Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

03/19 Links Pt2: The Human-Rights Establishment; Leo Dee: We Are All "Settlers" Now; 450 Jewish creatives denounce Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar speech

From Ian:

The Invisible Weapon: Propaganda Operations Behind Global Antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian Narrative

Of the many, many world events that have surprised and confused me over the past 4 turbulent years, perhaps the most shocking was seeing mass demonstrations across the Western world in support of Hamas in response to their Oct 7th terrorist attack on Israel.

From street protests and traffic blockades to a flood of social media posts, a strong narrative has taken hold globally and is driving a mass anti-Israel activist movement. The narrative goes something like this: Jews are white colonizers who stole Israel’s land from the native Palestinians, created an apartheid state, are holding Palestinians in prison-like conditions, and are committing genocide against them.

Amazingly, every single part of this narrative is definitively false; yet it is widely and passionately believed around the world- especially among young people.

The goal of this text is not to prove why the narrative is wrong, as many other people are already doing so and the facts are readily available to anyone willing to do research. My goal is rather to bring light to the side that no one is talking about, to expose where the narrative comes from and reveal what might be the world’s most successful propaganda and psyop campaign, ever.

Could it be that the widespread falsehoods and misunderstandings about the history of Israel and the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians organically emerged and found ideological adoption around the world? It turns out, no.

In this work, I aim to clearly and concisely demonstrate how the Soviet Union and subsequently the current Russian regime have developed and propagated a fabricated narrative and recruited, trained, planted, and supported a network of agents to carry out a wide-reaching campaign of deception and ideological subversion with the intent to advance their geopolitical interests in the Middle East and beyond — and that this Russian effort is at the heart of modern day global antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.

In making my case, I will rely heavily on firsthand accounts from expert witnesses who held high ranking positions in Soviet intelligence and verified classified Soviet documents. By definition, the work of the KGB or any intelligence organization, if effective, is supposed to be undetectable and untraceable; which is why it’s crucial to rely on sources from the inside.

The Human-Rights Establishment

Past critiques have shown that regulatory and legal gaps leave significant flaws in how NGOs answer to donors and the governments of countries where they operate, as well as in their responsibility to affected communities when their projects and interventions go awry.

Too often, rights groups have been able to swat away allegations of bias without meaningful proof or challenge. Too frequently, NGO issues have arisen only to disappear from the radar as rogue incidents, rather than being connected as points in a possible pattern. There are too many examples of malpractice that have come to light only because of leaks, rather than because rights groups practice the transparency and accountability that they demand of others.

Shamefully then, they must be made to do so. The push for them to prove, not just claim, their rectitude must be exerted from without and targeted at what does matter to them.

Needless to say, the media must treat NGOs as they would any other source: critically and with fact-checking.

As tax-exempt entities under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, U.S.-based human-rights groups should face rigorous congressional scrutiny like that applied to similarly tax-exempt Ivy League universities in December 2023. Groups based in other countries need similar governmental oversight.

Human-rights organizations must also submit to independent, thorough, external reviews of their operations, with the findings made public — and not only after a reporter happens to find that such a review has been sat on for months.

These audits should include investigating their editing, corrections, and fact-checking processes, as well as complaint mechanisms, meeting minutes, research priorities, resource allocations, terminology, and organizational operations. Staff must be interviewed for their experiences related to workplace culture and management. (In nearly 14 years, I formally reviewed my managers once. Budget reasons, I was told.)

Concerned staff must speak out and join forces if they want to change the course of organizations they feel are gravely distorting their values. One place to start is for them to share their experiences so that the nature and scope of problems can be understood, a first step to forging solutions. NGO Confidential is a new platform designed for this purpose. The often-heard rationale that was my own for many years — “I don’t like what’s happening, but at least if I’m here, I can try to do something about it” — is doomed to fail if everyone thinks it alone.

Focusing on the warped thinking and practice, never mind the deafening silence of many NGOs on Hamas’s wanton savagery of October 7, does not abnegate Palestinian suffering or Israeli abuses.

Rather, pointing this out is to show that the failures of rights monitors before and after October 7 reveal wider problems so fundamental to accuracy and fairness that they ultimately collapse NGO claims to be reliable and apolitical when they serve as society’s presumptive moral ambassadors in the halls of power and influence.

And this focus is about noting the dismal reality that the capacity of people to rejoice at, ignore, and relativize Jewish suffering has historically often been the canary in the coal mine, a portent of society’s wider moral slide.

As such, the corruption of human-rights organizations is a warning light not just for Jews and Israelis, but for all.

Leo Dee: We Are All "Settlers" Now

The Gazans had independence for almost 20 years, after Israel evacuated the 10,000 Jews living in Gush Katif in 2005.

They have enjoyed self-rule and billions of dollars of foreign aid since the Disengagement, with UNRWA-funded schools and Qatar-funded mosques and hospitals.

By attacking Israeli kibbutzim and launching heavy missile attacks into Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Tel Aviv, the Gazans made something very clear. They regard every Israeli as a "settler."

This should not have been so surprising since Palestinians and their supporters have been calling for a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea" for many decades, a term that defines the entire State of Israel as their rightful homeland.

We are all "settlers" now. Hamas has made clear that they see no difference between any type of Israelis.

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, I suggested that some of the people stealing aid in Gaza might not be Hamas, but regular criminals taking advantage of the high prices for goods.

Times of Israel has details on the difficulty of delivering aid to northern Gaza from an anonymous aid worker who has made the trip eight times - and this aid worker confirms my theory. And he also confirms that it isn't Israel blocking aid, but the lawlessness and hazardous conditions.

Accounts from inside the Strip indicate it has become increasingly impossible for aid convoys to traverse the route from the south of the Strip, where Israel allows them to enter, to the north, where the worst hunger is.

