Pages

▼

Monday, February 10, 2025

02/10 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: What Israel is really up against; The strange reluctance to see Jews as victims; Beinart goes down a rabbit hole; USAID’s demise is nothing to mourn

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: What Israel is really up against
In short, Palestinian society is entirely constructed around a poisonous and murderous hatred of Jews and the desire to remove them from the face of the earth.

The emaciated figures who staggered out of their Gaza hellhole have illuminated the obscenity of the way in which so much of the west has behaved — trying to minimise, sanitise or excuse what the Palestinian Arabs have done to the Israelis; representing them as victims of the Israelis they have so viciously attacked; and demonising the Israelis with murderous falsehoods for the apparent crime of defending themselves against this genocidal onslaught.

Now we can see the monstrosity of the way the Biden administration bullied and blackmailed Israel into allowing Hamas to survive.

Now we can see the moral depravity of all those in the west — including Biden, Sir Keir Starmer and other western politicians, NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, and the wretched prelates of the Church of England — who have accused Israel of causing starvation in Gaza. The Gazan mobs who menaced the terrified Israeli hostages as they were released were well fed, plump, even obese; it’s the Israeli hostages who have been deliberately and murderously starved — by the people who have been promoted as victims by the west’s Israel-bashers.

This moral bankruptcy towards Israel is nothing new. It has characterised the so-called civilised world for almost a century. The Arabs of pre-Israel Palestine should have been dispersed after 1948 when their side lost the war of extermination that was mounted to destroy at its rebirth the fledgling State of Israel.

Instead, those Arabs were fashioned into a weapon against Israel’s existence by being turned preposterously into permanent refugees. The entirely spurious claim of a Palestinian national identity was cooked up in the 1960s between the terrorist leader Yassir Arafat and the Soviet Union as a strategy to destroy the Jews’ homeland, steal from them their own history in the land and re-label it “Palestinian” history, and fry the brains of the west in order to undermine it and soften it up for its destruction. That strategy has been carried out to the letter.

And the west, led by Britain from the 1930s onwards, has consistently rewarded and incentivised mass murder against the Jews while upending international law by promising those waging this genocidal war a part of the Jews’ own historic and legally pledged homeland as the route to “peace” in the Middle East.

The only moral course of action, the only way this century-old war to exterminate the Jewish homeland will be brought to an end in a just way, is to say to the Palestinian Arabs that it’s all over. They will never get a state; they don’t deserve a state; they never wanted a state, other than as a springboard to destroy Israel; and if they persist in their aim to destroy Israel and kill Jews, they will be treated henceforth as pariahs.

And so should all who support them be treated. The obscene Palestinian cause is worn as the badge of conscience by the west’s progressive classes. That illustrates instead their repudiation of conscience. The Palestinian cause has destroyed the moral compass of the west.

If Trump’s musings about a “Gaza Riviera” signal an equivalent strategy towards the Palestinian cause as a whole, he won’t just reshape the Middle East in a way that will bring it peace and justice. He will start to haul the west out of the moral abyss into which it has fallen.
Western Media turns October 7 grief into anti-Israel propaganda
This dehumanizing phenomenon needs to be viewed within the context of a larger narrative that seeks to paint Israelis as uniquely malicious and violent actors on the global stage. Whereas other countries conduct military operations, Israel does “bloodletting,” notes Brendan O’Neill in his book, After the Pogrom.

This language is common. Other nations respond to threats; Israel carries out “state-sponsored terrorism.” Other countries inevitably cause civilian casualties; Israel wages “war on children.” Other countries eliminate terrorists; Israel carries out “wanton assassinations of [...] activists.” Other countries go to war; Israel commits “genocide.”And while other nations mourn their collective tragedies, Israelis use their own tragedies as a weapon.

After the 9/11 attacks, America was gripped by national trauma, grief, and unity. The names and faces of many victims became ingrained in the national consciousness. Survivors’ testimonies were recorded, documentaries were made, and public commemorations were held.

While the US government certainly used 9/11 to justify policy decisions – some controversial – it would be obscene to claim that America’s collective grief was an insincere, orchestrated effort to push a war agenda. The sorrow of families who lost loved ones was not a weapon or a “ticking time bomb” set to incite violence – it was a human response to an atrocity.

But in the case of Israelis – and Jews more broadly – the radical anti-Zionist set, and even some mainstream commentators, who engage in a toxic form of victim-blaming, where Jewish suffering is never just suffering – it’s a maneuver, a ploy, a trick. This is part of a much older pattern, a millennia-old cycle of delegitimization, in which Jews are seen as schemers and manipulators.

