Sunday, January 29, 2023

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Terror in Jerusalem, PLO flags in Tel Aviv
Neither the terrorist slaughter of seven Jewish worshipers and the wounding of three others in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, nor the near-fatal shooting the following morning of a father and son at the entrance to the City of David National Park in the Israeli capital, prevented the anti-government protests from proceeding as scheduled.

Lest they lose an inch of their self-claimed moral high ground, however, those who came out in disputed numbers for the fourth Saturday night in a row—ostensibly to decry Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s plans to overhaul the judiciary—kicked off their demonstrations with a moment of silence for the victims.

Given the personal and national tragedy of the previous 24 hours, the gesture was warranted. Still, nixing the rallies would have been far more appropriate under the circumstances.

Organizers reportedly considered this option, but decided against it. That the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee was set on Sunday to step up discussions on judicial-reform legislation tipped the scales in favor of virtue signaling in town squares.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the business-as-usual spectacle that followed the 60-second acknowledgement of the occasion was abhorrent. Participants prancing around bemoaning a concocted danger—the so-called “death of Israeli democracy” at the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition—made a mockery of the actual mass murder of innocents.

These were 14-year-old Asher Natan, married couple 48-year-old Eli and 45-year-old Natalie Mizrahi, who were gunned down while attempting to administer aid to the wounded; Raphael Ben-Eliyahu, 56; Shaul Hai, 68; 26-year-old Ilya Sosansky; and Ukrainian national Irina Korolova.

The disrespect shown to the shattered families of the slain and injured didn’t end there; among the sentiments voiced at the intersectional happenings was empathy for Palestinian terrorists.

Channel 14 correspondent Moti Kastel asked a group of “judicial reform” opponents in Tel Aviv whether they weren’t “ashamed” to be waving PLO flags, particularly on such an evening, in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Jews.

“Not at all,” one answered. “I’m proud of it. We [Israelis] murder in return.”

Another replied by pointing to the “murder” of nine Palestinians in Jenin. It was an interesting way to describe the elimination on Thursday of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists plotting a major, imminent attack on Israelis.
David Collier: No! The Jews were not ‘living happily’ in Arab lands
According to the anti-Israel narrative, Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together – until of course the ‘Zionists’ arrived to spoil the ‘beautiful’ relationship.

This is one of the most offensive rewrites of history. It may be true that the Jews had a worse time in Europe – a deflective phrase I have even heard academics use – but let’s face it, is the industrial slaughter of 6 million Jews really the bar we want to measure things by?

The reality is that Jews in Islamic lands knew their place. Jews in Islamic lands were often third class citizens, with special taxes to pay, and a myriad of degrading rules to live by. Even looking a Muslim in the eye could result in death. This from Algiers (current Jewish population = zero) in the 19th century:

Sometimes, specific periods of acceptance or calm in nations such as Morocco are held up as examples – but this too is deceptive. Whilst a few Jewish families may have been given privileges now and again – the majority still lived in perpetual fear, and at the mercy of the Muslim majority population that surrounded them. Jews could be brutally attacked – but dared not complain.

Whilst doing research I have stumbled on numerous newspaper reports laying out the horror of the treatment of Jews in Islamic lands. All of them long before Israel’s war of Independence in 1948. I intend to create country-specific pages on the website to let others use them as a reference – part of a wider plan to greatly bolster the historical evidence available on this site. A depository of truth to help do battle with the revisionists. For now, I will just give an example or two from each country.

This is what it was really like for Jews living under Muslim rule:
Seth Frantzman: The ‘cycle of violence’ dehumanizing cliches after Jerusalem massacre
It’s not a cycle, it’s a one way conflict in which the Iran-backed PIJ stockpiles illegal weapons and threatens Israel from places like Jenin. PIJ is an illegal armed terror group. There’s no cycle, it’s Israelis trying to pre-empt the group from expanding and carrying out attacks.

On the other hand the attack in Jerusalem, apparently carried out by one perpetrator who targeted Jewish civilians, is not a cycle. It’s two different incidents, one in Jenin and one in Jerusalem. Is there evidence that PIJ is involved in both? Not according to reports. Just because long wolf terrorists are angered by other incidents doesn’t turn their actions into a cycle.

The reason the “cycle” cliché is problematic is also because it is trotted out almost every day without introspection. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process condemned a “cycle of violence” on January 26 and back on January 18 France’s mission to the UN also said the “cycle of violence” should end. January 18 was even before the Jenin raid and the Jerusalem attack.

These kinds of statements are banal and they are becoming so common that it reads like one of those articles written by artificial intelligence, where you just plug in the new parameters and the statement comes out the other end.

Victims deserve better. Not every Palestinian and Israeli is a victim of a “cycle.” There are individual actions behind these tragedies. This is not a script for a play, but human lives cut short. The “occupation” or “Israeli control” is not an excuse for attacks or a mitigating reason or them. Perpetrators who purposely target civilians are not fighters targeting an “occupying force,” they are committing a murderous crimes.

