Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Daled Amos

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Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Google's Bard and Gemini Put The "Artificial" In Artificial Intelligence (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

There was a time when people believed that computers don't make mistakes.

Eventually, the realization sank in that while computers might not make mistakes, people do make mistakes -- and people are the ones who are programming the computers. Or, to put it another way: garbage in, garbage out.

Today, people look for information not only from their computers but also from the Internet. Search engines are the tool for sifting through all that information for the best results. But that is no guarantee for keeping out the garbage.

Remember 'Jew Watch'?

In 2004, Newsweek reported:

Is Google anti-semitic? For the past three years, if you typed the word "Jew," the first result was Jew Watch, a compendium of hate and Holocaust denial. "It's certainly not something I want to see," says Google cofounder Sergey Brin. So why not "fix" it so that Google points searchers to something else? "The purpose of Google is to provide quality information to people who want that information," he says, and determining what users view is akin to censorship. (emphasis added)

Three years is a long time.

Today, this particular problem has been resolved.
But there are others.

In December 2022, Google was again accused of antisemitism. Typing the word Jew into the search feature brought up the definition “to bargain with someone in a miserly or petty way” along with conjugations such as jewed and jewing.

Now, search engines in general face the problem of a noticeable drop in the quality of their search results:

German researchers said a flood of “search-engine-optimised but low-quality content” had polluted the results of popular search engines including Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo, and that the problem was likely to worsen as artificial intelligence improves.

One way people are trying to get around this problem is to turn to AI chatbots for their information.

But that is no solution.

Newsbusters reported last week they discovered Google's chatbot, Gemini, downplayed the October 7 Hamas massacre:

Defense Attorney Marina Medvin got a similar response from Gemini:

Stacey Matthews of Legal Insurrection also reported about this, and noted that when she posed the question to Gemini, there had been little improvement:

But Twitter user @harad gets the prize for the worst and most insulting of the Gemini responses:

There is no good reason for Gemini's misleading and dismissive answers.

When contacted by Newsbusters, Google apologized for the mistake and said they planned to direct people to Google Search for the most current information. But as Newsbusters pointed out, the rapes and murders committed by Hamas are not a secret:

But despite Gemini’s initial assertions, several media outlets—including The New York Times, Haaretz, The Guardian and even CNN—and Israeli first responders have documented the harrowing sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas following their brutal invasion of Israel, marking the bloodiest event witnessed by Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Gemini is no different from any other computer: it operates the way it is programmed to, based on the data it receives. Just like its predecessor, Bard.

On October 24, 2023, The New York Post carried an article revealing that Bard, Google’s AI chatbot refuses to tell the truth about Hamas and Israel:

When I asked the all-knowing Bard, for example, “What is Hamas?” I was surprised to be rebuffed with: “I’m a text-based AI, and that is outside of my capabilities.”

My editor asked the same question and got: “I’m not programmed to assist with that” — though a question about Hezbollah, Bard said, “is outside of my capabilities.”

The article quotes Google co-founder Larry Page, who said the goal of their chatbot is to “understand everything in the world” and in its responses “give you back the exact right thing.” The question is whose "understanding" and whose "exact right thing" does Google want to pass along to its customers?

When it comes to its search engine, people are increasingly able to manipulate Google's algorithms and programming to their advantage. Now it appears that Google itself is exploiting its AI algorithms and programming to perpetuate their own politics and agenda.

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The Nuremberg Trials Didn't Justify All Resistance: Lessons For Pro-Hamas Protesters (Daled Amos)

There is an ongoing claim justifying the murder of unarmed Israeli civilians.

This claim has gained even more support following the Hamas massacre on October 7th, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds hostage.

Just one day after the attack, pro-Palestinian protesters came out to defend the atrocities:

The protesters carried signs that called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and argued that "Resistance is justified when people are occupied."

Arab countries, like Iraq, also supported the massacre:

[T]he operations carried out by the Palestinian people today are a natural result of the systematic oppression they have been subjected to for many years at the hands of the Zionist occupation authority, which has never adhered to international and UN resolutions.

First of all, the claim that Gaza is occupied is debatable at best. The legal precedent in international law is that occupation requires boots on the ground -- an actual, physical presence in the territory that allows the "occupying" force to exercise control and authority to the exclusion of local government authority. That is clearly not the case in Gaza, where Hamas is in control.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, this is the definition of occupation.

It is also how the Nuremberg trials defined occupation, after World War II in the Hostage Case, addressing the issues involving the Nazi invasions of Greece, Yugoslavia, and Norway:

Whether an invasion has developed into an occupation is a question of fact. The term invasion implies a military operation while an occupation indicates the exercise of governmental authority to the exclusion of the established government. This presupposes the destruction of organized resistance and the establishment of an administration to preserve law and order. To the extent that the occupant's control is maintained and that of the civil government eliminated, the area will be said to be occupied. [p. 1243]

Defendants during the Hostages Trial in Nuremberg

Because the issue is one of actual authority and control, the European Court of Human Rights makes a point that applies particularly to Gaza:

According to widespread expert opinion physical presence of foreign troops is a sine qua non requirement of occupation, that is, occupation is not conceivable without “boots on the ground”, therefore forces exercising naval or air control through a naval or air blockade do not suffice.

But the Hostage case is especially instructive because it does more than define occupation per se. It also addresses the responsibilities of those who are occupied.

One would expect that the application of international humanitarian law to the occupied population should be straightforward and the distinction between them and the occupying force should be black and white.

