June 2024 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Saturday, June 22, 2024

06/22 Links: It's Springtime for Mahmoud Abbas; Netanyahu is right to reject vassal-state etiquette; The new anti-Israel right’s failure to launch

From Ian:

The world goes mad: Behind society's obsession with Israel

The past eight months have felt absurdly Kafkaesque. Our bizarre and disorienting reality defies any logical explanation. We feel utterly powerless in facing an angry mob which shrieks “Death to the Jews.” The world has gone mad.

That these malicious threats come from our Arab enemies is tragic but understandable. Our enemies in the Arab world have consistently opposed any Jewish presence in Israel. The issue for them isn’t borders, refugees, or the suffering of innocent Palestinians but rather their outright denial of the right of any Jew to breathe air in a sovereign Jewish Israel.

However, what is illogical and even dystopian is the odd coalition forged to support rapists and serial murderers. It is surreal to watch crowds of Asian college students blindly back mass murderers while vilifying the victims of savage brutality. It is appalling to witness African Americans, whose legitimate rights Jews have heroically defended, turn their backs on us while spewing venomous antisemitism. And amid this theater of the absurd, the most farcical scene is that of the LGBT community, known for its policy of unconditional embrace and tolerance, suddenly turn into a hate-filled assembly of bigots.

Why have members of Generation Z lost their minds and their senses? What is causing this wholesale insanity, and what does this say about our own culture?

The age of bewilderment
Often, when humanity experiences sudden and dramatic change, confusion sets in. When the old system is unceremoniously and swiftly swept aside, humanity is plunged into an identity crisis.

Sometimes this leads to healthy progress. The Renaissance period emerged in the aftermath of the black plague of the 14th century which wiped out up to half of the European population. Further cultural disruptions such as the invention of the printing press and the discovery of the New World prompted humanity to rethink its basic assumptions. The ensuing cultural reboot led to the empowerment of man, the unleashing of his human potential, and the dramatic modernization of the human condition.

However, rapid and unpredictable change can also cause cultural anxiety and societal vertigo. Prolonged cultural dizziness doesn’t often end well.

World War I completely washed away the existing world order, obliterating empires and redrawing the maps of Europe. Additionally, the transportation revolution shrank the world, while industrialization relocated populations into crowded cities. Newly discovered scientific theories altered the way we viewed ourselves. Instead of inhabiting a space cut to human size, we were now just an infinitesimally small part of “a billion years and a billion spheres.” Humanity felt incomprehensibly displaced from itself.

As Kafka wrote in his short story “The Hunter Gracchus”: “My ship has no rudder and no compass and no steering wheel; I am driven forward by the wind, which gives me no time to look around, not even a chance to consider where I am going.”

Inter-war Europe didn’t know what to do with itself. Its inner angst metastasized into incoherent rage directed at the perceived cause of this cultural displacement. Jews are always easy targets.

Generation Z is experiencing a similar maelstrom of confusion and anxiety. Like the printing press 700 years ago, the Internet revolution has radically transformed our lives, our communication, and both our communal and personal identity. The development of AI is just as revolutionary as the discovery of the New World and will be just as transformative. The world feels both larger than ever and smaller than ever. Once again, like a century ago, confusion and bewilderment are fueling rage and discontent.

Jonathan Tobin: Netanyahu is right to reject vassal-state etiquette

Pushing back pays dividends
The claim that Netanyahu’s outspokenness is damaging the alliance misses the point. Israel may be an American client state, but given the existential nature of the conflict that was reignited by the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, it simply cannot afford to behave like a docile vassal.

Indeed, if there is anything that Netanyahu has learned in his long tenure as prime minister it is that those who always counsel caution and silence in the face of American betrayal don’t succeed. It is only by speaking up and making Israel’s case to the world, and most specifically, the American people, that it can maintain the alliance.

Obama seethed when in 2011—with him sitting right there—Netanyahu lectured him about the unacceptability of a forced Israeli retreat to the 1967 borders at a public White House media availability a day after that was the substance of a presidential speech. Later, the Obama White House depicted Netanyahu’s 2015 address to a joint meeting of Congress in which he urged Americans to reject the Iran nuclear deal as an unprecedented insult to the United States, the presidency and Obama personally. In both cases, Netanyahu’s behavior was denounced as destructive to the relationship and beyond the pale.

But he was right to understand that talking back to Obama strengthened dissent against policies aimed at undermining Israel and strengthening Iran, both in the United States and abroad.

By demonstrating a willingness to defend Israel’s vital strategic interests, even at the cost of being depicted as an extremist or the dispute being a function of his own partisan interests and personal animus for Obama, Netanyahu achieved real results. Given Obama’s determination to make it his signature foreign-policy accomplishment, he couldn’t stop the Iran deal from being adopted. But his speech emboldened the GOP to move further towards Israel. It also showed the Arab world that while Obama was leaving them to the tender mercies of the terror-funding Shi’ite tyrants of Tehran, they could count on a strong Israel as an ally against it. In retrospect, Netanyahu’s speech must be seen as the first step in developing the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Who is playing politics?
Biden came into office claiming that he would be different from Obama and keep disputes with Israel private. That changed once Netanyahu won the November 2022 Israeli elections and returned to the prime minister’s office. Since then, the hostility that Biden and the rest of the Obama alumni running American foreign policy have for Netanyahu has not been kept under wraps. The administration has not merely undermined the Jewish state but has openly conspired with the Israeli opposition, and even members of the military and intelligence establishment, in an effort to topple Netanyahu’s government both before and after Oct. 7.

At this point, Netanyahu has nothing to lose by not allowing Biden to get away with slowing down the flow of arms to pressure Israel to stand down at its borders on the north and south.

There are plenty of cogent criticisms to be made about Netanyahu, including those involving Oct. 7 happening on his watch and the dysfunctional nature of his governmental coalition. Regardless of how long Netanyahu lasts in office—and right now, it is not the prime minister but Biden who, in appeasing the anti-Israel intersectional left wing of the Democratic Party, is playing politics over the war—or what you think of his character, policies or tactics, he needs to use every form of leverage to counter U.S. pressure that could ensure victories for Hamas and Iran. With so many lives at stake, client-state etiquette should be the last of his concerns.

