Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: COVID-19

Showing posts with label COVID-19. Show all posts

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Study: Antisemitism is associated with conspiracy thinking, authoritarianism and desire to overturn the social order

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.., made headlines this weekend when he seemed to claim that COVID-19 could have been genetically engineered to target certain populations, and then mentioned there have been studies that suggested that Chinese people and Ashkenazic Jews are less susceptible to the virus.

"COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a video that the New York Post published.

There is indeed such a study, from 2020, which he gets slightly wrong. The two groups that the study claimed were less likely to be susceptible to COVID-19, based on an analysis of two specific genes, were Ashkenazic Jews and the Amish. Latino, South and East Asian, and Finnish people were less susceptible than other groups as well.

Kennedy later clarified, saying he “never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews. I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”

Obviously, a large number (and percentage) of Ashkenazic Jews died of COVID-19, so the study did not predict anything accurately.

But the cat is out of the bag, and conspiracy theorists now have more ammunition to attack Jews.

And they are the most likely people to be antisemitic to begin with.

A new study published in Nature shows that antisemitism is not so much associated with the political Right or Left as it is with extremist thinking and conspiracy theories.

The researchers checked the association between antisemitic attitudes and likelihood to believe in other theories. For example, they found a high correlation between antisemites that those who believed in totalitarianism:

•To bring about great changes for the benefit of mankind often requires cruelty and even ruthlessness.
•Soft and idealistic people can never be the doers of great events.
•Almost any unfairness or brutality may have to be justified when some great purpose is being carried out.
•The unhappiness of a few people simply doesn’t matter when it is a question of a step forward for the majority of the people.
•Sometimes when a new society is in its early stages, the masses have to be ruled with an iron hand for their own good

Similarly, antisemitic attitudes were correlated with belief in conspiracy theories, such as:

•The government permits or perpetrates acts of terrorism on its own soil, disguising its involvement.
•The power held by heads of state is second to that of small unknown groups who really control world politics
.•A small secret group of people is responsible for making all major world decisions such as going to war.
•Secret organizations communicate with extraterrestrials, but keep this fact from the public
•The spread of certain viruses and/or diseases is the result of the deliberate, concealed efforts of some organisations.
•Technology with mind-control capacities is used on people without their knowledge.

And they are also associated with support for authoritarianism, both associated with the Right:

•What our country needs most is discipline, with everyone following our leaders in unity.

•An ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on the bottom.
•Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups

And the Left::

•Rich people should be forced to give up virtually all of their wealth.
•Most investment bankers need to be thrown in prison.
•Political violence can be constructive when it serves the cause of social justice.

•Books that contain racism or racial language should be censored.
•I should have the right not to be exposed to views I find offensive.

While both the Right and the Left attack each other as antisemites, they usually remain blind to the antisemitism that is on their own side. And too many on their own sides want to see an authoritarian government that supports their viewpoints - and violently represses others.

Which indicates that antisemites are often some of the worst people on Earth. And those who find antisemites on their own political side should be in the forefront of denouncing them, not accommodating them.

Incidentally, the introduction to the study cited quite a few studies that showed a strong correlation between Judeoiphobic antisemitism and anti-Zionist antisemitism. And the people who would self-describe as anti-Zionists were just as likely to believe in the other noxious theories listed here as those who espouse the "old" antisemitism.

(h/t Irene)

our country needs most is discipline, with everyone following our leaders in unity.

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!

Health journal article: Antisemitism is a necessary therapy for Palestinians' mental health

The Health and Human Rights Journal has a special section this month: "Settler Colonialism, Structural Racism, and the Palestinian Right to Health." It was organized and curated by the Community and Public Health at Birzeit University and the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.

Its seven articles are predicated on malicious, antisemitic lies about Israel. The lies - that Israel is a racist, apartheid, settler-colonialist state bent on eradicating Palestinian Arabs and their culture - are accepted as unvarnished truth, without any debate.

The introduction of an article purported to be about amputations begins with this antisemitic framework:

Since 1948 and with the establishment of the state of Israel, Israel has been deploying physical and structural violence against Palestinians in multiple well-documented ways, all aimed at the erasure, subjugation, and oppression of the Palestinians, in line with what Patrick Wolfe has called the “logic of elimination” in settler-colonial states.[1]

Israel’s colonial ideology is manifested in the “daily assault on Palestinian life as a result of settler-colonial ideology that renders them killable as a part of and a furthering of their removal from their land.”[2]

Another article's abstract begins with antisemitic lies as irrefutable facts:

In this paper, we examine the social construction of race as a determinant of health inequities in Palestine. Race myths about Palestinians conform to the “logic of elimination” integral to settler colonialism, predicated on the dispossession and removal of the Indigenous people from the land.

