Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Hebron

Showing posts with label Hebron. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Recent EoZ memes, posters, cartoons....

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Palestinian intolerance and Jew-hatred summed up in one sentence

Every year, the Tomb of the Patriarchs is open exclusively to Jews for ten days and open exclusively to Muslims for ten days. The shrine is split between the two groups all the other days of the year.

The schedule is publicized well ahead of time (although the Muslim days may move by a day depending on when the new month is declared.) There are no surprises. The Waqf and Israeli side cooperate with each other; when one of the exclusive days comes up the other side puts away their prayer objects.

But in the Palestinian media, every time a Jewish day comes along, they try to incite violence and hatred.

The Palestine Information Center published this morning:

The Zionist occupation authorities closed, this morning, Wednesday, the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, until ten o'clock in the evening today; under the pretext of Jewish holidays.

The director of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, Ghassan Al-Rajabi, said in press statements that the occupation authorities closed the mosque from ten o’clock yesterday, Tuesday, until ten o’clock today, and prevented the call to prayer and worshipers from entering the mosque.

He believes that this closure is a crime against the Ibrahimi Mosque and a flagrant violation of it, stressing: “The mosque is a purely Islamic endowment, and the Jews have no right to it.”

Let's look at that last sentence.

When the Palestinian Muslims deny that the Temple Mount was ever the site of the Temples, they are obviously lying, but that lie is the justification for their insistence that Jews have no right to visit the holiest Jewish site.

But they cannot deny that the "Ibrahimi Mosque" is the burial place of the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs - because they believe it too. They cannot deny that the three (or four) couples buried there are the ancestors of the Jewish people, while only one of them is an ancestor to the Arab people.

So when the director of the mosque at the site says "The mosque is a purely Islamic endowment, and the Jews have no right to it," he is denying that Jews have even a historical or emotional right to visit the burial place of their own ancestors. Somehow the Muslim claim to the burial place of Jacob, who at best is just a prophet to them, is exclusive, while the Jewish claim to their own ancestors' burial place is meaningless.

It is impossible to interpret that statement as anything other than official antisemitism.

The Israeli side always tries to respect the rights of all religions. The Palestinian side expresses nothing but contempt for Jewish rights. And the world is more sympathetic towards the side that is institutionally antisemitic.

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Palestinians shooting each other in Beit Ummar - and Palestinian police are nowhere to be found

Palestinian police aren't only abdicating on doing their jobs to stop the growth of terror groups in West Bank towns.

They are also nowhere to be found when Arabs shoot at other Arabs.

The Safa news agency reports:

About a week ago, the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, witnessed an escalation of security chaos, which claimed the lives of two young men, due to a quarrel between the Khalil and Abu Ayyash families in the town.

The townspeople complain about the lack of security, the destruction of public property, and the bullets flying between houses, which have been going on for days without interruption.

Resident Rami Zaazik said in an interview with Safa agency hat he and his family avoid leaving the house for fear of flying bullets, and even inside the house, the danger remains.

He explained that the town's economy and people's livelihoods were affected by the security situation in the town and the curfew, in addition to the security and social harm.

Political activist Fayez Sweiti held the Palestinian Authority responsible for the security chaos in Beit Ummar, explaining that the authority has about 70,000 armed personnel who are unable to protect citizens and are unable to maintain civil peace.

Sweiti said, "The corrupt judiciary and weak law contributed to fueling the crisis and reaching a stage of no return."

The article blames Israel, of course, for Palestinians killing Palestinians, claiming that the IDF wants this infighting. But reading between the lines we see that this current security chaos is a direct result of the PA not taking the rise of local terror groups seriously. It notes that in the last six months of 2022, there was an increase of "resistance" in Beit Ummar, from which there were "several shooting operations targeting military points of the occupation army and the settlements surrounding the town. "

The PA turned a blind eye to the proliferation of weapons and armed groups when their targets were the IDF and Jews, and now those weapons are being used by Palestinians against each other.

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

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To @AmnestyUK, swimming pools in the West Bank are apartheid. But only the ones owned by Jews.

Amnesty-UK tweeted:

Amnesty-UK is saying that thirsty Palestinians are upset by the massive amounts of water that are clearly available for their Jewish neighbors, as they stare longingly at the waste that the Jewish pools symbolize. Clearly they should be angry at the contrast between their own inability to drink a refreshing glass of water to avoid dying of thirst while the Jews frolic in wasteful swimming pools.

