Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, September 07, 2022

09/07 Links Pt1: The Oslo discord; Glick: The six false, failed assumptions of the two-state solution; Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Place as Palestine

The shooting attack on IDF soldiers on Sunday near the Jordan Valley reinforces the security establishment's assessment that terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria are getting stronger and may reach a strategic tipping point. The Palestinian Authority has long lost its control over its cities and it is only thanks to the pro-active posture of the IDF and Shin Bet that Jenin and Nablus have not become another Gaza.

The new terrorist threat should have Israel rethink its overall rationale guiding its policies since the Oslo Accords have come into effect in 1990s. Almost 30 years since they were supposed to usher in a new era of peace, it is incumbent upon us to undergo a paradigm shift by scrutinizing the flawed assumptions on which they were based.

The first rationale was that a separation from the Palestinians was a prerequisite for any resolution of the conflict. The fact of the matter is that in northern Samaria the IDF pulled back from Jenin in 1996. In 2005, several Jewish settlements were uprooted in northern Samaria. In both cases, this only turned the area into terrorist hotbeds that only drew Israel back time and again in order to protect Israelis on the coastal plains.

It is also hard to deny that the IDF withdrawal only strengthened the terrorist elements there, much like the Gaza disengagement turned that enclave into an even greater threat to Israel. Thus, terrorist hotbeds are the direct results of the void created by the lack of Israeli troops and civilians in the area, and one must wonder: Perhaps separation is anything but a solution?

The second assumption: Any risk that is entailed in pursuing the path of the Oslo Accords was calculated and reversible. Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin explained that Israel will retain effective control over areas that are handed over, making it possible to reverse course should the need arise. What has unfolded in the Gaza Strip over the past few decades – along with the new trends in Judea and Samaria – has been a rude awakening. Just look at how the efforts to reestablish the Jewish settlement in northern Samaria have been met with opposition by Israeli security officials (who are taking their cues from their US counterparts). This shows that as far as the international community is concerned, Israeli withdrawals are irreversible.

Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Place as Palestine

The thrust of the Palestinian legal case today is that Palestine is a centuries-old geopolitical entity whose residents are entitled to statehood as a matter of international law. But that has not always been the Palestinians’ legal position.

Immediately following World War I and continuing through most of the British Mandate period (1922-1948), Palestinian lawyers and witnesses argued repeatedly before various tribunals that there was no such place as “Palestine.” Instead, they claimed the area known colloquially as “Palestine” was in fact part of Syria, or “southern Syria” to be precise. Following the Israeli War of Independence, the Palestinians changed course and pledged their loyalty to Jordan.

It seems unthinkable that any Palestinian lawyer or legal scholar would argue today that Palestine is part of Syria or Jordan, but those were the predominant Palestinian legal positions from the end of World War I until the Six Day War.

For example, in November 1918 a Palestinian Arab group filed a petition with the French Commissariat in Jerusalem “begging that Palestine might be formally included in Syria.”

In February 1919 the Arab Delegation from Palestine to the Versailles Peace Conference submitted a formal petition urging that rather than be recognized as an independent state, Palestine should be deemed part of and merged into Syria. The petition said, “We consider Palestine as part of Arabic Syria as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economical and geographic bonds . . . In view of the above we desire that our distinct Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the Independent Arabic Syrian Government.”

The Arab legal argument that there was no such political entity as “Palestine” continued after the League of Nations awarded the Palestine Mandate to Britain in 1922. For example, in 1925 Jamal Effendi-Husseini, a prominent Palestinian Arab, challenged a decision of British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel allowing local postage stamps to bear an inscription in Hebrew identifying the country as “Palestine E.I.” (Palestine Eretz Israel).

Husseini’s lawyer, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, argued to the court that “Palestine” was “not an Arab word.” Auni Bey insisted the correct name of the country was “Southern Syria.” “Palestine,” he argued, had no separate existence and was in fact part of Syria.

Palestinian schoolbooks deny Holocaust, legitimize Munich massacre

Children in the Palestinian Authority too began their school year on Sept. 1, only instead of the promised education reforms, their schools continue to use the same books that have been heavily criticized for inciting hatred against Jews and Israel.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympic massacre, Israel Hayom and the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) – an NGO that that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula for compliance with UNESCO-defined standards on peace and tolerance – conducted an analysis of Palestinian school curriculum.

It revealed that history books in PA and UNRWA schools laud and legitimize the tragedy, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes, describing it as "resistance" to Zionism, and "Zionist interests abroad."

It also showed that textbooks on World War II omit the Holocaust entirely. They cover the main events in detail, such as the German invasion of Poland, the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not a word about the Wannsee Conference, concentration camps, or any other events related to the Holocaust.

Surprisingly, the German government is the main funder of the Palestinian education system, including textbooks. The PA Education Ministry's budget for the implementation of their plan comes from Germany, as well as Norway, Finland, and Ireland.

After international criticism, the PA and European authorities made changes to all textbooks for grades 1-12, but IMPACT-se officials say the content became more radicalized, "with hundreds of extreme examples that were introduced systematically that encourage harming civilians, jihad, violence, and incitement against Israel and Jews, in all classes and on all subjects."

"Moreover, the new books deliberately omit all the previous attempts for peace with Israel since the Oslo Accords. Antisemitic messages were also found in the books," they said.

Palestinian children are taught to believe that Judaism is a racist religion and that Jews control the media, politics, and finances. Jews are depicted as liars, corrupt, and "enemies of Islam at all times and places," and as such should be eliminated.

"Despite the European Union's repeated criticism of the Palestinian Authority, it did not make substantial changes to the textbooks for the 2022-2023 school year," CEO of IMPACT-se Marcus Sheff said. PA President Mahmoud and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh "must be made aware that there is a price for this – from hearings in the Council of the European Union to condemnation from the European Commission responsible for their funding and the European Parliament."

Salfit Governor Abdullah Kamil

Palestinian Media Watch recently reported:

Remember the signs in Nazi Germany saying “Jews not allowed” at the entrance to some shops?

Now Salfit District Governor Abdallah Kamil has “issued a series of important decisions” of which one brings the term “Jews not allowed” to mind. It specifically “forbids” Palestinian businesses to “receive any settler” – i.e., Israelis/Jews. Whoever violates this rule risks closure of his business by the PA Security Forces:

It is completely forbidden to have commercial relations with the settlers, according to Law No. 4 of 2010. It is forbidden to receive any settler in our places of business. We have conveyed clear instructions to the relevant [PA] Security Forces to close any store that violates this decision and to put its owners on trial.

All signs written in the Hebrew language placed in the various places of business and workshops must be removed within a week at the latest. The required legal procedures will be taken against those who do not fulfill this.

