Monday, February 19, 2024

02/19 Links Pt2: The Moral Bankruptcy of the West: Accepting Terrorist Propaganda as Truth; The deliberate lies in the Washington Post; Edward Said - Merchant of Lies

From Ian:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Islamism is exploiting Britain’s political vacuum
When observing this downward spiral, it’s fashionable to blame America; it is, after all, the nation that birthed the mantra of multiculturalism. But if America created the seeds of today’s chaos, the European climate allowed it to blossom. It is no coincidence that the European surge in Islamism came just as the continent’s dechristianisation began to take hold. This surging fanaticism was met with a spiritual vacuum — and therefore thrived.

Faced with the arrival of a new community with such a strong belief system, Europe’s political elites sought refuge in the soft bigotry of low expectations. Denying them agency, we shrouded Muslim immigrants in a rhetoric of victimhood. A set of false assumptions were developed to characterise them as a casualty of exclusion and discrimination. It became just another form of “common sense”.

After 2001, when Jihadi terrorism started to take place in Europe, and survey after survey showed that most Muslims quietly supported the belief system that justified the terrorists’ activities, European leaders doubled down on those assumptions. Rules were relaxed, standards were lowered, and excuses were made whenever their estrangement tipped over into violence.

Meanwhile, the phenomenon of data manipulation became the political norm. Academics and think-tankers lined up to produce reassuring outcomes on paper that refused to acknowledge the rising tide of Islamisation, either by ignoring it completely or downplaying the number of Muslim migrants. The establishment of Sharia tribunals was barely registered, while we were told the construction of gigantic Mosques, madrassas, and Islamic centres were led and manned by moderate Muslims. Those brave enough to still speak out — for example over grooming gangs — were silenced or expelled.

This is the backdrop to the rise of Islamist attacks in Europe and the West, but it is also the cause of today’s political crisis in Britain. Across the country — from Rochdale to Tower Hamlets, Salisbury to Manchester — we are starting to witness what happens when Islamism is given licence to flourish. Many were fooled into thinking that 2024 would be a “boring year” for Britain: that, after the turbulence of the Tories, the reign of Starmer would, at worst, be benignly insipid.

But this was always a fantasy. Starmer, like so many of his predecessors and counterparts in Europe, is simply focused on the short-term goal of winning the general election. And, again like so many of them, he now finds himself wrestling with a Muslim base that will require compromise if he’s to win their vote: only yesterday, he called for a “ceasefire that lasts” in Gaza, without explaining how that might come about. It is, in other words, increasingly starting to feel like 2005 redux: a replay of the VVD’s electoral conundrum, and an allegedly “common-sense” response that inevitably backfires.

It’s hard not to conclude that this is the “new Britain” promised by its next Prime Minister, where scenes like those we have witnessed in Rochdale become repeated over and over again. This is, after all, what happens when a nation’s foundational principles are eroded — and when, faced with a moral and political vacuum, Islamism is the only potent force in town.
The Moral Bankruptcy of the West: Accepting Terrorist Propaganda as Truth
The U.S., UK and Europe all are warning Israel not to go into Rafah, even though Israeli hostages were rescued there last week - and despite knowing that destroying the Hamas infrastructure there is key to ensuring that it will not be able to rebuild. Instead of asking why two Israelis were being held in Rafah, the media was more focused on claims by a terrorist organization that people had been killed during the rescue operation.

The Western media continue to lap up the falsehoods and fabrications that Hamas regularly spins. This is evidence of moral bankruptcy. There is something seriously wrong when people are willing to accept lies by a murderous terrorist group over claims made by a democratic, liberal, progressive country. How does it make sense that people think it's normal for hostages to be held against their will and that a country shouldn't do what is necessary to get its people back?

Most of the condemnations today come from the U.S., the UK and Europe. They don't come from Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, or Saudi Arabia. Why do you think that is? The answer is that these Arab countries want Israel to succeed in removing Hamas, while the other countries appear to want Israel to fail.

While I don't expect the world to stand on the sidelines and applaud the IDF, we should be able to expect some semblance of integrity. Sadly, there isn't, and Western media, thinkers, and politicians continue to accept Hamas propaganda as the truth. It's an incredible double standard soaked in a deep undercurrent of antisemitism.
Jonathan Freedland: Those Who Attack Jews in the UK Are Behaving as Antisemites Always Have
Many Jews in Britain can hardly bear to hear the news, not least because they're in it so often. 2023 saw more than 4,100 episodes of anti-Jewish hate across the country, most of which came after Oct. 7. Some of the incidents involved knives, others saw Jews struck with metal bars. Some victims were punched or kicked or spat on, others had stones, bricks or bottles thrown at them. Slogans were daubed on walls, windows were smashed. Hundreds of incidents involved children, whether making their way to or from school or inside it.

When some people want to express their apparent anger at Israel's actions, they direct it at Jewish targets. They are holding a British minority responsible for the actions of a foreign government several thousand miles away, a response that does not seem to happen with other distant conflicts: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian Orthodox churches in Britain did not brace themselves for attack.

The biggest surge in anti-Jewish activity came immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Israelis were still counting their dead and missing and had scarcely responded at all. This indicates that it was in celebration of Hamas' attack, rather than anger towards Israel's military response in Gaza.

Most Jews feel bound up with Israel. They are deeply connected to it. Given the central place of the Land of Israel in Judaism's holiest texts, as ancient as the Jewish people itself, it could hardly be any other way. They recognize that Israel is the world's largest Jewish community, the world's only Jewish country. More deeply, they hold to the idea that after two millennia of endless and deadly persecution, the Jewish people need one place, a haven, where they can govern and defend themselves.

When British Jews are attacked, their attackers are not striking a blow for the Palestinians. They are placing themselves alongside the antisemites and racists who have always treated Jews this way, reminding Jews why they needed a refuge in the first place - and why they need it still.


David Collier: The deliberate lies in the Washington Post
The Washington Post published an article profiling seven journalists killed in Gaza. The research below suggests it was a deliberate attempt to deceive. The Washington Post report

The Washington Post report covers the deaths of ‘journalists’ in Gaza. Using the list of names provided by ‘the Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ), the Post describes the Gazan journalists as brave heroes who paid the ultimate price just for trying to tell the world the truth.

The article implied that not only was Israeli deliberately killing journalists, but that Israel also targeted some journalist’s families to make sure there would be no witnesses.

In many ways the piece is typical of the junk that much of western media is producing; a transparent attempt to delegitimise Israel by twisting facts and removing context. The end result is little more than a pro-Hamas propaganda item. .....
We can therefore dismiss the possibility that the seven profiles were chosen at random. This means that someone carefully selected which ones to profile. In doing so – they must have found many unsuitable candidates because of their ties to terrorism or visible extremism. They cannot reference a journalist’s Facebook page if it is full of the glorification of those who slaughter Jews.

To find their lucky seven, whoever put this report together must have realised that many of the names included in the CPJ list work for terrorist groups or publicly support terrorist violence against civilians. Yet they still chose to go ahead and present a completely fictional tale – falsely presenting them all as heroes and the seven chosen profiles as if they were fairly representative of the whole.

