The story about the meeting between Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen with his Libyan counterpart Najla Mangoush, and the angry reactions from Libya, have dominated the news cycle.
Looking at Libyan newspapers, people are falling over themselves to distance themselves from any possibility that they support talking to Israelis.
Besides the opposition political parties who are using this episode as an opportunity to slam the government, we have the Women and Children Affairs Committee in the Libyan House of Representatives which felt obligated to announce that the meeting "does not represent the national and national constants of Libyan women towards the Palestinian cause," adding that "this meeting is high treason and a moral crime."
Meanwhile Libyans burned photos of Cohen and Mangoush.
Just another day of unbridled hate that is considered normal in the Middle East.
I don't know whether Eli Cohen's explanation that the news of the meeting was about to be leaked is true. And almost certainly Cohen did not handle this as professionally as he should have. But the US reaction to the announcement is almost as insane as the Libyan reactions.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly furious with Jerusalem for revealing last week’s meeting between the foreign ministers of Israel and Libya.
US officials told Israel that the episode will deter other countries from embarking on a normalization process with Israel, multiple Hebrew media outlets reported Monday.
A US official also said it “killed” the conversation channel with Libya about recognizing Israel.
Something is not adding up here.
Everyone is talking about Saudi normalization with Israel, quite publicly, including top US officials. Everyone knows there have been secret talks between Saudi and Israeli officials. Somehow, those discussions and the angry response from Israel haters is not deterring the discussions. Somehow, Saudi conciliatory moves - like opening up its airspace to Israeli aircraft - is not deterring other countries from considering peace with Israel.
But for the subject to be broached for Libya, this is the end of the world?
The reason is simple. Over the past few years, the Saudi leadership started acting like adults, and the Libyans are still stuck in their old paradigm.
The US had a golden opportunity here. Instead of castigating Israel's Foreign Ministry, it could have told Libya and the rest of the Arab world, "Israel exists. Talking with a regional superpower about common interests is normal behavior for any state leaders who care about their own people's welfare. It is literally the job of top diplomats to talk to leaders of other countries, even and sometimes especially enemies. Acting as if this is a major crime is infantile. There are real problems in the world, and having a conversation with an Israeli official is not in the top 5,000. Stop acting like babies."
The reason that countries like Libya have managed to remain steeped in their childishness concerning Israel is because the West lets them. Antisemitism is a given as part of the Arab world and not something that must be combatted - it is a cultural right, you see. Crazed hate is expected behavior for Arabs so they are never chided for reinforcing that attitude.
Instead of demanding that Libya's top politicians act like leaders who have the best interests of their people in mind, the US rewards their mad dash to outdo themselves as to how much they publicly hate Israel.
Instead of getting angry at the Arabs who are proud of their hate, the US is angry at Israel for not bending over backwards to accommodate their obsessive hate of Jews and Israelis.
And while Israel needs to be sensitive to cultural mores when trying to establish relations - including, sadly, antisemitism - it shouldn't have to apologize for treating other countries as if they aren't filled with childish, Jew hating idiots.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The US negotiations with Saudi Arabia over recognizing Israel looks more and more like using Israel as a pawn for a US-Saudi deal than anything that will have huge benefits for Israel.
The Saudis want from Washington a NATO-style defense pact and a civilian nuclear program. The Saudis want from Israel access to intelligence (which they probably already have indirectly), access to Israeli technology and investment opportunities there.
The US would get more leverage over the Saudis vis a vis their growing relationship with China, and for them not to abandon the US dollar as their currency. The US would prefer the Saudis be in their orbit than with BRICS (although normalization with Israel has not stopped the UAE from joining BRICS.) The Saudis would also give the US more military options in case of a war with Iran erupting.
While Israel would reap some benefits from normalization with Saudi Arabia, I don't think it adds up to much.
* There is already a cold peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and it is unlikely to get that much warmer with an agreement. The Saudis are not and are unlikely to become a military enemy of Israel.
* Israel can already sell things to the Saudis via the UAE if they want the products, with the exception of weapons and similar items. I'm sure that this trade already started a while ago.
* Saudi Arabia may be modernizing but it is still one of the most repressive, anti-human rights regimes on Earth. Anything bad they do will be used as ammunition against Israel.
* It isn't as if the Saudis would start suddenly voting against anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and dragging the rest of the Arab world with them.
* Only a small percentage of Saudis would visit Israel, and that would almost all be to Al Aqsa.
* Speaking of, the Saudis almost certainly want influence over the Temple Mount to add to their control of the top two Sunni Islamic holy sites. This could adversely affect Israel's relations with Jordan.
* If Iran started a war in the region that threatened the Saudis, Israel would help them out regardless. Covertly, but certainly.
* Joint projects and investments would be nice, but they would benefit the Saudis more than the Israelis.
The Abraham Accords was a game-changer. It broke the united Arab front against Israel. It gave Israel an economic and political foothold in the Gulf, bolstered by Bahrain.
What more would a Saudi deal give to Israel? I don't see huge advantages for Israel, especially when the US is dangling the Saudis as a means to restrict Israeli actions.
