Amnesty is saying that banning a movie is a violation of freedom of expression. Amnesty is against all forms of censorship - the allegation that the movie promotes homosexuality does not seem to be the issue at all, just freedom of expression.
However, when Lebanon bans movies for having Israeli actors or producers, Amnesty has not said a word. Isn't that the exact same violation of freedom of expression?
Perhaps not according to Amnesty. Because they do support some boycotts - boycotts against Israel.
Amnesty says, "Advocating for boycotts, divestment and sanctions is a form of non-violent advocacy and of free expression that must be protected."
BDS advocates boycotting the free speech of Israelis on college campuses, and its boycotters do all they can to get venues outside Israel to cancel any talk by an Israeli. Similarly, they threaten artists not to play in Israel , which is another violation of freedom of expression.
How, exactly, is Algeria and Kuwait's boycotts of a movie for religious reasons (whether or not their objections are accurate) a violation of free speech, while Israel-haters' boycotts of movies with Israelis are an example of free speech?
In both cases, the boycotters are the ones that are trying to shut down free speech. You cannot have it both ways.
The analogy isn't perfect - government censorship is different than people deciding to boycott on their own, which of course is their right. But Amnesty has condemned a number of countries for censoring films with LGBTQ themes, and not one word for censoring films with Israeli links.
They are both equally guilty of violating freedom of expression, but only one upsets Amnesty.
It sure sounds like Amnesty's concern for freedom of expression only extends to expression that they agree with.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
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The Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad - Jenin Brigade today issued a warning, and a not so veiled threat, to any media that reports things it doesn't like:
In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful
* Notice issued by the Jenin Battalion - Military Media *
Media brothers, institutions and individuals,
We note to you that it is forbidden to carry out any media activity such as photographing people or places or otherwise inside the camp, specifically with regard to the capabilities and connections of resistance work, without permission from concerned brothers. Whoever disobeys bears responsibility for that. We note that the capabilities of the resistance and the sacrifices of the mujahideen are not a place for a press scoop.
I think they make themselves quite clear.
And it is almost a certainty that the international media will adhere to these rules.
Which is why you won't see photos of terrorists burying IEDs in their own streets, or booby-trapping houses of Jenin residents, or any of the other gross violations of human rights that the terror groups do daily in Jenin. And without photos, there will be no reporting. And without reporting, the only aggression being reported on is from the Israeli side.
Remember how reporters used to be brave and fearless in their commitment to telling the entire story no matter what the consequences?
Those days are long gone. Now we have reporters who stay in hotels in Tel Aviv and drive over to Ramallah and Jenin to parrot the terrorist talking points about how awful the Israelis are - and justify the lies by calling it a "narrative," before returning to their bars in Israel where they can boast about their "speaking truth to power."
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Last night there were anti-Hamas demonstrations in various locations in Gaza.
The protesters reject the disastrous conditions that the Gaza Strip is going through, and demand as good a life as the children of Hamas leaders enjoy.
Here's one that was posted on TikTok this week although I don't know when it occurred:
There are actually two stories here. One is that there are demonstrations like these altogether, and the other is that the media roundly ignores them.
Hashtags accompanying videos of last night's demo say "Where is Al Jazeera?" nearly as often as they say the slogan of the demonstrations, "We want to live."
Earlier this month, the leaders of the protests issued a list of demands to Hamas to improve their lives.
The word "Israel" is not mentioned - they blame Hamas and Hamas alone for their predicament.
They are demanding more hours of electricity, timely payment of Gaza government salaries, and for Hamas to stop taking out "taxes" on the money Qatar sends to Gazans (as well as an increase.)
If the demands aren't met, the protesters plan a huge set of demonstrations this coming Sunday, July 30.
So why are these issues not being covered by the media, including Arabic media?
One major reason is that there is an unwritten rule: unless problems can be blamed on Israel, they must not be publicized. And even ordinary Palestinians have internalized this rule when they speak to reporters on the record.
When they are assured anonymity, they are much freer to criticize their leaders, but most reporters aren't even interested in asking the right questions. The international media has its own narrative to uphold, and that one coincides with that of the PA and Hamas - always blame Israel and Israel alone.
Yes, there is censorship from Hamas and the PA, and they routinely will insult their political opponents on their own media so we know about their own infighting. But popular protests like these do not benefit the PA, because they have their own critics and protesters, and the optics of showing Palestinians protest against their own leaders is problematic for both sides.
These sorts of things only get any traction when they are too big to ignore.
