Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 25, 2023

Antisemitism embraced by Palestinian Christians just as much as by Muslims

At Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac set up a crèche with "Palestinian" baby Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh and lying in a pile of rubble.

As a supporter of the Kairos Palestine, Munther Isaac is an antisemite who espouses replacement theology. But I wondered if this Christian "peacemaker" ever once criticized Hamas.

He certainly didn't after 10/7.

His first tweet after 10/7 was a lie: condemning Israel for the jihadist rocket strike on the Al Ahli hospital. He never clarified or apologized for the slur.

To find a single word against Hamas, you have to go ten years back in his timeline, where he responds to a story about Hamas with the single word "Shame!" What did Hamas do? They cut off the hair of Gazans.

On the contrary - Isaac is at the very least a passive supporter of Hamas. The Washington Post described a group of Palestinian Christian leaders of which he is a member as considering Hamas "an organization that is part of the fabric of Palestinian society and seen as a standard-bearer of resistance."

So to this moral paragon, who has hundreds of anti-Israel posts and videos and articles, murder and rape and kidnapping and injury of thousands of Jews by Hamas is literally nothing to condemn on his timeline, with only a wishy-washy generic condemnation of violence when asked directly.

Isaac wrote an article about Gazans saying, "Where are they to go? There is no place for them in this world!" The irony is that according to some Christian sources, Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt shortly after the scene shown in Christmas crèches.

Yet Isaac certainly doesn't say that Gazans should be able to seek shelter in Egypt themselves if they want to. His concern for their lives doesn't extend quite that far.

A further hypocrisy is that this person who says Jesus was a "Palestinian" tweets about how it is awful for Zionists to use the Bible as support for their position. Yet Kairos Palestine uses the Bible to support Palestinian nationalism.

The problems go way beyond Munther Isaac and Kairos. Here is an antisemitic cartoon created by a Jordanian artists but published by a Western "pro-Palestinian" group that evokes the charge of deicide for Christmas and echoes Isaac's crèche scene:

Other Western cartoonists pretend that Jews are murdering Santa Claus' aid to Gaza, when in fact Hamas is the one murdering those trying to obtain aid - and has a history of stealing and attacking aid meant for Gazans, which is never condemned by Palestinian Christians.

Being an antisemite is bad enough. But doing it under the guise of being a good Christian, using the same justifications that Christians have used to persecute Jews for centuries, is unconscionable.

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!

Nazi-level incitement to genocide against Jews is now mainstream in the Arab world

There has been plenty of publicity about how antisemitism is skyrocketing and becoming normalized in the West, although not much is being done about it.

But at the same time, the already virulent antisemitism that has been pervasive in the Arab world has been morphing into justification for, and towards incitement to, the genocide of Jews as a whole.

Here are two examples from the past day alone that go beyond even what the Nazis published publicly.

Jordan's Ad Dustour newspaper briefly summarizes a brand new book, Jews and Violence - Book One - How Religion Becomes Evil

Author Munir Al-Aksh draws a complete historical picture of the Jewish mentality and argues that it is not a religion but rather an ideological hallucination or a “political programme” in the words of the philosopher Kant, and that it was formulated at a late date to measure the needs of its desert society that is cruel and expressed its spirit and the reasons for its violence and self-worship, and its dreams of inheriting other people's countries and depriving them.

These dreams and ambitions are what made these clans a functional religion, the most prominent of which is deadly violence, and which has:

(a) a sacred centrality called “the covenant”
(b) and a goal that sanctifies conquest, plunder and annihilation called “the Promised Land”
(c) and a sacred obligation called “self-worship”
(d) An exceptional hereditary (genetic) myth called “divine choice.”
(e) an absolute innocence from its Lord regarding “the right to sacrifice the other” and the permissibility of its existence called “The Curse of Canaan.”
(f) A ritual of worship that they call prohibition (slaughtering, destroying, and burning), thinking that their Lord is pleased with the smell of roasted corpses
(g) a warrior god obsessed with annihilation who “pushed” before her whatever nations of the earth she wanted to annihilate.

The texts from which the mentality was woven and centered around the idea of Israel, the “promised land” (occupying someone else’s land and replacing one people with another), put us before a genocidal ideology that can only be achieved through lethal violence. It is embodied today by the Jewish and non-Jewish Zionist movement. What the world is witnessing in Gaza today is a live ritual display presented by the religious government with audio and video of this genocidal and prohibitive ideology, which was and still is a cult of theirs that has haunted the idea of Israel since the day they believed that their Lord announced His marriage to Israel.

That's not even the worst example from Sunday.

Iraqi Shiite news site Baratha imagines a world without Zionists - and without Jews:

What would the world lose if the Jews became extinct?! Quite the contrary, humanity will have a good opportunity to live quietly and without the evils of this malicious sect. The idea is so wonderful that I can almost see the desert blooming, the earth getting excited, and millions of beings losing their minds from extreme happiness!

Jews are the curse that came from the worst dreams of the accursed Devil. Without them, humanity would not have known atheism, the theory of evolution, and racism. With their help, the prophets were killed, usury and immorality spread, wars broke out, and nations perished. With their dirty thinking, epidemics developed, the death trade became widespread, and the world turned into an arena of conflict in which man eats man and death spreads everywhere. .

If humanity had not known this malicious sect, it would not have known socialism, capitalism, and Nazism. It would not have known Zionism, Freemasonry, Illuminati, and Wahhabism. It would not have known the Cold War, nuclear and hydrogen bombs, and it would not have known corruption, anomalies, drugs, cancer, global warming, the right to veto, America, injustice, and oppression.

They are a dirty, atheistic sect that claims faith, a dirty race that considers itself the only one worthy of life, and a strange society that contains the essence of meanness, malice, and deception accumulated over thousands of years. Their history is rotten, their books are false, their principles are evil, their morals are malicious, their methods are satanic, their goals are ominous, their presence is dangerous, and their survival is not good for man or animal.

These people never lived among a people without their corruption, unrest, and devastation spreading, and they never moved to any country without carrying evil with them to it.. So it behooves all humanity to be hostile to them until it is safe from their evil, and I am not exaggerating here if I say that their disappearance is life and good, and their survival is death and evil. If humanity wants to live in peace, it must first stop their evil; And everyone who stands against them is on the side of truth, goodness and peace.

