Showing posts with label terror victims. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terror victims. Show all posts

Thursday, August 03, 2023

Jewish Voice for Peace writes in their email newsletter:
On Sunday, the Israeli Knesset passed a shockingly racist law — even by the standards of Israel’s apartheid government.

Under the new "sexual terrorism" law, Palestinian citizens of Israel convicted of rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment can receive double the sentence of Israelis found guilty of the same crimes. The law passed in a bipartisan vote of 39-7, and received immediate condemnation from journalists, Israeli feminist groups, and Palestinian lawmakers.

This law manufactures an image of Palestinians as more violent and more dangerous than Israelis. According to the law, a crime is inherently worse simply because a Palestinian committed it. This puts a target on the back of Palestinian men and boys, intensifying the constant threat of violence that Palestinians already live under.
Really? A law that says that Israeli Arabs would get double the sentence of Israeli Jews? 


The Knesset on Monday passed a right-wing-backed law that makes terrorist, nationalist or racist motivations an aggravating factor in crimes of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Aggravating factors come into play during criminal sentencing and are a consideration that can push judges toward issuing a sentence closer to the legal maximum.

The law would double compensation fines for sexual harassment motivated by racism or hostility toward certain groups. 

The entire intent of the law is to ensure that in cases like the rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher, where the smiling terrorist admitted that his attack was for nationalist reasons, that the sentence would be stricter. 

There hasn't been a huge amount of Palestinian rape of Jewish women specifically as terrorism, but they have occured. In 2012, a Palestinian kidnapped a Jewish couple and raped the woman. The court at the time did not consider this a terror attack, but the Israeli Defense Ministry did determine it was a "nationalistic" crime because of previous terror attacks by the rapist.

An Israeli woman gang-raped by four Palestinians in 2006 was likewise determined by the Defense Ministry to have been the victim of a nationalist crime. 

In these crimes, the rapist specifically seeks out a Jewish woman for attack. As heinous as any rape is, when it is done as a terror act, it is worse: the rapist does not attack Arab women but specifically Jews. 

There have also been reports of Palestinian youths sexually assaulting Jewish women on buses and other public places. Again, when they single out Jewish women for assault, that is a terror attack, not an ordinary rape.

There is nothing wrong, and certainly not racist, with saying  that a terror rape attack should have a stricter punishment than a similar attack that had no nationalistic motive. 

The law does not say anything about Arabs. If a British-born BDS activist would rape an Israeli Jewish woman he would get the same consideration for a sentence. 

As we've seen, Israeli courts have not automatically determined that every rape by a Palestinian is a terror attack, just as they do not automatically determine that every shooting by Arabs against Jews is a terror attack - some crimes have only criminal motivation.


The only bigots here are the members of JVP. Notice their wording, defining Israeli Arabs as "Palestinians" and saying that "Israelis" are all Jews. Even though very few Israeli Arabs define themselves as "Palestinian," JVP is telling them that they are not really Israeli, dismissing their own self-definition. And then JVP  calls Jews racists for passing a law against terrorism and racism. 
 



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!

 

 

Monday, April 24, 2023

This morning there was a terror attack near Jerusalem's famed Mahane Yehuda market, where a car rammed into a crowd. An elderly man and a woman were among the injured.

For most terror attacks, the Israeli victims roughly match the demographics of Israeli society - children, women, the elderly are all represented in about the same proportions that one would find them walking around on the street.

Things are a lot different with Palestinians killed.


Here is the population pyramid of the Palestinian territories as of 2019.

About 40% of the population is under 15 years old, and (as one would expect) about half are male and half female.

Now, here is the population pyramid of the people Israeli forces killed in the West Bank in 2022:



Well over 90% of those killed were men of fighting age. (And at least one of the women were involved in attacks when they were neutralized.)

Unlike Israeli victims of directed attacks, there were no Palestinians killed under 10. No one over 60. 