This Sunday's protests will probably not bother Hamas - they will repress them and try to keep them quiet. But any Middle East media that ignores those protests are clearly not media that can be trusted to report anything accurately.
Which is essentially all the media in the region.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
This morning, there was a large explosion in a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command location in the Bekaa region in southern Lebanon, near the Syrian border.
The PFLP-GC immediately issued a press release saying that this was an IDF airstrike.
Arabic-language media spread the word about the Israeli aggreesion.
- The IDF denied doing any activity in Lebanon at all.
- Multiple Lebanese security sources reported what did happen:
Five fighters from a pro-Syrian Palestinian militant group were killed in an accidental explosion at a base in eastern Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said Wednesday.
"An old rocket exploded in an arms depot on the base and five fighters were killed," the security source said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In Beirut, a Lebanese military official said the explosion was the result of a blast within the base, adding that there was no airstrike. An official with a regional group allied with the Syrian government, said the explosion was the result of a “human error” that occurred when militants were handling ammunition. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Yet looking at the last several hours of Arabic media reporting on the explosion and its aftermath, the Israeli denial is barely mentioned on a couple of Western-oriented Arabic sites, and the report about an old missile explosion has been ignored completely.
This is even after wire services like AFP reported on the rocket explosion.
This is not government-level censorship. This is an unofficial policy for Arabic media to censor facts that do not fit the narrative or that can cause unease among some of their readership.
If they even published it as a competing set of claims, as The National (UAE) did in English, any thinking person would see that the PFLP-GC is lying and Israel's denial is truthful - and that means that Arabs are less trustworthy than Jews, which contradicts the mega-narrative of Jews being dishonest and Arabs being honorable and trustworthy.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Earlier this week, Daled Amos wrote about how Haaretz has dropped all pretense of journalism and objectivity, based on my tweet of a letter from Haaretz's publisher Amos Schocken:
Dear Haaretz reader,
Despite the hopes – and votes – of nearly half of Israel's electorate, Benjamin Netanyahu won Israel's last election and, since taking office as prime minister, he has spun into action together with his far-right partners, to implement a swathe of radical policies that threaten to change the nature of Israel's democracy, perhaps irrevocably.
Israel's newly empowered right wing, discarding its liberal right heritage, has swung towards nationalism, illiberalism and authoritarianism. We now have a serving prime minister who is simultaneously the subject of an ongoing criminal trial, and hoping to evade justice. We have a government pushing to undermine the rule of law in Israel, to end the separation of powers, the independence of the courts and judges, and to crush freedom of expression.
It is incumbent upon us to fight these policies and even worse proposals taking shape among members of the governing coalition. This fight must be informed by the unparalleled, and unafraid, reporting and analysis that has been our mission for over a century.
At Haaretz, our dedicated journalists are on the ground every day working to defend a free and democratic Israel-- and the work we do depends on the support of readers like you. We invite you to become a partner in this essential work by subscribing now to Haaretz.com. We must act together, and we must act now.
Thank you,
Amos Schocken
I had responded:
Missing words from Amos Schocken's description of Haaretz's mission:
Truth
Objectivity
Accuracy
Fairness
Call me old fashioned, but I don't want my newspaper to tell me what to think. And certainly not one that is hellbent to only report one side of an important issue.
I admit I was pleasantly surprised that later that week, Haaretz published a long interview with the architect of judicial reform, Simcha Rothman. The interviewer was combative and condescending, but at least Haaretz published Rothman's words.
But now we see that Haaretz only allowed that interview because they thought that Rothman's position was counteracted by the interviewer's words. Actually allowing an op-ed in support of judicial reform is way, way over the line for Haaretz.
Gadi Taub is an Israeli historian and (mostly) conservative commentator who has written for Haaretz for years. He has written in favor of judicial reform for years as well.
But this week, after he submitted an op-ed on the topic for Haaretz, they fired him.
I sent an article whose bottom line is that now there is no democracy in Israel, and therefore the legal reform is an attempt to bring it back to Israel. In response, I received a series of questions from the editor, a kind of fact checking about my article.
On the exact day that I received the list of questions from the editor, including the claim that I was wrong and misleading, I was invited to dinner with a friend of mine who is a retired judge. At the dinner there was another retired judge and two of the greatest legal scholars in Israel, an excellent opportunity to test myself.
I presented them with [Haaretz's] questions and wrote down points. At night I sat down with my friend Nissim Sofer and wrote the editor an answer to all the questions. What can I tell you? A small seminar paper, including citations and references.
