Palestinian Terrorism Carnage

"Following my urgent request, the UN Security Council will finally convene on Wednesday for the first time since the October 7 massacre to hold an official discussion on the hostages."

"The Security Council must condemn the terrorist organization Hamas and demand the immediate release of the [Israeli] abductees."

Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon

 

"These murderers executed six of our hostages, they shot them in the back of the head."

"And now, after this, we're asked to show seriousness? We're asked to make concessions [in a ceasefire agreement geared to the release of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas]."

"No one is more committed to freeing the hostages than me."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Murdered Israeli hostages Carmel Gat and Alexander Lobanov were shown in a Hamas video published on their Telegram channel on Wednesday evening. (Photo: Screenshot)

After shooting six young Israeli men and women whom Hamas terrorist operatives captured on October 7 from the grounds that hosted the Nova Music Festival, killing them at point blank range by shooting them in the back of their heads, Hamas followed up by the threat it would release videos of the "last messages" of all six of the murdered hostages. Recordings produced shortly before their deaths. This is the psychopathic savagery of Palestinian terrorism, follow up sadistic violence with equally sadistic psychological torture. 

The more anguish and grief caused to Jews by Palestinians the more glee and satisfaction in their cause of destroying the Jewish state and its Jewish inhabitants. Each of the six hostages -- Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Almog Sarusi, 27, Alexander Lobanov,32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, were shown introducing themselves to a camera in a video shown on Telegram, while a line on the screen in Hebrew, English and Arabic reads: "Hours and we will show their last messages".

Palestinians are masters of malevolence, using their creative sadistic streak to indulge in the pleasure of striking terror in the hearts of their targets while creating narratives and scenarios of stark lethal horrors to cause the greatest pain conceivable, in the order of mutilating girls and women while raping them before murdering them. And in the instance of the six murdered Israelis, torturing them for over 300 days of abysmal confinement, starvation, abuse, then forcing them to enact a death-facing tableau before they're murdered.

All of which represents the psychological warfare they excel at while nursing their imagined state of 'victimhood' at the hands of the Jewish state. The Hamas 'armed wing' put the government of Israel on notice that they are operating under new instructions in the hostage situation; that the hostage-keepers, should they become aware that Israeli forces are approaching their location in Gaza, are to take lethal action to prevent Israeli troops from managing to rescue any of the hostages. The message to Israel is that only Hamas can control the live release of the hostages.

 

A combination picture shows hostages Ori Danino, Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi, who were kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attacks, and whose bodies have been found underground in the Rafah area of the Gaza Strip.   Bring Them Home Now via Reuters

These new instructions, revealed a spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades which claims control of the hostages, dictate the instructions, while stating it is not they who are responsible for the deaths of the hostages, but Israel itself which has demonstrated the effrontery of rescues such as that in June when Israeli forces freed four hostages through a raid that in turn saw the death of dozens of Palestinians. Hamas leaders clearly feel they have the upper hand, earned with their abduction of Israelis of all ages. Knowing how dear their lives are to Israel, in contrast to the Hamas condition of expendibility of Palestinian lives for their 'cause'.

Israel's commitment to its goal of destroying the Hamas capability of mounting attacks on Israel and Israelis is non-negotiable; a recent strike dispatched a Hamas operative who had appeared in a widely viewed video from the October 7 attack, the terrorist shown drinking cola in front of two children wounded in a grenade strike that killed their father. He was identified by the IDF as Ahmed Fozi Wadia, commander of a commando battalion, member of a paragliding unit.

He had flown into the community of Netiv HaAsara on a paraglider prior to launching the attack on Israeli civilians in the targeted farming community. IAF aircraft struck a compound in Gaza City where Hamas operatives were engaged, and where eight met their deaths, Wadia included. 

Ahmed Fozi Wadia was seen drinking cola while standing over wounded children during the October 7 attack. Photo by Israel Defence Forces via X

Women's Trust in Metropolitan London Police

"Quite rightly, as far as I can see, my team felt that this is now an unlawful gathering which poses a considerable risk to people's health."  

"I don't think anybody who was not in the operation can actually pass a detailed comment on the rightness and wrongness... This is fiendishly difficult policing." 

Police Commissioner Cressida Dick

 

"[I am] deeply concerned [by the scenes on Clapham Common and that Dame Cressida had] committed to reviewing how this was handled."  

"I plan to chair a meeting of the government's crime and justice task force on Monday to] look at what further action we need to take to protect women and ensure our streets are safe."  

"The death of Sarah Everard must unite us in determination to drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system work to protect and defend them."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson

Many who gathered at Clapham Common held signs protesting violence against women   Reuters

Thousands of women made certain they appeared at a Saturday night vigil for Sarah Everard, 33, a marketing executive who was abducted as she walked home alone after parting with a friend, and never reached home. A police officer has been found responsible for her death. A shocking revelation that has infuriated and mobilized British women to protest their lack of safety in public, where many women fear to be out alone on the streets at night.

