Sunday, January 07, 2024

01/07 Links: The Terrorist-Aid Agency; Zionism is reminding that Israel was founded to protect Jews from barbaric enemies; Explosion of anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine

From Ian:

Jonathan Schanzer: The Terrorist-Aid Agency
The Israeli Defense Forces announced Thursday that it discovered hundreds of weapons in a West Bank kindergarten run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This was only the latest bit of bad news for the UN agency, which is has taken a lot of heat—deservedly—for serving as a willing partner to Hamas in Gaza since the terrorist group conquered the territory in 2007.

The latest UNRWA revelation, coupled with the organization’s horrible record, is important in the context of the “day after debates.” Gazans will need help after this war. Assistance must be provided. But UNRWA simply cannot provide that assistance. Another agency—any other agency—should do it.

UNRWA was established after Israel’s War of Independence. As a result of the war launched by the surrounding Arab states, some 800,000 Palestinians left their homes. In 1949, the UN established UNRWA to address the problem. In retrospect, it was bizarre that a separate agency was established solely to deal with Palestinian refugees, especially as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is now responsible for literally every other refugee population on the planet.

Over the years, it became clear why UNRWA was not operating within the construct of UNHCR. Rather than re-settling the refugees, UNRWA deliberately created more than 5.9 million of them. UNRWA’s numbers are mathematically impossible, of course. The original refugees numbered, at most, 800,000 in 1948. The widening numbers problem derived from UNRWA’s recognition of the descendants of the original male refugees—most of whom have passed away.

As UNRWA began cynically to multiply its clients, the agency played an important role in the anti-Israeli narrative. Textbooks used by UNRWA promote hatred and incitement against Israel and Jews. Palestinians living on UNRWA’s payroll became living symbols of the Palestinian refusal to acknowledge the reality of Israel. The agency tacitly endorsed what the Palestinians call the “right of return” of all refugees—and their descendants—to their homes from 75 years ago in modern day Israel.
UN agency says it is handling code of conduct violations by staffer for anti-Israel posts internally
UN Watch’s Executive Director Hillel Neuer posted on X, formerly Twitter, some examples including posts that accused Israel of “genocide” and celebrated shutting down bridges and highways for pro-Palestinian campaigns and rallies.

After UN Watch publicized the posts, Neuer said Douglas deleted her social media accounts, but he said the group has screenshots of her posts.

Last week, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said when asked about Douglas’ posts: “I understand there was a violation of the Code of Conduct by this individual.”

Douglas has not commented on her social media posts.

UN Watch said a campaign it launched on Instagram and X demanding that Douglas be fired had received nearly 5,000 signatures by Dec. 27. Two U.S. senators, Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, have also called on UN Women to fire her.

“We are aware of reports relating to a mid-level manager and the incompatibility of her social media activity with the standards of conduct required of U.N. staff members,” UN Women said Friday in response to an AP question on what action it is taking on the violations and the calls for her firing.

“UN Women takes these concerns very seriously,” it said. “The standards of conduct are clear and breaches are dealt with appropriately and in accordance with UN Women’s accountability and legal framework.”
The 2023 hypocrites elevating Palestine to an untouchable status
For decades, world leaders, the mainstream media, donor nations, human rights NGOs, and academia have all elevated the Palestinian cause to an untouchable status. Through thick and thin, from the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes to the UN General Assembly equating Zionism with racism, and from serial anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Human Rights Commission (now Council) to the virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, not to mention throughout bloody intifadas, horrific suicide bombings, missiles, knifings, car rammings, and drive-by shootings, there hasn’t been one crime, not even the most heinous, that has ever merited explicit worldwide condemnation of the Palestinian cause.

In 2023, we witnessed the blocking of airports and roadways, the destruction of Hanukkah menorahs, and the disruption of Christmas charity events and celebrations by pro-Palestinian supporters. There was even a mob of pro-Hamas protesters chanting “Allahu akbar” at the entrance to the 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial, underneath which lie the microscopic ashes of over 3,000 innocent victims of terrorism.

It seems that no deed can change the elite’s embrace of the Palestinian cause. In any discussion following such outrages, the default response is always: “Yes, but…”. “Yes, it was very unfortunate that Israeli athletes were killed … or that a pregnant woman was killed by a bomb at Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria … but what choice do the Palestinians have as they live in the outdoor concentration camp that is Gaza, that they are victims of colonial occupation, that they are crushed by an apartheid regime.”

So, perhaps it was naïve to think that, somehow, Oct. 7 would be different. On that day, more Jews were murdered than on any day since the end of the Nazi Holocaust in 1945; on Oct. 7, videos taken by Hamas terrorists themselves showed how they targeted entire civilian families whom they shot and burned to death; how they turned a peace concert into a charnel house; how Israeli women and girls were raped, beheaded, and mutilated. Hundreds were kidnapped and taken hostage, and over 100 may still be alive in underground captivity that defies imagination.

And through it all, we’ve mostly witnessed silence or acquiescence to the terrorists. The International Red Cross refused requests from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and families of the hostages to try to deliver life-saving medicine to the hostages. However, they found the time to get forms to the captured Hamas terrorists in Israeli jails to fill out so they and their families could be quickly compensated under the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay Jews” law.


Zionism is reminding that Israel was founded to protect Jews from barbaric enemies
Understanding Israel and Zionism requires a keen grasp of the history of the region and the Jewish people. It also requires reading past news articles and confronting eyewitness testimony of events in the land of Israel. In the paragraphs below, three eyewitness accounts are included. They are painful accounts of murder, torture, and rape. The reader shouldn’t turn away, the victims deserve to be heard.