According to Mark, who asked to use a pseudonym due to the sensitivity of the subject, as Gazans have grown hungrier, relief trucks are increasingly being emptied by both desperate civilians and armed looters before they can reach their intended distribution points.

Aid deliveries are exposed to lawless mobs and gun-toting criminals, making orderly distribution of aid rations to pre-approved beneficiaries a thing of the past.

On Mark’s last time joining an aid delivery, several weeks ago, the convoy was assaulted by armed men.

At around 4 a.m., as the motorcade of 10 trucks making their way to Gaza City passed Khan Younis and neared the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, the trucks were halted at an improvised roadblock set up by a local gang.

“We tried to remove the obstacles off the road, but a group of people with donkey carts standing nearby the road came in and threatened us with knives. We tried to negotiate with them and offered to hand out one ration per person off the trucks. But they didn’t want that. Basically they wanted everything,” Mark said, adding that each truck was carrying about 430 food packages.

These gangs, as well as groups of Hamas members, often hoard humanitarian aid from convoys, and resell it on the black market at highly inflated prices, ignoring the “not for sale” markings on each box of food or water.

Eight trucks managed to make it through and then the gang members got “desperate,” Mark recalled.

One of them pulled out a pistol, pointed it at the driver of the second-to-last truck, and threatened to kill him if he moved. The driver revved the engine and the looter fired a shot into the cabin, hitting the passenger seat.

“At that point, we realized it was going to escalate very badly,” Mark said.

The driver jumped out of the truck and was beaten up by the looters, who plundered his truck. He eventually managed to get back in his vehicle and return to Rafah. The other nine trucks made it to Gaza City.

Of course, some of the looters are Hamas but just moonlight as looters, since they have guns. Abu Ali Express documented one Hamas member who advertises on social media the water and diapers he has stolen, with his phone number.

Hamas may or may not be directly behind all the looters, but they benefit from the chaos.

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!

03/19 Links Pt1: The Strategy of Atrocity in the Gaza War; Saving Sinwar; Red Cross directly involved in PA ‘Pay for Slay’ policy

From Ian:

Saving Sinwar

Hamas’ leaders considered Israel’s willingness to release over 1,000 Palestinians for a single Israeli soldier a victory. Most of the prisoners were ecstatic about their release. But Sinwar denounced the trade. “He was furious, even though he was among those scheduled to be released,” Bitton recalled. He told me that releasing Shalit for a thousand Palestinian prisoners was “not enough.” All of the Palestinians in Israeli jails had to be released. He sent messages to Hamas’ leaders in exile urging them to reject the deal. But he was overruled by Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader and the founding commander of its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassem Brigades (Israel assassinated al-Arouri in Beirut on Jan. 2, 2024).

“Sinwar didn’t care how many Palestinians would die for their cause,” Bitton recalled. For Sinwar, “there was no flexibility, no room for compromise.”

While some Hamas leaders were political, Sinwar thought only about military operations and war. “He was always crystal clear: The struggle against the Jewish state must continue, no matter what he had to do.” If it meant agreeing to close the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza and arresting jihadists suspected by Cairo to enhance security coordination with Egypt, a main supply route to Gaza, that was fine. If it meant trying to reconcile with the Palestinian Authority, which Hamas had violently ousted from Gaza in 2007, by temporarily renouncing violence to pursue “peaceful, popular resistance” to Israeli occupation, which he also did in 2018, so be it. If it meant appearing on Israeli TV to call for a truce with Hamas, in Hebrew, he volunteered. His objective never wavered, though: Do whatever must be done to fight another day and free all Palestinians from jail. Sinwar believed that Israel’s prisons were “a grave for us. A mill to grind our will, determination, and bodies,” he said after his own release.

Having spent hours listening to Sinwar, Bitton had vigorously opposed his release, he disclosed. “I knew he was trouble, and that he would create even more trouble for us outside,” he told me. But he, too, was overruled by higher authorities—in this case, the Shabak, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, then headed by Yuval Diskin. “I wasn’t the head of Shabak,” he said somewhat ruefully. “I was just the head of intelligence in a prison.

Days after his release, Sinwar publicly blasted the deal he had opposed in jail. He also urged Palestinians to kidnap more soldiers to secure the release of his Islamic brothers in jail. “He told me that he had an Islamic duty to ensure that no Islamic fighter would be left behind,” Bitton recalls.

Bitton ultimately paid a personal price for the decision to let Sinwar go free. His 38-year-old nephew Tamir was wounded, kidnapped, and killed by the Hamas terrorists Sinwar sent to southern Gaza on Oct. 7. “I knew when I saw the photo of Tamir that he wouldn’t make it,” he said. “There was too much blood.”

Three weeks after Oct. 7, Sinwar once again proposed that all Palestinians in Israeli jails be released in exchange for the hostages Hamas had kidnapped during its killing spree and barbaric assault. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection was fast and furious. Sinwar, Netanyahu said, was a “dead man walking,” vowing to kill Israel’s No. 1 target in its massive offensive. Israel offered a bounty of $400,000 for information about his location. But Sinwar has so far escaped Israel’s wrath.

Last November, the Israeli Defense Forces claimed to have trapped the Hamas commander in an underground bunker after surrounding Gaza City. He escaped. Later, Israeli officials claimed he was in a tunnel in Khan Yunis. Social media carried photos at the time of a shadowy figure fleeing into a tunnel with his children and the wife he had married after his release from jail. Again, he escaped.

The Israelis now say he is moving constantly within the tunnel network in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where 1.2 million Palestinians have fled for safety. His presence there, and Israel’s assertion that four Hamas battalions remain there ready to fight, are part of the justification Israel has offered for its planned land offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s main supply area on the Egyptian border. Israel’s military claims to have destroyed or damaged 19 of Hamas’ 24 battalions, each consisting of about 1,000 soldiers.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 29 that Sinwar had sent a message to exiled leaders claiming that Hamas was winning the war in Gaza and that international pressure would soon force Israel to stop the fighting because of the high civilian death toll, which according to unverifiable Hamas and United Nations estimates, now stands at over 31,000 Palestinians. Israel estimates that it has killed approximately 13,000 Hamas fighters.

