Daniel Bernard

My guts tell he’s nuts

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@havivrettiggur @TreyYingst, adding you for visibility. This deserves coverage.

[Matti Friedman @MattiFriedman]

Many journalists were concerned, understandably, about the reported deaths of "journalists" in Gaza. It's striking how uninterested they are in the unraveling of many of those stories. We're all lucky to have @Aizenberg55 doing the work the press should be doing:

[Dr Isaac Balbin @dr_balbin]

1/ Pop culture quiz.
Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star with over a million people aboard. Did you walk out of the cinema asking whether the Rebellion were terrorists?

No. You knew who built the superweapon. Context told you exactly who to blame.

Hold that thought. 🧵

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@BarakRavid Hi Barak,

It doesn’t match the below…

[amirbarshalom @amirbarshalom]

אחרי הפרסום ב @kann_news הבוקר שהיה ידוע לכל הכתבים הצבאיים כבר למעלה משבועיים, וחסה תחת צנזורה!!!!!
אז הנה הסיפור על כיבוש הבופור. לא היסטוריה ולא סמליות. מדובר בבונקר תת קרקעי ענק שהיה למעשה החמ״ל המרכזי של ״חזית הדרום״ של חיזבאללה (פיקוד הדרום שלו). מדובר במתקן תת קרקעי שנבנה על ידי האיראנים על הרכס סמוך למבצר הצלבני, ואיפשר את ניהול הלחימה של חיזבאללה תחת אש ישראלית, כולל התכנית לכיבוש הגליל. האתר הזה הופצץ כמה פעמים על ידי חיל האוויר בפצצות
חודרות בונקרים אבל לא הושמד. חלקים ממנו אף הושמשו מחדש במהלך השנה האחרונה. זו הסיבה שצהל התעקש להגיע לבופור, כדי להשמיד את המתקן הזה שהוגדר כיכולת אסטרטגית של חיזבאללה.

[Mark Zlochin - מארק זלוצ'ין༝ @MarkZlochin]

¹ Thanks to the work of @bandlersbanter, @AshleyRindsberg, @EllaTravelsLove and @shlomitlir, there's growing awareness of coordinated ideological takeover of Wikipedia's Israel/Palestine coverage after Oct. 7

So I decided to measure its extent and the results are extraordinary🧵

[Saul Sadka @Saul_Sadka]

This was Hamas’s own PR: an 8-year-old hostage begging for her life. But they still won the PR battle, with the full support of Western media. If you are wondering why that is, you don’t know much about Jew-hate.

[Aizenberg @Aizenberg55]

It's already 100% confirmed that Hamas' human shield strategy centers around hospitals. Numerous IDF airstrikes on hospital grounds are now confirmed to have hit combatants—and not based on "Israel says so" evidence but Hamas & PIJ admitting it. Here is just one example:

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@WachtelDan Daniel, this thread should be made available in English too

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@aabnour @CarlosMaslaton

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@Kredo0 @TreyYingst maybe worth to look at?

[The Jewish Idea @TheJewishIdea]

October 7th was documented savagery. The Gazans profile filmed their genocide.

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@Aizenberg55 @Eyalo365 @pressfreedom This and all other cases should be compiled into a full report and presented worldwide

[U.M. OSINT @ungemeve]

Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass ich so etwas einmal öffentlich äußere.
Ich kann gerade nicht mehr.
Ich reiße mich sehr zusammen, dies zu schreiben.

Eine Kommission zur Untersuchung des Massakers vom 07. Oktober 2023 im Hinblick auf den sexualisierten Terror – auch an den Geiseln – hat ihren Bericht veröffentlicht.

In einigen Kommentaren hatte ich schon dazu gelesen. Die meisten von ehemaligen Soldaten, die im OSINT- oder akademischen Bereich in der Richtung öffentlich auftreten. Alle waren erschüttert, selbst Soldaten, die „in der Scheiße“ waren.

Mein Wille war – und ist es noch – zumindest einen kurzen Überblick über das 300-seitige Dokument zu geben, für das über 10.000 Fotos und Video-Segmente und 1800 Stunden Videomaterial ausgewertet wurden. Welches die Palästinenser zumeist selber veröffentlicht haben.

