Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 08, 2024

09/08 Links: BHL: A Big Part of the World Was Longing for Something Like Oct. 7; Dan Senor: One Year Since October 7th - Douglas Murray‬; Sinwar’s useful idiots

From Ian:

A Big Part of the World Was Longing for Something Like Oct. 7

Bernard-Henri Levy interviewed by Tunku Varadarajan
The muted reaction to the murder of six Israeli hostages by Hamas "tragically confirms" liberal Jewish French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy's view that the Jewish state and "Jews around the world" are alone, as reflected in the title of his new book, Israel Alone.

In an interview in Paris, Levy draws attention to one of the hostages, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23. "Hersh was executed for being a Jew. He was also American. Where is the collective rage in the USA? The collective grief?" It is "fashionable to be anti-Jew in America. Jews have been assimilated into the box of oppressors."

After Oct. 7, everyone realized "that there is no place in the world where Jews are safe." Rather than provoke sympathy and compassion for the Jews, Hamas's massacre liberated hate. "I expected at least a moment of real solidarity in the face of this enormous crime." Instead, the murderers were "blessed, excused and praised." The victims were "accused, cursed and held responsible for their fates."

"A big part of the world was longing for something like Oct. 7, dreaming of it. People danced in the streets...after Oct. 7. They loved the humiliation of...Israel." There was a craving among the "antiliberal, antidemocratic, anti-Western, antisemitic crowds" for "someone to do this."

Yet Levy wrote his book to "instill courage and pride in the Jews, and to galvanize their many non-Jewish supporters in America." He concludes that "the soul, mind, and genius of Judaism are standing firm amid tumult and torment." He's confident Jews will emerge stronger. The Jews "don't disarm themselves. They fight back. They behave as they should. They are proud."

Gadi Taub: Sinwar’s useful idiots

The mainstream media, itself a major player in the Never-Bibi info op, was not eager to emphasize the way the demonstrators are following Sinwar’s playbook. Predictably, the usual suspects rushed to blame Netanyahu for everything, as they always do. Prominent columnists such as Haaretz‘s Yossi Verter, Maariv‘s Ben Caspit, Yedioth Ahronoth‘s Nadav Eyal, Channel 12‘s Amnon Abramowitz and Channel 13‘s Raviv Druker unfurled the party line: it’s all on Netanyahu. Netanyahu has deliberately thrown in new demands (this time it was the Philadelphi Corridor, we were told) because staying in power is more important to him than saving the hostages.

Since this is what the Israeli media keeps repeating in both Hebrew and English, much of the foreign press assumes it’s true, and that Israelis generally believe it to be true.

But, alas, that’s wrong on both counts. Netanyahu could not have saved the hostages by giving up the Philadelphi Corridor even if he was so inclined. The corridor was never the only bone of contention. Giving it up (which Israel should not do) would not have brought about a deal.

As Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy for negotiations, recently reiterated, Hamas’s demands for a deal have not changed. They are tantamount to an Israeli surrender:
1. A permanent ceasefire.
2. A complete withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from all of the Gaza Strip, including the security parameter along the border, the Philadelphi Corridor and the Netzarim Corridor (which cuts the north of the strip from the south just below Gaza city).
3. Rebuilding the whole of Gaza.
4. An exchange of 50 terrorists for every female IDF soldier and 30 for every civilian in the first stage, then 500 terrorists for every male soldier in the second.

These terms will eliminate all Israel’s gains in this war and ensure that Hamas remains in power, able to rebuild its military capabilities with Iran’s help, and its front-line cadres fresh from Israel’s jails (where courtesy of our Supreme Court they get a well-balanced diet, diverse and certain to include enough fresh fruit). No prime minister of Israel can accept these terms because Israel’s public won’t.

The media has been trumpeting polls saying most Israelis support a hostage deal. This is a crucial part of the narrative. But then, these polls do not specify what deal, or else present a deal that would never be accepted by Hamas. Of course, most Israelis want some deal—but not the one Hamas is offering.

One Telegram channel owner got tired of the media’s game. That person is, most probably, a former intelligence officer. He calls his channel, tongue in cheek, Abu Ali Express. But he is a serious professional and a reliable source of news from the Arab world, one many in Israel rely on. Over 400,000 Hebrew speakers subscribe to this channel. Abu Ali decided to run an opinion poll of his own. He first presented the Hamas terms for a deal, then asked his followers if they would have accepted it. 51,000 users responded in the space of two hours. Eighty-one percent said they would not accept such a deal, 10% said they would, 9% said they don’t know. Granted, this is not a representative sample, nor a proper survey. Still, it is indicative of something. And it gives you an idea about how the mainstream media is misleading you.

This public mood was also demonstrated by the collapse of last week’s (illegal) attempt at a general strike. The Histadrut (the umbrella organization of Israeli labor unions) declared it—under pressure from demonstration organizers insisting they are the sole legitimate representatives of the families of hostages—only to fold it all at 2 p.m. the next day following a labor court ruling. The Never-Bibi activists found they don’t really have enough troops.

Still, in the immediate aftermath of the shocking news of the executions the protests drew more people than usual. Predictably, the media inflated the numbers. And then, mistaking the press coverage for reality, the Biden administration seems to have felt that perhaps the wave of anger that will topple Netanyahu has finally arrived. The president therefore chipped in, reversing earlier statements that put the blame on Hamas. He did it with a single word. Asked whether he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to conclude a hostage deal, the president simply said “no.” But that too had little impact.

It now seems that the protesters’ attempt to harness the tragedy of the six hostages for their permanent political project may have just backfired. More people now see them more clearly as Sinwar’s useful idiots.

But the wrong turn the permanent anti-Netanyahu protesters took long preceded these recent events. It began soon after the war broke out. From the start, their arguments, focused as they were on Netanyahu’s responsibility for Oct. 7, were not only controversial but also in the wrong conversation. For most Israelis, the question now is not who is responsible for the disaster, but who can lead us to victory. And the answer to that question cannot possibly be a Chamberlain in the guise of Benny Gantz, Yoav Gallant or Yair Lapid, all of whom are willing to cave in to Hamas’s demands and leave it on its feet at the end of this war.

Netanyahu owes his recovery in the polls to one thing above all. He never wavered on this one issue: The Gaza campaign must end with the clear defeat of Hamas. Nothing less. In this, he represents the majority in Israel. And it is that majority that has—and will—sustain him so long as he stays on this course.

ISIS attack on Pope Francis in Jakarta thwarted: Indonesian police detain terror org. members

Indonesian police have detained seven individuals following an attempted attack on Pope Francis during his visit to Jakarta, The Straits Times reported, citing statements released Friday by Indonesia’s national police anti-terrorism unit, Detachment 88.

Colonel Aswin Siregar, a spokesperson for Detachment 88, stated that authorities have yet to determine if the suspects belong to a coordinated terrorist cell.

Pope Francis arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday for a three-day stay, part of his 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the Straits Times, police discovered bows and arrows, a drone, and ISIS propaganda materials in the home of one of the suspects. The report also mentioned that several of the detainees had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

A source informed the media that the suspects were angered by the pope’s scheduled visit to the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta and the government’s request to suspend the public broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer during the visit.