So Amnesty must really be upset when those thirsty Palestinians are mocked by extravagant displays of frivolous swimming pools that they see in, for example, Hebron, decorated with a Palestinian flag to twist the knife of their poverty:

Certainly Amnesty is condemning the huge waste of water there, right?

Other pools in the West Bank also include very patriotic flags:

And this one in Birzeit looks like it holds a great deal of water, too.

According to Amnesty-UK, even the smaller pools are a giant waste of water that hurts thirsty Palestinians' feelings and must be condemned:

How dare these heartless people enjoy the water when their neighbors have none!

Obviously a human rights group cannot be accused of antisemitism for treating pools owned by Jews differently from those owned by Palestinians. Perhaps Amnesty-UK is upset over Jews owning private pools while Palestinians next door are deprived of their basic water needs.

We will just have to ignore the Palestinian company Blue Blue Palestine which installs private pools for well-to-do Palestinians every day, in-ground and above ground, from small 600-shekel pools to ones costing tens of thousands of dollars.

I'm sure Amnesty is preparing a 150 page report on Palestinian waste of precious water in their many swimming pools. After all, it is the pools they are upset over, and not the religion of the owners, right? If they treat pools differently because some are owned by Jews, that is pretty blatant antisemitism - and how could that possibly be?

To Amnesty, Jewish pools are apartheid. Palestinian pools are nonexistent. And Amnesty International isn't a hypocritical, Jew-hating organization hiding its bigotry behind the fig leaf of pretending to care about human rights.

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!

Palestinian media today celebrating the murderous 1929 Arab pogroms against Jews

Palestinian media are celebrating the murderous pogroms that targeted unarmed and innocent Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and elsewhere in 1929.

June 17th was the anniversary of the 1930 British execution of three Arabs who were convicted of murdering Jewish civilians during the pogroms.

Originally, the British court found 25 Arabs guilty and deserving of the death penalty; 22 of them had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The three who remained were clearly found guilty of multiple murders and premeditation, two of them in Hebron and one in Safed.

The three murderers are being hailed as heroes in Palestinian media, in print and on video, and the murders of Jews are being called the beginning of the "Al Buraq Revolution."

The Palestine Bulletin in 1930 noted that they were hailed as heroes then, too, with an Arab Execuitve Committee notice that looks strikingly like those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad today.

Strikingly, many prominent Jews - including Einstein - lobbied against the death penalty for the murderers, on principle against the death penalty altogether.

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

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The false choice for Jews on Israel, and the Jewish way to fix it

Thomas Friedman in The New York Times writes an op-ed with the headline, "American Jews, You Have to Choose Sides on Israel:"

Ever since Israel’s founding in 1948, supporting the country’s security and its economic development and cementing its diplomatic ties to the U.S. have been the “religion” of many nonobservant American Jews — rather than studying Torah or keeping kosher. That mission drove fund-raising and forged solidarity among Jewish communities across America.

Now, a lot of American Jews are going to need to find a new focus for their passion.

Because if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds with his judicial putsch to crush the independence of the country’s judiciary, the subject of Israel could fracture every synagogue and Jewish communal organization in America. To put it simply: Israel is facing its biggest internal clash since its founding, and for every rabbi and every Jewish leader in America, to stay silent about this fight is to become irrelevant.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency just ran an article that offered a revealing glimpse into this reality. It quoted Los Angeles Rabbi Sharon Brous as beginning her sermon on Israel last month with a content warning to her congregants: “I have to say some things today that I know will upset some of you.”

Every American rabbi knew what she meant: Israel has become such a hot-button issue that it cannot be discussed without taking sides for or against Netanyahu’s policies.

As Rabbi Brous told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “You have a wonderful community, and you love them and they love you, until the moment you stand up and you give your Israel sermon.” She said the phenomenon has an informal name: “Death-by-Israel sermon.”

Death-by-Israel sermon. Never heard that before.