Und das ist auch nicht irgendwie halt eine jüdische Kommission und Hasbara. Sie ist eine Non-Profit-Organisation und wird unterstützt durch die deutsche Botschaft Tel Aviv, Kanada, Microsoft, usw. Mit dabei sind u.a. eine französische Botschafterin für Menschenrechte, ein Professor und Gründer des UN-Gerichts für Sierra Leone, ein ehemaliger Kommissar für Menschenrechte der UN, ein ehemaliger Stabschef des Weißen Hauses, und und und.

Ich wollte zumindest erklären, was dieser Bericht ist, von wem er kommt und einige Zeugenaussagen zitieren. Denn, so grauenvoll wie das ist, halte ich es für meine und unsere Pflicht, sich dem auszusetzen.
Wenn wir nicht in der Lage sind das zu ertragen, wie können wir dann erhobenen Hauptes von den Opfern erwarten, dass sie es erdulden und sich fügen? Ohne ihnen das allzu menschliche zuzugestehen womöglich?

Die Opfer waren nicht nur Juden. Es waren auch Thailänder, Amerikaner, Argentinier, Franzosen, Briten… Und die Deutschen haben es in einer sozialpsychologisch bemerkenswerten Leistung vermocht zu verdrängen, dass auch 22 Deutsche getötet und 17 als Geiseln genommen wurden.

Es geht nicht alleine darum, diese Unmenschlichkeiten zu lesen. (Fotos sind nicht drin, ich kenne eh viele.) „Unmenschlichkeiten“ ist ein absolut treffendes Wort, dass jedoch durch zu häufigen Gebrauch seinen tatsächlichen Inhalt verloren hat.
Das kann ich ab. Ich bin MilBlogger, ich habe viele Stunden Videos erduldet, in denen Menschen von Drohnen getroffen, erschossen und von Minen zerrissen wurden. Und ich habe sehr viele Videos und Bilder des 10/7 gesehen. Mehr als jedem Menschen eigentlich lieb sein sollte.

Es geht darum, nicht in zu lange den Abgrund zu blicken, weil der Abgrund sonst in dich blickt.

Auch vorher schon habe ich öffentlich deutlich gemacht, dass ich keinerlei Empathie mehr für die Palästinenser empfinde. Oder nicht darüber nachdenke, wie sehr sie sich auf das eh nutzlose Völkerrecht berufen.
Denn mein Gedanke ist eigentlich sehr leicht, auch wenn er für viele schwer zu erfassen scheint:

Wir Europäer haben unsere Werte, auf denen das Völkerrecht unbestreitbar basiert, in langen Kriegen untereinander erstritten und mit Churchills Blut, Schweiß und Tränen teuer erkauft. Nicht so sehr basierend auf den christlichen Glauben – dessen Teil ich gar nicht abstreiten will – sondern auf die griechische Philosophie und die Aufklärung.
Es ist aber nur schwer nachvollziehbar, warum wir diese Werte auch auf diejenigen anwenden, sie sogar auf sie projizieren und ihnen die gleichen Werte unterstellen, die so offensichtlich einen Scheiß auf sie geben.

Nach nur wenigen Stunden der Arbeit an diesem Bericht kämpfe ich mit Dämonen.

Ich möchte auch weiterhin für eine Zweistaatenlösung sein können. Ich möchte auch weiterhin nicht von der passiven Empathielosigkeit in offene Aggression verfallen. Ich möchte auch weiterhin nicht den Hass als einfachste Lösung bevorzugen. Ich will nicht alles auf den Islam projizieren.

Doch mit jeder Seite, mit jeder Zeugenaussage und mit jedem Bericht eines Helfers, in der nüchternen, fast wissenschaftlichen Zusammenfassung und Forensik, fällt es zunehmend schwer. So unglaublich schwer, dass ich mich dabei erwischt habe, alleine im Büro laut Debatten zu führen. (Normalerweise eine gute Schreib-Technik um Argumentationen zu üben.)

