Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Preoccupied

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Thursday, September 24, 2020

Cabinet Decides Masks, Distancing Only Apply To 'Little People' (PreOccupied Territory)

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COVID mask Jerusalem, September 24 - Months of tension and recriminations over persistent accusations that prominent political figures flout the measures that the Ministry of Health has mandated to curtail the spread of COVID-19 have led to an official resolution today, in which the government formalized the distinction between hoi polloi and policymakers: the former must adhere to all restrictions, whereas the latter may dispense with measures that only the unworthy masses must maintain.

The cabinet voted unanimously Thursday morning to draw formal social and legal lines between the political aristocracy and the plebeians, in a move aimed at silencing months of criticism concerning senior political figures seen socializing, meeting, and conducting business without social distancing and without masks, even as police and Ministry of Health personnel imposed fines on citizens failing to adhere to the same public health guidelines.

"Officials at the level of government minister or deputy minister, Member of Knesset, ministry director-general, police commissioner, senior military officers, and direct family relation to any of the above are exempt from Ministry of Health distancing measures," the cabinet's post-meeting statement read. "We have decided unanimously that we as public officials cannot perform our official duties of exploiting our positions for special treatment and personal gain if we face the restrictions that the Ministry of Health has imposed on the unwashed masses, and have therefore enshrined that exemption into official policy."

Cabinet members expressed hope that the formalization of the different statuses will settle the issue once and for all. "It's really ridiculous that it had to come to this," lamented Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz. "In our society, everyone should have grasped long ago that there is a special elite to whom the rules do not apply. It's actually a little shameful to me that we had to make this explicit after all this time."

Opposition figures voiced cautious praise for the move. "My main criticism is this should have happened way back in March, so we could spare ourselves a lot of useless rhetoric in the meantime," stated Opposition leader Yair Lapid. "But at least now we can get back to the main reason we're all here instead of fielding complaints from every little serf out there who saw Joe MK at a wedding without a mask and wants to know why he gets fined if he does the same thing. Well, it's because you're a nobody, that's why. Let's move on, please."

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Campaign Hopes To Reach Ushpizin In Time To Get Them To Wear Masks (PreOccupied Territory)

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Ushpizin Jerusalem, September 17 - A group of Jews concerned for the welfare of the elderly guests who visit each temporary residence during the upcoming Sukkot holiday launched a drive today to raise awareness of the need to don a protective face covering in the presence of others, with the goal of having those ancient visitors sport such coverings to reduce the risk of contracting a virus that disproportionately harms the aged.

The Union for the Safety of the Holy Patriarchs of Israel and Zion and to Interdict Negligence (USHPIZIN) embarked on a publicity campaign Thursday to reach Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David, the seven visitors who come to each person's sukkah on the seven respective days of the festival. The youngest of the group, David, is more than three thousand years old, placing him and the others firmly in a high-risk group for coronavirus infection and fatality.

Those formative seven figures of Jewish lore each represent a different personality and set of attributes manifest in the world, but USHPIZIN coordinator R. Baminim warned that unless sukkah-dwellers adhere to social distancing protocols and keep their own masks on in the presence of the venerable guests, observers of the weeklong annual ritual court disaster, or might dissuade the seven from visiting them.

"The seven-day Sukkot festival is a time to experience deepening levels of spiritual consciousness, each one building on the one before, as represented by one of the Ushpizin," he stated, using the Latin-derived term for the seven guests, from a term that later gave English the words "hospice" and "hospitality." "But that can't happen if our father Abraham is laid up in Intensive Care because some inconsiderate dodo got careless. We're also concerned that, despite their advanced age, the seven Ushpizin might be carrying the pathogen, and could transmit it far and wide even as most of the population maintains the lockdown that the authorities have imposed for everyone's protection."

Sukkot, the Biblically-mandated Feast of Booths, or "Tabernacles" as older translations render it, requires adult male Jews to reside in a structure with a makeshift, porous ceiling, for seven days beginning on the fifteenth of the month of Tishrei. The shift from a permanent residence into a semi-exposed "home" highlights, inter alia, human dependence on divine providence, and the freedom that realization engenders can in turn open a person to more profound insight and character refinement as represented by each of the seven Ushpizin, assuming he doesn't kill them with some contagious disease.

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If We In The EU Undermine Israeli Sovereignty, That Undoes the Holocaust, Right? (PreOccupied Territory)

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If We In The EU Undermine Israeli Sovereignty, That Undoes the Holocaust, Right?

by Josep Borell, Chief of Foreign Policy, European Union

Brussels, September 10 - Europe's unified approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict grows in large part out of the Continent's ambiguous legacy when it comes to the wholesale slaughter of Jews under Nazi occupation during the Second World War. The perpetrators could not have committed atrocities on such a vast scale without the enthusiastic collaboration of local gentiles, and to grapple with the shame that knowledge engenders in these subsequent generations, the many nations the Union comprises have settled on a basic principle: that weakening Jewish control of the ancestral Jewish homeland, through the funding and strengthening of the Jewish State's existential foes, will somehow negate the evil perpetrated against Jews who should have enjoyed our protection here in Europe.

This approach currently unfolds on two main axes: Palestinians and Iran.