Not that there are no advantages t Israel at all - of course there are. It would be very nice if the Israeli and Saudi air force could cooperate and practice together, and engage in war games against an Iranian threat. Normalization would solidify the idea that there is no going back in the Arab world to the days when Israel was a pariah. Open trade would benefit both parties. But these are nice-to-haves, not must-haves.
The US is taking it for granted that the Israelis are salivating over a deal. President Herzog said to Congress that Israel prays for such a deal. But I simply don't see what Israel would get from it that they aren't getting now, or wouldn't get in case of an emergency.
Both the Saudis and the Americans are negotiating with the idea that Israel needs no prodding to join any deal. Israel needs to signal that it expects some additional concrete benefits, from both Washington and Riyadh, to join in. Because as of now, it looks like the Americans and Saudis would gain more from such a deal than Israel would.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Lebanon’s National Security Ministry confiscated Israeli goods from store shelves around the country, its National Security Ministry announced, according to Lebanese media reports on Tuesday.
It is unknown how the Israeli goods ended up in commercial centers in Lebanon, as the two countries do not have diplomatic relations and do not engage in trade.
According to the reports, the Lebanese ministry stated that “relevant parties had been summoned for questioning.”
According to Ynet, among the Israeli goods confiscated in Lebanon were kitchen towels from the Netanya-based home goods company, Golf & Co. as well as sealing strips from PROMAX.
This doesn't come close to capturing the absurdity of Lebanon's zealousness at enforcing Article 285 of the Lebanese penal code which prohibits trade with an enemy state.
Lebanese State Security released this video dramatizing how their strangely masked employees received the information of the dangerous goods, then enter a vehicle while heavily armed, where they race down the streets in order to confiscate the contraband that is, shudder, "MADE IN ISRAEL."
It is a clown show, yet they are taking this all so seriously.
The entire country is going to hell, but at least Lebanese citizens can sleep at night knowing that their security forces are protecting them from Zionist kitchen towels.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Saudi Arabia’s appointment of its first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, who will also serve as consul general to Jerusalem, was not coordinated with Israel, and Israeli diplomatic figures are struggling to gauge its implications for the efforts to normalize relations with the kingdom.
Senior Israeli officials said Sunday that Riyadh’s weekend announcement that the Saudi Ambassador to Jordan, Nayef bin Bandar Al-Sudairi, will henceforth also serve as the kingdom’s nonresident ambassador to the Palestinian Authority and consul general in Jerusalem, created facts on the ground for Israel and was not preceded by a dialogue between the countries on the issue.
The only Israeli official to comment Sunday on the Saudi announcement was Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who stated in an interview with Radio 103FM that Israel “will not allow the opening of any kind of diplomatic mission.”
His remark is based on Israel’s official policy for decades of not permitting the opening of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, with the exception of those that operated in the city before 1948 in the western part and before 1967 in East Jerusalem. Since Saudi Arabia is not planning at this stage to establish a new diplomatic mission in the city, the appointment does not violate Israeli policy.
So if Saudi Arabia had no consulate before 1948 in Jerusalem, Israel wouldn't allow one now.
However, al-Sudari then tweeted a photo of a Saudi consulate in Jerusalem from 1947! The signs indeed say "Saudi Arabian Consulate of Palestine."
Under the guidance of His Majesty the late King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman in 1947, Uncle Abdulaziz bin Ahmed Al-Sudairy sponsored the opening of the Saudi Consulate General in Jerusalem (Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood).
Indeed, there was a Saudi consulate in Jerusalem, since about 1940. Here is a Palestine Post article that mentions it and the consul general's name in January 1945.
They aren't asking for a consulate at this point, but if Israel's official policy listed above is accurate, then things might get interesting - and not just vis a vis the Saudis, but also the Biden administration as well that wants to open up a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem as well. Even if Israel allows the Saudis to do this in some fashion as part of the deal for normalization, it would have a hard time saying "no" to the US.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
From reading the media, the impression one gets is that while Arab governments are considering the benefits of closer relations with Israel, the populations are completely against it.
It turns out that this is not exactly true.
The 2023 Arab Youth Survey mentions that nearly 17% of Gulf citizens and 11% of North African youth now see Israel as a strong ally or somewhat of an ally of their country, and notes that "these modest approval ratings would have been unthinkable several years ago."
The most surprising results come from when Arab youth were asked how strongly they support their government's normalizing relations with Israel.
Among the Abraham Accords countries, there was strong support from the UAE youth, with 75% supporting normalization. For Morocco it was 50%, while it was only 30% in Bahrain and a mere 3% in Sudan.
More interesting were the results from other Arab countries.
An incredible 73% of Egyptian youth support normalization with Israel, which is a complete surprise for anyone who monitors Egyptian media that is virtually unanimous in opposing Israel.
47% of South Sudan youth want to see normalization, along with 39% of youth in Oman.
Even more astonishing is the attitudes of youth in other Arab countries.
Fully 31% of Algerian youth support normalization, at a time when its media is among the most antisemitic - and hugely against Morocco's relations with Israel.
Also surprising is that 19% of Syrian youth want to see normalization with Israel - and in Yemen, 19% strongly support such normalization.