Unlike how Friedman portrays her, Rabbi Brous has not exactly been an "Israel right or wrong" leader before the current government. She wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 2018:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition continues to recklessly enforce its ideological absolutes, passing an anti-democratic nation-state law, denying surrogacy rights to LGBTQ Israelis, escalating personal attacks against the New Israel Fund and other progressive organizations [Brous is a leader in NIF - EoZ], and detaining American journalists at the border, interrogating them about their political beliefs and associations. As an American rabbi, I can’t ignore the message the Israeli government is sending to diaspora Jews: Stick to the playbook. Send Israel your money, your youth, your tourists and your unquestioning loyalty. Don’t talk about the occupation (now in its 51st year) or the millions of Palestinians denied equal protection, freedom of movement, the right to vote for the government that dictates their daily lives. Don’t visit Bethlehem or Ramallah, where you might hear a Palestinian narrative. Pay no attention to Breaking the Silence, Parents Circle or any other group where Israelis and Palestinians speak frankly about the challenges and the possibilities for a shared future

The maddening thing about Rabbi Brous is that she positions herself as a lover of Israel, and I have no doubt that she believes this. This op-ed started off with her description of a tour of Hebron that her family took with Breaking the Silence, and she wrote, "My daughter loves the miracle of Israel. It was time for her to see the other side." And, "We witnessed the harshest effects of the occupation: roadways forbidden to Palestinians, abandoned blocks, Jewish settlements the world deems illegal. We saw the once-thriving Casbah, dead quiet now. All of this, the direct result of Israeli military policy."

Why does her narrative go back only that far? Why doesn't she mention the attacks by Arabs on the Jews of Hebron before Baruch Goldstein that prompted the IDF to divide the old city?

This hints at the real issue.

The problem isn't that American Jews must choose to be either for or against Israel. The problem is not that one side wants debate about Israeli policy and the other doesn't.

The problem is that partisanship is poisoning any chance for a real debate to begin with.

The current discussion on judicial reform in Israel is a perfect example. Lahav Harkov described it very well from the Israeli perspective:

Reports of the demise of Israeli democracy are greatly exaggerated. The proposed changes relate to the balance of power between the judiciary, the legislative and the executive branches of government — a matter of usually staid debate among Israeli academics and wonks for nearly three decades. Today’s incendiary rhetoric on the issue says more about the vicious and polarised state of Israeli politics than the controversiality of the Supreme Court reforms.

People in Israel and Jews in America are looking for excuses to justify their politics and their hate for their political opponents. But the politics and partisanship is what drives the debate, not the facts.

When Tom Friedman describes the judicial reform proposal as a "judicial putsch to crush the independence of the country’s judiciary" he is not engaging in a debate, but in mudslinging. When Breaking the Silence makes up fake stories of IDF soldiers mistreating Palestinians for no reason, they are not engaging in debate but anti-Israel propaganda.

And when people like Sharon Brous claims that she is impartially weighing both sides and soberly informing her congregants that Israel is on the road to dictatorship, I somehow do not think she is giving them access to any articles that argue that the unelected Israeli High Court has been the side that has near absolute power over Israeli law.

Part of the reason for that is that such articles are not easy to find in the American press, which prefer the narrative of a criminal Bibi who wants absolute power to the detriment of the State of Israel.

Not that Bibi isn't a political animal as well - he absolutely is, and his conduct during this supposed debate has also been guided more by politics than by doing what is best for Israel.

So how can Jews - in Israel, America and Europe as well - act responsibly?

The answer is simultaneously simple, extraordinarily difficult and rooted in Jewish tradition.

The answer is to be dan l'chaf zechut - to judge our fellow Jews meritoriously.

This is a fundamental Jewish concept with multiple sources and extensive commentary.

We need to shed the partisanship and honestly believe that the other side is not evil, but that they want the best for Israel and the Jewish world. (This does not apply to those who are irredeemably evil, who in the case of Zionism I would define as anyone who never says anything positive about Israel. Those people, in my opinion, are not acting out of love but from hate. But that's me, and that is part of what makes this mitzvah difficult.)

How many people know that the supposed anti-Arab racist Netanyahu has done more to improve the Arab sector in Israel than any other prime minister, by far? How many American Jewish critics of Israel have spent more than two minutes seeking out the arguments for judicial reform? How many American Jews who have taken Breaking the Silence tours of Hebron have read the criticisms of that organization's methods?

We need to go beyond the reporting of mainstream media - whose entire business model is based on eyeballs that follow controversy and partisanship - and instead do our own research with the assumption that our fellow Jews want what is best for Israel. That they are not terrible people because they voted for Trump or live on the east side of an imaginary line drawn in 1949, and neither are they bad people because they chose not to report for reserve duty or spend hours every week protesting the Israeli government. Assume that they, too, want what is best for Israel and the Jewish people.