These are all absurd and hateful lies. Somehow, the Palestinian population nearly quadrupled under this genocidal regime since 1967.

Another article based wholly on a lie claims that systemic Israeli racism is behind Israel's "refusal" to provide Covid-19 vaccines into the Palestinian controlled areas. In fact it was the Palestinian Authority that refused to partner with Israel on obtaining vaccines. And if Israel is racist, then why did it provide vaccines for its Arab citizens - and for Palestinian students at Israeli universities?

Again, the article is predicated on lies, but those lies are not even up for debate. Naturally, their conclusions are based on these lies. The articles are anti-Israel propaganda, pretending to be science, with lots of footnotes as if linking to previously written antisemitic articles in the social sciences or by NGOs is the same as linking to a real scientific paper that has gone through rigorous proof.

One of the articles in the journal outshines the others, though.

Titled "A Call for Social Justice and for a Human Rights Approach with Regard to Mental Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," it says that the only effective method to treat Palestinians' mental health issues is to teach them to blame Israel (i.e., Jews) for their issues.

It seems necessary and urgent to look at the effects of political and systematic violence on Palestinian mental health in order to strengthen the resilience of communities, instead of individualizing their suffering. This can be achieved by moving away from a mental health framework that regards them as individual victims affected by political violence and toward a human rights framework that sees them as rights holders and survivors of a collective experience of violence within a social and political context...

[T]he solution to breaking the cycle of internalization is to be found in resistance and in directing feelings outward, to those who oppress, instead of inward.

Hating Jews - and "resistance," which is understood by Palestinians as physical attacks on Jews - becomes the preferred path to solving Palestinian mental health issues.

Come to think of it, there are numerous papers about the trauma of Palestinians suffering under Israeli oppression, but I don't recall a single [Palestinian] academic paper about mental illness that might prompt Palestinians to want to kill random Jews. Apparently, the mental health professionals in the territories don't regard terrorists as mentally ill to begin with, but rather as role models who are breaking the paradigm of victimhood, as suggested by these authors.

Beyond that, the authors urge mental health professionals in the territories to become anti-Israel activists themselves, and they rail against the "depoliticization" of their roles - the exact opposite of decades of psychological practice:

A stronger understanding of the political and social implications of trauma and a more active role in relation to social injustices and human rights violations are essential against the background of the ethical standards of our profession. As mental health professionals, our commitment to advancing human rights can be shown by highlighting the pathogenic context in which trauma develops and by demanding social justice on a political level.

All of the articles in this journal have the usual disclaimer that the authors have no competing interests. But one of the co-authors of this article has a supremely competing interest: Samah Jabr is the head of the Mental Health Unit within the Palestinian Ministry of Health. She has every incentive to demonize Israel and declare it the source of all Palestinian problems.

And, in fact, she does. On her Facebook page, she frames the Israeli celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Resolution as "celebrating the historical trauma of Palestinians." Her entire mindset is based on nearly all Jews as evil people whose entire goal is to cause pain to Arabs.

A competent mental health professional would note the amount of psychological projection that she shows in this paper. Because the only ones who have physically tried to rid the region of an entire people are her fellow Arabs, not the Jews.

(h/t MtTB)

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!

Arab scientists feud over camel urine as a miracle cure

A professor of physiology at the Faculty of Medicine at Ain Shams University in Egypt, Amal Kenawy, had advised people should drink camel urine, due to the many benefits it contains. Kenawy says that many scientific experiments have proven camel urine's benefits.

She's not the only one. A preacher in Kuwait made a video over the summer extolling not only the health benefits of camel urine, but its wonderful taste, when mixed with camel milk.

There are lots of articles in Arabic websites that extol the benefits of camel urine, to treat cancer and kidney stones and as a miracle cure for other diseases. One Iranian in 2020 said it cures COVID-19.

Finally, a Jordanian doctor weighs in, and says that drinking camel urine is not only ridiculous, it is dangerous.

