Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Daled Amos

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Friday, June 20, 2025

Israel and its Arab Gulf Allies Are Still On The Same Page (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The New York Times is at it again.

If the paper is to be believed, Israel Further Alienates Would-Be Arab Allies in Attacking Iran. In other words, by attacking the world's primary supporter of international terrorism, Israel has isolated itself from supportive Arab Gulf states even more. The article claims to have uncovered a reversal in the progress in the dynamic between Israel and the Arab Gulf states:

Gulf governments that were once warming to Israel — seen as a potential ally in their battle to contain Iran — have decided that courting Iran with diplomacy is more pragmatic.

And of course, this is true to an extent--from the beginning. Courting Iran with diplomacy is the pragmatic course for the Gulf states to take, and it is not surprising that the Saudis, for example, would hedge their bets. Consider when Biden publicly called Saudi Arabia a pariah during the Democratic presidential debates :

I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them. We were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them in fact the pariah that they are. There's very little social redeeming value of in the present government in Saudi Arabia, and I would also as pointed out I would end the subsidies that we have and the sale of material to the Saudis, where they're going in and murdering children. And they're murdering innocent people, and so they have to be held accountable.

That kind of talk did not endear the US to the Saudis. That comment, along with the Biden administration's clear disinterest in the Abraham Accords, added to the distance between the Biden Administration and Saudi Arabia. The Washington Free Beacon reported in June 2021 that the Biden State Department discouraged referring to the agreement by name, and when asked in May 2021, Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters:

We are not following the tactics of the prior administration. Aside from putting together a peace proposal that was dead on arrival, we don’t think [the previous administration] did anything constructive to really bring an end to the longstanding conflict in the Middle East.

It was not surprising when, in March 2023 (months before October 7th), the Saudis, Iran, and China announced an agreement to resume diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Carnegie Endowment explained:

For Saudi Arabia, the China-brokered deal is a pragmatic security choice that goes beyond hedging and balancing against Washington.

The European Council on Foreign Relations published a piece on their website in September 2024 about Iran's Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE), which was intended to serve as an alternative to the Abraham Accords. Saudi participation signaled its lack of confidence in the Biden administration:

The Iranian HOPE initiative was never seen as credible in Riyadh. The kingdom was also unprepared to accept the initiative’s ultimate aim of accelerating the US retrenchment from the region, which would further solidify Iran’s military influence in the Gulf. At the same time, the fragility of US security guarantees, as well as the risk of an Iranian backlash, left Riyadh hesitant to fully embrace the Abraham Accords.

The point is that the Gulf hedging strategy and openness to maintaining "friendly" relations with Iran today are not some new policy in response to Israel defending itself from the Iranian threat. It is part of a cautious approach in that area of the region.

When it pursues its point using the UAE as an example of a growing distance between it and Israel, the article is no more believable:

Yet despite the Emirati government’s deep distrust of Iran, to many in the country there is only one party to blame for the escalating violence: Israel, which launched a devastating attack on Iran last week, igniting the fiercest conflagration in the history of the Israeli-Iranian conflict.

After the New York Times makes this simplistic claim, it then undercuts itself just two paragraphs later with the acknowledgement that "depending on how the war ends, some Gulf countries may gradually put partnership with Israel back on the table."

Even with the Saudis' public "strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Israeli aggressions against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran," one has to wonder if those public expressions mirror what the Kingdom and the other Gulf states believe privately.

According to Egyptian-American writer Hussein Aboubakr Mansour,

While many of those who understand the evils of the Islamic Republic of Iran have responded with euphoria and talk of a “new Middle East,” prudence demands caution. Enthusiasm obscures deeper complexities, and transformative moments rarely unfold according to our most optimistic visions.

Gulf states are very much caught between a rock and a hard place. [While] they are quietly applauding the further weakening of Iran, they face real risks and have to play their cards carefully.

The New York Times comes close to acknowledging this dilemma and the complexity of the situation the Gulf states find themselves in:

While some in the Gulf are cheering on the bombing of Iran, the events of the past week have reinforced a belief that Israel is a rogue actor operating outside the international system and that Western powers have allowed it to do so.

The remark that "some in the Gulf are cheering on the bombing of Iran" links to a comment by journalist Saleh al-Fahid on X in response to a post by Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former Emir of Qatar. Al Thani posted:

...We must emphasize here that it is not in the interest of the Gulf states to see their large neighbor, Iran, collapse. Such a development would inevitably lead to a devastating destabilization of our region, with dire consequences for all. To avoid this, the Gulf states must announce a clear and explicit position through their decision-making centers to immediately halt this madness initiated by Israel, the full extent of whose impact on the region has yet to be fully understood...[translated from the Arabic by Google Translate.]

Al Fahid responds

Your Excellency, the former Minister, what you expressed in this tweet reflects Qatar's well-known position on the Iranian regime, but not all Gulf states necessarily agree with you. You cannot claim to know the Gulf's interests better than they do.

