Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: ken roth

Showing posts with label ken roth. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Elder Comix: The history of the "apartheid" smear in one panel

With a special appearance by a young looking Ken Roth.

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!

A brief Twitter thread on anti-Zionism and antisemitism

A follower of mine from Brazil asked me a question on Twitter:

Good morning, Sr. Elder of Ziyon. I'm from Brazil and could you tell why does Palestine hate Israel? In Brazil, all history teachers love Palestine and hate Israel. Why??

My brief response, expanded here:

Anti-Zionism is the modern (and socially acceptable) version of antisemitism. My book describes it in great detail. The unhinged loathing you see for Israel and Zionists have few parallels beyond historic hate of Jews. (And Palestinians admit they hate Jews in Arabic.)

Anti-Zionists will claim that they are only supporting human rights, or opposing Israeli policies. But there is an entire NGO industry dedicated to making up or exaggerating Israeli crimes without context and without comparison to others. See my recent post on how Ben and Jerry's ignore human rights abuses in many countries they sell ice cream to.

In order to accuse Israel of "apartheid," for example, Amnesty and HRW had to create an entirely new definition of apartheid that only applies to Israel. Now haters can point to that and claim Israel is worse than anyone - which is objectively absurd.

The haters also go on to redefine Zionism itself. Zionism is a movement supporting self determination for the Jewish people. Anti-Zionists make up new definitions to justify their hate.

Another way to prove this is that virtually all of these people who pretend to care about Palestinian rights have little to say about discrimination against Palestinians in Arab countries. They are only upset when they can blame...Jews.

By any normal yardstick, Israel cares more about human rights than most countries. It is more progressive. It is far more tolerant of Muslims than much of Europe. It has worked harder than almost every other country to avoid civilian casualties in war.

Haters deflect and ignore the facts. The only reason for their obsession is because Israel is a Jewish state.

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 UN Human Rights Council is obsessed with condemning Israel - and @HRW's Ken Roth wants to keep it that way

Here is a chart (based on a database at UN Watch) of how often every country has been condemned at the United Nations Human Rights Council since it was formed in 2006.

Israel is condemned more than the next four-most condemned countries, combined. Israel is the only country to be condemned every single year. Israel has never been condemned less than five times in any year. Some of the world's worst human rights abusers - China, Russia, Turkey, Cuba, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - have never been condemned once.

In short, the UNHRC is a cesspool whose members are human rights abusers themselves that protect each other while incessantly attacking Israel.

The Trump administration properly withdrew from this travesty of an organization. The Biden administration has just re-joined. At the State Department, the spokesperson was asked why, and couldn't come up with a coherent explanation, although he said the US will oppose the the UNHRC's bias against Israel, with its only standing agenda item targeting a single country.

Enter modern antisemite Ken Roth.

His response to the US re-joining the UNHRC, partially to try to stop its anti-Israel obsession was this:

The US government complains that it doesn't like a UN Human Rights Council agenda item focused solely on Israel-Palestine. If that's not just about protecting Israel from valid criticism, then sponsor resolutions on Israel under other regular agenda items.

Roth sees this chart and doesn't say, hey, the UNHRC really should not have so many anti-Israel resolutions and perhaps start condemning real rights abusers.

No, he wants the UNHRC to continue to issue just as many condemnations of Israel as it has been, every year, whether under its permanent anti-Israel agenda item or not.

Given that Human Rights Watch is as obsessed with Israel as the UNHRC is, this is perhaps not so surprising. But it proves yet again that HRW is just as much of an antisemitic cesspool as the UNHRC.

Suddenly, the Left wants Arabs separate from Jews in Israel

Roger Cohen of the New York Times has been visiting Israel and filing stories to make Israel look bad.

In Sunday's paper, in an article about the riots between Arabs and Jews in Israel in May, Cohen wrote:

Precariousness, a sense that their homes could always be taken, is a perennial condition of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Aside from seven Bedouin towns established in the Negev desert, no new Arab towns or villages have been built since 1948. Education remains intricately segregated: Arabs overwhelmingly attend Arab schools and Jews Jewish schools, themselves split into secular and religious categories.

Arab municipalities, occupying less than 3 percent of Israeli territory, are unable to expand because of land regulations and have found themselves hemmed in by more than 900 new Jewish villages and towns.

HRW's Ken Roth quoted from this here, one of three tweets from a single article, which I've never seen him do before.

There is a strange assumption in these two paragraphs, along with some obvious errors. It is implying that Arabs must live in Arab towns or villages in Israel and it seems to imply that they cannot live in Jewish-majority towns.

In fact, according to 2019 statistics from Israel, about 27% of Israeli Arabs live in Jewish majority cities or towns. 360,000 live in Jerusalem alone, and another 33,000 in Haifa, 20,000 in Tel Aviv/Jaffa, and thousands more in Beersheva and Eilat. There are tens of thousands of Arabs living in mixed towns like Akko and Lod.

Now, imagine if Israel would tell Arabs they must live in Arab only towns. Imagine the outcry, the accusations of racism that would follow. But that is exactly what Cohen and Roth seem to be saying is ideal!