We emphasize once more that one must not carry out any action of selling lands, and specifically in Area C , without first receiving security permission from the district.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2022]

These decisions in force in the Salfit district in the northwestern West Bank have been made to hinder any kind of peace building between Palestinians and Israelis/Jews as their goal is “to fight the settlement enterprise and the relations with the settlers in the district.” District Governor Kamil added that the Palestinian people “will not agree to any manner of coexistence or normalization with the settlers.” The PA routinely refers to all of Israel as "occupied Palestine" and all Israelis as "settlers."

These restrictions were widely reported in Palestinian media.

Columnist Mowaffaq Matar at Raya is very upset at Palestinian Media Watch's analogy between how Nazis boycotted Jews and how the Salfit governorate is boycotting Jews. (He would have no problem with Israeli Arabs doing business in Salfit.)

Unfortunately, not only is the analogy apt, but his defense of the policies sound a bit Nazi-like as well.

It is our right to use all means to protect our existence, our economy, and the life of the Palestinian citizen. ...As for the settler, we do not look at his faith, but rather as an element in an army of invasion, colonialism and occupation, and the owners of this organization know very well that we are not hostile to the Jews because they are Jews, but rather we struggle to recover our public and private land that was usurped by the government of their system and their parties, and expelled its owners and provided it to the settlers to establish bases on it, but In a seemingly civil form, but in fact, they are bases for terrorism, murder, and the seizure of the rights and livelihoods of others. Their crimes are unprecedented except in the Middle Ages, and they have no place in the list of morals and laws of the civilized peoples of the twenty-first century. Settlements have become bases for aggression against the original owners of the land are the citizens of Palestine whom Pal Media Watch should know that state terrorism has not broken the Palestinian people who are determined to resist occupation and settlement with tools, the most important of which are victory for themselves, their identity, culture and economy, and loyalty to the martyrs and prisoners.

In other words, the Palestinian Fatherland is under attack by immoral, depraved, thieving and murderous Jews whose only interest is to destroy the beautiful Palestinian culture, which includes celebrating those who kill Jews.

Why would anyone think that this sounds like Nazis?

"Forbidden for Jews" sign in Nazi-occupied Netherlands

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!

In Algeria, some are hoping for the re-emergence of Amalek to destroy the Jews

According to Sheikh Dr. Bassam Jarrar and his in-depth study of Quranic numerology, Israel was supposed to be destroyed by June of 2022. Even as late as April, a poll showed that a majority of Palestinians believed that it would happen.

Well, June has come and gone, which means....it is time for a new prophecy on how Israel will be destroyed.

And one such prophecy seems to be coming out of Algeria.

There has been some recent interest in an Algerian tribe known as the Adjars, or Djeddars of the Qutubim, or Cotopites, a Punic (Phoenician) tribe which apparently has some remaining members. (Here is a recent YouTube video and book about them.)

At Al Watan Voice, a ninth century Jewish grammarian and scholar named Judah ibn Kuraish is quoted about the Djeddars:

As for the Ajdar of Tahert, they carry a great grudge against the Jews, which they inherited from their ancestors the Amalekites, the eternal enemies of the Children of Israel who were expelled by Joshua bin Nun from the Holy Land. Tam Ibn Falt is one of the Amalekites who fled to the land of Morocco, and they are the sons of Timna from the people of Canaan who were cursed by the Lord.

Timna was Amalek's mother who was a concubine to Eliphaz, son of Esau.

The article goes on to purportedly quote an Honoratus (not sure which one) who exclaimed in Latin to the tribe:

You are the sons of Timna, the sons of the expelled martyrs! You are ordered to wear the black and caps of your fathers, until the day when the Savior arises from you, and you will take revenge on your enemies!

The article goes on to quote a hadith that says in the end of days, Jesus will come out of Morocco (close enough) to kill the Antichrist in a series of wars against the Jews where, you guessed it, the stones and trees (except the Gharqad tree) will say, "O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, so come and kill him.”

Jesus is Amalek? From the perspective of people who believe destroying the Jews is the best thing possible, sure, it makes perfect sense.

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!

Last week, Poland demanded compensation from Germany for its estimates for World War II losses it estimated at $1.32 trillion.

Jan Grabowski, an expert on the Holocaust in Poland, discovered that some of these demands were to pay Poland for killing its own Jews.

On the 83rd anniversary of the outbreak of World War II last week, a three-volume report was published entitled “Report on Losses Suffered by Poland as a Result of German Aggression and Occupation during World War II 1939–1945.” The report was written by a parliamentary investigative committee established in 2017 to assess damages from Germany for Polish losses during the war....

However, the report ascribes to Germans the murder of Jews carried out by their Polish neighbors without the involvement of Germans. Canadian-Jewish historian of Polish origin, Prof. Jan Grabowski, discovered this when reading the third volume of the report, which includes a list of 9,292 places where Germans committed atrocities against Poles in occupied Poland between 1939 and 1945. According to the report, the list is intended to “commemorate the Polish citizens who were killed by Nazi Germany in World War II.”

Grabowski, who called the report “shameful," and a “rewriting of the history of the Holocaust,” discovered that one of the sites listed in the report is the town of Jedwabne, where it states that 1,650 Jews were murdered. The pogrom there, carried out in July of 1941, is well documented through historical research based on archival material and eyewitness accounts.

According to the research, the pogrom was carried out by Poles exclusively, without German involvement. The precise number of Jews murdered in this event is not known but is believed to be a few hundred. Beaten and threatened, they were led by Poles to a local barn, where they were burned alive.

Prof. Grabowski was surprised to find the victims of Jedwabne in a report meant to deal with German crimes against the Poles in World War II. Writing on Facebook, Grabowski said he was "dismayed" that the "Polish authorities would actually ask the Germans for compensation" for the Jews murdered by Poles in 1941. "To say that the whole situation is grotesque is to say nothing at all," he wrote.

Along with requesting reparations for Poles' murder of the Jews of Jebwabne, the new report includes other sites where Jews were also killed by Poles exclusively. The list includes the murder of Jews in the towns of Radzilow, Bzura and Szczuczyn, all in the summer of 1941.

Grabowski calls the inclusion of these towns in the report “grotesque,” but his claims against the writers of the report are more significant. He bases his arguments on the fact that in the calculation of Poles murdered and killed during World War II, the Poles also include 3 million Polish Jews, among whom he says about 200,000 were murdered with the help of or directly by Poles. What kind of restitution does Poland want from the Germans for 200,000 Jews murdered by the Poles or with Polish participation?" he asked in Polish on Twitter.

The tweet drew angry responses, with comments calling him “Jewish bastard” and “Jewish swine,” among other things.

Poland has been engaged in historical revisionism about the Holocaust in recent years, denying Polish complicity with the Holocaust and allowing historians who documented it to be sued.

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!

