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August 2025

ISRAEL Comments turned off

When hospitals become battlefields The Nasser Hospital strike in Gaza was a tragedy, not a ‘war crime’. Andrew Fox

By on August 28th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/27/when-hospitals-become-battlefields/

The IDF’s strike on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza on Monday, reportedly killing 20 Palestinians, including five journalists, has put Israel back at the centre of international attention. The reaction has followed a predictable pattern: a shocking video, immediate accusations of war crimes levelled against Israel, and near-ubiquitous international condemnation. But to understand what happened, and why the situation around the Nasser Hospital is so fraught, a longer and more sceptical view is required.

The first point that needs making is that the Nasser Hospital has not been a neutral space during the war in Gaza. In fact, it has repeatedly been abused by Palestinian militant groups. In February 2024, the IDF arrested more than 100 militants inside the hospital, some of whom were directly involved in the 7 October 2023 massacre. Weeks earlier, freed Israeli hostage Sharon Aloni Cunio told CNN that hostages had been held in the hospital. In April, the hospital’s own director of nursing, Mohammed Saqer, revealed in a since-deleted social-media post that Palestinian Islamic Jihad had threatened him after he reopened wards to the sick and wounded.

It is common knowledge that Hamas uses hospitals and schools as military bases, which is why Israel has had no option but to strike them at times. Mohammed Sinwar – who became the de facto leader of Hamas after the death of his brother, Yahya – was killed by the IDF at Gaza’s European Hospital in May. Nor was Monday the first time Israel has targeted the Nasser Hospital. In May, a strike on the complex killed notorious 7 October live-streamer Hassan Aslih, along with Ahmad al-Qidra, a senior Hamas militant.

The identities of some of those killed on Monday further complicates matters. Indeed, some of the journalists killed in the strike appear to have been members of, or have close ties to, Hamas. Mohammed Salama, a journalist for Al Jazeera, videoed and participated in the 7 October invasion of Israel that started the war. Mariam Abu Daqqa, who freelanced for the Associated Press, allegedly used her press credentials to protect Hamas fighters. Another, Ahmed Abu Aziz, openly celebrated the 7 October massacre. These connections do not necessarily justify their deaths, or even suggest they were knowingly targeted. But this does illustrate, once again, the way Hamas deliberately blurs the line between civilian and combatant, between journalist and operative.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Transgender Church Shooter Hated Trump, Christians and Jews And the media won’t talk about it. Daniel Greenfield

By on August 28th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/transgender-church-shooter-hated-trump-christians-and-jews/

What were the motives of Robert ‘Robin’ Westman who opened fire on a Catholic church killing 2 children and wounding 17 others? The authorities claim that they’re still looking for the motive of the transgender mass murder, but like most psychos, he was happy to scrawl it all over social media.

Beyond the completely psychotic rants, Westman made it clear that he hated Trump, Jews and Christians. He also hated Indians. The one religion he seemed to like was Islam and he scribbled “Mashallah”, an Islamic term, on his gun along with love notes like “Six million was not enough”, “Israel must fall” and “Kill Trump”.

The media and local authorities won’t talk about any of it.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

An Anti-Israeli Activist Posing as a Nun The lies of Tucker’s peculiar guest. by Thom Nickels

By on August 28th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/an-anti-israeli-activist-posing-as-a-nun/

A few years ago a learned Russian Orthodox priest-acquaintance of mine told me what he thought of a certain nun who was making waves in Europe with her radical political views.

The nun in question was located in Vienna, and her name was Sister Vassa, a Russian Orthodox sister educated at Fordham University, a Jesuit school noted for its progressive theological views.

“You must be careful with nuns,” the priest said, ponderously. “Many of them drift into areas that are far away from anything having to do with their original religious vocation.”

It wasn’t long before Sister Vassa’s role as political activist eclipsed her vocation as a nun; as a result, she was defrocked by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Recently, another attention-seeking Orthodox nun kicked her religious vocation to the curb to become an anti-Israel political activist.

She is a little nun with a mustache, Mother Agapia Stephanopoulus, who has lived in the Holy Land since 1996 and who created a firestorm of sorts as a result of her recent interview with Tucker Carlson on what life is like for Christians in the Holy Land.

Mother Agapia’s message: life is horrible for Christians in the Holy Land, and it’s all Israel’s fault.

Watching the show, my first thought was: who is this vintage troll doll dressed as a nun who makes controversial statements and lies with such a wide smile?

Words poured out of her effortlessly, yet Tucker did not challenge or contradict her in any way. He barely asked her anything about her background, such as why she left the United States in the mid-nineties under suspicious circumstances.

No questions about how, in 2000, when she was Sister Stephanopoulos, she barricaded herself inside a Russian Orthodox property in Jericho until she had to be forcibly removed.

