Showing posts with label NGO lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NGO lies. Show all posts

Monday, October 23, 2023



How do we know Amnesty International is antisemitic?

I once listed 15 separate reasons, examples of egregious Amnesty bias and lies about Israel.  And I could have listed dozens more. 

Here's yet another.

Amnesty released a report on the early part of Israel's bombing campaign against Hamas. 

The Israeli army claims it only attacks military targets, but in a number of cases Amnesty International found no evidence of the presence of fighters or other military objectives in the vicinity at the time of the attacks. Amnesty International also found that the Israeli military failed to take all feasible precautions ahead of attacks including by not giving Palestinian civilians effective prior warnings – in some cases they did not warn civilians at all and in others they issued inadequate warnings.

“Our research points to damning evidence of war crimes in Israel’s bombing campaign that must be urgently investigated. Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” said Agnès Callamard.

“It is vital that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court urgently expedites its ongoing investigation into evidence of war crimes and other crimes under international law by all parties. Without justice and the dismantlement of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, there can be no end to the horrifying civilian suffering we are witnessing.”
These three paragraphs show that culminate in the "apartheid" libel which has nothing to do with Gaza proves that Amnesty's aim is dismantling Israel, not justice for Gazans.

If Amnesty does not know the targets of the attack, then it cannot call the attacks unlawful. In the past I've documented scores of cases where Amnesty claims that only civilians were killed and weeks later terror groups published the names of their members killed in the same attacks. 

The fact is that Amnesty is clueless as to what the real targets were. If the targets were senior Hamas members, then no warnings could or should have been given. 

That is real international law, not the fabricated version Amnesty pretends exists.

Amnesty's methodology is to interview survivors who claim that there were no terrorists around,. Often these people are lying, and sometimes these people are themselves members of terror groups!

Moreover, when Amnesty publishes these reports, it doesn't even consider that a professional army would not shoot expensive  precision weapons at civilians for no reason. No, Amnesty thinks it can read the IDF's minds, and knows that there was no possible reason for the attack. To Amnesty, the IDF - with multiple layers of checks and balances, lawyers reviewing every target and every airstrike, and approvals needed at all levels - is just randomly attacking civilians. 

Amnesty's track record of investigating these types of events is beyond awful. It shows a pattern where Palestinians are believed without question without even Googling their names, and where Israeli denials are assumed to be lies. 

Even worse, an Amnesty researcher has admitted that Palestinian "eyewitnesses" often lie.  But they haven't changed their methodology of believing their lies implicitly. 

Beyond that, Amnesty never mentions that Gazans would be punished by Hamas if they were known to be saying anything Hamas doesn't like. That is a salient fact when they quote Gazans but Amnesty doesn't want anyone to know that. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is beyond sloppiness and beyond ignorance of how modern warfare works. That is antisemitism - assuming malicious intent from Jews and nothing but the truth from those with  a long track record of lying to Amnesty. 



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, October 22, 2023

We've already proven in the past that Forensic Architecture is an anti-Israel group that partners with media and human rights NGOs to pretend to use cutting edge 3-D modeling to prove its lies.

They helped create the Amnesty International "Gaza Platform" that is filled with data that is provably wrong to reach conclusions that are obviously wrong.

In 2021, using their signature 3D modeling, they claimed  that a Palestinian car ramming attack at a checkpoint was really a simple car accident whose driver was executed for no reason. Yet the video clearly shows both the car accelerating towards the soldiers - and that the driver jumped out of the car to attack them less than a second after the crash, something a stunned victim of an accident would never do. 

In 2022, they teamed up with Al Haq and falsely accused Israel of targeting "cultural heritage sites" in Gaza. Not only were they wrong - Israel was shooting at rocket launchers on top of the site -  but their own video proved that Hamas was building right on top of those old Roman ruins!

Later that year the two groups accused Israel is purposefully trying to create an ecological disaster in Gaza - using the worst possible munition for that purpose.

Now, Forensics Architecture is pretending that the explosion near the Al Ahli hospital was really from Israel:

Preliminary analysis by FA, @alhaq_org & @earshot_ngo  into the #AlAhli hospital blast in Gaza casts significant doubt on IOF claims that the source of the deadly explosion was a Palestinian-fired rocket travelling west to east.

3D analysis shows patterns of radial fragmentation on the southwest side of the impact crater, as well as a shallow channel leading into the crater from the northeast. Such patterns indicate a likely projectile trajectory with northeast origins.

In reviewing our analysis, investigator & explosive weapons expert @CobbSmith  agrees the fragmentation patterns may indicate the projectile came from the northeast—the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter—and not from the west, as claimed by the IOF
Our/@CobbSmith’s analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment.

 @earshot_ngo analysed the recording released by IOF officials of an alleged exchange between members of Hamas implicating the Islamic Jihad in the attack. They found that the recording was manipulated and therefore not a credible source of evidence:

...A conclusive investigation into this attack requires full access to the site and munition fragments, as well as witness interviews. We continue our work on this case, and reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinian people under attack, including our friends & colleagues.
This is 9/11 Truther conspiracy theory level stuff. All evidence that shows it was Islamic Jihad, such as multiple videos of the rocket being shot from the same location as a salvo of other Gaza rockets, or how the rocket fuel would explain a huge fireball but no artillery shell would, is ignored. 



