Hamas Butchery of Women and Children Demands Clarity in the US and the World

By Steve Huntley

December 6, 2023

The release of Israeli hostages unleashed an outpouring of emotions — relief, hope, happiness tinged with sadness, worry about psychological damage to them, apprehension over how the ordeal might haunt their futures, concern for the unfortunates still hostage.

Amid this torrent of emotion, the freeing of the captives should also have marked a moment of moral clarity about the stakes in Israel’s war against Hamas.

Just look who the hostages were: toddlers and grandmothers. Elementary-school-age children and grey-haired women, all undernourished. At least one orphan, now infested with lice, of parents murdered in the Oct. 7 atrocities. Children cruelly branded by Hamas thugs forcing their legs against a hot motorcycle exhaust pipe. A traumatized child who talks only in whispers and an 84-year-old woman immediately sent to an IC unit after weeks of being deprived of life-sustaining medications.

These are the people Hamas wages war on. Innocent grandkids and bubbes now free. The nearly 140 people still held hostage, including nine Americans. And of course those 1,200 slaughtered in the Oct. 7 Hamas bloodbath.
The Hamas “fighters” — as they are often characterized by the media — didn’t attack the Israeli army, forces who would have fought back. The Oct. 7 “victory” claimed by Hamas and celebrated by its supporters in this country and elsewhere wasn’t a military battle, a struggle between men of arms, a clash pitting one armed force against another.

No, it was a bloodlust attack to kill, wound and kidnap infants, children, women ranging in age into the 80s and defenseless unarmed civilian men.

There are words for men who do that.

An obvious one is terrorist.

Another word is coward.

Think of the contemptible creep who phoned home wanting to brag to his mother how he had killed 10 Jews. Can anyone image that sick freak standing up in a battle against the Israel Defense Forces? Since the Israelis have a recording of his call, they must know who he is. We can only hope to savor the day when justice is delivered to this coward.

The latest report of Hamas depravity is that this gang of barbarians handed a 10-month-old infant, his 4-year-old brother and his parents over to another band of monsters. For what purpose, we can only wonder. Now Hamas claims the mother and children are dead, an assertion not confirmed by Israel.

That’s the clarity of this moment — to remind us of the character of the savages who started this war with their rampage of murdering and raping, beheading and mutilating bodies, rounding up women and children as hostages.

And to secure the freedom of approximately a hundred innocents, Israel had to free twice that many terrorists and criminals from its jails.

But unfortunately that moment of clarity seems lost in most of the media coverage and ignored or denied by the antisemites and the depraved far left ever ready to sympathize with Hamas and its goal of “from the river to the sea” destruction of Israel.

After the horrors of the Oct. 7 pogrom, it’s almost beyond belief that we need this moment of clarity. But the rest of the world has moved on from the day of Israel’s agony and focused on the carnage in Gaza — all the while oblivious to the ones actually responsible for that death and destruction, Hamas. That gang doesn’t care about Palestinian lives, it cares only about killing Jews and destroying Israel.

Coward also is the word that best describes the Hamas terrorists who hide behind Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. Who locate command centers, supply depots and other facilities around and in hospitals, around and in schools, around and in mosques, around and in any place where civilians gather.

The misery, death and destruction Palestinians in Gaza are suffering would end in seconds if Hamas released all the hostages and surrendered. Or if they came out on an open field and did battle with the IDF. But neither will happen. Cowards don’t do the right thing.

(Egypt could also help by opening its border to let Palestinians evacuate from Gaza into its territory but it refuses to. Ask yourself why the Egyptians don’t want Palestinians inside their country.)

Hamas cowardice and responsibility for civilian casualties in Gaza are ignored or brushed aside by condescending and tut-tutting officials in the Biden administration, left-wing media pundits, the ever-so-smart professors at the bastions of antisemitism like Harvard and other elite campuses, and the useless UN.

Instead, they aim their criticisms at Israel, saying it is solely responsible for seeing that the international laws of war are observed. They push for a permanent ceasefire, which would only reward Hamas, allow those cowards to escape the punishment they so richly deserve and set the stage for future attacks.

The hostage releases was also a moment of clarity in reminding us that Israel faces total war from Hamas and its allies like Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Iran.

For them there are no rules of war, no international law, no worry that anyone will hold them responsible for their crimes against humanity — no one, that is, except Israel.

Their war aims are explicit and uncompromising — the extinction of the state of Israel and genocide against Jews in Israel and anywhere the Islamist jihadists find them.