Concerning the Palestinians, European Union policy aims to sever any Jewish control of the places where Jews have their ancient roots, in this case by underwriting and fostering the construction of facilities to establish Palestinian "facts on the ground" in violation of existing Palestinian agreements with Israel concerning the disposition of various areas of respective control. We also maintain steadfast refusal to recognize Jewish claims to Jerusalem, the center of Jewish ritual and longing since ancient times. All this stems from our effort to expunge the sins, both of commission and omission, the weight of which the various peoples of Europe bear as their post-Holocaust legacy.

Our attitude toward Iran also bears the hallmarks of this approach. Empowering the mullahs who hold Holocaust-denial conferences, vow to destroy the world's only Jewish state, sponsor terrorism against Israeli and Jewish interests all over the globe, and show blatant disregard for all people who stand in the way of their hegemonic ambitions, Jews or otherwise, provides Europe with yet another way to expiate its Holocaust guilt.

Philosophers can quibble over the metaphysical processes by which Europe can undo, to whatever extent possible, its historic shame by following this approach. Speaking for myself and a large part of my constituency, the moral calculus is simple: play up the Jews-are-the-new-Nazis angle in propaganda and political rhetoric; cast the Palestinians as the helpless victims of Israeli aggression, thus inverting the Nazi-Jewish dynamic under the Third Reich (during which the Arab leadership in Palestine sided vociferously with the Nazis and their genocidal policies toward Jews); and then swoop in to rescue the oppressed Palestinians from the new Nazis, and presto - moral carte blanche to be rid of the Jews by whatever means.

Heaven knows we'll never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust.

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Report: Every Good Thing Bad If Other Political Side Does It (PreOccupied Territory)

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double standards Jerusalem, September 3 - Scientific research has confirmed a long-held assumption prevalent among the civically engaged, a new study claims, to the effect that constructive, beneficial acts, policies, or decisions that a government adopts become wrong when that government is run by your ideological opponents.

An article in next week's issue of the journal Hypocrisy Today lays out the details of the research, which examined numerous instances of the wrong people supporting the right things, thereby making the right things the wrong things even though they would remain the right things were the right people to do those things. The study arrived at what the authors call a workable model to explain the phenomenon, which observers are calling an important milestone in the age-old endeavor to comprehend what makes people such schmucks.

"Many of us had sensed the truth of this hypothesis intuitively," explained lead author Dr. Sel Fintrizt of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We knew it was unremarkable when the Obama administration kept illegal immigrant children in cages, but when the Trump administration revived the policy, it became evil. In a similar vein, Obama administration attempts to influence elections in Israel through a series of NGOs caused little stir in Washington, but the charge of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections in the US sent the Democratic Party and mainstream media into a frenzy. We discovered it's less about the what and almost all about the who."

The phenomenon occurred with the greatest frequency, the article notes, in international treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Arrangements from the 1990s that granted Palestinians limited self-rule in certain disputed areas also barred either side from a number of unilateral actions that might prejudice the outcome of a still-elusive final status agreement; nevertheless, European and other foreign governments either turn a blind eye to, or directly fund, Palestinian efforts to establish such facts on the ground even as those governments and NGOs rail against Israel for pursuing the same type of behavior.

Similarly, making the desert bloom generally registers as a positive among humans, but for opponents of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland, when Jews do it there it becomes rape of the landscape and the upsetting of important ecological balance.

Scientists agree the mechanism of the phenomenon remains in large part a mystery, but some tantalizing hints have emerged, revealed Dr. Fintrizt. "We know as soon as Jews appear in the picture somewhere, the probability of this phenomenon occurring quadruples," he noted. "That's likely a huge clue, one we do not yet understand. But it's probably the Jews' fault."

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Hipster Terrorist Insists Was Just Stabbing Jews Ironically (PreOccupied Territory)

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Petach Tikva, August 26 - The Palestinian killer of a 46-year-old Israeli father of four claimed today that he performed his act of murder yesterday in this suburb of Tel Aviv not as a sincere expression of his desire to murder people he sees as ideological enemies, but as detached, ironic mimicry of the mainstream acceptance of such behavior in his society, which of course he finds laughable.

Dweikat Khalil Abd al-Khaliq Dweikat, 21, was apprehended Wednesday afternoon after an incident in which police allege he injured a Jewish man and an Israeli Arab in a stabbing attack; the Jew later died of his injuries. After an initial period of isolation and interrogation, the alleged perpetrator requested that his attorney assure the public he perpetrated the killing ironically, and demanded that they not make the mistake of thinking him a bourgeois mainstream drone who just does what society expects; in fact he imitates that behavior in an effort to mock it.

"I would like to stress that my client does not admit to the charges against him, at least not in the conventional sense," pronounced Nabil Aswani. "Most of you probably never heard of it, but Mr. Dweikat was engaged in what can best be described as a type of sardonic performance art, in which he takes conventional behaviors that mainstream sensibilities accept without question, and subjects them to the critical lens of doing the same thing, but with a beard, thus undermining their axiomatic status in society. I think that's what my client told me, anyway. I brought him the wrong kind of soy latte when I went to see him this morning, and he may have been less than cooperative in the communication department."

Jailers reported as well that Dweikat has made repeated requests to hear music by artists no one has heard of, only to be informed that playing music in the detention facility violates Prison Services policy. Guards recalled that the prisoner's response involved a rolling of the eyes and sarcastic inquiries whether the policy could be read from actual paper, or was that too archaic for their mainstream sensibilities.

