Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts

Friday, July 25, 2025

The Controversies at LifeSiteNews


John Henry-Westen, the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of LifeSiteNews, was recently removed from his position by the LifeSiteNews board. Then he got reinstated.

These moves caught much of the pro-life, pro-family, religious conservative world off guard. That’s saying a great deal, considering that pro-life and pro-family conservatives have seen all kinds of moral decline and degradation becoming the norm throughout the West. Pro-family fighters have witnessed same-sex “marriage,” rising defenses for pedophilia, and the increased push for assisted suicide. So little shocks us now.

What’s going on here? Should we be concerned? Why is one of the flagship pro-family (and anti-LGBT) news sites facing such leadership turmoil?

First, let’s talk about LifeSiteNews.

This Catholic-based news site has rigorously and accurately documented the downfall and decline of a De-Christianized West. For years, their commentary and confrontation on these matters commanded respect. They even republished the activist reporting from the organization I work for—MassResistance—because of our unwavering commitment against the LGBT agenda in all of its perverse forms.

LifeSiteNews did not back away from calling out moral corruption. To their credit, they were not only unafraid to call out the wrongs and evils of homosexuality and transgenderism. They were a welcome voice for social conservatives like me because they unflinchingly criticized the Republican Party, including President Trump, as they cozied up to so-called LGBT “conservatives” infiltrating the larger conservative movement. Their countercultural attack on mainstream conservatism gave me hope in spite of the growing fecklessness or cowardice of conservative leadership to oppose same-sex “marriage”, adoption, and the like.

So, what’s going on at LifeSiteNews? Is the leadership getting soft, embracing pro-“gay” messaging? Not a chance.

Rather, the news site has taken a dark turn on another set of issues.

For the last two years, I noticed the site’s publishing an increasing number of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist articles on many policy fronts. They were cataloguing the so-called war crimes of the IDF and blasting American politicians and foreign policy makers as puppets of Israel.

Here’s a sample:

Orthodox rabbi: Zionism a ‘cardinal sin’ for Jews, creation of Israel is ‘satanic’

Zionism: Rebellion against God?! | Rabbi speaks out

Why is a Catholic-oriented news site interviewing a Rabbi? And why are they going off on Israel and Zionism?

Oh, and it gets better (or rather, worse). They talk about the horrendous “Israel Lobby” that supposedly controls Washington:

GOP Congressman Thomas Massie exposes Zionist lobby’s power over Congress

Leaked audio exposes Israel lobby’s enormous power over the Trump administration

WATCH: Candace Owens exposes the Israel lobby’s stranglehold on America

For what it’s worth, Candace Owens has been exposed as an intellectual lightweight with a shaky grasp of the facts. She celebrated Andrew Tate, a serial pornographer under indictment for sex trafficking, while denouncing pornography. She also claimed that Hitler was not that bad.

Regarding the purported power of AIPAC, most of their funding goes to Democrats, and the Democratic Party has become increasingly hostile to Israel. As for Congressman  Massie, his performance theater against big spending is starting to wear thin. He never called out the big spending from his fellow US Senators, and he voted for liberal Republican Tom Emmer to be the next Speaker of the House this year. The focus and subject matter of these reports leave much to be desired.

And sadly, LifeSiteNews has thrown itself into the USS Liberty conspiracy. (I refute those talking points here.)



In 2023, Patrick Delaney, one of the editors at LifeSiteNews, wrote, “Orthodox patriarchate condemns ‘Israeli radicals’ for attacking bishop, priest at Church of Gethsemane.”

Yes, there are Jewish radicals, as there are radicals in other religions. What is conspicuously missing from this coverage, however, is the widespread denunciation from other Jews against such abuses. In contrast, Islamic militants have committed all sorts of crimes and terrorism against innocents—Christian, Jew, Muslim—and there is no condemnation from residents in Gaza or Judea and Samaria of their hostilities.

For the record, the Israeli government has cracked down on hyper-orthodox adherents harassing Christians, and local Rabbis raised funds to help repair a Catholic church attacked by Jewish radicals, too.

In 2024, Delaney wrote a particularly egregious article, claiming that Israel was conducting a “genocide” against the residents of Gaza following the October 7th, 2023 terrorist attack from Hamas:

Israeli soldiers celebrate the ‘torturing, humiliating, and mocking’ of Palestinians on social media

I refused to remain quiet in the face of these blatant lies. I wrote an extensive response email (republished here), refuting the libelous claims about Israel and American foreign policy vis-à-vis the Jewish State. I focused on the redefinition of “genocide.” I also pointed out that his using “Al-Jazeera” as a legitimate news source is suspect.

Delaney responded, and he provided a broad mixture of half-truths and misdefinitions to justify his dishonest arguments.

LifeSiteNews eventually printed my letter, along with Delaney’s response (InfoWars republished the article, too!), but referred to me as “William” and called me a “Christian Zionist journalist,” presumably as a smear. I wear such terms as a badge of honor. The most damning aspect of Delaney’s defense of calling Israel’s attacks on Hamas “genocide” rested on his contortion of the term to include any form of fighting in a combat zone!

With all of this information in the background, let’s get to the firing and rehiring (?) of John Henry-Westen.

LifeSiteNews Co-Founder and Managing Editor Steve Jalsevac released a statement regarding Westen’s departure:

While legal constraints prevent us from delving into extensive detail, I can share that the decision was influenced by several factors, including a 72% drop in readership from 2021 to 2024 during John-Henry’s tenure as CEO, a decline in monthly and new donors, and other business challenges. Additionally, an internal survey revealed significant concerns regarding staff sentiment and safety scores, which further informed the board’s considerations.

 

Nonprofits have to keep the money flowing, but should stick to their principles. A steep drop-off of nearly three-quarters of your readership is troubling.

I can guess why LifeSiteNews is losing readers and donors:

The Pro-Hamas, Anti-Israel Propaganda!

Truth matters in the fight against moral and sexual degradation. When a Catholic-based news site insists on pushing pro-terrorist propaganda, venturing into foreign policy conspiracy theories, they are embracing lies, one can expect that their once-faithful readership will be repulsed.

And now, we receive word that John Henry-Westen has been reinstated.

Surprisingly, the site issued a very short reinstatement statement:

The LifeSiteNews Board of Directors voted today to restore John-Henry Westen to his former position.

 

“John-Henry Westen has been recognized by the board as the President and CEO of lifesitenews.com Inc. subject to administrative review and investigation.”

C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts issued the following analysis:

"This is likely the only time in the history of corporate governance that a statement restoring a CEO showed even less cordiality than the statement which announced his firing.

The brevity, timing and language of the announcement all suggest a profound reluctance, or even resentment, on the part of those who issued it.

It was released at 5:47 EDT on a Friday afternoon, a time best suited to minimize publicity on a story that a corporation or a government agency wishes to bury.

The use of the word 'recognized', rather than the more usual 're-appointed' is curious. It might suggest that the previous vote was somehow improper or legally defective.

