New types of EoZ cartoons

I love making my cartoons, but since I am not a good enough artist to draw them myself, I spend a lot of time looking for an existing cartoon that can be re-purposed and re-captioned for my punchline.

Last week, it occured to me that artificial intelligence drawing packages might be able to help.

They aren't the quality  I want, but they show potential.

Here are the first two I made with the help of AI.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Arab hyperbole inflation: "The Zionist occupation is a threat to humanity"

A Palestinian environmentalist who loves his land

The problem with hyperbole is that it eventually loses its effectiveness - and to keep it going, one has to keep upping the ante.

The UK-based Al Araby, which publishes in English as "The New Arab," has an editorial whose headline declares that "The Zionist occupation is a threat to humanity."

Sounds ominous! 

It starts off with the usual supposed crimes against Palestinians - "the ethnic liquidation of the people of Palestine,"  that somehow keeps growing; "destruction of the economy, cutting off livelihoods, and reducing job opportunities to a minimum" (even though record numbers of Palestinians have well-paying jobs in Israel,)  "destroying the health sector and limiting the Palestinian’s access to appropriate and urgent medicine," even though it is the PA that no longer allows Palestinians to be treated in Israeli hospitals - except for their own VIPs.

But that's hardly enough for an op-ed. So the newspaper editors have to add that Israel is trying to eliminate Palestinians from existence by "destroying the Palestinian environment, by uprooting trees, confiscating lands, and polluting water and soil."

Given that Palestinians burn Israeli lands, burn tires in protests and ruin the groundwater, this is as absurd as the previous accusations. But here is where the editorial makes its leap:

It is clear that the disastrous repercussions of the Zionist project/occupation affect all human, animal, plant and environmental life, which represents a threat to all of humanity, which struggles to survive in light of other environmental threats. Therefore, it can be said that the liberation of Palestine from this cancerous project is a human necessity as much as it is a Palestinian necessity.

Whoa! So Israel's supposed crimes against the Palestinian environment is threatening to destroy the entire world! Therefore, this mainstream, moderate UK-based paper says, every country must work together to destroy Israel in order to save the world!

Now, that's a new take!

Every bizarre accusation against Israel starts off just as fringe and as untethered to truth as this one, but in a couple of decades, with enough Big Lie type repetition, it is entirely possible that Amnesty and Human Rights Watch will adopt this narrative as well. 

It's happened before.

Of course, the English language edition did not publish this editorial. Arabs know when they are spewing nonsense that would make them lose their friends if they were reading themselves. It will take a couple of years of conditioning from SJP and JVP, and then the New York Times congratulating itself for publishing such a provocative op-ed. Only then will this new narrative of Jews trying to destroy the world be mainstream enough to spread it without fear of looking like idiots. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Francesca Albanese's "Jewish lobby" Facebook post also includes a blood libel (UPDATE)

There has been a lot of coverage of UNHRC Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese's antisemitic posts on social media, including one post where she said, "America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves with the only means they have."

But in that same post, Albanese also engaged in a blood libel - falsely accusing Israel of killing a baby.

She wrote (translated):

Meanwhile, Gaza needs help, medicine, food, water. Everything we can give is a small but essential help to save more innocent lives. Like that of little Shayman, who after being born by her dying mother due to bombings, was rescued and kept in an incubator by medical staff in Gaza. The miracle of his life went off when Israel bombed Gaza’s only power supply source, and the Shayman’s incubator stopped working.

I cannot find any mention of any child dying from an incubator losing power in 2014.

Human Rights Watch wrote about the effects of Israel's (unintentional) bombing of Gaza's power plant fuel supply after Albanese's post. Here is everything it said about how the power plant going offline affected hospitals in Gaza:

The shutdown of the Gaza Power Plant ...caused hospitals, already straining to handle the surge of war casualties, to increase their reliance on precarious generators.

Mahmoud Daher, head of the Gaza office of the UN World Health Organization, said that hospitals have been given priority for scarce electricity, with Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital, getting the most, at 16 hours a day. If the fuel required to run generators were to run out, or a generator to fail, a hospital could lose power.

An official at al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City told Human Rights Watch on August 7 that because of electricity interruptions:

We use a large generator for six to eight hours per day, then have to rely on three smaller ones, because the large one cannot be run full-time. If the large one goes, we don’t know how we would repair it, because of the lack of spare parts. It powers the oxygen station, the hospital’s two elevators, and the air conditioners – this amounts to 80 percent of the hospital’s total electricity consumption. When we use the smaller generators, they can only power one elevator, and none of the air conditioners, which makes it difficult for staff to work long hours in the August heat, and dangerous for patients.

 If the power outages had shut down incubators, HRW would have mentioned it. If anyone died as a result of such power outages, HRW would have made that the headline. So would have every media outlet.

Albanese's story about "Shayman" and his "dying mother" is a lie. It never happened. It is a blood libel.

Not only that, her relating that story that was not mentioned in any mainstream media proves that Albanese reads and trusts the most fringe, anti-Israel and antisemitic Arab media, and believes even the most outrageous lies about Jews and Israelis implicitly.