The Haaretz newspaper replied, 'Thank you for the detailed answer, but we don't want to publish the article, because now democracy is on the defensive.' Basically they are saying: We wanted to claim that you are lying, but the truth is that we are lying and now it is forbidden to tell the truth, so shut up.
Alon Idan, editor of the newspaper's opinion section, wrote to Taub: "The recent change of government was accompanied by an aggressive and immediate attack on Israeli democracy, as we at 'Haaretz' perceive it. The desire to weaken the judicial system with the help of extreme moves that are done unilaterally and without restraints, forces us as a media outlet to defend ourselves against what which in our eyes will be perceived as a regime coup... in terms of a defensive democracy, we believe that now is a time of defensiveness."
Haaretz admits it: It is not interested in truth, objectivity, accuracy or fairness.
Unfortunately, while this is an extreme example, this is what we are seeing in most of the mainstream media. The people are considered too dumb to make up their own minds so the self-appointed arbiters of morality choose what the public is allowed to see.
I admit it gets frustrating sometimes trying to research and publish facts when so many seem to prefer narratives, and perception trumps the truth.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Ken Roth, formerly of Human Rights Watch, has been having a meltdown lately.
Over the summer, Harvard's Kennedy School did not offer him a fellowship, reportedly because rich Zionists who fund the school didn't like his record of crazed anti-Israel tweets and reports.
We have no information about whether this is really the reason. But Roth is pushing that narrative as mentioned in the original Nation article about this non-story.
As a propagandist, Roth waited until he could get media coverage for the insult to his vaunted expertise and now he is tweeting about the supposed loss of "academic freedom" that this represents - now that he has found another fellowship at another Ivy League school.
He's been tweeting constantly about this.
Anyway, I responded to one of his tweets where he demeaned anyone who called out his anti-Israel obsession as a form of antisemitism:
So Roth, or one of his German fans, tried to show how much they care about freedom of speech by reporting me to Twitter!
I received an email:
Hello,
Twitter is required by German law to provide notice to users who are reported by people from Germany via the Network Enforcement Act reporting flow.
We have received a complaint regarding your account, elderofziyon, for the following content:
Reported Tweet
@KenRoth We're not idiots, Ken. We know what human rights advocacy looks like. We know what "criticism of Israel" looks like. And we know what antisemitism looks like.
Your obsessive hate for Israel (and even now, blaming rich Jews for not getting the Harvard gig) is antisemitism.
We have investigated the reported content and have found that it is not subject to removal under the Twitter Rules (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311) or German law.
Roth would post every single time someone complained to Twitter about one of his tweets, pretending he is a champion of free speech and evil Zionists were trying to silence him. (Even though Human Rights Watch under him banned me from their Twitter feed!)
So....who is trying to silence me, and does Roth support them?
Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh met with Palestinian filmmakers on Tuesday and gave them one message: produce pro-Palestinian propaganda.
He stated, "The strength of our narrative in the face of poisonous funding lies in its sincerity, and every Palestinian has a narrative that must be told, and supporting the cinema sector in Palestine is one form of steadfastness. The private sector and society must participate in it alongside the government."
Shtayyeh stressed the importance of film as propaganda, in "highlighting our Palestinian cause and its justice, and communicating it to the world through cinematic and documentary works, because it leaves a great impact on the hearts of peoples around the world ."
The PA ministry of culture intends to create a committee to regulate the film industry - meaning, not to allow any films that do not adhere to the Palestinian, anti-Israel narrative.
If there was any independence in Palestinian cinema to date, it is certainly gone now. Not that Palestinian filmmakers ever showed a desire to create films that counter their narrative: their smiling faces above show that they have no problem whatsoever with being told what kinds of films they will be allowed to make.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa in the occupied territories left their houses a few days ago after a massive explosion sound and a power outage. The people fleeing in panic were told that the blast sound was caused by the sonic boom of fighter jets during a military drill.
The residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa districts (the Sharon plain) in the occupied territories heard an explosion sound on Friday night, which was followed by a power outage. The people fled their houses for fear of a missile attack by the Gaza resistance forces. They were told after a while that the blast sound was caused by the sonic boom of fighter jets during a military drill.
Immediately after the incident, all reports about the blast released by the Hebrew-language media outlets and accounts were deleted from the virtual space. A number of more famous media outlets had already announced in their reports that updates about the cause of the blast or the number of casualties would be released later.
What has remained unclear two days after the incident is the unannounced war game and why the Zionist regime’s ministry of defense had not publicized the drill beforehand. Another suspicious issue is the deletion of posts and news about the incident from the virtual space.
