Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: elections

Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Kamala Harris Invokes Godwin's Law; Walz Jumps Right In (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Kamala Harris didn’t actually call Trump a Nazi, but she might as well have. Echoing allegations by disgruntled Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, she declared that Donald Trump wants a military that will be "loyal to him personally" and "obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the constitution of the United States."

Vice President Kamala Harris continued on, saying, "It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is."

And there it is, Godwin’s Law. The longer the election dragged on, the more inevitable it had been that someone would bring in the Holocaust. Not in the sort of, “We must never forget the Holocaust,” kind of way, but in the sort of, “He’s the author of the Final Solution, Adolf Hitler himself,” kind of way.

Harris running mate Tim Walz was happy to run with it, remarking that Trump’s alleged comment regarding Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”

“Folks, the guardrails are gone. Trump is descending into this madness — a former president of the United States and the candidate for president of the United States says he wants generals like Adolf Hitler had,” said Walz, who has lied about his military service.

Walz said he was a retired command sergeant major, but he wasn’t. He claimed he carried weapons “in war,” but never saw combat. In truth, he skipped out on his battalion only months before they were deployed to Iraq. J.D. Vance, among many others, condemned these falsehoods as “stolen valor.”

This is something to keep in mind when weighing the credibility of those Walz “orange Hitler”-style slurs. But it gets worse with Walz. Much worse, in this Jewish writer’s opinion.

From The Hill:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, compared former President Trump’s Sunday rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in to a 1939 pro-Nazi event.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said at an event in Henderson, Nev. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”
An American Nazi Party held a rally at Madison Square Garden in February 1939 that lured 20,000 supporters to the iconic New York City landmark.
“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.

When Walz speaks, he draws a picture. We can see that pro-Hitler rally in our minds. It hits you right in the kishkes.

Up next is Hillary Clinton. The former (failed) 2016 presidential candidate picked off where Walz left off, continuing on with the same “Trump is a Nazi” narrative, claiming that Trump with this rally was reenacting the infamous Nazi rally, held in that very same space. “Trump [is] actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,” said Clinton to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.

“President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany,” said Former President Clinton’s wife never-to-be-president Clinton.

"It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who I quote 'certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.' Who in fact, vowed to be a dictator on day one, and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendetta,'" said Clinton.

Harris, meanwhile, is not better than Walz or Clinton, only more boring—she doesn't believe her own rhetoric but is determined to get to the top with her gleaming eyes and maniacal laugh. She’s not even original. In fact, she’s a yawn. And frankly, unintelligent.

“I invite you to listen and go online to listen to John Kelly … who has told us Donald Trump said, why — essentially, ‘Why aren’t my generals like those of Hitler’s, like Hitler.'

“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate … and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.

“This is a serious, serious issue. And we know who he is. He admires dictators.

“The American people deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, not afraid of good ideas wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility, and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler.”

Asked if Trump were a fascist, Harris' bluffed right on through. “Yes, I do,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

There was something in her smile. Something sly in it for that tiny split second.

Well, what else could Kamala Harris, famous for her word salads, do to win at this point but smear her opponent? She wants to be president, but has done so little to articulate her policies. Or rather, she’s articulated many words that go good with Thousand Island dressing.

As November 5 draws nearer, Harris seems to have stopped even trying to outline what it is she intends to do if elected president. Instead, she has begun this slow crescendo of hateful tropes, each day ranting and raving about Donald Trump ever more vigorously, insistently and repeatedly telling us that Trump is a very bad person.

There is a name for this. It’s called negative campaigning. Whether or not smearing one’s opponent is an effective strategy is up for debate, but it certainly seems the coward’s way out of articulating an actual policy. Something Harris can’t and hasn’t done.

We have seen Kamala Harris a lot these past weeks, Tim Walz, less so. I think they hide him. He’s scary. He has crazy eyes. And I did not like the look of hatred that flashed on his face, that downturn of the mouth when Walz was asked by a reporter about the hostages in Gaza—it was so quick I had to watch the exchange a few times to confirm it. Then the mask came down and Walz was Mister Friendly Guy once more—all smiley like he didn’t hear the reporter’s question. But we all saw it. I saw it. I saw Mr. Evil Man rear his ugly head for that little almost undetectable blip in time.

I dread the thought of Walz in a position of influence. Kamala is a power-hungry puppet who will not be kind to Israel should she win, but she is too stupid to craft or carry out policy, and that’s where others come in.