Shuddering accounts
THE FIRST: “The next morning, the Jewish Sabbath, saw atrocities unlike [the land] had ever known. A disabled pharmacist and his wife were murdered, their 13-year-old daughter gang-raped and also killed. Another couple survived by rolling in the blood of the others and lying still. Limbs, testicles, and eyes were cut from living people, some of them old men and children. Only one person died by bullet; the rest experienced blunter methods of execution. In a single day, 67 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.”

The second: “Three groups of armed men walked South toward the city along the waterside road. A whistle gave the signal: Two groups crossed into the city and the third to the nearby kibbutz. Three hundred fully armed fighters blocked all roads into the city, cut communication lines, and entered from three directions. They saluted the Arab flag, the black, green, and red flown in the Great Revolt. There followed a battle, as the warriors’ bullets “pierced the windows of the Jewish homes. Having cleared the inhabitants, [the fighters] set the magistrate’s court and government building aflame, and also the Jewish stores and Zionist trading houses.” Some 70 Jews were killed. Their deaths were more intimate and crueler. Rachel Mizrahi and her five children were stabbed repeatedly, their house set on fire. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh and his wife and two sons were killed in the same way as were the three Leimer daughters staying at their home at the time. So too were Menachem “Max” Kotin of New York – the first American victim— and his wife Masha. The synagogue was set alight with the beadle still inside. Only four of the 17 Jews killed in their homes were shot; the rest were burned or stabbed to death. Ten were children. The assault lasted some 40 minutes. Some witnesses said the assailants broke into a restaurant and fed themselves a meal; others said they danced an impromptu dabke (joyous dance) on the street. What was beyond dispute was the systematic planning and execution of their operation and the almost complete absence of any Jewish resistance.”

The third: “A paramedic from a commando unit told the newspaper he had found the bodies of two teenage girls, sisters aged 13 and 16, in a room in Kibbutz Be’eri with their clothes ripped. One was lying on her side with “bruises by her groin,” and the other “was sprawled on the floor face down,” the paramedic said, “pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back.”

THE THREE passages are not all from the October 7 attacks. The first two come from Oren Kessler’s new book, Palestine 1936. The first account records the 1929 brutal Hebron riots, the second account is from the 1938 riots in Tiberias, and the third is from the 2023 Hamas attacks.

All three attacks included savage murder and rape perpetrated on Jewish civilians by Palestinian attackers. Zionists aware of their history recognized the Simchat Torah massacre. While most of the world was shocked by the viciousness shown by Palestinians against innocent Jews, Zionists found it all too familiar. Recent polling among Palestinians found overwhelming support – close to 80% - for the Hamas attacks on Simchat Torah. The number seems impossible. How could so many people openly support murder, rape, and kidnapping?
The International Court of Justice has been weaponised against the Jewish state
In Israel’s case the allegations are false. The defamatory application put forward seeks to quote Israeli leaders, but does so without context and consistently misrepresents the statements as relating to Palestinian civilians, rather than Hamas terrorists.

Some of the material is simply invented, for example where it purports to quote a Danny Neumann calling for the complete destruction of Gaza, a “former Israeli Knesset member”. No such member exists. Against this context, we should not forget the words of the senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad in October last year, when he stated that the terror group would repeat the 7 October massacre “again and again” until Israel was “annihilated,” openly admitting the group’s genocidal intentions.

Israel’s actions are equally grossly distorted. Every state’s primary obligation is to keep its citizens safe. Over the last three months, Israel has been defending its citizens from a genocidal attack from the terrorists who have governed Gaza for the last 17 years. Since the genocidal atrocities of 7 October, Hamas and other Palestinian terror organisations have continued their attacks, firing over 13,000 rockets targeting the Israeli civilian population.

The current estimate of the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties in this war is 2:1, against a global average of 9:1, according to UN statistics. This is unparalleled in urban warfare and testament to the unprecedented measures Israel has taken to protect Palestinian civilian life.

South Africa’s application is unprecedented, in that it seeks a declaration from the Court that Israel should be prevented from defending its civilian population against the estimated 40,000 strong Hamas forces.

The US government has said: “This submission [is] meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” The reputation of international law is hanging in the balance and the world will be watching next week’s hearing to see if the ICJ will protect the international legal order from this abuse.
Israel picks retired chief justice to join ICJ Gaza genocide tribunal
Israel has named its former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak as its addition to an International Court of Justice panel due to hear a genocide allegation filed against it on Thursday and Friday, an Israeli official said on Sunday.

Under the ICJ's rules, a state that does not have a judge of its nationality already on the bench can choose an ad hoc judge to sit in their case.

Barak, a champion of Supreme Court activism, was a focus of opposition for members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose judicial reform push last year bitterly polarized the public.

He is also an internationally recognized, who survived the Holocaust as a child and immigrated to what was then Mandatory Palestine in 1947.

In a post on X, former Mertz Party leader Zahava Gal-On wrote that at the Hague, Barak will “continue to ignore the fact that the government he will defend made him a target for years, more than two decades after he left office. It’s a government that does not deserve its citizens.”

Well received
MK Gideon Sa’ar (National Unity), who is a former Justice Minister, wrote on X that he lauded the decision by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara to appoint him.

"At the moment of truth: the incitement, defamation, and delegitimization gave way to the international status, to the good name acquired over decades, to professionalism,” he said.