So this pattern holds: Francesca Albanese is an antisemite.

UPDATE: GnasherJew found the story that I couldn't find. There was a baby on a respirator, not an incubator. Other news stories say the doctors were watching her closely, and it seems unlikely to me that the oxygen wouldn't be a top priority for generators in a hospital. 

The six-day-old baby was born by emergency Caesarean section Friday after doctors at Deir al-Balah hospital in central Gaza managed to save her from the womb of her mother, who died when an Israeli tank shell hit her home.

The mother, 23-year-old Shayma al-Sheikh Qanan, had been eight months pregnant, and the baby was named after her.

But the baby was deprived of oxygen between her mother’s death and doctors being able to operate, which meant she had to be hooked up to a respirator at the maternity ward in Khan Yunis hospital in southern Gaza.

“The baby suffered an oxygen deficiency in the womb after her mother’s heart stopped,” Dr Abdel Karem al-Bawab, head of the maternity ward at Nasser hospital, told AFP Thursday.

“This deficiency caused the baby to asphyxiate unexpectedly, rendering her brain dead,” he said of the tragedy, which occurred Wednesday.

“The ongoing electricity shortages played a role because her oxygen tubes did not work properly and we had to resuscitate her more than once manually.”

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Elder Comix: Eyes on the prize

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Amnesty, HRW, the UN or David Duke? You decide

This text is from white supremacist David Duke's 2003 book, "Jewish Supremacy."

This looks virtually the same as reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN over the past year.

Same evidence, same methodology, same reference to international conventions.

So is David Duke suddenly a human rights expert? Or does the fact that all of them will cherry pick facts that make Israel (and Jews) look like criminals, and ignore all counterevidence, indicate that all of them are really antisemites?

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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HRW "Apartheid" report destroyed by NGO Monitor

Although it took way longer than I would have liked, NGO Monitor released a thorough, line by line debunking of the Human Rights Watch 2021 report that accused Israel of "apartheid."

No unbiased person can read the NGOM report and end up concluding that the HRW report has a shred of intellectual honesty.

The HRW report is not just filled with errors. That is an understatement. When they cherry pick parts of an article that support their thesis, and ignore the parts that debunk it, it is not an error - it is willful lying.

I could make 200 blog posts out of the lies listed here. Here is a very minor example that illustrates the whole, perverted attempt to paint Israel as an apartheid state:

HRW cites disparity in playgrounds in one location as evidence of apartheid 

HRW consistently cherry-picks statistics, misrepresents data, and makes broad claims of Israeli evil based on minor incidents and minutiae. This example discusses charges of “playground apartheid.” HRW claims: “Israeli authorities sharply discriminate in the provision of resources and services between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem” (p. 115). The first specific evidence to back this charge is the fact that in 2016, there were two playgrounds in the Arab Jerusalem neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina with a combined population of 60,000, compared to nearby Jewish neighborhoods with a playground for every 1,000 residents. HRW cites an article in Haaretz discussing how the Jerusalem District Court ordered the construction of playgrounds in response to a lawsuit filed by two East Jerusalem residents in these specific neighborhoods. The rest of the news story reveals key information that HRW ignores. The Court acknowledged the contention by the City that one could not compare older Arab neighborhoods to newer, planned neighborhoods that incorporated space for playgrounds. Indeed, it was shown that playground density in Arab neighborhoods was similar to ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, contradicting the notion of “playground apartheid” favoring Jews over Arabs. The municipality also demonstrated efforts to build playgrounds in these Arab neighborhoods but explained “that most of the appropriate land for such playgrounds is in private hands, and arrangements must be reached with the owners.” Despite these explanations, the Court ordered the City to build playgrounds in these two Arab neighborhoods, evidence that the government-run courts consistently apply laws that contradict apartheid.

HRW cited a Haaretz article that showed there was no difference between how Israel treated Jewish and Arab neighborhoods - and extracted half-truths to make it look like the opposite.

This is only one of hundreds of similar, egregious misreporting of facts. 

Another tiny example: HRW says that it takes hours for Palestinians to cross the Qalandiya checkpoint, citing an article from 2017. This is used as evidence of how badly Israel treats Palestinians. But Israel overhauled the checkpoint in 2019 - at great expense - and now it takes only minutes for Palestinians to cross. Is it remotely possible HRW is not aware of that overhaul, which was widely reported?

Or HRW's assertion that the very concept of a Jewish state is evidence of apartheid, ignoring the many states that are officially Christian or Muslim. 

The sheer number of these clearly purposeful omissions, double standards and outdated facts is overwhelming, but all of them point to the same conclusion: HRW decided that Israel was guilty first, and manufactured the evidence afterwards, secure in the knowledge that very few people would fact check them - and by the time it happens, they have already gotten their message out.

Put it this way: Public trust in the media is at near an all time low.  The media, however, often corrects mistakes. Human rights NGOs never correct the mistakes in their reports. 