Clearly the IDF is not engaged in indiscriminate firing, which is the entire point of Palestinian terror attacks.

There is no comparison between those killed because they are Israeli to those killed to save Israeli lives. 

 



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!

 

 

Monday, February 20, 2023


Starting in 1947, the Arab Legion was placed in Jewish areas by the British. They used this opportunity to attack and murder random Jewish civilians.

From the Palestine Post, February 16, 1948:


A particularly horrific story happened the next day. Three Jews were shot at in their car, injured, forcibly pulled from their car - and then executed.

From the Palestine Post, February 17, 1948:



More details of this crime were revealed in the next day's paper. The British knew about the execution ahead of time, and essentially colluded.




These are all war crimes by any definition. And no one even remembers this. 




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!

 

 

Sunday, February 12, 2023

A third victim of the Friday car ramming attack in Jerusalem has died - Asher Menahem Paley, the 8 year old brother of the other child victim, Yaakov Yisrael Paley.


Arab media continues to report that all the victims are "settlers" without mentioning that two of the three murdered people are children.

This is the same media that trumpets Palestinian militants under 18 - of which at least five have been killed this year while attacking Israelis - as "children."

I cannot find a single Palestinian on social media who condemns killing Jewish children. Not one. 

And, yes, Palestinians celebrated the attack on Friday. They handed out sweets

But the sickest thing I've seen was this cartoon - widely shared in social media but not condemned by anyone I've seen - showing a happy Palestinian family dining on the severed head of the other victim of the attack, 20-year old newlywed Alter Shlomo Lederman.

This image blurs out the face of the victim. I am posting it to prove my point about
a culture that would produce such an image.

This was published on the Facebook page of the Palestine Times news site.

The grandmother in the cartoon is saying, "The best Friday and the best mansaf" - mansaf being the Levantine dish associated, quite literally, with hating Jews.

And, again, there are no dissenting voices. No Facebook responses saying that this is disgusting. Nothing. 

Silence is acceptance, and Palestinians not only seem to accept such vile Jew-hatred - they celebrate it, they revel in it, they have made it a fundamental part of their identity.

Do you disagree? Fine. Prove me wrong. Find me Palestinians, in Arabic, willing to publicly condemn these outrageous displays of celebration and Jew-hatred. Find me one Palestinian - or even BDSer- who is willing to stand up and say, "I don't like Israelis, but this is going too far." 

I've been looking for these Palestinians on Arabic websites who abhor antisemitism and do not support murdering Jewish children for many years, and I haven't found them. But I am more than willing to post about the exceptions.

The challenge is out there. 






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!

 

 

Wednesday, January 04, 2023



Yesterday I mentioned the Palestinian organization Maata that keeps track of - and brags about - Palestinian terror attacks.

They just issued their report bragging about "resistance activities" for 2022:

The year 2022 witnessed a remarkable and qualitative escalation in the forms of popular and armed resistance, especially in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, as the Palestinians united on the option of all kinds of resistance.

The popular and armed resistance, represented by the Jenin Brigade and the “Black Den” in Nablus, embodied a model of resistance and an icon of challenge in the West Bank for the year 2022, where hundreds of resistance and armed clashes were carried out, and the occupation soldiers and settlers were killed.

The Palestine Information Center - Maata - monitored the killing of (31) Israelis, most of them soldiers, and the injury of more than (525) others, during the year 2022, as a result of carrying out more than (12188) resistance actions, including (848) shooting operations, and (37) attacks. (18) a stabbing or attempted stabbing operation, and (18) a run-over or attempted run-over attack, in addition to one double explosion.
It is interesting that they claim that most of the dead Israelis were "soldiers." They weren't, but there is a slight hesitation to take credit for murdering civilians. 

Anti-Israel groups keep track of, and issue reports, about how many Palestinians were killed during the year (without mentioning that 90% of them were militants.)  But the Palestinians that they pretend to support are proud about the attacks they take responsibility for.

