Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 08, 2024

04/08 Links Pt2: Biden would rather Israel surrender than defend itself; Hamas rejects ceasefire offer in Cairo; A paradigm for peace: Jordan as Palestine

From Ian:

Biden would rather Israel surrender than defend itself

President Joe Biden has tried to pretend that he supports Israel since the terrorist attack against it on Oct. 7, but he has made it clear he would rather Israel surrender than win its war against Hamas.

Biden is now telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “we won’t be able to support you” if Israel continues its war against Hamas, a terrorist group that slaughtered 1,200 civilians in Israel, is dedicated to destroying Israel completely, and is holding Israelis and Americans hostage. This comes after National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tried to claim that America’s support of Israel is “rock-solid and unwavering” even as Biden threatens to change U.S. policy toward Israel.

Meanwhile, Hamas has rejected yet another ceasefire deal. That makes at least three occasions since February that Hamas has rejected a ceasefire. In the meantime, Biden is calling on Israel to cease its plans to go into Rafah, where Hamas terrorists are again using Palestinian civilians as human shields to avoid being wiped out completely.

So Biden wants Israel to stop fighting and let Hamas survive, all while Hamas continues to refuse to stop fighting by rejecting ceasefire deals. What Biden is asking of Israel is to surrender, to let Hamas survive and regroup and continue to slaughter civilians and try to destroy the country. Biden is putting more pressure on Israel for trying to kill genocidal terrorists than he is on the terrorists who continue to hold Americans hostage.

Recognition of a Palestinian State Will Be a Victory for Iran and a Reward for Islamist Terrorism

The recognition of virtual Palestine is a victory for Iran’s ayatollahs and a reward for Islamist terrorism. A scourge controlled by the Iranian regime, which will soon have a nuclear arsenal, translates into a terrible calamity that will befall all the nations of Europe tomorrow.

In this tragic context, an official French confirmation to unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine will also confirm that France is no longer Israel’s ally and undoubtedly not a friendly country.

Biden’s America has the capability of preventing the creation of an Islamist terrorist state. The United States should stop publicly berating Israeli strategy and intervening in Israel’s political affairs. The American president should support Israel in its legitimate and existential fight against Hamas and Hizbullah and avoid, by all means, the creation of a Palestinian satellite of the ayatollahs in the heart of the Middle East.

Otherwise, the support of the United States for the European Palestine initiative will go down in the annals of modern political history as a great debacle of the West and a disgraceful cowardice about the Jewish State. It proves once again that Israel must rely only on itself and act according to its own national security interests.

A paradigm for peace: Jordan as Palestine

Recognizing Jordan as a Palestinian state, while maintaining its status as a monarchy, reflects the national identity of a majority of its population. Highly popular Queen Rania is considered to be a Palestinian (via her parents). Palestinians are a growing segment of Jordan’s political life and its parliament. The country east of Israel is viable with a relatively stable economic and political structure. And it has vast areas of unused land, but lacks sufficient people and water.

Jordan/Palestine can become an oasis. It needs water, which would allow it to extend its population centers eastward. Utilizing abundant water sources in Turkey and/or the Caspian Sea – the largest body of fresh water in the world – would enable it to provide agricultural products, develop business and industrial centers, and create regional stability.

Another population source to help develop its huge and basically empty eastern portion – besides its current citizens – would be those Palestinians who would either come from the West Bank voluntarily, or be sent there because, as mentioned above, they choose not to live under Israeli sovereignty or abide by its laws and ethos as a Jewish state.

This would also include any Palestinians wherever they may live, including those in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, as well as Arab residents of Israel proper. All of them would rightfully be citizens of this newly realized Jordanian/Palestinian state: the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine.

The possibility that Jordan could become an economic trade center was recently given a boost when Israel proposed a rail link between it and Haifa, which would connect it to European markets, Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. The recently rebuilt rail line between Haifa and Beit She’an is the beginning of this plan.

Jordan is a strategic partner of Israel and, hopefully, will continue to be. The Jordanians, however, have a responsibility to Arab Palestinians, and Israel should not be expected to bear the burden of providing them with a national homeland.

Recognizing Jordan as the Palestinian state is in the national interests of both countries. It will bring them peace and prosperity, and ensure their security and stability and the entire region. A Jordanian-Israeli confederation will replace failure and despair with opportunity and hope, and it will inspire creativity, cooperation and freedom – the raison d’être of nation-states.

Potential evidence that Hamas doesn't register terrorist casualties

I mentioned that the Gaza health ministry has been keeping track of the people who die in hospitals, or who arrive after they have already died. The demographics of those people are way different from the other set that come from "trusted media sources' - meaning Hamas itself, where nearly all the supposed deceased are said to be women and children, which is impossible.

But as I've noted, recently the health ministry has started asking families to register any deceased relatives who did not get registered in hospitals for whatever reason. They do some level of cross-checking against their citizen ID.

The demographics of the 2,367 who have been counted by this separate registration form are also wildly different from those that died in hospitals.

While 37% of the MoH casualties are military age males, over 56% of those listed on the forms are males between 18-65.

That is a significant difference.

This may indicate that Hamas has not been sending its dead fighters to hospitals at all, and just bury them (or leave them under collapsed tunnels.) Their relatives want them to be counted.

