Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: PIJ

Showing posts with label PIJ. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

Palestinian NGOs cynically use World Press Freedom Day to falsely accuse Israel of jailing journalists

Palestinian prisoner rights NGOs are using today's World Press Freedom Day to call for Israel to release 16 "journalists' who are in prison. They claim that these journalists were arrested to curtail freedom of speech: "The occupation authorities are pursuing a number of policies to restrict freedom of opinion and expression and impose more censorship and control on the Palestinians, as part of the tools of the apartheid regime, most notably the policy of arrest, threats, house arrest, and repeated assaults in the field of work; This is in a continuous attempt to undermine their societal, cultural, and political role, and to prevent them from exposing the ongoing crimes against the Palestinians."

They pointedly don't mention that these "journalists" were arrested because they engaged in terror. And many were never journalists to begin with.

People like Ahmed Adeeb Ahmed Al-Saifi, a member of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades sentenced to 17 years in 2011 for his involvement in a shooting attack. He became a "journalist" during his time in prison.

Or Bassem Khandakji, a PFLP member who drove a 16 year old to blow himself up at the Carmel Market in 2004, killing 3 civilians. He also started writing after he was in prison.

Or Mahmoud Musa Issa (right), a Hamas Al Qassam member who kidnapped and killed an Israeli soldier in 1992. H is another "journalist" who started writing while in prison.

Or Islamic Jihad's Haitham Jamal Ali Jaber, sentenced to 28 years in 2002 for terror attacks, who completed his degrees while in prison and also only became a writer afterwards.

Of course, people who do have press credentials and use them to help terrorism are even more reprehensible and should not be held up as

One photojournalist, Yazan Abu Salah, is a PFLP member who was sentenced to four years for his involvement in setting up terror cells an Iranian-funded plot to kidnap soldiers.

This is just more cynicism from Palestinian NGOs who know that most people will not bother to check their claims. Their track record of telling the truth is exceedingly poor, but they keep getting funded and respected. They know that years of lying propaganda pay off over time.

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Palestinian Arab angry reactions to Mansour Abbas' words of sanity show why they can never be peace partners

i24news reported Sunday:

Violence should be discarded and condemned “in all its manifestations” for Jews and Arabs to have a common future as neighbors, Mansour Abbas, arguably the most prominent Arab Israeli lawmaker of the day, told i24NEWS in an exclusive interview.

“We think that this demand is a compulsory for all of us, and we should push the violence in all of its manifestations aside, and we should engage in peace and in construction. We need to treat the wounds of both sides, to translate into the reality the goals of both sides, in order for us to reach a solution that would be acceptable for both sides,” Abbas, chair of the United Arab List faction, said.

Abbas stressed that he regards himself and fellow Arab citizens of Israel as Israelis, and rejected attempts by Palestinian leadership including the Hamas terrorist group to enlist Arab Israelis against Israel on the side of the Palestinians.

This is in response to Hamas trying to drag Israeli Arabs into becoming terrorists as a fifth column.

I agree with very little that Mansour says, but this is a sane statement that reflects reality and not the fantasy of wanting nothing less than the destruction of Israel.

Naturally, major Palestinian factions condemned his words.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - which has extensive ties with "human rights" NGOs - strongly condemned Abbas’s statements, and said they are "treacherous and do not represent our people from near or far, and reveal the suspicious role assigned to him as an obedient tool in the hands of the occupation...he is a traitor to the interests of our people and their national rights.”

Mahmoud Abbas' "moderate" Fatah said his words “essentially affect the historical national rights of our Palestinian people in Palestine,” and described them as “a cheap fit with the Zionist narrative that falsely monopolizes the history of Palestine.... Mansour Abbas crossed the red lines with his positions.”

As of this writing, I have not yet seen any reaction from Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but since Abbas' comments were aimed squarely at them, one can assume that they would be at least as angry as their rival Fatah is.

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Terrorist Mothers (poster)

I saw that Islamic Jihad's news media had made a poster of the poor mothers who are in Israeli prisons, separated from their families.

So sad!

I looked up what these sweet mothers had done to be placed into prison, and modified the poster to show the truth.

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Good news! According to Bowman and Sanders, there is no such thing as Palestinian terror!

From the extreme Leftist Jewish Currents:

REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN AND SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS are leading an effort to urge President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to investigate whether Israel is using US weapons to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians, in violation of United States law, according to a letter and e-mail sent to other members of Congress obtained by Jewish Currents. The letter was written by Bowman, while Sanders is spearheading efforts to garner support from other senators, according to Bowman’s office. The letter has so far been signed by eight additional lawmakers: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Summer Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, André Carson, and Ayanna Pressley. “At this inflection point, we ask your administration to undertake a shift in US policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights,” the lawmakers wrote. The lawmakers end the letter by calling on the Biden administration to “ensure US taxpayer funds do not support projects in illegal settlements” and to “determine whether US-origin defense articles have been used in violation of existing US laws.” The letter criticizes the new Israeli government’s “alarming actions” and its cabinet of “far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties,” asserting that the Israeli coalition in power is “pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.”

As usual, Israel haters are using any excuse they can to sever the ties between the US and Israel. Here, they are even using the protests against judicial reform to help promote their accusation of Israel using US weapons against innocent Palestinians.

