This video of sheep walking in circles in Karak, Jordan is freaking Arabs out.
It follows a similar phenomenon in China where sheep circled around for 12 days.
The Jordanian Fatwa Council met to study the phenomenon of sheep rotation, and its relationship to the signs of the "Hour." The Grand Mufti of Jordan, Abd al-Karim al-Khasawneh, responded to citizens' comments on the issue of sheep turning around in Karak, who said that the phenomenon may be a sign of the approaching Day of Resurrection.
Al-Khasawneh confirmed, in a press statement to local media, that "the Fatwa Department will meet to study the phenomenon, and search for all the hadiths of the Prophet that indicate the signs of the Hour and its approach."
It looks to me like they are going around a circular muddy area that they don't want to enter and risk getting stuck, but I'm no Grand Mufti.
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Muhammad Murad Souf, the terrorist who murdered three Israeli fathers last week in Ariel, may have been motivated by the Palestinian Authority's program of paying salaries to the families of terrorists, known as "pay for slay."
According to a fawning biography at Safa Palestinian News Agency, "Fate chose the 19-year-old martyr Souf, from the town of Haris, to be the sole breadwinner for his family after the death of his father, and he chose to end his life as a martyr in a commando operation that will be immortalized in history."
The article goes on to quote Souf's mother, saying,"May God be pleased with him. He left school to support us after his father died, and he was responsible for all the expenses of the house."
"His life was from the mosque to the house and from home to work, and he had no time for fun except for the time he spent when his friends visited him at home," his mother added.
The article notes that Souf's father died when he was in the tenth grade. He quit school to find work and support his mother and seven siblings. Muhammad was no the oldest sibling; his oldest brother Sami was already in law school at An-Najah University, which left Muhammad to become the breadwinner at around 16.
Souf first worked for Israelis at the Barkan industrial park, and then he got a job at a detergent factory at the Ariel industrial park.
One can only imagine the pressure that Muhammad felt to take care of his family, of his bitterness at missing out on enjoying his teenage years, at the little prospect of a happy marriage when he would have more mouths to feed, and at his older brother staying in school while he was forced to leave to become a common laborer.
"Martyrdom" sounds like a very attractive alternative, especially knowing that his family would no longer have to worry about affording to live. Palestinian Law No. 14, Articles 1 and 2, enacted by the PA in 2004, says that Soufs' family will receive a pension for life equivalent to triple the average West Bank salary.
That would be about 97,500 shekels a year, forever.
It is likely far higher than Souf's salary at Barkan, which was probably not much above Israel's minimum wage of 64,000 shekels a year (which in turn is still double the average Palestinian worker salary in the West Bank.)
If "Pay for Slay" didn't exist, would Muhammad Souf have wanted to risk his family losing their main means of support?
Given the choice of a thankless future doing manual labor and few prospects for any improvement on one hand, and an easy way to guarantee his family's financial security on the other hand - together with the knowledge that he would be instantly transformed into a national hero - is it any wonder that Souf chose to kill Jews and achieve martyrdom and paradise?
The Palestinian law paying "martyrs" is almost certainly responsible for the deaths of Tamir Avihai, Michael Ladygin and Motti Ashkenazi.
It is also notable that Souf went on Hajj recently, based on his photo. A 19-year old breadwinner for a family of 8 would no doubt find that difficult to afford. In retrospect, this looks like a "bucket list" item, an achievement that the religious Souf would want to earn before he dies. Israeli intelligence may want to look at the Palestinians who make the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to see if any of them are doing it beyond their means, as this may be an indication that they are also planning on a future windfall for their families.
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In the TV documentary series Shtula, at one point members of the ISM tell the woman posing as an anti-Israel activist that, by the way, she can expect to be sexually harassed by Palestinian men.
It's just part of the job.
This is well known in the anti-Israel activist community.
In 2010, a Palestinian convinced a group of female Western activists to let him stay in their guest house in an Arab village because, he claimed, the IDF was trying to arrest him. He then attempted to rape one of the American women - who was the only Muslim. The Palestinian Authority then convinced her not to press charges, because it would be too damaging to the anti-Israel cause.
An Israeli peace activist was "severely sexually assaulted" at Sheikh Jarrah. The victim tried to complain, but "after heavy and unfair pressure from the [Western] organizers of the Sheikh Jarrah protest, she withdrew her complaint." And then these "progressives" warned all Western women to cover their hair and bodies in Sheikh Jarrah.
And other incidents slowly leaked out. One activist admitted to an Israeli reporter, “I know of such rape cases from women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo. I met the three of them during reserve service. I met with each of them afterwards… they told me what happens there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any observing eye.” That activist claimed that some of the female activists became unwilling wives and virtual slaves in Palestinian villages.
Haaretz published a similar article about sexual harassment of leftist activist women in 2012.
Apparently nothing has changed.
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The New York Times said last month that a string of investigations – some which were accused of being "politicized hit piece[s]" against Jews – is a part of its "financial success" strategy, adding to a long list of controversy of what some critics have alleged is an "anti-Jewish animus" at one of the nation's leading papers.
Former New York Times executive editor, Dean Baquet, announced an investigative journalism fellowship he would oversee that was inspired by the apparent "financial success" of investigations on Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, among others.
Dean Baquet, former executive editor at The New York Times, announced an investigative journalism fellowship inspired by controversial stories published about Jews.
The announcement referred to a front-page spotlight article the Times published in September which claimed Jewish private schools were "flush" with government cash and failing their children.