The inclusion of the phrase 'subject to administrative review and investigation' suggests continued hostility towards Westen by the Board of Directors.

There is also a striking omission. There is no mention of Westen being restored as Editor-in-Chief of LifeSiteNews, a position specifically referenced in his termination announcement.”

LifeSiteNews is losing readers, then they bungled the removal of the CEO. C.J. Doyle’s analysis makes sense. Potential litigation often scares organizations into a quick, unexplained course correction.

But did the board fire Westen because of the website’s increasing embrace of anti-Zionist propaganda? One of the frequent commentators on the site, Peter LaBarbera, shared with me that Westen was not removed because of the anti-Zionist turn in reporting: “It wasn’t about the Israel bashers. They’re still there!” He encouraged me to reach out to one of their main contributors, who privately shared his criticism of the anti-Zionism turn in reporting, but that writer has not gotten back to me yet.

If the LifeSiteNews board of directors can’t see how their dishonest reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict is affecting readers, then they should be fired!

If LifeSiteNews editors want to maintain life on their site to report the news, they need to get back to reporting … news! All the anti-Zionist propaganda, I submit, is the real turn-off, turning off the donations and views.

The larger question remains: why publish such anti-Israeli (and thus anti-Semitic) garbage? One suspects that the site, based in Canada, is trying to placate an increasing Muslim population. Perhaps they are buying into the engagement harvesting that comes with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Whatever the reason, they need a major course-correction if they want to survive.

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Lipton Matthews Interviews Arthur Schaper Re: "Exploitation of the USS Liberty" Article


Lipton Matthews


Born in Jamaica and currently working in the United Kingdom, Lipton Matthews is a researcher, business analyst, and contributor to Merion WestThe FederalistAmerican Thinker, Intellectual Takeout, mises.org, and Imaginative Conservative. Visit his YouTube channel, with numerous interviews with a variety of scholars, here. He may be contacted at lo_matthews@yahoo.com or on Twitter (@matthewslipton).

I first connected with Lipton via Mises.org, a great website which discusses Austrian economics and provides unique, even revisionist takes on American and World History.

I shared my article with Ryan McMaken, who has written about the USS Liberty incident, and the website even platformed USS Liberty veteran Phil Tourney.

Lipton wanted to interview me about my article, and we had a considerable conversation!





See the article here: "Exploiting the USS Liberty"


             







             

Monday, June 9, 2025

Letter to the Editor Re: "Exploiting the USS Liberty"




Exploiting the USS Liberty

I very much appreciated your essay. It's wonderful to have an honest analysis of a tragic event that has been grossly abused for propaganda purposes.

Sincerely,


Andrea Widburg

American Thinker

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Final Thoughts on the USS Liberty Incident

 


On October 30th, 2024, I debated Nick Taurus of Laguna Hills, CA about the Arab-Israeli conflict:


Here's the entire video of the debate:


I brought up one of the key points of contention of anti-Zionists: The USS Liberty Incident on June 8th, 1967 during the 6-Day War. I knew that anti-Zionists in the debate would bring up this event, as if one military tragedy justifies demonizing an entire country, and making the United States government somehow complicit in killing our veterans.

The more that I have heard anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, and yes anti-Semitic types spout off about the USS Liberty, the more that I wanted to learn about the matter myself.

I reviewed the matter on the Jewish Virtual Library.

The research and evidence all point to the whole affair coming down to a massive clusterfark of miscommunications is unmistakable.

For the record, the anti-Israeli types all believe that Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Israeli government colluded together to sink the ship in order to blame the Egyptians and other Arab states in order to further a larger hot war against the Arab states in the region.

This motivation makes no sense, since the Israelis had decimated the Arabs, especially Egypt, before June 8th! Also, there were Israeli pilots who flew over, but we are talking about 8,000 feet about the water! It's not like anyone could have seen definitively that it was an American ship. Also, the United States government had announced prior to the incidentn that they had no presence in the region.

But more on that later.

Despite all the logical and evidentiary problems with the anti-Zionist conspiracy theories, that has not stopped them from complaining about the incident and accusing Israel of war crimes.

So, let's establish the fact that the US Government did not set up the USS Liberty to be destroyed.

James Scott, who wrote The Attack on the Liberty, documents that the United States Navy and NSA tried to contact the USS Liberty five times to get away from the Egyptian coastline, at least by 100 miles. The ship did not get the message. Most people don't understand that even the advanced technology possessed by the United States government at that time was still quite rudimentary compared to what everyday Americans possess today via email, smartphones, etc.


The fact is that the federal government tried to contact the USS Liberty to abandon its spy operations in the region and get away from the coastline. Commander McGonagle didn't get the message. In my view, one reason for all the logistics and communications issues was that two agencies were supervising this ship: the US Navy and the NSA. Right away, there are going to be problems. One direct authority should have been supervising and directing the ship the entire time.

Bear in mind that James Scott, a son of one of the veterans, is especially critical of Israel, and repeatedly asks the question "How could they mistake the American ship for an Egyptian ship?" We will address the confusion issue shortly, but for now, I just want to assert that the United States government did not set up the USS Liberty for destruction.

Not only do we have evidence that the United States tried to contact the ship, after the event the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Avraham Harman, furiously wrote to the Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, telling him that Israel needed to:

1. Apologize for the event

2. Pay reparations to the United States and the veterans

3. Jail any of the Israeli leaders responsible for this huge mistake

Reckless endangerment is a criminal offense in common law. Harman's assertions clearly show that the Israeli government was not involved in some plot to take down an American ship.

There was no deliberate effort from American or Israeli forces, including the leaders, for the Israeli military to destroy an American ship.

Now, let's talk about "How could the Israelis have mistaken an American ship for an Egyptian ship?"

Let's start with Cam Higby's research on the incident:


The United States government announced to the UN General Assembly that they had no presence in the region during the Six Day War. Why? They believed that the USS Liberty had gotten the message! 

So, when Israelis spot a ship in the region, even if there was an American flag on the ship, the Israeli military brass understandably concluded that it was an enemy ship posing as an American ship. This kind of deception happens all the time in war. On top of that, we have listened to radio communications from the Israeli fighter planes, and they mistook the identification GTR on the side of the ship to read CTR.

They misread the ship, and then they went along with the official statement of the United States. Keep in mind that they were in the midst of a hot war with five Arab states, including Egypt!

In early 2024, one of the members of the New Hampshire General Court reminded his colleagues, when they were debating a bill to host their own investigation into the USS Liberty incident, that the American flag actually fell off during the strafing!

Here's that entire hearing from last year:


It's also important to point out that the Israelis did not sink the ship. Cam Higby makes a mistake in his analysis when he claimed that the Israelis actually sunk the ship. He also got the number of dead wrong--it was 34 sailors, not 24, but the rest of Higby's analysis still withstands scrutiny.

Let me repeat: Israel did not sink the ship. If the goal was to maliciously destroy an American vessel, why not just finish the job? Because the Israelis realized, as the lifeboats came into their view, that it was an AMERICAN ship!