The Washington Post article
does not mention that many (50%) of the journalists work for Hamas / Islamic Jihad
does not mention that 75%+ of the journalists openly supported the slaughter of Israeli civilians
does not mention that many of the journalists (20%+) were not journalists at all

And yet this must have been known (or heavily suspected) by whoever did the Washington Post research.

Right to reply
An email was sent to the three journalists (Ellen Francis, Artur Galocha and Joe Snell) attached to the report:

My questions:
Did the CPJ do all the legwork here – did you basically just run an advert for them.
How did you fail to see that many of the journalists either work for terrorist organisations or support the slaughter of civilians
Given you must have seen the to research the article, how on earth have you ended up suggesting 80+ journalists have been killed?

I received no response at all to the questions.

The Washinton Post motto reads ‘democracy dies in darkness’. They are right, democracy does die in darkness – and they are some of those helping to kill it.
Edward Said - Merchant of Lies
Writing in The Guardian on February 15, one Moustafa Bayoumi said that Israel’s current actions in Gaza are so “evil” that many observers just aren’t sure how to react. So what are they doing? According to Bayoumi, they’re turning to the late Edward Said (1935-2003), a Palestinian propagandist who was a professor at Columbia University for forty years, “as their guide.”

Who was Edward Said? He was one of the leading founders of postcolonial studies, an academic discipline which, simply put, seeks to discredit Western scholars’ writings about non-Western societies – because they’re tainted by racism and imperialism, naturally – and to blame the failings of those non-Western societies, whatever they may be, on the malevolent Western powers that once upon a time so cruelly colonized them. The goal of all this was simple: to demonize the West – and exalt the rest.

Said, author of Orientalism (1978), never saw a non-Western society whose worst attributes he couldn’t excuse, lie about, or ignore. But, as the son of a Palestinian Christian father and a Lebanese Christian mother, he was especially preoccupied with Arabs and Islam. For many years Said, who identified as a Palestinian-American, even claimed – in numerous essays, interviews, reference books, and a BBC documentary – to have been brought up in Jerusalem and fled from there to Cairo with his family when he was twelve; in fact, as a 1999 Commentary article by Justus Reid Weiner revealed, Said was raised in Cairo and only spent brief periods in Jerusalem.

Indeed, the Jerusalem house in which he claimed to have grown up, and in which “the great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber lived” after the Saids were supposedly forced to leave for Cairo (“Buber of course was a great apostle of coexistence between Arabs and Jews, but he didn’t mind living in an Arab house whose inhabitants had been displaced”), belonged in fact to Said’s aunt – and it was she who evicted the Bubers, not the other way around. Far from being a poor child refugee, Said was the son of a rich Cairo businessman who sent him to an elite prep school in Massachusetts and then to Princeton and Harvard.

Weiner wasn’t alone in exposing Said’s deceptions. In a 1982 article for the New York Review of Books, Bernard Lewis, the longtime dean of Islamic Studies, punched innumerable holes in Said’s arguments. Orientalism, Said contended, was principally a project of former imperial powers – Britain and France. In fact, Lewis pointed out, the historical study of Arabic and other Eastern cultures originally “had its main centers in Germany and neighboring countries,” none of which had ever been colonial powers in north Africa or south Asia. Lewis proceeded to make a devastating case that Said, in his treatments of Islam and of Western coverage thereof, exhibited a “disdain of facts” and betrayed “surprising gaps” in his knowledge of Islam and Arabic.
No, Jenny Leong, There is No ‘Occupation’ of Gaza
The far-left everywhere has embraced the malevolent fiction that Israel is a “colonial-settler apartheid state” and the Israelis are guilty of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” For these leftists, Zionism has replaced “capitalism” as the main enemy; “Jews” are again the all-powerful financiers they were in the time of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and must be exposed and marginalized. Who are these far-left anti-Israel and antisemitic politicians? They include, among others, the following: the former head of the Labour Party (he has since been expelled), Jeremy Corbyn, who has called the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah “my friends,” and attended a ceremony at a cemetery in Tunisia honoring terrorists who committed the murders of Israeli athletes in Munich; the leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who in 2019 vowed never to accede to the “arrogant dictates” of CRIF, the umbrella of French-Jewish communities. In 2014, Mélenchon defended Arabs who stormed and torched synagogues in France and denounced Jewish supporters of Israel as “citizens who decided to rally in front of the embassy of a foreign country [Israel] or serve its flag, weapon in hand.” Another is Pablo Iglesias, leader of the Podemos Party in Spain, who has called Israel an “illegal country” and hosted a talk show with antisemitic content that aired on an Iranian-funded TV station. In Italy, several members of the left-wing Partito Democratico have denounced Israel. One of that party’s leaders denied that Israel “exists” (meaning: it should not exist); another one posted on social media a claim that Israelis were behaving just as Hitler did in exterminating the Jews, by doing “the same thing” to the Palestinians.

So Jenny Leong, as a member of the far-left Greens Party, in her anti-Israel animus is behaving just as we have all come to expect of leftists worldwide. Today it is parties on the right that are most willing to side with Israel, such as the Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen in France, and the Fratelli d’Italia of Giorgia Meloni in Italy — a complete reversal from the past, when rightists in both countries were the bearers of the anti-Israel standard.. Israel will have to take its supporters where it finds them, and today, that means on the center-right, including those just mentioned in France and Italy, and the Republicans in the U.S., the Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in Canada, and Peter Dutton, of the Liberal Party in Australia. Some in Israel still reflexively worry about right-wing parties; that’s a superannuated prejudice they will have to overcome.
Lord Austin: How I'm being driven out for calling Hamas 'Islamist murderers'
Housing has long been an issue close to my heart. Back in 1989, I started work at COPEC, a housing charity in Birmingham. And later I served as Labour's housing minister when we made massive progress in tackling rough sleeping.

I was therefore delighted last year to be appointed to chair Midland Heart, one of the country's leading housing associations.

In the intervening months, I have worked hard to support the organisation and so I was, naturally, shocked to learn on Friday that I had been suspended and now face being driven out permanently after a campaign organised by political opponents, extremists and an online mob driven by woke ideology.

What was my offence? I made the mistake of calling Hamas a 'death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists' in a tweet nine days ago [Sat 10 Feb].

The word 'Islamists', it must be noted, refers not to Muslims in general but only to violent religious extremists who espouse a warped form of Islam. The term is used by the government, universities and think tanks.

I have said repeatedly that the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and extremism as anyone else, but political opponents and extremists have nonetheless accused me of 'Islamophobia'.

Their campaign has led to a torrent of abuse and even threats. That's water off a duck's back to me, but Midland Heart received many such messages too.

On Wednesday, I deleted the tweet to avoid further harassment of their staff but did not apologise as I had done nothing wrong and stand by my description of Hamas.

But this was not enough for the Midland Heart board, which met without me, decided my position was untenable and then announced I had been suspended.

I am so grateful to Housing Secretary Michael Gove and so many others for speaking up in my support.

Like me and, no doubt, the public in general, they are aghast to see extremists and the hard-Left hounding people out of their jobs.

It's worth looking at who has been behind the campaign to oust me.
Experienced Eurovision judge rejected from pre-Eurovision contest due to Israeli citizenship
Israeli Eurovision expert Alon Amir was scheduled to judge the Estonian pre-Eurovision song contest on Saturday, but ten days before the contest, he received news that he would no longer act as a judge due to being Israeli.