Organizers had cancelled the vigil after police had persuaded them that under the circumstances with lockdown in effect, its legality and its safety were under question. Despite the cancellation women decided to attend and to take part in the vigil. "We're still in a pandemic, unlawful gatherings are unlawful gatherings, officers have to take action if people are putting themselves massively at risk", stated Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick.

This, in the wake of a violent police intervention at the vigil. And it was a step much too far for the women in attendance at the vigil and later for women throughout Britain who were not in attendance but were infuriated by the clumsy use of aggressive police tactics against the women at the vigil. Where some women were manhandled, violently sent to the ground, manacled and placed under arrest by London's finest.

The public, infuriated, are calling for the dismissal of Commissioner Dick, and she has responded by defending her force for their forceful action under circumstances where she claims the public's safety and security were at risk. By the presence in mourning of thousands of women, grieving over the murder of a young woman, vulnerable and alone in the dark on a London Street, where an officer of the London Police committed an odiously grievous crime.

One woman, with flaming red hair, wearing a mask, was badly manhandled, thrown to the ground surrounded by police, stifling her right to protest in a free and open society against the murder by one of their own of one of her own. Arms behind her back, handcuffed the way a violent criminal would be for expressing her sorrow and fury at the helplessness of women preyed upon not only by violent men-at-large by by the very security force whose job it is to protect them.

 

Police arrest a protester at the Sarah Everard ‘Reclaim These Streets’ vigil at Clapham Common in London on March 13, 2021. Photo by Mario Mitsis/WENN

When the photographs of this woman being physically assaulted by the very men who were pledged to protect society from the forces of criminality were posted, the public reacted with deserved disbelief and anger. Home Office minister Victoria Atkins, questioned on the the images responded, "I found it very upsetting, of course." And assistant police commissioner Helen Ball had an explanation: 

"We absolutely did not want to be in a position where enforcement action was necessary. But we were placed in this position because of the overriding need to protect people's safety. Hundreds of people were packed tightly together, posing a very real risk of easily transmitting [sic] COVID-19."

"A small minority of people began chanting at officers, pushing and throwing items."

A protester lies immobilized at the Sarah Everard ‘Reclaim These Streets’ vigil in London on March 13, 2021. Photo by Mario Mitsis/WENN

"[I attended the vigil to support women who] cannot walk down the streets themselves because of the fear of men."

"[The police actions were] disgraceful."

"Before then, it was just peaceful protest. I was arrested by police for standing there. I wasn't doing anything."

"They threw me to the floor. They have pictures of me on the floor being arrested."

"And I'm 5-foot-2 and I weigh nothing."

Patsy Stevenson, dangerous red-haired woman threatening a platoon of London Police

At the vigil one individual smashed the rear view window of a police van, while many others shouted "arrest your own" and "shame on you". Politicians from across the political spectrum found reason as they viewed the scenes of police action circulated online, to criticize the handling of the situation by the Metropolitan Police. Four people, according to police were arrested for "public order offences and for breaches of the Health Protection Regulations".

 

There were "many missed opportunities throughout the day for police to work with organizers to create a completely safe vigil so that people could go and have a moment of sorrow and a moment of resistance", remarked the opposition Labour Party's point person on domestic violence, Jess Phillips. A national outpouring of grief and anger resulted from the brutal killing of Sarah Everard, a young life lost, no less than at the hands of a police officer.  

 

She was seen last at 9:30 p.m. March 3, wending her way home from a south London home of a friend. Her killer, Wayne Couzens, 48, left her body in woods in Kent, where it was later found. He was charged with kidnap and murder. With the force since 2018 he was tasked with patrolling diplomatic premises of embassies. He had held posts at Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster.

 

Protestors marched from Scotland Yard to Parliament Square in London on Sunday, the day after police forcibly arrested several participants of a vigil honoring Sarah Everard. The 33-year-old London resident's alleged kidnapping and murder have prompted a national reckoning over street harassment and violence against women. Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Saudi Bloggers Inivite the Vengeance of the Powerful MbS ... AsylumAbroad? There is no Escape

Omar Abdulaziz  Washington Post/Getty Images

"[The Canadian authorities -- RCMP] received some information regarding my situation that I might be a potential target."

"MbS and his group or – I don’t know – his team, they want to harm me. They want to do something, but I don’t know whether it’s assassination, kidnapping, I don’t know – but something not OK for sure."

"They [RCMP] asked me, ‘What do you think about it?’ I said, ‘I’m happy'."

"I feel that I’m doing something. You know, if you’re not doing anything that bothers MbS, that means you’re not working very well."