These are numbers that simply would be inconceivable in years past.
Yet in Jordan, which is benefitting from ties to Israel in deals to provide the kingdom with much-needed water and natural gas, only 6% of youth want to see normalization with Israel.
And 100% of Palestinian youth never want to see normalized relations with Israel.
The survey includes this eye-opening graphic:
With the notable exception of Egypt, the countries that are the most antisemitic tend to also be the countries whose youth most reject ties with Israel.
The media has once again dropped the ball on reporting from the Arab world. There are real consequences and policy decisions that can be made based on these results, but the people whose jobs are to analyze these sorts of trends are clueless and instead parrot what "everyone knows."
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
RFK Jr. got into hot water on July 15, when the New
York Post aired footage of a press event during which he said (emphasis
added):
“COVID-19. There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19
attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people
who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
“We don’t know
whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there
that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy hedged . . .
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says COVID was ethnically targeted to spare Jews The Democratic presidential candidate "claims without proof": COVID-19 is a genetically engineered bioweapon which is “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi (European) Jews & Chinese https://t.co/kIyK2t7mRi
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims coronavirus was an "ethnically targeted" bioweapon designed to be more deadly for caucasians and blacks — and spare Jews and Chinese https://t.co/xfAdovs0sYpic.twitter.com/og4xHdKs7x
When called on the carpet for these antisemitic, racist,
conspiracy theorist comments, RFK Jr. doubled down, tweeting:
“The U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically
targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that
COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races. The furincleave docking site is most compatible with blacks and Caucasians and
least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews. In that
sense, it serves as a kind of proof of
concept for ethnically targeted
bioweapons.”
The @nypost story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews. I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021…
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 15, 2023
Except that none of this is true. Jews had a higher mortality rate from COVID-19 compared to other ethnic groups in, for example, the UK. From the JPost
(emphasis added):
Despite Kennedy’s claims that Ashkenazi Jews had a higher
immunity to COVID-19, in June of 2020, the Office for National Statistics
released data revealing Jews had a
higher mortality rate from COVID-19 in the United Kingdom compared to other
ethnic groups. At the peak of the
pandemic, in April 2020, Jewish mortality from COVID-19 was twice that of
non-Jews.
But perhaps we can’t altogether blame RFK Jr.’s hateful
views about Jews, since it’s kind of a family legacy going all the way back to
Grandpa Joseph P. Kennedy, a known antisemite. From Joseph Kennedy and the Jews
(emphasis added):
Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S.
Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted
American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in
their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud
anti-Catholicism.
"I'm glad you are smart enough not to take my [views]
personally," she wrote. Astor
pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends - G.K. Chesterton
among them - with whom she shared, if nothing else, a profound hatred for the
Jewish race. Joe Kennedy, in turn, had always detested Jews generally,
although he claimed several as friends individually. Indeed, Kennedy seems to
have tolerated the occasional Jew in the same way Astor tolerated the
occasional Catholic.
The above article, by the way, is prefaced with a note:
“Note: Due to a number of anti-Semitic comments that have been posted, comments
have been disabled for this article.”
Here is more from the same source in which Hitler is viewed as a solution to the Jewish question, and Communism, too (emphasis added):
As fiercely anti-Communist as they were
anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution
to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase). No member of
the so-called "Cliveden Set" (the informal cabal of appeasers who met
frequently at Nancy Astor's palatial home) seemed much concerned with the
dilemma faced by Jews under the Reich. Astor
wrote Kennedy that Hitler would have to do more than just "give a rough
time" to "the killers of Christ" before she'd be in favor of
launching "Armageddon to save them. The wheel of history swings
round as the Lord would have it. Who are we to stand in the way of the
future?" Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the
United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and
Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to
the fuse of the world."
During May of 1938, Kennedy engaged in extensive discussions
with the new German Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Herbert von
Dirksen. In the midst of these conversations (held without approval from the
U.S. State Department), Kennedy advised
von Dirksen that President Roosevelt was the victim of "Jewish
influence" and was poorly informed as to the philosophy, ambitions and
ideals of Hitler's regime. (The Nazi ambassador subsequently told his bosses
that Kennedy was "Germany's best friend" in London.)
Columnists back in the states condemned Kennedy's
fraternizing. Kennedy later claimed that
75% of the attacks made on him during his Ambassadorship emanated from "a
number of Jewish publishers and writers. ... Some of them in their zeal did not
hesitate to resort to slander and falsehood to achieve their aims." He
told his eldest son, Joe Jr., that he disliked having to put up with
"Jewish columnists" who criticized him with no good reason.
RFK Jr. isn’t the only descendant of Joe Kennedy to become an ardent antisemite. Joe Jr. was apparently a chip off the old block. He thought Hitler was just the bee's knees (emphasis added):
Like his father, Joe
Jr. admired Adolf Hitler. Young Joe had come away impressed by Nazi
rhetoric after traveling in Germany as a student in 1934. Writing at the time, Joe applauded Hitler's insight in realizing the
German people's "need of a common enemy, someone of whom to make the goat.
