Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: pallywood

Showing posts with label pallywood. Show all posts

Friday, July 07, 2023

Today's Nablus operation adhered to all international standards. Palestinians lie about it anyway.

In my last post, I noted that UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk was upset that the Jenin raid on terror infrastructure earlier this week went beyond "law enforcement," which he (falsely) claimed is all Israel is allowed to do to combat militants under international law.

This morning, Israeli police from the Yamam counter-terrorism unit tried law enforcement in Nablus. Al Jazeera, which cannot be accused of pro-Israel bias, reported the operation this way:

Two Palestinian youth have been killed after Israeli forces raided the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, officials said.

The raid took place early Friday morning, with some locals describing it as an “invasion”, and resulted in the deaths of Hamza Maqbool and Khairi Shaheen, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Alan Fisher.

Israeli forces raided the city in search of the two men, one confirmed to be affiliated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, said Fisher, reporting from the Occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The men were tracked down to a house in old Nablus. Israeli forces then used loudspeakers to ask the men to surrender themselves, Fisher said.

They were met with the return of improvised explosive devices, which prompted the Israeli army to call for more reinforcements, he added.

“It appears there was some sort of confrontation between the two men in the house and the Israeli army, and the two men in the house were shot dead,” he said.

The men were suspected of carrying out a shooting attack against police this week, according to Israel’s military.

Israeli police cordoned off the area to avoid any danger to civilians. It called on them to surrender. They responded with throwing explosives. Only then did the Israeli forces respond with deadly force.

Here's what Al Jazeera didn't report:

The men attempted a drive-by shooting of Israeli police on Wednesday.

תיעוד הירי. אותרו פגיעות בחנות ובניידת משטרה pic.twitter.com/1gt9MJyjok
— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) July 5, 2023

The men were not "youth" but members of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades, Hamza Moqbel (34) and Khairy Shaheen (32.)

Terror groups celebrated them as heroic martyr fighters.

And other militants in Nablus attacked the Israeli forces during the operation.

But that is not the narrative that the Palestinian Authority wants the world to know.

Their official English-language news agency Wafa made up a story that these men, heroic fighters in Arabic, were trying to surrender when they were brutally murdered:

Israeli military units forced their way into the Old Town and cordoned off a house amid the heavy firing of live fire while demanding two youths to surrender. Israeli soldiers opened fire heavily and directly at the youths the second they came out and agreed to surrender, fatally shooting them. They were identified as Hamza Maqbool, 32, and Khairi Shaheen, 34.

The more you research the details of Israel's counterterrorism operations, the more you see how careful they are to not only adhere to the law, but also to go out of their way to minimize civilian harm when often confronting heavily armed terrorists.

But Palestinian propagandists give a completely different story - and the international media often parrots their lies, despite their long track record of literally making things up.

It is not unbiased to favor one side of the story when that side has a better record of telling the truth than the other. But the media, wanting to paint one side as victims, does the opposite.

Consistently.

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!

Palestinian terrorists shoot at journalists, Israel blamed

Haaretz reported about the clashes in Jenin yesterday, and fully accepted the idea that unseen snipers shooting towards the journalists were Israeli and not Palestinian.

Abu Ahmed, a long-time camp resident, said he had the impression that the army was planning to undertake a large-scale operation in the city and its environs. Residents say that when the presence of Israeli forces was detected, calls went out from muezzins for armed militias to come out and confront them, which ultimately led to the heavy fire that followed.

“I was in Al-Awdah Square on the edge of the Jenin refugee camp,” said Hafez, a journalist who was covering the raid. “I was in my car. They shot at random while I was photographing the clashes and the Palestinian fighters.” At a certain point, he said, three bullets were fired at his car. “Two of them I heard flying past me, but the third hit the car door on the driver’s side.”

He claims that the shots were not fired at him accidentally. “Our car is a marked journalist’s car and I was wearing a vest identifying me as press.”

Hafez said he was shot at a second time even though he was wearing clothing indicating he was a journalist. “We were about a kilometer away, on Haifa Street, on the road that leads to the Salam army checkpoint. We were eight journalists from the international and Arab media and we came under direct fire from a sniper in one of the buildings,” he recalled. “We were trapped there for 20 minutes and could only leave when it was all over.”

Jasmin – another journalist who was with a colleague of hers who was shot – confirmed the account. “We’re journalists and we were wearing clothing that identified us as such, [even donning] helmets,” she said. “They started shooting at us. We hadn’t done anything, we were only taking pictures. We fled but they kept shooting at us.”