I have no evidence of this right now, but the fact that three data sets show such huge differences in the demographics of those killed makes it appear that none of them are truly accurate samples of the numbers of civilians killed in Gaza.

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!

Italian news agency ADN Kronos International has an Arabic language news headline claiming that a top Vatican official has compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

While the headline says this, the text does not seem to bear this out.

Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy and archbishop of Bologna, was interviewed - according to the article by Sky News, perhaps Sky News Arabia, although I couldn't find the article - and quoted him:

He is quoted as saying, “When we talk about genocide, it was a systematic extermination of the people of Israel, whose idea was unfortunately formulated and implemented by the Nazis" and then "What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a military operation that kills innocent people and children, which is something no one can accept.”

In response to a question about whether what is happening in Gaza can be defined as genocide, he responded, “We must, in any case, stop any action that causes many innocent victims."

It sounds to me like the reporter was trying to prompt the cardinal into making the comparison, and he didn't take the bait. But that didn't stop the reporter from putting his two statements together to imply that the cardinal was the one making the comparison, not the reporter him or herself.

This might be more a case of an unethical journalist than a religious figure saying something antisemitic. In October, Zuppi called Hamas "the worst enemy of the Palestinian people." Not that Zuppi is without blame - any decent person would immediately reject any hint of that comparison, especially one from a country that was a Nazi ally.

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!

04/08 Links Pt1: The Right Dishonourable Foreign Secretary; Germany Stands by Israel; Islamic Jihad spokesman admits taking over hospitals

From Ian:

In Six Months, Everything Has Changed for Israel

On Oct. 6, Israel appeared on the cusp of a new era of recognition from the Muslim world, close to a peace deal with Saudi Arabia that would move it to the center of a realigned Middle East after years on its fringes. The historic conflict with the Palestinians that had defined its existence for most of its 75-year history appeared to have finally receded into the background.

It all changed on Oct. 7.

Today, after a bloody attack that might have brought it the world’s sympathy, Israel is closer to being a global pariah than ever before. Its Saudi peace deal is on hold. The Palestinian question is again roiling its Arab neighbors. It is in open argument with its main ally, the U.S. And its physical living space has been shrunk by dangers on its northern and southern borders.

In six months, the world has turned upside down for this small nation. On Oct. 7—or Black Sabbath, as Israelis now call it—the Jewish state experienced a fundamental shock that upended its sense of security and belief in the strength of its military. It responded with a heavy-handed invasion of Gaza that in much of the world’s eyes left it the aggressor and its attackers the victims. The resulting isolation could be more of a threat to its future than the attack by Hamas that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7. “Israel’s longevity is in question for the first time since its birth,” said Benny Morris, an Israeli historian. The only time Israel faced a similar existential threat, he said, was in its war for independence in 1948, when it battled five Arab countries and local Palestinian militias.

The outpouring of global sympathy on display after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust has dwindled, having been replaced by images of starving and dead Palestinians in Gaza. Images projected across the world show swaths of the Gaza Strip turned into rubble. More than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose numbers don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

This week, the killing of seven aid workers trying to feed desperate Gazans appears to have punctured the notion for much of the world that the Israeli military isn’t running amok in Gaza and has caused a rethink by the U.S. about its support for Israel.

Normalization with Saudi Arabia is on hold, while ties with Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan have frayed. Pro-Palestinian protesters have thronged the streets of Western capitals, at times calling for Israel’s demise. A surge in antisemitism has shocked and alarmed not only Israelis but Jews across the globe. It is all strengthening a feeling inside Israel that the country can only rely on itself.

Israel faces a dilemma where it wants to be loved by the West, but needs to be feared by its enemies in the Middle East to ensure its long-term existence, said Micah Goodman, an Israeli author and philosopher.

“That’s the catch-22 we’re in,” he said.

Melanie Phillips: The Right Dishonourable Foreign Secretary

Is Britain’s Foreign Secretary unaware that Israel has again agreed terms for a ceasefire that Hamas has again rejected? Can he really not understand that the only conditions under which Hamas would release the hostages would be Israel’s total surrender and the release of all its Hamas prisoners?

Does he really fail to grasp that the hostages with whom Yahya Sinwar has reportedly surrounded himself are the Hamas leader’s ultimate bargaining counter to protect his life, and so he will never voluntarily give them up? Is Cameron really so badly informed that he thinks a man like Sinwar would choose to go into exile rather than die the “martyr’s” death he craves if he is defeated, taking the hostages with him? Does he really imagine that the unconscionable threat posed by the psychopathic, religious fanatics of Hamas and its equally fanatical patron, Iran, can be solved by political means?

Surely Cameron, with his first-class degree from Oxford and reputedly stellar intellect, cannot possibly be so stupid and ignorant as to think like this? But the only alternative to that is that he is driven by profound malice towards Israel. And Cameron is an honourable man.

Then comes the article’s zinger. For it turns out that Cameron is indeed well aware that Hamas has refused a deal that releases the remaining hostages. So he says:
We all want to see an end to the fighting, but we must face up to the difficult question: what should we do if Hamas refuses a deal and if the conflict continues?

What indeed. And then he comes up with this astonishing answer:
We cannot stand by with our head in our hands, wishing for an end to the fighting that may well not come — and that means ensuring the protection of people in all of Gaza including Rafah.