09/06 Links Pt2: David Collier: I told the truth about ‘Palestine’ – and this happened; British Fantasy Writers and the Jewish Question; Israeli wine is Zionist wine

From Ian:

David Collier: I told the truth about ‘Palestine’ – and this happened

Two things are key to my outlook – truth and historicity. Being driven by a need for honesty however, does mean that I am not so big on being ‘politically correct’. I believe that following such an ‘unchained’ strategy exposes the weaknesses of the anti-Israel propaganda machine far better than other, more ‘diplomatic’ methods.

So on Sunday I put out a simple, factual tweet. I accept that it was the type of tweet that some of my more dovish supporters cringe at. They likely consider it provocative and unnecessary. I believe that challenging the pillars holding up the fake narrative of our enemies is vital work, even if now and again I make others around me feel uncomfortable. The truth in a tweet

This is what I said:
There has never been a state of Palestine.
They have had no ruler. No common identity.
No currency.
No history.
No borders.
It was an invention created to help fight Israel.
The concept may exist now – but it never did before.
So stop making stuff up.

There is nothing factually wrong in those words. It is a simple statement that reflects part of the historical reality behind the conflict. ‘Palestine’ as a term was just a reflection of the Christian heritage of the colonial powers, For over 1000 years it was a word that meant ‘Holy Land’ to those in Europe that used it. It was alien, not native, to the region. The ‘Palestinians’ just did not exist in the Arab world in any sense whatsoever.

None of this is about ‘people’ today, nor their rights, so there is nothing to get angry with. Except the anti-Israel narrative exists upon pillars of falsehoods. Which means it has to reject rather than accept the truth. So the simple tweet went viral, with about 350,000 ‘impressions’. Over 785 people commented on it.

When told the truth – most just become abusive:

The key response was just sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming ‘racist’:

There is obviously nothing racist in my tweet at all. These people do not like what I am saying but have no way of actually countering the facts. Using their favourite smear – ‘racist’ – is all they are left with.

Those comments above were just some of the 100s of abusive tweets. Apart from calling me a ‘racist’, I was also called an ‘Islamophobe’, a ‘Nazi’, a bigot, and various curse-words than I have no intention of repeating here. Verbal abuse was by far the most popular response.

PodCast: Arnold Roth joins ‘Limited Liability Podcast’

On Aug. 9, 2001, in the late afternoon of what had been a typical day in Jerusalem, families gathered for lunch, as they often did, at Sbarro on the corner of Jaffa Road and King George Street. A bustling area, the kosher pizzeria was a particularly popular spot among neighborhood children and members of the area’s religious communities. That Thursday, the restaurant was packed. Fifteen-year-old Malki Roth, a citizen of Israel, Australia and the U.S., was there with her best friend.

At the same time, Malki’s father, Arnold Roth, the head of a drug development company, was taking his lunch break amid an afternoon of nonstop meetings. He had just finished when, around 2 p.m., he answered a call from his wife screaming into the phone. There had been an attack.

Malki, her best friend and 13 others — mostly young mothers and children — were killed when a Hamas terrorist entered the restaurant and detonated a bomb, killing himself in the process. An additional 130 people were injured.

In the 21 years since Malki’s death, Arnold and Frimet Roth have worked tirelessly to preserve her memory and seek justice for their daughter, creating the Malki Foundation (Keren Malki) in her honor. This week, on the most recent episode of Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” co-hosts Rich Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein were joined by Arnold to talk about Malki: her life, her tragic death and the family’s efforts to hold her murderers accountable.

Journalist forced to flee after capturing rare images of Iranian Jews publishes book

Jewish prayer in a mosque. Hookah smoke in a kosher kitchen. Hebrew school study under portraits of ayatollahs.

When former Associated Press photographer Hassan Sarbakhshian spent almost two years between 2006 and 2008 among the Jewish communities in Iran, those are some of the images he collected for a book project. The photographs offer a rare look inside Jewish homes, synagogues and other spaces, which the Jewish community normally keeps fairly locked down to outsiders.

In Iran, a nation whose post-1979 revolution government regularly calls for the violent destruction of Israel, Jews are famously allowed to practice their religion freely and feel a strong connection to their country. There is a permanent Jewish representative in parliament.

But when Sarbakhshian submitted the book to Iran’s culture ministry for publication, he ran up against the country’s pervasive anti-Zionist culture.

The ministry argued that he was an agent of Israel promoting anti-Islamic values. They forced him out of working for the AP, and he eventually began to fear for his and wife’s safety. He and his wife, Parvaneh Vahidmanesh, a journalist and human rights activist who was involved in the project, moved to Virginia.

Nearly 15 years after taking his last photos for the book, “Jews of Iran: A Photographic Chronicle,” which will finally be published on Tuesday by Penn State University Press, Sarbakhshian still calls the project that led to the ordeal one of the best experiences of his life.

“We traveled to more than 15 cities on a bus with [Iranian Jews]. We laughed with them, we ate with them. We lived with them, actually,” he said.

As of 2020, there were 9,000 Jews living in Iran. It’s a far cry from a pre-revolution peak Jewish population of around 100,000, but the country is still home to the Middle East’s second-largest Jewish population after Israel. Some of Sarbakhshian’s pictures almost look like they could have been taken in an American suburb: kids playing soccer, people having a picnic in the park, family members running around slapping each other with scallions.

But other photos in the book demonstrate Jews’ precarious status in a country that makes them continually pledge loyalty to the Muslim theocratic state. One shows a Jewish leader at a mosque attending a celebration of Quds Day, a day of pro-Palestinian rallies that often include Israel flag burnings and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Palestinian government giving ministers and extra $24K a year as "petty cash"

Safa reports:

Official documents obtained by the Palestinian Press Agency (Safa) revealed that the ministers of the current government have been receiving “petty cash” monthly, in the amount of $2,000, since late 2019.

This is despite the financial crisis that the PA is going through, and despite President Mahmoud Abbas' decision on August 18, 2019 to stop disbursing any additional funds to government ministers, after widespread controversy that followed [a raise of $2000 monthly that was approved)]during the first months of Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh's government.

The documents indicate that the government has created a mechanism to circumvent the Law on Remunerations and Salaries for Legislative Council Members, Government Members and Governors, which set the salary of the Prime Minister at $4,000 and the Minister’s at $3,000, by disbursing $2,000 to each minister in the form of “petty cash.”

Effectively, the PA government found a way to double minister salaries while pretending that they froze them.

They also added a "cost of living" increase of 70% for retired ministers.

This is the everyday corruption in the Palestinian Authority. And chances are this story will not be published at all in official Palestinian media.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The UN doesn't care when Palestinians are killed by Palestinian rockets

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the territories, OCHA-OPT, issues biweekly reports on civilian casualties and other issues.

After Operation Breaking Dawn, it summarized:

During the escalation, 49 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, of whom at least 22 were civilians, including 17 children and four women, according to OHCHR.