There is no alternative to God’s laws, and the path of Satan and his servants will end in failure. Everyone who stands against them will be helped and supported by God’s care. Goodness, which is the path to salvation, is in standing against evil, not by standing by and watching. The responsibility that one cannot escape from bearing is through awareness, work, and patience, and the outcome is survival and victory in This world and the hereafter, God willing..

Unlike the resurgence of antisemitism in the West, there are next to no articles condemning the incitement to violence that is now widespread. The pretense that arab media had in separating Jews from Zionism in the past 25 years has all but disappeared. The Jews remaining in Tunisia are frightened to death that they will be slaughtered at any time.

Western NGOs who claim to be supportive of human rights do not say a word against these explicit calls to rid the world of the evil of Jews.

In the competition of ideas in the Arab world, Hamas is winning by a landslide.- because there is next to no competition at all when it comes to Jew-hatred.

It took years for the Nazis to bring Germany, which was already predisposed to antisemitism, up to this level of hate towards Jews. We are witnessing the same level of indoctrination in hate in only weeks.

Unless something dramatic happens, I am afraid that we will see the small Jewish communities in Morocco and Tunisia subject to the sorts of attacks that were routine in 1948 and earlier.

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!

Abbas' Christmas message: Lies and libels

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas released his annual Christmas message today

As usual, it is filled with political opportunism and lies, dressed up as a message for peace on Earth where he pretends to represent a Christian community that has been fleeing in droves since the Palestinians ruled over them politically.

The birth of Jesus Christ comes this year, and the city of birth, Bethlehem, is experiencing a sadness that it has not seen before this day. The occupation forces oppress and kill the children of Palestine, and snatch the innocent smiles from the faces of the living among them, as none of our people, women, men, and the elderly, were spared. From this killing, terrorism, attempts at forced displacement, and the destruction of thousands of homes, it reminds us of what happened in the Nakba of 1948.

In 1948, Arab nations were places of refuge for their fellow Arabs from Palestine. In 2023, they have uniformly shut their doors. And not one Palestinian leader will say a negative word about them.

We hope that the anniversary of Christmas will come, and with it the beginning of a new year, with which hope will be renewed, life will be renewed, and the forces of evil will be defeated.

Guess who the "forces of evil" are? Hint: It isn't Hamas.

Here I say to our people and to our families who take refuge in the church in Gaza, and who were not spared from the barbarity of the Israeli aggression, and to all the people of Gaza, that your torments, and the torments of our people at home and abroad, will not be in vain, and that the sun of freedom and the independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital will inevitably come. But it's just around the corner. The river of blood, great sacrifices, suffering, and heroic steadfastness of our people on their land is the path towards freedom and dignity.

A reminder that on October 6, the Gazan economy was improving, thousands of Gazans had jobs in Israel, imports and exports were at record levels, and there was peace. Instead of talking about that, Abbas is singing praises for the Hamas murderers and rapists as people who are making sacrifices and suffering.

The brutal bombing committed by the occupation affected the Evangelical Baptist Hospital in Gaza,

Not Israel.

the Orthodox Cultural Center, the Greek Orthodox Church Hall,

Not targeted by Israel.

and the Holy Family Church,

Not Israel.

in addition to mosques, schools, and hospitals

Turned into military targets by Hamas.

...did not differentiate between a Muslim and a Christian, and the occupation’s aggression also affected the Christian presence...

Most Christians have fled Gaza since Hamas took over. When Israel wasn't there.

As for you, peoples of the world, we salute you and thank you for taking to the streets all over the world, demanding freedom for Palestine, and this is a pride for us and a defeat for tyrants.

Yes, shutting down highways and bridges so hard working people in the West cannot reach their jobs or their families is a strike against tyrants.

As usual, it is propaganda sprinkled with lies and libels. And no one seems to have a problem with that.

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!

12/24 Links: Hamas Failed, Israelis Are More United After October 7; Freed Hamas hostage: 'I was a prize'; Israel finds Hamas bomb belts adapted for kids

From Ian:

Netanyahu to Biden: ‘We will fight until absolute victory’

The Gaza war will continue for “however long it takes,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday night.

Speaking during a Cabinet meeting at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv on Sunday, the premier said, “Last night, I spoke again with President Biden. I appreciate the steadfast U.S. position—which supports our war effort—in the U.N. Security Council. I told President Biden yesterday that we will fight until absolute victory—however long that takes. The U.S. understands this.”

The prime minister denied “erroneous reports” claiming the U.S. had prevented Israel from taking action against other hostile entities in the region. (The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Biden blocked Israel from attacking Hezbollah on Oct. 11, four days after the Hamas attack on the northwestern Negev.)

“Our decisions in the war are based on our operational considerations, and I will not expand further. They are not dictated by external pressure. The decision on how to use our forces is an independent decision of the IDF and nobody else,” the prime minister said.

Netanyahu referred to the 14 IDF troops killed in action this weekend, including 10 on Saturday: “This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza. On behalf of all members of the government and the entire people of Israel, I would like to send condolences to the families of our heroic soldiers.”

He said IDF soldiers have killed “many thousands of terrorists” and will continue to grind away at the Hamas terrorist group until it is destroyed, the hostages are returned and Gaza “will never again constitute a threat to the State of Israel.”

Bridges of Trust between Israelis and Palestinians Have Been Blown to Smithereens

I live in Kibbutz Nirim, less than two km. from the border with Gaza. People from my community have always held our hands out in peace to the residents on the other side of the border. I have participated in a number of projects and interactions with Palestinians, to try to build bridges. I've worked with people from Gaza who understand that we in Israel genuinely believe in coexistence with anyone who wants to live in peace with us. I always tell whoever will listen that it is in our best interest to see them thrive and prosper and have good lives.

On Oct. 7, many of those bridges collapsed. People on Nirim were reporting in the kibbutz's WhatsApp group that they were hearing automatic machine gun fire and shouting in Arabic outside their houses. We were alerted to shutter and lock doors and windows, then lock ourselves in our safe rooms. The problem was that the doors of the safe rooms, which were built to keep us safe from mortars, rockets and shrapnel, as opposed to infiltration by terrorists, do not lock. When we were finally evacuated from Nirim on Oct. 8, we had to drive through an active war zone.