In unserem europäischen Hirn sortieren wir die Hamas gerne als Terrororganisation ein, die losgelöst von der palästinensischen Bevölkerung agiert. Dieses Bild beginnt zu bröckeln in dem Moment, in dem wir uns klar machen müssen, dass mindestens die Gaza-Palästinenser sich ja in dieser Gesellschaft eingerichtet haben. In der sie mit Cousins verheiratet werden, ihren Kindern in UNRWA-Schulen der Hass auf Juden beigebracht wird und jeder Angestellte eines Krankenhauses oder einer Uni die Hamas als Arbeitgeber auf der Lohnabrechnung hat. Das geht weit über Nazi-Mitläufer hinaus.
Wie lange kann jemand in einem solchen System tatsächlich unschuldig sein?

Und mehr noch: Wie muss eine Gesellschaft gestrickt sein, in der es als Machtdemonstration gilt, wenn junge Männer im Kreis um eine Geisel stehen, ihre sexuelle Frustration und soziale Inkompetenz kompensieren und sie reihum vergewaltigen? Selbst wenn sie tot ist, noch den rotten Pimmel unter dem Gelächter der Umstehenden in die Rotze des Vorgängers stecken?
Wenn diese Formulierung Ihnen zu hart war, sind Sie nicht ansatzweise bereit für die Realitäten. Damit müssen Sie klarkommen, nicht ich. Sich bei mir über die Formulierungen zu beklagen ist das deutlichste Zeichen dafür, sich den Realitäten nicht stellen zu wollen.

„Die Männer zerrten eine Frau aus dem Fahrzeug... entfernten gewaltsam die Kleidung und vergewaltigten sie... Sie stachen wiederholt auf sie ein und töteten sie... und vergewaltigten sie weiter, nachdem sie tot war.“
Raz Cohen, Überlebender des Nova Festivals

Wir können ja noch nicht einmal deutlich darüber debattieren. Weil unsere Regularien und unser sozialer Konsens es unterbinden auszusprechen, was die Realität ist. Ich kann noch nicht einmal Fotos posten, weil ich befürchten muss, dass die Social Media Plattformen mich dafür blockieren. Ich kann teilweise nicht einmal Links zu Fotos anderer Plattformen posten.
Wir bekommen eine heile Welt aufgezwungen, während um die Ecke das passiert, was wir als „unmenschlich“ aus unserer Welt entfernen wollen. Und leisten damit denen Bärendienste, die diese Realität verschwinden lassen wollen, während sie sie vorher noch stolz veröffentlicht haben.

Mir braucht keiner mehr mit Völkerrecht und Empathie gegenüber den Palästinensern kommen. Ich erlaube mir den menschlichen Reflex zumindest soweit.
Aber ich will nicht in diesen Abgrund. Und das ist anstrengend. Ich hatte Wuttränen.

Und ich musste mir Luft machen.
Der Artikel wird kommen.
Ich habe nicht das Recht wegzusehen.

Aber jetzt gerade kann ich einfach nicht mehr.

https://t.co/0dnFJY0PeS

Anmerkung: In den Datenbanken mit Pressebildern gibt es nur sehr wenige Bilder des 10/7 aus Israel, da dort Persönlichkeitsrechte und Opferschutz geachtet werden. Weshalb ich auch für die meisten auf Social Media gesperrt würde. Aber dafür sehr viele aus dem Gazastreifen, schon am ersten Tag.
Aus meinem Archiv…
Foto 1: Getötete Zivilisten auf der Straße nach Sderot
Foto 2: Israelische Truppen versuchen Sderot wieder unter Kontrolle zu bringen
Foto 3: Palästinenser überqueren zum Morden und Vergewaltigen die eingerissene Grenze nach Israel

[Haviv Rettig Gur @havivrettiggur]

A lot of subscribers have asked what I made of the Nick Kristof oped.

So much has already been said. What more is there to say?