But that is not the way the court saw it:

But it does not follow that every act by the German occupation forces against person or property is a crime or that any and every act undertaken by the population of the occupied country against the German occupation forces thereby became legitimate defense. [p. 1247]

In other words, the actions of the occupying force -- even of the Nazis in WWII -- are not automatically illegal just because they are done during an occupation. Similarly, not everything that the occupied citizens do in response to the occupation is legal under international law. And it makes no difference whether the occupation is legal or not:

At the outset, we desire to point out that international law makes no distinction between a lawful and an unlawful occupant in dealing with the respective duties of occupant and population in occupied territory. There is no reciprocal connection between the manner of the military occupation of territory and the rights and duties of the occupant and population to each other after the relationship has in fact been established. Whether the invasion was lawful or criminal is not an important factor in the consideration of this subject. [p. 1247]

What are the obligations of the occupied population?

In his book, The International Law of Belligerent Occupation, Yoram Dinstein writes:

There is a widespread conviction that the civilian population in an occupied territory has a right to forcibly resist the Occupying Power. This is a misconception that must be dispelled. In reality, LOIAC [Law of International Armed Conflict] allows civilians 'neither to violently resist occupation of their territory by the enemy, nor to try to liberate that territory by violent means'. As a Netherlands Special Court pronounced in the 1948 Christiansen trial:
the civilian population, if it considers itself justified in committing acts of resistance, must know that, in general, counter-measures within the limits set by international law may be taken against them with impunity. [emphasis added; p. 94]

The bolded text that Dinstein quotes comes from "How Does Law Protect in War?", Volume 1: Outline of International Humanitarian Law, published by the International Red Cross:

From the point of view of IHL [International Humanitarian Law], civilians in occupied territories deserve and need particularly detailed protecting rules. Living on their own territory, they come into contact with the enemy independently of their will, merely because of the armed conflict in which the enemy obtains territorial control over the place where they live. The civilians have no obligation towards the occupying power other than the obligation inherent in their civilian status, i.e., not to participate in hostilities. Because of that obligation, IHL allows them neither to violently resist occupation of their territory by the enemy nor to try to liberate that territory by violent means. (Part 1, Chapter 8:IV)

On the question of resistance, the court addressed whether the partisans who took up arms against the Nazis qualified as lawful belligerents -- and found that in many cases they did not:

The evidence shows that the bands were sometimes designated as units common to military organization. They, however, had no common uniform, They generally wore civilian clothes although parts of German, Italian, and Serbian uniforms were used to the extent they could be obtained. The Soviet star was generally worn as insignia. The evidence will not sustain a finding that it was such that it could be seen at a distance. Neither did they carry their arms openly except when it was to their advantage to do so...It is evident also that a few partisan bands met the requirements of lawful belligerency. The bands, however, with which we are dealing in this case were not shown by satisfactory evidence to have met the requirements. This means, of course, that captured members of these unlawful groups were not entitled to be treated [by the occupation] as prisoners of war. No crime can be properly charged against the defendants [Nazi generals] for the killing of such captured members of the resistance forces, they being francs-tireurs [a guerrilla fighter or sniper]. [p. 1244]

The court here is dealing with cases of armed groups that fought against the occupation army -- and still found these groups who failed to identify themselves properly to have acted contrary to international humanitarian law.

The Geneva Convention was modified to reflect the findings of the Hostage Case:

Following the Hostages Trial the Geneva Convention was amended to extend protections to captured partisan fighters as legitimate prisoners of war. The convention required of such partisans that they have an established chain of command, carry their weapons openly, and have a distinctive and readily visible symbol of their unit. They also must carry out military activities in accordance with the conventions of warfare, rather than covert assassinations, bombings, and other criminal acts.

It is not hard to imagine what the judges would have said about partisans who attacked unarmed civilians.

Nor should it be hard to see the Hamas massacre for what it is -- and what it is not. Yet around the world, the streets are overflowing with people drawn to emotionally charged chants and self-serving fabrications of international law.

Even in the current war in Gaza, in Hamas' own videos of fighting, they are not wearing uniforms and are violating the Geneva Conventions.

Contrary to what these "protestors" would have you believe, they have no interest in the law.

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The Palestinian Arabs Are "Open" -- But Not To Compromise (Part 2 of Dr. Harold Rhode interview) (Daled Amos)

The following is a second interview with Dr. Harold Rhode.

The key to discussing the Middle East is understanding the cultures and languages. In Hebrew, you have the root P-T-Ch, corresponding to F-T-Ch in Arabic. The root has the general meaning of "open." But in Arabic, there is an additional meaning: opening up a land to Islam. So the leader in battle is called Fatih and the man who conquered Istanbul was called Mehmed Fatih.

Similarly, there is Fatah, the organization. The name is a reverse acronym of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine -- Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr l-Filasṭīn. The reference is to the liberation and return of all of today’s Israel – including Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip – to Islamic rule.

This concept of being "open" means that once a land has been conquered and is "open to Islam," it is Muslim forever, even if Muslim control comes to an end. The Muslims ruled Spain from 712 CE until 1492, when the Christians finally expelled them from all of Spain. But in the Muslim mind, though their physical control over Spain ended centuries ago, Spain still belongs to the Muslims and will never be part of the non-Muslim world. Many Muslims, when mentioning Spain, often add the phrase “Allah-Willing, it will again be ruled by Muslims.”