Here's another video affirming this account:


They realized that they made a mistake, a horrible mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

Also, anyone can look at the transcripts of the inquiry into the incident, which took place on the island of Malta a week later. McGonagle asserts that was an attack of mistaken identity. 

Here's some of the documentation, provided on X:

Of course, Joe Meadors, one of the most discredited members of the USS Liberty Veterans Association, and someone who commented on another one of my earlier blog posts, shared a video with me that McGonagle changed his story. I find this change of mind more improbable to believe. Why didn't he come forward five years after the event? Why wait thirty years?

Because McGonagle didn't change his story:

Now, I want to share other outrages about this incident.

Some of the veterans keep insisting that there has been no investigation into the USS Liberty. That is simply not true. The Jewish Virtual Library documents ten American investigations, and the Israeli government conducted three investigations.

There was a more recent investigation afterward, following a 2003 lawsuit against the NSA, in which that agency released more classified information on the incident. What more do the veterans want at this point?

Perhaps some of them have more sinister motives.

Last month, USS Liberty veteran Phil Tourney gave a big presentation on Candace Owens' program:


She hyped it up as a big disclosure, a "major announcement" first without listing the USS Liberty. In reality, it was cheap marketing to gin up engagement on YouTube. In this video, Phil Tourney trots out all the talking points blasting the Israeli government for "deliberately" attacking an American ship.

Like progressive USS Liberty veteran Joe Meadors, though, Tourney has an ax to grind.

You can see it all over his X account.

He doesn't just blast Israel, but he blasts all Jews. He peddles all the anti-Semitic tropes one could imagine, and then some. If he wants justice and answers, why does he attack every Jew, and not reserve his criticism for the Israeli government in 1967?

The USS Liberty incident was a tragic war-time error due to miscommunications. These fog of war tragedies happen more often than people realize. (More on that shortly).

Anti-Zionists love to leave out the fact that the Israeli government apologized and paid considerable reparations to the families of the veterans who were killed and to the veterans who were wounded. Also, a period of diplomatic stasis emerged between the United States and Israel, which remained until 1987.

Frankly, I am disturbed and outraged that one group of veterans thinks they have a monopoly on tragedy and pain, and they expect us to ignore other veterans who were harmed by friendly fire or who were harmed because of American governmental ineptitude.

Let's consider other incidents.

Six months after the USS Liberty incident, another American spy ship, the USS Pueblo, was captured by the North Koreans. Why was the ship there in the first place? What benefit did the Johnson Administration think they would gain by spying on North Korea? This was another directive of terrible judgment. While almost the entire crew was returned safely to the United States that same year, the ship remains in North Korea as a humiliation trophy of triumph against the United States.

Now, anti-Zionists will counter that no lives were lost. Wrong. One American navy man died.

How about the USS Stark incident?

May 17, 1987 (almost twenty years after the USS Liberty incident), another American ship was attacked by friendly forces, this time Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Yes, there was a time when Hussein was an ally of the United States, and our government was supporting him during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Here's a summary from Wikipedia:

The USS Stark incident occurred during the Iran–Iraq War on 17 May 1987 in the Persian Gulf, when an Iraqi jet aircraft fired two Exocet missiles at the U.S. frigate USS Stark. A total of 37 United States Navy personnel were killed or later died as a result of the attack, and 21 were injured.

More American soldiers were killed in this friendly fire incident, and Hussein apologized because his fighters thought that the American ship was an Iranian ship (but no reparations). Why doesn't the USS Liberty crowd cry out about this?

How about the USS Cole?

October 12, 2000, Al-Qaeda sailed a boat loaded with explosives near this ship and detonated their bombs. Why don't the anti-Zionists care about this attack?

Just last month, an American ship shot down two navy pilots in another friendly-fire gaffe:

The F/A-18 shot down had just flown off the deck of the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier, Centcom said. On 15 December Centcom acknowledged the Truman had entered the Middle East, but hadn’t specified that the carrier and its battle group was in the Red Sea.

“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S Truman carrier strike group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18,” Centcom said in a statement. The incident was being investigated.

Why don't the people who complain about Israel raise hell about this gross incompetence?

Putting aside all of these terrible or tragic events, I find it unconscionable that the USS Liberty advocates bellow about what happened to them, when they ought to consider the example of their peers who were attacked--without warning--at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

2,403 Americans died under Japanese airfighter assaults. This was a horrific attack, which included the actual sinking of the USS Arizona. Why don't the anti-Zionists care about this? There is even some speculation that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew about the attack and allowed it to happen without preparing the US Navy. One would think that the Woke Dissident Right would be up in arms about what Japan did to our veterans.

Let's consider what Japan has done, compared to Israel:

1. They launched a deliberate attack.

2. They killed two thousand plus American servicemen.

3. To this day, Japan has not apologized for the attack on Pearl Harbor.

4. To this day, Japan has not paid a dime to any of the veterans or their families.

Why don't the anti-Israeli factions care about these veterans? 

What's more, Pearl Harbor veterans, what few still remain, don't complain about it every year demanding that the American government or the Japanese government pay big money. You don't see anti-Japanese rallies among their descendants, either. 

Why are certain veterans obsessed with demonizing Israel, when other countries deserve much greate opprobrium for what they did?

The answer is simple: like Phil Tourney, Joe Meadors, and other anti-Zionist obsessives who complain about the USS Liberty, they simply hate Jews and they hate Israel. It's shameful.

What's really disgusting about all of this? The USS Liberty fanatics play the "veteran" card to shut down anyone who challenges or criticize stheir take on the whole incident.

"Well, I believe the veterans!" 

This is more wokeness, where the focus is on feelings, identity politics, and conspiracy theories, all at the expense of the truth.

Deceased US Senator John McCain was a veteran, and he betrayed this country and his constituents repeatedly, when he campaigned to build a border wall, but then repeatedly fought for amnesty, and killed the repeal of Obamacare.

Congressman Seth Moulton is a veteran, and he is a regressive leftist who thinks that men can become women.

Former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham was a veteran, and he took millions of dollars in bribes. He literally played the veteran card at his sentencing hearing, and the judge dismissed those pleas. Just because he was a veteran did not excuse his criminal conduct and his betrayal of the truth of his constituents and his country.

Being a veteran does not make anyone immune to criticism. Being a veteran does not mean that anyone of them can lie to the public with impunity and demonize entire countries or people groups. Truth is still truth, and fighting for the truth must remain the highest value.

Conclusion

The more that I have studied the USS Liberty incident, the more I am convinced that the event was a conflux of miscommunications and mistaken identities. At the worse, it was an act of gross negligence, but it no wise can one state that the Israeli government deliberately attacked an American ship, or that the American government was under the thumb of the Israelis to do whatever they wanted.

What has also come to light in this investigation is the more critical eye I have to take when it comes to veterans and their testimonies on any matter. Yes, we should be thankful for the veterans and their service to our country, but that does not give them carte blanche to say whatever they want and we have to believe everything they say.

