Noa Tishby, the If Not Now Movement, and Antisemitism Exposed: A Crossover from Israel to the West

Recently, a correspondent for Fox News spars with a press secretary about the administration’s position on anti-Israel demonstrators. Its hosts have criticized the White House for announcing this week that it would put in place a national strategy to fight Islamophobia while hate crimes against Jews are on the rise. It debuted a new section on its website this week called “Antisemitism Exposed.”

“My overarching critique of Noa is that she is part of an effort that is led by the Israeli government to conflate all strident criticism of Israeli governmental policy with antisemitism,” said Simone Zimmerman, a writer and activist who helped create “If Not Now,” a movement of American Jews who are critical of the Israeli government for its policies toward Palestinians.

She said that three weeks ago Israel was attacked by people who wanted to destroy her. Nobody would have given the US three weeks to train themselves if Mexico had done the same thing. Israeli is doing the best it can in an impossible situation.”

She wouldn’t say if she supported Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his handling of the war. She did not want to talk about that.

In social media videos and in interviews, Ms. Tishby speaks with the ease of a veteran broadcast anchor, self- certainty of a politician who knows exactly what she is saying, and passion for an activist who is willing to reveal her emotions but not give in to them.

She said that her goal was to reach the political left who believe the killing of 1,400 Israelis and the kidnapping of over 200 more by Hamas was an act of Palestinian resistance. She said that the progressive left had been played.

In an appearance on Fox last week with Sean Hannity, Ms. Tishby noted that Hamas has broken cease-fires in the past, and she emphasized the threat posed by Iran, a supporter of Hamas. “The human rights that you have in Iran are the human rights that you are going to have in the West” if Hamas is not removed from power, she said. Israel is fighting against the West.

And in an Instagram video post that included footage of the plane that crashed into the World Trade Center, Ms. Tishby spoke to the camera. She said that students on American campuses were holding rallies in support of the Al Qaeda attack on 9/11. She added: “That is exactly what is happening on campuses in America right now.”

Ms. Tishby was not well known in the US before the war. She was a household name in Israel for a long time and was an executive producer of the “Homeland” series.

While still in the army she was cast in a tv drama as a designer hired to help youth get into the fashion industry. The show, named “Ramat Aviv Gimmel,” for an affluent suburb of Tel Aviv, was a sensation.

The Hamas Command Center is Hidden Under the Central Hospital in Gaza: A Traumatized Child’s Cries Berated by a Child and the War on Israel

There are many images and videos relating to the human toll of the war. The children are Syrian, and the photograph was taken in 2013). A young boy, covered in a white residue, grasping a tree in the dark, was cast as another traumatised child in Gaza. (In fact, the video was taken after a recent flood in Tajikistan.) A teenage girl being beaten by a mob and fatally lit on fire, promoted as proof of the ruthlessness of Hamas. (In fact, the video was filmed in Guatemala in 2015, and the girl was reportedly attacked over accusations she was involved in the killing of a taxi driver.)

A decade before the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza began, the boy’s cries were heard hundreds of miles away in Syria.

Since Hamas forced a war on us, the military has been working to eliminate this unbearable threat so that our hostages can return. This means fighting in the battlefield that Hamas has created in Gaza over many years — one in which terrorists hide behind and within the civilian population. This battlefield is one in which Israeli casualties are notavoided at all costs but rather encouraged by Hamas in order to draw global sympathy and blunt Israel’s response. Intelligence and confessions of captured terrorists show that the Hamas command center is hidden under the central hospital in Gaza.

“Can you imagine the kind of commodification of violence against a loved one and have that be used by others as a kind of generic depiction of violence?” said Elisa Massimino, the executive director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University. “It’s horrifying.”

Ms. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has been on the leading edge of a group of progressive lawmakers criticizing Mr. Biden’s embrace of Israel since the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, saying his actions have helped enable the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Israel’s response. She already beat back an attempt to censure her in the House this week over her comments on the war and is facing attack ads from a Democratic pro-Israel group.

After she speaks, the screen goes dark and a message appears in white lettering stating: “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people. The people of the United States will not forget. The Vice President should support a cease-fire now. Or don’t count on us in 2024.”