Which means that human rights NGOs are less trustworthy than the media is.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Arabs cheering violations of human rights against Israelis in Qatar; @Amnesty and @HRW silent

I've seen lots of articles in Arabic extolling how Israelis are being abused by many Arabs at the World Cup in Qatar. This one from Ma'an - an independent Palestinian news source not associated with any terror group - is typical:

 "The majority of Arab peoples do not like our presence here, even though we signed 4 normalization agreements." Israeli Channel 12 correspondent, Ohad Hemo.

The words of this reporter summarize what is happening on the ground here, but the expression is inaccurate, as the reporter used the term “do not like” to mitigate the burden of meaning on the settlers’ ears, but the appropriate term is “hate”, “despise”, “reject”, “disdain”. There are many terms suitable for this context, but what is certain is that the Arab peoples have recorded a clear position in relation to "Israel" since the beginning of the World Cup in Qatar.

The Israeli media is experiencing a crisis of transportation and presence at the World Cup. News of Israeli reporters getting insulted and rejected all the time tops people's fondest stories about the World Cup. With every talk of expelling an Israeli reporter from a café or street, Palestinian flags increase in the streets and World Cup stadiums, and there is much talk about Palestine.  

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says in Article 2:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination similarly says that discrimination based on national origin is  considered racial discrimination - on par with discrimination based on color.

Even if Israel really was the worst human rights violator on Earth, even if you don't consider Israel to be a legitimate country whatsoever - Israelis must be treated with respect like any other human being, under international law. And under international law, this is racism.

Apparently, the Arabs in Qatar do not accept that section of the UDHR.

I have not seen one Arabic article in Palestinian, Jordanian, Lebanese or other media that defends the right of Israeli reporters and fans to visit Qatar without harassment. 

But to Palestinians and their allies, these incidents of harassment are points of pride. Racism is a feature, not a bug, to the anti-Israel crowd.

Where is Amnesty? Where is Human Rights Watch? Where are the hundreds of NGOs who spend thousands of hours trying to dig up (or make up) dirt about Israel, who claim that they are not biased, that they speak truth to power, when we have on video lots of examples of Israelis and people who are assumed to be Israelis being harassed in Qatar?

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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10/27 Links Pt2: Marking 4 years since Tree of Life massacre, Biden rues ‘ugly rise’ of antisemitism; Melanie Phillips: The unholy alliance between Republicans and Islamists; BigLaw’s Jewish Problem

From Ian:

Marking 4 years since Tree of Life massacre, Biden rues ‘ugly rise’ of antisemitism

US President Joe Biden led memorial messages and vows to combat antisemitism on Thursday, marking four years since a gunman shot dead eleven Jewish worshipers and injured seven others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“A quiet Shabbat morning was shattered by gunfire and hate, and a place of sanctuary became a place of carnage,” Biden said in a statement.

“As we grieve this deadliest act of antisemitism in American history, we stand with the community of Squirrel Hill — and Jewish communities across America and around the world — in resolving to combat antisemitism and hate in all of its forms,” he said.

“This is especially true as we witness an ugly increase in antisemitism in America.”

Listing action the administration has taken to confront antisemitism, Biden noted the appointment of Holocaust expert Deborah Lipstadt as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role.

He also cited the largest-ever increase in funding for security for synagogues and other religious institutes, and other actions announced last month at the United We Stand Summit.

“The rabbis teach that ‘what comes from the heart, enters the heart,'” Biden said, citing the eleventh Century Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra.

“On this difficult day, our hearts are with the families of the victims, the survivors, and all those impacted by the Tree of Life shooting. May their memories be a blessing, and may we continue to bridge the gap between the world we see and the future we seek.”

US Antisemitism Envoy: France ‘Ground Zero’ for European Antisemitism

France has become the epicenter of 21st century antisemitism in Europe — a phenomena which is now beginning to replicate in other countries around the world, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism has warned.

“I think that in many ways France has proven to be ‘Ground Zero’ for European antisemitism, in part because of the large Muslim population,” the envoy, Deborah Lipstadt, told a panel hosted by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Paris on Monday. “If we’d been having this conversation 15 years ago, I would have said France is a unique situation – sadly, it’s not unique anymore.”

In her remarks, which follow a week-long trip to Belgium and France to meet with EU officials on combating antisemitism, Lipstadt cited some of the deadly antisemitic and terrorist attacks that have plagued France over the last twenty years, among them the 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young cellphone salesman, by an antisemitic gang known as “The Barbarians”, as well as the 2012 and 2015 respective gun attacks on a Jewish school in Toulouse and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Other incidents included the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman who was beaten and thrown to her death from the third-floor window of her Paris apartment by her neighbor, Kobili Traore, during a frenzied antisemitic assault. French Jews were outraged in April 2021 when the country’s highest court upheld an earlier decision that Traore could not be held criminally responsible for Halimi’s death because his intake of marijuana on the night of the killing had rendered him temporarily insane.