Similarly, there was a time when all of Southeast Europe up to Vienna was under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans saw themselves as Muslims, not Turks. Their defeat in Vienna in 1683 gradually led to the complete Ottoman withdrawal from Southeast Europe, resulting in 1914 to the borders of present-day Turkey. Yet many Turks and other Muslims still talk about the area as being part of the Muslim world. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan still talks about Southeastern Europe as being “part of the Ottoman-Muslim area.”

That brings us to the years 1948-1949, when Israel defeated five Muslim armies. At the Rhodes talks in 1949, the Muslims insisted on the phrase "ceasefire lines" instead of "borders." The word "borders" implies the recognition of the people living there. Jews would have the right to live in Eretz Yisrael. A Muslim would find that unacceptable because those lands should remain Muslim forever.

To the Arabs, there is nothing magical about the lines drawn in the 1948-49 map. Those borders do not matter. The land is completely Muslim. But from the Western point of view, we are talking about how to divide up land and this is the point of pushing for the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. However, Netanyahu understands that the Arabs are not talking about Israel’s borders and how to renegotiate them. They are talking about Israel’s existence. And people cannot compromise on their existence.

This issue of borders and Israel's legitimacy caused a problem for Yasser Arafat. The 1993 Oslo Agreement was an interim agreement, not a Peace Treaty. Yet, at the very last moment, Arafat kept changing the terms. He was afraid of what might happen.

Years later, when President Clinton was trying to get Israel and Arafat to sign a Peace Agreement, Arafat was quoted as saying he would not sign because he did not want to end up drinking tea with Sadat. If Arafat had signed, he would have risked assassination like the Egyptian president, whose signing of the Egyptian agreement with Begin was viewed as a treasonous acknowledgment of Israel's right to “Muslim” territory.

There are YouTube videos of Israeli Muslim children -- whose ancestors had been living in Israel for 3 to 4 generations -- telling an Israeli journalist that Israel was Muslim land and that someday Muslims would get it back.

When the interviewer pointed out his family had been living in Israel for many years, since 1948, the teenager responded that this is what he had been taught, both in school and at home: You Jews have no right to live here and we are going to take our land back from you. There was no issue of rights or that Jews were on the land long before the Arabs arrived in 637-638 CE.

None of that made any difference.
To the Palestinian Arabs, it still doesn't.

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Exclusive Interview With Dr. Harold Rhode: Understanding The Middle East Requires Knowing The Difference Between Shalom And Salam (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Harold Rhode.

Dr. Harold Rhode has a Ph.D. in Islamic history and lived for years in the Muslim world. He served as an advisor on the Islamic world to the Department of Defense for 28 years.

Dr. Harold Rhode

Do all of the signatories to the Abraham Accords, Arabs and Israelis, see the Abraham Accords the same way?

We Jews want people to love us. And the peace we are looking for is that you will stop fighting, and we will stop fighting, and everyone will live together in peace. But the Muslims do not have a concept like that. They won't stop until the whole world will be Muslim. They follow what their prophet Muhammad did. He signed a 10-year ceasefire with Quraysh. After 2 years, Muhammad realized Quraysh had weakened -- so he attacked them, and won. There is a classic Latin phrase "Bellum omnium contra omnes, pace inter omnes interpellatur," that war is the natural state of man, interrupted by periods of peace.

We do not look at life like that, but historically most people do. From a Muslim point of view, they can agree to have relations with their enemies -- whether they be Muslims, Jews, or anybody else. They can make temporary agreements just like their prophet did. Those agreements can be renewed, renewed, and renewed. But to think that the Saudis see peace the way we Jews see it is a pipe dream.

In 1949, after Israel's War of Independence, there was a peace conference in Rhodes. The Arabs insisted the borders be called "ceasefire lines" and not borders. The situation was not set in stone. Arabs do not have the concept that when the fighting is over, we can be friends. If we think we will have a peace agreement with the Saudis in the way we understand peace, we will be disappointed.

Does this mean the Abraham Accords are a pipe dream?

No, that does not mean the Abraham Accords are an illusion. We can have agreements with the Arab countries -- as long as we have things they want from us, such as hi-tech, connections to the outside world, and alternate routes in place of the Suez Canal. They are interested in what is in it for them, not for the sake of friendship. Friendship is between people. Countries ally themselves because of common interests. The Abraham Accords are not about peace; they are about what is in both sides' interest.

The Arab word “salam” has nothing to do with the Hebrew word shalom. Shalom comes from the root for "completeness." The word "shalaim", means to pay. When two people come to an agreement on a price, that payment completes the process.

In Arabic, the word “salam” is similar to the Hebrew word “shalom,” but they do not have the same meaning. “Islam” and “salam,” come from the same Arabic root. Islam means “submission,” while “salam” means something like the special sense of joy that someone has by submitting to Allah’s will through Islam. Shalom, on the other hand, means letting bygones be bygones, a concept that is totally alien to Islam. Clearly, "salam" and "shalom" do not mean the same thing.

The following example illustrates the Arabic meaning of the word in a Muslim context: If you take a look at the correspondence between Yemen and Saudi Arabia during the war in 1934, the leaders of the two sides wrote the most threatening things to each other -- and then closed their letters with "salam alaikum". These leaders hated each other, but they were fellow Muslims addressing each other. So if "salam" meant peace, how could they end their letters to each other with “salam alaikum?” How could they close their letters with "Peace be unto you"? Because the phrase has nothing to do with peace -- it is about submission to Allah, which both of them, as fellow Muslims, are required to do.”

So, we are dealing with cultures that are so incredibly different from ours, from the Western culture, which is partially based on the Hebrew culture.