I had believed, when the Qatari suitcases of dollars were allowed into Gaza, that all our lives would be safer. In light of the discoveries made by our troops now fighting inside Gaza, clearly the money was invested in building an underground terror network instead of helping Gazans. I had faith in the belief that if we allow thousands of Gazans into our country for work, they would be able to feed their families and live better lives. We now understand that it was many of those people whom we were hiring who were busy at the same time betraying us, mapping out our communities, including names of residents and where they lived, in order to weaponize that knowledge on Oct. 7.

The trust we put in them enabled the slaughter of over 1,200 people and the kidnapping of over 240, many of whom were and are my friends. It is also what has caused those of us who live on Nirim and the other border communities to be refugees in our own country. Can any of us ever trust any of the Gazans on the other side as not being Hamas collaborators, or not betraying my safety because Hamas terrorists have forced them to, by threatening them or their family by putting a gun to their head?

I fear that the bridges so many of us strived to work towards have been blown to smithereens. In their place are the dark shadows of doubt and suspicion of our neighbors, and for that, I have Hamas and what they did to us on Oct. 7 to blame, as well as misguided citizens and countries of the world who embolden and support these terrorists.

I Just Sent Five of My Children to War

For the first time in my life I drove on Shabbat, taking my son to defend our people. The scene repeated itself three more times as I sent my other sons off to war.

I woke up at 6:30 AM this past Shabbat/Simchat Torah to the sound of thunder and my light fixtures shaking. I opened the blinds and the sky was blue but the thunder continued. I went outside and saw streaks across the sky.

I woke up my wife and said, “Miriam, get up, I think we are at war.” Neighbors slowly started to come outside to see what was happening. We all have kids in the army or on reserve duty. Most of our kids were home for the Jewish holiday. Since we hadn’t heard any news we didn’t know what was happening and we went to synagogue as usual.

There were booms and clear signs of the Iron Dome throughout the service. At 8:45 AM we had our first of what would be many air raid sirens. After a few minutes in the bomb shelters we emerged and went on with the prayers. We danced a little, completed the reading of the Torah and started Genesis.

During this time young men in my shul started to get called up from the army. I asked my youngest son who is in active duty in the tank brigade called Shiryon if he got a call. He went and checked his phone and that moment his commanding officer called him. He said that things were very serious and that he should start packing a bag as he would be called in later in the day.

My wife and I have five children (four sons and a daughter); three of them are married, and two granddaughters from my oldest son. I’m privileged that all four sons or ours are in the infantry and a daughter-in-law in the air force.

I was asked to lead the prayers for the welfare of the State of Israel, and the welfare of the soldiers, and the Mussaf service. As I put on my white kittel for the special prayers for rain recited on Shmini Atzeret and sang the words “to life and not death,” I could not stop thinking of the prospect of my son being deployed. The day felt more like Yom Kippur than Simchat Torah.

Over the past couple of weeks, nearly all of my tweets have been responded to - often immediately - with bots.

These bots almost always post in Hebrew, and their accounts pretend to be Israelis their names spelled in Hebrew. Many use names like "Schwartz" and "Cohen" and "Levy" and "Goldstein." The accounts will put lots of Jewish and Israeli symbols on their profiles, and even retweet pro-Israel accounts here and there. But their main thrust is to post Hebrew tweets that try to turn Israelis against the government and the IDF, and indeed against each other.

They claim Hamas is winning the war, showing Hamas videos; or that Israel isn't doing anything to free the hostages; or that Netanyahu must go. The messages are repeated verbatim among different fake accounts.

You can see here a number of bot responses to my "Shabbat Shalom" message on Friday.

And they have hundreds, maybe thousands, of bot accounts. Many were created only this month, but they appear to be related to pre-existing bot accounts that are more generic (no Hebrew names).

Many of the accounts follow each other, giving the impression of being a little less "bot-like."

I've reported and blocked hundreds of them but more are generated every day. Occasionally I'll see that some have been suspended, but it is a tiny percentage.

It costs money to set up a campaign like this. Not a huge amount - it could probably be done for a couple of thousand dollars - but large enough to see that there is an organization, or a government, behind the campaign, and someone who is refining the messages depending on the reactions. Laughable mistakes from two weeks ago are rarely being repeated (like someone with the name "Yaakov Rochel.")

Who might be behind it? I suspect Iran or Iranian proxies, and this article in Hezbollah's Al Madayeen seems to support that theory.

It talks about the importance of using the language of the Zionist enemy, and to understand their mentality, to sway their opinions.

Our tendency as Arabs and as Palestinians, specifically, to learn the Hebrew language is a very important strategy and method of resistance in managing the essence of the long-term Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not only from a military security aspect, but also from cultural, societal and historical aspects, it is necessary to understand the language of our opponent....Just as the resistance in southern Lebanon did in employing the Hebrew language and using it within the framework of the “psychological strategy” that expresses its doctrine regarding “media” and the importance of the cognitive and psychological aspects of the conflict between the resistance and “Israel,” so the Palestinian resistance did in the context of the current ongoing confrontation with the enemy. It seemed that the resistance’s mastery of the Hebrew language goes beyond describing it as a tool for communication and communication, but rather comes within its cultural and cognitive context as a tool for understanding others and their ways of thinking.

The resistance today realizes that victory is achieved not only by fighting on the battlefield on the ground, but also in the “media and psychological” battlefield. Propaganda in the “battle of awareness” is what creates victory, and because it is so, it must be managed in an intelligent way to yield the best results. In this context, knowing the enemy's language constitutes a great help in understanding him and identifying his weaknesses or strengths, which makes it possible to exert strong pressure on him...

The resistance emphasizes the importance of the “visual medium” that it broadcasts, which affects thousands of Israelis. Therefore, it is keen to film its actions and broadcast them in all available media, accompanied by Hebrew translation, victory music, or poignant comments directed, such as scenes of targeting enemy soldiers and vehicles, and pictures and videos of prisoners, Which the resistance continues to broadcast in parallel with developments in the internal Israeli scene, has a psychological importance that is equivalent to “combat achievement.”

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!

Is Hamas shooting Gazans while dressed in IDF uniforms?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Hamas has its terrorists putting on IDF uniforms to murder Gazans and blame Israel.

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council issued a press release claiming that the IDF rounded up 11 men in Gaza City on Tuesday, separated them from their families, executed them in front of their families and (depending on the "witnesses") either shot at or threw a grenade into the room with the women and children.

The claim is beyond absurd. The men are worth much more to Israel alive than dead. If the med were suspects, Israel would get valuable intelligence from captured prisoners, and they wouldn't miss an opportunity to see if any of them know anything about the hostages, as well as current command and communications situation with Hamas and other groups. If they weren't suspected terrorists, there is no reason at all to act this way and it violates all IDF regulations and policies.