Someone, by whose riddance the Germans would feel they had cast out the cause
of their predicament. It was excellent psychology, and it was too bad that it
had to be done to the Jews. The dislike of the Jews, however, was well-founded.
They were at the heads of all big business, in law etc. It is all to their
credit for them to get so far, but their
methods had been quite unscrupulous ... the lawyers and prominent judges were Jews, and if you had a case
against a Jew, you were nearly always sure to lose it. ... As far as the
brutality is concerned, it must have been necessary to use some ...."
. . . Like his friend Charles Coughlin (an anti-Semitic
broadcaster and Roman Catholic priest), Kennedy
always remained convinced of what he believed to be the Jews' corrupt,
malignant, and profound influence in American culture and politics. "The
Democratic [party] policy of the United States is a Jewish production,"
Kennedy told a British reporter near the end of 1939, adding confidently that Roosevelt
would "fall" in 1940.
On July 17, 1949, the JTA released a report that states in
part (emphasis added):
Anti-Semitic views claimed to have been expressed by Joseph
P. Kennedy — during the time when he was U.S. Ambassador in London — in his
conversations with the German Ambassador there in 1938, were revealed here
today in captured German diplomatic documents made public by the State
Department.
The documents, which claim that Kennedy approved of the Nazi
treatment of Jews in Germany, were discovered in the top secret archives of the
German Foreign Ministry. One of them is a letter from the then German
Ambassador to Great Britain, Dr. Herbert von Dirksen, to Baron Ernst von
Weizsaecker, State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry who was recently
convicted on war crimes charges. In this report, von Dirksen wrote of Kennedy
as follows:
“The Ambassador then touched upon the Jewish question and
stated that it was naturally of great importance to German-American relations.
In this connection it was not so much
the fact that we wanted to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but
rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied the purpose. He himself
understood our Jewish policy completely; he was from Boston and there, in one
golf club, and in other clubs, no Jews had been admitted in the past 50 years.
In the United States, therefore, such pronounced attitudes were quite common,
but people avoided making so much outward fuss about it.
In 1938 Joseph
Kennedy had a solution to “the Jewish problem.” The New York Times reported
that he had worked out with prime minister Chamberlain a plan to ship all
German Jews to Africa and other places in the Western Hemisphere under the
joint administration of Britain and the United States. That was news to the
State Department, which Kennedy had not consulted, and to President Roosevelt
for whom Kennedy had become an embarrassing loose cannon.
You might be tempted to say—considering the legacy of antisemitism that RFK Jr. inherited from Grandpa Joe—that all the Kennedys suffer from the same malady. Except that there is reason to believe that this is not so. For one thing, JFK's daughter Caroline, married a Jew. And in Bobby Kennedy’s Admiration for Israel, we learn that while RFK Jr.’s father Bobby at first tried not to choose sides in his coverage for the Boston Post of events leading up to Israel’s declaration of statehood. Then he changed his mind, and realized that Israel was in the right (emphasis added):
[In] “British Hatred by Both Sides,” RFK labored mightily to
present the arguments of both Arabs and Jews. “There are such well-founded
arguments on either side,” Kennedy wrote, “that each side grows more and more
bitter toward the other. Confidence in
their right increases in proportion to the hatred and mistrust for the other
side not acknowledging it.”
Bobby Kennedy, father of RFK Jr., really seemed to get it. How brave the Jewish people were in fighting to create a Jewish state in Palestine, after thousands of years in exile. From the same source (emphasis added):
In the subsequent three articles, however, RFK and his
Boston Post editors no longer attempted to convey an objective view of the
competing claims of Jews and Arabs. As the headline on his June 4th article
indicates, RFK chose a side: “Jews Have a Fine Fighting Force—Make Up for Lack
of Arms With Undying Spirit, Unparalleled Courage—Impress the World.” The
article gets directly to the point: “The
Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this
national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is
already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary
ingredients of dignity and self-respect.” Many similar articles appeared in
the American press of the day. The
surprising thing about these Boston Post articles was not their pro-Zionist
sentiments, but the fact that they had been written by Joseph P. Kennedy’s son.
After RFK Jr.'s latest remarks, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave him a talking to from
the podium. It was a pretty good speech. But it's hard to take her seriously, considering she's on the wrong side of many issues that pose a danger to Israeli Jews.
RFK Jr.’s response to Wasserman Schultz carried more
than a grain of truth, for which we must give him credit:
I won’t be lectured to about antisemitism from Democratic lawmakers like Wasserman Schultz @RepDWStweets who voted to give Iran $150b while that regime promises a new Holocaust against the Jews. #Kennedy24
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 22, 2023
Joseph P. Kennedy's grandson RFK Jr., looks to be a serious contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination. As such, it is important to talk about his problem with Jews
and Asians and to keep talking about it long and loud. Everyone should be well aware of
the character of the candidate they choose for president. And that includes our current Democratic president.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Palestinian news site Amad as well as other sites have an opinion piece by Jordanian Ibrahim Abu Atila that asks Arabs to stop being coy and admit that their enemy is Jews, not "Zionists."