Amir has served as the spokesperson for the Israeli delegations in 2009, 2012, 2013, and 2016, as well as serving in similar positions for foreign delegations as well. He has also judged several Eurovision preliminaries and written books on the storied contest.

He received an invitation to judge the final of the Estonian pre-Eurovision competition three weeks ago, but then received the phone call rescinding the offer. According to Estonian TV networks, the reason for the cancelation was the imposition of a veto on everything related to the State of Israel during this sensitive time, with networks not interested in receiving negative attention.

Amir's statement in response
In an interview with Mako, Amir stated, “It was done not in a malicious way; I understand them [...] If they bring an Israeli judge, it will cause a mess.”

In a post published on Amir’s Facebook page, he wrote: "When I received the invitation, I thought to myself that they were very brave to invite an Israeli at a time like this... The lovely production team wanted me, but the Estonian TV management vetoed it because it would bring unwanted attention in their direction." In a conversation with Mako, he emphasizes: "I understand them. I'm upset on a personal level, but I understand the desire to avoid it."
Echoes of Yesterday, Visions of Tomorrow
Last Friday, as I was preparing for Shabbos, I heard unusual sounds outside my home. Curious about the commotion, I peered out the window and, to my surprise, witnessed a pro-Palestinian parade marching down my otherwise quiet and unremarkable street. Chanting anti-American and anti-Israel slogans, it felt as though I was observing this from a distance, like watching a movie set in a time and place far removed from my own. The images and sounds seemed eerily familiar, not because I had witnessed them outside my home before, but because they were reminiscent of moments in my people’s past. And here I was, watching it unfold in real-time.

In 1903, Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk (1843–1926), published his novella on the Torah, known as Meshech Chochma. In this work, Rav Meir Simcha outlines a cycle of Jewish history that repeats approximately every 100 to 200 years, characterized by a pattern of migration, settlement, assimilation, and eventual exile. Initially, Jewish refugees arrive in a new country, establishing communities, and focusing on both material and spiritual development. This successful integration leads to a sense of belonging within the host country, but eventually, this sense of security is disrupted by rising hostility, culminating in a crisis that forces the community to seek a new refuge, thus restarting the cycle.

This cyclical pattern serves a purpose; it is a means to maintain the Jewish people’s connection to Hashem and to propel them toward their ultimate destiny, highlighting the challenges of maintaining a distinct cultural and spiritual identity in the face of assimilation pressures and the ever-present potential for redemption.

Rav Meir Simcha noted the deep sense of comfort and belonging many European Jews felt in their adopted countries, with some in Berlin even likening their city to Jerusalem, suggesting they viewed it as their ultimate home. This sentiment, expressed in a time of relative peace, carries a poignant foresight, given the tragic events that unfolded in the decades following 1903. Rav Meir Simcha’s reflections serve as a somber reminder of the unpredictable tides of history, echoing through time and foreshadowing future challenges.


Conference in Istanbul features Hamas, PIJ leaders, antisemitic authors, Neturei Karta
A conference titled “Freedom for Palestine” was hosted last month in Istanbul, hosted by the Al-Quds International Institute (QII), a designated organization fundraising for Hamas; the International Union of Muslim Scholars described as “the supreme authority of the Muslim Brotherhood,” and reportedly also the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue.

This is in addition to other religious organizations and political parties, including the South African branch of QII. One of the conference’s stated goals was to work to raise again the incriminating accusation that Zionism is a racist ideology similar to the 1975 UN resolution 3379 rebuked in 1991.

Speakers at the event included Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh (through a video call), Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Basem Naim; Mohammad al-Hindi, No.2 at the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group; Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela; Sheikh Tareq Al-Suweidan, a notorious Kuwaiti cleric and author of a blatantly antisemitic book titled The Jews: The Illustrated Encyclopedia; Turkish and Brazilian parliament members; and others.

The conference also saw screenings of videos distributed by the Hamas militia, Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, showing the targeting of Israeli soldiers in Gaza by gunmen, as well as interactive exhibitions supposedly depicting life in Gaza.

A key speaker at the event was Sheikh Hamid Al-Ahmar, an affluent Yemeni businessman who heads the organizing party, the Al-Quds International Institute, an organization sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury in 2012 for being founded by Hamas members as a proxy to raise funds for the terror group under a charity guise, and outlawed by Israel in 2009 for similar reasons.

In his speech, Al-Ahmar praised the “Flood of al-Aqsa,” the name Hamas chose for the their October 7th massacre, called to “support the resistance in all forms,” and to reject any attempts to demonize it as terror. He also warned of the dangers posed by Israel on “the Arab and Islamic nations and all of the freemen of the world,” lauding South Africa for its role at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and calling on the al-Sisi regime to open the border crossings with Gaza.
Israel declares Brazil’s Lula persona non grata for comparing Gaza war to Holocaust
Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva persona non grata on Monday over his comparison of Israel’s war against Hamas to the Holocaust.

Standing at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Katz, the son of Holocaust survivors, told Brazil’s Ambassador Federico Mayer that Israel “will not forget and we will not forgive.”

“In my name, and in the name of all Israeli citizens,” said Katz, “tell President Lula that he is persona non grata in Israel until he retracts his statements.”

“I brought you to a place that testifies more than anything else to what the Nazis and Hitler did to the Jews, including members of my family,” he continued. “The comparison between Israel’s just war against Hamas and the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis is a disgrace and a severe antisemitic attack.”

Unusually for a diplomatic reprimand, the two also toured Yad Vashem together, and Katz showed Mayer the names of his grandparents who were killed in the Holocaust in the Book of Names.

“It seems like he internalized the message,” an Israeli official who was present told The Times of Israel. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a press conference in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2024. (Ricardo STUCKERT / Brazilian Presidency / AFP)

“What’s happening in the Gaza Strip isn’t a war, it’s a genocide,” Lula told reporters on Sunday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where he was attending an African Union summit.

“It’s not a war of soldiers against soldiers. It’s a war between a highly prepared army and women and children,” the veteran leftist politician falsely said.

Lula went on to assert that “what is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people hasn’t happened at any other moment in history” except one: “When Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
President of the ZOA: Biden Has Never Been A Good Friend to Israel | JNS TV
JNS CEO Alex Traiman sat down with President of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein to discuss President Biden's policy towards Israel during the Gaza War, the push for a Palestinian state and what Netanyahu needs to do to win against Hamas.


Israel’s Democrats Abroad board quits over umbrella group’s hostility
Democrats Abroad Israel’s entire board quit in December over the anti-Israel animus and lack of sympathy displayed by its umbrella organization towards the victims of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

Democrats Aboard is “the official Democratic Party arm for Americans living outside the United States” and boasts 52 country committees across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

In a sharply worded letter, the nine Israeli board members wrote that they made their decision in response to “the hostile environment in Democrats Abroad against Jews in general and … American Jews living in Israel in particular.”

The resignation took place on Dec. 22 but news of it was kept under wraps by the Israel group and the international organization until recently, Haaretz reported on Feb. 15.

