Showing posts with label "Al-Aqsa is in danger!" lie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Al-Aqsa is in danger!" lie. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 27, 2023




Today, Felesteen and other Palestinian sites reported:

Moaz Agbariya, a researcher specializing in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque affairs, reported that there are 45 tunnels connected to each other that threaten the foundations of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the homes of Jerusalemites in the occupied city of Jerusalem . 

Agbariya stated in a statement to the Felesteen newspaper that the majority of the tunnels are based on the foundations of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the western side, and there is a section of them on the southern side, and a tunnel on the northern side.

He pointed out that there is a tunnel that only Jews are allowed to enter, and it is located under Al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to four tunnels that were established in the Roman era and restored during the era of the Ayyubid state, and they are designated for the exit of rainwater from the Blessed Mosque, and no one is allowed to enter them except cleaning workers after obtaining a permit from the occupation police.  

Wow! A tunnel under the Temple Mount that only Jews re allowed to enter? And only one of 45? Sign me up! 

Especially since no one has dug a tunnel under the Temple Mount (except the Waqf) for well over a hundred years!

He explained that the occupation's attempts to falsify the history of the city of Jerusalem and prove its alleged right to it do not stop, by digging tunnels, seizing and hiding everything that indicates authentic Islamic history. 

In an earlier interview, he claimed that a new tunnel Israel was excavating had Islamic markings and phrases that the Israelis are destroying. That is of course absurd, since you can see lots of Muslim sites in the Old City that are preserved by Israel. 

Palestinians have claimed for at least 12 years that Israel is building "Biblical gardens" on top of the Bab al-Rahma cemetery adjacent to the Temple Mount. Somehow, nothing has happened.




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Tuesday, September 19, 2023

On Sunday, about 250 Jews visited the Temple Mount for Rosh Hashanah. There were no major incidents:  one Jew blew a shofar and was quickly removed by police.

But since so much ink had been spilled in the Arab world about how "Al Aqsa is in danger" the Arabic media had to create the impression that the Jews who calmly and quietly visited - as they do every Sunday through Thursday - were disruptive and insulting. 

Even Arab video shows they weren't:



Yet the lies spread throughout the Arab world. Countless articles claim that the shofar blower was supported by Israeli police, not detained. Al Jazeera has an entire article on the dangers of blowing a shofar there - a place where there are huge loudspeakers blaring much louder than any shofar five times a day, every day.

The Jordanian Council of Endowments, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites in Jerusalem issued a statement condemning the Israeli police for allowing a Jew to enter with his shofar.

But these condemnations of Jews visiting their holiest site are not relegated to op-eds and fringe groups. They come from the governments of nations at peace with Israel, or seeking peace with Israel.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry "condemned the extremists’ storming of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/the Holy Mosque of Jerusalem and their provocative practice under the protection of the Israeli police." They said that the Jews touring the area "represents a violation of the historical and legal status quo in the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/the Holy Mosque and a violation of the sanctity of the holy places." It also emphasized that the entire area of the Temple Mount is purely for Muslims, not only insulting Jews but also the thousands of Christians who visit every year. 

Morocco's Foreign Ministry was reported also to have condemned Jews visiting the site, saying, "These escalatory actions inflame feelings and undermine efforts to calm the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories."


Dr. Muhammad Mukhtar Gomaa, the Egyptian Minister of Endowments, said that "the repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa are a sinful assault on one of the holiest sanctities of all Muslims, a blatant provocation to the feelings of Muslims from all over the world, and a blatant violation of all international laws, and the rational people of the international community must work to curb this extremism."

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement, in English:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's condemnation and denunciation of the storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by a group of extremists under the protection of the Israeli occupation forces. The Ministry affirms that these practices are considered a blatant violation of all international norms and conventions, and a provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world. 

In reality, international law would prohibit the banning of Jews from the Temple Mount that these members of the United Nations are explicitly demanding.  

In the history of Jerusalem, only Jewish rulers have allowed all people to visit their holy places. Gentiles were allowed to offer sacrifices in the Temples. There is a huge irony that the people who have been the most liberal and accepting of all have been the ones accused of intolerance - by people who proudly say that no one has any rights on the Temple Mount besides Muslims. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Monday, September 11, 2023

Palestine Today published this poster warning about all the upcoming Jewish holidays and how Jews use them as excuses to defile Al Aqsa Mosque.

And when they say "Al Aqsa Mosque," it is obvious that they are referring to the Kotel (Western Wall) as part of it.


The photo is a Photoshop, showing the twin threats that Palestinians see: Zionists and religious Jews. 

The poster gives a description of how Jews supposedly celebrate their holidays, some of which are mysteries to me. They know some amazing things about Judaism.