The letter itself is a mishmash of anti-Israel rhetoric. It describes Israel's raids of Palestinian terrorists as nothing more than killing Palestinians for no reason.

Here is its summary of the events in the West Bank this year:

Shocking violence in late February encapsulated the bloody reality in the occupied West Bank. On February 22, a daytime raid by the Israeli army into the crowded Palestinian city of Nablus killed 11 Palestinians, among them a 72 year-old-man and a 16-year-old child. On February 26, a Palestinian gunman shot dead two Israeli settlers outside of Nablus. Subsequently, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara. The settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, set fire to homes, schools, vehicles, and businesses, killing one Palestinian and injuring over 300 Palestinians. The local Israeli military commander called the attack a “pogrom." The attack was not an isolated incident, with the State Department reporting that Israeli settler attacks have expanded in severity and scale. The day after the Huwara attack, an Israeli-American citizen Elan Ganeles was killed by a Palestinian gunman on a highway in the occupied West Bank.

This comes amid an already violent year. Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 85 Palestinians in 2023, including 16 children. At least 14 Israelis have been killed, including two children. The previous year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2004 and included the Israeli military’s killings of two American citizens, Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.

At no point does it mention that the vast majority of those killed by Israel - including nearly all of the "children - were members of terror groups or actively engaged in fighting. Israel's record in avoiding civilian casualties in urban warfare is far better than that of the US itself.

In fact, the word "terror" is missing from the letter (except for a footnote.) One would have no idea that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are active in the West Bank, nor that the Palestinian Authority has not been doing nearly enough to stop those groups. The letter certainly doesn't mention the number of Al Aqsa Brigades members who have been involved in these clashes, because mentioning Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah would be embarrassing. The fact that cities like Jenin have been essentially taken over by masked gunmen who terrorize the residents as well is simply ignored. Reading the letter, one would think that Israel kills scores of Palestinians for no reason whatsoever, and occasionally some individual gunmen kill a Jewish "settler" who barely counts as human anyway.

It mentions an American citizen killed by Palestinians, but unlike the public insistence on investigations and accountability for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, this letter says nothing about holding the terror group behind the murder of Elan Ganeles accountable.

Previous investigations of whether the IDF had run afoul of US policy in using military aid have not found any issues (since 2006.) But Israel haters don't care abut facts, and keep making the accusations anew every year.

Meanwhile, no one calls for investigation into how US equipment is used by Egyptian and Jordanian armed forces who are accused of torture and unlawful killings by the US State Department.

This letter isn't a sober listing of legitimate concerns. It is a hit piece meant to incite hatred of Israel. And it can be seen in how it talks about Huwara.

The Huwara attack by settlers was reprehensible - and it is utterly irrelevant to the alleged point of the letter, to investigate Israel's use of American weapons. The letter implies that the IDF colluded with the attackers, which the authors know is a lie. But since the real point of the letter is to incite hatred for Israel and Israeli Jews, and in that context it all makes sense.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Palestinian security arrests Islamic Jihad leader. Is the PA finally taking Islamist terror seriously?

Israel has slowed down its raids in Palestinian towns recently.

It may be because of Ramadan - or it may be because the PA agreed to do its job and assert control.

The Palestinian security forces arrested a number of fugitives wanted by Israel, including a leader in the Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad. Members of terror groups fired heavily towards the police district headquarters in Jenin and young men targeted the building with Molotov cocktails in response

Video clips on social media documented showed heavy shooting.

While the PA has claimed that they have stopped security coordination with Israel, it looks like they realized they have no choice but to assert authority in the West Bank or lose it.

Then again, we haven't seen them arrest any members of the Al Aqsa Brigades, which is linked to the ruling Fatah party. If we see that, then we'll know that the PA is somewhat serious about fighting terror, and not just trying to ensure that armed militias don't take over.

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!

03/08 Links Pt1: Leave the IDF out of the protest; IDF kill Palestinian terrorist responsible for Huwara attack; Israel slams 'disgraceful' South Africa vote to downgrade diplomatic ties

From Ian:

Overhaul protesters gear up for ‘day of resistance’ throughout the country Thursday

The protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul plans was set to conduct a second major campaign to disrupt daily life in Israel on Thursday, in what activists are calling a “day of resistance.”

The day notably includes plans to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport in an attempt to make it difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get there for his flight on an official visit to Italy. This in addition to marches, temporary workplace strikes, the blocking of main thoroughfares, disruption of train services and rallies outside the homes of top government officials.

The protest events were laid out in detail on a dedicated website and map (Hebrew), with organizers promising “many surprises,” indicating there were more planned actions that had not been announced publicly.

“It is a civic duty to resist the dictatorship and this is the only way to return Israel to the path of democracy. This is a great battle for the independence of Israeli citizens against the tyranny that will destroy what we have built here for over 70 years. We call on the entire public to participate in protests,” the organizers said in a statement.

Protest heads have specifically called for demonstrators to block roads around Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu and his wife are scheduled to depart on their flight to Italy. The trip previously faced setbacks when national carrier El Al was unable to find a crew to man the prime minister’s flight — an issue blamed on crew shortages but which may have also been affected by growing public anger at the government as it pushed forward with efforts to weaken the justice system.