The board members said they felt “targeted by antisemitism from people who should be our allies” and that the “terrifying antisemitic backlash” following Oct. 7 “has not bypassed Democrats Abroad’s members.

“The failure of Democrats Abroad’s leadership to distinguish between a terrorist attack on civilians and a sovereign nation’s response to that attack is a major reason behind our decision,” they wrote.

What sparked the dramatic move by the Israeli board was the indifference demonstrated by the international group to what Israelis had endured on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists rampaged through the country’s south indiscriminately slaughtering men, women and children.
Top Biden DOJ prosecutor represented Qatar and foreign banks accused of financing terrorism
The top-ranking Justice Department prosecutor in Washington, D.C., worked on behalf of Qatar and numerous foreign banks that have been accused of bankrolling terrorism, documents show.

As the U.S. attorney in the nation’s capital, Matthew Graves has come under the spotlight for supervising a sprawling investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and faced the wrath of GOP lawmakers for allegedly refusing to partner with federal prosecutor David Weiss on charging Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, in Washington with tax crimes. But before this, Graves was a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper, where he represented controversial Qatari-based entities, including its Hamas-linked government.

These prior foreign clients are listed in financial disclosures filed by Graves with the Office of Government Ethics, along with other then-DLA Piper clients, such as the Coca-Cola Company, Nike, General Electric, and even ex-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. And though the disclosures were filed in 2021, the overseas clients are on the radar of GOP congressional investigators and pro-Israel lawyers, who hold that law enforcement in Washington is not doing enough to thwart violence, including in connection to recent pro-Palestinian protests after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

“Matthew Graves’s ties to the terrorist harboring state of Qatar are disqualifying,” Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer being floated in the inner circle of former President Donald Trump as a potential pick for attorney general, told the Washington Examiner. “This revelation might explain why there have yet to be any charges against the Hamas supporters who terrorized the White House.”

Meanwhile, to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “It is extremely concerning that a Biden DOJ official is closely connected with entities that have funded terrorism.”

“We need a full accounting of his foreign dealings, including any work he has done that has supported the barbaric Hamas terrorists,” Blackburn told the Washington Examiner. “This administration is full of Hamas sympathizers, and they must be rooted out of the federal government.”
Rashida Tlaib urges Democrats to vote against Biden in Michigan primary over Gaza war support
‘Squad’ member Rashida Tlaib publicly encouraged progressives to vote against President Biden in Michigan’s upcoming Democratic primary in protest over his support for Israel’s war on Hamas.

“Right now, we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government. If you want us to be louder, then come here and vote uncommitted,” she said in a video posted by “Listen to Michigan.”

The “Listen to Michigan” campaign is championed by Tlaib’s younger sister Layla Elabed and encourages Democrats to vote uncommitted in the Great Lake State’s upcoming Feb. 27 primary.

Tlaib (D-Mich) is the sole Palestinian American and one of two Muslim women serving in Congress. She has long found herself at odds with Biden and much of the Democratic Party in Congress over the conflict in Israel.

“It is important as you all know to not only march against the genocide, not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local electeds and passing city resolutions all throughout our country,” she added in the video.

“It is also important to create a voting block, something that is a bullhorn to say enough is enough. We don’t want a country that supports wars and bombs.”


Hungary twice blocks EU consensus statement against IDF Rafah offensive
Hungary has twice blocked a European Union consensus statement against the IDF’s pending military operation against Hamas in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, a consensus that called for an “immediate humanitarian pause” to the war, leading to a permanent ceasefire, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

“Hungary stood alone in the EU,” senior diplomatic sources said.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell had twice attempted to issue a consensus statement with the support of all 27 member states of the bloc.

He first tried to issue such a statement on the sideline of the Munich Security Conference in Berlin over the weekend and again during a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

FM Katz asked Hungarian counterpart to help Israel
The Post has learned that Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who was at the Munich Security Conference, had personally called Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and asked that he help Israel block the statement.

According to senior diplomatic sources, Szijjártó then called Katz back to assure him that Hungary had backed Israel, explaining that he had “prevented it.” Katz then updated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The content of the stamens would have been “dramatic” and could have caused “severe damage” by looking to prevent the “option and possibility of [IDF] action in Gaza,” the diplomatic sources said.

The sources added that the EU has been more emboldened to take steps against Israel in light of public US criticism toward Jerusalem.


Labour MP Damien Egan offered extra security
The newly elected Member of Parliament for Kingswood, Damien Egan, has been offered enhanced security protection because protesters have made threats against him and his Israeli husband.

Parliamentary authorities are understood to be holding talks with Egan over his protection, according to The Mail on Sunday.

The new MP overturned a large Tory majority in the Kingswood by-election on Thursday. He appeared at the election count with his husband and since then anti-Israel extremists have subjected the couple to abuse.

The Labour MP converted to Judaism after meeting Israeli Yossi Felberbaum, who was born and raised in Kiryat Yam. Felberbaum served in the IDF and studied at Ben-Gurion University before moving to the UK, where he works as a software engineer at Google. Like most Israelis, Felberbaum completed his required military service, after which he worked for a further spell in the army as a software engineer.

Controversial rapper, Lowkey, took to X (formerly Twitter) where he told his followers: “Israeli soldier Yossi Felberbaum actively recruits for the infamous Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200. It spies on Palestinian electronic communications for the purpose of blackmail and secret evidence. It has been condemned by 43 whistleblowers from within the unit.”

One X user said Egan was: “Another Zionist parachuted into Labour,” and a different tweet read: “This is shocking. The tentacles run deep.”

Another social media user responded: “How are we going to stop this, Lowkey?”


Why does Humza Yousaf speak as if he is a global leader?
It’s said that a good interviewer should be able to predict the answer to any question asked during an interview. That would not have been a difficult task for the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg when at the end of January she asked Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf if he thinks that “sometimes people place a different value on Palestinian or Muslim lives”, as she provided him with the answer in her question.

True to form, Yousaf replied: “Without a shadow of a doubt” and added that, “If you talk to anybody who's Palestinian, you speak to many people in the Muslim community, they feel that Palestinian blood is very cheap.” However the only “people” that may agree with Yousaf are the leaders and terrorists of Hamas who continually use Palestinians as human shields and have been responsible for the high death toll in Gaza since October 7.

So what is it about Humza Yousaf, who is not well known or understood outside Scotland, that causes him to put his foot in his mouth with such frequency?

Could it be frustration that the role of Scottish First Minister does not include foreign affairs - but he sees himself as a world statesman? Could it be because he is desperate to find issues that will provide opportunities for him to point out to the long suffering Scottish electorate that it is Westminster that is stopping Scotland from becoming another economic power house such as Norway?

Unlike the UK government, which is a staunch supporter of the Jewish state, the SNP has for many years been a strong critic of Israel. Since October 7, Yousaf has made numerous statements about the current Gaza war and has taken an unbalanced stance against Israel.

As early as October 10, three days after the massacre and before Israel’s response was underway, Scotland's First Minister was the first Western leader to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas by asking the British government to relay his message.


