Anatomy of an al-Qaeda Convert Rejecting ISIL

"When it came to the targets the thinking was that one of them was economic and one of them was security and the other one was military."

"I was aware that people were going to be hurt but it seemed at the time that I was so focused on the symbolism of the act. Because I'm not a violent person it is easier to think of a bomb where you don't see the victims versus a close-up attack where you do physically have an intimate or a close contact with the victims."

"At some point I contemplated, unfortunately adding shrapnel to increase the casualty rate. So that's disgusting."

"The plan to construct three truck bombs was a little bit too complicated. Near the end, the technical issues became too much."

"Every time there was an obstacle, I kept doubling down and I kept going forward. I did have the intent. I would have tried something."

"I look at prison as a blessing and, in a way, I see the life sentence as a blessing too, because going to prison was the best of all possible outcomes, given how radicalized I was at the time and how determined I was to go through with it."

"Prison was very good for me because it was the only way I could be saved."

Zakaria Amara, 35, one of 18 arrested June 2, 2006 in a homegrown terrorist ring, Toronto

Zakaria Amara, one of the "Toronto 18" who were arrested in a shocking anti-terrorism probe in 2006. Photo by Reuters/File

Just as well that Zakaria Amara is so grateful that arrest, trial and sentencing took him to prison, avoiding martyrdom and Paradise. He and  his fellow conspirators were apprehended, with the help of an 'inside' informer who benefited handsomely for his undercover work, revealing a plot to wreak havoc in Canada in revenge for the Canadian military dispatched as part of NATO in a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to root out Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda operation, sheltered by the Taliban.

Zakaria Amara and his Islamist colleagues, the infamous 'Toronto 18' -- whose plans included blowing up truck bombs, storming Parliament to behead the prime minister, blowing up the CBC, and Canada's premier intelligence-gathering service CSIS, among other targets -- were quite ambitious in their conspiratorial organization to teach Canada and Canadians that Islamism is not to be trifled with. The greater the number of victims, particularly those in high places, the more resonant their message.

 

In gratitude for the unexpected attention on the part of Canadian Muslims living the good life in Canada, Canadian justice handed Amara a life sentence for his thwarted ambitions. As the leader of the terrorist plot, he has decided, it would seem, that his happiness at being incarcerated is now dwindling and he would at this juncture, prefer being released from prison after having served 15 years of his life-in-prison sentence. After all, he points out, he is remorseful.

While al-Qaeda's agenda was appealing to him and his cohorts, including the spectacular victory over the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon, striking terror into the hearts of Americans, he explained to a hearing of the Parole Board of Canada that ensuing news of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant gave  him pause for second thought. Did he really want to be aligned with these lunatic psychopaths? Re-evaluating his direction to reject his radical beliefs, he felt himself prepared for release from prison.

His verbal passion in appealing to the Board for due consideration and trust in his newfound sincerity rejecting violent Islamism had him in tears, thanking his supporters in the Muslim community; his family, his daughter, nine months old at the time her father was arrested. For three hours he addressed the Board, acquainting them with his transformation from jihadist to thoughtful and sober mature man intent on occupying a place in Canadian society he had so impetuously forsaken as a young and impressionable fervent Islamist.

"In my heart", he explained, he had praised Osama bin Laden, a loyalty he maintained while in prison. From prison he maintained contact with members of the notorious Canadian-Egyptian Khadr family whose paterfamilias had been a financial supporter of bin Laden and close friend in their mutual campaign against the West. The Parole Board hearing took place at the medium security Warkworth Institution in Ontario, where he spoke of being overwhelmed by his ambition to succeed in the terrorist plot he headed up.

He spoke of his determination to forge ahead with the many-pronged attack on Canadian institutions and government figures. Had the plot not been revealed to police, had he not been arrested, he would have persisted until reaching a successful conclusion. Convicted in 2010, he was designated to the Special Handling Unit in Canada's highest security prison in Quebec. There he mingled with other Islamist extremists, and there his sentiments and values grew in strength, flourishing in a setting that set him on a course to eventually seek completion of his Islamist mission.