She said that in the area the raid occurred there were no armed Palestinians, “just civilians, children and journalists.” Like Hafez, she said she and her colleagues were fired on “more than once on the same day.”

The journalists are implying that the snipers were Israeli and the story is being reported that way in Arab media.

The Telegraph has video of journalists taking cover on a rooftop, although some are crouching opposite others, so there is no way to know from which direction the fire is coming.

There appears to be some play-acting in this video - some journalists taking cover behind a wall while others stand around where they'd be seen by snipers, apparently unconcerned. But the gunfire is real, and the journalists certainly are not in a position to identify the source.

While they are careful when speaking to The Telegraph not to claim they know the identity of the snipers, being that they are all Palestinian journalists, they of course will blame Israel when speaking to friendlier media.

What is certain is that trained, professional soldiers do not fire wildly and randomly. They might mistake a target but they fire at targets. The random fire described in the Haaretz article is far more likely from Jenin terrorists, whom we know will fire without even looking at their target.

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!

This morning's "Al Aqsa storming" will SHOCK you!

Here is video of Jews at the Temple Mount today. According to Palestinian media, they are "storming Al Aqsa mosque."

Trigger warning: this is a shocking video of Jews storming. I repeat, they are storming.

Turn the sound way up to get an idea of the intense violence and provocations they are doing.

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!

They can't stop lying: "Museum of the Palestinian People" shows a fake Palestinian "postage stamp"

Yesterday we showed that the Washington DC based "Museum of the Palestinian People" displays Egyptian coins and labels them as "Palestinian."

That isn't the only explicit lie at this museum.

Because not only does it show a "Palestinian coin" that isn't Palestinian, but it also shows a reproduction of a "postage stamp" that was never a postage stamp.

Despite it showing a monetary value, this is not a postage stamp. It was a propaganda stamp (also known as "Cinderella stamps") issued to raise money by Arab nationalists.

One could not mail a letter with this stamp. And anyone could print one.

The Jewish National Fund printed millions of similar "stamps" as fundraisers from at least the 1910s to, I believe, today. No one claims they were "postage stamps."

If their cause is so just, why do they have to lie all the time?

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!

Palestinian and Israeli kids with guns - the huge difference

Whenever someone posts a photo of Palestinian kids with guns, like these:

Israel haters like to respond with photos like these of Israeli kids with guns.

The message they try to convey is that there is no difference.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

As far as I can tell, all the photos they show of Israeli kids are at military museums. The guns aren't loaded, there is plenty of adult supervision, and there is no difference between these kids and kids worldwide who visit their own countries' military museums.

The Palestinians kids are playing with or shooting real (or realistic) guns, without supervision.

In Israel, there is a specific place and circumstance for guns, which are necessary for defending the nation. Killing Arabs does not make one into a hero (unless that Arab was in the middle of a terror attack and killing him saved lives.) There are very strict gun control laws.

For Palestinians, terrorist weapons are meant to be everywhere. Guns are shot in the air all the time. They are shot without aiming. People are encouraged to buy and own their own weapons. There are no rules. There are no Arabic-language manuals on gun safety. There is no NGOs to teach responsible gun ownership or that combat gun proliferation. (But there are such organizations for Arabs in Israel.)

Palestinians who shoot Jews are heroes. You can see kids with guns emulating them in their own homes, streets and even mosques.

We've seen this year Palestinian kids who were recruited to terror groups and killed while trying to attack Israelis. Still, no NGO dedicated to protect children has said a word against this.

Guns aren't evil in and of themselves. They are a tool. Israelis teach kids to use them responsibly and only as a last resort. Palestinians teach their kids that guns are cool and meant to murder Jewish civilians.

Anyone who can't tell the difference between the two has no moral compass.

(h/t Andrew)

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!

Palestinians trying to hijack the earthquake

The Palestinian Information Center seems upset that the world is paying so much attention to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and not to them.

So they wrote an article that not only accuses Israel of "aid-washing" but also claims that the damage in Gaza wars was just as bad, if not worse, than the horrific scenes we are seeing in the quake zones.

The painful scenes of the earthquake victims under the rubble, their loud cries asking for help and rescue, and the pictures of the injured children stuck under the rubble, brought back to mind the images of the successive wars on the Gaza Strip, where the occupation planes destroy homes and residential towers on the heads of their owners.

It goes on to say that the destruction of Gaza was the same, and who could even imagine that Israel is really interested in saving lives? It is all just "hasbara."