It's possible for commentators to write about the Jenin clashes and also about the attack in Jerusalem and see each as its own incident, and each civilian death as a tragedy. When commentators try to churn this into one process it not only wreaks of “all lives matter” excuses but also is not helpful either for peace or for humanizing the victims on both sides.


Diaspora affairs minister: Palestinian Authority is a ‘neo-Nazi entity’
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli described on Sunday the Palestinian Authority as a “neo-Nazi entity” and an enemy of the Jewish state.

“I see the Palestinian Authority as a neo-Nazi entity in its essence and outlook,” Chikli told Ynet. “We still do not have any peace agreement with it. It is an enemy that is antisemitic to its core, and we need to examine alternatives.”

The Palestinian leadership said on Saturday that it holds the “Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the dangerous escalation,” following two terrorist attacks in Jerusalem over the weekend.

The P.A. blamed Israel for the deaths of “31 martyrs” this month, ongoing “colonial settlement practices,” house demolitions, land annexation, arrests, “ethnic cleansing and apartheid,” the “desecration” of Islamic and Christian holy sites and the “storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

The Palestinian leadership said it salutes the “Palestinian people” for its “peaceful popular resistance,” according to the report. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories

Seven people were killed and three others wounded in a terrorist shooting attack on Friday at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Neve Ya’akov neighborhood. The next day, a Palestinian terrorist shot and wounded an Israeli father and son near the entrance to the City of David National Park adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City.

“The address for this is the Palestinian Authority itself and its leader, an avowed Holocaust denier, who accused Israel of committing 50 holocausts while standing on German soil,” said Chikli in reference to a speech given by Mahmoud Abbas in Berlin last year.

“The blame is pointed at the P.A., where the law states that the more Jews you kill, the more money you’ll receive. The P.A. is the source of terror,” Chikli added.
Palestinian sentenced to life plus 20 years for rape, murder of Ori Ansbacher
Arafat Irfaiya was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 20 years on Sunday by the Jerusalem District Court, for the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher in February 2019.

As he handed down the sentence, the judge said Irfaiya had committed “cruel and shocking acts” that were carried out with “inhuman brutality.”

The judge noted the testimony of Ansbacher’s mother, who related that since the death of her daughter, the lives of her family members are “filled with never-ending pain.”

Irfaiya confessed to his crimes during a sentencing hearing in court in 2020, after speaking on the phone with his mother for 20 minutes.

Irfaiya, a 29-year-old resident of Hebron at the time of the attack, told investigators that he happened upon 19-year-old Tekoa resident Ansbacher in the woods outside Jerusalem, where she was sitting on a boulder and writing in a journal. He said he was determined he would have intercourse with her “whether she consented or not.”

He stabbed Ansbacher three times and dragged her as she struggled to escape, stabbing her further and gagging her with her scarf before binding her hands and raping her.

Ansbacher died during the attack, and Irfaiya destroyed Ansbacher’s cellphone and memory card to make it more difficult to locate her corpse.
No, President Biden, the Synagogue Attack Was Not Against the “Civilized World”
Three decades ago, Israel made the mistake of sanitizing and overlooking that hatred by pretending that a political agreement based on geographical borders could end the conflict. I was one of those dreamers, and part of me still dreams of that day.

But ugly, deep, personal hatred dies hard. The narrative that has always been exceedingly difficult for westerners to contemplate is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a political conflict but an existential one. This narrative is horribly inconvenient for the simple reason that it doesn’t lend itself to solutions– the drug of choice of civilized diplomacy.

From the minute Israel was born 75 years ago, continuing with its building of a vibrant nation with the strongest army in the region, Israel has been a victim of its success, becoming a source of constant humiliation to Arab neighbors who could never match that success. This has been especially true for Palestinians, who have been cursed with corrupt leaders who have rejected every Israeli peace offer while fattening their own bank accounts and blaming their people’s misery on those “Zionist invaders.”

But unlike the Palestinians who kept saying no and built an identity around victimhood, those Zionists took what the UN gave them in 1947 and built a powerful state. The contrast with the Palestinians can’t help but be humiliating. Here are the Jews, who for centuries had to accept their second class “dhimmi” status in Arab and Muslim lands, breaking free to a place of empowerment through the Jewish state. No amount of political appeasement can cure Palestinian leaders of this humiliation, indeed of this epic failure to serve their own people.

If anything, given this shameful failure, Palestinian leaders have a greater incentive to double down on their status as the most coddled victims in the world, oppressed by the “little Satan” Israel. You take your status where you can get it.

That may also explain why murdering Jews who come out of a synagogue, as heinous as it is, is so acceptable in the perverted Palestinian algorithm of Jew hatred. The terror act itself serves to reinforce and dramatize the desperation of victimhood.

Until a radically new and brave leadership infiltrates Palestinian society, teaching its people that Jew hatred is violently against their interest, we are relegated to dealing with facts on the ground.