The same people who tell Israelis they’re weaponizing the Bibas family’s tragedy are the ones who claim Jews weaponize antisemitism, and a subset of them are people who believe a deceitful cabal of Jews control the world. Some things never change.

At the end of his post on X, Fischberger wrote, “Next up: How Jews weaponize their existence.” His quip cut to the heart of it. Denying a group the right to grieve is a violation of a fundamental human right, akin to denying one the right to self-defense, and thus the very right to exist.
Brendan O'Neill: The strange reluctance to see Jews as victims
There was actually something worse than moral indifference following the release of these cadaverous men – there was moral deflection. Anti-Israel activists clogged up social media with images of released Palestinian prisoners. None looked anywhere near as sickly as the three Israelis, yet the message was as clear as it was sinister: ‘Never mind those Jews, look at these Palestinians.’ Like 21st-century Lord Haw-Haws, they endeavour to distract the world’s attention from the crimes of a fascistic army.

The BBC couldn’t resist implying a moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. Following the release of the three Israelis, it said there are ‘concerns about the condition of hostages on both sides’. Hostages? It is a scandal that our public broadcaster is referring to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, some of whom are guilty of acts of extreme violence, as ‘hostages’. It later walked back its comments, issuing an on-air correction. CNN, too, seemed incapable of focussing on the shocking condition of the three Israelis. Released Palestinians have also looked ‘emaciated’ and ‘weak’, it rushed to say. You can almost hear the thought process: ‘People are sympathising too much with Israel – quick, dig out an image of Palestinian pain.’

It’s like our opinion-forming classes have an instinctual aversion to empathy for Israelis. It makes them nervous. It threatens to unravel their morally infantile narrative about Israel being the most beastly of states and the Palestinians being the most oppressed of peoples. So they fiercely police public compassion, ensuring that even the dystopic image of Jews starved by sworn Jew-haters is countered by a reminder that Palestinians have a hard time, too. There is a ‘strange reluctance to see Jews as victims’, in the words of Hadley Freeman. Jews, alone among minority groups, are ruthlessly deprived of victim status, in this case to sustain the cultural elites’ self-flattering narrative about problematic Israel and benighted Palestine.

The sick reality is that there are people out there who will have seen those three stricken Jews not as brutalised human beings deserving of our solidarity, but as an unwelcome intrusion into the childish morality tale about Israel-Palestine. As a vexing reminder that things are more complicated than we are told. As stark, gaunt proof of the crimes against humanity committed by Hamas, which were the source of this war that our cultural elites shamelessly blame on Israel. This is how intense Israelophobia has become in influential circles – they are now willing to sacrifice Jews to ideology, to discourage solidarity with wronged, ravaged Israelis in order that their moral narrative might be protected against the impertinence of nuance. In the past, people looked the other way when Jews were dehumanised because they wanted to save their skins – now they do it to save their fake virtue.

We live in an era of the most rank moral inversion. No one doubts that Palestinians in Gaza have suffered enormously as a result of the war started by Hamas. This will include malnutrition, a scourge that has attended every war in history. But time and again, Israel is accused of the very crimes committed against it by Hamas. It is called fascistic, when in truth it was attacked by a neo-fascist army. It is called genocidal, yet it’s Hamas that was founded with the genocidal intention of destroying the world’s only Jewish nation. It is accused of intentionally starving Palestinians by a terror group that intentionally starved Jews. Tell us what you accuse the Jewish State of, and we’ll tell you what you are guilty of.


‘Hell’ to break out if Hamas fails to release all hostages on Feb. 15, warns Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Monday that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas did not release the remaining hostages by Saturday.

“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock—I think it’s an appropriate time—I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump told to reporters at the White House as he was signing a new round of executive orders, according to pool reports.

“I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday,” the president said. “And if they’re not returned—all of them, not in dribs and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two–by Saturday at 12 o’clock. And after that, I would say, all hell is going to break out.”

After that time, Trump said, “it’s going to be a different ball game.”

Asked what “all hell will break out” means, Trump responded: “You’ll find out, and they’ll find out, too. Hamas will find out what I mean.”

Ultimately, however, he said the decision belongs to Israel: “We want them all back. I’m speaking for myself. Israel can override it.”

Trump’s comments came after Hamas said it would delay the release of hostages scheduled for Saturday “until further notice” due to alleged violations of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.
Freed hostage Romi Gonen to undergo 10-hour surgery, mother reveals
Freed hostage Romi Gonen will need to undergo an initial 10-hour surgery to help her recover from starvation, her mother said Monday.