Zionist asks Palestinian a bold question
A short extract from a four-hour debate between Tareq and Joseph. We'll be uploading the debate on Monday, like and subscribe to make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it.


JPost Editorial: Blinken's fifth visit since Oct. 7 highlights Israel's importance to the US
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s scheduled visit to Israel this week – his fifth since the October 7 massacre, excluding a visit accompanying President Joe Biden here soon after the Hamas attack – highlights how critically important Washington views what is going on here.

From the outset, one of Washington’s top concerns – and one of the reasons for an unprecedented degree of US involvement in Israel’s decision-making process during this war – was that the conflict would remain constrained to Gaza and not engulf the entire region.

Bigger picture
A wider regional war seems to have been one of Hamas’s purposes, knowing full well that this heinous attack would provoke an overwhelming Israeli response.

Not only was the knowledge that Israel would respond with devastating force not a deterrent for Hamas, it may even have been an inducement.

From Hamas’s viewpoint, a major regional war would knock any expansion of the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia off the agenda, send the pre-October 7 warming of Israeli-Turkish ties into deep freeze, and render unrealistic an ambitious plan Biden presented to create a railway and sea corridor connecting India and Saudi Arabia to Europe via Jordan and Israel.

It was in an effort to prevent just such a major regional war that Biden, in a speech three days after the attack, warned Hezbollah and anyone else not to take advantage of this situation and strike Israel. “I have one word,” he said memorably: “Don’t.”

To back this up, he sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, one which will reportedly be leaving soon, as well as nuclear-powered submarines. That high-profile projection of force signaled to Hezbollah and Iran that Biden was dead serious about “don’t.”

And it worked. Although Hezbollah has continuously fired into Israel, leading to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from their homes, it has kept the fighting on a low burner. Israel’s military might is the prime reason Hezbollah has not yet escalated this to a full-fledged war, but America’s military presence in the eastern Mediterranean also helped.


Israeli President Unveils Hamas Document Detailing Activities of ‘Terror Summer Camps’

IDF commando brigade uncovers PIJ tools of terror in northern Gaza
The combat fighters of the Yiftah Brigade raided terrorist infrastructures in the Shejaia area with the aim of locating and destroying tunnel shafts belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. The raid was done in cooperation with the tanks, intelligence, and combat engineering corps.

During the raid in the eastern part of the Shejaia area, they uncovered a shaft leading to a larger tunnel route and a missile launcher. Daunting discoveries

In the northern part of Shejaia, the combat team uncovered shafts near the house of Ahmed Samara, the director of the tunnel project of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the northern Gaza Strip.

In the area surrounding Samara's house, the soldiers found numerous weapons, PIJ training booklets, a blueprint of the October 7 attack, and a book by Hitler.

During the operation to destroy the tunnels near this house, terrorists opened fire and set off a bomb inside the tunnel in an attempt to harm the IDF forces and prevent the destruction of the entire route. Luckily, fighters from the combat team noticed suspicious activity from inside the tunnel, retreated before the explosion occurred, returned fire at the terrorists, and stopped the attack.

At the end of their operations, Israeli forces destroyed the underground tunnel route, the missile launchers and the weapons that were located, and twelve buildings above said route that were used as terrorist targets, some of which were even booby-trapped.


IDF says it found proof Hamas developed cruise missile capabilities, aided by Iran
Israeli soldiers in Gaza uncovered equipment being used by Hamas to develop precision-guided missiles under Iranian tutelage, the military said Sunday. Such technology would represent a dangerous upgrade to the terror group’s weapons capabilities.

The announcement came as fighting in Gaza entered a third month since war broke out on October 7, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaling that Israel was not yet ready to wind down its war against Hamas, even as US President Joe Biden’s top diplomat headed to the region to redouble pressure for a shift to lower-intensity fighting.

Troops discovered the guided-missile program while raiding a Hamas site near Gaza City’s Daraj and Tuffah neighborhoods, which led them to an underground weapons manufacturing plant.

Soldiers found “components proving terrorists of the Hamas terror organization studied under Iranian guidance how to operate and build precision components and strategic weapons,” the Israel Defense Forces said, sharing images of what it asserted was the rocket engine and warhead of a cruise missile developed by Hamas.

While vast, the terror group’s arsenal of projectiles has been thought to be primarily made up of unguided rockets, with only anti-tank guided missiles and small explosive drones — used at short range — possessing guided capabilities, along with explosives-laden underwater drones and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles that are not effective against Israeli aircraft.

Israel has long accused Iran of attempting to export precision missile technology to its Lebanese proxy group Hezbollah, and has reportedly bombed weapons convoys in Syria to prevent such transfers. But the same concerns had not been thought to apply to Hamas, which has hounded Israel with tens of thousands of rocket attacks over the years.


Policewoman killed, 3 injured by bomb in Jenin; 7 Palestinians killed in airstrike
A Border Police officer was killed and three others wounded by a roadside bomb, and seven Palestinians were killed in an airstrike during a raid overnight Saturday in the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp.

Sgt. Shay Germay, 19, was in a vehicle hit by a roadside bomb during the raid, along with three of her comrades. One was seriously wounded, while the other officers two were lightly hurt, according to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces and police said forces entered Jenin for a counterterrorism operation, when an explosive device planted on the side of a road hit the Border Police vehicle.

The IDF said that during the evacuation of the wounded officers, an attack helicopter carried out an airstrike against a group of Palestinian gunmen who were hurling explosives at troops.

