Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: eoztv

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Friday, March 20, 2020

EoZTV: An interview with Dexter Van Zile

On Thursday night I did a livestream interview with CAMERA's Dexter Van Zile about modern Christian antisemitism. Check it out!

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EoZ interview with Kasim Hafeez, part 1

Kasim Hafeez is a fascinating person. He was a radical Muslim in his late teens and early twenties and then took a second look at everything he had been taught when he came across The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz.

I had a nice (and fun) discussion with him in a Tel Aviv bar when I was in Israel last month. Unfortunately, the first part of the video is lost due to me, um, not remembering to turn on the camera. (You can find other interviews of him where he describes his life story with less background noise.)

In this part, he talks a bit about how radical Islam works, how Muslims tend to take the Quran literally, his reading of the Dershowitz book and his first eye-opening visit to Israel.

In upcoming parts we will discuss Islam in more depth.

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#HateStopsHere: An interview with WZO Director on countering antisemitism (EoZTV)

Today, March 10, rallies are being held across the world to protest antisemitism. Kicking off the rallies was one in Jerusalem in front of the World Zionist Organization/KKL building.

I interviewed Eitan Behar, Director of the Center for Countering Antisemitism, about what the WZO and its partners are doing to combat antisemitism as well as their definition of the term.

Behar pointed out that in Europe, many Jews are afraid to be public about their Judaism. They are keeping their mezuzot inside their houses. They are too scared to report attacks against them. It is not a good situation.

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EoZTV: Answering IfNotNow

A longish podcast but it really gets going in the second half.

I'll try to summarize:

IfNotNow's example questions are:

The first question presupposes that there is a capital O "Occupation." From the perspective of international law, this is not true.

The definition of “occupation” comes from Hague Convention of 1907:

Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.

The Fourth Geneva Conventions do not define “occupation” but set up rules to protect civilians under occupation.

Israel's position is that the land isn’t “occupied” but “disputed." The reason it isn’t occupied is that it had no recognized sovereign before 1967, as Jordan’s annexation of Judea and Samaria was not recognized by most nations.

The Hague definition only applies to parties of the Convention, meaning states.

Hans Kelsen wrote in Principles of International Law in 1952 (before international law was twisted specifically to attack Israel:)

If the territory is not to be considered a stateless territory, it must be considered to be under the sovereignty of the occupant belligerent, which—in such a case—ceases to be restricted by the rules concerning belligerent occupation.

Moreover, Israel has the best legal claim to Judea and Samaria, based on the terms of the British Mandate approved by the League of Nations of the Jewish people’s right to settle in Palestine:

“The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home….”

The League of Nations decisions remain legal under the UN. Since Jordan’s claim from 1949-1967 was illegal, the only valid claim on the land is that of the Jews under the terms of the League of Nations.

Now, this might seem like a cop-out. The Geneva Conventions describes how to treat civilians humanely under occupation, and saying that the areas aren't occupied in a strictly legal sense should not give Israel carte blanche to treat Palestinian Arabs badly.

But Israel has voluntarily enforced the Geneva Convention humanitarian rules in the territories, but never accepted the idea that they are legally occupied – it always maintained they were disputed. This is why Israel feels that building Jewish communities in the territories is legal - with the exception of Hebron, where Jews lived continuously before 1929, all Jewish settlements are in areas that Arabs didn't live, on public lands (sometimes mistakes are made and either those buildings are demolished or the Arabs are compensated, based on Israeli Supreme Court rulings.)

By the way, no one who is serious accuses Israel's Supreme Court of ignoring international law. Their opinions are sober, detailed and publicly available. I have yet to see anyone show how their opinions that allow Israel to act in the territories are in violation of international law.

Beyond these points, parts of the territories aren't occupied for a completely different reason.

In an occupation, the hostile army has complete control over the territory - it is required to set up court systems and enforce existing laws.

By Geneva’s definition: [T]he Occupying Power shall be bound, for the duration of the occupation, to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory

By the Hague’s definition, it requires “boots on the ground”

A good definition of whether territory is occupied is whether the “occupier” can replace the mayors of the cities. Or fire the sanitation workers.

Gaza is certainly not occupied now since there is not a single Israeli soldier there. Neither is Area A, since the PA has military control over those areas. Israel is not acting and cannot act as the government in those areas.

(People who say that controlling the borders is “occupation” have zero legal basis for their opinion.)