And then came Islamic State, his attention fixated on the group's relentless gathering of territory in Syria and Iraq to form their Caliphate, addressing the world with sophisticated public relations material of gruesomely violent exploits in capturing journalists and other Western figures to suffer horrendous torture and death for the camera. The barbarous celebration of atrocities committed by psychopathic Islamist murderers became a recruiting tool bringing in enthusiastic ISIL volunteers for jihad from the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

He, on the other hand, was so revulsed by ISIL in contrast to his championing of al-Qaeda, that his Islamist faith faltered. "A lot of things have changed", he assured the hearing. The actions of ISIL had him re-evaluating his ideology. ISIL "came on the scene and were doing all kinds of horrific things", that he "couldn't stomach". Obviously, he said, there was something wrong with his world view and since, he has been "building a new house" for himself. Cut ties with radicals with whom he no longer has anything in common ideologically.

Given parole, he would stay at a halfway house in downtown Toronto. Granted parole, he would undergo a deradicalization program, complete post-secondary education. He wanted to become a professional social worker. Just as it seems that all Muslim extremists aspire to be engineers, those who reform themselves from jihadist sentiments appear to aspire to become social workers. As though to expunge from their subconscious any possible further twinges urging toward jihad by turning themselves toward public good, in support of the social weal.

On his own initiative, good soul that he is, he self-started his rehabilitation with sporadic and informal conversations with imams, conversations with institutional parole officers, while reading extensively and speaking with 'reputable members of the community'. All, all to no avail. Wasted, his effort in writing a 102 page-letter to the Board, setting out his thoughts and experiences and aspirations for the future, as a completely reformed good Canadian citizen. 

For despite his earnest demeanor and pleading stance, his conscientious relaying of the truth, his sincere pledge to become a responsible member of society, his admirable ambition to join the cadre of social workers who aid those in society whom ill fortune has struck, the Parole Board denied him the parole he sought, following deliberation of an hour's duration. One Parole Board member complained that the board was unable to adequately assess the progress Amara had made while imprisoned, given a lack of objective programming.

In the end, the consensus was that those at the hearing felt the risk to public safety remained, a risk that was unmanageable without reliable, adequate further intervention to steer this self-reformed former terrorist beyond his first choice, of punishing Canada for its role in ousting bin Laden from Afghanistan, and for its part in the Western-based coalition to lead Afghanistan toward peace and security, helping to fend off the constant Taliban resurgences. 

 

All now to no avail, as the Taliban is set to resume its former violently brutal Islamist command of Afghanistan. A metaphor for rescuing Amara from his passionate love affair with jihad.

Peter Daszak (right), Thea Fischer (left), and other members of the WHO team investigating the origins of covid-19 arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province.

 

"We would ask that we separate the science from the politics, and let us get on with finding the answers that we need in a proper, positive atmosphere."

"This whole process is being poisoned by politics."

WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan 

 

"The technical team will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out and will present that to the director-general."

"He will then work with member states about the next steps. There is no timeline."

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib

 

"[The first phase of the WHO expert panel study was] insufficient and inconclusive. There is a need for a] timely, transparent, evidence-based and expert-led Phase 2 study, including in the People's Republic of China."

"[There is a need for access for independent experts to] complete, original data and samples [relevant to the source of the virus and early stages of the outbreak]."

"We appreciate the WHO's stated commitment to move forward with Phase 2 of the COVID-19 origins study, and look forward to an update from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus."

U.S. Diplomatic Mission, Geneva 

Workers in protective gear carry a bag containing a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP)

When the mysterious appearance of a strange pneumonia was discovered in patients admitted to hospitals in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, and soon afterward the virus began spreading outside China's borders, Beijing took exception to the virus, identified as a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 being familiarly referred to as the 'Wuhan virus', until the World Health Organization gave it the pandemic name it is now known by, COVID-19.

 

And now that world powers like the United States and Great Britain are leading a drive for a full and deep investigation to discover the origins of the virus causing COVID-19, Beijing continues to deny that suspicions harboured by many in the West that the closed high-security Wuhan Virology Institute laboratory might possibly have loosed the virus accidentally, giving the virus its villainous start on its global predation. Chinese authorities found it much more palatable to insist that the Huanan wet market was a likelier source of the zoonotic when the pathogen made its leap from animal to human.