In a post on Facebook Ali Al-Saudi, said: "These news messages [about the health benefits of camel urine] are myths that have no basis in science and are not supported by any research or studies, in fact they are exactly the opposite."

Al-Saudi warned of large quantities of toxins and urea in camel urine, which could kill humans and cause diseases.

He addressed Amal Kenawy, "Do not make the world laugh at us more."

The World Health Organization recommends against drinking camel urine.

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!

Abbas declares a state of emergency for Covid, which hasn't been a problem at all. No one questions him.

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

President Mahmoud Abbas today declared a 30-day state of emergency in Palestine to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state of emergency was first declared in March 2020 after the discovery of the first cases of coronavirus in the Palestinian territories.

The state of emergency gives the government the power to act in any way it deems necessary to combat the pandemic.

I have not seen any articles about a new wave of Covid-19 in the West Bank. There has been a slight uptick in the last couple of weeks, but the rate is way below Israel's. At its recent peak there have been two deaths a week.

As far as I can tell, he is not automatically extending an old state of emergency every 30 days. According to Xinhua:

The state of emergency was first declared in March 2020 after the discovery of the first coronavirus cases in the Palestinian territories. It was last extended or re-declared in January this year, local media reported.

Under the state of emergency, the government is empowered to take any step it deems necessary to fight the pandemic.

I cannot find a single Palestinian news site that questioned this announcement. They just parroted it. They didn't even elaborate on it, showing a rise in cases or in deaths.

And on Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page, the announcement was greeted with Soviet-style unanimous praise for his great insight and wisdom:

If there was a free press, people would be asking questions why Abbas just added emergency powers on top of his already dictatorial powers over the executive, judicial and legislative branches of Palestinian government.

World leaders and media still treat the Palestinian president and his government as if they are rational leaders. If anyone would read their own media and government websites for a couple of weeks with a critical eye, the levels of dysfunction would be obvious. And there is something very rotten about this "state of emergency."

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!

Crazed, antisemitic rant submitted as a motion in US District Court

In 2016, a lawsuit was filed by Bassem al-Tamimi and many others against a host of American Jews and companies, including Sheldon Adelson, Elliott Abrams, Fox News and the United States itself, alleging that they are supporting genocide against the Palestinian people.

Recently, one of the plaintiffs - Abdul-Rahim Dib Dubar - filed his own motion for immediate partial summary judgment in the case.

His motion looks like it was copied and pasted a crazed antisemitic website - including all caps.

Here's one page of 30, but most of them look like this, with falsified quotes that have been debunked hundreds of times.

He ties Israel to...January 6:

He doesn't even pretend to be opposing "Zionists." He hates Jews, and submits insane fantasies.

Dubar also suggests that the Covid-19 virus was created in Israeli labs in Nes Tziyona. He claims that Israeli rabbis issued an edict to rape Palestinian girls during combat.

If you have any doubt as to Dubar's antisemitism, he (probably mis)quotes an article about Satmar Jews and how they have Jewish supremacy - not mentioning that Satmar Jews are anti-Zionist!

And, for proof of Jewish evil, he quotes a Nazi:

This unhinged antisemitic rant reveals the antisemitism behind the Palestinian cause. The plaintiff isn't even embarrassed at his ravings. Brainwashed, he submits the antisemitic stories he sees on the Internet as truth.

Dubar is asking for $1.2 billion in compensation for his family, who left of their own accord from Acre in 1948. (Thousands of Arabs in Acre stayed.)

(h/t David Abrams)

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!

Academic journals allow themselves to be centers of anti-Israel propaganda

Here's another academic paper that is purely meant to smear Israel but hides behind a pretense of objectivity:

Vaccine apartheid and settler colonial sovereign violence: from Palestine to the colonial global economy

This article examines the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine both in Palestine and globally through a decolonial lens. In dominant Euro-American discourse, the invention, production, and distribution of the vaccine is largely judged as an indicator of sophisticated and advanced health care systems and economies. The underlying premise being that the advanced, wealthy, and capable nation-states have endogenously earned the position of power and prosperity. The world’s poor nation-states are posited as the recipients of charity from these rich states only after the latter have sufficiently inoculated themselves. The entire discourse turns the question of vaccines into a series of technical questions about capabilities, facilities, infrastructure, economic purchasing power, and so on. Concealed in this discourse is a settler colonial foundation – an aspiration towards omnipresent and absolute power – which not only creates the contrast between Palestinians and Israelis, rich and poor, colonizer and colonized, but also seals a forcefully imposed settler colonial contract in which colonizing populations ensure their ability to inoculate themselves by debilitating the colonized.