It is also notable that Maata counts Israeli Arab attackers as "Palestinians" but Arab victims (like one border policeman killed in Hadera in March) are "Israeli soldiers."

Also note that while Palestinians pretend to oppose ISIS, when the attacks are done by Arab Israeli  supporters of ISIS (as the two March attacks were) they happily adopt them as their own.



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!

 

 

Tuesday, January 03, 2023

There is a Palestinian organization, "Maata," that keeps track of every Palestinian attack on Israelis. Their daily, weekly, and monthly reports are widely quoted in Palestinian media, but as far as I can tell, ignored in Israeli media. 

Here is their graphic for attacks on Israelis and the IDF just last week:



It says that from 12/23 to 12/29 there was:

1 "Palestinian martyr"
5 Israelis wounded
29 shootings
1 car ramming attack
5 instances of destroying Israeli military equipment
18 "repelled attacks by settlers"
47 instances of stone throwing
4 Molotov cocktails
9 throwing explosive devices
4 "confrontations"
76 protests

Look at the graphics for"settlers:"


These statistics are meant to be points of pride.




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!

 

 

Monday, January 02, 2023










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!

 

 

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

In the Palestine Post of December 26 and 27, 1947, Arab terror attacks on Jews were as bad as they were during the second intifada. 

No one talks about that today.

It is worthwhile to study them. The Palestinian mentality and antisemitism, their making no distinction between Jewish civilians and armed forces, remains exactly the same today. 

The December 26 edition mentions the murder of a Jewish Olympic athlete, Elias "Elo" Katz, who had won the silver and gold medals in the Paris Games in 1924 (the article is mistaken.)


While any Palestinian terrorists who ever kicked a ball are trumpeted to the world as if Israel targets athletes (this article today from the official Palestinian news agency claims Israel has targeted and killed over 700 Palestinian athletes!), here was a real Olympics gold medalist who was murdered by Palestinians.

The December 27 Palestine Post reports on two more convoys - meant to bring food and supplies to isolated Jews - ambushed and seven Jews murdered:



The Arab Legion of Transjordan at the time partnered with the British to help keep things calm - but instead, this professional army shot at two civilian buses near Haifa, killing one Jew and wounding others, originally claiming that the Jews attacked first but it was found to be a lie. 


An absolutely heartbreaking story of a little girl in bed killed by Arab gunfire. 


Violence was so prevalent that here we see four separate incidents - including an attack on a Jewish children's home, a Jew killed - are thrown together on a single Page 3 story (the newspaper was only four pages long.)


Palestinian Arabs openly threatened Jews - from London.


Egypt decided that since it was impossible to ensure that they were only boycotting Jews in Palestine, they should boycott everyone in Palestine.


 Like today's BDSers, the point isn't to help Palestinian Arabs but to try to hurt the Jews. Like today's BDSers, they would swear that they are doing this to help the Palestinian Arabs. Like today's BDSers, they never actually asked the affected Arabs if they want to be collateral damage.

Other news from that paper are also echoes of today: a huge blizzard in the US that kills many people, and a fatal cholera outbreak in Syria that people are desperate to contain.



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!

 

 

Friday, December 16, 2022



EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell spoke at the 24th EU-NGO Forum on Human Rights on Wednesday.
Most of his speech properly listed the worst human rights issues facing the world nowadays:

- The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to have resulted in 6 million deaths.

- Thousands of people imprisoned in Belarus for protests.

- Over a thousand killed in Myanmar and 4,500 more in jail for protesting.

- Between 600,000 and 800,000 people dead in Ethiopia from famine and cutting off basic services.

- Afghanistan's oppression against women, the Taliban saying they were going to erase women from society. 

- Russia trying to systematically destroy Ukraine, with millions of lives at risk this winter.

- Iran's killing hundreds of protestors and repressing women.

- China's persecution of a million Uyghurs.