A growing clamour of voices calling for an independent, unbiased and unchaperoned-by-Chinese-authorities investigation take place to settle the question once and for all; whether the virus origins was a lab-held virus that made its escape or the leap of transmission between species. The WHO assembly was informed by a Chinese representative the official Chinese position that the "China part" of the origin-tracing study "has been completed". In other words: you want to study further, go right ahead but don't expect any cooperation from China. 

 

An interpreter made it clear as well that China was interested in seeing "a global origin-tracing cooperation" -- the translation of which is that China feels the hunt would be best carried out elsewhere than in China. Literally washing its hands of any further investigation, much less the thought that China would further lend itself to another such survey as the original WHO 'independent' investigation when the investigation team was comprised of more Chinese investigators than WHO investigators. 

 

And where the official presence of Chinese authorities at all interviews and site visits constrained a deep and useful investigation, topped off by China's refusal to allow the WHO investigators access to critical records. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian suggested on Wednesday that U.S. sites should be explored -- reflecting Chinese specious 'speculation' the coronavirus could have emerged there. Surely derisively. 

 

Wuhan, a central Chinese city of 11 million people, is where China's first-ever BSL-4-certified laboratory is located. This is a rare classification identifying laboratories meant to work with the world's most lethal pathogens. When it was opened in 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology campus was recognized as specializing in coronavirus studies, particularly bat coronaviruses which just happen to represent the likely origin of COVID-19. 

 

The Wuhan Institute is noted for its  unusual housing of the "most comprehensive inventory of sampled bat viruses in the world", according to a January investigation by New York magazine, considered the most rigorous journalistic probe into the COVID-19 potential lab origins. In addition, the lab is understood to engage in gain-of-function experiments, where researchers attempt to supercharge coronaviruses to infect lab mice or human cell samples. Gain-of-function is meant to discover methods of combating the emergence of new viruses from nature, but it is also "exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS-2-like virus could have emerged", explains a scientific breakdown of COVID-129 origins by The Wire, an Indian news site.

Given these incriminating circumstances, how likely is it that a novel coronavirus linked to bats might have simply by coincidence begun infecting humans who just happened to be located within easy walking distance of a laboratory that incidentally is the world centre for studying highly infectious bat coronaviruses? As a plot of fictitious origins it is hardly believable, as a scenario of real-time circumstances, there is no competition for the actual location of the Virology laboratory escape.

With respect to circumstantial identification of source, American diplomats back in 2018, long before the emergence of the coronavirus causing COVID, visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and afterward drafted a cable to Washington complete with a heads-up warning of a mishap waiting to happen. Their distinct impression was that the facility's safety and security standards were lax enough to risk sparking a pandemic. According to the Washington Post, which headed the story, "The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory", read the cable.

Three years later, the revelation that a US. intelligence report that three workers at the Wuhan Institute were hospitalized "with symptoms consistent with both COVID19 and common seasonal illness", came out this week. Another very peculiar coincidence, this time bringing Canada into the narrative, when researcher Xiangguo Qiu, working at the high-security BSL-4 lab at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg was escorted from the facility along with her scientist husband and a Chinese student, all later fired, with no public explanation.

The two-week investigation by the World Health Organization scientific team of ten, joined by a team of 17 Chinese scientists in Wuhan conducted interviews under constant supervision. The researchers spent a mere few hours at the Virology lab where select documents were presented for their examination but no forensic examination of lab protocols was undertaken, only a few supervised meetings with laboratory staff who assured them the institute had witnessed "no disruptions or incidents" at the time of the emergence of COVID-19.

"The lab leak hypothesis has picked up more adherents as time passes and scientists fail to detect a bat or other animal infected with a virus that has covid’s signature genetics. By contrast, within a few months of the start of the 2003 SARS pandemic, scientists found the culprit coronavirus in animals sold in Chinese markets. But samples from 80,000 animals to date have failed to turn up a virus pointing to the origins of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes covid."