Those of us who speak simply and who do not know theorizing and embellishment of speech and those who are not affected by what the media promotes say that those who are hostile to us are the Jews.. while those who assume in themselves culture and openness to the world say that those who are hostile to us are the Zionists... Both of these statements are true...
He then goes on to say that while Israel was founded by secular Zionists, now it is run by "Talmudists." And now the judicial reform debate in Israel is between the seculars and the "Talmudists."
And now, as we are on the verge of approving those laws that diminish the role of the judiciary and increase the control of religious Jews over the occupation entity, a major conflict has begun between the two currents.
Although the existence of the two currents depends on the Talmudic approach, and that both of them are considered a real enemy for us, our enemy is the Zionist in both its religious and secular forms. It is necessary and necessary for us to return to the conviction of the simple and elderly among us that the Jews are our enemies, no matter how hidden they are and whatever clothes they wear.
Then, somehow, he says that both sides are really Talmudists anyway.
Finally, he expresses his fervent wish for a civil war that will wipe out Israel and allow the Palestinians to take over.
We hope that the conflict will intensify and escalate openly so that we will reach advanced steps in it, leading them to a civil war that will help us get rid of both streams and liberate the entire Palestinian land from them....
This has been a popular theme, as the Palestinian and other Arab media have been closely following every Israeli news story that predicts doomsday is imminent. They just have to wait, they believe, and then allow the Jews to destroy themselves.
According to Jewish tradition, the major reason the Temples were destroyed was "sinat chinam," baseless hatred between Jews. It is saddening that we are seeing such baseless hatred today in Israel, and the judicial reform debate has been allowed by both sides to degenerate into an emotional fight between conservative and liberal, between religious and non-religious, and it is used as an excuse to widen fissures that have nothing or little to do with actual judicial reform.
Take away the rhetoric and absurd name calling, and thoughtful people on both sides have a lot they can agree on. But those voices are being drowned out.
I have my own opinions on the debate, but at this time judicial reform is not the debate anymore. Right now the enemies of Israel are the people who are eagerly widening the split between the two sides, and this is happening on both sides of the debate.
The way I see it, the two sides at this time are not the pro- and anti-judicial reform sides. The two sides are those who want to widen the split in Israeli society and those who want to narrow it: those who want to fuel sinat chinam and those who want to stop it.
The Israelis fueling the baseless hatred on either side of the debate are the allies of the Arab antisemites like Abu Atila who are cheering them on.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Egypt had been bombing civilian areas in Tel Aviv nearly continuously since Israel declared independence on May 14, and the total casualties of innocent Jews was much higher than I had realized. On May 18, Egyptian planes dropped bombs on a crowded Tel Aviv bus station, killing 42 people, including women and children.
These air raids all targeted civilians. They were the 1948 equivalent of Palestinian rocket attacks, with no military goal and only aimed at terrorizing Jews.
The National Library of Israel wrote in 2020 that an estimated 150 were killed in Egyptian air raids and shelling from the sea on Tel Aviv during the War of Independence.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Outrage mounted in Israel on Friday after Swedish police accepted a request to allow the burning of a Bible outside of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Saturday, just weeks after Quran burnings took place in the city.
Local police confirmed two weeks ago to Sweden’s national public broadcaster that it had received an application from an individual in his 30s to burn a Jewish and a Christian Bible outside Israel’s Embassy in Stockholm on July 15 as “a symbolic gathering for the sake of freedom of speech.”
It was not immediately clear if the person planned to burn a copy of the Bible or a Torah scroll.
The Quran burning earlier this month was done outside a mosque. But this one is being done outside the Israeli embassy.
In January, the man told Swedish media, "Burning holy books is somewhat disgusting, but I am angry and will do it to have a discussion." He also said that the Islamic Association in Stockholm's mosque urged him not to do it, saying it is against Islam.
Israel has laws that explicitly criminalize burning any holy book, including the Quran, and forbids the insulting of any religion. In its penal code, it says:
170. If a person destroys, damages or desecrates a place of worship or any
object which is held sacred by a group of persons, with the intention of
to reviling their religion, or in the knowledge that they are liable to deem
that act an insult to their religion, then he is liable to three years
imprisonment.
173. If a person does any of the following, then he is liable to one year
imprisonment:
(1) he publishes a publication that is liable crudely to offend the
religious faith or sentiment of others;
(2) he voices in a public place and in the hearing of another person
any word or sound that is liable crudely to offend the religious faith
or sentiment of others.
So why would someone who ostensibly wants to protest freedom of expression to insult religious groups choose to protest outside the embassy of a country that protects the rights of religious groups from such insults?
Because this has nothing to do with freedom of expression. As I've mentioned before, if he wants to do something symbolic, he could burn a symbolic Torah or Bible. These aren't acts to protect freedom of expression but to express hate.
In this case, "freedom of expression" is an excuse to perform an antisemitic act - and to the person who plans to burn the Scriptures, he does not distinguish between hating Jews and hating Israel.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Washington is urging the Lebanese government to pressure Hezbollah into removing an outpost erected in the occupied Shebaa Farms, Israeli media reported on 29 June.