It's Springtime for Mahmoud Abbas

For his part, Abbas is working hard to capitalize on the present moment. His government has announced that it is prepared to provide a “political solution” to the current situation in Gaza, post-ceasefire. And at the recent Gaza Emergency Humanitarian Response Conference in Jordan earlier this month, the PA proposed an ambitious three-stage recovery plan encapsulating its vision for the enclave.

That plan is extensive—and expensive. The first phase alone, focused on a six-month “emergency response” period, would cost a whopping $1.3 billion. The money, naturally, would come from international donors, and the PA would administer it to create “social protection and housing provision, as well as health, education and infrastructure programs”—things that the West Bank itself needs significant help with, and international oversight over.

In other words, the Palestinian Authority is asking the international community to empower one failed state to rebuild another.

Nevertheless, Abbas’ pitch might just end up working. The international community is increasingly desperate to secure a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians by any means necessary. As international desperation has grown, what would ordinarily be something of a non-starter, given the PA’s abysmal governance record, has become more palatable to policymakers in Washington and beyond.

That is a shame, because the Palestinian Authority has proven itself thoroughly unfit to govern. “Under different circumstances—if the PA were a more effective, clean government, better trusted by its people—one might imagine it returning to Gaza when this war ends and leading the process of reconstruction and recovery,” Washington Institute scholar Ghaith al-Omari has observed. “But Palestinians have no confidence that the PA has their interests at heart; the international community does not trust it to administer funds on the scale of those that will be needed for reconstruction; and the PA anyway lacks the institutional infrastructure to do the job.”

Under these conditions, entrusting the PA with administering the “day after” in Gaza isn’t a workable solution, no matter how appealing Abbas’ current pitch might be at the moment. It is, rather, simply a surefire way to throw good money after bad.

Sadly, Washington and its allies seem more and more inclined to do just that.

06/21 Links Pt2: The lethal narcissism of Joe Biden; The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe; NYC has normalized anti-semitism; Let Them Fear Our Voice

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: The lethal narcissism of Joe Biden

What is more important: Joe Biden winning the votes of America’s entitled coastal elites, or Israel protecting itself from an army called the Party of God that has sworn itself to the eradication of the ‘cancerous’ Jews from the Middle East? This would have been a no-brainer a few years ago. Most people – aside from Israelophobic hotheads on the far right and hard left – would have agreed that defending the Jewish State from fanatics who view Jews as ‘evil’ and ‘blasphemous’ is of greater moral import than a president’s longing to get back in the good books of woke voters. And yet today, such simple moral clarity is in alarmingly short supply.

Right now, nothing fills the Biden set with greater dread than the prospect of war between Israel and Hezbollah. And it’s not because they’re peaceniks. Biden voted in favour of the catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was vice-president to the drone-happy Barack Obama, who dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016 alone. In Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan. If Biden is now of an anti-war bent, it’s been a recent conversion. No, it is self-preservation, not anti-militarism, that underpins Biden’s fear of an Israel-Hezbollah war. It’s the potential death of his presidency, not potential death in the Middle East, that keeps him up at night.

Tensions have exploded between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group whose name means Party of God. Unsurprisingly, the West’s ‘anti-war’ activist class has had little to say about Hezbollah’s blitz on northern Israel. Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas, has been firing rockets into Israel almost every day since Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October, with the aim of ‘pulling Israeli forces’ away from Gaza. That is, with the aim of aiding the anti-Semites of Hamas in their holy war against the Jewish nation. Entire ‘swathes of northern Israel’ have been engulfed by fire as a result of Hezbollah’s rockets. Tens of thousands have been evacuated.

Now, Israel is talking about taking decisive action against Hezbollah. You can almost hear the West’s activist class buffing their anti-Israel placards and rummaging around for their keffiyehs in order that they might hit the streets and damn Israel for plotting yet another ‘genocide’. In these people’s minds, fried by the binary moralism of identity politics, ‘white’ Israel is to blame for everything in the Middle East, while ‘brown’ Gaza and Lebanon are pure, sad victims, responsible for nothing. If Israel were officially to declare war on Hezbollah, they would rage and splutter, with not one thought for the rockets from Lebanon that have rained on Israel almost every day for the best part of eight months.

Even Hezbollah’s threats against Cyprus were not enough to rouse the concern of the West’s supposed peace lobby. This week, the leader of the Party of God – Hassan Nasrallah – warned that Cyprus would feel his wrath in the event of war between Israel and Hezbollah. It is presumably the fact that Cyprus has let Israel use its territory for military training that led to this outrageous threat against its sovereign integrity and social peace. Where are the peaceniks? Where are the anti-war activists who’ve been marching every week against Israeli militarism? It’s almost as if it’s not war they hate, so much as the world’s only Jewish state.

The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe

There is a debate among historians over whether medieval Jew hatred contributed to modern forms of anti-Semitism (a word which emerged in the late 19th century) which culminated in the Holocaust. Hannah Arendt held that medieval and modern Jew hatred are fundamentally different because of the significant change in religious context. Others point to common and longstanding anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as physical deformity and usurious greed, as the key connection between the periods.

Ivan G. Marcus argues that ‘a focus on stereotypes risks anachronism’. His riveting book, which concentrates on Ashkenaz (northern France, England and Germany), takes a structural approach to link medieval and modern anti-Semitism. Marcus thinks that medieval hatred has had long-lasting consequences through modern reinterpretations of ‘the binary of inverted hierarchy’ (medieval Christians and Jews thought the other group should be subordinate), the idea of the Jew as an internal enemy, and the concept of Jewish identity as unchangeable. To reach this conclusion, he challenges the widely held view of the medieval Jew as a passive victim and the most interesting sections in his book examine how Jews actively asserted themselves in the face of what they considered Christian idolatry. This stirred up Christian opposition towards them and gave them a more defined presence in European society.

Jewish assertiveness took some surprising, and in some cases smelly, forms. Marcus sets out the evidence for Jews using flatulence as a means of disrespecting Christian symbols at the time of the First Crusade. He recounts the story of Asher and Meir, who turned their backs on the cross in Trier and farted before being put to the sword. Christian statues were placed in toilets. Synagogues were built higher than churches and Jewish worship wasn’t toned down. In business contracts with their Latin-reading contemporaries, Jews wrote offensive things about Christianity in Hebrew. A new eucharist-like ritual, in which youths ate cakes and eggs inscribed with passages from the Torah, was created by pietist Jews to discourage conversion. Through an adroit selection of sources, both Jewish and Christian, Marcus brings the subject matter to life.