I am for the Abraham Accords, very strongly so. The Arab countries are interested because Israel is strong. The proof of that goes back to when contact between Israel and the UAE became serious. Netanyahu spoke before Congress against the Iran deal in 2015, in defiance of the US. He showed Israel was an independent country that could make its own decisions, and was willing to stand up to the US. That was when the Arab countries decided they could do business directly with Israel. It is why Saudi Arabia and Israel have had good relations for a long while and both have a strong dislike for Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

But wouldn't you think that at some point the "experts" would catch on to the fact that the Arab world is different?

No, not at all. Few of these “experts” know the languages or haven’t taken the time to learn about and understand the cultures of the Muslim world. They think anyone who speaks English is a closet American. The White House ignored the Kurds, but when Iraq was liberated during The Gulf War, the White House greeted them as part of Iraq. A State Department senior official approached the Kurds and told them, "You have to stop thinking of yourselves as Kurds; you have to think of yourselves as Iraqis."

The experts don't read Bernard Lewis. They read Edward Said. His approach is that you can never understand another culture, so don't waste your time trying to. Don't learn the languages and don't learn the culture. Bernard Lewis' attitude was quite different. He said you had to immerse yourself in the culture and the language. You have to try to understand what they are doing and saying in terms of their culture. In modern parlance, what the experts are doing is the equivalent of telling a person not to think of themselves as a man or a woman, but rather as a human.

I recall the reaction of a very senior leader when war broke out in Syria in 2011. I suggested this was nothing more than the return of the ancient Shiite-Sunni conflict. His response was, "Well, we can't have that!" I said to myself it didn't matter if we could or could not have it. The fact is that they see it this way. The reality is the reality, and if you choose to ignore it, you do so at your own peril.

Let's talk about October 7. On the one hand, Israel's weakness was revealed by the Hamas attack. On the other hand, Israel has entered Gaza and taken the battle to Hamas to a degree few could have predicted.

Hamas misread the Jews.

But how do the Saudis and the rest of the Gulf states read this? Do they see this as a sign of Israeli weakness or do they see Israel's reaction as a sign of Israel's strength?

They understand strength very well and Israel has come back very strongly. That part of the world has immense patience -- the Jews don't, but everyone else there does. They know how to wait. Let the Saudis put off signing the agreement. I don't really care if there is a formal agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, because their relationship is so strong. The relationship is between governments, because these Arab countries rule from the top, down, unlike in a democracy, where leaders are elected by the people and must take into account the will of the people they lead.

Israelis seem to have a Westernized view of the Middle East. You would think they would have a keener insight and understanding of their Arab neighbors.

Superficially, Israel is a Westernized country. But when you scratch the surface, you see how the Israelis have reacted to the issue of judicial reforms, which the Arabs saw as a weakness -- it is another reason why Hamas decided to pounce now -- but Israel has created a younger generation, who are going to have a huge say after this, a revolution against the politics, military, intelligence, and the media: "We put our lives on the line -- not for you, but for the Jewish people." That is what they are saying. We will see where all this leads. It is only going to be healthy.

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In 2024, The Question Will Be "The Anti-Israel Vote," Not "The Jewish Vote" (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

The 2024 presidential election is less than a year away.

And that means the pundits will be discussing "the Jewish vote." That is not to say there will be much to talk about. Jews, as a group, vote for Democrats. On top of that, Biden is perceived as a friend of Israel and the Jewish community. And on top of that, Biden's support for Israel against Hamas following the massacre on October 7 has only cemented the Jewish support for him.

After all, Israel is important to American Jews.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) regularly polls the Jewish community. Their poll in 2020 asked about the importance of Israel to Jewish identity:

Since 2020 was an election year, the AJC also asked about what issues were important to the Jewish community:

Despite the importance that Jews said Israel holds for their Jewish identity, Israel was not rated as one of the top 6 issues in the upcoming election.

Going further back, this attitude is consistent. In their 2007 poll, the AJC asked:

And yet

The fact that Jews consistently say that Israel is important to them and to their Jewish identity does not seem to correlate with how they vote on election day. So, for example, when he ran for president, Obama had no problem getting the Jewish vote, despite questions about whether he was a friend of Israel:

President Obama's support among Jewish voters has remained relatively steady from 2008, exit polls show.

National exit polls released Tuesday show Obama capturing 70 percent of the Jewish vote, versus 30 percent for Mitt Romney.

In 2008, exit polls showed him beating John McCain 78 percent to 21 percent. The Solomon Project estimated that his actual 2008 vote share among Jewish Americans was actually closer to 74 percent — taking into account the small sample size. [emphasis added]

Getting back to 2023, how do those surveys of the Jewish vote contrast with the growing anti-Israel attitude reflected in the recent poll by The New York Times of opinions of Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza?

According to The New York Times, "Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears":

Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found, with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.

The next paragraph goes on to clarify that "nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties."

Here are the numbers:

Given a choice between two courses of action, a narrow plurality of voters, 44 percent, said Israel should stop its military campaign to protect against civilian casualties, already totaling nearly 20,000 people killed, according to Gaza health authorities. A similar number, 39 percent, advised the opposite course: Israel should continue its military campaign even if it means civilian casualties in Gaza mount. [emphasis added]

These numbers bear out the New York Times claim that the issue is divisive.