Police and prosecution officials expect the case to go to trial, at which they will seek an ironic sentence of life imprisonment for the defendant, or at least an ironic plea bargain under which the defendant will receive an ironically reduced prison sentence in exchange for information about other terrorists' activities.

We Will Recognize Israel In Exchange For Destroying Israel by Javad Zarif (PreOccupied Territory)

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We Will Recognize Israel In Exchange For Destroying Israel

by Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Islamic Republic of Iran

Javad Zarif Tehran, August 21 - Diplomacy and politics are all about compromise. Both arts require flexibility, creative thinking, and efforts to craft win-win situations in which all parties to the issue can walk away with a compelling argument that they gain from the outcome. Iran therefore proposes the following: the Islamic Republic will depart from its long-held position that Israel has no right to exist, and will grant full recognition of the Jewish State, and in return, that Jewish State will concede to our eliminating it by violent means.

The Zionist entity has persisted despite the best efforts of the Arab and Islamic worlds over the last century to thwart such imperialist ambitions, often dealing us setbacks once thought impossible for dhimmi people to achieve. They had help, of course, in the form of the Great Satan, as well as a knack for exploiting divisions among the Muslim states and parties, each of whom sometimes saw the conflict not as a jihad to liberate Dar al-Islam from infidel colonist usurpers, but as yet another arena in which to jockey for regional influence. Regardless of the mechanics of the phenomenon, the fait accompli of a Zionist state has worn down even some of its staunchest opponents, several of whom now maintain diplomatic and commercial ties with the entity. Iran recognizes certain historical inevitabilities.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic cannot abide the continued and deepening occupation of Islamic Waqf lands, an affront to the Islamic Umma and to Allah. Since the Umma - and of course Iran has always played a decisive leadership role in Islam; take that, House of Saud - will not countenance the ongoing violation of Palestine, but that Occupation stubbornly refuses to disappear, and in fact entrenches itself further as the years pass, even conducting successful pursuit of recognition from its erstwhile existential foes, only one way forward can break the dynamic of mutual exclusivity: Iran will grant the legitimacy and recognition that the Zionist entity craves, and we, in exchange, will eliminate that entity. Win-win.

Lest cynics argue that if Iran had the capacity to destroy the Zionist entity it would have done so already, it must be noted that the Islamic Republic has already demonstrated its ability to destroy other countries: Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and to some extent, Iraq, which will never function independently from Tehran if we have anything to say about it.

The ball is now in the Zionists' court, but they will refuse, as they have always opposed resolution of the conflict.

Judenrat Candidate Insists He Most Qualified To Provide Futile Cushion Against Nazi Brutality (PreOccupied Territory)

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Bialystock Ghetto, August 13 - Authorities mandated this week that the Jews of this city elect delegates to a council that will represent the community in its dealings with the German occupation administration, sparking a campaign by several dozen prominent Jewish figures to serve on the council, with one ambitious man boasting that he possesses unparalleled abilities in pointless efforts to delay, soften, or otherwise thwart in some measure the inevitable genocide on the horizon.
Mojsze Ufnik, 30, sought today to launch his candidacy for the Judenrat, the Nazi-approved local Jewish leadership council, the body that in the ensuing months and years will play a key role in the rigged game of making vain attempt after vain attempt to shield at least some of the Jews under its aegis from falling victim to Nazi policies of slave labor, summary execution, mass rape, deportation, and other depravities. Ufnik, scion of a prosperous textile manufacturing family, aims to wield his considerable influence in the community to cushion them from their inescapable doom.
"I'm excited for this opportunity for public service," he pronounced to an unenthusiastic crowd of Six Warszawska Street, four of whom bear some family relation to him. "We all hold my fellow candidates in high esteem, and I share our collective confidence in their willingness to do their best, but my best will be the best best. I guarantee that. No one will achieve better results than I in failing to prevent the wholesale isolation, dehumanization, exploitation, oppression, degradation, and eventual massacre of our community in the coming months and years."
"If the Judenrat will toil in vain," he chanted, "it might as well be led by someone vain!"
Nazi intentions called for the existing Jewish community leaders to gain positions on the Judenrat, to lend the council authority among Jews in might not otherwise enjoy, but here, as in many other locales under SS control, the rabbis and other leaders have for the most part refused to grant the Judenrat the legitimacy that such participation would command; they have recognized that the council's role and capacity, as conceived and constructed by the Nazis, is to smooth, not disrupt or delay, the enslavement and extermination of the Jews under Third Reich rule. Others, such as Mr. Ufnik, see opportunity for social or political advancement, however short-lived it might prove.
"Might as well be on the right side of the nepotism, cronyism, favoritism, and corruption that always goes along with scarcity," he explained.

Iran Pleased To Have Lebanese To Sacrifice In Addition To Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Palestinians (PreOccupied Territory)

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Tehran, August 6 - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several of his top officials voiced gratification today following a catastrophic explosion in Beirut yesterday that killed more than a hundred and injured thousands, in appreciation for the millions of Middle East lives they have at their disposal in an ongoing campaign to extend Shiite hegemony across the region and destroy Israel in the process.

Iranian political and religious figures at various levels of the mullahs' regime reacted to the detonation of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate in the Lebanese capital - leaving an immense crater and sowing destruction and death for miles around - by thanking Allah that those poor Lebanese victims serve as mere pawns in Tehran's schemes to dominate the Middle East, in addition to the pawns suffering for the same cause in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories.

