during the attacks, and whose work the Associated Press and Reuters are selling to other publications. The report was published on Wednesday.
The National Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement on Thursday saying it “views with utmost gravity that photojournalists working with international media joined in covering the brutal acts of murder perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Saturday October 7th in the communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip.”
The statement added, “These journalists were accomplices in crimes against humanity; their actions were contrary to professional ethics,” and demanded that action be taken against the photographers.
Meanwhile, the Government Press Office sent an urgent letter to the bureau chiefs of the media organizations that employed these photographers and sought clarifications on the matter.
Minister without portfolio Benny Gantz also condemned the photographers, posting on X, formerly Twitter, “If there were journalists who knew about the massacre, who remained silent and took pictures while children were being massacred – they are no different from the terrorists and their punishment is sharp.”
In a follow-up tweet, Gantz wrote, “Journalists found to have known about the massacre, and still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered – are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such.”
HonestReporting identified the photographers as Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, Hatem Ali, Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih.
“What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets,” HonestReporting asked.
HonestReporting also obtained screenshots of Eslaiah’s now-removed tweets on X in which he documented himself standing in front of an Israeli tank. He did not wear a press vest or a helmet, and the Arabic caption of his tweet read: “Live from inside the Gaza Strip settlements.”
After the report was published, a video published on Eslaiah’s Facebook account was found in which he is riding on a motorcycle while holding a grenade. A separate photo surfaced of Eslaiah with Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar.
Eslaiah’s photos from Oct. 7 were used by the Associated Press and CNN.
The Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, reported that CNN suspended its ties with Eslaiah.
Chilling survivor testimony: Hamas terrorists used mass rape as weapon of war
Police collect 700 testimonies from survivors of October 7 massacre, 50,000 videos from attack in biggest investigation in Israeli history.
The Hamas terrorists who massacred over 1,400 Israelis and took over 140 people hostage on October 7 committed mass rape against their victims during the massacre, according to survivor testimony and interrogation of captured terrorists gathered by the Israel Police’s special Lahav 433 unit.
According to the evidence, which was cleared for publication today (Wednesday), dozens of cases of sexual assault and sexual crimes by Hamas terrorists have been documented.
One massacre survivor testified that she saw another woman being raped in front of her. “I knew that he raped her, then they transferred her to someone else. She was alive until, in the end, he shot her,” said the survivor.
Multiple terrorists revealed during their interrogations that they had received permission and instruction to kill Jewish children because the children would become IDF soldiers when they grow up, as well as to abuse the corpses of their victims in order to sow fear in Israeli society.
So far, more than 700 testimonies have been collected from survivors of the massacre. Police officials said that “this is the largest investigation case since the founding of the state.”
Lahav 433 has been gathering evidence against the Hamas terrorists in order to prosecute them for the crimes committed on October 7.
The police have more than 50,000 videos from the terrorist attack and are using facial recognition software to identify which terrorists committed which specific crimes. The police also have hundreds of cell phones which belonged to terrorists from Gaza.
Source: Arutz 7
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l – Abraham: A Life of Faith CHAYEI SARAH • 5771, 5784
Abraham, the Sages were convinced, was a greater religious hero than Noah. We hear this in the famous dispute among the Sages about the phrase that Noah was “perfect in his generations,” meaning relative to his generations:
“In his generations” – Some of our Sages interpret this favourably: if he had lived in a generation of righteous people, he would have been even more righteous. Others interpret it derogatorily: In comparison with his generation he was righteous, but if he had lived in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance.
Some thought that if Noah had lived in the time of Abraham he would have been inspired by his example to yet greater heights; others that he would have stayed the same, and thus been insignificant when compared to Abraham. But neither side doubted that Abraham was the greater.
Similarly, the Sages contrasted the phrase, “Noah walked with God,” with the fact that Abraham walked before God.
“Noah walked with God” – But concerning Abraham, Scripture says in Genesis 24:40: “[The Lord] before Whom I walked.” Noah required [God’s] support to uphold him [in righteousness], but Abraham strengthened himself and walked in his righteousness by himself.
Rashi to Genesis 6:9
Yet what evidence do we have in the text itself that Abraham was greater than Noah? To be sure, Abraham argued with God in protest against the destruction of the cities of the plain, while Noah merely accepted God’s verdict about the Flood. Yet God invited Abraham’s protest. Immediately beforehand the text says:
Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him.’
This is an almost explicit invitation to challenge the verdict. God delivered no such summons to Noah. So Noah’s failure to protest should not be held against him.
If anything, the Torah seems to speak more highly of Noah than of Abraham. We are told:
Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord.