Medieval Europe created what Marcus calls ‘the imagined Jew’. While Jews were assertive, there was a limit, and even after they had been expelled fantastical myths and deep-seated hatreds continued. Some of England’s greatest writers must share the blame. Chaucer recounts a blood libel in ‘The Prioress’s Tale’; Marlowe casts Barabas in The Jew of Malta as a pantomime international financier. Then there is the most famous Jew in literature, Shakespeare’s ‘dog Jew’ Shylock. Marcus points out that Shylock’s ‘new and fantastic’ views on Christians and interest make him the Bard of Avon’s own imagined Jew. The reader is left feeling disconcerted by widespread versions of the imagined Jew, with ancient hatreds still being reinterpreted into modern ones.

Seth Mandel: Let Them Fear Our Voice

The reason anti-Semitism has been spiraling out of control is because there is no penalty to pay for it. A new report on anti-Semitism at Stanford University, prepared by a university committee that had been set up to study the epidemic of Jew-hatred on campus, is titled “In the Air.” It has simply become an unavoidable element in an increasingly large part of the country: “Some of this bias is expressed in overt and occasionally shocking ways.”

Perhaps what’s even more aggravating than the fact that anti-Semites see no need to hide their malign intent is the fact that when Jew-hatred rears its ugly head, society’s instinctive response is to apologize… to the Jew-hater. To give one very recent example: An anti-Semitic subway mob in New York included an employee of Weill Cornell Medicine. When this was pointed out to Weill Cornell, it released the following statement: “Today we became aware of a recent antisemitic incident on the NYC subway. We condemn antisemitism in the strongest possible terms. Hate speech or actions of any kind, whether antisemitic or Islamophobic, are not tolerated by our community.”

First sentence: fine. Second sentence: fine. Third sentence: what? With apologies to Meat Loaf, two out of three is bad. There was no “Islamophobic” incident or accusation. The only ones threatened were Jews. So why even mention “Islamophobia”? The answer is Weill Cornell is terrified of condemning anti-Semitism alone and therefore must also apologize, in the same breath, for condemning it. Anti-Semitism does not offend people; calling out anti-Semitism does.

Nothing changes unless this dynamic changes first. Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman and others pretend this dynamic doesn’t exist. They pretend to fear us so their supporters will hate us. Nothing would be more poetically just than for the Squad to have made their own rhetoric a self-fulfilling prophecy—for them to have had no reason to fear Jewish voters until they lied about fearing Jewish voters.

A country that mainstreams the kind of ethnic incitement the Squad specializes in eventually turns into Radko Mladic’s Yugoslav hell. America, meanwhile, is pretty good at casting out such villains before they can become dangerous. Here, there is usually a price to pay for even attempting to become a monster. The ground of American democracy tends to open up and swallow such demagoguery.

If anti-Semitism costs Bowman his seat, he’ll only have himself to blame. But he’ll have given his anti-Zionist colleagues something to fear: the ballot.

06/21 Links Pt1: Biden’s Italian Strike; All eyes should be on Al Jazeera for being directed by terrorists; Israeli doctor who saved Sinwar's life repaid with nephew's murder

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: All eyes should be on Al Jazeera for being founded, funded — and directed — by terrorists

Considering how much attention the American media get, it’s amazing that one piece of actual, unbelievable subversion keeps going on.

That is the Al Jazeera network — founded, funded and directed by the terrorist-supporting state of Qatar.

Last month, The Washington Post reported darkly that the Israeli government had shut down the Al Jazeera network’s operations in Israel because of its coverage from Gaza.

WaPo portrayed this as a “dark day” for press freedom.

In fact, there were a lot of good reasons for the Israelis to stop the network from operating inside Israel.

Just one being that a number of Al Jazeera journalists reporting on Israel’s war against terrorists in Gaza were — er — terrorists.

Take Muhammad Washah, whom Al Jazeera presented as a stellar part of the press corps merely reporting the truth.

Unfortunately for them, their man is also a senior commander in Hamas.

He used to be in Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit, but since 2022 he has been in charge of research and development for aerial weapons.

Known to you and me as “rockets.”

It’s quite something to pull off.

On the one hand, Washah can spend his days making rockets to fire at Israel.

But in the evenings he can report on the terrible destruction in Gaza caused by the “Zionist entity.”

As though it is inexplicable that the Israelis could have any reason to strike any targets in Gaza.

He might have kept getting away with it if IDF soldiers in Gaza had not managed to get a hold of his laptop.

Something that proved the Al Jazeera man’s true loyalties.

Michael Doran: Biden’s Italian Strike

This gaslighting has successfully hidden the true nature of Biden’s policy from the public eye. To be sure, some press outlets, such as Politico, have poked holes in the administration’s cover story, but they have failed to recognize the Italian strike for what it is: namely, a coherent policy hiding behind the appearance of incoherence. Even while treating some of the details of the cover story with skepticism, the press has almost uniformly accepted the general framing of the administration, which presents the disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem as a fight over the Rafah campaign and how best to prevent civilian deaths.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett in early May, referring to 2,000-pound bombs. “I made it clear that if [the Israelis] go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with … the cities.” But a close examination of the timeline reveals that the Italian strike began no later than last December, many months before the fight over Israel’s Rafah campaign had ever begun. What accounts for the early application of pressure?

For some clues to the answer, we might look to the Israeli delegation, headed by the director general of Israel’s Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, who traveled quietly to Washington in January to meet top administration officials and executives of defense industries. The trip received very little press coverage. Only the Israeli news outlet Walla reported on the trip, and the story was lost amidst the dramatic news from Gaza. Zamir, Walla reported, had two main goals: to shorten the time it takes to produce and supply weapons for the IDF and to increase “the scope of aid.” In other words, Zamir came shopping for more weapons, more kinds of weapons, and for a faster delivery of them.

The Americans responded by calling the Italian strike. The Biden team, according to Walla, disappointed Zamir and sent him away, saying “they would study the issue, but that no answer would be given before the [American] elections so as not to allow political considerations to influence the administration’s decisions.” The rationale was transparently bogus, but the message was clear enough. The Biden administration intended to keep the Israelis on a short leash. Why?