The report implies that all the Palestinians were killed by Israel, but in its statistics section showing the cumulative casualties during the year (there were no deaths in Gaza before August) it adds a footnote:

The report itself says nothing about Palestinian rockets that fell short; you need to read between the lines of the statistics to find out that the UN was still investigating how these 13 - or, if you do the math of 49-35, 14 - were killed.

So what happened to this footnote in the latest bulletin?

It disappeared, yet the number of those killed in Gaza - 35 - remained the same.

This means that between August 15 and August 29, the UN determined with certainty that 14 Palestinians - including many children - were killed by Gaza rockets.

But they never reported that fact.

Even though their entire purpose is to protect civilians, when Gaza civilians are killed by Palestinian militants, they go out of their way to not report it - and instead, their report text still implies that Israel killed them.

This isn't a mistake or an oversight. The UN consciously counted the casualties, determined that 14 were killed by Islamic Jihad and their allies, and chose not to report those civilian deaths instead of reporting to the world that Gaza terrorists kill their own people.

Sometimes, the bias can be seen in the details. And once you see it here, there is no other way to interpret the text of these two reports outside of a desire to maximize blame to Israel and minimize it for Islamic Jihad.

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!

09/06 Links Pt1: Report: UN refugee agency accepted $50 million from US-designated terrorist group; Palestinian covid handouts for needy went to bankers, wealthy officials and Palestinian diplomats

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs to Biden: Do Not Sign the Iran Deal, It Will Start a War

"A few days ago, US officials announced that it was Iran, not America, that had given up core demands. They lie. Iran has not given up on anything essential. On the contrary, Iran has obtained the essential demands it wants." — Sayed Zahra, deputy editor of Bahrain's Akhbar Al-Khaleej, August 31, 2022.

"[T]he most dangerous concession made by the US was to waive the inclusion of Iran's expansionist terrorist role in the region, its threats to the security and stability of Arab countries, the terrorist subversive role that Iran's proxy militias play in the Arab countries, and the issue of the Iranian missile program." — Sayed Zahra, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, August 31, 2022.

"He [Obama] did not hide his hatred of Arabs and his admiration for Iran. What Biden is doing today is following the same path, with full conviction on his part." — Sayed Zahra, Akhbar Al-Khaleej, August 31, 2022.

"Syria has been taken hostage by a regime that is affiliated with the Iranians and Russians.... The Iranian regime...does not differ from the Taliban regime or from Islamic State (ISIS). Terrorism, destabilization, and domination of people are almost the only goals of such regimes." — Ibrahim Allush, Syrian author, Enabbaladi, August 28, 2022.

"Washington has been very late in holding Iran accountable, or at least trying to hold it accountable for the systematic sabotage that it has practiced and is practicing in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. This is the largest international sabotage operation that the Security Council has not been able to consider. None of the Security Council resolutions related to the region's crises mentions Iran, even though its role is essential in tampering with the four countries and destroying their institutions." — Abdul Wahab Badrakhan, Lebanese journalist, Al-Watan, August 28, 2022.

"President Biden's administration is trying to create an image in the eyes of the Americans that Iran's return to the nuclear agreement will bring it under control. Washington appears to be in a weak and precarious position, especially in light of the absence of an armed option." — Emil Amin, Egyptian author, Asharq Al-Awsat, August 27, 2022.

"[I]f these billions flow into the coffers of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds Force, how will Washington guarantee the security of these countries [Gulf states, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen] ?" — Mashar Al-Thaydi, Saudi commentator, Asharq Al-Awsat, August 26, 2022.

The Arabs... appear convinced that that pouring billions of dollars on the mullahs will eventually bring terrorism and violence to the US and the other Western powers involved in the new deal, if not a major war.

Report: UN refugee agency accepted $50 million from US-designated terrorist group

The U.N. agency responsible for assisting refugees globally has accepted $50 million in donations from a U.S.-designated terror organization, according to a report from a pro-Israel advocacy group.

The Union of Good is a Saudi Arabia-based umbrella organization consisting of more than 50 Islamic charities and funds. It is designated by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group, which allows the United States to block the assets of foreign individuals and entities that commit, or pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism.

The international nonprofit Israel-education organization StandWithUs recently uncovered that member charities of the Union of Good fundraising organization, designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2008 for supporting terrorism, have channeled the money to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Since 2012, the UNHCR has accepted approximately $49 million from the Qatar Charity, along with another $4.75 million from the Eid Charity over the last two years. Eid Charity founder Abdul Rahman Al Nuaimi has been designated as a terrorist by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the U.N. Security Council for his support of Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.

Addameer is a terrorist group and affiliate of PFLP. Shtayyeh literally signs of on PA salary checks to murderers of Jews & Israelis.

This is what #EU refers to as “likeminded.”@eu_eeas @EUpalestinians @EUinIsrael https://t.co/OklaqhzhEx
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 6, 2022

It’s come to light that antisemite Linda Sarsour and her group ‘Mpower Change’ are behind Ariel Koren’s sudden attack on Google over their business relationship with Israel.

Hamas is also endorsing Koren#NoTechForApartheidCampaign ?? pic.twitter.com/75odWzw7nD
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) September 6, 2022

Turkey state media, clearly with approval from the top levels, slams Israel's partnership with Google, even as Ankara pretends it is doing outreach to Israel; Ankara's state propaganda media might be more believable on these critiques if Ankara wasn't suppressing dissent...
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) September 6, 2022

Palestinian covid handouts for needy went to bankers, wealthy officials and Palestinian diplomats

Palestinian officials, bankers and diplomats fraudulently received Covid aid payments intended to help the poorest West Bank families.

A report by the Palestinian Authority (PA) State Audit Bureau found that some beneficiaries of the £15 million Covid relief fund — for “the neediest and most marginalised” — were working from home on £4,000 a month.

They were still in well-paid jobs at PA ministries, universities, banks and telecommunications firms.

Although the fund was set up by the local private sector and Arab donors, the revelations raise serious questions about Britain’s involvement in propping up the notoriously corrupt PA.

Since 2008, the British taxpayer has given the PA regime about £640 million, mainly through donations for spending on health and education. On top of this, since 2011, £65 million has gone to support the PA security services, the brutality of which the JC disclosed last week.

The Palestinian audit found that up to six members of the same family had received Covid payments, when only one was allowed.

Aid was also given to people registered as directors of profitable companies or who had large shareholdings in stock exchange listed enterprises.

The corruption of the scheme — known as Waqfet Ezz, or the “Stand with Dignity” Fund — has been ignored by the international media.

Last week we exposed the Nazi-level antisemitism of Jordanian news site Sawaleif and its writer Bassem Yassin.