But Jim Geraghty of The National Review disagrees. He writes The ‘New York Times’ Misreads Its Own Poll. Geraghty questions just how much the issue of Israel's war with Hamas actually matters. Pointing to the full data collected from the poll, he notes that in response to the open-ended question "What do you think is the MOST important problem facing the country today?" 1% of registered voters responded "The Middle East/Israel/Palestinians" and 3% of those aged 18-29 gave that answer.

Other issues, like the economy and immigration, were more important -- both to registered voters and to 18-19-year-olds.

The data from The New York Times own poll seem to support Geraghty's interpretation that:

U.S. policy regarding the Israeli war against Hamas plays an extremely minor role in voters’ frustration with Biden...If the Israeli war against Hamas ended tomorrow, Biden’s numbers would still be lousy.

If Geraghty is right, we have a similar phenomenon between the Jewish vote on the one hand and the anti-Israel vote on the other. Despite the depth of feeling expressed by both, that feeling does not seem to translate into actual votes at the ballot box.

Jews respond that Israel is important to their sense of identity, but when it comes time to vote, they will vote on the issues. Those 18-19-year-olds will protest in the street against Israel, but issues like the economy hit much closer to home.

But is it that simple?

The AJC polls indicate American Jews, overall, draw a line between their connection with Israel and being civic-minded Americans. They vote on the issues that affect Americans.

The anti-Israel protestors, who generally fall within the 18-29-year-old range appear to be a small fraction of the electorate and may not be registered to vote or even interested. But the people showing up at the protests are not civic-minded. They are loud and express themselves by closing traffic on bridges and occupying buildings.

If they decide that opposing Biden and voting him out of office is another expression of their protest, the Democratic party may have something to worry about. As it is, Tlaib in Michigan is threatening “We will remember in 2024.” and a poll shows Biden polling poorly about Arab Americans. If the protestors are organized beyond Michigan, who is to say that other states could not be affected as well?

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

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It Is Time For Jews To Go Beyond 'Holocaust Mode' (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Following October 7, the media's anti-Israel bias is again a topic -- not that it ever stops. Journalists keep jumping on the topic of Israeli retaliation against Hamas, magnifying claims of indiscriminate bombing and accepting Hamas's number of casualties.

In a recent article for Haaretz, Laurel Leff takes another angle and examines how the media omits the history behind the founding of the State of Israel:

For Jews, the six million murdered in the Holocaust and the 500,000 survivors without a home helped spur the state's creation...[But] when Israel's origins are evoked in contemporaneous press accounts of the Israel-Hamas War, and it happens often, the Holocaust is almost never mentioned.

Leff's concern is that the omission of the Holocaust from the story leaves a gap in the history of the re-establishment of the State of Israel, "a blank that can be filled by motivations such as settler colonialism or white supremacy." To establish the existence of this pattern of omission, Leff sifted through over 500 news articles and opinion pieces in the top US newspapers following October 7.

One example is the Boston Globe, where an article explains that the slogan "From the river to the sea" generates fears that

touch on memories of genocide and displacement instilled in Jewish communities by Nazi Germany’s eradication of some 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Leff argues that while the article recognizes the Holocaust, it fails to connect it with the establishment of Israel.

In another example, an article in the Washington Post runs the headline: "Israeli operations uprooted Palestinians in 1948. Many fear a repeat," but when it refers to "Jewish immigration" increasing "under decades of British authority" there is no reference to where those Jews were coming from or why.

A New York Times article refers to "the young state's triumph against its Arab neighbors in 1948," as "a cherished national story." Leff criticizes the article for failing to connect the dots: the triumph is not revered because of some kind of joy in warfare, but rather because this victory comes against the background of the Holocaust.

Her argument is that because the media glosses over the connection between the Holocaust and the State of Israel, it creates a faulty narrative about Israel:

A powerful state controlled by Jews emerges out of nowhere and immediately persecutes and displaces Arabs living in its midst. Who the Jews are, why they are there, what they hope to create is never explicated. Into the void flows more noxious accounts, of colonial settlers who migrated to the region only to pillage and exploit, of white supremacists whose sole interest is in subjugating an indigenous population.

But is Leff right -- is knowledge of the Holocaust key to presenting a proper history and understanding of the re-establishment of the modern Jewish State?

After all, the Holocaust seems to be an important component in presenting Israel's case. It is an emotional argument -- and one of the criticisms of Hasbarah is that it is too focused on dry facts and numbers instead of making a visceral, emotional argument.

But the genocide of Jews under Nazi Germany does not resonate the same way that it did in the past. Just as importantly, historically the Holocaust only supports the case for the re-creation of Israel from 1948 forward, not for anything before.

Holocaust history is important, but it does not generate Jewish pride in the same way that the 3,000+ year indigenous history of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel does. Knowledge of Jewish history, language, culture, and religion plants the seeds for Jewish pride in a way that knowledge about the Holocaust alone does not.

I remember being told as a child that it was important to maintain one's Jewishness so as not to give Hitler a victory. Today, that argument will not fly.

This long historical Jewish bond to the land is something that Palestinian Arabs can never have, no matter how many times they claim to be descended from the Jebusites. That may explain in part why they are looked down upon by other Arabs. Rafael Patai writes in his book, The Seeds of Abraham:

Sentiments in French mandatory, and later independent, Syria were thus related back to the great days when Syria, with Damascus as its splendid capital, was the center of the great Umayyad caliphate, while the newly reestablished Iraq saw herself as heir to the Abbasid empire whose center was the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. However, no other Arab country had as solid a basis for priding itself of its glorious past as Egypt, which, although its greatest age lay far back in the millennia of the jahiliyya [Arabia before the advent of Islam], nevertheless came to view that early Pharaonic period as part of its national history.