The videos clearly show a rocket that fell apart in mid-air. Any analysis of direction after a mid-air breakup is useless - chances are the part that hit the parking lot of the hospital was corkscrewing towards the ground as it has probably lost its tailfins. Assuming their debris analysis is correct, it probably simply hit the ground while facing a southwest direction.  (After I wrote this, I see that CNN's experts agree: "If the projectile malfunctioned and broke apart in the air, as CNN’s analysis suggests, the direction of impact reflected by the crater would not be a reliable finding.") 

Interestingly, CNN interviewed the same Chris Cobb-Smith and he said something nearly the opposite  than what Forensic Architecture says he said:
Cobb-Smith said that the conflagration following the blast was inconsistent with an artillery strike, but that it could not be entirely ruled out.

AP's analysis agrees with CNN and the IDF.  

Of course the IDF manipulated the audio. They edited out information that was sensitive. As far as the two audio channels, chances are that they were wiretapping both ends of the conversation separately and combined them, and chose to use stereo to make it easier to understand. 

But the most obvious proof that Forensic Architecture cannot be trusted - besides its track record of lying, that is - is that its own language calling the IDF the "IOF" ("Israel Occupation Forces," meaning that all of Israel is "occupied territory") and their statement of solidarity with Palestinians. They are admitting their agenda, proving that they are not even close to objective. They are only interesting in supporting their biases, not the truth. 

The question is why any organization would pay them for consulting services, unless they want manipulated and biased results to begin with. 







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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, September 26, 2023




Here is how the UN's OCHA described Rosh Hashanah in their biweekly Protection of Civilians report:
On 16 and 17 September, large groups of Israelis, including settlers, entered the Old City of Jerusalem during the Jewish New Year. Israeli authorities deployed police officers and restricted Palestinian movement in and out of the Old City, during which they physically assaulted and injured an elderly Palestinian man and arrested at least two others. On 17 September, Israeli forces restricted Palestinian access to the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, allowing entry only to those over the age of 50 for the dawn prayers. That morning, about 400 Israelis, including settlers, accessed the compound accompanied by Israeli police, who evacuated Palestinian worshippers to secure the entry of Israelis.
Let's take this apart:

large groups of Israelis, including settlers, entered the Old City of Jerusalem during the Jewish New Year.

Why is this newsworthy to begin with? It is, only if you believe Jews have no right to visit the Old City including the Kotel. 

And why do they call out "settlers" specifically? What difference does that make - unless the purpose is to incite hate?

Israeli authorities deployed police officers and restricted Palestinian movement in and out of the Old City

Which is what one would expect on a national and religious holiday. What they don't mention is that numerous Palestinian groups threatened any Jews who wanted to celebrate the holiday and "desecrate Al Aqsa."

On 17 September, Israeli forces restricted Palestinian access to the Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, allowing entry only to those over the age of 50 for the dawn prayers.

Because terror organizations called on Palestinians to go to the area en masse to block any access by Jews.  For some reason, those threats aren't mentioned.

That morning, about 400 Israelis, including settlers, accessed the compound accompanied by Israeli police, who evacuated Palestinian worshippers to secure the entry of Israelis.

And how many Muslims were there that day? Thousands. 

Israel schedules the Jewish visitors for times outside Muslim prayer times. 

The entire subtext of the report is that Jews have no right to the Temple Mount, Jews have no right to visit the entire Old City, and Israeli attempts to protect Jewish civilians are framed as a means to harm Muslim civilians. 

Also, "Israelis" is apparently used as a euphemism for "Jews." 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Defense for Children International-Palestine writes:

Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh, 15, was shot by Israeli special forces while leaving his grandfather’s house in Jenin refugee camp around 7:30 p.m. on September 19, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. As he left the house, Rafat saw Israeli special forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest. Rafat fled, yelling, “Special forces! Special forces!” One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet).    

 While nearly all of the reports on the Jenin incident identify Khamayseh as being 22 years old, photos indicate that he probably really was 15.

And that he was not exactly an innocent child.


Yet even if we take DCI-P at their word that all he was doing was warning terrorists that the IDF was there, that makes him legally a militant and a legitimate military target.

The US Department of Defense Law of War Manual (revised July 2023) says that a civilian is considered to be taking a direct part in hostilities when he or she is "acting as a guide or lookout for combatants conducting military operations." 

The ICRC agrees. In its document "Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law" it says,  "a person serving as one of several lookouts during an ambush would certainly be taking a direct part in hostilities although his contribution may not be indispensable to the causation of harm."

This is exactly what DCI-P is admitting that Khamayseh was doing. His warning endangered the Israeli forces and therefore he became a combatant and legitimate target, no matter what his age.





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, September 06, 2023

In April 2018, Palestinian Authority president and PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave an antisemitic speech where he claimed that Ashkenazic Jews were not really Jews, that Jews throughout history including during the Holocaust were hated not because they were Jews but because of how they acted, that Jews were never persecuted in Arab lands and that Jews have no connection to the Land of Israel.
World leaders expressed outrage, and Abbas - under pressure - apologized
In a statement released by his office, Abbas said he did not intend to cause offense in a speech to the Palestinian National Council on Monday, in which he claimed the Holocaust was driven not by anti-Semitism but by a reaction to the financial activities of European Jews.

In his speech, citing books written by what he described as Zionist Jewish authors, Abbas also re-aired a discredited theory that Ashkenazi Jews hail from Khazaria, an empire located in Eastern Europe, rather than the biblical Holy Land.

“If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them,” Abbas said in his statement. “I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.”