"I don’t want to tell you that I’m scared. I’m not, honestly. But you have to take some precautions to be ready."

"[Saudis at one time commented freely about Saudi Arabia on Twitter]; That all changed with the rise of MbS. Saudi Twitter gradually morphed into a propaganda platform, with the government deploying trolls and pressuring influencers to amplify its messages. More than 30 influencers told me that the Saudi government blackmailed them with material obtained by hacking their phones. They were given two options: Tweet propaganda or have your private content, including pictures, released on Twitter." 

Omar Abdulaziz, Saudi blogger, activist, self-exiled in Canada

 

"[The Official Opposition in Parliament want to see the governing Liberals create a] robust plan to counter foreign influence operations on Canadian soil."

"The government's response to Canadians facing intimidation and harassment by foreign agents is wholly inadequate." 

Michael Chong, Conservative foreign affairs critic

 

"It is completely unacceptable and we will never tolerate foreign actors threatening Canada's national security or the safety of our citizens and residents."

Public Safety Minister Bill Blair

 

"Now that the U.S. has clearly signalled that it will not fundamentally change the relationship with Saudi Arabia, it becomes much more difficult and costly for American allies in the west to change their relationship with Saudi Arabia."

Thomas Juneau, professor, faculty of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa

 

YouTuber Omar Abdulaziz, now a Montrealer, has been under pressure by agents of Saudi Arabia trying to persuade him to return to the Kingdom. Once he returns, he well knows, he will be subject to additional pressure to surrender his opposition to the ruling House of Saud, and to become part of the Kingdom's stable of electronic propagandists under the imprimatur of Crowns Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Alternately, he could very well and more likely suffer the fate that awaited Raif Badawi, another blogger and activist who has been imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for the past eight years.

 

Ensaf Haidar, Raif Badawi's wife has been actively engaged for the period her husband has been incarcerated, in approaching governments and human rights groups for their support in applying pressure to Saudi Arabia to release her husband. When Raif Badawi was originally taken into custody in 2012, charged with insulting Islam and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, he was also sentenced to receive 1000 lashes as additional punishment. He was subjected to an initial 50 lashes which almost killed the frail young man.

 

An international outcry persuaded the Saudis to settle for the 50 lashes for the time being. Raif Badawi's ten-year sentence is set to soon expire. But his wife Ensaf Haidar has become an irritating thorn in Mohammed bin Salman's side, and signs have emerged that she is set to be 'investigated' by the Saudi legal system for besmirching the reputation of the Kingdom. Underlying that threat is another, that a new charge is being leveled at Mr. Badawi which would most certainly extend his prison stay into the future.

Ensaf Haidar, wife of imprisoned blogger Raif Badawi, holds a poster with his photo at a rally for his freedom on Jan. 13, 2015, in Montreal. Photo by Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/File

Like Russia and Iran, Saudi Arabia has long been known to seek out its nationals abroad who have taken to criticizing the Kingdom, to threaten or silence them. The murder and dismemberment of Saudi Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul represents the most high-profile of the Saudi intelligence group's effort to silence a critic; a hit that went sideways with a resulting gasp of horror at the extreme lengths chosen to silence a critic through a grotesquely ill-conceived 'disappearance'.

 

Since the 2017 palace coup when King Salman's son Mohammed persuaded his father to anoint him successor to the Saudi throne rather than his uncle, when Mohammed bin Salman then had many members of the royal family placed under house arrest, thus removing any challenges to his claim to the throne in a reorganized succession, the Kingdom has seen various types of turmoil, internal and external. MbS has proceeded slowly to loosen Saudi laws restricting the human rights of Saudi women. While at the same time arresting women who publicly agitate for their human rights.

 

Mohammed bin Salman, Getty Images

He also formed a coalition with other Sunni Arab states to become involved in an Iranian proxy civil war in Yemen, arming and training Houthi rebels for the greater goal of consolidating the influence and power of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a wider arc of Shi'ite influence encircling the majority Arab Sunni states. The mass arrest of senior Saudis, repression of dissidents and the disappearance of those close to dissidents sheltering abroad have all marked the Kingdom's MbS launch into notoriety.

"We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi." 

"While the United States remains invested in its relationship with Saudi Arabia, President [Joe] Biden has made clear that partnership must reflect U.S. values." 

"To that end, we have made absolutely clear that extraterritorial threats and assaults by Saudi Arabia against activists, dissidents and journalists must end. They will not be tolerated by the United States."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Another Saudi blogger living in Montreal where he had sought asylum began to block fellow activists on social media. Other Saudi dissidents in Canada posted that Ahmed Alharby had informed them of a visit he made to the Saudi embassy in Ottawa where he had undergone interrogation. A new Twitter account appeared in mid-February under Alharby, featuring the image of Mohammed bin Salman, making ti clear that Alharby had returned to Saudi Arabia and was no longer a critic, but a stalwart fan of MbS. 