"What's clear is that the NYT is not interested in positive value for our schools, just spreading lies for clicks," Simcha Eichenstein, a NYS Assembly member, who represents a Brooklyn Hasidic Jewish community, said.
Activists – including international human rights attorney Brooke Goldstein – derided the "politicized hit piece" for singularly "targeting" the Jewish community as violent anti-Semitic attacks continue to rise in New York City. It was also a bizarre choice for a front page article on Sept. 11 for the New York-based paper, she said.
"What the hit piece did at The New York Times… [is] accuse [Jews]… of abusing their children. I couldn't think of anything more vicious than that," Goldstein, who runs the Lawfare Project, told Fox News Digital.
She added that "Targeting Jewish Hasidic schools, or any Jewish organization, to leverage for financial success is beyond shameful."
The New York Times has a "longstanding Jewish problem" when it comes to various types of coverage spanning from the Holocaust era to the present, according to its critics.
Josh Hammer, the opinion editor at Newsweek, told Fox News Digital, "The New York Times never ceases to amaze me when it comes to Jewish-related issues."
"This is the same newspaper that consistently buried coverage of the Holocaust far from the front page. Some things never change. The true shame is that far too many liberal Americans still accord the Times far more credibility than it deserves."
This sentiment has also been touched on by current and former Times staff. The paper did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The blatant antisemitism that plagued the Soviet bloc in the final months of Stalin’s rule severely shook Mapam’s faith in the Kremlin, and the party incrementally moved toward an independent socialist position. This change was opposed by the staunchly pro-Soviet Sneh, who bolted Mapam in 1953 to establish the Left Faction, which merged into the communist Maki in 1954.
Over the next two decades, Sneh was the foremost leader of Israeli communism, repeatedly representing Maki in the Knesset while editing the party newspaper Kol Ha’am (Voice of the People).
In 1970, Sneh authored an essay titled “Arafat the adored and Lenin the ignored,” where he applied Vladimir Lenin’s communist principles to denounce the global left’s infatuation with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.
While embracing Palestinian self-determination, Sneh condemned the PLO’s call for Israel’s destruction. He quoted Lenin’s distinction between progressive nationalism, which seeks national freedom, and bourgeois nationalism, which denies national freedom to others; Lenin’s writings endorsed the former while condemning the latter. According to Sneh, Leninist logic would clearly place the PLO’s negation of the Jews’ right to a state of their own in the second, reactionary category.
Moreover, Sneh elaborated upon Lenin’s critique of terrorism, contrasting it with the PLO’s sanctification of the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. He also refuted the depiction of Israel as a colonial entity, pointing out that the Jewish state has no imperial mother country.
Sneh reminded his readers of the events surrounding Israel’s creation: the Jewish armed struggle against British imperialism; the communist bloc’s support for the November 1947 UN vote calling for the establishment of a Jewish state; and the masses of survivors of fascist persecution and genocide who found refuge in Israel.
Perhaps today’s radicals, from Brazil’s Lula da Silva to France’s Jean-Luc Melenchon to Ireland’s Mary Lou McDonald, who like Sneh’s 1970 leftist audience uncritically champion Palestinian nationalism, might benefit from familiarizing themselves with the political writings of Israel’s former communist leader.
Postscript: Moshe Sneh’s son, Ephraim, a member of the communist youth movement in his earlier years, nonetheless went on to become an IDF brigadier general and a Labor Party MK. He served as health minister in the governments of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, deputy defense minister to Ehud Barak, and even transportation minister under the Likud’s Ariel Sharon. What would his communist father have said?
Before setting off from New York City to the Land of Israel in 1926, the Yiddish novelist and essayist Miriam Karpilove dashed off a letter to the secretary of the I.L. Peretz Writers’ Union. Therein, she complained of the many things she had to do in preparation for leaving golus [diasporic exile], adding “I am my own [lady messiah] and, as you know, I have no white horse and, as you also know, the subway is on strike to boot.” Her visit to Mandate Palestine would last for two years, and form the basis of an unfinished novel, parts of which will soon be published. Jessica Kirzane excerpts her translation of the opening chapter, which depicts the characters’ arrival at the “Palestinian Ellis Island.”
We had to show a group of British government officers all of our documents so they could see that our coming here to Eretz Yisrael was kosher and we’d followed all the legal requirements they set out for us. These government officials sat at a long table in the middle of a large room. We had to stand. Stand and wait in line until someone looked over our papers and gave them to another official, who gave them to a third official, and so forth.
More than anything, they noticed the stamp on our papers with the word “settler.” They were surprised that American citizens with money had come to settle in Palestine: is it so bad in America, or so good in Eretz Yisrael, that the Jews would want to settle here? Especially during the present crisis? One of the officials asked my brother why he wanted to settle in Palestine, isn’t it good to be an American citizen?
“Oh, very good!” Jacob said. “But I think Palestine has more for us.”
“Remarkable, . . . ” he shrugged his shoulders and asked me what compelled me to settle in Palestine. I looked him straight in his squinty eyes and replied, “historical connections, you know . . .”.
On Thursday, the US Justice Department issued a press release on the arrest of the man who threatened New Jersey synagogues, which were put on alert last week.
A Middlesex County, New Jersey, man was arrested today for transmitting via the internet a manifesto containing threats to attack a synagogue and Jewish people, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Omar Alkattoul, 18, of Sayreville, New Jersey, was arrested this morning and is charged by complaint with one count of transmitting a threat in interstate and foreign commerce on or about Nov. 1, 2022. ...
