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Slain IDF officer saves lives of five with organ donation

by admin October 15, 2023

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Lt. Roi Nahari was killed in action in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 9.

(JNS)

The family of a 23-year-old IDF officer killed in the surprise Hamas assault has donated his organs to five patients at an Israeli hospital.

Lt. Roi Nahari’s family saved Olga Paikin, a 44-year-old mother of five who suffered from hepatitis, a serious liver disease, for the last 30 years, a 72-year-old man who received Roi’s lungs, and three others.

“When they told me a donation was available, I was very excited, and when I found out the donation was from an officer who had just been killed in the war in the south I was moved to my core,” Paikin said in a statement.

“His family has saved my life, and done so during the darkest days of their lives. There are no adequate words to say how thankful I am to them and Lt. Nahari.”

Nahari, from Moshav Ora near Jerusalem, served in the Paratroopers Brigade. He was killed in action in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Oct. 9.

Dr. Eviatar Nesher, director of the Department of Organ Transplantation at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah, said, “Our hearts break for the Nahari family who suffered an unimaginable loss and yet during their darkest hour, they thought about how Roi could continue to help others by donating his organs so that these individuals can have a renewed gift of life.”

Image: Olga Paikin, a 44-year-old mother of five, received the liver of Lt. Roi Nahari. Courtesy of Beilinson Hospital.

October 15, 2023 0 comments

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At diplomatic event in New York, rare consensus of support for Israel

by admin October 13, 2023

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“‘Never Again,’ my friends, is now,” said Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Mike Wagenheim

(JNS)

Defending the Jewish state at the United Nations is like being in a lion’s den, as former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon and others have said. On Wednesday, biblical Isaiah references replaced those of Daniel, however, as wolves and lambs interacted peacefully.

The envoys of some 60 countries squeezed into an American Jewish Committee conference room in Manhattan to show solidarity with the Jewish state. It was a rare demonstration of broad support for Israel from U.N. ambassadors and New York consuls general, which came five days after Hamas attacked Israel in a murderous spree, killing 1,300 people—the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, as the Israeli and U.S. presidents have said.

“Israel is at the forefront of the war on radical jihadist terror, and if Israel does not succeed in eradicating Hamas’s terror capabilities, the whole world will pay the price,” Israeli ambassador to the United Nations

The terrorist organization’s genocidal ideology “is not just about destroying Israel,” he added. “It is ultimately about bringing the jihad war to each and every one of your countries. They will not stop until they murder all of what they call ‘infidels.’”

‘Good against evil’

Attendees spanned the diplomatic spectrum, from Barbara Woodward, the British Ambassador to the United Nations and member of the U.N. Security Council, to Agnes Mary Chimbiri-Molande, Malawi’s U.N. ambassador. (Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.)

The combination of the sheer magnitude of Hamas’s atrocities and the strong showing of support for Israel in a recent address to the nation by U.S. President Joe Biden “inspired many other countries” to attend the AJC gathering, Erdan told JNS.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan speaks at a solidarity rally for Israel at the American Jewish Committee’s office in New York on Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Courtesy of AJC.

The challenge at this point, he said, is to maintain their support.

Israel has begun a massive campaign to eliminate Hamas in the densely-populated Gaza Strip, where Hamas is known to use human shields. Israel’s efforts to defend itself will necessarily come with high levels of civilian deaths in Gaza, which could swing international opinion in the other direction.

“This is the test for them: whether they stand with Israel, with good against evil, with a law-abiding, democratic state, fighting against a genocidal terrorist organization, or they again play with empty words, calls for calm and restraint from both sides, talking about a circle of violence that does not exist,” Erdan told JNS. “Let’s wait and see.”

A key part of Erdan’s address on Wednesday was pointing out Hamas’s broad support in Gaza, as well as among Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, countering the widely accepted notions that civilians live helplessly under the thumb of a dictatorship.

“It was easy for many diplomats to lie to themselves because it’s very hard to address such a challenge. You have 2 million people that voted for a genocidal terrorist organization,” Erdan told JNS.

The Israeli diplomat cited Hamas’s election as Gaza’s controlling entity, and repeatedly canceled Palestinian Authority elections, for fear Hamas would win there, too.

“We have an immediate challenge to obliterate Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and ensure that they can never commit these atrocities again,” Erdan said. “Then we will have another challenge because the ideology still exists within the Palestinian society. And this will have to be changed.

