Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: fauxtography

Showing posts with label fauxtography. Show all posts

Monday, April 10, 2023

Latest EoZ memes

Here are some of my latest memes:

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

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Palestinians using prayer as a weapon

This video of Israeli police pushing worshipers away from the front of Al Aqsa Mosque this morning makes Israel look really bad, doesn't it?

The worshippers aren't acting aggressively. What could possibly justify this?

Here's why.

Have you ever seen Muslims worship at that place before? The mosque has been reopened since the events of this morning, there are people inside. So why are they worshipping and setting up their prayer rugs outside at that specific spot?

Because they aren't interested in prayer. They want to be human roadblocks.

Religious Jews who visit the Temple Mount must circumnavigate the entire area. They can only walk in areas where they are certain that the holiest parts of the Temple could not have been, according to Jewish law.

There is no way for them to visit the site without passing in front of the Al Aqsa mosque. And if there are people in the way, they cannot walk around them without coming unacceptably close to the place of the actual Temples.

These aren't worshippers. They are "Mourabitoun," meaning "sentinels," whose entire job is to stop Jews from visiting the site. They are paid by Islamist groups, including Hamas, to do what they can to frustrate any Jewish visitors.

In the past they would scream at and try to intimidate Jewish tourists that they saw. Now they are trying to physically block the Jews from being able to visit the site.

The Israel police are not violating the status quo - they are trying to enforce it, to allow all people to have access to the holy site, not only Muslims.

But the Mourabitoun know that videos create reality, so they positioned themselves where they knew that they would be forcibly removed, and they had the cameras ready.

To them, prayer is not an act of worship but ammunition in a weapon to remove human rights from Jews.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Artificial intelligence a danger to Israel advocacy, part 2

I recently wrote about the danger that automated chatbots could have for Israel advocacy, as they can generate lies that cannot be traced back - but people will believe them.

AI-generated photos are not yet good enough to fool most eople as being real, but it will only take a year or two before they are. While photo manipulation is as old as photography, and Photoshopping has been around for years, in the not-too-distant future anyone will be able to generate a photo that could be used as "proof" of "Israeli crimes" that no one has ever captured in a real photo.

I created a few using the AI art tools that are out there.

Jews don't raise wild boars in the West Bank to attack Palestinians? Well, now they do.

Ever wonder what "Jewish settlers storming Al Aqsa" might look like?

(Notice that the AI mistakes the Dome of the Rock for Al Aqsa, as many Arabs themselves do.)

You know those nonexistent dams in the Negev that Israeli supposedly open to flood Gaza? Here's what AI thinks they look like:

Are you sure that Israel bombed a school in Gaza but you can't find any photos? Just make them up - there's an infinite supply!

This is coming sooner than you think. And it won't be only photos, but faked videos too.

We need to be educating people now that they cannot believe anything they see without knowing where it came from.

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!

12/05 Links Pt1: Glick: The Peace Processors Turn Against Peace; Reclaiming the Narrative: It was never about the territories; US Funds Arabs Who Want to Destroy Israel

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Peace Processors Turn Against Peace

The purportedly "pro-peace" diplomats' most revealing recommendation related to Israel's Abraham Accords peace partners.

"The Biden administration," they wrote, "needs to inform the Abraham Accord countries—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—that their evident lack of interest in the plight of the Palestinians will undermine their relationship with Israel and damage their credibility in advancing other regional objectives with the United States."

So to advance their anti-Israel agenda, the two men who built their careers through their supposed efforts to build Middle East peace, call for scuppering Middle East peace.

This tells us something very basic about the true nature of their work—and that of their like-minded colleagues—across the decades, and still today. It was never peace that they were after. "Peace," for them, was a fig leaf behind which they hid their true goal. That goal is clear, given that their noxious policy prescriptions are the same today as they have always been.

In the name of the vaunted "peace process," for more than 30 years Miller, Kurtzer, and their colleagues in the Washington foreign policy establishment pressured Israel to appease the Palestinians despite their anti-Jewish bigotry and terrorism. "In the interest of peace," they threatened and coerced Israel to concede its national and strategic interests in unified Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. The goal wasn't peace. The goal was to get the U.S. to implement anti-Israel policies.

Likewise, they aren't demonizing Israel's incoming government because they actually believe that any of the terrible things they attribute to Netanyahu and his colleagues are true. They are demonizing them because the utter failure of the "peace process" they helped orchestrate and oversee is now indisputable. They, like their friends in the Biden administration, openly admit the "peace process" is "moribund."