IfNotNow asks about the effect of the Israeli presence in the territories on Palestinian (and Israeli) lives. They only care about Palestinian human rights - but they ignore Israeli human rights.

Before the first intifada, there were no (or few?) checkpoints. Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews were able to simply drive all over Israel and the territories with few restrictions. I once spoke to someone who used to Israeli kosher challah bread in Ramallah, imported Friday mornings to allow settlers to not have to drive to Jerusalem.

All of that changed because of the first and second intifadas, the waves of Arab terror and suicide bombings and bus bombings from 1988, through the 1990s when there were many terror attacks during the Oslo peace process, and then the major wave of terror that happened after the Palestinians rejected two serious peace offers in 2000 and 2001, pushed by Bill Clinton.

All restrictions on Palestinian mobility is a direct result of terror. Israel isn't trying to restrict anyone's human rights, but Israel's main job as a sovereign nation is to protect its citizens. The rights of Israelis to live without being blown up are certainly more important than the rights of Palestinian Arabs not to wait for minutes at checkpoints to ensure they aren't bringing bombs or guns.

No one talks about Israeli human rights. But human rights are human rights to all, and Israel has to find a balance that allows the maximum of human rights for Palestinians without compromising in the security of Israelis. The line is fine, and it moves, based on Palestinian Arab actions.

The Oslo peace process is now 25 years old. Palestinian Arabs have had 25 years to teach an entire generation to live in peace with Israel, and they have done the opposite. Terrorists are heroes, and they and their families are paid salaries by the PLO. Not all Palestinians are terrorists, but polls show that after major terror attacks on Israeli civilians, a vast majority support those attacks. And polls have also consistently shown that even the Palestinians who say they support a two state solution only look at that as a stage before taking over all of Israel. This is the major reason there is no peace today.

Every Israeli government, including the current one, wants to live side by side in peace and security with a Palestinian state (or entity, if you will) that doesn't threaten Israel. No one wants to control millions of potentially hostile people. But right now that is impossible - a hostile independent Palestine in the territories could easily acquire shoulder mounted missiles to threaten all Israeli air traffic, for example. This is not acceptable to any nation.

So the current situation, as bad as it is for Palestinian Arabs, is the least bad situation if you value Israeli lives as well. And when the PA does take security seriously, restrictions on Palestinians are lifted (there used to be far more checkpoints than today.)

IfNotNow hates it when Zionists say "it's complicated." That's because they are invested in a simplistic viewpoint where Israelis are evil and Palestinians are good. That is highly inaccurate, borderline racist and betrays an agenda where Israeli lives are worthless. If Birthright participants want to know the facts, they need to invest the time into understanding both sides of the story.

And Birthright guides must be more than tour guides. Understanding Israeli and Jewish history is not enough preparation to handle loaded questions that presuppose the answers. They need to understand the talking points of Israel's enemies like IfNotNow and know how to counter those arguments.

I'm willing to help.

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EoZTV - Review of Xmas Tweets

Mrs. Elder and I review my tweets during Christmas in the latest episode of EoZTV.

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EoZTV - The Reboot

Mrs. Elder and I have rebooted our EoZTV podcast/videocast. In this episode, Mrs. Elder interviews me to go back to basics - what is antisemitism and anti-Zionism? Why do people hate Jews? Why should people support Israel?

It is about 30 minutes long but it is pretty good.

Any feedback or suggestions for future topics are welcome!

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EoZTV: How NGOs lie with statistics

I just saw a report put out last month by AIDA, an umbrella organization of 70 NGOs in the territories, including Oxfam and Amnesty..

The first page of their summary report shows how dishonest NGOs are.

They have to dig very deep to try to make the actual GDP per capita of the territories to look bad. In fact, the statistic has been steadily getting better and better:

There's a lot more that is deceptive in just this one page, but one thing is clear: these NGOs know that they must cook the books to make things look bad, or else their own fundraising abilities go to pot.

My exhaustive description of how these guys are beneath contempt can be seen here.

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EoZTV: "Open-air prison camp" hosting high-tech expo this week

The latest EoZTV:

This week marks the annual ExpoTech show, showing Palestinian high-tech ventures, being held simultaneously in Ramallah and Gaza City.

Here are some photos from last year's show in Gaza:

Look at all the starving children!

I found two of the exhibitors interesting, the Amassi Group and Jawal Sons:

Both of them prominently display the Hewlett-Packard logo in their booths.

HP, of course, is one of the targets of the BDS boycott. Apparently, in Gaza, being an HP partner is not considered a liability.