The Americans were undoubtedly seeking to counter the thinking that had brought the Israeli delegation to Washington in the first place. Gen. Zamir made clear to the Biden team that he had come shopping not for weapons to prosecute war in Gaza, but out of concerns, according to Walla’s report, about “the ongoing tensions with Hezbollah along the northern border and with other Iranian proxy forces across the Middle East.”

Hezbollah represents the most formidable direct military threat that Israel faces. A full-scale conflict with it will burn up an enormous amount of equipment and ammunition in a very short period, and it risks drawing Iran more directly into the war. The Israelis came to Washington to stock up, to be ready for the conflict should it erupt. The Americans, by contrast, seek to restrain them. The purpose of the Italian strike is to force the Israelis into dependence on the United States, to deny them the ability to make long-term plans—namely, plans regarding Hezbollah and Iran.

To the extent that the administration even admits it is withholding arms, it justifies its actions by expressing concern over civilian deaths in Gaza. The Biden administration sees a gauzy humanitarianism as a defensible explanation, before the American public, for its policy of restraining Israel. Almost all press outlets in the United States depicted Netanyahu’s protest over the withholding of weapons as the latest move in the fight over Rafah, but his video statement referenced Iran, not Gaza. “Israel, America’s closest ally,” he said, is “fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies.”

The administration has little hope that the American people will understand why it is preventing Israel from defending itself against attacks from Hezbollah and Iran. Publicly, therefore, it has drawn the line in the sand in Rafah and screamed about civilian deaths. Privately, however, it has its eyes locked like a laser on the Lebanese-Israeli border. If a full-scale war kicks off in the north, the Obama-Biden policy of achieving “equilibrium” in the Middle East by integrating Iran and its proxies into the regional order comes crashing down.

From YNet:

Over 1,100 students studying technology, engineering, and mathematics from more than 120 universities across the United States signed a pledge on Tuesday not to accept jobs or internships at Google or Amazon until the companies cease their involvement in Project Nimbus, which provides cloud computing services and infrastructure to the Israeli government.

I, for one, refuse to be a star goalie for the Edmonton Oilers because of the harm to the environment done by fossil fuels.

See how much I sacrifice for my causes?

This is as pure an example of virtue signaling that one can imagine.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A short look at how Arabs and Muslim s create and spread rumors about Pepsi - and Coca Cola - reveals that their "anti-Zionism" is completely, irreversibly unhinged.

Here is a TikTok video from a Lebanese influencer upset over the change of Pepsi bottlecaps in Lebanon to being blue and white. (He's not the only one making videos of their anger at Pepsi for the bottlecap.)

Part of his "proof" that Pepsi is "Zionist" comes from a clip of a video at a wedding of a Hasidic Jew dancing with a Pepsi bottle on his head, which he calls a "Pepsi dance."

In fact, a Turkish media outlet posted this "Pepsi dance" - which is just a Jewish bottle dance often seen at weddings* - as a celebration of a fictional billion dollars given by Pepsi to Israel.

For years, Arabs and Muslims have been claiming that "Pepsi" stands for "Pay Every Penny to Save Israel." An Arab political candidate even made that claim in 2011, and Hamas leaders have said the same.

One researcher decided to see if this is true. He "discovered" that Pepsi was founded only two years after Herzl published "The Jewish State" - and he discovered that the creator of Pepsi was a Freemason and buried in a cemetery that has a Jewish section, which makes him practically Jewish!

Anyway, back in Lebanon, people are so upset over Pepsi's bottlecaps that they are dumping the soft drink in the sea and on the street. (Which means, of course, that they bought it.)

They are physically blocking Pepsi delivery trucks from arriving at Baalbek-Hermel and Qasr.

And one Pepsi truck that overturned on the highway prompted lots of "God is great!" responses.

And this is only the beginning.

Pepsi started an advertising campaign in Egypt, "Stay Thirsty" (which, my own fevered research has confirmed, is a ripoff of Dos Equis "Stay Thirsty My Friends" tagline that was spoken by Jewish actor Jonathan Goldsmith.)

The campaign angered Egyptians who said it was insensitive while Gazans are suffering "genocide." Counter campaigns started, telling Pepsi to "stay lost, I'm not thirsty."

Do you think all this negative publicity helps Coca Cola? Oh, please. It has been the target of conspiracy theories over the year as well.

For example, did you know that Coca Cola's cursive logo shown backwards resembles "No Mohammed, No Mecca"?

Which was clearly the intent when the logo was trademarked in 1892.

But what about recently? Well, when Noa Armagan drank Coke with her father, it prompted a campaign to boycott Coke (and create ugly caricatures of Argamani.)

The Pepsi boycotters falsely claim her father was drinking Pepsi.

None of this is normal political criticism. It is animated by hate of Israel, not support for Palestinians. This crazed hate is never seen in any other political context - but it has seen plenty by Jewish victims of antisemitism over the centuries.

----------------------

*Most sources say that the choreographed Jewish bottle dance was invented for the play Fiddler on the Roof, based on the director's witnessing a performer at a Jewish wedding pretending to be drunk and staggering around while balancing the bottle on his head. It only then became a staple at Jewish weddings.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

On Thursday, Islamic Jihad proudly published a video of them shooting rockets at a civilian Jewish community near Gaza.

They are very proud of their accomplishment of being able to still fire rockets from Gaza.

The story was not covered in the media, evern Hebrew-language media, except for the red alert. No one was hurt from the rockets. There are a lot of more important stories out there.

But this is a story must be told.

Islamic Jihad didn't pretend to be shooting rockets at a military base, which used to be the lie that Gaza terror groups would claim in years past. They said they aimed at a "settlement." They are directly and deliberately targeting civilians. It is a war crime.

They call all of Israel "occupied" and every Israeli town a "settlement." When Israel-haters use the words "occupation" and "settlements" they choose their words carefully, knowing that they mean all of Israel but leftists who want a two state solution choose to believe that this is what they are saying.

Which community did Islamic Jihad target?

According to the Code Red alerts, the only alarm in the south on Thursday was aimed at Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha.

On October 7 attacks, about 90 terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz, killing four civilians, looting, shooting, and burning houses. The 320 residents of the kibbutz, including 92 children, evacuated to hotels in Eilat for five months, and then returned home in March.

Islamic Jihad is not targeting an empty community. They chose to target a place where the residents - all civilians, including 92 children - have returned.