We don't have to imagine that outcry. The initial draft of Israel's controversial "nation state law" included a clause (7B) that said “the state can allow a community composed of people of the same faith or nationality to maintain an exclusive community.” President Reuven Rivlin harshly criticized that clause, as did many Israeli liberals and leftists. It was not left in the final version.

Looking at the statistics, there are some towns that are Arab only and some that are Jewish only. Intriguingly, there are many small towns that have a vast majority of one group and a tiny number of the other, indicating that in most communities there are no barriers for anyone to move in if they so desire. I see about 170 towns and villages that are predominantly Jewish yet have less than 30 Arabs living there, and about 45 Arab communities with less than 30 Jews living amongst them. As far as I can tell, except for some villages (less than 400 households) in the Negev and Galilee that can have committees to approve who can move in, it is illegal for Israeli towns to discriminate against any citizen.

It is reasonable to point out that predominantly Arab communities have a harder time getting building approvals that predominantly Jewish communities do. But Cohen is going way beyond that. He's making it sound like Arabs are stuck without the ability to move. And it is nothing short of bizarre that Cohen and Roth seem to be supporting segregating Jews from Arabs - yet if Israel would say that, they would be the first to accuse Israel of racism.

What about his assertion that no new Arab towns or villages have been built since 1948? I've heard this said before, but it does not seem to be true at all. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1961 there were 109 "non-Jewish localities" and in 2018 there were 137, an increase of 25.6%. At the same time the number of Jewish localities increased from 771 to 1090, an increase of 39.5%. Not equal to be sure, but a definite increase in Arab communities, mostly in the Negev and in the North (even discounting the 5 Arab communities gained from annexing the Golan Heights.)

And has Israel built over 900 new Jewish villages and towns? I have no idea where he got that number from and what he considers "new." As mentioned, the total number of Jewish localities is 1090, and there were 771 60 years ago. That doesn't sound like more than 900 new Jewish communities.

The article pretends to be balanced, but as always, when you look at the details, it shows a clear bias against Israel and Jews.

Ken Roth's obsession continues - TEN tweets about Israel and Jews in 24 hours

Between Monday and Tuesday evenings HRW head Ken Roth posted no fewer than ten tweets blaming Israel or Jews for something or another.

This is clearly in response to the criticism he weathered when he essentially blamed antisemitism on Jews on Sunday, showing that in the face of adversity he will redouble his public campaign against Israel and Jews.

He deleted that tweet but didn't apologize - in fact, he instead said that his critics are all idiots for not understanding what he meant, rather they reacted to what he actually wrote.

Really.

He originally wrote, "Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism. "

On Tuesday, he wrote, "I deleted an earlier tweet because people misinterpreted its wording. " Not "I worded it wrong" but "I'm right, everyone else doesn't understand my English."

He also wrote no less than six tweets about the NSO Group, which makes spyware purchased by many governments, and which was reportedly used for spying on journalists and political opponents. There are many companies that provide tools that governments (and others) can use to illegally spy on citizens, and there is no evidence that the government of Israel knew what NSO was doing - in fact, after the story, the government said that it will investigate the claims. Yet Roth invariably emphasizes "the Israeli NSO group" as if the fact that it is in Israel is what is so damning about it.

(I am not convinced about the story altogether. It is based wholly on a list of 50,000 supposed targets that were "leaked" but no one says where it was leaked from. NSO denies that the list came from them, and there is no reason a company like that would maintain a list of targets from its disparate clients. The investigators are not saying where this list came from. This mystery list is a pretty big hole in the story. It is quite likely that governments that bought NSO Pegasus spyware misused it - any weapon can and will be misused - but the evidence that NSO is culpable for that is thinner than being reported, and there is even less evidence that Israel knew about it.)

Roth- human rights activist - then weighed in on the Ben and Jerry's story, twice. He claimed, incredibly, that anyone selling ice cream to Jews who live in Judea and Samaria are complicit in war crimes. Just like genocide.

But that wasn't enough for Roth. He also tweeted this:

As American Jews turn on the Israeli government for its repression of Palestinians, the government increasingly relies on American evangelical Christians for support, even though their support is based on beliefs that ultimately leave no room for Jews.

The article is behind a paywall. but based on the subhead and Roth's penchant for adding his own opinion as if they are in the link, Roth's comments on evangelicals are probably mostly his.

Even if evangelical teachings say that Jews will eventually be destroyed or converted, unless they are doing the destroying themselves, who cares? Jews don't believe in it! It is better to have allies who support you than as-a-Jew enemies like Roth who actively work to destroy you!

And if Jews should be concerned about working together with members of a religion whose teachings include antisemitism, then that means that Roth would advise Israeli Jews to never work with Muslims!

Roth is obsessed with Israel and Jews.

Head of human rights NGO, @KenRoth, blames antisemitism on Jews

Last week, Sam Sokol wrote in Haaretz:

British Jews experienced an “unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents” during and after this summer’s fighting between Israel and Hamas, the Jewish community’s watchdog organization announced on Thursday.

In a report, the Community Security Trust stated that 628 antisemitic incidents were recorded during the one-period between May 8 and June 7, a rise of 365 percent over April and “the highest number CST has ever recorded in any month-long period.”

