A Virginia public school system has launched an investigation into allegations that high school officials arranged and paid for two minors to obtain abortions without notifying the girls’ parents, violating Virginia law.

Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) investigation comes after a bombshell Aug. 5 Substack report by Walter Curt that states that a social worker at Centreville High School, Carolina Díaz, was involved in procuring abortions for two students.

The first incident allegedly occurred in November 2021, when the student was 17 years old. The girl claims Díaz scheduled the appointment, paid for it, and “kept everything quiet without informing my family,” according to Curt. In the second case, a student who was five months pregnant went to an abortion appointment procured for her after Díaz reportedly told her that she “had no other choice.” She ultimately decided against the abortion, choosing to leave the clinic rather than go through with it.

According to the report, Principal Chad Lehman knew about both incidents, and both abortion appointments were apparently paid for by school funds. Both times, the parents and families of the girls were not informed, a violation of a state law that requires at least one parent to be notified before an abortion can be performed for a minor.

Curt wrote in his report, “Legal analysts tell me that if school employees indeed arranged and paid for these procedures, criminal as well as civil liability is in play — everything from contributing to the delinquency of a minor to misuse of public funds.”

The report also states that the second girl told Zenaida Perez, a teacher, about the incident. Administrators attempted to silence her once they realized she knew about the incident, according to written statements from students.

Students reportedly said later that school administrators began looking for ways to fire Perez or pressure her to resign, even attempting to have students bait Perez into minor policy violations.

FCPS told CatholicVote via email that it has engaged an external investigator to look into the claims, adding, “We have serious questions about these allegations that must be answered.”

“At no time would the situation as described in these allegations from back in 2021 be acceptable in Fairfax County Public Schools,” FCPS added.

Local ABC affiliate 7News inquired Aug. 6 as to whether FCPS staff members ever arranged for abortions on behalf of students. I

In response, the school system stated, “Not to [our] knowledge. We have launched an immediate investigation into these concerns as soon as we were made aware.”

FCPS also directed 7News to its policy on counseling pregnant students, which states, “Every effort shall be made to encourage and support students suspecting pregnancy to discuss their concern with their parents or guardians.” The policy also adds, “In no case shall personnel commit themselves to maintain such information confidentially, keeping it from parents, guardians, or appropriate school authorities.”

On X, pro-life organization 40 Days for Life condemned the incident and called it “state-funded child exploitation.”

The organization added, “Every official involved must be held accountable.”

Hannah Hiester, Catholic Vote

Gabbard claimed in a post on X that former President Barack Obama and key members of his national security team, including then-CIA Director John Brennan and then-DNI James Clapper, fabricated a narrative about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to “subvert” Trump’s presidency. They even made up evidence, such as the so-called Steele Dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton. They were all lies to make President Trump look bad. If these people are not stopped now while Trump is in office, and in control of the DOJ, then they will come after him when he is out of office and no longer in power. Klayman says, “Why is this different from the past? . . .. President Trump and the people around him, including Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and others, have learned what they are up against. They’ve tried now to assassinate the President twice. I believe the Left and the Democrats were behind it. I think they wanted him dead. They did not want him (Trump) to be elected. There was also all the lawfare (like warfare) over the last many years. It’s obvious Trump and his team have come to the conclusion that they have to get the Left and the Deep State before they get them.”

Klayman says President Trump is at greater risk now than anytime in the past. Klayman explains, “Because President Trump has been so successful thus far, he is at great risk. There will likely be other assassination attempts and on the lives of other people in the cabinet. There will be attempts of assassination of anybody who supports him. I was in California recently, and I was wearing my Trump inauguration jacket from 2017, and some guy starts screaming I was a Nazi and this and that. I did not respond because I was in the middle of a bank. There is so much hatred out there, and this is why they have to take these people out legally and peacefully.”

Klayman points out people have the right to defend themselves, especially in the home, and Klayman urges people to use their Second Amendment rights if and when there is a need to do so. As the indictments come down in the not-so-distant future, expect violence. Klayman says, “The Left has its back up against the wall. They are a drowning man, so to speak. . .. There will be violence. They will try to foment violence.

Who is likely to be indicted? Klayman names a few for starters. This list includes John Brennan, James Clapper, Peter Strzok and Mark Elias. Then Klayman predicts, “They will first go for the low hanging fruit before they get to Hillary Clinton and other higher ups. They will see if they can flip them. This time it’s different, and this time I believe there will be some accountability.”