And then after listing all of these huge and very real human rights catastrophes, Borrel just had to imply that one of the worst was Israel:

That is why we are setting today a new Global Observatory on the Fight against Impunity....and we are going to allocate €20 million for that.

This Observatory will gather information and build knowledge about genocide, about crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations. They are there. I have not mentioned Palestine, for example. But what is happening in Palestine – I am sorry, I have to say, although I know that it will bring me a lot of criticism. But yes, we have to remember what is happening in Palestine. During this year, more than 100 Palestinian people have been killed by the Israeli security forces. I do not deny that there are security issues. I think, and I issued a lot of statements condemning and expressing our strong concern about the high level of violence in the occupied territories in the West Bank.
As anyone who does a modicum of research would know, the vast majority - over 90% -  of the Palestinians killed this year were terrorists, while actively attacking. 

The vast majority of Jews killed in terror attacks this year were civilians, which is what started Israel going on the offensive.

But he doesn't mention them.

Borrell has the nerve to equate the deaths from crossfire of a handful of Palestinians with the events in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran, China and Ethiopia? He feels he must single out Israel as a major human rights violator? And that is the only example he mentions after saying that this new organization will research "genocide, about crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations"  - implying that Israel is guilty of the worst human rights abuses, after listing all the others.

Mentioning "Palestine" in the same speech as these other issues, and in the same paragraph as the new Observatory, changes it from what could have been am announcement of a good initiative, a chance to look at human rights objectively, into what sounds like just another political organization that will attack Israel while doing nothing more than lip service to real human rights abuses.

Nearly 1100 people were killed by police in the US so far in 2022.  Why didn't Borrell mention that? Because it isn't in the same ballpark as the mass atrocities of the other countries.

Neither is Israel. 

But Borrell just couldn't resist making it sound like Israel is in the top tier of human right abusers. 

Which makes one wonder, was the rest of his speech as unreliable as this part was?

(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!

 

 

Sunday, November 13, 2022

From Ian:

Palestinian Resolution at UN Is a Desperate Step
The worst-case scenario – a future declaration by the ICJ stating that Judea and Samaria are being annexed – will not be a blow to Israel, but a headache at most. The countries that are already hostile to the Jewish state do not need a court to justify their approach. Similarly, the states that understand the situation or support Israel will not change their policies because of a political opinion disguised as international law. There have been plenty of these over the years and we are still standing.

Saturday's vote at the UN makes it clear who is on our side and who is against us. Sixty-nine countries opposed the measure, which is not a few. These include the United States, Germany, Canada, and Australia, where left-wing governments have been in power in recent years. Italy stood by us for the first time as well, as did others.

Most other Western countries abstained. Those who supported the Palestinians were mostly Arab, Muslim, or African countries, with one notable exception: Ukraine, which continues to put sticks in our wheels at the UN while asking Israel for favors in reality. Strange.

And speaking of reality, it is not yet certain whether the ICJ will even publish the opinion that the UN is requesting. The whole world knows that the conflict is political, not legal. With this very rationale, many countries have turned to the ICC requesting not to advance Palestinian claims against Israel. By the looks of things, those requests were convincing. The process is stuck there, which is a good thing.

In any case, even if such an opinion is published, it will take years before it is written. So early in the game, no one knows what it will say, much less what its effect will be on the world. But it doesn't mean we can bury our heads in the sand.

The Palestinian appeal to the ICJ is a desperate step taken by Mahmoud Abbas and his people in order to internationalize the conflict. This process started more than a decade ago, which is when-then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not counteract.

Abbas learned that he is not held responsible for the diplomatic battles he starts with Israel, which is why he has since escalated by appealing to a long list of international institutions.

It was a dire mistake. Israel has and has had a lot of leverage against Abbas and the senior PA officials. There is no reason, for example, for him to fly to meet with leaders around the globe as long as he seeks to undermine Israel's status. The same goes for other senior PA members as well.