Will Walz distinguish himself as an advisor? Will he have a voice? More likely Walz is a signal to Israel-hating voters: Here is someone in Kamala’s corner.

Someone who hates the Jews.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Losing the Jewish Vote: Trump will be Trump, A Debate Postmortem (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

The Trump-Harris debate was on every politically-aware person’s mind for the past month. We heard commentator after commentator weigh in in the run-up to that time: it’s crucial that he focus on substance, and not be, well, Trump, they all said. But we all knew, as did the commentators, that Trump would be Trump.

We hoped that Tulsi Gabbard, who had been enlisted to prepare Trump for the debate, would be a moderating influence. But we knew better. We knew that Trump would be Trump and that there was nothing and no one who could change that.

A lot of people like that about Trump—that he is what he is and doesn’t care what we think of him. But a lot of people don’t like that about Trump. And those are the people he needs to sway—the others were going to vote for him anyway.

I went to bed Monday night, knowing that the debate would begin while I slept here in Israel. I wasn’t upset about that. I only felt down, so sure was I that Trump would be Trump, and that as a result, Israel would have to contend with a hostile Harris-Walz government.

I woke up, and not at all hopeful, caught the tail end of the debate. It was exactly as we all knew it would be. Trump didn’t care how he said what he said, didn’t stop to think how offensive it would be for a Jew to hear from his lips, “Israel will not exist within two years from now.”

This is offensive on so many levels and some of those levels are difficult to express. There’s a visceral recoiling from those words, it’s instinctive, and surely that’s not what Trump wants the undecided Jewish voter to feel right now. Trump thinks he will frighten us into voting for him. In actual fact, the statement gives grave offense to us. We existed before Trump, and we will continue to survive as a nation should he lose, but it would, God forbid, take a toll. A “terrible” toll, as Donald Trump might say.

Still, it’s an alienating thing to say; and if Trump alienates the Jews, they won’t vote for him, and as a result, Harris may win. And that is exactly why I blame Trump for what happened last time. I believe Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, at least in part, led to a win for Biden. Trump’s attitude and manner of behavior is every bit as much to blame for the division in America as the politicians who slander anyone who does not agree with them, and the news media and the echo chamber that echo them.

So much of what Trump said was good and true. But the effect of that is destroyed when he says, “I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now” (emphasis added):

[When] she mentions Israel, all of a sudden, she hates Israel. She wouldn't even meet with Netanyahu when he went to Congress to make a very important speech. She refused to be there because she was at a sorority party of hers. She went to go to the sorority party. She hates Israel. If she's president, I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, I've been pretty good at predictions. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
She hates Israel. At the same time, in her own way, she hates the Arab population, because the whole place is going to get blown up. Arabs, Jewish people, Israel, Israel will be gone.
It would have never happened. Iran was broke under Donald Trump. Now, Iran has $300 billion because they took off all the sanctions that I had. Iran had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah or any of the 28 different spheres of terror. And they are spheres of terror, horrible terror."

Is Donald Trump wrong about any of this? Aside from saying Israel won’t exist, he’s probably right. But even if he’s not wrong about any of it, God forbid, that’s not the way to say it. The right way to say this is—as I’m sure Tulsi Gabbard tried to impress upon Trump— “A Harris win poses an existential threat to Israel.”

Would it be so hard for him to say those words instead of the ones that make us bristle?

At the Republican Jewish Coalition summit last week, speaking to a Jewish audience, it was even worse, and at the same time, even better. Trump expanded on what he would do to help Israel were he to win. He listed many good things he has done in the past and also all the good things he will do for Israel and the world should he win the election. Many, many good things.

Unlike at the debate, Trump’s words at the RJC summit were heartening and hopeful in many respects. At the same time, it’s upsetting to see how Trump sabotages his own campaign, likely losing the Jewish vote again, only for his refusal to speak like a human being instead of like an ape.