Safe in Qatar and Turkey, Hamas’ leadership outside Gaza took a different view: They concluded that Israel was crushing the group and seizing ever more ground, despite increasing pressure from the West for Israel to agree to a cease-fire. Yet according to the Journal, Sinwar assured his confederates that despite Israel’s tactical successes, Hamas’ four remaining battalions in Rafah were fully prepared to withstand a likely ground assault, and that Israel would ultimately yield to Hamas’ demands.

According to the Journal, Egyptian intelligence officials who have received Sinwar’s messages think he has “lost touch with reality.” Yet the success of Sinwar’s bloody Oct. 7 offensive and his presence on (or under) the ground in Gaza gives him credibility and authority that Hamas’ external leadership lacks. Practically speaking, the fighting will end when Sinwar says it does, so his assessment of Hamas’ strategic position and of Israeli psychology is the one that matters.

Whether Sinwar has become demented or merely diabolical, Bitton said, the Hamas leader’s hard-line stance does not surprise him. In his desire to rid Palestine of Jews for good, Sinwar has been nothing if not consistent.

The Strategy of Atrocity in the Gaza War

Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximize casualties among their own population.

Failing to swiftly destroy Hamas and directly punish Hamas's backers in Iran and Qatar will teach sympathizers in other parts of the Muslim world that strategies of atrocity should be added to the playbook of regimes challenging U.S. allies around the world. Even worse would be for Hamas to actually achieve a strategic victory and gain a Palestinian statehood; such an outcome would ensure that atrocity becomes a standard and widely used strategy for at least a generation to come.

The laws of war -- primarily a Western innovation -- are being weaponized by the enemies of the West, who do not subscribe to Western culture..... Today, the United States and our allies find ourselves at war with states and non-state entities who do not subscribe to the laws of war.

"[T]he Hamas terrorists killed by Israel in the ensuing war, and civilian non-combatants killed in the Gaza Strip while being used as human shields by Hamas. They are all considered "Martyrs" whose families are eligible to receive stipends of 1,400-12,000 shekels [$375-$3200] per month for life." — Itamar Marcus; Founder, Palestinian Media Watch, palwatch.org, January 10, 2024.

The popular accusation of disproportionality is, in point of fact, aimed to prevent Western-aligned nations from achieving decisive victories. Even when the allies of the United States have the military capacity to break the will of the enemy, thereby imposing peace on the defeated, they will be forced to resort to fighting forever wars.

Why should the Israelis be compelled to allow aid into Gaza, when Hamas continues to hold hostage not just Israelis but also Americans? Under the guise of benevolence and generosity, international organizations promote forever wars.

If the type of warfare that we have seen from Hamas is allowed to succeed, and is not met with overwhelming violence and utter defeat, it will become the standard approach for those challenging Western dominance. If, however, we want to live in a world where the laws of war mean something, then the penalties for deliberately flouting them need to be terrible. Otherwise more regimes will be tempted to gain advantage through strategies of atrocity.

The US should stop imposing on our allies a doctrine of defeat.

Finally, the day after hostilities end, the Israelis must protect the new Gazan government from being undermined by renewed efforts to support terrorism and remilitarization.

The only path to peace, other than the destruction of Israel, is through a comprehensive Israeli victory and an unconditional surrender by Hamas in Gaza, and a post-war arrangement ensuring that the Gazans will not be able to commit such atrocities in Israel again.

WSJ Editorial: Democrats Turn Against Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that “no international pressure will stop us from realizing all of the goals of the war: Eliminating Hamas, freeing all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.” That this is interpreted as a challenge to President Biden speaks volumes about the shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.

The joke around Jerusalem is that while Mr. Biden once worked to help Israel after Oct. 7, he’s now working on the “two-state solution”: Michigan and Nevada. Israelis notice that the President rarely speaks of defeating Hamas anymore. Instead, he bashes Israel under the cover of bashing its Prime Minister.

This dance is Mr. Biden’s way of catering to the anti-Israel left without alienating the bulk of U.S. voters who would find it unconscionable to turn on the Israeli people in wartime. What Henry Kissinger once said about Israel having no foreign policy, only domestic politics, Israelis are now saying about America. How else to explain Mr. Biden’s “red line” on Rafah, Hamas’s final stronghold?

Mr. Netanyahu says, “You cannot say you support Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas and then oppose Israel when it takes the actions necessary to achieve that goal.” To leave Hamas in power in Rafah is to lose the war, and to replace Hamas with Fatah is to lose the peace. That’s an Israeli consensus, not “Bibi.”

Israeli officials say the U.S. military understands that Rafah must fall, but Biden officials don’t. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that “our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake.” Yet none of their political solutions for Gaza can succeed if Hamas battalions remain intact. There will be no politics if Hamas can put bullets in the heads of its Palestinian rivals.

To condemn Israel, Mr. Biden trots out the Hamas figure of more than 30,000 casualties in Gaza. Why doesn’t he mention that Israel says more than 13,000 of them were Hamas fighters? The resulting combatant-to-civilian casualty ratio of around 1 to 1.3 attests to Israeli accuracy and restraint, but that isn’t what they want to hear in Dearborn, Mich.

From Reuters:

The U.N. children's agency said on Sunday over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza in Israel's offensive, opens new tab, adding many kids were suffering from severe malnutrition and did not "even have the energy to cry."

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell did not provide a source for the child fatality figure during an interview with CBS News.

When asked if Russell was referring to the agency's own estimate or was basing the figure on reporting from authorities in Hamas-governed Gaza, a UNICEF spokesperson pointed to a press statement by the U.N. children's agency that attributed the figure to Gaza's health ministry.