One of the residents murdered was 63 year old Marcelle Taljah, who came to visit her newborn granddaughter the day after she was born.

Another was 80-year old Silvia Mirensky, who was burned alive when errorists threw a firebomb into her home.

A third was 43-year old Noa Glazberg who was shot eight times by terrorists in her home.

The Jew-hating Palestinians of Islamic Jihad want to terrorize the residents anew, only eight months after four were murdered. They want them to flee. The message is that Israelis near Gaza will never feel safe - as long as Gaza is run by Jew-hating terrorists.

This is a message Israelis understand loud and clear.

The residents, for their part, are used to this. They are only 2 miles/3 kilometers from the Gaza border. They have only five seconds to seek shelter when the red alert is sounded. And this is where they choose to live, and where they chose to return.

This is a story of everyday heroes in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, and the disgusting Palestinian terrorists who want every one of them dead of fled.

It is a story that isn' tbeing told because it is so common. Yet that is exactly why it must be told, over and over, to the world. Because these everyday heroes and the everyday Jew-haters are the norm, not the exception.

It is easy for people, even well meaning people,who are ignorant of this reality, to say that Israelis must live with a certain level of terror, as part of the price of choosing to live in that region. Ein Hashlosha shows that there is no such thing as an acceptable level of terror, an acceptable number of 5-secon warning, an acceptable level of knowing that millions of people who live a few miles away cheer every dead Israeli civilian and harbor hopes of more October 7ths.

This unreported reality illustrates why Israel must defeat Hamas and the other terror groups completely and thoroughly. A ceasefire that leaves the terrorists in charge is simply not acceptable, and no country in the world would tolerate what the residents of Ein Hashlosha and their neighbors have to live with,

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/20 Links Pt2: Ben Stiller on the Israel-Hamas War and the Need for Peace; The AOC AIPAC Freakout; The Evisceration of Mehdi Hasan

From Ian:

Ben Stiller: Why I Can’t Stay Silent About the Suffering in Israel and Gaza

Like so many Jews I grieve for those who suffered in the barbaric Hamas attack on October 7 and for those who have suffered as a result of those atrocities. My heart aches for the families who lost loved ones to this heinous act of terrorism and for those anxiously waiting these long months for the return of the hostages still in captivity. It’s a nightmare. I also grieve for the innocent people in Gaza who have lost their lives in this conflict and those suffering through that awful reality now.

I detest war, but what Hamas did was unconscionable and reprehensible. The hostages have to be freed. Terrorism must be named and fought by all people of conscience on the planet. There is no excuse for it under any circumstances.

I stand with the Israeli people and their right to live in peace and safety. At the same time, I don’t agree with all of the Israeli government’s choices on how they are conducting the war. I want the violence to end, and the innocent Palestinian people affected by the humanitarian crisis that has resulted to receive the lifesaving aid they need. And I know that many in Israel share this sentiment.

I believe, as many people in Israel and around the world do, in the need for a two-state solution, one that ensures that the Israeli people can live in peace and safety alongside a homeland for the Palestinian people that provides them the same benefits.

I also see a troubling conflation in criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with denunciations of all Israelis and Jewish people. And as a result, we are seeing an undeniable rise in global antisemitism. I am seeing it myself, on the streets of the city I grew up in. It isn’t right and must be denounced.

Antisemitism must be condemned whenever it happens and wherever it exists. As should Islamophobia and bigotry of all kinds. There is a frightening amnesia for history in the air. We must remind ourselves that we can only manifest a more hopeful, just, and peaceful future by learning from the past.

Obviously I am no politician or diplomat. I have no solutions for these world conflicts and claim to offer none. I think I, like so many people, am struggling with how to process this all. But as an advocate for displaced people, I do believe this war must end. As I write this, there are about 120 million people all over the world who have been displaced by conflicts. In the Middle East, in Ukraine, Sudan, and many other countries. They all deserve to live in safety and peace. The human suffering must end. We must demand this of our leaders. Peace is the only path.

Europe: Nazis' 'Do Not Buy from Jews' 2.0

Since October 7, when Iranian proxies Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad committed unspeakable atrocities against men, women, children and babies in Israel, large parts of the international community have been in a frenzy over the Jews' puzzling inclination to defend themselves.

This is the same French government [which banned Israel from participating in Eurosatory 2024 defense industry trade fair] so obsessed with appearing inclusive and non-discriminatory that it recently supported a bill that outlaws discrimination based on hair texture, length, color or style.

Meanwhile, the French government did not think it necessary to ban the participation of China, presently indulging in two genocides – against Tibetans and against Uyghurs – from participating in Eurosatory. China's representation at the trade fair counts around 61 defense companies.

The French government also did not ban... Turkey, which has been taken to the International Criminal Court for committing crimes against humanity against hundreds of thousands of opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruthless regime...

When there are no Jews to blame, evidently, crimes against humanity, genocide and human rights abuses are perfectly acceptable.

Since October 7, more than 19,000 rockets have been launched into Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey, primarily by the terrorist groups ruling Gaza, as well as from another of Iran's terrorist proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon

Never mind that John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, determined that Israel has consistently implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any military in the history of warfare.

"The Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace," said Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. The remark, oddly, did not appear to be addressed the entities that started the war: Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Qatar.

Iran, the Middle East's warmonger par excellence, and -- along with major funding from Qatar, which seems never to have met an Islamic terrorist group it did not finance or promote -- was the originator of the current war in Gaza.

Man Thinks Group With ‘Crazy’ Safeguards To Prevent Sins, Try To ‘Trick God’ With Technicalities (Preccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Los Angeles, June 20 - A self-proclaimed opponent of "Rabbinic Judaism" repeated his contention online today that the orthodox followers of the religion, who adhere to strictures specifically imposed to prevent even inadvertent transgression of certain Biblical precepts, also care so little for those Biblical precepts that they engage in sophistry and employ technicalities to avoid upholding those precepts.

An X user with the handle "Truth Bomb" reacted this morning to a post about the Jewish Orthodox lifestyle that showcased several devices that the religiously observant use to facilitate somewhat normal living on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, to avoid violating Jewish law while still accomplishing at least some of the result of the acts that, if a Jew performed them on the Sabbath, would violate Jewish law. He called the phenomenon "trying to trick God," a remark he made not ten minutes after characterizing ancient augmentations that Jewish law mandates to avoid violations of core Biblical prohibitions as "ascetic extremism."