The monitoring of the incident lays bare the special connection between the Zionist regime’s security organizations and the administrators of social networks, particularly Twitter, showing how they divert the attention of readers by censoring or running whatever story they want about specific subjects.
The findings of the Hebrew department of Tasnim indicate that at first, a person named Yuer Dadia in a post on Facebook protested about the huge blast sound and massive power outages in the Sharon plain, which includes the cities of Netanya, Herzliya, Hadera, Kfar Saba, Kfar Yona, Rosh Haayin, Ra'anana, Hod Hasharon, Ramat Hasharon, Tira and Qalansawe, and wrote, “This corporation is not the electricity corporation. Shame on the electric corporation that charges us millions, but we have no power for hours.”
However, the organization that took action after the incident was not the Israeli electric corporation, but the Zionist regime’s security organizations.
The reporter of the Hebrew department of Tasnim has found out that:
1. The incident happened with sound, flashes and a thick plume.
2. There was a massive blackout immediately after the explosion.
3. Some electricity transformers and utility poles exploded.
4. Nearly all electrical appliances that had been plugged in were damaged or caught fire.
I can find absolutely nothing about this. The only tweets I can find on Friday night that mention an explosion are from Iranian or Iranian-allied accounts.The same with the reports that the IDF said that they were sonic booms - I cannot find that anywhere besides the Iranian and Syrian accounts.
I saw someone complain about a 3 hour power outage on Thursday night in Haifa, making acid remarks about the "third world electric company" Israel has. So power outages aren't that unusual, it seems.
The photo above was found to be from at least 2019 (h/t GnasherJew.)
Either a very major event happened and Israel somehow managed to cover it up on all social media (except allowing Twitter to allow the Iranian media to post it), or Iran is making all of this up. Usually their lies are based on some thread of truth, though, so my guess is that the Facebook post by this "Yuer Dadia" is somewhat true but based on either a misunderstanding or a joke, and Tasnim ran with it.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Amnesty International has released a report on the August mini-war in Gaza where they say that Israel should be investigated for war crimes. (Unusually, they also accuse Islamic Jihad of possible war crimes for a single rocket misfire.)
Amnesty investigated three incidents, two of which are from Israeli fire. The first one:
Amnesty International has examined in detail two Israeli attacks that must be investigated as possible
war crimes because they appear either to have deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects or to
have been indiscriminate attacks. On 5 August 2022, an Israeli tank round struck the house of the alAmour family in Khan Yunis, where 11 civilians were staying, killing Duniana al-Amour, aged 22, and
wounding her mother and her sister. Based on its identification of the projectile that struck the house
as a “highly accurate” 120mm M339 tank round, and its calculation of the distance between the
house and the closest military objects using satellite imagery, Amnesty International believes that the
al-Amour family’s house was the intended target of the attack. The killing of Duniana al-Amour and
the apparently deliberate targeting of her house must therefore be investigated as a possible war
crime.
It does appear that Israel targeted a house. Amnesty says it "found no evidence that any members of the al-Amour family could reasonably be believed to be involved in armed combat. "
This is true. But Amnesty is hiding something - something that they certainly reviewed before writing this report. They are hiding what the ITIC wrote about this attack, that one of the "civilians" in the house was Islamic Jihad's commander of the southern Gaza Strip.
The ITIC is close to the Israeli military. It said that the fatal attack on the Falluja cemetery was from the IDF when even Haaretz assumed it was an errant Islamic Jihad rocket, so it cannot be accused of lying. It is the closest thing we have to an official IDF comment on the incident.
If a senior commander was in the house, it was a valid military target. It is a tragedy but certainly not a war crime.
Amnesty doesn't want you to know that, so they simply don't report it.
The second incident:
In another instance, on 7 August 2022, a missile apparently fired from a drone hit Al-Falluja cemetery
in Jabalia, killing five children and seriously injuring another. Based on a review of pictures of the
weapon’s remnants, Amnesty International determined that they were consistent with an Israeli guided
missile. Unnamed sources from the Israeli army told an Israeli newspaper that a preliminary internal
probe conducted by the army into the attack showed that neither Palestinian Islamic Jihad nor the AlQuds Brigades were firing rockets at the time of the attack and that Israel was carrying out attacks on
“targets” near the area. Satellite imagery showed that there were no military targets visible in the area
10 days before the attack and residents interviewed by Amnesty International said that none appeared
in the intervening period. There are strong indications that the strike on Al-Falluja cemetery was either
a direct attack on civilians or an indiscriminate attack where Israel failed to comply with the obligation
to take all feasible precautions to distinguish between civilians and fighters.