“I would also like to reiterate our long-held condemnation of the Holocaust, as the most heinous crime in history, and express our sympathy with its victims,” Friday’s statement from Abbas said. “Likewise, we condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms."
A couple of weeks ago, Abbas repeated every single antisemitic point he made in 2018 - and added a few more.

From MEMRI:

Abbas: "The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites. They have nothing to do with Semitism.

"The story began in 900 CE, in the Khazar Kingdom on the Caspian Sea. It was a Tatar kingdom that converted to Judaism.

"[In the 11th century], this empire collapsed, and all its population left to the north and to the west. They left for Russia and Western and Eastern Europe. They spread there, and they are the forefathers of Ashkenazi Jews. So when we hear them talk about Semitism and antisemitism – the Ashkenazi Jews, at least, are not Semites.

"They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews.

"Not true. It was clearly explained that [the Europeans] fought [the Jews] because of their social role, and not their religion. Several authors wrote about this. Even Karl Marx said this was not true. He said that the enmity was not directed at Judaism as a religion, but to Judaism for is social role.

"The [Europeans] fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money, and so on and so forth. Even Hitler...

"Everybody knows that during World War I, Hitler was a sergeant. He said he fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money. In his view, they were engaged in sabotage, and this is why he hated them. We just want to make this point clear. This was not about Semitism and antisemitism.

"As for the eastern Jews, they are Semites, because all of them originated in the Arabian Peninsula and they traveled to Al-Andalus, and then came back. We are familiar with this history.

"The Balfour Declaration saw the light of day only because of the complete agreement between Balfour and U.S. President Wilson. They were in full agreement about this phrasing. So America was a partner to the Balfour Declaration. Who invented that [Jewish] state? It was Britain and America — not just Britain.

"The U.S., who was not even a member of the League of Nations, force the League of Nations to include the Balfour Declaration in its covenant. I am saying this so that we know who we should accuse of being our enemy, who has harmed us and took our homeland away, and gave it to the Israelis or the Jews.

"In 1948, the population of Israel numbered 650,000 people. In 1948-1949, they occupied 78% of Palestine. 650,000 people were not enough, so Ben-Gurion complained to the British, to his friend Churchill. He said: 'Man, I have a problem. Get me the Jews from Europe. I am short [of people]. I have this vast land, but no population.'

"[Churchill] said: 'I cannot get you the European Jews. After the World War, they emigrated to different places, or settled [in Europe], or were killed. The only ones I can get you are the Jews of the Arab countries.' But Churchill said that there was no one else. Ben-Gurion said: 'God forbid! Do me a favor, I don't want the Jews of the Arab countries.'

"[Ben-Gurion] said: 'Brother, those Jews of the Arab countries are just like the Arabs. They look like Arabs. They have the same culture, same food. I don't want them.' But [Churchill] said: 'Do whatever you want. There is no other solution.'

"Not only did Ben-Gurion agree, he sent his people to Iraq, to kill, destroy, and plant explosives in synagogues, in order to force the Iraqi Jews to emigrate. This also happened in Egypt in 1956 – the Lavon Affair – and then in Morocco, and other countries. The Jews did not want to emigrate, but they were forced to do so, by means of pressure, coercion, and murder."
Abbas repeated the exact same lies he said in 2018 - that he "apologized" for.

And after his apology, everyone forgot about his antisemitism. 

Just as the media has forgotten that in 2016, Abbas claimed that rabbis called to poison Palestinian water.. His office released a statement saying "President Mahmoud Abbas has affirmed that he didn’t intend to do harm to Judaism or to offend Jewish people around the world."

Of course, he didn't apologize for lots of other antisemitic statements. In January 2018 Abbas said that European Jews stayed in Europe to be slaughtered rather than immigrate to Israel. In 2015, Abbas said Jews "have no right to defile [the Temple Mount] with their filthy feet."  In 2022, Abbas told German officials that Palestinians have gone through 50 "holocausts" at the hands of Jews. 

Do you sense a pattern?

No, I don't mean the pattern of Abbas saying vile statements that prove that he is an antisemite. I mean the pattern of the media and world leaders feigning outrage every single time one of his Jew-hating statements makes it into the headlines - and then they go back to acting as if Abbas is a respected member of the world community.

Which means that world leaders, the media and human rights NGOs care as much about antisemitism as Mahmoud Abbas himself does, and their lip service of condemning his statements are exactly as sincere as Abbas' "apologies" are.






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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, September 04, 2023



From Times of Israel:

The Israeli military arrested three members of the Hamas terror group during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Monday morning, marking the first overt entry of forces to the camp since a major operation was carried out in the area two months ago.

In a joint statement, the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security agency, and Border Police said troops entered the camp and nabbed Abdullah Hassan Mohammed Sobeh, Ward Sharim, and Mus’ab Ja’aydah.

The IDF said troops opened fire at the wanted gunmen as they attempted to flee a building when the forces arrived. One of the armed Palestinians shot in the leg and seriously wounded, and was taken by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.

An assault rifle belonging to one of the wanted Palestinians was seized, the IDF said.

The IDF said troops also responded with live fire against Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at forces in the area, and Palestinian rioters hurling stones.

A local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group said its gunmen opened fire at Israeli forces on the outskirts of the camp.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry said four people were lightly wounded by Israeli fire in the area and taken to nearby hospitals.

No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation.

The IDF did injured the captured terrorists, and transported them by helicopter to a hospital. 