Writer Daniel Mael recapped that incident for The Geopolitical Maelstrom:

“U.S. diplomats were forced to intervene after she allegedly leveraged her brother George’s White House connections. A local real-estate fight became an international incident. The method was clear even then: insert yourself into conflict, cloak it in religious language, and trust that drama and family connections would amplify the cause.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe in the Balance? Europe faces a breaking point as illegal migration, welfare strain, energy crises, and defense demands collide with shrinking populations and stagnant economies. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on August 28th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/28/europe-in-the-balance/

Almost weekly in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, a sensational assault committed by an illegal migrant—often enjoying some sort of state support or with prior arrests for the same crime—surfaces.

Until recently, European politicians and the media sought to either ignore such news or accuse those who clamored for tighter borders, more police protection, and stiffer penalties of being “racists” or “xenophobes.”

Until recently, that is.

Mass protests are now common in Britain against the Labour Party’s open borders policies and generous welfare entitlements for immigrants who arrive illegally and without authentic “political refugee” status.

Greek officials, also swamped by illegal immigration, now cite President Trump’s secure border policies as new models for their own.

The majority of European immigrants now come from majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet many arrivals seem angrier at their newfound liberal hosts than at the dictatorships they fled back home.

Europe’s immigration policies will not work in a multiethnic democracy.

Too many immigrants are arriving too quickly, without sufficient diversity, language fluency, skills, or familiarity with the customs and culture of their host nations. They often enter with separatist religious and cultural values antithetical to the very place they seek refuge.

Yet, there is no European plan of civic education to assimilate immigrants and teach them the rules, laws, and culture of their hosts.

It is then no surprise that what follows is ghettoization, resentment, and loud attacks on the very nation in which they seek sanctuary, denouncing it as decadent and godless.

In the past, Europe’s anemic military budgets, reliance on borrowed money, socialism, and a once-strong economy papered over these existential challenges of illegal immigration.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Qatar Does Not Seem Interested in Any Deal that Ends the Rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip: What Qatar Is Saying in Arabic by Bassam Tawil

By on August 28th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21873/what-qatar-is-saying-in-arabic

As the US and other Western countries continue to rely on Qatar to broker a ceasefire-hostage deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip, senior Qatari journalists affiliated with the Qatar’s state-run media continue to praise the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas, and are even calling for Hamas to kidnap more Israelis.

Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting similar videos from Hamas since the beginning of the war.

While the Qatari government claims to the Trump Administration that it is working to release the 50 Israeli hostages held by Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip, al-Harmi, closely associated with Qatar’s leadership, is calling for kidnapping more Israelis – whom, by the way, he described as “rats.”

“If success is not achieved this time in capturing Zionist soldiers at the hands of the heroes of Hamas Brigades, then the second, third, and fourth attempts will succeed, God willing, by adding new rats to the tally held by the heroes of the [Hamas] Brigades.” — Jaber al-Harmi, editor-in-chief of the Qatari government mouthpiece newspaper Al Sharq, X, August 26, 2025.

“I swear, the Zionist entity will inevitably disappear…. Its end is near, very near.” — Jaber al-Harmi, quoting a video by Al-Jazeera, X August 26, 2025.

“Al-Harmi’s views on Israel and the Jews are aligned with the extremist ideology of Hamas and reflect his unreserved support for this movement and for its terror against Israelis – support which is also expressed by the Qatari state.”— Middle East Media Research Institute, April 15, 2025.

If Qatar really wanted to end the war in the Gaza Strip, its representatives and propagandists would not be calling on Hamas to kidnap more Israelis.

If Qatar really wanted to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, it could do so by threatening to arrest or deport the Hamas leaders living in Doha or by seizing their financial assets.

It is time for world leaders to listen to what the Qataris are saying in Arabic, not to what they hear from them in closed-door meetings in English.

As the US and other Western countries continue to rely on Qatar to broker a ceasefire-hostage deal to end the war in the Gaza Strip, senior Qatari journalists affiliated with the Qatar’s state-run media continue to praise the Iran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas, and are even calling for Hamas to kidnap more Israelis.

Qatar, which has long been supporting Hamas and currently hosts its leaders in Doha, already uses its Al-Jazeera television empire as a mouthpiece for Hamas and other Islamist terror groups. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Al-Jazeera — in Arabic — has been providing a platform to Hamas leaders to praise the massacre of Israelis.

On October 7, 2023, several Hamas leaders based in Qatar appeared in a video watching the coverage of the massacre. The Hamas leaders performed the “Prostration of Gratitude.”

Al-Jazeera, in addition, has become the official mouthpiece of Hamas’s armed wing, Izaddin al-Qassam. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, Al-Jazeera has been broadcasting “exclusive” footage of Hamas attacks on Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. Al-Jazeera is, unsurprisingly, the only station Hamas trusts.

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