NGO Monitor: Dutch Court Blindly Adopts NGO Claims on Gaza
On February 12, 2024, the Dutch Court of Appeal ruled that the Netherlands must cease transfer of US-owned F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. The appeal was initiated by four pro-BDS NGOs – Oxfam Novib, PAX, Rights Forum, and Amnesty International – which had sued the Dutch government to stop the transfers and had lost in District Court.

The Court of Appeal relied heavily on information from anti-Israel NGOs and UN bodies in concluding that there is a “clear risk” that transferring this materiel would lead to international law violations. Without any verification or basis, the Court “assumed” that information provided by these actors is “reliable.”

At the same time, in its arguments before the Court, the Dutch government voiced skepticism over the veracity and accuracy of the information presented by the NGOs and UN officials. None of them had the ability to conduct credible investigations of the war in Gaza. They are unable to access Gaza and do not possesses operational and intelligence information to evaluate the legality of Israeli strikes. Given Hamas control of Gaza at the beginning of the war and the chaos afterward, there is no way to credibly assert that a particular attack was not aimed at military targets. In sum, neither the NGOs nor the UN bodies could actually verify the allegations they made to the Court and in their publications.

The government’s observations coincide with NGO Monitor’s findings regarding NGO fact-finding in the context of armed conflict.

Moreover, this ruling is a clear example of harm that is caused by failing to scrutinize the claims made by politicized NGOs advancing an extreme anti-Israel agenda. According to a February 12, government statement announcing its intention to appeal the ruling: “The government will consult with international partners within the F-35 programme very soon in order to secure the Netherlands role’ within the programme. The government will do everything it can to convince allies and partners that the Netherlands remains a reliable partner in the F-35 project and in European and international defence cooperation. That cooperation is important for the Netherlands’ own national security.”


Barak: Hold elections by June to adopt two-state solution
Israel must hold elections by June if Israel is to have a chance to accept the Biden administration’s plan for a post-war Gaza Strip, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak argued on Tuesday in Twitter Space, a forum for live conversations on X.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the U.S. proposal that the Palestinian Authority take over the Gaza Strip, saying he will not “replace Hamastan with Fatahstan“—an interim step leading to a Palestinian state.

Barak, however, views the U.S. proposal favorably, where Gaza would come under the rule of a “revitalized” P.A. with reconstruction efforts aided by moderate Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with NATO countries, all with America’s blessing.

“Israel is urgently required to be prepared at a later stage in this process of bringing the revitalized [Palestinian] Authority to Gaza and entering into a political process, whose goal is ultimately two states,” Barak said.

There’s only a small window of opportunity for Israel to accept the U.S. plan because the American proposal will require the approval of a majority of Congress, meaning some 15 Republican senators would need to support it, Barak said.

“There is no chance that after April or May such a thing could be passed during the American election [campaign], when [Donald] Trump or whoever will run for president. The Republicans will probably say, ‘We are not handing Biden any achievements,'” Barak argued.
Knesset votes against ousting Cassif for support of ICJ ‘genocide’ trial
The Knesset on Monday voted against removing lawmaker Ofer Cassif over his public support for the charges of genocide that South Africa lodged against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

Eighty-five MKs voted to oust Cassif, below the 90 needed in the 120-member legislature.

Last month, lawmaker Oded Forer (Yisrael Beitenu) began the process to impeach Cassif, the lone Jewish member of the majority-Arab Hadash-Ta’al Party, from parliament. The move was announced after Cassif signed a petition in support of the South African case against the Jewish state and claimed that members of the government were calling for ethnic cleansing and even genocide.

“MK Cassif’s treasonous words can no longer be heard while the blood of our soldiers and citizens screams from the ground,” Forer said at the time.

Eighty-five MKs subsequently signed on to the initiative, passing the 70-vote threshold for referral to Knesset House Committee. Once approved there, it went to the plenum for a vote in accordance with a little-known law allowing lawmakers to remove a colleague who expresses “support for an armed struggle by an enemy state, or a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.”

The process to impeach Cassif in this manner was unprecedented in Israeli history.

Three months ago, Cassif was suspended from the Knesset for 45 days for anti-Israel comments he made in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.

The Knesset Ethics Committee based its decision on remarks Cassif made that drew a connection between the Holocaust and “current government policy in times of war.”
‘Dirty Zionist motherf*ckers’: Recordings show threats against UK rabbi after IDF duty
British media has published details on the contents of threats against a Jewish chaplain at the University of Leeds, whose reserve duty in Israel during the war led to intense harassment and forced him and his family into hiding.

The Daily Mail shared select recordings of some of the approximately 300 phone calls and messages that Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch and his wife Nava received, as a result of an organized social media campaign against them.

Local police transferred the family to a safe location after the threats emerged against them, when Deutsch returned from Israel at the beginning of January.

“Tell that Jewish son-of-a-bitch we’re coming for him,” one of the callers told Nava, when she picked up the phone. “We’re coming to his house and we’re going to kill him in his house and you as well you f*cking racist bitch, slag.”

“We are going to get you, we’re going to get your husband and we are going to get you as well, love,” another caller threatened Nava. “It’s as simple as that. How dare you come to Leeds and expect the Muslims not to do ‘owt, when all you lot have been doing is killing innocent children?”

“Us Muslims are coming for you, you dirty Zionist motherf*ckers,” a third caller said.

All the callers spoke with a Yorkshire accent, which is indigenous to Leeds.

The couple were also threatened via text: “Oi, you ugly c*nt,” a 1:30 a.m. message sent to Zecharia read. “Gonna be waiting for you, you daft c*nt. Gonna bend your wife over.”

The Daily Mail said the threats against Deutsch were influenced by a social media campaign led by pro-Palestinian influencers, podcasters, and reporters — including a columnist who writes for The Guardian.

Deutsch, who was called up to reserve duty in the Israel Defense Forces as part of Israel’s war against Hamas, sent a video of himself in uniform during the war to Jewish students, telling them that Israel was fighting an ethical war in order to destroy what he called an evil enemy. The video ended up reaching the hands of Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a Leeds-based columnist for The Guardian, who began an online campaign on November 11, calling for Deutsch’s ouster as chaplain.
BBC News fails to tell all on antisemitism in Leeds
The BBC’s report does not however clarify that the Deutch family had to move to a safe location on police advice. Neither does either of the BBC’s reports inform its funding public which organisations were behind the protests at Leeds University, including one on February 9th.

As reported by the Jewish Chronicle:
“On Friday, a “No War Criminals On Campus” protest was set to be held outside the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff building against the rabbi and his wife.

The Leeds Palestine Solidarity Campaign called for the protest, which was also encouraged by The Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim news blog 5 Pillars.”

The Times of Israel noted that:
“On Friday, students at Leeds University staged a protest in the city calling for Deutsch’s dismissal, which the Daily Mail reported was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Socialist Worker Student Society. A similar protest was held on campus in November.

The Friday protest came after the campaign against Deutsch was picked up by the Muslim Association of Britain, a self-described “grassroots” organization shown by the London-based Jewish Chronicle to have ties to Hamas, which called the rabbi a “war criminal complicit in genocide.””

With protests continuing on the Leeds University campus and additional incidents having taken place, it is clearly high time for BBC Yorkshire to start reporting this story in full, which of course includes informing its audiences of the names of the groups behind the actions so that they can understand the ‘who’ and ‘why’ parts of the story.