"Praise to Allah," intoned the ayatollah at a meeting of senior advisers Thursday, "that the people of Lebanon die for our noble goals. The millions of Lebanese who endure political instability, incompetent administration, economic collapse, and the constant threat of violence, do so in service of our divinely-sanctioned vision for the entire region. They should be thankful to participate in this grand project."

"With the way things have been going lately, it's a relief to also have the Lebanese as cannon fodder," explained Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif. "Our glorious supreme leader has previously expressed resolve to fight the Great Satan [the United States] and the Little Satan [Israel] to the last Palestinian, but that resolve extends to the tens of millions of other residents in neighboring countries, most notably the ones where the militias and other forces we support, supply, and coordinate fight to cement our control."

Iranian analysts praised the evident willingness of Lebanese, Yemenis, Palestinians, Syrians, and Iraqis of all stripes to die for Iran's ambitions. "It's encouraging," observed commentator Shivermit Imberz. "Our leadership must feel heartened by the vast number of bodies it can throw at various enemies, and use to cushion itself from various disasters, outside Iran's borders. Allah knows the people inside Iran itself, in contrast, have shown in protest movement after protest movement that they have far less tolerance for those ambitions, preferring for some bizarre reason that the leadership focus on the economy, coronavirus, infrastructure, and not provoking the US, the Saudis, Israel, and whomever else into sabotaging every goddamn installation. Ingrates."

(Photo credit: Hammami via Wikipedia)

Successful Syrian Interceptions Of IAF Listed With UFO, Bigfoot Sightings (PreOccupied Territory)

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F-15E Damascus, July 23 - Cryptozoologists and other enthusiasts of paranormal phenomena have begun including Assad regime claims of thwarted Israeli airborne operations in their logs of unconfirmed-but-definitely-real incidents, opening a new realm in which the credulous can enjoy the sense of superiority and insider status born of knowing something most other people are too closed-minded to accept.

Conspiracy-theory-minded groups devoted to documenting sightings of phenomena and entities for which scientists and mainstream society find insufficient or uncompelling evidence have decided to add to their record-keeping the cases in which Syrian air defense officials say they have shot down or driven away Israeli aircraft or missiles, amid ongoing Israeli efforts to interdict the movement of strategic weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syrian territory.

"I'm excited about this addition," gushed Gimlin Patterson, a cryptozoology documentary filmmaker. "It's been ages since our community has had something really, genuinely new to discuss. Most of our research involves stories or sightings that are decades, sometimes centuries old: the Loch Ness Monster, Yeti, Sasquatch, Area 51 aliens, chupacabras, ghosts, you know. Sometimes we get the novelty of an old map that purports to show Chinese knowledge of the Americans before the Europeans got there. But the Syria interception accounts are a breath of fresh air. And as a bonus, so many of us are already primed to believe in conspiracy theories and secret cabals that suppress the truth, so this new collection of claims fits nicely into the antisemitic sensibilities so many of us already bring to the table."

"I'm more of an aliens-built-the-pyramids kind of gal," added Roz Well, hostess of the podcast What They Won't Tell You. "But the discovery that Syria has actually been shooting down Israeli aircraft and missiles, and that mainstream media, when they even cover the incidents, only parrot Israeli propaganda, really resonates. Outfits that shill for governments, and governments that try to suppress the truth, will lie about anything, not just ignore all the evidence that aliens built all the ancient pyramids around the world - Mayan, Egyptian, or wherever."

"The key is to look for any shred of fact that supports the conclusion you've already reached - and the antisemites among us have lots of practice at that - and then," she continued, "either take anything that contradicts the conclusion and ignore, downplay, or dismiss it as fake, or as evidence of the cover-up. It's such a good thing that Bashar Assad, contrary to what the lamestream press will tell you, is really the reincarnation of Sennacherib, because that's a real humanitarian."

Poor, Hungry Israelis Unaware They Part Of Global Banking Cabal (PreOccupied Territory)

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money money money B'nei B'rak, July 16 - Residents of this entirely-ultra-orthodox city, the second-most-impoverished in the nation according to Central Bureau of Statistics data, possess no knowledge that by dint of their membership in the Jewish people they control global finances, and media, a new study reports.

B'nei B'rak, population just under 200,000, boasts many of the poorest households in Israel, lagging just behind Jerusalem - which only accounts for so many more poor households because of its much larger overall population. Researchers at Bar Ilan University observed that none of the hundreds of random B'nei B'rak residents surveyed displayed any awareness that as Jews they enjoy a share of the cabal that dominates entertainment, news, banking, and other crucial industries all around the world.

"It's a little bizarre," noted lead researcher Adel Sheldenson. "You'd think that as members of a tribe that has sat at the crux of global finance for generations, they might have some clue as to their status, but none seem to. And so many of them live lives of abject poverty."

"Some of that poverty is a function of lifestyle choice," explained researcher Ed Rothschild. "These communities value simplicity and sacrifice for the sake of full-time Torah study. Still, you'd think that, given what everyone out there assumes about the Talmud and the evil stuff it contains, at least some of the folks here might have caught on to its teachings about dominating the subhuman goyim by whatever means, and whatnot. But none of them seem to know about those parts of the Talmud, either."