Imagine the difficulty of such an operation.

The goal, as always, is to arrest terrorists - not to kill them. The IDF knows that it will be attacked from all directions in a crowded camp that is filled with booby-traps, IEDs and angry youth with stones, firebombs and automatic weapons. 

And in the end, no one was killed on either side. The terrorists were captured alive. 

This must have involved many, many hours of planning, intelligence and practice. 

But this result is always what the IDF wants to see. It doesn't want to kill people, but when under fire, soldiers must return fire towards the source. Nearly every person killed in the past two years were involved in fighting or members of terror groups. For urban warfare, this is incredible, and military experts know this.

But the media ignores all of that. "Human rights groups" insist on perfection in a war zone and that the IDF use peacetime, law enforcement standards when the enemy is often a heavily armed military group. As much as they can, Israel tries to live up to those standards, and it showed that today, even if it is not at all clear that the more flexible laws of armed conflict wouldn't apply to Jenin today.  

The world is so obsessed with demonizing Israel that it ignores how unique it is for an army to have so few civilian casualties in urban war zones. 

Try to find stories where US or British troops entered a crowded town and extracted wanted men under constant fire without killing anyone. If it has ever happened, it is incredibly rare. Yet the IDF strives to do that each and every time - and its success today proves that. 




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, August 28, 2023

Human Rights Watch issued a new front-page press release today to attack its favorite target, Israel:

The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability.

Last year, 2022, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels. Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22. Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023.
We've seen this approach before. HRW describes scores of potential Israeli crimes, but chooses to "investigate" only a small number of them. 

By sheer coincidence, the ones they are "investigating" are the ones that seem the most likely to be innocent victims. 

In other words, HRW knows quite well that the vast majority of "children" killed by Israeli forces are legal combatants - teens who are acting as spotters, or hurling firebombs or IEDs, or even shooting weapons themselves. The majority are child soldiers. They are recruited by terror groups, violating accepted international law.

But HRW doesn't want to say anything bad about Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Their reports are meant to be anti-Israel, so they cherry-pick the specific incidents that seem to imply Israeli malfeasance.

Yet even in this constricted, biased choice of trying to stack the deck against Israel, they rely on lies and don't tell you the whole story.

Their "star" is Mahmoud al-Sadi, 17, who "according to witnesses" was hundreds of meters from any fighting when he was shot and he wasn't holding any weapons. 

To emphasize his alleged innocence, HRW gives a photo montage of al-Sadi being a teenage boy.


They missed this one:


Does it make sense that well-trained soldiers would shoot hundreds of meters away from the fighting for no reason? HRW seems to think so, but Palestinian witnesses are notoriously unreliable (even according to NGOs) and they will say what their leaders want them to say. Very few ever admit that the "innocent child" is not so innocent. 

Other cases that HRW think are a slam dunk are anything but. Even the NGO admits that they were all involved in active fighting.

In the other cases investigated, the security forces killed boys after they had joined other youths confronting Israeli forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, or fireworks. While these projectiles can seriously injure or kill, in these cases, Israeli forces fired repeatedly at chest-level, hitting multiple children, and killed children in situations where they do not appear to have been posing a threat of grievous injury or death, which is the standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international norms. That would make these killings unlawful.
HRW admits that the "children" were actively engaged in fighting. 

HRW claims that Israel must adhere to the standards of "law enforcement" in these situations, when the "criminals" are heavily armed fighters whose aim is to destroy Israel. It is true that the line isn't clear between what is legally considered a law enforcement situation and what is governed by the laws of armed conflict (LOAC) but to breezily decide that these situations where armored vehicles and scores of soldiers are needed is "law enforcement" is, at the very least, an oversimplification.

The ICRC says "An armed conflict arises whenever there is fighting between States or protracted armed violence between government authorities and organized armed groups or just between organized armed groups."

Sure sounds more like an armed conflict than a law enforcement operation, especially since Islamic Jihad and Hamas have been bragging that they really control, organize and fund these seemingly local armed groups.

Of course, if the laws of armed conflict apply, then any fighter - no matter what age - is a legitimate target. So HRW doesn't want you to even consider that possibility.

But let's look at the innocent children HRW lists:

Here is video from a proud relative (starting at 0:12) showing Wadia Abu Ramuz shooting fireworks at Israeli troops. 


Mohammed al-Sleem, 17, was a member of the Al Aqsa Brigades and also shot incendiary devices at soldiers. 

We've previously discussed Adam Ayyad, 15. He went into battle intending to die and left a "will" in his pocket saying how happy he was to be about to be martyred.  He was a member of the PFLP and buried wearing a PFLP flag.


These aren't innocent children by any definition. But HRW is trying to hide the truth.

Moreover, the number of children who are admitted members of armed groups prove that there is a real human rights concern here - that of recruiting child soldiers - and HRW has, as far as I can tell, not once said a word against the PFLP, Hamas or Islamic Jihad for that reprehensible practice of using children as bait meant to be killed. 

HRW's dishonesty is clear to all, and they are playing their role to put a respectable face on modern antisemitism to the hilt. and even when they clearly know that dozens of the children killed were members of armed groups, they don't say a word of condemnation.

That's only for Israel. 

(h/t Adin Haykin)





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Earlier this week I reported on Othman Atef Abu Kharj, a 17 year old who was killed during clashes near Jenin.