“Six terrorists were killed in the strike,” the IDF said on Sunday morning.


Car rams checkpoint in East Jerusalem; Palestinian girl mistakenly shot dead by cops
Police said a Palestinian child was mistakenly killed by security forces Sunday and a Border Police officer was lightly injured during a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint in East Jerusalem.

Video footage showed officers checking a van at the checkpoint and allowing it through before a second car accelerated into the Border Police officer, in her 20s.

According to police, the officer was lightly wounded. Footage then showed officers chasing after the second vehicle, opening fire and killing its occupants.

The three-year-old Palestinian girl who was mistakenly killed by the gunfire was in the first car that had passed, police said, and added the incident was under further investigation.

The video appeared to show the first vehicle was in security forces’ line of fire as they shot at the attackers.

According to medics, the girl was critically injured by the gunfire and was declared dead at the scene a short while later.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it took the injured officer to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center in good condition.
Israeli Arab murdered in West Bank terror shooting attack
One person was killed in a shooting attack on Route 465 near the British Police Junction at Wadi al-Haramiya in Binyamin on Sunday morning.

Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics arrived on the scene and pronounced the death of a man in his 30s from gunshot wounds. The victim was an Israeli Arab who was a resident of Beit Hanina, Jerusalem.

IDF soldiers and security forces are still pursuing the terrorists after their car was discovered a few kilometers from the attack site.

Head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council, Israel Gantz, visited the scene shortly after the attack.

"We quickly arrived at the scene and saw a 30-year-old man sitting in a car, unconscious without a pulse and suffering from gunshot wounds to his body," MDA paramedic Benjamin Rosenbaum said. "We performed medical aid, but his injury was critical, and we had to pronounce him dead."


Israel months away from saving Gaza hostages - source
Regaining all of the approximate 136 hostages could still be months away despite the IDF’s notable progress in achieving operational control over northern Gaza, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Whether Israel and the IDF can return all of the hostages is itself an open question given Hamas’s demands to date, and no signs so far that its leadership will agree either to a deal in which instead of being killed, they are merely arrested or expelled from Gaza in exchange.

But even if the more positive scenario plays out with some sort of new hostage deal, that deal is expected to only include some dozens of hostages, but not the full complement of hostages.

Rather, the full complement of hostages are only expected to be returned, even in the positive scenario, once the IDF zeroes in on the exact location of Hamas’s top three leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Muhammed Deif, and Marwan Issa, along with the hostages themselves.

At this stage, with the pace that the IDF is getting through the massive tunnel network in Khan Younis, where most or all of the Hamas leadership have said to be located, the Post understands that it could take months to find the exact locations.

All of this slow progress on the Hamas leadership and hostages issue comes even as the IDF on Saturday night said it now has full operational control of northern Gaza, with most of the fighting in that area having concluded already by December 19 with the fall of Jabalia.

The months dragging out on the hostages issue also occurs despite the fact that five reservist brigades have been released, half a dozen Israeli villages in the South have started to return to their residences, and the IDF probe of October 7 is rolling out – all signaling that the Gaza War is already in “Stage 3” of lower intensity conflict.


Hamas hostage Danielle Aloni: I hugged my daughter and told her 'we'll die
Danielle Aloni, who was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 along with her 6-year-old daughter Emilia, told her while they were in captivity, “‘I’m sorry, we’re going to die here’” after I covered her with a blanket and held her tight.

A month after her release from captivity in Gaza, Aloni gave an extensive interview on Channel midnight on Saturday. As she was kidnapped, she said she experienced “a feeling of terror that cannot be explained in words. There aren’t words in Hebrew that can describe this kind of terror. They’ll have to invent new words to explain what happened that day.”

“They just took my little girl, Emma. They took a girl from her mother’s hands. I started yelling [in Arabic] La, la! Binti, Binti! La!” (No, no! My daughter, my daughter! No!)

Aloni showed the interviewer how her captor shook his head and wagged his finger at her, then mimicked shooting her daughter, making a gun with his hand and gesturing toward her.

During her time in Gaza, she was exposed to Hamas’s network of tunnels, encountering the other hostages taken that day, whose wounds remained open and untreated. “When we entered the next tunnel,” she said, “I saw the injuries,” she said, “people that were so wounded, with open wounds, with injured, beaten faces.”

Aloni recalled her daughter calming her down as she suffered through a panic attack. “I screamed, ‘I’m going to die here! I’m going to die here! I’m going to die here!’ Those were the only words that came out. I felt that I was going to die there. My daughter patted my face, ‘Mom, don’t cry, I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Because each time I saw she was in distress, I started to cry, so she comforted me.”


Freed Hostage shares the Horrors of captivity



Editorial: We don’t have to quit the UN to call it out
We don’t have to withdraw from the UN to point out the UN General Assembly is now dominated by Jew-hating vipers who pass resolutions year after year condemning Israel more than any other nation on earth.

We disagree, for example, with the Trudeau government voting in favour of a General Assembly resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel/Hamas war, that not only failed to mention that Hamas started the war when it launched its terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, but failed to mention Hamas at all, by name.

In 2020, the UN’s 193 member nations elected China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Uzbekistan to three-year terms on its Human Rights Council.

As Hillel Neuer, the Canadian-born executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch noted at that time, that meant 60% of the 47 nations that made up the UNHRC at the start of 2021 were dictatorships, non-democratic countries and human rights abusers.