There is much more in the 58-minute interview.

Renowned attorney Larry Klayman says the coming indictments of the Deep State traitors who tried to frame President Trump as a Russian spy in his first term are all in serious trouble. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard charges that Obama Administration officials politicized intelligence and laid the groundwork for a “years-long coup” against President Donald Trump after he won the 2016 election. Gabbard first uncovered a mountain of documents implicating many in the so-called Deep State.

Gabbard claimed in a post on X that former President Barack Obama and key members of his national security team, including then-CIA Director John Brennan and then-DNI James Clapper, fabricated a narrative about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election to “subvert” Trump’s presidency. They even made up evidence, such as the so-called Steele Dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton. They were all lies to make President Trump look bad. If these people are not stopped now while Trump is in office, and in control of the DOJ, then they will come after him when he is out of office and no longer in power. Klayman says, “Why is this different from the past? . . .. President Trump and the people around him, including Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and others, have learned what they are up against. They’ve tried now to assassinate the President twice. I believe the Left and the Democrats were behind it. I think they wanted him dead. They did not want him (Trump) to be elected. There was also all the lawfare (like warfare) over the last many years. It’s obvious Trump and his team have come to the conclusion that they have to get the Left and the Deep State before they get them.”

Klayman says President Trump is at greater risk now than anytime in the past. Klayman explains, “Because President Trump has been so successful thus far, he is at great risk. There will likely be other assassination attempts and on the lives of other people in the cabinet. There will be attempts of assassination of anybody who supports him. I was in California recently, and I was wearing my Trump inauguration jacket from 2017, and some guy starts screaming I was a Nazi and this and that. I did not respond because I was in the middle of a bank. There is so much hatred out there, and this is why they have to take these people out legally and peacefully.”

Klayman points out people have the right to defend themselves, especially in the home, and Klayman urges people to use their Second Amendment rights if and when there is a need to do so. As the indictments come down in the not-so-distant future, expect violence. Klayman says, “The Left has its back up against the wall. They are a drowning man, so to speak. . .. There will be violence. They will try to foment violence.

Who is likely to be indicted? Klayman names a few for starters. This list includes John Brennan, James Clapper, Peter Strzok and Mark Elias. Then Klayman predicts, “They will first go for the low hanging fruit before they get to Hillary Clinton and other higher ups. They will see if they can flip them. This time it’s different, and this time I believe there will be some accountability.”

There is much more in the 58-minute interview.

Greg Hunter, USAWatchdog.com

One of the dozen or so socialist policy proposals from NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is the creation of government-funded grocery stores.

While the Democratic Party increasingly embraces socialist and Marxist-leaning policies, such as the seizure of private property, this idea of government-funded grocery stores appears disconnected from both fundamental economic realities and historical precedent.

Nowhere is this more evident than in East Kansas City, where a nonprofit operates a grocery store on government land that has become a symbol of failure, plagued by the smell of rot and empty shelves.

Local media outlet KSHB 41 Kansas City toured Sun Fresh Market at 3110 Wabash Ave (31st & Prospect) on the city’s Eastside. The store opened in 2018 as part of a multi-million dollar public-private revitalization of the Linwood Shopping Center. Operated by Community Builders of Kansas City, a nonprofit focused on urban development, the store has since become a massive reminder that while socialism may sound great on paper, in practice, it can be an absolute disaster.

No worries. State-run grocery stores are for the little people. The elites in NYC will be just fine.

More evidence that we need not just another American Revolution, but another French Revolution.

Enjoy, New York! Bread lines are coming your way.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Did you know that the head of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) isn’t a Lutheran OR a Christian at all? She’s a progressive Communist (atheist) who used to work for Obama & Hillary at the State Department and as Michelle Obama’s policy director? In other words, all these “refugee resettlement” operations that pretend to be organizations of faith are false prophets.

They renamed LIRS as “Global Refuge” to further confuse people.

CHARLIE KIRK: “Allow me to explain how the government sanctioned so-called refugee resettlement “non-profits” really work.

These are large companies that make more money from taxpayers the more “refugees” the government lets in. It’s another cog in the mass migration racket. They build in margins for each refugee they resettle, so when we stop admitting people, so does their financing. This represents an existential crisis for them.