Beyond the official positions of Gulf governments, many Gulf citizens believe that Iran is a greater threat to them than Israel, that the overthrow of the mullahs' regime is in the Gulf states' best interests, and that the price of this regime's demise, however painful, harsh, and costly, is far less than the state of attrition that this regime has been practicing against the Gulf states for four decades.

The truth is that some Gulf states view the mullahs' regime as a guarantee for regional balance. Other Gulf states view the mullahs' regime as a long-term existential threat. [translated from the Arabic by Google Translate.]

Pity that the New York Times article did not quote al-Fahid outright--it would have provided the much-needed balance that the article so sorely lacks.

The enmity that The New York Times claims now exists between the Gulf states and Israel is more clearly understood as a more nuanced and complex dynamic. And it is not an issue of rejection of Israel, as the New York Times is so eager to claim.

Mansour suggests that, from Israel's perspective, Iran's defeat will have a mixed result:

...Many pundits responded almost immediately to the Israeli attacks with hopeful predictions of a new era of Arab-Israeli amity. Unfortunately, such predictions are premature. It is much more likely that, despite private admiration and cooperation, public acknowledgment and overt alignment with Israel will remain restrained...

...Of all the Middle East’s leaders, the Gulf monarchs are most likely to put ideology second to practical and achievable goals. Their admiration for Israel, therefore, won’t translate into an enthusiastic embrace born of gratitude or generosity. On the contrary, the removal of the Iranian threat reduces, rather than increases, their incentive to make meaningful concessions to Israel.

Indeed, the Gulf states may quietly reach out to the now weakened Iranian regime. With their archenemy crippled, vulnerable, and desperate, these countries have a rare opportunity to extend a lifeline, albeit conditionally. In exchange for clear, enforceable guarantees that Tehran abandon its aggressive regional ambitions, they might decide that it’s possible to rehabilitate Iran as a subordinate regional actor. This move would enable them to leverage their newfound advantage, enhancing their strategic weight against Israel and the United States, and their standing on the world stage. Such maneuvers, blending quiet collaboration with Israel alongside a cautious and conditional outreach to Iran, reflect a longstanding desire to maintain the regional balance of power, which in this case means making sure that neither Israel nor Iran become dominant.

Whether the Middle East would have been different if Trump had won his second term in 2020 is a moot point. A key component of the Abraham Accords and the improved Israel-Arab relations was based on Israel's military strength vis-a-vis Iran, and not just the economic opportunities it could bring to the table. With the opportunity to cut Iran down to size, the Gulf states will want to maintain stability in the region. Whatever they decide, Israel will be included in the picture.

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The Developing Picture As Israel Preemptively Attacks Iran (Daled Amos)

It is Thursday night, and Israel has attacked Iran.Joe Truzman, FDD senior research analyst, posted on X:

The goal of the operation is to neutralize the nuclear threat from Iran to the degree that such a thing is possible. But in order to accomplish this, more than just the infrastructure is being targeted. Already, Iran has announced the names of various military leaders killed in Israel's initial attack.

Iran had crossed the line from the theoretical to a genuine threat:

Intelligence assessments showed the regime had enriched enough uranium to produce approximately 15 nuclear warheads and was actively conducting tests. The pace, the scope, and the intent had changed. What had once been described in abstract terms—potential, capability, intent—had now become operational reality.

This is only the beginning. There is more to come. But already there are hints--or hopes--for what may be coming.

Israel's goal is not to bring down the Iranian regime and free its people, but some have already expressed that hope.

(read the whole thing)

An Iranian Jew and advocate for the restoration of the Iranian monarchy posted

And there may be some basis to that:

On the other hand, there will be backlash on the streets in support of Iran, just as we saw after the massacre on October 7th.

Already, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut has come out condemning Israel:

Israel’s attack on Iran, clearly intended to scuttle the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America.

Similarly, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized Israel.

Israel’s alarming decision to launch airstrikes on Iran is a reckless escalation that risks igniting regional violence. These strikes threaten not only the lives of innocent civilians, but the stability of the entire Middle East.

It is only a matter of time before the more radical members of the Democratic Party follow suit and claim that Israel is the one creating tensions in the region.

We will have to wait to see what Trump's response will be and if he will take a position similar to Biden, helping Israel shoot down the rockets Iran will continue to fire in retaliation.

It is too early to say whether Israel has actually accomplished against Iran a strike comparable to what it did against Hezbollah, taking them out of the picture to a large degree, or comparable to Syria, where Israel weakened Assad to the point that he could be overthrown.

In the meantime, not the entire Arab world will be supporting Israel:

The focus should be on neutralizing Iran, not on a further redrawing of the Middle East.
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The media loves a good protest (Daled Amos)

Five years ago, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez reported on the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

CNN had its own take on those "peaceful" protests:

At the time, CNN was widely mocked on social media for its "mostly peaceful" comment. However, CNN is not the only one that cannot distinguish between riots and protests. And that is not the only point of comparison with the pro-October 7th "protests."