Walla news outlet cited anonymous Israeli and US officials as saying that the outpost represents a “miscalculation on Hezbollah’s part, which does not take into account the potential Israeli response. Therefore, this incident has the potential for serious escalation.”
“Our goal is for the outpost not to be there. We prefer Hezbollah evacuate its people itself over us bombing them. We have made this clear to the US, and the Americans made it clear to the Lebanese,” the report cites an Israeli official as saying.
According to Walla, Hezbollah began erecting the first tent in April. The Israeli army reportedly did not realize this until a second tent had been set up.
Israel tried to handle the situation “under the radar in quiet talks” with UNIFIL for weeks.
Other Israeli media outlets say Tel Aviv set a deadline to remove the tents, and that it would deal with the resistance group “on its own,” sparking fears of a wider confrontation.
Beirut has acknowledged that the outpost is south of the UN-recognized Blue Line, separating Lebanese and Israeli territories.
Last week I wrote, "Israeli territory is being stolen by a terrorist group. It seems unbelievable that Israel would outsource the solution to the impotent UN."
It appears that Israel is treading carefully, not wanting to start a war over this but not willing to back down.
It first gave UNIFIL a chance to get involved and do its job to ensure that all of Southern Lebanon, let alone Israeli territory, is not occupied by an Iranian militia. Israel informed UNIFIL of the tents in April, but they have proven to be worthless:
According to Kan news, which originally reported on the Iranian proxy’s armed presence inside Israel proper, the IDF approached UNIFIL regarding the matter some time ago, but the watchdog only came to the site following diplomatic pressure from Israel at UN Headquarters.
Upon inspection, UNIFIL confirmed that tents set up and manned by Hezbollah have indeed been established on the Israeli side of the internationally recognized Blue Line in the contested Mount Dov region, an area claimed by Israel, Lebanon and Syria and also known as the Shebaa Farms.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan wrote that Hezbollah’s actions constitute a violation of UN Resolution 1701, enacted following the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and ratified by both countries. The resolution calls for armed groups besides the official Lebanese military and UNIFIL to remain north of the country’s Litani River.
The letter also contained photographs of the Lebanese position in Israel.
Furthermore, the former public security minister noted that Hezbollah has built 27 outposts along the Blue Line over the past year, and that he expects the UN to take action on the matter, as these positions also violate Resolution 1701.
So now Israel is asking France and the US demand that the Lebanese government get involved.
Israel is trying to allow Hezbollah to "climb down the tree" quietly without being shamed, but patience is running out:
“Our goal is for the outpost not to be there,” an Israeli official was quoted as saying. “We prefer Hezbollah evacuate its people itself over us bombing them. We have made this clear to the US and the Americans made it clear to the Lebanese.”
According to the Ynet news site, Israeli officials believe UN peacekeepers will not be able to act against the post and are looking to the US and France instead. The outlet claimed Israeli officials had set a deadline for the position to be removed, after which it will get rid of the tents itself, a move that could spark a wider conflagration.
In our assessment, Hezbollah intends to reach an escalation that will lead to a broad military conflict with Israel, out of an internal interest in strengthening its power in Lebanon. Hezbollah is trying to escalate with a defiant presence on the border, the Megiddo attack, firing rockets, and now the placing of tents on Israeli territory. Israel for the time being is not dragged in. Last summer, Nasrallah gave ideological and religious approval for a military conflict and as far as Hezbollah is concerned, he has carried out significant power-building in recent years and is ready for a conflict. Continued provocations or a broad conflict is a win-win for Hezbollah.
The strategy is Iranian, not Lebanese
I believe that Israel's best card to play is the Lebanese people itself. While they hate Israel, they hate Hezbollah and Iran as well, and they do not want to be dragged into a new conflict that only benefits Iran.
The Lebanese media has been muted in this issue. I believe that unless Hezbollah dismantles the tents quickly, Israel should publicly say - but with the intent that the Lebanese hear - that the situation is intolerable and that Israel will bomb the tents on Israeli territory.
Israel should make a public deadline, announce the date that the tents would be bombed, emphasize that these are on Israeli territory, and then bomb them if they are not removed.
Israel must emphasize that it has no intention of attacking Lebanon - unless attacked first. If Hezbollah responds with rockets, the gloves will come off.
The UN agrees where the Blue Line is so Hezbollah's claim that the territory is Lebanese will not impress more residents.
If the Lebanese people publicly call for Hezbollah to withdraw, it would have a hard time pretending that it is defending Lebanese interests.
The entire Shebaa Farms issue is just an excuse by Hezbollah to maintain its massive arsenal for the pretense of "defending Lebanon." Everyone knows it is a joke. But Lebanese lives are in the balance, and it must be made clear to the world that Iran and its Hezbollah proxy are trying to start a war that would only hurt the Lebanese people.
It is clear that Israel cannot allow an enemy to wantonly grab its land. No state would. Israel's patience so far has been somewhere between heroic and foolhardy.
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Several weeks ago I wrote about how Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as the leader of the Middle East, and what it wants to accomplish.
Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, at the Aspen Ideas Festival this past weekend, described the vision in more detail - including where Israel fits in.