As an occupying power, Israel has a responsibility to the people of Gaza. But it also means that the international community must work with Israel on humanitarian efforts to keep people safe and provide them with what they need.

Ordinary civilians must be safe and able to access food, water and medical care. We need the UN, with the support of the international community, to work with Israel to make practical, deliverable plans to achieve this in Rafah and across Gaza.

He doesn’t want a solution that ensures the protection of all the people of Israel. He want instead a solution to protect all the people of Gaza — while Israel, the victim of the monster born from the people of Gaza, has to produce it. The absolute and overriding requirement to protect Israel against further genocidal attack from Gaza is nowhere in Cameron's vision. His only gesture is a meaningless bromide about wanting
the people of Israel and the people of Gaza to be able to live their lives in peace and security.

Yes, Gaza’s civilians should be protected as far as possible from the war — but this cannot take precedence over the requirement to stop Hamas once and for all. It is Israel that is threatened with being wiped out, not the people of Gaza. They are the unfortunate casualties of the Hamas strategy to maximise the numbers who die in order to turn the west against Israel — an infernal manipulation of gullible westerners that has worked to the letter — plus the refusal by Egypt to open its border to the Gazan refugees, and indeed the refusal by every other Muslim state to allow any of them in.

Moreover, the majority of Gazans voted for Hamas, still support Hamas, and exulted over the October 7 pogrom. Untold numbers of “ordinary” Gazans took part in that pogrom, murdered Israelis, took them hostage and are currently keeping some of them locked up in their homes where they are reportedly using them as slaves. And the vast majority of Gazans, when asked, say they support the further killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel.

These are the people whose welfare Cameron is more concerned to protect than the lives of the Israelis who would continue to be subjected to genocidal attack if he had his way.

This is presumably what he means by Britain aiming to “exercise leadership in the region and at the United Nations”.

For Cameron is an honourable man.

Kurt Schlichter: Israel Is Risking Losing This War by Caring What People Who Hate It Think

Israel is risking losing this war because it is focusing more on avoiding criticism from its enemies than winning. I blame Benjamin Netanyahu in large part, but also our incompetent and loathsome alleged president. Now, I’m not one of those reflexive Bibi haters, and while I certainly don’t think the United States should have a say in who Israel chooses to lead it, I do believe in accountability. The disaster of October 7 happened on his watch, and he should’ve resigned the day after, but that’s not up to me or up to any American. What is up to me as an American is who our president will be next year, and it can’t be Biden again. But the desiccated old zombie aside, Bibi needs to go. He screwed up on October 7, and now he appears to be screwing up this war.

The problem is not that Netanyahu has been too harsh, as our idiot president claims. It’s that Netanyahu has been too gentle (Yes, I understand a war cabinet is leading Israel, but he is still the face of it.). And too slow. Joe Biden has betrayed every ally America has had, from South Vietnam to Afghanistan and Bibi somehow imagined that creep would not sell-out Israel? Speed was of the essence. Why was Rafah not glass months ago? Netanyahu waited, and that gave Biden the time to sell out Israel.

Restraining was a mistake. The fact is that Israel has, to a far too great extent, tried to fight this war on terms that would satisfy its leftist enemies in the United States and other anti-Semites around the world. That was an error from the beginning. Israel’s strategy should have focused on victory, not on trying to mollify its critics. They will cry no matter what. Let them cry over defeated terrorists. Do you know what mollifies critics most effectively? Winning. Israel should’ve done that, and fast. But it didn’t. Despite the courage and skill of the IDF, who are a credit to their great nation, Israel’s leadership chose to fight this war and is still fighting this war in a manner that allows others who do not have Israel’s best interest at heart to dictate its strategic and tactical prerogatives. That is a grave error. That is putting Israel in danger.

Israel has three main related strategic military objectives at the moment. First, Israel needs to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Second, Israel must eliminate Hezbollah on its northern border. This Jihadi militia is dug in inside Lebanon with enough Iranian-supplied rockets to devastate Israel’s infrastructure, as well as having the ability to launch October 7-style attacks. And third, Israel must destroy Hamas in Gaza. A surviving Hamas can launch more October 7-style attacks and has promised to do so if able.

Muslims don't just deny 10/7 - but every massacre of Jews

Over the weekend, the Daily Telegraph published the results of a poll by the Henry Jackson Society that found that only one in four British Muslims believe that Hamas slaughtered and raped Jewish civilians on October 7.

I'm not sure why that is surprising. we've seen polls done in Arab countries where the percentage of Muslims who considered the massacre legitimate was at 88% but almost none of them thought Hamas did anything criminal.

And there is a rich history of Holocaust denial among Arabs and Muslims as well. A 2014 ADL survey found that among the (minority) of people in the Middle East who had heard about the Holocaust, 63% said it was a myth or exaggeration.

Arabs and Muslims deny any Jewish suffering in any context.

Just today, a retired Jordanian Brigadier General Aref Salim Alzaben wrote a bizarre article that cast doubt over the Kishinev pogrom of 1903.

Writing in Ammon News, Alzaben is angry that the Jewish Star newspaper in the New York area had republished part of Haim Nahman Bialik's 1904 poem 'In the city of slaughter' in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre.