The RJC speech, on balance, is very fine, and worth reading in full, as I found out when I read over the transcript I cobbled together from YouTube auto-generated text. If it weren’t for the threats and childish nicknames he slings at his opponents, the good would outweigh the bad, and Trump would have many more Jewish votes in his pocket. But Trump can’t seem to help himself—or rather, doesn’t care enough about Israel and the Jews—to even try to speak and comport himself with enough moderation to tip the scales in his favor (emphasis added):

Take a look at what's happening with that whole group. Harris Biden Administration has sought to cast blame for these deaths on Israel. They have not been your friends. I don't understand how anybody can support them and I say it constantly, if you had them to support, and you were Jewish, you have to have your head examined. They have been very bad to you, let me state this very clearly; the blame for these wicked murders lies with Hamas and Hamas alone.
Only an evil and inhuman, really inhuman ideology, kidnaps, tortures, and murders innocent men, women, and children, and likewise, only a deeply sick political party here in America would make common cause with those who sympathize with such evil, and they are, there's nobody been close, closer than this group of people, radical left people running for office right now, and they're not going to win because they can't win, because we wouldn't have a country any longer and then Israel would not have an ally. That I can tell you and only a morally rotten president and vice president would seek to blame Israel for heinous acts of terror committed against its own citizens.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are a disgrace to your nation and to my nation. If Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe Biden are looking for another cause for this crisis, they should do nothing more than look in the mirror: they are the cause. They gave you no support. They gave Israel no support.
The October 7th attack on Israel would never have happened if I was president. Zero chance. It was not going to happen, just like the disaster in Afghanistan would never have happened, and frankly the invasion of Ukraine by Russia would not have happened. Happen this November, we're going to replace weakness with strength; cowardice with courage and clarity; and war with peace. We're going to tell Comrade Kamala Harris, “You're fired.”
[Applause]
Thank you.
Now we have no choice in doing so. You'll never survive if they get in and our country America will never survive if they get in.
When I left office, America was safe. Israel was safe. The Jewish people were safe, and the whole world was at peace. Under my leadership, we obliterated the Isis caliphate. 100% done. We did it in four weeks. It was supposed to take five years I did it in four weeks, and it was done, over.
I withdrew from the horrendous Iran nuclear deal, and imposed the toughest ever sanctions on the regime. Iran was weak. Iran was broke. They had no money and they wanted to make a deal.
As president, I withdrew from the antisemitic United Nations Human Rights Council, which is terrible, absolutely terrible.
I defunded the Palestinian Authority and choked off the money to Hamas, and we actually defunded that. We were paying them a fortune every year. The United was States was paying a fortune, and I said we're not going to pay, they're not our friends, and not the friend of Israel.
I recognized Israel's eternal capital and opened the American Embassy in Jerusalem, something which every president said they were going to do, and they never did it. I got it done, and I also got the embassy built. Somebody else would have never gotten it built.
I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights was a big thing. We were talking to a lot of people. I got it done in 15 minutes. They've been negotiating it for 52 years. Nothing was ever going to happen without me.
With the historic Abraham Accords, we made peace in the Middle East. We had wonderful support, and had I been president for the remainder of that, the time that we're talking about, this year, period. Everybody, every country virtually, would have been signed into the Abraham Accords whereas Biden and Harris have done nothing. Nobody signed.
So, here at home, American Jews felt safe on our streets and college campuses when I was president, and we kept radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. They were out. They weren't allowed to come in, but all of that changed with Comrade Kamala Harris and Crooked Joe Biden in the White House.
Harris restored funding to the Palestinian Authority and even much more money than they were being paid before; and the UN Relief and Works Agency, which both funnel money now to Hamas, and they funnel a lot of money to Hamas, and nobody knows that better than you.
She supported removing the Houthis, to list—we had a terror list that was really, uh, very important for them to be on that terror list, and she took them off the terror list, a group whose motto includes the words “Death to America, Death to Israel” and “A curse on the Jews.”
This is their motto and they don't want them on a terror list.
Kamala Harris helped deliver over $100 billion in sanctions relief to Iran. Gave him all the money. They gave him $6 billion for hostages. They gave them money that Iran never expected—never, never could have made—and now because of them, in three and a half years they've got $350 billion.
When I was there they had no money. They wanted to make a deal, and we would have had a deal very easily if the election turned out the way it should have turned out, frankly, but the regime used it to expand its terror brigades and to fund Hamas. Iran was doing that, and funding them at a level that nobody thought even possible.
Kamala Harris is the candidate of the forces who want to destroy Western civilization and Israel. I am the candidate of those who want to defend Western civilization; defend Israel; and defend of course, the United States of [Applause] America. When I'm president, the United States will once again stand shoulder to shoulder with the State of Israel.
I will support Israel's right to win its war on terror and we will win fast. You have to win, and you have to win fast. We will restore stability and peace in the Middle East, and we will be using a phrase that's been used by some very great leaders over the years, including Ronald Reagan. “Peace through strength.”
You will have peace through strength.
If Kamala Harris wins, terrorist armies will wage an unceasing war to drive Jews out of the Holy Land and you know it, and we've had a great relationship with Israel, but I can say honestly that we got 25% of the vote, we got 26% after four years, after I did more for Israel than any other president by far, and this year we're probably around a 50% mark.
But I only ask you who are the 50% of Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don't like the Jewish people, why are they, why are they voting, why? How do they exist?
Iran and his proxies will spread bloodshed and death all around the globe, and as she continues to set the world on fire, Kamala Harris will support unlimited migration from terrorist hotbeds into the United States, and will totally abandon Israel. You're going to be abandoned if she becomes president, and I think you have to explain that to your people because they don't know it, they have no idea what they're getting into.
You're not going to have an Israel if they become, if she becomes president Israel will no longer exist. When I'm president we will deport the foreign Jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters from our midst. We don't want them in our midst, thank you very much, thank you. If you hate America, if you want to eliminate Israel, then we don't want you in our country.
[Applause]
I will ban refugee settlements from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip. We will arrest the pro-Hamas thugs who vandalize federal property, and I will put every single college president on notice. The American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil. Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support. No money will go to them if they [Applause] don't.
In the Republican Party, we know that militant antisemitism and support for terror have no place in a civilized society. They have no place. We must reject antisemitism in our schools; reject it in our foreign policy; reject it in our immigration system; and reject it at the ballot box this November.
You must get Jewish people or people that love Israel, you must get them to vote for Republican {sic].
You must get them to vote for Trump, and if you don't, you're not going to have a country. I am telling you I've been very good at predicting things. You will not have a country. This is a radical left Marxist that we have running, you will not have a country.
With your vote, we will defend our citizens. We will defend our values; and we will defend our country America; and Israel will be respected [Applause] again.
We will deliver low taxes; low regulations; low energy costs; low interest rates; and low inflation. We will stop the invasion, end migrant crime; support our police; strengthen our military; build a missile defense shield like you have, slightly larger; keep critical race theory and transgender insanity out of our schools; and keep men out of women's sports in our country.
[Music]
We will defend the Second Amendment; restore free speech; and we will secure our elections. In everything we do, I will put America first. I will keep America safe, and I will work with you to make sure that Israel is with us for thousands of years. We're not going to let go of it.
If they win, Israel is gone. Just remember that if they win, Israel is gone. You can forget about Israel. That's what's going to happen, so they have to get out on November 5^th, and they have to vote for Trump. If they don't I think it's going to be a very terrible situation.
We're going to make America great again. We're going to, frankly, help Israel become great again. Right now, what you're going through is horrible, that you have to go through that, with all the death, destruction, and waste, and ruining a civilization.
You have to go on. You have to win, but you need a partner. You can never have that partner if these radical Marxists win the election, so I thank you, and God bless Israel, God Bless America, I'll see you soon, thank you very much.