“We want to see a thriving Israel,” she said. “We want to see a thriving Palestine. Vision 2030 talks about a unified, integrated, thriving Middle East and last I checked, Israel was there. We want a thriving Red Sea economy.”
The princess continued. “We don’t say normalization, we talk about an integrated Middle East, unified [as] a bloc like Europe, where we all have sovereign rights and sovereign states, but we have a shared and common interest. So that’s not normalization. Normalization is you’re sitting there, and I’m sitting here, and we kind of coexist, but separately. Integration means our people collaborate, our businesses collaborate, and our youth thrive.”
The Saudi vision is to have a unified Middle East bloc of nations where there is not so much dependence on superpowers. It wants to eliminate the infighting. And it wants to lead, by promoting the benefits to all - under the beneficence of Saudi Arabian cash.
The new Saudi Arabia wants not to oppose states like Syria and Iran, but to subsume them.
Diplomacy with Iran, Princess Reema continued, provides “another way” to deescalate tensions in the region. “You do not want a nuclear Iran pointing itself at the rest of us,” she said. “You don’t want us poking and prodding. You don’t want Israel poking and prodding. You don’t want the Iranians aiming at Israel. You don’t want any of that.”
The ambassador defended Saudi efforts to reintegrate Syria into the Arab world, explaining that the kingdom is using available avenues to bring humanitarian relief to the war-torn country. The war in Syria, she said, has gone on for “12 years, where it’s not just a war zone, the country is [in] shambles. We cannot have another failed state in the Middle East. It is unreasonable to let it happen. And so the question is, what do you do? And that’s what we’re trying to solve for today.”
The Saudis seem to be waving the carrot of going beyond normalization to Israel's long-standing dream of being fully integrated in the region. While Reema said that Saudi Arabia would “always come to the U.S. first” when it needs for new technology, it sounds like it wants to go to Israel second, to make the Middle East an independent world power.
I do not see Egypt being included in any of these Saudi plans. Maybe they are part of it, or maybe the Saudis consider Egypt to be an African leader, not a Middle East leader.
My long-shot prediction is that Saudi Arabia will try to work on the Lebanese issue. They desperately need cash to not become a failed state, and the people dislike Hezbollah and Iran. While Lebanon's problems may seem intractable, if the Saudis could help get it over the current hump, it could marginalize the Shiite threat and even pave a way for Lebanese/Israeli peace. The Saudis might not want to do this publicly, because failure would look bad and the chances of success are low, but I wouldn't be surprised if they look at Lebanon as a key to show their leadership and their vision of a unified Middle East by unifying the most polarized nation in the Middle East.
As for Saudi Arabia's traditional Sunni Islamic conservatism and how it has been difficult to coexist with Shiites, Christians and Jews: the princess' short sleeves and leaving much of her hair uncovered is just as much a message to the other groups in the region as her words are.
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The United States has left a leadership vacuum in the Middle east - and the Saudis filling it.
For decades, there has been jockeying on who would be the leader of the Muslim world. Egypt filled the role under Nasser but since then it has been a free for all.
Iran tried to position itself as that leader in the 2000s, but it could not overcome the antipathy from the Sunni majority. Turkey has been making its bid. The UAE, while tiny, has been trying to set a new direction for the Gulf states in a post-oil world.
But over the past couple of years, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the clear leader. The Saudis always wanted a leadership role as well, but until recently their main asset was Mecca, and the religious component was a necessary but not adequate prerequisite for true leadership.
Now, the Saudis are setting the agenda not just as the leaders of the Muslim world but of the entire region.
Up until now, the Saudis have been the passive recipients of US security guarantees. The Obama administration's reckless pursuit of an Iran deal and discarding Saudi concerns taught the Saudis that relying on the US for security and leadership is foolhardy and they need to create their own solutions. The ignominious US abandonment of Afghanistan showed that the days of Pax Americana are long gone.
There has been much media attention to China filling the leadership vacuum, and indeed China has ambitions there, but mostly just to keep things calm to serve their own interests. The Saudis are not being passive anymore. They have been becoming skilled diplomats and working all sides to become congruent with Saudi goals and ambitions. I see the Chinese role in brokering agreements between Riyadh and Tehran as more the Saudis using China to rein in Iran than China showing leadership.
What are the Saudi goals? I believe that the major goal is security. Letting the US, Russia, and China set the agendas for the Middle East guarantees permanent strife for the region with no benefits. The Saudi vision for the region is to reduce risk by ending pointless conflict that only benefitted outsiders.
Refreshingly, the Saudis - along with the UAE and Bahrain - seem to have abandoned the zero-sum mentality that has kept the Arab world behind for so long. They are now seeking win-win solutions that can allow everyone to prosper without the worry of war, with themselves as the leaders.
The Saudi-led rapprochement between the Arab League and Syria is a perfect example. From their perspective, Syria is an evil regime, and there is no love lost between Syria and the other Arab states. Yet nothing has been gained by a decade of shunning them. Better to embrace them and influence them in a bear hug.