"The virus’s ancestors originated in bats in southern China, 600 miles from Wuhan. But covid contains unusual mutations or sequences that made it ideal for infecting people, an issue explored in depth by journalist Nicholas Wade."

"Scientists from the Wuhan Institute have collected thousands of coronavirus specimens from bats and registered them in databases closed to inspection. Could one of those viruses have escaped, perhaps after a “gain of function” experiment that rendered it more dangerous?"

Arthur Allen, KHN

The World Community Has a Right to Know

Lab-leak theories centre on the Wuhan Institute of Virology   Reuters

"[Of the lab-leak theory]: That possibility certainly exists, and I am totally in favour of a full investigation of whether that could have happened."

"[I am] not convinced [the virus originated naturally]."

Dr.Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Biden's chief medical adviser   

 

"From day one China has been engaged in a massive cover-up."

"As the evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis grows, we should be demanding the full investigation of all origin hypotheses that's required."

Jamie Metzl, a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council 

 

"We do need to be a bit patient but we also need to be diplomatic."

"We can't do this without support from China. It needs to be a no-blame environment."

Prof Dale Fisher, Singapore's National University Hospital 

"I've read it, [report released by the Washington Post calling into question when and how the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged] it's a complete lie."

"Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don't even know where such information came from."

Yuan Zhiming, director, Wuhan National Biosafety Lab, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan, China

The story in the Wall Street Journal claims that three laboratory workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November of 2019, and were admitted to hospital for treatment. A month later, China advised the World Health Organization of the sudden appearance of a zoonotic, a virus transmitted from animal to human, and that authorities in China felt confident the virus had erupted in a fresh food market where wild animals were sold and pangolins were the suspected source.

The U.S. intelligence report cited by the paper had originally been the product of an investigation authorized by then-President Donald Trump who stated  his determination to get to the bottom of the matter that he suspected was Beijing's lack of openness in alerting the world community of the presence of a galloping new virus with unknown properties but a surprising level of lethality, initially presenting as a new kind of pneumonia. 

It was the newspaper's contention and possible purpose of re-visiting the investigative report and coming away with greater details, that what it revealed could conceivably bring support to the evidence already in question, leading to a broader and deeper investigation into what many in the scientific community suspect -- and many others object to -- that the COVID-19 virus could have been a lab escapee.

What is undeniable unless new information arises, is that the first cases of a strange new pneumonia were being reported toward the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where coincidentally two high-security laboratories for the study of viruses were located. One laboratory had undertaken studies of viruses collected from bats in caves and theorized that the bats had infected pangolins and the pangolins carried the virus with them when they were trapped for sale at the live animal market in Wuhan.

 

Although rumours have circulated widely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 was not a zoonotic that naturally occurred, infecting people who had come in contact with a vector at the Wuhan market, but rather a laboratory-produced virus and that inept, insecure methods led to its escape, China has steadfastly denied any such allegations. Claiming instead that the lab theory was unproven and nonsensical and simply represented U.S. paranoia.

 

Instead Chinese authorities point to the possibility that the virus may very well not have originated in China, or Wuhan, at all, and was imported with frozen food from some other geographic location. Wildlife trading too was cited as a source, as well as a circulating virus that had emerged elsewhere and found its way to China by some unsuspected means. China's foreign ministry rejected the claim that three lab workers had been hospitalized, characterizing it as a lie.

 

The World Health Organization, which had sent an independent team of researchers to Wuhan months ago to undertake a detailed investigation, now entertains thought of another investigation, this time perhaps without Chinese authorities' interference, although without Beijing's approval for yet another group of scientists arriving in Wuhan there can be no follow-up of the original which declared its joint opinion that no lab escape of a virus was a likely explanation for the pandemic.

 

That opinion was reached despite that there were no unescorted interviews permitted where the investigators could privately, without interference and the presence of Chinese authorities, closely question someone who might have information critical to the investigation, nor were the investigators permitted to see collected data directly relevant to the more immediate Chinese investigation of the market where purportedly the outbreak was traced to.

 

According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, the organization's technical teams were currently making decisions on whether to proceed further and if so, how. Further study was obviously required into the role of animal markets, as well as the hypothesis of a lab leak. The issue, after all, is that of a lethal, minuscule, unseen pathogen seeking out new hosts, invading body cells and replicating wildly. A virus that has in the space of a year-and-a-half killed three and a half million people worldwide.  