It's time to end the lies about the USS Liberty, and it's time to take another weapon out of the Anti-Zionists' arsenal of lies against the United States and Israel.


Monday, December 9, 2024

Israeli Arab Christian Denounces So-Called Palestinian Cause, Defends Is...

                          

Yosef Haddad, an Arab Christian and Israeli national, blasts the pro-"Palestinian" mob during his Oxford Union speech in defense of Israel and against the motion that Israel is an apartheid state. Here's a biographical summary from Wikipedia about Yosef Haddad: "Yoseph Haddad is an Arab-Israeli Orthodox Christian who was born in Haifa, Israel. His mother was a teacher and his father was a priest, businessman and civil aviator. Later, the family moved to Nazareth, Israel, where he attended the Don Bosco Technological High School named after Giovanni Bosco." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoseph_...) More people need to see this stellar take-down of those arrogant Oxonian SJWs! I learned things about Israel which I had never know before! I post this video under Fair Use, and I found it via this X post: https://x.com/LizaRosen0000/status/18...

Sunday, November 3, 2024

FREE SPEECH DEBATE: Arab-Israeli Conflict (Nick Taurus v. Arthur Schaper)

                      


Here's my full debate with Nick Taurus, a pro-Palestinian Trump supporter from Orange County, CA.

Some people consider that an oxymoron. How can someone support the Palestinian movement, since so many of them are Leftists? Of course, his side, and many of his supporters, counter that Israel and Zionism are the greatest threat 

The debate took place at the Laguna Hills Community Center on Wednesday, October 30th, 2024.

Nick reached out to me in the middle of Summer 2024. He was hoping to pair me off against another anti-Zionist speaker. He reached out to a number of left-leaning, pro-Palestinian groups, but none of them would step up.

I was glad to step in and stand for truth, stand for Israel, and expose the truth about the so-called Palestinian movement.

This was not as daunting a task, since I had debated Nick on the Arab-Israeli conflict shortly after the October 7th, 2023 Hamas massacre:

             

For the October 30th, 2024 debate, Nick provided all the questions in advance, which was great, since that gesture allowed both of us to study, research, and prepare more effectively.

He also provided ground rules, which included no interruptions. I admit that that is my weak point. CRINGE! It's true, and I can laugh at myself about that.

There were supposed to be two moderators, a pro-Zionist and an anti-Zionist, but the pro-Zionist could not make it at the last minute.

Lawrence of Europa served as the moderator, and like CBS or NBC moderators, he broke the rules and interrupted me a few times, but that conflict did not stop me from speaking out.

Some of my friends joined the event, including Rachelle Mand, a Persian Jew who fled Iran before the Ayatollah took over. Keith Hardine of South Los Angeles, John Willis of Upland (both former members of We the People Rising), and Eli Komai of the John Birch Society also attended.

It was a pleasant surprise to see Eli, who is also a friend of Nick Taurus.

GROUP PHOTOS!




The debate was fun!

It was great to stand for truth, to refute a lot of the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist talking points.

Nick was definitely the more reserved debater, standing behind the podium the whole time. I was more active, moving around a great deal. I don't recall any rules of decorum regarding our behavior, so there is that.

I really enjoyed stepping forward and speaking to the audience directly. For the first time in a long time, I felt really confident about this subject. It was good to interact with people.

Nick referenced a great deal of books, resources, and authors. That did not bother me, since truth is truth, and if lots of information is based on a false premise, everything else is invalidated. I also referenced some books, websites, and authors. I will say this much: I want to work on memorizing more names and more sources for future debates.

Let me get the worst and the missed opportunities out of the way:
  • Nick pointed out that there are Jewish people in the Biden Administration who are part of the open borders agenda. But who put them there? Joe Biden! I should have responded to that, but there were so many other things I wanted to respond to.
  • He talked a great deal about "Jewish" NGOs pushing mass migration and open borders. Who funds them, though? Most of the funding comes from rich white liberal Gentiles.
  • He mentioned the Appollo Affair. Yawn. I had challenged that in the last debate, in which independent American and Israeli investigations confirmed that Schlomo Solomon did not steal any uranium. A third party, Seymour Hersh, did his own investigation and wrote his findings in The Sampson Option.
  • I neglected to point out that Amin al-Husseini, the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, along with other Arab interests in the Middle East and Muslims in Southeastern Europe, collaborated with the Nazis to exterminate the Jews in Europe instead of expelling them to the Middle East.

Some of the best moments (for me) in the debate:
  • Pointing out that Israeli police officers arrest hyper-Orthodox Jews when they spit at Christians. That fact deflated the whole talking point from the anti-Zionists in the audience.
  • Using the phrase "so-called Palestinians" and undermining the legacy and veracity of that term. It felt really good to inform the audience that Zionist founders like Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion were also Palestinians!
  • Not breaking a sweat when one of the anti-Zionist members of the audience asked me about the Haavera Transfer Agreement. At that moment, I had not heard of that phrase, although I know that Hilter initially wanted to expel the Jews to the Middle East. Instead of getting flustered, I got to the heart of the issue: "Do you think that justifies pushing 6 million Jews into ovens?" I also stated, "Whatever that is, that does not delegitimize Israel." That's what all these obscure references are really all about.
  • Refuting the "Dancing Israelis" conspiracy by using the phrase "Dancing Palestinians." I wanted to underscore the reality that it's the so-called Palestinians and their Arab/Muslim allies who are harming this country. I really thank God for having that phrase on the tip of my tongue.
  • Referencing Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who served in a foreign military in order to supporting allow American citizens to serve in Congress. Nick acknowledged that point as a good counter-argument, and I respect that.
  • Repeating the fact that Israel offered the so-called Palestinians a state FIVE TIMES. None on the Pro-Palestinian side can bellyache about fairness or lack of return, when so-called Palestinian leaders just want to push the Jews into the sea.

My favorite moment was turning the tables on a groyper wearing an American Flag jacket during the Question and Answer period. I think his name was Andrew, although I could be wrong. He referenced the Lavon Affair, which is a common anti-Zionist talking point. He went off about the USS Liberty, which I had mentioned before he did. He tried to interrupt me a few times, but I was relentless in pushing back on the anti-Zionist tropes. 

I really like that I held him accountable for exploiting those veterans, and I also like that I could get the truth out about Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most consequential--and the worst--Presidents in our country's history.

Frankly, I think that the biggest problem for many of these anti-Zionist guys is that people simply do not let them talk, and they do not respond with simple facts or evidence. People get easily offended because of the controversial nature of the subject and just shut off all discussion. That is not the way to win (back) hearts and minds.

I liked that I was able to confront other anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the audience, and Lawrence could not stop me. The whole situation reminded me of JD Vance, when he confronted the CBS moderator for "fact-checking" him, when the corporate media moderators were just lying. Nick backed me up when the moderator got out of line, which helped a great deal.

Post-debate was great, too. A number of people came up to me and thanked me for coming, including the pro-Palestinian groyper (?) wearing an American flag on his jacket. He came up to me and shook my hand, praising me for stepping into hostile territory and taking a stand for Israel.