He cannot see any comparison between the Kishinev pogrom that Bialik wrote about where Russians killed 49 Jews and raped a number of women, and October 7. To him, it is a slander that a Jewish newspaper would refer to a Russian pogrom that no Arabs were involved with.

But a stray phrase that Alzaben throws into the article shows the real Arab and Muslim mentality towards Jewish suffering: "the truth of that massacre was questioned by many international writers."

Who? Maybe some neo-Nazi blogger in his pajamas?

It doesn't matter - this Jordanian general finds it hard to believe that any Jews were massacred in Kishinev, one of the most documented pogroms of all time, so we can assume that he - and many others - deny any Jews were ever killed for being Jews.

It is all antisemitism that animates what facts they choose to believe and what not to believe.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Book review: Ethics of Our Fighters by Shlomo Brody

Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality, by Shlomo Brody, is an excellent overview of the ethics of war as seen through disparate Jewish sources, old and new.

Rabbi Shlomo Brody tries to synthesize what are often seemingly contradictory material to come up with a framework on how to look at various topics on the battlefield and beyond.

For nearly 2,000 years, these issues were only of theoretical interest because Jews had no political power. When modern Zionism came about, it brought up a host of new questions about self defense and the ethics of war which were tackled by Jewish philosophers and rabbis.

Brody organizes the book in a roughly chronological order of specific events that occurred since the beginning of the twentieth century and the new issues that came about. In early chapters he discusses the different viewpoints of rabbis toward World War I, the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations. For example, is pacifism a Jewish ideal, as Rabbi Aharon Shmuel Tamares argued?

One question is that the rabbis grapple with is whether Jews can be protected by the international community as promised by nascent international law and the League of Nations in the interwar years. It soon became apparent that the answer was a clear "no," as Brody notes, international law's protection for minorities was mostly a quid pro quo between European countries to protect the minorities of other Europeans, while all of them continued to persecute Jews.

Should Jews fight for their own nations - especially in World War I, when they might be attacking other Jews - when it is s a challenge to keep Jewish law as a soldier? How do rabbis deal with the seemingly problematic ethics of the Torah commandments to destroy Amalek and the residents of Canaan, and if they do not apply today, why not? Should Jews in Palestine actively defend themselves from Arab violence or trust the British to protect them? Can this defense include attacking the innocent to deter future aggression?

One theme of the book is that nations might claim to be acting for the highest moral ideals but they are usually guided by self-interest, not morality. However, Jews should be in the forefront of teaching the world ethics. Indeed, most western nations learn a great deal about ethics in war from Israel, whether they admit it or not.

Brody formulates several Jewish principles that broadly inform what Judaism says about war. He calls them The Jewish Multivalue Framework for Military Ethics. It is worth listing them here:

1. Dignity of mankind: All humans, friend and foe alike, were created in the image of God. This demands us to generally grant basic dignity to any person and not to cavalierly treat people as a means toward some desired end.

2. Inherent wrong of illicit bloodshed: The commandment "Thou shall not kill" is reflective of this deep theological principle and demands that we do not take a life lightly. In fact, the ability to avoid unnecessary bloodshed is one of the factors that make the Jews worthy of settling the Land of Israel.

3. Individual responsibility: Individuals bear primary responsibility for their actions and should ideally bear the sole weight of responsibility for their actions.

4. Vision of world peace: The ultimate biblical vision is for the cessation of all warfare and is a goal toward which humanity must aspires)

5. Take up arms for the sake of justice. ls Warfare in pursuit of justice: Until the Messianic Era, the Bible calls upon its followers to take up arms for the sake of justice. This can be:
- to defend oneself,
- to settle the Homeland, or
- to rid the world of evil.

6. Warfare, by its nature, is a collective affair. This entails citizens and soldiers endangering themselves for their nation alongside a willingness to kill individual members of the enemy nation. Accordingly, warfare creates a form of communal identity and responsibility .

7. National partiality: The primary responsibility of political leaders and citizens is to protect their own people. Israel goes to war even to redeem one captive. This is part of a general ethos that people have particularistic obligations to their family, comrades, community, or nation. These "associative commitments" create a moral obligation not to shirk one's responsibility to fight on behalf of the collective.

8, Bravery and courage: In warfare, bravery is a virtue and fearfulness is a vice It is virtuous to worry about killing someone illicitly, like Abraham and Jacob. Nonetheless, one must still fight courageously.

9. National honor: As with all actions, the honor of both God and His people is a factor. This includes:
- not acting in an unethical manner that will disgrace our reputation and
- not becoming a downtrodden people subjugated to mass ridicule.

He notes that they can contradict each other and circumstances will dictate which rules are more important in specific cases.

This complexity is part of the value of this framework. Too much of today's discussion of military ethics is narrowed down to a single factor: rights. Not to diminish the importance of human rights - they are rules #1 and #2 above - but there are competing values that are at play. One question Brody talks about at length is whether soldiers should endanger themselves to minimize the chances of killing civilians. While human rights advocates think this is obvious, the Geneva Conventions does not make such a requirement, and neither does any serious ethical system.