Ibrahim Al-Madhoun said that the Zionist occupation is trying to whiten its black image after committing many crimes, and is taking advantage of the earthquake catastrophe and international sympathy with Turkey and Syria, and wants to appear with a fake face, by playing a humanitarian role that does not suit its criminal nature.

Al-Madhoun stressed that the image that the occupation is trying to appear as a relief and savior for the victims of the earthquake will not convince the Arab peoples and the free people of the world.

Al-Madhoun called for the need to focus on the real image of the occupation, expose its criminality, warn the world, international institutions, and countries against being deceived by the occupation, exposing its crimes, and remembering what happened and is happening, of crimes committed by the occupation on an ongoing basis.

The irony is that while the Israelis are proud of their fast response teams and their setting up an entire field hospital in Turkey, the Palestinians are spending more time on the publicity campaigns promoting their own aid than the aid itself. They created a "Palestine is With You" campaign and logo:

Notice that the center of the logo is the Dome of the Rock - meaning that even this campaign to supposedly help thousands of victims is really designed to ensure the centrality of the Palestinian cause.

I don't think there are any new logos of the Israeli efforts for helping the victims.

As usual, the Palestinian accusations against Israel is projection of what they are doing - trying to leverage a disaster into making Palestinians look good.

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 EU is fighting disinformation. But not anti-Israel disinformation.

Yesterday, EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell spoke at the EEAS Conference on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference about the dangers of Russian disinformation campaigns:

Russia is using information manipulation and interference as a crucial instrument of this war. This war is not only [about] using explosives, bombs, bullets, killing people. It is about the mind of the people. It is about how to conquer the spirit, the intelligence, the understanding of the people.

It is not new. It started with the [COVID-19] pandemic. When the pandemic came, we started speaking about “the battle of narratives”. This is a sentence as important as “the Geopolitical Europe”. The battle of narratives started with the pandemic at the latest.

And, today, that is clear: this war is not only conducted on the battlefield by the soldiers. It is also waged in the information space, trying to win the hearts and minds of people.

...This is a major threat for the liberal democracies, which are based on information. Democracy is a system that is based on the information that people have, because they made their choices – their political choices – according to their own perceptions and information that they receive about what is happening in the rest of the world.

If the information is toxic, democracy cannot work. If information is manipulated, people don’t have a clear idea of what is going on. So, their choices are biased, and the information is the oil of the engine of democracy. We have to take care of the quality of information because is the sap, the blood, the oil, the thing that makes democracy work.

The EU created an "EU vs. DisInfo" organization, with at least 16 full time staff, all to fight disinformation. Yet it begins and ends with Russian disinformation.

What about anti-Israel disinformation? Where is the EU on that?

The EUvsDisInfo report released yesterday shows a great graphic of how Russians are manipulating information. But it doesn't mention that anti-Israel forces use exactly the same methods.

Pallywood manipulation of photos and videos? Check. Overwhelming social media with anti-Israel memes? Check. Changing the context to not allow pro-Israel voices to make a point? Triple check. Using diplomatic methods to attack Israel? Not only the PA but many of its allies, check.

But does the EU even notice anti-Israel propaganda techniques? No, they agree with their messages. And when they agree, they don't think they are being manipulated. For example, when Defence for Children Palestine says that Israel killed a child earlier this week, they won't bother to check whether the "child" was a member of a terror group. (Yes, there are some that are too extreme for the EU, so they can pretend that they are discriminating between truth and lies.)

Anti-Israel lies - that Jews visiting the holiest Jewish space are a threat to peace, that illegal Palestinian outposts in Area C are legal while legal Jewish towns are illegal, that Palestinian NGOs have no terror links, that Israel is attacking civilians, that Palestinian attacks are all in response to Israeli "crimes" and wouldn't happen if they weren't "provoked" - those lies are accepted by both official EU bodies and their media, and therefore the public.

The fact that they happen to align perfectly with traditional European antisemitism is just a coincidence, I'm sure.

The fight against disinformation assumes that there is an objective truth. I agree. Yet the progressive crowd emphasizes that there is no truth, that narratives are the only acceptable form of reporting, and only certain narratives are acceptable. The EU vs. DisInfo site seems to state that there is objective truth when it comes to Russia, but it doesn't seem to have an issue when its own intelligentsia seems to embrace a post-truth worldview where narratives rule - especially when it comes to Israel. It would be interesting if they use their own methodology against the "progressive" narratives.

But they won't.