Twice Noah is described as a righteous man, a tzaddik:
1) Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God (Genesis 6:9).
2) The Lord then said to Noah, ‘Go into the Ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation’ (Genesis 7:1).
No one else in the whole of Tanach is called righteous. How then was Abraham greater than Noah?
One answer, and a profound one, is suggested in the way the two men responded to tragedy and grief. After the Flood, we read this about Noah:
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank some of the wine, making himself drunk, and uncovered himself in the tent.
This is an extraordinary decline. The “righteous man” has become a “man of the soil.” The man who was looked to “bring us comfort” (Genesis 5:29) now seeks comfort in wine. What has happened?
The answer, surely, is that Noah was indeed a righteous man, but one who had seen a world destroyed. We gain the impression of a man paralysed with grief, seeking oblivion. Like Lot’s wife who turned back to look on the destruction, Noah finds he cannot carry on. He is desolated, grief-stricken. His heart is broken. The weight of the past prevents him from turning toward the future.
Now think of Abraham at the beginning of this week’s parsha. He had just been through the greatest trial of his life. He had been asked by God to sacrifice the son he had waited for for so many years. He was about to lose the most precious thing in his whole life. It’s hard to imagine his state of mind as the trial unfolded.
Then just as he was about to lift the knife the call came from Heaven saying ‘Stop’, and the story seemed to have a happy ending after all. But there was a terrible twist in store. Just as Abraham was returning, relieved his son’s life spared, he discovers that the trial had a victim after all. Immediately after it, at the beginning of this week’s parsha, we read of the death of Sarah. And the Sages suggested that the two events were simultaneous. As Rashi explains: “The account of Sarah’s demise was juxtaposed to the Binding of Isaac because as a result of the news of the ‘Binding,’ that her son was prepared for slaughter, and was almost slaughtered, her soul flew out of her, and she died.” We’d say today she had a heart attack from the news.
Now try and put yourself in the situation of Abraham. He has almost sacrificed his child and now as an indirect result of the trial itself, the news has killed his wife of many years, the woman who stayed with him through all his travels and travails, who twice saved his life, who in joy gave birth to Isaac in her old age. Had Abraham grieved for the rest of his days, we would surely have understood, just as we understand Noah’s grief. Instead we read the following:
And Sarah died in Kiryat Arba, that is Hebron in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her, and Abraham rose up from before his dead.
Abraham mourns and weeps, and then rises up and does two things to secure the Jewish future, two acts whose effects we feel to this day. He buys the first plot in the Land of Israel, a field in the Cave of Machpelah. And then he secures a wife for his son Isaac, so that there will be Jewish grandchildren, Jewish continuity. Noah grieves and is overwhelmed by his loss. Abraham grieves knowing what he has lost. But then he rises up and builds the Jewish future. There is a limit to grief. This is what Abraham knows and Noah does not.
Abraham bestowed this singular gift on his descendants. The Jewish people suffered tragedies that would have devastated other nations beyond any hope of recovery. The destruction of the first Temple and the Babylonian exile. The destruction of the second Temple and the end of Jewish sovereignty. The expulsions, massacres, forced conversions and inquisitions of the Middle Ages, the pogroms of the 17th and 19th centuries, and finally the Shoah. Yet somehow the Jewish people mourned and wept, and then rose up and built the future. This is their unique strength and it came from Abraham, as we see in this week’s parsha.
Kierkegaard wrote a profound sentence in his journals:
It requires moral courage to grieve, it requires religious courage to rejoice.
Perhaps that’s the difference between Noah the Righteous, and Abraham the Man of Faith. Noah grieved, but Abraham knew that there must eventually be an end to grief. We must turn from yesterday’s loss to the call of a tomorrow we must help to be born.
American cowboys to the rescue of Israeli farmers
Christian Zionist group from Montana flies to Israel to work in the fields of Judea and Samaria, ‘to help the Jewish people any way we can.’
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
A group of Montana cowboys came to Israel Monday to help farmers who need to get their crops harvested but have no workers as their foreign hands have fled the country and the Jewish employees have been called to reserve duty.
John Plocher and Ezekiel ‘Zeke’ Strain, wearing the typical cowboy headgear, represented their colleagues in an interview Tuesday with Israel’s Channel 14, and discussed what they’re doing and why they came.
“We love the Jewish people and we support ‘em,” said Plocher.
Their group was actually scheduled to come for a visit in about a month, he noted, but moved up the trip when Israel declared war on Hamas after its terrorist forces invaded Israel October 7 and massacred 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, including babies and the elderly.