My first thought was everyone else's. Horrifying. Testimonies of pain and torture. We know that the Israeli Prisons Service is notoriously incompetent. There have been cases of Hamas prisoners abusing each other, and even famous cases of them abusing female Israeli guards. We know, too, that all prison systems struggle with the problem: New York prisons face 2,000 claims against them. So abuse of prisoners isn't merely possible, it's guaranteed. October 7 and the ensuing war sent thousands of detainees into the prisons. And in the early months, drafted into the system undertrained reservist guards. Guards who had seen Hamas's videos gleefully documenting their crimes.

I expected, therefore, a hard-hitting story of real abuse, something Israeli leaders must take notice of.

And then I came across the first obvious lie. And then the second. And then an odd claim -- maybe possible, but how exactly? -- and then another just like it. And a famed Hamas propagandist laundered as a reliable source. And then another.

Why, if there is no doubt that abuse occurred -- and there is no doubt -- was there so much obvious propaganda in Kristof's oped?

I won't pretend the lies weren't a relief. They were. It's agony to read about Israeli criminality, and the lies let me cast doubt on the whole narrative. There's an obvious propaganda campaign at work here.

But as claim followed claim, it became hard not to wonder: Despite the propaganda, what part is nevertheless true? How bad has it gotten?

So here's what we know, or at least what I think I know.

This is a campaign that seeks our destruction. Kristof quotes people who celebrated October 7 and want Israel destroyed, and will lie to achieve that goal. We know how the lies in this story made their way into it, where they came from and what purpose they serve.

Even so, I'm not willing to conclude there's no truth at all in there, just because there are lies.

Dogs did not rape anyone. The people who invented that particular inanity claimed it without evidence, knowing that no one, certainly not self-appointed moral arbiters like Nick Kristof, would ever bother checking the provenance of the claim.

Because they never, ever do. Because why would they?

So the claim spreads through the millions-strong activist network without investigation, exciting and mobilizing -- not because anyone understands how it might be possible but for the sheer thrill of it.

And it's cited by Kristof as a reliable report.

A recent report by a Norwegian NGO, also referenced, claimed "systemic sexual violence" in the West Bank by citing just 16 cases across three years in a geographic region containing as many as three million Palestinians and over half a million Israelis. And some of the examples scarcely cleared the bar for harassment.

But the NGO in question knew for a fact that no journalist would look too deeply into any of it. And indeed, no journalist did.

Because they never, ever do. Because why would they?

Friends, a paper trail is being created. Just like they created a paper trail on mass starvation in Gaza -- mass starvation first claimed in early 2024, and then claimed again and again by NGOs, the UN, everybody. Some were nuanced warnings of a "possibility," some declared it had arrived. The headlines from both were largely the same. And then, in thundering silence, the mass starvation claim just faded away, never having materialized -- while billions of ordinary people around the world who don't follow too closely remain convinced that countless Gazans died of starvation.

So they moved on. A Lancet letter claiming hundreds of thousands of deaths spread like wildfire, mostly because (a) nobody actually read or understood what it claimed and (b) nobody cared enough to check if it was remotely plausible. Then, just in case anyone forgot Lancet, came the claim by UN rapporteurs of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children -- 380,000 infants under five allegedly died, more than the entire population of infants in Gaza. Stupid, right? But it was repeated again and again by activists and protestors.

No one checks, no costs are exacted for the never-ending barrage of fakery. Because why would they?

A wild religious frenzy has taken hold. Hatred of Israel is now definitional to the left, and to parts of the right. Greta Thunberg has forgotten all about climate change. An enemy of humanity has been identified just in time to unleash all the pent-up religious rage that this troubled secular age won't allow against anyone else.

And by complete and utter coincidence, that enemy you're suddenly allowed to hate is vaguely associated with the Jews.

Yes, alas, it really is that simple.

But also, dear friends -- bear with me -- it isn't.

All the above is true. They're fucking liars and bigots. They marched in their millions, again and again and again, for weeks and months and years -- marches completely unprecedented in their size, regularity and duration in all the history of the West, in all the history of war, larger by orders of magnitude than all other marches for all other conflicts and wars and suffering combined, even those caused by their own governments. And no serious person pretends that anything similar could ever have coalesced or will ever coalesce again unless Israel is involved.