There are also the lengths the media goes to defend the protests. When the District Attorney announced that no charges would be pressed against either the police or Blake, an AP reporter posted on X:

This is the popular version of events, as reported the previous year by NBC:

At 5:11 p.m. Kenosha police said officers responded to a call of a "domestic incident in the 2800 block of 40th Street. There, they would encounter 29-year-old Jacob Blake who is seen on video posted to social media in an altercation with officers before they Tase and ultimately shoot him seven times in the back as he leans into a vehicle. The Kenosha department does not have body cameras so officers were not wearing them at the time of the shooting. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Blake's family, said Blake was “simply trying to do the right thing by intervening in a domestic incident.”

Joel Pollak, a senior editor at Breitbart News, responded to the AP post on X. He called them out on their misrepresenting the facts and ignoring the danger it represented:

Pollak's response is based on the information presented by the DA, as summarized by Legal Insurrection:

He went through the evidence and step-by-step timeline. Blake resisted arrest, fought by police, and by his own admission, was carrying a knife, after multiple attempts to subdue him, including taser, failed. Blake was shot when he made a move with the knife, having switched it to his right hand, towards the police officer. Contrary to the popular narrative, Blake was not shot seven times in the back, three of the shots were to his side consistent with the twisting motion with the knife towards the officer. The officer’s seven shots were objectively reasonable because police are trained to keep firing until the threat is removed, which in this case was when Blake dropped the knife.

Blake lied when he said he didn’t know there was a warrant for his arrest, his phone internet records proves he knew, which would provide motive for his to resist arrest in front of his children, and makes him a not credible witness at trial. There also was a 2010 incident in Chicago where Blake similarly displayed a knife resisting arrest, and actually slashed at the officer.

We see a familiar pattern of media negligence:

o Jumping the gun to get unsubstantiated headlines
o  Building a false narrative
o  Carelessly stirring up emotions without regard to the consequences
o  Presenting the resulting riots and destruction as mere "protests" and free speech

The media defense of what passes for "free speech" is now showing itself in the media's defense of anti-Israel protests on university campuses across the US.

But there are legal limits to free speech. In a recent interview, Alan Dershowitz explained:

When you take people on college campuses who are calling, “Death to the Jews,” who are calling to prevent Jews from going to class, who are calling for immediate attacks and harassment of Jews–that’s not protected speech. On the other hand, if you make an abstract talk and say, well, it would be good if there were no Israel–that hate speech is protected speech...Abstract arguments, even if they are hateful, are permitted under our Constitution. But direct incitements to kill or harm other people or block their access or deny them the opportunity to go to class–those are not protected by the First Amendment.

Journalist Douglas Murray raises a parallel point during a recent Tikvah webinar, The War Against the Jews Comes to Washington with Professor Ruth Wisse. The moderator asks Douglas about his book, The Strange Death of Europe, and whether we should be concerned about the strange death of America.

Murray responds (at 27:17):

I think there are early warning signs, and we remain almost incapable of rising to the challenge. The most obvious one has been thrown up very visibly. I don't really like to linger on the campus issue because most people don't go to Ivy League universities anymore, thank goodness, and so it always sounds like a rarefied point to make, but just consider how most of the ivy League universities in the last two years have permitted violence and intimidation as the norm, and pretended that the figures like those in Colombia University are free speech martyrs when in no other situation, would they have got away with this if they had done this against any other minority.

And, you know, people say, well, the limits of free speech and so on. Nobody has yet been able to persuade me. But if for the last two years, there had been people from abroad coming into America using their time or student visas to call for the lynching of Black Americans, nobody can tell me that from right to left, from the universities to people in politics--nobody can persuade me that this would have been a mere free speech issue. It would not have been. People would have said from the get-go, I would have thought no more than 24 hours, whether I think under a Democrat or Republican government. They would have said: no, we have no need in our society for importing racists calling for racist violence. The case of the Jews? Yes, that's been permitted and more than permitted, encouraged.

The media's sloppiness shows itself in its coverage of campus disruptions. They insist that university disturbances are merely expressions of free speech and that the Trump administration's attempts to hold universities responsible for the safety of their Jewish students are somehow proof of its authoritarianism.

Five years ago, the New York Times published an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton on the need to use US troops to support the police in the face of riots.

Once the op-ed was printed, the paper couldn't back off fast enough.

They ended up prefacing the article with a 5-paragraph apology, explaining the supposed flaws in the piece that prevented it from meeting the New York Times' standards. The paper went so far as to claim that maybe the piece should not have been printed at all.

The lengths they went to repudiate the op-ed were due, in part, to the rebellion in the New York Times newsroom:

More than 800 staff members signed a letter protesting its publication, according to a union member involved in the letter. Addressed to high-ranking editors in the opinion and news divisions, as well as New York Times Company executives, the letter argued that Mr. Cotton’s essay contained misinformation, such as his depiction of the role of “antifa” in the protests.