It is yet another instance of Hamas statistics being laundered through UN organizations.

As I reported yesterday, the vast majority of deaths reported by the health ministry since January 1 have not come directly from hospitals but from "trusted media sources," meaning Hamas. While the ministry directly counted 890 women and children killed since January 1, it also parrots the supposed deaths of 6,000 more women and children from Hamas in that same time period.

The "trusted media sources" claim 89% of the fatalities that they count outside the MoH are women and children.

Why does UNICEF believe these numbers? Part of it is because dead Gaza kids mean more funding for UNICEF. There is no incentive to disprove the Hamas numbers, and great incentive to believe them.

But there is another side to the equation, which is the desire to believe that Israel is targeting children. UN agencies and organizations follow the theme that Israel is one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, so they will highlight any information from any source that confirms their antisemitic bias - and discount anything that contradicts it.

The entire world eagerly accepts the lies of a murderous terror group.The only reason for that is because the entire world, including the UN, thinks that Jews are less trustworthy than raping, murdering, kidnapping terrorists whose strategy is to maximize their own people's deaths.

Expect other NGOs and the media now to quote UNICEF's false statistics, that came from Hamas via a "health ministry" that routinely lies about Israel and that officially supports Hamas war crimes.

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!

Ahead of the IDF raid against Hamas terrorists at Shifa Medical Center on Monday, the Gaza Ministry of Health called on international NGOs to act as human shields to protect them.

In a statement that also accused Israel of deliberately destroying Gazas' health system and violating the Geneva Conventions, the ministry said, "We call on international institutions to immediately go to Al-Shifa Medical Complex to protect it and everyone inside it and prevent the specific Israeli targeting of it."

There is no way that the administrators at Shifa didn't know Hamas was hiding inside. A top leader of Hamas' Interior Ministry had an office there. There were weapons caches and safes filled with terrorist money there.

That means they are asking NGOs to be human shields for Hamas.

In the name of international law, the ministry called for a violation of international law.

Moreover, the hospital and Health Ministry knowingly turned their patients themselves into human shields to protect Hamas. And not for the first time, either.

Speaking of international law, Israel scrupulously followed it to the letter in the Shifa complex raid.

The ICRC defines under what circumstances an army may attack a hospital:

Specific protection to which hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used by a party to the conflict to commit, outside their humanitarian functions, an "act harmful to the enemy".

... Medical establishments and units enjoy protection because of their function of providing care for the wounded and sick. When they are used to interfere directly or indirectly in military operations, and thereby cause harm to the enemy, the rationale for their specific protection is removed. This would be the case for example if a hospital is used as a base from which to launch an attack; as an observation post to transmit information of military value; as a weapons depot; as a center for liaison with fighting troops; or as a shelter for able-bodied combatants.

Shifa was all of these.

But the attackers still have responsibilities even when the hospital loses its protected status, and the IDF adhered to all those requirements as well:

Before carrying out an attack on a medical establishment or unit that has lost its protected status, a warning must be given. Where appropriate, this should include a time limit, which must go unheeded before an attack is permitted. The purpose of issuing a warning is to allow those committing an "act harmful to the enemy" to terminate such act, or – if they persist – to ultimately allow for safe evacuation of the wounded and sick who are not responsible for such conduct and who should not become the victims of it.

Where such a warning has remained unheeded, the enemy is no longer obliged to refrain from interfering with the work of a medical establishment or unit, or to take positive measures to assist it in its work. Even then, humanitarian considerations relating to the welfare of the wounded and sick being cared for in the facility may not be disregarded. They must be spared and, as far as possible, active measures for their safety taken.

The IDF did all of this. It brought in doctors and Arabic speakers to keep hospital operations going, it offered additional medical supplies.

It has killed 50 terrorists in and around Shifa - and no civilians or patients. That is remarkable. It shows meticulous planning and it proves that Hamas was using the hospital as cover.

Too bad the media doesn't point any of this out.

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 December, Israel agreed to a plan with Cyprus to allow aid to come to Gaza by sea. Ships would be inspected in Larnaca and then go to Gaza - a plan strikingly similar to the US and World Central Kitchen initiatives.

The Palestinian Authority rejected the plan, because of the theoretical possibility that the ships could be used to allow Gazans to escape to safety. And who wants that?

Besides thousands of Gazans, of course.

When President Biden suggested a similar plan in his State of the Union speech, the Palestinian government and cabinet were quiet about it. They didn't want to publicly say that they were against a US plan to bring in food and other aid, because that would make them look bad.

But now, outgoing Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh doubled down on his criticism of the idea of aid arriving by ship.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Shtayyeh warned that the sea bridge would become a crossing point for bringing in food but also a way out for displacing Gazans, "despite some reassurances about that."

This story says volumes about how little the Palestinian leadership cares about their own people. And this is the same leadership that the world wants to see take over Gaza.

Just another story that the mainstream media has ignored. But it is reported in Arab media quite prominently.

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!

03/18 Links Pt2: Hamas used Gazan journalists for the Oct.7 massacre; Glazer’s Oscars speech condemned by Son of Saul dir.; Berkeley Is a Safe Space for Hate

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: ‘History has come for Israel, it’s come for Ukraine and it will come for the West next’

Weiss is known for her coverage of anti-Semitism in America, and calling out its manifestations is one of the things she’s best known for. Her first book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, published in 2019, was spurred by the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh the previous year. But when we met in New York in 2021, long before the Hamas massacre of October 7, Weiss had told me that, as an American Jew, she’d always felt she could hold her head up high, in contrast to those of us in the Old World. “I had an arrogance, a sense that, you know, anti-Semitism was for Jews of other times, certainly, but also other places. And I remember reading about things that would happen, and places, especially like France, and thinking that could never happen here. I have been disabused of that idea.”