He continues with that theme this week, where he discusses the Jordanian conspiracy theory that Jews intend to take over Petra in Jordan:

“God’s Chosen” people believe that God did not create anyone but them, and that God gave us our necks to be their slaves, so he overwhelmed and subjugated. Their history is distorted, their religion is closed, and their book - the Talmud - is false tales and fabricated superstitions, written by rabbis to serve their world and their interests.

What is happening in Petra, and the Jewish deception that is plotting for it, must be countered with an awareness media campaign, a strict parliamentary stance, decisive official decisions, a re-reading of the Wadi Treaty - the chariot that opened the doors for the Zionists, supposedly to visit us in peace, armed with malicious intentions and Talmudic dreams.

Jordan's ostrich policy tempts the Zionists to stretch and relax. Here is our proof that the Jewish extremists perform their rituals and release their psalms in Jordan's Petra comfortably - in our ears and under our eyes?! Absolutely frankly, we feel oppressed when we see the extremists in their religious clothes, doing what they like in Petra, the jewel of the Jordanian desert.

Arab antisemitism has always been in the form of an inferiority complex. Jews like to visit Petra but no one claims it as part of Israel. Yet Yassin is not only threatened by them, but their very existence - wearing their "religious clothes" - is "oppressive" to him.

If Jordanians were confident in their own heritage, they wouldn't be bothered by Jews visiting, just as Israelis are not threatened by Muslims respectfully visiting the Kotel.

One other interesting thing Yassin says, that the Nabateans who built Petra "spoke Arabic, not Hebrew." Actually, they spoke a version of Aramaic, and their alphabet would look familiar to any Hebrew speaker:

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

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Palestinians freak out over a cell phone playing a shofar blast on the Temple Mount

Arutz-7 reports:

On Sunday morning, former Knesset member Yehuda Glick visited the Temple Mount and was detained by police after broadcasting the sound of the shofar (a ram's horn, blown daily in the month leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment) via his cell phone.

Documentation from the scene shows Glick broadcasting the shofar blast via what appears to be a YouTube application, and a police officer approaching him just minutes later, and detaining him.

That ten second video has already caused hours of angst from Palestinian politicians and media, who are reporting the event as if Glick actually blew a shofar.

The Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs issued a statement with its usual run-on sentences:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants condemns in the strongest terms the incursions of settlers and extremist Jews into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which take place daily and in two time periods under the supervision, organization and protection of the occupying state and its various arms, and the extremist settlement associations that boast daily and reveal their plans targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque and building the alleged temple in its place, including the storming that occurred yesterday, led by the extremist rabbi Yehuda Glick and his feet blowing the trumpet during his storming of the mosque and spreading provocative pictures on several Israeli platforms, in addition to these groups dancing and singing loudly and performing Talmudic rituals in the mosque’s courtyards, and the campaign of targeting and the continuous expulsion of his guards and the Islamic Endowment Department on the way to withdraw more of its powers and obstructing the performance of its legal, religious and administrative duties towards the mosque.The Ministry considers with great seriousness the process of blowing the trumpet and considers it a dangerous escalation in the continuous Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to establish its temporal division in preparation for its spatial division, if not an attempt to impose full Israeli control over it and demolish it and build the alleged temple in its place, it considers this escalation an integral part of the Judaization operations Jerusalem, and one of the episodes of its annexation to the occupying state, changing its landmarks and its legal, historical and demographic location, completely separating it from its Palestinian surroundings and linking it to the Israeli depth, as it is an extension of the occupation’s open war on Christian and Islamic holy sites, cemeteries, and archaeological, historical and cultural sites in the Holy City, and falls within an official Israeli policy aimed at resolving the future of the holy city unilaterally and by the power of the occupation and in favor of its expansionist colonial ambitions, which leads to stifling any opportunity for the embodiment of the State of Palestine on the ground with its capital, East Jerusalem.

Notice that they don't mention that Glick was detained for playing the recording - or that the volume of the video was minuscule compared to the Waqf loudspeakers that blast five times a day.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem also condemned the fictional blowing of the shofar.

Palestinian media certainly accepted the ministry's assertion that a shofar was blown along with a call to demolish Al Aqsa with these sorts of article illustrations:

In other "Al Aqsa is in danger" news, there will be a meeting between Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian president Sisi today. The Palestinian envoy to Cairo said that a number of topics will be addressed:

He stressed that Tel Aviv wants to divide Al-Aqsa in terms of time and space between Muslims and Jews, pointing out that East Jerusalem is exposed to the implementation of Judaization schemes, and Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to daily incursions by settlers who practice dancing and striptease (nudity) in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa.

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!

Later this month, Ken Burns is releasing a documentary, The US and the Holocaust, on how the United States did not help Jews escape their doom.

Here is one example of how some Americans thought on the eve of the Holocaust.

William Bruckart was a moderately successful and influential columnist in the 1930s, who published a regular syndicated column called Washington Digest.

In December 1938, only ten months before World War II would break out and when there were no longer any illusions about Hitler's attacks on Jews, he wrote about how terrible Hitler was - but sympathy for German Jews was not enough reason for the US to allow Jews to immigrate.

Danger of 'Jewish Problem' for United States in German 'Purge'

Opening of Gates to Refugees Might Introduce Disturbing Influence.
By WILLIAM BRUCKART WNU Service, National Press Bldg., Washington, D. C.

WASHINGTON. — Press service wires and cables and radio from abroad have been clogged for several weeks with hundreds of thousands of words about the plight of the Jews in Germany; about the abuses visited upon the Jewish race by the European madman, Hitler, and his camp followers; about the humanitarian pleas of our own President, Mr. Roosevelt, for appeasement of the conditions. There has been what I believe to be one of the greatest waves of emotion, waves of resentful national sentiment, that this country ever has known. I recall none like it, none as overwhelming, none as deep-seated as that through which we have been passing, and in my opinion our nation should have resented such outrages.

While no one with a heart can fail to grieve to a greater or less extent about the indescribable harshness, the unforgivable meanness of Hitler, it occurs to me that we should begin to temper these waves of emotion somewhat. There are other factors to be considered, factors and consequences of the thing that is now called "the Jewish problem," that require calm reasoning. In other words, let us say that America is and must remain for Americans, and charity, while it is sweet, cannot be exploited, or carried to extremes simply because we feel a sadness for a group upon whom an injustice has been sent. Like millions of other Americans, I am hopeful that some way will be found to aid the Jews who are being driven out of Germany, but I am unwilling that we, as a nation, shall create additional and unwarranted difficulties for ourselves by extending a helping hand. Therefore, the United States must not be the goat.

It is one thing to render aid. It is quite another thing to inject into our own bloodstream of national life additional elements without knowing what those elements are. After all, the damage is something that we did not cause; the injured are a people who have no knowledge of our way of doing things and may never cooperate with us, and we must prevent being dragged into the other fellow's fist fight.