Dozens of Times employees objected to the Op-Ed on social media, despite a company policy that instructs them not to post partisan comments or take sides on issues. Many of them responded on Twitter with the sentence, “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” More than 160 employees planned a virtual walkout for Friday morning, according to two organizers of the protest.

One of those employees was Taylor Lorenz, who in a since-deleted post on X, bewailed the alleged danger Cotton's op-ed posed to the black New York Times staff:

Taylor's claim sounds no less self-serving now than it did then. Just how concerned have the New York Times staff been about the actual danger posed to the Jewish community by their one-sided coverage of the October 7th massacre and its aftermath?

But the internal influence of the paper's staff and employees is clear. They forced the editorial editor to resign:

So much for an independent media and journalistic integrity.

The New York Times' bias goes beyond just the liberal bias at the top. The infectious agenda is hardwired into the paper, starting from the ground up. From the reaction to the riots in 2020, we could have predicted how the New York Times and others would frame the anti-Jewish riots on university campuses and whose side they would take.

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Once Again, A Killer Of Jews Is Portrayed As A Victim (Daled Amos)

On Wednesday night, two young members of the Israeli embassy were shot and killed by a radical pro-Palestinian sympathizer. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were attending an American Jewish Committee Young Diplomats reception at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Lischinsky was a German-born evangelical Christian about to be engaged to Milgrim.

Needless to say, these were not the optics the anti-Israel groups were looking for.
We should have known the kind of delusional response to expect on social media.

While AOC did make a reference to antisemitism in the second paragraph of her post, the Jewish identity of Milgrim is erased, as is the fact that the murderer was deliberately targeting those he thought were Jews, in revenge for a war taking place halfway around the world.

One post on X spelled out the left's need to redefine what actually happened. (h/t EOZ)

You see, the murder of two young people who had nothing to do with the war between Israel and Gaza may be tragic, but don't forget the context. In other words, this tragedy is nuanced.

In fact, the real victim is the alleged killer, Mr. Elias:

Elias's actions, while inexcusable, were reportedly driven by his anguish over the daily horrors and crimes against humanity inflicted upon Palestinians, not by hatred towards Jews as a people.

How he knew that the killer was driven by anguish instead of anger and hate is anyone's guess. Of course, to push the "anguish" narrative, the writer here has to paint Israel in the darkest colors--so the same propaganda that the killer fed on is conveniently regurgitated for the benefit of the audience. The word "genocide" is thrown in, independent of its actual, legal definition, along with the usual inflammatory descriptions.

The fact that the killer's actions are blamed on Israel is a nice touch.

And of course, he finishes off with the typical "both sides" flourish.

Oddly enough, what eludes the writer is the hypocrisy that he has fallen into. He carefully avoids mentioning the 1,200 Israelis murdered and the hundreds kidnapped by the Hamas terrorists. But it is exactly that massacre of Jews that led to the war he blames on Israel.

To phrase it in the writer's words: Israel's actions actually are being driven by their anguish over the crimes against humanity inflicted by Palestinians--and Hamas's promise to carry out more such massacres--not by hatred towards Gazans as a people.

Israel has the right to protect its people.

Going a step further, the psychological defense of the killer, based on his alleged anguish that drove him to kill the young couple, is reminiscent of what we have seen in France, where murderers of Jews have avoided justice because of their mental state.

Sarah Halimi Case (2017): Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old Jewish woman, was beaten and thrown from her apartment balcony in Paris by her neighbor, Kobili Traoré. a Muslim immigrant. He was never tried for murder because a lower court ruled he was not criminally responsible due to a cannabis-induced psychotic episode. Instead, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital with restrictive measures for 20 years.

Mireille Knoll Case (2018): Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was stabbed 11 times by Yacine Mihoub and Alex Carrimbacus. The attack was fueled by antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish wealth. Mihoub was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole. But Carrimbacus was acquitted of murder, in part because the defense emphasized his lesser role and mental state. However, he was convicted of theft with antisemitic motives.

René Hadjaj Case (2022): René Hadjaj, an 89-year-old Jewish man, was pushed from his 17th-floor apartment window by his 51-year-old neighbor. The attack was suspected to have antisemitic motives. The suspect was arrested, but no hate crime charges were initially filed. Early reports suggested consideration of the perpetrator’s mental state.

Have we moved on from using a killer's mental state as an indication of inability to judge right from wrong to their emotional state? How far would the writer have us go in judging the perpetrator as the victim?

If you support Hamas terrorists, these attacks on innocent Jews are the inevitable responses. Own it

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Allegations Against ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan Are Back In The News, Along With A Suspicious Timeline (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

This past weekend, The Wall Street Journal featured an article reexamining the allegations of sexual harassment against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan. It also focused on the possible connection between those allegations and the warrants he issued against Netanyahu and Gallant.