Some media reports indicated Netanyahu was looking at possibly taking a helicopter to the airport to avoid the expected road disruptions.

A major rally in Tel Aviv was to set off from the city’s Habima Square. In addition, protests by workers from the tech sector were planned at 15 locations around the country.

Police said they too were preparing for the demonstrations, with 3,000 cops set to be deployed across the country.

Ruthie Blum: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi should call his troops to order

Those who defended Bar’s remarks (delivered several weeks before the Knesset election) did so on the grounds that terrorists apprehended by the Shin Bet told their interrogators that internecine strife in the Jewish state was bolstering their confidence and resolve. In other words, since perception influences enemy actions, security bigwigs have a responsibility to monitor and caution about pitfalls in this realm.

It’s a logical position, particularly in view of the gleeful way in which the international Arab and Iranian media outlets are depicting the present crisis in the country. That they’re being given a serious boost by the Israeli press may be extremely disconcerting, but it’s the price—and privilege—of free speech.

Soldiers don’t enjoy this luxury, however. On the contrary, their individual ideologies are irrelevant to the assignments they are charged to execute. Halevi has the duty to remind them of this in no uncertain terms. His failure on this score only encourages the very foes that the IDF, thankfully, is still fighting on more than one front.

“When we are on the battlefield, we don’t look to the right and left to discern the political views of our brothers and sisters,” said Netanyahu on Monday, after attending a Purim megillah reading at a Border Police base in the Jewish community of Beit Horon. “We [do it] with the knowledge that together, shoulder-to-shoulder, we are storming our enemies, in order to safeguard our security and future.”

This, he stressed, “is the first and most important foundation of our existence in our land. It rests on the deep understanding that whatever the controversies among us, we are always united against those out to kill us. This is how it was during all of Israel’s wars.”

He went on: “Refusal to serve threatens this existential foundation, and thus has no place in our ranks. Israeli society always condemned the refusal to serve.… We never allowed it a foothold—neither in the regular army nor in the reserves; neither in the security forces nor anywhere else. It had no place in the War of Independence, the Oslo Accords or in the disengagement [from Gaza]. There is no room for it now, nor should there be in the future…. because the minute that we give this illness legitimacy, it will spread and become systemic…in controversies to come.”

Netanyahu concluded with a Purim analogy.

“When Haman sought to find the Jews’ weak spot, he said, ‘There is one people that is scattered and divided.’ But…we rose as one; we banded together and achieved victory for generations. We will do it again this time, as well.”

It’s a message that Halevi would do well to hear, heed and repeat.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Leave the IDF out of the protest

This is one of the most legitimate protests in Israel's history.

Some have tried to quash it by pointing out a handful of Palestinian flags flown at rallies, but for every such flag, a thousand Israeli flags were raised, so that fell flat.

Others claimed the protest wasn't about the judicial overhaul at all but rather an attempt to overrule the will of the voter, but that too missed the mark. This protest's success lies in its expansion to more and more audiences, it's not merely a left-wing protest. Prominent religious and right-wing figures have also joined in, and while most of them don't take the streets, they make their voices heard by appealing for dialogue and broad consensus.

Are they too anarchists? Who are you trying to fool?

As for those screeching voices on the margins flying the BDS flag, let them, they clearly do not represent anything.

But the protest also brings the pain. The fissure is here. And 37 out of 40 pilots of the Israeli Air Force's elite 69 Squadron declaring they won't report for training is the closest thing to mutiny.

We must not allow this terrible scourge to become the face of the protest for there is a fine line where a protest shifts from an opposition to the government to an opposition to the state. There are too many elements on the left that had done so, there's no need for the protest to tread the same line.

Crossing that red line would only harm the protest since it draws its success from the fact that it has become a consensus in and of itself, and public opinion polls show as much.

As soon as the protest crosses these red lines, it will become a sectoral protest of the extreme left. This was not the intention of the pilots who declared that they won't report for reserve duty, but this may be the result. So yes, we must apply pressure to prevent harm to democracy. But there is no need for the protest to exacerbate that harm.

The Caroline Glick Show: Politics is poisoning the IDF

Mob violence against Sara Netanyahu; 37 out of 40 elite Air Force reservist pilots refusing to show up to duty. These are, but two of the most recent examples of the protests against the judicial reform proposed by the Netanyahu government.

To discuss the shocking turn of events and the leading role that retired leftist generals are playing in the left’s efforts to coerce the government to shelve its efforts to restore Israeli democracy, the guest on this week’s show is Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi.

Avivi is the founder and CEO of the Israel Security and Defense Forum (Habithonistim), a social movement and think tank comprised of retired senior officers, soldiers and concerned citizens working to reinstate the Zionist ethos in the IDF. Glick and Avivi also discuss at length the issue of Iran, which the United States now acknowledges had become a threshold nuclear state..

In addition, Glick devotes her opening remarks to an analysis of the central (hostile) role the Biden administration is playing in the events on the ground in Israel.

Two stories the mainstream media will miss from Knesset's death penalty bill

A death penalty bill for terrorists passed a preliminary hearing in the Knesset today, and we can expect the normal outrage to ensue.