Knowing its true origins could help medical science more fully understand the nature of the pathogen and how best to control it. It could also lead to techniques of detection and deterrence that could help avoid future such global pandemics. As well as teach both the global medical community and governments how best to anticipate new and perhaps even more deadly invasions of viruses from wild animal to humanity.

 

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was linked to early Covid cases   Getty Images

 

  

Seeking Justice and Closure for Canadian-Iranians

People hold signs with images of the victims of the downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, which was shot down near Tehran by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as family and friends gather to take part in a march to mark the first anniversary, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Jan. 8, 2021. Canada and other nations whose citizens died in Iran's downing of a Ukrainian jetliner on Jan. 8, 2020, called on Tehran to come clean about the tragedy and "deliver justice" for the victims' families. - COLE BURSTON/AFP via Getty Images

"I think Canada should take steps. We make a mistake if we fall into this trap of thinking we must exercise a sort of self-censorship."

"We need to take a principled stand. Canadians have been essentially murdered by this regime [Iranian Islamist theocracy]."

Aurel Brain, professor of international relations, Middle East expert, University of Toronto

"We don't expect justice from the Iranian regime. But we expect the government of Canada to protect its own citizens and to be much more effective."

"Now the ball is with the Liberal government."

Ali Gorji, Iranian-Canadian

"This verdict has no basis and does not consist of any objective reasoning or documentation."

"This behaviour of the Canadian judge, by following orders and political cliches, is shameful for a country which claims to follow the rule of law."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh

"We have to hold Iran accountable for its actions. Being passive in the face of these threats only further emboldens the Iranian regime", Michael Chong foreign-affairs critic for the federal Conservatives pointed out reasonably, of the newly-released Ontario court's ruling that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the deliberate shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner -- where half of the passengers were Canadians and others were travelling to Canada on visas or to resume their academic studies -- as an act of pure terrorism.

The court's decision, points out Member of Parliament Chong, validates the Parliamentary opposition Conservative Party's long-standing position calling on the government to list the entire Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Representing a quarter of a million military personnel, part of the Iranian military, that is highly politicized and well known for its al Quds branch focus on fostering terrorist groups in service to the terrorist ideology of the Republic.

While the Quds branch is a listed terrorist group in Canada, the position is that the entire IRGC should be included. the Canadian House of Commons passed a 2018 motion calling for the entire corps to be listed, but the Liberal-led government has seen fit to just sit on the motion. This government has been more interested in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran that were severed by the previous Canadian government that had no problem identifying Iran for what it is; a terrorist-sponsoring nation.

Justice Edward Belobaba of Ontario's Superior Court ruled in mid-May that Iran had deliberately targeted and shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752, an act that makes the Iranian theocracy liable under the provisions of the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act. There were high tensions in play on January 8, 2020 between Iran and the U.S. when the plane was shot down. Iran claims the passenger jet was mistaken for an incoming American missile headed for Tehran.

 

The problem with that neat little explanation is that the plane on lift-off was heading OUT of Tehran, not entering it. One missile is a dreadful error; two missiles, a deliberate attack. None of which answers the question that if Iran was so nervous about its tensions with the U.S. anticipating missiles entering its airspace, why would it allow commercial flights to continue? There were a number of flights earlier in the day, none of them experiencing problems. This flight was different.

 

 A forensic investigation team was tasked to probe the event, its report in its final stages to be shortly made public. "Canada remains deeply concerned about the lack of convincing information and evidence provided by Iran.We will not rest until the families [whose loved ones lost their lives in the plane shoot-down] get the justice and accountability they deserve", stated John Babcock, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada.

The decision the Ontario Supreme Court arrived at is in relation to a lawsuit filed against Iran on behalf of relatives of those who perished on that ill-fated plane, but it has no direct bearing on government affairs, unless government decides to use it in a full-scale government-to-government push for justice and compensation for the families involved, from the Republic of Iran. Of the 176 passengers and crew aboard the plane, 55 were Canadian citizens, 30 permanent residents, and 53 were students studying in Canada.

