Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Anti-Jewish hate crimes dominate NYC statistics during second quarter

The New York Police Department Hate Crimes Dashboard has been updated through the second quarter of the year, and once again anti-Jewish hate crimes dominate them all.

Here is the word chart showing the relative number of hate crimes for April, May and June:

When it comes to only counting more serious felonies, not misdemeanors, the dominance of anti-Jewish hate crimes is even starker:

For the first half of the year (until June 28,) 150 of 338 hate crimes in New York City were against Jews - over 44%.But when it comes to felonies, about 57% of them were against Jews.

This must be what "Jewish privilege" means.

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07/27 Links Pt2: Israel as a Precious Gift to Shabby Regimes and Conditions; Hating With the Hadids; How the Largest Labor Union in the United States Is Pushing an Anti-Israel Agenda

From Ian:

Israel as a Precious Gift to Shabby Regimes and Conditions

The fact is that terms like traitor, spy, and collaborator have long been outdated. They now indicate nothing but the existence of a project for crude domination and that this project is in crisis and has no choice but to say things it should not in the hope that this extends its lifespan.

However, what Freud called sublimation is at play here. This concept, which was originally formulated by Fredrich Nietzsche, denotes a process through which socially unacceptable desires and instincts are redirected to ends that are not only socially acceptable, but also noble ends glorified by society. Creative works, for example, replace taboo cravings, and impeccable moral behavior that invokes veneration replace belligerent desires.

In our case, the crude instinct to hold on to power turns into a conflict with Israel or striving to liberate Palestine. The instinct is condemned, no one defends it, and not even those acting on it dare to speak about it openly; as for the conflict, a broad segment of society sees it as a glorious endeavor.

However, the major difference is that with the authoritarians, the desire merely hides, while the noble end is a pure lie that brings neither innovation nor moral excellence.

“Israel’s conspiracies” alone can justify “filling our squares with the corpses of traitors and spies,” as Salah Omar Al-Ali once put it. (h/t Zvi)

Both UK Conservative leadership candidates have pro-Israel records

With the Conservative Party leadership contest in the UK down to two candidates, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak, whoever wins will move into 10 Downing Street in September with a pro-Israel record.

As one British political insider said this week, from an Israeli perspective, the two finalists were probably the best candidates of all those who announced they were running earlier this month.

Lord Stuart Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel, said: “I have worked for 30 years on the UK-Israel political relationship and I am very confident that the golden era that we have will continue under either leadership.”

“[Prime Minister] Boris Johnson is an outstanding friend of Israel and has been for a long period, but these two will continue that tradition,” he added.

Are social media algorithms to blame for rise in antisemitic hate speech?

What can be done about it?

To combat antisemitism on social media, strategies need to be evidence based. But neither social media companies nor researchers have devoted enough time and resources to this issue so far.

The study of antisemitism on social media poses unique challenges to researchers: They need access to the data and funding to be able to help develop effective counterstrategies. So far, scholars depend on the cooperation of the social media companies to access the data, which is mostly unregulated.

Social media companies have implemented guidelines on reporting antisemitism on social media, and civil society organizations have been demanding action against algorithmic antisemitism. However, the measures taken so far are woefully inadequate, if not dangerous. For example, counterspeech, which is often promoted as a possible strategy, tends to amplify hateful content.

To meaningfully address antisemitic hate speech, social media companies would need to change the algorithms that collect and curate user data for advertisement companies, which make up a large part of their revenue.

There is a global, borderless spread of antisemitic posts on social media happening on an unprecedented scale. We believe it will require the collective efforts of social media companies, researchers and civil society to combat this problem.

Yamit: The Forgotten Expulsion (Judean Rose)

Interview with Isser Coopersmith

Yamit was the first expulsion of Jews by Jews in the Jewish State. That is what a lot of people forget when they point to Gush Katif and say that at least now we have proof that the land for peace formula doesn’t work. Gush Katif, it is true, was a massive, outsized event, with 8,600 Jews expelled from their homes, while “only” 2,500 Jews had been forced from their homes in Yamit, 23 years earlier. Expulsion in either case proved traumatic, resulting in spiraling statistics for suicide, divorce, and bankruptcy.

Isser Coopersmith

Just as right wing Israelis flocked to Gush Katif to strengthen the people in the run-up to Disengagement, so too, they came to Yamit in 1982, ready to fight. One of those who rushed to join the 2,500 Israeli Jews of Yamit was Isser Coopersmith, an American immigrant to Israel who had settled in Shilo. He was ready to do anything to help prevent the evacuation.

Coopersmith was 25, and no stranger to showing his loyalty to the Jewish State. After making Aliyah in 1979, Isser helped to build a settlement and a kibbutz, then joined the IDF in 1980, serving in a combat unit. After the evacuation of Yamit, Coopersmith went on to serve in the reserves during the First Lebanon War.

Isser has worn many hats in his professional life: shepherd, goldsmith, chef, house painter. It’s the way of many of us expats. You do whatever is in your capacity to make things work and be part of the project that is Israel, the first Jewish state in the Holy Land. Today, forty years after Yamit, Coopersmith has a 33-year-old son, and is married and living in Maale Adumim.

Ruti and Isser Coopersmith

Here is the story of the evacuation of Yamit, as experienced by Isser Coopersmith:

Coopersmith as a young reservist based on Yamit, 6 months prior to the evacuation.