Jewish holidays
An imminent danger that violates the sanctity of Al-Aqsa

Hebrew New Year's Day
From  September 15-17, includes major raids with the participation of occupation leaders, during which the trumpet is blown.

Yom Kippur
From September 24 - 25, it includes massive raids into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, during which bird sacrifices are offered.

Throne Festival
From September 30 to October 5, massive raids take place, plant sacrifices are made, and a canopy of palm trees is set up.

Eid Simchat Torah
On October 7, the Torah scrolls are brought into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa and circulated around them

Feast of Isru Hag
On October 8, its most prominent pillar was the dining table, which is a Talmudic ritual performed by settlers in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa.

The feast of Hosea, our Lord
On October 10, the settlers hold a Talmudic ritual in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa

The Feast of Prostration 
is on November 13, during which Al-Aqsa is stormed and Talmudic prayers are performed

Hanukkah
From 8 to 12 December, Al-Aqsa is stormed in large numbers, and lit by candles with huge candlesticks
Interestingly, they do not mention the tens of thousands of Jews who have gone to the Kotel every day this Hebrew month to say Selichot prayers.



It is clear that to Palestinian Muslims, a Jew worshiping at the Kotel is just as offensive as one worshiping on the Temple Mount. 



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

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Sunday, September 03, 2023

The increasingly deranged Zachary Foster, formerly a decent researcher, now blames 9/11 on...US support for Israel:

The US-Israel alliance was according to  Al-Qaeda one of the reasons for 9/11. The US’s unconditional support for Israel is a massive security risk and endangers Americans.

The US’s support for Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing is risking American lives.
First of all, this is an unbelievably stupid take. If you follow his logic, that means that US policy should adhere to whatever Islamic terrorists demand, because if they kill any Americans, it is America's fault for not doing what they say.

With that mindset, the US should insist that all American women wear the hijab and the US censor most TV shows, because Islamists have railed against the US exporting pornography and immorality to the world. 

Secondly, even Bin Laden didn't prioritize the issue of Israel in his 1998 and 1996 fatwas. 

His 1998 fatwa gives three grievances against the US: US troops in Saudi Arabia, the US war in Iraq, and US support for Israel was #3 - and his "proof" is that the US was destroying Iraq in order to help Israel, somehow.

In other words, Israel was just tacked on as an afterthought in his fatwa to appeal to Islamist antisemitism. We know that because his 1996 fatwa, which was much longer, mentioned the "Zionist-Crusader Alliance" a few times but had very little to actually say about Israel's supposed crimes considering its length. The target was America: "If there are more than one duty to be carried out, then the most important one should receive priority. Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land [Saudi Arabia]."  Bin Laden was complaining about attacks on Muslims by Israel but also "massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina." 

After 9/11, Bin Laden again gave a bunch of reasons for 9/11 - and suddenly Israel was on the top of the list. OBL thought that he could attract more Muslims to join him with more antisemitism - anyone who actually believes his reasons for attacking the US in this missive really don't understand anything about Islamist terrorism.  and Bin Laden added that the Jews were planning to destroy Al Aqsa. But he also complained about Bosnia, supposed US support for Russians in Chechnya and India in Kashmir, pro-US Arab governments, "stealing wealth," US "occupation" of Arab countries, and US "starvation" of 1.5 million Iraqi children due to sanctions.  (Child mortality in Iraq in fact did not rise at all during the time of US sanctions, but some people apparently believe Bin Laden's letter as an accurate source of information.) 

The Bin Laden letter was a recruitment letter for Muslims, not a real explanation of why he attacked the US.  

Obviously, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda altogether have had an antisemitic philosophy. But no one can read the Bin Laden fatwas and think that he was obsessed with Israel - he was obsessed with the US. He would have attacked the US if Israel didn't exist.

At the same time, no one can read Zachary Foster's tweets and think he is anything but obsessed with Israel. 

Not surprisingly, his claims have been getting lots of responses from 9/11 "truthers" - apparently they are now the audience he is attracting.

I try to spend my time only refuting intelligent arguments against Israel and pointing out their hidden bias and falsehoods, like the arguments given by the UN, or Amnesty or other NGOs. Their hate for Israel is masked behind sophisticated propaganda that takes effort to tease out and expose. However, this might be the last time I waste any time on Foster since his anti-Israel arguments have now descended into farce. 




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

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Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Gaza-based cartoonist Bahaa Yaseen published this yesterday, the anniversary of the burning of Al Aqsa Mosque by a mentally ill Christian.



A Muslim woman prays "O Allah, protect our al-Aqsa" on a prayer mat with a pile of stones next to it. 

A snake dressed as a Jew, with Stars of David on his skin, wearing a black hat, tallit and tefillin, with a flamethrower shofar, hisses at her.

Another snake, holding a Temple menorah and machine gun, is next to him.

Both of them are dreaming of burning down the mosque. 