"These people think they can trick God, but God can't be tricked," stated Truth Bomb, to the echoes of approval from at least eighty other posters who "liked" his comment. Only seventy users liked the post he made before that one, in which the Jew-obsessed man decried Jews for refraining from any mixture of meat and dairy products, when the Bible only specifies a prohibition on cooking a young goat in its mother's milk. "These people want to be more religious than God," he spat.

Truth Bomb refused to entertain alternative understandings of either phenomenon; one user attempted to explain to him that the invocation of "technicalities" represents not Jews trying to circumvent the spirit of the law, corrupting it, but a manifestation of close, loving dedication to understanding the precise parameters and purpose of each commandment, a scholarly and devotional pursuit that the person behind the Truth Bomb account dismissed as "woo-woo."

A similar attempt to explain the intricacies and assumptions behind the exegesis behind the meat-dairy separation in Jewish law fell on deaf ears. "I don't need any of these apologetics, I know what the text *really* says," asserted the man, who elsewhere has acknowledged he has no knowledge of Hebrew, Jewish hermeneutics, or Talmud, the last of which he simply knows is a repository of Jewish treachery, supremacism, and perversion, since that is what the sources he prefers to consult call it.

Truth Bomb also left unanswered another user's question how the man's Christian faith, which promises salvation through Jesus even for the most depraved, sadistic person, simply by accepting Jesus as savior, does not also qualify as "tricking God."

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06/20 Links Pt1: There is no Gaza famine, so why is the pro-Hamas media silent about this great news?; Blinken Keeps On Rocking As The World Burns

From Ian:

NYPost Editorial: There is no Gaza famine, so why is the pro-Hamas media silent about this great news?

Of course, President Biden (and his minions) also echoed the lie as he sought to show he “cares” in order to appease the “When Jews defend themselves it’s genocide” crowd.

Which raises the question of why the USAID-backed network cooked the books to suggest famine was coming.

And of why so many “news” organizations swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

It’s rank media bias: An “honest mistake” by reporters and editors eager to paint the Jewish state as monstrous, to buy propaganda slamming Israel’s allegedly cruel restriction of food-aid entry into Gaza.

Again, any such blockage of food aid was thanks to theft by Hamas.

The Biden team’s unseriosness and incompetence here is summed up by the emergency pier the prez demanded in his State of the Union speech, which took months to construct, almost instantly began to fall apart and is about to be decommissioned after managing to unload only a bare pittance of aid — all of it apparently seized by the terrorists.

So when the media’s terror-lovers next begin to scream about some supposed Israeli atrocity — don’t worry, it won’t be long — remember their utter silence about this tremendous piece of good news.

And understand that the shouters don’t love Palestinians, they simply hate Jews.

Melanie Phillips: The ‘Gaza famine’ myth

It’s worth remembering that USAID, the parent body of FEWS NET, is run by Samantha Power, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration.

In 2002, Power suggested in a “thought experiment” that America might have to invade Israel to prevent an Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. She also suggested that the only people who might be alienated by this would be American Jews, who she said exercised tremendous political and financial power over America.

Other research has also exploded the “Gaza famine” claims. At Columbia University, two professors have said the evidence shows that sufficient amounts of food are being supplied to Gaza.

They told The Jerusalem Post that it was “a myth that Israel is responsible for famine in Gaza” and suggested that the International Criminal Court and U.N. had joined Hamas in blaming Israel for a “famine that never was, hoping to stop the war.”

Yet there are no signs that these rebuttals of the “Gaza famine” claim are having any effect on the Israel-bashing crowd. A few days ago, The New York Times was still referring to “starving civilians” and blaming deaths from malnutrition on “restrictions on aid and commercial goods entering Gaza.”

BBC News reported this week that “warnings of famine are looming once again in northern Gaza,” broadcasting distressing footage of infants said to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition caused by restrictions on aid at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings.

Other than Fox News, it seems that no mainstream media outlet has reported the Famine Review Committee’s findings that the claim of famine in Gaza cannot be justified. Nor have the anti-Israel humanitarian organizations, although the World Health Organization’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has now subtly adjusted his rhetoric by talking about “famine-like conditions.”

Famine is not the only anti-Israel falsehood whose debunking has been ignored. The mainstream media and humanitarian crowd are still using the Hamas figure of 37,000-plus civilians killed in Gaza, despite the fact that the U.N. itself revised its own casualty totals sharply downwards after it emerged that some of the claimed deaths had been drawn from media sources and were fabricated.

Jonathan Tobin: The Gaza famine that wasn’t is being used against Israel

Yet the egregious nature of the Oct. 7 assault and atrocities, as well as the clear justification for Israel’s counter-offensive to eliminate the genocidal terrorist movement that carried out those crimes, seems to have impelled those who hate Israel and Jews to new depths of mendacious reporting. The intersectional left-wingers who are convinced that Israel is a nation of “white” villains victimizing Palestinian “people of color” who are inaccurately analogized to American victims of racial discrimination have no compunction about spreading these smears. The worse the actual behavior of the Palestinians, who are bent on the destruction of Israel and its people, the more it becomes imperative to flip the narrative and accuse Israel of genocide.

Every death and all of the privations suffered by Palestinian Arabs since Oct. 7 is the responsibility of the Hamas terrorists who started this war and who take every opportunity to maximize the suffering of their own people to besmirch Israel’s image. That is not only the case for Gazans hurt or killed during the fighting but true for anyone prevented from receiving aid shipped into the Strip with Israel’s permission.

The mythical Gaza famine is just the latest instance of how the Palestinians are gaslighting the world as they deliberately spiral further into an abyss of unending conflict in which they themselves are the primary victims. Sober-minded Americans who by now ought to have learned better than to trust the corporate media on this and many other issues should not be influenced by this propaganda campaign, rooted in the age-old tropes of antisemitism in which the Jews are always accused of conspiring to harm others. Stripped of the emotionalism and partisan activism that colors so much of contemporary journalism, and especially the coverage of the Middle East, the claim that Israel is starving the Palestinians should be seen for what it is: a 21st-century blood libel.

It Took Only 150 Years To Revise The Reputation of General Sherman. How Long Will It Take For Israel? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

“Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt."
General William Tecumseh Sherman

General William Tecumseh Sherman was one of the most notable Union generals of the Civil War, famous for his "scorched earth" policy requiring destroying anything useful to the enemy. That was arguably Sherman's main claim to fame -- or infamy.