"The plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes 'terrorist activity'..."
"I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard."
Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba 

 

"Considering the TOR-M1 advanced military capabilities, two radars and control system, pre-approved flight plans and control of the airspace resting with the IRGC, and the firing of not one, but two missiles, it is not possible for two missiles to be fired by mistake as the IRGC claims."

"There are multiple redundant systems and procedures to prevent accidental shooting of civilian aircraft."

Dr. Bahman Jeldi, Iranian analyst, Canadian Center for Persian Studies  

 

"It is my hope that this decision does not prevent Canada's government from pursuing this case in international fora like the International Court of Justice.

"And I hope such a court wouldn't view this case as a replacement for an international judgment that finds Iran responsible for the killing of 176 innocent people."

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, human rights activist

On Jan. 8, 2020, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in the skies over Tehran with two surface-to-air missiles, killing all 176 people aboard, including 138 with ties to Canada. (Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press)

 

Declaring 'Victory'

"Hamas can't hide anymore. That's a great achievement for Israel."

"We eliminated an important part of Hamas's and Islamic Jihad's command echelon."

"And whoever was not killed knows today that our long arm can reach him anywhere, above ground or underground."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

"We will rebuild what the occupation [Israel] destroyed and restore our capabilities."

"And we will not abandon our obligations and duties to the families of martyrs, the wounded and those whose homes were destroyed."

"[We are grateful to Iran] which has not given up on providing the resistance with money, weapons and technology."

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh

Palestinians wave national flags in front of the Dome of the Rock in the al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem, Friday, May 21, 202, as a cease-fire took effect between Hamas and Israel after an 11-day war. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

 

Israel is determined and prepared to defend itself against any and all violence perpetrated by state actors or terrorist groups against its sovereignty and its population. This is a country which, since its return to its heritage geography 73 years ago, has been forced to build and to weaponize a military for the sole purpose of defence. A country surrounded by neighbours for whom irredentism is as much a part of their shared culture of the Middle East, as striving for peace is for Israel. Israel has been forced time and again to mount defences against armies of its neighbours joining in a military offensive to destroy its presence.

And while following one decisive battle after another where Israel has won its defence, or seen fit to withdraw when it was given little option but to pursue those who constantly challenged its sovereignty and killed its people, its purpose has always been defence, never offence. Those successful defences finally delivered the message to its tormentors that the Jewish state was entrenched for good where it belonged, and no amount of military conflict forced upon it to defend itself would serve to extricate it from its inheritance in the Middle East.

It is no longer the purpose of Arab Muslim countries in the Middle East to destroy Israel. That goal is left only with Aryan Muslim Iran, where its theocracy continues to conspire, threaten, and launch attacks against Israel through its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas (along with other terrorist Palestinian/Arab militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Fatah) whose charters specify directly that their goal is the destruction of Israel and its Jewish population, dream of 'victory' over the Zionist state; a pejorative in their sense, a point of pride in Jews.

 

Palestinians pray by the bodies of members of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas movement, who died in Israeli bombardment of a tunnel, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

 

Israel speaks with the relief of having, in the tribal, sectarian, clan and ethnic-sect language of the Middle East, demonstrated amply that it will not absorb the violence meted out by the vicious trifecta of Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. Attack Israel and there's a steep price to pay. Israel's attackers, on the other hand, know nothing beyond the crude, barbaric violence of threat and assault to gain the advantage they seek to destroy Israel. For Israel it is survival motivating its action, for the others it is a wargame of death delivery to those they deem an enemy.

A resident of Gaza, surveying the damage done to his neighbourhood by aerial bombardment when Israel responded to the barrage of thousands of missiles and rockets shot from neighbourhoods exactly like his, and his included, comes the rhetorical question: "How can the world call itself civilized?" Far more to the point were he to mull over the reality that the terrorist group that rules his neighbourhood uses his crowded civilian enclave and all others as convenient shields behind which it mounts its attacks clearly inviting a response in kind precisely where civilians in Gaza live; their schools, hospitals, their mosques.