As stated in his speech, the list of good things Trump would do for us is detailed and it is long. And many of us know that Trump would do each and every one of these good things for Israel and for the world. We know and we believe that he would defund every bad and evil influence possible; the gross George Soros people persecuting Jewish youth on campus; UNRWA; Iran. He’d defund them all, Trump would.

But first he has to get into office. And I fear that last night, with his threatening remarks at the debate, Trump has lost the election yet again, by alienating Jewish voters, put off by his off-putting words. Trump would have been smart, instead, to learn from the closing remarks of Douglas Murray when he faced off against Mehdi Hassan in June:

The Jewish State and the Jewish people have survived an awful lot worse than this. They have seen off every single one of their enemies, from Pharaoh to the Abyssinians, to the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans. They will see off Hamas. They will see off Mehdi, and they will outlive everybody in this [Applause] room.

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!

The Very Heavens Wept for Our Six (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

It was a drear Sunday morning when we heard the news that Hamas had executed six hostages, among them American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Israeli Parents struggled to put on a brave face as they readied their excited children for the first day of school. Teachers had to smile and pretend they were happy as they welcomed students into classrooms all over Israel. For the most part, the rest of us had no need to hide our sadness. Even the sky was sad—it drizzled, an almost unheard of phenomenon at this time of year. I was not the only one who remarked that the heavens were crying for our dead.