Thomas Friedman wants Jews in America to make a choice - love Israel or oppose Israel. That is a false choice, and one that is predicated on wanting to stoke division. The real alternative is to stop looking at everything through the primary lens of us vs. them, right vs. left, and assumptions of bad faith on the part of our fellow Jews who are of the "wrong" political party. Stop being defined by division and have an honest debate.

Moreover, if your political philosophy does not leave room for giving the other side the benefit of the doubt, than you should question that philosophy. (And look at the motivations of those who stoke division.)

"Tikkun Olam" as it is defined today is not a real Jewish tradition - but dan l'chaf zechut is.

People who take Judaism seriously, whether they are religious or not, must realize that dan l'chaf zechut is a fundamental part of Judaism that can and should be embraced by every Jew from the far-Right to the far-Left.

The future of the Jewish people is at stake.

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!

Biden Joins Campaign To Erase Jewish Historical Ties To Israel (Daled Amos)

Arafat got the ball rolling.

In a 1997 online article on Azure, Yoram Hazony describes a 1996 festival staged by Arafat's Ministry of Culture, in honor of Ba'al:

Arab youths dressed in robes bearing ancient Canaanite figures brandished torches as they danced about the town square, packed with officials of the PLO’s administration and security services...On the stone stage in the middle of the square, a dramatic passion was acted out, with the Ba’al, god of the heavens and fertility in the pantheon of the ancient Canaanites, heroically struggling against Mut, god of the underworld...the narrator took the opportunity to pour praise on the loyal Palestinian-Canaanite nations, the Amorites, Girgashites, Jebusites and Perizzites, which had fought at his side in the battle against the Hebrew invaders from across the Jordan.

And Arafat kept the ball rolling. On March 30, 2000, Arafat declared during a 'Land Day' speech:

Our forefathers, the Canaanites and Jebusites, built the cities and planted the land; they built the monumental city of Bir Salim [Jerusalem]…

The previous year, his advisor and minister for Jerusalem affairs, Faisal Husseini, said in an interview with New York Times Magazine:

I am a Palestinian. I am a descendant of the Jebusites, the ones who came before King David. This [Jerusalem] was one of the most important Jebusite cities in the area…. Yes, it’s true. We are the descendants of Jebusites.

Similar claims by Abbas and Saeb Erekat are not new.

The Middle East Forum finds efforts of this falsification in 1978 in the Palestinian encyclopedia (Al-Mawsu'at Al-Filastinniya),

which declared, "The Palestinians [to be] the descendants of the Jebusites, who are of Arab origin," and described Jerusalem as "an Arab city because its first builders were the Canaanite Jebusites, whose descendants are the Palestinians."The entry continued, "Ever since the destruction of the Temple, the link with Jews and Christians has been severed. Muslims alone have a right to the Temple."

No Palestinian claim is too absurd to be made -- after all, who in the West ever calls them out on such things. Here is Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, on June 2, 2011, claiming that a famous Psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:

[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) “If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.” This statement said by the Frankish (Crusader) ruler of Acre shortly before he left – was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism.

Is the problem really that the West is unwilling to call out the Palestinian Arabs on their falsification of history, or is the problem really much bigger -- is the West actually complicit in this falsification?

UNESCO

Erasing Jewish history seems to be a UNESCO specialty.

In 2011, Elder of Ziyon pointed out how UNESCO identified the Rambam (Maimonides) as Maimouna Ibn Moussa, effectively claiming that the revered Jewish philosopher, legal scholar and leader of the Jewish community during the 12th century was a Muslim.

Other attempts by UNESCO to erase Jewish ties to their land just up to 2011 alone include:

o  November 7, 1974: voted “to withhold assistance from Israel in the fields of education, science and culture because of Israel’s persistent alteration of the historic features of Jerusalem.”
o  November 20, 1974: voted to exclude Israel from its European regional group -- until 1978, after the US withheld $40 million in payments from the organization in protest.
o  1989: claimed “Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem” was destroying the holy city by “acts of interference, destruction and transformation”
o  1990: attacked the “irreversible” changes to Jerusalem's architectural heritage resulting from Israeli “occupation”
o  1993: then-UNESCO director-general Frederico Mayor boycotted an international conference on science in Jerusalem
o  1995: When the UN celebrated its 50th anniversary, UNESCO refused to mention the Shoah in its World War II resolution
o  1996: organized a symposium on Jerusalem at the body’s Paris headquarters without inviting any Jewish or Israeli groups
o  1998: a delegation visiting Jerusalem refused to meet with Israeli officials.
o  2001: UNESCO promoted the “Cairo Declaration Document for Jerusalem Antiquities Preservation,” accusing Israel of destroying Islamic antiquities on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem’s Old City
o  2002: During the Second Intifada, condemned Israel for “the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage in the Palestinian territories” as “a crime against the common cultural heritage of humanity.”
o  2009: designated Jerusalem as a “capital of Arab culture”
o  2010: declared Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs as “Muslim mosques.”
o  2011: called on Israel to stop all archaeological works in the Old City of Jerusalem