Those facts go as follows: Terrorists will continue to try to kill Jews, and Jews will continue to try to stop them. This may not be very comforting for the civilized world, Mr. President, but for the Jews of Israel, it’s the only world they know.


Jerusalem synagogue shooting



Hadassah College Arab Students Face Expulsion for Celebrating Friday’s Terrorist Attack
Professor Bertold Friedlander, President of the Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem (HAC), a publicly funded institution, on Saturday night issued a letter to his students threatening to expel Arab students who expressed their joy on WhatsApp over Friday night’s massacre in which seven Jews were murdered.

Friedlander said he received the information from IM Tirtzu about two HAC students who expressed themselves on WhatsApp about the bloody terrorist attack, stating: “We cannot accept open support for terror attacks. Moreover, we will not permit entry to the college for students whose behavior harms the sense of security of the staff and all the students.”

According to Im Tirtzu, one HAC social work student named Onad posted on WhatsApp: “The 21-year-old heroic martyr from East Jerusalem, he brought our revenge.”

And a biotechnology student named Ahmad Kalouti quoted on WhatsApp a verse from the Koran: “Allah will abuse them and defeat them,” and added: “We let them drink from the same cup they let us drink from, only we are more steadfast.”

Im Tirtzu called on the Israel Police to act immediately to arrest the supporters of terrorism before they carry out an attack on their classmates.
Media Misleads Over Jerusalem Terror Attacks
Over the weekend, the peaceful Sabbath quiet of Jerusalem was violently broken as the Israeli capital was rocked by two terror attacks within the span of 14 hours.

The first attack occurred Friday evening when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire outside a synagogue in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov, murdering seven people and wounding three more.

Then, hours later, a 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire on a group of Jews returning from prayer in the Silwan neighborhood outside the Old City, wounding a father and son.

International media organizations made a number of misleading claims and assertions that negatively impacted their reports.

These claims concerned the details of the attacks, the status of the neighborhood of Neve Yaakov, the false equivalence between these attacks and Israeli counter-terror operations, as well as misleading use of terminology.

Changing the Narrative: The Media’s Distortion of Facts
Following the attack in Neve Yaakov, the terrorist drove to the nearby neighborhood of Beit Hanina, where he opened fire on nearby Israeli security forces while attempting to flee and was ultimately killed during the ensuing exchange of fire.

However, in its initial reports, The Times of London reported that the terrorist “dropped his weapon and fled but was shot by police as he tried to escape in a car.”

By distorting the facts, The Times implies an extrajudicial killing of a by then unarmed assailant by Israeli security forces when, in fact, his death was a justifiable outcome of a gunfight initiated by the terrorist.

Neve Yaakov: Neighborhood or Settlement?
Several news outlets referred to Neve Yaakov as a “settlement” either outside Jerusalem or within “East Jerusalem” (including The Times of London, ABC News and The Guardian), with Reuters even going so far as to claim that it “lies on occupied land.”

On the contrary, Neve Yaakov is not a “settlement” outside Jerusalem but is rather one of the neighborhoods that make up the Jerusalem municipality. While it is true that Israel gained control over that area following the Six-Day War, Neve Yaakov does not have the legal status of a “settlement” and is a fully integrated municipal neighborhood.

It should also be noted that Neve Yaakov sits on land that was purchased by the Jewish community in the early 20th century and served as a Jewish agricultural center until it was depopulated during the Israeli War of Independence.
Terror in Jerusalem, Counter-Terror in Jenin, and False Moral Equivalency
One pathetic trick for covering up the morally indefensible nature of a fatal terror attack is to draw a false equivalence to deadly counter-terror activity.

Attempting to explain away the horrific Palestinian terror attack on Israeli Jews outside a Jerusalem synagogue Shabbat evening, MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin excels at this morally bankrupt maneuver, tweeting: “Just a reminder, as the Western media now begins to urgently and extensively cover the attacks in Jerusalem, in which at least 8 Israelis were killed, that 30 Palestinians (9 on Thursday alone) who have been killed in 2023.”

While Mohyeldin’s public disservice announcement is particularly explicit, it’s in no way original. In fact, it perfectly encapsulates the gist of coverage in several leading media outlets reporting on Friday night’s Palestinian attack in which a 14-year-old boy and a couple who ran outside to assist the shooting victims were among the seven civilians brutally shot dead.

Thus, in reporting on the high fatality figure in Friday night’s Palestinian terror attack, the most deadly since 2008, multiple media outlets — per Mohyeldin’s instructions — hurried to note the nine Palestinians killed in Jenin Thursday. Simultaneously, like Mohyeldin, they egregiously omitted the key fact that at least seven of them were affiliated with designated terror organizations and violently clashed with Israeli troops engaged in a counter-terror operation.

As members of terror organizations fighting Israeli troops, these fatalities are not remotely in the same category as innocent bystanders struck down on their way to prayer or Torah class, good Samaritans who selflessly rush into danger to help their neighbors shot on the street, or unfortunate soles merely passing by on motorcycle.