This is the same artist who, in 2015, published a cartoon showing a religious Jewish man raping a Palestinian woman and shooting a baby while a nearby PA soldier does nothing.  Palestinians were scandalized - not by the Jew-hatred, but by the depiction of rape.

Usually the Western Israel haters deny any Palestinian antisemitism. When shown things like these, they often retreat back to "Can you blame the Palestinians for hating Jews?" 

And from there is only a small step to "Can you blame us for hating Jews?"

(h/t @MoranT555)




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Thursday, June 29, 2023

Arab leaders and pundits habitually warn, in English, that Israel is threatening to threatening to turn the conflict into a religious war. 

A recent example comes from Ramzy Baroud in Arab News, saying, 

What is currently taking place in Palestine is not a religious war, but some Israeli officials and political parties are keen on turning it into one. 

Though warnings against “religious wars” in Palestine — in fact, the entire region — have been mostly linked to Israel’s current “most rightwing government in history,” religious discourses have been the most dominant since the establishment of Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism, in the late-19th century. 
This is absurd to the extreme. 

This has been a religious war for decades, and it has been Palestinians making it one.

From their first leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, their claims have been based primarily on religious themes and arguments. Religion suffuses everything they do - their words, their actions, their thinking - all the way back to the Mufti's claim that "Al Aqsa is in danger!" from Jews.

The Palestinian Arab armed forces in both the 1936 riots and the 1948 war were called the "Army of the Holy War."

The Palestinian constitution says, "Islam is the official religion in Palestine. ...  The principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation."

The Palestinian Authority has a Ministry of Religious Endowments.

Members of the PLO executive Committee marked Eid yesterday by laying a wreath on the grave of Yasir Arafat. 

Mahmoud Abbas' speeches - even to the UN - all begin with "In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful."

Abbas referred to rebuilding Gaza in 2016 as a "jihad."

Every Palestinian media outlet refers to those killed by Israeli forces as "martyrs," not "victims."


The religious aspect is so ingrained that a supposedly secular UNRWA is asking for Muslims to give it "zakat" (religious charity) funds, quoting the Quran. Do any other UN agencies ever quote any other religious texts?  (I found an exception that proves the rule.)

And, of course, Gaza groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are Islamic extremist groups which use Islam to justify attacking Jews. 

It isn't Israel that seeks a religious war. It is the Palestinians, and their own religious justifications are accepted without any objection by the world.

But whenever Jews assert their own religious desires in the land of the Torah, they are demeaned - not only by Palestinians - for acting in such a primitive, non-enlightened manner.

The Palestinians claim, and much of the world accepts, the idea that only Muslims have an unquestioned religious claim on the land and the holy sites that were all invariably Jewish holy sites 1500 years before Mohammed was born. 

Jewish religious claims are treated with scorn while Muslim religious claims are accepted without question. And part of the reason is exactly because religion is the major component of the Palestinian nationalist philosophy.

Disparaging the Jewish religious claims to the land - especially while not questioning the Palestinian Islamic-based claims - is another manifestation of the antisemitism that is accepted as normal nowadays.. 




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!

 

 

Wednesday, June 14, 2023




We've noted previously that the Waqf tourist guides to the Temple Mount from the 1920s through 1950 freely admitted that the Dome of the Rock was built on the spot of the two Jewish Temples. Now the updated editions of the Waqf guide explicitly denies any Jewish connection to the Mount.

But a new photo book of the Temple Mount, "The Noble Sanctuary Book," has just been released and it was clearly made with the blessings of the Jordanian government and the Waqf, which granted the photographer Bashar Tabbah access to places not open to the public. The introduction was written by a member of Jordan's royal family.

The historical section of the book was written by an American archaeologist, Dr. Robert Schick. And his description indicates that the Temples were indeed on that site - and he brings proof from the Quran:


There is a little wiggle room there to say that it is possible that the Temples were elsewhere in Jerusalem, and it looks like Schick tried to thread the needle between honesty and the desires of the Jordanians. But his wording "Other verses associated with the Masjid al-Aqsa compound" immediately after the Quranic reference to the Temples makes it clear that the book says that the Quran is referring to the Temples on the Temple Mount.

Before anyone heard of Palestinians, this was not a controversial position. Many Muslim scholars over the centuries knew that the entire reason the Dome of the Rock was built where it was is because it was the site of the Temples and they wanted to build something that would approach the majesty of the originals. However, the official position changed in the 1950s and 60s, culminating in explicit Temple denial by Yasir Arafat at Camp David.



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Monday, June 12, 2023




For decades, every since Israel divided up the Tomb of the Patriarchs into Muslim and Jewish sections to avoid bloodshed, Palestinians have been warning that Israel plans to do the same with the Temple Mount, dividing it up "temporally and spatially." 

