By now it’s pretty clear that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS), which has taken over much of central and northern Iraq is guilty of genocide. The man is a killer as are his followers. Thousands of Assyrian Christians have been murdered and driven from their homes, as have many members of another religious group, the Yazidis, who have been driven to the mountains to avoid further destruction.

Numerous reports indicate that hundreds of Yazidis have been killed, some buried alive and the women who have survived these massacres have been sold into sexual slavery.

Shiite and Sunni Muslims have also been murdered in large numbers by IS.

Rev. Dr. Mark Durie, an Anglican Priest from Australia and expert on jihad, dhimmitude and Islamic doctrine regarding non-Muslims, summarizes the state of affairs as follows:
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Joseph Spoerl, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire

Joseph Spoerl, Ph.D., a professor of philosophy at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire, highlights a huge problem in the coverage enjoyed by Hamas during the ongoing conflict in Gaza. In a piece published today in the New Hampshire Union Leader, Spoerl puts forth the following scenario:

Imagine that [during World War II American and British reporters had sent back a steady stream of news stories and photos highlighting the plight of German civilians: photos of ruined homes and apartment blocks, wailing women and children, overwhelmed hospitals and so forth. Suppose, further, that these reporters never mentioned anything about the ugly ideology of Hitler and the Nazis, their genocidal hatred for Jews, their plans for world conquest, their persecution of political opponents, etc.

We would all agree that reporters acting in this way would be guilty of a serious breach of journalistic ethics. They would be actively misleading their audience by telling only a small portion of the truth.

Spoerl observes that such a scenario is taking place today as reporters highlight the suffering of the residents of the Gaza Strip without addressing the agenda of the fascist organization that controls the territory. “As absurd as it sounds, the imaginary scenario sketched out here has been unfolding before our very eyes in the Gaza strip over the past month.”

He concludes his piece as follows:
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John Shinn, regional director for the United Steel Workers District Four, may need to admonish the leadership of one of his locals, USW 8751, (which represents school bus drivers in the city of Boston), about how they portray themselves at anti-Zionist, antisemitic (and Anti-American) rallies like those that took place in Boston during the month of July, culminating in a celebration of Al Quds Day on July 25, 2014.

Yesterday, Snapshots posted a statement from Shinn stating that two leaders from the USW Local 8751 who attended an Al Quds rally in Boston did so in their personal capacity and were not representing the local or the international to which they belong. He stated that “any members of USW Local 8751 who participated in that event were doing so solely on their own behalf and in no capacity representing our union or its international leadership.

Shinn better tell that to Steve Kirschbaum
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Note: An update was appended to this post at approximately 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, 2014

First the good news.

And then the bad news.

The good news is that CNN is finally waking up to the extirpation of Christians by radical Islamists in Iraq. And moreover, Chris Cuomo, (shown above), is doing what he can to draw attention to this story.

The bad news is that CNN morning anchor Cuomo does not know what he’s talking about when it comes to Christians in Jerusalem.

The Media Research Center captured the evidence of Cuomo’s ignorance in a post it published yesterday.
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Steve Kirschbaum, founder and Chair of the Grievance Committee Stevan Kirschbaum of United Steel Workers 8751, marches at the front of a parade in downtown Boston in celebration of Al Quds Day on July 25, 2014. Al Quds Day is a celebration inaugurated by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran in 1979, (the year of the Iranian Hostage Crisis), to show disdain and contempt for the Jewish state. Al Quds Day celebrations are typically a scene of anti-Israel, antisemitic, and anti-American incitement.(Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

Update, Aug. 11, 2014: Kirschbaum is not president of USW 8751, but its founder and Chair of its Grievance Committee. The text of this entry has been changed to reflect that fact. See note below.

Why are the founder and vice president of the union that represents Boston’s school bus drivers siding with terrorists who blow up buses?

For the past year or so, United Steel Workers 8751, which represents the bus drivers who bring children to public schools in the city of Boston, has been in an ugly contract dispute. It’s fighting with a company called Veolia, which runs the school buses for Boston Public Schools.

In an effort to gain support in its fight with Veolia, which also runs bus lines in Israel, USW 8751 leaders have allied themselves with anti-Zionists in Boston. This is particularly true with USW 8751 founder Steven Kirschbaum and the local’s second-in-command, vice president Steven Gillis.

In March USW leaders picketed in support of Students for Justice in Palestine at Northeastern University in March after it was briefly suspended from operating at the school.
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Marchers parade in downtown Boston in celebration of Al Quds Day on July 25, 2014. Al Quds Day is a celebration inaugurated by Ayatollah Khoemeini in Iran in 1979, (the year of the Iranian Hostage Crisis), to show disdain and contempt for the Jewish state. (Photo: Dexter Van Zile)

For the past few weeks, Boston has been the scene of several anti-Israel rallies. Protesters at these rallies have demonized Israel and its supporters in some pretty ugly ways. The rallies have been organized by a loose coalition of activists from groups such as Grassroots International and Jewish Voice for Peace. LGBTQ activists, union members and activists from the local Muslim community have also participated in these rallies.