“No one should be targeted for violence or with acts of hate because of how they worship,” U.S. Attorney Sellinger said. “According to the complaint, this defendant used social media to send a manifesto containing a threat to attack a synagogue based on his hatred of Jews. Along with our federal, state and local law enforcement partners, we acted swiftly to respond to the alleged threat. There is nothing the U.S. Attorney’s Office takes more seriously than threats to our communities of faith and places of worship. Protection of these communities is core to this office’s mission, and this office will devote whatever resources are necessary to keep our Jewish community and all New Jersey residents safe.”
The complaint against Alkattoul describes many examples of his antisemitism and bigotry. It is worthwhile to read what he said and wrote, because the media usually shies away from trying to understand Jew hatred.
According to the document, Alkattoul left an Arabic language audio message on a social media platform in early October:
With God’s permission, we will conquer Andalusia, O
French! And we will conquer Jerusalem, O Jews.
With God’s permission, he will slaughter you, O swine
and monkeys, God damn you. And I pledge allegiance
to Abu-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi,[2] may God
protect him; and I will obey him during hard times
and good times. With God’s permission, the Jews will
be frightened; the promise is near.
He also wrote a manifesto called "When Swords Collide" that appears to be his public statement after a planned synagogue attack. When he shared it on another social media platform with a group of perhaps 20 people, some of them praised the document.
Here are the parts that the FBI published:
All praise is due to Allah SWT, I am the attacker
and I would like to introduce myself. . . I am a Muslim
with so many regrets but I can assure you this attack
is not one of them and Insha’Allah many more
attacks like these against the enemy of Allah and the
pigs and monkeys will come.
I will discuss my motives in a bit but I did target a
synagogue for a really good reason according to
myself and a lot of Muslims who have a brain.
Let’s be aware of the fact that the Jews promote the
biggest hatred against Muslimeen even in the west.
The Jews are in fact a very powerful group in the west
which is why western countries today shill for them on top of the murtadeen [apostates] in Saudi Arabia and every Arab
country.
This attack was just to remind the Jews that as
long as 1 Muslim remains in this world they will
never live a pleasant life until the Muslims in
Palestine, Syria, West Africa, and South Asia are
living a pleasant life. The Jews support terror
against the muslimeen and always have . . . . So the
motive of this attack is hatred towards Jews and their
heinous acts and I don’t want anyone to tell me for a
second that “not all Jews support terror against
Muslims” yes they do! They have since day one.
Their Torah justifies their acts and let’s keep in mind it
was a Jew that tried to kill the nebi SAW.
Other sections of the document contained the following titles:
• “Why hatred towards Jews is a good thing even if they’re not Zionists”
• “The right-wing ideology of the Jews”
• “The term ‘anti-Semitic’ and it’s true meaning”
• “The ‘Holocaust’”
• “The ‘good’ Jews,” in which ALKATTOUL states, “Good jews do not exist unless if they convert to Islam. . . . I hate jews based on their actions and their religion that justifies the actions they do.”
It is unclear how close Alkattoul was to implementing the plan. He said contradictory things to the FBI and to friends on social media, sometimes showing bravado and sometimes admitting that he is very insecure. He said to a correspondent in August that his planned synagogue attack, which he estimated might take him six or seven years to organize, would involve bombings, shootings, and “maybe” beheadings.
It is obvious that this hate has little to do with "Palestine."
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The police in the governorate of Jericho and the Jordan Valley closed, on Monday evening, a tourist villa in the city, by a decision of the governor, Jihad Abu al-Asal.
The Police Public Relations and Media Department stated, in a press statement, that the closure was implemented by the Tourism, Antiquities and Environment Police, following the publication of advertisements for renting the villa and in video clips on social media that met with general discontent from citizens in the governorate and the rest of the regions.
What appears to have happened is a young Christian Palestinian influencer, Marya Jadaoun, made a series of TikTok videos advertising a private villa in Jericho, including one with her cavorting in a pool while wearing a bikini. She has made similar videos before. Apparently the villa's owner paid her to make a viral video, which included its name and phone number.
I found it without sound:
Thousands of people saw it and some complained about such a terrible thing, which caused tens of thousands of others to now seek the video online (Jadaoun removed it from her TikTok.)
Naturally, the Palestinian police stepped in to not only make sure that the video was taken down, but that the villa itself must be closed, for allowing a private person to wear a bikini.
Jadaoun said that the video was taken with full permission of the villa, but she apologized for it anyway, because a Christian acting like a normal person in the West Bank is in danger.
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This morning, 16 year old Palestinian Muhammad Fadi Nuri died after being shot by IDF forces in Al-Bireh last month during clashes.
Hamas' press release about it shows that Palestinians know very well that these youths are not innocent victims but active participants in fighting, saying that Nuri was participating in "ribat" - guarding the frontiers of Islam - and "defending the sanctities."
Beyond that, Hamas called on other children to join and die for the cause:
We in the Hamas movement, as we mourn the convoys of our people’s righteous martyrs, who sacrifice their lives and provide the most wonderful examples in the field of engagement with the enemy, and advance the ranks on behalf of all our people and our nation, in the defense of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, to call upon the masses of our people and our revolting youth to escalate the confrontation with the enemy, and to continue the path of resistance and heroism, in anger for the blood of our martyrs, as a victory for our lands, and as an end to the occupation of our land and our sanctities. It is jihad, victory or martyrdom.
Palestinian children are brainwashed daily to emulate the "martyrs," both in the media and in their schools. In the case of Nuri and dozens of others this year, this incitement leads them to attack IDF soldiers with firebombs and other deadly weapons.
As we see from Hamas, this is being encouraged and applauded.