The intense demonization of Israel is the new fig leaf. It is also a way to justify capsizing actual Arab-Israel peace. If Israel is evil because it elected a fascist, racist, homophobic government, then everyone who supports Israel or lives in peace with it is also evil, fascist, racist, etc.

The Miller/Kurtzer op-ed is a conclusive demonstration that the so-called "peace process," which never led to peace, was a complete sham. They knew it all along, and they didn't care.

Peace is not the goal of the "peace processors." It never was. Their singular aim, for the past generation of fake "peace processing," has been to undermine and end the U.S.-Israel alliance and replace it with a set of hostile policies toward Israel. The natural end of their policies has always been clear: to promote Arab wars on Israel, delegitimize the Jewish state, and legitimize the Palestinian terrorists that seek its destruction. Their demonization of Israel's yet-to-be-sworn-in government is both instrumental and as insincere as their former love for "peace." Without the guise of a "peace process," the Washington poobahs have fabricated a new failing of Israel to serve as a new fig leaf. Supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance should be wary of falling for their cynical act.

Reclaiming the Narrative: It was never about the territories - opinion

To be clear - in 1964, there was nothing “occupied” to be “liberated,” but that didn’t stop the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The false narrative of occupation and liberation began to spread well before there were disputed territories in Israel. The fact is, the antisemites who loathe Jews and Israelis simply do not believe in Israel’s right to exist at all, territories or not.

Facts are always important, and context is as well. The territories are disputed land. They were not “taken” or “stolen,” as some wish to falsely portray. In 1967 Israel was forced to fight a defensive war to stave off annihilation once again. It was from precisely those lands that Arab armies were massed in order to annihilate and put an end to the world’s only Jewish state.

Of course, today those territories have become a de facto impediment to peace, due to the false narrative that has now been shamefully accepted in the capitals of western Europe and certainly in the Democratic party in the United States. I am not naive; today, they are an impediment. That does not change the “fact” that they are not the reason for the lack of peace.

It is past time for liberals and progressives in the United States and Europe to acknowledge the historical and present-day realities. The Palestinian narrative of victimization has been all too easily accepted, and the facts have been ignored.

The fact that the Arabs rejected the United Nations partition in 1947. The fact that the PLO was chartered in 1964 precisely because they never accepted the UN, making Israel a sovereign Jewish state in the first place.

It would have been nice had President Obama stated in his 2009 speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo before the entire Arab world that Israel was legitimately remade sovereign once more, because of its historical roots, and not as he implied as some sort of “colonial implant” resulting from the guilt of western nations because of the Holocaust. With one line, this presumed brilliant President could have deconstructed the big lie. He chose not to.

The lack of peace has never been about the territories. Make no mistake; the West Bank and Gaza (which has been relinquished), along with the Golan Heights, are not the reason for the lack of peace in the region. This is what needs to be stated boldly and frequently. Israel should not be afraid to ruffle feathers. Israel should not be afraid to justify what took place in 1948 or 1967.

I am tired of Israel’s poor public relations posture and how this false narrative has permeated into some twisted sense of truth used to condone antisemitism. The Jewish people should not be afraid to engage in this debate to set the facts straight. We should not be afraid to offend sensibilities. I believe Israelis are ready for peace, but a peace that must be based on facts.

US Funds Arabs Who Want to Destroy Israel

What is disturbing is that a large portion of this incitement is coming from Arabs whose governments signed peace treaties or other agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.

What is even more disturbing is that the hate against Israel is coming from Arabs who continue to benefit from unconditional US financial aid.

The Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, continues to spearhead the Arab campaign of incitement and delegitimization against Israel. In addition to the incendiary rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority does not hide its vehement opposition to any kind of peace with Israel.

In its latest tirade against Israel, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction claimed that the Israeli counter-terrorism measures, designed to save the lives of Jews and Arabs alike, are acts of "terrorism and war crimes." According to the logic of the Palestinian Authority, a terror attack against Israel is legitimate and the perpetrator is a hero and martyr, but an Israeli action to stop terrorism is illegitimate.

This is the same Palestinian Authority that maintains good relations with the Biden administration, which recently decided to upgrade US relations with Abbas and his associates....

[T]he allegation that Israel is committing "war crimes" can be seen as a direct call to Palestinians to engage in violence against Israelis. The "war crimes" libel is also intended for Western audiences as part of the campaign to delegitimize Israel and pave the way for prosecuting its leaders before international courts.

It is worth noting that since April 2021, the US has provided more than half a billion dollars in assistance for the Palestinians.