 

People walk by a residential building covered with Israeli flags last week after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ramat Gan, central Israel, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

 

The death toll during the destructive air attacks is greater in Gaza than it is in Israel because this is how Hamas plans their strategy; the higher the Palestinian death toll the more sympathy can be extracted from the international community over the dire fate of Palestinians, in the line of fire of the Israeli Defense Forces. A death toll of 243, resulting from one thousand air strikes and buildings bombed is nothing short of miraculous, since it also includes largely the number of Hamas 'fighters' Israel managed to target. The civilian toll would have been far higher had Israel not, at every opportunity, forewarned people to evacuate buildings it meant to bomb because of links with Hamas.

Hamas builds networks of extensive underground tunnels. There are no bomb shelters built by Hamas to protect the population of Gaza whom Hamas constantly places in direct danger. Israel, the recipient of Hamas violence and well over four thousand rockets and missiles in the past eleven days, builds bomb shelters everywhere because it must, to protect its population; Jews, Druze, B'hai, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and any others who live in the country, including foreign workers.

U.S. President Joe Biden declared his intention that humanitarian aid would be sent to Gaza coordinated with the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank "in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal". An interesting statement when in reality it is Israel and Israel alone to which the task of prevention of restocking of military arms prevention for Hamas rests with, along with some assistance from Egypt. Both Israel and Egypt know the tunnel network Hamas so diligently constructs carries smuggled weaponry along circuitous international routes from Iran through to Egypt and into Gaza.

Of the 4,350 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, an estimated 640 fell short of their targets, landing back into the Gaza Strip, while 90 percent of the remainder that crossed the border were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system. Of the 640 that fell back into Gaza, a number were involved in killing Palestinians and wounding many others. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are guilty of war crimes, firing weapons purposely at civilians, both in Israel and indirectly in Gaza itself. With the ceasefire, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards issued a warning to Israel to expect "deadly blows".

Rubble of the al Jalaal building in Gaza, after a ceasefire   AP

Inflaming Hatred Against Jews : Inciting Violence Against Israel

   Gal Gadot, Israeli Actor     Getty Images

"Israel deserves to live as a free and safe nation. Our neighbours deserve the same."

"I pray for our leaders to find the solution so we can live side by side in peace."

"I pray for better days."

Gal Gadot, Israeli actor, Instagram

"Firstly, the increased reach of news social media platforms, especially apps like TikTok and Instagram, have allowed misinformation and hatred to circulate like wildfire."

Michael Mostyn, CEO, B'nai Brit Canada

 

"No one controls the narrative anymore."

"With Black Lives Matter and the increasing awareness about human-rights issues, I think people are now feeling more empowered."

Ahmed Al Rawi, professor, school of communication, Simon Fraser University 

"Palestinian national aspirations are entirely legitimate and supporters of the Palestinian cause have every right to express their support online and in public."

"However, when actions cross over to hate speech, threats, and violence, they must be condemned by both civil society and political leaders, and when they occur online, must be removed by social media providers."

"What we have observed is a troubling increase in anti-Semitic incidents on and off-line. Invocation of Nazi imagery, demonization of Jews, misinformation about Jews and Israelis, and deliberate misinformation about the conflict all represent real challenges to those who aspire for peace."

Martin Sampson, vice-president, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Palestinians hold flags as they stand at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City May 21, 2021.

Ammar Awad | Reuters

Gal Gadot's anodyne and sincere thoughts posted on her Instagram account appears to have incited a tsunami of repressed Jew-hatred, where a segment of the population on social media having assimilated propaganda launched by consummate masters of social-political influencing have succeeded in persuading huge swaths of the public -- gullible in their lack of interest much less knowledge about the history that makes up the Israel-Palestinian interface and wanting to be part of a 'social cause' have taken up the human-rights cudgel against what they are told are the 'aggressors' against a helpless, victimized people.

So much hate flooded this Israeli woman's Instagram account that she was forced to disable the replies function of her Instagram post. Gadot, tweeted Mia Khalifa, Lebanese-American former adult film actress, was a "Genocide Barbie". Again, accusations of genocide thrown at Jewish symbols of public acclaim, painting Jews who suffered the horrendous 20th Century genocide of the Holocaust as themselves genocidal against Palestinians.