In the months following Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the October 7 massacre, both pro-Palestinian activists and ICC-member states in developing countries pressured the prosecutor to take action. According to the report, ICC sources indicated that the pressure was so great that Khan "was increasingly lashing out at his team."

The story is back in the news following revelations indicating the severity of the allegations against Khan and the revelation of new details on a timeline that implies a connection between the issuing of the warrants and the allegations against him. Just last week, UN investigators were interviewing Khan.

Critics believe that by ordering the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan hopes to shield himself from his accuser. First of all, the warrants shored up his support from anti-Israel nations that would then be willing to side with him against the accusations of sexual harassment. Secondly, issuing the arrest order would discourage his accuser. She has supported the warrants and would not want to see them derailed by Khan's removal from the case:

The casualties of the allegations would include “the justice of the victims that are on the cusp of progress,” [Khan] said to her, according to a record of a call that is now part of an independent U.N. investigation into her allegations. “Think about the Palestinian arrest warrants,” she said he told her on another occasion, according to the testimony.

One topic that has raised eyebrows is Khan's sudden cancellation of a fact-finding mission to Israel and Gaza, despite the work that went into the trip and his own admission of the importance of the fact-finding mission:

Khan tried for months to gain access to Gaza
Thomas Lynch, an American lawyer and close adviser to the ICC, made arrangements for the trip
Alan Dershowitz was arranging a private meeting with Netanyahu
Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Adviser Sullivan pushed Israel to let Khan in, seeing the visit as an important opportunity to convince him against the warrants
According to ICC minutes of a May 3, 2024, call, Khan told Blinken that he saw the trip as an important opportunity and would need time to analyze the information his team gathered before making a decision on the arrest orders

The May 3 call between Blinken and Khan is part of a series of events within 21 days that show the proximity of the allegations against Khan and his decision to call off his visit to Israel and issue the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant:

April 29, 2024: Khan’s accuser tells Lynch and another colleague that Khan had been sexually abusing her for several months, and she couldn’t take it anymore.
May 2: Lynch and two other aides confront Khan at his home. They tell him they were reporting the allegations to the court’s human resources office. According to people familiar with the conversation, Khan responds that he would have to resign, adding: “But then people will think I’m running away from Palestine.”
May 3: Khan speaks with Blinken on the phone about the trip and says he would need time to decide on an indictment. On the same day, his office puts out a statement that "all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials cease immediately." There is no mention of the harassment allegations.
May 5: The ICC’s internal investigation agency contacts his accuser. She refuses to cooperate and will neither confirm nor deny her accusation. She later admits to colleagues that she didn’t want to disrupt the warrants by bringing a complaint against Khan.
May 19: Khan suddenly tells aids he is cancelling the trip to Israel (set for week of May 27). Lynch was set to fly to Israel the next day to prepare for Khan's visit.
May 20: Khan announces he is applying for the warrants.

Khan issued the arrest order two-and-a-half weeks after learning of the accusation.

Khan blamed Israel for his decision, saying through his lawyers that “no offer has yet been received from Israel that would permit [access to Gaza]." He claimed this even though Lynch was going to Israel that day to make preparations.

His lawyers claim that since the warrant applications were announced after the ICC had already closed its internal inquiry into the allegations, this disproves any linkage between the allegations and the warrants. On the other hand, if there were enough rumors that an independent UN investigation was found necessary, that could have led Khan to issue warrants to manipulate the situation.

Other issues imply that things are not going smoothly behind the scenes at the ICC.

Senior prosecutors and staff say Khan should take a temporary leave of absence to allow the independent UN investigation to do its job. Some ICC officials believe his presence at the court discourages witnesses from cooperating with the investigation. Khan has refused to take a leave.

Meanwhile, Lynch claims that Khan has retaliated against him by moving him out of Khan's office. According to the internal ICC investigation, following Lynch's reporting the allegation of misconduct, Khan's wife told Lynch she heard rumors about him having an "inappropriate relationship" with a colleague, which he denied. Lynch reported that he saw her comments as threatening, but Khan's wife denied making any statement to him “that could reasonably be construed as threatening.”

Anne Herzbert, human rights lawyer and legal advisor to NGO Monitor, commented on the Wall Street Journal article on Twitter:

Hungary already began the process last month to withdraw from the ICC--a move that was passed in its parliament:

Hungary is out. Today the Parliament voted to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. We won’t be part of a politicised institution. pic.twitter.com/mZTlJyi9oj
— Péter Szijjártó (@FM_Szijjarto) April 29, 2025

Hungary also openly invited Netanyahu to Hungary, snubbing the ICC and the EU.

While Brussels accused Hungary of disloyalty, Italy's deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, publicly supported Hungary's move.

Suspicions of impropriety at the ICC may taint the court, but that in itself may not be enough to quash the warrants.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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Thoughts About Douglas Murray, Dave Smith, entertainers and expertise (Daled Amos)

In a segment for 60 Minutes in 1979, Mike Wallace interviewed Today Show host Johnny Carson. He asked Carson for his response to those who criticized him for not tackling "serious controversies" on his show:

Wallace: Do you get sensitive about the fact that people say "he'll never take a serious controversy?"