If the US thinks that showering money and concessions on the Palestinian leaders will lessen the tension, you heard it here first: this approach definitely will not work. All that will happen is that the hostilities will increase so that the bribes will increase. Giving hard, concrete gifts in exchange for soft promises is inevitably doomed from the start.

11/29 Links Pt1: The Palestinians had a great Thanksgiving; Israel not so much; Female Israeli soldier wounded in West Bank car ramming attack; Israeli Children Attacked by Terrorists in Hebron

From Ian:

The Palestinians had a great Thanksgiving; Israel not so much

Over Thanksgiving week, the administration announced the creation of a special representative post focused solely on the Palestinians. This will be an enormous upgrade in relations. A State Department official said, "As the president reiterated in Israel and the West Bank, we remain committed to reopening our Consulate General in Jerusalem and to the vision of a two-state solution."

While the Palestinians are cosseted and rewarded for intransigence and violence, the Biden administration is attacking Israel by upgrading Israel's enemies, undermining its ability to defend itself and calling its democratic bona fides into question.

First, the administration called the Abraham Accords "normalization agreements," rather than the historic peace accords they are. But that was a minor slap compared to the gifts Israel's chief nemesis Iran received. The administration lifted sanctions on Iran's proxy terror organization, the Houthis. It pressured South Korea to free up more than a billion dollars in frozen Iranian funds. It provided sanctions waivers that allowed Iran to sell more oil to China – a boon for both countries.

And the administration did all of this while the US sat outside the room in Vienna where talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear accord are underway. The US, in other words, acted like the pariah Iran should be, and allowed Russia, China and the EU to offer Iran "inducements" to rejoin an agreement Iran has been violating for years. There has been no penalty for stealing US technology, putting it in Iranian drones and exporting the drones to Russia in violation of U.N. sanctions.

In addition, Iran's proxy Hezbollah was gifted with a maritime gas agreement between Israel and Lebanon brokered by the US The Biden administration put heavy pressure on Israel's outgoing government to reach a deal before the Israeli elections. Worst of all was that Israel received unspecified American "security assurances" should Hezbollah attack. This undermined Israel's decades-long policy that it would "defend itself by itself" and not ask the US to provide American soldiers for its security.

The administration also undermined Israel's position as a democratic ally by announcing the opening of an FBI investigation into the battlefield death of an Al Jazeera journalist, having previously accepted the findings of Israeli and Palestinian investigations and declaring the case closed. The announcement brought cheers from the PA, which demanded that the case go to the International Criminal Court.

The only saving grace was that US Ambassador Thomas Nides and President Joe Biden later said they had no idea such an investigation had been ordered by the attorney general. Really? President Biden didn't know? The US has a rogue attorney general?

The Palestinians had a very good Thanksgiving week. The Israelis much less so. Most Americans were too busy to notice.

A Book of Psalms saved a victim's life in Jerusalem terror attack

A man who was seriously injured in Tuesday’s Jerusalem bombing was spared from what could have been a fatal fate by none other than his book of Psalms – or Tehillim in Hebrew – which blocked a shard of debris from piercing his body, said Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The victim, a 62-year-old man, arrived to Shaare Zedek hospital in serious condition and underwent a series of operations to remove shrapnel from his body.

While the man was recovering, visitors were stunned to discover that he had a book of psalms in his possession that was pierced almost entirely through by a shard of debris resulting from the explosion. The shard hit the back cover of the book and penetrated nearly all the way through – though stopping just short and potentially saving the man’s life.

Coincidence or divine intervention?
The shard penetrated the book up to the 124th chapter of the Psalms before stopping at the line: "Our soul is like a bird that escaped from a box of hardships."

The psalm that the shrapnel stopped is obviously very notable, as the message in the psalm is about being saved from hardship. The bus station bombing in Jerusalem on Tuesday killed two, including a 16-year-old boy, and wounded 18 others – including the fortunate man who had this book of psalms with him.

The IDF’s Judea and Samaria challenge: A spike in attacks and anti-terror raids

‘A synergy of explosive factors can produce a new intifada’
According to Col. (res.) David Hacham, a senior research associate at the MirYam Institute and a former adviser on Arab affairs to seven Israeli defense ministers, the dramatic rise in terrorist incidents is linked to a number of factors.

He detailed the first two as follows: “A rise in violent clashes between the IDF, as well as Israelis in Judea and Samaria, and Palestinians, often leading to casualties. A rise in tensions surrounding the Temple Mount and ongoing Palestinian incitement encouraging violent passions around this issue based on claims that Israel is changing the status quo. This can form a big potential for escalation because it plays on very sensitive strings.”