Meanwhile, the Western "anti-Zionists," instead of being horrified at the explicit weaponization of children, eagerly seize on each death as fuel for their own excuses for spreading modern antisemitism and blood libels against the Jewish state.
Israel doesn't want to kill kids - but Hamas and "human rights" defenders sure love when they are forced to.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Because the antisemitism from Palestinian and Arab media and personalities is so pervasive, they need to keep upping the ante in order to get their incitement to break through the line noise of normal Jew-hate.
Enter the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and "Grand Mufti" of Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein.
In response to Jews visiting the Temple Mount on Sukkot, Hussein said that they "performed racist Talmudic rituals" and "carried out collective recitation of excerpts from their Talmud in the mosque’s courtyards."
But calling Jewish prayer racist is not nearly inflammatory enough nowadays. Modern Jew-haters need a new hook.
So the Mufti added that the goal of Jews who quietly walk around Islamic buildings designed to supplant Judaism's holiest site are "attempts to obliterate Islamic civilization."
Who knew that Jews pushing their kids in baby strollers could have such far-reaching abilities as to destroy entire civilizations? We Jews are even more powerful than I thought!
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Over the past several years, dozens of Spanish courts have rejected Israel boycotts by nonprofits, municipalities and other groups. Now, the country’s top court has ruled that the movement to boycott Israel represents “discrimination” that “infringes on basic rights.”
Separately, the Spanish parliament on Wednesday passed legislation that bars public funding for organizations that “promote antisemitism.” The law uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which cites as examples of antisemitism some forms of Israel criticism.
The ruling by the Supreme Court of Spain, which was issued Sept. 20 and published on Tuesday, was about an appeal that a pro-Palestinian nonprofit, Associacion Interpueblos, filed contesting a lower court’s 2020 ruling that called a specific action to boycott Israel discriminatory.
ACOM, a Spanish pro-Israel nonprofit that has sued multiple entities for discriminating against Israel, claimed the ruling as a major win. Spain was once a hotbed of efforts by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, known as BDS. A slew of lower-court rulings in Spain had curtailed that trend, but they had pertained only to individual cases and thus had a limited impact, the group said, but the Sept. 20 ruling will function as a legal precedent applicable to all cases going forward.
Prior to the appeal, pro-Palestinian groups in Spain had not escalated appeals to the top court for fear of losing and creating precedent. “Also, it was a risk for us, but our legal team worked hard and turned that risk into an historical opportunity,” an ACOM spokesperson wrote in an email to JTA.
This judicial policy is similar to the one practiced in France, where attempts to boycott Israel resulted in the 2003 adoption of a law that declares any attempt to single out countries discriminatory and unconstitutional.
A survey has found that those who support left-wing parties in France are far more likely to believe that Judaism is not compatible with French values, while also being the most likely to claim Islam is compatible.
The “French Fractures” survey, which was carried out by the polling firm Ipsos and the consulting firm Sopra Steria for the newspaper Le Monde, the Jean-Jaurès Foundation and Cevipof, found that those who support leftist parties were far more likely to find that Judaism is incompatible with the values of French society.
Among supporters of the far-left France Insoumise (FI) party, only 75 per cent stated that they believed Judaism was compatible with French values, while every other party saw 80 per cent or more believe that Judaism was compatible with French society, including 90 per cent of the supporters of the centre-right Republicans.
When the same question was asked of Islam, the left-wing FI supporters were the most likely to state that Islam was compatible with France, with 64 per cent agreeing, while those on the right overwhelmingly disagreed as just 17 per cent of supporters of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally believe Islam is compatible with France, and just eight per cent of the supporter of conservative pundit Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest! party.
Overall just 40 per cent of the respondents stated that Islam was compatible with French society, with people under the age of 35 being far more receptive to the idea than those over 60.
Between 2017 and 2022, 92.82% of the articles in leading U.S. college newspapers that strayed from journalistic objectivity were anti-Israel, according to a report from Alums for Campus Fairness.
ACF surveyed 75 leading college and university newspapers. Of all the articles about Israel exhibiting a bias, 181 were biased against Israel and 14 portrayed it positively.
Coverage spiked during periods of tension between Israel and Hamas, including in November 2018, May 2019, November 2019 and May 2021. There is an intense fixation on Israel, with nearly 1,500 stories on the topic, the researchers found.
Avi Gordon, executive director of ACF, told JNS that the increase in “hatred towards Jewish and pro-Israel students standing up for the truth” reflects the fact that Israel has become a “divisive topic.” Israel is always considered newsworthy, which fosters a culture of saturation coverage in which bias against the Jewish state is popular, he explained.
Large public universities produced the most content about Israel. While liberal arts colleges produced less, small private colleges exhibited the most anti-Israel bias. The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven private institutions in Claremont, California, and Swarthmore College in Pennslyvania, for example, produced 31 articles over a five-year period.
Gordon said there has also been a shift in the general discourse on Israel. “Whereas it used to be, ‘I am not anti-Semitic—I am anti-Israel’ or ‘anti-Zionist,’” this distinction is increasingly becoming meaningless.
“Jewish students are more afraid to share their Judaism or their love for Israel” openly, he noted, describing instances of people who are scared to wear a yarmulke or IDF shirt on campus, or to share their culture and faith.
Saudi police arrested a Yemeni man this week after he advertised on social media his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he paid tribute to the memory of Queen Elizabeth II.
The pilgrim, who was not identified by name, had posted footage earlier this week that showed him holding a banner honoring the late queen from inside the courtyard of Mecca's Grand Mosque.