I don't think that such a bill would serve as a disincentive to terror - after all, terrorists expect to be killed during their attacks - but there are a couple of subplots to this story that are more important than the story itself.

One is that the chances that the bill actually passes is fairly low - and that is because the religious parties in the coalition are against the death penalty. As JPost writes:

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has ruled that the death penalty violates Halacha. The Shas Party, which represents the Sephardi haredi (ultra-Orthodox) electorate, said it would support the bill only in its preliminary reading at this point, out of coalition obligations, but that it would follow Yosef’s ruling in the future, which is unlikely to change, according to Yishai Cohen, a reporter for the Kikar HaShabbat news site.

Supporters of the law, without Shas and UTJ but with Yisrael Beytenu, would likely have 52 votes. Assuming that Shas and UTJ abstain and the opposition parties oppose the bill, there would be 50 votes against it. This means that if either of the haredi parties, or even if any of the two factions that make up UTJ – the Lithuanian Degel Hatorah and the hassidic Agudat Yisrael – vote against the law, it would not have a majority in the Knesset.

The parties that are decried as the most extreme factions in Knesset may be the ones who block the bill. This violates the Western media narrative, where the extremists could never agree with the "progressives."

So they almost certainly will not report that.

Another story is the Palestinian reaction to the bill. See what Hussein al-Sheikh, Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, tweeted:

He calls all of the potential targets of the death penalty "freedom fighters."

Even though the bill is aimed only at murderers.

Most of the murderers in Israeli prison are members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other groups opposed to the PLO. But when given a choice, the leaders of the Palestinians always side with the terrorists against Israel.

Meaning, even the most moderate Palestinian leader is a de facto supporter of terrorism, and considers the most heinous murderers of Jewish children to be "freedom fighters."

Good luck finding a word of criticism against Al Sheikh or any Palestinian leader in the mainstream media. That is a story that must be silenced, at least until antisemitism is so normalized that the Palestinian position supporting terror becomes itself mainstream.

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

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Another child mujahid, and more silence from @UNICEF and other NGOs about Palestinians recruiting children

The Palestinian Amad news site shows this photo of another "child" killed by Israeli forces as they engaged in a battle upon entering the Al-Faraa camp to arrest terrorists that the Palestinian Authority refuses to.

Hmmm. 17-year old Mahmoud al-Aidi seems to be carrying something. A laptop bag, perhaps?

Not quite.

In this case, the IDF says that al-Aidi approached them with an explosive device.

In related "child martyr" news, 14-year old Qusai Radwan Waked, who was killed Sunday, appears to have been linked to Islamic Jihad, and was referred to as a "mujahid" in the Jenin Qassam Telegram channel while wearing the PIJ headband and showing the "tawhid" hand gesture popularized by ISIS and now used by Palestinian jihadists.

The martyr, the mujahid cub, Qusai Wakada, son of the town of Al-Arqa in Jenin, who was martyred yesterday while confronting the invading occupation forces in Jenin..

Palestinian militias are recruiting children and encouraging them to attack Israeli soldiers, knowing that their deaths are worth far more in public relations value than their military skills.

And yet NGOs that supposedly care about the welfare of children have been completely silent - because that dilutes from the false narrative of Israeli forces wantonly shooting children, which is also worth far more to them in fundraising value.

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"Israeli prisons are training schools for resistance"

Earlier this year, Israel transferred some 70 prisoners to a new prison where they were isolated from each other, causing bitter complaints by Palestinian "prisoner rights" groups.

We may now have a reason why.

Earlier this month, Israel released Ahmed Abu Jazar after he finished a 19 year prison sentence. He is a member of Islamic Jihad, which is celebrating his release.

And the terror group notes that his arrest was not only on the charge of being a member, but also for participating in multiple terror attacks. His original sentence was extended when he tried to smuggle mobile phones into the prison.

In an interview with the Al Quds Brigades site, Abu Jazar says that Israeli prisons are training schools for terror: He said "the heroic prisoners were able to transform their detention centers into militant and revolutionary schools that contribute to raising the pace of their belonging and devotion to their people and their national cause, despite the deprivation, harassment and attacks they are subjected to."

Electronic Intifada had a fawning article about him when his sentence was extended in September, pretending that he was arrested for no legitimate reason and implying that he was practically a child. It also noted that he received a master's degree while in the inhumane Israeli prisons.

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

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Just a video of Palestinian terrorists firing on Jewish homes

During the State Department briefing yesterday, Said Arikat badgered spokesperson Vedant Patel trying to get him to condemn Israel, and in part of his diatribe he said, "Now, who guarantees that equality? Who will guarantee that Palestinians and Israelis can actually have the same equal measures, as you keep repeating? It’s not the Palestinians that keep going day after day into Israeli villages and towns and so on and attack them during night raids..."

Actually, Palestinians attack Jews literally every day. They brag about it. They keep detailed statistics, is this poster of last week's attacks shows:

Today, Islamic Jihad issued a press release: "The Al-Quds Brigades - Jaba Groups announced, this morning, Friday 27-1-2023, that they were able to target the Homesh settlement with dense and successive salvoes of bullets."

What exactly does that look like?