Indonesia, where 87% of the population identifies as Muslim and about 10% as Christian, has a predominantly Sunni Muslim population, with the Pew Research Center estimating that 99% of Indonesian Muslims are Sunni. The small Shia minority resides mainly in Jakarta.

Latest batch of EoZ cartoons

These bring us up to cartoons I have posted on X/Twitter up until about August 20.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Washington Post published this video report about Reconstructionist "rabbi" Lonnie Kleinman, who describes herself as "a white, queer, fat, cis femme from the Sonoran desert of the Southwest (she/they.)"

The video title is "A rabbi called for a cease-fire in Gaza. She lost her job."

But Kleinman didn't lose her job at Moishe House because she advocates for a ceasefire in Gaza, as she claims.

Kleinman is a liar.

Moishe House builds communities for Jews in their 20s worldwide. It allows diverse opinions on Israel. It would not fire someone for saying they want a ceasefire in Gaza.

However, the organization is committed to Israel and creating relationships between its members and Israel. It supports Zionism. It even supports Israeli soldiers.

Its resident handbook says that its facilities and programs cannot

• Partner or work with individuals, organizations, or movements that seek to create a combative political environment, impose one particular political or religious agenda as the truth, or whose core values, strategies, or tactics include antagonizing those with different political views, Jewish people, or Jewish organizations.
• Act as a platform or tool (at Moishe House programs or through Moishe House affiliated social media accounts) to impose personal religious or political views on participants or the community.
• Endorse, advocate, or serve as a platform for physical harm to Israelis or deny Israel’s right to exist as a secure, democratic Jewish state, including support for or participation in the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement.

Kleinman violates Moishe House's written policies.

She is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council.. This disqualifies her from any role in a Zionist organization. Indeed the only reason she could want to be a member of such an organization without being a hypocrite would be to poison it from the inside. After all, JVP supports BDS. JVP has supported Hamas, saying kaddish for terrorists and sponsoring events that called October 7 "resistance" an "self defense."

Even in this video, Kleinman calls Israel's actions in Gaza "genocide." If you ask her whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, you can be sure her answer would be no.

The Washington Post does not see that as a reason that she might be fired from a Zionist organization. It didn't even ask Moishe House for their side of the story. Instead, it takes her at her word that she was fired because she advocates for a ceasefire.

Why bother checking out the facts, when everyone at the WaPo knows that Zionist Jews are just that evil?

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

This is a recent cover of a recent issue of a Turkish magazine, Gerçek Hayat. The title says "The Jewish era is ending."

Here is another recent cover:

"Child victims of the evil Jewish network."

One of the stories in this latest issue says that the classic blood libel of Jews murdering gentile babies is not a conspiracy theory, but true:

The first records of Jews sacrificing children in Greek temples date back to the 1st century AD. Due to these accusations, which increased especially during and after the First Crusade, hundreds of Jews were tried and killed in Europe. The rest were exiled.
There are hundreds of recorded 'blood rituals' in the history of every region where Jews lived, from England to Rhodes, from Hatay to Damascus. However, the Jews, who took complete control of Europe in the early 1900s, distorted the reality of rituals as they rewrote history.
The 'blood ritual', which has hundreds of examples in the records, turned into a 'blood libel' after this date. All cases were recorded as 'slanders against the Jews' and the name 'blood ritual' was changed to 'blood libel' in European encyclopedias. Jews who were executed by European Christians for much less than what they did in Gaza today were tried to be cleared with a fake history woven with lies.

It is accompanied by a video that includes some AI-generated images, which claims among other things that the "secret tunnel" under the Chabad headquarters in New York last year was a place where Jews were murdering gentile children.

It seems to be way past time for businesses to boycott Turkey. Because its media is inciting genocide and the government is complicit.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

09/07 Links: Water Is Wet, Sky Is Blue, Hamas Is Evil; Erdogan calls for an “Islamic alliance” against Israel; When Students Become Terrorists

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Water Is Wet, Sky Is Blue, Hamas Is Evil

The German newspaper Bild has a story today based on a Hamas intelligence document it claims was discovered on a computer in Gaza. The document appears to have been approved by Yahya Sinwar directly, according to the article.

The document lays out a strategy of tormenting hostages, manipulating their families and supporters, and drawing out negotiations for a ceasefire-and-hostage deal with the goal of attaining not a deal itself but international recriminations against Israel as the talks dragged on.

What’s most interesting about the document is that it describes what is obviously happening. I have not seen a reason to doubt the document’s authenticity nor have I seen proof of its origins, but it is as if someone claimed to have retrieved a document from Sinwar’s hard drive that argued, in detail, that water is wet.

And that helps explain some of the frustration of watching coverage of this conflict. Blaming Israel for the lack of a ceasefire deal, and for the longevity of the conflict in general, requires one to believe or pretend to believe the most irrational explanations for everything.

Some snippets from the purported document:
“Continue to exert psychological pressure on the families of the prisoners, both now and during the first phase (of the ceasefire), so that public pressure on the enemy government increases.”

“Israel’s stubbornness” should be “held responsible for the failure of an agreement.” To accomplish this, the document suggests media manipulation.

“Arab forces be stationed along the eastern and northern borders” should be the only peacekeeping troops, so that they can “serve as a buffer to prevent the enemy from entering Gaza after the war ends until they (Hamas, ed.) have reorganized their ranks and military capabilities.”

In other words, until Hamas is ready for the next war.

Douglas Murray: Family of American hostage in Gaza shocked by antisemitism of New York

There are plenty of bad things happening in Kathy Hochul’s New York. But one thing that has become increasingly clear is how willing Hochul is to allow racism and bigotry to thrive in this city.

Last weekend the terrible news came through that another American citizen has been murdered by Hamas.

California-born Hersh Goldberg-Polin was held hostage in Gaza for almost a year. He was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Israel on October 7th.

Last week, as the Israeli Defense Forces moved in to save him, Hamas executed Hersh and five other hostages.

A day after this news broke there was a huge pro-Hamas protest in New York. A bunch of sick keffiyeh-wearing psychos, banging drums and chanting, marched through the center of New York waving the Hamas flag.

The main flag-wavers all covered their faces of course. It seems in Hochul’s New York you can openly praise a designated terrorist group that just murdered an American.

Jewish New Yorkers have had to put up with a year of this. They have had to put up with routine intimidation, with anti-Jewish graffiti going up calling for the murder of Jews, and for posters of the hostages being ripped down wherever they are put up.

Then on Tuesday things moved to their next stage, as Jewish students from CUNY’s City College got barricaded into a Jewish deli on Broadway.

A group of racists from “Students for Justice in Palestine” and other hate-groups screamed abuse at the Jewish students.

Too little, too late: Why the US delayed charging Hamas for decades

This raises troubling questions about the priorities of past administrations.