Thus, while reporting that nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli counter-terror raid is perfectly legitimate while recapping major recent events preceding the Palestinian terror attack, failing to note that almost all of them were terrorists engaged in violent clashes is grossly deceptive.
Telegraph takes 'cycle of violence' cliché to another level
An article in the Saturday, Jan. 28th print edition of the Telegraph about the deadly Palestinian terror attack on Friday included a strap line attempting to tie together two completley unrelated events.

The headline’s reference to the vandalising of Palestinain cafes was culled from the following sentence in the 10th paragraph of the article: Earlier yesterday, young Israeli men were filmed vandalising Palestinian cafés in Jerusalem’s Old City, as the United States called for a swift end to a “cycle of violence” in the Holy Land. The youths, carrying Israeli flags, entered the Christian quarter and began harassing residents and tourists, according to a statement by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian attack, near a synagogue in the Neve Ya’akov neighborhood of Jeusalem on Shabbat, killed seven Israeli civilians, including a child, and wounded three others. The vandalism by Jewish extremists in Jerusalem’s Christian quarter a day earlier resulted in no reported injuries, and lasted around five minutes.

It’s incomprehensible how editors could impute any sort of connection between the harrasment and vandalism targeting Armenian Christians in the Old City and the mass murder of Jews outside a synagogue.

Though other outelts have attempted to tie Friday’s antisemtic terror attack to the IDF’s anti-terror operation against an Islamic Jihad cell in Jenin on Thursday, the Telegraph takes facile narratives about “cycles of violence”, and efforts to downplay Palestinian terror by use of spurious correlations, to a whole other level.
BBC reporting on Neve Ya’akov terror attack
The BBC failed to inform its audiences that Neve Ya’akov was established in 1924 on land purchased by Jews but had to be abandoned when Jordan invaded Judea & Samaria and parts of Jerusalem in May 1948.

The BBC News website also published a live page headed “Seven killed in Jerusalem synagogue attack” on the evening of January 27th.

The words terror, terrorist and terrorism once again only appeared as quotes from the Israeli police – including in a filmed interview with the head of police in Jerusalem which was also published separately on the BBC News website – or from foreign officials condemning the attack. Speculative linkage to the previous day’s counter-terrorism operation in Jenin – which is also the narrative being promoted by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations – was again advanced.

That live page includes a contribution from Tom Bateman, which he also Tweeted, in which he stated:
“We’ve heard a few loud bangs, possibly coming from a big Palestinian neighbourhood nearby, suggesting clashes between residents and the Israeli forces.”

Bateman did not clarify that the attack was celebrated, including with fireworks, by Palestinians in nearby Jerusalem neighbourhoods such as Shuafat and elsewhere.

That BBC News website live page includes coverage of condemnations of the attack from the head of the UN, the White House, the US ambassador to Israel, the US State Department, the UK foreign secretary and the German ambassador to Israel, all of whom appropriately used the words terror or terrorist to describe the deadly attack on civilians at a place of worship.

The BBC, however, continues to apply its absurd and offensive policy of refusing to describe attacks against Israelis as terrorism in its own words, even though it has no problem using that terminology when reporting similar incidents elsewhere in the world.


Palestinian Authority: Israel ‘fully responsible’ for ‘dangerous escalation’
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday said it holds Israel “fully responsible for the dangerous escalation” in violence, after two terror shooting attacks in Jerusalem and a deadly Israeli military raid in the West Bank earlier this week.

“The Palestinian leadership holds the Israeli occupation government fully responsible for the dangerous escalation that the situation has reached due to its crimes, which amounted to 31 martyrs during the current month,” the PA’s Security Council said in a statement carried by the official WAFA news agency.

The statement did not mention the shootings in Jerusalem. On Friday night, a Palestinian gunman from East Jerusalem killed seven and injured three more in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood, and on Saturday morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israeli men near the Old City.

The attacks were hailed by a number of Palestinian terror factions, including the Gaza-ruling Hamas, and celebrations were held in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and parts of East Jerusalem after the attack on Friday.

Tensions have been increasing dramatically since Thursday morning, when an Israel Defense Forces raid in the West Bank city of Jenin against a terrorist cell left nine Palestinians dead — most of them gunmen and members of the cell, though at least one civilian was also killed.

The IDF said the majority of the Palestinians killed this month were carrying out attacks or were killed during clashes with security forces. Some were uninvolved civilians. The IDF said Thursday’s operation in the Jenin refugee camp was necessary to foil imminent attack plans by a local Islamic Jihad terror cell. The group had primed explosives and firearms, according to the IDF.
PMW: Abbas’ Fatah praises murder of 7: “The war has begun in Palestine… we greet and bless these heroic operations”
After a bloody weekend in Jerusalem where 6 Israelis and 1 Ukrainian national were murdered and 7 were wounded in two terror attacks, the secretary of the Jenin branch of Abbas’ Fatah Movement, Ata Abu Rmeileh, announced that “the war has begun in Palestine, all of Palestine.”