The same holds true in other poor cities where Haredim form the majority of the population. Jerusalem, as noted, features tens of thousands of poor ultra-orthodox families, though large-scale studies of their involvement in international banking and rootless cosmopolitanism have not taken place. Smaller Haredi population centers, however, such as the towns of El'ad, Kiryat Sefer, and Beitar 'Illit, show identical numbers of Jews who know they and their cohorts have controlled global finance for hundreds of years: zero. That figure surprised researchers as well, given the relative prosperity of those towns compared to the ultra-orthodox in B'nei B'rak and Jerusalem, and thus the greater chance, researchers had assumed, that some might have a hand or tentacle in the vast Jewish-Zionist conspiracy to rule the world.

Researchers intend to follow up the current study with an exploration of how scholars with encyclopedic knowledge of Talmud appear completely unaware of passages in that set of documents that antisemites are fond of quoting.

Church Wonders How Many Liberal Jews Would Convert If Christ Recast As 'Anti-Zionism' (PreOccupied Territory)

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Sistine fingers Rome, July 9 - Leaders of the world's largest Christian denomination have commissioned a study to determine whether the body's ages-old ambition to convince adherents of the Mosaic faith to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and as their savior from Original Sin might meet more success with Jesus not in the role of the divine incarnate - a notion anathema to longstanding Hebraic sensibilities - but in a form of proven palatability to prominent, if not large, swaths of progressive Jews: opposition to Jewish sovereignty in the ancestral Jewish homeland.

Pope Francis appointed a committee this week to explore the possibilities of rebranding Jesus Christ as anti-Zionism in efforts to proselytize to leftist Jews, Vatican insiders reported Thursday. The commission will focus on the potential effectiveness of such a change in semantics based on the realization that Jews who seek entree to elite cultural circles have always faced the demand that they renounce core aspects of Jewish identity and fidelity - but that over the last two centuries, shifts in Western culture have in turn shifted which core aspects of Jewish identity and fidelity they must renounce.

For more than 1500 years the dominant Christian culture insisted that access to elite circles required Jews to violate fundamental principles of Jewish faith by accepting, for example, the divinity of a human, when core Jewish tenets preclude the corporeality of God; now however, following centuries of decline in the influence of Church power and cultural hegemony, elite cultural circles now demand that Jews renounce allegiance to more secular aspects of Jewish identity and belonging - Jewish nationhood, for example, Jewish indigenous status in the one place Jews have ever had a sovereign home, or any collective right Jews might have to reestablish themselves as an independent political entity. That cultural shift has prompted the senior figures within the Roman Catholic Church to consider adapting their ancient compulsion to "prove" the legitimacy of their replacement theology - whereby Christians are the new Israel and the Jews, by rejecting Christ, must disappear - to suit the more modern sensibilities of anti-Zionism.

"If we can dress up the Christ as anti-Zionism that should appeal to all sorts of progressive Jews," explained Cardinal Pedro Beinardo, who heads the commission. "Some Protestant denominations already invoke Jesus in railing against Israel, which is fine, and in fact the reemergence of Jewish sovereignty poses a serious theological challenge to Christians, who still, by and large, insist the the New Testament renders the Old non-applicable. But we think to succeed, the approach needs to take things a step or two further, because there's been an erosion of the spiritual, as classically conceived, in the West, and we need to roll with that. Political ideology is the new religion, and we better understand that."

Experts Question Wisdom Of Legalizing Cannabis In Country With Lousy Brownies (PreOccupied Territory)

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brownies Jerusalem, June 25 - Impending legislation to remove criminal penalties for possession of marijuana has led a group of concerned scientists to caution against the move, given the paucity in Israel of decent baked goods of the type often eaten following use of the drug, representatives of the group stated today.

Medical Unity for Normal Cannabis Habit-Inducing EatS (MUNCHIES) told reporters Thursday that MK Sharren Haskel's bill to legalize cannabis risks exposing Israelis to the effects of smoking or otherwise ingesting the substance in the absence of proper cookies or brownies. MUNCHIES spokesman Richard Martin told reporters at a reporters at a Knesset press conference this morning that given the lousy quality of cookies and brownies that the vast majority of Israeli bakeries produce, increased use of marijuana that will follow its legalization will also lead to trauma born of ingesting inferior snack foods in the wake of weed-induced munchies.

"Israeli cookies and brownies are just plain terrible," pronounced Martin, who told reporters to refer to him as Cheech. "That's the main issue here. You'll hear any number of opinions on whether marijuana legalization is sound public policy; our group happens to favor it. For that very reason, all the more so, it's crucial to address our concerns. If an anti-cannabis figure or organization were advancing this argument, you could dismiss it as insincere, but for us this is essential. You can't get stoned on THC and not have decent munchies available."

Mr. Cheech got increasingly agitated as he spoke of the negligence the legislation bespeaks. "There are two separate bills in committee on the subject now, and neither one provides for the availability of decent brownies or cookies," he lamented. "Even if local bakeries can't produce a passable Thin Mint, Duncan Hines, or Oreo equivalent, we can still augment importation of those items. I don't think anyone has ever made a serious effort to bring in Girl Scout cookies, and that indicates how unserious our political class's treatment of this important issue continues to be. Legalizing cannabis without addressing the awful things local establishments and manufacturers call 'cookies' and 'brownies' is just exchanging one set of troubles for another."