“This was the most intense period of anti-Jewish hatred seen in the U.K. in recent years,” the group stated. “It saw record levels of antisemitic hate incidents, anti-Jewish chants and placards on public demonstrations, incitement from radical Islamist extremists in the U.K. and calls from jihadist terrorist groups for Jews to be killed.” The organization added that “the level of anger and hate that is directed at Israel always spills over into antisemitism at times of conflict,” with British Jews being “held responsible for events thousands of miles away, over which they have no control, simply because they are Jewish.”

According to the CST, 83 percent of incidents constituted abusive behavior, 7.5 percent of incidents involved threats and 5 percent involved assaults. Many involved Jewish people being singled out on the streets or in schools with screams and chants about the Palestinians.

In one case, a man stopped Jewish high school students in London and threatened to punch them if they did not say they supported the Palestinians. He then said: “Tell your fucking mum and dad they are murderers and killing babies.”

In another, a speaker at a Manchester demonstration accused Jews of controlling the media, declaring that “the main 13 executives that approve the content released by the BBC are actually in fact Jewish. So this means the information released by the mainstream media will be biased.”

On May 21, police arrested a man whom witnesses said broke into the car of an Orthodox Jew and began hitting the driver unprovoked. The incident happened outside the Kosher Kingdom store on Golders Green Road before noon. One witness told the Jewish News of London that the car had been targeted because it displayed an Israeli flag.

Ken Roth, who has a salary in excess of $600,000 for heading Human Rights Watch, ran this information through his twisted, Israel hating brain, and wrote this tweet:

Antisemitism is always wrong, and it long preceded the creation of Israel, but the surge in UK antisemitic incidents during the recent Gaza conflict gives the lie to those who pretend that the Israeli government's conduct doesn't affect antisemitism.

There are at least three things that are outrageous about this tweet:

1. Anytime you say that something is wrong but....you are justifying it. Roth would never, ever formulate a tweet beginning with "Racism is wrong but" or "Asian bashing is wrong but..." Yet in this case he is making an excuse for a specific subset of antisemitic attacks.

2. Roth is not blaming attacks on Jews on the attackers, but on Jews themselves. Specifically, his hate for Israel is so pathological that he says that Arabs attacking random Jews in the UK should be blamed on Israel.

3. He doesn't mention his own role in fomenting antisemitism. After all, years of telling the world that Israel is uniquely evil, and since April most of his tweets slandering Israel as being guilty of apartheid and racism, has a cumulative effect on people. When the leaders of human rights organizations demonize Jews, it can result in people justifying attacking Jews.

Roth saw that his tweet was being ratioed with withering criticism, and he attempted to clarify it:

Interesting how many people pretend that this tweet justifies antisemitism (it doesn't and I don't under any circumstances) rather than address the correlation noted in the Haaretz article between recent Israeli government conduct in Gaza and the rise of UK antisemitic incidents.

Is that what the article says? Because its author doesn't think so!

If he would have said anything remotely similar about racism, or sexism, he would be forced out of his job within minutes of the tweet.

But antisemitism is an exception to the no tolerance policy for bigotry among those who travel in Roth's circles.

This one episode exposes the hypocrisy of the "human rights" community, the lie that the Left stands in solidarity with Jews under attack, and the impunity that Roth and Human Rights Watch have to slander the Jewish state and its supporters.

Vaccine debacle: Palestinian leaders and "human rights" NGOs hate Israel more than they value the lives of Palestinians

The Pfizer vaccine fiasco reveals so much about the Palestinian leadership as well as about the "human rights" groups and activists who pretend to be "pro-Palestinian" but truly aren't.

The Palestinian Authority had agreed with Israel to obtain over 1 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine now, and not to have to wait until September to get them directly from Pfizer. The agreement was signed and the PA knew perfectly well that Israel would first transfer the vaccines that were closest to expiring, and the exact expiration dates of the first doses.

As the NYT reports:

An Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the initial batch of doses would expire at the start of July and said that would give enough time for Palestinian health workers to administer them.

The official added that the authority had been aware of the vaccines’ expiry date before agreeing to their delivery, and said the authority had scrapped the deal only because it had been criticized by Palestinians for agreeing to receive vaccines perceived to be of poor quality.

The official also said that none of the remaining doses would have been delivered less than two weeks before their expiry date.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians could have received their first doses in the next two weeks.

This should be considered a debacle by any civilized society. Thousands can get sick and scores could die because of this decision by the PA.

But, incredibly, the only inquiry that Palestinians are demanding is one into how the PA almost bought vaccines that they claim were of "inferior" quality. Terrorist media is reporting about how the PA is incompetent - not for trying initially to fight COVID but for making a deal with Israel. The PA, naturally, has to defend its "honor" by canceling the deal.

Keep in mind that the PA eagerly accepts Russia's Sputnik vaccine which did not have anywhere near the same quality trials as the Pfizer or Astra-Zeneca vaccines did.

Unless you are hopelessly biased against Israel, this episode shows beyond any doubt that Palestinian leaders don't care about the lives of their own people, and are willing to sacrifice their people so as not to appear to be "normalizing" with Israel. They hate Israel more than they love their own citizens.