Referring to two attacks in Jerusalem on Friday and Saturday, Abu Rmeileh announced Fatah’s appreciation of the murders: “We greet and bless these heroic operations in Jerusalem by the heroes of Jerusalem.” Abu Rmeileh made this statement while leading a military procession in the Jenin refugee camp during which he and others shouted “Allahu Akbar” - “Allah is greatest” – while carrying automatic rifles. Others were seen distributing sweets in celebration of the two attacks in Jerusalem:
Posted text: “[Fatah] Jenin Branch Secretary Ata Abu Rmeileh, and Fatah’s message”

Fatah Jenin Branch Secretary Ata Abu Rmeileh: “We are saying that the intifada has begun, and the war has begun in Palestine, all of Palestine. It will not stop until [there is] revenge for every pure drop of blood of our righteous Martyrs in the Jenin [refugee] camp, in Jerusalem, and in all areas of Palestine. We are defending the site of our [Prophet] Muhammad’s [Night] Journey. On behalf of all the fighters, we greet and bless these heroic operations in Jerusalemby the heroes of Jerusalem (i.e., 7 murdered and 7 wounded).”

Abu Rmeileh and crowd: “Allahu Akbar (i.e., “Allah is greatest”)!”

Abu Rmeileh: “Our people is a living and resisting people that is defending itself, and it will take revenge for the blood of the Martyrs.”

Visual: People are seen distributing sweets in celebration of the two terror attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 7 were murdered and 7 were wounded.

[Fatah Movement – Bethlehem Branch, Telegram channel, Jan. 28, 2023]


MEMRI: Jordanian Journalist Lavishes Praise On Perpetrator Of Neve Ya'akov Shooting: The Palestinian Womb Brings Forth Heroes Who Love Palestine And Understand It Is Worthy Of Blood And Martyrdom
The January 27, 2023 shooting perpetrated near a synagogue in Jerusalem's Neve Ya'akov neighborhood, in which six Israelis and one Ukrainian national were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, Khairi Alqam, evoked many reactions in Jordan. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning "all forms of violence against civilians" and calling to respect the sanctity of houses of worship.[1] However, despite this official condemnation, demonstrations of support for the Palestinian resistance were held in several areas around the country, including in the capital Amman, at which participants celebrated the attack and praised the Palestinian terrorist organizations.[2i] Some also sharply criticized the Foreign Ministry's "disgraceful" condemnation of the shooting.[3]

Articles in the Jordanian press took a similar view, justifying the attack and praising its perpetrator. Conspicuous among them was an article by journalist 'Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali in the government daily Al-Rai, which stated that the terrorist had made a greater mark on history with this action than the U.S. with achievements like the launching of the space shuttle or Israel with its wealth of technological and military innovations. The Palestinians' greatest asset, the article added, is the Palestinian womb, "which brings forth heroes with a strong love for Palestine," heroes who " understand the meaning of the faith in Palestine as a precious homeland worthy of blood and martyrdom." [4]

The following are translated excerpts from 'Abd Al-Hadi Raji Al-Majali's article: [5]
"In order to enter the annals of history in Palestine, you don't have to be the owner of a company like Tesla; you don't have to establish a social media network and launch it to the world; you don't have to invent a chicken spice mixture that becomes [popular] worldwide and open a restaurant chain with branches in every country. You don't have to establish a compact-disk start-up company or visit various capitals to receive some worthless prize, nor do you need TV cameras to follow you and document your success story. You don't even have to tell dirty jokes on TikTok and become the talk of every teenager.

"History in Palestine is different from our history, and Palestinian celebrities are different from our celebrities. All you need to do in order to enter the annals of history in Palestine is devote 20 minutes of your life to carrying out a resistance operation against the occupation in the name of Jerusalem or in the name the martyrs, of the land, of history, of Arabhood or of the faith. Then you must decide to die as a martyr. You will be the one to take this decision after you carry out an earth-shattering [action] and after you look up to the mountaintops and smile.
Demolishing houses didn't stop terror in 2005, why does it work in 2023? - analysis
Significant numbers of Palestinians who started toward an attack, but relented, or parents who turned in their kids before they could commit an attack in the process, said that saving the family house had impacted them greatly.

Some officials did a victory lap on the issue in 2016 as one of the reasons – along with new technologies and analysis of social media – that the Knife Intifada was put down before it blew up into a “full Intifada.”

The Jerusalem Post very recently received additional confirmations from defense officials dealing with some of the greatest Palestinian violence in the Northern West Bank that demolitions are still providing deterrence.

They repeated the same updated 2022 testimonies of Palestinians (not just relying on the 2015-2016 data) who pulled back from terror at the last minute or turned in their kids to stop them from terror.

One fascinating point was that some of these officials did not even know that Israel’s moratorium on house demolitions had gone on for so long, nearly a decade. In fact, they were quite shocked by the notion.