Notice how Amnesty assumes that the Israeli sources are simply lying when they say there were targets in the area. A "target" is likely a member or leader of Islamic Jihad. 10-day old satellite imagery will not find such a target, and residents being interviewed sure as hell will not admit they saw a militant even if they did. Amnesty simply assumes Israel either targeted kids for fun, or didn't check for civilians. It does not even consider that the laws of war say that a military commander can act based on the best intelligence information available at the time - he or she does not have to wait for 100% accuracy. Sometimes, as in this case, the information was not accurate enough and there is a tragedy.
And while Amnesty investigated only one (of several) Islamic Jihad rockets that fell short and killed people, it emphasizes that everything ends up being Israel's fault: "Israel’s apartheid remains the root cause of Palestinians’ suffering and the recurring violations against them and must be dismantled." Even though the August hostilities had nothing to do with the scurrilous "apartheid" accusation, to Amnesty, Israel's existence is the original sin.
And one that it is doing everything it can to destroy.
UPDATE: The Amnesty video accompanying the report mentions the Islamic Jihad rocket that killed 7 children - but then blames that on Israel as well.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
In accordance with applicable law and our policies, Twitter is now withholding the reported content in Germany, specifically for sections of German law related to hate speech or unconstitutional content, §§ 86, 86a 130 StGB.
For more information on our Country Withheld Content policy, please see this page: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20169222.
Of course the poster on the left is Nazi-era antisemitic propaganda. That's the entire point. Dressing up antisemitism as "anti-Zionism" is trivial, and we've seen so-called anti-Zionists do it every day - often using the exact same sources that the Nazis did.
Similarly, right-wing antisemites get their new material from left wing "anti-Zionist" websites.
Antisemites and so-called "anti-Zionists" now live in a feedback loop where each supports and builds on the other's "discoveries" about how evil Jews/Israel are.
Twitter Germany should get its act together. And the world must realize that modern antisemitism is no different, and draws on the same hate, from the kind that murdered millions.
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A gay Palestinian man living under asylum in Israel was murdered and beheaded Wednesday in the West Bank city of Hebron. The unnamed suspect, who was arrested by Palestinian Authority police near the scene of the crime soon after committing it, recorded the act in a video that he uploaded to social media before his capture.
The victim was 25-year-old Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, who according to reports on Ynet and Channel 12 had been living in Israel for the past two years as an asylum-seeker after authorities acknowledged his life would be in danger if he returned to Palestinian territory.
It was not immediately clear how or why the young man ended up in Hebron. Friends of Abu Murkhiyeh in Israel alleged he was likely kidnapped to the West Bank before his murder, though it was not clear that they had evidence of this.
Rita Petrenko, founder of Al-Bayt Al-Mukhtalif, a non-profit organization for the empowerment of the Arab LGBT community, said that she had helped to arrange for Abu Murkhiyeh’s asylum papers in preparation for his eventual resettlement in Canada and that he’d actively participated in LGBT discussion groups. Describing the young man as “hard-working and intelligent,” Petrenko regretted that he had not been transferred to safety in Canada before his life was brutally taken from him.
Today, Thursday, Palestinian police spokesman Colonel Louay Erzeigat revealed some details of the horrific crime that took place in Hebron yesterday evening, where the headless body of the victim was found, after the perpetrator deliberately cut off his head and placed it next to the corpse.
Ajyal Radio quoted Erzeigat as saying: "Unfortunately, a complex crime and a crime of a new type that the Palestinian territories are witnessing, and this is not the first crime that has occurred during the past few days.
Erzeigat added: "This crime, which reached to separate his head from his body, after he killed him with several stab wounds, and the most dangerous is the process of filming this crime and broadcasting it on social media, which disgusted citizens, so we call on citizens not to transmit these images."
It seems to be missing something, doesn't it?
This is an honor killing, the exact same mentality where men kill women who they believe have done something to dishonor the family.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The full results of the latest PCPSR poll of Palestinians has been published, and it finds a consistent pattern.
86% of Palestinians say there is corruption in the Palestinian Authority and 73% say there is corruption in institutions under Hamas’ control in the Gaza Strip.
That is truly overwhelming majority - and it is a story that the Western media continuously downplays. After all, if the Palestinian leadership cannot be trusted to take care of their own people, how can anyone expect them to adhere to agreements with Israel?