These are the first tools in the toolbox and they are now at the disposal of the new government. They will have to use them until the final vote in the General Assembly in a month. In addition, the new foreign and defense ministers – when appointed – will have to make it clear to the US that it must put limits on the Palestinian Authority. The administration is very afraid of its disintegration. It must therefore contribute to returning the demon attempting to internationalize the conflict straight back into the bottle.


Lapid calls to exact price from Palestinians for UN ‘occupation’ vote
Israel is preparing a security and diplomatic response to the Palestinians for their UN resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to consider the illegality of Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank, Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Sunday.

Lapid instructed the government to prepare a “security and diplomatic toolbox” to respond.

“The way to resolve the conflict does not pass through the halls of the UN or other international bodies, and the Palestinians’ move at the UN will have consequences,” the prime minister warned.

The UN General Assembly Fourth Committee voted 98-17 on Friday to ask the ICJ to consider whether the IDF’s ongoing presence in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem and the Golan can be considered de-facto annexation after 56 years. The resolution, officially proposed by Nicaragua because “Palestine” is a UN observer, questions the status of Jerusalem, ignoring Jewish ties to its holiest site, the Temple Mount, and referring to it as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). The resolution must be approved in another, full UN General Assembly vote before it goes to The Hague.
Israel slams UN panel decision on West Bank probe
Israeli leaders are decrying a UN decision to seek a legal opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel's activity in the West Bank.

Former ambassador Daniel Shek joins us to discuss how Israel will approach the resolution, and the countries that voted in favor, including Ukraine.

Tuesday, November 08, 2022

From Ian:

Israel Won’t Ever Be the Country of American Fantasies—Nor Should It Aspire to Be
Following last week’s election, the veteran Middle East reporter Thomas Friedman authored a New York Times column under the headline “The Israel We Knew Is Gone,” full of dire predictions about what will befall the Jewish state now that its citizens have returned its longest-serving prime minister to power. Daniel Gordis dissects the column’s faulty assumptions and misguided conclusions, which distill misconceptions that plague much American commentary on Israel:
Here’s the heart of the problem. There are many people around the world who want Israel to be something it does not wish to be. They want it to be successful, but humble. They want it to be strong and secure, but still desperate for foreign support of all sorts. They want it to be Jewish, but in a “nice” kind of way. Israeli dancing (which I haven’t seen here in years), flags at the right time, a country filled with “Hatikvah moments,” as some call them. A country traditional enough to be heartwarming, but not so traditional that it would dare imply that less intense forms of Jewish life cannot make it. A country steeped in memory, but also one that is finally willing to move on.

An Israel moderate in every way would be an Israel easy to love. It would be a source of pride, but not a source of shame. It would be an Israel that would make us feel great as Americans and as Jews. The only problem is that that Israel doesn’t exist, and it never has.

And what of Friedman’s more specific gripes?
Tom Friedman writes that “Netanyahu has been propelled into power by bedfellows who see Israeli Arab citizens as a fifth column who can’t be trusted,” intimating that Israeli Arabs are not a fifth column. Some are; some aren’t. . . . I’ve interviewed many Arab women and men who are quite the opposite. But if you live in the Negev, if you have farmland you can’t protect from Arabs in the south or the north, you’re fearful. If you’re a young Jewish Israeli woman afraid to walk in downtown Beer Sheva, you don’t think a “fifth column” is a ludicrous claim. . . . Friedman can dismiss it, but Israelis increasingly don’t. The left and center ignore the issue, and now, Israelis are ignoring them.
Eugene Kontorovich [WSJ]Israel’s Right-Wing Coalition Gets the Cold Shoulder From Biden
The victory of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has many on the left bemoaning the end of democracy in Israel. Even before voting began, Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) threatened harm to bilateral relations should Israelis vote to the right. The State Department has said it would boycott some right-wing ministers, and President Biden waited almost a week before calling to congratulate Mr. Netanyahu. Yet Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently had time Friday to phone Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last stood for election (to a four-year term) in 2005.