“When Hamas attacked, we got a call saying that [the farmers] needed help bad, so we ended up coming … early,” he explained. “We’re just here to help the Jewish people any way we can.”
They are currently working “in Judea and Samaria,” Plocher said, working with the HaYovel organization.
According to its website, HaYovel is a faith-based group that sends volunteers to Israel specifically to help plant trees, harvest grapes and tour the country. Its goal is “to serve the land and people, enabling them to connect to the land of their faith, restore Christian Jewish relations, and confirm Israel’s right to their ancestral homeland.”
The pair have done this before, they said, as it is Plocher’s third visit and Strain’s fourth to Israel.
Their first mission, however, was not agriculturally oriented.
“We’re out here delivering supplies to the communities, things like bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles, flashlights, and all sorts of stuff like that,” Plocher said.
They are now helping the farmers in the region with “miscellaneous tasks,” since “all the young men are off to war…and there’s a huge need for labor here. We’re picking up wherever we can,” he said.
When asked how people there are reacting to the arrival of “the cowboys from America,” Plocher answered that the news of their coming has gone viral “for who knows what reason,” he shrugged, “and everyone who sees us stopping on the road wants a photograph or to know why we’re here. It’s kind of interesting,” he said with a small laugh.
“But everyone, you guys are welcoming us with love, it’s very humbling.”
The interviewer herself expressed gratitude to the two men, saying, “We’re so grateful for you coming here and supporting Israel, thank you so much.”
Farmers all over the country are begging for help in harvesting fruits and vegetables of all kinds, from tomatoes to strawberries to zucchini and more.
Many say they will pay for the labor, and Israelis are trying to answer the call.
High schools have brought full classes to the fields, ad-hoc adult groups go from cities around the country for a day, and even some ultra-Orthodox men have been sent out of their halls of learning by their religious leaders to lend a hand.
Source: World Israel News
Arab-Israeli Fights Hamas Campus Incitement: ‘500 Pictures Of Captives Torn Down Next Day’
NEW YORK (VINnews) — Sofia Khalifa Shremko is not a political person, but when she encountered incitement, hatred of Jews and justifications for the October 7 massacre, she realized that she could no longer remain silent. “As a Muslim Arab who grew up in a Jewish community in Israel, I feel that I belong to both sides and believe that all opinions must be respected,” she said in an interview with Israeli news site Walla!
Yet Shremko, the daughter of Hussein Al-Heib, a Bedouin IDF tracker who rose to the rank of colonel, is finding it more and more difficult to maintain her position. Attempts to persuade her former alma mater, Stanford University, to condemn the Hamas attack on Israel have not succeeded so far. Instead, Shremko has been subjected to explicit threats and threats from Hamas supporters on campus. A false rumor was even circulated among the students that she worked for the Israeli government, which she categorically denies.
“It’s not just Arabs,” she says, “in the Palestine Liberation protest tent they erected on campus, I recognized a terrible phenomenon, that about a third of the people sitting there are Jews who are being brainwashed by BDS. They know how to disguise this with the absurd claim of ‘we are not anti-Semites, only anti-Zionists.’ They are very sophisticated, know how to excuse and disguise everything, and so in a meeting with the rector of the university she told us that we received only two complaints from Jews and actually a lot of comments about Islamophobia. So now we are responsible for it? I went to check the grounds, walked around a lot. I couldn’t find one anti-Muslim sign.”
Shremko says that the university refuses to allow signs against Israel to be taken down due to “freedom of speech.” However when she and her friends put up 500 pictures of the captives in Gaza, “The next morning they were all torn down.”
The university doesn’t even show a pretence of equality. On October 8th there were already signs calling for “the destruction of Israel.” On October 9th the main newspaper in Stanford described the Hamas atrocities as “legitimate opposition”, instead charging Israel with war crimes due to its bombing the “Palestine building” housing the media. The university’s med school held a session on “Medical apartheid” which hailed Hamas’s attack as ‘the first time they left jail in the last 13 years.”
In an interview with FOX, Shremko spoke out against Stanford, explicitly demanding that the university condemn the murderous incident and rising anti-Semitism on campus. “This is a leading university and it has an obligation to set an example,” she said on air.
In an open letter to her classmates, Shremko described the extent of the horrors of the October 7 massacre and explained to her colleagues that “Hamas is not a resistance movement of freedom fighters for the oppressed people of Gaza. Hamas is also not the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is an extremist, misogynistic terrorist organization whose goal is to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.” To pro-Palestinians among them, she clarified that “condemning Hamas does not mean that you are against the idea of Palestine. Condemning Hamas does not mean that you do not care about the lives of Palestinian civilians. Condemning Hamas means that you are against using hundreds of partygoers as a short-term target.”