(h/t Irene)

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!

Disgusting @Amnesty parrots lie that IDF shot tear gas at a hospital

Amnesty International's response to Israel's raid at a terrorist nest in Jenin yesterday is yet more evidence of its anti-Israel and ultimately antisemitic bias.

Responding to the killing of at least nine Palestinians by Israeli forces during a military raid on Jenin refugee camp this morning, Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty International, said:

“In the space of just a few hours this morning, Israeli forces killed at least nine people and injured 20 more; blocked ambulances from accessing the wounded; and fired tear gas at a hospital, reportedly causing suffocation injuries to sick children.

The charge that Israel fired tear gas at a hospital came from PA health minister Mai Al-Kaila who absurdly claimed that the IDF "stormed" the hospital and "deliberately" fired tear gas to the children's ward.

Luther knows that she is lying, because he doesn't mention her charge about "storming" the hospital, which makes no sense.

The IDF denied the charge immediately:

Israel's army denied a Palestinian claim that soldiers deliberately fired tear gas at a hospital during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

"No one shot tear gas on purpose at a hospital," an army spokesman told AFP. "But the activity was not far away from the hospital and it is possible some tear gar entered through an open window."

Amnesty's statement was published ten hours after Israel's emphatic denial.

Which means that Amnesty chose to parrot the obvious lies of a Palestinian minister, watering it down a little because they knew her entire statement was propaganda. Then they chose to ignore Israel's denial as not being even worth considering.

To Amnesty, Palestinians are trustworthy and Jews are simply liars whose words aren't even worth considering.

And what really happened in the hospital? Middle East Monitor published video that they claimed shows the mothers and children choking:

There's no panic, no running, no choking, no one looking like their eyes hurt, and the women aren't even covering their own or their children's faces to protect from the tear gas.

The IDF explanation makes perfect sense - the mothers and nurses smelled the tear gas and are looking for a room that didn't have an open window, and hospital staff directs them where to go.

Middle East Monitor knows this, so they caption the video with what they want you to believe, not what you are actually seeing - a time honored Pallywood propaganda technique. People are conditioned to implicitly trust captions and then view the photo or video through the lens that the propagandists helpfully provide.

But even worse than repeating obvious lies and treating Israeli rebuttals as not even worth considering, from reading Amnesty's statement one wouldn't even know that there was a three hour battle going on. Amnesty makes it sound like the IDF went into Jenin to kill a bunch of civilians because of "impunity." No one reading Amnesty's statement would know that this is what nearly all of those killed were doing at the moment of their deaths:

The statement also doesn't even hint at the reason the Israeli forces must go into Jenin to begin with - because a wave of deadly attacks in Israel last year where Jenin was the source.

While Amnesty rushes to condemn Israel going after armed terrorists, Amnesty did not condemn a single one of those attacks on Israeli civilians. Here are their press releases during the time period between March and May 2022 when there were five multiple-casualty terror attacks in Israel:

This is beyond simple bias. This is the world's leading human rights organization actively choosing to support Islamic terrorism over the 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!

Palestinian Authority trying to spin today's fighting as new "Jenin Massacre"

In April 2002, Israel mounted a major military operation in Jenin that resulted in a pitched battle where 23 IDF soldiers and 52 Palestinians, mostly terrorists, were killed.

But Palestinians and their supporters claimed that between 400-500 Palestinians had been killed - and for weeks, the world's media believed them with no skepticism, and assumed that Israeli denials were lies. There were wide reports of a "massacre." An Amnesty International "forensics expert" visited the camp and said "I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."

Months later, the UN and human rights groups grudgingly admitted that there was no massacre.

Yet even though the PA had lied so egregiously, they paid no price. The media continued to report their lies as fact and to regard Israeli denials as lies.

The Palestinian Authority has learned that lesson well.

Today, the IDF entered Jenin again, to stop an Islamic Jihad cell that was planning an imminent attack. As of this writing, it appears that the IDF killed eight terrorists and one civilian.

And like in 2002, the Palestinian Authority and media are again calling it a "massacre."

Palestinian Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Israeli government is committing a massacre in Jenin and its refugee camp, amidst international silence.

He added that the international silence is what encourages the occupation government to commit massacres against Palestinian people before the eyes of the world.

PA prime minister Shtayyeh "called on the United Nations and all international human rights organizations to intervene urgently to provide protection for Palestinian people and stop the bloodshed of children, youth and women."

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the United States to "intervene immediately" against what they called the "Israeli killing machine."