Other topics include the differences between obligatory and permissible wars, the moral dangers to the soldiers of getting too comfortable with killing, when war can be morally justified as a response to provocations that are not full attacks, and whether the "CNN Effect" of bad publicity should affect behavior in wartime. Jewish principles like dina d'malchuta dina (in terms of following international conventions) and chillul Hashem (both in terms of not allowing Jews to be persecuted as well as behaving ethically in general in wartime) are expounded upon.

Rabbi Brody's intent is to have Jewish ethics be part of the larger conversation taking place about the ethics of war. We have a lot to contribute to the issue.

Brody's knowledge is broad and wide; his extensive footnotes show how well he knows both Jewish and classic secular sources. It is a shame there is no index.

His acknowledgements are dated October 2023, and I almost wish he has waited two months to tackle the topics that have come up in the current war, some of which are a bit different than from previous Gaza wars. But it is still a timely and timeless work, and very much worth reading.

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!

04/07 Links: Is Israel Really Alone, When It Counts?; Mourner’s wreath sent to hostage’s family; Hamas May Have Baited IDF Into Striking WCK Convoy

From Ian:

Lee Kern: Six Months

It has been six months since the October 7th massacre. Six months since the hostages were taken. Six months since a war of extermination against us began. And that is what it is. A war of extermination. Not just against Jews in Israel. Against Jews everywhere. If they could kill us all in one go they would. If they have to do it piecemeal they will. If they can destroy us physically they’ll go for it. If they must shatter our spirits and see us retreat from the world they will. We are six months into this war that was forced upon us. Right now there is unresolved pain, unprocessed trauma and unfinished business. There is also uncertainty over what comes next. Horrors have preceded us, but there will be challenges ahead. I’m going to say one thing I want you to acknowledge. I’m going to say one thing in the hope it gives you strength. You - you the individual reading this - you have had six months learning to manage and cope with the most intense and difficult feelings. You are still here. You have had six months learning to manage and cope with a new world no one would think is possible to handle. But you did. You are now a master and expert at dealing with fear and stress and you will deal with whatever comes next. You are an expert and master at living life on the edge. You are an expert and master at keeping your head above the water. Whatever happens next, there is no one more expertly placed on earth to deal with it than you. No one more equipped to complete the task ahead than you. This is a truth as sure as our inevitable victory. I cannot wait to celebrate with you my friends, my brothers, my sisters, my soulmates, my beautiful Jewish tribe.

A letter from Israel

Explanations for how Hamas’s attack on 7 October was made possible are wide and varied. The right blames the army high command for being too left-wing and pro-Arab, and blames young people for dividing Israel over the controversial judicial reform bill. The left blames Netanyahu for focusing on politics rather than security.

There is also widespread distrust and fear about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the West. Many Israelis cannot understand why we do not understand that Israel is in the frontline of a wider struggle for democracy and civilisation. I do my best to explain that there are many in the UK and elsewhere who recognise the right and duty of Israelis to fight for their country. But when Israelis look at Western media, all they see and hear are ‘pro-Palestine’ protests and ‘pro-Palestine’ voices.

It is difficult for foreigners, especially non-Jews, to fully grasp the existential character of this conflict for Jews. This is a people who were murdered in their millions before and during the Second World War. Afterwards, they were unwanted and so they came to this patch of desert and mountains to build a fortress.

Today, Israel, a country the size of Wales, is surrounded by hostile nations and facing an almost constant insurgency. Israelis cannot afford the luxury of believing that they can survive without a fight.

But there remains a sense that things could have been different. Kibbutz Magen has a population of around 500. It is a prosperous-looking place. Low buildings with brown gabled roofs, lots of open spaces covered with lush grass. It is spring and there is pink blossom and white flowers everywhere you look. A herd of several hundred black and white cows is sheltering in assorted sheds. Swallows wheel in the air and hawks hover. All you can hear is birdsong. The occasional patches of wasteland are sandy, a reminder that this kibbutz is in the Negev desert – a desert that has been transformed.

The last thing Isi of Magen did as we left the hill, from which he and his friends fought off Hamas, was to gesture towards Khan Yunis. ‘This could have been a paradise for everybody’, he says.

Jim Geraghty: Is Israel Really Alone, When It Counts?

The Israel Defense Forces strike that killed seven employees of the World Central Kitchen on Monday may cause the Israelis more friction with the U.S. government than all previous military actions combined. A lot of people want you to believe that President Biden has turned his back on the Israelis.

But in the ways that Israel needs the U.S. to help it continue its war effort in Gaza, the Biden administration has quietly signed off and nodded in agreement. In late March, the administration authorized the transfer of more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs. Between October and early March, the Biden administration authorized the sale of "thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid."

President Biden may be raging about Netanyahu, but he is not actually willing to take a step that would directly harm the ongoing Israeli campaign against Hamas. It's in the anti-Israel movement's interest to act as if Biden is more opposed to Israel than he really is, because that makes it appear like they are winning the argument, and that the movement is powerful and influential.

Each week and month since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, world opinion has shifted against the Israelis more and more. The victims of Hamas have been quickly forgotten, as have the remaining hostages whom Hamas refuses to release, and whom Hamas men are almost certainly still abusing in the most horrific ways.