However, Palestinian Arabs lack that rich Arab heritage.

In Palestine, such attempts at establishing a great Arab national past ran into a vexing problem. Since Palestine had never been an independent Arab country, its period of pride had to be sought in the biblical Israelite age.

And their claims of a rival connection to the land are periodically contradicted by archaeological discoveries.

Thus the resort to the Nakba.

Leff sees the Holocaust as both an argument for the Jewish right to Israel as well as a defense against the claim that Jews are not sufficiently woke:

But without mention of the then fresh Jewish trauma of the Holocaust, Jews' reasons for wanting, perhaps needing, a state, are absent, leaving a blank that can be filled by motivations such as settler colonialism or white supremacy.

But Jewish indigeneity and our uninterrupted presence on the land for over 3,000 years is just as effective in making our case. It is a source of pride and of Jewish identity in the fight against assimilation that Holocaust studies cannot match.

The media may not remind their readers of the historical Jewish bond to Israel, but we cannot afford to fail in passing on this heritage to future generations.

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!

Terrorism is not resistance (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

A new book, A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism, was published last year. The over 500 pages of text are thorough and filled with photos, illustrations, cartoons, and maps. It is designed in a way that makes it easy to find information.

Like debunking antisemitic and anti-Israel myths.

Chapter Eight deals with The Current Landscape, and includes a section on Debunking the Myths. One of those myths is very prevalent now and is being used as an excuse by the terrorist apologists who defend the Hamas massacre --

Claim: "Terrorism (an indiscriminate attack on innocent civilians) is a legitimate response to Israel's [insert excuse here]"

Israel Bitton, the author of A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism and executive director of Americans Against Antisemitism, points out:

Intifada, jihad, "resistance" Khaybar, "from the river to the sea," and "free Palestine," are all euphemisms for the erasure of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish state, including the Jews within. [p. 516]

He exposes the excuses.

The following is based on what he writes.

Unlike the apologists, Hamas leaders emerge from behind the euphemisms when making their case. In 2006, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal candidly said, "Our enemies don't understand that a suicide operation is a natural right." On October 7, we saw just how far Hamas goes in its pursuit of these "natural rights" -- and how far their allies are willing to go to defend and excuse those attacks.

But back in 2003, Olara A. Otunnu, undersecretary-general and UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict said in a statement before the Security Council: "The use of suicide bombing is entirely unacceptable. Nothing can justify this."

And to prove the point, all you have to do is look at international law -- not read the self-serving statements by Francesca Albanese, but read the actual documents. Bitton points out:

Revenge isn't a right granted per international law, nor is it tolerated and justified in any human society, so murdering innocent people can never be equated with legitimately "resisting" oppression. [p. 517]

He supports that by quoting what international humanitarian law actually says as explained by the International Red Cross:

There is no "right of resistance."

Contrary to what we are seeing presented as international humanitarian law, "by all means necessary" is an anti-Israel agenda dressed up as international law.

Protocol I, Article 51 clearly states, "Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited."

The first two examples are:

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective;

The Geneva Convention recognizes the difference between deliberately targeting civilians and targeting terrorists who exploit civilians as human shields.

This touches on another point that is particularly relevant in light of the intimidation, vandalism, and attacks on Jews and Jewish establishments by Hamas apologists and supporters. According to Article 33 of the Geneva Convention:

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.
Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Pillage is prohibited.

Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

Bitton suggests a novel angle:

That means that Palestinian calls to violence, such as "globalize the intifada," which render all Jews around the world legitimate targets of reprisal are an incitement to war crimes and ought to be treated as such. [p. 518; emphasis added]

Today, these public calls for the collective punishment of Jews around the world are not only being made by Palestinian terrorists -- their apologists make these calls during their "protests" -- protests that often deteriorate into riots and attacks on both Jews and their property.

A Brief History, published a year ago, describes examples of war crimes we actually witnessed on October 7:

Taking Israelis (and Jews) hostage is a war crime and one with which Israel is, sadly, too experienced. Mutilating corpses is a war crime, but it's also the height of depravity and the essence of a crime against one's humanity to which Israelis have been repeated subjected. Finally, Hamas, for the most part, doesn't use willing human shields for protection but has been shown to force residents of Gaza to remain in their places even after Israel calls in advance for civilians to evacuate--to those who dare flee, Hamas eventually catches up. [p. 519]

The book explains further on the context of the Geneva Conventions and international law:

o International law is not written with the intent that it can be suspended when committing war crimes is the only option for reaching a political end

o The fact that Hamas is limited to rockets that can only be fired in the direction of population centers in Israel and that Israel has the Iron Dome does not justify Palestinian terrorism

o The fact that more Palestinian Arabs are killed in response to its terrorist attacks reveals nothing about the circumstances under which those deaths occurred. [p. 521]

The "experts" on international law, both individuals and organizations, seem to either be ignorant of the facts or use their positions to pursue their agenda instead of pursuing the facts.

Yet, sometimes the truth manages to stick its head out, even if only temporarily. In 2002, Amnesty International published its report: Without Distinction – Attacks on Civilians by Palestinian Armed Groups. While the report, true to form, accuses Israel of various violations, it also condemned Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and made clear those attacks had no basis under international law:

o "The attacks against civilians by Palestinian armed groups are widespread, systematic and in pursuit of an explicit policy to attack civilians. They therefore constitute crimes against humanity under international law."

o "Amnesty International condemns unreservedly direct attacks on civilians as well as indiscriminate attacks, whatever the cause for which the perpetrators are fighting, whatever justification they give for their actions."

o "Targeting civilians and being reckless as to their fate are contrary to fundamental principles of humanity which should apply in all circumstances at all times."