So they misrepresent the scriptures, and they emotionally blackmail Americans on Sunday shows and in op-eds to gin up controversy and sob stories to game the refugee programs against our national interests. It’s a financial racket that Trump just slammed shut. We will not be manipulated anymore.”

The Lutheran Refugee Resettlement agency (LIRS) hired a progressive Democrat, non-Lutheran, and Michelle Obama’s former policy Director, as its President in 2019. That tells you all you need to know.

The ELCA’s Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) is one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in the United States along with Catholic Charities. It was originally founded in 1939 and partners with other resettlement organizations across the country – including some of the largest ones in the Twin Cities and St. Cloud – in Minnesota.

These resettlement “charities” make over $6,000 profit per “refugee” they resettle in America. It’s a huge profit center. President Trump’s previous policies, including limiting migration from nations that sponsor terror, have put a huge damper in their financial statements. The ELCA alone boasts of bringing 379,000, mostly Muslim, refugees to America – which translates to $2.2 billion in total revenue. How many of them are you seeing converted to Christianity by the ELCA? Right.

Many people wonder why Minnesota is home to so many Somali refugees? Why do so many Somali refugees end up in Minnesota when they are first brought to OTHER states? Because they MIGRATE to Minnesota after they are first sent to other states because of free everything. I’m going to illustrate what is going on using Minnesota because it is my home state and I know it. Here’s one example:

A mother from Somalia and her seven kids were on their way to Minnesota, less than two months after they arrived in Phoenix from Somalia:

“We didn’t know how to get jobs in Phoenix, and even if we did, we didn’t know how we’d get to them,” she explained through an interpreter because she didn’t speak English.

In Phoenix, without a car, they found themselves lost: Where were they supposed to get groceries? How did they go about setting up long-overdue doctor’s appointments under their new free ObamaCare program? How would they find work if they had no skills and didn’t speak English or Spanish? How would they get around without a car? How would they pay rent after their initial stipend from the U.S. government ran out?

The Somali Association of Arizona stepped in, providing groceries and setting up doctor’s appointments for the family. But they couldn’t do anything about the fact that the fact that with limited English and no training, they weren’t qualified for any jobs.

Worried that her rent would be cut off soon, the Mother decided they should move to Minnesota, where the benefits are excellent and where she, like virtually all Somalis, have family. The program coordinator for the Somali Association of Arizona says that her story is a common one.

As many as half the Somali refugees resettled in Arizona AND other states end up leaving for Minnesota.

The biggest challenge for Somali refugees is finding a job. Even jobs cleaning hotel rooms or washing dishes in a restaurant come with a requirement that applicants speak English — or, unofficially, Spanish. They speak neither. So how did Minnesota become a hub for Somali refugees?

“A lot of Somalis brought here to America moved to Minnesota from other states for jobs. Almost every Somali in Minnesota who came here between 1991 and 1998 worked at the chicken factories in Faribault and Marshall.”

Bill Clinton bragged back then that he was responsible for this – he thought Minnesota was too white and didn’t work hard enough. He said that these are the factory jobs that Americans won’t do…

Most credit the strength of Minnesota’s “voluntary agencies” – called VOLAGS. These quasi-governmental agencies welcomed the first wave of Somali refugees in the early 1990s, and others soon followed.

It should be noted that none of the VOLAGS are actually really associated with the true teachings of the church, they just hijack the name for political expediency or they have been instrumental in infiltrating certain denominations to take them over for the Communists. The U.S. State Department decides where new refugees (determined by the UN) should end up and it often depends on how many voluntary agencies are in the area to expedite the process.

Here’s how the refugee resettlement programs work. The United Nations High Commission on International Refugees selects and “vets” refugees to be distributed to the United States. The US sets an annual refugee cap and the US State Department contracts with voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) to help refugees get settled in their new homes.

Five of the top nine VOLAGs in America are so-called “Christian” non-profits (Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, World Relief Corporation, Church World Service, and Episcopal* Migration Ministries.) The other four are Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and the Ethiopian Community Development Council.

Tierney’s Real News

Saturday on MSNBC’s “Velshi,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) claimed Republicans had taken their hoods off in President Donald Trump’s second term.