What has degraded Israeli democracy, according to critics, is the electoral success of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party. Mr. Ben-Gvir’s critics cite his past in the far-right Kahanist movement. For all the consternation, one would think he was the future prime minister, rather than the head of a second-tier party, with seven of 120 seats in the Knesset.

Yet those saying Mr. Ben-Gvir’s inclusion in the government is unacceptable were untroubled by the departing government, which included Ra’am, a party affiliated with Israel’s Islamic Movement, which was founded by a convicted terrorist; or the far-left Meretz, with roots in an actual Stalinist party; or by Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s apparent willingness to accept support from Hadash, a still-Communist party whose members of the Knesset recently justified terrorism against Israeli civilians.

Another theme in the dire forecasts for Israeli democracy are legal-system reforms that the new government may pursue. The measures would actually reinforce democracy and introduce checks and balances to a political system in which the Supreme Court has far more power than its American counterpart.

Like the U.S. Supreme Court, Israel’s strikes down laws as unconstitutional—even though Israel doesn’t have a written constitution. The court has, without statutory authority, taken upon itself the power to strike down any law or government action as “unreasonable”—that is, anything the justices don’t think is a good idea. The justices—they currently number 15—decide what laws to bestow “constitutional” status on. They also dominate the committee that appoints new justices as well as lower-court judges. Candidates don’t undergo confirmation hearings before the Knesset.

The legal reforms being discussed would weaken the ability of sitting justices to pick their successors. The reforms would allow the Knesset, in some cases, to override Supreme Court decisions based on interpretations of Knesset legislation—much as the Canadian Parliament can do. Such a measure would be a far less radical check on the court’s power than the court-packing U.S. Democrats have entertained as a way of reining in the judiciary.

For years, Israeli prosecutors have pursued Mr. Netanyahu for the crime of “breach of trust.” Some in the incoming government seek to do away with this offense because no one knows what exactly it prohibits. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Skilling v. U.S. (2010), struck down as unconstitutionally vague a similar statute about denying “honest services.”

The potential legal reforms don’t undermine the values Israel shares with the U.S. Instead, they would bring Israel closer to the American model.
Jerusalem publishes zoning for new US embassy in Jerusalem
The Jerusalem Municipality on Tuesday published the zoning description for a new US Embassy complex in the capital city.

The embassy will be on Derech Hebron between Hanoch Albek Street and Daniel Yanovsky Street, an area known by its British Mandate-era name, “Camp Allenby.”

The complex will include an embassy, offices, residences, parking and security structures. The buildings can be no more than 10 stories high, and the wall surrounding the area will be 3.5 meters high.

Time to start planning the move
Members of the public will have 60 days to submit their opposition to the plan to the municipality.

“After almost four years of hard work with the American Embassy in Jerusalem, we are pleased that the zoning plans were published this morning for the new Allenby complex,” Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said Tuesday.

“The US Embassy in such a central part of the city will upgrade the urban landscape of the neighborhood and connect it to all areas of the capital through the [Jerusalem] Light Rail network that will stop almost at its doors,” she said. “We hope that more countries will follow and move their embassies to our capital, Jerusalem.”

The US Embassy moved to Jerusalem in 2018, a few months after President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s capital.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Ninety-one people were killed in the King David Hotel bombing of July 22, 1946. Fifteen of them were Jews. One of those Jews was my 28-year-old cousin, Yehuda Yanovsky. He’d gone to the hotel that day to invite his former co-workers to his engagement party, to be held that evening.

Yehuda had clerked for the British, a fact that made him a reviled figure in the eyes of much of the family. They saw him as a traitor compared to say, his Aunt Leah who went to America and on her return, smuggled in guns for the Etzel, under her clothes. Yehuda didn’t care. He’d hitched his star to the Brits to the point that after some years at his desk job at the King David, Yehuda had volunteered for the RAF. Now home from the war, he was all set to marry his sweetheart.