“We know there is a very long initial surgery, about 10 hours,” Meirav Leshem Gonen told Anat Davidov and Udi Segal on 103FM. “We hope there won’t be more surgeries, but there’s no way to know.”

She also revealed new details about the terror group’s starvation tactics and Romi’s recovery process. She highlighted the severe physical toll on the released IDF observers, saying, “The girls did not return in good condition; losing 20% of their weight is not okay.”

She further emphasized the importance of public pressure on the government.

“One of the tasks we all need to undertake is to see both sides of the coin and work seriously to recognize the risks and possible outcomes [of delaying the deal.] The people must pressure the government to take care of populations that will be affected by the agreement.

“All the returned hostages are alive, but the fact remains that there are people still there who must be brought back. There are people we are committed to as a nation.”


USAID’s demise is nothing to mourn
Moreover, in more recent years, USAID has also been a staunch supporter of the State Department’s woke imperialism. Under President Obama, it focussed its efforts on climate alarmism and gay-rights advocacy, before President Biden added transgender activism to the mix. Indeed, in recent years it has become a haven for ‘progressive’ ideologues. In 2020, amid the sometimes violent protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd, over a thousand USAID staff accused the agency of ‘systemic racism’ and called on it to ‘affirm Black Lives Matter’.

Of course, USAID has offered genuine assistance to foreign peoples in need, but above all it has ruthlessly pursued American political interests. Yet those now livid with Trump’s moves to shut USAID down choose to focus only on the small number of good things it has done, while ignoring its extensive rap sheet.

The liberal New York Times is especially apoplectic. It complains that several USAID officials living abroad are agonising ‘over what to do about [their] pets’ if they have to return to the US. The New York Times also claims that, from the Seychelles to Mozambique, coral reefs, elephants, tigers and hyenas are now all ‘on the chopping block’. Reading such coverage, one could be forgiven for thinking that the very survival of life on Earth has always rested on USAID.

Predictably, ‘progressives’ are now blaming Russian president Vladimir Putin for USAID’s travails. They claim he has spread ‘disinformation’ about the agency, fuelling Trump’s attacks on it.

Yet, ironically, USAID itself funds propaganda. It has gifted funds to sympathetic media outlets, such as Politico, and to charities like BBC Media Action – to which it contributed £1.9million in 2022-23 alone. BBC Media Action is dedicated to promoting ‘a safer, more habitable planet, and inclusive societies’ around the world. Such is the White BBC Exec’s Burden.

Donald Trump’s fledgling second presidency marks a significant change in the political mood. USAID has meddled in other countries’ politics for far too long. More recently, it has become little more than another intensely partisan organisation, promoting reactionary woke ideas around the world. Its demise is nothing to mourn.
At USAID, Funding for Terror-Tied Groups and Internal Hostility Toward Israel Goes Back Years
As the Trump administration works to shutter the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), current and former U.S. officials who worked closely with the embattled aid group say they watched for years as it funneled millions of dollars to anti-Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism.

That funding caused internal friction across multiple administrations, according to those who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon. In some cases, USAID fought to conceal how taxpayer funds were spent. And when it came to Israel, officials recalled battling USAID over funding for groups that worked to undermine the Jewish state or maintained ties to terror organizations.

"For those who believe in a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, elements of USAID have been problematic for years," said one former State Department official who worked with USAID during the Biden administration. "There was even a lack of embarrassment among some USAID staffers about being associated with terrorist organizations."

Some of the terror-tied funding initiatives are publicly known. In November 2022, for instance, USAID awarded $100,000 to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group. Just six days before Hamas's Oct. 7 assault on Israel, USAID handed $900,000 "to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh."

USAID's hostilities toward the Jewish state, however, ran deeper than the agency's grantmaking.

Under Samantha Power, former president Joe Biden's pick to run USAID, agency officials fought pro-Israel policymaking at the State Department, often urging their colleagues at Foggy Bottom to pare down statements that praised the Jewish state, former officials said. In 2021, during a period of conflict with Hamas, Power herself refused to meet with Israel's ambassador unless Israel reached a ceasefire with the Iran-backed terror group. The decision put Power at odds with the White House National Security Council, which had signed off on the meeting, emails obtained by the Free Beacon show.

Years later, in September, Power's USAID accused Israel of deliberately blocking Gazan aid deliveries, which Hamas is known to steal for its own use and for black market sales that fund its terror activities. USAID staffers went as far as to urge the Biden State Department to end military aid to Israel. Former secretary of state Antony Blinken rejected the request.