I suppose there are very few persons in the United States who do not believe that Hitler's "purge" of German Jews constitutes a blot upon modern civilization. I know that leading Germans in the United States wish there were ways and means to stop the action. There can be no defense of the outright seizure of $400,000,000 of money from the Jews of Germany under the guise of a "fine" although there is a lesson of warning in it. ...
....
The unwanted race is simply the victim and a knowledge of how its members have had the sufferings brought upon them adds little or nothing to the search for a method to protect their lives. Where are they to go? That is the real question. Hitler doesn't care where they go or what happens to them. Some one else has to lead the way. Our nation has joined in that leadership, and rightly so. But we have policies and principles and traditions which must be respected. If, in our eagerness to help the German Jews, we should transgress those established principles, then we, as well as the Jews, will have to pay a penalty.....

We ought not kid ourselves. There are many persons swearing allegiance to the United States who do not like Jews. Those persons may be otherwise good citizens, but they distrust a Jew because he is a Jew, making no distinction between individuals. It is stating nothing new to say that there has been almost a steady undercurrent of criticism of Mr. Roosevelt from certain quarters because Jews have been given prominent places in the New Deal. I think it is not stretching the imagination at all, therefore, to point to the Jewish problem as one that may become involved in politics at some future time, although I hope it never does.

Mr. Roosevelt has proposed removal of some of the immigration restrictions as a means of bringing into this country more German Jews than our immigration laws now permit. In so doing, he verged on politics himself. Any one familiar with the debates on immigration policies in the early 1920s must recall the severity of that battle. The issue was whether we, as a nation, were going to be haven for all corners and just hope that they would do things the American way, or whether we should restrict the number coming here to live to a number which could be absorbed into our national life. Labor unions and most employers favored the restrictions, and when we think of the number of unemployed in the last five or six years—people fed and clothed by the federal government—it appears that we allowed too many to come in. It seems we could have excluded all of them to advantage.

Behind the scenes of the immigration restriction also was a determination on the part of Senator David A. Reed of Pennsylvania, then a senate power, to prevent introduction into the United States of all kinds of "isms." The senator foresaw the spread of radicalism by means of entry of the European backwash and rubbish. There was not much discussion of this phase because our government did not want to offend any foreign nation. It was a basic reason, however, and it is too bad that it was not given more public consideration.

Fortunately, there can be no change in the number of foreigners admitted from any nation without action by congress. The United States can take only so many—something like 30,000 a year—of those purged Jews, unless congress amends the law. And when I say it is fortunate that there must be action by congress before there can be a change in policy, I mean no inferences.

In consideration of whether we ought to let a deluge of refugees enter, I cannot help thinking of a possible spread of trouble. For example, if our definite national position of protest against Hitler's policies should bring retaliation, every Jewish refugee allowed in this country would be clamoring for the United States to take revenge on Germany and Hitler. Their influence would be great because they could tell what happened to them and give an idea of what is happening.

As far as relations between Germany and the United States are concerned at the moment, all that can be said is that the United States has let the world know of its disapproval. When Ambassador Wilson was recalled, it was just the same as saying to the world of nations that Uncle Sam hasn't any respect for Hitler.

Bruckart isn't an antisemite - no, he really cares about the Jews in Europe. He feels very bad about them. He hopes nothing bad will happen to them, even though it is already happening.

But doing anything to save them? That's un-American.

His mention of Senator David Reed refers to one of the architects of the 1924 Immigration Act which was designed to limit immigration to the US, especially of Jews and Asians. There was an element of Nazi-style eugenics in that law: northern Europeans were considered more wanted and healthier than those from central and southern Europe, where most Jews were attempting to immigrate from. It reduced Jewish immigration by about 90%.

This article assumes that there were desirable immigrants and undesirable ones - and Jews were definitely on the undesirable side of the equation. Moreover, it implies that the many Jewish immigrants who had come to the US in the early part of the century were still not real Americans, and that they were radicals.

That next to last paragraph is something. Bruckart is saying that Jews who arrive in America would tell the truth about how the Nazis act, and it would be bad for "real" Americans to hear the truth because it might prompt them to do something to stop it.

I was curious whether Bruckart would have continued his isolationist position after Pearl Harbor, but we'll never know - he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1940 at age 48.

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09/05 Links Pt2: German president: ‘Shameful’ it took Berlin decades to agree on Munich compensation; The Munich Massacre also killed our faith in the postwar order

From Ian:

German president: ‘Shameful’ it took Berlin decades to agree on Munich compensation

Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted shame over the decades that it took for Berlin to agree compensation for the bereaved families of Israeli victims in the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, saying Germany had avoided responsibility over the massacre for too long.

“That it took 50 years to reach this agreement in the last days is indeed shameful,” said Steinmeier, standing next to his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog, with whom he will be attending a commemoration ceremony in Munich on Monday.

A row over the financial offer previously made by Berlin to victims’ relatives had threatened to sour the ceremony, with families initially planning a boycott.

But a deal was finally agreed on Wednesday offering $28 million (NIS 94.4 million) in compensation. It also — for the first time — sees the German state acknowledging its “responsibility” in failings that led to the carnage.

In a speech at a state banquet for Herzog, Steinmeier acknowledged that “our responsibility as Germans includes shedding light on the many unanswered questions, the blind spots of the attack in Munich — and also the blind spots in our handling of the attack since then.”

“For far too long, we did not want to acknowledge the pain of the bereaved families. And for far too long, we did not want to acknowledge that we, too, had to shoulder some of the responsibility: it was our job to ensure the safety of the Israeli athletes,” he said, noting that some of the members of the Israeli team had been Holocaust survivors.

On September 5, 1972, eight gunmen of the Palestinian terror group Black September stormed into the Israeli team’s rooms at the Olympic village, shooting dead two and taking nine Israelis hostage.

West German police responded with a bungled rescue operation in which all nine hostages were killed, along with five of the eight hostage-takers and a police officer.

The Games were meant to showcase a new Germany 27 years after the Holocaust but instead opened a deep rift with Israel.

Herzog underlined the pain faced by the bereaved relatives, saying they simply “hit a wall” whenever they tried to raise the issue with Germany or even with the International Olympic Committee.

“I think there was tragic suppression here,” he said, noting the litany of failings that were “inhuman and incomprehensible” such as “the fact that the hostages were being led to slaughter and the Games went on.”

After an initial suspension, then-IOC president Avery Brundage had declared that “the Games must go on.”

Forty years later, the IOC was widely criticized for refusing to dedicate a moment of silence to the victims during the opening of the London Games

Israeli President Herzog’s speech at the 50th anniversary memorial of the Munich Olympics massacre

Below is the full text of the speech delivered by Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the massacre of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics:

Dear families of the murdered athletes; survivors of the Munich massacre; Your Excellency, my friend, the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your brave and historic speech, which touched everyone’s hearts.