General Sherman's military career in the Civil War does seem to have some interesting parallels to the current Israel-Gaza War -- beyond the above quote about his view of the South's challenge to the North. His policy for conducting the war has been challenged over 150 years for being destructive and brutal. General Sherman was arguably responsible for committing war crimes:

Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s actions after the capture of Atlanta and his subsequent March to the Sea are sometimes seen as anticipating the pattern of total war in the twentieth century. Some have claimed that Sherman was a war criminal, authorizing plunder and looting of civilian property. But the matter is more complex than either of these charges indicate. In fact, Sherman’s actions were the culmination of a Union policy toward civilians that evolved during the course of the war.

But his reputation appears to be going through a makeover. That redemption gained steam in 2014, as reflected by this marker:

The marker was erected by the Georgia Historical Society and the Georgia Battlefields Association:

On November 15, 1864, during the Civil War, U.S. forces under Gen. William T. Sherman set out from Atlanta on the March to the Sea, a military campaign designed to destroy the Confederacy’s ability to wage war and break the will of its people to resist. After destroying Atlanta’s industrial and business (but not residential) districts, Sherman’s 62,500 men marched over 250 miles, reaching Savannah in mid-December. Contrary to popular myth, Sherman’s troops primarily destroyed only property used for waging war – railroads, train depots, factories, cotton gins, and warehouses. Abandoning their supply base, they lived off the land, destroying food they could not consume. They also liberated thousands of enslaved African Americans in their path. Sherman’s “hard hand of war” demoralized Confederates, hastening the end of slavery and the reunification of the nation.

The media covering the marker at the time picked up on this revision of Sherman's reputation. We can only wonder if the analysis offered just 9 years ago would be made today:

Historians have increasingly written that Sherman’s plan for the systematic obliteration in late 1864 of the South’s war machine, including its transportation network and factories, was destructive but not gratuitously destructive. Instead, those experts contend, the strategy was an effective and legal application of the general’s authority and the hard-edged masterstroke necessary to break the Confederacy.

In other words:

o The force used by the general was proportionate.
o It targeted military -- not civilian -- infrastructure.
o And it did not contravene the law.

This is not to deny the inevitable excesses one expects in war but focuses on the intent of Sherman and his troops.

And what about the accounts of the deliberate brutality of Sherman's troops?

[Experts] have described plenty of family accounts of cruelty as nothing more than fables that unfairly mar Sherman’s reputation.

“What is really happening is that over time, the views that are out there are being challenged by historical research,” said John F. Marszalek, a Sherman biographer and the executive director of the Mississippi-based Ulysses S. Grant Association. “The facts are coming out.”

Family accounts?

Apparently, Hamas terrorists are not the first to recognize the effectiveness of the use of civilian accounts for blackening the reputation of its enemies.

But this is not to say that Sherman's redemption is complete. The South still is bitter over what they view as the war crimes of General Sherman.

Not surprisingly, the battle over Sherman can also be found on college campuses. A professor at the University of Georgia notes that there is a change in attitude where he is teaching:

“You all the time run into college kids who don’t know which side Sherman was on — and their parents and certainly their grandparents would be aghast to know that,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of education. It’s a matter of being the blank slate that younger generations present for revision or education that older generations don’t because they’re steeped in the mythology of their ancestors.”

Has there ever been a time when university students were not blank slates for those with an agenda?

Another interesting parallel appears in Wikipedia, quoting authors who believe that Sherman's conduct of the war influenced the Democratic Party and the elections:

Sherman's success caused the collapse of the once powerful "Copperhead" faction within the Democratic Party, which had advocated immediate peace negotiations with the Confederacy. It also dealt a major blow to the popularity of the Democratic presidential candidate, George B. McClellan, whose victory in the election had until then appeared likely to many, including Lincoln himself. According to Holden-Reid, "Sherman did more than any other man apart from the president in creating [the] climate of opinion" that afforded Lincoln a comfortable victory over McClellan at the polls.

The "progressives" of that time who parallel today's "Ceasefire Now" advocates did not push for a definitive victory over the South. Similarly, McClellan's position on the war is reminiscent of Biden's position on the Israel-Gaza War and the problems that is causing him.

According to ChatGPT:

[McClellan's] platform, as adopted by the Democratic Party, called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. However, McClellan personally distanced himself from the more extreme peace elements of his party, asserting that any peace settlement must include the restoration of the Union. Despite this, his campaign was seen as an attempt to end the war through compromise rather than military victory.

But none of this helps Israel.

General William Tecumseh Sherman died in 1891. There have been over 130 years for the dust to settle, for some degree of objectivity to set in, and for a re-examination of Sherman and his actions to begin to be re-evaluated.

It will be a long time before analysis of Israel and its modern history approaches anything near objectivity.

(Hat tip: PreOccupied Territory)

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It is not only October 7 and hostages: Hamas violates many international laws that the UN, media and NGOs ignore

The New York Times publishes a backgrounder:

Note the subhead: "The armed Islamist group committed war crimes on Oct. 7, experts say, and continues to do so by holding hostages."

This is true. And it is enormously misleading.

When the media, the UN or NGOs accuse Hamas of war crimes, they limit their criticism to October 7 and the continued holding of hostages. This article is no exception.

But Hamas violates many laws of war that are not being even mentioned in the thousands of articles, reports and speeches about Gaza.

Here are some:

1 Misuse of Ambulances with Red Cross/Crescent markings- Hamas uses ambulances as limousine services to transport its fighters. Under Article 23(f) of the 1907 Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which reflects customary international law, it is ―especially forbidden…[t]o make improper use of a flag of truce, … as well as the distinctive badges of the Geneva Convention.. Article 44 of the First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949) also provides that: ―… the emblem of the Red Cross on a white ground …may not be employed, either in time of peace or in time of war, except to indicate or to protect the medical units and establishments…"

2. Misuse of Medical Facilities - Hamas used hospitals and medical facilities as spaces for weapons caches. It used electricity and infrastructure from hospitals in tunnels underneath them. It fought battles from hospitals. Rule 28 of Customary IHL says, "Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."