The answer likely lies in a combination of geopolitics, diplomacy, and shifting foreign policy agendas. For decades, US administrations have tried to balance their approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with broader Middle Eastern strategies, sometimes prioritizing diplomatic efforts over direct legal action against groups like Hamas. It is possible that prosecuting Hamas was seen as politically risky, with concerns that it could derail peace negotiations or provoke further conflict.

Yet this delay has sent a damaging message. To the families of American victims, it says that their loved ones’ deaths were not a priority, since justice was deferred for too long, even when the blood of US citizens was spilled.

For decades, Hamas’s violent actions have carried little immediate consequence from the world’s most powerful nation. The terror organization’s leaders have operated with relative impunity, emboldened by the lack of direct action.

Now, with charges finally being brought, the US government is attempting to right a wrong – but the impact of this move is severely diminished. Many of the Hamas leaders responsible are either dead, in hiding, or living in territories beyond the reach of US law. Extraditing key figures is a long shot, at best. The passage of time has only made the path to justice more complicated and less likely to yield meaningful results. Even if prosecutions were to happen, they would be more of a symbolic victory than a tangible one.

Justice delayed is justice denied. The right time to pursue these charges was when the murders first occurred, when the trail was fresh, and when bringing those responsible to account could have had a real deterrent effect. By waiting this long, the Justice Department’s actions, though commendable, feel like a hollow gesture. They offer little consolation to grieving families.

Bringing charges against Hamas now is not without merit – it signals that the US does not forget its murdered citizens. But it is impossible to overlook how much more powerful and effective this action would have been if it had come years, or even decades, earlier.

The families deserved better.

09/06 Links Pt2: The shameful Nazi apologism of the Very Online right; The anti-Israel network fueling antisemitism across America; Hamas Honored Reuters Journalists in Gaza

From Ian:

Andrew Roberts: No, Churchill Was Not the Villain

Cooper then unleashed an attack on Churchill's Zionism, saying that he was "bankrupt and needed money and [was] getting bailed out by Zionists. … He didn't need to be bribed but he was put in place by financiers [and] the media complex that wanted to make sure he was the guy who was representing Britain in that conflict." If any reader owns a dog, don't let it hear that particular whistle!

It is also untrue. Churchill was never bankrupt, although he always needed money as his spending was huge. Some of his stock market losses during the Wall Street Crash were borne by Bernard Baruch, but that was four years before Hitler came to power. Another Jewish friend, Sir Henry Strakosch, left him a large amount of money in his will, but that could hardly have been a bribe for obvious reasons. Churchill was not a Zionist or an anti-Nazi because he was bribed by Jewish financiers but because he believed in both stances with every fiber of his being.

Furthermore, at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the world, it was profoundly irresponsible of Cooper and Carlson to make the insinuations that they did in that part of the interview. This thesis—if such a spewing of old lies and David Irving-esque Hitler-apologism can be termed as such—will be welcomed in certain areas of "Palestine," in Thuringia and Saxony, and in the danker recesses of cyberspace, but not in places where historical truth is still respected.

Far from "the media complex" supporting Churchill, he was ridiculed and opposed by most newspapers for most of his career, and editors only came round to his joining the cabinet in July 1939, once it had been made clear that all his warnings about Hitler and the Nazis had been proved correct on every particular over his long years in the political wilderness.

When Carlson commended Cooper's "belief in accuracy and honesty," it provided the only comic moment in the whole interview, unless one also counts Carlson's estimation that Cooper—of whom I confess I had not hitherto heard—is "the most important historian in the United States."

It was remarkable that in the whole interview, Darryl Cooper was not able to land a single blow on the reputation of Winston Churchill that was backed up by any evidence whatever. For in fact, Churchill made several mistakes in his career, as every responsible biographer of his attests. "I should have made nothing if I had not made mistakes," he told his wife Clementine in 1916.

Yet in the three greatest threats to democracy and Western civilization of the 20th century—from Wilhelmine Germany in World War I, from Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in World War II, and from Soviet Communism in the Cold War—Winston Churchill both foresaw all three and provided much of the resilience and wisdom necessary to defeat them. Freedom of speech was thus saved, a freedom that has been so squalidly abused by the intellectually vacant yet preening snideness of Messrs. Cooper and Carlson.

Brendan O'Neill: The shameful Nazi apologism of the Very Online right

Cooper’s theory of the Second World War, a theory gleefully lapped up by the Hitler simps of the batshit right, is a gross lie. Churchill became British PM on 10 May 1940. The Nazis opened their first concentration camp – at Dachau – in 1933. They invaded Poland in 1939. They invaded Denmark and Norway before Churchill came to power. And they invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the month he came to power. I don’t know who needs to hear this – in fact I do: the barbarous online right – but Churchill is not the bad guy here.

Those of us old enough to remember the great showdown between the heroic historian Deborah Lipstadt and the Holocaust denier David Irving should feel especially worried by what’s happening right now. We had good reason to believe that the fall of Irving, also a historian devoted to ‘revising’ our understanding of the Second World War, represented a fatal blow to Nazi apologetics. What Irving presents as his historical scepticism is in truth a ‘distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish’ belief system, said the judge in Irving’s libel suit against Lipstadt after she called out his Holocaust denial. Yet fast-forward 24 years and Irving-style revisionism is not only making a comeback but also going mainstream. Cooper is ‘the most important popular historian working in the United States today’, gushed Carlson. How long until he gets Irving on?

More and more members of the batshit right are tumbling down the toilet of historical revisionism. Foghorn hater of Israel, Candace Owens, recently described as ‘bizarre propaganda’ the idea that Josef Mengele conducted experiments on Jewish kids at Auschwitz. Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times calls these people ‘Hitler-curious’. Their swirling conspiratorial belief that we’re governed by a secretive ‘Matrix’ leads them to believe that ‘all [we’ve] been told about the nature of reality is a lie’, says Goldberg. And so they take aim at every truth of our society, mistaking such puerile disassembling of proven facts for ‘scepticism’. As Goldberg says, ‘once you discard all epistemological and moral guardrails, it’s easy to descend into barbarous nonsense’.

A descent into barbarian thought really is what we are witnessing. And not just on the right. The crank right – with its war on the past, its philistine assault on truth, its vile obsession with race – is a mirror image of the woke left. Both rage with curious ferocity against Churchill: the woke leftists of the BLM era were vandalising Churchill statues years before Tucker had a Churchill hater on his show. Both relativise the Holocaust. The online right does it by suggesting the deaths of all those Jews was kind of unintentional; the crank left does it by calling everything it doesn’t like in the here and now, including Israel’s war on Hamas, ‘another Holocaust’. The former robs the Holocaust of its murderous intent, the latter robs it of its uniqueness: a right / left pincer movement of woke denialism that obscures the truth of what the Nazis did to the Jews.

And both seem hell-bent on upending our common history. On violating the truths and wonders of our past. On scrubbing away the wins of our civilisation that shape who we are. The online right’s intellectual lynching of Churchill is in many ways its 1619 moment. Woke leftists in the US have for years sought to unilaterally change the founding date of the United States from 1776, the year of the revolution, to 1619, the year slaves first arrived in America. The aim of this conceited, elitist project? To reimagine America as a nation born in sin, not revolution; hatched from crime, not democracy. Now, the crank right seeks to dismantle the foundational truth of modern Europe, a truth that rightly still moves us and informs our devotion to civilisational values: namely, that the Nazis represented an incalculable evil, and the Allies were right to wage a war to the last against them.