"They weren't even in line with some of the Biden administration's policies," the State Department official who worked under Biden and Blinken told the Free Beacon. "It's more than just problematic grants to anti-Israel organizations. It's also their role in the internal approval processes and statements within the administration. There's an entire bureaucratic process they're a part of. They carry out their obstructionist ideology on that front as well."


Is Trump’s aid cut to South Africa linked to Israel?
Could President Donald Trump’s recent decision to halt U.S. aid to South Africa be retribution for its genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice?

Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 7 to cut financial assistance to South Africa, citing disapproval of its new land expropriation law and the genocide case in The Hague. The order stated that South Africa had taken “aggressive” positions against the U.S. by accusing Israel, rather than Hamas, of genocide, and by “reinvigorating its relationship with Iran.”

A White House statement said, “As long as South Africa continues to support bad actors on the world stage and allows violent attacks on innocent disfavored minority farmers, the United States will stop aid and assistance to the country.”

According to an Israeli official who asked not to be named, South Africa’s leading role in seeking to prosecute Israel for genocide against the people of Gaza at the ICJ may not have been the prime motive behind Trump’s decision, but it certainly played a role. He noted that the United States, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, strongly backed Israel in dismissing South Africa’s claims that the Jewish state’s war against Hamas in Gaza after its brutal massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, constituted genocide.

Trump posted on Truth Social a week before signing the executive order: “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY. It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention. A massive human rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see. The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”

The order added that the U.S. would promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored, race-based discrimination.
Israel arrests two eastern Jerusalem booksellers for incitement
Two eastern Jerusalem residents have been arrested for allegedly selling books containing Palestinian nationalist incitement, including a children’s coloring book titled, “From the River to the Sea,” the Israel Police said on Monday.

The arrests came after detectives conducted searches on Sunday night at two bookstores in the city, police said.

The suspects, both in their 30s, will be brought before a court later on Monday, where police will request an extension of their remand, the statement continued.

“The Israel Police will continue its efforts to thwart incitement and support for terrorism, as well as apprehend those involved in offenses that threaten the security of Israel’s citizens,” the statement concluded.

Last week, Israeli security forces arrested the owner of a bookstore in the Old City of Jerusalem on suspicion of selling pro-terror material, including works by slain senior Hezbollah and Hamas terror leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar.

The bookstore was discovered after police officers searched the bag of a female suspect in the Old City and found the pro-terror content, according to the police. During questioning, she claimed to have purchased the materials from a nearby bookshop a short time earlier.

Officers subsequently discovered that the store was selling numerous books containing “inciting and terrorist content, the sale and distribution of which is prohibited.”


Yisrael Medad: Peter Beinart goes down a rabbit hole
Journalist Peter Beinart was upset by Elise Stefanik’s answer in response to a question posed by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) about whether or not “Israel has a biblical right to the entire West Bank.” She confirmed (video at 24:45) it was her belief with a one-word “Yes.” Hollen reacted to that forthright statement, saying it was one “not held by the founders of the State of Israel, who were secular Zionists, not religious.”

Although Van Hollen is not a subject of this column, I think it proper to point out that on Jan. 7, 1937, in his testimony before the British Royal (Peel) Commission, David Ben-Gurion, then head of the Jewish Agency, declared: “The Bible is our mandate.” In 1956, with the conquest of Sinai, he had spoken about “the rebirth of the kingdom of Solomon.”

Beinart, in a short clip he distributed, thinks Stefanik is wrong. He is also convinced that the Bible does not grant Jews “unconditional sovereignty over the West Bank.”

How wrong? Her statement is “absurd.” For Beinart, “public policy based on appeals to sacred texts that are sacred to some people but not others” should not be. Rather, there is the framework of international law that “determines whether Israel has the right to control the West Bank.”

Moreover, what truly bothers Beinart is that “Stefanik’s understanding of the Bible, as I understand it, is completely wrong from the perspective of Jewish tradition.” Jews, he posits, have no “unconditional political control over the West Bank or any other part of what we call Eretz Israel, the land of Israel.” Beinart knows this because he’s read Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro’s The Empty Wagon. It’s “quite a remarkable book,” he thinks.

One reviewer of the book notes that Shapiro is related through marriage to the previous Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, who laid out the Satmar doctrine on Zionism. The Empty Wagon, it seems, is “a disingenuous religious and political polemic that blames nearly all of the failings in the Jewish world of the past 150 years, including the Holocaust, on Zionism.” He is convinced that the book “is a seriously flawed work and Shapiro’s approach is histrionic, rather than logical.”