Last week, an obscure Likud MP named Amit Halevi gave them lots of ammunition.

A Likud lawmaker is proposing a plan to divide Jerusalem’s Temple Mount between Muslims and Jews and to remove Jordan’s custodial status over the holy site.

Speaking to the Zman Yisrael Hebrew news site, Knesset member Amit Halevi outlined a plan whereby Muslims would control the southern end of the 37-acre complex which contains the Al-Aqsa mosque, while Jews would receive the central and northern area, where the Dome of the Rock sits.

It would also allow Jews to enter from any gate, and it would get rid of the Waqf as custodian of the site. 

Palestinian sites are reporting this as a "draft law" (it isn't) and they are certain that the current Israeli government is planning to do this.

In his weekly cabinet meeting, Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said "taking this step would cause overwhelming anger whose results cannot be controlled, because of the sanctity and religious value that Al-Aqsa Mosque constitutes for the Palestinian people and for Arabs and Muslims." 

President of the Palestinian National Council, Ruhi Fattouh, called it "a fascist step by the racist settlement government to impose its control over the city of Jerusalem and its religious and historical places, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque." He also called this a prelude to a religious war that will  ignite the region.

Hamas media today quotes an analyst who says that this plan proves that they were right all along about Israel planning to divide up the area. And there have been daily articles across all Palestinian media railing against this idea. 

The chances of such a plan becoming law is just about zero.  It probably won't even be drafted. 

Not that it is a bad idea. It would be more fair than the absurd situation now. But there is no way it would ever happen. Halevi is a marginal figure in Likud, and I haven't seen any grassroots support for the plan by anyone. 

It is to Palestinians what the "Palestine is Jordan" plan is to Jordan - something they are intensely worried about but for which there is no realistic path. But it gives them endless nourishment for outlandish conspiracy theories. 




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

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Sunday, April 09, 2023




It hasn't been a big story in Israeli media, but Hamas has been firing relatively primitive anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli aircraft that have been retaliating for rocket fire.

In Palestinian media, this has been a much bigger story - even though the missiles have not succeeded in causing any damage.

Palestinian media has noted and shown videos that Israeli aircraft have been releasing flares to confuse the heat-seeking missiles.



To the terrorists, Israel taking countermeasures to the shoulder-mounted missiles is itself a victory. 

While Hamas encourages clashes every Ramadan, this time it is possible that their Al Aqsa provocations have a dual purpose. One is to capture videos of Israeli forces using violence against "peaceful worshipers," but the other may be to have an excuse to fire rockets at Israel - rockets that Israel is sure to respond to with relatively minor airstrikes, allowing Hamas to show off their anti-aircraft weapons and look powerful to Palestinians and the Arab world.

I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't an Iranian initiative. 




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Wednesday, April 05, 2023



As I have been reporting (and has been ignored by the mainstream media), the Jerusalem Waqf had - at Jordan's direction - written a memo saying that Muslims are not to stay overnight for the "i'tikaaf" custom at Al Aqsa Mosque. This was agreed during the Aqaba and Sharm el Sheikh summits between Israel and various Arab countries to tamp down tensions at the holy spot.

There was much Palestinian anger over this revelation. The "shabab," the youth who prefer violence to calm, said that the Waqf had no right to do that. The Waqf responded to the criticism earlier this week:

Local reports quoted the director of the Jerusalem Waqf Department, Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, as saying that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is run by a “responsible institution.” He notes that there are 22 members of the Endowment Council, and says that these members are all scholars and Jerusalemite personalities, and they appreciate the conditions in the city of Jerusalem and the circumstances of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, knowing that some of them have services for more than 50 years in Jerusalem.

He explained that the Waqf appreciates every movement in Jerusalem and in all aspects, and that since 1967, there has been i'tikaaf in the last ten days of Ramadan, in addition to Thursdays and Fridays, because the worshipers come from outside Jerusalem, and from Jordan, Gaza and some Arab and Islamic countries.

He points out that these decisions are not new to the Islamic waqf, and explains that this was the decision of the Waqf Council, and he said that it was “the right decision.”

And when al-Khatib talked about not opening the mosque for i'tikaaf on the rest of the week as well, he said: “This is a political issue that I cannot talk about. There are some things that are beyond our capacity, no more, no less.”

The shabab youth never made any secret about their intentions for i'tikaaf. It was never for quiet reflection and prayer. It was always to attempt to prevent Jews from ascending to the Temple Mount.  Arabic media have made that clear from the start. 

In the wake of popular anger at Israel enforcing the rules that the Waqf agreed to, the Waqf has now changed its tune.

It is now encouraging Palestinian Muslims to violate its own memorandum.