Yet again this moment of clarity is completely lost on the pro-Hamas demonstrators in big cities and on college campuses across the country. Some of it defies belief. Take the idiots and bigots who showed up at an Oakland, CA, city council meeting to speak the unspeakable — that the slaughter of Oct. 7 was Israeli propaganda or that “Israel murdered its own people.”

Also oblivious to this moment of clarity are celebrities like Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon who did “hunger-striking” for two days — yes, ludicrous but evidence of her character — for a permanent Gaza cease-fire.

One of the jaw-dropping aspects of American reaction to Oct. 7 has been the virtual silence from progressive feminists and Me-Too activists over the rape rampage against Jewish women. Under questioning by a journalist over the weekend, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, condemned the rapes but then equivocated by saying “it happens in war situations” and “we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.”

It took two months but the Biden administration finally this week condemned the horrific rapes.

In another development, the Biden administration seems to be equivocating in its support for Israel, saying the Israelis must be more precise in the next phase of their military operations in Gaza to save civilian lives now that the one-week pause in the conflict is over. There are suggestions of tying U.S. aid to conditions for Israel’s conduct of the war.

The White House added insult to the potential injury of its new policy by sending Vice President Kamala Harris, a foolish politician known mostly for her outbursts of cackling and word salads, to a climate summit in Dubai in the Middle East to lecture the Israelis. Harris declared that Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians but she didn’t utter one word of condemnation for those responsible for the suffering in Gaza, Hamas and its strategy of using Palestinians as human shields.

The thinking seems to be that Israel’s existence isn’t actually threatened, that Oct. 7 was just a raid, awful and atrocious, but just another terrorist attack.

Which misses the point. Which misses the entire strategy of the Islamist fanatics of Hamas.

Some 200,000 Israelis have fled the southern border areas along the Gaza Strip and next to Lebanon in the north, an area which has also been under attack since Oct. 7.

If the Israeli counter-offensive against Hamas is not a success, those displaced families might not feel safe enough to move back to their homes. In effect, the state of Israel will have been shrunk in size by the Oct. 7 attack. It would be in essence a retreat. It could mark the beginning of the end for the state of Israel. If Jews are reduced to living in fear there, Israel is, well, not Israel.

And this wasn’t just one attack. It’s part of a strategy of more attacks and atrocities.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Ghazi Hamas, a high-ranking Hamas leader: the Oct. 7 attack “is just the first time and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight. … Israel is a country that has no place on our land.”

The “innocent Palestinians” we hear so much about wouldn’t endorse that kind of jihad, right?

Here’s what a poll conducted in mid-November by the Arab World for Research and Development says about that: 75 percent of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 murders, rapes, burnings and mutilations. And 80 percent reject a two-state peace solution with Israel, not surprising given the history of Palestinian rejection of Israeli peace offerings.

But Israel won’t buckle. The sick genocidal dreams of Hamas, Iran and the rest of the terrorists will crash on the determination, resourcefulness, courage and steel of the Israeli people.

The Jews of Israel and elsewhere know history, live with the cruel memory of the Holocaust, and see a rising tide of antisemitism in America and Europe fueled by the immigration of unassimilated Muslims and extreme left-wing indoctrination of the young in elite universities. The know Israel is essential for the future of Jewish life.

In America, the wave of antisemitism is so startling and widespread in the bastions of left-wing politics that the progressive majority leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, was shocked out of his complacency. He delivered a speech noting the obvious: American Jews are being abandoned by the very people they marched with for years to advance progressive causes.

The biggest question hanging over Israel is this: will the Biden administration keep up its so-far admirable record of supplying Israel with the arms and materiel it must have to get the job done?

Can that resolve survive with Biden campaign officials already trembling over possible fallout from the war in next year’s election? They worry about the votes of Arab Americans in critical battleground states like Michigan and the votes of young Americans whose profound ignorance and misunderstanding of the realities Israel faces put them on the genocidal side of this war.

Biden confronts perhaps the profound test of his presidency. Unyielding support for Israel is crucial for the future of the Jewish state — but also crucial for America, a country that suffered its own greatest terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, from a band of Islamist terrorists like Hamas.

At stake is America’s role as the leader of the free world and Western civilization. The world order advancing liberty, freedom and justice led by America since World War II is under challenge from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — and under attack by Hamas.

This struggle is a test of American resolve.

Any weakening in Washington that would deny Israel ultimate victory in this war would be as disastrous for America as the chaotic, humiliating military withdrawal from Afghanistan — or worse.
If America can’t stand firm with one of its closest allies fighting an existential war, who would it stand up for?