Funny thing is, as widely and furiously denounced as Israel has been over the past half year, the Israel Defense Forces' effort against Hamas just continues. Sometimes they have good days. Sometimes they have bad days. And sometimes they have extremely bad days like when the erroneous strike killed the workers from World Central Kitchen. But the IDF keeps going, no matter how much the rest of the world denounces them.

Two interesting things have happened recently with the statistics issued by the Gaza ministry of health.

Up until March 13, the MoH statement said - every day - that 72% of all those killed in Gaza since October 7 had been women and children, a patently ridiculous number as we've shown previously.

They no longer make that claim in their daily reports. And they seem to have dropped that claim just when articles started to appear that challenged the numbers as being essentially impossible statistically.

There's been another recent change in how the ministry reports deaths in the past week or so. They used to divide up their numbers into two categories, those that they counted themselves in hospitals and those that they received from "trusted media sources" - which is the Hamas media office.

For several weeks, the ministry has been asking people to go online to register the deaths that the ministry might not have direct knowledge of. I do not believe that they are trying to lie here: the ministry itself seems to want to count accurately, but Hamas forces it to issue the counts of total deaths that are much higher than they can verify themselves.

The latest detailed report from the Gaza ministry of health came out on April 4. Between the deaths they counted directly and those that people filled out fully in the online forms, the total number of deaths they count is 21,720 - 18,934 that they counted themselves and 2,786 from relative filling out their forms.

Here's their breakdown:

Women 4577

Children 7007

Seniors 1628

Men 8508

Total 21720

But the total that Hamas forces them to say, as of April 4, was 33,037 - a difference of 11,317 that they did not count directly or through the relatives.

If we assume that the 72% women and children casualties claimed has remained consistent from March 13 to April 4, that means that of the over 12,000 of those 11,317 deaths are women and children.

Which is literally impossible.

If we give the benefit of the doubt and say that every single death between March 13 (when they stopped making the 72% claim) and April 4 was a fighting-age male, that still means that 97% of the deaths that do not come directly from the MoH must be women and children.

Which is nearly as impossible.

Yet despite the numbers not adding up, UN agencies continue to parrot the Hamas figures. UNICEF's chief Catherine Russell tweeted that over 13,000 children had "reportedly" been killed, thousands more than the real number.

Most of the reporting of this war are based on lies. And it is outrageous.

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 origin of the watermelon symbol for Palestinians was a 1984 Israeli satirical newspaper article

The New York Times reported in 1993, in the initial heady days of the Oslo agreement, that "In the Gaza Strip, ...young men were once arrested for carrying sliced watermelons -- thus displaying the red, black and green Palestinian colors."

The story received some attention, since it was the first time anyone had heard of it. But Israel duly spent weeks checking the allegation and found no basis for it. An Israeli government press office spokesperson wrote a letter to the NYT saying, " Having investigated the matter with the proper authorities, I can state that such arrests have never been official Israeli policy. If such an isolated and unsanctioned act did occur, no individual was ever prosecuted under such innocent circumstances. As part of the confidence-building measures taken by Israel, a large number of Palestinian prisoners are now being released; none of them were put behind bars for carrying fruit."

How did the watermelon become associated with Palestinians?

The National tried to find the origins in 2021:

Another story involves artists Sliman Mansour, Nabil Anani and Issam Badr, whose exhibition at 79 Gallery in 1980 was shut down by the Israeli army as the artworks were deemed political and bore the Palestinian flag and its colours. Confronting the officer, Badr asked, “What if I just want to paint a watermelon?”, to which he replied, “It would be confiscated”.

Mansour, now in his seventies and living in Birzeit, remembers the incident, but clarified a few details for The National. He recalls that the exhibition in 79 Gallery was open for only three hours before soldiers cleared out the space and locked it up. Two weeks later, Israeli officers summoned the three artists, warning them to stop producing political paintings, and perhaps paint flowers instead.

“They told us that painting the Palestinian flag was forbidden, but also the colours were forbidden. So Issam said, ‘What if I were to make a flower of red, green, black and white?’, to which the officer replied angrily, ‘It will be confiscated. Even if you paint a watermelon, it will be confiscated.’ So the watermelon was mentioned, but by the Israeli officer,” Mansour explains.

He does not recall artists during this period using the watermelon as a political motif in their work.

It seems odd that both artists who were there at the time remember the events so differently.

The earliest I can find any Palestinian using that symbol was from the same Mansour, who painted "Watermelon Boy" in 1987:

But the earliest recorded association between Palestinian Arabs and watermelons comes not from Palestinians themselves, but from a satirical section of a left-leaning Israeli newspaper making fun of Israel's anti-PLO flag policy.

Chadashot ("News") was an Israeli newspaper that first published on March 4, 1984 by the Haaretz Group. It had a satirical section using the pun Chashadot ("Suspicions").

On June 26, 1984, Chashadot published a story about an Arab watermelon seller "Mahmoud Al-Batikh" (which means watermelon in Arabic) who was sentenced to five years in prison for selling items in the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Moreover, the joke went on, his sign said that the watermelon slices would be sold freshly cut "on the knife" which was considered incitement to terror.

The earliest known association between watermelons and Palestinian Arabs comes from...Jews.

There is one earlier association, though - but with Palestinian Jews.