From Ammon News:

The Council of Islamic Endowments, Affairs and Holy Sites in Al-Quds Al-Sharif called on all Muslims, and those who can from the cities and villages of Palestine, to support the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque / Al-Qudsi Al-Sharif, by praying, worshiping, reading the Qur’an, and obtaining the double reward at the first two qiblahs, especially before the end of the blessed month of Ramadan.

In a statement issued today, Wednesday, the council affirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque has not and will not be closed to those in i'tikaaf, each according to his ability, program and intention, throughout the days and nights of the holy month of Ramadan.

The Council affirms that the protection of Al-Aqsa Mosque is the duty of every Muslim.
Muslims always refer to Jews as people who cannot be trusted because they break any covenant they agree to.

Look who just broke an agreement they signed.



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!

 

 

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

For the past week, Palestinian Arabic media have been filled with stories about how a Jewish extremist group planned to offer a Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount.

Most of them never mention that the same group has made the same or similar plans in previous years, and they were always stopped well before any potential scary lamb would be brought anywhere close to the Al Aqsa Mosque or any other Muslim site on the esplanade.

Then, on Monday:
The head of the Returning to the Mount movement, Rafael Morris, was detained on Monday on suspicion that he was going to try and sacrifice the Paschal sacrifice on the Temple Mount, as police completed their preparations ahead of the Passover holiday, which will begin on Wednesday evening.

Two activists from the movement were arrested last month after putting up notices in Arabic in the Old City of Jerusalem offering payment to anyone willing to store lambs near the Temple Mount for the Paschal sacrifice.

As of this writing, a day after the arrest,  I do not see a single Palestinian news site mention this - even as they continue to write extensively about the "threat" of an animal sacrifice at Al Aqsa.

In fact, Hamas announced today that the stabbing of two Israeli soldiers in Israel are a "response" to the planned sacrifice that will never happen as well as to Jews visiting the Temple Mount normally.

If they really were so frightened of the worldwide repercussions of a lamb appearing on the site, wouldn't they consider this arrest to be good news, or at least newsworthy?

But one would not expect to see any coverage of Israeli arrests and Israeli forces physically blocking any Jews from breaking the law if the point of the coverage  is to incite violence against Jews on Ramadan. 

They want anger and hate towards Israel and Jews, and any news stories that blunt their accusations must be censored.

They are trying to provoke the very religious war that they love to warn the West that Israel is provoking.

And then, when Passover comes and goes with no sacrifice, they will claim that it was their steadfastness that blocked the Jews from their attempts to slaughter the lamb, and not Israeli policy.




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Monday, April 03, 2023

The website of the Palestinian National Council published a warning:

The head of the National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, warned of the call made by the criminal extremist and the extremist National Security Minister Ben Gvir, in which he called on all Jews to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish Passover holiday.

Fattouh said in a statement issued on Sunday evening that the incitement of the fascist government and its ministers against the danger of the storming, and the so-called extremist groups of the Temple Mount, erecting an altar on the southern wall of the walls of Jerusalem, and conducting exercises to offer the "oblation" of the Jewish Passover, and the ceremonies that It will be held near Al-Aqsa Mosque, and will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war for which the fascist far-right government bears responsibility.

He added that the volume of incitement, oppression and abuse against the worshipers of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and what extremist groups are planning, fears that the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron will repeat, or that an insane act will be carried out and the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque will be repeated.

Fattouh called on the international community to immediately intervene to curb this terrorist madness led by the fascist occupation government, whose impact will not be limited to the occupied Palestinian territories only.
The Palestinian National Council (PNC) is the legislative authority within the PLO, and is responsible for formulating the organisation’s policies. It acts as a parliament that represents all Palestinians, except for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A full quorum of the PNC convened between 30 April-3 May 2018 in Ramallah to elect a new Palestinian Central Council (PCC) and PLO’s Executive Committee (EC). This was the first meeting of the full PNC since 1996. This meeting was boycotted by the PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and was seen by analysts as an effort by Mahmoud Abbas to consolidate his hold on power by promoting supporters, while marginalising his political rivals. During the meeting, the PNC reportedly transferred its legislative powers to the PCC. 

In January 2021, Abbas issued a presidential decree announcing that a new PNC (formally including Hamas) would be formed by 31 August.
It is a puppet organization, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, that reportedly gave up all of its powers - its entire reason of existence - to another puppet organization. And then Abbas created his own law, which never seems to have been implemented, to create a brand new PNC - proving once again that Abbas is a dictator who manipulates the many political organizations he controls to make things appear slightly more democratic.

The website appears to be nothing more than a sounding board for Rawhi Fattouh, since there are no PNC meetings. I'm not sure who elected him but it sure wasn't a transparent election.

Now, let's look at Fattouh's warning: that Jews play-acting a Passover sacrifice outside Al Aqsa "will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war."