Local television stations and newspapers have inaccurately described the participants at these rallies as “pro-Palestinian.”

The message espoused by activists at these rallies is not “pro-Palestinian,” but anti-Israel and in some instances, anti-Jewish. In addition to promoting the cause of Palestinian nationalism, they have demonized Israel, called for its destruction, and whitewashed acts of terror perpetrated by Hamas, a genocidal organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction. And in some instances, protesters carried signs that were explicitly antisemitic. As the images posted below reveal, the notion that Israel is a pariah state became an increasingly important theme as the rallies progressed.

While one pro-Israel protester was assaulted on July 11, 2014, the hostility evident in the streets of Boston has, thankfully not approached what we have seen in Los Angeles, Berlin or Paris, where violence has erupted. Nevertheless, the animus evident at these events in Boston has been ratcheted up with each successive rally and march.

The first rally, a pro-BDS event which took place on July 9, 2014, was marked by the usual chants of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” an implicit call for Israel’s destruction. The most recent rally, a celebration of “Al Quds Day,” protesters carried signs equating Zionism with Nazism.

Below is a compendium of photos taken at five anti-Israel rallies that took place in Boston during July 2014.

Taken as a whole, the photos will demonstrate that the message espoused at these rallies is anti-Israel, anti-democratic and in some instances, antisemitic. Activists are using their right to free speech in the U.S. to front for Hamas, an organization that is fundamentally hostile to the values that serve as the basis for American civil society. They are also assailing the legitimacy of a liberal democracy in the Middle East.

And they are assailing it because it is the Jewish homeland. This is not human rights or peace activism; it is anti-Zionism.

And when these folks speak anti-Zionism, they speak hate.
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Buzzfeed correspondent Sheerah Frenkel sure is able to include a lot of misinformation into a 140 characters!

Earlier today she posted a tweet that read as follows:

Order of events: 3 teens kidnapped->100s of Palestns in WB arrested->revenge attacks on Palestinians->violence along Gaza/Israel border->war

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Churches for Middle East Peace, an umbrella “peace” organization supported by approximately two dozen Christian churches and para-church organizations in the U.S., sure has a funny way of looking at things.

In a bulletin recently sent out by the organization, the organization gives a run down to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The bulletin, which was titled “Gaza Conflict Escalates” includes the following passage:
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New York Times journalist Robert Mackey has weighed in on the video broadcast yesterday by the International Solidarity Movement and sadly, despite his reporting, we are no closer to the truth of what happened the day the video was made than we were when it was first released.

The video, which was released on July 21, 2014, purports to show the death of a young Palestinian man at the hands of an unseen and unknown sniper. CAMERA and other commentators have raised questions about its reliability suggesting that it may be a faked footage broadcast with the intent of demonizing Israel, AKA, “Pallywood.”

Mackey gave the video something akin to a seal of approval in an article published late yesterday that does more to inoculate the video from scrutiny than it does to advance the story.

In his piece, Mackey reports that a Palestinian family discovered the fate of their missing son after seeing the video on Youtube.

Mackey reports that the video
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Is this young man a victim of an Israeli sniper?(Screenshot of ISM video)

The International Solidarity Movement, a radical anti-Israel organization that has condoned acts of terror against the Jewish state, is alleging that an Israeli sniper killed a young man in Gaza during the recent fighting between the IDF and Hamas. The ISM posted a video of the alleged sniper attack on its website on July 21, 2014.

Later that day, Newsweek posted an article about the video on its website and quoted ISM activist Joe Catron.

“We all just watched a man murdered in front of us,” said Joe Catron, an American ISM activist in Gaza who confirmed his account to Newsweek.

“He was trying to reach his family in Shuja’iya. He had not heard from them and was worried about them. They shot him and then continued to fire as he was on the ground,” Catron added.

Catron, who declared an unknown Israeli soldier guilty of murder, is not a disinterested observer, but a radical anti-Israel activist who has appeared a number of times on PressTV, which the ADL describes as “the Iranian government’s primary propaganda tool to promote a wide range of pernicious anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in English to a worldwide audience.” This ADL report provides extensive background about the hateful antisemitic conspiracy theories that have been broadcast on this network.

According to the ADL report, Catron who appears regularly on PressTV, said the following on the network in 2012: “Well, it appears to me that the United States is, as obviously as we know, co-opted by the Israeli lobby, so is the United Nations and Israel is simply using the United States to buy what it wants…”

Catron’s radical anti-Israelism can be seen in a Tweet posted on July 21, 2014:
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