Carson: Well, I have an answer to that. I said, "Tell me the last time that Jack Benny, Red Skelton...any comedian used his show to do serious issues". That's not what I'm there for. Can't they see that? Why do they think that just because you have a Tonight Show that you must deal in serious issues. That's a danger, a real danger. Once you start that, you start to get that self-important feeling, that what you say has great import. And you know, strangely enough, you could use that show as a forum. You could sway people, and I don't think you should as an entertainer.

Carson did not address whether a comedian should be knowledgeable enough to speak intelligently about the issue. Nor was he concerned about the comedian's ability to talk about a controversial issue objectively and fairly. His first concern was the influence that an entertainer could have on the public.

Just a year earlier, in 1978, the Supreme Court had similar concerns when it ruled that the FCC had the power to determine the language guidelines for broadcast media because of the media's "uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans."

Nearly half a century later, broadcast media has exploded way beyond television, and is now in the hands of anyone with access to the Internet and social media. Done correctly, broadcasting on social media has the potential to be very lucrative, and if you have your hand on the pulse of what the public wants to hear, you will be successful. Just ask Stephen Colbert, whose turnaround of The Late Show's ratings in 2017 is credited to his sharp attacks on Trump.

These days, if there is anything that ignites people's attention more than Trump, it might be Israel and the war in Gaza. And the great thing is that you don't even have to know what you are talking about to satisfy your audience.

Take comedian Dave Smith, for example. Here is a video of him on the Jake Shields podcast. The YouTube excerpt is entitled, Dave Smith EXPOSES "Greater Israel" Plan:

Smith: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it was, uh, I don't remember when, uh, when Netanyahu went to the U.N a few weeks before October 7th last year, and he had the map of Greater Israel right there.

Shields: I don't know how the states, but it was huge. It was multiple countries involved and that, yeah, they want to take all that land. It's not a secret if Netanyahu's wearing it.

Smith and Shields egg each other on how Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly and revealed a plan that would be open and available on social media.

Actually, Netanyahu's map showed the peace established between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the potential that peace made possible:

Let me show you a map of the Middle East, in 1948, the year Israel was established. Here's Israel. In 1948, it's a tiny country isolated, surrounded by a hostile Arab world.

In our first seven years, we made peace with Egypt and Jordan. And then, in 2020, we made the Abraham Accords peace with another four Arab states. Now, look at what happens when we make peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The whole Middle East changes. We tear down the walls of enmity. We bring the possibility of prosperity and peace to this entire region. But we do something else.

You know, a few years ago, I stood here with a red marker to show the curse, a great curse. The curse of a nuclear Iran. But today, I bring this marker to show a great blessing, the blessing of a new Middle East between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and our other neighbors. We will not only bring down barriers between Israel and our neighbors. We'll build a new corridor of peace and prosperity that connects Asia through the UA, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel to Europe. This is an extraordinary change, a monumental change. Another pivot of History.

The disparity between the careless conspiracy theories of Smith and Shields and the clear intent of what Netanyahu actually said at the UN is more than a little unsettling. Smith is making the rounds on social media, spreading claims like this.

A few weeks ago, Douglas Murray appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast with Smith. Murray is a British political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist. One of the discussions that drew the most attention was the issue of being an "expert."

Murray has written about this point he made on the podcast:

From the COVID lab leak to the Hunter Biden laptop, we have lived through years after which distrust of experts has become inevitable.

Yet that doesn’t mean that expertise does not exist.

It does not mean that a comedian can simply hold himself out as a Middle East expert and should be listened to as if he has any body of work.

On the contrary:

[M]any people seem to think that what I mean is that they are not allowed to have an opinion.
That is wrong.
I think they are.
It’s just that there should be a price to pay for spreading bulls–t.
And one price is that you should be called out.

But that will not happen--at least not as long as these guests are entertaining.

Smith is no expert, and no one listens to him to get the facts. They listen to him for the satisfaction of having their own prejudices reinforced and justified.

So those who believe you should know what you are talking about and should have some kind of expertise, will side with Murray. But those who want to be entertained have no interest in legal definitions of genocide or how Hamas terrorists falsify statistics--and they will cheerfully defend Smith's saying whatever he wants to in order to amuse and please his audience.

So Smith talks as if he has knowledge.
But his audience does not care that he doesn't.

They have forgotten the point Daniel Patrick Moynihan made years ago:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Growing Legal Defense Against Pro-Hamas Protesters (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The right to free speech is both recognized and protected.

Since October 7, pro-Hamas protesters have been accusing universities, the police, and even the government of deliberately violating their free speech. However, emphasizing that speech rights are not absolute only illustrates the growing need to more clearly define the boundary between the right to protest and the right to be protected from the protesters.