Another telling statistic: A majority of Palestinians under both Hamas and PA rule say that they cannot criticize their leaders without fear. 58% of West Bankers think people in the West Bank cannot criticize the PA without fear and 54% of Gazans say they cannot criticize Hamas without fear.
Again, Western media will uncritically quote Palestinian media and citizens without mentioning that people are likely to self-censor to parrot what their corrupt leaders want them so say. This results in reporting on the region that is inherently inaccurate.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Rosh Hashanah 5783 begins at sundown this evening, September 25, and ends at nightfall on Tuesday, September 27. The holiday celebrates not only the Jewish New Year, but also the birth of the universe and the beginning of the Days of Awe – 10 days of repentance and renewal that culminate in Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The past year, 5782, has been a difficult one for Israel and the world. Although we appear to be emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been some disturbing global developments – from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seven months ago to the Vienna negotiations on a new Iran nuclear deal.
Historically, this period will be remembered for the death of Queen Elizabeth II after an almost-record sovereign reign of 70 years (Louis XIV of France reigned almost two years longer) and the beginning of a new era under her son, King Charles III.
In Israel, we are witnessing a turbulent period as the country braces for its fifth election in less than four years (the first was on April 9, 2019). Security has been tightened ahead of Rosh Hashanah as the country also faces a resurgence of Palestinian terrorism.
Are there any good news for a change?
On the positive side, the Israeli economy is showing signs of bouncing back. The Central Bureau of Statistics reported, for example, that the employment rate rose in August to the highest level in four years.
Israel’s ties with Arab and Muslim states are advancing well – especially in the Gulf – as evidenced most recently in talks on a free-trade agreement with Bahrain and Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York on Tuesday, the first such meeting since December 2008.
Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss told Lapid on Wednesday at the United Nations that she is reviewing a relocation of her country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would also be a welcome development.
Nearly 65 percent of the country’s population say Israel is a good place to live, while 33 percent of the respondents think the opposite, according to a poll published ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
The survey conducted by Maariv, showed that the degree of satisfaction is higher among the older respondents: 77 percent of those aged 61 and over said they are satisfied, compared to 51 percent of people under 29.
The positive perception of life in Israel is also more widespread among religious (79 percent) and ultra-Orthodox (69 percent) respondents, compared to 59 percent of people who identify themselves as secular.
The majority of respondents (62 percent) also believe that the State of Israel is immutable, while 23 percent, on the contrary, believe that it faces existential dangers.
Asked about what worries them the most in Israel, 68 percent of respondents said it was the cost of living. It was followed by Palestinian terrorism (32 percent), housing prices (18 percent), crime (13 percent) and political instability (12 percent).
The majority of those worried about terrorism are supporters of Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu (47 percent), while Arab respondents are much more concerned about crime (39 percent) and Jewish-Arab relations (21 percent).
As for the zeitgeist, repeated surveys of public opinion show Europeans are largely hostile to Israel. For instance, a 2019 survey of European opinion by Bertelsman Stiftung Foundation found that whereas 61% of Israelis were positively disposed toward Europeans, a mere 20% of Europeans held positive opinions of Israel.
Regarding the Netherlands specifically, a 2018 study carried out by Israel’s left-leaning Institute for National Security Studies showed that the Dutch media collectively cover Israel in a manner that delegitimizes Israel’s existence and dehumanizes Israeli Jews. A popular Dutch media tactic for demonizing Israel is to claim that Israel cannot be a democracy, since during the period under review, the Knesset was debating a bill aimed at curbing the hostile activities of Dutch-funded anti-Israel NGOs.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) spoke to the now-rising anti-Israel, and increasingly outright anti-Jewish zeitgeist in progressive America on September 20. In remarks to an online forum hosted by a pro-Palestinian group, Tlaib said, “Among progressives, it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel’s apartheid government.” She added, “We will not accept this idea that you are progressive, except for Palestine, any longer.”
Tlaib’s call for pro-Israel Americans to be shunned by progressives was roundly condemned by a handful of predominantly but not exclusively Jewish Democratic lawmakers, who rightly characterized her statement, and Tlaib herself, as anti-Semitic. On the other hand, there were several other lawmakers who participated in the online conference with Tlaib—and none expressed any qualms about her remarks. Moreover, President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the rest of the Biden administration and Democratic congressional leadership felt no need to condemn Tlaib. To the contrary, they have embraced Tlaib. When Tlaib condemned U.S. support for Israel during last year’s Hamas missile offensive against the Jewish state, Biden gushed over Tlaib; he expressed his “admiration” for the anti-Semitic lawmaker, applauded her “passion” and “intellect,” and called her a “fighter.”