The America that has roiled and reared up since Trump, since the Black Lives Matter movement swept over, and since October 7, has illuminated a new reality for Jews in the US. Weiss explains: “When we’re free, when freedom and liberty thrive, Jews thrive. Because, by their very existence, Jews represent the freedom to think differently, the freedom to believe differently, the freedom to raise their families differently. What we’re seeing now is a turn against freedom. In the grand sense, there’s the turn against the idea, even of the free world and [there’s this] kind of moral equivalency, whether it’s from the Leftists who glorify Hamas, or Rightists like Tucker Carlson [who] glorify tyrants like Putin.

“It’s also coming internally from… elite culture here in the States. I’m sure it’s the same in the UK, where the ability to discern between free and unfree, good and bad, and better and worse, seems to have been erased. The fact that there are whole realms of American life where in order to succeed you kind of need to tamp down or hide your Jewishness is a sign of that.”

Weiss went on a trip to Israel in January with young producers from the Free Press. As well as having drinks with Douglas Murray, she interviewed Lucy Aharish, Israel’s first Muslim-Arab presenter, married to Fauda star Tzachi Halevy, who is Jewish, and held an event in Jaffa with Natan Sharansky, the human-rights activist and former Soviet prisoner, to whom Alexei Navalny began writing in prison. I ask her what she’d like to happen in Israel in the medium term, but she scoffs at the question, because she feels it’s none of her business.

“The thing that really struck me [about the Israel trip] was the clarity, on the right and left, like, we know what we’re fighting for. We know what’s at stake. We know how thin the fence is that separates civilisation from barbarism. And I think if you ask most Americans, even many plugged-in Americans, a question like, ‘Would you fight for America? What are you willing to die for?’ I don’t even think they would have the capacity.

“Many people, especially many of our elites, well, there’s no sense of duty and responsibility. Leaving Israel [was] walking back into a society that I don’t think has fully recognised the history that has come for Israel and has come for Ukraine, and maybe will soon come from Taiwan, will come for us. How can you even conceive of war if you don’t even understand what it is that people are willing to fight and die for? And what are you willing to fight and die for?” Weiss’s coverage of October 7 in the Free Press has largely reflected her stance of staunch support for Israel’s response and the moral importance of its fight for survival, especially in the face of global condemnation.

Fury over ‘sickening’ LRB article saying Israel leverages Shoah to ‘slaughter children’

For well-to-do Jews, Mishra argues, the Holocaust and an affiliation to the Jewish State, “turned into a badge of identity and moral rectitude”.

Now the essayist argues that “Gaza has become for countless powerless people the essential condition of political and ethical consciousness in the 21st century [...] it seems that only those jolted into consciousness by the calamity of Gaza can rescue the Shoah from Netanyahu, Biden, Scholz and Sunak."

Mishra goes on: “Many of the protesters who fill the streets of their cities week after week have no immediate relation to the European past of the Shoah. They judge Israel by its actions in Gaza rather than its Shoah-sanctified demand for total and permanent security.”

The piece has drawn widespread derision from Jewish figures. Writing in The Times, JC columnist, Hadley Freedman, noted “the left-wing intelligentsia only tries this kind of provocative thought experiment with Jews”. The JC’s Anshel Pfeffer tweeted, “There [are] plenty of ways of criticising Israel over the war in Gaza but writing 8000 words lecturing Jews that they are like Nazis and anyway the Holocaust actually wasn’t so special so they should stop obsessing about it says more about this pseud than it does about Israelis or Jews.”

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy, wrote that the essay demonstrated the major challenge of “Holocaust inversion, especially when turned against Jews in conjunction with sickening blood libels.”

Political correspondent, Lahav Harkov, called the article “disgusting”, and said the writer’s use of “the concept of the Holocaust as a ‘universal reference point’ is part of the problem [...] It led to the idea that the Holocaust was not unique, and was also some kind of purifying experience from which Jews were ennobled and therefore supposed to behave a certain way”.

The argument over the LRB front page is the latest in a history of controversy between the journal and the Jewish state.

On 18 October, LRB published a letter signed by hundreds of writers which condemned Israel but failed to mention the October 7 massacre. The letter claimed, “The State of Israel commits serious crimes against humanity” and accused Israel of “genocide”.

The Hebrew Writers Association in Israel, representing 800 writers and artists, wrote a public letter condemning LRB for their initial response to the war. The group then denounced LRB when they failed to respond to their letter.

Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech condemned by Son of Saul director: ‘He should have stayed silent’

László Nemes, the director of acclaimed film Son of Saul, has criticised The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars acceptance speech.

Speaking at the ceremony on Sunday, Glazer said he and his producer, James Wilson, “stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza.”

Glazer’s words have met with both applause and opprobrium, including from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), who on Monday called them “morally reprehensible”.

The ADL posted on social media: “Israel is not hijacking Judaism or the Holocaust by defending itself against genocidal terrorists. Glazer’s comments at the #Oscars are both factually incorrect & morally reprehensible. They minimise the Shoah & excuse terrorism of the most heinous kind.”

This sentiment was echoed by Nemes, who – like Glazer – won the foreign language Oscar for a film about the Holocaust; in Nemes’ case his 2015 movie Son of Saul, about a Jewish prisoner forced to work in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. US Holocaust survivors’ foundation calls Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech ‘morally indefensible’

“The Zone of Interest is an important movie,” Nemes writes. “It is not made in a usual way. It questions the grammar of cinema. Its director should have stayed silent instead of revealing he has no understanding of history and the forces undoing civilisation, before or after the Holocaust.

“Had he embraced the responsibility that comes with a film like that, he would not have resorted to talking points disseminated by propaganda meant to eradicate, at the end, all Jewish presence from the Earth.”