It was not to be.

Yehuda Yanovsky 1918-1946.

That, however, was not the fault of the Etzel (Irgun Tzvai Leumi). Headed by Menachem Begin, the paramilitary organization founded by Zeev Jabotinsky had done everything in its power to minimize casualties. Warning calls were made to the Palestine Post (today the Jerusalem Post), the French Consulate, and the hotel desk, 22 minutes before the bombing. The Palestine Post subsequently reported the warning to the police. The French Consulate, located next door to the hotel, heeded the warning and as directed, opened the windows to prevent them from shattering in the blast. The Etzel itself herded the hotel staff into the kitchen and shooed them out the door, ten minutes before the bombing occurred. But whoever was manning the hotel switchboard that day, chose to ignore the warning and as a result, 91 people died that day, including my cousin Yehuda.


Casualty list from the Palestine Post, July 24, 1946.

From that day forward, Menachem Begin would forever be branded “that terrorist” by those on the Israeli left. The Likud Party, too, the party founded by Begin and headed today by Benjamin Netanyahu, was (and in some quarters still is) thought of as a party of terrorists. Outside of Israel, the anti-Israel crowd loves to point to the King David Hotel bombing as the perfect example of Jewish terror, which they say, is no different than Arab terror, except the diabolical Jews get a pass in the eyes of the world.

Wanted by the British. Menachem Begin at upper left.

You might be tempted to point to the sheer number of Arab terror attacks (and attendant casualties) as the thing that distinguishes them from this single episode of a Jewish hotel bombing. But that is not what makes them different. For while the antisemites like to pretend that the King David Hotel bombing is no different than, for example, the Arab bus bombings of the 1st Intifada, or the Sbarro Pizzeria Massacre, they aren’t fooling anyone. Go ahead, recite the death count of the King David Hotel bombing all you want, but no Arab terrorist ever gave a Jew advanced warning prior to an attack. No one told Malki Roth to leave her pizza and run. Unlike Menachem Begin’s Etzel, which gave multiple warnings to multiple parties and evacuated the hotel’s personnel to safety.

Menachem Begin was no terrorist. The British were the terrorists. They turned their backs in Hebron and Safed as Arab terrorists murdered innocent men, women, and children, including my husband's cousin Jacob Wexler. They imprisoned Jews and hung them when they tried to defend themselves against Arab terror.

 If only the world would mind its own business and leave the Jews alone.

But they won’t and they didn’t. And so the Etzel decided to make a show of might and force. And a show—albeit with a landmark building destroyed—it would have been, had the call to the hotel not been ignored. In his book, “The Revolt: Story of the Irgun,” Begin quotes a British official who refused to evacuate the building: “We don’t take orders from the Jews.”

 

But this is the attitude the Jews had long encountered under the British the British. As far back as 1929, Rabbi Yaakov Slonim of Hebron was attacked in the street, by Arabs with knives and stones, as Jews watched on from their windows, helpless. 

According to eyewitness testimony:

A Jewish woman who was at the rabbi’s house, dared to go out to the British Chief of Police (who participated in egging on the mob), and begged him to save the rabbi. His answer was: “This is no matter for a dumb, Jewish woman. Go home and stay there. Usually, it is the Jews who are to blame in these cases.”

Though these remarks were said in English, the mob heard and was encouraged by them.

The rabbi’s daughter Rivka Slonim, having survived the pogrom, relates what happened next:

Soon after my father and I shut ourselves up in our home, our neighbor Abu-Shaker appeared on his white horse.

He tied up his horse and sat down on our doorstep. From what he told us – that the British police were aiding the rioters, standing aside when the mob stormed Jewish houses and slaughtered their inhabitants – we knew our final hour had come.