In another review, an Orthodox rabbi points out that saying the author’s “premise is grossly inaccurate is a serious understatement.” Beinart has gone off the deep end, it would appear.
Jake Wallis Simons: What happened to William Dalrymple?
When I contacted Dalrymple to clarify his views on Israel and Palestine, he told me: “As someone who has both covered the conflict and specialised in the history of the region, writing and lecturing on the subject across the globe, I feel I have a duty to bring out the truth about what the Palestinians have been through.” He also said that he had “always been clear in my opposition and condemnation of Hamas”.

That may well be the case, but Dalrymple’s outbursts can be venomous towards those who do not share his repugnance for the Middle East’s only democracy. This has included myself. On one memorable occasion, shortly after October 7, he announced that I was an “Islamophobe and notorious hater of the Palestinians”. To his credit, he deleted the post when I messaged him directly about it. But it was too late; one of his more zealous followers had superimposed Dalrymple’s statement onto a picture of myself in black devil’s horns and a headdress, along with the moniker: “evil Zionist monster”.

Several mutual friends told me they had quietly muted Dalrymple’s timeline amid a general sense that the man has jumped the shark. One told me: “Obviously, Willy has been a devotee of the Palestinian cause for years but this is different. I’m just worried that his intemperate language and near hysteria is going to damage his credibility as a historian. It’s like he’s lost control.”

In August, bestselling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, one of Dalrymple’s old Cambridge contemporaries, publicly took him to task on Israel in a series of posts described by one commentator as “like watching a panther dismember a goat”.

Montefiore wrote: “You call the tragic Gaza war ‘unprecedented’ yet I question that. Five hundred thousand killed by Assad in Syria. Forty thousand civilians by the Assads in Hama in two weeks in 1982, let alone Iraq, Sudan, Congo.” Describing Dalrymple’s comments as “a mélange of facts and unfacts, hyperbole, inaccuracy and ahistorical musing,” he scolded that “exaggerations, untruths and lack of context are neither necessary nor helpful: They just stir more hatred”.

Montefiore also raised concerns about his friend’s fidelity to fact in the way he apparently relied on discredited Hamas casualty figures. “Forty thousand civilians killed but not a single Hamas soldier?” he remarked. “How does pretending Hamas doesn’t exist or fight help Palestinians? Ministry of Truth would be proud.” Ouch. Until recently, the two historians had been discussing a podcast collaboration. That idea seems to have taken a back seat.
'The Palestinian People Does Not Exist'
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Senior PLO official Zuheir Mohsen, interviewed by James Dorsey, Trouw, March 31, 1977.

Jordan... actually was in possession of Jerusalem, if illegally, between 1948 and the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan nevertheless, the first day of the war, insisted on joining the other Arab countries in attacking Israel, even though General Moshe Dayan had warned Jordan's King Hussein at the time to stay out of it....

The Al-Aqsa Mosque would therefore have been constructed six years after Muhamad's death: c. 570- June 8, 632 CE.
Evangelical Christian Zionist slams Tucker Carlson's 'Jew-hatred' at White House
Evangelical Christian Zionist leader Laurie Cardoza-Moore condemned conservative commentator Tucker Carlson after images surfaced over the weekend showing him posing with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk at the White House.

“Tucker Carlson’s antisemitism does not reflect the values of the Trump administration,” said Cardoza-Moore on Monday, adding that Carlson “is the slightly savvier mentor of Candace Owens, peddling a new woke-right, fake-Christian form of Jew-hatred.”

Cardoza-Moore, host of the syndicated television show Focus on Israel, which reaches billions of viewers globally, said she had been “inundated with calls from concerned Jews and Christians” following the images of Carlson wearing an oversized MAGA hat alongside Trump and Musk.

“We, the people, elected President Trump with an overwhelming majority and with a mandate to stand with Israel and our Jewish brethren against the rise of antisemitism, anti-Israelism, and anti-Zionism,” she said.

“Under the Biden administration, his policies incited violence against our Jewish communities on higher-ed and K-12 campuses, in synagogues, and places of worship. Our 47th president is without any doubt Israel’s greatest friend in the White House ever, but Tucker Carlson’s antisemitism is appalling.”

Accused of amplifying antisemitism
Cardoza-Moore further accused Carlson of using his platform to amplify antisemitic voices. “Following the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, Tucker has chosen to platform Holocaust revisionists, Jew-haters, and fake Christian leaders on the Palestinian Authority payroll,” she said. “He peddles conspiracy theories against God’s Chosen and libels the Israel Defense Forces by falsely claiming they deliberately target civilians.”