"I'd treat my stress over this problem with a joint," he continued, "but for one thing, it's still illegal until one of the bills becomes law, and for another, it would just give me a case of the munchies, and then I'd have to satisfy those cravings with sugary cardboard things marketed as edible."

Egypt Not Worried About Pyramid Slavery Legacy: Everyone Thinks Those Slaves Were Just Jews (PreOccupied Territory)

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Cairo, June 18 - Authorities in this country of nearly 100 million dismissed concerns today that the movement to dismantle monuments glorifying racist or oppressive regimes and figures will affect their state's archaeological and cultural sites, because in the popular conception, Hebrew slaves built those wonders of the ancient world, and it's OK to oppress Jews so no one will care.

Officials at the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, which administers the tourism and archaeological aspects of the various Pharaohs' tombs, told reporters Thursday they see little danger of protesters taking down statues and monuments in Egypt of people deemed problematic, since the adherents of the protest movement do not include Jews in their list oppression victims, seeing the targets of the world's oldest hatred as somehow deserving of genocide, pogroms, forced conversion, blood libels, and the like. While in fact Hebrew slaves did not build the pyramids - the structures largely precede the estimated dating of Israelite enslavement in Egypt - in many people's minds the forced labor those slaves performed involved construction of pyramids. The falsehood of the popular belief, officials explain, does nothing to diminish its effectiveness in preventing mass movements to dismantle the pyramids.

"We normally spend a not-insignificant portion of our educational efforts emphasizing that the pyramids have a far more ancient pedigree than the Biblical episode," explained Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs Salman Moussa. "There persists, especially in the West, a misperception that the Jews built them. The Biblical text itself, the historicity of which is in dispute anyway, never once even mentions the pyramids; in fact it says the Israelites built 'cities,' and even names those cities. The timing of the Exodus narrative according to its traditional dating - say, the middle of the second millennium BCE - places it centuries later than many of the pyramids."

"Under normal circumstances we and our educational partners throughout the world - in museums, academia, for example - would be trying to combat the 'The Jews built the pyramids' nonsense," he continued. "It's a problem for us as scholars, of course, but as Arabs and Egyptians in particular, it would be pretty galling to owe anything to Jews, just speaking honestly. Stripping most of them of their assets and expelling them after Israel refused to let itself be destroyed, well, you can understand why Egyptians might get upset at them. But we're toning those educational efforts down for the moment, for the sake of preserving these ancient, imposing links to the past. If saving the pyramids requires allowing the mob to think it was the Jews who built the pyramids so that was a good kind of slavery, we can let that historical inaccuracy slide."

Janitor At Mossad HQ Accidentally Switches On 'Riots Across US' Device (PreOccupied Territory)

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server Tel Aviv, June 4 - Israeli secret intelligence officials and agents scrambled today to mitigate damage that resulted since late last week when a maintenance worker unintentionally activated a machine that set in motion violent outbreaks in many major American urban centers and several smaller locales, an anonymous spokesman for the agency disclosed Thursday.

According to initial assessments of the incident, the spokesman revealed, a late-night cleaning crew at Mossad headquarters jostled a device that was in the middle of complicated hardware upgrades, and as such had been left in an exposed position. The cleaning crew performed its usual routine, but the device, located in a server room that employees enter on average only once a week, became activated when a cleaner's mop swabbed a sensitive panel. The accident caused a chain reaction in the agency's quantum mind-control matrix that led to the Minneapolis death at the hands of police of an African-American, a death that in turn sparked protests that soon turned violent, even deadly - and in many cases resulted in widespread looting and a breakdown in law and order across the Unites States.

Mossad technicians only realized on Tuesday that the stateside violence came from their machine, when a different maintenance task took them to the same server room thirty stories below ground level. "It was only then that someone noticed the riot device was active," the spokesman stated. "From that point forward, our agents and tech people have been working around the clock to reset things on our end, but much of the damage is already done in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, and Minneapolis, just to note a few hotspots."

The debacle represents the Mossad's most significant acknowledged foul-up since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in late 2016. "That was a whopper," recalled independent intelligence analyst Glinn Grenwald. "Afterwards we saw a skilled effort, to some degree successful, to paint Trump's election as a successful operation, but in fact the Mossad was as blindsided by the outcome as Putin was. This one, with the looting and the riots, and the dishonest coverage all around of police activities, well, that's quite a cluster**** in its own right, but doesn't quite rise to the level of Donald Trump assuming the most powerful office in the history of the world."

Observers also drew comparisons to the 1967 sinking of the USS Liberty, 9/11, Hurricane Katina, and several other incidents for which Israel often gets blamed but in fact the CIA orchestrated.

Arab Demonization Of Israel An Israeli Plot To Keep Out Arabs Fleeing Arab Tyranny (PreOccupied Territory)

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horse stampede Tel Aviv, May 21 - Document leaks from within an Israeli intelligence organization revealed this week that longstanding animosity from surrounding Arab states, by those states' own accounts an expression of opposition to Jewish sovereignty on land they consider Arab Muslim, in fact occurs as the intentional product of a secret Israeli propaganda campaign to prevent people from those neighboring countries from wanting to get to the Jewish state to escape the oppression and misery they face in their own lands.

