Mindy Civan

Fifth grade teacher, wife, mom of three, reader, all opinions my own

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

Remember the European Hospital in Khan Younis last May?

Israel struck a targeted site there, and the world lost its mind.

Palestinians denied any tunnel existed underneath. The UN and European governments rushed to condemn Israel for attacking a “hospital.” Outrage, headlines, accusations of war crimes… the usual script.

Then June came.

The IDF took international media into the very same location and showed them the tunnel… a full Hamas command center, right under the emergency room.

Weapons, rooms, infrastructure. And yes, that’s where they found and confirmed the body of Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s top military commander and brother of Yahya Sinwar.

The strike that killed one of the architects of October 7 was surgically precise, and entirely justified.

Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, hospitals and other medical facilities lose their protected status when they are used for military purposes, such as command centers, weapon storage, or troop movements. By deliberately turning the European Hospital into a Hamas base, the terrorists themselves stripped it of any legal protection.

Not a single apology from the UN or the European governments that rushed to condemn Israel. Not one admission they were wrong. They simply moved on to the next round of accusations.

This is the pattern. Hamas hides its terror infrastructure under civilian sites, uses hospitals as shields, and the international community reliably attacks the defender for responding, only to be proven wrong again and again and again when the evidence emerges.

How many times does this have to happen before the world stops falling for it?

[Michael Schostak for U-M Regent @Schostak4Regent]

This statement from @UMichPresGrasso misses the mark. There needs to be real accountability for someone who deviated from their “approved remarks”. Put him on leave without pay, strip him of administrative support or research assistants, cut his expense budget, among others.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they have a right to express it, but the university has the right to set the time, manner, and place.

When I’m Regent this type of divisive and disrespectful behavior will not go without consequence.

https://t.co/GRzyodAdsn

#umich #michigan #Goblue #universityofmichigan #umichcommencement

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@FrohnmayerJon @TheFulgurite @GovMikeHuckabee @usembassyjlm Israel offered multiple ways to deliver the aid to Gaza, either directly from the port of Ashkelon, or via Cyprus in an effort led by Italy and the Vatican. Those offers were refused by the flotilla, who actually had no port in Gaza to offload the very little aid they brought

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@BenjaminAbella I took health care for granted until my child had an expensive chronic illness - as imperfect as any system is, I can't vote against ACA

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@BenjaminAbella Wow! Mazal tov!

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

What a beautiful and sad statement

[Shai Davidai @ShaiDavidai]

Hundreds of Jewish students at @Columbia just published one of the most incredible student letters I have ever read.

It's not only magnificently written, but it also clearly articulates their experiences on campus for the past six months.

Their letter tells the story of what's it like being a Jewish student right now better than any professor like myself could ever do.

Please take 4-5 minutes to read their letter.

Give Jewish students a voice.

https://t.co/nsWNScaoZS

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@RepDean @RepJayapal I wish you would pressure Hamas to release the hostages

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Egyptian bus driver bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza through the border crossing at Rafah

[Adam Fisher @AdamRFisher]

The Nakba was a traumatic event for the Palestinian people in 1948, but so was the loss of ancient and modern Jewish communities despite Israel’s victory.

Invading Arab armies razed, looted and emptied Jewish towns, notably the Old City of Jerusalem, where 2,000 Jews were expelled and 35 synagogues destroyed. It was a traumatic event occurring only weeks after declaring independence.
“Al-Quds was purged of Jews and for the first time in 1000 years no Jew remained there” wrote a battalion commander of the Arab Legion, Major Abdullah el-Tell. King Abdullah of Jordan visited triumphantly as Jerusalem was finally under Arab control for the first time since the year 1099.

A day before Israel declared independence Kfar Etzion was conquered by the Arab Legion, killing 242 Jews, including 13 who were killed after surrendering. A survivor of the attack reestablished the kibbutz in 1967, making it the first West Bank settlement.

Other Jewish towns conquered and depopulated in ‘48 include Neve Yaakov and Atarot near Jerusalem, Beit HaArava and Kalya near the Dead Sea, & Masu’ot Itzhak, Ein Tzurim and Revadim south of Bethlehem. Also Nitzanim, Kfar Darom and Yad Mordechai near Gaza.

Even before ’48 Jews had already been expelled from the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron following the Arab riots of 1929 that saw 66 Jews massacred and dozens seriously injured. Despite the resemblance, these pictures are not from October 7.
Jews and Arabs dealt with the losses in very different ways. Israel was able to embrace the victory narrative to project might that would inspire and empower in the building of a country. Internal Jewish refugees from ’48 joined existing communities or reestablished destroyed towns within the new borders.