At Israel’s side

Throughout the event, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appeared firmly planted on Israel’s side. The U.S. envoy spoke passionately about the “unadulterated evil carried out by Hamas, a terrorist group whose stated purpose is to destroy Israel and kill Jews.”

Comparing the sheer number of Hamas murders to those carried out by Islamic State and others, Thomas-Greenfield said the raw figures, “shocking as they are, do not do justice to the depths of horrors, the depravity of the violence.”

“They do not do justice to the victims and their loved ones,” she said. “Human lives are not just numbers.” (Per official counts, more than 1,300 Israelis have been killed since Saturday; that number is proportionate to nearly 45,000 Americans.)

Thomas-Greenfield stressed the importance, in coming days, of telling the stories of those who were “executed, who were raped, who were kidnapped. Entire families, children, babies, Holocaust survivors, grandparents in wheelchairs.”

In a “test of our common humanity,” do not draw false equivalencies and issue weak condemnations, Thomas-Greenfield implored diplomatic colleagues.

The U.S. envoy recalled her visit to the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. “‘Never Again,’ my friends, is now,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield told colleagues it was important to “shun evil and do good.”

She added: “May we seek peace. Am Yisrael chai,” the “Nation of Israel lives.”

Ted Deutch Linda Thomas-Greenfield — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, at a solidarity rally for Israel at AJC’s office in New York City on Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Courtesy of the AJC.

‘The time to be very resilient’

Ted Deutch, CEO of AJC and a former U.S. congressman, told diplomats at the event that the United Nations must “stand on the side of decency and humanity.”

“It does not go unnoticed that at a time like this, all of you, recognizing your own histories, all of the times that you looked to the world for support, acknowledge the importance of being here now,” as Israel “stands up to evil on behalf of the world,” he said.

Prior to the event, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS that his country understands Israel’s pain.

“It is the time to be very resilient and be ready for a very difficult fight, and nobody knows how long it may take,” Kyslytsya said. “But I think that the Ukrainian people, and the people of Israel even more so, have shown for many years—and the Israelis for decades, if not centuries—how strong they are. I’m sure that terrorists will be held to account. That’s the only way to deal with them.”

Asked if he feared, as some diplomats have cautioned, that Israel’s defense against Hamas will overshadow Ukraine’s war with Russia, Kyslytsya demurred.

“We should look at this case and the case of Ukraine as the need to fight terrorism, and that will unite us,” he said. “The war of Putin on Ukraine is a war of terrorism, and what you’re experiencing right now is a war of terrorism.”

As the Ukrainian diplomat was leaving the event, Kyslytsya told JNS: “You could take Ambassador Erdan’s speech, replace Israel with Ukraine and Russia with Hamas, and you would know we both understand what we are all going through.”

Featured Image: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, at a solidarity rally for Israel at AJC’s office in New York City on Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Courtesy of the AJC.

October 13, 2023 0 comments

Terrorism

UK Muslim groups, scholars, activists deny Palestinian terror

by admin October 13, 2023

written by admin

The group also called for Palestinian prisoners to be released immediately and the “apartheid state” dismantled completely.

(JNS)

Forty-five British Muslim organizations, scholars and activists voiced unequivocal support for “the Palestinian right to self-defense and resistance against Israel’s illegal occupation and brutal violence.”

The statement came just days after Hamas murdered more than 1,300 Israelis in a surprise incursion over the border on Oct. 7. Many others were injured, and many remain hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The UK advocacy group Cage, which was criticized in 2013 over antisemitic materials on its site, including the suggestion that a Jew had planned to destroy the World Trade Center in Manhattan, published the letter from the 45 organizations. In 2015, the research director of the group, who also co-signed this week’s letter, called the ISIS terrorist known as Jihadi John as a “beautiful young man.”

The new statement calls for “the rejection of the term ‘terrorism’ when describing acts of Palestinian resistance and an end to the criminalization of acts of solidarity with Palestine by the UK government.”

It also calls for Palestinian prisoners to be released immediately and the “apartheid state” dismantled completely.

October 13, 2023 0 comments

Terrorism

Hamas calls for worldwide ‘mobilization’ against Israel

by admin October 12, 2023

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“It is an unambiguous global call to arms,” said Robert Greenway, of the Heritage Foundation. “It will be heeded. There will be blood.”