“Electing these dictatorships as UN judges on human rights is like making a gang of arsonists into the fire brigade. It’s logically absurd and morally obscene that the UN has elected to its top human rights body a regime (China) that herded 1 million Uyghurs into camps, arrested, crushed and disappeared those who tried to sound the alarm about the coronavirus, and suffocated freedom in Hong Kong.”

Even many of the UN’s humanitarian efforts have been hit by scandals — for example widespread sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and World Health Organization employees.

Canada doesn’t have to leave the UN to develop a spine about criticizing it when it’s wrong
MP-Promoted Petition to Remove Canada From UN Gains Over 71,000 Signatures
A petition filed in the House of Commons asking for Canada to pull out of the United Nations has garnered over 71,000 signatures as its Tory MP sponsor takes flak from Liberal ministers.

“Over 60,000 Canadians have now signed a petition calling on Canada to protect our national sovereignty by withdrawing from the UN and its subsidiary organizations,” wrote Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis on the X platform on Jan. 3. Ms. Lewis is sponsoring the petition filed by Doug Porter from Burnaby, B.C.

The petition says that membership in the U.N. and its subsidiary organizations “imposes negative consequences on the people of Canada.”

Although the petition has been open to signatures since October, it has only recently caught wider attention, and some members of the Liberal government are using it to criticize the Conservative Party.

“Just unbelievable! Pulling out of the UN when the world needs to come together is what Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre are now advocating!?” commented Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne on X on Jan. 5.

Two parliamentary secretaries to Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly also chimed in. Liberal MP Rob Oliphant called the proposal “absurd” and “dangerous.”

Canada from the UN. This is Poilievre’s Conservative Party,” she said on Jan. 3. Ms. Joly reposted Ms. Damoff’s remarks on her X account.

The petition, which has a closing date of Feb. 7, lists concerns about Canada’s participation in the U.N. and its subsidiary bodies, including the World Health Organization (WHO). It has so far garnered the fourth-highest number of signatures for petitions in the 44th Parliament, which started in the fall of 2021. The top petition, launched Nov. 24, 2023, and sponsored by Tory MP Michelle Ferreri, received 386,698 signatures before it closed Dec. 24. Currently waiting for certification, it calls on the House to vote no confidence in the government and for an election to be called.


Pro-Hamas Rally Shuts Down I-5 In Seattle
A group of demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war are blocking northbound traffic on Interstate 5 in Seattle near Pine Street and just south of Denny Way, causing a 3-mile backup.

Traffic is being diverted onto eastbound Interstate 90, the state Department of Transportation posted on social media platform X.

The Washington State Patrol posted that “troopers are approaching to handle.” The Seattle Police Department asked people to avoid the area.

Thousands of additional demonstrators filled the Olive Way overpass, cheering in support of the blockade. Demonstrators chanted “free, free Palestine” and “hey hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go.”


Video of Toronto cops delivering coffee to anti-Israel protestors sparks outrage
Facing mounting criticism for an alleged tolerance of a series of road-closing anti-Israel protests, Toronto police members have sparked renewed outrage thanks to a video showing them delivering coffee to said protestors.

Posted to social media platform ‘X’ at 2 p.m. on Saturday by Toronto lawyer and online commentator Caryma Sa’d, the video shows a Toronto police constable — his face concealed behind a black neck gaiter — delivering a cardboard urn of Tim Hortons coffee and a stack of cups — to anti-Israel protestors occupying the closed Avenue Road bridge over Highway 401.

The bridge, located within Toronto’s largest Jewish area, was the site of numerous demonstrations by anti-Israel activists.

That prompted Toronto police to close the bridge during the protests, prompting criticism of police kowtowing to protestors over enforcing the law.

Toronto police tweeted at 1:16 p.m. on Saturday that the bridge would against be closed, and that officers would be on scene to “keep demonstrators and passing traffic safe.”

When questioned by Sa’d’s videographer, the protestor who received the coffee said that somebody had bought the coffee for them, but were unable to bring it to the bridge protestors as police were restricting access.

“The police are becoming our little messengers,” said the grinning man wearing black jacket and keffiyeh.

Avenue Road was blocked off by large TTC buses used by Toronto police as rolling barricades just north of Wilson Avenue.


Explosion of anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine
History teaches us that when anti-Semitism isn’t confronted, Jews won’t be the only victims.

They’ll be the first victims, but the hatred will metastasize and spread to others.

This points to the fundamental failure of political will in Canada – at every level of government – from the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct 7.

The failure by vote-counting politicians to act forcefully before Jew hatred exploded to a level not seen in Canada for decades.

To illustrate the enormity of the threat, consider the hate-filled rant of Islamic State spokesman Abu Huthaifa al-Ansari last week calling for attacks on Jews around the world, to “kill them wherever you find them.”

In a 67-minute recording released by the media arm of the central command of ISIS, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), al-Ansari called for attacks on Jews world-wide as an act of vengeance for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ terrorist attack.

“Blow them up with explosives, burn them with incendiary bombs, shoot them with bullets, slaughter their necks with knives, and run them over with buses” al-Ansari advised.

He said there are no good Jews, anywhere, no distinction between civilian and military targets, and that it doesn’t matter what any Jew thinks about creating a Palestinian state, because “the war with the Jews will not end in a one-state solution or two-state solution” or through any international agreement.

This is red meat to those in Canada “protesting” against Israel by firebombing Jewish gathering places, shooting bullets at Jewish schools, torching and vandalizing Jewish-owned businesses, painting Swastikas on synagogues and Jewish homes and targeting, intimidating and threatening Jewish communities.