Terror factions led by Hamas have been promoting murderous incitement on social media using the Temple Mount issue as a key theme to call for attacks on Israelis.

A third factor, said Hacham, is the ongoing and escalating succession battle within Fatah over who will succeed Abbas. “The combination of these elements leads to an atmosphere filled with gasoline fumes, and can lead to an explosion and a new intifada, he warned.

“Other factors include the sense among Palestinians of a lack of any progress in the diplomatic process with Israel and the sense that the PA is unable to make Israel budge here. The Palestinians fear the formation of a new right-wing Israeli coalition that will promote the building of settlements, legalize outposts, build new bypass roads, and create an obstacle to the establishment of a future Palestinian state,” said Hacham.

“They fear the next government will not take the Palestinians into account at all. On the Palestinian side, Abbas, 87, is tired and sick. He is trying to prepare the ground for his chosen successor, Hussein al-Sheikh, whom he appointed as PLO Executive Committee secretary-general in May 2022,” he continued.

Israel has to keep its finger “closely on the pulse of every event in Judea and Samaria, which is at the gates, inside our home. It has to be able to detect and move to prevent negative events such as a Hamas takeover,” Hacham stressed.

Al-Sheikh, unpopular on the Palestinian street, would only acquire legitimacy if he won elections like Abbas did in 2005 to become PA president. “Here, there is an Israeli, Jordanian and Egyptian interest to prevent a civil war between Palestinians and to avoid a scenario in which the militias of the candidates fight each other, which could be dangerous for us,” Hacham added.

11/16 Links Pt1: Glick: The Biden administration weaponizes the FBI against Israel; Stray missiles: What Ukraine, Poland can learn from Israel; Dershowitz says US-Israel ties could reach 'doomsday scenario'

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Biden administration weaponizes the FBI against Israel

Even if the crisis passes quickly, the incoming government needs to understand that so long as the Democrats are in power, the next crisis is just a progressive rally away. As the midterm elections demonstrated, today, there are two Americas, not one. The Republican America, led by the likes of Sen. Cruz, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, is the best friend Israel has ever had.

The Democratic America hates Israel and the Republicans. They view both as fundamentally illegitimate.

This state of affairs, where one America loves Israel and the other hates it, is unlikely to change for the better in the foreseeable future. The Abu Akleh affair makes clear that moderates in the Democratic Party—like Biden himself—have transferred policymaking power regarding Israel to their all-but openly anti-Semitic progressive base.

What awaits us will be even worse than what Israel suffered with Barack Obama. We can expect to see the Democrats’ America backing arrest warrants of IDF soldiers and commanders. Democrats can be expected to cut off critical arms supplies. We can expect them to do in public what they are already doing in private—namely funding Palestinian terrorists. We can expect them to support economic boycotts of Israel and to enable the passage of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council.

To contend with the threat posed by the Democrats’ America, the incoming government must move to swiftly diminish Israel’s strategic dependence on the United States. We should end our receipt of U.S. military assistance. We should move production lines for critical platforms, including Iron Dome missiles, from the United States to Israel, regardless of the economic cost. And we should withdraw the outgoing government’s offer to allow the United States to fund the completion of our military laser program. Full ownership and control over the critical program should be restored to Israel’s military industries, again, regardless of the cost.

Apparently, the FBI informed Israel that it was opening the probe a few weeks ago—presumably before the Nov. 1 election. Gantz and outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid hid the news from the public, for obvious reasons. For a year and a half, they had insisted that Netanyahu was the cause of Israel’s troubled relations with the Democrats. The Biden administration’s probe of our soldiers makes clear that this was never the case. Netanyahu was right to stand up to Obama, and he will be right to stand up to Biden. Israel cannot be beholden to those who view our boys and girls as murderers for defending our lives and our nation. We can only defy them, even when they are former friends in Washington.

FBI has a double standard for Abu Akleh, Israeli victims - comment

What is behind Washington's double standard?
In a way, this fits in with the way the Biden administration has treated other allies in the Middle East, as though the accidental killing of someone caught in a crossfire is akin to the horrific murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi, whose body was dismembered and dissolved in acid, ordered by the Saudi leadership. The Washington Post also recently published details of a leaked National Intelligence Council report on Emirati efforts to influence US policy. It must be said that those countries are not democracies and the actions Washington is criticizing were not followed with cooperation and transparency, in contrast with Israel following Abu Akleh’s death.