Even more telling are the reactions - or non-reactions - from so called "human rights" groups and Palestinian activists.

As far as I can tell, none of the supposed Palestinian human rights groups are saying a negative word about a decision to delay vaccinating their own people for three or four more months.

Not B'Tselem. Not PCHR. Not Al Mezan Center.

Their silence shows that they are not interested in the human rights of Palestinians - after all, what human right is more basic than the right to life and health?

Ken Roth, of Human Rights Watch, took the absurd Palestinian excuse of "almost expired" vaccines at face value, and used this as another reason to bash Israel.

As if any more evidence was needed, this episode shows that the "pro-Palestinian" community is nothing of the sort. These groups simply use the Palestinian issue as a means to bash the Jewish state.

People who really care about Palestinians would be up in arms over the PA putting their people at risk. Where are their voices?

Human Rights Watch @HRW leader says antisemitism is bad - because some anti-Israel Jews might be attacked accidentally

Just when you think Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch can't be any more against human rights, he proves you wrong.

He tweeted, "Antisemitic incidents have surged (e.g., fivefold in London) in light of the Israeli government's recent conduct. It is WRONG to equate the Jewish people with the apartheid and deadly bombardment of Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. "

That's Ken Roth's reason why attacking Jews is wrong?

He seems to be saying that antisemitism is wrong - because some Jews don't support Israel defending itself.

But, Roth implies, if the Jews you are attacking are supporters of Israel, then he cannot think of any objection to attacking them!

The Skokie synagogue that was vandalized has a big sign in front of it with Israeli and American flags. Ken Roth seems to be saying that this attack is therefore justified. He certainly did not say a word that would condemn that attack.

In 2014, Roth implied that antisemitic attacks were done because of Israel, and Jeffrey Goldberg slammed him for it. This is possibly worse, because now he's saying that antisemitic attacks are OK depending on the victim's beliefs.

Similarly disgusting is Linda Sarsour's reasoning to oppose antisemitic attacks - not because they are wrong, but because they make Palestinians look bad.

HRW's Ken Roth accuses US and Israel of "war crimes" more often than anyone else, by far

This morning Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, tweeted this:

Israel's latest challenge, Netanyahu to Biden: Here are 800 new war-crime settler homes. What are you going to do about them. https://t.co/gEIcrTDrMK pic.twitter.com/lFQ6DkWFgg
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) January 11, 2021

I have noticed that he really likes to accuse Israel of "war crimes," often for the heinous crime of building houses.

So I looked at how often he used that term in 2020 and which countries he was referring to.

Judging from his result, the US and Israel are by far the worst violators of war crime on the planet.

This is just another data point on how Human Rights Watch and its leader are obsessed with Western nations and downplay the horrific, actual war crimes done by other countries.

In the case of Israel, three of the references were to "settlements" and the rest were to nothing in particular, just saying that Israel does "war crimes" in Palestinian areas without specifying them, because it is so obvious to him that Israel is one of the biggest violators on the planet that it doesn't even need specifying. . For Russia and Syria, they were very specific tweets about bombing civilians in Syria.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Of course “moderate” Arab countries, and “Palestine,” support China’s crackdown on Hong Kong

The countries that voted for China’s “national security law” that imposes harsh penalties for Hong Kong residents protesting against China include every Arab country in the UN Human Rights Council.

These include Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE and Yemen – and “Palestine.”

Iran, Sudan, South Sudan and Pakistan also supported China.

Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch mentioned the Arab countries that are HRW’s usual targets, but of course didn’t include “Palestine”in his list of “dictators and thugs.”

It takes a Who's Who of dictators & thugs to back China's repressive "national security" law for Hong Kong including Bahrain, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, NKorea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Venezuela, Zimbabwe. https://t.co/iaBUyd40S8 pic.twitter.com/T6viYVpm0o

— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 1, 2020

I see no outcry in Arabic media about voting against freedom, even in the relatively liberal Lebanese media.

One takeaway is obvious: The UN, even its purported “human rights” arm, is not a moral arbiter of anything. Nations vote according to their own self-interests and not for any reasons that are remotely related to human rights.

But the other lesson is that even “human rights” groups are loathe to criticize the UN Human Rights Council because it usually aligns with their anti-US, anti-Israel mindset and if they publicly criticize it then they cannot point to its many anti-Israel resolutions as proof of Israel’s supposed immorality, which they love to do as Ken Roth himself did over the past couple of weeks.

Now that the UN rights chief has issued the database of companies doing business with Israel's illegal settlements, it's important that she keep it updated. That's the only way it will serve as a spur to companies to meet their human rights obligations. https://t.co/eC1VJ5bLnb pic.twitter.com/7AokYVJsal
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) June 23, 2020

The United Nations Human Rights Council, which if you listen to Trump only criticizes Israel, just condemned Iran (yet again) by a vote of 22 for, 8 against, and 15 abstaining. pic.twitter.com/7dzv2IM6oo
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) June 22, 2020

Ken Roth quotes "expert" who says Israel is guilty of ethnic cleansing - and never should have been created

No matter what atrocities are happening in the world, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch feels compelled to post at least one anti-Israel tweet a day.