In the past, UNESCO also has also called for “financial sanctions against Israel” and passed hundreds of resolutions criticizing Israel’s activities in Judea and Samaria

According to the UN Watch Database:

Between 2009 and 2021, UNESCO adopted 82 resolutions against Israel; 9 on Crimea; 4 on Iraq; 2 on Syria; and none on Iran, Sudan, North Korea, or any other country in the world...UNESCO repeatedly denies the ancient Jewish heritage and culture of the holy cities Jerusalem and Hebron – which it has declared a World Heritage site of “Palestine.”

The Supreme Muslim Council in 1925

But when it comes to denying Israel's right to Jerusalem and its Jewish history, everyone wants to get in on the act -- which is ironic, considering how in 1925, the Supreme Muslim Council published A Brief Guide to Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which in addition to permitting non-Muslims to visit, explicitly recognizes the history of Solomon's Temple as being "beyond dispute" as the location where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque stand today -- and quotes from the Book of Samuel to make its point. The guide goes on to mention in passing that in 637 Caliph Omar "occupied Jerusalem."

The Mosque of Omar, 16 miles southwest of Jerusalem, has an inscription dating back to the 9th or 10th century CE that refers to the Dome of the Rock as “the rock of the Bayt al-Maqdis” -- literally "the rock of The Holy Temple."

Things have changed.

The BBC

Things have changed in the media as well. CAMERA UK has pointed out that while at one point the BBC recognized the Jewish historical ties by referring to The Temple Mount...

...in 2014, after the PLO warned international reporters not to use the term Temple Mount, the media obliged and perpetuates the Palestinian Arab narrative, the BBC among them. Last month, when Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the BBC reported:

The hilltop site is the most sacred place in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of two Biblical temples, and to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, the site of Muhammad's ascent to Heaven. The entire compound is considered to be al-Aqsa Mosque by Muslims. [emphasis added]

The BBC includes a graphic that helpfully emphasizes the point:

By perpetuating this distortion, the BBC is aiding the Palestinian Arabs who undercut Jewish rights and Jewish history by increasing the number of mosques on the Temple Mount from 1 to 5 while deliberately destroying archaeological evidence of the ancient Jewish ties to the area.

Helping the Palestinian cause is the EU.

The EU

Back in December, a document came to light describing the EU's plan to help the Palestinians by undercutting the Oslo Accords and help Palestinian Arabs gain a foothold in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The six-page document calls for mapping the territory in order to prove Palestinian rights to the land and monitoring Israeli archaeological activity, as ancient Jewish ties reinforce Israeli claims.

The document also recommends strengthening Palestinian infrastructure in Area C and supporting Palestinians with legal aid.

The article quotes Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Gush Etzion Council and the Yesha Council who decries how "the allies of the State of Israel, the European governments, are actively working to change the borders of our country." This is just taking the attempt to arbitrarily refer to Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel and taking it to a whole new level.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia is doing its share to falsify history.

Wikipedia

An article on Wikipedia on Iran–Jordan relations, traces those relations back for "most of Jordanian history" -- in this case back to the Persians:

The article on Jordan itself tells you that "the oldest known evidence of hominid habitation in Jordan dates back at least 200,000 years."

You have to check out the Wikipedia article on Iraq-Jordan relations to get the straightforward history starting in the 20th century:

And now the Biden Administration has decided to play along with the Palestinian Arabs.

The Biden Administration

According to a press release from the Manhattan DA's office:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., today announced the repatriation of an ivory cosmetic spoon dating back to approximately 800-700 B.C.E to the Palestinian Authority, marking the first time a cultural object has been returned to the Palestinian people from the United States...

“We are proud to join our law enforcement and government partners in this moment. It is impossible to put a value on the cultural and historical significance of looted antiquities and I thank our talented team of attorneys and investigators who are continuing their incredible work of returning these objects to where they rightfully belong,” said District Attorney Bragg. [emphasisd added]

Rightfully belong?