This is how Hamas used Gazan journalists for the Oct. 7 massacre

PEOPLE WHO HATE Jews can be journalists, but they should not be reporting about the Jewish state. Therefore, Reuters is wrong to continue paying for pictures from photojournalist Doaa Rouqa, whose social media posts, revealed by HonestReporting, have celebrated rockets fired at Israel and called Hamas’s attacks “brave resistance.” Last week, HonestReporting also revealed a disturbing social media post by Reuters Executive Editor Simon Robinson, who shared an extremely problematic essay titled “The Shoah after Gaza.”

There is also plenty of evidence of journalists collaborating with Hamas that did not come through HonestReporting.

The IDF revealed evidence that two Al Jazeera journalists were active terrorists in Hamas. Mohammed Wishnah held a senior role in the terrorist group’s anti-tank unit and taught young jihadis how to fire anti-tank missiles and make incendiary devices. Ismail Abu Omar was found to have accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel on Oct. 7, going to Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Gaza-based journalist Muthana Al-Najjar entered Israel on Oct. 7 and shocked Israelis with his stand-up to camera reports from Kibbutz Nahal Oz as gunshots were heard in the background. He did not wear a press vest or a helmet to make him identifiable as a member of the press, and clearly did not feel under threat from the Hamas terrorists in his midst.

Al-Najjar filmed the kidnapping of terrified Shiri Bibas and her small children, Ariel and Kfir, instead of trying to save their lives. He also shared a picture showing two of the terrorists triumphantly stepping on the body of a murdered Israeli, with a comment translated from Arabic: “Their dead under the feet of the warriors of al-Qassam Brigades.”

While Al-Najjar actively knew he was part of a Hamas plan, others listed here might not have. But the line in the Hamas document that Dayan revealed says clearly that the terrorist organization intended to take advantage of journalists, and on Oct. 7 it did just that.

After HonestReporting asked questions about the Gazan photojournalists, reporters from media outlets that we put on the defensive interviewed me and asked what evidence we had. When I honestly – and perhaps foolishly – replied that we had merely raised questions and did not claim to have answers, I was attacked personally and falsely portrayed as if I had backtracked and undermined my organization’s report.

Ilana Dayan’s report and the others mentioned here answer the questions and validate the work that HonestReporting is doing as a media watchdog. We asked legitimate questions, and now the answers are out there.

Times of Israel reports:

The Israel Defense Forces early Monday morning launched a raid on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, amid intelligence that senior Hamas officials were in the area and using the hospital to plan and carry out terror activity, the military said.

During the operation troops killed a senior Hamas commander, according to the IDF.

In one incident, the IDF said troops killed a senior Hamas commander, Faiq Mabhouh.

Mabhouh, who served as the head of operations in Hamas’s internal security, was armed and hiding inside the Shifa complex, “from which he was working to advance terror activity,” the IDF said.

Mabhouh was killed amid an exchange of fire during an attempt to arrest him, the IDF said. In a nearby room, the IDF said troops recovered a cache of weapons.

Mabhouh, according to the IDF and Shin Bet, was responsible for the “synchronization” of various Hamas units in the Gaza Strip, including during the war.

The slain operative was the brother of senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mabhouh, who was allegedly assassinated by the Mossad in Dubai in 2010, Israeli defense sources confirmed to The Times of Israel. Mahmoud Mabhouh was chief of logistics and weapons procurement for the military wing of Hamas.

But Hamas says he was an innocent police chief who was only doing humanitarian work:

The government media office in Gaza confirmed that the occupation had assassinated Brigadier General Fayeq Al-Mabhouh, who was coordinating with the tribes and UNRWA to bring and secure humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.
The media office said in a statement that Brigadier General Al-Mabhouh was carrying out purely humanitarian civilian work, and he should have been protected and not harmed in accordance with international law.
He added, "The occupation committing such crimes, killing civilians, and targeting those in charge of humanitarian work confirms that it seeks with all force to spread chaos and chaos in the Gaza Strip, and prevent facilitating the access of humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of hungry people."
He said that the assassination indicates that the occupation is determined to starve and deprive the population of access to food supplies, despite their limited availability so far.

Sure! Hamas police aren't also Hamas terrorists! And it is perfectly natural for them to secretly take over spaces in hospitals and bring in weapons caches. All normal.

I don't doubt that Al Mabhouh did some regular police work and that he was in contact with UNRWA. He was in charge of Hamas' COVID-19 response. But Hamas police have always also been members of the Al Qassam Brigades.

In Operation Cast Lead, Israel attacked a police ceremony and "human rights activists" screamed that police are considered civilians. 72% of the police who were killed were also listed as being Qassam Brigades members, and some 18% more were members of other terror groups.

At the time:

An email correspondent has sent me the legal justification for the IDF targeting the Hamas policemen, from Yoram Dinstein's "The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict," where he writes:
Can police officers and other law enforcement agents be subsumed under the heading of armed forces (who are legitimately subject to attack)? The answer to the question depends on whether the policemen have officially incorporated into the armed forces or (despite the absence of official incorporation) have taken part in hostilities. If integrated into the armed forces, policemen - like all combatants - 'may be attacked at any time simply because they have that particular status'.
My correspondent asked Dinstein in an email
1) In the case of Hamas police would it be enough to constitute that all police could be targeted? and 2) where is the line of 'taking part in hostilities'?"
to which Dinstein replied
1. In a non-State entity the difference between police and other armed groups is hardly perceptible. This is true not only of Hamas. In the Palestinian Authority, the "police" is the army.

2. In any event, direct participation in hostilities (the alternative) includes also training prior to combat engagement.
- (email Dated: 27/01/2009)

It is ridiculous to even consider that that Mabhouh was not also a part of the Hamas military.

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I’d rather write about the oranges of Be’eri (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

Have you ever seen the essential oil in a mandarin burst into the air when you peel it? Taken a deep breath, filling your lungs with the clean smell of citrus fruit, fresh and ripe, asking to be picked off the tree?

Last week I went to Be’eri to help the farmers pick their oranges and mandarins. The groves are straight, clean, and lush, full of fruit more delicious than any other I’ve tasted.