On that mournful morning, all of Israel shared the pain. We suffered together all at once, a nation depressed, beset by collective grief. There’s unity in that. But it’s not a good kind of unity. It’s a unity that palpably hurts.

There’s the pain of the loss; the way it happened; and the fact that we were so close to getting them home. Then too, by now we felt we knew them. We knew their faces and names. They were a part of us now, especially Hersh, whose parents had fought so hard for him with their very visible efforts to spread word of the plight of their beautiful son, the boy with the dark curls and impish grin who suffered so hard for 330 days.

We were hurting, and even more, we hurt for the families, knowing that our pain was as nothing compared to what they were now experiencing; pain beyond our imagination. Perhaps that’s why US President Joe Biden’s words fell so flat. “I am devastated and outraged,” he said, the words contrasting strangely with his history vis-à-vis Israel and his Middle East policy in general; the hampering of Israel’s defensive war, and the funding of Iran, which in turns funds Hamas.

The very next day, of course, Biden turned around and blamed the execution of Jews on the Jews themselves, via the man who represents them, Netanyahu.

Kamala Harris' public reaction to the six hostage deaths, in contrast with Biden's brief statement, was long, careful, and noncommittal—so balanced it was almost a refutation that what happened to Hersh was in any way special in proportion to the thousands of dead in Gaza. Stuff happened to Israelis, she seemed to say, but also to the people of Gaza (emphasis added):

On October 7, Hersh Goldberg-Polin—an American citizen—was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. He was just 23 years old, attending a music festival with friends. We now know he was murdered by Hamas. His body was recovered today in the tunnels under Rafah, along with five other hostages.
Doug and my prayers are with Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh’s parents, and with everyone who knew and loved Hersh. When I met with Jon and Rachel earlier this year, I told them: You are not alone. That remains true as they mourn this terrible loss. Americans and people around the world will pray for Jon, Rachel, and their family and send them love and strength. As is said in the Jewish tradition, may Hersh’s memory be a blessing.
Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands. I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world. From its massacre of 1,200 people to sexual violence, taking of hostages, and these murders, Hamas’ depravity is evident and horrifying.

The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel—and American citizens in Israel—must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza. The Palestinian people too have suffered under Hamas’ rule for nearly two decades. President Biden and I will never waver in our commitment to free the Americans and all those held hostage in Gaza.

Shiva tent for Hersh Goldberg-Polin, seen from a distance, Jerusalem

Signing the guest book at the Goldberg-Polin shiva

The worst of the three was Tim Walz, who had nothing at all to say about our dead. When asked for his reaction to the executions, his expression shifted abruptly; his mouth turning briefly downward into an angry frown. Suddenly deaf, he pretended not to hear, thanked the crowd, then walked away, dismissing the crowd with a wave

Reporter: "What's your reaction to the 6 hostages being found dead in Gaza?"

Tim Walz ignores the question like Biden and said "Thanks everybody". pic.twitter.com/sw02ctFsH4
— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) September 1, 2024

In our fresh state of grief, the sense of betrayal cuts a little deeper. But not by much. Israeli Jews, better than most, understand that Jewish history repeats itself, with betrayal by friends a common feature. The very heavens may have wept for our six, but many bad "friends" did not.

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!

Was Jordan behind Abbas' recent mass firing of envoys and governors?

The Media Line reports:

After PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors and 35 foreign envoys, analysts say it is Jordan that has pushed him for changes out of concern for the stability of the entity on its border. Further overhauls may lie ahead.

Rumors of imminent changes within the Palestinian Authority government continue to swirl, despite official denials from Ramallah.

Earlier this month, PA President Mahmoud Abbas fired 12 provincial governors in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in what many say is part of an “overhaul” in personnel in the political and security structure. The shakeup continued some days later with the announcement of the retirement of 35 of his foreign envoys, all of them over the age of 65.

Experts believe the dismissals are an attempt to promote newer leadership and quell increasing domestic, regional, and international criticism of the PA.

Ramallah-based political analyst Esmat Mansour told The Media Line that Abbas’s visit to Jordan contributed to the speed with which he carried out the firings.

“It is not possible for the president to ignore Arab advice, as well as international demands, out of fear for the future and fate of the PA,” Mansour said.

Analysts say the Palestinian leadership is scrambling to appease regional players while satisfying the disgruntled Palestinian street, which sees the PA as ineffective, incompetent, and a tool in the hands of Israel.