Lipstadt warned the evolution of antisemitism which once limited to France had now spread to other countries, including the United States. “I think that in many respects, France emulates what we’ve seen in other places, because it’s not just Islamist extremist antisemitism, it’s also from the right and from the left,” she said.

Lipstadt also noted that the convergence of antisemitic criticism of Israel from the fringes of both right and left wing ideologies is occuring not only in France, but in the US and UK as well.

Statement from Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt on Recent Antisemitism pic.twitter.com/UBdbJdtGLx

— Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt (@StateSEAS) October 26, 2022

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Cartoon of the Day: Objective NGO reports to order

I was looking at the Amnesty YouTube channel, and saw one video that was quite anomalous.

It was a 2019 video, attempting to be snarky, attacking TripAdvisor for including Jewish-owned destinations in Judea and Samaria.

I couldn't find any other video on the site on any other topic that attempted to have that same sarcastic tone. And it didn't do a very good job. But it illustrates how, for Amnesty, Israel is uniquely evil - only Israel is treated that way. Only for Israel do they spend the money to try to reach audiences that might make their videos go viral. 

On the other hand, they also prove how their obsession with Israel has nothing to do with the seriousness of the human rights abuses that they claim Israel is guilty of - because Amnesty would never attempt to make light of real human rights abuses  in the same jokey way. 

Anyway, this cartoon shows how "research" can be subverted: when the conclusions are decided before the research is done; everyone knows what the report will say and the researchers are tasked with reaching a specific conclusion ahead of time. That way they can only include the "evidence" that supports their thesis and ignore or downplay any counter-evidence.

That's what Amnesty, HRW and other "human rights" NGOs do, all the time.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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A Palestinian's home will be demolished - but no human rights groups will care this time

Tamer Abu Bakra received a demolition notice for half of his already tiny 60-square-meter home.

But you won't hear a word about this from B'Tselem or ICAHD or HRW or Amnesty, who love to publicize when Palestinian homes are to be demolished.

Because this demolition notice came from Hamas.

Bakra put out an appeal on social media, saying the Khan Younis house "has been lived in by my father and my family since the Nakba, and it has been inherited from them to this day."

It had been burned down in 2020 and he has been rebuilding it himself.

Bakra said it is already too small to be called a "home."

Too bad he had the misfortune of building his house where no one would care if his home gets taken down.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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"Human rights" activists and groups silent as Hamas executes "collaborators"

Times of Israel reports:

The Hamas terror group announced on Sunday that it had executed five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including two for “collaboration” with Israel.

“On Sunday morning, the death sentence was carried out against two condemned over collaboration with the occupation (Israel), and three others in criminal cases,” Hamas, which rules Gaza said in a statement.

It added that the defendants had previously been given “their full rights to defend themselves.”

Hamas media is reporting that "experts" and "activists" are supporting the executions. Many use a hashtag, #القصاص_حياة, "Retribution is Life," from a Quran quote.

I can find no "progressive" anti-Israel activist who is condemning Hamas' death penalty for either the Gazans convicted of murder or of "collaboration."

Moreover, the "human rights" groups that Israel has outlawed are not saying a word either. Al Haq, "Protecting and Promoting Human Rights & the Rule of Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," is silent.

Also silent, as of this writing, are the social media of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, who regularly condemn the death penalty in the US. 

PCHR, a Palestinian human rights group not considered illegal by Israel, to its credit, does consistently condemn the death penalty. But B'Tselem hasn't said anything about this. 

So-called human rights groups pretend that they are even handed and condemn Hamas when appropriate. But except for rocket fire, they tacitly support everything Hamas does with their silence, while they spend thousands of hours looking for new things to accuse Israel of. 

The "collaboration" crimes occurred in 1991 and 2001.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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I demolished James Zogby's "Israel is Apartheid" arguments on Twitter so thoroughly, he blocked me

James Zogby is the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, Managing Director of Zogby Research Service which provides polling services, a visiting professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, and a former member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. He is a leading anti-Israel voice in the media and social media.

On Saturday, he tweeted a link to Daniel Levy warning about Israel's reputation, saying, "It may be uncomfortable to some to hear the inescapable truth that Israel is an Apartheid State. The truth is often uncomfortable. And btw, it’s not antiSemitic to call Israel Apartheid - the problem is w/ Israeli behavior."

I responded with a thread:

I've looked at the actual legal definition of apartheid. Those accusing Israel of apartheid are knowingly lying. And I've shown this. No one has found any holes in my arguments.

Falsely accusing Israel of apartheid using made up definitions is indeed antisemitism.

And if you look at the history of the apartheid libel, it is blindingly obvious that the accusation came first, and the fake legal arguments were created after the fact to justify the lie.

B'Tselem's definition was absurd - it could prove that JEWS were victims of apartheid.

So HRW tried, very hard, to combine definitions from the Rome Statute with the ICERD to make it look like Israel was guilty of apartheid. But they ignored the part of ICERD that exonerates Israel. It was a conscious lie, and every legal scholar knows it. 