Crockett said, “It’s not just even the fact that it’s gerrymandering. I want to be clear, this is racial gerrymandering, specifically in the state of Texas.”

Host Ali Velshi said, “Do you hear the stuff they’re saying about Gene Wu, by the way, talking about Asians, like how he’s connected to the Chinese Communist Party, like the racism. They’re not doing a great job at keeping it, you know, keeping the lid on that pot.”

Crockett said, “No, I mean, honestly, when Trump came in the first time, they started to lift the hoods. Once Trump got in a second time, they decided the hoods were off. And listen, I’m perfectly fine with it because I want to know where you stand. I want to know that you’re a despicable human being who lacks all morality, but wants to go around and teach and preach Christianity. I want to know who you are, because then I know how to deal with you. it is unfortunate that that is where we are, and it is one reason that it is so difficult for minorities to even try to listen to Republicans, because they consistently coddle people like neo-Nazis.”

Pam Key, Breitbart

“Never confuse education with intelligence. You can have a Master’s degree and still be an idiot.”

That’s because intellectuals are mostly taught to evade reality and evading reality makes you an idiot. If universities and intellectuals still engaged in the search for objective truth rather than more political dollars, or the praise of fellow sycophants in the Imperial City or on MSNBC, our culture would look very, very different from how it does now.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

We’re having a News Conference tomorrow in the White House. I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before. The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border. We went from millions pouring in, to ZERO in the last few months. This will be easier — Be prepared! There will be no “MR. NICE GUY.” We want our Capital BACK. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

President Donald J. Trump, Truth Social

Social media sherpa “The Chief Nerd” posted a video clip of “entertainers” Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman discussing their anxiety over President Trump’s return to the White House.  Kimmel says he obtained citizenship in Italy so he can escape America.  Silverman thinks that is “amazing” and describes how she searches online for “Trump regrets or MAGA regrets” in the hopes that Americans’ shared misery “will bring people together.”  They both agree: “As bad as you thought it was gonna be, it’s so much worse.”

Celebrity therapy sessions such as this one resemble nature documentaries featuring exotic beasts.  It is fascinating to see rich, famous people living in their native habitats (read: leftist bubbles).  Whenever I think, “Wealthy woke-tards can’t possibly be this daft,” I inevitably stumble upon one of these nature clips documenting the behaviors of idiotically out-of-touch champagne socialists ruminating in the wilds of a Beverly Hills mansion, Manhattan penthouse, or exclusive island resort.  

They always repeat something that is regurgitated on leftist social media accounts, too: Trump-voters regret their 2024 votes.  What kind of self-medicating Bizarro World do these mental cases call home?  Trump voters are thrilled with the way things have been going.  They want only more of it and at a faster pace!  

They want members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Barack Obama’s administration, and the Brennan/Comey/Clapper Intelligence Community to be prosecuted for the Russia Collusion Hoax.  They want just-following-orders lawfare agents from the DOJ and FBI to be prosecuted for harassing Christians, pro-lifers, J6 protesters, First and Second Amendment–supporters, and everyone who told the truth about the Wuhan Virus and the unsafe and ineffective “vaccines.”  They want millions of criminal illegal aliens to be rounded up and deported posthaste.  They want schools that push boys into girls’ locker rooms to be punished.  They want universities and companies that discriminate based upon race, religion, and sexual orientation to face consequences for violating Americans’ civil rights.  They want the government to stop making it so easy for corporations to ignore American workers by offshoring plants to third-world countries exploiting slave labor and hiring illegal aliens here at home.  They want an end to endless wars.  They want “Green New Deal” regulations to be trashed for good and the vast administrative bureaucracy to be demolished.  They want cheaper energies, less inflation, and greater prosperity.  They want an exceptional America that once again protects free speech and private property and vigorously opposes the coercive strictures of “political correctness.” 

MAGA Americans want all this and more, and President Trump is largely delivering.  They don’t expect to agree with everything the president does, but they do have a great deal of faith that they are all on the same side and working for similar things.  When Jimmy and Sarah say that Trump’s return is “unbelievable” and “way worse” than anything they had imagined, they reveal how insular their lives are and how little they understand of the world outside of their carefully pruned, socially segregated, gated communities.