The clip quickly spread online, sparking outrage among devout Muslims and leading to the man's arrest on Monday for "violating the regulations and instructions" of the holy site. Security forces referred him to the public prosecutor to face charges.
"Umrah for the soul of Queen Elizabeth II, may Allah grant her peace in heaven and accept her among the righteous," the banner read in English and Arabic.
It turns out that at least some Muslim authorities say it is against Islamic law to pray for the soul of non-Muslims.
Palestinian site Raya asked the question last week as to whether Muslims can pray for mercy for the soul of Queen Elizabeth. It quotes an Islamic fatwa website saying that the clerics ruled "that mercy on the dead of infidels is not permissible, whether they are from The Jews and the Christians, or they were from others."
The same question was asked on Palestinian sites after Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, and the consensus was the same - she was a Christian and Muslims should not pray for her soul. There was a backlash, but not on the basis of Islamic law, rather for publicizing this ruling, which threatened to overshadow the public relations bonanza of her death.
A similar question was asked about whether Abu Akleh, and presumably the Queen, are damned to eternal hellfire for their non-Muslim beliefs. The answer, again, seemed to be in the affirmative, although I've seen sites that say otherwise.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Life is a supreme Jewish value. So much so that it’s
customary to make charitable donations or monetary gifts in multiples of 18:
the numerical value of the Hebrew word for life: chai. When we drink in celebration we say, “L’Chaim,” as
popularized by the song from Fiddler on the Roof.
We Jews place life on a pedestal not only in times of celebration
but in times of mourning too. Anglo-Jews from Britain and communities in the
former Commonwealth, for example, are likely to conclude a condolence call with
“I wish you long life.”
In Islam, on the other hand, life appears to take a
backseat to death. The goriest murders, butchery, death, and suicide seem not to
faze Muslims at all. Whereas Jews are preoccupied with life, the Muslim thinks
more about death. In a 2004 op-ed, Aspiration
not Desperation, Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook detailed the final words
of a suicide bomber, describing her joy at the prospect of blowing herself to
smithereens.
“I always wanted to
be the first woman who sacrifices her life for Allah. My joy will be complete
when my body parts fly in all directions.”
These are the words of female suicide terrorist Reem
Reyashi, videotaped just before she killed four Israelis and herself two weeks
ago in Gaza. What is surprising about this horrific statement is that she put a
positive value on her dismemberment and death, distinct from her goal to kill
others. She was driven by her aspiration to achieve what the Palestinians call
“shahada,” death for Allah. She had two distinct goals: To kill and to be
killed. These independent objectives, both positive in her mind, were goals
greater than her obligations and emotional ties to her two children. This
aspiration to die, which contradicts the basic human instinct for survival, is
at the core of the suicide terrorism fervor.
Contrast this with the Jewish concept of dying “al Kidush Hashem,” in sanctification of
God’s name. Every Holocaust victim, every Jewish terror victim, is considered
to be a holy martyr. But Jews don’t strive for that holy eventuality—we don’t court
death for the sake of martyrdom. Which is what all too many Muslims seem to do.
Most people can't stand the sight of blood, but blood doesn't seem to generate the same revulsion in Muslims. Take the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which commemorates
what we Jews still call the Akedat
Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac. The Muslim version, which of course
postdates Jewish scripture substitutes “Ibrahim” for Abraham, and “Ismail” for
Isaac. Jews remember the Akedah by reciting
the story from the Torah before the congregation on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
Muslims, on the other hand, celebrate their version of the story with mass
slaughter of livestock. So many animals are killed on this holiday, that in
2016, the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh ran red with blood.
Judaism is possibly the only religion that prohibits all
forms of castration. This taboo creates grave challenges to pet owners, modern
animal farming and scientific research. However, when one becomes aware of the ubiquity
of sterilization in the utilization of animals, one may also appreciate the
subtle protest Judaism articulates against the mechanical exploitation of
animals. The prohibition on sterilization of animals and humans underscores
further the special regard in Judaism to the capacity to generate life.
According to Sefer Ha’hinnukh, castration articulates a nihilistic attitude
towards life. Contemporary scholarship on Judaism and human rights also
interpret God’s admonition “Choose life!” as a call for hope and engagement in
worldly life, not as a strict refusal to recognize situations in which loss of
life is the more dignified and just course of action.
In regard to shedding blood, Barilan writes,
Ironically, the first prohibition on bloodshed is
articulated in terms of the death penalty. “Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man
shall his blood be shed, for in the Image of God made he man.”
The Torah does not tell us directly, “do not kill” the way
God proscribed eating from the tree of knowledge. From the story on Cain and
Abel we learn that this knowledge is self-evident; every person must recognize
it naturally.
Many Muslims, apparently do not. There is ample evidence of the
Muslim thirst for bloodshed.
As Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook documented in their
aforementioned op-ed, “Palestinian society actively promotes the religious
belief that their deity craves their deaths. Note the words of a popular music
video directed at children, broadcast hundreds of times on PA TV, which depicts
the earth thirsting for the blood of children: ‘How sweet is the fragrance of
the shahids, how sweet is the scent of the earth, its thirst quenched by the
gush of blood, flowing from the youthful body.’”
Life is so important to Jews that we are allowed to break
just about any religious commandment in order to save the life of a human
being. Look at that last sentence carefully. There is rabbinical
consensus that we are commanded to breach Torah laws not only in order to
save Jewish lives, but in order to
save the life of any human being in
peril.