3. Staging of Attacks From Residential Areas and Protected Sites: The Law of Armed Conflict not only prohibits targeting an enemy‘s civilians; it also requires parties to an armed conflict to distinguish their combatant forces from their own civilians, and not to base operations in or near civilian structures, especially protected sites such as schools, medical facilities and places of worship. As the customary law principle is reflected in Article 51(7) of Additional Protocol I: '―The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or shield, favour or impede military operations."

4. Use of Civilian Homes and Public Institutions as Bases of Operation - Hamas has placed weapons caches in schools and mosques, it has put thousands of tunnel entrances inside residential homes. See (3) for citations.

5. Booby-trapping of Civilian Areas - Hamas has placed bombs in residential homes to kill IDF soldiers. See (3) for citations.

6. Blending in with Civilians - Hamas doesn't even pretend to wear uniforms. All their videos show them wearing civilian clothing. Since they positioned weapons caches all over civilian areas, they shoot weapons and then leave them so they can feign being civilians and enjoy protected status as civilians. Additional Protocol I defines perfidy as “acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence”. Perfidy includes "simulation of civilian status because civilians not taking a direct part in hostilities [that] may not be the object of attack ."

7. Use of Human Shields - As the ICRC rule states, "It can be concluded that the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives." This is the basis of Hamas' entire military strategy. Gazans are literally used as shields - mere objects meant to protect Hamas military tunnels and bunkers from Israeli airstrikes.

8. Interference with Humanitarian Relief Efforts - Hamas has fired rockets at the Kerem Shalom crossing where humanitarian goods are brought into Gaza. It has diverted aid trucks for its own needs. It taxes the incoming aid meant to be given for free to Gazans. All of these actions violate the Law of Armed Conflict, which requires parties to allow the entry of humanitarian supplies and to guarantee their safety. Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires parties in an armed conflict to "permit the free passage of [humanitarian] consignments and shall guarantee their protection." Article 60 of the same Convention protects the shipments from being diverted from their intended purpose.

9. Using the uniform of the enemy - This was done on October 7. Additional Protocol I prohibits the use of enemy flags, military emblems, insignia or uniforms “while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations”.[3] Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “making improper use … of the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of the enemy” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts when it results in death or serious personal injury.[4]

10. Hamas‘ rocket attacks directed at Israel‘s civilian population centers deliberately violates the basic principle of distinction. (Additional Protocol I, arts. 48, 51(2), 52(1).) It is well accepted in customary international law that ―[i]ntentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities constitutes a war crime. (Rome Statute, art. 8(2)(b)(i)).

11. Indiscriminate attacks - Besides targeting civilians and civilian objects, Rule 11 of the ICRC CIHL states flatly that "Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited." By definition, every rocket attack is by its very nature indiscriminate. Note also that the rockets are built to spread shrapnel as far and wide as possible.

12. Violence aimed at spreading terror among the civilian population - Rule 2 of ICRC's Customary IHL is "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." It quotes Article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I prohibits “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population”. Hamas rockets are aimed not only at killing civilians, but at spreading terror among Israelis. In addition, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are continuously attempting to mount terror attacks from the West Bank to terrorize Israelis.

13. Advance Warning - Rule 20 of the ICRC CIHL states "Each party to the conflict must give effective advance warning of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit." In the past, Hamas has used the media and SMS calls to threaten Israelis, so it is clear that they have the ability to warn before every rocket attack. Their failure to do so is a violation of IHL.

This is all in addition to the other Hamas violations against the hostages beyond keeping them in captivity - not respecting the dead and sexual abuse. Also, Hamas military strategy is to capture more hostages, an additional war crime even when done against soldiers.

There is also evidence of Hamas directly attacking its own civilian population, as well as the many rockets that fell short in Gaza in the first months of the war causing casualties.

I would also argue that Hamas' using of the Gaza health ministry as a propaganda tool to spread lies also is a violation of misusing medical facilities for military purposes.

While the media, including this NYT article, goes into great detail on alleged Israeli war crimes, they ignore virtually all of these Hamas war crimes. It is hard to escape the conclusion that they only mention the worst of the worst of Hamas crimes to pretend to be even-handed, but they have little interest in discussing the many other war crimes of Hamas. It is interesting to note that rocket fire was the fig leaf used by NGOs in the past to pretend that they are also criticizing Hamas, not just Israel, but even though Hamas continues to shoot rockets when it can, those war crimes are hardly even mentioned anymore.

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This story, broken by UN Watch on May 29, did not get the publicity it deserves.

The Arab group of states today pulled their draft resolution condemning Israel at the WHO’s annual assembly after an amendment was adopted that called for the release of all hostages held in Gaza and condemned the use by armed groups of hospitals and ambulances.

The initial 4-page draft resolution, written by the Palestinians and Syria, and submitted to the 77th World Health Assembly by Iran, Syria, China, Russia, Cuba, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar and others, accused Israel of “using starvation as a weapon of war,” “wanton destruction of the Palestinian health system,” and causing “forcibly internally displaced civilians.”

All of this was withdrawn by the Arab states, however, after Israel successfully amended the text to introduce a single sentence that “Calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held in Gaza, including children, women and older persons, and condemns the use, by armed groups, of health facilities, including hospitals and ambulances, that endangers the civilian population.”

The Israeli-backed amendment was adopted by a vote of 50 to 44, with 31 abstentions. All Western democracies voted in support — except for Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Slovenia, which abstained.

Egypt then took the floor on behalf of the Arab Group to withdraw the entire resolution, in opposition to the amendment that called for the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Five Western democracies could not support a single sentence added to a virulently false and anti-Israel 4 page resolution that called for hostages to be released and condemns terrorists using hospitals.

In Belgium, the Jewish newspaper Joods Actueel reported,

Ambassador Pecsteen de Buytswerve, permanent representative for our country at the WHO, informed Joods Actueel by email that he did not act arbitrarily but followed the instructions of the Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, “a normal procedure” according to him.

The spokesperson for the FPS Foreign Affairs then said that “Israel's text contains a political message and that Belgium will always continue to behave in accordance with the highest moral and ethical values. This Israeli amendment is contrary to international law,” it continues.

So the 24 European countries that voted to include this single sentence are acting against international law?

By not adopting this amendment, whether intentionally or not, these five countries are saying that they agree with Hamas that the hostages should not be freed and that Hamas has the right to hijack the Gaza health system.

Every Muslim-majority country voted against the amendment.

(h/t Rudi)

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