Your Excellencies, the Minister-President of Bavaria and Mayor of Munich; leaders and government officials from Germany and Israel; representatives and directors of the national Olympic committees; Jewish community leaders in Germany; loved ones, friends, families, and all those who cherish the memories of the murdered athletes, ladies and gentlemen.

“Why must my pain be endless, my wound incurable, resistant to healing?” So asks the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 15:18), and so we ask today. Even fifty years after the horrific murder of the eleven Israeli athletes here and in the Munich Olympic village, with inconceivable cruelty and in cold blood—the pain is eternal. That awful event remains a wound, resistant to healing.

All those of us who remember those dark and endless hours in that bitter September of 1972 carry in our hearts the same scar, the same moments in which we followed with excruciating anxiety and boundless concern the conflicting reports coming in every few hours from the Olympic village in Munich. We struggled to fathom that Jewish and Israeli athletes, judges, and coaches were being held by terrorists on German soil. We prayed so hard for a different ending. But our hearts were pained and broken; our hopes dashed.

Within a day, we received the most agonizing of news: ‘None survived.’ Although I was only a young boy, I shall never forget that awful morning, driving with my father to school and in the car hearing together the horrific news, and we stopped breathing. I shall never forget the tears that welled up in our eyes, the sense of total shock, the grief, the gloom, and the angst that engulfed an entire country when the so-called ‘Cheerful Games’ were instantly transformed into the darkest nadir in the history of world sports and in the annals of the Olympics.

PMW: After 50 years, Munich Olympics massacre still a “quality operation” in PA narrative

Fifty years ago today, the world was shocked when Palestinian terrorists from Fatah’s terror organization Black September broke into the athletes' village at the Munich Olympics on Sept. 5, 1972, kidnapped, and ultimately murdered 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Still today, the attack remains a dark stain on the Olympics and has settled in the collective global memory as an illustration of the horrors of terrorism.

In Palestinian ideology and memory the attack is just the opposite. It is a source of pride and honor, and PA and Fatah leaders glorify the murderous attack and revere its planners as “heroes” and role models.

When PA and Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently refused to apologize for the Munich massacre during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz when a journalist asked him to, Palestinian Media Watch published examples and pointed out that Abbas’ reaction was not surprising at all. Rather it was an expected expression of PA and Fatah ideology. The PA and Fatah are proud of the Munich attack, which ranks among the top “quality operations” and most “successful” terror attacks in Palestinian history.

The following are additional PA/Fatah outpourings of praise and admiration from the last 3 years for the terrorists and their act of murdering the 11 Israeli athletes:
PA: Black September terrorists “gave the revolution… sacrifice and heroism,” they “must have constant presence and special status in our people’s memory”

Official PA TV News, on the anniversary of the death of Salah Khalaf “Abu Iyad,” head of the Black September terror organization

Official PA TV reporter: “The 31st anniversary of the death as a Martyr of the three Fatah leaders Salah Khalaf, Hayel Abd Al-Hamid (i.e., one of the founders of Fatah), and Fakhri Al-Omari – who gave the Palestinian revolution a large measure of sacrifice and heroism – the Insan National Action Association, the “Set Your Goal” organization, and the Fatah Movement’s Jenin branch marked the anniversary under the auspices of the Rumana village council…

These activities were carried out with the participation of official and popular bodies and included planting olive trees named after the three Martyrs… They are among the movement’s most important patriotic schools that must have a constant presence and a special status in our people’s memory.”

[Official PA TV News, Jan. 11, 2022]

PA TV: Black September terrorists “gave the revolution… sacrifice and heroism”

Kenneth S. Stern was the lead author of the IHRA's (flawed) Working Definition of Antisemitism, and regarded as an expert on the topic. But his latest blog post at Times of Israel is incomprehensible, and appears to justify modern campus antisemitism.

What should universities do when those Jewish students who are also Zionists are told they are not welcome in progressive spaces? After all, why should any student have to choose between their identity and their desire to be part of a political community? And if that’s the “ask,” pro-Israel Jewish students, whether desiring to join a progressive group or not, get the message, hurtful to them and harmful to the academic vibrancy of the campus: they either have to self-censor what they say about Israel, or risk the ostracism and pain of social shunning.

...But groups also have a right to be selective, to set their own rules for membership. The potential benefits may include allowing members to feel they share something important (such as a women’s group or one based on ethnicity or religion). That applies to politics too. One wouldn’t want to force a Young Republican club to include a Bernie Sanders supporter (or vice versa).

...Groups – including those on campus – have a right of association. Most famously, years ago the organizers of the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City refused to include a gay Irish group. As much as I had wished the organizers had made a different decision, they had a right to decide what their march would stand for. Likewise Hillels have the freedom to choose what speech they will allow under their banner.

...Universities must not tell groups what their principles have to be. If Israel/Palestine is a contentious issue on campus, there should be courses and other initiatives to encourage deep discussions of not only the issue, but why it is so divisive, and of how students might maintain their principles while avoiding the too easy temptation to paint classmates with different views as racists or antisemites. But if a group decides that in order to be a member, one has to have a particular view of Israel and Zionism, the right to make that decision must be respected. Those not invited in, even though exclusion hurts, can find other ways to express themselves, including by creating new groups and coalitions.

No.

Stern has a point that campus groups have the right to decide on the rules of membership. It makes sense that a Muslim group or a Black group or a women's group define themselves as spaces where they can feel free to express themselves and feel safe, and not have to self-censor because an outsider might be listening. The same would go for groups for victims of sexual abuse, for example.

But political groups are not the same - there should be no litmus test to join such a group. Bernie Sanders supporters should be allowed to attend the Young Republicans club as long as they are respectful and not disruptive. This is true even if they will report back what they have heard. Group meetings should be public and the speakers and attendees should not say anything that they would be embarrassed to say in public.

Yet even if one accepts the progressive idea of "safe spaces" for political opinions, Stern goes way beyond that. He is saying that a group about climate change or against racism and sexism can exclude Zionists, even though that is not at all what the group is about. He says that any progressive organization, on any issue, can include anti-Zionism as a litmus test for attendance and membership.

That is absurd. If the organization whose purpose has nothing to do with Israel says all members must be anti-Zionist, they are indeed adding an antisemitic dimension to their group. The proof is that they do not have similar litmus tests for other political opinions - they do not exclude those who support the death penalty or Bashar Assad or Vladimir Putin. They don't ask prospective members their opinions on nuclear energy or Uyghurs. The only issue that they consider beyond the pale is Zionism.

That double standard is antisemitism.

Even worse, Stern downplays the pain of Jewish students who feel unwelcome from these spaces where they have so much in common with the group members. He disingenuously says that Zionists can simply create new groups when excluded from progressive spaces.