It isn't the Jews who are threatening violence. It is the Arabs inciting against the Jews who are threatening violence. The message, which we have heard so many times from Palestinians of all ranks including dictator Abbas, is that Palestinians are animals who have no self-control, and the sight of Jews doing Jewish rituals fill them with so much rage that they can ignite the region into a new war, or new wave of terror, or sometimes to get all Muslims to join in to start a world war.

Palestinians spend a great deal of time telling the West that they cannot control themselves against becoming violent. For over a century they have tried to manipulate the West by warning of impending jihad that would turn the region into a bloodbath - a jihad that they cannot control (when they don't declare it themselves) because their people are so inherently violent.  

At the same time they tell Westerners that they are savage beasts who cannot be expected to adhere to normal social mores, they claim that the West is guilty of "orientalism" by stereotyping them as those same savage beasts they tell the West that they are.

One more detail about this press release. It is accompanied with this photo:



They took a regular photo of Jews visiting their holiest site and removed the color from the Jews.  It is a subtle but unmistakable attempt to dehumanize Jews as unworthy beings who are swarming the sacred Muslim site like cockroaches.

These three absurdities are not anomalous. They are seen every day in Palestinian media. And no one calls it out.  Palestinian antisemitism and hypocrisy are accepted as normal and the Bizarro world where the rules are different for Palestinians becomes more and more mainstream in the real world. 





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!

 

 

Thursday, March 30, 2023

This cartoon was in Hamas' Felesteen:


The caption is "Occupation violations of Al Aqsa." It shows the Arab world smoking a hookah, eyes closed, while the Dome of the Rock burns.

There is a huge difference in the quality of propaganda between saying that Jews are determined to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount - and saying that Arabs are ignoring that destruction.

After all, if the entire cartoon was the left side of the cartoon, and the main point was that Jews were destroying the structure, casual readers would consciously realize that this is the message that the cartoonist is trying to convey, and they could evaluate the message on its merits. The claim that the Jews are hellbent on destroying Al Aqsa have been rampant for over a hundred years, and nothing has happened in that century, so the reader might be resistant to that message.

But when the message is that the Arab world is ignoring Israel's destruction of the site, then the reader's attention is no longer directed towards what the Jews are doing but what the Arabs are. The message that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa is almost subliminal - it must be accepted as a given before the viewer can evaluate the claim of about the foreground of the picture.  

By only saying indirectly that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa, that message is that much stronger. 

There is another layer here, though: the image of the Dome of the Rock burning would cause a visceral reaction of anger to Palestinian Muslims. It is like an image of a burning Quran. In that sense, it is incitement. But, again, the message is magnified by not being the main focus of the cartoon, but the artist wants a twofold reaction: one of anger towards Arab leaders, but also to inspire Palestinian Muslims to "defend Al Aqsa" themselves - which practically means attacking Jews. 

I cannot tell how effective this is. But it is a model for effective propaganda that is meant to rile up people. 





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Monday, March 27, 2023

Last Friday, some 100,000 Muslims visited and prayed in the courtyards of the Temple Mount.


That's not even close to a record - in previous Ramadans, some crowds were estimated at 250,000. 

From all accounts, these numbers are far, far higher than the number of Muslims who visited the Temple Mount on any day from the dawn of Islam to 1967.

I cannot find any news articles about more than several thousand Muslims going to the Haram al Sharif on any occasion before 1967. None I can find any that say "tens of thousands," certainly none say "hundreds of thousands" of Muslims making a pilgrimage there. 

It seems that more Muslims visit the site every week under the supposedly draconian Israeli limitations - between 40,000 and 70,000 - than ever did under Jordanian, British or Ottoman rule 

That has only happened under Jewish rule.

Before Jews returned to the Land, Muslims really didn't make a big deal over the Al Aqsa Mosque. There were certainly some pilgrims, and to many Muslims in Jerusalem it was important, but it wasn't a major symbol. Only once the Mufti started baseless rumors that the Jews planned to take over Al Aqsa did the Muslim masses start to pay attention. 

And even today, when we see Palestinian leaders exhorting the faithful to visit Al Aqsa, they are calling on them to "defend" it from a few dozen Jews taking strolls there and the police who are there to avoid the Jews getting lynched. The Palestinians don't say to visit it for its inherent importance.

The huge crowds that visit under Jewish rule - especially considering that according to Jewish law, every one of them is desecrating the holy site - proves beyond a doubt that if one cares about freedom of access of holy sites to all, Israel must maintain control over where those sites are. 

It is only one example of hundreds that prove that all the accusations hurled against Israel are not just lies, but the exact opposite of the truth. 