After the massacre, the British made a show of conducting an investigation:

The investigative committee sent out by the British Colonial Office accepted testimony from Arabs only, as well as the infamous police chief Cafferata and Governor Abdullah Kardos.

Jews were not permitted to present their version to the committee, with the exception of Rabbi Yaakov Slonim, the father of the murdered E. D. Slonim.

Rabbi Slonim related the events of the two days in Hebron, of the murder of at least 67 Jews, the destruction of approximately 80 Torah scrolls, and the responsibility of the authorities, particularly Cafferata and Kardos who failed to prevent the pogrom. The committee disallowed Rabbi Slonim’s testimony.

On October 15, 1929, the trials of the murderers began. Sheik Marka, leader of the mob in Hebron, received a two-year prison term which was changed to house arrest, and everything “fizzled away."

Two of the four who murdered Rabbi Meir Shmuel Castel were acquitted due to “lack of evidence.” The two others were sentenced to death. The trials were a show for the gallery. Almost all the murderers went free and kept what they had plundered and stolen. This drove the Jewish community into a deep depression. The clear, positive attitude the British had towards the killers was visible. For most of the trials, a date for proceedings wasn’t even set. . .

. . . The British reaction to the pogrom was to expel about 1,000 Jews out of Hebron.

This is what happened in Hebron with the British in charge. Under their watch, the “City of Forefathers” became a Jew-free zone in 1929. Only in 1967 were the Jews able to return.

British complicity in the 1929 riots in Hebron and in Safed, too, was illustrative of British feeling toward the Jewish population of Mandate Palestine. The Brits were indulgent with the Arabs, but scorned, sneered at, and persecuted the Jews. What happened in Hebron was one very large piece of evidence—evidence of British hatred for the Jews they ruled.  For in essence, the British assisted the Arabs in emptying out the Jews from an entire Jewish city—the city that until today houses the remains of the Jewish forefathers. 

Why should anyone with even a smattering of understanding of what it was like for Jews living under these people in their own land, imagine that they would just shut up and take it—just lie down and die because to the British, like so many other antisemites, the Jews are only so much vermin?

Grave of Yehuda Yanovsky, Mount of Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem

For some Jews—proud Jews like Menachem Begin—that was impossible. No Jew should be treated like that, have to live like that, on Jewish soil. The balance of power was out of whack. So the Etzel bombed a building. But they first told the people to leave: the occupants of the hotel and the people next door at the French Consulate. The Etzel gave advance notice of the bombing to the English-language paper of record and personally evacuated the hotel workers.  

No one was supposed to be hurt. But the Brits didn’t think the Jews had it in them. So they failed to leave the building and save themselves. They also failed to share that information with others in the building who were loyal to them, such as my cousin Yehuda, who clearly made the wrong choice.

This is not terror. This is stupid people who hate and underestimate the Jews so much they won’t leave a building about to be bombed, even with advanced warning. 

When someone calls to alert you on the phone, telling you exactly what is going to happen when, and leaving you plenty of time to leave--that’s not terror. It’s the world once more refusing to mind its own business and leave the Jews alone. Especially within the borders of Eretz Israel. 


An Arab terrorist isn’t in the business of making a show. Rather than minimizing casualties, he aims to maximize them. And of course, the Arab terrorist’s biggest advantage is the element of surprise. 

Arab terrorists come through windows and kill little girls like Hallel Yaffa Ariel. They explode pizzerias and kill little girls like Malki Roth. They burst into homes and decapitate babies like 3-month-old Hadas Fogel. They point their rifles at babies in their strollers taking sun in the park, like 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass. They ram into babies in their strollers at bus stops and kill them, like 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun.

And they never warn a soul. Because the entire purpose of terror is to terrorize. Which is what Yehuda Yanovsky would be the first to tell you, were he alive today. My cousin was not a victim of “Jewish terror” but of British scorn for the Jewish people. 



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!

 

 



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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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