There is no upside, no gain, no possible advantage to murdering 11 men in front of their families and then attacking women and children, and huge downsides (media, NGOs, being charged in Israel, soldiers running to "Breaking the Silence" and Haaretz and more.) It is unlikely but conceivable that an individual soldier would act this way by cracking under pressure; it is literally impossible to imagine a group of IDF soldiers all doing this together. This story fits how antisemites view the IDF, but it is not at all how the IDF acts in reality. It is a sick fantasy and conspiracy theory that conforms to Palestinian propaganda but not reality.

Beyond the illogic of the accusations, the IDF strongly denied even being in the Rimal neighborhood that day. They didn't say that they killed terrorists who were ambushing them or that there was activity nearby that might have spilled over as they have with other incidents - they simply said that there wa no activity there, period. (Of course, the UN never reported that denial. The press release remains on its sites saying the IDF has not released any information on the incident.)

As Sherlock Holmes says, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Al Jazeera did interview injured women and older men who "testified" about the incident. Their accounts are wildly different. Some say they were machine gunned; other say that an Israeli tank shot rounds at the fourth floor, or that the IDF shot mortars directly at them. Some say women were killed, which the UN did not say.

A conspiracy to make up a story like that is conceivable but the injuries appear to be real.

Now, we know that Hamas uses IDF uniforms to attack - that's what they did on October 7. The survivors would not be able to tell the difference between a real IDF soldier and a Hamas member wearing a uniform with the wrong helmet, boots and weapons. We have reports and videos from other incidents that Hamas shoots at their own people. We know for sure that they steal aid from Gazans. We know they are not even wearing uniforms anymore and pretending to be civilians. And we know that they employ huge levels of deception in their war strategy - that's how October 7 was so deadly.

Given all that, why would anyone doubt that Hamas is capable of staging a massacre of Gaza men - men who have not joined their ranks, and who may have even been suspected of collaborating with Israel - in such a way that the world would blame Israel? It is not as if they have any moral qualms about such a move. October 7 proved they have no morality altogether. And they've used war as a cover to kill Gazan men who they regard as their enemies in the past.

Hamas is not adhering to a single customary rule of war, yet the media still treats them as if their military activities and statements are consistent with how a legitimate military acts.

Sacrificing a few Gazans for propaganda purposes is certainly something Hamas would do. It is far more likely than the IDF massacring innocent people at point blank range. And it achieved the desired effect: the UN publicized the incident the exact way Hamas would have wanted.

The media and much of the world has still not accepted the idea of Hamas as monsters who happily sacrifice their own people's lives to hurt Israelis. But that is the definition of what Hamas is. Their entire war strategy is built around using Gazans as human shields, and using their deaths as a means to pressure Israel to stop fighting or to leave parts of their military assets intact. Israel is facing an enemy that is abusing its own civilians in ways never before seen in any war in history.

Hamas dressing up as IDF and shooting Gazans dead is perfectly aligned with how Hamas acts in all other aspects of this and previous wars. And it happens to be the most logical explanation of what happened last Tuesday.

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!

From Lebanon's Naharnet:

The head of Hezbollah’s executive council, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, has stressed that his party is “not the resistance that awaits the Americans and Israelis to decide its fate.”

“We are the ones who decide the fate of the South, the border and the future of this country at the level of confronting the enemy, whom we will not allow to attack Gaza undeterred,” Safieddine said.

This is as clear a statement I've ever seen from Hezbollah telling the government of Lebanon to go screw themselves.

This is what happens when you allow terror groups to grow unhindered out of a misguided desire to keep the peace. Either there will be far more bloodshed down the line - or surrender.

If Israel would have destroyed Hamas in the 2009 war, countless lives would have been saved. But none of the "experts" or "analysts" can see the truth: the longer you wait to destroy evil, the more powerful evil becomes. Thinking it is morphing into a responsible and legitimate government or part of government, as the so-called experts insisted with both Hamas and Hezbollah, is wishful thinking substituting for real analysis.

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!

12/23 Links: What Happened in the Hamas Attack on Be’eri, Israel; The year Israelophobia took over; Ken Roth walks out of Comedy Cellar interview!

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: The year Israelophobia took over

As the end of the year draws close, it’s clear the oldest hatred is back with a vengeance.

Following Hamas’s pogrom in Israel on 7 October, and Israel’s assault on Hamas in response, every day has brought new examples of Israelophobia. One episode from December that stands out in my mind was a statement from the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. He said that the Jewish state had shot two women in a church in Gaza ‘in a cold-blooded killing’. But how did the clergyman, from the comfort of his home in London and having carried out no investigation, know with such certainty that it was a ‘cold-blooded killing’?

Similarly, Alex Crawford, Sky News’ most prominent foreign correspondent, tweeted at the start of December that Israel was barring entry for journalists into Gaza in order to hide its ‘war crimes’. Charges of ‘war crimes’ would need to be proven by a court of law. Yet without even being in Gaza, and presumably without any legal training, Crawford felt entitled to place the black cap of the hanging judge upon her head.

The ease with which supposedly impartial observers have unwittingly become activists belies something darker – the willingness to believe the very worst of the Jewish State. It has become commonplace to airily assert that Israel is committing ‘genocide’. And it has become commonplace to talk of its disregard for Palestinian life, especially the life of Palestinian children. Little wonder the fate of neonatal babies has been placed by Hamas at the very centre of its propaganda campaign. Hamas knows this will be lapped up by the world’s media. Why is this? Could it be because there has been a racist association between Jews and the murder of Gentile children since 1144, when the blood libel was invented in Norwich? Whether people realise it or not, the Israelophobia we see today contains dark echoes of an old anti-Semitism.

The rivers of anti-Semitism run deep. Fascinating research by two German economic historians, Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, has revealed that areas of Germany in which people burned Jews at the stake in the 14th century, blaming them for the Black Death, were more likely to vote for the Nazis 600 years later. This is despite the fact that Jews had been absent from the regions in question for 400 of those years. This illustrates how, once it has taken hold, the potent virus of anti-Semitism can be passed down through the generations, inclining people to believe stories, as George Orwell once put it, ‘that could not possibly be true’.