Some have talked about it being a shot across the bow to prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu as he’s expected to form a far-right government, though Washington is expressing dissatisfaction at events that occurred under a government to the left of Netanyahu.

Another argument made is that this is about US politics. The midterms just took place and US President Joe Biden may feel freer to take more controversial actions than he did before. The left-wing of the Democratic Party pushed for a probe of Abu Akleh’s killing and, as Netanyahu says in his recently-published memoir, Biden professed to feeling pressure on Israel issues in what is “not Scoop Jackson’s Democratic Party.”

US Senator Ted Cruz certainly sees it that way, saying the FBI investigation “underscores how corrupt and blatantly politicized the Justice Department has become, and how entirely beholden to the radical left-wing Squad Democrats really are. This administration has spent its time in office weaponizing the DOJ to target their political enemies as a matter of policy, and now they have allowed that tactic to bleed into their obsession with undermining our Israeli allies.”

Whether it’s about the Biden administration’s moralistic approach to the Middle East or about Democratic Party dynamics, this just contributes to a broader sense that the FBI has used and abused as a political tool in recent years.

The Abu Akleh investigation announcement happened to take place in the week in which Commentary released an issue with a cover story by intelligence reporter Eli Lake about how the FBI is desperately in need of reform.

“FBI officials routinely deceive not only the public but also the institutions designed to protect the public from FBI overreach. Agents lie to supervisors. Supervisors lie to judges. FBI directors mislead Congress. And almost no one is ever punished,” Lake wrote, following it up with a litany of recent abuses.

FBI leaders who leaked to the press and went after certain politicians are feted, Lake pointed out, asking: “What lesson will others draw from this, except that there are no consequences for abusing authority against the right political targets?”

JPost Editorial: Would the FBI come to different conclusion of Shireen Abu Akleh's death?

We are dismayed by the news that the FBI is launching an investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin on May 11. Israeli officials confirmed media reports on Monday that the US Justice Department had recently informed Israel’s Justice Ministry of the move, and they also voiced their firm opposition to the probe.

Israel conducted several thorough investigations into the circumstances of Abu Akleh’s killing, with the IDF concluding in September that she was most likely killed in “unintentional fire” from an Israeli soldier who did not realize she was a journalist. The US even participated in one of the investigations, including examining the bullet that the Palestinians said was the fatal one. The results of all the investigations were shared with the US, and particularly with the State Department.

Why then does the US administration believe that a new FBI investigation is necessary? As Defense Minister Benny Gantz succinctly said in a statement, the FBI probe is a grave error and there is no reason for Israel to cooperate with its investigation, even though it has nothing to hide.

“The decision taken by the US Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the tragic passing of Shireen Abu Akleh is a mistake,” Gantz said. “The IDF has conducted a professional, independent investigation, which was presented to American officials with whom the case details were shared. I have delivered a message to US representatives that we stand by the IDF’s soldiers, and that we will not cooperate with an external investigation.”

Just heartbreaking 💔

At funeral of Michael Ladygin, father of two, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorist in Ariel yesterday, his wife in tears says:

“My husband loved Israel, he wanted to live here. I hope no other family ever enters this circle of bereavement.” pic.twitter.com/N9CdmOlOVz
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 16, 2022

The Gaza fauxtography continues

During Operation Breaking Dawn, the amount of damage Israel inflicted on Gaza was very limited. As far as I can tell, in only two cases did we see an entire building leveled in an urban area as the IDF successfully targeted top Islamic Jihad figures.

But Gaza photographers need to make the most of these incidents. They must find ways to frame their photos to make the damage look far more devastating than it is.

Here you can see the area of the airstrike. Although there was some damage in the buildings surrounding the strike, for the most part this is the entire area with large amounts of rubble.

The Rafah airstrike that killed Khaled Mansour has become the favored area for Gaza news photographers to stage scenes that they hope to sell to Western agencies.

And nothing sells like sad looking children.

The photographer, Omar Ashtawy, hedged his bets - in case no one wanted to buy photos of sad children, he also wanted to stage photos of the same children "playing" in the rubble, showing how resilient they are.

Hey, if one meme doesn't work, maybe another one will.

The same photographer has some shots of the cemetery where four kids were killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket - but his caption says it was an Israeli airstrike. He gain staged it with a child. Yet his photo shows the damage that Gaza rockets, deliberately filled with nails and sharp shrapnel are designed to inflict as they pockmarked cement gravestones.