Ostensibly, the paper is about the larger question of whether it is fair or acceptable for rich states to ensure that their own populations are medically safe before offering help to poorer countries. That is a reasonable question and one worth exploring. (The answer is that the supreme obligation for any state is to protect its own citizens first.)

But the abstract makes it clear that this is only an excuse for attacking Israel. The very title, "Vaccine apartheid," is meant only for Israel. It pretends that the Palestinian issue the paradigm through which the entire world is viewed, when it is nothing of the sort - an analysis of how Australia and New Zealand gave vaccines to their own citizens before providing them to small island nations that depend on them would never been called "apartheid" and yet it is the model for how the entire world acted when vaccines were scarce.

I don't quite know how the paper includes "settler colonial sovereign violence" in this topic, but I bet that the paper does not mention:

1. The Palestinian Authority never asked for vaccines from Israel except in small amounts, which Israel gave them.

2. The PA claimed throughout the process that it will procure its own vaccines.

3. Israel inoculated tens of thousands of Palestinians who work in Israel.

4. The number of deaths per million remained lower in the Palestinian territories than in Israel even during the months that Israel had the vaccine and the PA did not.

This is nothing more than anti-Israel propaganda, and modern antisemites finding new venues to spout their hate.

Either Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory doesn't realize that it is being used - or it does. Given the state of social sciences today, I'm afraid it is the latter.

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!

Vaccine debacle: Palestinian leaders and "human rights" NGOs hate Israel more than they value the lives of Palestinians

The Pfizer vaccine fiasco reveals so much about the Palestinian leadership as well as about the "human rights" groups and activists who pretend to be "pro-Palestinian" but truly aren't.

The Palestinian Authority had agreed with Israel to obtain over 1 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now, and not to have to wait until September to get them directly from Pfizer. The agreement was signed and the PA knew perfectly well that Israel would first transfer the vaccines that were closest to expiring, and the exact expiration dates of the first doses.

As the NYT reports:

An Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the initial batch of doses would expire at the start of July and said that would give enough time for Palestinian health workers to administer them.

The official added that the authority had been aware of the vaccines’ expiry date before agreeing to their delivery, and said the authority had scrapped the deal only because it had been criticized by Palestinians for agreeing to receive vaccines perceived to be of poor quality.

The official also said that none of the remaining doses would have been delivered less than two weeks before their expiry date.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians could have received their first doses in the next two weeks.

This should be considered a debacle by any civilized society. Thousands can get sick and scores could die because of this decision by the PA.

But, incredibly, the only inquiry that Palestinians are demanding is one into how the PA almost bought vaccines that they claim were of "inferior" quality. Terrorist media is reporting about how the PA is incompetent - not for trying initially to fight COVID but for making a deal with Israel. The PA, naturally, has to defend its "honor" by canceling the deal.

Keep in mind that the PA eagerly accepts Russia's Sputnik vaccine which did not have anywhere near the same quality trials as the Pfizer or Astra-Zeneca vaccines did.

Unless you are hopelessly biased against Israel, this episode shows beyond any doubt that Palestinian leaders don't care about the lives of their own people, and are willing to sacrifice their people so as not to appear to be "normalizing" with Israel. They hate Israel more than they love their own citizens.

Even more telling are the reactions - or non-reactions - from so called "human rights" groups and Palestinian activists.

As far as I can tell, none of the supposed Palestinian human rights groups are saying a negative word about a decision to delay vaccinating their own people for three or four more months.

Not B'Tselem. Not PCHR. Not Al Mezan Center.

Their silence shows that they are not interested in the human rights of Palestinians - after all, what human right is more basic than the right to life and health?

Ken Roth, of Human Rights Watch, took the absurd Palestinian excuse of "almost expired" vaccines at face value, and used this as another reason to bash Israel.

As if any more evidence was needed, this episode shows that the "pro-Palestinian" community is nothing of the sort. These groups simply use the Palestinian issue as a means to bash the Jewish state.

People who really care about Palestinians would be up in arms over the PA putting their people at risk. Where are their voices?