Journalists obtained documents on Wednesday that appear to describe a decades-old program to fan the flames of anti-Israel sentiment in neighboring states, through measures that appear to mesh seamlessly with those countries' own official propaganda, but in fact are calculated to maintain a level of Israel-hate in those populations high enough to ensure that residents of those Arab countries never consider escaping to Israel to enjoy freedoms and rights they could never experience in their native lands.

Selections from documents from the Mossad, among with at least one other organization that does not officially exist, reached reporters yesterday, documents that refer to an initiative called Operation Repulse. Sketchy details from several of the documents point to operations going back at least to 1965 in which government-controlled media in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and at least four other countries not named directly, were co-opted or deceived into exaggerating anti-Israel sentiment beyond the level each respective regime had prescribed. Unsuspecting broadcasters, publishers, pundits, and other figures in those countries played into Israel's scheme to make the Jewish state such an unappealing place in Arab eyes that few fugitives from those lands would aim for refuge or absorption there - despite Israel's comparative freedom, prosperity, tolerance, and general welfare, a gap that has only increased through the decades. Israeli leaders feared becoming overwhelmed by Arab refugees whose sheer numbers would negate the country as a Jewish state, the only one in the world and thus the only guaranteed refuge for Jews themselves fleeing persecution.

Political and bureaucratic superiors of the Arab figures carrying the overstated vitriol seldom suffered for their apparent excess gusto in conveying it to their audiences; in at least four documented cases those figures found career advancement as a result of what their superiors interpreted as welcome enthusiasm for the task at hand.

Security officials declined to comment or to answer questions whether Repulse has continued into the twenty-first century, even to today, but one acknowledged that it became increasingly difficult to generate the level of hate necessary to stay unwelcoming in Arab eyes as Israel's economy, culture, safety, and stability surged in the last thirty years.

Knesset Passes Law Prohibiting Coronavirus From Infecting MKs (PreOccupied Territory)

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Jerusalem, May 14 - Israeli lawmakers pre-empted various proceedings today surrounding the imminent formation of a government, to draft and pass legislation assigning COVID immunity to their 120-strong group, to prevent the parliament from getting hit by the current worldwide pandemic.

The Coronavirus Act of 2020 sailed through its approval process Wednesday, from preliminary reading to three formal votes, each time with nearly unanimous support. The lone "nay" vote each time came from Opposition MK Ahmad Tibi.

In response to the continuing threat of the pathogen, the legislators came together in what many agreed represented a rare moment of near-unity in a body riven by ideological, personal, and political conflicts. Joint sponsors Ofer Shelah of the Blue and White Party and Michal Rozin of Meretz persuaded their colleagues to adopt the measure in the interest of maintaining the functionality of the political system.

"It's a gratifying moment, and something of a relief," breathed MK Rozin after the bill's third successful reading. "Knowing we're that little bit safer as a society because the Members of Knesset will still be able to do what we do, the citizens can have that much less anxiety in their lives at this stressful time."

"This is an important, even if limited, move," concurred Likud MK Yuval Steinitz, whose party often opposes Rozin's across the political and legislative board. "Perhaps we can move on the legislation that bans coronavirus from other critical places, such as nursing homes, but that might be a tad ambitious at this stage."

Lone dissenter Ahmad Tibi explained his opposition to the law. "There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it," he conceded, "but it simply doesn't go far enough, and I would hope my colleagues agree this falls far short of what should be in such a measure. There's no difference in the extent or expense of the enforcement mechanism for the law if it were also to apply to, for example, judges in the justice system, or even the staff of the legislators ourselves. Also, it makes no mention of any of the grievances of the Arab sector, which I am obliged by precedent to invoke in at least three interviews a day."

Even Tibi agreed further legislation remains possible to remedy the shortcomings of the current law. "This is actually a sound approach to numerous problems," he assessed. "I wonder whether anyone in Knesset has ever thought of passing a law to make all crime illegal."

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Waqf Says Israel Jams Al Aqsa Prayers From Reaching Allah (PreOccupied Territory)

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Jerusalem, May 7 - Islamic officials at the council that administers holy sites on the Temple Mount accused the Jewish State today of setting up electronic devices in the area to prevent the five-times-daily prayers there from getting to Heaven where God will hear them.

Waqf representative Ayama Faqhedd lambasted Israeli security forces in the city and alleged they have installed emitters all around the elevated compound that jam prayer signals from Al Aqsa Mosque. Faqhedd made the accusation while discussing a the theological question of how Allah can allow the continued prosperity and success of the evil Jews even as the pious Muslims submit themselves to Him.

"One of several approaches to this question involves profound Jewish perfidy," he explained. "The devil-spawn Jews would of course attempt to interdict our righteous supplications. How else can we account for our ongoing shameful inability to oust those weak descendants of apes and pigs from Dar al-Islam despite our vastly superior numbers, superior virtue, and superior oil revenue? If we do not ask the omniscient deity to help us, how can He know what we want? And if the Jews can prevent what we ask from reaching the divine ear, how will Allah ever know we have asked? It must be some of the technology the Jews are always boasting they have developed."

Reports circulated online late Wednesday night on Palestinian social media about mysterious devices at various locations within Jerusalem's old city, with at least one use sharing images of a standpipe fire hydrant labeled as a signal-jamming emitter. Responses to the post and its copies on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for the most part took it at face value, with perhaps one in ten voicing skepticism that the picture represented the alleged jamming equipment.