David Ben Gurion did not want Zionists to be a colonial-type power that exploits the local population for low-paying jobs. He developed the concept of "Hebrew Labor" where Jews would be the ones doing all the blue collar work. In fact, he said years later that the kibbutz movement was not motivated by any kind of socialist philosophy but to attract Jews to do the kind of farm work that they rarely had the opportunity to do, since they were proscribed from owning land in most of the world.

Later, in the 1930s, Jewish farmers found themselves in competition with not only Arab farmers but also from imports. Zionists were urged to support the local Jewish producers to allow them to stay in business, and this became especially important when Arasb started boycotting Jewish businesses. This poster, circa 1930, urges Zionists to buy "Hebrew watermelons" with a symbol certifying that they were grown by local Jews.

There were similar campaigns to buy Hebrew cheese, butter, bananas, chickens, and fish.

(h/t Adin Haykin)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hamas credited with Al Aqsa not being destroyed by Jews this week

As we've been reporting, Muslim media has been saying for weeks that Jews planned to slaughter the scary Red Cow this coming week on the Mount of Olives and then destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque.

According to the Muslim sites, the Jews were planning to do the slaughter and then the destruction on Eid al-Fitr itself, which is this coming Wednesday.

But this year, as with previous years, the Israeli police have said the Temple Mount is completely closed to Jews during the last ten days of Ramadan and for the three days of Eid al-Fitr.

Which would make destroying Al Aqsa a bit more difficult.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is already crediting Hamas with having instilled fear in the Jews and stopping them from this planned destruction.

This is a pattern that has gone on for a hundred years: Arab Muslims claim the Jews are about to destroy Al Aqsa, it doesn't get destroyed, and they then congratulate themselves for averting that destruction.

Since Hamas has made the Red Cow into one of its major reasons for going to war, this gives them the bragging rights to say that they are the ones who averted the catastrophe.

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!

04/06 Links: Pres. Herzog: 'We will heal, build, and rise again'; Howard Jacobson: Jews are starting to lose faith; After Damascus strike, Iran’s goal: Isolate Israel, deter the US

From Ian:

Pres. Herzog: 'We will heal, build, and rise again'

Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Saturday marked six months since the brutal Hamas attack on Israel, which sparked the war dubbed "Swords of Iron."

"Tomorrow at 6:29am, we mark six months since the cruel terror attack and the horrific massacre," he noted. "Half a year since this crime against our sisters and brothers, against our state, this crime against humanity. Six months of a bloody and difficult war."

"Today we received the bitter news of the discovery and retrieval from the Gaza Strip of the body of Elad Katzir from Kibbutz Nir Oz. We met his beloved mother, Chana - whose husband Rami was murdered on that fateful morning - at the hospital after she returned from Hamas captivity. A noble soul. I send my heartfelt condolences to her entire family and especially to his kindhearted and caring sister Carmit Palty Katzir."

Herzog continued, "Half a year our sisters and brothers have been held by a cruel enemy, our hearts falter, day after day, minute after minute – with them, there. Half a year we, the entire people, accompany, support, embrace the families of the hostages. We never forget them or their loved ones."

"The terrible suffering of the hostages and their families inconsolably rocks our souls. Michal and I see this almost every day, when we meet families of those held in captivity, and make every effort to assist them, to offer them strength in their all-encompassing struggle, to open doors for them and to introduce them to leaders of the family of nations and international organizations. For half a year we have been moved by the strength and unwavering faith of these heroic families. The most fundamental covenant between a state and its citizens obliges us to do everything – with creativity, perseverance, determination – to act in every way to bring them home.

"For half a year the IDF and our security forces, in regular and reserve duty, have been operating in every arena, on every front, with all their might – to bring back the hostages and to fight terrorism. Half a year into the war, and even in these tense days, we know we have an army that will stand against every enemy, near and far. We hope for the success and safe return of the soldiers, embrace the bereaved families, and pray for the recovery of the wounded in body and soul."

Noting that not all Israelis have returned home, Herzog said, "For half a year many Israeli citizens in the north and south have not yet returned to their homes. It is imperative not to forget that this is a supreme national priority - to return them to their homes, and to assist them in rehabilitation and in building a life of security, prosperity, and peace."

"Half a year, and despite the pain and turmoil, I am full of hope and faith in us. For half a year I have seen Israeli society in all its glory: The mutual responsibility on the front and at home - despite all the disagreements - the commitment to life, the closeness to others, the unique Israeli resilience. For half a year I have seen so many Israelis doing everything for the better of us all. Half a year, and every day, I feel anew immense pride in being part of this people."

He concluded, "Half a year has passed, and it is difficult to know what challenges still lie ahead of us. But despite the long and difficult journey, I look at you, citizens of Israel, and I know - we will rise again, we will heal and build, we will plant, we will reap with joy what we sowed in tears, and we will prove to the whole world: Am Yisrael Chai!"

Howard Jacobson: Is this the end of Israel? Six months on, Jews are starting to lose faith

In defence of last year’s massacre, it was argued that it could not be understood independently of the circumstances that led to it. Hamas’s attack, its apologists insisted, was the child of the Israeli occupation. I have always resisted the word “occupation” because it suggests a pre-planned policy, rather than — as I see it — the consequence of all the wars between the two people, most of them instigated by the Palestinians, after which Israel found itself with territory it needed to demilitarise for its own safety. But alright — an occupation it became. After which, what were Palestinians expected to do?