In Jewish law, human life comes first. We understand how
important a man’s life is—any man’s life—by the early mention of the concept in
Scripture:
“And God created man in His image, in the image of God He
created him.” (Genesis 1:27)
Judaism is life-affirming. Islam, on the other hand, cares
little for life, and instead embraces death with a whole heart. More from
Marcus and Crook:
PA ideology rejects the value of ‘life’ that other societies
hold supreme. As expressed by a senior historian, Professor Issam Sissalem, in
a lecture on PA TV: “We are not afraid to die, and do not love life.”
This attitude was echoed by Nidal Malik Hasan in wrapping up
a presentation he created for his fellow doctors, two years before he killed
thirteen and wounded 29 at Fort Hood: “We love death more than you love life!”
According to the National
Post, the sentence originates with “a 7th-century Muslim commander who
threatened his enemies with the prospect of ‘an army of men that love death as
you love life.’”
The Post then
references a 2004 interview with Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah. Professor
Richard Landes quotes the same interview in Lessons
from Kafr Qana:
“We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are the
most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we shall take away from
them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death.”
Landes, describing Muslim awareness of their own obsession
with death, writes:
“Why do expressions of tolerance, moderation, rationalism,
compromise, and negotiation horrify us [Muslims], but [when we hear] fervent
cries for vengeance, we all dance the war dance?… Why do other people love
life, while we love death and violence, slaughter and suicide, and [even] call
it heroism and martyrdom?”
Hatred towards death and love of the world is the outcome of
an ignorant person's mind, who thinks that the happiness of this world is his
prosperity and good fortune. The world beset with numerous troubles and
anxieties is about to end in misery and does not enjoy eternity, perpetuity and
sincerity. A poet has referred to this in the following words - “Do not give
your heart to this world, for its example is of an unfaithful bride who has never
loved you, even for a night.”
Unknown also writes:
[Hazrat Qasim], the son of [Imam Hasan Al-Mujtaba], when
asked concerning death at Karbala, answered: “death to me is sweeter than
honey.”
He continues (emphasis added):
Usually, most of the people are alarmed and fearful upon hearing the word
`death', and to them, death appears dreadful and terrifying, whereas, according
to the Islamic ideology, this terminology or this subject has a different
appearance and can be perceived in a different way. Basically it can be said
that those who fear death, consider it to be a negative entity.
According to this insight, death is an end of life and a
moment of everlasting separation of man with his life. They believe that with
death, the compounded substances of the body suffer a breakdown and return to
nature and man too, is nothing except this very broken-down body. Hence, with
death, everything ends with no hope remaining!
Indeed, with this view and insight, death is darker and more
dreadful than every other thing and perhaps, no calamity, pain, sorrow and
tragedy can be greater and more painful than the tragedy of death, because
death would mean the burial of all the desires, hopes, longings and in short,
the termination of all things for man - that man who loved life and eternity
very dearly.
Anyway, Islam does
not possess such a dark and fear-instilling view of death because according to
the Islamic view, death is a positive entity.
The idea of death as a “positive entity” is informative, here--perhaps more than anything else. Jews and incalculable numbers of Muslims stand in diametric opposition to each other when it comes to our most essential and sacred beliefs.
But it is more than that, of course. It’s more than our differing views on life and death, but the gruesomeness of the Muslim culture of death, the horrifying bloodlust that accompanies those beliefs; the nature of the killings; and the lack of even the tiniest drop of the milk of human compassion when choosing their victims.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
When partisans attempt to justify the actions of those they support, they almost invariably need to exaggerate the support of their political opponents of abhorrent positions.
Yes, there are neo-Nazis in the Ukraine (and around the world,) but people who support Russia vastly exaggerate their importance. Yes, there is child sexual abuse in the US (and around the world), but the far-Right exaggerate it in order to achieve their own political goals. In both cases, virtually no one actually supports neo-Nazis or sexual abuse of children; the vast majority of people on all sides of the political spectrum abhor both.
However, Palestinians really support murdering Jews.
Not just Jewish "settlers," not just IDF soldiers - Jewish civilians.
Not just a tiny minority of Palestinians, but the vast majority.
Over the years, most public opinion polls of Palestinians ask, in the abstract, whether they support "armed struggle," the euphemism for terror attacks. The support levels for that abstract question always hovers around 50%. That is really bad. But it doesn't reflect the real opinions that Palestinians have towards terror.
Because over the years, when they have been asked about specific attacks that targeted Jews, their level of support doesn't diminish - it almost invariably skyrockets.
In 2009, 71% of Palestinians said naming a soccer championship after the suicide bomber who murdered 30 Israelis at the Passover seder in the Park Hotel was a "good thing."
In 2015, 67% supported stabbing attacks against Jews during the "knife intifada."
Last year, 72% of Palestinians believed that the thousands of Gaza rockets fired towards Israeli communities were "in defense of Jerusalem" and 68% said they would support launching rockets at Jewish communities in Israel in retaliation if residents of Sheikh Jarrah were evicted.
Not in defense. The vast majority support targeting random Jews in revenge.
The polls about the current wave of attacks against Jews within the Green Line have not been released yet, but the public support for the attacks has been loud and strong, with pro-terror rallies in Jenin and elsewhere. You cannot find a single Palestinian op-ed that condemns, or even mildly criticizes, any of the recent attacks. Empathy towards Jewish victims of terror is literally nonexistent in Palestinian media.
Have you ever seen a Palestinian rally against murdering Jews?
Just today, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas re-affirmed that payments to terrorists and their families are a top priority, saying, "What we are doing is our duty towards the orphans of martyrs and the prisoners and their families, who need all our help."
There is no exaggeration necessary. Palestinians really do enthusiastically and overwhelmingly support the murder of Jewish civilians. It is a consistent pattern over 20 years of polling.