On January 15, another division of the Al Quds Brigades published a similar statement saying they attacked the village of Hermesh. This time they included a video showing automatic machine gun fire aiming at random Jewish homes.

Do the residents of Hermesh deserve to live in peace, without worry that they would be subject to automatic gunfire randomly shot at their houses?

Does any human rights group ever say that?

Do any of the reporters at the State Department even know that this happens every day?

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Palestinian Authority trying to spin today's fighting as new "Jenin Massacre"

In April 2002, Israel mounted a major military operation in Jenin that resulted in a pitched battle where 23 IDF soldiers and 52 Palestinians, mostly terrorists, were killed.

But Palestinians and their supporters claimed that between 400-500 Palestinians had been killed - and for weeks, the world's media believed them with no skepticism, and assumed that Israeli denials were lies. There were wide reports of a "massacre." An Amnesty International "forensics expert" visited the camp and said "I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."

Months later, the UN and human rights groups grudgingly admitted that there was no massacre.

Yet even though the PA had lied so egregiously, they paid no price. The media continued to report their lies as fact and to regard Israeli denials as lies.

The Palestinian Authority has learned that lesson well.

Today, the IDF entered Jenin again, to stop an Islamic Jihad cell that was planning an imminent attack. As of this writing, it appears that the IDF killed eight terrorists and one civilian.

And like in 2002, the Palestinian Authority and media are again calling it a "massacre."

Palestinian Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Israeli government is committing a massacre in Jenin and its refugee camp, amidst international silence.

He added that the international silence is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against Palestinian people before the eyes of the world.

PA prime minister Shtayyeh "called on the United Nations and all international human rights organizations to intervene urgently to provide protection for Palestinian people and stop the bloodshed of children, youth and women."

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the United States to "intervene immediately" against what they called the "Israeli killing machine."

The Jenin-based armed groups freely admit that they attacked IDF troops and even brag that they scored direct hits but that contradicts the favored narrative of Palestinians as innocent victims, so international media doesn't bother quoting them.

Just as in 2002, Palestinians are making ludicrous allegations, including that the IDF directly shot an ambulance.

The PA's health minister claimed "the occupation stormed Jenin Governmental Hospital, and deliberately fired tear gas canisters at the children's department in the hospital" (some tear gas seems to have wafted in.) She also claimed the IDF shot bullets at the children's ward. She called these "war crimes."

Sure, in the middle of fighting highly armed Islamic Jihad terrorists, the IDF decided to break into a hospital and shoot bullets and tear gas canisters at the pediatric ward. Makes perfect sense.

The PA called a general strike, and declared three days of mourning for the terrorists.

The Palestinians are hoping that the media and NGOs will believe them implicitly. And they have every incentive to lie, because the media never reports that they have a history of lying to manipulate the media.

The Palestinians have nothing to lose with their lies.

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Palestinian terror attacks come from the Left and the Right. Because antisemitism requires no ideology.

This morning, a 40 year old Palestinian terrorist was killed in a firefight with IDF troops near Hebron. The shooter, Hamdi Abu Dayyeh, used a homemade "Carlo" submachine gun.

It appears that he had also shot at an Israeli bus two days ago.

He had worked in security for the Palestinian Authority.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine says that he was one of their members.

This marks two PFLP members killed in two days, the other being the 14-year old Omar Lotfi Khumour. Both of them, as well as the 15 year PFLP "comrade" Adam Ayyad, wrote wills before being killed, indicating that in all of these cases they planned to die.

The PFLP is a secular, socialist organization. The members who write these wills are not religious Muslims. They are not aiming to reach paradise and cavort with 72 virgins.

Yet they are no less fanatic than Islamic Jihad or Hamas.

From the right or the left, Palestinianism is a death cult. It praises death, it encourages dying, and becoming a martyr is not a religious obligation - it is a political obligation.

The upsurge of attacks in recent months had been initially attributed to new groups, like the "Lion's Den". Then Islamic Jihad apparently became jealous and started ramping its own attacks up, and taking credit. Now the PFLP is joining the fray. And there have been lots of attackers who are from Fatah as well.

Ideologically, they have nothing in common.

The common denominator is a fanatical hate for Jews and the Jewish state.

As we know, antisemitism requires no consistent ideology, philosophy or creed. It stands alone as the one hatred that crosses all populations and groups. And the West Bank is now a microcosm of worldwide antisemitism.

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

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Two can play the Neturei Karta game

Anti-Zionists like the extremist, fringe Neturei Karta sect because they share the ir desire to destroy Israel and the embrace terrorists. But the real reason they love them is because they use them as evidence that they are not antisemitic - after all, they like some Jews!

It's a stupid game, but it is one that both sides can play.

From Times of Israel:

Police on Thursday said officers arrested a man who entered the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank earlier this week along with two other members of the fringe anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox sect Neturei Karta, and met with Palestinians from local terror groups.

Elhanan Lax, 38, from the central city of Petah Tikva, was detained on suspicion of “supporting and associating with a terror group” and illegally entering Area A of the West Bank, where Jenin is located. Israeli citizens are barred from entering Area A, as it is under the Palestinian Authority’s civilian and security control under the Oslo Accords.

The three men were filmed meeting with prominent Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group officials as well as families of terrorist attackers on Monday.