Really? Is it so trivial to create a competing Zionist group against sexual abuse or against racism, to get funding, to get enough members? That is nonsensical. And it is offensive.

I cannot believe that Stern doesn't realize that. The entire reason Jews created their own hospitals and medical schools and hotels and clubs a century ago is because they were reacting to systemic and endemic antisemitism. Stern is saying that we should accept modern antisemitism and act the same way our Jewish ancestors did in the face of bigotry.

He is saying to accept this bigotry and work around it, rather than expose it and fight it head on.

This doesn't sound like the position that someone who fights antisemitism would take.

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!

Protestors shut down Gaza UNRWA headquarters

This morning, angry protesters burned tires at the entrance of UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, upset at the lack of compensation for the 2014 Gaza war.

As of this writing, no Western media has even mentioned this. The main UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians is shut down by Palestinians themselves, potentially affecting tens of thousands, but it doesn't fit the narrative so it doesn't get covered.

The last such protest in Gaza was in April. But other protests against UNRWA happen often, especially in Lebanon. And they are equally underrerported.

Notice the amount of security that UNRWA uses in Gaza. Heavy metal gates, with spikes on top, and barbed wire atop that.

This is to protect UNRWA from the people it serves!

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!

09/05 Links Pt1: Kill Salman Rushdie, not the Iran Deal!; IDF probe finds ‘high probability’ soldier accidentally killed Shireen Abu Akleh; Liz Truss, Friend of Israel, Becomes UK’s 56th PM

From Ian:

'Kill Salman Rushdie, not the Iran Deal!'

The response to the assault on Rushdie is especially striking when compared to that of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and former government official, who broke with the Saudi government and moved to Washington, where he became a dissident and wrote a column for the Washington Post.

The brutal killing of Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi government was front-page news for many months and continues to be mentioned whenever Saudi Arabia is discussed, and always with the allegation that the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is personally responsible for the murder. After a few weeks of denial, the Saudi government accepted responsibility and arrested and tried the perpetrators. More importantly, the Saudis promised never to engage in extra-judicial and extra-territorial killings again.

The contrast between the two cases begs the question of why Iran’s now successful sponsorship of violence against Rushdie is being glossed over, even though Tehran also recently tried to assassinate several former US government officials who are now under Secret Service protection. The silence is likely because the Biden administration is desperate to re-enter the nuclear deal with Tehran, even as Iran reportedly refuses, as part of the deal, to renounce the prospect of killing US government officials. One view is that an agreement will also lead to extra Iranian oil barrels and thus a decrease in the price of oil at the pump, which will help the Democrats in the upcoming November elections.

Another reason why the perpetrators of the attack on Rushdie are ignored is because he is seen to have offended Muslims and insulted Islam. Khomeini’s false claims about Rushdie are taken at face value and thus he deserves what he gets just as the satirical journalists of Charlie Hebdo also got their comeuppance. This ugly logic, which masquerades as respect for other cultures, is insulting to Muslims because it associates their faith with Iran’s state-sponsored campaign of violence. And, in fact, a close reading of Rushdie’s books shows that he also had deep appreciation for the beauty and achievements of Islamic civilization—see among other books his The Moor’s Last Sign or The Enchantress of Florence.

Iran’s official response to the recent attack has been to blame Rushdie and claim that he deserved what he got while coyly denying direct involvement. The death sentence is still up on the Internet and praise fills Iranian newspapers for the attempt on the author’s life. In sharp contrast, the Muslim World League’s Secretary General, Sheikh Muhammad al-Issa, called the attack on Rushdie a crime that Islam does not condone. One of the leading Islamic authorities in the world, and a cleric sponsored by Saudi Arabia, condemned the attack as a criminal act, thereby rejecting the weaponization of Islam for political ends.

The difference between the governments in Tehran and Riyadh could not be clearer. Yet because the White House is intent on reviving the nuclear deal, large sections of America’s political and media elites seem bent on erasing reality in favor of a fantasy that a peaceful Iran will emerge after the deal and will be “integrated” with its neighbors. What happened on stage in Chautauqua, New York should be a warning that deal or no deal the Iranian regime will continue to pursue violent means and use religion for its political ends.

For Iran, It Is All about the Breakout Time

Over the past 18 months, the world has been watching the U.S. play a match of regional tennis: the nuclear talks with Iran. Tehran and the West have each been hitting the ball back and forth. We occasionally get news about the deal being "closer" or that the latest draft is "the final offer" and that it is "just a matter of days" or that "the window is closing." Both sides prefer this process to play itself out forever, very much like various inconclusive sporting events.

Iran is hardly the most pressing issue on the U.S. foreign policy docket. As for Iran, time is on its side, because a protracted process allows it to continue with the nuclear program. Enrichment levels have already reached 60% purity levels; Tehran's coffers from trade have been filling up, in part because of the rise in oil and fuel prices and Chinese consumption; and Russia has been buying Iranian arms.

The talks have allowed Iran to divert attention from what it really cares about: shortening the time it would take to reach a bomb -- the breakout time -- to zero. This means it would be ready to break toward a nuclear weapon once the talks collapse, and by the time the U.S. comes up with a Plan B, it will have already gotten a bomb.

For Iran, the never-ending tennis match is just a ruse for the real game. From what has been reported in the media, the breakout time currently stands at several weeks. One can assume that Iran will not be foolish enough to show their hand, holding some cards close to the chest. Thus, when the talks are history, they will break toward the bomb, and the U.S. will face an excruciating dilemma it had wanted to avoid all along: accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or a bloody war with the murderous regime in Tehran.

WSJ: Israel Makes Final Push to Shape Restored Iran Nuclear Deal

The Israeli government has in recent days broken with its quiet approach to diplomacy on the Iran deal negotiations. "This deal isn't a good deal. It was not a good deal when it was signed back in 2015. Today, the dangers it entails are even greater," said Mr. Lapid in a briefing to journalists last week.

A U.S. official said Israel's election season was partly responsible for the more heated rhetoric coming from politicians there around the deal, which is broadly unpopular in Israel. The Biden administration has kept Israel closely informed about the negotiations, said people familiar with the discussions, allowing Israel to nudge privately against concessions and potentially heighten Washington's sensitivity to Israel's concerns, leading the U.S. to tread more carefully.

U.S. officials say a restored deal would substantially curtail Iran's nuclear program, remove most of its stockpile of enriched uranium and oblige Iran to remove hundreds of advanced centrifuges that produce enriched uranium. It would increase Iran's breakout time -- how quickly it can produce enough nuclear fuel for one weapon -- to six to seven months compared with the current time span of a few weeks.

Israeli officials say restoring the 2015 deal now is dangerous because Iran has made so much progress on its nuclear program since then. The agreement has sunset provisions that essentially allow Iran to enrich unlimited amounts of uranium by 2030.