This is classic anti-Semitism – holding Jews in Canada, responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, the equivalent of holding all Muslims responsible for Hamas.


Grant Shapps’ daughter said she felt unsafe at Leeds university as a Jew
The Jewish daughter of Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said she feels unsafe at her university following protests in the wake of October 7.

Tabytha Shapps, a second-year studying politics and economics at the University of Leeds told the Telegraph that she chose to drop a module about Israel after peers in the class described the country as an “apartheid state.”

She said that her classmates were “talking about Israeli apartheid and Israel’s agenda as a genocidal state”, adding: “As the only Jew in the class… I’m sat there and I’m thinking, what about the injustices of the 1,200 Israelis killed on Oct 7?”

Shapps also said that an anti-Israel protest on campus at the end of November made her feel unsafe after the march “quickly escalated into anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist chants”.

According to the Telegraph, Tabytha’s mother Belinda Shapps wrote to the university to raise the issue of her daughter’s safety and was sent a generic response which read in part: “The university has an explicit duty in law to take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for members, students, employees and visiting speakers.”

A spokesman for the University of Leeds said: “Whilst the university has a legal duty to support free speech, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia of any kind will not be tolerated and we do not support any views or actions which make others feel unsafe or unwelcome on campus.


Inspired by Penn, donors suspend Rutgers funding over Jew-hatred

Israeli Student Sues Prestigious Art School For Severe Anti-Semitic Harassment
An Israeli student pursuing a masters degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) filed a lawsuit after claiming she faced severe anti-Semitic harassment by peers and a faculty member who targeted her for several weeks.

The plaintiff, Shiran, accuses assistant professor Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi of issuing a new final assignment in a “Materials and Media In Art Therapy” course just 10 days before it was due, an apparent retaliation for her for filing an anti-Semitic harassment complaint.

“The new assignment required Shiran and her classmates to respond to a collection of images allegedly drawn by Palestinian children that depicted Israeli soldiers engaged in brutal violence,” a press release by Much, the law firm representing Shiran stated.

The prompt for the assignment questioned if students could deal with their own “complicated feelings, internalized racism/ableism/homophobia/supremacy and countertransference” and remain professional while working with clients.

Lawyers for Shiran, who The Daily Wire is referring to only by her first name due to concerns for her safety, say the mother of two is the only student in the course from either Israel or territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority, indicating that the prompt was clearly aimed at her.

“In other words, she is the only student for whom the images could be described as ‘too close to home,’ the statement reads. “The other students did not receive a corresponding assignment asking them to respond to images that might ‘upset’ or ‘trigger’ them.”

After Shiran reported the assignment, Yi allegedly continued her targeted harassment of Shiran through class-wide emails and changing grading standards, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 22.
Canadian Medical Leader Resigns from University Posting, Citing Campus Antisemitism
A veteran medical professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) resigned his academic post citing the school administration’s indifference to campus antisemitism.

Over 200 medical students signed a petition following the 10/7 atrocities denouncing Israel as a “settler colonial state,” guilty of “collective punishment.” The public letter made no reference to Hamas nor the hundreds of Israeli civilians taken hostage by the Palestinian terror group. “UBC’s declared support for decolonization and practices of equity, diversity and inclusion ring hollow in light of this partisan approach,” the document, which was also signed by over 100 faculty members across the university, argued in late October.

The petition was a response to an official communication from UBC on October 11 which expressed “heartfelt condolences to those in our community who are grieving incomprehensible loss and hoping for the safe return of their loved ones.” “As this conflict deepens and innocent civilians are caught in the tragic repercussions in Israel, Gaza and elsewhere, the implications are distressing for those with families and friends affected,” the letter, authored by the school’s interim president, wrote.

The professor cited the petition and the administration’s failure to address campus antisemitism as the driving force behind his departure. “One third of the medical students and some faculty, have publicly expressed their contempt towards me, as a Jew. I cannot take the risk of being accused of implicit harassment or racism, which is indefensible, by a ‘triggered’ student,” Ted Rosenberg, a family medicine academic at UBC for three decades wrote to the medical school dean.

“Unfortunately, I have no faith in due process in a faculty that does not even acknowledge the existence or presence of antisemitism/Jew-hatred, or my right to work in a depoliticized environment.”


Cold Crematorium review — a Holocaust memoir worthy of Primo Levi
Debreczeni chronicles the steady, relentless, carefully planned dehumanisation of the prisoners and everyday life inside the camps in powerful, stomach-churning detail. Half-starved inmates huddled under blankets swarming with lice. Diarrhoea was widespread. Some prisoners squatted 20 times a day, pus gushing from their innards, as “horrid yellow streams” flowed between the beds. Prisoners shared bunks. When one died, often he evacuated his bowels.

Debreczeni sharply dissects the hierarchies that emerge. His careful observations about the hated kapos, privileged inmates, bring fresh understanding of the power dynamics in a world of profound dehumanisation. The role of such prisoners, especially those who were Jewish, remains one of the most sensitive aspects of the Holocaust. When did survival become collaboration? Some kapos would beat, even kill other inmates on the orders of their SS overlords.