Police said they are seeking to arrest the other two men. The trio could face lengthy prison spells if convicted of supporting terror.

Hold on - I thought that Israel was all about Jewish supremacy! About anti-Palestinian racism! How could Israel arrest fellow Jews, and threaten them with long prison terms, when they only treat Palestinians that way?

Moreover, how could Israel ban Jews from Area A? Arab Israelis can, and do, go to Palestinian controlled areas all the time. Isn't that the exact opposite of Jewish supremacy?

By the logic of the anti-Israel crowd themselves, Israel cannot be racist - just as the Israel haters use the NK idiots as proof that they cannot be antisemitic.

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

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The UN's Humanitarian Affairs office doesn't care about dead Jews

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the Palestinian territories wrote a report called "The humanitarian impact of 20 years of the Barrier."

It lists many reasons why Israel's separation barrier makes the lives of some Palestinians more difficult, highlighting farmers who need permits to work their land on the other side.

It is true - for a relatively small number of Palestinian farmers, the fence is a major inconvenience. There is nothing wrong with the UN highlighting their plight.

But there seems to be something missing from the analysis of a humanitarian affairs office.

The document begins with, "In 2002, the Israeli authorities started to build a Barrier with the stated aim of preventing violent attacks by Palestinians inside Israel."

By those criteria, was it successful?

Here are the number of Israelis killed in terror attacks, by year, from when construction began on the barrier:

The number of Israelis killed went down precipitously as the major parts of the barrier were completed.

It is hard to know exactly how much of the reduction was directly the result of the fence, of course; there were probably other factors. But according to one expert in the field, the barrier made all the difference:

Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah publicly admitted that Israel’s security fence is a significant obstacle to the Palestinian terrorist organizations. “If it weren’t there," he told Al-Manar Television, "the situation would be entirely different.”

On November 11, 2006, Shalah granted a long interview to Al-Manar TV, Hizbullah’s television channel. He asserted that suicide bombing attacks are the Palestinian people’s “strategic choice” and the terrorist organizations have every intention of continuing suicide bombing attacks, but that their timing and the possibility of perpetrating them from the West Bank depends on other factors.

“For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there the situation would be entirely different.”

According to the now dead Islamic Jihad leader, terror groups kept trying to blow up Jews and fully intended to continue, but the ugly wall stopped them.

Which means that the barrier has saved hundreds of Israeli lives - maybe thousands.

Now, why would the UN issue a report that only discusses how the fence is a detriment to Palestinian farmers' work, and not mention that it has largely fulfilled its purpose of saving many lives?

Unfortunately, the reason is because the UN doesn't consider saving Israeli lives to be a positive thing.

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

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01/10 Links Pt1: The perpetual dictator and the missing peace: The story of Mahmoud Abbas; Ambassador Nides’ delusions about Palestinian terrorism

From Ian:

Bassem Eid: The perpetual dictator and the missing peace: The story of Mahmoud Abbas

During these long 18-plus years, peace has eluded the region primarily through Abbas’s personal obstinance. In 2008, Abbas walked away from a third Israeli peace offer that would have relinquished Israeli control over the Old City, location of the holiest site in the Jewish faith, the Temple Mount. Under his rule, Palestinian public education and news media fully normalized and are even saturated in antisemitism, often featuring explicit calls for violence against Jews. Abbas’s public statements and speeches place all of the onus for peace on Israel, as the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt succinctly wrote: “The Abbas approach should be rejected by the international community, not merely because of its bias against Israel, but also because it recycled the same-old ideas that have pushed Palestinians down the pointless loop of delegitimizing Israel rather than the hard climb of reaching compromise.”

Over 2 million Palestinians live under the tyrannical power of Abbas’s PA in the West Bank, including me and many of the people I care most about. Abbas is the real occupier of our cities and our homeland, not our future partner Israel, which has consistently had a majority in favor of peace and not Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader who has explicitly supported the idea of a Palestinian state so long as Israel maintains the necessary security controls.

Abbas has offered us neither democracy nor independence, but we remain a free people. It is time for the Palestinian nation to reach a new agreement with Israel and the international community, abolishing the dictatorial rule of Abbas and the PLO and instead granting our people what we truly deserve: peace with dignity alongside our neighbor, the Jewish State of Israel.

Netanyahu government breaks sharply with predecessor in dealings with PA

On Jan. 5, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a series of retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority. These included sanctions against senior Palestinian officials, the withholding of Palestinian funds collected by Israel and a halt to illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The measures were swiftly implemented: Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, on returning from a trip to Europe, found himself waiting in line at the Allenby Bridge crossing after Israel stripped him of his VIP pass. On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the transfer of $40 million in confiscated Palestinian funds to Israeli victims of terrorism, money that would have gone to support terrorists had it reached P.A. hands.

“The difference that we’re seeing, the actions of the government on all fronts, is really quite substantial,” IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.

The measures, coming less than two weeks into the tenure of the country’s new government, are partly a response to the P.A.’s orchestration of a vote at the United Nations on Dec. 30 calling on the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on the legal status of Judea and Samaria. (Al-Maliki’s VIP pass was reportedly confiscated because of a meeting he had at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.)