As Johanna Markind pointed out at Legal Insurrection:

American law calls for repatriation of certain artifacts to Indian tribes, if “the requesting Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization can show that the object was owned or controlled by the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization.” That is, the Smithsonian would return a qualified Cheyenne artifact to the Cheyenne tribe. It would not return a Cheyenne artifact to, say, the Pawnee.

According to the law, then, the artifact should have been returned to Israel. But that would have been a problem. After all, the spoon was originally looted from Hebron, so returning it to Israel would amount to admitting the Jewish ties to that area.

So instead, we are treated to an onslaught of government officials publically supporting the Palestinian Arabs in fabricating an imaginary history:

o  Ivan J. Arvelo, a special agent in charge of US Homeland Security Investigations in New York, described the transfer of the spoon to the PA as a "historic repatriation”
o  George Noll, head of the US Office of Palestinian Affairs, described the spoon as “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.”
o  DHS official, Jeff Brannigan, claimed that, “This repatriation is representative of HSI’s commitment to ensuring the storied heritages of peoples around the world through the preservation and protection of cultural artifacts.”

The Biden Administration is pushing a falsified history -- much as Biden himself famously falsified his own history during the 1988 presidential campaign when he claimed:

o  He graduated from Syracuse University’s law school in the top half of his class.
o  He received 3 undergraduate degrees.
o  He attended law school on a full academic scholarship

But this time, the media is unlikely to call him out on this fake history.

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!

12/28 Links Pt1: The European Union's deceit and the Israeli response; Israel’s New Government Isn’t What You’ve Heard; What’s behind Oman’s BDS push?

From Ian:

The European Union's deceit and the Israeli response

The EU insists that Israel should abide by the Oslo Accords, as it still believes that within this area, a Palestinian state should be established within the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement. At the same time, according to the leaked document, it tries to strip Israel of its rights per that same agreement.

So that’s where humanitarian law comes in; the very set of laws that are supposed to help the EU circumvent Israel’s authority in Area C. This means that the EU has found a way to fund construction in Area C without violating the Oslo Accords, or so we are tricked to believe. The claim is that the construction is meant for humanitarian ends and is not politically motivated. Yet the EU construction takes place in locations that are highly sensitive, precisely for the sole purpose of creating new facts on the ground and preparing the area for a Palestinian takeover without any final peace agreement.

Many times the political motivation is obvious, as the construction is conducted without permits and in such places where Israel has no choice but to demolish it, for example, a school adjacent to a dangerous highway or other construction in places where there are no facilities and thus are not considered habitable environments. The political motivation becomes even more obvious when the document explicitly states the EU’s plan to curb Israel’s archeological activities in order to minimize the Jewish connection to the land.

Moreover, the EU does not seem to consider building in Area A and Area B where all they would need is a permit from the Palestinian Authority. Apparently, in those areas, there is no need for humanitarian aid at all.

Needless to say, the news of the leaked document hit Israel really hard. Subsequently, a letter signed by 40 Knesset members was sent to EU leaders.

The letter, initiated by Likud MK Amichai Chikli, reminds the EU of Europe’s past when it used to taunt Jews to “go to Palestine,” and now, in essence, claims that Jews are foreigners in their own homeland.

The letter continues to state that the leaked document “completely ignores our people’s historical affinity to our homeland and completely ignores the status of the State of Israel in Area C.” Furthermore, the letter points out that no nation turns its back on its own heritage and reminds the EU that we have not forgotten our history.

Finally, the letter ends by calling upon the EU to immediately cease its illegal construction, halt the damage being caused to heritage sites and the nature in Judea and Samaria, and immediately desist from funding delegitimizing organizations that promote antisemitic propaganda, including Israeli organizations that serve EU interests.

The letter is, in fact, a fitting response to the leaked document and the reasons are twofold. For one, the EU has no jurisdiction in any of those areas and secondly, it has clearly misused humanitarian law and thus violated international law in broad daylight.

Now that the EU’s intentions are exposed, it should reconsider its positions, stop masking its political positions with laws and put its cards on the table for an honest discussion that is, in reality, a political and moral debate and not primarily about the law. They should do that before EU-Israel relations deteriorate any further.

As for Israel, it should invest more time and energy in defending its rights and preempt such initiatives, whether it comes from the EU, the United Nations or elsewhere.