Seth Mandel: The Press Has Lost Its Mind, Experts Say

You may have noticed that anti-Israel media bias has gotten markedly worse recently. Sketchy sources are given unquestioning platforms so long as they creatively bash the Jewish state, and finding ethically defensible Gaza war reporting has become the 2023 version of Where’s Waldo?

Those aforementioned shady sources have somehow found their way to the center of news coverage about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. And their participation in a slew of dishonest reporting shines a light on the motivation behind the media’s turn toward unvarnished Hamas propaganda.

Outlets frequently cover Israel through the use of dubious comparisons. I’ve written about this phenomenon before: If you just explain Israel’s laws and policies, for example, you will prove that it is not an apartheid state. So writers instead deploy the comparison to apartheid South Africa and stop there.

The current trend in this type of misreporting is to find increasingly absurd apples to compare to Israel’s oranges and then quote some Ph.D. candidate calling them all apples. We were treated to a perfect example of this in yesterday’s Associated Press story, which begins: “The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in history.”

Now, to be sure, the Gaza counteroffensive is obviously not anywhere close to the deadliest campaigns, and there is not a single legitimate way to defend that particular characterization.

But set that very clear lie aside. Although it means the AP editorial staff is full of people who have no business being in journalism, it’s not the real point of the article. The point is the “destructive” part. Because the word “destructive” is subjective enough that if you wanted to find some overeager researchers to lend their names to a dishonest interpretation of the term, you surely could.

Time: Inside the Israel-Hamas Information War

Amid cratering international support for Israel’s war, there is little debate over which side is winning the battle for hearts and minds. The number of Americans who want the U.S. to take Israel’s side has dropped from 43% in October to 37% in November, according to a survey conducted by the University of Maryland and Ipsos. After tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets in European capitals, some of the continent’s most prominent leaders dialed back their full-fledged embrace of the Israeli campaign, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling on Israel to halt the hostilities. The U.S. remains the only U.N. Security Council member to vote against a call for an immediate ceasefire. And now even the Biden administration, Israel’s staunchest ally and biggest supplier of military aid, is pushing the country to scale back its offensive in a matter of weeks. “They have to be careful,” President Joe Biden said on Dec. 11. "The whole world’s public opinion can shift overnight. We can’t let that happen.”

Interviews with dozens of current and former Israeli and U.S. officials reveal a recognition of the accelerating loss of global public support, and a scramble by the nation’s leaders in response. Behind the social media messaging of spokespeople like Michelson lies a rapidly growing operation to convince the world that Israel is fighting for nothing less than its own survival and is doing what it can to avoid civilian casualties. The IDF’s international communications office has doubled in size to more than 200 people. The IDF has taken reporters and prominent supporters—from Elon Musk and Jerry Seinfeld to a convoy of TikTok influencers—to visit the kibbutzim that became killing fields, in hopes of reminding the world of the scale and depravity of the Oct. 7 attack. The Israeli government has spent millions of dollars on online ad campaigns on platforms ranging from YouTube to the popular online game Angry Birds. Israeli embassies around the world continue to screen for journalists and politicians a 43-minute video of the Hamas atrocities, much of it filmed on the terrorists’ own cameras.

There are signs that the effort is working, to an extent; a Pew Research poll from early December found that 65% of Americans think Hamas is mostly responsible for the war. As the fighting in Gaza moves south and the U.S. pushes its ally to wind down the ground operation, the information war about the war is becoming more important than ever. If Israel wins the military battle but loses the war for worldwide public opinion, it could threaten the durability of American support, damage Israel’s ability to forge and maintain peace with its Arab neighbors, shape the perception of the Jewish state for the next generation, and put the safety and security of the Jewish diaspora at risk. “The stakes of the information war,” says Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, “are the stakes of the war itself.”

Three days after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli officials brought a group of international journalists to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where Hamas killed more than 50 people. The site was still an active crime scene. Corpses were everywhere: Israeli victims wrapped in body bags, Hamas fighters lying where they fell. Military officers led reporters into homes stained with blood, some still filled with mutilated bodies and the charred remains of burned victims. “You could smell the death in the air,” recalls Anshel Pfeffer, a veteran Israeli reporter who writes for The Economist.

12/22 Links Pt2: The racism of the intellectuals; Obama privately lobbied on Harvard President Claudine Gay’s behalf; Vox Worried That Antisemites Make DEI Look Bad

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The revival of an ancient calumny

There’s an unmistakable drumbeat to the antisemitism that’s erupted across the west in the wake of the October 7 pogrom. In response to the genocidal Jew-hatred fuelling Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs, an even older form of the oldest hatred has surfaced— Christian hostility to the Jews.

The wholly unwarranted western condemnation of the Israel Defence Forces for causing an allegedly disproportionate death rate among Gaza civilians echoes the ancient Christian calumny that the Jews are killers motivated by revenge and blood lust. The churches themselves are explicitly fuelling this demonisation.

Last Saturday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem claimed in a statement that “a sniper of the IDF murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war. No warning was given, no notification was provided. They were shot in cold blood inside the premises of the parish, where there are no belligerents.”

This incendiary allegation was repeated uncritically as fact across the western media.

The following day, however, Fox News reported an IDF statement that an incident took place instead “near the Latin Church in the Shejayia area,” a different church altogether in another part of Gaza where IDF troops had “operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church”.

The Elder of Zion website reported that this didn’t stop The Christian Post from claiming the IDF had “confirmed” it had shot and killed the two women “on the grounds of Gaza City’s only Catholic church”. Yet confusingly, the paper also said the IDF had “confirmed” to Fox News that the incident took place near the church in the Shejayia area of Gaza during an operation against Hamas terrorists.

The racism of the intellectuals

‘Anti-Semitism is a symptom of ignorance, and the cure for ignorance is knowledge.’ These words were spoken by Harvard University president Claudine Gay during her congressional testimony about anti-Semitism earlier this month. This may seem like a simple, comforting homily, but parse that sentence and you will find a thin layer of self-serving hubris. Implicit is the message that because we are Harvard, we cannot be ignorant. So we can’t be anti-Semitic.

History teaches a different lesson. Gay would be well served by reading the speech delivered by late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia at the 1997 Day of Remembrance commemoration for Holocaust victims. It included these words: ‘The one message I want to convey today is that you will have missed the most frightening aspect of it all, if you do not appreciate that [the Holocaust] happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world.’