Saudi women have to wear the abaya in public by law   Getty Images

Saudi Saad Aljabri, formerly a high-ranking intelligence officer, linked closely to the deposed uncle of Mohammed bin Salman, has been harassed at his home in exile in Toronto, with Saudi agents trying to persuade him to return to his country of birth. Two of his adult children living in Saudi Arabia have been 'disappeared' in an apparent effort to persuade their father to return to Saudi Arabia. Aljabri has launched a lawsuit against Mohammed bin Salman in the United States charging him with dispatching a hit squad to dispose of him, but the squad was denied entry to Canada by suspicious Canada Border agents.

Reporters Without Borders has filed legal documents in Germany for an investigation to be launched into alleged crimes against humanity in the repression of journalists by Mohammed bin Salman. Clearly, he has failed to positively impress governments and various agencies around the world. "The official opening of a criminal investigation in Germany into the crimes against humanity in Saudi Arabia would be a world first", observed German executive director of Reporters Without Borders, Christian Mihr.

A cyclist passes as activists demonstrate outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy against the recent Saudi court ruling that upheld a previous verdict of ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for Saudi blogger Raif Badawi on June 11, 2015 in Berlin, Germany. Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images

Revealed Through Gross Ineptitude

"We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi."

"We base this assessment on the Crown Prince's control of decision-making in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman's protective detail in the operation and the Crown Prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi."

U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence report 

Khashoggi said MBS should get rid of his complex against the Muslim Brotherhood [Handout]

 

Henry II was said to have planned the death of his adversary, the Archbishop of Canterbury by simply mouthing the words: "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?". And that would be all that was needed for a plot to be cooked up to motivate assailants in service to the king to perform the deed. Similarly Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince may have used a sentiment to the very same effect: "Would someone kindly rid me of this troubling pest?" and the deed would be assured to be carried out. Despite the distance of a thousand years between those events, they otherwise have much in common.

Supreme rulers have a penchant for things going their way. The means used to achieve the required result are of little moment to them; what is important is that their wishes be carried out. They have no need to know the petty details; only the conclusion that the deed transpired successfully. In this particular instance of incredibly awkward decision-making and planning carried out with an utter lack of finesse by crude assailants it was inevitable there would be a lashback.

The murderous crew was careless and uncaring of consequences. The simple expedient of hauling the man back to Saudi Arabia for permanent imprisonment for irritating the royal power behind the throne would have been simple enough to carry to conclusion; the decision to murder the man, dismember the body and secrete it away somewhere represented a bleak, black slapstick farce of intelligence planning gone amok, which had its inevitable consequences.

Turkey's Erdogan, eager to ingratiate himself with the United States' investigation as a demonstration of just how powerfully cognizant he is about civilized behaviour -- despite that he sees nothing whatever unsettling to human rights by marginalizing, persecuting, and bombing minority indigenous Kurds who prefer that their status reflect that of resident/citizens of their ancient homeland, Kurdistan, not Turkey -- professed to be shocked and indignant over the bloody scene. And in matters of injuring and killing innocent civilians as a byproduct of conflict, the U.S. has no clean slate authorizing its investigation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Byzantine affairs.

 

Jamal Khashoggi. Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP/Getty

 

 

Jamal Khashoggi had a chequered past, consorting with terrorists, agitating against Jews and Israel, the perennial scapegoats of the Middle East, himself an enthusiastic member of the Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged as a terrorist organization by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. His slurs against the House of Saud's irritation factor cannot have been carried out without the knowledge that he was making himself a marked man. He lived in the U.S. in self-exile. To name him as a highly respected journalist is to elevate a sow's ear to a silk purse. His death is no great loss to a troubled world.

 

President Joe Biden wanted to break the revelatory news gently to his great good friend, 85-year-old King Salman, who knows realpolitik inside and out. The point of the release of the investigation pointing a finger of responsibility at this favoured son-and-heir-to-the-Saudi-throne simultaneously with a personal video conference was a patronizing exercise in a more powerful country gently handling a collegial country a political grenade; to be carefully handled lest an explosion result harming relations between the two countries. 

But like Turkey's Erdogan, America's Biden was intent on demonstrating how civilized the United States is, and how affronted civil society was in the wake of the details revealed in the ghastly 2018

assassination of the "Washington Post journalist". An odious act of state malfeasance, somewhat similar to Iran's hit squads hunting down enemies of the Grand Ayatollah, or Russian hitmen poisoning unsuspecting Russian dissidents abroad, occasionally succeeding in dispatching victims to lethal poisoning -- sometimes failing.