Part of what is interesting about that is that 2005-2014, without house demolitions, was a much less violent time period than 2015-2023 has been with house demolitions.

Of course, one counter-response to this argument is that this was because the IDF hit Palestinian terror much harder and deeper during the Second Intifada, and it was this that provided quiet.

Some also say that if the IDF did house demolitions faster, not with weeks or months of delay, then there would be greater deterrence. Maybe, but there is no guarantee there either, and there have been cases where a terrorist’s family had nothing to do with their activities and rushing forward without figuring that out would have broken even Israeli law as it currently exists (keeping in mind that though international law has a place for house demolitions, that Israel is an outlier among democracies in actually performing them.)


Website Promoting Holocaust Education Titled ‘EducateKanye’ Launched by Jewish Activist
A new initiative to promote awareness of the Holocaust launched on Friday to coincide with worldwide observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Founded by activist, model, and author of two books, Elizabeth Pipko, the “Lest People Forget Project” — also known as EducateKanye.com — aims to modernize and “decentralize” education about the Holocaust. The interactive project contains resources tailored for young people, 40 percent of whom believe less than 6 million Jews were killed in The Holocaust, according to a recent study by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Users browsing EducateKanye.com will be able to view photographs of letters written by Jewish prisoners detained in concentration camps such as Buchenwald, Oranienburg, and Auschwitz. Few know, Pipko told The Algemeiner during an interview, that the Nazis allowed the sending of postage and that doing so was one way they deceived the outside world into believing that life in the concentration camps did not differ from life elsewhere.

“I am always remembering that you told me that I am missing out on the most precious months of the child,” says one letter to a relative sent from the Oranienburg concentration camp, which was located in Brandenburg, Germany. “This worries me a lot.”

“I’ve spoken to so many Holocaust survivors or families of survivors who just want people to know about them through photos or handwritten notes,” Pipko said. “My idea is to inspire young people to get involved and that by utilizing the site they can become involved in preserving this knowledge for the future.”
Philaldelphia high school librarian told to take down Elie Wiesel poster
A quote by the Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was briefly removed from the walls of a Philadelphia-area high school, reportedly because it violated the school’s policy on “neutrality.”

On Wednesday a principal of a high school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, ordered the school librarian to take down four posters with the Wiesel quote. The quote came from Wiesel’s 1986 Nobel acceptance speech and reads: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

That ran afoul of a controversial new district policy banning teachers from engaging in “advocacy activities” or displaying any signs or symbols of “any partisan, political, or social policy issue.”

“If I didn’t take it down, I knew there would be consequences that could impact me,” the librarian, Matt Pecic, told local outlets. His daughter was the one who had originally emailed him the quote, saying it reminded her of him.

The district allowed Central Bucks High School South to put the posters back up the next day and issued a statement highlighting that Wiesel’s memoir “Night” is a regular part of its curriculum. The district also apologized “for any hurt or concerns this has caused, particularly for those in the Jewish community.”

“We regret that the decision was made to remove” the posters, the district said. The statement added that the librarian “was asked by the administration to present the quote in conjunction with Mr. Wiesel’s book in order to promote educational inquiry and student interest in reading the novel, or to take it down.”


The Israel Guys: Rashida Tlaib Flys Flag in Support of 9/11 Terrorist Attack
Jew-hater Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib decided to hang a Palestinian flag outside her office on Capitol Hill this week while at the same time declaring herself to be an American-Palestinian who is against the apartheid that Israel’s government is imposing in Judea and Samaria. Her lies could not be more evident.

On today’s show, we dig into who the PLO and the Palestinian Authority really are. If you look closely, you’ll find that Tlaib’s public support for the Palestinians is actually blatant support for terrorism.




Two armed Syrians approach Israeli border in Golan Heights, one shot dead — IDF
An armed Syrian suspect was shot dead by soldiers Sunday while attempting to cross the border into Israel in the southern Golan Heights with another gunman, the Israel Defense Forces said.

According to the IDF, soldiers monitoring surveillance cameras spotted the two armed men crossing the so-called Alpha Line — a UN buffer zone separating Israel from Syria — and approaching Israel’s security fence.

“IDF soldiers were dispatched to the scene and opened fire in accordance with standard operating procedures,” the military said, adding that one of the men was hit.

The IDF said the suspect was treated by military medics at the scene. According to Hebrew-language media reports, he was declared dead.

The second suspect apparently fled back to Syria, a military source said. It was unclear if he had also been hit by the gunfire.

No Israeli soldiers were injured in the incident.

Earlier this month, the IDF said troops detained five suspects who crossed into Israeli territory from Syria.
Biden Administration's Total Disregard for Iran's Protestors, Nuclear Threat
Iran's mullahs have made significant advances by tripling their nuclear program's capacity to enrich uranium to 60%, a short step away from the 90% purity required to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran is selling Russia drones and other material; is Russia "paying" for them by helping the mullahs complete their nuclear weapons undertaking?