When seen in the broader context of Europe’s political war against Israel and the dominant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish zeitgeist in Europe and progressive America, Booking.com’s action cannot be dismissed as the mere bloviation of overpaid, woke corporate executives. Instead, it must be seen as a sign of what is already happening, and a warning of an even worse situation that perhaps awaits us, as anti-Semitism again becomes the condition for entry into high society in Europe and America.
Human Rights Watch issued a press release describing how Hamas and the Palestinian Authority engage in torturing prisoners that haven't been charged with any crime.
As of this writing, I cannot find a single Palestinian news site covering this story.
Israeli Arab sites have the story. Pan Arab news sites have it. But Palestinian media - nothing.
Usually, Hamas media would highlight any report against the PA, but since they are named too, they'd rather not create an opening for people to get upset at them. And the same goes for the media linked to the Palestinian Authority.
This sort of censorship is the every day reality in the Palestinian territories. News that makes leaders look bad is hidden from the news-consuming public. Of course, they can see the story at Al Jazeera - one of the most popular news sources for Palestinians - and then the people grumble on social media about how they have to look elsewhere to read the news.
HRW also felt obligated to claim that Israel tortures Palestinians, too. Because they literally never can release any report or research about Palestinians without mentioning that Israel is really the biggest problem.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
The Arab Canadians Lawyers Association is planning to release a paper on May 9 where they will define what they call "anti-Palestinian racism."
According to the ACLA, “Anti-Palestinian racism operates to silence the Palestinian experience and expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, including characterizing those who defend Palestinians and are critical of Israel’s policies or conduct as antisemitic.”
First of all, no one - and I mean no one - tries to "silence expressions of solidarity against Palestinians." It is a straw man. The people who style themselves as "pro-Palestinian" invariably cross the line into a seething hatred for Jewish nationalism and often against Jews themselves, and that is what Jews oppose.
But more insidiously, the ACLA is saying that non-Palestinians can be the victims of "anti-Palestinian racism" - based not on national origin or ethnicity or race, but purely on their political opinions!
So they are not only defining certain treatment of Palestinians themselves as racist, but also pointing out that anti-Zionists who are practicing antisemitism is also part of anti-Palestinian racism. Anyone can be a victim of anti-Palestinian racism - based purely on their political beliefs.
That is a breathtaking expansion of the word "racism."
Up until now, those who tried to declare Israel guilty of racism depended on an ICERD definition that they take out of context that discrimination based on "national origin" is also racism. Palestinians themselves are not a race. They define themselves as part of the Arab people, even though many of them can trace their ancestry not only to the Arabian peninsula but also to traditionally non-Arab areas including Turkey and Kurdistan. They do not have a single national origin. Israel treats Arab citizens differently from Arab non-citizens, which proves that race has nothing to do with this. Palestinians and their supporters of all races together are certainly not a race. Perhaps realizing this, the ACLA decided to expand the definition of race to absurd lengths. So they now say that members of a political group can be victims of racism - and the only reason they redefine racism is to call Zionists racists.
Why is calling anti-Zionists antisemitic "racist" but calling Zionists racists cannot be antisemitism?
By saying that criticism of political positions is racism, this means that the ACLA will have to admit that people who discriminate against Zionists are racists as well! Zionism is no less a defined group of people as anti-Zionists are.
If those who call anti-Zionists antisemitic are racist, then you must also say that those who call Zionism "racism" are racist as well.
It is an absurd redefinition that has only one purpose: to tar any Zionist as a racist. And - by their definition - calling people haters is itself an act of hate.
No doubt they would argue that the case of Palestinians is different than any other, and there are unique reasons why political Zionists are by definition racist but political anti-Zionists are by definition oppressed victims of racism. Yet those double standards are yet more proof that they are themselves bigots.
Thanks, Arab Canadian Lawyers Association! By your rules, you are a bunch of racists.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
It has been widely reported that some Arab countries like Kuwait and Lebanon are banning the film "Death on the Nile" because it stars Israeli Gal Gadot. Anti-Israel groups in other countries like Jordan and Egypt are calling to ban the film as well.
This is not the first time Arab nations have banned films of Israelis, Zionists or Jews. Lebanon had previously banned Schindler's List and Wonder Woman.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2009 that the Lebanese even banned books about or by some Jews like "Sophie's Choice","Schindler's List"; Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem", books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer - and even The Diary of Anne Frank. According to the article, "all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned." Previously, Arab countries have banned films with Frank Sinatra or Elizabeth Taylor for Jewish or Zionist ties.