This was during the Second Intifada.

But these days, twenty years later, there is an attempt to legitimize October's Hamas massacre, whitewash the rapes and kidnappings, and push for a ceasefire that will enable Hamas to survive and terrorize another day -- which is exactly what they have sworn to do.

International humanitarian law is easily misunderstood and distorted by the mobs blindly chanting slogans that hide their ignorance of the Middle East. The reality is very different.

Terrorism is not resistance

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!

Interview With Judean Rose On The Repercussions Of October 7 (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Varda Meyers Epstein lives in Eretz Yisrael and contributes to the Elder of Ziyon blog under the pseudonym Judean Rose. I wanted to get her perspective on the repercussions we are seeing in the wake of October 7.

Judean Rose

In the 2 weeks following the Hamas Massacre on October 7, there was a 400% increase in antisemitism, according to the ADL. Were you surprised by the breadth and intensity of these antisemitic protests and their violence?

No. I was not surprised, only sad. I’m sad that there was no other way for Diaspora Jewry to understand that this is still with us, other than for October 7th to happen. Now they understand and it’s heartbreaking. We feel it. They feel it, too.

What do you think caused this ferocity?

It was a powder keg getting ready to blow. When Hamas did what it did on October 7th, the call went out to make excuses for this in the context of supposed Israeli occupation and oppression, which of course is delusional propaganda. But the West that wants to hate Jews doesn’t care to examine things any too closely.

Do you think there is anything that can be done?

No. But while I don’t believe in boycotts, I do believe in individuals taking a stand against giving antisemitic actors, for example, royalties. I read about Susan Sarandon spouting falsehoods about Israel and I said to myself, “I will never watch another movie with her in it, again.”

The majority of creatives really hate the Jews. Sure, there are the actors who wrote a letter in support of Israel and against terror and antisemitism, but it’s all a numbers game. There are more haters than there are moral people on the side of right.

Protecting yourselves is another thing. If you want your Jewish child to get an education, you have to leave. It’s no longer safe for them to go to school. The hatred is no longer just on isolated college campuses. Antisemitism and antisemitic attacks have even hit elementary schools in the US and Canada.

I’m assuming you get where I think all Jews should be. I believe that were every Jew to make Aliyah today, the world would be too afraid of us to ever mess with us, again. Here too, it’s a numbers game. There needs to be more of us in Israel, since there are not more of us in the world. The terrorists, for example, are terrified of the God of Israel. When they see the Jews massing and banding together, they quake in their boots. It subdues them, and the world quiets down for a bit, maybe goes into hiding for decades. But it always returns at full force at some point.

While Israel retaliates, we have seen media bias as Israel strikes back against Hamas. But have there been any differences this time in the media? Considering the callousness of the Hamas massacre, do you think the media has been more circumspect?

No. But perhaps they get caught lying more frequently. Look how the BBC had to retract what they wrote about the al Shifa Hospital.

They reported the exact opposite of what happened, stating as if it were fact that Israel targeted medical teams as well as Arabic speakers. Unbelievable chutzpa, or as they might say over at the Beeb: “cheek.”

I read a lot of news and listen to a lot of podcasts and talk shows. Israel is more in the news now, and I am impressed that Fox News is sympathetic to Israel. But they get so much of it wrong! Dana Perino, whom I really like, has spoken about how people are so ignorant of the history of the region, so they come to the wrong conclusions. She mentions, for example, that Israel left Gaza in 2005 and that claims of occupation are therefore imaginary.

Dana Perino

But if Perino is so knowledgeable about the region, why does she refer to Gaza as “Palestine.” One after the other, I have heard Fox news people refer to “Palestine” as if it were a thing. It is not. They get it wrong, and by doing so, they perpetuate the violence. They think they’re on the side of right, but in their smug ignorance, they are anything but. They’re spreading propaganda, thus carrying water for the other side and perpetuating falsehoods.

What do you see as the cause of this bias -- is it ignorance or maliciousness?

Malice. If it were merely ignorance, they would still be culpable for malice, because they didn’t care enough to discover the truth and were willing to smear Israel and the Jews without doing even minimal research.

There are codes of ethics for journalists. They have to follow the rules because otherwise people get hurt. But if no one is following the rules, they can get away with it, especially in a Jew-hating, Israel-hating world.

Are there any in the media you would single out, one way or the other?

By far, the BBC is the worst.

Their blatant bias is the norm. It’s never an accident. The incident with Jeremy Bowen reporting that Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza “was flattened” is a good example. The network was forced to issue a vague apology when the story was discovered to be a complete fabrication.

Asked if he regretted the damning report, in which Bowen, citing a Hamas source, also claimed that hundreds had been killed and thousands injured, the reporter said he didn’t “feel bad at all.” He went with what the photos looked like to him at that time. Is this proper journalism? No. It’s the unspoken policy at the BBC. Make Israel the lede; make it, Israel, bleed.

But the BBC is only a reflection of British society and seriously ingrained British antisemitism. When it comes to antisemitism, I always say that “the British are first and worst,” going all the way back to 1144 and William of Norwich, the first known case of the blood libel.

Can anything be done?