Just last week, the US Department of State declared Iran the "world's leading sponsor of terrorism." This is the same State Department that had allowed the mullahs to brutally crack down on and kill their own people, deliver drones and other deadly weapons to their ally Russia; freely increase their influence in Latin America, and rapidly advance their nuclear weapons program. What will it take for the Biden administration finally to help the young men and women of Iran who have been fighting so hard for their freedom?
Israel behind drone strike in Iran, report says
Israel was behind the drone strike that targeted a military facility in Iran late Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with the operation.

The attack came as Jerusalem and Washington explore new ways to counter the Iranian nuclear threat and with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken scheduled to visit Israel on Monday.

Iran said it thwarted the drone attack on the defense installation located in the city of Isfahan.

“One of [the drones] was hit by the…air defense and the other two were caught in defense traps and blew up. Fortunately, this unsuccessful attack did not cause any loss of life and caused minor damage to the workshop’s roof,” the Iranian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Iranian news agencies reported a loud blast at the factory, said to be a munitions plant, while video footage showed a flash of light as well as emergency vehicles and fire trucks at the scene.

Iran International, a London-based anti-regime news site, reported that multiple explosions were heard at the site as well as in several other cities including Karaj, west of Tehran, at a factory near Tabriz, capital of East Azerbaijan Province in northwestern Iran, and in the city of Dezful in the southwestern Khuzestan Province.

The Journal also reported that CIA Director William Burns made an unannounced trip to Israel last week to discuss Iran. Also last week, the Juniper Oak exercise took was conducted by the Israeli and U.S. militaries.


Most online antisemitism stems from Palestinians, pro-Palestinian circles - report
Sixty-eight percent of online antisemitism originates in Palestinian or progressive pro-Palestinian circles – according to a new report on the state of antisemitism, by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which was exposed by Minister Amichai Chikli during the cabinet meeting on Sunday morning.

Chikli said that “antisemitism is changing the way it manifests and it is increasingly focusing on hatred towards the Jewish state and the denial of its right to exist.”

Chikli shared that most of the antisemitic discourse on social media, 68%, according to the comprehensive research carried out by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, “originates in Palestinian or in progressive pro-Palestinian circles.”

Chikli added that even though there has been a decrease in antisemitic incidents around the world, “there has been a noticeable jump in the number of antisemitic incidents specifically in the US, where a hostile atmosphere is emerging on some college campuses towards Jewish students, especially if they identify as Zionists.”

“The State of Israel has a duty to lead the fight against antisemitism and to act in order to expand the adoption of the IHRA definition [for antisemitism], in as many countries and institutions as possible."
Holocaust Europe wants to cover up: A shocking new book by a leading academic details how countries from Norway to France colluded in the mass slaughter of the Jews. No wonder they're now rewriting history to hide the truth
Given their religious taboos, it was a particularly humiliating fate for Jews — herded into pigsties, of all places.

But much worse was to come for the inmates of this makeshift concentration camp on what had been a state farm. Eleven thousand of them were crammed into a space deemed fit for only 7,000 pigs, then callously abandoned.

After bartering their clothes for food that never arrived, they were left virtually naked, just rags and scraps of newspaper to cover them, as temperatures in the winter of 1941 plunged to minus 40. They starved and froze to death.

Their plight was a matter of amusement for the local government official, who would drop in to inspect 'the Yids', as he called them. He'd divert himself by taking pictures of them 'grazing' on their hands and knees, forced to find whatever sustenance they could from plant roots, twigs, leaves, human excrement and even dead bodies. Rape by their guards was commonplace. So was suicide.

Here was a different type of mass murder from the way the Holocaust is normally reported in conventional histories, which concentrate our minds on the 'industrialised' killing in death camps such as Auschwitz, the so-called 'final solution', with trainloads arriving and being almost instantaneously dispatched to the gas chambers and the crematoria.

But this was only part of the story, argues leading Holocaust specialist Professor Dan Stone, in a new book that turns on their head some of the widely-held notions about that terrible era of genocide 80 years ago.

We certainly tend to get wrong just how widespread the Holocaust was, argues Stone, who is director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London.

The fact that we need to get our heads around — and which many countries still find uncomfortable and refuse to recognise — is that the Holocaust was not solely a German project, but a pan-European crime with tens of thousands of active perpetrators all over the continent.
Australian company faces backlash for Hitler inspired Valentine's Day products
An online Australian company came under fire for selling Adolf Hitler "inspired" merchandise for Valentine's Day, which has now been taken down.

The site, Spicy Baboon, was selling mugs, t-shirts, stickers, cards and beer cozies with a cartoon depiction of Hitler holding a rose in his mouth and surrounded by hearts. Underneath the graphic was the caption "Be Mein."

In the product description, the site had written: "Nothing says 'I love you' more than Time Magazine's Man of the Year (1938) clasping a rose."

The Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), Australia's leading civil rights organization, has expressed its disgust towards the Hitler merchandise.