"But we fund you," shouts the American activist to explain this mind-numbing selectivity. Then why did one-third of the city of Amsterdam march? Or millions of Spaniards, Brazilians and Indonesians? It was unprecedented and it was everywhere.

And Kristof has joined the new religion. Not by being concerned about abuse, but by not caring one whit whether he's trafficking in truths or lies. Only the Jews will ask to distinguish between the two. He just needs to throw it all on the page, and his membership in the glorious crusade is assured.

Alas, the Jews are correct about the nature of this moment. Some things are so big and fundamental, so assumed and widespread, that they become hard to see. Fish don't notice the water. Activists who can only ever march against Jews are convinced they are merely righteous people enraged by war, without ever pausing to wonder why the only war that ever enraged them or ever made its way to their phones was one particular war, and not larger and deadlier wars also conducted with Western weapons and money.

And so the Jew is made fearful once more. Throughout Christendom and Islam, he is being returned to his proper place in the social hierarchies of old, complete with anxious conversos and ideological purity tests.

And yet, still, despite it all, their lies aren't the end of the story. Their lies are a separate story. A campaign of lies that constitutes a return to the mean for the Jewish condition in the West. A campaign meant to justify brutality against us, not to end war or suffering.

And despite all of it, dear Jews, there really is abuse.

It's nowhere near as much as the psychotic claims of these fantasists. Not by orders of magnitude. If it was, they wouldn't need to lie so much.

But it's there nonetheless. Many dozens of cases at least, probably in the low hundreds by now, most of them without any sexual aspect, but still wanton violence. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but the army gave a few estimates to the courts a couple of times over the past three years. There have been many indictments filed against soldiers, serious ones. I know something about a handful of those cases. I know that the problem is real.

It's there, it's real, and it doesn't seem to be stopping. And if it isn't stopped with an iron will and uncompromising hand, it will continue to fester and grow.

And it must be said: neither Ben Gvir nor Netanyahu are interested in fixing it. Nobody at the top cares about the rights of prisoners.

Let me be clear: For the first time in my life, I support a death penalty. No one who crossed over the border to massacre and kidnap on October 7 should be left alive; they came to kidnap children precisely because they sought the release of mass murderers kept alive in our prisons. Hamas, as always, in its totalizing brutality, forces the choice: If their murderers live, our children may die. I choose our children. And those who came for our children cannot be deterred, reformed or deradicalized. They murder their own to clear a path to murdering ours. And so I believe they must die. We must try, convict and destroy them.

And even I, radicalized in this narrow, specific way, say we cannot collapse into torture or abuse. That's not justice. It isn't even vengeance. It is participation in Hamas's way of war.

Nor do our leaders seem to care about the simple breakdown of discipline that these abuses represent, the kind of breakdown we saw again and again with the incidents of looting in Gaza and in the early cases of prisoner abuse that came to light.

No, dogs aren't being trained to systematically rape prisoners, you nattering halfwits. And no, Hamas propaganda operatives are not reliable sources on the question of Israeli crimes. The vast, vast majority of soldiers are honorable men who walked into fire so our families may live. The whole world may turn on them; I will stand with them, grateful for their sacrifice. And Kristof, a willing purveyor of propaganda happily feigning that he can't see the water and thrilling to a moral crusade engineered by would-be genocidaires he pretends not to understand -- is no messenger of moral reckoning.

But friends, so fucking what. Let the narcissistic guttersnipes strut their moral emotions before the world, let the UN publish endless reports that don't hold up to basic scrutiny, let the NGOs dream their rabid, sick dreams that no journalist ever fact-checks -- yes, they're lying. But so fucking what.

We still, for ourselves -- because fuck them -- must see that it isn't all fake. The problem is real. It's far smaller than they claim, but real nonetheless. And when discipline and morality break down, it can only get worse. We either crack down now or we watch it fester and grow.

And our own Ben Gvirs are stubbornly refusing to fix what is actually broken, the real thing in the real world.