That is the fundamental fact that the media refuses to report. They will say that "both sides" have "extremists." They will find an Israeli Jew who supports Baruch Goldstein and pretend that he represents a large constituency. They will report on the few hotheads who really do attack Palestinian farmers and give the impression that they are what most "settlers" are like.
The media invariably exaggerate Israeli extremists - and minimize the Palestinian mainstream support of murdering Jews.
There is no comparison, and pretending that there is a parity there is itself justification for Palestinian depravity.
Almost alone among world conflicts, the vast majority of Palestinians really do actively support the most heinous crimes. And while no one will justify child sex abuse or neo-Nazis, there are plenty of people who openly justify the Palestinian bloodlust of murdering Jews.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Today is International Women's Day. As usual, "pro-Palestinian" groups are using it as a means for anti-Israel propaganda.
Yet not one is calling for more women's rights under Palestinian rule.
As we've mentioned before, the Palestinian Authority cynically uses women's rights as a weapon against Israel but really doesn't care about rights for its own women.
It joined the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) along with over a dozen other international agreements in 2014 without reservation. Yet it never actually put any of CEDAW's provisions into law.
Not only that, the PA itself has rejected the convention as violating Islamic law.
Not one "liberal" anti-Israel group said a word.
The editor of a major Palestinian newspaper admitted that there was no intent for the Palestinian government to actually take these international agreements seriously. The only reason that it joined these conventions was to pretend to be a "state" so the International Criminal Court can bring a case against Israel: "The government cannot implement CEDAW in its entirety in light of the existence of a societal system, and that the signing of the agreement is political and was not intended to undermine the Sharia, and had it not been for the signing of CEDAW and many other agreements, the International Criminal Court would not have accepted us."
The actual laws under the Palestinian Authority and under the Gaza government undermine women's rights. Here are only some examples from a 2018 UN report that, as far as I can tell, was completely ignored by these hypocritical "pro-Palestinian" groups who pretend to care about Palestinian rights.
35% of Palestinian men say that men who kill their female relatives for "honor" reasons should not go to jail.
47% of Palestinian men say that female relatives who "act or dress" in ways that they disapprove deserve to be punished.
17% of Palestinian men admitted to have engaged in physical violence against their female partners, 21% of women say they have been hit by their husbands.
80% of Palestinian men say "A man should have the final word about decisions in the home."
34% of them say "There are times when a woman deserves to be beaten."
63% of men say "A woman should tolerate violence to keep the family together."
Again, these "pro-Palestinian" NGOs and media outlets who happily use women's rights as a club to beat Israel don't have a word to say about Palestinian misogyny that affect Palestinian women every day.
When these groups claim that Israel is the main oppressor of Palestinian women, they are actively hurting Palestinian women by not allowing a real conversation about their rights to even take place.
Al-Omah, an Egypt-based pan-Muslim news site, has a most revealing op-ed about the Israel/UAE accord that shows how systemic Arab antisemitism is.
The article, by Dr. Abdul Latif, is so dripping with anger at the UAE for partnering with Jews that it doesn't even mention the UAE by name.
It is entitled, "Loyalty to the Jews is the epitome of hypocrisy." In this case, the word "hypocrisy" is not a mere value judgment but a specific Quranic term describing someone who appears on the outside to be a Muslim but who is actively working to destroy the Muslim world from the inside.
Latif employs two well-known Quranic verses:
Quran 5:51:
O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.
Quran 4:145:
Indeed, the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire - and never will you find for them a helper.
Dr. Latif is saying that UAE leaders who cooperate with Jews will go to the worst depths of Hell, beyond the spaces reserved for mere unbelievers.
Remarkably, Latif doesn't even pretend to care about Palestinians in his criticism of the Emiratis, which is the usual fig-leaf used by Arab critics of the deal. His enmity is based purely on old fashioned Muslim Jew-hatred. Cooperating with Jews on any level is a major sin and those who do it are condemned to hellfire.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Once again, Palestinians are behaving irrationally.
Once again, no one knows what to make of it.
And once again, once you apply the honor/shame construct, it all makes perfect sense.
Abbas didn't want to see the terror attack on the Israeli policemen. But he is bound by the social rules of his society, and once the events were set in motion, he has no choice but to act like a typical Arab leader who is too cowardly to face down the insane shame culture.
Israel closing down the Temple Mount for two days was a source of a huge amount of shame. It showed that Jews ultimately control the area, and the myth that the Waqf controls it was shown to be a lie. The idea that Jews control the purported third holiest site in Islam is a source of deep shame that has been buried for years by the fantasy of Waqf control.
Once the shame started, it cannot be erased.
The fact that Israel re-opened the area in less than 48 hours is irrelevant; the metal detectors - or cameras or extra guards or wands or anything - just add to the shame of reminding the Arabs of who is the boss of the Temple Mount in the sense of who ultimately provides security. All else is irrelevant.
Once we have entered the honor./shame universe, actual facts or logic are meaningless - all that matters are symbols. And symbols don't get bigger than pretending to "defend Al Aqsa." (Which is what the stabber in Petah Tikva shouted this morning, as he stabbed an Arab mistaking him for a Jew.)
Abbas cannot act in a way that diminishes his honor, so he needs to double down on demanding honor and refusing shame. He must use all the weapons in his arsenal to "win". Because the other aspect of honor/shame societies is the zero-sum game, and if Israel gets anything out of this episode that it didn't have before- like normal security that any society would demand - Abbas thinks he loses. Winning the zero-sum game becomes more important than human lives. Abbas therefore ups the ante and says he will end security cooperation - the biggest weapon in his arsenal. He feels he has to go for the big guns because if he loses, he is finished - his shame will end him as a leader.