 

Amnesty copied HRW's argument but tried to strengthen it by adding a 1971 case that they pretended is about apartheid - but it isn't. 

It is clear: they all know they are wrong but they want to accuse Israel so much they MADE UP INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

But even worse, in these NGOs' Jew-hating zeal, they want to make Israel look uniquely guilty. So the cases of real apartheid in the world, like Lebanese treatment of Palestinians, or Chinese of Uyghurs, others - are shunted aside and not given that label. Real victims suffer. 

When you look at all the evidence and history (the Soviets made up the "Israel is apartheid" accusation originally) the desire to paint Israel with the label of apartheid has NOTHING to do with real facts, and everything to do with a desire to demonize the Jewish state. This is antisemitism, plain and simple. 

My response received over 500 "Likes" and Zogby finally felt he could no longer ignore it, so he attempted to prove that, yes, Israel really is guilty of apartheid:

1. It’s apartheid when when Israel has two systems of law - one for Arabs & one for Jews; when they’ve expelled 750,000 from their homes & refuse to let them go back to their properties; when they’ve demolished 500 Palestinian villages, seized their land & businesses;…  

To which I immediately responded:

Israel doesn't have two systems of law for citizens. 

And what happened in 1948 was a war for survival, not apartheid. 

But you know that. And lie anyway.

 And, of course, by your definition every Arab country that expelled nearly all of their Jews are guilty of apartheid.

Not my definition - YOURS.

Trying to shoehorn a new definition of the term to fit Israel only is indeed antisemitic.

He responded:

 It was a deliberate planned expulsion to remove Arabs from the Galilee, the coastal cites and areas around Jerusalem. Ben Gurion’s letters, Moshe Sharret’s diaries, & others have testified to this fact. & what they did afterwards to those whom they expelled made the intent clear

To which I said:

 Then why are there still two million Arabs in Israel? If there was a policy to expel them, what is taking Israel so long?

And how does that relate to the LEGAL DEFINITION OF APARTHEID? I am giving a legal argument, you are throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks.

He doubled down:

2…when they have laws that provide that the Arab land they’ve seized & turned over to Jews can never be sold to Arabs; when they continue to seize Palestinian land to build Jewish-only housing & infrastructure, while Palestinians struggle to get permits to build;…

3…when any Jew can immigrate & become a citizen while descendants of those who were expelled cannot; when Israel has multiple laws & policies in place to control what they call the “demographic problem” - that is limiting or controlling the growth of the non-Jewish population…

4. These policies & laws that favor the rights of one group at the expense of Palestinians , constitutes Apartheid. You may not like it, but don’t deny it. Have you no regard for the humanity of Palestinians; no compassion for the discriminatory polices to which they subjected?

But then he moved the goalposts:

5. The problem isn’t our calling Israeli behaviors Apartheid. To try to make that the issue is an effort to deflect. The problem is Israel’s behavior - that’s what must change. And stop resorting to calling antiSemitic anyone who criticizes Israel & defends Palestinian rights.

Zogby's entire argument, repeated at least three times, was "Israel is apartheid!" Yet when challenged, he changed it  to "Don't get hung up on the precise definition of apartheid!"

So I called him on it:

No, I am saying when Amnesty or HRW claims Israel is guilty of apartheid, they are lying because it has a specific definition.  You know that I am right. Which is why you are changing the subject.

By your argument, every Arab state is guilty of apartheid, because they define themselves as Arab and discriminate against non-Arabs for citizenship. 

Tell me, are they guilty of apartheid or not? And why not?

You won't answer because you want to say ONLY Jews are guilty.

Yes, it is antisemitic to say that the Jewish people do not have the right to self-determination. It is antisemitic to apply terms like "apartheid" ONLY to the Jewish state. It is antisemitic to have one standard for the world and another for Israel. 

This thread proves it.

James Zogby, the great intellectual defender of Arabs and highly regarded figure in Democratic Party politics, responded....by blocking me on Twitter.

In the end, even the most articulate critics of Israel and defenders of Palestinian intransigence know that they are using their intellectual gifts not in the service of truth but for lies.  They assume that their ability to use propaganda methods and gaslighting is the same as real arguments. (For their antisemitic fans, it actually is.)  

When their hypocrisy is clearly called out, outside their usual bubble, they try to reframe their arguments to what they think is more solid ground. 

When called on that, they are left with only one recourse: shutting down the discussion. 

When an anonymous blogger can so thoroughly dismantle the arguments of one of America's leading Arab intellectuals in the constrained format of Twitter, it shows that the anti-Israel side has no argument to begin with. 

Their running away from debate proves that they know it, too.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Opposition to Ramon Airport plan proves the hypocrisy of "pro-Palestinian" groups

Here's yet another way to know that the biggest self-described supporters of Palestinians really don't give a damn about them.

As we've been reporting, Israel is setting up a plan for Palestinians to be able to travel through Ramon Airport in the southern Negev. 

This will make it easier for most Palestinians to travel internationally. 