We joke about wokeness. We laugh at kids with blue hair who think you can change sex. We make fun of people who take refuge from words in ‘safe spaces’. But wokeness, in its truest form, is far from funny. It is a barbarous surge, coursing through the fibres of the internet and the thinking of our institutions, laying waste to every victory and insight of Western civilisation. And now we have a nexus of a morally exhausted right and a de-enlightened left, both awash with cynicism and contempt for the modernity we are privileged to inhabit. That we are witnessing an attempt to rehabilitate the actual Nazis is a testament to the threat all this poses to everything that is good and right. Reason has slept for long enough – it’s time to wake it up.

Jonathan Tobin: Tucker Carlson and the turning point for right-wing antisemitism

Why did Carlson choose this crucial moment only two months before the election to air such a show? One theory comes from my JNS colleague Caroline Glick. She wrote on X that Carlson is deliberately trying to sabotage Trump because a Kamala Harris presidency would enhance his standing as an opposition voice; therefore, inciting a Republican civil war right now is in his interest and gives a boost to antisemites on the right. I don’t know for sure that this is his intention, but the practical effect of what he’s done could be exactly what she describes.

One other aspect of this disturbing story is that Musk actually endorsed Carlson’s show with Cooper, writing that it was “Very interesting. Worth watching.” That foolish post reflects the mercurial nature of the billionaire as well as his bad judgment. Still, whatever we think of him, the idea that this should be another reason to shut down or hinder X is as dangerous as Holocaust denial. As we saw with the tech giants’ cooperation with the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down dissent against COVID-19 policies and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on the eve of the 2020 election, the trend towards authoritarianism among liberals (despite their claim to be defending democracy) is a clear and present danger to the right to free speech.

That’s a battle for a different day. For now, the relevant question is what Republicans, and more pointedly Trump, are going to do about Carlson. Moreover, he can count on being asked about this in next week’s debate even though Harris will probably not be queried in the same fashion about embarrassing elements of her record. That notwithstanding, perhaps Musk’s deletion of that post was the first indication that Carlson’s antisemitic journey has reached a turning point.

The Buckley precedent
The precedent here is the effort made by the late William F. Buckley to rid the modern conservative movement that he helped found in the 1950s of right-wing nuts and antisemites. In the 1960s, he effectively canceled members of the John Birch Society, a lunatic fringe group with a large following. He did the same 30 years later by making it clear that conservatives who dabble in antisemitism like Joseph Sobran and Pat Buchanan must be refuted and marginalized.

It is hard to think of anyone less like Buckley, an urbane, patrician intellectual, than Trump. But the former president is presented now with the same opportunity to make clear in no uncertain terms that he will have nothing to do with Holocaust denial and antisemitism. Failing to do so would be similar to the way President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have refused to unreservedly condemn the pro-Hamas and antisemitic mobs demonstrating against Israel since Oct. 7. But, like it or not, there is a double standard in the media that forces conservatives to adhere to a higher standard.

Everything we know about Trump tells us that he will always refuse to do what conventional wisdom tells him he must because he will be falsely condemned as an extremist and antisemite, no matter what he says or does. Nevertheless, he needs to make an exception in this case.

Rebuking Carlson and making it clear that he is no longer welcome to tag along at his events is something that will be difficult for him and might upset some of his voters. But this is not some made-up controversy contrived by the left to trip Trump up. Carlson’s actions and statements are a direct threat to his campaign and a frightening effort to mainstream the hatred of Jews. He must be put in his place, and condemned by Trump and Vance, if the Republicans are to defeat Harris and have a chance to make good on their promise to rid the government of the toxic disease of woke ideology that is empowering antisemitism on the left.

If they don’t, the consequences for the Republicans and the hopes to roll back the tide of antisemitism that has been surging on the left and now apparently on the far right, are, too, frightening to contemplate.

09/06 Links Pt1: The Oslo effect; Walz: Anti-Israel protesters ‘speaking out for all the right reasons’; Trump: If you vote Democrat, Israel will no longer exist

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Oslo effect

This is all utterly delusional. For two decades, Egypt was complicit in the construction and use of the Philadelphi tunnels; entrusting it with Israel’s security would be to put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Israeli reliance on electronic sensors was one of the reasons the Oct. 7 pogrom happened.

As for the IDF returning to the corridor after it pulled out, the same argument was used by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the 2005 disengagement from Gaza when he pulled Israel out of Philadelphi—the issue over which Netanyahu resigned from that government. Just as international pressure meant the IDF never went back in despite the subsequent barrages from Gaza, so a return to the corridor would now be a total non-starter.

Despite the thousands on the streets, most Israelis get this. In one opinion poll, 79% agreed that Israel needed to control Philadelphi permanently to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. When asked more emotively whether Israel should control Philadelphi “even at the expense of a hostage deal,” more respondents said it should than those who balked at preventing a hostage deal.

Gantz, Eizenkot and Gallant are part of a military and security establishment whose morally and intellectually bankrupt “conceptziya” brought about the Oct. 7 catastrophe in the first place.

Netanyahu, too, was part of that same establishment and in due course must be held to account for the heavy responsibility he bears.

However, those who aren’t blinded by a pathological hatred of him can see that he is holding off intense American pressure to pull out of Philadelphi, just as they can also see that America itself bears a significant measure of responsibility for the hostages’ fate.

The Biden administration forced Israel to proceed in Gaza far more slowly than the IDF judged necessary to defeat Hamas and thus save the hostages. Worse, for three months, the administration stopped Israel from entering Rafah—below which the six hostages were murdered last week. If Israel had been free to proceed at its own pace, those six captives and many others might have been saved.

Whatever happens to Netanyahu, the left will almost certainly discover that, for the second time, it has made a terrible strategic error.

The first such error was the 1993 Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinians political power and status—with the Americans even training their police—on the assumption that they intended to live in peace alongside Israel.

This was a victory of fantasy over reality. The eventual result was more than 1,000 Israelis murdered in the five-year intifada from 2000 to 2005, and an enduring culture of indoctrination and incitement that today has turned Judea and Samaria into another genocidal front for Iran.

The catastrophic Oslo “conceptziya” caused the Israeli elites to ignore the clear evidence of Islamic holy war by the Palestinians and to believe that Israel could keep a lid on potential trouble. They believed that their enemy was not genocidal Palestinianism. It was Netanyahu.

That’s also why they spent most of last year fighting judicial reform. And the same people are now sickeningly weaponizing the hostages to the same end—to remove Netanyahu from power. You don’t have to be a Netanyahu fan to be revolted, frightened and enraged.

The effect of the Oslo nightmare was to wipe out the left’s chances of gaining political power. The public’s revulsion and anger that these same types of people have been doing the work of Hamas for it by promoting Israel’s surrender means that this terrible betrayal won’t be forgotten or forgiven. It will be the Oslo effect on steroids.