“Abbas is trying through these decisions to give the impression that he is still influential and in control of things, and that change comes by his own will and is not imposed on him by anyone,” Mansour said.

As part of the shakeup, Abbas is planning a limited cabinet shuffle in the next few weeks, according to Palestinian media outlets. This may affect the current prime minister.

The only part that makes sense is that Abbas wanted to project the idea that he is still in charge. But firing governors and envoys does not change the main challenges he faces - the loss of control by the PA security forces and the lack of elections.

Ironically, Abbas fired a lot of the older people working for him in favor of youth, but he himself remains the 87-year old dictator above all.

It is true the PA has been trying a little harder to assert security control over areas that had been effectively ceded to terror groups. I can certainly see Jordan pushing for that, since security chaos would affect Jordan as well.

Abbas met with the heads of his security services last week to emphasize the importance of the "rule of law.".

But these changes are really just re-arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.

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!

The real elephants in the room (2023 edition)

Recently, a group of hundreds of North American academics issued a statement linking the Israeli governments support for judicial reform with the "occupation" and saying Israel is guilty of apartheid and Jewish supremacism.

They called the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria "the elephant in the room."

This prompts me to bring up the real elephants in the room - the elephants that these human rights pretenders always ignore and want everyone else to ignore as well

I have been calling out these elephants since 2005, updating the list every few years. These are the facts that everyone knows - and that are actively suppressed by the media, politicians, academia and "experts."

Here is the latest iteration of the inconvenient facts that no one wants to discuss:

Elephant 1: Terror groups control Gaza - and that will not change

Every peace plan and proposal includes Gaza in a Palestinian Arab state, and none of them has any provision on how to handle the fact that Gaza is a terrorist haven, in much worse shape since Israel uprooted the settlements there, controlled by Iranian-funded terrorist groups that are consistently and wholeheartedly against Israel's existence. Peace is impossible with this elephant, so it is easier to pretend it isn't there - or, for some, to position the genocidal, antisemitic desires of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as somehow a brave fight for freedom.

Elephant 2: Palestinian Arabs consistently support terrorism

In the only fair, democratic elections in the territories, the Hamas terrorists were chosen by the people. Poll after poll shows that Palestinian Arabs support terror in Israel itself. (52% still support a violent intifada in 2019.) The elections and surveys proved that the conventional wisdom was wrong - and the conventional wisdom ignores and downplays this proof that peace is impossible, and it isn't Israel's fault.

Elephant 3: The current PA government was not elected

This corollary to Elephant 2 means that the people representing "Palestine" on TV and at the UN do not represent the people. Even if they sound moderate or compromising, they have no mandate. The current PA president is well past his term of office, and none of his prime ministers were ever elected Negotiating with the PA is, literally, meaningless.

Similarly, the unelected PLO is the real power behind the PA. The PA officially reports to the PLO, and all negotiations are done by the autocratic, Fatah-dominated PLO, not the PA.

Elephant 4: The current PA government has almost no power - and no respect

Outside of Ramallah, the Abbas government has little popular support and little power. Terror groups are a very real threat to the PA in the West Bank and have been building their bases, which has now become obvious in recent years. The PA has lost large swaths of the West Bank. The PA canceled the last elections because they would have lost to Hamas.

Elephant 5: The PA is being kept alive by artificial methods

The PA budget is bloated from "payroll" of non-working workers, including terrorists who receive a salary for not working. The PA may also still be paying Gaza workers who were kicked out of their government jobs in 2006 by Hamas. The very basis of the organized Palestinian Arab workforce is a fiction being kept barely alive by external infusions of cash with no real plan to fix the problem.

Elephant 6: Fatah remains a terrorist group paid by the PA

Despite the claims that the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades has dismantled, it is a joke meant to appease the wishful-thinkers. The PA might arrest Hamas members in the West Bank, but there still remains - today - terrorist groups that report to Fatah. Here's the webpage of one of them. There has been no serious move by the PA to dismantle their own terror groups, and there are lots of PA security employees who join with terror groups like Lion's Den at night.

Elephant 7: The PA's goal remains the destruction of Israel

Whether it is by "right of return" or not changing the Fatah charter or by printing map after map showing no Israel, even the most moderate Palestinian leader clings to the idea of destroying Israel, and looks upon a Palestinian Arab state as only one stage in the process. One only needs to look at the maps of "Palestine" in official PA documents and schoolbooks.

