Mika Tosca

Overview

Mika Tosca called Israelis “pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement” on an Instagram Story following Hamas terror attacks and war crimes in October 2023, which left over 1,200 Israelis dead. The text of Tosca’s same Instagram Story slide concluded: “May they all rot in hell.”

Tosca has also defended Hamas terrorism in the context of Israel’s October 2023 war with the terror group and demonized Israel.

As of October 2023, Tosca had been listed online as a tenured associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in Chicago, Illinois.

On December 31, 2023, Tosca wrote on Twitter: “As of Jan 1, I will no longer be working for SAIC…” Tosca ended the tweet with the words: “PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

.”

As of January 2, 2024, Tosca was listed online as an affiliate climate researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

Tosca received a PhD in Earth System Science from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in 2012.

Also as of January 2024, Tosca’s Facebook said Tosca was located in Chicago, Illinois.

Hatred of Israelis

On October 17, 2023, days after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdering, raping, torturing and kidnapping Israeli men, women and children, Tosca posted on Tosca’s Instagram stories a text that said: “Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement.”

The text continued saying: “The propaganda has been downright evil. After the past week, if your eyes aren’t open to the crimes against humanity that Israel is committing and has committed for decades, and will continue to commit, then I suggest you open them. It’s disgusting and grotesque. May they all rot in hell.”

The following day, Tosca removed the Instagram Story and posted on both Instagram and Twitter: “...I am truly sorry. I own my mistake and promise to do better. I hope you can forgive me.”

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation. Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.

As of December 25, 2023, Hamas had fired over 10,600 missiles from Gaza at Israeli communities, with Hamas claiming 5,000 the day it launched the attack. While Hamas was the main group involved, members of other terror groups also joined in the atrocities.

Many Palestinian civilians, including women and children, also participated in the attack. In several instances, Gazans who worked in the targeted Israeli communities gave intelligence to Hamas on where to strike.

In a December 2023 poll, 57% of Gazans and 82% of Palestinians in the West Bank supported the terror attacks. 42% of Gazans were supportive of Hamas rule, up from 38% before the attacks, and 44% in the West Bank supported Hamas, up from 12%.

Hamas began by launching thousands of rockets at Israel and using motorized paragliders “to infiltrate Israeli territory and secure terrain.” Terrorist ground forces destroyed parts of the border fence with Gaza, murdering and kidnapping soldiers.

Terrorists then turned their attention to 22 communities around Gaza, where they went house to house to savagely murder, mutilate and kidnap anyone they found. They executed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children.

Terrorists beheaded children and babies, and massacred entire families, burning some alive who hid in their homes. Hamas terrorists kicked around the heads of beheaded victims like soccer balls. Israelis between the ages of three and 85 were kidnapped and taken forcibly to Gaza. Hamas has not allowed the Red Cross access to the hostages.

Over 360 unarmed young men and women were surrounded and slaughtered at one music festival alone. Bodies were publicly desecrated, with some dragged through the streets of Gaza, then beheaded.

Women were raped next to the bodies of dead friends. Some were raped and then shot in the head. Others, including young girls, were raped and murdered or mutilated in other ways. Israeli officials opened an unprecedented investigation into the widespread sexual assault. Forensic analysis of corpses showed evidence of torture and rape.

Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out the atrocities, including chopping off legs and raping the corpses of murdered victims.

Hamas intentionally targeted youth centers and elementary schools to execute and kidnap children. They also took stimulant drugs to give added energy to murder and maim. Nazis also took drugs during World War II to fuel their anti-Semitic massacres.

The atrocities were acknowledged as the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, including by U.S. President Joe Biden, who also compared Hamas to ISIS. Hamas attacked on the annual holiday of Simchat Torah, which that year was on Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath.

The Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians are crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The mass murder generated great sympathy for Israel from many countries but led to countless celebrations among Palestinians and anti-Israel organizations in America that back the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Hamas called the October 7, 2023 terror attacks “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before Israel was founded in 1948. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, European Union, Israel and other countries. Founded in 1987, it has killed thousands of Israeli civilians through mass shootings and suicide bombings. Hamas has also kidnapped children, families and the elderly and held them hostage in Gaza. It has desecrated [slide 2] dead bodies and launched numerous rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

Defending Hamas Terrorism

Tosca retweeted an October 10, 2023 tweet that said: “how tidily should this have proceeded? this is ‘terrorism’ cos Hamas has targeted civilians. ok should they simply have declared war on their warden? would the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] have met them in formation on a field, beating drums, for a fair fight? I do not love violence but what is expected?”

Tosca retweeted an October 11, 2023 tweet that said: “I’ve been hearing about Hamas’ attack on ‘grandmothers,’ ‘toddlers,’ and ‘communities’ but Israel’s attack on ‘Gaza’ always monolith, maybe an infrastructure…”

Tosca retweeted an October 12, 2023 tweet that said: “i do not support hamas. i also believe: (1) violent extremist is the predictable result of apartheid…”

Tosca retweeted an October 12, 2023 tweet that said: “You ‘regret’ that some of your colleagues have been killed? You're SecGen of the UN [United Nations]. Call a UNSC meeting, condemn Israel's Gaza massacre. And remind them that the right to resist an Occupation is enshrined in the UN Charter.”

The tweet was in response to a tweet by the UN Secretary-General in which he regretted his UN colleagues being killed due to Israel’s war with Hamas.

Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” can be a euphemism for nationalistic terror. It is often used to excuse or even glorify anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.

Demonizing Israel

Tosca retweeted an October 16, 2023 tweet that said: “BREAKING: I am by the White House in Washington D C where Jews are rallying in support of Palestine and Israel and are asking [Israeli prime-minister] @netanyahu to ‘stop the killings’, say no genocide in their names.”

On October 13, 2023, Tosca tweeted, referring to Israel’s blockade of Gaza: “...You realize that Israel is literally OCCUPYING Palestine, right? Denying them the ability to even be a country.”

The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces.

On October 10, 2023, Tosca tweeted: “Israel is making money off war. Always has, always will.”

Also on October 10, 2023, Tosca tweeted: “...I believe that Palestinians should not have to live under occupation and apartheid.”

Tosca retweeted a June 23, 2023 tweet that said: “#UN SG [Secretary-General] annual children and armed conflict report contains « list of shame » that includes the greatest violators of children rights in armed conflicts. By leaving Israel out of the list, the « list of shame » has become the « shameful list »! Palestinian children’s lives matter.”