“What the government did is focus on punishing the P.A. leadership. The government is saying that there’s a cost and a consequence for these actions,” said Hirsch. “P.A. subversion at the United Nations is a complete and utter breach of the Oslo Accords. The VIP permits are a function of the Accords. There’s no reason why we should have to continue as if nothing happened. They have to pay the price,” he added.

Israel’s move to freeze taxes and tariffs it collects on behalf of the P.A.—and which the P.A. uses to award terrorists and their families as part of its “pay-for-slay” program—is also a welcome decision, according to Hirsch. An Israeli law to withhold the funds has been on the books since 2017, but only half-heartedly enforced, he noted. “This will be particularly effective and forceful with the P.A.,” he said, as it will cost them 100 million shekels ($28 million) a month.

US: Israel’s Withholding of Funds over Palestinian Terrorism ‘Exacerbates Tensions’

US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday described a series of Israeli measures meant to curb and punish Palestinian terrorism as a “unilateral move” that “exacerbates tensions.”

Israel’s Security Cabinet last week approved the measures in response to what it described as the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing “political and legal war” against the Jewish state. The previous week, the U.N. General Assembly, at the urging of the P.A., passed a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”

“We have continued to make the point that unilateral actions that threaten the viability of a two-state solution, unilateral actions that only exacerbate tensions—those are not in the interests of a negotiated two-state solution,” said Price.

He added that Washington has “been consistent in our own strong opposition to the request for an ICJ advisory opinion concerning Israel…. We believe this action was counterproductive.”

As part of the measures, Israel on Sunday transferred $39.5 million of taxes and tariffs collected for the P.A. to the victims of terrorism and their families.

At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism.”

Palestinian Prime Minister calls new Israeli sanctions 'final nail in the coffin'

What is the rational response to irrational threats by Palestinians?

Leaders of Palestinian terror groups, and the PA government, are making threats in response to Itamar Ben-Gvir's plan to visit the Temple Mount.

Islamic Jihad leader Daoud Shehab said such a visit would be a "declaration of war."

Secretary of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Hussein Al-Sheikh, called for a "Palestinian, Arab and international" response.

Hamas said that Ben Gvir was "adding fuel to the fire" and holding Israel responsible for any violence. And there are reports that Hamas sent a message though Egypt to Israel that they would shoot rockets at Ben Gurion Airport if such a visit occurs.

Should Palestinian threats affect Israeli actions?

It is easy to flatly say "no." But if there was a credible threat of a thousand rockets being shot into Israel, is it worth it?

I'm no expert on game theory, but we have a history of threats and violence that can help shed light on what the reality is and what these threats are meant to accomplish.

Nearly every Palestinian threat of violence does not turn into anything. Look at the empty threats of war if the US opened an embassy in Jerusalem as a prime example. Even last March, Hamas threatened violence ahead of the last time Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount. Nothing happened.

And on the other side of the coin, nearly every case of real Palestinian violence had little to do with reacting to specific Israeli actions, although they would use Israeli actions as an excuse after the fact. The terror spree in 2022 was not preceded by specific threats.

The Second Intifada was supposedly sparked by Ariel Sharon's similar visit to the Temple Mount, but we know now that it was only an excuse - Arafat had planned the intifada beforehand, and the visit provided the pretext to implement the plan. If it wouldn't have happened then, it would have happened a week or month later.

When Hamas tells Egypt to warn Israel and the threat is leaked, that is not a real threat - that is trying to manipulate Israeli public opinion while providing Hamas with deniability when the war does not break out.

In this case, the 2021 Gaza war is instructive. In that case, Hamas gave a very specific warning and threat: Israel must remove its forces from the Temple Mount and Sheikh Jarrah by 6 PM on May 10 or else face a rocket barrage. Indeed, they started shooting rockets right at the deadline. But in that case, just as with the PLO in 2000, Hamas already planned the attack; it knew very well that Israel was not going to accede to their demands. It was a way to blame Israel for a Hamas-initiated war. Hamas wanted the war regardless, it had a specific goal to tie the actions happening in the West Bank with those in Gaza. At any rate, it wasn't a threat meant to change Israeli behavior, it was an excuse for a war they chose to start.

If you define terrorism as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims, Palestinian threats are simply a form of terrorism. Their occasional outbreaks of violence give credibility to the threats, but that actual violence has its own logic divorced from Israeli actions.

If Israel would cave to these threats, however - as some in the Israeli opposition demand - then the threats will have accomplished a great deal. The terrorists would learn that their threats can force Israel to do what they want without them firing a single bullet. That's about as successful a terror attack as is possible.

The armed groups in Gaza and the terror supporters in Ramallah generally don't want war. They would much rather have Europe and the US and the Knesset opposition pressure Israel to do what they want. That's the logic behind the threats.

Perhaps one can argue whether Ben Gvir should visit the holy site to begin with. But once he announced his intent, he must go through with it, because the downside of caving to Arab threats is far, far worse than the minuscule chances that it would spark a new war or a new intifada.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

12/28 Links Pt2: The Democrats must have a ‘Sister Souljah moment’ on antisemitism; War of Independence veterans protest 'defamatory' Netflix movie; Prominent Israeli firms vow to boycott bigots

From Ian:

The Democrats must have a ‘Sister Souljah moment’ on antisemitism

The recent rise in American antisemitism is the result of a lack of consequences for those engaging in it.