Recent events in Cambridge, Massachusetts support that insight. Like other prestigious universities, Harvard is currently mired in anti-Semitism. Any doubt of this was dispelled by Rabbi David J Wolpe, an esteemed visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School. Wolpe recently resigned from the university’s anti-Semitism advisory group over ‘events on campus’ and Gay’s maladroit congressional testimony. The kinds of changes necessary at Harvard, Wolpe said, ‘are really deep and fundamental, and I’m not sure that my being on the anti-Semitism committee is, in one way or another, going to accelerate the pace of such change’.

Wolpe is right to be concerned about the extent of Harvard’s anti-Semitism problem. On the day of the 7 October Hamas attacks – while murderers, rapists and kidnappers were still active in Israel – 34 campus groups at Harvard signed a statement that declared: ‘We, the undersigned student organisations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.’ Take note: entirely responsible. And this was before Israel had even responded with an incursion into Gaza.

Call Me Back PodCast: An insider’s account of the Harvard Antisemitism Committee — with Rabbi David Wolpe

Hosted by Dan Senor
Understanding where and how antisemitism has come to exist at an institution like Harvard is the focus of today’s conversation. We will hear the perspective of Rabbi David Wolpe — visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School — who tried to advise Harvard’s leadership on how to address it; after October 7, he joined Harvard’s Antisemitism Advisory Group.

Rabbi Wolpe is also the inaugural rabbinic fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, and he was the long-time rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. He is the author of eight books, including the national bestseller “Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times”. His book “David: The Divided Heart” was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards.

Obama privately lobbied on Harvard President Claudine Gay’s behalf amid antisemitism controversy: Report

Former President Barack Obama went to bat for Harvard President Claudine Gay amid backlash she received following her testimony on antisemitism before Congress.

A confidential source familiar with the matter told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Obama, a Harvard graduate, had privately lobbied on Gay's behalf following her congressional appearance about antisemitism and threats against Jewish students on the Ivy League campus.

"It sounded like people were being asked to close ranks to keep the broader administration stable—including its composition," the source said of Obama's involvement.

In early December, Gay sat before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where she was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews on campus violates the university's codes of conduct related to bullying and harassment.

Her claim that the alleged conduct would only warrant a response from the school based on the "context" drew criticism across social media and even prompted a response from the White House.

Gay issued an apology after the hearing and the fellows of the Harvard Corporation, the university's highest government body, released a Dec. 12 statement backing the Harvard president despite widespread calls for her resignation. The board also addressed allegations of plagiarism regarding Gay's academic writing first flagged in October.

Harvard controversy casts spotlight on Penny Pritzker, former Obama official atop university board

Even as Harvard continues to stand behind its embattled president, Claudine Gay, amid mounting backlash over her handling of campus antisemitism and new accusations of plagiarism, Penny Pritzker, who helms the university’s highest governing body, has so far remained conspicuously silent, drawing fresh scrutiny to her role atop the administration.

Pritzker, the billionaire Chicago hotel scion and former Obama administration official, was elected senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation last year, months after she had donated $100 million to the university. In her new position, she personally led the search committee that named Gay as president last December, praising her in an announcement at the time as “a remarkable leader who is profoundly devoted to sustaining and enhancing Harvard’s academic excellence.”

Notwithstanding her initial enthusiasm, Pritzker has in recent weeks avoided personally defending the newly installed president, who has faced calls to resign, instead joining a statement signed by the 11 members of Harvard’s top board, which has been criticized for a lack of transparency.

In their unanimous decision to back Gay last week, the board members affirmed their “confidence” in the university president, dismissing the plagiarism charges and accepting her apology for widely criticized comments at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism earlier this month, where she equivocated on whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct.

Before the Harvard Corporation had released its statement, however, Pritzker had dodged repeated questions from a reporter for the school’s student newspaper on whether she would ask the president to step down, even as Gay had claimed to have her support.

From Egypt's Gomhuria:

The enmity of the Jews is as old as time, but most people do not know. I present some established facts about the Jews, which every Arab and Muslim must be aware of and know in order to be safe from their evil and know how to act in the face of their hatred and hateful hostility.

The first of these established facts about the Jews is that they are a people with no covenant or security. They are the ones whose ancestors specialized in killing God’s prophets and staining the pages of history with their blood. Are we then surprised by their thirst for the blood of the Palestinians and their skill in killing their innocent children without them batting an eyelash? They are thugs!....The prophets of God themselves were not safe from their evil, so are ordinary humans safe from them?

Based on the above, we must teach our sons and daughters that there is no good expected from the Jews or their followers.

From Iraq's Buratha News:

The Jews lie and push others to believe their lies: Buying of receivables among the Jews is in full swing, with money, threats, forgery, and other methods that are still prevalent among them to this day, and how many weak souls there are.

Their entire history is a lie. They used lying as a means to reach their goals, and when their lies are discovered, they say that they lied for the benefit and glory of God or for the sake of His pampered people.

From Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen:

The Arabic language in Palestine is suffering from difficult circumstances. As a result of the occupation, it is waging a harsh struggle in the face of the Hebrew tyranny that accompanies the occupation of the land. Perhaps the invasion of the language is even more dangerous. Because Hebrew words, unnecessarily, occupies the Arabic tongue in a way that is far more significant than the foreign soldier’s occupation of the land. Arabic is defending itself against the hammer of Hebrew in light of the hateful occupation that is trying to erase all features of Arabism.

Open antisemitism in the Arab world, never far beneath the surface, is increasing in Arabic media at least as fast as it is rising in the rest of the world.

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!

12/22 Links Pt1: Israel Has Killed 8,000 Hamas Terrorists; First US hostage confirmed as murdered by Hamas; Hostages’ Family Sues Red Cross; Bocelli writes to freed hostage

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Rising from the ruins of a generation of Israeli doctrine

It will take years to correct the damage the generals wrought by reducing the size of the IDF and inducing its total dependence on the United States.

‘The IDF is changing its view’
But this week, the Defense Ministry let it be known that it is moving to correct the situation. On Tuesday, Ynet reported that the Defense Ministry is initiating what it refers to as “Independence Project.”

According to the report, the Defense Ministry is launching a crash program with Israel’s military industries and major industrialists to make Israel independent in everything related to ordnance. In the initial phase, Israel will begin producing bombs for its aircraft. Jerusalem also intends to expand its production of tank and artillery shells, as well as assault rifles and bullets. Separately, there is increased discussion regarding the establishment of a missile force as an independent arm of the IDF. The force would reduce reliance on the air force and develop more versatile, more easily defended missile launch platforms and massively expand Israel’s missile and drone arsenals.