Arsen Ostrovsky: To End the War In Gaza, Pressure Hamas' Sponsors, Not Israel

Hamas made their response clear—with bullet holes to the heads of the six hostages, including Hersh.

Yet, like clockwork, the international community instead chose to single out Netanyahu and Israel, for opprobrium.

It is hardly surprising therefore, that Hamas continues to reject every proposal put before them, when they know they can sit on their laurels and wait for the international community to up the pressure on Israel. By focusing its attention on Israel, the U.S.is empowering Hamas and removing any incentive for the terror group to compromise or reach a deal.

If the international community, led by the U.S., wants to actually advance a hostage deal, they could do so by demanding that American allies such as Qatar and Turkey use all of the levers at their disposal to pressure Hamas into accepting a deal.

Hamas operates extensive financial and business networks out of Qatar and Turkey, while its leaders live in luxurious accommodations in Doha. Qatar's Al Jazeera media empire is Hamas' primary outlet for its propaganda, not only inciting terror, but undermining moderate governments interested in Middle East peace. Turkey has given senior Hamas leaders Turkish passports in order to facilitate their travel around the world.

Perhaps if the international community spent a fraction of the energy they do on pressuring Israel to make further concessions, to instead applying unyielding pressure on Hamas and their state sponsors, primarily Qatar, Turkey, and of course Iran, we could have already reached a deal and saved countless lives.

The U.S. must show Doha and Ankara that there is a costly price to pay for failing to pressure Hamas, which knowingly-executed a U.S. citizen in cold blood. There are numerous steps that the Biden administration and Congress can take. Congress should demand regular reports on any and all entities providing material support to Hamas in Qatar and Turkey (as well as in additional countries such as Malaysia, Algeria, Egypt and Lebanon), in order to examine their eligibility for sanctions. Sanctions should also be placed on Qatar's Al Jazeera for its terror support.

The U.S. should demand that the Qatari and Turkish governments extradite Hamas leaders involved in the murder of US citizens, especially following the Justice Department's announcement this week of terrorism charges against senior Hamas leaders. The U.S. could also take steps to make it easier for private victims of terror to bring lawsuits against all countries which have provided support to Hamas. If Qatar fails to take swift action to force Hamas to accept a deal, Doha should lose its status as a major U.S. non-NATO ally, which Biden granted it in 2022.

The international community, and especially the U.S., now faces a choice. It can continue its rhetoric against Hamas while focusing real pressure on Israel. Or it can act to truly increase the chances of a deal, by placing unyielding pressure on Hamas and its state sponsors. Only the latter can save the lives of the hostages being held in Gaza, while ensuring security for Israel and a future of stability in the Middle East.

The new hostage paradigm

Israel’s past willingness to trade more than 1,000 terrorists for a single Israel Defense Forces soldier (Gilad Shalit) sent a clear message to its enemies: Israel will make outrageous concessions to secure hostages. This policy has emboldened groups like Hamas who understood that hostage-taking is like kryptonite for Israel. They believed that they could exact tremendous concessions because of the Israeli people’s commitment to each other. Hamas turned this beautiful characteristic into an Achilles heel. It is incumbent upon Israelis to adjust the way they approach these challenges, and this new doctrine must be adopted.

It is quite interesting—and concerning—that hundreds of thousands of Israelis fail to recognize this reality. It is almost as if they do not understand that making a deal at any cost will only serve to further embolden their enemies and encourage them to repeat such actions in the future. The surprising lack of understanding highlights the complexity of the issue and also the level of trauma that so many Israelis have been exposed to.

Similarly, and perhaps even more inexplicably, American Jews have been highly critical of Netanyahu. At a time when the Jewish people face immense challenges, it is astonishing that the leader of the only Jewish state is subjected to criticism from every armchair general with an opinion. This is the height of irresponsibility. People should think twice and then think again before putting pen to paper to criticize the democratically elected prime minister of Israel.

The idea that Israel would sacrifice critical military objectives such as control over the Philadelphi Corridor to secure the release of hostages is simply untenable. This corridor is vital for cutting off Hamas’s supply lines, preventing rearmament and limiting their ability to continue their terror campaign. The United States will have a new president in nine weeks, and it is completely uncertain what that administration’s policy will be vis à vis Israel and the war in Gaza. Facts on the ground matter.

Diplomatic pressure from the United States and the international community could easily prevent Israel from re-entering this critical area if it were to leave now. Losing control over the Philadelphi Corridor would severely undermine Israel’s ability to choke off Hamas’s resources and win the war.

We must have faith in our leaders, recognizing that both our enemies and allies are watching Israel closely. Netanyahu is acting in what he believes to be the best interest of Israel’s present and future. He was elected by the people, and if they are unhappy with his decisions, those same people can vote him out of office. In the meantime, we must respect and support the difficult choices his government is making.

The harsh reality is that the hostages may be lost. Israel must do everything within its power to bring them home but not at the expense of its broader strategic objectives. We must not allow our enemies to believe that taking hostages will lead to major concessions. It is time to create a new hostage doctrine. There must be a happy ending to this story, and there can be by ensuring a victory over Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

James Weldon Johnson was a civil rights pioneer in the early part of the 20th century. He was a leader of the NAACP. Johnson was also a gifted writer and poet. He was also US consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua and later became the first African American professor to be hired at New York University.[

He was also an editor at the The New York Age, "The National Negro Weekly."

Here was his column from February 02, 1918.

It describes how Black people in America had historically found inspiration from the stories of the Jews in the Bible, and how they should continue to learn how to achieve equality by emulating Jews of the day.

It is a remarkable editorial from a remarkable man. It has a couple of anachronisms and some subconscious antisemitism, but no more than any other American newspaper of the era.

There is far more wisdom from James Weldon Johnson in 1918 than we are hearing from too many Black leaders today.

It is a common thing for the American Negro to compare his condition with that of the Jews. The drawing of this comparison is not a modern thing; it dates back to the early days of our history in this country. As soon as the transplanted Negro became familiar with the Bible his imagination at once seized upon the similarity between his own servitude and the bondage which the Israelites underwent in the land of Egypt. This theme furnished the chief inspiration of the early preachers and the makers of the old slave songs. Even today, the sermons of the primitive Negro preachers are little more than a recital of the trials and tribulations of the Hebrew Children.

It was this theme which drew from the heart of some unknown Negro the noblest strain of music that America can call its own, "Go Down Moses." The influence for good of the story of Israel on the mind of the Negro slave cannot be estimated. He learned how the Lord's chosen people suffered under old Pharaoh, but were at last delivered; and he firmly kept the faith that some day the Lord would also deliver him. And his faith was justified, for his deliverance did come. And it came in a manner even more miraculous than did the deliverance of the Children of Israel; not through fleeing the land of his bondage, but through a life and death struggle between his oppressors and their own blood brothers. But who can say what would have been the story of the Negro in America under two centuries of slavery had he not been strengthened and sustained by that faith? And as the Negro in slavery drew inspiration and comfort from the story of the ancient Jews, so does the Negro of today draw encouragement and hope from the experiences of the modern Jews.