I let him share his views on "The Jews did 9-11," and I was able to refute his arguments. 


              

 I think it's quite telling that during the Question and Answer period, Nick did not want to spend too much time responding to his question about invading and destroying Israel. Even for anti-Zionists, the American-Flag jacket guy's arguments were way too much!

Nick was very magnanimous and praised me efforts after the debate. I am grateful that I could come and speak up, too!



Tuesday, October 29, 2024

"Palestinian" is a Mental Illness

Mosab Yousef is an international treasure.

A former Muslim, a former Islamic militant, the son of the Founder of Hamas, Yousef is a Christian who has fled jihad since he was a youth.

He has stood for truth in every instance, standing up to every pro-"Palestinian" militant.

There's a boldness in his assertions, unswayed by the arrogant ignorance of the pro-terrorist Left, which celebrates the destruction of innocents (and innocence) to justify their lack of meaning, purpose, or heart.

For the last six months, I have begun to compare the Wokeness movement with the Palestinian movement.

There is a broad obsession with feelings, identity politics, and conspiracy theories. There is no interest in truth.

Furthermore, what is a "Palestinian"? There is no real border, or language, or culture. It is an astroturf movement created by an Islamic Egyptian pedophile named Yasser Arafat!

That is all!

There is no such thing as a modern "Palestine," since Mandatory Palestine turned into Israel in 1948.

In fact, "Palestinian" is a mental illness, another iteration of the Woke mind virus which is eating up the Western World:
It's time to tell the truth: No Such Thing as Palestinian.

The whole "Palestinian" cause is a mental illness, one based on feelings, identity politics, and conspiracy theories.

The whole "Palestinian" cause is a falsehood. It's a mental sickness which has afflicted refugees and their children in the West Bank and Gaza.

The whole "Palestinian" cause is a fraud, a mental illness based on self-righteousness and fear.

Mosab Yousef Educates the Indoctrinated of Harvard

I am going to let this great video speak for itself?:
Mosab Yousef is an international treasure.

He has become more heated and strident in his outrage because the pro-Palestinian delusion has swallowed up a younger generation.

The lack of wisdom, the complete disregard for facts, history, and truth is no doubt stunning to this former Muslim turned Christian, a young man who witnessed the worst atrocities of Hamas and Islamic jihad, and not just against Christians and Jews but other Muslims!

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Extensive Response to Patrick Delaney re: Charges of Genocide Against Israel



In a previous post, I published in full an extensive justification/commentary from Patrick Delaney, one of the contributors at LifeSite News, in which he justifies publishing more pro-Hamas, anti-Israel "journalism."

Despite the facts on the ground, the testimonies from Jews, Arabs, Christians, Muslims, and even independent journalists who have been observing the war between Israel and Hamas, LifeSite News has chosen to attack Israel and go along with much of the pro-Palestinian propaganda.

I am going to respond at length to his remarks, in which he not only justifies calling Israel's act of self-defense against Hamas "a genocide," but how he repeats the libelous fraud that a so-called "Zionist lobby" controls the media.

It is really disturbing the lengths to which these pro-Palestinian propagandists will go to justify publishing lies about the current conflict!

(My comments will be provided in bold letter and Times New Roman font)

------------------------Hi Arthur,

Thank you for your correspondence below, and we all understand the shock that some of our fellow Americans can go through when reading these reports on Israel / Palestine because, in my experience, each of us had to go through a similar process of discovering that we have pretty much been lied to on this topic by our Western media, and others, for decades.

Notice right away that he juxtaposes Israel and Palestine, as though they are both legitimate states, even though in Gaza, the residents elected Hamas to govern them, and similar terrorist factions still govern the West Bank.
I certainly went through this progressive realization following a pilgrimage I made to the Holy Land in 2006, and I know Steve has had to realize that many of the presumptions he also held (as so many of us have) were radically erroneous due to widespread and systematic propaganda.
With that background, I will offer some brief thoughts here on your note:
‘Genocide’ has a definition
First, if you want to argue that “there is no genocide,” shouldn’t you first define the term? Certainly, anyone can concede that according to your apparent personal understanding of this definition you might well be able to subjectively and very confidently conclude there is no such “genocide” being committed against the Palestinian people, as you did below.
However, it should not be surprising that useful discourse on this topic must operate according to a standard objective definition which happens to be recognized throughout the world in international law, specifically in the Genocide Convention from 1948 of which Israel is a signatory.
Here is the definition:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
  1. Killing members of the group;
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
 Thus, according to international law, the threshold for “genocide” is likely much lower than you have presumed it to be.

A couple of responses:

1. This threshold is so low, that one could easily castigate any military power in a conflict as a genocidal actor. That is not the proper purpose of a definition. If a definition becomes too broad, then it is meaningless.

But let's put that aside. Even if one accepts this very broad definition of genocide, Israel and the IDF are clearly not perpetrated genocide. They are not deliberately targeting civilians. They never have. This is a bold-faced lie. So, right away, Mr. Delaney is not really answering my questions, but obfuscating with distracting arguments about definitions.
In fact, here is an article from 2016 by a Jewish attorney arguing that the brutal Israeli occupation and colonization of internationally recognized Palestinian territory had already fit this definition of the crime of genocide for quite some time.

This article was published by Al Jazeera, which right away undermines its credibility. As I wrote to Mr. Delaney, Al Jazeera anything is Islamic propaganda, funded by the terrorist-supporting state of Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas live in luxury, stealing the foreign aid from their own people while they live in the lap of luxury.

Further, this attorney Stanley Cohen, is offering an opinion piece, nothing more.

Here's an example of the blatant editorializing in Cohen's piece:

Predictable in immediacy and urgency, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw his weekly tantrum, accusing the world of a dark conspiracy organised by the soon to be ex-President of the United States, Barack Obama, who on his way out of the door after years of obsequious obedience to Israeli will, has suddenly discovered that it’s OK to say no … well … maybe … or perhaps, to its glaring intransigence.
And, of course, thirteen of the fifteen judges at the International Court of Justice provided a preliminary ruling last January, that according to this definition sufficient evidence was present to conclude that it was “plausible” Israel was committing this war crime and the case brought by South Africa could proceed. See the article below for more, including video embeds of presentations from prosecutors around the world demonstrating that genocide was indeed taking place.
Such arguments as these are what you will have to contest with should you wish to legitimately argue “There is no genocide.” (And just as an aside, were you even aware of these proceedings, and this definition? If so, why did you not address them below? If not, why not? What media outlets didn’t tell you about them that likely had an obligation to do so?)

The reason why I did not address such arguments is that the general definition of genocide has been well-known for a long time.

Here's a basic dictionary definition I can provide right now:

the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.