I think the feelings I experience when I hear Kimmel and Silverman expressing their thoughts out loud must be similar to those of a poor kid from Victorian England seeing drawings of lions, elephants, and giraffes for the first time.  I am struck with a sense of disbelief.  Are these strange creatures real?  Oh, yes, the world is filled with many curious oddities!

Kimmel is so worried about imaginary fascism in America that he plans to flee to the land of Mussolini.  Silverman, displaying traits of a psychologically unstable adult, has built a fantasy world in her mind in which President Trump’s voters desperately wish that Drunk Kamala Harris were in the White House today.  In the real world, we might speak gently to Jimmy and Sarah and explain to them how their delusions are causing self-harm.  But this isn’t the real world. This is La La Land — where the best women have penises, Big Government is great (except when Democrats are out of power), and everything people enjoy causes planet-killing “global warming.”

You listen to caviar communists such as Kimmel and Silverman long enough, and a sensible person begins to wonder whether America would be better off providing loony leftists with complimentary straitjackets and taxpayer-funded housing in blue city–sized rubber rooms.  But that’s already what most Democrat-run cities have become!  They are dirty, cramped, crime-ridden hellholes whose residents can barely afford to live without welfare assistance.  Crazy, psychopathic gangs run the streets.  And crazy, sociopathic elites watch the mice scurrying around the urban maze from the safety of luxury lofts high above the carnage.  The only thing that privileged Democrat nobles share with the Democrat riffraff struggling to survive the effects of official Democrat party policy is that both the princes and the hoi polloi suffer from insanity. 

If Jimmy and Sarah lost all their wealth and were forced to navigate the world without the help of servants, chemical stimulants, and a reality distortion field that shields them from alternative points of view, would they survive?  Or would we find them curled up in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs and shaking uncontrollably on the side of the road?  

People who believe that free speech can survive only if conservatives are censored and the government funds NPR and PBS don’t tend to be made of hardy stuff.  People who think enforcing immigration law is “fascist” don’t tend to be blessed with much cognitive reason.  People who think the government should force citizens to be injected with the pharmaceutical industry’s latest experimental serums don’t tend to have a functioning moral compass.  People who think the sight of American flags on American lawns is “scary” and that the National Anthem should be replaced with “land acknowledgments” don’t tend to see America as “home.”  People who would rather embrace a “mermaid lifestyle” than befriend a MAGA American don’t tend to function well beyond the fortified perimeters of their insulated “safe spaces.”  

Chances are that if Jimmy and Sarah were ever forced to survive in real America, they would perish in a puddle of their own tears.

J.B. Shurk, American Thinker

The German economy is sinking far deeper into recession than previously thought. Recent revisions to the national accounts by the Federal Statistical Office paint a dramatic picture.

Quietly and without fanfare, the Federal Statistical Office released new data this week on Germany’s economic output. And, as expected, the figures were revised downward. Instead of shrinking by 0.2% in 2023 as initially reported, Germany’s GDP actually contracted by 0.9%. The outlook for 2024 has also worsened: a projected contraction of 0.5% instead of the previously assumed stagnation.

Three Years of Ongoing Recession

Anyone who still clung to the illusion of stability must now face reality. Germany is stuck deep in its third consecutive year of recession — and there’s no way out in sight. The downturn is deeper than previously assumed, with far-reaching consequences that politicians and media had downplayed.

It’s not unusual for macroeconomic data — such as GDP, unemployment, or inflation — to be revised retroactively. These figures are highly aggregated and often based on estimates and projections. It would therefore be unfair to accuse former Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) of falsifying these numbers. For one, the Ministry of Economic Affairs isn’t the only institution massaging data to suit political interests.

Just think of Germany’s labor market figures, which have been grossly distorted by early retirement schemes, job creation programs, and other manipulations — rendering them practically meaningless.

Central Planning and Climate Ideology

Still, there is no question that Habeck’s policy approach has inflicted severe damage. His economic policy strictly followed the Green Deal line, aiming to transform fundamental pillars of the German and European economy. At the heart of this centrally planned transformation was the energy sector — once the engine of German industry. The explosion in energy prices is the ultimate proof of the failed energy transition — a disaster that will remain tied to Habeck’s name until Europe returns to a framework of market-based economic order.

Clinging to economic dirigisme is a fatal error. It reflects a profound lack of competence. Economic growth happens when unconsumed resources are invested in the kind of capital stock that creates goods and services demanded by consumers in a free market. Artificial state demand and credit-fueled stimulus programs, by contrast, are nothing more than centrally planned misallocations of scarce resources — diverted from where they are truly needed by businesses and consumers.

