The whole world is watching the Israel-Hamas War, through its fingers
A man sits on the rubble overlooking the debris of buildings that were targeted by Israeli airstrikes in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
Abed Khaled/AP file
It has now become a world of what comes … next?
A time of WHY and WHO and … WHAT the hell is going on!
A desperate scramble to control the narrative in an era of doublespeak.
Taking sides in the Israel-Hamas War in a country the size of a toothpick on the world’s map. Then getting trapped in an incendiary battle of public opinion worldwide.
Getting embroiled in an era of war captured by cell phones and computers. Photographs and videos taken by the Hamas killers of their slaughter of Jewish babies. Grisly films of innocent Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombs.
The crazy quilt of war threaded with three of the world’s greatest religions; Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
Israeli and Palestinian children watching their neighborhoods being bombed on TikTok.
The burnt out remains of a house at kibbutz Kissufim, Israel, near the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The kibbutz was attacked on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants, who killed and kidnapped many of its community members.
Bernat Armangue/AP
Anti-Semitism reaching historic levels worldwide. The “scourge of Islamophobia and hate in all its forms” so bad the White House is working on a national strategy to battle it.
What in the world is going on?
Chaos.
Antisemitism: Redux …
The ugly face of antisemitism surfaced in the village of Skokie early Friday morning, with police investigating it as a hate crime.
Simple yard signs showing both American and Israeli flags with the line “I Stand with Israel” were ripped down, cut up and strewn across several village blocks Thursday in the suburb’s Devonshire section.
A vandalized pro-Israel yard sign in Skokie.
Provided
“I woke up at 2 a.m. [Friday morning] and heard the sound of laughter outside my window,” said Leah Graber.
“It sounded like teenagers,” she said. “I woke up in the morning to find my pro-Israel America sign overturned with similar reports by neighbors,” she told Sneed. “We can’t stay silent. We need to stand together.”
A funeral for a peace-seeker: Redux…
Veteran Chicago reporter Dorothy Colin, 84, also attended the historic 1995 funeral of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who forged peace accords with Palestinians before he was assassinated. Sneed already shared her thoughts on the momentous gathering in Jerusalem last Sunday.
And the legendary Collin, whose long career included covering the U.S. House of Representatives, has her own view of what came after the assassination.
“It’s true the Rabin funeral was historic and an eye-popping event: King Hussein of Jordan in tears and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Party, who stayed away at a respectful distance,” said Collin.
The day after she attended the funeral of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Chicago journalist Dorothy Collin reads the then Chicago Sun-Times-owned Jerusalem Post at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem in November of 1995.
Michael Sneed/Chicago Sun-Times-file
“But ironically, Rabin’s Jewish extremist assassin, who was opposed to handing over control of parts of the West Bank to the Palestinians in the landmark peace agreements, got what he wanted; the eventual dissolution of peace with the Palestinians we are watching now.
“Arab terrorists like Hamas couldn’t handle word Israel and Saudi Arabia might be considering the possibility of a working relationship … and Israel holding talks with moderate states in the Middle Eastern,” she said.
Where’s Melania?
The mostly invisible wife of Donald Trump these days actually appeared at a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago with her hubby and mixed with the revelers. No, the mostly missing Melania was not wearing a costume. She was, however, dressed appropriately in black.
Sight seen …
Heads Up! As he headed into a New York civil fraud trial threatening to dismantle the Trump family’s real estate empire, Donald Trump Jr. joked: “I should have worn make-up” when he encountered a ton of photographers.
(However … the cocky one also spent time off the stand checking out the courtroom artist drawings of his heavily pomaded hair, a Don Junior signature akin to father’s spraynetted hair wings.
This & That…
- Boo hoo and whaaaa? Chicago’s unseasonable Halloween snowfall may have dropped on drooping fairy wings and pink Barbie gear, but it was a bit startling to spot youngsters decked out in SWAT team police vests.
- Boo hoo and whoooo? A North Shore neighborhood watch item. “Someone smashed our pumpkin. It was electric.”
Sneedlings…
Reality star James (“Vanderpump Rules”) Kennedy hit the DJ set at a TAO Chicago Halloween party … Saturday birthdays: Kathy Griffin, 63; Matthew McConaughy, 54; Sean “Diddy” Combs, 54 … Sunday birthdays: Art Garfunkel, 82; Elke Sommer, 82; Kris Jenner, 68; Kevin Jonas, 36; Tilda Swinton, 63.