For example, Americans Against Antisemitism studied 194 anti-Jewish assaults and 135 attacks on Jewish property in New York that have taken place since 2018. According to their July 2022 report, only two of the perpetrators actually went to prison.

A similar situation is occurring on college campuses. Students who harass Jews are rarely if ever suspended or expelled, and almost never face any consequences at all. This has emboldened antisemites on campus, with a chilling effect on Jewish and pro-Israel voices.

Colleges have codes of conduct according to which harassment of other students can result in serious ramifications. These codes have not been enforced against antisemites.

In the realm of politics, when Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar engaged in anti-Jewish and anti-Israel comments, and expressed support for BDS, their fellow Democrats were initially prepared to take action against them. A resolution passed by the House of Representatives (H.R.183) sought to “ensure safety” for Jews. It stated, “Accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel or to the Jewish community than to the U.S. constitutes antisemitism.”

The resolution was a response to Omar’s comments, with Tlaib by her side, that supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship “push allegiance to a foreign country.” In Jan. 2019, Tlaib criticized Sen. Marco Rubio’s efforts to punish those who attempt to boycott Israel, tweeting, “They forgot what country they represent.” Rubio posted, “The ‘dual loyalty’ canard is a typical antisemitic line.” Neither Tlaib nor Omar have apologized for these statements.

Instead of making it clear that Tlaib and Omar’s bigoted views are anathema to the Democratic Party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed both for reelection.

Sadly, it is not surprising that several Jewish organizations, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Ameinu, along with the left-wing lobby J Street, issued a statement saying they “oppose Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge to strip Representative Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that she is antisemitic or anti-Israel. We may not agree with some of Congresswoman Omar’s opinions, but we categorically reject the suggestion that any of her policy positions or statements merit disqualification from her role on the committee.”

With Jewish organizations like these, we should not be surprised that antisemitism is rising.

War of Independence veterans protest 'defamatory' Netflix movie

Veterans of the War of Independence, who are currently in the tenth decade of their lives, have joined the furor surrounding the Jordanian film Farha, which depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers executing Palestinian children and babies, demanding Netflix immediately remove it from their library.

"We are Holocaust survivors who defended our country. Remove the defamatory film," the five ex-soldiers called.

The Israel Law Center has sent a warning letter to Netflix on their behalf concerning a potential breach of Israeli defamation laws.

The group consists of 96-year-old Oded Negbi, who served in the Givati Brigade and fought many battles in the Negev and Jaffa; 92-year-old Eitan Yavzory of Kibbutz Afikim, who fought in Gush Etzion and in the Negev; 94-year-old Ezra Yachin, who fought in Jerusalem; 92-year-old Lt. Col. (Res.) Ze'ev (Tibi) Ram, a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family at Auschwitz and enlisted in the Golani Brigade upon the outbreak of the War of Independence; and 91-year-old Prof. Benny Arad, a veteran of the Haganah, who fought in the War of Independence, among other conflicts, and served as an IDF officer for many years. As a physicist, Arad was one of the founders of the Department of Experimental Physics at the Negev Nuclear Research Center.

"It's an antisemitic movie. When I heard about it, I was appalled. At the thought that this movie is being shown all over the world, I was driven to stand up and protest, and I called in my son. He contacted the Israel Law Center," Arad said.

"Personally, I don't watch television. But when we're defamed like this, I can't let it pass. The world doesn't know what the IDF is, what a moral army we have. So they may think that the lies that the movie shows are the actual truth. All we did is defend our country, our nation, and our nascent state."

Negbi also shares his frustration with the movie and the lopsided fashion in which it depicts his comrades in arms.

"The life I lived alongside the Arabs was completely different. When I heard about that movie, I shuddered. I went through many hardships. My mother taught me to give to others and help them. Not even the concept of killing children could come out of a home like that. The very notion of harming an Arab child was far from our minds. It's sheer slander," he said.

‘Activist’ or Antisemite? Dr. Noura Erakat’s Poorly-Timed Speech at OSU

Several incidents involving swastikas, harmful antisemitic libels, and images of the burning Israeli flag took place on Ohio State University (OSU)’s campus in the months and weeks leading up to the anniversary of Kristallnacht.

One would have hoped that OSU administrators and students could come together to resist this unprecedented and abhorrent increase in antisemitism on campus.

Sadly, those hopes were crushed by the invitation of a speaker to campus who spews the very same libels.

On November 9, the OSU Palestinian Women’s Association hosted Rutgers University Professor Dr. Noura Erakat, who spoke to Ohio State students over Zoom to discuss her new book, “Justice for Some: Law and the Occupation of Palestine.”

Although she is hailed by her university and many anti-Zionist activists as an expert in international law, fallacies in her book can be found as early as the introduction, where Erakat discusses “Zionist militias established Israel by force, without regard to the Partition Plan’s stipulated borders.”

This falsehood negates the indisputable fact that in 1948, most Jews accepted United Nations Resolution 181, which partitioned the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. Arabs, on the other hand, vehemently rejected the proposal and tried to eliminate Israel and kill its Jewish inhabitants.