He feels that the Jewish race is set before him as an example of what can be accomplished by a people with great odds against them, and that what the Jew has done the Negro may do. This comparison is strikingly logical and at many points the parallel runs astonishingly close. Both peoples are physically marked; the Jew, however, in a much lesser degree than the Negro. Both peoples have a history of bondage and persecution. They both have to contend against unreasoning race prejudice.

Neither of them - unlike the Japanese - have a strong nation of their own blood behind them to force and enforce any demands whatsoever. And it has not been possible to crush either of them by oppression. Nevertheless, there are points of wide difference; and I believe the Negro can profit as much by a study of these differences as he can by a study of the points of similarity. In fact, it is these very points of difference rather than the points of similarity that offer the Negro the most valuable lessons.

It must be remembered that much of the prejudice against the Jew is of his own making. He generally holds himself apart and aloof from other peoples; and whatever humiliation he may suffer, deep down in his heart he feels a superiority to the gentile. And why should he not? The Jew is the one aristocrat among races. All the others are parvenus. His career began with the beginning of recorded history and continues down to the present in one long line of glorious accomplishment.

The great peoples that started with and even after him have perished or degenerated; Egypt and Babylon and Greece and Rome have passed away, but the Jew still remains a powerful influence in the world to-day. The great characters in no age of the world's whole history can be named without naming a Jew. And so it is that prejudice against the Jew does not spring from the feeling that he is an inferior. Indeed, it often springs from the direct opposite feeling.

Sometimes the fear of his strength and his intelligence outweighs all the other objections to him. Thus, he is minus the handicap under which the Negro constantly struggles. This characteristic of the Jew may be summed up in the common phrase, race pride. And the secret of his race pride is this: he has produced such an array of men who have helped shape the thought of the world that his equality stands demonstrated, it cannot be questioned. In like manner, the Negro to overcome the stigma of inferiority must produce exceptional men; he can do it in no other way.

No amount of mere mediocre progress or even phenomenal progress on the part of the mass can do it; there must stand out many peaks towering above the average level. It is often said that the American Negro made his gravest mistake in thinking of the accomplishment of this too soon; that the thing for him to do is to give up such dreams and apply himself to the common things of life; and that by faithful plodding he will some day reach the top and be hailed as an equal. England produced a Shakespeare when the ability to sign one's name was a mark of learning; and to-day her highest title, that which makes every Englishman proud of his race, rests not upon the fact that she produces more manufacturing cotton than any other country in the world, but upon the fact that she produced a Shakespeare.

Every time a Negro does something exceptional he weakens opinion as to the inferiority of the race. If in the next fifty years we should produce one universally acknowledged poet, one universally acknowledged musician, one universally acknowledged dramatist, and one universally acknowledged novelist, more would be done to break down the idea of Negro inferiority than could be done by all the faithful plodding of the whole mass. And I say this realizing fully how vitally important the faithful plodding is. I need not add that this idea of inferiority must be completely broken down before the Negro can have a fair chance with the other elements in the American group.

Now, of course, we cannot turn out geniuses by merely running our boys and girls through schools and colleges; but we can give encouragement and support to our talented youth., Whenever we find one that shows the divine spark, let us not put the spark out, but do all we can to help fan it into a flame. Cannot some of our men or women of wealth or some of our organizations with money see what a paying investment it would be to offer substantial scholarships to boys and girls in our schools that show exceptional talent in literature or art?

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Yesterday, Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz told a public radio station, "We can't allow what's happened in Gaza to happen. The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue to put the leverage on to make sure we move toward a two-state solution. I think we're at a critical point right now. We need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction, We’ve said it and continue to say it, getting a cease-fire with the return of the hostages, and then moving towards a sustainable, two-state solution is the only way forward."

The phrase "two state solution" has been a mantra for years among Democratic leaders. It seems to be a safe, universally accepted idea, only oppose by crazed right wingers and Jewish extremists.

Politicians in the US especially but also in Canada and Europe have been repeating the phrase "two state solution" as their shorthand for claiming to be pro-Israel. That is pretty much the only criterion for J-Street to throw their support behind leftist candidates, even if they are virulently anti-Israel in every respect.

However, since October 7, that safe political position should not be safe. Every poll taken in the West Bank and Gaza since October 7 shows Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas over every other political party. The Gaza polls are suspect, but there is little doubt that Hamas would win in a free election today.

Anyone who is saying they support a Palestinian state today is supporting a Hamas-led state. Either the candidates know this or they don't know this, and either way it shows that they are unqualified for office.

Rather than look at the "two state" issue as a mere checkmark for candidates, the media should ask the question as "Do you support a Palestinian state likely to be led by Hamas?" If the answer is no, then they must answer how they could ensure that Hamas would not lead a democratic Palestinian Arab state, or if they prefer a brutal Fatah-led dictatorship, which is the only other option at this time.

George W. Bush went through all of this during the last Palestinian election, apparently convinced that democratic elections were a magic formula to ensure moderate leaders. The result was that Hamas was elected and the Western world was forced to jump through hoops to say they support democracy but don't support Hamas.

Today, no one could claim to be surprised that Hamas would lead any Palestinian state - whether through elections or through civil war.

The hypnotic appeal of the phrase "two state solution" must be pierced. And it is up to the media to ensure that every candidate answers the basic question of how they can support a Palestinian state where a majority of people support not only Hamas but also the October 7 massacres.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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09/05 Links Pt2: Biden-Harris Give Up the Big Gaza Lie; VDH: The Truth About World War II; Gunman opens fire near Israeli consulate in Munich

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Biden-Harris Give Up the Big Gaza Lie

The Biden administration is really pushing the limits of “better late than never.” The president and his team have finally begun acknowledging what has been all too obvious: Hamas is the reason there has been no second ceasefire deal.

After falsely blaming Israel for months, the president’s team has pivoted to the truth. It’s not clear why. Maybe the backlash to Biden effectively blamed Benjamin Netanyahu instead of the actual barbarians who shot the hostages this past weekend convinced the White House to switch gears. That would be nice. Who knows.

Late last night, Axios—the Biden White House’s chosen vehicle for mouthpiecing its Israel-related positions and policy shifts—reported the following: “One of the main questions raised during a meeting President Biden and Vice President Harris had with their national security team on Monday was whether there is a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal Hamas would ever agree to, U.S. officials said.”

To be clear: the administration has been (mostly) blaming Israel for the failure of a deal that they now acknowledge never fully materialized. Further, while Biden & Co. know there are versions of the deal that Israel would accept, they have yet to be convinced Hamas has any interest in any version.

It’s important to remember that these conclusions reached by Biden’s team are the result of months-long negotiations, and therefore Hamas’s obstructionism is by definition not a new problem. The administration didn’t just figure this out; it has known that Hamas’s intransigence has been the status quo for months. And officials from the president on down have chosen, in that time period, repeatedly to castigate Netanyahu.

There’s no reason to sugarcoat it. Biden and Harris have been egging on the societal divides in Israel and undermining its political stability on false pretenses.