In the video posted by Ms. Tlaib, she shows a clip of Mr. Biden saying that the US stands with Israel, before showing clips of children bleeding in medical tents, bodies lying in rubble and protesters around the world calling for a cease-fire with Israel.

There is no guarantee that a humanitarian pause, particularly in a conflict with a terrorist group, will ensure the safe return of hostages or end the suffering of civilians. It is certain, however, that inaction will lead to more civilian suffering and may increase the risk that this conflict will spark a regional conflagration. Already, supporters of Hamas in the region and elsewhere are using the deaths of Palestinians to urge Hezbollah and other armed groups to join the fight against Israel — while absolving Hamas for its role in Gaza’s suffering.

In a follow-up post on X, formerly Twitter, Ms. Tlaib wrote, “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”

“As the Israeli government carries out ethnic cleansing in Gaza, President Biden is cheering on Netanyahu, whose own citizens are protesting his refusal to support a cease-fire,” Ms. Tlaib said on Thursday. We must be laser focused on saving lives, no matter who they are.

The House struck down a resolution on Thursday to formally rebuke Ms. Tlaib, with about two dozen Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The resolution, which was brought by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, accused Ms. Tlaib of “antisemitic activity” and referred to an Oct. 18 protest in a House office building, in which Ms. Tlaib accused Israel of genocide, as an “insurrection.”

The resolution signed by 20 members of the House urges the White House to call for a cessation of fighting in the Middle East. Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, on Thursday became the first senator to call for a cease-fire if the hostages are released, and Pope Francis called for an end to the war on Sunday.

But anyone who thinks the cynical exploitation of civilian suffering will tie our hands and save Hamas this time is wrong. For us and for the Palestinians, the suffering will end only with the removal of Hamas. Anyone trying to tie our hands is, intentionally or not, undermining not only Israel’s defense but also any hope for a world where these atrocities cannot happen.

It was in the months before the Hamas massacre that we began to see hints of a better Middle East, one inspired by progress and partnership and one in which Israel could finally feel at home among its neighbors. Will this be the world that emerges from this crisis? Or will it be the world desired by the murderous fundamentalists of Hamas?

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far resisted them, those calls have grown louder and more insistent after Israel’s recent bombardment of the Jabaliya neighborhood in Gaza, which Israel said targeted Hamas militants located there. The damage is “horrific and appalling,” and it said in a statement that the attacks have reportedly resulted in more than 3,500 children killed.

People in the Middle East fear a second war between Israel and Hezbollah could start after the war in Gaza.

The leader of Hezbollah said on Friday in his first public remarks since the beginning of the war that he does not have a plan for it.

During the war, Hezbollah and Israel clashed along the Israel-Lebanon border, which has resulted in many casualties on both sides. The address by the Hezbollah leader, delivered in more than an hour, was not a call for peace.

“The Lebanese front has lessened a large part of the forces that were going to escalate the attack on Gaza,” Mr. Nasrallah said. Some people in Lebanon say we are taking a risk. But this risk is part of a beneficial, correct calculation.”

Early in the speech, Mr. Nasrallah praised Hamas for carrying out the Oct. 7 attack, which included assaults on large groups of civilians and killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. The Hezbollah leader said that the battle with the Zionists was more justified from a religious, moral and humanitarian perspective.

Mr. Nasrallah did not rule out anything, however, warning that he was keeping Hezbollah’s forces ready should hostilities with Israel escalate. “All the possibilities on our Lebanese front are open,” he said. “All the choices are available and we could resort to them at any time.”

During one of the most tense periods in the region in the last few years, Mr. Nasrallah offered some relief to many by stating that a powerful force was not seeking to plunge the region into even greater violence.

Mr. Nasrallah is a highly respected figure inside a group that calls itself the “axis of resistance,” a network of Iranian-backed militias in several Arab countries that share an anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology and have come to coordinate their operations more closely in recent years. Hezbollah’s decision to start a war with Israel would most likely encourage attacks by allied militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

During his address, which was live-streamed to large gatherings of Hezbollah supporters around Lebanon, Mr. Nasrallah lashed out at the United States for its staunch support for Israel, accusing President Biden of dishonesty in telling Israel that it had the right to defend itself but that it had to respect human rights.