Assuming that the passengers are vetted for security, no one should oppose this. Human rights advocates should be celebrating. For years, they have been complaining about Palestinian "freedom of movement" - and here, Palestinians are about to be given an easier, heaper and more convenient option to escape their supposed prison.

Yet not one of the groups that claim to support Palestinians are happy. And because this makes no sense whatsoever, each one is making up their own reasons to oppose it (or to ignore it altogether.)

The Palestinian Authority is against the plan, threatening any Palestinian who takes advantage of Ramon Airport.  Their stated reason? Because they insist they should have their own airports. Apparently, their people must suffer because they want something that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. (And for some reason, traveling through Jordan or Egypt to get to airports is fine, but traveling though Israel is a crime.)

The head of the Palestinian transportation ministry added that they feared that Palestinian criminals would be able to escape  justice through Israel. That reason makes as little sense as the other one.

And the head of Human Rights Watch used an unfounded - and clearly false - rumor as an excuse for his opposition to the plan. Which shows that HRW doesn't care about Palestinian rights - instead, they subscribe to the old Arab idea that anything that benefits Israel in any way must be inherently bad. 

Jordanians are also decrying the plan - and they are pretending that they are opposing it for the Palestinians' own good.  A group called the National Forum to Support the Resistance and Protect the Homeland urged Palestinians to boycott Ramon Airport - because using it would be considered "normalization" with Israel!

They went on to say:

The National Forum affirms the popular position that normalization is treason that constitutes the greatest service for the Zionist entity to market itself as providing humanitarian facilities by facilitating movement and travel for Palestinians who suffer the scourge of the continuous Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people and their sanctities. ...The occupation wants to cover up its crimes and whitewash its ugly image in front of the world...

Their twisted logic says that Israel only wants to treat Palestinians nicely in order to cover up the fact that Israel treats Palestinians poorly.

The real reason that Jordanians oppose the idea is because right now they have a captive customer base where West Bank Palestinians have no choice but to go through Jordan, which helps Jordan's economy - especially when they are forced to pay "VIP" fees to try to reduce their interminable wait times at the border crossing to Israel. They want to retain their right to treat Palestinians like dirt, and Palestinians know that the Israeli side of the crossing treats them far better than the Jordanian side does.

Closer to the truth is what a PA official said in July: “Israel failed to the turn Ramon Airport into an international terminal. Now, the Israelis are offering us something that didn’t work for them."

Yes, this would benefit Israel. But it would also benefit Palestinians. Why cut off your nose to spite your face?

What about B'Tselem, which has lots of articles on Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement? Shouldn't they support this plan? 

They haven't said a word.

What about Gisha, an Israeli NGO whose entire goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians? Surely they must have written something positive about a plan that helps Palestinians travel internationally?

Actually, not only has Gisha ignored this story - they also said nothing about the huge delays at the Jordanian crossings that make travel for Palestinians a giant hassle. Not on their website, not on their Facebook page, and not on Twitter, as far as I can tell. 

Palestinians can choose to use Ramon Airport if they want. They can choose to continue to use Jordan's airport if they want. This plan does not and cannot hurt a single Palestinian, and it has potential to help thousands of them save hours of time and hundreds of dollars. There is no rational reason to oppose it - if one really cares about Palestinians. 

Which is the entire point.

People and organizations who swear that they support Palestinians really don't. The multiple and disparate reasons they give to oppose making Palestinian lives easier is proof that they have no good reason to oppose this plan.

The only consistent thread through this negative reaction, or non-reaction, to a plan that can only benefit Palestinians is that these groups aren't "pro-Palestinian." They are anti-Israel. And anything that benefits Israel in any way is to be strenuously opposed. 

And indeed these groups oppose anything Israel does that helps Palestinians. They have built their quasi-governments and organizations on the falsehood that Israel is unparalleled evil. When Israel does anything to help Palestinians, this threatens their entire business model. Their funders don't want to read reports about how Palestinian lives have improved due to Israeli decisions. These organizations' existence is based on churning out papers and reports and articles and interviews that will be eagerly read and paid for by modern antisemites. 

Ramon Airport is proof positive of the hypocrisy of so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups. 

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Human Rights Watch doesn't give a damn about human rights, example #2843

Ken Roth, the outgoing head of Human Rights Watch, revealed how little he actually cares about human rights yet again, in just one tweet:

The Israeli government should not be conditioning Palestinians' basic rights (to be able to travel from a nearby airport) on "the Palestinians withdraw[ing] their charge of war crimes at the International Criminal Court." Justice isn't a bargaining chip.https://t.co/RQF6jcx6C9

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 23, 2022

First of all, is there a basic human right "to be able to travel from a nearby airport"? Is HRW lobbying for airports to be built in remote areas of the world because of this "basic right"? 

Why is it a violation of basic rights for Palestinians to travel through national borders with Egypt or Jordan to get to an airport - and they can only achieve this right by crossing a different national border with Israel to travel to the Negev?

Secondly, did Israel really condition travel through Ramon on the ICC?