So Biden gets no credit for finally acknowledging, through a carefully placed leak, that he has been purposely misleading the American people on why one of their fellow citizens was just executed in Gaza. The same is true for Kamala Harris, though the implications for her are even worse. Harris has been using false information to turn the public against Israel in order to lay the groundwork for a cooling of relations with our ally.

The Cost of the American Jewish Vote

Rather, I implore American Jews – especially those who are committed Democrats – to hold the (future) Harris-Walz administration to account.

I especially call upon those with the economic and social capital to have leverage with the Walz-Harris administration, including their surrogates, advisers, and donors, to use their access and support to advocate strongly for Jewish interests.

And I appeal to the conscience of the candidates to adopt the policy platform I outline here, not only to secure the Jewish vote, but because it’s the right thing to do.

1) Freeing the American-Israeli and All Hostages
While we hope that the hostages may be freed before inauguration day, it is the responsibility of the Biden-Harris ticket and subsequent administrations to exert maximum pressure on Hamas, with or without a ceasefire deal, to secure the release of the American-Israeli citizens, to whom it has a special obligation, and all hostages. Not only must all military and diplomatic efforts be directed at Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, the US must take steps either to eliminate or extradite Hamas leaders living abroad. Further, given Qatar and Turkey’s role as state sponsors of terror and their patronage of Hamas, the USA must reconsider its alliances until all the hostages have been released.

2) Arms Sales
While for its own national security, Israel must wean itself off its dependency on American armaments (which is a kickback scheme to the US military-industrial complex) the Harris-Walz team must clarify its intentions on allowing Israel to “defend itself,” including the specific weapons systems it will sell (or not) during their term. American Jews are entitled to make an informed decision about what will be done to prevent another 10/7 from ever happening again in exchange for their vote.

3) Antisemitism
The dramatic acceleration of antisemitism in America cannot go unchecked by the Harris-Walz administration. The candidates must announce a new national strategy coordinating the federal, state, and local levels to curb the scourge of the world’s oldest hatred in the United States. The administration must turn its attention inward toward the cancer of antisemitism (and anti-Americanism) within the Democratic party. Congress, at the behest of the President, should continue its investigations into campus antisemitism and hold administrations to account, including by suspending federal funding to universities that perpetuate a hostile climate for Jewish students. Last but not least, while not all Jews agree on the definition of antisemitism, the administration must recognize that the vast majority of American Jews consider Zionism and Israel a key component of their identities. If the administration cannot put forward a detailed program on antisemitism, American Jews shouldn’t vote for a party that doesn’t prioritize their safety.

4) Iran
Behind both the domestic flare of antisemitism and Middle East war is the rogue state of Iran, which seeks to destabilize the Western liberal order, including by leading the planning of the 10/7 attacks and funding encampments and protests in the US. The United States must confront this threat with both more aggressive military postures and diplomatic measures, including not reinstating the JCPOA, and standing with other Western, Middle Eastern, and other nations (including Israel) to strongly deter Iran. Continued weakness on Iran should cost the Harris-Walz ticket the Jewish vote.

I realize this program of action may be uncomfortable for many American Jews, who have family traditions and ideological commitments to the Democratic party. But with Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s blood spilled, and so many other lives lost and threatened both in Israel and the United States since 10/7, let not Jewish blood come cheaply – the cost of the American Jewish vote for the Democratic party must include policies that will advance Jewish security and identity for the future.

Anti-Israel group funded by Soros gains influence with 60 Biden White House visits

Over the course of President Joe Biden‘s time in office, an anti-Israel group that receives large checks from Democratic megadonor George Soros has seen its top staffers score 60 trips to the White House for high-level meetings, according to records.

Officials at Emgage, a group that has promoted the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, have hobnobbed at the White House on at least 60 occasions combined since 2021, according to White House visitor logs reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

Emgage notably blamed Israel for allegedly provoking Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack last year and counts Khurrum Wahid, an attorney who was reportedly placed on a federal terrorist watch list and has a track record of associating with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups, as one of its leaders.

The frequent White House visits illustrate how national anti-Israel groups have gained influence and a seat at the policymaking table in the Biden-Harris administration. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, much to the ire of Republicans and pro-Israel groups, continue to press for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict.

On Sunday, Israeli forces announced they recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists last year. The hostages were found in a tunnel in Rafah, a southern city in Gaza that Biden has urged Israel not to invade.

Emgage, which was formed in 2006, describes itself as “a family of organizations dedicated to building political power for Muslim Americans.”

The Emgage umbrella includes Soros-backed nonprofit groups and a political action committee spending money in elections to boost Democrats such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Summer Lee (D-PA), and Susan Wild (D-PA), Federal Election Commission filings show. Emgage partners on initiatives with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America — two unindicted co-conspirators in a 2009 terrorism financing case.

Between 2021 and 2024, Emgage CEO Wa’el Alzayat, a former Obama State Department official, visited the White House at least 24 times, according to White House visitor logs.

Rats, Roaches Pretty Sure They'll Finish All The Food Aid Before Leftist Group Finally Gets Around To Delivering It To Gaza (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, September 5 - Vermin busy consuming the "famine relief" resources at a warehouse in central Israel expressed confidence today that they will have time to eat the entire stock of products, because the organization storing it remains unlikely in the foreseeable future to find a suitable public-relations moment to make an ostentatious demonstration of providing the relief to the starving Palestinians to the south.

Rats, roaches, houseflies, and various other creepy-crawlies made their prediction Thursday afternoon, following months of idleness in the facility rented by the Standing Together movement, which has been laboring to identify and exploit an opportunity to signal their righteousness in as public a fashion as possible by supplying several tons of food to Gaza, where reports of hunger persist despite no actual shortage of food or any spike in the incidence of malnutrition since Israeli operations in the territory began late last year.

"We're pretty sure we can finish all of this before it can be delivered," asserted Remy, the head of a rat clan that now numbers in the thousands. "I wasn't so sure when the food storage began back in February, but back then we were just a handful of rats. In the intervening months we've had help from maggots, cockroaches, ants, and the occasional feral cat. With our reproduction rate and the approaching temperate weather of the autumn, it will take, I should say, no more than six weeks to get through the entire supply."

The other scavengers seconded Remy's assessment, with provisos. "Cold weather might set in and slow us down," cautioned Ahmad, a cockroach. "That could extend the timetable into the winter. There's certainly no air conditioning in here, so I doubt there's going to be heating, either. There's also the remote possibility, though it remains a possibility, that Standing Together will bite the bullet and decide to deliver whatever food is left."

"I admit that latter possibility is a long shot," he acknowledged. "Far-left activism doesn't lend itself to effective aid operations. It's primarily about feeling righteous, not about helping those who need it. I appreciate the selfishness. Game recognize game."

Israeli Arabs who contributed the bulk of the foodstuffs have grumbled about the failed delivery of their donations, while Gazans who have tracked the project continue to complain that the organizers appear more interested in finding ways to create a disruption and media circus to embarrass Israel than in providing any actual aid.