Here's today's:

UN expert is "deeply troubled" by the Israeli government's latest settlement expansion plan--a "highly disturbing development." Netanyahu's plan to add 8,000 settlement housing units is “a significant breach of international law” that must be opposed. https://t.co/9gXQVQq1rx pic.twitter.com/buO16P7Hus
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) March 3, 2020

The UN "expert" is Michael Lynk, the UNHRC's "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967."

Although we've seen Lynk's bias before, I just found out that in 2009, he claimed Israel was guilty of "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians and havily implied that Israel itself is a mistake that must be erased.

In a report called "Peace, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law: Canada's Role in the Middle East" issued by the Group of 78 Annual Policy Conference, September 25-27, 2009," Lynk's presentation is paraphrased:

He used to think the critical date in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was 1967, the start of the occupation. Now he thinks the solution to the problem must go back to 1948, the date of partition and the start of ethnic cleansing. Canada’s role in partition was pivotal with Justice Ivan Rand, Lester Pearson and Elizabeth MacCallum (though she privately warned against it). What followed from this point needs review and needs to inform Canadian foreign policy going forward. Many increasingly feel that partition was a mistake.

Sure, it makes sense for the UN to hire an "expert" on Israel who thinks Israel shouldn't exist and never should have existed.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

#DealOfTheCentury tweets

I was pretty busy on Twitter over the past 24 hours...Here are my most popular tweets on the "Deal of the Century." Many of them could be expanded into posts, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Palestinian leaders: "We Palestinians would rather stay in misery than have a chance to improve our lives - because we have principles!"
Palestinian people: "Ummm...you guys live in mansions. We've been suffering for 71 years."
Leaders: "Anyone who disagrees goes to prison!"
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Well, except the human right of Jews to live without fear of being murdered.

But, hey, some human rights are more important than others, right, @amnesty? https://t.co/iJ3abvFd1c
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Peaceniks send love and rage. pic.twitter.com/GmQZfdfsTW
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Apparently, supporters of @BernieSanders think that pro-Israel Jewish Americans are Israeli spies.

Nothing antisemitic about that. pic.twitter.com/lTJviURfJQ
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

$10 for anyone who can find me article or speech by a Palestinian Arab from 1949-1967 upset over Jordan's annexation of the West Bank.
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

This is freaking hilarious.@MedeaBenjamin on camera duty, @arielelysegold leading ZERO protesters in DC.

Yes, ZERO.

Livestreamed! https://t.co/2VynCnD8zR
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

The haters are literally going out of their minds. pic.twitter.com/ItoU64yDlW
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Abbas invites Hamas to an emergency meeting to discuss responses to the #DealOfTheCentury .

Because when given a choice of peace or terror, Palestinians consistently choose to align with terror.https://t.co/b5jVcUNbME
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

One thing's for sure: The #DealOfTheCentury would do more to help improve ordinary Palestinians' lives than the past fifty years of NGO and EU aid combined.

The fact that no "pro-Palestinian" activist is willing to even discuss it shows what hypocrites they are.
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Anyone think the Kurds would reject a deal that gave them a path to a state and $50 billion if they just behaved like human beings?
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

So you are saying that two states with conditions is worse than nothing? Because "nothing" is the alternative. https://t.co/3NVEBryw9w
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

"Palestinians are in a desperate situation!"

"But the Trump plan will help them in many ways! Industry, governance, rooting out corruption, exports, more land..."

"Well, they aren't THAT desperate."
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Abba Eban's quote, "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" is a more reliable rule than the laws of physics.
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 28, 2020

Remember back in 1937 when the Palestinian Arabs rejected the Peel Commission plan?

I bet they regret that now.

And in 80 years, they'll regret rejecting today's plan too. pic.twitter.com/XQkhHjlFcp
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

I love reading good news from Israel haters. pic.twitter.com/mqYzEIBGkd
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

Every Deal critic:

"Let's reward Palestinians for acting like spoiled brats when they rejected multiple peace plans that included everything we are complaining the Trump plan doesn't have." pic.twitter.com/17aT61jc7f
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

In other news, extremist right-wing hawk Benjamin Netanyahu offered large swaths of land from within Israel to become part of a potential Palestinian state, tripling the size of Gaza.

Doesn't quite fit the media narrative, does it? pic.twitter.com/B9nYgvULWX
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

As was utterly predictable, a plan that would improve Palestinian lives immeasurably is rejected by fake "human rights" expert @KenRoth who (in only one world conflict) feels that "fairness" is a human right that trumps the right to live in peace, security and prosperity. https://t.co/LWVRHPpKQB
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

To all Deal critics like @jstreetdotorg and @PeaceNowUS @FMEP:

In YOUR peace plan, what stops terror groups from shooting rockets at Tel Aviv on Day Two?
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

And exactly how does the Palestinian Authority, the violent dictatorship that shuts down any dissent, rewards terrorists and receives billions from the EU, have any legitimacy to speak on behalf of the Palestinians they oppress, @sarahleah1? https://t.co/QMB6f7jO9s
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) January 29, 2020

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Proof that @HRW head @KenRoth doesn't give a damn about antisemitism

Ken Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, tweets more that President Trump does. Yet I cannot find any tweets where he denounces antisemitism that cannot be blamed on white nationalists.