-30-

Steve Huntley, a retired Chicago journalist now living in Austin, Texas, has contributed other pieces to johnkassnews, from an examination of the secret jail for Christopher Columnbus and other politically problematic public art to an essay on Americans suffering from Joe Biden gas pain.

For almost three decades Huntley spent most of his career in Chicago journalism at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a feature writer, metro reporter, night city editor, metropolitan editor, editorial page editor and a columnist for the opinion pages.

Before that he was a reporter and editor with United Press International (UPI) in the South and Chicago, and Chicago bureau chief and a senior editor in Washington with U.S. News & World Report. Northwestern University Press has issued soft cover and eBook editions of Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America by Truman K. Gibson Jr. with Steve Huntley, a memoir of a Chicagoan who was a member of President Roosevelt’s World War II Black Cabinet working to desegregate the military.

Comments 41

  1. Steve Huntley is always solid!

    ” The Hamas “fighters” — as they are often characterized by the media — didn’t attack the Israeli army, forces who would have fought back. The Oct. 7 “victory” claimed by Hamas and celebrated by its supporters in this country and elsewhere wasn’t a military battle, a struggle between men of arms, a clash pitting one armed force against another.

    No, it was a bloodlust attack to kill, wound and kidnap infants, children, women ranging in age into the 80s and defenseless unarmed civilian men.

    There are words for men who do that.

    An obvious one is terrorist.

    Another word is coward”

    Nothing beats the declarative sentence from the pen of a master!

    1. With the whole world (and NATO) watching how the US stands with its allies (Israel), especially after the disastrous exit from Afghanistan, and now our wavering support for our “friend” Ukraine and our reluctance to confront Iran on its support of hostilities against American bases in Syria and elsewhere in the region and China on its many transgressions, how comfortable are our other allies knowing the US lacks the political will to lead from the front. Neville Chamberlain and the free world backed down to NAZI aggression with horrific consequences. Someone once said….”those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” I fear we are a pathway to a very bad ending.

    2. Imaging if the WH occupant was Israel’s best friend in decades? You know the one who got several Arab countries to sign a peace treaty with Israel? you know , Donald J Trump. I doubt Hamas would have done what it did if the calendar was October 7 2017, 2018, 2019, or even 2020. The greatest deterrent to war is a strong powerful enemy who wont hesitate to hit back hard. Its called MAD, Mutually assured destruction. it worked for over 50 years against the Soviet Union. See elections matter as the world is finding out now, sadly lots of people wont wake up to find that out, you know like those in Chicago, LA, NYC etc. Democrats cannot govern.

  3. What an outstanding article! This tells the truth, this tells the way it is, and where the hell is the rest of the media! What is wrong with some of the American people who are defending what Hamas has done! This article is the truth, and people need to wake up to what the hell is happening to Israel, our strongest, ally!

  7. There is plenty of cowardice to go around. Yesterday in Congress, the ladies who lead the elite credentialed institutions of MIT, Harvard, and Penn were cowards in their congressional testimony. By refusing to call evil by its name, they allow it to form, spread, and assimilate into their student bodies. Their refusal also allows department heads and professors to endorse and practice hate, right down to the books they choose for their classroom.

    Venture Capitalist Albert Wenger of USV, a leading venture capital fund published a false equivalence on his blog Continuations which said “both were at fault” and we need a Marshall Plan (send money) to Gaza to rebuild without condemning the terrorists. That justifies terrorism and that’s where the mainstream in academia is today. It’s where institutions, like the Economic Club of Chicago etc are today. Socialism is good. Capitalism is bad. Conscious Capitalism (meaning donate money to the things I compel you to donate to) is great!

    It’s also worth noting yesterday there were hearings on males playing in women’s sports. Women were told by one witness to accept it. Ironically, her husband is leading the prosecution against J6 “insurrectionists”.

    Also noted: Everyone involved in the two big hearings on anti-semitism and anti-women sports were women on both sides. All witnesses. All questioners from each party. What it shows is that gender plays no part in leadership of having a good moral compass. Gender is not relevant. Especially when you are tolerant of hate.

  10. We can admire Steve Huntley for writing on this horrific subject so powerfully. Actually I admire him for dealing with this subject at all. It’s difficult to write about this without pulling punches.

    The aspects of evil at work here reach from the use of hospital patients as propaganda pawns in Gaza to political calculations made on Arab-American votes in Michigan and Minnesota. The evil reaches from an old hatred mechanized in Europe in the 1930s to the same hatred chanted on Ivy League campuses today.

    You could imagine a fearless column like Huntley’s appearing in important newspapers — back when there were important newspapers. Following this website, we can appreciate the value of being able to read it here.