After meeting with Defense Ministry Director General Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Ron Tomer, the head of Israel’s Industrialists Union, told Ynet, “The war demonstrates our need for a powerful and advanced industrial base to ensure Israel’s national strength and independent capabilities. The IDF is changing its view of how it arms its forces, enlarging domestic production lines in order to be less dependent on ordnance from abroad. The ideal of a small high-tech military did not prove itself.”

Brick and others argue that had Hezbollah joined Hamas in invading and bombing Israel on Oct. 7, Israel may well have been destroyed that day. A combination of Hezbollah’s 10,000-man Radwan Brigades perched at the border and capable of invading the Galilee, and a barrage of up to 4,000 missiles with various payloads targeting Israel’s air bases, and other strategic sites and civilian population centers every day for weeks, would have caused irreparable damage equal in force to a nuclear bomb.

Iran’s decision not to involve Hezbollah on Oct. 7 has given Israel the opportunity to reorganize its forces and prepare for the multi-front war that awaits us. We don’t have a moment to lose.

West Point CTC: The Path to October 7: How Iran Built Up and Managed a Palestinian ‘Axis of Resistance’

Abstract: Since October 7, in the wake of the “al-Aqsa Flood” terrorist attacks by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian factions from across the ideological spectrum, Iran’s aid to and strategic management of these groups has taken on a new level of relevance. The methods Iran has used to cultivate and maintain influence and control over disparate Palestinian groups follows the same pragmatic carrot-and-stick formula it has used across the Middle East with other proxies, with incentives that include financial aid, weapons, and training. The use of sticks was particularly important in Tehran’s restoration of influence over Hamas and PIJ after the Syrian civil war drove a wedge between Palestinian groups and Iran. The withholding of funds and a divide-and-rule approach helped Tehran get these groups back in line. More generally, Iran has worked to create and leverage splinter groups, particularly from the Palestinian Authority’s dominant Fatah Movement, to grow its influence in Gaza and the West Bank. Tehran has also strived to build influence among leftist Palestinian groups to create a broad coalition of partners. And it uses umbrella groups and joint operations rooms to try to bolster the unity and coherence of its Palestinian network.

Iran allows for a level of autonomy among its proxies, but as this article has outlined, Tehran has moved to punish insufficiently obedient groups, allowing them to wither on the vine, or has engineered splinters to weaken them or pressure them into line.

Hamas’ takeover of Gaza served as the means for Iran to absorb splintered factions of Fatah into its orbit. Even if those factions could not be fully controlled, creating a reliance on Iran’s weapons, money, and other forms of political support facilitated their reformation into Iran’s umbrella. By cultivating ties with militant factions with differences with Abbas’ Fatah, Iran was able to recruit manpower to its “Axis of Resistance” and create a pressure point within Fatah. Furthermore, the continued presence of Fatah splinter fighters in Gaza has given Iran leverage to ensure the obedience of Hamas and PIJ. Small and less popular groups such as the PFLP, PFLP-GC, and DFLP were cultivated by Iran as part of a larger umbrella of Tehran-aligned groups, but likely simultaneously served other roles, including countering the Palestinian Authority and if necessary to put pressure on Hamas and PIJ.

As the Israeli offensive continues in Gaza, it is possible some armed Palestinian groups may be forced to shift their center of gravity to Lebanon. This would expose them to even deeper Iranian influence. On December 4, 2023, Hamas’ Lebanon section released a statement calling for the creation and recruitment for the Vanguards of the al-Aqsa Flood (Taliy’ah Tufan al-Aqsa), a group focused on “resisting [Israeli] occupation.”217 Given any armed activities by Hamas in Lebanon would have to be coordinated with Lebanese Hezbollah, these activities would also be subject to a degree of control by the Iranian decision makers that exert influence over Hezbollah. As previously seen with the PFLP, DFLP, and PFLP-GC, groups dependent on using Lebanon or Syria as staging areas have only become more beholden to their masters in Damascus or Tehran.

Even if Hamas and PIJ are militarily defeated in Gaza in the months ahead, Iran would still have many options to work with in both Gaza and the West Bank. As Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer stated in an October 31 piece, “The war is radicalizing far more Palestinians than Hamas propaganda ever could.”218 Iran will likely attempt to rebuild its network in Gaza from newly radicalized Palestinians, including among leftist actors, Islamists, and smaller factions they can more strongly control.

In this scenario, it should be expected that Iran will also continue to splinter off groups from Fatah/the Palestinian Authority. On November 5, a mysterious group claiming to represent members within the Palestinian Authority-affiliated security services emerged. Called the Sons of Abu Jandal, the group demanded that Mahmoud Abbas and the PA security forces engage in violence against Israel or revolt against Abbas.219 While no link to Iran has yet been established and the group has since gone quiet, it is these types of splinters that have been exploited by Tehran in the past.

In the months ahead, it is likely that Iran will continue to use the carrots (e.g., funding) and sticks (e.g., fostering splinter groups) in order to maintain and deepen control over its Palestinian “Axis of Resistance.” As Israel’s military campaign in Gaza puts these groups under increasing pressure, Iran’s leverage will only grow. Given Iran has aimed to provide support to a wide range of new and well-established groups, particularly those with more violent dispositions, the radicalizing effect of the war on Palestinians provides fertile terrain for Tehran.

Douglas Murray: Hamas terror tunnels were built with your money

Of course, billions of dollars have been given to them since that time. From a bewildering array of countries. All of whom seem to have thought that they were somehow helping the Palestinians in Gaza. Well, we weren’t.

All of this money was used by Hamas leaders to buy themselves luxury condos in Qatar and other foreign climes. Inside Gaza, almost none of this money went to help Palestinians in Gaza. Rather Hamas used the funds they didn’t pilfer to build this underground terror network which comes out in hospitals, mosques, and other places that the international community regards as sacred, but which Hamas does not.

And why do I say “we”? Because American taxpayers are among the people who were fooled into sending money to these terrorists.

Since 2007, the US has sent over $400 million in taxpayers’ money to Gaza. That is all after the coup where Hamas seized power. These are the official figures released by USAID (United States Agency for International Development. USAID also says that it has paid more than $500 million between 2021 and the end of this year.