UNC Keeps Breaking Legal Obligations with Anti-Israel Events; Will the Legislature or Officials Act?
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has repeatedly abandoned its legal obligation to be institutionally neutral “on the political controversies of the day.”

On Feb. 16, I attended a campus panel titled, “News Media Frameworks for Israel/Palestine” that five UNC departments and institutes sponsored. Only about 25 people attended this overtly anti-Israel event.

All five panelists were well known anti-Israel activists. As I previously reported, four panelists signed a 2021 statement pledging to promote the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel “in the classroom and on campus.” The fifth panelist signed a statement saying, “We acknowledge our complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.” Five UNC administrators from the event’s sponsoring organizations also signed the 2021 statement condemning Israel’s “oppression” of the Palestinian people.

The event began with UNC professor Nadia Yaqub requesting that the audience not record. This was reminiscent of when UNC hosted the notorious 2019 “Conflict Over Gaza” conference, which made international news for featuring an antisemitic rap performance. As I reported at the time, the 2019 UNC audience was also instructed not to record. It was wise that some in attendance ignored this directive, because it was the publication of a recording of the antisemitic performance that forced UNC into a Resolution Agreement with the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Why is UNC — a taxpayer-funded public university — so afraid of having their anti-Israel events recorded?

About 55 seconds into her opening remarks, Yaqub told the audience that Israel is fighting “Palestinian resistance groups.” Not a single panelist spoke up to disagree, and to let the audience know that the United States and many other countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.

During the Feb. 16 UNC event, Israel was accused of targeting Palestinian journalists and the families of journalists. Israel was repeatedly accused of genocide, and accused of having a history of starving Palestinians. This went unchallenged. Hamas’ use of rape as an instrument of war, Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields, and Hamas’ practice of building terror tunnels under and near hospitals and other Palestinian civilian sites were not mentioned a single time.
California teachers caught sharing pro-Hamas propaganda
On campuses, numerous pro-Palestinian groups celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis as an act of “resistance” while blaming Israel for the outbreak of violence. However, it would be a mistake to assume that only institutions of higher education nurture this kind of distorted worldview. A controversy in Oakland shows that teachers are also promoting bigotry in our K-12 schools.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to Oakland Unified School District on Jan. 16 announcing an investigation of alleged discrimination against Jewish students.

The investigation follows the departure of at least 30 Jewish families from the district amid growing concern regarding their children’s safety and the harm inflicted by a hostile learning environment. Investigators asked for a substantive response to 2 1/2 pages of questions by Jan. 31.

OCR will investigate whether the district violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allowing and mishandling an unauthorized Dec. 6 teach-in organized by the Oakland Education Association for Palestine, an activist group within the local teachers union. At least 70 teachers and over 100 students reportedly attended the event during the school day. Following the teach-in, OCR received a complaint alleging teachers taught students that a “free Palestine means the annihilation of Jews.”

The teach-in’s organizers assembled online a cache of recommended classroom materials that provide ample reason for concern. While the pre-K through high school level materials often refer to benevolent themes of peace, family, and home, don’t be fooled. A closer examination reveals an antisemitic disinformation campaign focused on undermining Israel’s right to exist.

Decolonize Palestine, one of the resources recommended for upper grades, presents a variety of so-called “myths” regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Two of the alleged myths are that Israel is a democracy and that Israel has a right to exist. This is deliberate miseducation. The material also frames discussion of the Holocaust as an effort to “transfer Europe’s guilt onto the Palestinians.” The curricula also push the antisemitic slogan “from the river to the sea,” brushes aside any concern that anti-Zionism is rooted in antisemitism, and villainizes Israel by calling it an apartheid state.
Media Distort Israel’s Refusal To Be Bullied Into Rewarding Unrepentant Terrorists
Following indications by the likes of the United Kingdom and France that they could formally recognize a Palestinian state without Israel’s approval, the Israeli government issued a statement in response:
Israel outright rejects international dictates regarding a final status agreement with the Palestinians. The agreement, in so far as it will be reached, will be solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions.

Israel will continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7th massacre would give a huge reward to unprecedented terrorism and prevent any future peace agreement.”

Israel’s message was explicit: it will not stand back and allow the perpetrators of the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians to be rewarded with what effectively amounts to legitimacy.

What Israel’s statement about unilateral recognition did not do, was oppose Palestinian statehood in general. That is, Israel did not outright reject the idea that a Palestinian state could be formed as part of a larger peace agreement.

Why, then, did some media outlets distort the contents of Sunday’s announcement to suggest that Israel had said it would refuse to accept a two-state solution to the conflict?

The Telegraph, for example, characterized Israel’s position as Israel declining outright the possibility of two states existing side by side in a misleading headline that also hinted at Israeli aggression by linking the supposed rejection to a ground offensive in Rafah.
When UPI and the Hamas Press Office Are Indistinguishable
It’s not often that a mainstream media outlet publishes a piece so full of disinformation that it ridicules itself as a credible news source.

But that’s exactly what UPI did in a piece whose blatant anti-Israeli, pro-terror stance puts the American news agency on a par with the worst propaganda platforms distributing fake news against the Jewish state.

What should have been a short reportage on comments made by Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar, has been turned by UPI’s Adam Schrader into a glorifying bio of the Gaza terrorist.

It starts with the terminology.

According to UPI, Sinwar — a mass murderer and the mastermind behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel — is a “Palestinian militia” leader who had been arrested in Israel “for supporting a free Palestine.”


BBC boss acknowledges ‘some antisemitic behaviour’ at corporation
BBC boss Tim Davie has acknowledged that the corporation has had a problem with “some antisemitic behaviour” – but Jewish staff are unsure the admission will make any difference.

In an email sent to all staff on Friday, Director General Davie wrote: “As an organisation, we must stand united against any form of abuse, prejudice or intolerance.

"As many of you may have seen, sadly in recent weeks we have been alerted to some antisemitic behaviour by people who worked with us.”

Davie was alluding to Dawn Queva, a former BBC programmer and scheduler who spouted vile antisemitism on social media, and Apprentice contestant Asif Munaf, who called Zionism a “godless, satanic cult”. Both Queva and Munaf were dropped by the BBC.

Davie added: “I want to be clear that there can be no place at the BBC for racist abuse of any kind, whether towards our Jewish colleagues or indeed colleagues from any background or belief.

"Any form of antisemitism, Islamophobia or racist abuse is abhorrent, and we will always act whenever it occurs. We must play our role to build understanding and tolerance.

“When we come to work at the BBC, each of us brings our different experiences, beliefs and perspectives. This is our strength, and that diversity of views is critical to a creative organisation that serves the public. Together, we have an incredibly powerful opportunity and role to help bring people together at a time of polarisation and division.”
‘BBC’ edits out antisemitic ‘Apprentice’ contestant’s scenes
The BBC is facing backlash after it was revealed that scenes featuring controversial “Apprentice” contestant Asif Munaf would be cut from its companion show, “You’re Fired,” due to allegations of antisemitic tweets.

Despite the scenes being recorded over the weekend, they will not be aired, following pressure from Jewish staffers and advocacy groups. Munaf, a medical doctor who had previously undergone diversity training after making antisemitic remarks on social media, faced criticism for posts referring to Zionists as a “godless satanic cult” and mentioning the “trial of the Zionist antichrist.”

Speaking to Deadline magazine, BBC insiders expressed shock at the decision to record scenes with Munaf, especially given his history of controversial remarks. A BBC source indicated that Munaf would not have been included in the show had his antisemitic posts been known prior to filming.

Although the BBC confirmed Munaf’s exclusion from future content related to “The Apprentice,” Jewish staffers remain disheartened by the situation. Some expressed frustration with BBC content boss Charlotte Moore’s management of the matter, questioning her effectiveness as the BBC board’ antisemitism representative.

Danny Cohen, former BBC programming head, advised against dictating to Jewish employees what constitutes antisemitism and criticized the BBC’s decision to feature Munaf despite his racist views.

“I would advise BBC managers to stop telling Jewish employees what is and isn’t antisemitism,” Cohen stated. “This simply would not happen if the issue involved racism against any other minority community.”

Jewish groups, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, condemned the BBC’s actions and urged the network to cease platforming Munaf and issue an apology for mishandling the situation.


BBC NEWS COVERAGE OF TERRORISM IN ISRAEL – JANUARY 2024
The Israel Security Agency’s report on terror attacks during January 2024 shows that throughout the month a total of 515 incidents took place in Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and within the ‘green line’. The agency recorded 79 attacks with petrol bombs, 61 attacks using pipe bombs, 337 incidents of rock throwing,14 shooting attacks, 19 arson attacks, two stabbing attacks and three vehicular attacks.

In Judea & Samaria,139 significant attacks were thwarted throughout the month.

In addition, 357 missiles were launched into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip and 334 missiles were launched from Lebanon or Syria. (The ISA report does not include casualties from attacks related to Operation Swords of Iron.)

Four people were killed and 41 were injured in attacks in Judea & Samaria, Jerusalem and inside the ‘green line’ during January.

One member of the security forces was killed and three injured in a roadside bomb attack during a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin on January 7th. The BBC News website did not produce any stand alone reporting on that incident at the time but it was mentioned in a report by Lucy Williamson published ten days later:


Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas: Palestinian Civilians Are Also Terrorists
When Hamas decided to drag the entire population of the Gaza Strip into another war with Israel on October 7, it did not care what would happen to Palestinian civilians.

If the hostages were indeed held in an apartment of a Palestinian family, this shows that Hamas has no problem placing Palestinian civilians in harm's way.

Consequently, Hamas has no right to complain about the death of civilians in the war it initiated against Israel while it uses its own people to hold innocent kidnapped Israelis.

Hamas leaders leading lavish lives in Qatar and Lebanon do not care about the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, nor do the leaders of the terrorist organization who are hiding in the vast network of sophisticated tunnels in the Gaza Strip. All they care about is their own survival

"The humanitarian aid is being stolen by those who call themselves resistance fighters. They claim they are defending us, but they are stealing all the aid coming into the Gaza Strip and then they sell it to the people for a very high price." — Palestinian man in Gaza, X (twitter.com), February 16, 2024.

On February 15, sources in the Gaza Strip reported that Hamas terrorists killed Ahmed Abu al-Arja, a Palestinian boy, while he was trying to get food for his family.

[T]he participation of some Palestinian civilians in the October 7 massacre and the kidnapping of Israelis is extremely worrying: it illustrates that a large number of people in the Gaza Strip actually do support Hamas and its terrorism against Israel.
Unwanted Gazans
Strange. Gazan refugees are simply not wanted.

Not by Arab countries. Not by the Europeans. Not welcomed by anyone. Not wanted. Not in small numbers, and definitely not in large ones.

And they want to leave.

Whilst refugees worldwide were relocated by the United Nations, UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees ) was set up to perpetuate those Arabs and generations of their descendants who lost the 1948 war when seven Arab nations attacked Israel. Over the years their leaders banded together to call them all Palestinians from the old Roman name for Israel.

My own mother was a Palestinian being born in Jaffa, Israel. A Jew as were so many Jews born and living there as they did for thousands of years. So much for the falsehood of a Palestinian Arab nation in Israel, one which never existed.

But back to why no nations want to resettle the Gazans. Firstly they understand that almost the whole population voted in Hamas, then rejoiced in the streets when their own people murdered, raped, killed babies and children and more. Hundreds invaded Israel to loot and kill alongside uniformed terrorists. Others spat and cursed as hostages were paraded by them and when some of those hostages were freed.

Would decent people want such immigrants to enter their country?

Secondly the thousands of UNWRA employees have a vested interest to keep their jobs, including the one filmed dumping a murdered Israeli in a car trunk and those who were proven to have participated in the October 7 massacre. If Gazans are resettled their employment would come to an end.
PMW: Report - Terrorists in Uniform: PMW Report documenting PA Security Forces involvement in terror
Fatah: “By day Security Forces, and by night self-sacrificing fighters”

Fatah: “More than 1,500 military operations (i.e., terror attacks) against the Israeli occupation were led by the Fatah Movement members and the [PA] Security Forces members [in 2023]”

PA: “More than roughly 63-65% of the number of Martyrs in the West Bank, in the daily confrontations, are members of the Fatah Movement. And most of them are members of the [PA] Security Forces or their sons”

Fatah: “More than 355 of our Palestinian people’s prisoners inside the prisons are from the Palestinian [PA] Security Forces – in other words, the PA’s soldiers”

PMW: With Fatah and the PA Security Forces so deeply involved in terror in the West Bank, the British and American suggestion of empowering them to rule Gaza after Israel has destroyed the terror infrastructures is inconceivable to Israelis. The military force that rules Gaza after the war cannot be fundamentally involved in terror, or else the entire costly operation to destroy the terror infrastructure will have been in vain.

As Israel's War against Hamas in the Gaza Strip progresses, concerned countries are now discussing who should rule Gaza after Hamas is destroyed. The US, the UK, and several other European countries have suggested that the reins of the Gaza Strip should be handed over to the Palestinian Authority and its Security Forces, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party. This proposal assumes that the PA and its Security Forces are a moderating factor and work to prevent terror.

To challenge this myth, PMW decided to write this report documenting that the PA Security Forces are not only deeply involved in terror but that the PA and Fatah brag about it. This report was presented in the last few weeks to members of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee (the Judea and Samaria subcommittee) of the Knesset and in the British House of Lords to MPs and Lords.

The report exposes the PA Security Forces' involvement in terror in recent years, and documents that far worse than being ineffectual, the PA’s security services have been playing a very active role in terror against Israelis. Both the PA and Fatah not only admit this terror role but regularly and proudly publicize explicit proof of it.
Sister of slain Hamas leader Arouri charged with funneling money to terror group, incitement
A sister of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri, who was allegedly assassinated by Israel in Lebanon last month, is charged in a military court with funneling money to the terror group and incitement.

Dalal al-Arouri, 52, was arrested last month along with her sister Fatima in separate raids in ‘Arura, al-Arouri’s hometown, and al-Bireh, both near Ramallah.

The statement did not say if Fatima was also being charged.

A police statement says she helped transfer money to her brother several times over the past two years and also made several “inciting” statements on October 7, after Hamas carried out its attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people.


Ship reportedly attacked near Yemen; US hits Houthi targets including undersea drone
A UK-registered cargo ship reported coming under attack in the Bab al-Mandab Strait off Yemen on Sunday, the British maritime security firm Ambrey said, while the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported crew abandoning a ship off Yemen after an explosion.

Ambrey said that a Belize-flagged, UK-registered and Lebanese-operated open hatch general cargo ship reported being under attack in Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The ship was heading north during its journey from Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates to Varna, Bulgaria, when the attack occurred, Ambrey said.

“The partially laden vessel briefly slowed from 10 to six knots and deviated course, and contacted the Djiboutian Navy, before returning to her previous course and speed,” it said.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received a report of an incident 35 nautical miles south of Yemen’s Al Mukha, and that an explosion in close proximity to a vessel had resulted in damage, the agency said in an advisory note. It did not identify the ship.

“Military authorities report crew have abandoned the vessel,” UKMTO added in an updated advisory note early on Monday, adding that the vessel was at anchor and all crew were safe.


IAEA chief says Iran's nuclear enrichment activity remains high
Iran continues to enrich uranium well beyond the needs for commercial nuclear use despite UN pressure to stop it, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday, adding he wanted to visit Tehran next month for the first time in a year to end the "drifting apart".

Speaking to Reuters after he briefed EU foreign ministers on the subject, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog said that while the pace of uranium enrichment had slowed slightly since the end of last year, Iran was still enriching at an elevated rate of around 7 kg of uranium per month to 60% purity.

Enrichment to 60% brings uranium close to weapons grade, and is not necessary for commercial use in nuclear power production. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons but no other state has enriched to that level without producing them.

Under a defunct 2015 agreement with world powers, Iran can enrich uranium only to 3.67%. After then-President Donald Trump pulled the US out of that deal in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, Iran breached and moved well beyond the deal's nuclear restrictions.

Between June and November last year, Iran slowed down the enrichment to 3 kg per month, but jumped back up to a rate of 9 kg at the end of the year, the watchdog, known as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), previously reported.

The increase came soon after Tehran barred a third of the IAEA's core inspections team, including the most experienced, from taking part in agreed monitoring of the enrichment process.

"This slowdown, speedup thing is like a cycle that for me does not alter the fundamental trend, which is a trend of constant increase in inventory of highly enriched uranium," said Grossi.


Cambridge Shoah history did a ‘great disservice’ to Sephardi and Mizrahi victims
‘You have done a great disservice to Holocaust scholarship,’ Professor Yitschak Kerem, himself an expert on the impact of the Holocaust on Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, accused the authors, Dan Stone and Mark Roseman. Dan Stone is professor of History at the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway College, part of the University of London.

The project, Professor Kerem charged, was ‘out of step’ with the historiography of the Holocaust, as it affected Sephardim and Mizrahim, since the 1980s.’… ‘ You took a generic Yad Vashem drab approach and did a bit of fine tuning,’ he wrote to the authors in an email.’ It was a lame and ignorant diaspora project for Jews out of the loop.’

Sephardim from the Balkans, Greece and Bulgaria were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices, but the Shoah also affected Jews in North Africa, the Levant and as far afield as Iraq.
Suspect arrested for attack on man leaving Chabad synagogue in Florida
Police in Lauderhill, Fla. arrested a man suspected of beating a 69-year-old Jewish man, who had just departed from synagogue on Shabbat, causing him to bleed from his eyes.

Rabbi Yaniv Moryosef told NBC6 that his father, Asher Moryosef, was left "all swollen, bleeding from his face from his eyes" and that "his eyes were totally red."

The elder Moryosef had just left the Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Fla., in the southeastern part of the state near Miami. NBC reported that the attacker allegedly yelled a "racial slur" at the Jewish victim. (The victim is described as 68 in some news reports.)

Moryosef told the news outlet that a passing Uber driver intervened and told the attacker to stop or he would call the police.

The suspect was named as Trevor Rodney, 42.

"In light of this incident, it is reminded that we continuously strive to encourage a community that retains and promotes improved quality of life, where people of diverse cultural backgrounds peacefully interrelate," the Lauderhill Police Department stated.
Florida police pull over felon transporting Nazi paraphernalia, guns
The Florida Highway Patrol pulled over a man on Feb. 16 who was following a dump truck too closely on the interstate. After searching his vehicle, they arrested Ronald Lee Murray Jr. after discovering a cache of weapons, guns and swastikas.

Murray, 42, of Cypress, Texas, was also charged with driving while his license was suspended or revoked.

Police reported that Murray possessed a long hunting knife, multiple pistols, a black bomber-style jacket with a red swastika patch on the left sleeve, red swastika armbands and a small metallic swastika. Also found was a swastika patch with the phrases, “Our race is our nation” and “Our folk is our faith.”

In 2022, The Houston Press described Murray as a “prominent Houston neo-Nazi” and identified him as participating in a demonstration against a church event supporting LGBTQ individuals. At the protest, he held a sign that read “LGBT is Talmud Jew S***. 6 Genders? … LOL.”

The publication also identified him as being associated with such hate groups as the National Socialist Organization, 14 First the Foundation, National Socialist Movement, White Lives Matter and the Aryan Freedom Network.
Inside the new show exploding myths about Cable Street
Although it has been 88 years since Jews and others took to the streets of the East End to block the march of Oswald Mosley’s fascists, the event that became known as the Battle of Cable Street continues to inspire art beyond the famous mural on the side of the street’s St George’s Town Hall. The latest is a new musical that takes its name from the narrow road that slices east from former site of the Royal Mint near the Tower of London to Limehouse.

Cable Street, which is currently previewing at Southwark Playhouse, focuses on three East End families — Jewish, Irish Catholic and English — whose lives are each affected by the rise of British fascism in different, sometimes conflicting ways.

“There is a young Jewish boxer, Sammy [played by Joshua Ginsburg in his stage debut]; Maired, a young Irish Catholic [Sha Dessy], who is also a member of the Communist Party; and Ron [Danny Colligan], a Lancashire lad who is relatively new to the area and doesn’t fit in terribly well,” explains Alex Kanefsky, who has written the story of the show.

“Ron can’t get any work and as he looks around he sees busy Jews and the Irish working on the docks but there is nothing for him,” continues the writer. “Then the British Union of Fascists turns up. To Ron they look pretty cool with their flashy uniforms, and the girls like them.” By coincidence, Ginsberg has a direct link to the fictional character he is playing in his first show. His great-grandfather Isidor Baum was one of those who fought at Cable Street. Isidor returned home bleeding heavily, though with the taste of victory as well as blood, having stopped the fascists from marching.

“My family connection to the battle is a little more tenuous,’ says Kanefsky. “My grandfather’s brother-in-law had been hit by a police truncheon, which changed his view of the police. And my grandmother on my mother’s side was born in Brick Lane. I have often found myself walking in her footsteps. But actually my interest in the story of Cable Street is from when I was doing some research for A-level history. The topic I chose was the Spanish Civil War and I discovered that many in the British volunteer battalions who went out to fight in Spain had previously fought fascists in the Battle of Cable Street.”




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2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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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