Bezalel Smotrich (WSJ$): Israel’s New Government Isn’t What You’ve Heard

Our reforms are aimed at developing the area’s infrastructure, employment and economy for the benefit of all. This doesn’t entail changing the political or legal status of the area. If the Palestinian Authority decides to dedicate some of its time and energy to its citizens’ welfare rather than demonizing Jews and funding the murder of Israelis, it would find me a full partner in that endeavor.

Additionally, we seek to halt the execution of the Fayyad plan, a massive European Union-funded project to facilitate the Palestinian takeover of Area C, the one part of Judea and Samaria where Jews are currently permitted to live under the Oslo Accords. The authority is building housing, infrastructure and more in areas that are outside its jurisdiction to surround Jewish communities and other strategic locations in Area C in an attempt at de facto annexation. The EU contends its funding is purely humanitarian, but recent reporting has revealed this is not the case. This unrestrained usurpation poses mortal dangers to Israelis living there and risks significant damage to the natural environment and to historical sites. Among other measures, we will beef up enforcement of existing laws and agreements to stop this deliberate abuse.

Israel’s justice system also needs urgent reform to restore democratic balance, individual rights and public trust. In the U.S., elected politicians appoint federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, making the bench at least indirectly responsive to the people. In Israel, sitting Supreme Court justices have veto power over new appointments to the court.

Israel also lacks a written constitution, but in the 1990s the Supreme Court began striking down democratically enacted laws based on its own idea of what Israel’s constitution ought to be. This has created legal and economic uncertainty, precipitating a severe decline in the public’s trust in judicial and law-enforcement institutions. The Supreme Court ignores written law and, worse, invalidates government action even if it violates no law, but rather the court’s own notions of sound policy, or “reasonableness,” as it calls it. Moreover, the Israeli criminal-justice system also lacks basic procedural safeguards for defendants, such as the exclusionary rule, and there is no effective oversight on government prosecutors, who too often abuse their wide scope of authority.

Our emphasis on judicial reform is meant to bring Israel closer to the American political model with some limited checks to ensure the judicial system respects the law. We seek to appoint judges in Israel in a process similar to America’s; to define the attorney general’s scope of authority and relation to elected representatives in a manner similar to what’s set down in America; to develop effective oversight mechanisms for law enforcement to ensure they protect basic rights; and to restore the Knesset’s authority to define the fundamental values of the state and its emerging constitution.

All Americans should appreciate the wisdom and justice in these plans. They should shed their preconceptions and unite to support the resurgence of accountable government, prosperity, individual rights, and democracy in the Jewish homeland.

Why World Media Must Wait to Criticize New Israeli Government

Israel has a long legislative process. To become law, bills must be passed seven times, four in the plenum and three in committee. The controversial laws already passed by the new Knesset are – of course – fair game for criticism, but the rest will take their time.

Plenty of governments never get around to passing even their core goals. The outgoing government intended to pass legislation that could have limited Netanyahu from running again but never completed the process. Leaders of all its coalition parties were willing to make significant changes to the Western Wall prayer site, but for various reasons, they did not.

The previous coalition had an anti-LGBT party in Ra’am (United Arab List), which had four seats in a coalition of 61 that ended up taking unprecedented steps to help the LGBT community.

This coalition has an anti-LGBT party in Noam, which has one seat out of 64. It has Israel’s first gay Knesset speaker in Amir Ohana and a prime minister in Netanyahu who has repeatedly promised to prevent any harm to the community.

If the past two months of infighting inside Israel’s right-wing bloc are any indication, the new government will be less homogeneous than previously thought. It will likely have trouble passing bills that most of the parties in the coalition agree on, amid fights over credit and disputes over which party is more hawkish than another.

The new government has come to power with one clear mandate: To improve the security of Israeli citizens. This is a relatively uncontroversial goal, and its success would improve the lives of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Israelis as well as Palestinians.

According to official IDF figures, in the month prior to the election, there were 382 terror attacks in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Jerusalem alone. That number includes shootings, stabbings, explosives and Molotov cocktails.

There were three European countries where Far Right parties gained strength in recent elections. But in France, Italy and Sweden, there were nowhere near 382 terrorist attacks in the month prior to the election, so the rise of extremists there is arguably harder to justify.

But will those countries come under as much international scrutiny as Israel? Probably not.

To its credit, the Biden administration in the US has been careful to give the incoming Israeli government the benefit of the doubt until it takes steps it deems problematic and unacceptable.