David Swindle

(JNS)

An official statement from the Hamas terrorist organization and comments from a former Hamas leader—both calling for global mobilization against Israel this Friday, Oct. 13—are raising alarm at Jewish organizations and among those who monitor the Middle East.

“The real threat here is that there is no way of knowing who, if anyone, will take up the call or if there are pre-planned actions already staged elsewhere in the world just waiting for the greenlight,” according to James Carafano, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and senior counselor to its president.

Carafano cited the Biden administration’s “open door” immigration policies and said that the U.S. president has “thrown virtually every post 9/11 caution to the wind.”

“Given that preparations and attention for dealing with global terrorism in the West have lapsed in recent years, who knows if anyone has been paying attention to this threat?” Carafano told JNS.

On Oct. 10, Hamas called for an “Al-Aqsa Flood Friday” on Oct. 13, according to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute. In the statement, the terror organization sought reinforcements from “our Palestinian people, the masses of the Arab and Islamic world, and free people worldwide” in its “declaration of mobilization.”

Also on Oct. 10, the Qatar-based Khaled Mashal, who led Hamas from 2014-2017, called for Muslims to “take to the streets” on Friday in a global protest against Israel. “To all scholars who teach jihad,” he said, “to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application [of jihad].”

“It is an unambiguous global call to arms,” Robert Greenway, director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal. “It will be heeded. There will be blood.”

Melissa Lantsman, the deputy Canadian opposition leader, stated that the “dangerous and hateful rhetoric from Hamas terrorists inciting violence this Friday around the world must be taken seriously.”

“They have already inspired large protests in support of their evil acts. All levels of government must ensure adequate security and protective measures are in place for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers across the country,” she said.

The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto said that it was monitoring the situation but there was no known specific threat.

October 12, 2023 0 comments

Community

Israeli reservist, 95, to IDF soldiers: ‘Demolish Hamas’

by admin October 12, 2023

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Asked how it feels to be a nonagenarian Israel Defense Forces reservist in action, Ezra Yakhin told JNS that “It is very important for us to fight for our country. I feel excellent.”

Avi Kumar

(JNS)

A crowd of young Israeli soldiers stand ready, listening to a 95-year-old, battle-hardened veteran. Ezra Yakhin has witnessed nearly every war the modern state of Israel has faced, and he remembers 1948.

“I told them to go demolish Hamas,” Yakhin, who may be the oldest IDF reservist, told JNS.

Asked how it feels to be the oldest Israel Defense Forces reservist in action, Yakhin told JNS that “It is very important for us to fight for our country. I feel excellent.”

Yakhin won’t be fighting terrorists on the front lines, but his job involves motivating those much younger than he, who will take on Hamas terrorists directly.

He has seen Israel achieve victory against great odds, as when he joined the Jewish militia Lehi, a thorn in the side of the British police, at age 16. “Nobody thought a small nation like us with less than half a million people could challenge an empire that spanned the entire globe,” he said.

It proved invaluable to the underground movement that Yakhin had a job at the post office and he knew some Arabic. (His parents were from Syria and Egypt.) He found his way to Lehi, in search of whatever group “would be best at kicking the British out,” he said.

“It was very wrong that they were oppressing us in our own homeland, not allowing Jewish refugees to enter and arresting us while the Arabs prepared for war,” he added.

A brother of his was also in Lehi, and Yakhin only learned another brother of theirs was in Irgun when Lehi and Irgun had a joint operation. He had a few major scares, as when he was hit in the thigh by shrapnel on a mission in Jerusalem on Ben Yehuda Street. During another operation, in the Old City of Jerusalem, he sustained a head injury, which blinded him in one eye.

“We struck such fear in the hearts of the British. They weren’t safe from us, and we made them pay for their actions no matter what it was,” he said.

Asked about Hamas today, Yakhin told JNS that the terrorist group must be put out of business permanently.

“Can the wolves have peace with the sheep?” he asked. “They do not care about the land. This is all driven by their hate for Jews.”

Image: Ezra Yakhin, 95, who may be the oldest IDF reservist, in uniform. Credit: Courtesy.

October 12, 2023 0 comments

Community

The women-hating women who support Hamas

by admin October 11, 2023

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These American and European women are cheering for the rape, torture, public humiliation and murder of Israeli women and children.

Phyllis Chesler

(JNS)

Even as the Iranian government is jailing, raping, torturing and murdering Iranian women whose hijabs have slipped or gone missing, women in New York City are demonstrating in favor of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities wearing hijabs and even niqabs. Some women make faces and obscene gestures, curse, mock Israeli tears, make a show of spitting and sport Nazi symbols.

How will such American female support for Hamas barbarians further the cause of women in Gaza? Will such support stop child marriage, abolish polygamy, end forced veiling, prohibit wife beating or prevent and punish honor killing (femicide)? These and other horrific abuses (jailing, torturing and murdering both dissidents and gays, censoring thought, indoctrinating children into hate) define how Hamas remains in power in Gaza.

We cannot blame the Israeli government for any of this. Israel exited Gaza in 2005. And if anyone really looks into the matter, they will see that Hamas’s leaders live in palatial villas and that Gaza is nowhere near as crowded as many major cities. It is not an open-air prison or concentration camp, a mantra that has been drummed into people’s heads both in the West and in Muslim countries continuously for more than 50 years.

The Big Lies include the one that states, over and over again, that the Gaza Strip is the most densely packed area in the world. According to Al Jazeera (!), based on CIA statistics, Gaza has “a density of 15,096 people per square mile, which is less than the density of the city of Tel Aviv (21,793 per square mile). … Gaza City is the 63rd most densely populated area in the world at 42,059 per square mile. This is far below Bnei Brak in Israel (76,000 per square mile).”

Who are these American women demonstrators? Are they freedom-fighting feminists? Or are they anti-feminists, Islamist versions of Atwood’s Handmaids who have (forgive the pun) voluntarily and eagerly taken the veil? They are similar to the women who supported and were themselves active participants in ISIS’s female militia. They enforced a manifesto that was far more extreme than Hitler’s vision of women belonging in the nursery, kitchen and church.

In 2015, ISIS posted their manifesto in Arabic. It mandates child marriage to adult men; face and body veiling; the abolition of beauty parlors and modern clothing, “which are ‘instruments of the devil’”; limited education for girls; and singles out the West’s education of women as causing “the emasculation of Muslim men.”

ISIS also held public, videoed auctions of naked, captured sex slaves. Sex slavery, as well as all forms of slavery, are age-old customs among Muslims and I’ve written about this many times before.

Interestingly, the ISIS women continued to terrorize and torture other Muslim women, mainly Syrians and Iraqis, in the al-Hol refugee camp.

Hamas is ISIS on steroids.

And yet, these American (and European) women are cheering for the rape, torture, public humiliation and murder of Israeli women, children and the elderly by Islamist terrorists and for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli male civilians of all ages.

There is absolutely no moral equivalence between Hamas terrorists who purposely target innocent civilians and the Israel army that now needs to utterly destroy, once and for all, Hamas’s rule over Gazan civilians, whom they’ve used as human shields, just as they’ve embedded their bombs, rockets and command posts in mosques, hospitals, ambulances, schools and residential buildings as so much potential civilian fodder for the sake of propaganda.

And the world media and other elites keep falling for it.

These Western women demonstrators—and their many left-wing feminist allies—have been carefully indoctrinated into believing Very Big Lies: Namely, that Israel is a Nazi, apartheid state of “colonial settlers” who have stolen the land and imprisoned an indigenous people. This is the mantra that is meant to justify the destruction of the Jewish state.

This must never happen. Israel must do whatever it takes, no matter the cost, to rid both Israel and non-Hamas Palestinians of Hamas.

How can women, presumably the more compassionate sex, support such cruelty, such ferocious barbarism?

As the author of Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman, internalized sexism among women and female-female cruelty does not surprise me. In tribal cultures, women murder their daughters-in-law, try to murder their co-wives, support and carry out the genital mutilation and the honor killing of their daughters. Some women in the West vote for “macho” male tyrants, compete viciously against other women, steal their jobs and their spouses.

Most women do not automatically embrace freedom and truth any more than most men do.

October 11, 2023 0 comments

Terrorism

Jerusalem: Gaza op will leave Hamas with ’zero’ military capabilities

by admin October 11, 2023

written by admin

The terrorist organization is “ISIS on steroids,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

(JNS)

The ongoing Israel Defense Forces offensive will leave Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization with “zero military capabilities and zero motivation to carry out attacks” for decades, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told journalists on Wednesday.

“We regard Gaza as a huge terror base, the new caliphate as you will. This is ISIS on steroids because it has a state behind it: Iran,” the spokeswoman said as she announced Israeli officials are examining “new indications” of direct Iranian involvement in Hamas’s Oct. 7 shock attack.

“We are a country at war, but not only we are at war: This is a war of the entire civilized world against savagery,” the official said.

On Saturday morning, Hamas terrorists infiltrated several Israeli communities, killing at least 1,200 people and taking at least 100 hostages back to Gaza. Some 3,000 people were wounded in shooting and rocket attacks over the weekend, and the toll continues to climb.

As part of “Operation Swords of Iron,” the IDF is conducting wide-scale strikes on several strategic centers belonging to Hamas.

Overnight Tuesday, the Israel Air Force hit more than 200 targets in Gaza City’s Al Furqan neighborhood, which it called “a terror nest for Hamas” from which “many activities against Israel are carried out.”

The IDF “will continue to act powerfully against the infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hamas, which aim terror against Israel, and continues extensive waves of attacks in the Gaza Strip,” it added.

The more than 2,450 Hamas targets that have been hit across the Strip in five days of war included weapons storage facilities, command and control centers and naval assets, according to the military.

According to IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military has defined killing senior Hamas terrorists as the its “top priority.”

Palestinian sources reported on Wednesday that Abdel-Fattah Diab Deif, the brother of Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif, was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip.

Overnight Monday, Hamas “Economy Minister” Jawad Abu Shamala was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Abu Shamala managed the finances of the organization and earmarked the funds for financing and directing terrorism both inside and outside the Gaza Strip, according to the IDF.

He previously held security positions in the terrorist organization and led several operations aimed at harming citizens of the State of Israel, the army added.

Zakaria Abu Muammar, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau who headed the terrorist group’s National Relations Office, was killed in a separate strike.

“Abu Muammar was known to be close to [Hamas leader in Gaza] Yahya Sinwar and, as part of his position, worked to incite and act against the sovereignty of the State of Israel and endanger its residents,” the IDF noted.

“We have released all restraints, regained control of the [border] area and are moving to full offense,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops during a visit to the south on Tuesday night.

“Hamas wanted a change in Gaza. It will change 180 degrees from what it thought,” the minister said. “Gaza will never return to what it was. Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors—we will eliminate them with all our might and without compromise.”

Image: The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

October 11, 2023 0 comments

Opinions

Free Hostages For Food & Water

by admin October 11, 2023

written by admin

It is unacceptable to even contemplate any compassionate gesture for the people of Gaza. They freely elected their own government knowing full well its implications for their well-being, and now must bear the full weight of their actions. Now much of the world horrified with the Hamas slaughter, is being redirected towards the price it must pay for its actions. However, its allegiance to justice is also being blindly redirected towards the plight of the poor Palestinians living in Gaza.

There is a practicable solution, which doesn’t let the perpetrators of those inhuman crimes off the hook, but does allow for a modicum of help to the civilian population that in effect is also held hostage to Hamas, albeit through their own warped sense of righteousness. The proposal is to allow some basic food and medicine into Gaza in exchange for the ‘safe’ return of hostages. It could be based on a staggered routine to ensure that such freed hostages are in fact thoroughly checked upon safe arrival in Israel for any deadly substances implanted in them prior to release. Accordingly, this exchange could work through allowing one agreed unit of supplies for every hostage.

Such a proposal should surely silence the unjust calls by such malicious bodies as the United Nations about Israel not showing mercy for any innocent people in Gaza – after all, the innocent must foremost include hostages that did not elect the present Hamas government to power.

By adopting such a proposal how can any sane person disagree? There is no foundation to reward Hamas by releasing convicted terrorists for innocent hostages. It is a known fact that most released terrorists will go on to commit even worse atrocities, thereby burdening future generations of Israelis charged with safeguarding the nation’s security.

Hamas has been proven to be another face of ISIS, based on its philosophy, strategy, and above all its taste for inhuman terror tactics that far surpass anything even remotely resembling the usual ‘militant’ profile. As such they have proven to forfeit any degree of mercy from our Jewish nation. But agreeing to this proposal could provide some mercy to the people of Gaza, while also satisfying the immediate concerns of Israelis to have their captured people returned.

These words will probably be wasted as Israel’s ‘civilized’ and self-righteous enemies are usually more interested in the welfare of terrorists than the plight of the people under their own control. But who knows, maybe someone out there will at least see some merit in using the inevitable siege as a device to alleviate the plight of non-combatants?