His question about media outlets not providing an answer or definition is a neat little dodge, but does not undermine my larger criticisms.
Thus, the article which I wrote, and you cited as “claim[ing] that Israel is committing genocide,” was actually quite conservative and restrained in its use of the term. I wrote, “As much of the world charges Israel with committing crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people …”

The definition of genocide provided by Mr. Delaney in that treaty is too broad, too liberal.
And any reasonable person (especially those willing to follow the links) should have to agree this statement is 1.) True, and 2.) Relevant for reporting especially for those of us who wish to consider ourselves to be pro-life and especially Catholic and Christian, as it responds to the call of our brother and sister Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches in the Holy Land who have essentially begged Western Christians to speak out against such Israeli atrocities as their “only hope” for peace and an end to the oppression continually inflicted upon them by the Israeli government. And many of our Jewish brothers and sisters agree with them.

Many of these Christian populations are putting the blame squarely on Israel, and that is wrong. Liberal activists like Munther Isaac outright lie about the Christian faith, and they are corrupting their calling to preach the Gospel.

I read a post recently, in which an Orthodox Christian priest actually defended chanting "Allahu Akbar." That phrase does not mean "God is Great," but rather "Our God is Greater." It is not commensurate in any way with Christian doctrine, but rather shows the perverse extremes which some religious leaders will take to appease Islamic militants in the region.

The fact that Delaney continues to use the tainted language of "Israeli occupation" is counter-factual and ahistorical. The reason why Israel has not released its supervisory grip over the West Bank is that if an election took place today in the West Bank, Hamas would be elected, and there would be more terrorism, violence, and mayhem in the region.
Further, if you had kept reading this article, you saw that it quoted sources explaining these matters including Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein who provided significant evidence (linked in the story) which helps illustrate Israel’s explicit intent to commit genocide.

Norman Finkelstein is a long discredited anti-Zionist hack. He has resorted to repeated emotional arguments in his his speeches, and has about as much credibility as Kevin MacDonald of The Culture of Critique.
Thus, to the contrary of your own assertion, I would offer that it would be “beyond irresponsible” for a Catholic pro-life news organization, especially based in the United States, to gloss over the committing of a (to be restrained again) plausible genocide of which its own government is a necessary accomplice, especially as that genocidal attack continues to pile up the corpses of tens of thousands of children, women and men until it figuratively blots out the light of the sun.

Delaney did not make any argument justifying the charge that Israel is committing genocide. What he did reveal is the bankrupt leaps of logic which pro-Palestinian propagandists must make in order to cover for themselves.
‘Terrorism’ too must have a definition
Now, to be briefer, the next term you need to define is “terrorist” and “terrorism” if you want to use it in a logical fashion. You mention a “pro-terrorist narrative.” But what is “terrorism” and who are the main “terrorists”? 
Interestingly, as is their custom, Zionists, at the slightest pretext, often conflate and construe the actions of their enemies into the gravest most outrageous and inflammatory crimes as a rationalization to isolate, dehumanize and aggressively punish them.

Notice the ad hominem argument. He just blocks someone who disagrees with him into a category, but does not respond to the substantive issue.
Thus, in their brutal occupation (that we are not allowed to acknowledge or discuss in the West) they rule these territories as a military dictatorship, and thus, with military orders have redefined virtually any protest or resistance to their occupation, including flag waving, participating in a non-violent protest, handing out fliers or writing something the Zionists don’t like on social media, as “terrorism.”

People have the freedom to claim that Israel is engaged in a "brutal occupation." They are not free from criticism or pushback, especially considering the fact that Israel has repeatedly offered peace deals including a Palestinian state. The fact is that Palestinian leaders do not want peace with Israel. They want to destroy, and no country committed to its own self-preservation should settle for its own destruction. Israel gave away Gaza, and look what has happened!
Thus, the Israelis simply use mass calumnies to refer to virtually all Palestinians as “terrorists.”

What happened on October 7th, 2023 was absolutely terrorism. Delaney refuses to acknowledge this. This is beyond outrageous! Islamic miltants from Hamas parachuted in, targeted innocent civilians, murdered babies in their cribs, raped mothers in front of their own children. How can anyone ignore this?!
But the world generally understands and accepts the definition of terrorism to be “the use of violence, especially against civilians, for political ends.” And as has been covered at LSN and elsewhere, a fundamental objective of Zionism has always been to expel the Palestinian population from their ancient lands which many see as being the obvious objective in these present massacres.

That notion that Zionism means the expulsion of another people from their "ancient land" is one of the most fatuous lies yet offered up by Delaney. First of all, there is no fundamental right to return. Property rights cannot be contravened because bad actors from previous conflicts instigated atrocities against the Jewish State.

Second, the very term "Palestinian" is a relic of colonial occupation, from the Romans to the Ottomans to the British, who had the wherewithall to leave the region after thirty years, committing themselves to a decolonizing project.

Third, Zionism as a definition is "the belief that Jewish people should have a homeland." It is a positive, not a negative definition.
So, who are the terrorists?
Would it be considered a terrorist act if Hamas legitimately threatened violence against Israeli civilians requiring them to be displaced for months? Would this crime against humanity and act of genocide be excusable if they said they were “going to great lengths” to protect them by this crime? And what if Hamas then bombed and massacred these Israeli civilians in the “safe spaces” they had directed them to go? Would that be an act of terrorism?

The lack of moral logic diplayed here is just astonishing.

There is no right for any military force to deliberately attack cilivians. None.

The fact that the pro-Palestinian groups refuse to recognize that 

a. Hamas started the terrorism
b. Israel is fighting back with the proper determination to wipe out Hamas.
c. Israel is taking every precaution possible not to kill Gaza civilians.
d. Hamas and other Palestinian leaders in the region have no problem putting their own civilians, their own people in harm's way
e. War is hell, and sadly, there will be civilian casualities, in large part because of Hamas' deliberate actions of placing women and children in harm's way.

It is just breath-taking how far LifeSite News will go in their pro-Palestinian front's hypocrisy. Just astonishing!
How about if Hamas droped hundreds of American-made 2,000-pound bombs on Israeli residential areas destroying an estimated 50 percent to 62 percent of all buildings in their region by January alone? Would this be an act of terrorism?

Notice first of all the spelling error "droped."

Second, he refuses to acknowledge--yet again--that Israel is responding to Hamas' terrorism.
And what if Hamas killed at least 16,251 Israeli children who included, according to reliable testimonies, children “incinerated,” “shredded,” “missing body parts,” “being crushed by buildings,” starving to death and toddlers being “definitively” and intentionally shot by Hamas snipers. Would these be considered acts of terrorism?
Of course, you understand that these are not the acts of Hamas, but criminal terrorist acts committed by the Israeli army, and they are just a few examples, there are many, many more.

An army taking steps to defeat a terrorist threat is not committing a crime. What Hamas perpetrated on October 7th, 2023 was not just a crime, but an atrocity against humanity.
These all fit the definition of acts of terrorism, and systematic acts of terrorism are committed by people called, “terrorists.”
Therefore, as explained by Miko Peled, a former Israeli soldier whose father was a general in the 1967 war, and whose grandfather signed Israel’s declaration of independence, the Israeli army is “one of the best trained, best equipped, best fed terrorist organizations in the world. And yes, they have generals, and they have nice uniforms. But their entire purpose is terrorism.”