And so we are caught in a strange sort of vise, the same vise we find ourselves in with the genocide lie: A vast propaganda machine that seeks to destroy us -- countless activists too high on their own self-regard to see the irony of raging against a "genocide" while calling for the erasure of a people -- all while our own incompetent, venal, self-absorbed political class insist in their mindless chatter on confirming every claim of our enemies for sheer, bald egomania.

I'm sick of it all. I know you're all sick of it too.

And that, in a nutshell, is what I think about this.

Just because they're lying, just because a vast perfidious campaign has overwhelmed global elites in a bid to clear the way for our removal, just because they're still, after two millennia, building their visions of redemption on The Evil Jew -- doesn't mean there isn't also, separately, a problem on the ground.

So what do we do now?

Simple. We see it, we acknowledge it's happening, we bring our rage to our inept leaders until they bend to our will and act to stop the breakdown...

And we soldier on.

We soldier on because the enemy really is coming to murder us. Because Hamas must still go if Gaza is ever to rise to a new day. Because Hezbollah will yet destroy Lebanon on the altar of destroying us. Because the ayatollahs built their whole damn religion on the extermination of our children.

We fix the broken things within us as if the pogromists and their simpering Kristofs don't exist. We owe no answers to the propagandists who seek to clear a path to our deaths. But we do owe answers to ourselves.

Let the screaming mob rage and churn like so much sea-foam. Despite that raging mob, despite the enemy who still seeks our destruction, and yes, despite feckless incompetents like Ben Gvir, our minister of prisons, who claim to lead us -- we remain the strongest, freest Jews who ever lived, more capable and committed than our self-destructive enemies ever imagined. And the task is still before us, yet to be completed, the sacred duty given to our generation to ensure our children don't have to face the genocidaires who now surround us. We do not waver, we do not stumble. We soldier on.

Because fuck them all.

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@havivrettiggur @BarakRavid

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@BarakRavid @IsraelMFA @nytimes Did you investigate it?

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

I cannot believe we have to do this.

The New York Times, the paper of record, just published an op-ed accusing the State of Israel of systematic sexual violence against Palestinian detainees, including the claim that Israel is training dogs to rape prisoners.

One of their sources is a man who left his job after multiple people, including minors, accused him of sending them threatening and sexual messages.

The other is Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a group whose chairman was sanctioned by Israel as a Hamas operative and who publicly called the testimonies of Israeli women raped on October 7th “fabricated lies.”

The Times is using the words of a man credibly accused of sexually harassing children, and an organization led by a man who denies the rape of Jewish women, to build a case that Israelis are sexual predators.

This is the most serious accusation you can level at a country. It demands the most serious sourcing. The Times decided the opinion section was good enough.

It is not good enough.

And spare me the crocodile tears. The same people who spent two years calling the rape victims of October 7th liars, who told us “believe women” had an asterisk when the women were Jewish, are about to share this op-ed with tears in their eyes. They never cared about sexual violence. They cared about who they could pin it on.

I do not want to spend my day writing about this. But when the largest newspaper in the world launders this against my people, silence is complicity.

@nytimes owes our community, and its readers, an apology.

[Daniel Bernard @oldscottyb]

@malachybrowne @sanjanamv @Lattif @LaurenLeatherby The article looks like just a bad naming propaganda. No examples or detailed references of evidence gathered and documented on tunnels and arms. No reference of their placement in civilian infrastructure and no analysis of the terrain (Lebanese towns overlook Isr from above).

[חני וייזר @HanaWeizer]

ילדה זוכה בחידון התנ״ך. ילד יהודי ממשפחת גרים ממוצא סיני שר התקווה. איזו מדינה מושלמת זו יא אללה 🇮🇱

[Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער @gidonsaar]

Great meeting with my friend Argentina's FM @pabloquirno in Jerusalem, during the historic visit of President @JMilei. The President will light a torch on our Independence Day, the first foreign leader to have that honor.
We’re launching a direct El Al flight between Israel and Argentina starting in November.
We’re opening a credit line in the sum of 150 million USD to support Israeli businesses operating in Argentina.
We’re also signing an MoU on counterterrorism cooperation and an agreement on AI partnership.
Huge progress in our extraordinary relationship!
🇮🇱🇦🇷