The elusive two-state solution was presented to them several times. Not equitable enough, they said, even when it was the United Nations that had done the divvying up. “Don’t accept,” the cosmopolitan Palestinian writer Edward Said urged from the comfort of his home in North America. “Demand more.” Was he right? Wouldn’t an inequitable divvying up have given Palestinians better if not perfect lives? Well, it’s not for one person to tell another what’s fair. But right or wrong, there was to be no deal. And so the bloody impasse — a tragedy, as Amos Oz saw it, of two rights. Later, a tragedy of two wrongs. For calling it a tragedy, Oz’s erstwhile Palestinian supporters deserted him. Tragedy meant there was no villain. And the Palestinians needed a villain.

Netanyahu fitted the bill. Netanyahu put his hand out and took. In retaliation for which — though nothing in the history of the two people would ever justify its extreme and twisted violence — the massacre of October 7. But if Israel must take some blame for the massacre, the Palestinians must, by the same token, take some blame for Netanyahu, the lumbering, unsubtle child of unrelenting war, a man hardened in suspicion and fear who does not know the difference between justice and revenge.

To hold out against the Palestinian narrative of dispossession, while allowing that not all of it is fantasy or self-pity, has necessitated, these last few years, more flexibility of mind than dedicated anti-Zionists are willing to try. That’s how we know they are wrong: they do not attempt to understand their enemy and do not cry for him. Did Gazans — educated in their schoolbooks to loathe Jews — dance in the streets on October 7? Whatever the truth, may Israelis never dance the dance of blood.

The heart breaks, seeing the destruction of Gaza. But seeing the destruction of Tel Aviv will hurt no less. Do I fear that? Yes. I sense a change of mood. The constant chanting on the streets of London and elsewhere has, to a degree, contributed to that change. One lie, endlessly retold, can weaken the cause of truth eventually. But, all on his own, Netanyahu is enough to try the patience of the West whose leaders have little appetite for sticking to a mission. There is a flaw in our natures that leads to our growing bored with even the noblest causes, let alone those grown stale in their own complacency. Oh, what the hell. Enough of them. So those are swastikas. So what? It’s all just a matter of context.

I fear they — papers and commentators and politicians — are losing interest and sympathy at the same rate. They’ve heard it all before. We Jews need to find other ways to make our harrowing history compelling. We’ve tried losing. We’ve tried winning. I’m not sure what’s left.

Nations Aren’t People

There’s no need to revisit the “genocide” canard, but I will note that these are not the procedures a country takes when it’s looking to wipe out a whole population.

More to the point, it just seems improbable that a military willing to forgo the element of surprise to spare Palestinian lives would suspend all of its safeguards for the express purpose of killing non-Palestinians (including one American).

I generally don’t like cui bono arguments, but how could it possibly benefit Israel to do so? Who in command would say, “I know the Americans and EU are going to come down on us like a ton of bricks if we kill these aid workers, but it’s worth it”?

How this could possibly benefit Israel is an utter mystery to me. The only attempt at an answer I’ve seen—other than Israelis are monsters—is that they want to “starve” Palestinians, and so this was an extension of that alleged policy. Among the problems with this theory is that according to the people offering it, WCK wasn’t making much of a difference, given the scope of the food crisis in Gaza. If that’s true, surely it makes little sense to kill these people given the foreseeable blowback.

Again, I think it’s obvious this was the kind of mistake that happens in war, especially urban war, and particularly an urban war when one side—that would be Hamas—rejects all laws of war and has an open and admitted policy of trying to maximize civilian deaths on their own side.

This is the amazing thing about this war and why it confuses so many people. Normally when two countries fight a war, each side takes responsibility for taking care of its own people. In this war, Israel is expected to protect its own civilians but also be responsible for protecting—and feeding—Palestinian civilians. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t protect Palestinian civilians as best they can, nor am I saying they shouldn’t feed them as best they can. But a little recognition of the fact that this is a burden the “international community” imposes on exactly one country.

From the Biden administration and much of the media, there’s this amazing, twisted, morally deformed assumption that Hamas should not be blamed for anything that happens in Gaza. In the fringier corners of academia and activism, this belief extends so far as to make October 7 Israel’s fault, because raping and mass murder are inevitable acts of resistance to “occupation.” (Never mind that Gaza was not “occupied” on October 7.)

Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader, explained that because the tunnels and shelters underneath Gaza were built for Hamas fighters, the civilians on the surface are somebody else’s problem. More specifically, Hamas considers Palestinian civilian deaths to be a necessary sacrifice in the effort to bring international condemnation down on Israel and its allies. After six months of war, Hamas has not budged from its original negotiating position. But, yeah, Israel is being unreasonable.

I want to get off this subject, but it’s worth noting that despite getting its ass handed to it militarily, its territory pulverized, and watching thousands of civilians get killed, Hamas looks at the international climate, and the political climate in America, and thinks time is on its side. In other words, they think their strategy is working. They could only think this if they held the lives of Palestinians cheap, far cheaper than Israelis do.

Given how the Biden administration is wavering in its supposed “unwavering support,” Hamas may be right about its strategy working.