"Let's not jump to conclusions," cautioned one. "I mean, of course the Jews are doing it, I just don't think that's the device they're using. Probably drones or something." Other users dogpiled that one with invective and death threats for casting doubt on any element of the righteous cause.

Israeli security officials denied knowledge of jamming activity. "Maybe it's just our filthy feet defiling the place," suggested one, referring to comments by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2018 about Jews walking in respectful silence on the Temple Mount. "You know, that might disrupt the path of Muslim prayers to Allah. A place where Muhammad's horse landed one night must be really sensitive to disturbances such as the existence of Jews."

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Simba, Everything The Light Touches Is Our Kingdom Unless Muslims Ever Ruled It, Even Briefly (PreOccupied Territory)

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Simba, Everything The Light Touches Is Our Kingdom Unless Muslims Ever Ruled It, Even Briefly

by King Mufasa

Serengeti - Simba, look out over the pridelands. All the way to the horizon in all directions. Everything the sunlight touches, we hold sway. Except for that shadowy place, the badlands where the hyenas roam. And except for any part of the kingdom where the Islamic empire once held, no matter how fleeting that hold. Then it must remain under Islamic control forever, because reasons?

I admit I'm not entirely clear on that part, Simba. But apparently the way it works is, only the period after the seventh and eighth centuries count, unless Muslims were losing, in which case revert back to whenever they were winning and make that the default state. Yes, it seems arbitrary, but so do many things. My choice of a hornbill as a majordomo, for example. But we work with what we are given, Simba. One cannot insist everything conform to his will; that way lies misrule, ecological collapse, and failure of the pride. Just look at the Palestinians.

All the animals, the plants they eat, their nesting and breeding grounds, their role in this kingdom - all that exists in a delicate balance. The Circle of Life means everything we do affects everything else, ultimately even our own species and group. When the time comes you must assume responsibility for maintaining that balance even as you prey on the other creatures. It is a burden you must carry everywhere but the places where some forgotten Islamic potentate won a battle that gave him brief control over some random locale long ago. Then you must never set foot there no matter how grossly its helpless inhabitants are mistreated by its government. That would be colonialist and racist. You cannot judge a society just because it engages in barbaric behavior and glorifies it. Except your own. Then go ahead, because you probably deserve it. You're not Muslim. I think that's how it works.

Be wary of those who might usurp this kingdom from you, Simba. That uncle Scar of yours has always had designs on the throne. The hyenas have always resented our dominance of the food chain. It will not be easy to maintain control, balance, and family integrity without wisdom that I hope you develop while you're still young. If any of those characters converts to Islam and decides to take over the kingdom in the name of Allah, no one will ever be allowed to take it away from them, because Islamic control erases everything that came before even as it tries to shore up its legitimacy by anchoring itself in the preexisting holy sites of other faiths. Pride Rock will become Haram al-Scarif, and that will be it. Scar-al-Islam.

You get my drift.

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Israeli Man Buys Brown Dog, Doesn't Name It 'Shoko' (PreOccupied Territory)

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Jerusalem, April 23 - Neighbors, relatives, and friends of a local resident expressed shock this morning upon discovering that he had purchased a coffee-colored pooch but given it a moniker other than "Shoko," thus defying a powerful societal custom.

Concerned citizens in the immediate social circles of Amit Dolev, 34, voiced surprise and dismay Thursday when he informed them his new brown retriever is named Kinamon (Hebrew for cinnamon), and not Shoko, the name that every other brown dog in the history of Israeli society has carried.

"I'm stunned," admitted his sister-in-law Adi, the only close relative willing to go on the record. "This isn't something anyone in the family ever expected, especially from Amit. He's generally not a troublemaker or anything, and I never would have pegged him as having imagination or an abundance of daring. I mean, he's an accountant who likes reading and maybe some occasional fishing. This is going to take some time process."

"Oh, so it's true?" wondered a neighbor who declined to be identified by name, citing concerns of associated shame in the deeply conservative society of secular Israelis. "Wow. Just wow. I grew up in the 1980's amid rumors of someone in our school, always a sibling or cousin of an unnamed student in a different grade, or who'd already graduated, whose car wasn't a white Subaru, so I'm used to this sort of thing, but it's still kind of shocking when it happens, and happens so close by."

Mr. Dolev himself appeared oblivious to the controversy and scandal his actions have generated. "I was considering the name 'Fistuk' (Hebrew vernacular from the Arabic for pistachio)," he recalled, "but figured that might better work for a smaller breed. Then I thought of Hummus, Juju, Looloosh, Loco, Lafa, Mocha, and a bunch of others, but none of them had quite the right flavor. Then I thought, 'Hey, what's something brown that everyone likes and makes a cute name for a dog? Cinnamon, obviously.' So here we are. I can't wait to introduce her to everyone."

Experts observed that while rare, such a flagrant departure from tradition has occurred in secular Israeli society on several notable occasions. "It would be analogous, to give non-Israelis an idea of what's causing the confusion," explained Tel Aviv University sociology professor Enka Zedavar, "to a Hollywood director having somebody get shot on a rooftop or other high surface and not have the character scream as he falls several stories to the ground. The last time anything like this happened here was probably a flight landing at Ben Gurion in 2014 on which no one clapped at touchdown."

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