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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Itamar Ben Gvir caused a furor when he visited the Temple Mount back in January. But not really. All the umbrage regarding his “provocation”—walking while Jewish—was manufactured  by bored reporters who have nothing else to write about; by left-wing reporters who lust to smear Israel in print; by Hamas, the PA, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and yes, the United States of America. The latter, of course, demanded that Israel maintain the “status quo” at holy sites, which means that the Jordanian Waqf remains in charge; Arabs get the full run of the Temple Mount; but Jews are rushed through the compound under guard and may not linger or pray. The thrust of all this is that Jews are somehow intruders in their own land, in their holiest city, on their holiest spot, and that they are stealing them from the Arabs.

It’s not a new accusation. As Alex Sternberg noted in a recent piece, ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger’ The history of a 100-year-old lie, the libel that Jews are taking over the Al-Aqsa Mosque is old. The falsehood, motivated by politics, originates with Haj Amin El-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem:

An early enemy of Zionism, Husseini regularly engaged in incitement against the Jews of then-Palestine. In 1920, this resulted in five deaths and 211 injured. In 1929, Husseini used the occasion of Tisha B’Av to tell an Arab crowd that the Jews were coming to destroy Al-Aqsa and rebuild the Temple in its place. “Al-Aqsa is in danger!” he shouted, pointing to throngs of Jews squeezing into the narrow alleyway at the Western Wall to commemorate the Temple’s destruction.

Angry mobs surged through the Jewish communities of then-Palestine, attacking peaceful Jews and raping, killing and looting. Hundreds were killed in Hebron, Safed and Jerusalem.

Husseini was jailed by the British, released shortly after and then appointed Mufti of Jerusalem. This new title gave him a coveted position within the Arab community.

Dr. Sternberg goes on to discuss Ariel Sharon’s infamous visit to the Mount which has long been said to be the catalyst for the Second Intifada, also known as the “Al-Aqsa Intifada”:

Following [Sharon’s] visit, the Palestinians launched a terrorist war that resulted in thousands of Israeli and Palestinian deaths.

Despite the claim that Sharon started the intifada, the truth was revealed years later and confirmed by Arafat’s wife and Nabil Shaath, a Fatah Central Committee member.

Sternberg’s otherwise excellent account of the events here falters. The truth was not revealed later, but immediately after the peace talks. Or at least to the Israeli army, who sent IDF representatives to brief the members of the small Judean hilltop settlement where I resided at the time, Metzad.

Sternberg description of events taking place at that time offers us the background for that briefing:

In July of 2000, Arafat returned from peace talks at Camp David with then-President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak had offered Arafat 97% of Judea and Samaria, which Arafat refused.

One of the sticking points was sharing the Temple Mount with the Jews. While Clinton considered this reasonable, it was a condition Arafat was unwilling to accept. Clinton was furious and blamed Arafat for the breakdown of the talks. Needing a diversion to deflect Clinton’s anger, Arafat ordered his underlings to plan the new intifada. Sharon’s trip to the Temple Mount took place two months later, providing a convenient excuse to launch the wave of terror.

Here too, Sternberg’s account appears to miss a crucial point: that Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount was an annual visit. This fact was well known to all, up to and including “Arafat and his underlings.” Sharon went up to the Temple Mount every year before the High Holidays—and that yearly visit was factored into the planning of the intifada from its very inception.

I know this because the same July that Arafat returned from Camp David in a tizzy, I sat among the other 30-some residents of Metzad, waiting to hear why we had been assembled. We soon learned that the army had come to warn us of a large and serious wave of Arab terror planned for September, around the time of the High Holidays (and my due date). The IDF not only had intelligence that the intifada would occur, but they had that intelligence already in July, when the intifada would have been in the earliest stages of its planning.

Already then, the Israeli army knew the Arabs would justify their unbridled slaughter of the Jews by blaming it on Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount. This was alluded to by the IDF at that meeting of July 2000 on Metzad. You might have called it a guess—the prediction that terrorists would use the annual Sharon Temple Mount visit as a pretext for violence. It wouldn’t have been a difficult guess, considering it was Sharon’s custom to visit the Temple Mount every year before the holidays. But the army didn’t need to guess, because they had cold, hard intelligence. Right from the very beginning, as things were going down.

For argument’s sake however, let’s stipulate that my memory is faulty. Let’s say the army did not know and did not actually tell us that Ariel Sharon’s impending, regularly scheduled visit to the Mount would be used to justify the slaughter. It would still have come as no surprise: El-Husseini did it 100 years ago when he incited the mobs to slaughter Jews by telling them that the “Yahud” were taking over Al-Quds. That same 100-year-old excuse was still going strong in 2000 when Sharon dared walk on the Temple Mount and it is still strong now in 2023, when Ben Gvir does the same.

Terrorists like to accuse Jews of taking over the Mount and the mosque. As much as many Jews wish that were true, the reality is that the Temple Mount is administrated by the Jordanian Waqf; and Jews aren’t even allowed to pray on the Mount, let alone enter or even go near the mosque.