Most Palestinian media referred to him as a "child" ruthlessly killed by the IDF. Islamic Jihad, on the other hand, celebrated his ascension to Paradise as "a heroic mujahid knight" - but claimed that he was 18.

Now, Hamas-linked Felesteen writes a more detailed article about Abu Kharj, where we learn more of the truth.

Yes, his family confirms the teen was 17 - and they are proud that he was an expert on building IEDs.

[His brother] Mahmoud, 22, could hardly complete his talk about his younger brother, saying, "Othman was throwing his "elbow" IEDs one after the other towards the armored jeeps. 
The young men resort to using various tools to confront the repeated incursions of the occupation forces into the cities and governorates of the West Bank, in whose camps and villages the resistance action is escalating. Among these means are Molotov cocktails, stones, "elbows", igniting tires and closing streets with them.
But Othman had mastered making "elbows" and using them in several confrontations against the occupation soldiers, which they did not like, so they decided to assassinate him.
Wikipedia Arabic describes "elbow bombs":
It consists of a short, serrated tube and is closed at both ends with two metal pieces, one of which contains a hole through which the ignition fuse passes into the interior, which is ignited with sulfur. It is stuffed with gunpowder or black sulfur.

His family knew that he went out if his way to attack soldiers. "They all knew his courage, which always put him at the forefront of confrontations against soldiers heavily armed and fortified with armored vehicles," the article adds. 

This was a child soldier and an active militant. Even so, Defense for Children International ignores all the evidence and merely calls him a "Palestinian boy."

In English, he is an innocent child. In Arabic, he is a heroic Islamic Jihad mujahid - and also a child.. 

And the media doesn't want the truth to be published. 

(h/t Ibn Boutros)




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, August 23, 2023



The Israeli Gisha NGO concentrates on freedom of movement of people and goods between Israel and the territories, and it issues reports and statistics to that end.

It just released a graphics-heavy online report about the impact of Israel's closure of Gaza on the mental health of Gazans:

In Their Words: Mental Health Professionals in Gaza on Treating the Effects of Closure

“There’s a clear link between the Israeli closure and the grave state of mental health in Gaza. The closure is like a drop of ink in a pool of water, spreading everywhere, touching everything.”
Nedaa Murtaja, psychologist, Gaza

For decades, Israel has enforced restrictions on movement to and from the Gaza Strip, which it tightened to the point of closure in 2007.

....
In late 2021, Gisha and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) convened a group of mental health professionals and representatives of organizations working in the field in the Strip. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the effects of Israel’s closure on mental health, as well as the challenges therapists and care specialists face as residents living under closure in Gaza themselves.

What follows is a summary of the observations made by participants in the discussion.

The number of Palestinians in need of psychological care or assistance in Gaza has climbed dramatically in recent years. According to various studies, between 15% and 30% of individuals living in Gaza develop post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).

“This means there are at least 300,000 people in Gaza living with PTSD, and likely many more,” says Qusai Abuodah, director of resource development and public relations at GCMHP.

A central outcome of the closure enforced by Israel has been a high prevalence of poverty and unemployment in the Strip. Economic hardship elevates stress levels among the general population.

Khitam Abu Shwareb, a social worker at GCMHP, emphasizes the inextricable link between people’s economic reality and their mental health. “Restrictions imposed by Israel on entry of goods and raw materials into Gaza not only disrupt entire economic sectors, they also lead to price hikes inside the Strip, with direct impact on our mental stability.”

“Long-term mental stress leads to severe anxiety disorders and further undermines quality of life, which, in Gaza, is already far from meeting accepted international standards,” Osama Frina, a psychologist at GCMHP, explains. “Anxiety sometimes transforms into physical pain and suffering. The physical suffering, added to frustration and despair, often leads people to experience deep depression, which, unfortunately, also manifests in an increasing suicide rate.”

“The depression experienced by residents of Gaza is not depression in its classic, conventional sense,” says Hassan Zeyada, a psychologist at GCMHP.

“Palestinian depression is different. Gaza’s entire society is in a constant state of high level of chronic stress and ongoing trauma. The Israeli closure and travel restrictions on Gaza affect everyone, without exception. The prevailing feeling among Gaza’s population is one of helplessness and hopelessness. This situation did not appear out of thin air: It is the result of a deliberate process designed to induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza.”
Where is the bias in this report?

Everywhere.

The "research" was not meant to determine why Gazan mental health is poor. It determined at the outset, before a word was written, that it is all Israel's fault. Then the mental health professionals in Gaza were asked to confirm and support that lie.

Israel doesn't limit goods and travel in Gaza to "induce a state of helplessness to weaken the resilience of both individuals and society in Gaza." It does it to save the lives of Israeli citizens. In any other context, this is called human rights. Israel allows exports; it allows unlimited medicine and food and fuel; it allows thousands of workers to enter Israel every day and is trying to increase that amount. 

I'm not saying that bombings and the restrictions on goods and travel do not affect Gazans - of course they do. But the story doesn't come close to ending there.

The Gisha report does not mention Egypt's own strict restrictions on Gazans being able to cross their border, or Egypt's own severe limitations on imports and exports - all of which have nothing to do with Israel. 

But that is only a small part of the bias. This report, and hundreds like it, actually hurt Gazans far more than it helps them. And it does it for reasons that can only be described as antisemitic.

By blaming all of Gaza's woes on Israel alone, it gives a free pass to the many other factors that can and do cause severe mental health problems in Gaza - problems that have little or nothing to do with Israel.