That money may also have gone to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. And I can tell you from traveling there many times that I know where our taxpayer dollars went too. They went to the equally corrupt officials of Fatah who built themselves mansions that would cause envy to many homeowners in the Hamptons.

And even that isn’t the end of it. Because the US is also foolish enough to continue to fund the UN agency UNRWA. This is one of the most corrupt entities even at the UN. Which is saying something. And in 2021 alone the US was UNRWA’s largest single donor, shoveling an astonishing $338 million.

Other countries have also been taken for mugs.

The EU is spending more than $100 million in Gaza this year. But even the EU countries don’t give as much money to UNRWA as America does. The US is far and away the biggest donor. The next biggest is Germany with a mere $176 million going annually to the organization. In total, US agencies have funneled billions of dollars to Gaza in recent years. And all of this money has gone not to improving the lives of Palestinians, but to building palaces for Hamas and tunnels for their weaponry and terrorists.

Hamas officials have even said that they regard the tunnels as being for their terrorists. The rest of the world is meant to look after the actual civilians themselves.

I beg to differ. And I also beg American officials to wise up. Our taxpayer dollars have gone to a terrorist group every year since 2007. And now we know what we have got for it. An attack on our allies in Israel.

Want to save money? Here’s one way how.

Herzog: Three times more aid could be entering Gaza if not for UN’s ‘utter failure’

President Isaac Herzog averred Thursday that the United Nations has been failing to keep up with the amount of aid Israel is inspecting, and that the world body is to blame for the little amount of aid entering the Strip even after Israel has opened up its Kerem Shalom crossing to ease the bottleneck.

“Unfortunately, due to the utter failure of the UN in its work with other partners in the region, they have been unable to bring in more than 125 trucks [of aid] a day,” Herzog said in a meeting with visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.

“Today it is possible to provide three times the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza if the UN — instead of complaining all day — would do its job,” Herzog said.

Israel has said that it has been inspecting hundreds of trucks per day at its Kerem Shalom and Nitzana Crossings and that many of the trucks subsequently remain outside Gaza. The UN and Egypt have argued that Israel’s military campaign has made it too dangerous to regularly deliver aid inside and through Gaza.

By Daled Amos

The 2024 presidential election is less than a year away.

And that means the pundits will be discussing "the Jewish vote." That is not to say there will be much to talk about. Jews, as a group, vote for Democrats. On top of that, Biden is perceived as a friend of Israel and the Jewish community. And on top of that, Biden's support for Israel against Hamas following the massacre on October 7 has only cemented the Jewish support for him.

After all, Israel is important to American Jews.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) regularly polls the Jewish community. Their poll in 2020 asked about the importance of Israel to Jewish identity:

Since 2020 was an election year, the AJC also asked about what issues were important to the Jewish community:

Despite the importance that Jews said Israel holds for their Jewish identity, Israel was not rated as one of the top 6 issues in the upcoming election.

Going further back, this attitude is consistent. In their 2007 poll, the AJC asked:

And yet

The fact that Jews consistently say that Israel is important to them and to their Jewish identity does not seem to correlate with how they vote on election day. So, for example, when he ran for president, Obama had no problem getting the Jewish vote, despite questions about whether he was a friend of Israel:

President Obama's support among Jewish voters has remained relatively steady from 2008, exit polls show.

National exit polls released Tuesday show Obama capturing 70 percent of the Jewish vote, versus 30 percent for Mitt Romney.

In 2008, exit polls showed him beating John McCain 78 percent to 21 percent. The Solomon Project estimated that his actual 2008 vote share among Jewish Americans was actually closer to 74 percent — taking into account the small sample size. [emphasis added]

Getting back to 2023, how do those surveys of the Jewish vote contrast with the growing anti-Israel attitude reflected in the recent poll by The New York Times of opinions of Biden's handling of the situation in Gaza?

According to The New York Times, "Poll Finds Wide Disapproval of Biden on Gaza, and Little Room to Shift Gears":

Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians, a New York Times/Siena College poll has found, with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.

The next paragraph goes on to clarify that "nearly as many Americans want Israel to continue its military campaign as want it to stop now to avoid further civilian casualties."

Here are the numbers:

Given a choice between two courses of action, a narrow plurality of voters, 44 percent, said Israel should stop its military campaign to protect against civilian casualties, already totaling nearly 20,000 people killed, according to Gaza health authorities. A similar number, 39 percent, advised the opposite course: Israel should continue its military campaign even if it means civilian casualties in Gaza mount. [emphasis added]

These numbers bear out the New York Times claim that the issue is divisive.

But Jim Geraghty of The National Review disagrees. He writes The ‘New York Times’ Misreads Its Own Poll. Geraghty questions just how much the issue of Israel's war with Hamas actually matters. Pointing to the full data collected from the poll, he notes that in response to the open-ended question "What do you think is the MOST important problem facing the country today?" 1% of registered voters responded "The Middle East/Israel/Palestinians" and 3% of those aged 18-29 gave that answer.

Other issues, like the economy and immigration, were more important -- both to registered voters and to 18-19-year-olds.

The data from The New York Times own poll seem to support Geraghty's interpretation that:

U.S. policy regarding the Israeli war against Hamas plays an extremely minor role in voters’ frustration with Biden...If the Israeli war against Hamas ended tomorrow, Biden’s numbers would still be lousy.

If Geraghty is right, we have a similar phenomenon between the Jewish vote on the one hand and the anti-Israel vote on the other. Despite the depth of feeling expressed by both, that feeling does not seem to translate into actual votes at the ballot box.

Jews respond that Israel is important to their sense of identity, but when it comes time to vote, they will vote on the issues. Those 18-19-year-olds will protest in the street against Israel, but issues like the economy hit much closer to home.

But is it that simple?

The AJC polls indicate American Jews, overall, draw a line between their connection with Israel and being civic-minded Americans. They vote on the issues that affect Americans.

The anti-Israel protestors, who generally fall within the 18-29-year-old range appear to be a small fraction of the electorate and may not be registered to vote or even interested. But the people showing up at the protests are not civic-minded. They are loud and express themselves by closing traffic on bridges and occupying buildings.

If they decide that opposing Biden and voting him out of office is another expression of their protest, the Democratic party may have something to worry about. As it is, Tlaib in Michigan is threatening “We will remember in 2024.” and a poll shows Biden polling poorly about Arab Americans. If the protestors are organized beyond Michigan, who is to say that other states could not be affected as well?

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!