Concluding her remarks, Cardoza-Moore directly appealed against Carlson’s presence in Trump’s political circles. “Tucker Carlson should not be allowed anywhere near the White House,” she declared.


Accused Salman Rushdie stabber says ‘Free Palestine’ as he heads into court
Witnesses to the attempt on author Salman Rushdie’s life recalled the bloody horror on the first day of accused knifeman Hadi Matar’s trial – and described fearing a second attacker was going to blow up the lecture hall where the novelist was assaulted.

“I can see blood, I can see them piled on,” said Deborah Moore Kushmaul, the chief program officer at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York who was greeting guests at the Rushdie lecture in August 2022 when she heard a “commotion” coming from the stage.

“I can see that our audience, many of them who are elderly, were screaming. Many were rushing onto stage,” Kushmaul said in the Chautauqua County Courthouse Monday. “I knew that something terrible had happened. I didn’t know if someone died or not but I saw all the blood.”

When she realized somebody had attacked Rushdie – a well-known danger he’s faced since Iran called for his death in 1989 over his novel “The Satanic Verses” – Kushmaul said she ran forward to help but was terrified there “would be a bomb or another attacker.”

“I saw Salman Rushdie on the floor. I saw other people trying to restrain the attacker,” she said, explaining that a reverend handed her a bloody knife when she arrived.

“I was afraid someone else would grab it. I didn’t know if someone else would use it.”

Kushmaul handed the blade to a security guard as “the screaming was continuing,” then took Rushdie’s microphone and began evacuating the theater, she testified.
The sisterhood’s silence: when Jewish women don’t count
When David Baddiel wrote Jews Don’t Count, he was writing about racism being somehow unnoticed or even socially acceptable when directed at Jews.

Now, in view of the deafening silence at the latest atrocity – female hostages paraded through a baying, hostile mob like women at the Salem witch trials – it’s time to observe the shameful truth that for the sisterhood and campaigners against violence to women, Jews don’t count either.

The savage sexual violence meted out to women and girls on October 7th was received by most high-profile feminists, campaigners and Me-too-ers with little more than a shrug. At best there were a few ambiguous commiserations; at worst there was a nasty political twist to “they had it coming” that replaced provocative clothing with the “provocation” of daring to live in Israel – despite Jews having lived there continuously for 4,000-plus years.

There is a special irony in this in light of the pivotal role of Jewish women (notably Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan) in 1960s “second-wave” feminism.

If Jews “counted” as victims of misogynist brutality, there would have been a roar of pure rage from the sisterhood over the mutilation, viciously misogynistic brutality and savage sexual violence directed at Israeli women by Hamas terrorists.

If Jews counted in this regard, there would be a roar of pure rage over the way the released hostages were paraded through that hostile, baying mob.

If Jews were not actively discounted in this regard, we would surely have heard from prominent feminists such as Michelle Obama or feminist literary icons such as Bernadine Evaristo or Arundathi Roy who would surely be outraged at the savage sexual violence to which the women were subjected.

Or we’d hear from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women which has expressed “alarm” over Palestinian women suffering “egregious human rights violations” but has failed so far to condemn – or even express “alarm” at – the brutality, depraved violence, sexual mutilation or prolonged captivity of Jewish women.

Or we’d hear from our very own London-based Amnesty International which has actively promoted Palestinian victimhood and agonises over “online abuse” of women, but does not say one word about misogyny, brutality and depraved violence directed in real life at actual Jewish women.


Louis Theroux to return to interviewing Israeli settlers living in West Bank
Louis Theroux will return to the Palestinian West Bank to meet Israeli settlers, and give an “insight into tribalism and the ways in which we can blind ourselves to the humanity of those around us”.

The British documentarian, 54, previously fronted the 2010 documentary Ultra Zionists for the BBC about settlers living in the contested territory.

The corporation is making the new show Louis Theroux: The Settlers, which will see him talking to settlers following the Israel-Hamas war.

Theroux said: “In 2010, I made a programme called The Ultra-Zionists that looked at the extreme end of the Israeli settler community in the West Bank.

“Since then, those same extreme settlers are even more emboldened.

“I’m interested in ideologues and fundamentalists of all stripes. In going back to the West Bank, I wanted to see settler expansionism up close, and the human cost it entails.

“It’s a story specific to a time and a place and a region, but it’s also a universal insight into tribalism and the ways in which we can blind ourselves to the humanity of those around us.”

In this new documentary, Theroux will embed himself in the West Bank along with travelling throughout the area to learn more.