By far, the biggest mental health risk in Gaza (and the West Bank) is from men who abuse their wives and children:

In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, one in three women who have ever been married are subjected to physical violence by their husbands and one in seven of never married women by a household member.

UNICEF adds: 

 Domestic violence levels are also high in 2014 MICSs (PCBS) study, confirming that 93 per cent of children aged 2 to 14 years experienced violent disciplining at home, and 23 per cent of children experienced severe physical punishment.  Pervasive and harmful social norms including child marriage, child labour, sexual violence and gender-based violence are issues of great concern.  

The Israel-hating crowd loves to claim that the Gaza closure is the reason for these statistics, but the numbers are similar in the West Bank, where there is no closure.

Meaning that domestic violence is widespread among Palestinians and it has nothing to do with Israel. The only people responsible for beating their wives and children are the husbands. Women in Gaza fear for their lives - not from Israeli missiles but from their husbands. The victims have to live with this abuse, with fear and mistrust of the people who should unconditionally love them, every day of their lives. 

It is interesting to note that there are lots of articles and academic papers about how the "patriarchy" damages the mental health of women and children in the West - and even about how it damages men's mental health as well.. Yet there are practically no scholarly reports about the psychological effects and dangers of living in the highly patriarchal Palestinian society. 

Palestinian laws explicitly discriminate against women. Abortion is illegal except in extreme cases. A high percentage of women are pressured into marrying while still children. Polygamy is allowed.  Access  to contraception is limited by the husbands in Gaza, and Palestinian women are taught that the should never abort because having children is a form of "resistance."  

Palestinian children are also scarred by Gaza social mores. They are indoctrinated at birth into a culture of violence and celebrating death. They are taught to cheer when Israeli civilians are killed - but also to celebrate the "ascension to Paradise" of terrorists killed by Israel. Tens of thousands attend summer camps where they are taught nothing but hate and militancy. 

Children in Gaza in particular are taught in their classrooms  to seek martyrdom - including in UNRWA schools. The adults in their lives are teaching them that their greatest value to the nation is is to be killed.

Do you think that being told that they are nothing more than cannon fodder might affect the mental health of children? 

There are other factors that affect the Palestinian psyche. The registered UNRWA "refugees"  have been taught for generations that they deserve to have have free housing and schooling paid for by the world, and even the Palestinian government relies on the EU and Arab world to do the work that they should have been doing in funding and building their own institutions. It is a welfare state and they have convinced themselves - and much of the world - that this is normal, that Palestinians do not have to compromise for peace, that they are eternal victims and should sit back and wait for the world to give them everything they demand. 

Put it all together and you have a recipe for a society that is deeply dysfunctional. 

But NGOs like Gisha don't want you to know this. They are part of the problem. They want to hide the real problems in Gaza and blame only Israel. This helps their bottom line - funders want them to blame Israel for everything  - but these kinds of superficial, one-sided analyses end up hurting the Palestinians they pretend to care about because it solidifies the idea that they are not responsible for any of their own problems. .

In the end, blaming all of  the mental health issues of Gazans on Israel alone is not serious analysis. It is whitewashing the real issue because of an overriding desire to blame Jews, and Jews alone, for any and every problem.  It is a much more sophisticated form of antisemitism than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf or the medieval lie that Jews poison wells -  but in the end, just like the classic cases, it is still using Jews as the scapegoat for every problem. 



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Tuesday, August 22, 2023


Pro-Palestinian protesters injured a university employee while demonstrating against a lecture speaker who heads the Brazilian chapter of a pro-Israel advocacy group.

Andre Lajst, the director of StandWithUs Brazil, was speaking about ways that Israeli technologies could help develop the Amazon region at the Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus on Thursday when protesters clashed with security and other university employees outside the lecture auditorium.

According to news reports, the advisor to the university’s rector left the scene with a broken nose after attempting to safeguard her daughter. Several students entering the lecture were also harassed, and police officers escorted Lajst into and out of the venue. One protester was reportedly arrested for pushing a police officer but later released.  

Here's video at the scene:


Andre Lajst completed his lecture and had to be escorted out by police for his safety from the violent mob.

But BDS-aligned media are bragging (and lying) that they managed to shut down his speech with their thuggish mob!

Pro-Palestine Brazilians demonstrated at a university in the Brazilian city of Manaus against the organization of a pro-Israeli-occupation event on campus.

Despite the high-security measures against them, the protesters managed to stop the meeting in support of the Israeli occupation, which is entitled “Cooperation with Israel”.

André Lajst, director of the Brazilian branch of StandWithUs, a pro-Israeli-occupation group in Brazil, spoke at the event about supporting the occupation and normalization with it.

Video clips showed the large number of anti-Israel-occupation demonstrators, known as BDS Mob, who confronted the Brazilian police and attempted to shut down the event by force, forcing Lajst and his companions to leave the place quickly.

These protests are a part of the international BDS activities against all forms of normalization with the Israeli occupation, especially educational normalization.

Among themselves, BDSers don't even pretend to be "non-violent." They are happy and proud to threaten and attack people.

And then they claim in mainstream media  articles that they are doing it in the name of "academic freedom."

 




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The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:
Today, Tuesday, a child from the town of Zababdeh, south of Jenin, was killed by bullets from the Israeli occupation.

The director of Al-Razi Hospital in Jenin, Fawaz Hammad, told Wafa that the child Othman Atef Abu Kharj (17 years old) died of injuries he sustained at dawn today, during the clashes that erupted after the storming of the town.