The site's owner Scot Mackenroth apologized and said that they didn't mean any harm by it or to offend anyone but claimed it was for humor purposes.

The ADC Chairman, Dr. Dvir Abramovich rejected the apology and urged them to meet Holocaust survivors so that they can understand the pain and suffering Hitler had inflicted on them.

"This is a new and perverse low in Australian retail," Dr. Abramovich said in a statement regarding the sale. "The words sickening, vomit-inducing and stomach-churning do not even come close to describing this abomination and it's hard to imagine anything more obscene that abuses Holocaust and takes its vulgar exploitation to new depths."
Inna Vernikov wants Jews to fight the haters
This Brooklyn lawmaker has plenty of chops.

Rookie Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was so sickened by the October 2018 mass murder of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that it motivated her to get self-defense training and avoid being an easy target, she told The Post.

The 5-foot, 3-inch Republican and Ukraine native is now calling on fellow Jews to follow her lead as anti-Semitic crimes continue to surge both citywide and nationally.

“If we don’t help ourselves, no one is coming to save us,” the 38-year-old pol said. “The NYPD is great, but [cops] can’t be everywhere.”

Vernikov has recruited Legion, a nonprofit group that predominantly trains Jews in the skills of Krav Maga — a martial art developed for the Israel Defense Forces that combines judo, karate, boxing, wrestling, and aikido. The group also teaches counter-terrorism techniques and first aid.

Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov wants fellow Jews to follow her lead and learn martial arts training to literally fight back against rising anti-Semitic attacks.

She spent nearly three years taking classes with the nonprofit, learning Krav Maga, active-shooter-response-training, and other self-defense tactics. She has battle scars to prove it: a broken leg suffered while training to defend herself against a gunman.

Vernikov said she doesn’t own a gun but has fired pistols plenty of times while doing firearms training with another organization.

She said she is in the process of completing a course to secure a state firearms license and hopes to soon own her own pistol — which would put her in direct conflict with many gun-hating progressive Democrats on the City Council.
Israeli-Iranian singer takes part in Berlin marking expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran
In December 2022, the Israeli Embassy in Berlin, in conjunction with the World Jewish Congress, held an event commemorating the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran. Israeli-Iranian singer Liraz Charhi, who stars in the Apple TV series “Tehran,” participated in the event, which was also held to express support for Iranians, especially women, who have been oppressed by the regime.

As part of the event, former KAN news correspondent and current Bild TV reporter Antonia Yamin interviewed Charhi about her family’s departure from Iran and discussed the protests occurring in the streets of Tehran. Charhi performed a selection of her songs at the event, including “Zan Bezan” (Women, Sing), a song inspired by earlier protests in Iran. Although women’s vocal performances have been restricted in Iran since the Iranian Revolution, Liraz has worked with women based in Tehran and beyond through clandestine collaborations to create “private revolutions.” Charhi, who was born in Ramla, Israel to an Iranian Jewish family, is committed to supporting the protest movement in Iran. Her most recent album, “Roya,” was released in October.

Several senior officials participated in the event, including German politician Petra Pau, one of the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag, and Green Party Bundestag members Marlene Schoenberger and Lamya Kaddor. Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prossor, Dr. Gideon Joffe, Chairman of the Board of the Jewish Community of Berlin, and Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, addressed the gathering.

In his remarks, the Ambassador stated that the expulsion of the Jews from Arab countries is a subject that the world has chosen to ignore, while it has sided with the Palestinian narrative for generations, adding that the issue should be on the agenda when discussing the Israeli-Arab dispute. Regarding the current struggle of the women in Iran against oppression, he said, “Liraz speaks on behalf of the entire Israeli people who sympathize with the struggle of the women of Iran for human rights. I hope that the message we are singing today in Berlin will also be heard in the streets of Tehran and Isfahan.”
UAE museum unveils Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust in tolerance push
A private museum in the United Arab Emirates unveiled on Saturday a Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust, the latest sign of what Israel and its new Arab allies describe as a new approach to understanding Jewish history in the Middle East.

Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, founder of the Crossroads of Civilizations Museum in Dubai's historic district, said the display, unveiled for International Holocaust Remembrance Day would help combat "big denial" of the Holocaust in the region.

"For us, peace is a complete peace," Al Mansoori said. "Many people have forgotten the Jews are part of the region. So here, we're trying to show ... the good days between the Jews and the Arabs in the past."

The scroll is on permanent loan to the museum from the Memorial Scrolls Trust, which looks after over 1,000 Czech scrolls saved from the Holocaust and later sent to London.

"I lived in the Arab world when I was young, and the term Holocaust does not exist ... So this is a huge step," said Edwin Shuker, an Iraqi-Jewish businessman and vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who facilitated the loan.

Israel has reached out to promote understanding of Judaism among its new allies in the two years since the UAE and fellow Gulf state Bahrain, followed by Morocco and Sudan, forged ties with it under US-brokered pacts known as the Abraham Accords.






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