The BBC said he will also “discover” that the settlers “are already making plans to move into” the Gaza Strip, where the fighting has seen more than 47,000 Palestinians killed.


NY Times downplays Israeli post-Oct. 7 losses, Hamas role in war, data study says
New York Times coverage of the Gaza war downplayed Israeli losses incurred after the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel and minimized the role of Palestinian violence in perpetuating the conflict, according to a Yale professor’s analysis.

Edieal Pinker, a professor and deputy dean at the Yale School of Management, analyzed 1,561 New York Times articles about the war published between October 7, 2023, and June 7, 2024, for the study released last month.

The coverage fit into a “specific narrative,” the study said. That narrative said that Hamas carried out a “brutal assault” on Israelis, mostly civilians, but that after that attack, Israel was the “sole aggressor” and bore few costs from the war, aside from declining international support.

The coverage following the Hamas attack instead focused on Palestinian suffering, portraying Palestinians as “passive victims whose suffering grows daily.” There was extensive coverage of Israeli violence, but less mention of Israeli hostages, Hamas casualties, Palestinian violence, Israeli casualties after the Hamas attack and Israeli suffering that was not directly tied to October 7.

“Little mention is made of Israeli casualties post-October 7 or of Palestinian acts of violence post-October 7, even as Israel and Hamas were locked in intensive combat over the eight months of the study period,” the study said.

The study was published last month in SSRN, a platform for working research papers that have not yet been peer-reviewed. The study was not sponsored by Yale. Pinker has a background in data analysis and has previously studied demographics in US Jewish communities.

The New York Times is regularly criticized by both Israel’s supporters, and its detractors, for its coverage of the conflict, including before the start of the latest war.


Erdogan accuses US of bowing to ‘Zionist lobby’ on Gaza
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza and rebuild the area, calling it unworthy of discussion and driven by pressure from the “Zionist lobby.”

Gaza, Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem rightfully belong to the Palestinians, he said.

“I would like to state this clearly once: The proposals put forward by the new American administration regarding Gaza with the pressure of the Zionist lobby have nothing worth considering or discussing from our perspective,” Erdogan told reporters at Istanbul Airport before boarding a flight to Malaysia for an official visit.

“These are purely preoccupations with nonsense. No one has the power to remove the people of Gaza from their eternal homeland that has been around for thousands of years,” he continued.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also rejected the plan earlier on Sunday, calling it historically ignorant.

“The displacement of Palestinians is unacceptable,” said Fidan.

Erdogan sharply criticized Israel again on Monday, holding the Jewish state responsible for the extensive destruction in Gaza and demanding $100 billion in compensation.

He accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of causing the damage and insisted Israel should fund Gaza’s reconstruction instead of seeking to relocate Palestinians.
Seth Frantzman: The Houthis may have stopped attacks but they haven't forgotten the war
Now, what has become of the Houthis? Israel launched several rounds of airstrikes against them, targeting areas in Hodeidah port and elsewhere in Yemen. However, they are seemingly undeterred.

The terror group may have stopped its attacks, but it has not forgotten the war. Recently, the Houthis held a military parade in Hodeidah governorate in Yemen in which they said that 8,000 men graduated from “Al-Aqsa Flood courses.”

The fact that the group has named the course after the October 7 massacre is clearly a show of support for Hamas.

The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV channel said on Monday, “The grand military parade reflected the level of combat readiness of the graduates of the Al-Aqsa Flood courses, who represent reserve forces trained in various weapons, physical preparation, and military culture based on a solid jihadist faith reference to preserve national sovereignty, protect the land, and defend the religion of God and the oppressed.”

The same report said that the graduates of these courses are now ready to confront the “plans and conspiracies of the American-British-Zionist evil trinity and those who revolve in their orbit.” The graduates of the recent program “chanted slogans” to celebrate their courses. The whole event sounded a bit tedious.

“The speeches during the presentation expressed pride and honor in the graduation of this large batch of Hodeidah’s sons, which comes within the framework of continuous preparation and readiness to confront any threats within the battle of Yemen to confront the American-British enemy and anyone who dares to tamper with Yemeni sovereignty,” the Houthi media said.


Iranians condemn US, Israel at Islamic Revolution anniversary rally
Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered in Tehran on Monday to mark the 46th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah and the establishment of Iran’s theocracy, the Associated Press reported.

The event occurred amid economic struggles caused by U.S. sanctions and escalating tensions with Washington following President Donald Trump’s return to office and renewed “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign.