That’s the basic economic logic politicians like Habeck, central planners like Friedrich Merz, and bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen are unable to grasp.

The GDP Illusion

The most fundamental distortion in economic data stems from the way government spending is included in GDP. The state does not produce market-demanded goods or services. On the contrary — it consumes resources created by the private sector, and at best adds more demand via deficit spending.

To get a real sense of economic growth, one must focus on private sector investment. This is the best indicator of whether an economy is growing, stagnating, or shrinking. For Germany, this metric confirms it has been stuck in recession for quite some time. Each year, the country loses over €60 billion in net direct investment. In 2023, capital flight reached a staggering €94 billion.

The economy is voting with its feet. Confidence in German policymaking has long since evaporated.

The situation is truly dire — and becomes even clearer when you factor in Germany’s high government spending ratio of 50%. With net new public debt exceeding 3% of GDP in 2023, the private sector must have contracted by nearly 5% to result in an overall GDP decline of 0.9%. That’s not a recession — that’s a depression.

Free Fall Without Safety Nets

Daily reports of factory shutdowns, mass layoffs, and capital relocations confirm the picture: Germany’s private economy is in free fall.

Overregulation and crushing tax burdens—driven by the fanatical climate agenda from Brussels and Berlin — have triggered a domino effect in the economy. Even drastic reform efforts may not be enough to stop it now. The newly initiated debate by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil about raising taxes fits perfectly into Brussels’ agenda. Here, too, new corporate taxes are being floated to finance the EU’s sprawling bureaucracy. Europe is becoming hostile territory for investors and entrepreneurs.

It speaks volumes about how out of touch policymakers have become that even pro-business factions within the ruling coalition — like the CDU Economic Council or the SPD’s Seeheim Circle — have largely ignored the revised recession data. This is where political irresponsibility comes into full view.

It’s not the statistical quirks of GDP that should alarm us. It’s the fact that since 2019 — pre-lockdowns — Germany has added some 700,000 new unemployed people, despite the government creating hundreds of thousands of new public-sector jobs.

You can suppress reality for a while. But eventually, it hits with full force. That’s exactly where Germany finds itself now.

Thomas Kolbe, American Thinker

Desperate people clamouring around a truck begging for food. An emaciated child on death’s door. Women, girls, children, babies: no innocent is immune from Israel’s psychotically cruel campaign of bloodlust in Gaza. It is unbearable to see. Who can stand by and watch such crimes?

This, at any rate, is what most of the world’s media, from the most respectable broadcaster to the grimiest freesheet, is eager for you to think. It is also what Hamas wants you to think. As long-term masters of some of the most cynical propaganda the world has ever seen, Hamas is succeeding in its plan with resounding success.

Keir Starmer last week appeared to speak for the whole of Britain when he said that scenes from Gaza fill us with “revulsion” – against Israel, of course.

Largely because of such images of suffering, Starmer wants to reward the forces of Palestinian terror with the recognition of a state. “I think people are revolted at what they are seeing on their screen,” he said. The next day he spoke of “starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime”.

Pictures. Images. Screens. These are what appear to be deciding Israel’s – and the Palestinians’ – legal status on the world stage.

It is not that there isn’t immense suffering in Gaza. There is. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are in dire straits, have lost family members, are in pain, injured, hungry, homeless, desperate, scared, the terrorist group’s blood-soaked grip always around their necks. It’s a tragedy.

But a lot of what sets the world alight is massaged, manipulated and in many cases downright fake.

One of the most iconic images of the last few weeks, which helped consolidate the false worldwide consensus that Israel has become a rogue, genocidal state while the Palestinians deserve a state, was the skeletal boy allegedly nearly starved to death by an Israeli blockade, held in his mother’s arms.

What the great and the good left out in their haste to publish this picture, posed as a tableau reminiscent of Mary holding Jesus, was that the boy suffered from a congenital disease. It was later quietly acknowledged by The New York Times – way too late – that he had pre-existing health problems and they would have highlighted this if they had known before publication.

We see lots of pictures of desperate people clamouring for food banging pots and pans. Some of these might represent the strangled reality on the ground.