Two months after my first visit to Be’eri following the Hamas massacre, I still find myself reluctant to write about Be’eri. I’d rather write about their oranges.

It was January when I went for the first time, three months after October 7th. I thought I was ready to visit Be’eri.

I had already been to Nir Oz and Nirim, seen the destruction, and heard survivors speak of their murdered neighbors, those taken hostage, and what had happened to their families on October 7^th. As terrible as their stories were, I knew that what had happened in Be’eri was worse.

The Hamas massacre was so horrific that most of what happened was not shown on Israeli TV, to not traumatize the public. Numerous survivors refused to describe what they saw in detail because the details were too horrible.

We all saw the staggering stream of bodies being carried out of Kibbutz Be’eri. That image was deemed to be “clean” enough for the media to air. 97 people were murdered from a community of around 1200.

I didn’t see the Hamas livestream of their slaughter. I saw the videos and heard the testimonies of the rescue workers who desperately searched for the living and discovered people who had been tortured, raped, and burned to death.

I knew what had happened and thought I was ready to see Be’eri. I wasn’t.

My friend Eva Hetzroni lived in Be’eri, (2.5 miles/4 kilometers from Gaza). When Gazans rioted near the fence, burning tires (riots we now know were covers for practicing how to invade Israel), Eva told me of the air being drenched in smoke and having difficulty breathing. Helplessly I would apologize and sometimes afterwards I would cry that my friend was suffering from the hate of her neighbors.

No one prepared for the hate that would boil through the fence and incinerate everything in its path…

When things were peaceful, Eva would tell me about her husband Avia and her beloved twin grandchildren Liel and Yannai.

Eva passed away some months before the war. It took me a few weeks to gather up the courage to check what had happened to her family. The lists of the murdered and the hostages from Be’eri were so long… Avia was murdered. Yannai was murdered. Liel was murdered. Their great-aunt Ayala, “Aylush” (who was raising them because their mother had become disabled during childbirth) was also murdered. The twin’s mother, Shira, and her caregiver survived.

The front door of Avia’s house was still marked with Zaka’s sticker indicating that they had checked the house. There was also a piece of tape where someone had written his name: Avia Hetzroni, HYD (the abbreviation for May God avenge his blood).

Avia was a senior emergency medical technician and ambulance driver for Magen David Adom. Everyone knew him. He was one of those people that made others feel confident and safe. People turned to him for help because he always seemed to know what to do, and he did it with a gracious and generous spirit.

I braced myself before walking into the place where this capable man was murdered. It seems he was in the “safe room” when the monsters came. Although the house had been cleaned, the bullet holes remained, telling the story of what had happened.

Bullet holes in the security glass of the safe room/ (made to protect people from missile shrapnel, not terrorists shooting in through the glass).

Bullet holes through the outside of the safe room door.

Bullet holes in the wall across from the door.

The monsters shot through the window, broke into the house, and shot through the door to kill the man who helped save so many other people’s lives.

I was told Avia crawled, dragging himself wounded, from the safe room towards the kitchen. That image flashed through my mind before I could erase it. The room I was standing in didn’t have streaks of blood on the floor. Not anymore. Others had to deal with the reality of that horror.

Walking towards the house where Liel and Yannai lived with their aunt Ayala, I was struck by the beauty of Be’eri. The homes are comfortable and solid, structures that speak of easy living and permanence.

Other kibbutzim, as lovely as they may be, are different. The houses are often very simple, structures designed to be put up fast and provide sufficient shelter. After all, what do people need in a place where they spend much of their time outside and never lock their doors? The contrast between the lovely communities and the destruction wrecked on them is gut-wrenching. Of all the places I witnessed, the dichotomy is most harsh in Be’eri.

Heavy-hearted, I knew I was going to see the place where Liel and Yannai were murdered. I thought I was ready. Turning the corner, I felt like I walked into an invisible brick wall.

My eyes understood what they were seeing. My brain gasped, grasping for enough oxygen to process what was in front of me.

This wasn’t a terror attack. It wasn’t a battle. This was a war. Inside our borders, inside our homes.

I’ve never found it so hard to put one foot in front of the other. To go see, from close.

The smashed homes, riddled with bullets and charred by smoke don’t begin to tell the stories of the monsters who swarmed here destroying everything in their path and laughing with joy. They tortured children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. They mutilated, raped, and burned alive entire families.

And they did it for hours and hours on end.

I walked through destruction that told the story of the war that happened when the army finally arrived. Late and too few they came - not as they should have, an organized army ready for battle, but as individual warriors, heroes willing to sacrifice themselves to save others. They succeeded in pulling some out of the hell they were in. Other times, they failed.

They didn’t succeed in saving Liel and Yannai or their aunt Ayala. I was hesitant to walk into their home and did so with reverence, trying to imagine what they experienced.

Liel’s room had a blue wall with a decorative metal piece that looked like butterflies or leaves. The house, with things flung everywhere, looked like a hurricane had blown through it. The monsters barged in and dragged them to the neighbor’s home where they and others were held hostage for hours. Rage welled inside me to see that the monsters spray-painted the walls with writing declaring Allah’s supremacy and crediting their unit for what they had done to my friend’s family.

They had so much time on their hands that they could “sign” their work.

Swallowing my rage made my head hurt. I thought I was going to lose it when leaving the house, my feet crunched on beads strewn across the floor. Liel’s beads? Was it a piece of jewelry she loved or beads for handicrafts that she wanted to do? I don’t know. I only know that she should be alive and isn’t.

I would rather write about the oranges of Be’eri. Or their extraordinary printing business. I don’t want to write about the horror or the feeling of being violently violated.

Perhaps people who have experienced rape or had their home broken into can understand what it means to have your sanctuary, your home, your body, broken into and ripped apart in a way that makes it clear that what you thought was yours isn’t in your control. The violation that cannot be healed. The burden of knowing what happened which must be carried forever. The breaking of the spirit when you discover that you imagined yourself to be safe but it was a fantasy, not reality.