Ariel Sharon, for example, did not enter the mosque or even approach it. Yet this is how his visit—the planned excuse for the intifada—was reported by the Guardian (emphasis added wherever the Guardian fudged the truth, outright lied, engaged in hyperbole, or omitted salient facts—the “people” are JEWS, the “riots” are TERROR, the “West Bank” is Judea and Samaria, the “Haram” is the Jewish Temple Mount, and so on and so forth):

Dozens of people were injured in rioting on the West Bank and in Jerusalem yesterday as the hawkish Likud party leader, Ariel Sharon, staged a provocative visit to a Muslim shrine at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Surrounded by hundreds of Israeli riot police, Mr Sharon and a handful of Likud politicians marched up to the Haram al-Sharif, the site of the gold Dome of the Rock that is the third holiest shrine in Islam.

He came down 45 minutes later, leaving a trail of fury. Young Palestinians heaved chairs, stones, rubbish bins, and whatever missiles came to hand at the Israeli forces. Riot police retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets, shooting one protester in the face.

The symbolism of the visit to the Haram by Mr Sharon - reviled for his role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in a refugee camp in Lebanon - and its timing was unmistakable. "This is a dangerous process conducted by Sharon against Islamic sacred places," Yasser Arafat told Palestinian television.

All of this was and remains a lie. There was no provocation resulting in a “riot.” The intifada and its pretend catalyst had all been meticulously planned two months earlier. You might even say 100 years earlier, when El-Husseini launched the time-honored tradition of Arab terrorists blaming their Jewish victims for getting dead, a popular sport for more than 100 years.

Ben Gvir should have sold tickets.



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Yesterday, EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell spoke at the EEAS Conference on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference about the dangers of Russian disinformation campaigns:

 Russia is using information manipulation and interference as a crucial instrument of this war. This war is not only [about] using explosives, bombs, bullets, killing people. It is about the mind of the people. It is about how to conquer the spirit, the intelligence, the understanding of the people. 

It is not new. It started with the [COVID-19] pandemic. When the pandemic came, we started speaking about “the battle of narratives”. This is a sentence as important as “the Geopolitical Europe”. The battle of narratives started with the pandemic at the latest. 

And, today, that is clear: this war is not only conducted on the battlefield by the soldiers. It is also waged in the information space, trying to win the hearts and minds of people.  

...This is a major threat for the liberal democracies, which are based on information. Democracy is a system that is based on the information that people have, because they made their choices – their political choices – according to their own perceptions and information that they receive about what is happening in the rest of the world. 

If the information is toxic, democracy cannot work. If information is manipulated, people don’t have a clear idea of what is going on. So, their choices are biased, and the information is the oil of the engine of democracy. We have to take care of the quality of information because is the sap, the blood, the oil, the thing that makes democracy work.  
The EU created an "EU vs. DisInfo" organization, with at least 16 full time staff, all to fight disinformation. Yet it begins and ends with Russian disinformation.

What about anti-Israel disinformation? Where is the EU on that?

The EUvsDisInfo report released yesterday shows a great graphic of how Russians are manipulating information. But it doesn't mention that anti-Israel forces use exactly the same methods.


Pallywood manipulation of photos and videos? Check. Overwhelming social media with anti-Israel memes? Check. Changing the context to not allow pro-Israel voices to make a point? Triple check. Using diplomatic methods to attack Israel? Not only the PA but many of its allies, check. 

But does the EU even notice anti-Israel propaganda techniques? No, they agree with their messages. And when they agree, they don't think they are being manipulated. For example, when Defence for Children Palestine says that Israel killed a child earlier this week, they won't bother to check whether the "child" was a member of a terror group.  (Yes, there are some that are too extreme for the EU, so they can pretend that they are discriminating between truth and lies.) 

 Anti-Israel lies - that Jews visiting the holiest Jewish space are a threat to peace, that illegal Palestinian outposts in Area C are legal while legal Jewish towns are illegal, that Palestinian NGOs have no terror links, that Israel is attacking civilians, that Palestinian attacks are all in response to Israeli "crimes" and wouldn't happen if they weren't "provoked"  - those lies are accepted by both official EU bodies and their media, and therefore the public.

The fact that they happen to align perfectly with traditional European antisemitism is just a coincidence, I'm sure.  

The fight against disinformation assumes that there is an objective truth. I agree. Yet the progressive crowd emphasizes that there is no truth, that narratives are the only acceptable form of reporting, and only certain narratives are acceptable. The EU vs. DisInfo site seems to state that there is objective truth when it comes to Russia, but it doesn't seem to have an issue when its own intelligentsia seems to embrace a post-truth worldview where narratives rule - especially when it comes to Israel. It would be interesting if they use their own methodology against the "progressive" narratives.

But they won't. 

(h/t Irene)


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!

 

 

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