Nicole M Hart

On April 14, 2024, Iran fired “Over 350 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, armed drones and rockets” toward Israel in an unprecedented attack. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and several international partners intercepted 99% of the projectiles. The IDF named the operation Iron Shield. The missile attack took place during Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Iranian media claimed the attack was in retaliation for an alleged Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Syria, earlier that month. The Damascus attack killed several members of the designated terrorist organization Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including a senior commander and a brigadier general.

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, approximately 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.

A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.

For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) highlights as one possible contemporary example of anti-Semitism: “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” The U.S. State Department adopted the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism in 2016. Over 40 countries have adopted the definition as well.

Anti-Israel activists compare Israel to Nazi Germany to insinuate that the plight of Palestinians has eclipsed Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.

The implication that AIPAC buys political support for Israel has been described as playing into “anti-Semitic tropes” that led to “centuries of stereotypes about Jews using money to control the world.”

The stated mission of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”

In May 2024, it was reported that at least one-third of the journalists killed in Gaza were affiliated with terror groups. In June 2024, the Israeli army rescued three Israeli civilians from the home of a Palestinian journalist, where they had been held hostage for months.

The term “Nakba” is generally translated as “catastrophe” in Arabic, referring to the outcome of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. It is a term used to delegitimize the creation of the State of Israel by drawing a comparison to the Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, meaning “catastrophe.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was founded in 1913 “To stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.

The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.

Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.

For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

Dozens of UNRWA staff participated in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, and many have kept hostages in their homes. UNRWA has provided arms to Hamas, and many UNRWA schoolteachers are Hamas members.