Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: celebrating terror

Showing posts with label celebrating terror. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Palestinian zero sum game: "Israeli embassy in Manama is an attack on Palestinians"

One of the consequences of the Arab honor/shame culture is the zero-sum mentality. If one party is honored, then their rival is considered shamed, even if there is nothing in reality that shames the other party.

This is illustrated by the statement issued today by the PFLP terror group.

The PFLP announced that "the opening of a headquarters for the Zionist embassy in the Bahraini capital, Manama, represents a state of increasing decline of the Bahraini regime" and hat continued normalization between Israel and Bahrain is "an integral part of the aggression against our people."

Has Bahrain turned anti-Palestinian? I don't see any evidence of it. But to Palestinians, if Israel gains something, then they lose - by definition.

It is a very childish way of looking at the world but it is accepted as normal, at least for Palestinians and most Arabs.

A great part of the profound changes happening in the Gulf, and the reason that the Abraham Accords are so important, is that they represent a sea change in the old zero-sum mentality, and towards a win/win culture in the UAE and Bahrain. There is no contradiction between having relations with Israel and supporting Palestinian nationalism, unless you look at everything as zero-sum - or if you view a Palestinian state not as a goal but as a means to destroy Israel.

The PFLP goes on "warn of the dangers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia embarking on normalization with the Zionist entity, especially since there are channels that have been opened in the sports and media fields, in addition to opening Saudi airspace for the passage of Zionist planes, which paves the way for the possibility of announcing full normalization with this entity. This would represent a major stab wound to the Palestinian cause."

If Israel wins, Palestinians lose - and vice versa. Which partially explains the celebrations and glee that accompany terror attacks that kill Jews. To Palestinians, any dead Jew is a loss for Israel and therefore a gain for Palestinians.

It is a sick mindset. And not enough people are fighting against it. Which is another reason why the Abraham Accords is so important - it introduces a different way of thinking into the Arab world, one that is attractive both because it is more optimistic but also because it is true.

It is worth mentioning that while the West generally adheres to a win/win mentality, socialists like the PFLP and those in the "progressive" Left indeed do believe in a zero-sum game - that the world has a fixed amount of resources and if the rich gain, the rest of the world inevitably loses. Simplistic and ultimately wrong zero-sum thinking is something that the far Right and far Left have in common.

It cannot be a coincidence that the main fans of zero sum thinking also happen to hate Jews. I don't know whether that is a cause or an effect, probably both, but eradicating the zero sum mentality is perhaps the best and most comprehensive way to combat antisemitism.

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Blaming Israel alone for Gaza mental health problems is just another kind of Jew-hatred. Here's why.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where is the bias in this report?

Everywhere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UNICEF adds:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Another child soldier that UNICEF doesn't care about

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

Today, Tuesday, a child from the town of Zababdeh, south of Jenin, was killed by bullets from the Israeli occupation.

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

The description of his death by Islamic Jihad is a little different:

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

The Brigades said in a military statement: "We are in the Al-Quds Brigades and we bid farewell to a heroic mujahid knight who is witnessed by the battlefields to confirm that the blood of the martyrs will remain fuel for the continuation of the resistance approach, and that these sacrifices that our heroic mujahideen make will not be lost, and will be a motive for the continuity of engagement and fighting, and will not be lost." We meet our enemy only with bullets and more resistance.

Interestingly, they claim that Kharj was 18 years old, while all other Palestinian media quote the ministry of health saying he was 17.

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

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

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

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

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In English, Palestinians are poor, hapless victims. In Arabic, they are strong jihadists.

A tweet from Palestinian propagandist Nour Odeh:

Overnight, Israeli forces attacked Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and literally plowed the streets & infrastructure leaving devastating & destruction in its wake.

She showed a video of an IDF bulldozer and then a bulldozed street.

But in Arabic, Palestinian terrorists are celebrating - because they have video of IED exploding in those same streets.