And this week happens to be the week that HP is specifically targeted for boycott by BDS!

There is nothing wrong with such an expo - in fact, I wish Gaza high tech companies all the success they can have, especially in finding the type of work that can be done remotely for clients worldwide, like coding mobile applications. It is a shortcoming of the PA and Gaza governments that such ventures have not been a key part of their economic policy. Instead, they skew their economies towards the hundreds of NGOs that bring tons of money that do not create any actual products.

Those very NGOs are the ones who are most against showing these types of images, because they can't raise money for Gaza when people see Gazan schoolkids attending a high-tech expo instead of playing in rubble that purposefully hasn't been cleared two years after a war.

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EoZTV: Fire roundup

In the latest EoZTV, Mrs. Elder and I discuss the latest we know about the fires in Israel this past week and how many of them seem to be from arson.

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EoZTV: Trump's Picks

Are Trump's picks as racist as the media makes them out to be? This special videocast of EoZTV looks at what we know so far, as objectively as we could be.

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EoZTV: Manfred Gerstenfeld interview part 2: European antisemitism

From my interview in July.

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EoZTV: Interview of scholar Manfred Gerstenfeld, part 1

In July, I interviewed antisemitism expert and prolific author Manfred Gerstenfeld in his Jerusalem home.

Here is part 1 of the interview where he gives an overview of the three main stages of antisemitism over the past 2000 years.

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EoZTV: The wisdom of 93-year old Shimon Peres

Besides the usual obituary talking points about Shimon Peres, there is a lot more that he accomplished in his lifetime. In this EoZTV we discuss some of them - like how he helped fix Israel's severe economic problems, how he was a poet and wrote a song that was recorded earlier this year, how and why he embraced technology, and finally parts of a remarkable interview he gave Tablet Magazine shortly before his stroke, which is excerpted below.

Tablet has the last interview with Shimon Peres. Here are some excerpts, but the whole thing is worth reading.

I was among the first to visit China. And they knew from my biography that I am a graduate of an agricultural school. So the foreign minister says, “Have a look at the Chinese agriculture.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was so primitive! So backwards. I said, “What are you doing?”

We suggested to them that we start with seeds: An Israeli seed of wheat gives you a yield that is three times more than the Chinese one. Then they did the same with milk. And we are today the best friends of China.

That’s the reason why, when I come to China, they still ask for my advice. I sat for three hours with Xi, and I told him, “Look what’s happening to you. You are today economically almost like America. And you smell power as well. But listen to me: You have to decide, either to be a giver or a taker. The biggest mistake is if you’ll use the power to take. The greatest wisdom is if you give.”

I am very good friends with Putin. And I shall give you, in brief, the content of one of our recent discussions.

I told him, “You’re 63 years old, I’m 93 years old. Tell me, what do you want to achieve in the coming 30 years? What are you fighting for? Are you hoping to piss off America?”

He says, “No.”

“America wants a piece of Russia? No. You have trouble discussing things with Obama?”

He says, “Why do you ask?

I said, “Look, I am not a spy, whatever, tell me.”

He says, “What do you think?”

And I said, “America will win no matter what you do.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because they are lucky, and you are not.” [Laughs.]

I told him more. “When an American wakes up in the morning, what does he see? Mexico in the south, and they accept Mexicans in their country. Canada in the north, they are the best friends in the world. And on the right and on the left, there are fish in the water.

“What does Obama have to worry about? You, you wake up in the morning, whom do you have? Japan, China, Afghanistan? My god! They know that you have plenty of land, and you don’t give them a penny. You have 20 percent of the sweet water, and you give nothing. So when the snow in Siberia melts, the first thing you will see there are Chinese. Because there are plenty of Chinese in the east, and not so many Russians.

The second thing I told him was: “America has the best proportion between the size of the land and the size of the people. You here have the worst. 20 million square kilometers. My god. But what you don’t have are people. Your people are dying. Don’t be impressed by the applause and what people are saying. They won’t forgive you. Why do Russians live for only 62 years, while Americans will live 82 years?

And then I told him: “You behave like a Tsar.”

I am very open.

I said, “What did the Tsars do? They developed two cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, as a showcase. Whatever you want you will find there. The rest of Russia is like Nigeria covered with snow. Your people are dying. You don’t give them life. You think they’ll forgive you?”