Essentially, he denies that any other sort of antisemitism exists.

The one tweet that shows this more than any other was written in 2018:

Of 1,453 anti-Semitic crimes in Germany in 2017, nine out of ten were committed by members of far-right or neo-Nazi groups. But let’s blame the Muslims. https://t.co/T3W3DLMJ1p
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) April 27, 2018

The New York Times article he refers to is about a rally against antisemitism that was prompted by an attack by a Syrian on someone (who wasn't Jewish!) wearing a kippah.

The article describes all kinds of antisemitism in Germany - from immigrants, from a rap duo as well as from the far-Right. But Roth ignores almost the entire article to take one sentence that claims that 90% of antisemitic attacks are from the far-Right as he sarcastically demeans anyone who says that Muslim antisemitic attacks are worth mentioning.

Yes, a human rights advocate is literally making fun of anyone concerned about Muslim attacks on Jews.

Certainly Roth knows that the vast majority of violent attacks against Jews in Europe have been done by Muslims. He not only fails to acknowledge them, but he smugly denounces anyone who mentions it!

What about this German study that supposedly says that 90% of attacks are from the far-Right? It turns out that the study was worthless.

The German government uses outdated and ambiguous definitions of the motivation behind antisemitic attacks that by their nature do not include specifically Muslim antisemitism as a category, only the vague "foreign ideology" or "religious ideology" as well as right and left wing. So, for example, when 20 Muslims chanted "Sieg Heil" at an Al Quds demonstration in 2014, the government absurdly classified that as "right wing" antisemitism. Four Palestinians who burned down a synagogue were not charged with an antisemitic crime.

In reality, German Jews have reported that 41% of the antisemitism they have experienced comes from Muslim extremists, and only 20% from the far-Right - not much more than the 16% from the far-Left.

The German government itself has written a 40-page report specifically on Muslim antisemitism.

Ken Roth never mentioned any of this.

If the German government and German Jews (as well as other studies) refute the claim that nearly all antisemitism in Germany comes from the far-Right, then why does a supposedly human rights defender actively deny the evidence and cherry picks only one specific type of antisemitism to ever denounce?

There is nothing wrong with combating the very real danger of right wing antisemitism. There is something very wrong about denying that any other types exist or are worth talking about. If you deny the very existence of a type of antisemitism that conflicts with your political beliefs, then you are a denier and enabler of antisemitism.

What kind of a human rights leader makes fun of the very real fears of people of Islamic extremist antisemitism?

Ken Roth, by sarcastically denying that any non-Right version of antisemitism even exists, shows that he is unqualified to call himself a human rights advocate at all.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The incredible silence of @KenRoth as a million Israelis are under attack by terrorists (update)

Ken Roth, the leader of of Human Rights Watch tweets - a lot.

For a man who makes over $630,000 a year, it is amazing that the HRW board has no problem with his prolific tweeting.

His obsession is tweeting about Israel. While the percentage of tweets slamming Israel has gone down in recent years as his biases were revealed, he has maintained a consistent habit of practically never going more than 24 hours without tweeting something about Israel, nearly always negative.

Until this week, that is.

His last tweet about Israel was a typically absurd - and anti-peace - comment:

The Israel-Jordan peace agreement included Jordan's leasing back land that Israel owned and in which Israelis had farms. The lease was for 25 years and intended to be renewed automatically every 25 years as a symbol of peace and cooperation. Yet Jordan decided to not lease the land, symbolically telling Israel, screw you - we have the land and you have no rights to it. A land for peace deal turned into an opportunity for Jordan to show how much it hates Israel.

But Roth twisted Jordan's hate into, somehow, being about Palestinians. No Palestinians live anywhere near this plot of land. It isn't even in the West Bank. Roth took Jordan's side in their symbolic move against peace with Israel, which is a strange position for a supposed human rights organization.

Hours after that tweet, Israel assassinated an Islamic Jihad terrorist who was planning major terror attacks on behalf of Iran. HRW is on the record as saying that such attacks are legal under international law

Since then, over 200 rockets were shot towards Israel. Every single rocket is a war crime since they are being aimed at civilians.

And Ken Roth has not tweeted a word.

As always, he wants to tweet anti-Israel lies and vitriol, but suggesting that Israelis are victims of human rights abuses by a recognized jihadist terror group supported by Iran is simply not something Ken Roth can tweet about.

So he is silent.

He is waiting for an Israeli attack that accidentally kills a child or family - something nearly unavoidable when terrorists and terror groups purposely plot and plan in civilian areas. Then he'll tweet against Israel, and mention the rockets as an aside so he can claim to be "objective."

No, Ken Roth isn't objective. His silence while a million Israelis seek shelter under fire shows that he effectively supports terrorism - when it is directed against Israel.

UPDATE: Roth tweeted about the EU wanting Israel to renew the visa of HRW BDS activist Omar Shakir - but nothing about the rockets. So his anti-Israel streak of 36 hours is over but still nothing about Gaza terrorism.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Palestinian prime minister lies to @HRW's Ken Roth about freedom of expression. He believes it.

On Saturday, Director of Human Rights Watch Ken Roth met with Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh.