The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, celebrated, on Tuesday morning, the highest examples of jihad and steadfastness, its fighter son, Othman Atef Abu Kharj, one of the fighters of the deterrence unit in the Al-Quds Brigades, who rose as a martyr, God willing, during his confrontation with his mujahideen brothers.

The Brigades said in a military statement: "We are in the Al-Quds Brigades and we bid farewell to a heroic mujahid knight who is witnessed by the battlefields to confirm that the blood of the martyrs will remain fuel for the continuation of the resistance approach, and that these sacrifices that our heroic mujahideen make will not be lost, and will be a motive for the continuity of engagement and fighting, and will not be lost." We meet our enemy only with bullets and more resistance.
Interestingly, they claim that Kharj was 18 years old, while all other Palestinian media quote the ministry of health saying he was 17.

Yesterday I noted that for the first time I can recall, the UN chided Palestinian terror groups for exposing children to paramilitary "summer camps" as well as for endangering Palestinian children by placing booby traps in camps for IDF vehicles. But although the UN's OCHA-OPT closely monitors every death in the territories, they have never mentioned that terror groups like Islamic Jihad actively recruit and use child soldiers. 

I cannot find any mention of Palestinian child soldiers in UNICEF reports on "the state of Palestine" either. Defense for Children International - Palestine never mentions that the children killed were members of armed groups and actively fighting. 

It is undeniable that Palestinian terror groups recruit and exploit children. Last week, JCPA published a report showing how terror groups in Jenin use children as "spotters" and instruct them using Telegram channels on how they should operate.  

A major reason that children are recruited is in the hope that they will be killed - because they are more valuable as "child victims" than they are as fighters. To Palestinians, children are cannon fodder, and I have yet to see a single article in Arabic media that condemns Hamas and Islamic Jihad for recruiting children.



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Thursday, August 17, 2023




From Amnesty International:

The Israeli authorities should release Walid Daqqah, a terminally ill Palestinian prisoner, so he can access specialist medical care and spend his remaining time with his family, Amnesty International said today. Walid Daqqah, 62, suffers from chronic lung disease and bone marrow cancer, and the clinic at Israel’s Ayalon Prison is ill-equipped to deal with his conditions. Following his cancer diagnosis last year, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) denied Walid Daqqah access to a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant by refusing to transfer him to a civilian hospital.   
Amnesty doesn't even hint at his crime until paragraph 13, and even then downplays it:
Walid Daqqah, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was arrested in March 1986. A year later, a military court convicted him of commanding a group affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which had abducted and killed Israeli soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984. He was not convicted of carrying out the murder himself, but of ordering other members of the group to kill Moshe Tamam. 
Amnesty doesn't mention that Tamam was brutally tortured, disfigured, and sexually mutilated  by the terror cell led by Daqqa. 

Why should their readers know about that? The only torture they mention are Daqqa's own false allegations of being tortured by Israel.

When Daqqa was up for parole, the special committee ruled that his medical condition was not reason enough to violate Israeli anti-terror legislation that forbids early release for prisoners convicted of terrorist acts.

Amnesty didn't mention that either.

It does everything it can to humanize a disgusting murderer while demonizing the country that is attempting to carry out justice for his victim. Any information that shows what a monster Daqqa is, or why his parole was denied, is simply not to be reported.

Not coincidentally, as Daqqa is a member of the PFLP,  the PFLP and its associated NGOs have been heavily campaigning to free Daqqa, and Amnesty is quite friendly with many PFLP officials in other "human rights" NGOs. 

There is one delicious irony here, though. Daqqa was supposed to be released earlier this year, but two years were added onto his sentence because he smuggled cell phones into prison. 

Which means that the likelihood of his dying in prison is his own damn fault. 





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Friday, August 11, 2023


The UN has a webpage where it shows a timeline on the "Question of Palestine."

It is biased as hell. 

It starts with "1885 – The term 'Zionism' first coined by the Viennese writer, Nathan Birnbaum."

There is no mention of Jewish history in the region for thousands of years. No mention of Jewish kingdoms. No mention of the centrality of Eretz Israel and Jerusalem to Judaism.  No mention of the Bible. 

But after that, it simply ignores or whitewashes every single act of terrorism by Palestine's Arabs. 

It doesn't mention the murderous Palestinian pogrom against Jews in 1929.

It says, "1936/1939 – Palestinian rebellion against the British Mandate and Jewish immigration." But not that Arabs murdered Jews, just that it was a "rebellion." 

It doesn't say anything about the Arab League boycott of Jews. 

It doesn't mention any Arab attacks on Jews in 1947-48. No outbreak of hostilities hours after the UN Partition resolution, no mention of the constant attacks on Jewish civilians, no mention of the Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre or the many other attacks on Jewish civilians - but it does mention Deir Yassin, and exaggerates the number of dead as "hundreds." .

The UN gets the date of Israel's independence wrong, saying it happened on May 15, 1948.

There were scores of fedayeen attacks by Palestinian Arabs against Israel in the 1950s and 60s, and hundreds of Israelis were killed. Not one incident is mentioned.

But the UN describes the 1966 As-Samu incident, where Israeli and Jordanian troops battled after a land mine killed 3 IDF soldiers, as a "massacre" of Palestinians. 15 Jordanian soldiers and three civilians were killed. It was not a massacre by any definition. 