Those who had stood at the bottom of prewar Jewish society were elevated to the top of the camp hierarchy. “Those who’d made nothing of themselves — schnorrers, nebbishes, schlemiels, freeloaders, rogues, swindlers, idlers, slackers — all blossomed in this swamp.” Debreczeni is not free from prejudice. He is dismissive of Greek Jews. Many spoke Ladino, a form of medieval Spanish, and kept the traditions, culture and liturgy of Jewish Spain, from where they had been expelled in 1492. Debreczeni writes: “There’s hardly an educated one among them. The vast majority are staggeringly ignorant. As for their occupations, most are travelling salesmen and huckstering merchants.” Such types were hardly unknown among the Ashkenazi Jews of Mitteleuropa.

When the Soviet troops finally arrived, they shuddered with horror at what they discovered. They handed out everything they were carrying: bread, sausage, tobacco, rum. Comrade Tatyana, a white-haired nurse, brought Debreczeni back to health with puddings and medicines. After the war he returned home to Yugoslavia and resumed his career as a writer for Hungarian newspapers.

Cold Crematorium was published in Hungarian in 1950 in Yugoslavia, then translated into Serbian. But the book was a double victim of the Cold War. The emphasis on Jews as the primary victims of the Nazis did not fit the orthodox Communist narrative. Western publishers shied away from its portrayal of the Soviets as liberators of the camps. So it was largely forgotten for years, until Debreczeni’s nephew recently arranged for it to be translated. He chose well. Paul Olchváry, an award-winning and highly accomplished translator of Hungarian literature, has rendered Debreczeni’s prose into a literary diamond — sharp-edged and crystal clear. Like the works of Primo Levi and Vasily Grossman, this is a haunting chronicle of rare, unsettling power.
Omitting Jewishness from Winton’s story is neither new nor surprising
I made a terrible mistake when I went to see the new film One Life, in which Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn portray the British stockbroker Nicholas Winton and retell the story of how he saved 669 children from the Nazis in Prague in 1939. Stupidly I forgot to make sure I had a handkerchief easily accessible.

As a result I spent much of the film wiping away tears with my sleeve. When the film ended and my husband asked ‘What did you think?’ I was literally speechless with emotion, gulping back the sobs before managing to yelp,“very good,” words that felt quite inadequate given the strong feelings the movie had evoked.

On the one hand the film is an unashamed tear-jerker, much like the episodes of That’s Life which introduced Nicholas Winton’s story to the British public in the 1980s — scenes that lose none of their power when recreated. On the other hand, it manages to convey a great many complex things with commendable understatement, including the question of whether Nicholas Winton himself was Jewish. Born to a German Jewish émigré family, he was baptised into the Church of England as part of a protective assimilation process. “Does that make me a Christian or a Jew?” he asks a rabbi in Prague in the film, hoping to be trusted with a list of vulnerable Jewish children to be helped with visas and the chance of an escape.

“A Jew,” replies the rabbi, handing over the list.

One thing bothered me though, watching the story unfold. Did the Wintons not approach the Jewish community in their heroic quest to find sponsors and foster homes for the children? Back at the office, I consulted the JC archive. The search engine is not always 100 per cent accurate. But I could find no trace of any appeals or letters in our columns from 1939.

The publicity for the film was criticised this week for “erasing” the Jewishness of the children that were saved, by referring to them as Central European refugees rather than Jewish ones. It is not a mistake made in the film itself, where one of the most chilling scenes comes when Nazis enter a train full of terrified children as it travels through Germany. They burst into mocking laughter at the very idea of importing Jews to one’s land.

Although the omission in the press release was undoubtedly unfortunate, in some ways it reflects the experience of Nicholas Winton himself, and many of the children he saved as well as others who arrived on the Kindertransport from Germany and Austria. For many of them the question of identity, the rift between their Jewish childhood and their non-Jewish foster homes meant they were never quite certain where they stood. For some it was not enough to escape from the Nazis, they felt the need to future-proof themselves by escaping from Jewishness.
Fury after Holocaust movie marketing erases Jews
Marketing of a Holocaust movie speaks to the erasure of Jews within their own narrative in Hollywood. Filmmaker, Director and Activist Yuval David tells i24NEWS.


Turkey needs accountability for Jewish persecution
UNTIL RECENT tensions under the Islamic fundamentalist Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to light, Jews in modern Turkey have not attracted much attention when compared to their treatment in Arab states.

But while Arab states criminalized Zionism in 1948, Turkey had already declared Zionism illegal in 1934. While Arab states like Iraq banned Jews from public service in the 1940s, Turkey had already imposed a ban in the 1930s. Whereas Egypt and other Arab League countries

introduced an Arabization company law that decreed that 75% of company staff must be Muslim in 1947, Turkey had insisted that non-Muslims be fired from companies as early as 1923. Those despoiled of their property by the Varlik Vergisi were never compensated.

Jews in Arab countries suffered riots in the 1940s, but these were foreshadowed by the Thrace riots of 1934 when the Turkish state forcibly evicted 10,000 Jews. And during the relatively benign postwar years, the 1955 riots erupted against the Greek minority: 30 died while the police stood by. Thousands more Jews were prompted to leave.

As with Arab nationalism, xenophobic Turkish nationalism exacted a fearsome price from its minorities. Why has Turkey never been held accountable for its persecution and dispossession of Jews?

There are several reasons for this.

In spite of popular pro-Nazi feeling, Turkey was neutral during WWII and some of its diplomats even saved Jews. In 1949, Turkey established diplomatic relations with Israel and placed itself firmly in the postwar US sphere of influence. As Bigio puts it, American Jewish organizations did not want to trouble the new diplomatic relationship on behalf of the Varlik Vergisi victims.