Israel then absorbed 800,000 Jews who fled Iraq, Yemen, North Africa and Eastern Europe. Many of the neighborhoods and towns they left behind were then ransacked and cleansed of all Jewish life and history.
In contrast, Palestinian refugees from ‘48 were primarily directed to UN refugee camps, denied citizenship in their host countries, and told to save their house keys until Israel would be defeated. With time they would embrace the victim narrative to project helplessness and sympathy, but also to justify armed resistance and an eliminationist stance towards Israel.

If one is to talk of “ethnic cleansing” in ’48 it must also include the expulsion, massacres and erasure of Jewish communities. The simplicity of delegitimizing the victor in war as the violent and belligerent side is no substitute for critical thinking. Similarly today, Palestinians propagate claims of "genocide" after Hamas pepetrated the worst massacre of Jews since Israel’s founding.

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

Beautifully stated @BenjaminAbella

[Benjamin Abella, MD MPhil @BenjaminAbella]

As a medical school professor, I spoke yesterday at a #upenn session with President, Provost and others.

Here is what I said, a plea to American academia on behalf of Jewish students, staff and faculty.

#israel #HateSpeech #Zionism #AcademicTwitter

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

I gave a presentation this morning, partly about Afghanistan. On the drive home it set me thinking.

My hunch is that part of the reason for Western protests about Gaza is a total failure to understand what urban war is, and what it looks like, and people are horrified to see it. Totally understandable. Now couple that to a powerful disinformation campaign that exploits those feelings of horror and tells them what they’re seeing and can’t comprehend (urban war) is something else (genocide).

As a commander in Afghanistan on my first two tours, which were before the “counterinsurgency” era, I saw my job as being to apply maximum violence to kill the enemy legally within rules of engagement. If I had a Harrier or an A-10 or an Apache to call on, I’d use that as a first option. If not, I’d use mortars or Javelin or machine guns if I had them. Only as a last resort would I commit my rifle sections.

That’s war. And that’s what Israel is fighting, on a far more brutal scale. Hamas and the surrounding Iranian proxies are an existential threat to Israel’s existence as a country. It’s that which people in the West fail to understand. We’re used to expeditionary wars of choice on the other side of the world. Israel has kibbutzim 5km from where their troops are fighting. The IDF in Gaza can look over their shoulders and see their home. It’s a totally different perspective on war from the one we in the West are used to.

Hamas have to be deleted as a fighting force for Israel to survive as a country with safe borders. To achieve that is the single most basic function of government. This isn’t a war Israel wants but it’s one they’ve been forced to fight. They’ve already taken double the fatalities the British did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

If they wanted to, they could stand off with jets, and hit Gaza City and Khan Younis and Rafah simultaneously and level the place - and legally. If it’s a military target and you can justify the collateral damage, the law of armed conflict says that’s legal. That Israel hasn’t done that tells you all you need to know about whether this is a genocide or not.

I don’t blame people for being sucked in by disinformation about Gaza. It’s been sophisticated and effective information warfare. I have no limits to my contempt for those who throw around “genocide” when they know perfectly well it isn’t. The most serious of crimes shouldn’t be debased like that, and shame on South Africa and their allies who have abused international law in this way.

War is horrifying, brutal, and extremely violent. Gaza isn’t a conventional counter-terror campaign. We saw on 7 October how well armed, organised and tactically aware Hamas are. They use human and humanitarian shields. They’ve forced Israel into the only appropriate response, and it’s the innocents in Gaza who suffer. That the numbers of innocents injured and killed is so low is a testament to the IDF using tactics that have incurred far higher IDF casualties than other options on the table.

“War is hell” is a cliche for a reason. But it’s nothing more than a war that we see in Gaza.

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@UNRWA #FreeTheHostages #BringThemHomeNow

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Hezbollah is once again launching Rockets and One-Way “Suicide” Drones against the Town of Arab al-Aramshe in Northern Israel, whose Community Center was Struck yesterday by at least 2 Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and a Drone resulting in Injuries to 18 Israeli including several IDF Reservists.

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@NeilMakhija @BMFI Thank you

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@halseanderson I felt it- and was actively teaching about earthquakes when it happened

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@KitKatKinseyK @lizzieohreally I flew last minute for my grandma's funeral with my t1, then 8 and my other two kids. When I tried to get us put together, the gate agent told me "if your child isn't stable, they shouldn't be on the plane."

[Luai Ahmed @JustLuai]

🚨🇾🇪 Here's something the international media is not covering about the Yemeni Houthis (the so-called "heroes"):

The Houthi terrorists sentenced human rights defender Fatema Al-Arwali to death for reporting on their crimes.

They kidnapped her, denied her a lawyer, and falsely accused her of being "a spy for Saudi Arabia" without a fair trial in December.

They're executing her in February.

Her only crime is being a brave Yemeni woman who's reporting on their crimes.

Just like Hamas, they execute everyone who opposes them.

#SaveFatima

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

@EvieBlad @educationweek Two had snow days. The third had no school for three days last week due to a power outage and gave work for that reason.

[Mindy Civan @Mgcivan]

Where are you @ICRC