But as the German tabloid Bild bothered to discover, one of the most prominent pictures of such clamouring hunger in recent weeks has photographer Anas Zayed Fteiha, a freelance journalist commissioned by the Turkish news agency Anadolu, snapping the photos in the manner of a director.

Fteiha, as Bild reveals, isn’t quite the impartial documentarian suggested, but an activist whose agency answers straight to Turkey’s Hamas-sympathising president, Recep Erdoğan. Fteiha’s social media profile is informative. His Instagram page includes a video captioned “F** Israel” plus a painting by an arch-anti-Semite. He is publicly committed to the “free Palestine” end game. But his pictures, notable for their perfect lighting and close-ups of idealised suffering, especially of children and mothers, were swallowed without question, disseminated in New York Magazine, CNN, the BBC, plenty of German papers and more.

The wildfire success of such lies tells you much less about people’s gullible compassion than about how far Hamas now rules the global playbook of anti-Semitism, Israel-hating and Israel-blaming.
Let us be clear. For the terrible suffering in Gaza, the blame falls squarely on Hamas’s manifold crimes. Hamas invaded Israel, knowing that, with its tunnels, weaponry and soldiers embedded in homes, schools and hospitals and behind civilians, Gazan civilians would take the brunt of Israel’s inevitable response.

The terror group’s continued stranglehold in the Strip and refusal to hand back the hostages is the only thing prolonging the war and suffering, all of which could have ended long ago.

Aid distribution systems have been corrupted, smashed or perverted, keeping food from some who badly need it, and ensuring it goes to those with the right connections. None of this is because of Israeli cruelty. All of it is because of Hamas’s cruelty and infinite scheming.

The truth has never mattered, though. Hamas knew Israel would be blamed, ostracised, and punished on the world stage on a scale never seen before, its very legitimacy called into question amid irreparable diplomatic crises. It was easy; Hamas was just kicking at a door its own predecessors helped kick open.

Hamas is finessing and darkening a tradition of propaganda built by Yasser Arafat, a master of the fabricated sympathetic picture, such as that during Israel’s 2002 operation in the West Bank that showed him alone and besieged in his compound. He sat at his desk with only candlelight to see by – an image the world lapped right up – only for lights to go right back on after the shoot.

As the historian Richard Landes describes in his essential book, Can the Whole World Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad, one of the defining images of the 21st century, the signal “icon of hatred” against the Israel and the Jews, was the “eyewitness” film apparently capturing Muhammad al-Dura, a defenceless 12-year-old boy, being shot in cold blood by the IDF, while held in his father’s arms, on September 30 2000.

It spread like wildfire. Analysis of the footage later contradicted this narrative. The IDF didn’t kill the boy. But by the time it was corrected, the damage had been done. Nobody cared, then, or now. This laid down a grotesquely immoral media-age template that has been used ever since.

Those of us who have followed media bias against Israel for many years are well versed in the absolutely central role of “Pallywood” – the well-known industry in the Palestinian territories that oversees the staging of fake news footage of Palestinian children and women suffering at the hands of Israel, producing a stream of emotive imagery for the world’s media. No true imagery produced by Israel, or even the true, boastful footage from Hamas of the Israeli hostages it has starved and murdered at close range, can even begin to counter Pallywood’s work.

The use of emotive imagery to peddle genocidal ideology is hardly new. Leni Riefenstahl, the director of the Third Reich’s propaganda films (who lived to the age of 101), offers an interesting comparison. Whereas Pallywood stages suffering, Riefenstahl’s art pretended that even those bound for Auschwitz were just fine and dandy. She cast gypsies as frolicking extras, then said they all survived the Holocaust. Not only were they sent to Auschwitz, Riefenstahl was thought, in some cases, to have helped them on their way though she denied it all.

While people were tortured, executed after show trials, or sent to the gulag, the Soviet propaganda department ensured a constant flow of idealised images of healthy, happy, sturdy people: courageous, righteous, industrious, reproductive and the biggest lie of all: finally free.

What makes the global hook, line and sinker acceptance of Hamas propaganda so surreal is that it comes a century after Stalin took power, and nearly a century after Hitler did.

What has history taught us? Sadly, those in Israel who know the answer are ignored and vilified, and those outside Israel who know the answer are now too old to provide it.

Zoe Strimpel, The Telegraph

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