A 2011 poll that remains criminally under-reported proves that when Palestinian Arabs say they want a two-state solution, it is only a stage towards their real goal of destroying Israel.

And polls in 2019 confirm it.

Elephant 8: Jerusalem

Most Israelis want a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Most Palestinian Arabs refuse to accept anything less than all of ("east") Jerusalem as the capital of a Muslim state. The positions are not compatible and a compromise will not reduce the chances for violence - it will increase it.

Jerusalem, under Jewish rule, has more religious freedom than at any time in its history. That would disappear in any "peace plan." But "human rights activists" are remarkably uninterested in the rights of Jews.

Elephant 9: Israeli concessions have encouraged more terror

The conventional wisdom is that if only Israel give Palestinians more of what they demand, it will help bring peace. But history shows the opposite.

Israel's far-reaching offers for peace in 2000 and 2001 had a very loud response: the second Intifada and thousands killed. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon to UN-drawn lines resulted in Hezbollah becoming more powerful, with hundreds of thousands of rockets pointed at Israel and new provocations at the border, with one major war in 2006 and another threatened. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza did not result in peace but in the takeover of Gaza by terror groups.

Israeli concessions are regarded not as goodwill gestures that should be reciprocated but as weakness that must be taken advantage of.

And that is exactly what would happen if Israel withdraws from areas in Judea and Samaria.

Elephant 10: Palestinian Arab "unity"

No peace plan can work unless Hamas and the PA/Fatah, along with other terror groups, reach some sort of unification agreement. This is not possible in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Hamas is powerful enough that any such agreement must include a hardening of PLO positions that would be completely incompatible with the basic minimum standards for peace - renunciation of terror, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements.

Elephant 11: "Refugee camps"

The only reason there are still "refugee camps" in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are to keep Palestinians in misery - to make them pawns in photo-ops and to create new generations of terrorists. Real fighters for human rights would insist that "refugees" become full citizens of the countries they have lived in for generations - but they argue the opposite. Real human rights advocates would insist that the camps in PA and Hamas controlled territory be dismantled and normal housing built - but they don't. People who hate Israel are eager to sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians because they want to destroy Israel with the fictional "right of return." Israel will never agree so these people are left in misery, forever.

See also Elephant 16.

Elephant 12: Economics

Some 30 years after Oslo, the economy in the territories is still close to non-existent and wholly dependent on foreign aid. Not only is there no free market, there is no incentive to build one as the very mentality of Palestinian Arabs and their leaders is one of welfare rather than responsibility. All the plans to create a Palestinian Arab state do not consider Day 2 and how such a state would be able to sustain itself. The expected influx of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Lebanon and Syria would make it even worse. It would take at least a generation to turn the poisonous attitude of entitlement around.

Elephant 13: Gaza demographics

Gazans have no room to expand as their numbers continue to grow at among the fastest rates in the world. Theoretically they could move to the West Bank but only a small percentage would. This is another Day 2 powder keg that is being ignored in the interests of a "solution" of a "Palestinian state."

Elephant 14: Palestinian Arab leaders never showed interest in independence

The West assumes that the goal is an independent Palestinian Arab state where Arabs no longer have to live under "occupation." But the actions and words of Palestinian Arab leaders have never borne that goal out; they have not worked towards building the institutions and infrastructure that would be necessary in an independent state. Their insistence on "right of return" and "Jerusalem" as issues that must be resolved before independence betray their thought processes - inconsistent with independence (neither of which require those two issues to be resolved) and consistent with a desire to destroy Israel in stages.

Elephant 15: A unilateral Palestinian Arab state would be militarized

There is no way that a new Palestinian Arab state would remain demilitarized for any length of time. The Palestinian government could invite a friendly Muslim nation to position anti-aircraft weapons within its territory; to shoot missiles at El Al planes landing a few miles from the Green Line, or to get a few thousand tanks poised to cut Israel in half.

Iran already effectively controls Lebanon, Syria and to a large extent Gaza They would use the nascent state of Palestine to position themselves on the West Bank as well. Just like the PA ran away from Gaza at the first sign of trouble, so would they lose their state to Iranian proxies and Islamic terrorists.

The PLO's will to defend themselves is not nearly as strong as their will to destroy Israel, a desire that has been inculcated in them for generations. Palestinian Arab nationalism is a fundamentally weak and externally-imposed construct. Iran is poised and anxious to take advantage of the chaos that would follow a unilaterally declared state, even if at the moment they are distracted.