Protesters carried anti-American and anti-Israeli banners, with some calling for Israel’s destruction. The rally also showcased military displays, including missile replicas.

Over the past year, Iran launched unprecedented direct missile and drone attacks against Israel. Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, also attacked Israel, escalating the conflict. However, Israel and its allies intercepted most of the Iranian strikes, which were followed by Israeli retaliatory attacks that significantly damaged Iran’s air defenses and weapons production sites.


‘Zone of Interest’ Nazi house to become center to combat antisemitism
The Polish home of the commandant of Auschwitz, which was at the center of the 2024 Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest, has been purchased by an organization fighting antisemitism and will be converted it into a center dedicated to combating antisemitism, extremism, and hate.

Standing out among a myriad of award-winning Holocaust-inspired Hollywood films is The Zone of Interest, a historical drama loosely based on the novel of the same name, which took home the 2024 Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Rather than explicitly depicting the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime, the film is unique in that it centers on the family home of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz.

Originally charged by Heinrich Himmler with opening the camp, Höss experimented with Zyklon B gas and built what ultimately became a place of mass extermination, where about one million people were sent to their deaths.

As he planned for the gas chambers and crematorium, he and his wife were also raising five young children at their upscale Polish residence on 88 Legionow Street, called “House 88.” The number 88 was code for “Heil Hitler.” H is the 8th letter of the alphabet.

The focus on daily life in the Höss home, which sits just beyond the camp’s infamous barbed-wire brick walls, creates a chilling portrayal of the banality of evil and sheds light on the stark dichotomy of life and death that persisted under the Nazis.

In addition to the three-story villa, once famously referred to by Höss’s wife as “paradise,” the property also features lush gardens and a swimming pool. It was known to play host to Hitler’s most senior SS officers, including Himmler and Josef Mengele, the “angel of death” doctor.


Racist rapper quits X after declaring ‘I love Hitler’ Screenshot: Twitter/X
Racist rapper Kanye West has today quit social media platform Twitter/X following a foul series of antisemitic, misogynistic and pro-Nazi propaganda.

Writing to his 33 million followers, 47-year old West posted: “I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. ‘It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board. It was like an Ayahuasca trip. Love all of you who gave me the energy and attention. To we connect again. Good afternoon and goodnight.”

After West posted dozens of tweets on Friday 7th February targeting the Jewish community and praising Adolph Hitler, appalled platform users were quick to message owner Elon Musk, demanding action.

The Simon Wiesthenthal Centre wrote: “Today, Kanye West made a series of rambling, antisemitic and misogynistic posts on X, where he has 32 million followers. If this does not cross a red line, then what does? How social media platforms respond will be very telling. Your move X. @elonmusk

His departure from the platform comes 14 months after his last tirade in December 2023, where West released a video ranting about Jewish people, declared “I like Hitler” and then promptly apologised, in Hebrew, for “any pain I may have caused”

Responding to West’s departure, Elon Musk posted: “Given what he has posted, his account is now classified as NSFW (Not Safe for Work). You should not be seeing that anymore.”

Kanye West’s commercial website, yeezy.com has just one item for sale: a white T-shirt featuring a black swastika.
Kanye West’s SuperBowl ad directs people to purchase swastika shirt
Rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, released an ad during the Super Bowl that directed people to his website Yeezy.com, which now only sells one item: a white T-shirt with a black swastika.

The rapper filmed the 30-second advertisement on his iPhone while in a chair in what appeared to be a dentist’s office.

“I spent like all the money for the commercial on these new teeth,” he said, flashing his new diamond-encrusted pearly whites. “Once again, I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Um … Um … Go to Yeezy.com.”

The 47-year-old West has a history of anti-Israel, antisemitic rhetoric.

He recently posted a farewell on X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly after a slew of anti-Jewish, racist rants on the platform. These posts included “I’m a Nazi” and “I love Hitler.”

He said he would never apologize for his “Jewish comments” and stated that Jews should be slaves again, a reference to the biblical story of Jews being slaves in Egypt.

“I’m logging out of Twitter,” West wrote to his 32 million followers on X on Sunday night. “I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.”


Yoseph Haddad – Israel is NOT an apartheid state
Yoseph Haddad is an Israeli-Arab social activist, speaker, and leader of the organization Together—Vouch for Each Other, which works to promote cooperation and understanding between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Haddad has also been an important voice internationally, sharing his experiences as a former soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and his efforts to build bridges in a diverse society.

Yoseph was invited to Bergen by MIFF – With Israel for peace, to give a lecture, and MIFF flew me in from Oslo and made everything happen to record this conversation between me and Yoseph.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

at