When the ACLU brought a suit against the city of Pittsburgh during a 2009 G-20 Conference, it claimed:

Pittsburgh officials deliberately adopted a strategy to harass, intimidate, discourage, and ultimately prevent Three Rivers Climate Convergence and the Seeds of Peace Collective from exercising their constitutionally protected rights to free speech and assembly.

But now, in light of pro-Hamas protests, we are seeing the pendulum swing in the other direction in search of a balance that protects others from being harassed, intimidated, and discouraged from expressing their Jewish identity.

One step in that direction came in January 2024, when Jewish students at Harvard University filed a federal lawsuit claiming Harvard has "become a bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment" by failing to enforce Harvard's own rules against students who violate them -- rules designed to protect Jewish students. Instead, according to lawyer Marc Kasowitn, Jewish students have been "intimidated, harassed and in some instances physically assaulted because they're Jewish."

A further impetus for the protection of Jewish students' rights came last month when a jury found Greenpeace liable for civil conspiracy, defamation, and trespass with a verdict of $667 million in damages. The New York Post article notes the parallels:

There are similarities between the anti-pipeline protests near North Dakota’s Standing Rock Indian Reservation and other mass actions, including Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the anti-Israel demonstrations that erupted around the United States after the Oct. 7 attacks.

These are “hybrid protests,” in which masses of peaceful demonstrators are joined by smaller groups of trained agitators who tip the events toward violence.

The verdict also exposes how NGOs funnel money and material support to those who join the protests with the intent to harass and violate other people's rights.

Now, in a new tactic in the fight against pro-Hamas protesters, families of the victims of the Hamas October 7 massacre are bringing a lawsuit against the anti-Israel groups themselves. Groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Within Our Lifetime and leaders like Mahmoud Khalil are being sued. According to the suit:

“Their self-described acts in furtherance of their goals to assist Hamas have included terrorizing and assaulting Jewish students, unlawfully taking over and damaging public and university property on Columbia’s campus, and physically assaulting Columbia University employees.”

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The suit does more than claim that the protests exceed mere free speech. The families claim that these anti-Israel groups and leaders are coordinating with Hamas, a foreign terrorist group:

“Associational Defendants are not independent advocates; they are expert propagandists and recruiters for international foreign terrorist organizations and nation-state proxies operating in plain sight in New York City.”

The bottom line is that these groups did not just intimidate, harass, and perform acts of violence. They violated America’s Antiterrorism Act.

The families also accuse the groups of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization and having prior knowledge of the attack:

After months of dormancy, Columbia SJP allegedly reactivated its Instagram account "three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7," announcing a meeting and stating that supporters should "stay tuned."

Eighty-three SJP chapters, including Columbia, signed and disseminated a statement in support of Hamas at midnight at the end of the day of the attack, leading the suit to insinuate that the content must have been drafted, reviewed, and signed by dozens of organizations "before and/or during the events of October 7 themselves."

This lawsuit mirrors one by the Jewish National Fund in 2019, when it sued the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, accusing them of supporting terrorism and acting as a front for Hamas. The JNF was rebuffed at every turn:

The plaintiffs made these claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which allows any U.S. national suffering injury due to an act of international terrorism to sue in federal court. Those considered to have knowingly provided “substantial assistance” to a terrorist organization can be found guilty of providing “material support” to terrorism.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s rejection, the lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2021, noting that the plaintiff’s arguments were “to say the least, not persuasive.” In 2023, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, stating that JNF’s attempt to establish liability “fails at every turn,” calling the allegations against USCPR “nothing more than guilt by association.”

The evidence being brought in this new case may make all the difference.

This fight against protests claiming free speech protections goes beyond college campuses. The Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute filed a lawsuit last April for blockading the main entrance into Chicago's O’Hare International Airport, tying up traffic for hours and trapping innocent travelers in their cars. Among the defendants are Jewish Voice for Peace, The Tides Center, and the National Students for Justice, who "provided monetary or logistical support."

The case defends the rights of citizens unlawfully impeded by anti-Israel, pro-Gaza groups engaging in illegal acts of obstruction rather than peaceful protest. HLLI’s legal team seeks damages and a court injunction to prevent future disruptions like this.

A counterpoint to this is the case of NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. in 1966, when the group launched a boycott of white merchants to promote equality and racial justice. While the protest relied on nonviolent picketing, the protest caused financial damage to the businesses. The businesses went to court in 1969. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld that the NAACP could be held responsible and held the boycott to be unlawful "since the NAACP agreed to use force, violence, and 'threats' to carryout the boycott."

However, the US Supreme Court unanimously held (8-0; Justice Thurgood Marshall did not take part) that the NAACP could not be held responsible because the violence or threats of violence could not be tied directly to the financial losses.

Similarly, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court limited the punishment of inflammatory speech only where it is intended to “incit[e] or produc[e] imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such aelction.” However, in that same case featuring the NAACP, an activist who said, “If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck,” was found not to have gone beyond protected speech.