But the West is ready to risk Israel for that elephant as well.

Elephant 16: The so-called "right to return"

The PA is showing no interest in integrating the Palestinian Arabs outside of the territories into their state. On the contrary; the "refugee camps" in PA controlled territory continue to grow, rather than shrink. Clearly, the PA expects the bulk of the "diaspora" to go to Israel, not a Palestinian Arab state, and decades of incitement both within and without the territories have brainwashed generations of Arabs to not accept anything less than a "return" to a land that most of them have never stepped foot in. (UNRWA has been a major promulgator of this lie.)

Elephant 17: Corruption and human rights abuses are still endemic in the PA

Despite the publicized successes, the PA remains mired in corruption, hardly a model for an independent state. The 2008 Global Integrity Report rated the West Bank as close to the bottom in its corruption ratings and more Palestinians have rated local corruption among the worst in the Arab world. It hasn't improved.

The PA is a dictatorship. Mahmoud Abbas controls the PLO that the PA reports to, the judiciary, the legislative branch and the executive branch. There is no independence or checks and balances.

Women are discriminated against by law. Press freedom remains low; the justice system is opaque, and whistle-blowers are forced to go to the Israeli press to expose corruption. Prisoners are tortured. And except for rare occasions, these abuses are ignored.

Elephant 18: Palestine would be Judenrein

Statements by PA leaders make it clear that their state of Palestine would not have any Jewish citizens allowed within. Jews whose ancestors have lived in Judea and Samaria, whether for decades or for millennia, will be legally barred from living in Palestine - an extraordinary display of state antisemitism that is completely at odds with the Western standards that the nascent state of "Palestine" is pretending to live up to.

Elephant 19: The Muslim world's antipathy towards Israel

Although this is weakening, most of the Arab world and the Muslim world remains overwhelmingly against the idea of a Jewish state in the midst of supposedly Muslim lands. Iran remains in de facto control of southern Lebanon and Gaza; ordinary Jordanians and Egyptians remain among the worst antisemites in the Arab world. The Abraham Accords have been a tremendous counterweight to this, and things are better than they have been in the past, but the Arab people themselves are still overwhelmingly antisemitic and anti-Israel. The threat from radical Islam remains potent in Arab and Muslim states. No concessions would change that.

Elephant 20: Mahmoud Abbas will die and there is no plan for the day after

Mahmoud Abbas has no successor. Polls show that if elections were held today, the new president of the PA would be a convicted terrorist now in Israeli prison. Iranian-funded error groups are poised to take over. Even if Abbas would sign a real peace agreement today, that paper would be next to worthless after he is gone.

Israel has to navigate these challenges every day. Rarely does the media mention them, instead insisting on a simplistic narrative where only Israel is responsible for peace. This pretense that Palestinians have no responsibility of their own - a fiction that Palestinian leaders go to great lengths to promulgate - is ultimately racist against Palestinians.

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!

PA prime minister Shtayyeh tells members of Congress a litany of lies

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Monday met with a delegation of members of the US Congress, which included 22 members of the Democratic Party, headed by Senator Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives, in his office in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Ramallah isn't occupied. There is not one Israeli soldier there. It has its own governance structure that has nothing to do with Israel. There is no sane definition of "occupation" that makes Ramallah occupied.

The meeting discussed ways to revive the political process and the role of the US Congress in protecting the two-state solution, as the Prime Minister called on Congress to vote in favor of recognizing the State of Palestine.

Shtayyeh has no problem representing all of Israel as part of Palestine, showing how important the "two state solution" is to him.

The Prime Minister affirmed that Israel violates international law on a daily basis through killing, storming and building settlement, stressing that this causes the systematic destruction of the two-state solution.

"Storming"? According to Shtayyeh, Jews visiting their holiest spot are somehow violating international law. Which shows that his interest in real international law is also nil.

Shtayyeh called on Congress to pressure Israel to allow holding of Palestinian elections, including Jerusalem, in accordance with the signed agreements, considering that Israel's failure to allow this is an attempt to fight Palestinian democracy.

Israel isn't what is stopping elections. Mahmoud Abbas is. Jerusalem Arabs can vote in any Palestinian elections as they have in the past.

Did any members of Congress have the backbone to contradict Shtayyeh's lies? I tend to doubt 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!