While smiling, Shtayyeh informed Roth that the Palestinian Authority will no longer arrest people for political speech.

Today I met with a senior delegation from HRW, headed by @kenroth and confirmed my government’s commitment to/ guarantee of the right of Palestinian citizens to free speech through constructive criticism. In this regard I emphasised that no arrests or persecution will happen. pic.twitter.com/FWC8HSLe4Z
— Dr. Mohammad Shtayyeh د. محمد اشتية (@DrShtayyeh) July 27, 2019

Roth appreciated the "pledge."

For some reason, Roth - a supposed defender of human rights - didn't seem to ask for the Palestinian leaders to drop the laws on their books that allow them to arrest anyone for anything they write online that might be considered offensive to the government.

This 2017 law is so vague as to allow the arrest of anyone for pretty much anything:

According to Article 4, “any person who…has abused any information technology…shall be liable to either imprisonment, a fine between two hundred and one thousand Jordanian dinars, or a combination of the two.” ... The ‘abuse’ in question is not defined and open to interpretation by the authorities.

Article 15 states that, in regard to the use of the internet or an information technology, “if a person threatens to commit a felony or an immoral act, they shall be punished by temporary hard labor…”. Again, the definition of an ‘immoral act’ is up to the discretion of the authorities and a felony can constitute any act detailed within this Presidential decree, or any other.

Regarding freedom of the press, the most threatening section is Article 20. It declares that, “anyone who creates or manages a website or an information technology platform that aims to publish news that would endanger the integrity of the Palestinian state, the public order or the internal or external security of the State shall be punished…” with a fine between one thousand dinar [$1414 USD] and five thousand dinar [$7070 USD], at least a year of jail time, or both.

Further to this, the second section of the Article states that “any person who propagates the kinds of news mentioned above by any means…shall be sentenced to a maximum of one year in prison or be required to pay a fine of no less than two hundred Jordanian dinar [$283 USD] and no more than one thousand dinars [$1414 USD] or be subjected to both penalties.”

This means that not only is the writer, or publisher of the news liable to be punished, something as simple as a share on Facebook could result in a fine, jail time, or both. The decree even goes as far as to criminalise the use of any means to bypass the blocking of certain websites, such as a VPN. Article 31 mandates a minimum sentence of three months or a fine of between five hundred ($707 USD) and a thousand dinar ($1414 USD).

All of the above is compounded by Article 51, which states that “[i]f any of these offences are committed for the purpose of disturbing public order...or with the intention of harming national unity...the penalty shall be hard labour or temporary hard labour.”

In essence, besides the infringement on freedom of the press, the PA can now imprison and fine individuals for a Facebook share, watching Game of Thrones using a VPN, making an ‘offensive’ meme, posting a tweet against certain policies, or asserting political allegiances.

That's just one law. There is another law criminalizing "insulting the President" and “extending the tongue” against the Palestinian leadership.

These laws are on the books. They can be and are used regularly. The only real reform would be to strike them from the laws - but Roth didn't even ask for that. He believed a "pledge' that the laws won't be enforced any more.

Does that sound like speaking truth to power?

Shtayyeh is a puppet of Mahmoud Abbas. Yet Ken Roth, instead of pushing for real reform as the head of a major human rights organization should do, simply thanked Shtayyeh for his worthless promise.

The contrast between how Roth insults democratically elected Israeli leaders and how he fawns over cogs working in Abbas' dictatorship could not be starker.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

The "objectivity" of @HRW and @Amnesty

Yesterday, Kenneth Roth of Human Right Watch told Haaretz, in context of Israeli courts looking at the legality of not renewing the work permit of anti-Israel activist and HRW researcher Omar Shakir, that “This is a campaign by the Israeli government not only to shut down human rights activity, including by our Israeli partners, but also to deprive Israelis of information about what is happening around them. Whatever happens, we will continue to report objectively on human rights violations here and elsewhere.”

Omar Shakir is objective?

Even if we ignore his pro-BDS activities before joining HRW (and he was obviously hired because of them, not in spite of them,) since he joined he tweeted this antisemitic cartoon about ISIS in Syria attacking Palestinians that claims that Jews are behind the terror group, and called the cartoon "powerful:"

OK, so Shakir is not very objective, even when he is supposedly tweeting against Hamas.

But what about HRW (and Amnesty International) as a whole? Are they objective when it comes to Israel and Palestinians?

Today, the top stories at both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty websites are both about Israel.

HRW's is about this court case:

Amnesty is still pushing its months-old campaign against TripAdvisor allowing Jewish-owned tourist spots to be mentioned, clearly the top human rights issue of our time based on its website:

What a coincidence that while there are still human rights crises worldwide, both of the major human rights organizations are obsessing over Israel!

Amnesty's headline, "Stand With Palestinians," implies that these groups are not so much interested in bashing Israel as in protecting the human rights of Palestinians. Is this true?

No.

For the past few weeks, Palestinians in Lebanon have been loudly protesting laws that penalize any businesses that either employ Palestinians or are owned by Palestinians, making their already precarious existence in Lebanon even worse.

Yet the Lebanon pages at Amnesty and HRW still don't mention a word about it.

Their purported concern for Palestinian human rights seems to end where Arab country borders begin.