He also said the group was not intimidated by the two aircraft carriers that the United States had dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean, which could strike Hezbollah targets.

The fleets in the Mediterranean do not scare us, according to Mr. Nasrallah. We are prepared for your fleets as well.

Should the United States intervene directly in the war, Mr. Nasrallah said, it could expect attacks by Hezbollah’s allies on its military bases and other targets in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.

The carriers were sent to deter a bigger regional war, as fears grow that mounting anger in Arab countries over the crisis in Gaza could lead to another war. Israel has faced increasing international criticism over the dire conditions in Gaza, but has so far resisted calls for either a cease-fire or humanitarian “pauses” to help deliver aid.

Mr. Nasrallah praised the fighters from his and other armed groups in Lebanon, saying they were launching daily attacks on Israeli military positions and destroying communications infrastructure. Those attacks had forced Israeli civilians to flee and drawn Israeli military resources to the north so that they could not contribute to attacks on Gaza.

Thousands of Hezbollah supporters watched the speech on giant screens throughout Lebanon. The largest site, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, was decorated with Hezbollah and Palestinian flags. Celebratory gunfire rang out when he appeared onscreen, and supporters chanted, “We are here for you, Nasrallah.”

He said that Israeli treatment of the Palestinians had gotten so bad that a “great event” had been required to restore the Palestinian cause as “the No. 1 issue in the world.”

The Occultai of the Israelis: The Hamas-Israel Attack and the Palestinian Dialogue to Judaism

After Mr Nasrallah finished his speech, Sbeti got a pistol and fired a volley of gunshots into the air. He said he would answer any call by Hezbollah to fight Israel.

A driver who has grown poorer during the Lebanon’s economic downturn said that he was not overly concerned about the damage that Israel would do in a new war.

The attack on Israel by Hamas was the catalyst for Mr. Abramson to switch to a news outlet that he had not relied upon before: Fox News.

Fox News has been in the Israeli flag since the Hamas attack and is the most prominent of the major cable news channels. The coverage of the pro-Palestinian opposition focuses on radical and antisemitic elements while playing down the casualties from Israeli strikes.

It’s somewhat of an improbable alliance. The majority of Jews identify as Democrats. And as the Republican Party came to embrace a more populist brand of politics that vilifies “globalist” corporate interests and wealthy liberal businessmen like George Soros — something many see as coded antisemitism — Fox News hosts and guests promoted those views.

I write these lines from Jerusalem, after spending time with the families of some of the 240 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Jewish Israelis, Muslims, and foreign citizens of different ethnicities are being held in Gaza.

In all my years of public life, the meetings with these families were the most difficult and fraught I’ve ever held. Many of the people who died that day were murdered in their homes and at a music festival, so I spoke with their families. I had to wash off my blood from my shoes after I returned from a devastated kibbutz.

Hamas terrorists burned babies when attacking Israeli homes like they did with ISIS and Al Qaeda. They tortured children, raped women and destroyed peace-loving communities. They were so proud of their deeds that they made sure to capture them on video and even broadcast them live. These videos were a stain on those Palestinians and their supporters who celebrated that day, as well as the ideas that inspired the terrorists.

But almost as disturbing for me is the realization that many in the world, including in the West, are willing to rationalize these actions or even support them outright. In the capitals of Europe we’ve seen rallies supporting the total destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Professors and students at American colleges make speeches and sign statements justifying terrorism, even glorifying it.

Even as Hamas fires hundreds of rockets at our cities and as our soldiers fall in battle, we’re making an effort to give early warning to civilians with leaflets and phone calls, to move them out of the main battle zones and to enable humanitarian aid through Gaza’s border with Egypt. Hundreds of aid trucks are now arriving, with more expected each day.

These questions will be key among the strategic issues on the agenda in our discussions with Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his visit to the region beginning Friday — as they were during the visit to Israel of President Biden a few weeks ago.

Much is at stake at this moment, not just the future of Israel. We were woken on Oct. 7 and presented with a challenge to our hopes and morals. How we come up with this challenge will have a major impact on our future.