“Why is America great?” I asked him. “Because they were givers. Why is Europe in trouble? Because they are takers. America is giving, people think it’s because they are generous. I think it’s because they are wise. If you give, you create friends. The most beneficial investment is making friends.

“America had the guts to take the Marshall Plan, a huge piece of their GNP that they gave to this dying Europe. And in this way, they have shown that this is the best investment in the world.”

There is no European country that didn’t take an empire. The French and the British, the Portuguese, everybody. And what happened? They were thrown out of there and left with nothing. England, the greatest empire from sunrise to sunset, all the oceans, and the nice, nonviolent Indians threw them out, and left them with nothing but three small islands, they don’t know what to do with them.

“Believe me,” I told Putin, “enemies and animosity are the greatest waste in life. You are investing in a foolish thing.”

The way to peace is not war, and not negotiation. It’s innovation. To be great in science, you don’t have to go to war. You can be a small country in size and a great country in content. And even today, this option exists. And I believe in it. It’s difficult, it may take time, but everything is difficult. I have spent my entire life as a dreamer. And as you said last time, an optimist. I choose to be an optimist.

Yes it was that phrase that I liked. [Laughs.]

I think to deal with the past is a waste of time. You can’t change it anyway. [Laughs.]

People say, you won’t repeat the same mistakes. So you’ll make new ones. [Laughs.]

The past doesn’t need the future, and the future doesn’t need the past.

Better to dream than to remember.

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EoZTV: The pre-debate show

In which we discuss the statements that each campaign made after meeting with Bibi.

I wonder why Donald Trump posted his statement after his meeting with Bibi on Sunday, but Hillary only released hers to the press but didn't post it anywhere I could find.

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EoZTV: Mahmoud Abbas, the consummate liar

EoZTV returns with Elder and Mrs. Elder, discussing my favorite lying world leader, Mahmoud Abbas.

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EoZTV: Legal expert Alan Baker on Israeli "occupation" and settlements (video)

During my visit to Israel, I had the opportunity to ask Ambassador Alan Baker, an expert on international law, if he could summarize his position on the legality of Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria.

We've noted most of the arguments before but it is nice to have them confirmed.

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EoZTV: A conversation with Ben Dror Yemini, part 4

In which we discuss Haaretz as well as how people falsely label him, a Labor voter, as "right wing" in order to delegitimize his opinions.

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EoZTV: Ambassador Alan Baker on Jewish rights to pray on the Temple Mount

It is actually against international law to prohibit Jews from praying on the Temple Mount, according to legal scholar and former Israeli ambassador Alan Baker. I interviewed him on July 12.

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VIDEO: Ben Ehrenreich shares his love for the Sbarro massacre mastermind’s family

This Tuesday will be the 15th anniversary of the infamous Sbarro pizza shop bombing, masterminded by Ahlam Tamimi.

The attack, on August 9, 2001, killed 15 people and injured 130. Among the dead were a pregnant woman and seven children – some counted eight, including an 18 year-old who had just finished school; the injured also included one young mother who was left in a permanent vegetative state.

For the families of the victims, this year’s 15th anniversary of the attack may well be particularly grim, because of a fawning book that has been recently released by Ben Ehrenreich, lionizing the murderous Tamimi clan.

Who would have ever imagined that an American writer would come out with a book that presents the family of Ahlam Tamimi – the Sbarro massacre mastermind – as simply wonderful people? This despite the fact that the Tamimis not only continue to justify the Sbarro attack, but are openly cheering pretty much every terror attack that has been perpetrated over the past year. And who would have ever imagined that prestigious publications like the New York Times and The Economist would praise this hagiography of the terror-supporting Jew-hating Tamimis to the high heavens? What is it about killing Jews that is so romantic that the NYT would gush about Ehrenreich’s “Love Letter to Palestine” and The Economist would fawn about all “the hope, and the love” that infuses Ehrenreich’s depiction of the Tamimis?

For a glimpse of the intense Jew-hatred and the ardent support for terror that animates Ben Ehrenreich’s protagonists, watch the video below that will introduce you to the four people Ehrenreich lists first in the Acknowledgements for his book: Bassem and Nariman Tamimi, and Bilal and Manal Tamimi.

The video was conceived, researched and written by Petra Marquardt-Bigman. Narrated and directed by Elder of Ziyon.

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EoZTV: Harold Rhode: How Islam Can Reform

It won't be easy, and it may need a catastrophic event to trigger the change, but it is possible.

And Egypt's president wants to see it happen.

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