I'm not even mentioning the hundreds of examples of anti-Israel bias by Amnesty and HRW in the past. This is bias you can see today by just going to their websites.

When Ken Roth claims that human rights NGOs report "objectively" from the Middle East, he is either delusional or knowingly lying.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

@HRW's @KenRoth supports the creation of a state that would not offer basic human rights to its citizens

A tweet can reveal so much:

First of all, Roth is misquoting Kushner.

Asked whether he believes the Palestinians are capable of governing themselves without Israeli interference — a fundamental demand for Palestinians — Kushner said, "That's a very good question. ... The hope is, is that over time, they can become capable of governing."

Kushner said the Palestinians "need to have a fair judicial system ... freedom of press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions" before the Palestinian territories can become "investable."

Kushner did not say that Palestinians cannot govern themselves but that there are severe impediments to doing so effectively before they can be truly independent. This is not a very controversial position. Why wouldn't the world demand that a new nation can take care of the basics of human rights before being admitted to the family of nations?

Moreover, Roth does not dispute that Palestinians do not have basic human rights. He says that human rights are irrelevant to the question of their suitability to statehood!

Ken Roth - the leader of a human rights group - is defending granting statehood to a nation that he admits would not offer basic human rights to its citizens from the outset.

If anyone would want a human rights litmus test before granting nationhood, it should be Ken Roth. The fact that he says the opposite is stunning.

Would he say that about any other people who desire statehood? Would he say that ISIS deserves a state despite its human rights record? Hell, he won't go on a limb to say that even Kurds deserve a state, even after they have proven the ability to govern themselves! But he supports the creation of a corrupt, kleptocratic Palestinian dictatorship - because that would take land away from Israeli control, and Jews building houses is far worse to him than Palestinians sentencing Arabs who sell land to Jews to death.

His analogy to existing nations is absurd, of course: there is no comparison between nations that already exist and entities who aspire to statehood. By all means work to fix the human rights abuses everywhere, but the idea of dismantling a state because of its abuses - real or imagined - for some reason only applies to Israel.

Look at his examples of corrupt countries - Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Not Iran, not Turkey, not China with its concentration camps filled with millions of Muslims - Roth only mentions countries that are on Israel's side politically. Even his choice of paradigmatic nations with poor human rights records (which both undoubtedly do have) reveals Roth's deep seated hate for Israel.

Roth's pathological hatred of Israel prompts him to take positions that are diametrically opposed to human rights. Which disqualifies him from his job.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

.@HRW's Ken Roth spouts the new "Israel=White Supremacist" lie

This tweet from Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows, yet again, that his bias against Israel is pathological.

Yes, Ken Roth has embraced the latest and wholly fallacious anti-Israel trend: to conflate Israel with white supremacists because the bigots claim to be Zionist.

Not because Israel embraces the bigots, but because the bigots pretend to embrace Israel.

I've shown how absurd these arguments are before and have shown that the exact same logic damns the "progressives" far more than Zionists because neo-Nazis love to quote the anti-Israel articles written by the supposedly liberal progressives.

The neo-Nazis know Jew-hatred when they read it, and the neo-Nazi Stormfront site has quoted both Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada over 100 times each, Ali Abunimah himself over 35 times, and Max Blumenthal over 80 times. Today's Nazis aren't approvingly quoting Naftali Bennett or Binyamin Netanyahu - they are quoting the people that Ken Roth links to on his Twitter feed.

In fact, Stormfront also quotes Human Rights Watch for fuel for its anti-Israel articles. Stormfront was just taken down, but Google cache shows several of the articles:

This article at Stormfront that quotes Ken Roth and HRW has a headline that would be right at home at "progressive" websites that HRW employees write for.

Which means, according to this logic, that HRW is a Nazi-sympathizing organization.

But Ken Roth isn't going to tweet "Many neo-Nazis embrace @HRW research against Israel." Because he is interested in his anti-Israel narrative, not the truth.

Even worse is that Roth has ignored that Arabs have embraced actual Nazi ideology. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Nazi propaganda in Arabic is still sold at Arab book fairs, the blood libel is still mentioned in mainstream Arab newspapers, and the amount of blatant antisemitism in Palestinian media fills up the Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI websites.

But Ken Roth isn't going to equate Arabs with the Nazis that they openly have admired at the highest levels. He only wants to equate Israelis with racism and bigotry, not Arabs who practice those very attributes every day, publicly, in their own media and public statements.

Once again, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch shows that he is beneath contempt.

The article he links to, by Nada Elia, states the equivalence of Zionism and fascism as a flat truth. But she accidentally reveals her real agenda item in this one sentence:

If we are to gain anything from this critical moment, we absolutely must seize the opportunity offered us by white supremacists to foreground the similarities between fascism and Zionism.

White supremacists want to use their newfound affinity for Zionism for their own political purposes - and anti-Zionists want to use white supremacists' pretense to love Zionism to further their own political interests.

Nada Elia is acting just like the white supremacists are. And Ken Roth approves.

(By the way, Elia's Twitter handle is @NadaBDS. How twisted must one be to choose to dedicate one's entire online presence towards hating Israel? That's who Ken Roth chooses to feature.)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.