October 11, 2023 0 comments

Terrorism

Mortar shells fired from Syrian side of Golan Heights towards Israel

by admin October 11, 2023

written by admin

“Part of the launches crossed into Israeli territory and presumably fell in open areas,” confirmed IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

(JNS)

Mortar shells were fired at Israel from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights on Tuesday evening, mere hours after the Hezbollah terror group fired anti-tank missiles at the Jewish state from Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said.

“Part of the launches crossed into Israeli territory and presumably fell in open areas,” confirmed IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.

The military said its forces responded with artillery and mortar fire towards the source of the Syrian shelling.

Residents of the southern part of the Golan Heights were instructed to stay close to bomb shelters. Israelis in the Golan have approximately 15 seconds to seek shelter from the moment the air-raid siren sounds.

Earlier on Tuesday evening, the Hezbollah terrorist organization based in Lebanon took responsibility for firing anti-tank missiles across the border with Israel, raising fears of the war with Hamas broadening to the northern front, Arab media reported.

An IDF combat helicopter responded by attacking a Hezbollah post.

“The IDF is prepared for all scenarios in all arenas, and will continue to operate in order to protect Israeli civilians,” stated the military.

Earlier on Tuesday, the IDF attacked two Hezbollah observation posts in Southern Lebanon with artillery fire after terrorists there fired rockets at the Jewish state.

“Around 15 launches were detected from Lebanese territory, air-defense fighters succesfully intercepted four launches, ten launches fell in Lebanese territory,” the IDF wrote in a post on X on Tuesday afternoon.

Reuters cited a Lebanese security source as saying that Palestinian terror groups were responsible for the rocket attacks.

The incidents came as IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi held a situational assessment at the Northern Command with the commanders of the forces deployed in the area.

Image: Israeli soldiers guard the border between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, April 17, 2023. Photo by Ayal Margolin/Flash90.

October 11, 2023 0 comments

Community

Firm rescinds offer of NYU Law student who hailed Palestinian ‘resistance against oppression’

by admin October 11, 2023

written by admin

Winston & Strawn stated that it is “outraged and deeply saddened by the violent attack on Israel over the weekend.”

(JNS)

Ryna Workman, who identifies as nonbinary, issued a statement as president of the Student Bar Association at New York University School of Law expressing “unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination.”

“Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life,” Workman wrote. “This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary.”

More than 1,000 Israeli deaths have been reported since Oct. 7, when members of the Hamas terror organization crossed Israel’s southern border and killed more than 1,000 people, wounded thousands and took more than 100 civilians hostage. Israeli President Isaac Herzog has referred to as the bloodiest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

The screed has proven costly for Workman, a former summer associate at Winston & Strawn who has now had a job offer at the firm rescinded.

“These comments are profoundly in conflict with Winston & Strawn’s values as a firm,” it stated. “Accordingly, the firm has rescinded the law student’s offer of employment.”

The law firm added that it remains “outraged and deeply saddened by the violent attack on Israel over the weekend. Our hearts go out to our Jewish colleagues, their families and all those affected.”

It also condemned Hamas and said it stands in solidarity with Israel’s right to exist.

Evidently, the student group is also trying to oust Workman as president.

“Whereupon Ryna Workman, president of the NYU Student Bar Association, had her job offer withdrawn thanks to her disgusting antisemitism and to Winston’s moral code and backbone,” wrote Megyn Kelly. “Good for them. Maybe Ryna can get a job on the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

Winston & Strawn, which is headquartered in Chicago and recently celebrated its 170th anniversary, has more than 975 attorneys, per to its LinkedIn page. According to its website, it has many ties to the Jewish community.

The Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation has honored Jeffrey Kessler, co-executive chair at the firm, at its annual gala and gave him an advocacy award; and the American Jewish Committee gave a human relations award to Dan Webb, another co-executive chair at the firm, who was also recognized for public service by the Anti-Defamation League.

In 2019, the firm, with the Lawfare Project, reached a settlement with the California State University system which a partner called “a landmark civil rights victory, not only for the rights of Jewish and Israeli students but for people of all religious faiths.” One of the firm’s Chicago partners is a mentor with the Jewish United Fund Women’s Mentoring Program, and another attorney sits on the board of the Charlotte Jewish Preschool.

October 11, 2023 0 comments