There is not one mention of Palestinian airplane hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s. 

It says, "1987 –  First 'Intifada' begins in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip." It doesn't mention that the intifada killed hundreds of Israelis. The many terror attacks that occurred during the Oslo process are nowhere to be found. 

Similarly, it says, "Ariel Sharon’s al-Haram al-Sharif visit in September 2000 triggers the Second Palestinian Intifada."

Not a word about Palestinian suicide bombings, or bus bombings, or attacks on pizza shops and Passover seders and bar mitzvahs.

And of course no mention later about rockets from Gaza, massacring rabbis or kidnapping and murdering kids. Hamas is not mentioned as a terror group - or even militant group. In fact, the word "terror" is nowhere to be seen. Neither is "Islam," "Muslim" or "Jihad," although Jews are mentioned.

The Holocaust is not mentioned either. There is simply no information on why Jews might want to have their own homeland in the region.

There is plenty of other anti-Israel bias in wording and choice of incidents. 

According to this official UN history, Palestinians have not attacked, let alone killed, a single Jew. The only aggression mentioned is from Jewish and Zionist groups.

The UN's anti-Israel bias is unmistakable even in this public document that is pretending to be objective. 




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Tuesday, August 08, 2023

Last month, Save the Children issued a press release:

 Palestinian children in the Israel military detention system face physical and emotional abuse, with four out of five (86%) of them being beaten, and 69% strip-searched, according to new research by Save the Children. Nearly half (42%) are injured at the point of arrest, including gunshot wounds and broken bones. Some report violence of a sexual nature and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the child rights organisation said.

Save the Children’s new consultation showed that: 

During arrest, 42% of children were injured, including gunshot wounds and broken bones, and 65% of children were arrested during the night, mostly between midnight and dawn. Half of all arrests took place in the children’s home.
The majority of children experienced appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86%), being threatened with harm (70%), and hit with sticks or guns (60%). 
Some children reported violence and abuse of a sexual nature, including being hit or touched on the genitals and 69% reported being strip searched. 
60% of children experienced solitary confinement with the length of time varying from one 1 day to as long as 48 days.  
Children were denied access to basic services, 70% said they suffered from hunger and 68% said they didn’t receive any healthcare.   
58% of children were denied visits or communication with their family while detained. 

Wow! The vast majority of Palestinian kids arrested are beaten, nearly half are physically injured, and more than half are placed in solitary confinement!

Then, Save the Children describes its methodology. 

In total, 228 former child detainees participated in this study by Save the Children and YMCA. This includes 177 children who responded to surveys and 51 who took part in focus group discussions. A further two focus group discussions were held with parents whose children had been detained. ...

A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including surveys and focus groups, was applied, to ensure that the perspectives and experiences of Palestinian children who experienced arrest and detention were at the core of the study

This is an embarrassing methodology that would shame any credible researcher.

The surveys have, by their very nature, self-selection bias. Only children and parents with a desire to tell their stories will choose to answer the questions, anyone who had an uneventful arrest won't bother answering a survey that is meant to prove Israel tortures kids. 

Save the Children does not publish the methodology of how they determined who to send the surveys to, or the survey questions, which were probably leading questions based on what we know from previous Save the Children reports.  

The focus groups are even worse. The biases seen in focus groups are well known. The moderator can ask leading questions. Those who spin lurid stories of torture would tend to monopolize the discussion, influencing the other kids in the group to want to embellish their own stories. 

Save the Children says nothing about any professional training or expertise their moderators and facilitators have to minimize bias in their responses. 

And when they say they use "qualitative approaches" you know that means that they will weight whatever the kids say towards the worst possible interpretation for Israel. 

The names of the researchers are not mentioned, nor is the author of the press release.  It is completely opaque - and this is not an accident. 

The full report shows how absurd the interviews are. B'Tselem statistics show that the number of children under 14 held in prison is almost always zero, and it is difficult to find one or more children at that age in prison for two consecutive months. But somehow Save the Children finds several 13-year olds who claim they were in horrible conditions in prison:

“Sometimes they broke into our prison cells and made us stand in the cold air outside. They didn’t allow us to sleep. One night, they broke the roof and we had to spend the night with the rain pouring into our room....They hit me with their hands and rifles, everywhere, especially on my private parts.”” Yousef*, detained when he was 13

 “For me, the transfer bus was the worst. There is a tiny box inside that barely fits one person; what they would do is put two of us together in that box handcuffed to each other and driven around all day. They would drive us for hours, from early in the morning to late at night, just locked in that box....I used to have nightmares about my time in prison all the time, especially about the officer who interrogated me. He told me, ‘I promise you that you will dream about me’. And he was right.” Khalil*, detained when he was 13

None of this rings true. But Save the Children wants to issue a report that will make a splash, so they are not interested in the truth. 

In fact, it quotes even less reliable reports as fact - such as the  PLO's Commission for Prisoners and Freed Prisoners which claimed minors "became victims of the sexual lust of their jailers from the Nahshon forces without consideration for their age."

Perhaps this is why this survey did not get any publicity outside of outlets like Al Jazeera and Palestine Chronicle. It is obvious even to anti-Israel media that the results of the "survey" are so out of whack with reality that their publicizing it would hurt their own credibility. 

Save the Children deliberately does everything possible to get the most lurid results for publication - and then quote these "statistics" as if they are scientifically valid. 

After all, if there is no torture, they can't raise funds. 




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