"But we're used to that from our own leaders already," conceded a Deir al-Balah resident.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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09/05 Links Pt1: Beware False Moral Equivalence Between Israel and Hamas; A Hostage Deal Is a Poison Pill for Israel; Sinwar’s plan to ‘smuggle hostages to Iran’

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The ‘Blame Israel First’ Chorus

Benjamin Netanyahu is not the reason six hostages were executed last week, even if one agrees with various criticisms of individual decisions and policies of his during the course of the war. Even on the subject of the ongoing ceasefire negotiations themselves, there is far more certainty about what’s going on in the private councils of the government than is warranted. Is Netanyahu the main source of obstruction? Based on the timeline and the reporting, no, he does not appear to be. But I don’t know for sure and neither do those insisting he is .

Yet you wouldn’t know that by reading the commentary. In Haaretz, Dahlia Scheindlin—author of several heartfelt and right-minded pieces on the war and the West’s hypocritical silence on the sexual violence perpetrated against Israelis on October 7—described the anti-Bibi protesters as “driven half-mad by the Netanyahu government’s soulless resistance to a deal while Hamas dispenses of the hostages.” In a story next to Scheindlin’s, Yossi Verter accused Netanyahu of having “put an end to the hope beating in the hearts of most Israelis that the hostage deal currently on the table would finally be signed… Instead of considering how to prevent the murder of the remaining hostages, he ranted, puffed his chest and winked as if to say: Wait and see what happens next.” Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of a progressive Jewish activist organization, slammed any Jewish organizations that are “not clearly calling for the Netanyahu administration to agree to a deal that will end the war.”

“End the war” here appears to mean something tantamount to “surrender.” Otherwise it completely ignores the role of Hamas, which started this war and refuses to end it by returning the hostages and submitting.

Netanyahu’s greenlighting of rescue operations after having already concluded one ceasefire-for-hostages deal has made it pretty clear he is anything but indifferent to the fate of the hostages. And it is risible to suggest that this government isn’t even “considering how to prevent the murder of the remaining hostages.”

These accusations aren’t mere policy criticism, they are the embodiment of blaming Israel first. Hamas kidnapped those innocent Israelis; Hamas starved and tormented them psychologically and maybe physically; and Hamas shot them in cold blood, while brave Israeli soldiers risked their lives to try to save them. Let there be no suggestions of moral equivalence between the two.

Beware False Moral Equivalence Between Israel and Hamas Militants

There is, however, one rule of war that is arguably even more fundamental than protecting civilians from deliberate attack: the obligation to treat humanely any captive or detainee. This obligation is reflected in Common Article 3, a provision that is "common" to, or shared across, each of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions. These treaties—the only treaties that have been nearly universally adopted by the nations of the world—are devoted to protecting victims of war and "ameliorating" the suffering caused by armed conflicts.

Most of the provisions of these treaties apply only to "armed conflicts" between states. But Common Article 3 is the exception. This provision of the treaties binds all organized armed groups engaged in "conflicts not of an international character," meaning conflicts that do not involve hostilities between two or more states. No such article, or obligation, existed prior to 1949. But in the wake of the brutal civil wars that raged before and immediately after World War II—most notably the Spanish Civil War, in which it is estimated that more than 250,000 civilians and detainees were summarily executed—the states that revised the 1929 version of the conventions agreed to this new obligation.

This was a remarkable achievement, as it resulted in the first application of international humanitarian law to the realm of internal armed hostilities like civil wars. States and the armed groups fighting against them were now obligated to respect what the International Court of Justice later called the "minimum yardstick" of humanitarian protection.

Since 1949, Common Article 3 has evolved to reflect the most basic humanitarian obligation of the law of armed conflict. In addition to a general humane treatment obligation applicable to any person, "not taking an active part in hostilities," the article specifically prohibits murder and summary execution. And to reemphasize, this obligation applies to both state armed forces and non-state organized armed groups like Hamas. Murdering people at your complete mercy because they have been captured and detained is therefore rightly condemned as among the most egregious violations of international humanitarian law.

Of course, it is no surprise that Hamas operatives engaged in this barbarism. This is the very nature of every aspect of their terrorist operations, which demonstrate a complete and pervasive disregard for even the most basic rules of war. And the murder of these captives truly symbolizes the depth of their illegality and immorality. Even armed groups that abuse detainees will rarely sink to the level of summary execution. Hamas, however, once again shows the world the bottomless depths of its barbarism.

This tragic incident also reminds us that there is simply no moral equivalency between Israel and its illicit enemies. Indeed, Hersh Goldberg-Polin's murder was only the final manifestation of Hamas' modus operandi. He suffered months of inhumane treatment as a detainee after being gravely wounded when Hamas operatives deliberately and unlawfully attacked him and other civilians huddled together in an effort to avoid the massacre that befell hundreds of civilians at the Nova music festival.

Critics of Israel will no doubt immediately cite the (often inflated and unverified) numbers of civilians killed in Gaza as the result of combat operations in Gaza to justify their efforts at, "equality of condemnation." But as any prosecutor can readily explain, there is no equivalency between those who deliberately kill and those who cause unavoidable killing even when following the law. This is what this comparison truly reflects: one side of the conflict that deliberately attacks and murders civilians, and another side that consistently implements its legal obligation to avoid, whenever feasible, that consequence.

War may be hell, but the hell that Hamas has created for the civilians it slaughtered, the detainees it abuses and murders, and the population of Gaza it has deliberately exposed to the avoidable consequences of war is a hell that even war does not condone. There is no comparison.

Bret Stephens: A Hostage Deal Is a Poison Pill for Israel

The highest justification for fighting a war, besides survival, is to prevent its repetition. Israel has lost hundreds of soldiers to defeat Hamas. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands have suffered, because Hamas has held every Gazan hostage to its fanatical aims. Hamas was able to initiate and fight this war only because of a secure line of logistical supply from Egypt.

Israel's control of the Philadelphi Corridor largely stops this. To relinquish it now, for any reason, forsakes what Israel has been fighting for, consigns Palestinians to further misery under Hamas, and all but guarantees that a similar war will eventually be fought again. Why do that?

Some argue that Israel can always retake the corridor if Hamas fails to fulfill its end of the bargain or if Israelis feel their security is again at risk. That argument is a fantasy. Once Israel leaves Gaza, international pressure for it not to re-enter for nearly any reason short of another Oct. 7 will be overwhelming.

Some 60 hostages are believed to still be alive. Any decent human being must feel acutely sympathetic to their plight. But sympathy cannot be a replacement for judgment.

Israelis have spent the past 11 months suffering the bitter and predictable consequence of the Shalit deal. In 2006, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas and held in Gaza. He was released five years later in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners. Those released included Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7. The Shalit deal came about on account of intense public pressure to free him.

A good society will be prepared to go to great lengths to rescue or redeem a captive, whether with risky military operations or exorbitant ransoms. Yet there must also be a limit to what any society can afford to pay. The price for one hostage's life or freedom cannot be the life or freedom of another - even if we know the name of the first life but not yet the second. That ought to be morally elementary.