“Hamas harmed civilians mercilessly and deliberately. They also killed and kidnapped Americans, Thais, Italians, French, Germans and others,” she added, “They killed paramedics in ambulances and shot doctors on their way to hospitals. Some of you have seen the photos and videos. Hamas posted them, sometimes live, on the Facebook pages of their victims. They want you to see them. They want you to know who they are.”
For those who, after all this, remain concerned about the price that non-involved civilians of Gaza will pay, she added: “Israel is committed to defending its people and bringing all abducted civilians home, while minimizing the losses of Palestinian civilians, just as you would expect any democratic state to do.”
After she published the statements, the invitations to come and give a speech on the subject were not long in coming, as were the threats. “I was attacked by seven Hamas supporters outside one of the events where I spoke pro-Israel, and they invented conspiracy theories about me that the government pays me. It bothers them a lot that I’m talking. I confronted them, but it was scary,” she says. “After this incident, friends of a friend, special forces, volunteered to look after me, to secure me and my message, that’s how they define it.”
At a rally in San Jose two weeks ago, she called on those present to “liberate Palestine from Hamas,” which she called “our common enemy.” She appeared on a panel at a local school where she defended Israel against allegations of apartheid. “People don’t know but dozens of Palestinians would come on a daily basis to hospitals in Israel and receive the best possible treatment,” she said. The 17-year-old niece of senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh was hospitalized not long ago for life-saving treatment in a Tel Aviv hospital.”
Shremko’s life story is remarkable, not the least because she has suffered from multiple sclerosis since the age of 19. “I was born into a family of Bedouin, nomads, only 3% of whom graduated from high school, my mother is illiterate. But thanks to the Compulsory Education Law, I studied and thanks to the State of Israel they didn’t murder me, despite threats from relatives when I became the first Bedouin fashion model. If it weren’t for Israel, I would probably be a shepherd in the Galilee, but thanks to Israel I completed a bachelor’s degree in engineering, I have an MBA from Stanford and mostly I have the right to live my life the way I want. I grew up in Israel, my mother raised nine children on Israeli money, we grew up on the value of loving the country and I received all the support from the state in Israel and I personally got everything I could get and I know how to say.”
Sofia grew up in Nahariya, and was the first Muslim to be accepted into the IDF’s academic reserve in the field of research and development, this only after the intervention of the chief of staff. She worked at Intel and Google, and now she is a product manager at Amazon. She is married (to an engineer, a Jew) and a mother of two.
“On Black Saturday I saw what was happening on TV and I started getting calls in Israel and I was shocked,” she said. On Monday I wake up and in the Stanford newspaper I read that what Hamas has done is legitimate and that Israel is committing war crimes. We Israelis, Jews and Arabs, have gone crazy about it, how is it possible? The day after the massacre, signs were hung on campus saying ‘Israel is an illusion.’ A Jewish student took it down and the university persecuted him. So it’s clear that all this anti-Semitism was here even before Israel fired a single missile and it got worse, there are signs that read ‘From the river to the sea – Palestine is free,’ there are calls for an intifada, and in Arabic, ‘Israel is dead’ and ‘On this land you don’t deserve life,’ calls about genocide, and of course ‘With blood and spirit we will redeem Palestine.’ They started hanging all kinds of signs on the doors of Jewish students in the dormitories and one of the young Jewish students, they literally targeted her on the nets, targeted her as a ‘Zionist’, she took it very hard, felt threatened, scared, left school and fled to San Francisco.
“I really fear for the lives of Jewish students on campus. The blood is bubbling, it is enough for one person to be depressed and the consequences can be tragic. We must also remember that the Arabs we meet abroad hate the Arabs in Israel, the ones they call the Arabs of ’48. They call us collaborators and traitors. I don’t need the FBI to tell Stanford there’s no threat.”
“Behind this anti-Semitism there are very organized bodies, very funded, with a lot of money and people who come from outside the university and simply brainwash with material that seems very authentic and authoritative. That way they can hold a screening of the atrocities as they already did at Stanford Medical School, and claim that all those murdered at a bad guys party are bullets fired by the Israeli police. I was told people applauded it. As I understand it, they pay students to participate. So we asked the school to issue a condemnation of the remarks, and they refrained from doing so. We looked left and right, asked what we had, for the good of the State of Israel, and realized that there was nothing. We were a few students, we started spreading what was happening here, more and more people started joining, including alumni who donate a lot of money to Stanford.”
Source: VosIzNeias