In this excellent, eye-opening, and very readable work, Anthony Gad Bigio has cast a spotlight on a little-known tragedy. Gad’s story is one of betrayal by the Turkish Republic, but it is ultimately a vindication of Zionism.
‘I’m afraid every day for my children’: As antisemitism soars, French Jews flee to Israel
Freddo Pachter says that in his 17 years coordinating the immigration of French speakers to Israel, he has never seen such high demand — and that includes after events such as the Hyper Cacher supermarket terror attack, the jihadist murders by Mohammed Merah, and the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

The number of requests from French Jews has continued to rise since October 7, reflecting the climate of fear, says Pachter, who started working for the Aliyah and Integration Ministry in 2007 and now directs the Lekh-Lekha program for the organization Israel is Forever, which provides advice and assistance for French-speaking immigrants to Israel.

“Some people tell me that they are afraid of being in France because they are Jewish, and they took down their mezuzahs,” Pachter says, referring to the parchment scrolls affixed to the doorposts of many Jewish homes. “It’s unbearable to live like that, to hide any sign of Judaism when no one is ashamed to say that they are Christian or Muslim.”

On October 7, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the border with Israel under the cover of heavy rocket fire, brutally murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 240 more to the Gaza Strip, where 132 are still being held — not all of them alive. In the wake of the massacre, Israel launched an ongoing military campaign aimed at retrieving the hostages and ousting Hamas from power in the Strip.

The onslaught also set off a violent wave of anti-Israel activity around the globe, with Jews spanning the Diaspora reporting an alarming rise in antisemitic hate crimes often accompanied by anti-Israel messages.

In December, several events were organized in France aimed at providing information and advice for those who wish to relocate to Israel. Gatherings in Paris, Marseille and Lyon each drew hundreds of attendees, some of whom had to travel to get there.


Islamic preacher claims Zionists are plotting to ‘control the world’
An Islamic preacher has been accused of using anti-Semitic tropes in a London mosque by claiming Zionists are plotting to “control the world” by manipulating banks, media organisations and regimes, The Telegraph can reveal.

Sheikh Babikir Ahmed Babikir said that any Muslim who opposed Hamas was a “hypocrite” and compared the proscribed terrorist organisation with Nelson Mandela.

He made the comments at the Mosque and Islamic Centre of Brent – a registered charity in north London.

The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case following the revelations.

The sermons took place in November and December, with videos uploaded to Mr Babikir’s YouTube account.

In a talk on Dec 30, he said that Zionists were in league with the Dajjal – an evil false prophet in Islamic theology comparable to the Antichrist.

He said: “Zionism is like a political party, preparing for the Dajjal to come to rule the world, and their main function is to make sure that all the organs of states across the world and the national and international bodies will be in their hold.

“They hold the media, they hold all the financial institutions, they control a lot of the political regimes around the world and once they have that they will try to control the world.”

In a speech on Dec 8, he said Zionists were bribing UK politicians down to “small town” mayors to “use their false narrative and fabricated stories to push their agenda”.

On Nov 11, he labelled Zionists as “soldiers of the devil”.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust said: “Conspiracy theories about ‘Zionists’ supposedly controlling the media, politics and finance come directly from the long history of anti-Jewish stereotypes, and cloaking them in anti-Israel language does not change their anti-Semitic character.”
Three Israeli groups nominated for Nobel Peace prize amid Hamas war
An environmental peacebuilding organization founded by an Israeli has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, also known as the Free University of Amsterdam.

In addition, two sister peace movements – one Palestinian and one Israeli – were nominated for the prize.

EcoPeace Middle East, founded nearly 30 years ago by climate activist Gidon Bromberg, was recently informed of its nomination. The organization has offices in Tel Aviv, Amman, and Ramallah, each manned by a co-director and staff.

"The recognition is important as it highlights from the bottom up that organizations are leading together across the political divide practical solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict," Bromberg told The Jerusalem Post. "We are honored that the three decades of environmental peacebuilding work of EcoPeace is being recognized for this most prestigious prize."

Shortly before the October 7 Hamas massacre, Bromberg was interviewed by the Post. He said he believed Israel could build trust with its neighbors through environmental cooperation.

"When people see that this cooperation is improving their livelihoods, that builds trust," Bromberg said. "One of the most significant challenges of peace in the region is the other side's lack of trust."

Last week, he posted about the Nobel Prize nomination on his LinkedIn page. He said, "Despite the impossible situation, we are proud of our achievements, and while we recognize the road to sustainable peace is not a straight path, we will remain steadfast in our pursuit of a more peaceful future based on the principles of justice, freedom, respect to human rights and a mutual understanding of our shared environment."

Women Wage Peace (WWP) and Women of the Sun (WOS) are the sister peace organizations that also received a nomination from the Free University.

WWP is the most significant grassroots peace movement in Israel. WOS is a Palestinian women's peace movement established in 2021.

In 2016, WWP launched its first "March of Hope," in which 30,000 women, men, and children – including 3,000 Palestinian women from the West Bank – walked for peace or participated in solidarity events. Since then, they spearheaded the signing of "The Mothers' Call" – a document outlining a shared vision for peace between the Palestinians and Israelis – signed by women on both sides.

WWP volunteer Neta Heiman Mina said the call "was based on the notion that women worldwide only want one thing: that their children should be raised in peace and quiet."

The Nobel Prize nomination comes after one of WWP's first members, Vivian Silver, was burnt to death in her home in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.




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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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