  11. Thank you Mr. Huntley! Great column!

    Hamas are not cowards: they psychopathic sexual deviant piles of pig dung masquerading as humans.
    What I find so appalling is that our Universities and so called social elite have embraced these atrocities. What person could justify the beheading of babies and raping then murdering women? How do you glorify Allah by parading the dead naked body of a girl through the streets of Gaza City? The mere fact that members of Congress, University leaders and even local elected leaders consider the OCT 7th slaughter a fact of war is mind boggling and outrageous. This is not the America I want to see.

  13. Until the Israelis teach the Palestinians that the support of Hamas has consequences, the Palestinians will continue their support for the brutal and cowardly butchers. There are no “innocent” Palestinians.

  15. This column should be REQUIRED reading for ALL the people of the US and the world. Every aspect of this Hamas butchery and the answer to “who is the cause of the present middle east woes this time” is covered in this column. Excellent on point writing by Mr Huntley!! So sad there are so many ill informed , ignorant, and hateful people here in “the last bastion of freedom” who protest, march, and scream in defense of the cowardly animals of Hamas – apologies to actual zoological animals.

  16. What if a gang of cartel members crossed into Texas and raped, killed, mutilated 1300 and kidnapped 200 American citizens. Would we excuse this because the land belonged to Mexico before we had stolen it?

  17. Mr. Huntley asks why Egypt doesn’t offer to take in refugees? Egypt knows what every Arabic country knows. When the Palestinians settle in and organize they will soon attack their host country. People like this have been fighting for centuries. They reject peace and embrace death. It’s what they do. Elon Musk was also recently called an anti semite for basically agreeing with Steve about Jewish support for liberal causes that erode our civil society. These causes eagerly take your money but really loath you. Funny how you find out the people you thought were in your club never wanted you as a member. Along with the militant teacher unions indoctrinating kids to become “student activists ” you can easily trace the roots of antisemitism on college campuses. Thanks for the insight Steve. Much appreciated!

  18. The big question is where the younger folks learn their distaste/hate for Israel and the Jews. Does it come from the schools? Is this something pushed big time on social media, especially TikTok? It would be important to know.

  19. War chiefs in Israel should rule the day. Let this group of thugs feel the hammer. They have no place in the world. Like Chicago’s street gangs – a few people making life miserable for the rest. Will take years in Israel for the war chiefs to get the job done – but once done, then the peace chiefs have so much more to work with for lasting peace. Its unfortunate, brutally unfortunate

  20. The current White House and its supporters are hiding behind women’s skirts and are making a living out of ‘Abortion’ and you are calling them to take up arms against Hamas and Iranians?!
    -Nambi

  22. The left-wing progressives like Jayapal will never support Israel, no matter what, because Jews are part of the Judeo-Christian based Western world that they detest and want to fundamentally transform. It’s as simple as that.

  23. Mr. Hickey, I think you should take a moment and read the excellent op-ed piece of Elizabeth Shakman-Hurd in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune. Conflating criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism is simplistic (and wrong).

    Hamas’s attack was beastly, and the perpetrators deserve all that can be given them. But is a pilot who bombs a hospital, even if the Hamas fiends are sheltering there, a better person. Have we not learned anything from the fire-bombing of Dresden? Curtis LeMay remarked that he would be tried as a war criminal if WWII had been lost. At least he was honest.

  24. The brainwashed college dregs and limousine liberals have no situational awareness. The Islamopaths they embrace for the bloodletting on October 7, did that to “The Little Satan”. The US is their “Great Satan”. They will applaud the murder and rape right up until it is crashing through their own doors.

  25. Great article, Mr. Huntley.
    The truth is that Hamas must be eliminated 100% to the last person.
    And with every death of hostages being held, resolve must stiffen for the elimination of Hamas and for those who would support Hamas, your day is coming too.

  26. I never tire of reading Steve Huntley stories.

    “For them there are no rules of war, no international law, no worry that anyone will hold them responsible for their crimes against humanity”

    That statement says so much. Here is why all of the Radicals (stop the Progressive titles), Ivy College goofs and left wing politicians align with Hamas. The current society doesn’t believe in rules, procedures, law & order, etc.

    It’s not hard to see why they stand where they do.