The Jenin-based armed groups freely admit that they attacked IDF troops and even brag that they scored direct hits but that contradicts the favored narrative of Palestinians as innocent victims, so international media doesn't bother quoting them.

Just as in 2002, Palestinians are making ludicrous allegations, including that the IDF directly shot an ambulance.

The PA's health minister claimed "the occupation stormed Jenin Governmental Hospital, and deliberately fired tear gas canisters at the children's department in the hospital" (some tear gas seems to have wafted in.) She also claimed the IDF shot bullets at the children's ward. She called these "war crimes."

Sure, in the middle of fighting highly armed Islamic Jihad terrorists, the IDF decided to break into a hospital and shoot bullets and tear gas canisters at the pediatric ward. Makes perfect sense.

The PA called a general strike, and declared three days of mourning for the terrorists.

The Palestinians are hoping that the media and NGOs will believe them implicitly. And they have every incentive to lie, because the media never reports that they have a history of lying to manipulate the media.

The Palestinians have nothing to lose with their lies.

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!

Book review: Can 'The Whole World' Be Wrong? by Richard Landes

Can “The Whole World” Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad, by Professor Richard Landes, is a hard but important book to read.

Landes does no less than directly taking on the orthodoxy of the liberal world that regards Israel as one of the worst human rights violators, that regards supporting the Palestinian cause as the archetype of progressive values, that regards the West as Islamophobic and institutionally racist. He challenges the reader - what if everything you have read is wrong, and I am right?

The first part of the book goes into some detail on four episodes from the early 2000s.

It is no surprise that one of those episodes is the Al Dura affair, which Landes is one of the world's experts in. It was indeed the first blood libel of the new millenium, where the media unquestioningly accepted and promoted the idea that Israeli forces murdered the child Al Dura on TV and in cold blood. The French reporter, Charles Enderlin, who spread the libel wasn't there and he trusted the reporting of a Palestinian cameraman. Hours of footage from the same scene showed it was essentially a soundstage, where Palestinians were play-acting injuries. Yet almost no Western reporters questioned the story, as the Arab media ran the footage non-stop for days.

Occuring only two days after Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 2000, the incident inflamed the Palestinians and the Arab world. Indeed, it would not be inaccurate to call the second intifada the "al-Dura intifada," as it almost certainly was the spark that kept the brand new riots going.And it was all a lie - it is impossible that the IDF could have shot the child from their position.

The other incidents that Landes examines from the early part of the millenium are 9/11, the Jenin "massacre" that wasn't, and the Muslim world's reactions to the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Landes uses each of these incidents as springboards into examining the West's reactions, which often were, as he notes repeatedly, stupid. On page after page, Landes gives scores of examples of this stupidity: the reluctance by media to use the term "terrorism," the constant repetition that Islam is peace, the bending over backwards to find fault with Western and specifically Israeli actions and ascribing them the responsibility for Islamist violence.

It is easy to forget the early aughts of this century, but Landes reminds us that just as today we will see Western progressives justify Hamas rockets by asking "what choice do they have?," the reaction to the tsunami of suicide bombing attacks in Israel during the bloody years of 2000-2004 prompted the exact same justifications by the same crowd.

The other two major parts of the book examine the key players in pushing the bizarre mindset of Western self-blame and bending to the will of the Islamists (whom Landes terms "Caliphators") and the current outlook on the war between the West and apocalyptic Islam - and how the Islamists are winning the battle by disabling their enemy. On the way, Landes expertly analyzes the honor-shame culture and the zero-sum thinking of the Islamists as well as the stupid western tendency to project our own mindset onto them, even as they use our own strengths of self-criticism against us.

Throughout the book, Israel is the canary in the coal mine. By any objective standard, Israel is the most progressive and liberal state ever in an extended state of war. Its successful integration of a 20% Arab population as equals is far more successful than what we see in Paris or Malmo with a much smaller Muslim minority. Yet Israel is regarded, even by those other "enlightened" progressive European elites, as a "shitty little country" that has no right to exist.

As I said, it is a hard book to read. The amount of information is sometimes overwhelming - and often infuriating. Landes also often peppers the text with gems that demand to be re-read. Happily, he chooses to use footnotes instead of endnotes so one can dig deeper into his often offhand examples.

I have some nitpicks too. I didn't see that he has a glossary of terms, many of which he created, until I finished the book, so one often sees his coinages like "Y2KMind" or "Caliphator" a hundred pages before he defines them in the text. I'm not as convinced as Dr. Landes of the millennialist component of Islamist thinking.

The tone of the book is often more strident than objective, but it is hard to fault Dr. Landes for that, since the reader is apt to be upset along with the author. There is ample excuse to get angry while reading it. And while Landes gives some general advice on what the West needs to do in order to recognize and defeat the enemy of Islamism, I wish it was more actionable. (I have written and spoken about how I think the Arab honor/shame culture can be used to Western advantage.)

In general, though, this is an important book to read, and even those of us who are immersed in these topics will learn a great deal and see connections that we hadn't thought of before.

Disclosure: I am friends with Richard, and this site is mentioned at least three times in the book.

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!

12/22 Links Pt2: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts; Jordanian anti-Israel film no longer Oscar contender; In WW2, German Generals Knew about the Annihilation of Jews

From Ian:

‘A Brief And Visual History Of Antisemitism’ Is An Important Resource In Today’s Climate

Israel B. Bitton’s new book, “A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism,” shouldn’t be needed — but sadly, it is.

A substantial work two years in the making, the visually rich effort features a foreword by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. It’s aimed at all people, but it is particularly designed for seniors in high school as some of the images and discussion could be too intense for younger readers.

Former longtime Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, was intimately involved in the creation of the book. He told me, “Knowledge is power. We wanted the book to be easy to read and follow.” And it is — even coming with “augmented reality bonus content” aimed at a generation that might not be as familiar as they should be with the long and sordid history of hate and violence directed against the Jewish people.

Hikind went on to note that in November alone, there were 45 hate crimes committed against Jews in New York City — almost three times as many as those committed against all other groups combined. Hikind also cited FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Nov. 17 testimony before Congress that “Antisemitism and violence that comes out of it is a persistent and present fact,” with the Jewish community “getting hit from all sides.” Wray then said 63 percent of religious hate crimes were motivated by antisemitism — a remarkable fact when considering that only 2.4 percent of Americans are Jewish.

The book runs 549 pages before hitting its densely packed endnotes, serving both as a well-documented resource book and a useful tool for the classroom. It’s divided into nine discrete units: Defining Antisemitism; Beginnings of Antisemitism; Proliferation of Antisemitism; Secularization of Antisemitism; Apex of Antisemitism; Easternization of Antisemitism; Politicization of Antisemitism; The Current Landscape; and Combating Antisemitism.

I queried Hikind about how antisemitism might be different today than it was when the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was published in Russia in 1903. “There is no difference,” Hikind said, “The same thing Jews were accused of in the past are the same things they are accused of today.”

David Collier: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts

“Not all opinions are equal. And some things happened just like they say they did. Slavery happened, the Black Death happened, the earth is round, the ice caps are melting, and Elvis is not alive” -Rachel Weisz (playing Deborah Lipstadt) from the movie ‘Denial’.

Jews are facing Orwellian inversions of history. We are witnessing an increase in Holocaust denialism, that can even perversely attempt to make Jews responsible for the events in Nazi Germany. And we are seeing a rewrite of the story of Zionism, which results in Jews being portrayed as powerful, sadistic monsters.

Thankfully, Holocaust denialism is mostly in the shadows. Every decent person will have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, the rewrite of the Israel story has been far more successful. Media, politicians, and even many Jews on the left, have lost sight of what is true. It is this history – the real history – that I highlight here.

Anti-Israel activism is based on two key falsehoods.

The first is that the Arabs welcomed the Jews (and were then betrayed by them).
The second is that the Jews controlled the events, eventually going on a deliberate rampage, slaughtering or expelling innocent and passive Arabs.

I have no intention of making this a wordy piece, but rather to go on a brief journey through time. Using news reports to highlight the truth upon which the conflict is built.

Acceptance and populations
Let me begin with the idea that the Arabs accepted the Jews – or lived with them in peace before the Zionists came. Until the latter part of the 19th century, pogroms could occur in places such as Tzfat or Hebron (1834) and the world remained oblivious. If news did break out, it often came through published letters of notable travellers that witnessed events. This distressing eye-witness account of a brutal attack on Jews in Jerusalem, was written in July 1834 and published four months after the event occurred:

That attack was not conducted by the Egyptians or the Turks – but by local Arab Muslims. This was the life of Jews in Jerusalem under Ottoman Islamic rule: 3rd class citizens, vulnerable to the violent whims of the Islamic rulers and local Muslim populations. Below are three more extracts from newspapers in the 19th Century, One details the ‘indignity’ with which Jews of Jerusalem were treated. The two others refer to Ottoman laws restricting Jewish free movement (one even mentions the ‘enmity’ towards them):

All reports from the area of the time speak of squalor, empty lands, decay, and neglect. Laws were set in place restricting Jewish land purchase and movement. This blatantly anti-Jewish decree did not just affect Jews from Europe – but even Jews inside the Ottoman empire:
American Israelite, 25 July 1884

At differing levels anti-Jewish activity continued until the British arrived. Between 1914 and 1917, the Turks expelled all the Jews in Tel Aviv and Yaffo:
Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat Oklahoma,19 Jan 1915

There was an unmentioned driver to the Turkish oppression of Jews in the late 19th Century. The Islamic rulers were worried about Jews entering a land with a low population. So *Muslim only* immigration was encouraged. This can be seen in reports from the time, such as this one that details the Bosnian Muslim immigration and the barriers placed on others:

This research is unique. Help to battle antisemitism and support the fight for truth in 2023

Donate via PayPal https://t.co/K6jr3Bu7nc
or via my website https://t.co/kPpEOKPEAB
THANK YOU - let us all keep exposing the truth! END
— David Collier (@mishtal) December 22, 2022

Alan M. Dershowitz: Democracy in Israel

Israel's democratic system is based on a unicameral parliament, the Knesset, the members of which are chosen in an election based on nationwide proportional representation. Because no one single political party has ever in the country's history won a majority of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats, multiple parties -- including small ones -- need to group together in a coalition to form the government.

It is often necessary to make significant compromises among the parties in order to make up a governing coalition. That is what is happening now with Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who .... promises to continue to oppose [bigotries] in the new government he is working to form under himself as Prime Minister.

Israel, however, presents a very different face through the persona of its President Isaac Herzog. In Israel, the presidency is a non-partisan ceremonial role, without executive powers. Herzog... in 2015 ran unsuccessfully for prime minister as leader of the left-wing Labor Party. Today, as president, he represents all the citizens of Israel. His face is that of a centrist patriot with a long history of supporting human rights for all....

Herzog can remind the world that no country in history has contributed more to the world -- medically, scientifically, technologically, agriculturally, culturally, in human rights and in other ways -- during its first 75 years of existence than Israel. This, despite having to devote so much of its resources to defending itself against genocidal threats from Iran and other nations and terror groups committed to its destruction. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations, and is seeking peace and normalization with still others.

Netanyahu, who was Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has played an extremely positive role in many of these developments, as well as in creating a peace that few thought possible with four Arab countries -- the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco -- after decades of hostility – all while countering deadly threats from Iran and leading Israel's economy away from socialism into the high-tech wonder that it is.

There is much for Israel to be proud of, even as it faces challenges both from without and within. No nation is subjected to more unfounded and disproportionate condemnation -- from the United Nations, from international tribunals, from NGOs, from campus radicals, from many in the media -- than the nation-state of the Jewish people.

.@CNN reports Israel's new government is "now made up all of men, and all orthodox except for Netanyahu himself." https://t.co/9kXNnAd0vZ

Note to CNN: Netanyahu hasn't even announced who from his own Likud party, including women and non-orthodox, will become ministers. pic.twitter.com/d9Dr5uh86i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 22, 2022

DEBATE: Does the Supreme Court have too much power? | Caroline Glick Show #supremecourt #democracy

In the new “Caroline Glick Show,” Caroline Glick hosts a debate between jurists Alan Dershowitz and Avi Bell about why the Israeli Supreme Court needs reforms.

While the two law professors disagree about the scope of the reforms required, they both agree that the power of the Court should be limited.

Hamas says he was a "mujahid" was trying to stop Jews from prayer. The PA calls him a "soccer player" who was "assassinated." (UPDATE)

The messages about a Palestinian killed last night being sent to the West and for internal consumption are quite different.

Under the Oslo Accords, Jews should have free access to Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), but because the PA refuses to follow the agreement, every few weeks scores of Jews visit the tomb in the middle of the night - so as to minimize any impact on area residents - and they are protected by IDF soldiers from the Palestinians who want to stop them from praying.

Make no mistake: the Palestinian opposition to Jews visiting Nablus is pure Jew-hatred. The religious Jews are not coming to build a settlement or to evict Arabs from their homes - they just want to pray and then to go home.

Overnight, Israeli forces protecting the worshipers came under heavy gunfire from the antisemites who hate the idea of Jews visiting a holy spot that existed way before anyone ever heard of "Palestinians." They fired back, injuring several of the militants. One, Ahmed Atef Daraghmeh, died.

Keep in mind that this happened the middle of the night. The only reason anyone would be outside the tomb at the time was to confront and try to block the Jews from worshipping.

Now, as is so often the case, the messages that the Palestinians send to the world are completely different than the ones they tell themselves.

Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh sent a formal complaint to FIFA, demanding that they condemn Israel's "assassination" of Daraghmeh - because he was a member of the Thaqafi Tulkarm football team. Shtayyeh is telling the West that Daraghmeh was an innocent person who was deliberately targeted and murdered by Israel.

At the exact same time, Hamas media is referring to Daraghmeh as a "mujahid martyr":

The Islamic Resistance Movement " Hamas " celebrated the masses of our Palestinian people and our Arab and Islamic nation, its fighter martyr, Ahmed Atef Mustafa Daraghmeh (23 years), from Tubas, who rose at dawn today in an armed clash while confronting the occupation forces' incursion into the eastern region of Nablus.

In a statement today, Thursday, the movement confirmed that the martyrdom of the Mujahid Daraghmeh in the field of pride and honor while he was defending our people sends a message to the brutal enemy that he will not pass safely and our people are alert and ready to respond to the call of the homeland, and that the settlers who brag about storming Nablus with the protection of the occupation forces will find In their faces only bullets.

Daraghmeh lived in Tubas, some 20 kilometers away - meaning that he specifically traveled there just to try to stop Jews from worshiping at their holy site. And as such, he is now a hero.

But good luck seeing any Palestinian or Arab media mention that in English.

UPDATE: Video of this innocent soccer player taking out and shooting his gun. Not for long. (h/t Adin Haykin)

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!

Palestinians trying very hard to turn a terrorist into a human rights icon

A mass murderer as an icon for human rights? For Palestinians and their supporters, there is no contradiction.

Nasser Abu Hmeid, the terrorist who died of lung cancer yesterday, is now the number one cause for the Palestinian Authority.

He had murdered seven Israelis - and five Palestinian "collaborators." But since he was a member of Fatah, the Palestinian Authority is in the forefront of mourning him.

The PA held a massive rally in Ramallah protesting his "assassination."

The Ministry of Education is forcing schools to hold assemblies supporting his terror career.

Their official school radio dedicated this morning to talking about how Israel mistreats prisoners.

Here is a heartwarming scene of a child on his father's shoulders, surrounded by the Palestinian and Fatah flags, with a (toy?) gun, supporting the murderer:

Given all this, it is understandable that Israel has not released his body, since that would spark violence. But now they are trying to make that sound like a human rights issue as well: the Palestinian National Council called the decision "fascist:"

This fascist decision of a country whose parliament ratifies laws that qualify criminals to hold ministerial portfolios is a flagrant violation of the most basic international and humanitarian laws and norms and all human rights standards, which categorically demonstrates the impotence and weakness of the international system and its condoning of the occupation's crimes against our people.

Does this sound like legitimate outrage over not receiving the body - or an opportunity to demonize Israel to the world?

Not to be outdone, Hamas called this decision "Nazi." Nah, nothing antisemitic about that!

Meanwhile, the Palestinian leaders are trying hard to internationalize this issue. The Arab Lawyer's Union issued a statement, no doubt at the behest of Abbas:

The Palestinian prisoner, Nasser Abu Hamid, was martyred as a result of gross and deliberate medical negligence by the Israeli occupation prison administration, which pursues a policy of revenge against sick prisoners. ...The fascist Israeli occupation deliberately inflicted medical harm on the martyr Nasser Abu Hamid, who was sentenced to seven life sentences in 2001 to spend his life suffering from the pain of cancer, which ravaged his body behind bars until he rose to a martyr.
The Secretary-General of the Arab Lawyers Union called on the international community and international organizations concerned with human rights to condemn this heinous crime and to press for the Israeli occupation to be held accountable for its crimes against the sick prisoners, which are inconsistent with the Geneva Convention, which are crimes against humanity that history will not forget and will not expire by statute of limitations.

No, Israel didn't violate the Geneva Conventions.

Keep this in mind the next time an Arab lawyer is interviewed about Israel: they lie as easily as they breathe.

I'm not seeing too much interest in Hmeid's death in the general Arab media. They seem to grasp what self-centered Palestinians cannot: that many of the things that supposedly outrage them are obviously manufactured and directed by their leaders, but have little to do with reality.

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!