About Miko Peled, he also repeats the hollow libel that Israel is an apartheid state (see here). The fact that he would lie so shameless is just disgusting.

Also, he makes the same fallacy of misusing the word "terrorism." He further excuses Hamas and their cruel terrorist acts against Israel by pointing out that Gaza is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. So, Miko Peled buys into the morally perverse argument that a a terrorist can kill children if he runs away and hides behind more children.

I reject his perverse arguments. Peled is another amoral progressive virtue-signaling his contempt for right and wrong to promote himself among liberal apologists around the world.
And as far as I can see, there is no terrorist organization or effort in the entire world that compares to the Israeli genocidal terrorist enterprise.
So, when you mention “the pro-terrorist Qatari government” which “is complicit with funding and fomenting terrorism around the world,” have you considered what government is the greatest funder of terrorism in the world? Didn’t they just approve another $20 billion to rearm Israel so they can continue to massacre displaced children, women and men in Gaza?
See the irony? Who is the biggest funder of “terrorism around the world”? You are, through your tax dollars being spent by your government and more importantly through your material cooperation in defending these crimes as you have done here.

For the record, I oppose all foreign aid to all countries.
Media Bias at Al Jazeera?
Now you mention having read “numerous” reports treating this topic on LSN, yet I don’t see much of any evidence that you even completed reading one such report. You cite only a single article and then raise an objection within your missive which is thoroughly treated within the text of that article itself. Apparently, you didn’t get that far, or even beyond the article’s lead paragraph.

Now he adds another strawman to his hollow arguments, attacking me for not citing other articles on LifeSite News. The purpose of my letter to Mr. Delaney was to confront him about the lies in his article. However, I have complained to LifeSite News about the pro-Palestinian propaganda, repeating lies from other articles on their site.
“Al-Jazeera news, the source of the video in your article, is funded by the pro-terrorist Qatari government, and is hardly reliable for information,” you wrote. Besides being an ad hominem fallacy, your statement also betrays that you didn’t even read the section in the same article titled, “Al Jazeera a highly credentialed news network, Western legacy media ‘skewed by a systemic and institutional bias’ toward Israel.”

What I wrote about Qatar is true. Hamas' leaders have been living in Qatar! They are stealing the foreign aid meant for their own people and spending the money on themselves! My goodness, Delaney can't refute anything that I have written.
Please read it for a response to your statement. I will not reproduce it here but will point out a further irony.
In supporting your case that the “Israeli military forces go to great lengths to warn residents to flee targeted military areas,” you cite a July BBC report which explains how Israel drops leaflets from aircraft to instruct Palestinians to leave their homes to avoid a “combat zone.”
Can you imagine this happening in your neighborhood? Leaflets dropped from a hostile military instructing you and your family with your children to evacuate your home, disrupt your lives and the lives of your children to seek refuge in some area with little humanitarian assistance for an indefinite period of time?

Is it Israel's fault that Hamas killed innocent women and children?  Should Israel have to hold back in any effort to take down these awful terrorists, who terrorize their own people in Gaza? Delaney's so-called rebuttal is meaningless here, once again showing that he would rather attempt to tug on heart strings with the sympathy card, all while ignoring what started this horrendous latest conflagration in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
While you see this as a virtue when it is committed by the Israelis, it actually qualifies as an act of terrorism, a crime against humanity, and an act of genocide according to the definition above. Additionally, when the Israelis further bomb and massacre such displaced children, women and men in these “safe zones” the war crimes compound to a much higher gravity.

No, it doesn't. Delaney continues to proceed from false premises over and over again, not making his case.
And a likely scenario that follows includes the Israeli army wantonly bombing or otherwise destroying your home and neighborhood in an attempt to ensure you have nothing to return to and will have to leave the area to pick up your lives. This has been a routine process for the Zionist enterprise since 1948 when they wiped out hundreds of Palestinian villages in a similar way.
You can hear about it in a lecture here by Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour who lived through it as a boy in Palestine (book here). First the Israeli army asked the population to leave, and then prevented them from returning and bombed their village to smithereens. 
So, even what you see as an act of virtue by the Israeli army is part of an enormous crime violating at least both moral and international law.
And why didn’t your trusted news outlet the BBC tell us this?  Likely, because as many of their own employees complained last January, their coverage has been “biased against Palestinians.”
In fact, Norman Finkelstein has stated that the “ethnic element” relating to “a large Jewish presence” in the Western mainstream media and a resulting “sense of Jewish ethnic solidarity [with Israel]… plays a role” in the presentation of a broad media bias in favor of the Jewish state.
Of course, while the Zionists have been successful at bending the coverage of the Western media toward support and protection of their interests, it should be admitted that every media outlet has some type of bias.
And unlike the West, Al-Jazeera’s bias would include being less likely to suppress news revealing massive bloody crimes by the Israeli state, which is likely why they were expelled from Israel itself and why an “unparalleled” number of journalists, including from AJ, have been apparently targeted and killed by the Israeli army.
My own bias is to support and uphold the objective moral law which is binding on every human being endowed with reason, even, and I mean even, Zionist Jews. As St. John Paul II taught, there are “no privileges or exceptions for anyone” when it comes to the natural moral law. The Israelis don’t get to impose a bloody occupation over many decades, massacre and starve to death hundreds of thousands of children, women and men and not be called-out by authentic Christians and pro-lifers. In fact, disciples of Jesus Christ are morally bound to oppose this.
Still believe the ‘burning babies in their cribs’ narrative? You need better news sources.
You have also asked “why is there not attention paid” to Hamas atrocities such as “burning babies in their cribs”? We have covered that topic (here and here) reporting on how Israeli media themselves confirmed such propaganda tales never happened but rather had a purpose to create “more political space to destroy all of Gaza, kill a large percentage of the population and commit genocide.”

Here's the report with the baby burned in its crib (See New York Post)

Mr. Delaney has lost whatever crediblity he claimed. He "covered" the topic about the Israeli media, which is not an answer. He just repeats himself.
This is old news. Why are you not aware of these facts? What media sources do you rely on who have not had the integrity to fulfill their moral obligation to tell you the truth on these matters? In other words, why do you rely on news sources that lie to you by omission?

He then claims that the news sources reporting on the conflict post Octobert 7th are lying by ommission. Which is it, Delaney?
The same is the case for the concocted “mass rape” stories, along with the “beheaded babies” and  the “fetuses cut from women” lies. Why are you still in the dark on these fabricated stories which have been debunked since late last year?

 Now, they have not been debunked. Hamas terrorists literally recorded themselves committing these atrocities. Here is one example.

Here are the stories of some of the survivors: (testimony)
And how about the lie repeated by Netanyahu to Congress that Hamas had “butchered 1,200 people” on October 7? Are you aware that the Israeli press reported that many of the 1,139 Israeli deaths, including 782 unarmed civilians, were killed by the Israeli forces themselves through indiscriminate fire and even the deliberate targeting of homes and vehicles where Israeli hostages were known to be present?
This means that the Israeli army killed maybe hundreds of its own citizens, as has been reported by the Israeli media themselves. And Netanyahu, who is at least remotely in charge of the murdering army goes before Congress and the American people and lies about it, blaming these bloody deliberate deaths at the hands of his own army on Hamas.