  27. Steve,
    Spot on piece. But, as a country, I fear we’ve lost all sense of resolve in combating any adversaries, whether at home or abroad. The current administration lacks backbone and morals, cowing to the far left for all socialist and marxist ideas and agendas. More consideration is given to “safe spaces” than standing up to those who would muzzle free speech. Won’t change until a conservative is once again in the WH, someone with the moxy, guts (ok b–ls) to actually threaten our enemies, foreign or domestic, and put us back on track to become energy independent, on solid economic footing with no more freebies to illegals and migrants!! November 2024 can’t come soon enough for us, and all our allies.

  28. As many before me have said it, I can only echo their sentiments: excellent article, well presented facts and a good overview of the reality of the situation. Considering the vernacular of the streets where I grew up, on the southside of Chicago, we would have deemed these cretins who perpetrate this kind of ongoing viciousness to be “blessed” with very small ‘essential parts’. They think they’re so big and tough – so macho and brave; yep….willing to hide behind children, sick people, old people and those most defenseless in our world. Their sense of morality is about as small and useless as those other “parts” – without question. It is time for our pseudo-leader to understand that we must support Israel and their efforts, because their enemy – in this case – is just not normal, nor are they civil. They just are not.

  29. Just imagine: If some 4,000+ years ago a certain man once did what his wife suggested, go father a child by my servant, cause God is taking too long or forget His promise. This event has caused wars and its sorrow that we still see today and will tomorrow. And it will not stop until …… A certain Jew returns.

  30. A couple of comments…

    “Another word is coward”

    As much as we wish this were true, that’s probably not the case. The decision of who they attacked and who they avoided was a deliberate calculation. “If we addressed their fears, then nothing would happen” is a fools errand.

    “to remind us of the character of the savages who started this war…”

    Yup, they’re savages. That’s what you end up with in a protracted conflict. Their conduct matches what you see in many protracted conflicts in Africa. At this point there’s lots of whining to the affect of “please stop being savages”, but that won’t accomplish anything. The only path forward is to end the conflict. There are 2 ways a conflict ends: a) both sides reconcile, like we did after our Civil War. b) both sides separate like Hindu/Muslims did when the India/Pakistan partition took place.

    “The misery, death and destruction Palestinians in Gaza are suffering would end in seconds if Hamas released all the hostages and surrendered”

    They won’t do that. It would also end in seconds if everyone in Gaza walked south-east into the desert. The rest of the world won’t allow that, because it can’t accept that what worked with India/Pakistan would work here.

    “Their war aims are explicit and uncompromising — the extinction of the state of Israel and genocide against Jews in Israel…”

    That’s why partition is the only option. The Gazans need to move farther away.

    “75 percent of Palestinians support the Oct. 7 murders, rapes, burnings and mutilations. And 80 percent reject a two-state peace solution with Israel…”

    Yup. Lots of spin for lots of years in the Middle East on my things are so bad for the average person. This keeps everyone from asking the right question: ‘How can I thrive in a mono-economy(oil)?’. The Arab Spring attempted to ask the right question, but it died.

    “They know Israel is essential for the future of Jewish life”

    Actually some are smarter than you realize. They know the Israel project was a way to avoid recriminations on Germany similar to the disastrous ones the world put on Germany at the end of WWI. They know the entire Middle East will use them as scape-goats for the angst of living in a mono-economy (i.e. a small number of people control everything and the rest are on basic-income). They know the Shia/Sunni sects compete for bragging rights at brutalizing Jews. They know the rest of the world won’t overcome these things. They know the terror over Israel finds them outside of Israel. They know that future attacks will involve bio-warfare and limited nukes. They know that walking into Israel is like walking into an oven.

  33. Thank you John for having Steve put this together….God bless both of you fine young men.
    With the UN, Amnesty Intl., and, of course, the Biden WH interns all demanding Israel ceasefire with Hamas, the supposed leadership in our USA is totally vacant. It sickens me to see this lack of leadership and it cuts right through to seeing how compromised our POTUS has become.
    With major university’s presidents/CEOs testifying in Congress about their school’s “code” of harassment, it appears that these CEOs were projecting their own feelings as to Israel and protection of their Jewish students rather than follow what has been written down in their school’s ideology for these protections.
    With the strangle hold that the Leftist/Liberals have on all of our schools K through University, we are losing our American dream and promoting a carnage that might be seen too soon. Yes, I fear for my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as they have no idea what history SHOULD have taught them…..I pray that the Biden administration will change, but I know they won’t……like someone recently had given his opinion on what to get, “more ammo”. Yes, we all have to be ready to protect our own as it appears that so many of our “rights” are either missing or being abused by a government run by money received from our enemies and telling our allies all is okay while they stab them in the back.
    Sorry to be so long and thank you for giving me the chance to vent a little bit….
    God bless you guys.
    Tom Adams

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