The Arab censors have good company, as this 1936 story shows:
It turns out that there are other Nazi antecedents for Arab and Palestinian antisemitism that occurs today.
Their antisemitism was also anticipated by the Nazis.
Just as Palestinian Christians claim Jesus as one of their own, so did German Christians in the 1930s, aghast at the idea that their Lord and Savior could have been a Jew who lived in Judea.
It started in 1934:
And this was picked up and expanded upon by Julius Streicher in Der Sturmer ahead of Easter in 1937:
The parallels between today's Arab antisemites and Nazi antisemites are striking. Yet apologists for modern antisemitism prefer to claim that today's version is merely "anti-Zionism."
As a publisher who has had my own materials removed from social media, I am very sensitive to freedom of speech issues.
And I'm sensitive from both sides of the issue, since I am certainly against antisemitic and other hate speech.
The topic is fraught with emotion, as it should be. We should get emotional both about defending our freedoms and also against those who abuse their speech to harm others.
As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy.
This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.
Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.
Our public interest policy — which has guided our enforcement action in this area for years — ends where we believe the risk of harm is higher and/or more severe.
Was this the correct thing to do?
This explanation is a little misleading. Twitter's Civic Integrity Policy is mostly concerned with manipulating elections or other civic processes, and while I suppose one can say that the violence at the Capitol on Wednesday was a version of manipulating a civic process. But if anything encouraged that mob, it sure wasn't Twitter - it was the President himself speaking directly to them and telling them to march to the Capitol, which was also covered by national cable TV news networks live.
So what benefit to society was there for Twitter to take away those tweets when his message was freely available elsewhere?
I want to be clear - I'm not discussing the law here. Twitter has every right to censor whomever it wants, as long as it sets up its rules ahead of time and enforces the rules consistently (which often does not appear to be the case.) I have no problem with Zoom censoring terrorist Leila Khaled from speaking on its platform when she is in the US but allowing her to speak when she is in the UK, because Zoom is only following its own policies that are different in each country.
In general, my opinion is that freedom of speech should be close to absolute unless it is inciting to violence. Unfortunately, that kicks the can down the road - what is considered incitement? Is saying that Jews control the world incitement to attack Jews? What about claiming that Jews abuse infants when they circumcise them? Do racist comments make it more likely for people to attack people of color?
Or do we draw the line at direct specific threats? That sounds like a reasonable policy, but we've already seen how white supremacists and neo-Nazis have adapted to that - by treating everything they say as a joke, jokes that are taken seriously by their audience who understand the game they are playing.
There are two conflicting principles, between freedom of speech and prohibiting incitement, and going too far in either direction can result in either criminalizing independent thought or creating an environment where people can get murdered. There is a third complicating principle as well - that providers of communications platforms treat all speech with a consistent policy, not favoring one political stance over another.
These are difficult questions.
In the specific case here, Twitter is clearly trying to tamp down violence, which is of course a good thing. I think that this can easily backfire, though.
The people who were marching in Washington feel that they are not being heard, that they are marginalized by the mainstream, that their issues with the election are not being taken seriously. They are being censored by YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and they are frustrated - convinced that this is a huge conspiracy against their viewpoints. This drives them underground to other sites that still have plenty of viewers but no alternative points of view.
And that fuels extremism.
I didn't see the mainstream media give much of a warning that this demonstration could be as big or unruly as it was. There are demonstrations in Washington every day. But most of the media ignores the underground sites, where people have been planning this demonstration for at least a month. Obviously, tens of thousands came to Washington from all over and just as obviously, the Capitol police and DC police were not close to prepared.
If the protesters had been allowed to speak freely about their issues with the election on mainstream social media, perhaps they would not be as paranoid. Perhaps they could have been exposed to other points of view as people would argue with them in the open. Perhaps the mainstream media and the police could have been following the situation more closely and defended the Capitol better (and that is a scandal in itself - if there had been a proper defense, there would have been no riots.)
This is only one example of how a more liberal approach to free speech could actually make violence less likely.
As I said, I get it. I am frustrated by prominent people using social media not only to mislead but to outright lie, and I fight it every day. Skilled people use social media for propaganda that can have very bad real world effects. I am very sensitive to the possibility of violence resulting from irresponsible conspiracy theories.
But I still believe that shining a light on the crazy, the paranoid and the hate is a far better approach than to force it underground, where it can become much, much worse - as we saw today.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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