The Guardian article that he is referring to says:

A controversial plan to allow Palestinians to fly to Turkey from southern Israel’s Ramon airport has been shelved on the eve of the first scheduled departure.

Israel’s airport authority announced earlier this month that Ramon in the Negev desert, near the Red Sea city of Eilat, would begin allowing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to travel on Turkish-operated flights to Antalya and Istanbul from 22 August.

The proposal is believed to be part of a package of goodwill measures from Israel to the Palestinians unveiled to the US president, Joe Biden, during his visit to the region last month, reportedly offered on the condition that the Palestinians withdraw their charge of war crimes at the international criminal court.

This article was written before Israel did a pilot flight yesterday to Larnaca, Cyprus, with Palestinians aboard - but Roth wrote his tweet afterwards. From all reports, Israel has every intention to continue with this plan and offer Palestinians who are not a security risk the ability to fly out of Israel.  

In other words, it is clear today that Israel is not conditioning the use of the airport on Palestinians withdrawing their charges at the ICC and that the rumor floated by the Guardian is incorrect - but Ken Roth reported it as fact.

However, there was another part of the Guardian report about someone limiting the rights of Palestinians to travel: the Palestinian Authority itself!

Remarks attributed to a Palestinian ministry of transport source published in Palestinian outlets last week suggested the PA would fine or otherwise punish people who sought to use Ramon.

“The PA has no right to do or say anything about Ramon airport. They have permits and VIP cards so they and their families can travel through Ben Gurion, while we have to go to Jordan and spend one day there before the flight, and spend money,” a Palestinian critic of the PA said in a popular TikTok post.

“So do not sell us patriotism, and don’t say it is without coordinating with the PA. All the PA officials care about is their personal interests.”

Haaretz adds, "The Palestinian Authority also condemned the flight, and announced that it would impose sanctions on the passengers. "

If Ken Roth cares about the right to travel, why doesn't he mention that the only ones trying to ban that for Palestinians are their own leaders?

Beyond that, it is clear that for Roth, the right to travel is not as important as his bashing Israel. 

Here we have a plan, and a successful pilot, to allow Palestinians to travel through Israel to the rest of the world on their own passports. This plan saves them time and money. They are treated respectfully and equally with the Jewish passengers on the same flights. If this was really a human rights issue, Ken Roth should be celebrating. Instead, he parrots an obviously false rumor against Israel.

That is proof positive that, to Human Rights Watch, spouting malicious lies about Israel is more important than what they call "basic rights."

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The Palestinian "I'm rubber, you're glue" strategy

Yesterday, Israel shut down seven Palestinian organizations with ties to the PFLP terror group.

I have recently shown how the PFLP remains a terrorist organization, which explicitly calls for violence and killing Jews as part of "legal resistance."  Organizations like Al Haq, Addameer and Defense for Children-Palestine are dominated with PFLP operators. The idea that terrorists are also human rights advocates is obscene, yet the UN and groups like Human Rights Watch support them (and the PFLP itself.)

The PFLP website is the best place to see how, to them, human rights is just another weapon. Two articles are juxtaposed: praise for the terror attack in Jerusalem and a meeting between PFLP representatives and UNRWA to discuss "human rights" in Gaza.

But now, the Palestinian Authority has responded to the Israeli closure - by saying that they will soon publish their own list of Jewish organizations that they claim are terrorist!

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Dr. Riyad Al-Maliki, expressed the readiness of the State of Palestine to announce a large list of names of Israeli organizations to be placed on terrorist lists, as part of steps the leadership is working to take in response to the ongoing crimes of the occupation against our people, and its denial of international legitimacy resolutions.

Al-Maliki said in an interview with "Voice of Palestine" radio this Thursday morning, that work is underway to complete the legal procedures to put Jewish organizations on terrorist lists, and mobilize international support to classify them as terrorist organizations and demand the international community not to deal with them so that this list will be announced in the appropriate time.

Notice that the Palestinian Authority calls them "Jewish organizations."

This sounds like the Palestinian response to MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch reports on incitement in Palestinian media - they now regularly publish their own examples of what they call "incitement" in Israeli media, which is usually nothing of the sort.

But if Israel accuses Palestinians of something, they respond with the "I'm rubber, you're glue" strategy of saying that Israel is always the more guilty party in every single sphere.

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@HRW and @FranceskAlbs defend a convicted terrorist as a fellow "human rights defender"

From Human Rights Watch:

 Israeli authorities should immediately release the French-Palestinian human rights worker Salah Hamouri from administrative detention and reverse the decision to revoke his residency status in his native Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said today.

...The military courts based their decisions to detain him on secret information they allege points to Hamouri’s involvement in the activities of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Palestinian political movement with an armed wing. 

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese tweeted, "French-Palestinian Salah Hammouri is a human rights defender who has been persecuted for years. Israel may call him a 'terrorist' but the reality says otherwise. "

Let's look at reality.

HRW used to mention that the PFLP does not distinguish between its terror and "political" wings. Now it treats it as a political organization - even though nothing has changed.