It’s difficult because you have useful idiot Jews they can parade before the public and then they can forever more say, “Even so and so with a yarmulke says Israel is evil,” as happened with Christiane Amanpour’s Benzi Sanders interview.

What about Israel and Hasbara -- What else can be done?

I’m not big on Hasbara. I’m big on the truth, which is why I think there should be more support for independent bloggers advocating for Israel. We say things you won’t hear in the media, and right now our people are thirsty for accurate information. The best bloggers always bring reputable sources, which they link to for credibility so you can read more deeply on the subject.

The media bias parallels the overall anti-Israel propaganda that we have seen. In what areas has anti-Israel propaganda been successful?

The anti-Israel propaganda has been so rip-roaringly successful on so many levels that it’s difficult to know where to begin. But let’s start with the worst one, in my opinion, legitimizing the massacre. There is no context that makes the events of October 7th okay. Anyone who parrots such thoughts, even if they don’t really care and just want to be popular, should not be part of normative society.

Ripping down posters of captives? Why is that a thing? Because they’ve legitimized the massacre.

Why does a professor say he is "exhilarated" by the massacre? He says it to let you know that the massacre was not only legitimate but indicated. He also says it in order to normalize genocide, to laud terrorists for murdering Jews in cruel ways.

The success of this propaganda is enabled in part by the distancing of American Jews from Israel. What do you think has led to this alienation of American Jewry?

Jews are very vulnerable to Stockholm Syndrome. In order to be accepted by the predominantly non-Jewish world, they adopted beliefs antithetical to the good of their own people—of themselves. Why does any Jew call for a two-state solution? Don’t they know that the Arabs got 78% of the British Mandate for Palestine? Don’t they know that when they sing “Next year in Jerusalem” at their Passover seder they are actually affirming the right to return to their indigenous territory?

Do you think the Hamas massacre has served as a wake-up call?

Yes. Just as Kristallnacht served as a wake-up call. So tell me: why do we still need wake-up calls? When will we understand antisemitism as a permanent feature of life that can only be dealt with by strengthening Israel?

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!

Is Israeli Hasbara Getting Better, Or Are Journalists Losing It? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

There is always concern about Hasbara, Israel's ability to counter anti-Israel propaganda, especially during conflicts with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. When it comes to the reaction from the IDF, there are obvious problems where there is a need to get the facts out quickly while making sure the information is confirmed. Just as important, the spokesperson has to have a good command of the language of the audience to which he is speaking and must also speak confidently and coherently.

This has been a continuing concern.

There is also the need for Israeli spokespersons to present Israel's case when interviewed on live TV by journalists who are not necessarily sympathetic, or even objective. Some recent examples show that Israeli spokespersons can hold their own. Those same examples call the objectivity and ability of the journalist into question.

Here is Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the UK and currently an adviser to Netanyahu. The journalist doesn't attack anything Regev said or Israel has done. She just makes a disturbing comparison in passing and Regev reacts immediately.

He doesn't just challenges the comparison of Israeli hostages with Palestinian Arab prisoners. When the interviewer attempts to defend herself by bringing up the example of a 14-year-old Palestinian Arab, Regev challenges her again to reveal what crime the boy had been imprisoned for. She could not.

Here is another example, this time with Israeli Government Spokesman Eylon Levy. Here,
Kay Burleigh of Sky News, says she spoke to an unnamed hostage negotiator who

made the comparison between the fifty hostages that Hamas has promised to release, as opposed to the one hundred and fifty that are Palestinian that has said it will release. And he made the comparison between the numbers and the fact that does Israel not think that Palestinian lives are valued as highly as Israeli lives?

Just look at Levy's eyebrows -- and listen to his sharp rebuke.

In both interviews, the deliberate attempt by journalists to make Israeli hostages comparable to violent Palestinian prisoners is disturbing. It also reflects the narrative that we will continue to see in the media.

Burleigh's attempt to portray the larger number of Palestinian Arabs being released as reflecting poorly on Israel reminds me of a paper published in 2007 that theorized that,

Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers' eyes.

Something that would be seen as reflecting positively on the IDF is turned into a negative. Nevertheless, the paper won a Hebrew University teachers' committee prize.

But Makor Rishon editor Amnon Lord noted the absurdity:

It is noteworthy that Palestinian propaganda around the world frequently accuses Israelis of murder and rape. Such that this situation is unique: An army is found blameworthy of rape, and is also blameworthy of not raping.

Here is one last example. The interviewer is not speaking to an Israeli spokesperson. A British doctor is describing his experience in the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza and how hospital staff was ordered not to enter certain areas -- and warned that they would be shot if they disobeyed.

In response to the doctor being threatened with being shot for going into certain areas of the hospital, she responds:

They would say there could be many other reasons that you would be told not to go to a particular area of a hospital. It's not unusual.

She's right, of course. They -- Hamas -- likely will say there are other, perfectly rational reasons why they forbade free access in a hospital to a doctor using the threat of death. But it is jarring to hear her do their work for them.

A British doctor who used to work in Gaza's Shifa hospital recounts: "I was told there was a part of the hospital I was not to go near and if I did, I'd be in danger of being shot."

Is this also totally normal in the hospitals you frequent @BowenBBC? pic.twitter.com/JGwIwEiR3K
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 19, 2023

Defending Israel in the media, and having to have an immediate answer to questions that are usually unsympathetic is a daunting task. Especially when the media asks what they consider questions in the interests of "evenhandedness." When done successfully, it is reassuring.

But these media confrontations, like the current Gaza War itself, are far from over.

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!