To an extent, this may be the Saudi policy towards Iran as well, as the Iranian economy is in terrible shape, and the Saudis are quite publicly telling the world that they have lots of cash. Their buying major soccer stars is a message to their neighbors. The Saudis may see Iran's threats to refine uranium to levels needed for the atom bomb as a bid for influence, and the message back is that Iran can have more influence and economic independence if they join in with the Saudi vision and de-emphasize their nuclear ambitions. (I'm not saying this will work, but if Iran is closer to the Saudi orbit, then Saudi Arabia is no longer a potential nuclear target.)
The Saudi leaders have been wisely investing in a future without fossil fuels, and they are trying to position themselves as an economic powerhouse in the coming decades. The Saudis want to keep the the peace with promises of sharing the economic future, but unlike similar US promises, the Saudis have skin in the game.
In recent weeks there has been more talk of the Saudis making peace with Israel. Again, the Saudi diplomats are in the driver's seat. Instead of the US leading the way, the Saudis are using the carrot of a possible peace deal to get what they can out of the US. They see the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pointless waste of time that hasn't benefitted anyone. On the other hand, they see great potential benefits of Israeli participation in the Saudi vision of the future
In the old Arab mindset, the Palestinian issue was useful: it distracted from infighting and Arab corruption. It was used to create a false sense of Arab unity. In the new Saudi vision, those goals are better addressed by actually trying to build a modern society with transparency and a prosperous future. The Saudis still care about Palestinians but they know that there is no humanitarian disaster and that Palestinians are in no worse shape - and often better shape - than most other Arabs. They will try to leverage peace to get concessions from Israel on the issue, but the Palestinians are an afterthought in the Saudi vision for its role as the leader of the region.
The Saudis want the Middle East to be a player on the world stage in a post-superpower world, and they want to be the ones to set the agenda for the region. So far, they are doing exactly that.
Israel needs to decide on its own vision and determine how close it is to the Saudi version.
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How
Zionists made the land bloom by eradicating malaria
European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen has come under attack from Israel-haters for saying the truth that Israel “literally made
the desert bloom.” The Palestinian foreign
ministry condemned her, calling her statement a “racist trope”.
One of the ways the
Zionists made the land bloom is by draining swamps and eradicating malaria.
A 1920 British map
shows the entire central and northern parts of the land infected with malaria,
with the most severely affected areas being valleys and coastal regions with a
high concentration of swamps.
In 1921 British authorities reported that widespread
malaria “has decimated the
population” and is “an effective
bar to the development and settlement of large tracts of fertile lands” and that “much well-watered and
fertile land is at present lying waste on account of malaria”.
Just 20 years later,
the Zionist anti-malaria campaign changed everything.
In 1941 the British Mandate
reported that ‘In a number of
areas where intense endemic malaria had resulted in no population for
generations, recent antimalarial schemes have created large tracts of
cultivatable land’ and that ‘very large areas of what is recognised
by all as some of the most fertile land in the country have been reclaimed,
after centuries of waste’.
Early attempts to drain the swamps relied on the Eucalyptus,
a very ‘thirsty’ tree brought from
Australia which uses up to 200 litres of water a day.
A 1911 report entitled ‘Zionist Work in Palestine’ reported
that 400,000 eucalyptus trees had been planted to drain the soil.
EUCALYPTUS FOREST NEAR EIN HAROD
Despite the early efforts, pre-WW1
efforts to eradicate malaria generally failed. Many died of malaria and many
others left.
In 1922, Dr. Israel Kligler, a
Zionist Jew, started the first
successful national malaria-elimination campaign in the world. Kligler
introduced a methodical and systematic approach which relied on Arab and
Jewish cooperation of entire communities to
assist in the anti-malaria work.
Kligler focused on education. He pointed
out that it was possible to obtain the population’s active cooperation only
after the population understood fully the significance and value of the work.
The anti-mosquito campaign was
concerned with limiting the breeding in wells, cisterns and other man
receptacles by regular inspections and spraying of repellents.
One of the new methods
that Kligler initiated was the introduction
of Gambusia fish to water sources in the country in 1923. The fish eat mosquito larvae as soon as they
hatch from the eggs. The fish turned out
to be an effective biological means against mosquito's larvae. The result was
the almost total eradication of malaria in the upper Jordan by using where
appropriate combinations of anti-larval fish and drainage techniques.
Mosquito larvae
Male mosquito larvae eating Gambusia affinis
Swamps were dried by building drainage channels and
the swamps were sprayed with pesticide.
The draining work in malaria-infected
areas was very dangerous and many lost their lives.
Swamp draining at Yagur, 1924
A Jewish girl throwing
larvicide in Emek Hefer.
After the State of Israel declared its
independence, anti-malaria efforts continued, and in 1967 the World Health
Organization declared malaria eliminated in Israel.
Yes, Ursula von der Leyen is correct. Zionists did make the land bloom.
____________________________________
Postscript by Elder:
My response to seeing the "racist trope" accusation on Twitter was to post this snippet of an article in Scientific American, April 1960:
You can also see a collection of how Israel has been a leader in green tech here.
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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 20 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.
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Elder of Ziyon
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