The international media should consider following America’s lead.

12/25 Links: Melanie Phillips: Happy inclusive holidays!; Israel should terminate the Oslo Accords; Israeli mayor attends funeral of terrorist who wounded 3 policemen

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Happy inclusive holidays!

What a minefield this whole identity thing is. Thank goodness Chanukah doesn’t present this problem, eh?

For many diaspora Jews, Chanukah is regarded as Christmas-lite with gifts, diet-destroying delicacies and a lighted menorah in place of a glittering tree.

And there can hardly be much danger of offending anyone with a card displaying a chanukiah, dreidel or doughnut, or standard anodyne message such as “Festival of lights”, “Love, light, latkes” or “Peace, love and miracles”.

Hold on a minute. Chanukah is not actually a festival of peace and love. It celebrates instead the victory of the Maccabees who went to war against both the Seleucid Greeks and the Hellenists, Jews who were themselves drawn to the pagan ways of their Greek overlords.

The Maccabees were not apostles of peace. They were more like resistance commandos, fierce and uncompromising warriors who fought their Greek oppressors.

Moreover, they also committed violent atrocities against the Hellenised Jews who had absorbed Greek universalism and as a result had taken aim at circumcision, Shabbat observance and Torah study.

The Maccabees regarded those overly-assimilated Jews as traitors to Judaism and dealt with them accordingly.

In the saccharine world of much Chanukah observance, the Maccabees are commonly presented as heroes fighting and defeating the tyrannical Greeks. This was undoubtedly true.

But other commentators equally plausibly describe them as zealots, violent religious extremists who forced Jews to conform to a strict interpretation of Judaism and expelled non-Jews from the land. To the Hellenised Jews, they were religious nuts.

Ring any bells? Today, many diaspora Jews (and liberal Israelis) are hyper-ventilating over the likely inclusion in the new Israeli government of three men whose agenda has distinct echoes of the Maccabees.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the putative security minister, called in his younger days for the expulsion of the Arabs from Israel (although he says he has changed his views). Bezalel Smotrich, tipped as a finance minister, has said his ultimate aim is an Israeli theocracy.

And Avi Maoz, who is set to run an office of “Jewish identity”, has taken explicit aim at the “Hellenising Jews” of the Israeli left and progressive denominations whom he terms “the real darkness”.

Celebrating the Maccabees might therefore be seen as celebrating Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and Maoz.

Well that’s the end of Chanukah cards, then.

PMW: Jesus the Palestinian terrorist and his 72 dark-eyed virgins

One of the many ways in which the Palestinian Authority distorts history in order to invent a centuries-old Palestinian identity, is to turn Jesus the Judean (Jew), who promoted peace on earth, into a Palestinian terrorist who was murdered by the Israelis, thus becoming the first Palestinian “Martyr,” who is now reveling in heaven with Allah, in the arms of 72 dark-eyed virgins.

While the language the PA uses to describe Jesus as a terrorist and as someone enjoying his virgins is less direct, the meaning is the same.

When referring to Palestinian terrorists, the PA calls them “self-sacrificing fighters,” or “fidai”. So, when the PA and its officials use the same terms to describe Jesus, they are in fact saying he is a terrorist.

As Palestinian Media Watch has shown, here, here, here, here, and here, among other places, the definition of Jesus as a terrorist enjoying his virgins is not a fringe idea, but rather one expressed by the highest order in the PA.

Jesus the “Palestinian” terrorist murdered by the Jews

When PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh sought to declare Jesus a terrorist, and link him to Palestinian terror, he referred to him as a “Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter” who, similar to the PA descriptions of suicide bombers, “paid for his mission with his life” and whose birth takes place “at the same time as the anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution” – i.e the anniversary of the first Fatah terror attack:
“The birthday of our lord Jesus, peace be upon him - the first Palestinian self-sacrificing fighter from whom we learned Martyrdom-death, and who paid for his mission with his life - takes place at the same time as the anniversary of the outbreak of the Palestinian revolution (i.e., the anniversary of “the Launch” of Fatah, counted from its first terror attack against Israel), for which thousands of Martyrs have paid with their lives so that we will live and remain, and so that our children will dream of a better future.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 28, 2020]

Muwaffaq Matar, a member of the Revolutionary Council of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party and regular columnist for the official PA daily similarly adopted Jesus as a Palestinian and compared him to terrorists calling him a “self-sacrificing fighter”: