Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: social media

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Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Antisemitism is personal—even when it’s only on Facebook (Judean Rose)

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

Antisemitism is personal. Like snowflakes—no wokeness intended—no two Jews experience antisemitism the same way. Even the same Jew will experience antisemitism differently when there are multiple incidents or when exposure to antisemitism is ongoing.

Social media antisemitism is probably the safest kind of antisemitism, because the antisemite hides behind a keyboard. An ugly comment, it must be acknowledged, is not the same as being beaten by gangs. Still, there is always the possibility that the online antisemite will doxx you, or use what you write to identify you to people who could do you real harm IRL (in real life).

The comments themselves range from brainless to so ugly that you gasp out loud from the shock of it. One particular antisemitic barb will make you giggle for its stupidity, while another will make you tremble, and your eyes well up with tears. Sometimes you feel a wry sense of the familiar. This is what it is. This is our lived experience, to be hated for false reasons or for no reasons at all.

Sometimes the hurt is compounded by the attitude of the people at the top. People like Mark Zuckerberg who has made his community standards such that horrific antisemitic comments and memes are left up, while our innocent pro-Israel memes and comments are removed when reported by Arabs and their supporters.

A pattern has developed wherein I report the offensive, antisemitic post and Facebook says no, it doesn’t violate its community standards. I then appeal where they allow it, and they say no again, and the vile antisemitic post stays up.

Here are some antisemitic comments and memes that I have reported over the past several weeks. Facebook has refused to take action:

In my personal experience of social media however, the worst offender in allowing antisemitic comments and online calls for genocide, is Quora. It’s all anti-Israel, antisemitic lies and propaganda posed as questions. Sure, you can report antisemitic questions and comments and they’ll be collapsed or deleted, but repeat offenders are never banned. I think about leaving or even muting Quora all the time, but I stay, mostly to encourage those still interested in learning the truth about the Jewish people and Israel.

Here’s a selection of 26 antisemitic Quora questions that have accumulated over the past 12 days and are awaiting my attention—for me to either reply or pass:

1. With the utmost respect intended, how is it possible for so many average Israelis on sites as this to defend their state's ongoing assault on Gaza, when even such mainstream " Western " sources like Oxfam attest to its singular level of brutality?

2. Why did Hamas commit terrorism against Israel which can annihilate itself entirely?

3. Does Satan support Israel victory over the people of Palestine?

4. Has Trump asked Netanyahu to cause maximum embarrassment for Biden, with Israel's assault on Gaza, by completely ignoring Biden's pleas for restraint?

5. Would there have been more outcry against Israel's actions if any major Fortune 100 companies had been headquartered in Gaza?

6. Would people who oppose Yemen's blockade of Israel-linked ships also have opposed the partisans who blew up Nazi train lines?

7. Why is Palestine more pro-American and trustworthy than Israel?

8. Are Israelis going to give the stolen land back to the Palestinians and stop their thieving ways?

9. Why doesn't Israel just give back the land it won and pretend the war never happened and we get a 2 state solution?

10. Why are Israelis basically flat out admitting to genocidal intent by calling approximately 1.15 million minors (including children) terrorists and "the enemy" when asked why Israel was withholding water, food and medicine from them if not genocide?

11. It’s only a matter of time until our generation is elected to office, and the rogue terrorist state of Israel will cease to exist, but what can we do in the meantime to stop Israel's bloodbath?

12. What is the reasoning behind Israel refusing to embed journalists to show the world Hamas is still aggressive and leaving the world to only see civilian suffering? [untrue]

13. It was just last year that Israel was funding Hamas millions of dollars in cash and weapons. What happened that made Hamas attack the people that support them?

14. Do you think Israel will rebuild Gaza for the Palestinians, or do you think they will just steal the land?

15. Why does Africa love Hamas so much, should Israel start a war with them?

16. Why do the Zionists in the social media persistently seek to dehumanize the Palestinians, despite having themselves been subjected to similar dehumanization tactics by Hitler that led to genocide against them?

17. Why does America seem unable to influence or control Israel, while other countries supporting Palestine exert more control over the situation?

18. Is Israel’s attack on Gaza legitimate?

19. Why am I seeing so many Israeli propaganda posts in my feed?

20. Polls show Israel has completely lost younger Americans with 74% or more disapproving of how it has handled the Hamas-Israel war. Has Netanyahu and his right wing government permanently damaged the US - Israel relationship or can it come back? [false]

21. Why was the USA disturbed by the disruption of navigation in the Red Sea and not disturbed by genocidal crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, but rather supported it in that?

22. Is the only way of stopping Israel's slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza for ten [sic] USA to withdraw all support from Israel? If so, isn't it morally incumbent on them to do so?

23. Why is Western media calling the Palestinian genocide a war, and censoring people in support of Palestine?

24. Is Israel using artificial intelligence to deny humanity and wage war?

25. Is someone who supports both Israel in Gaza and Russia in Ukraine a pawn of the Likud?

26. Is it true that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th was relatively hilarious?

That last query was actually older, from early December 2023. I leave it in my inbox as a future reminder of a time when the world was once again overrun by masses of people rejoicing at Jewish suffering while too many watched on, indifferent. Atrocities are never hilarious. Good people know this. Yet Quora, as powerful as it is, with its 400 million active monthly users, leaves this question up on its website where it has sat now for seven weeks. Is Quora’s indifference to antisemitism evidence of malfeasance? Is Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to ban evil antisemitic memes and comments, evidence of his malfeasance?

Which leads to another question: Are antisemitic evil, hate, and depravity still real if they exist only in the virtual halls of Quora and Facebook? The answer depends on your personal experience of antisemitism. One Jew will laugh off an antisemitic comment, or block it from their consciousness, while others may feel hurt or anger. But no matter how a Jew experiences antisemitism, some damage is done, even if the “damage” consists of absorbing the bitter lesson that not all, or even most people are good.

It’s a lesson that Jews have been forced to learn and relearn over millennia, a lesson that perhaps even Anne Frank was forced to learn in the end. We’ll never know, because Anne Frank was murdered before she could tell us, because she was a Jew.

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!

Latest EoZ memes, posters, cartoons....

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!

08/23 Links Pt2: David Collier: A point or ten about the Palestinian flag; Exposing Tucker Carlson's dark side; BBC News reports an “attack on a car”

From Ian:

David Collier: A point or ten about the Palestinian flag

I recently spent a night in Belgium doing some research. As soon as I came out of the Brussels Midi Eurostar station I was confronted with a huge image of the Palestinian flag that had been graffitied onto one of the station walls. I took a photo of the flag – and posted it in a tweet – noting my discomfort.

That simple statement of fact – that the Palestinian flag can be viewed as a symbol of hate, went viral – receiving over 3.8 million views – and over 3,280 comments. For several days my notification feed was a tsunami of abuse. Some even suggested that my discomfort made me ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’:

Most of the comments were just mocking. After all they said – ‘it is only a flag’. This is a ridiculous position, more so given that I can think of dozens of examples of ‘only a flag’ that most right-minded individuals (left and right) would find threatening or offensive. Like many emblems of hate – the problem lies in what the Palestinian flag represents – and what many of those waving it support. Only a fool would believe that the person who placed that graffiti on the walls of the Brussels Midi station has any good intentions vis-a-vis Jewish people in Israel.

Ignorance on this subject is everywhere, so here are ten points looking at what the Palestinian flag actually means – and why Jewish people have every right to view it as offensive:

1. The truth hidden in plain sight: 1964
Firstly, let me put the record straight. At the start of the 20th century there was no ‘Palestinian flag’ – just as there was no ‘Palestinian people’. Before the national Palestinian identity was created as a weapon with which to fight Zionism, Arabs under the mandate saw themselves as part of the greater Islamic or Arab nations. In August 1929, while Arabs massacred Jews throughout the British Mandate area, the Arabs in Nablus tried to revolt against the British. Briefly declaring independence, they raised the Turkish flag:

This next clarification was made during the Arab revolt in the late 1930s. That the ‘Arab nationalists fly a variety of flags, generally Islamic green’:

Only in May 1964 when the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was established, did they fully adopt what we now know as the Palestinian flag – as the flag of the Palestinian people (not the flag of ‘Palestine’, that came later). The PLO also created the ‘Palestinian Liberation Army’ to work towards the ‘ultimate goal of liberating the Arab homeland’. The flag was the banner under which they would unite to destroy Israel:

The flag is based on the flag of the Arab revolt (which is why the flags of so many Arab nations are similar). It was part of the pan-Arab cause, and the colours are in remembrance of Islamic conquests.

This point is reinforced by various Fatah spokespeople, such as this example from 1969. This Al-Fatah ‘commander’ did not care what flag he stood under – as long as it was an Arab one:

In 1964 the Arabs were in total control of the West Bank and Gaza, so the *ONLY* land they could ‘liberate’ was Israel behind the 1949 armistice lines. The very origin of the flag is one that sought the destruction of the Jewish state. This was the sole purpose of its adoption.

2. The age of terror
For six decades the PLO adopted ‘Palestinian flag’ has been associated with the slaughter of Jews and the desire to destroy Israel. Such as this threat from Arafat – as he pointed to the Palestinian flag – promising ‘the flag will fly on the road to Haifa‘ and they would keep their guns ‘raised‘ until they took Jerusalem:

And these were not idle threats. Wherever there was terror and the murder of Jews – the Palestinian flag was present:

Rachel Riley: 'I couldn't stay quiet during the Corbyn years'

Riley Riley has spoken about her role in confronting Labour Party antisemitism during the Corbyn years saying “I just saw something bad happening and just couldn’t stay quiet."

Riley, who was recently awarded an MBE in the 2023 New Year’s Honours list for her work raising awareness of the Holocaust and combating antisemitism, also discussed the abuse she received.

Speaking on the Spinning Plates podcast with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, she said: “When they [Labour] were rejected and lost 80 seats [in the 2019 general election], it was a sigh of relief but on the same day, I got a message wishing my daughter stillborn. It [the abuse] took its toll.”

Riley went on to say: "I know there are some brilliant people in Labour now really determined to get rid of these bad actors. So it kind of took the pressure off a lot.”

She also recalled a moment meeting Holocaust survivors and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis at a charity honours event.

Watchdog launches campaign against alleged Morningstar anti-Israel ratings

A conservative, nonprofit watchdog is keeping up the pressure on Morningstar, despite a reduction in the number of Israel-linked companies on a blacklist maintained by the investment firm and its socially conscious investment ratings arm, Sustainalytics.

Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told JNS that the nonprofit launched a new media campaign on Tuesday morning. It planned to send a mobile billboard to Morningstar’s Chicago headquarters and to run digital ads on the website of Crain’s Chicago for a week.

It is also starting what Hild referred to as “targeted digital campaign aimed at consumers and Morningstar employees.”

Morningstar reduced the number of businesses it tags with “controversy ratings” from 26 to 7, following pressure from a coalition of U.S. Jewish and pro-Israel organizations. The “controversy” tag, which can dissuade would-be investors, was applied to companies that operate beyond the 1949 armistice line, often referred to as the “Green Line.” Morningstar is also being investigated in at least 20 states for potential boycott, divestment and sanctions activity against the Jewish state.

Critics have called the “controversy” ratings a boycott due to the company’s use of anti-Israel sources for its ratings and the language it used originally, suggesting that businesses serving Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria should be flagged automatically. Morningstar has said consistently that it does not engage in BDS.

The investment firm agreed to implement changes in how it handles businesses inside what it calls the Israeli-Palestinian conflict area.

Hild told JNS that the reduction isn’t good enough.

Was a Moroccan singer "canceled" for performing in Israel?

Arabic media is reporting:

The Moroccan singer, Fatima Zahraa Al-Arousi, caused anger among activists, after she performed a concert in Israel.

Activists shared footage of Fatima Al-Zahraa Al-Arousi's performance, which was organized by the Moroccan Liaison Office in Tel Aviv, on the occasion of the Mimouna festival held by Jews of Moroccan origin at the end of Passover.

It seems that Al-Arousi was expecting the angry reaction, so she did not previously announce the event through her accounts on social networking sites.

However, the Moroccan artist lost thousands of followers from her fans after the footage circulated of her concert in Israel .

Here's the short clip being circulated:

So did she lose her fan base?

Her detractors are circulating this graphic:

According to this, Al-Arousi lost abut 11,000 followers in the three days after the news broke, and based on that, about 60,000 followers until today.

It sounds like a lot, but it is only 3% of her fan base. And her Instagram has a bunch of people criticizing her but really not that many, considering how many followers she has, and many defending her as well. Other social media is decidedly mixed, with plenty of people saying that Morocco and Israel have a peace treaty and she can do whatever she wants. Also, the critics don't have the usual kind of vitriol one usually associates with anything to do with Israel.

It looks like the people who she lost were not her biggest fans anyway. More importantly, the reactions I'm seeing are far saner that the crazed reactions one sees in Arab countries like Algeria, Egypt and Jordan. Usually by now the artists would be accused of being complicit in mass murder or something.

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!

Egypt freaking out over possible Suez Canal agreement with Israeli company

Middle East Monitor reports:

The Egyptian Suez Canal Authority (SCA) on Friday denied reaching an agreement with an Israeli company to manage its services and decided to take legal action against those spreading the rumour.

A statement by the authority denied the news: "In response to the information that was circulated on some anonymous personal accounts on social media regarding the canal signing a contract with a company to manage its services through a 99-year contract."

The SCA statement came the day after an alleged contract was circulated on social media platforms, with those posting it claiming that it is a contract between the Egyptian government and an Israeli company to manage the canal's services. The controversy increased after the confirmation by Israeli journalist Edy Cohen.

Chair of the SCA Lieutenant-General Osama Rabie confirmed in a statement: "These rumours are completely and utterly untrue."

He affirmed: "Egypt's absolute political and economic sovereignty in managing, operating and maintaining the navigational facility of the Suez Canal. All contracts the authority has entered cannot affect Egyptian sovereignty in any way over the canal and all its facilities, which are protected by the Constitution."

Edy Cohen published several pages of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Suez Canal Authority and a fairly secretive consortium based out of the UK called HAB & JPR Privee Group.

The wording in the denial indicates what is probably going on. It wouldn't be unusual for the Suez Canal Authority to contract out specific services to others, under strict conditions - companies do that all the time. It clearly would not affect Egypt's sovereignty over the canal.

Also, there is a difference between a Memorandum of Understanding, which is like an agreement to make an agreement, and a legally binding contract. Most MOUs allow each party to back out of it under certain conditions. SCA's denials are of a contract, not an agreement.

I have no idea if HAB & JPR Privee Group is really Israeli.

Assuming that Cohen's MOU is legitimate, I find it interesting that it seems to be written on World Bank stationery.

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!

100 years ago or today? "Wave of prejudice against Jews and Negroes sweeping US"

From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 13, 1922:

Then, as now, Jews and Blacks are the top targets of hate crimes.

Then, as now, the hate is spread by propaganda - instead of traditional wartime propaganda, it is social media Right vs. Left propaganda.

Then, as now, Jews are discriminated against in college admissions - then because they weren't white enough, now because they are too white.

Then, as now, some Christian groups like Presbyterians lead the charge against Jews, pretending that their hate is based on a twisted sense of morality and ethics.

It's been a hundred years since this was written. What has really changed?

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 Feminist Working Group" shows no interest in women's rights for Palestinians

A recent Mondoweiss article by the "Palestinian Feminist Working Group" sheds some light on how hate for Israel is often disguised using liberal buzzwords that have nothing to do with the actual agenda of these groups.

The article is typically ridiculous - it pretends that Zoom, YouTube and Facebook's pulling the plug on a conference featuring a proud terrorist Leila Khaled was about censorship and a silencing of Palestinian feminist voices when it was simply adhering to existing US anti-terrorist and sanctions laws.

It goes on to justify Palestinian terror as "resistance" and defining everything Israel does as terror.

This is the first appearance of this group, which is what makes it interesting. The group has no website. It describes itself this way:

The Palestine Feminist Working Group is a U.S. based network of Palestinian and Arab feminists who are committed to ending all forms of Zionist colonial and gendered violence and oppression. We believe that social liberation is a critical component of Palestinian national liberation. The working group was founded by the Palestinian Youth Movement’s (PYM) Women’s Committee. To learn more about our work and/or to join our efforts contact us at Palestinianfeminists@gmail.com

Note that it doesn't say a word about feminist issues in the Palestinian controlled territories at all. The supposed feminism of this group begins and ends with attacking Israel.

Many of the people signing this article are academics at US universities:

Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor of Africana Studies, Rutgers University
Dr. Sarah Ihmoud, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The College of the Holy Cross
Dr. Hana Masri, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Maisa Morrar, Physician Assistant and member, Palestinian Youth Movement
Dr. Loubna Qutami, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies, UCLA
Basima Sisemore, Researcher, Othering & Belonging Institute, UC Berkeley
Randa M. Wahbe, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology, Harvard University
Yazan Zahzah, MA in Women and Gender Studies, San Diego State University
Leena Odeh, J.D., The Decolonizing Race Project

Isn't it strange that these "Palestinian feminists" have so little interest in feminist issues in Palestine?

The United Nations Development Programme published a comprehensive guide to gender laws under the PA and Hamas in late 2018. It uncovered state-sponsored discrimination against women, which I have summarized before:

Domestic violence: Palestine has no domestic violence legislation.
Marital rape: Marital rape is not criminalized.
Abortion for rape survivors: Abortion is prohibited in the West Bank by the Jordan Penal Code (Articles 321–325) and in Gaza by the Criminal Code of 1936 (Articles 175–177).
Sexual harassment in the workplace: Sexual harassment is not criminalized by the Labour Code.
Honour crimes: Mitigation of penalty Laws allowing mitigation of penalties for ‘honour’ crimes were repealed in 2011 and 2018 in the West Bank. However, the government in Gaza has not applied the reforms.
Adultery: Adultery is an offence in Gaza and the West Bank. In the West Bank, Article 282 of the Penal Code criminalizes adultery
Human trafficking: Palestine does not have comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation. Some provisions of the Penal Code of Jordan apply to trafficking in the West Bank.
Sex work and anti-prostitution laws: Prostitution is prohibited by Articles 309–318 of the Penal Code in the West Bank and Articles 161–166 of the Criminal Code of 1936 in Gaza.
Marriage and divorce: The personal status laws for Muslims require the husband to maintain the wife. A wife owes obedience to her husband. A husband can divorce by repudiation (talaq). A wife has the right to divorce on specified grounds. She can also apply for a khul’a divorce without grounds if she forgoes financial rights.
Male guardianship over women: Muslim women require consent of a wali (male guardian) to marry. There are some weak legal protections for women under guardianship. Women can seek permission from the court to marry if the guardian withholds consent without a legitimate reason.
Guardianship of children: Fathers are the sole guardians of children.
Custody of children: After divorce the mother has custody up to a certain age, but automatically loses custody of her children if she remarries. Inheritance Sharia rules of inheritance apply to Muslims. Women have a right to inheritance, but in many cases receive less than men. Daughters receive half the share that sons receive.
Polygamy: Polygamy is permitted.
Legal restrictions on women’s work: Some legal restrictions exist on women’s employment in certain industries that do not apply to men, such as mining.

The report seemingly went into a black hole. There are very few references to it online. Yet it is probably the most comprehensive report on women's rights in the Palestinian territories that exists.

Real Palestinian feminists would be screaming from the rooftops about this. But not the members of the "Palestinian Feminist Working Group."

The fact that Leila Khaled's PFLP actually murdered an Israeli girl last year doesn't diminish her "feminist" bona fides for some reason. None of these "feminists" condemned the murder of a Jewish girl.

These people aren't feminists. They are Jew-haters who use feminism as a justification for their bigotry and hate.

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