In other words, they mined their own streets - endangering their own people - in an attempt to blow up soldiers, and the IDF is forced to use the armored bulldozers to clear the IEDs.

An explosion like that would barely slow down an armored D9R bulldozer.

As usual, the Palestinians are trying to have it both ways - claiming victimhood status while they bury IEDs in their own streets. Their placement of the bombs are meant to protect terrorist infrastructure as they whine about civilian infrastructure that they are subverting for attacks.

(h/t Jon S)

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Horrifying: Palestinian terror groups use children to build and plant their explosives

PCHR reported on July 3 that Israeli forces shot Ali Hani Al-Ghoul in the chest, killing him. It admitted that he was a member of an armed group and said he was 20 years old.

Later, the Israel/Palestine Timeline site said that al-Ghoul was shot in the head, and that he was 17 years old.

His mother was interviewed:

His mother brought back some of her memories with her little Ali, which she will never forget; She says, "About two years ago, Ali used to come home at night, with his clothes dusty and his eyes red, and he was suffering from severe pain, which was caused by the explosive materials he was using."

"Ali was one of the resistance fighters who made explosive devices in the Jenin camp from primitive materials, but their impact was great and effective by damaging many Israeli military vehicles," according to his mother, who expressed her pride in what her son did and what his friends say about his actions that are beyond his age.

That means that Ali al-Ghoul had been building bombs since he was 15 years old.

Now, the Jenin Brigades division of Islamic Jihad have issued a video celebrating Al-Ghoul's "martyrdom" - showing him building IEDs together with other children.

It doesn't show anyone else's faces, but you can see that the hands that are stuffing explosive powder into IEDs are not those of full grown adults.

Jenin's bomb-makers are children.

Ali's mother continues: “Before Ali left the house, he carried a sack full of explosive devices on his shoulder, and later he planted them in the streets and alleys of Jenin camp with the help of his friends, who confirmed that Ali participated with them in a confrontation with the occupation from zero distance."

Palestinian terror groups recruit children to build bombs.

They encourage kids to turn their homes into bomb depots.

They instruct children to plant these bombs in the roads of Jenin where they can kill not only the children but anyone who happens to come by.

And they freely and proudly admit this.

This is not just child abuse: this is systemic and widespread child abuse that is a source of pride to Palestinians.

Now listen to the silence from UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Council, Defense for Children-International, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

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

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One of the Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in the June drone attack, reported to be 17, was actually only 15!

Most of the coverage of the IDF drone strike on June 21 says that one of the victims, from Islamic Jihad, was 17-year old Ashraf Murad Saadi. Islamic Jihad's own press release for the attack said that their heroic martyr Saadi was 17, and most of the world's media accepted that as his real age.

But Saadi wasn't 17. He was 15.

Electronic Intifada mentioned his real age. And so did an article in Al Ayyam a week after his death, where it was clear that his mother knew that Saadi was a member of a terror organization.

She said, "When Ashraf went out of the house in the evening hours, I felt a lump in my heart, and I watched him until he passed out of my sight, and I said to myself that I would not see him again."

But, of course, she is proud of him. She doesn't say a word about trying to seriously stop him or forbid him from getting mixed up with militants, the way a normal, caring parent would.

Both that article, and a newer obituary in the Al Quds Brigades website, say that his birthday was April 14, 2008. That means that Saadi turned 15 only two months before.

If you ever had any doubt that Islamic Jihad recruits children barely out of puberty, this is proof positive.

But it turns darker than that.

Saadi was killed in a car along with two much older terrorists. They were 27 and 28.

Why would any older terrorists want to plan activities with a 15 year old? Why would they be hanging out together at nighttime?

Being a child soldier might not be the only child abuse that Ashraf Murad Saadi was subjected to.

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

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How many ways can one minimize and then legitimize terror attacks against Jews?

Tareq Baconi, former senior analyst for Israel/Palestine at the International Crisis Group and the author of “Hamas Contained” who is now president of the board of al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, displays a lot of them in New York Times guest essay.