So now a very reasonable Israeli expectation for basic security becomes a life-or-death pissing match to the Palestinian leadership. They cannot back down. If Israel would offer to compromise by painting a stick figure of a camera on all entrances to the Mount the pushback would be exactly the same. Actual facts are of no interest.
Meanwhile, the honor/shame dynamic is played out with more terror attacks. Hamas' leader called the father of the murderer of the father and his children in Halamish explicitly in terms of honor, saying that "Your son brought pride to the nation." Abbas cannot be seen as less interested in national pride than Hamas, to do so would be politically costly, although he cannot explicitly praise the attack either or risk alienating his Western friends. So he stays quiet. But he will pay the salary of the murderer for the rest of his life.
As often happens, the logical West is confronted with the irrational Middle East. Usually the West blinks before dealing with these seemingly crazy people who would happily start a war over metal detectors. Because crazy people are scary and unpredictable and passionate, while normal people just want to live their lives without that drama.
The interesting part of this saga is how the Western world reacts. Israel's requirement for security in the face of a proven threat reflects what every other nation would do. The PA's reaction is completely bonkers by any normal yardstick. If the world wasn't so reflexively "pro-Palestinian" it wouldn't coddle the crazy demands, but the Palestinians have made an art form of these kinds of crazy demands that end up sounding reasonable over the years of constant repetition.
This time might be a little too crazy for, say, Western Europe at least. Palestinians have been losing their support behind the scenes, especially in Arab countries but cracks are appearing in the West as well. Their UN victories are getting narrower, and European parties are pushing back more against the UNHRC bias. They believe in the two state solution but they are not quite as certain that the 1967 lines are so sacred. Palestinian intransigence is being seen more and more as an obstacle to peace.
This episode may hurt the Palestinians in the long run much more than a symbolic victory would gain them. And this can be accelerated if the West uses the honor/shame dynamic to shame the Palestinians into acting like responsible adults.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Her arguments are really nutty, but Sarsour knows how to get publicity.
So let's use her own methodology to ask whether it is possible for Linda Sarsour, or anyone else, to be a feminist while supporting Palestinian Arabs.
According to the UN, there are no specific laws or provisions in the Palestinian Authority or under Hamas rule that protect women against domestic violence and sexual violence.
If women are not able to provide/show evidence of “force”, “threats” and/or “deception” to support rape claims, they risk being criminalized for “adultery.”
The Palestinian Authority has adopted the Jordanian 1960 "rape marriage" law that says that a rapist will not be prosecuted if he marries his victim. These laws often result in rape victims being coerced by family or courts to marry their rapists.
While rape is illegal, the woman is often the one who must defend herself since the rape laws only apply “provided that such a woman is not a prostitute and is not known for her immoral character.”
Murderers who claim to have murdered women in order to ‘maintain family honor’ can be exempted from judicial sanction.
Marital rape is not against the law.
This study showed that Palestinian women only went public about being abused sexually only where the abuse was extremely traumatic, publicly apparent, and the victim absolved of blame. 10% of the women who went public were murdered. Usually the family would respond with measures like hymen reconstruction, marriage to the rapist, and abortion to “nullify” sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse of women and children are rampant but swept under the rug. 37% of married Palestinian women were exposed to some form of violence by their husbands in the previous year alone, nearly 12% exposed to sexual violence in the previous year. 65% of those who were exposed to violence stayed quiet about it because of cultural mores.
20% of Palestinian women are married before they are 18, almost always to older men, which is a human rights violation. Because of child marriages, 10% of all Palestinian women between 15-19 give birth in any year.
The highest rates of violence against women are found where the families tend to be more religious, in Gaza and Hebron.
The Palestinian Basic Law, by saying that ‘the principles of Islamic Shari’a shall be a principal source of legislation’, can be interpreted in a manner which undermines the rights of women according to a UN study.
I'm not even going into Shari'a law here, which is far worse than Palestinian law for women. (Linda Sarsour has publicly defended Shari'a law, which calls into question her own qualifications to be called a feminist.)
Liberal "Pro-Palestinian" activists rarely if ever mention any of the issues listed here. The media is also complicit in its silence on these topics. Yet Palestinians know all about them, and it is likely that Sarsour is quite aware of them and chooses to remain silent, because that would blunt her anti-Israel message.
Her hate for Israel is more important to her than the rights of Palestinian women.
Sarsour says "You either stand up for the rights of all women, including Palestinians, or none. There’s just no way around it." Which means that Sarsour is not a feminist by her own definition because she does not stand up for the rights of Palestinian women who are suffering so badly under a patriarchal, Islamic-based system of laws and customs. In fact, her anti-Israel stance is her way to divert attention from the very real discrimination and abuse that Palestinian women suffer.
Sarsour, with her silence, is actually enabling the daily abuse of Palestinian women from the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the misogynist Palestinian society that she idealizes for the cameras.
Linda Sarsour, and all so-called "feminists" who use their platform as a means to bash Israel, are in fact anti-feminist and tacitly support discrimination against and abuse of Palestinian women that happen every day.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
Weekend long read
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1) The INSS reports on a ‘Russian Influence Campaign Against Israel’.
“Since the October 7th massacre, Russia has stepped up its semi-covert
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Weekend long read
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1) The INSS reports on a ‘Russian Influence Campaign Against Israel’.
“Since the October 7th massacre, Russia has stepped up its semi-covert
disinformati...
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Monday, December 05, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
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