It’s not something you want to talk about. It’s not something you want to even admit to out loud. But we must. Otherwise, how will we live?

The people of Be’eri, like the people of Israel, are strong. Broken, yet still standing, we put one foot in front of the other and do what we must. There are houses to rebuild, although it will take a long time and enormous effort before they can again become homes. The printing house is working.
There are oranges to be picked.

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03/18 Links Pt1: U.S. Fails to Understand What This War Means to Israel; Hamas are cruelly turning hospitals into targets; Hamas Blew Gaza's Golden Opportunity

From Ian:

U.S. Fails to Understand What This War Means to Israel

President Biden's standing by Israel at the start of the war with Hamas will be remembered as one of the high points in the special relationship between the countries. But this has been blunted by the passage of time and the images from Gaza.

Biden's demand to increase humanitarian aid and related initiatives (airdrops, maritime pier) show that his administration has not internalized that the problem is not delivering aid to Gaza, but its distribution within it. Hamas will take control of everything that enters. It will use it to supply its fighters (and prolong their ability to fight) and strengthen its rule. The way to prevent this is to deliver the aid to areas where Hamas would not be able to access it.

The U.S. discounts the extent of public support for Hamas in Gaza, and the fact that it is entrenched in all spheres of life. The administration holds an optimistic assessment regarding the ability to bring about deep change through governmental models under Arab or international auspices.

America's vision includes peace agreements between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the establishment of a Palestinian state. But from Israel's perspective, normalization with Saudi Arabia will not compensate for Hamas' non-defeat. Talk of a "Palestinian state" after the Oct. 7 massacre constitutes a prize for Hamas and expresses a lack of understanding of the sentiment in the Israeli public. Anyone who thinks that after Oct. 7 Israel will take risks like those taken in the past lives in a fantasy land.

The Biden administration has not internalized that for Israel, the defeat of Hamas is an existential issue. It is not like America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were conducted thousands of miles away. Israel's deterrence that collapsed on Oct. 7 will not be restored if Israel stops short of meeting the goals it has defined for the war. The temptation for players in our region to attack it will grow.

WSJ Editorial: A "Revitalized" Palestinian Authority?

The Biden Administration is pitching its "two-state solution" to Israel with the lure of a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority. However, a new report by Regavim, an Israeli NGO, reveals a pattern of Palestinian police "turning their Western-supplied guns on the State of Israel" and then being glorified for their terrorism by the PA.

It specifically identifies 76 officers of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces (PASF) who have been killed or arrested while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis in the past three years. The latest example is Capt. Muhammad Manasrah, who shot up a gas station on Feb. 29, murdering two Israelis.

The PASF was created to fight Hamas terrorism in collaboration with Israel, but for too long it has abetted, committed or celebrated terrorism. A serious reform would begin by axing the PA's "pay-for-slay" program, which pays terrorists in prison as well as families of "martyrs," such as the Oct. 7 killers. A reformed PA would also cut the incitement to hatred against Jews from its media, sermons and schools.

The two-state solution is one of those diplomatic constructs that sounds nice but crashes against reality. In this case it's the reality that today's Palestinian leaders don't want Israel to exist.

Arsen Ostrovsky: Hamas are cruelly turning hospitals into targets

In principle, each of these hospitals, which Hamas has totally usurped for purposes of shielding their fighters and weapons, and using them as control and command centers, lose their protected status under international law and become legitimate military targets.

Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute and Article 52(2) of the First Protocol to the Geneva Convention of 1949 both make clear that intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and medical locations, can only be permissible, provided there is a distinct military objective.

In this case, the military objective is clear and defined: to eliminate the threat of Hamas, which continues to use hospitals and other civilian areas in Gaza to plan and execute acts of terror against Israel, as well as rescue the 239 hostages that the terror group is holding captive.

However, merely because Hamas has seized hospitals as their own personal launching pads, does not give Israel carte blanche to automatically attack.

International humanitarian law also dictates that, in the event a decision is made to attack a hospital or such target that would otherwise hold special protected status, there must be sufficient advanced warning provided that goes unheeded, and then ultimately, if an attack should proceed, that it still adhere to the principles of proportionality.

In each case, Israel has been providing repeated warnings for civilians to evacuate and have created safe passages for them to do so. In circumstances where warranted, the IDF have even aborted what would otherwise be deemed legitimate military strikes. In the meantime, Israel continues to facilitate the provision of humanitarian goods and medical supplies into Gaza, and to the hospitals.

Quite simply, the IDF have gone to unprecedented lengths, not seen in the history of modern warfare, to avoid and minimize civilian casualties, whereas Hamas are doing everything possible to maximise casualties.

Having discharged its duty to provide ample warning, Israel is also adhering to the doctrine of proportionality, that is, should there be any potential loss of civilian life, that it not exceed the military advantage to be gained from such a strike or action.

The goal here is clear: eliminate Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that seeks Israel’s destruction, and bring back the hostages, following the heinous October 7th massacre.

If the international community truly cares about the wellbeing of civilians in Gaza and is rightfully aghast at the scenes coming out of Shifa, it would be well advised to direct its outrage at Hamas, which continues to unconscionably and illegally, turn hospitals into their personal control and command centers.

This was posted on Hamas media. It's target audience seems to be whoever reads +972 magazine in Hebrew, because no one else would fall for it.

It shows Israeli quadcopter drones shooting at Gazans trying to get food. Of course.

Hamas is improbably claiming that any Israeli restrictions on food to Gaza is starving the hostages to death.

The thing is, Hamas has plenty of food. If the hostages are starving, it is because Hamas is starving them. None of the people we've seen in the videos of captured Gazans indicates they are starving.

The video tries to prove Israelis are immoral. But it shows Hamas is.

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