Blatantly false, demeaning, demonizing, slanderous claims of 'genocide', of 'apartheid', labelling a nation that has had to defend its right to exist since its re-establishment in a small portion of historical

Judean land, identified by the Romans who occupied the area, as Palestine. Palestinian Jews. Not the latecoming Egyptian and Syrian Arabs who migrated into 'Palestine" in search of opportunities, colonizing land that many of the original occupants -- Jews -- never left. Appropriating the name Palestinian, and the land as their own.

And as the flavour of the day in 'woke' social media parlance, Gal Gadot's name began "trending" on Twitter. American journalist Ben Jacobs spoke of it as "an interesting euphemism on Twitter's part for being bombarded with vile and anti-Semitic attacks online". That, of course, is the perspective of the assaulted, not the smug satisfaction of the assaulters who were quite content to send hate messages to "Genocide Barbie".

@impact is an Instagram account set up to share "digestible & socially impactful content" with its 1.6 million followers, posting screenshots of tweets announcing: "we remain far from justice", and the fight to "save Palestine" must continue. Instagram, Tik-Tok and Tumblr have given social media the stick it values with which to bludgeon those that the woke social scene identifies as 'racist' and 'anti-human-rights' and that is the niche that Israel and Jews have been plugged into.

Claims posted cannot be verified as having any resemblance to fact or the truth, but those claims are absorbed and regurgitated with alarming regularity; dishonourable, damaging, and damned, the claims resonate with the passion of those eager to belong to groups with a social cause, and this is the season for 'Palestinian rights', damning the 'Israeli occupation' that is 'murdering' Palestinian children. The terrorist group Hamas has acquired the sweet flavour of daunting righteous champions of the defenceless.

Their terrorism along with other Palestinian 'activist' groups like Islamic Jihad and the Palestine Liberation Organization transforms them in sympathetic minds from terrorists who lob missiles and rockets into civilian enclaves for the express purpose of killing Jews, to 'fighters' for justice and liberation of the Palestinian Territories. That such 'liberation' would comprise the end of Israel is of great disinterest although the charters of those terrorist groups spell out their purpose: to destroy Israel.

Communications professor Gabriel Weimann at the University of Haifa, explains: "Since no one controls, regulates or checks these videos [portraying Israel as a state-aggressor of Palestinians out to destroy Palestinian aspirations of statehood while just for fun killing Palestinian children], you can post whatever you want. There are a lot of lies". 

Pakistani film star Veena Malik tweeted, ostensibly quoting Adolf Hitler: "I would have killed all the Jews of the world ... but I kept some to show the world why I killed them". Twitter, evidently, was oblivious to the presence on its platform of that delightful little quasi-quote. Its claims to restrict hate speech? well, awkward, isn't it?

Over 625 million views have been logged on TikTok of videos under the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah, the mostly Muslim/Arab neighbourhood in East Jerusalem where a long-standing dispute between Jews and Arabs -- where under illegal Jordanian rule long-time resident Jews were violently expelled -- over property rights ignored a mass protest led by Arab youth around the Al-Aqsa mosque, throwing rocks and inflammatory devices at Israeli police trying to maintain order on the disputed platform.

With 41.7 million Instagram followers, American-Palestinian Bella Hadid whose father is a Palestinian from Gaza, posted a video that announces "73 years of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine". The posts lean heavily on language emphasizing time and again the poisonous slander that Israel is responsible for "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. Despite that 21 percent of the Israeli citizenry is Palestinian with equal rights to any other minority group in the country, much less the Jewish majority.

"How to be an ally with the Palestinians" is a post  first seen on an Instagram account named Paliroots, informing people to use terms like "apartheid" and "colonialism" and "ethnic cleansing", instead of "eviction", "conflict" or "war", urging people to join a boycott, divestment and sanction movement against the Jewish state.

"Before you post about Israel-Palestine, take a break and ask yourself: Will this statement move us closer to peace?" offers Israeli writer Hen Mazig, who has been posting infographics to his 43,000 Instagram followers.

Gal Gadot 'Wonderwoman' Instagram