"Murdering army ..." Armies are not social experiments. They are designed to break things and kill people. That is the whole point. The conflict was not instigated by Israel, but by Hamas. This is the basic reality, and Delaney does not care.
As Max Blumenthal commented, “Israel’s whole mission, its reason to exist, is supposed to be to keep Jews safe. And here they are killing more Jews than any other anti-Semite in recent history and doing it deliberately for political reasons.”

Blumenthal's crass hyperbole is one of the most laughable statements I have read yet. Again, the opinion of one commentator or journalist does not constitute a fact on the ground. The moral collapse in the Western media spaces is quite disturbing.
‘Combatants’ and ‘Militants’?
Though I didn’t see a citation for it, you state “The death rate ratio of civilians to combatants… is two to one.” This is clearly hogwash. When you investigate your source, you will certainly find that as the Zionists shift definitions such as “terrorists” and “genocide” to fit their narrative, I expect you will find “combatant” has a ridiculously broad definition, likely to be, I would guess, any male between 16 and 60 or the like.

I got that information from Cameron Hughes. He is not a right-wing conservative, for the record.
In fact, many in power in Israel have classified the entire population in Gaza as essentially being combatants. “There are no innocents there,” stated lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer last November pronouncing “there should be one sentence for everyone there – death.”  And others such as Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu claimed “there are no uninvolved [civilians]” in the Gaza Strip, meaning all of them including women and small children are virtually considered “combatants.”
Indeed, you seem to use this shifting of definition yourself stating, “What I see is Israeli soldiers mocking male MILITANTS… Notice how the prisoners are men, not women and children.”
Logically, the category of “men” is not the same as the category for “militants.”  The facts are these are men just rounded up from the streets, sheltering in schools, hospitals or other residences to be detained, humiliated, tortured and interrogated apart from any evidence of their being involved with Hamas. A report from B’Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights, states 4,781Palestinian men “were detained without trial, without being presented with the allegations against them, and without access to the right to defend themselves, in what Israel terms ‘administrative detention’” (See “Welcome to Hell”).  This report from the UN details the same as do many other articles on the topic in the mainstream press.
Obviously, LSN needs to assess and pass along the best factual information available, even if it contradicts what Arthur Christopher Schaper thinks he “sees,” or what he would like to see, and even if we have to risk his disappointment with our reporting it.
Concluding
I could continue, but suffice it to say that, in summary:
  1. You have a very long way to go to prove that Israel is not committing the grievance crime of genocide against the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. In fact, my personal opinion is that such an effort on your part is futile. I agree with Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg when he says Israel is “undoubtedly” committing genocide.
  2. Irony: An objective definition and application of the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” reveal the Israeli army to be “one of the best trained, best equipped, best fed terrorist organizations in the world,” and that the “pro-terrorist narrative” in no way comes from LSN but, according to logic, is rather being promoted by you in your material support for these many crimes in the correspondence below.
  3. Irony: Despite your ad hominem fallacious attack upon Al Jazeera, your apparent ignorance regarding fundamental aspects of this issue reveal your own media sources have deprived you of aspects essential to understanding this conflict, including the definition of genocide, the ICJ’s decision, the debunking of the war propaganda porn put out by the Israeli PR machine, and the fact that the displacing of populations in Gaza is a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.
  4. The category of “men” is not the same as “militants” and despite what you think you see, Arthur, the facts reveal these are largely or even mostly just male civilians being detained and systematically tortured.
Finally, the fact that you wrote me this email without apparently even having read the article you were primarily complaining about demonstrates exactly why Steve disabled comments for that piece, as he wrote himself: We “encourage careful reading of our articles and viewing of the full videos BEFORE making any conclusions.”
Perhaps due to heavy information control over many decades in the U.S., some commenters typically jettison any logical discourse whenever Israel is criticized, as if this secular nation in the Middle East is an object of religious devotion or consists of angels from heaven who are beyond any and all criticism and must be automatically deferred to.
Instead of addressing what the piece actually says, along with its sources, they just throw out trite Zionist talking points the West has been swimming in for decades and which consist of half-truths at best (Candace Owens relates her same experience very well, here) and then often bundles them in with vicious calumnies.
In his April interview with Tucker Carlson, Christian pastor from Bethlehem, Munther Isaac reflected on his efforts to lobby on Capitol Hill for the Palestinian people, in which he spoke with diplomats, politicians and congressional staffers. What struck him most was the strange contrast between their significant lack of knowledge “about the reality on the ground” and their resolute and misguided opinions regarding the topic.
“Their knowledge of the situation here [in the Holy Land] seems to be very, very shallow,” Isaac said. “Yet they hold very strong opinions, and oftentimes these opinions are shaped by political parties” and not on “knowing the facts.”

Munther Isaac is a terrorist-apologizing liberal. It is unthinkable that anyone takes his sentiments seriously. He has repeatedly lied about the Israeli government and its people. He does not even point the blame at the right source: the Islamic leaders in the West Bank and Gaza, for the atrocities happening in the region.
Assessing this situation in a more recent (and highly recommended) piece, one supportive commenter wrote Steve explaining his impression: “Steve, you are trying to reason with closed-minded zombies who support Israel irregardless of condemning evidence, or you are dealing with lying propagandists who know the truth but spout the lie. Nevertheless, the truth MUST be told for the sake of the suffering innocents. Thank you and thank LSN!”

"Close-minded zombies." I literally looked at the articles and videos offered by Patrick Delaney, and they did not make his case at all. Frankly, the zombie stance better describes the pro-Palestinian front.
It is precisely due to my desire for restoring “serious journalism when it comes to coverage” of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, that I’m resolved to report the facts in light of Christian moral principles which apply equally to all, even the Zionist Israeli government which has succeeded in basically securing a high degree of control of the United States government, the mainstream media and even many outlets of the so-called alternative media.
Furthermore, as a pro-life Catholic disciple of Jesus Christ, I am bound to always oppose the grave and deadly violations of human rights perpetrated by anyone including the Israeli occupation regime in Palestine, and, though I do not speak for LSN, it is my understanding the organization shares these same commitments.
Please read and honestly consider the links present within this text or the many more which are easily accessible within these stories for more, clear, truthful and relevant information on this very important matter with the universal moral law as a guide for our analysis.
God Bless+

Patrick Delaney, M.A., M.Div.

Final Reflection

I could not wade through all the gobbledygook, there was so much falsehood and propagandizing. The fact is that LifeSite News editors are proceeding from a set of false premises, then building their whole argument and views on the conflict for there.

If one really falls for the lie that a genocide is taking place in Gaza, when in fact it was Hamas that is determined to wipe out all Jewry (not just from the region, but the world) as well as all Christianity, then there is no talking to them about anything else.

It's really that simple.