The PFLP's own political platform explicitly supports terror: "It it is a natural right, and duty that the Palestinian people should defend itself, resist the occupation through various means of struggle, including armed struggle. ..[T]he form of armed struggle should be dealt with at each stage as a means to serve the inclusive political vision which is responsible for determining the function to be done at each stage of the struggle..."

And the PFLP still engages in terror. They were responsible for the murder of Rina Shnerb in 2019.

There is no doubt that Hamouri is a member of the PFLP, even though HRW says it is "alleged."  Here is an article (archived) from the PFLP website that calls him a "comrade" and notes that he planned to assassinate the Chief Rabbi of Israel - and he justified it years afterwards.

Comrade Salah Hamouri, the former Palestinian prisoner freed as part of the prisoner exchange on December 18, 2011, said upon his release that “there is no option for the Palestinian people except resistance, because it is the only way for us to achieve our people’s rights, our freedom, and our self-determination.”

He served nearly seven years in Israeli prison, charged with planning to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the Shas party and the Chief Rabbi of Israel. “This man is and will remain a symbol of racism and fanaticism in Israel,” Hamouri said.

And when he says "resistance," he means murdering Jews. 

A PFLP envoy to Cuba claimed the organization supports human rights - and one of those human rights is to murder Israeli Jews. 

We reaffirm our commitment to our goals, principles and inalienable Palestinian national rights. Some of these have been recognized and approved by the norms, principles, conventions, international resolutions, international law and human rights. The first of these rights is the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all means and methods.

"All means and methods" means terrorism. And its main website is filled with praise and support for terror attacks. 

The PFLP is a terrorist organization. It is designated as such by the US, EU, Canada and other countries. No major Western nation distinguishes between a "political party" and "armed wing." Neither does the PFLP itself. This was something apparently created by Human Rights Watch.

But "human rights" leaders are claiming that this convicted and admitted terrorist, who calls for violence, is a "human rights defender." Which indicates that they subscribe to the PFLP philosophy that the first and most important human right is to murder Jews. 

(h/t GnasherJew)

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Iran's persecution of Baha'i is real apartheid

Baha'i family in Iran whose home was burned down

From Iran International:

Security forces laid siege to a village in northern Iran Tuesday and started demolishing houses and farms belonging to members of the persecuted Baha’i faith.

Simin Fahandej, a spokeswoman for the Baha’i International Community, told Iran International Tuesday that over 200 security forces were deployed to block the roads leading to Roshankouh, a village in Mazandaran Province, and begin demolition of the houses and farms belonging to Bahai’s.

According to Fahandej, security forces arrested some Bahai’s who tried to stop the operations, confiscated mobile phones of some villagers to prevent them from recording videos and publishing them on social media, and warned locals not to take any photos or videos of their operations.

A video posted on social media by the Baha'i International Community Tuesday shows security forces using heavy construction machinery to demolish buildings in Roshankouh.

Since early June security forces and the judiciary of the Islamic have intensified pressure on the followers of the Baha’i faith, raiding over a dozen households, arresting tens including three of the former leaders of the community, and shutting down businesses.

Iran's persecution of Baha'i fits Human Rights Watch and Amnesty's definitions of apartheid far better than Israel's treatment of Palestinians. This was pointed out in an article by South African Winston Nagan  for PBS back in 2012: "Having grown up with the indignities of the apartheid system in South Africa, I bristle whenever I hear anyone equate a government's treatment of a portion of its citizenry to apartheid. Usually, the claims are exaggerated. But in Iran today, the government's treatment of the Baha'i community bears striking similarities."

He pointed out:

Both Blacks in South Africa and Baha'is in Iran have been excluded from being legislators.

Both have been excluded from universities.

Both have been limited under the law from building their own educational institutions.

Both have been excluded from certain jobs.

Both have had their property confiscated for no reason.

Hundreds of members of both groups have been executed for their political beliefs.

Iran has even banned Baha'i from burying their dead according to their laws. It has demolished Baha'i cemeteries and built parks and cultural centers on top of them.

Since that article, things have only gotten worse: 

Under Iranian law, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are the only religious minorities accepted. Baha'is are considered to be "unprotected infidels," according to a July 2019 report by the UN special rapporteur to Iran, Javaid Rehman.

Despite facing persecution, Bahai's are forbidden by their faith to lie about their religion. This means that the new identity card application prevents them from applying for and obtaining official identification, as they cannot claim affiliation to one of the three legally recognized minority religions.

Iran's policy towards the Baha'i is arguably worse than that of apartheid-era South Africa towards Blacks, because it is meant to ultimately ethnically cleanse them from the country altogether - something that is nearly complete in Yemen.

Even though Israel has none of the discriminatory laws against Arabs that Iran has towards the Baha'i,  major human rights NGOs have decided to declare only Israel guilty of apartheid. This hurts the Baha'i because these NGOs resist using the term anywhere else for their own anti-Israel propaganda purposes. This means that the Baha'i are not able to easily use that appellation to pressure Iran to treat them better.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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