Of course, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits an institution receiving federal funds from discriminating based on race, color, and national origin, could add another dimension to the current cases. National origin includes shared Jewish ancestry.

At the very least, the various cases might finally get the media to correctly point out that there is more to the defense of Jewish students on campus than just free speech.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Deliberate Murder of Israeli Children by Palestinian Terrorists Has A History (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Hamas supporters around the world, who march, harass, and vandalize in support of these terrorists, are outspoken about how their heroes are merely "resisting" Israeli oppression when they massacre over a thousand Israelis and kidnap hundreds more as hostages.

But do they justify Hamas when they murder infants and toddlers?

They may push the Hamas narrative that these innocents were killed by Israel itself because the IDF tried to rescue the hostages.

Another way is denial, just as "protesters" have attempted to deny the Hamas raping of women on October. The UN already debunked their denial in March 2024:

“It was a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors,” including sexual violence, [Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten] stated. The team also found convincing information that sexual violence was committed against hostages, and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those in captivity.

That is not stopping those in denial over Hamas murdering the Bibas children.

Meet Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura:

She describes herself as a genocide researcher, an educator, and a genocide survivor of the Bosnian Serb army.

But to claim that the hostages were physically OK and untouched? Being a survivor of genocide does not automatically confer on her special understanding of genocide or those who commit it.

Buljušmić-Kustura not only seems to ignore the victims of the Hamas massacre itself, but seems to forget how malnourished the released hostages have been and the accounts they have given, as well as the account from the UN in 2024 as quoted above.

Factcheck.org already pointed out in November, 2023, that at least 29 children were murdered by Hamas according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as well as 30 children taken hostage according to the AP.

Even then, Factcheck.org notes people on social media attempting to deny children were killed, so Buljušmić-Kustura has good company.

Has she forgotten that when Gazans flooded into Israel and slaughtered Israeli civilians, they wiped out entire families such as the Kapshetar family and the Siman Tov family?

But Palestinian terrorists murdering children is not new.

Before the re-establishment of the state of Israel, Arabs murdered children along with the adults:

1929 Hebron Massacre – Arab mobs slaughtered 67 Jews, including women and 3 children. Survivors reported brutal killings of entire families.
1938 Tiberias Massacre – Arab assailants murdered 19 Jews, including 11 children, when they attacked a Jewish neighborhood and set houses on fire.

Here are some of the post-1948 massacres of Israeli children 10 years old and younger over the years.

Name of Massacre	Names and Ages of Child Victims	Perpetrators	Sources
Avivim School Bus Massacre May 22, 1970; near Moshav Avivim, Israel	- Rachel Eliyahu, 9 - Sarah Eliyahu, 7 - Miriam Eliyahu, 7 - Avraham Abuhatzira, 8 - Kochava Abuhatzira, 7 - Dina Cohen, 8 - Miriam Dadon, 9 - Rina David, 8 - Zemira Shmuel, 7	Terrorist Group: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC) Individual Terrorists: Not specified	Wikipedia: Avivim School Bus Massacre
Nahariya Attack April 22, 1979; Nahariya, Israel	- Einat Haran, 4 - Yael Haran, 2	Terrorist Group: Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF) Individual Terrorist: Samir Kuntar	Wikipedia: Nahariya Attack
Shalhevet Pass Murder March 26, 2001; Hebron, West Bank	- Shalhevet Pass, 10 months	Terrorist Group: Fatah Individual Terrorist: Mahmoud Amru	Wikipedia: Shalhevet Pass
Sbarro Pizzeria Bombing August 9, 2001; Jerusalem, Israel	- Yocheved Shoshan, 10 - Avraham Schijveschuurder, 4 - Tzira Schijveschuurder, 2	Terrorist Group: Hamas Individual Terrorists: - Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri (suicide bomber) - Ahlam Tamimi (mastermind)	Wikipedia: Sbarro Pizzeria Bombing
Itamar Attack (Shabo Family) June 20, 2002; Itamar, West Bank	- Avishai Shabo, 5	Terrorist Group: PFLP Individual Terrorist: not specified	Wikipedia: Itamar Attack
Kibbutz Metzer Massacre November 10, 2002; Kibbutz Metzer, Israel	- Matan Ohayon, 5 - Noam Ohayon, 4	Terrorist Group: Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades Individual Terrorist: not specified	CNN
Fogel Family Massacre March 11, 2011; Itamar, West Bank	- Elad Fogel, 4 - Hadas Fogel, 3 months	Terrorist Group: Not specified Individual Terrorists: - Amjad Awad - Hakim Awad	Wikipedia: Itamar Attack

There is an online slide presentation that lists 123 Israeli children murdered by Palestinian terrorists between 2000 and 2005. According to the presentation, the deliberate Palestinian murder of children started in October 2000:

Here are the children deliberately murdered by Palestinian terrorists, from 17 years to one day old:

The memories of these precious neshamas should be a blessing, and a further reminder of why Hamas terrorists cannot be allowed to remain in Gaza so close to Israel.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)