Purportedly an analysis of Jenin, he breaks new ground in first obfuscating, and ultimately justifying, Palestinian attacks on civilians.

At a Fourth of July event in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Israeli Army had attacked “the most legitimate target on the planet — people who would annihilate our country.” He was referring to months of armed resistance against Israeli settlers by young men in the Jenin refugee camp.

To Baconi, people like brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, shot to death by a Hamas resident of Jenin while doing the crime of driving, are mere "settlers," and their murder was "resistance."

He conveniently doesn't mention that the terror wave that gripped Israel even within the invisible line that somehow differentiates between human beings and "settlers" also came from Jenin. Three civilians in Tel Aviv were murdered in April 2022 by a terrorist from Jenin - either they don't exist or are also "settlers." The terrorist who killed five Israelis in Bnei Brak shortly beforehand was from the Jenin area, and the murders were celebrated in Jenin. The murderers of four Israelis on Yom Haatzmaut 2022 in Elad were also from the Jenin area.

They don't count. Or, as we will see, perhaps they are "settlers" as well.

More than 20 years ago, another right-wing prime minister, Ariel Sharon, led an extensive military campaign against the same refugee camp. It was two years into the second Palestinian uprising. Palestinian suicide bombers, some of whom hailed from Jenin, had rocked Israeli streets. In response, the Israeli Army invaded the West Bank and ravaged the Jenin refugee camp, then, as now, a center of Palestinian resistance.

Scores of Palestinians who detonated bomb belts in the midst of crowds of Jews didn't kill anyone, you see. They merely "rocked Israeli streets." It was practically a music festival! But Israel's response "ravaged" a camp that was merely a "center of Palestinian resistance" - not a terrorist hotbed.

With the absence of any hope for statehood, and with no viable political leadership to lead the struggle, some take matters into their own hands through armed and unarmed forms of resistance,

Amazingly, in this entire essay, Palestinians simply never kill anyone. They just engage in "armed and unarmed forms of resistance." Murdering Jews with axes and bombs are simply a form of protest, and a quite understandable one.

Like Jenin, the Gaza Strip also has a history of resistance against Israeli occupation.

Shooting tens of thousands of rockets towards Israeli civilian targets, killing many, is again merely "resistance against Israeli occupation." To Baconi, and the New York Times editors who approved this essay, there is no distinction between the two sides of the Green Line - all of Israel is "occupied."

Beneath this evolving context is a singular constant: Israel’s ability to sustain its settlement of Palestinian territory without accountability, while equating Palestinian resistance to terrorism. That this framing has long been accepted among the major Western powers is particularly galling for Palestinians in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where resistance to illegal occupation is hailed as heroic and supported by Western weapons and military training.

Here the sheer immorality of Baconi and the New York Times comes into sharper focus. Not only do they dehumanize all Israelis as mere "settlers," which is sickening enough - they show no differentiation between attacking an army and targeting civilians. That principle of distinction is the entire basis of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but to apologists for murder like Baconi, Palestinians butchering rabbis while praying are equivalent to Ukrainians defending themselves from Russian soldiers and mercenaries.

Residents of the Jenin camp, some of whom had fled from their homes in what is now Israel in 1948, are refugees once again. And some of the toddlers who were in the camp in 2002 are now the young men of the Palestinian resistance. As the history of other struggles against apartheid and colonial violence have taught us, today’s children will no doubt take up arms to resist such domination in the future, until these structures of control are dismantled.

This essay is the intellectual equivalent to handing out sweets after a terror attack.

Baconi is not only justifying but actively cheering terrorism against Jews. He portrays the most despicable and disgusting murderers as heroic "resistance" - and he is doing it under the pretense of caring about human rights.

Any real human rights activist should be horrified at this paean to murdering civilians. But instead of condemning the twisted, immoral essay of Baconi, the "human rights" community is tweeting it.

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!