Varda Epstein: How did you come to live in Yamit? When did you settle there?

Isser Coopersmith: The year was 1982. I had just finished my army service and there was turmoil in the country because the government was going to return Sinai to the Egyptians and destroy the settlements. Most of the residents took compensation and left. A number of people from around the country organized fishing boats to try and break the naval blockade and reach Yamit. We left in the middle of the night from Michlelet Herzog near Massuot Yitzchak and drove to the Tel Aviv Marina where we set sail on a number of vessels. We were followed and hounded by the navy along the way but reached the shore and descended into Zodiacs and paddled to the beach where hundreds of residents and the army waited. It was like out of a scene from the movie Exodus. We mixed in with the people so the army couldn’t nab us.

"We rented a fishing boat and 6 or 7 pleasure boats and met at the Tel Aviv Marina, hoping to get into Yamit."

“We labeled one of the boats ‘Al tefanena,’ [“Don’t evacuate us,” V.E.] which of course is an allusion to the Altalena.”

Isser on one of the rented pleasure boats

Here you can see the navy, flanking us, trying to deter us from getting any closer. When I got off the boat, I realized I was going to be in Yamit for the long haul, and knew I needed to get back out of there to get more supplies. I managed to get out of Yamit, and on my way back, met with a convoy at Kfar Maimon. In the middle of the night we drove off-road and traveled through sand dunes to get back into Yamit.

Varda Epstein: What was it like, being part of Yamit during that time? Can you describe a typical day?

Isser Coopersmith: In one way it felt like we were on a holy mission to keep our land. In another way it felt tense because we knew the government was going to try and evict us any day. A typical day was eating sleeping, davening [praying, V.E.], setting up barricades, and going to the beach.

Bunker in Yamit

"Here you see, from right to left, Baruch Marzel, Rav Ariel, andAvi Farhan, standing outside the bunker. Avi Farhan was one of the original inhabitants of Yamit, and one of the ones who refused to leave."

"Here you have the chief rabbis, Ovadia Yosef and Shlomo Goren, trying to talk the Kachnikim [followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane, V.E.] out of the suicide bunker. I was guarding the doors of the bunker for a while, so Geula Cohen and my rav [rabbi, V.E.], Rav Elhanan Bin Nun from Shilo, tried to talk me out of there.

"At some point, a reporter from the NY Times asked me a question: Do I have anything to tell the world?

"I said, 'Tell Laura I love her,' and I heard people saying, 'Who’s Laura?'

"Like, nobody got it."

An evacuation soldier outside the bunker. Soldiers attempted to pry open the bunker door with a wooden board, at center

The "suicide bunker." The army tried to get in with an acetylene torch.

"From guarding the bunker I went to a rooftop of a villa, which we barricaded. We put all kinds of like, fencing and things down the staircase, so people couldn’t get to us. I was in the villa with Levi Hazan and Misha Mishkan who tried to self-immolate, which we prevented him from doing. Baruch Marzel was on the second floor, fighting off like ten or 12 soldiers by himself—he weighed like twice as much in those days."

Rooftop in "Schunat HaIksim," Yamit

"They tried getting us off the roof with ladders. We pushed the ladders off of the building. They finally got us off the roof by shoving us into cages--the foam is to put out the fires."

"When I was cuffed I kept my wrists facing up so it was wider. When I twisted my wrists together I was able to slip out of the cuffs, opened a window on the bus and escaped to another rooftop. I was arrested again. They sent us to Kela Ashkelon [Ashkelon Prison, V.E.]. I managed to escape from the bus the first time, but they caught me again. Other people, there were some famous people who went to Kela Ashkelon, but because they were famous, they got out early. Benny Katsover and Hanan Porat and Rav Kahane, but we were stuck in jail for a few days."

Varda Epstein: What was the demographic makeup of Yamit? What was the flavor of the neighborhood? Did you feel comfortable with the people you met there?

Isser Coopersmith: By the time I settled in, most of the people were Dati Leumi [National Religious, V.E.]. There were lots of settlers from other settlements and also yeshiva boys. We gave each other strength.

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us about some of the hardships you experienced while on Yamit during the evacuation?

Isser Coopersmith: Well, as a single guy I relied on the families for food. We slept in vacated apartments. All the municipal systems were turned off. Water wasn’t flowing to the local flora of the city.

Varda Epstein: What is your best memory of Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: The camaraderie of the people, the natural beauty of the area.

Typical street scene, Yamit

Varda Epstein: Most of the Gush Katif settlers refused to believe the expulsion would happen. They didn’t pack or otherwise plan for the eventuality. They believed until the end that a miracle would happen and that they could stay. How was the purge of Yamit similar to and how did it differ from the banishment of the residents of Gush Katif?

Isser Coopersmith: Well, we didn’t believe it would happen. When it did, we thought it would be so painful that the government wouldn’t ever do it again. Of course, the people in power have no heart.

Varda Epstein: Did you do anything to fight against being evicted from Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: We set up barricades, stocked up on food, and fought the soldiers who came to take us.

Varda Epstein: Where did you go after Yamit? What was your emotional state? How long did it take for you to get back to normal?

Isser Coopersmith: I returned to Shilo. I was emotionally depressed, but two months later I was called up for the war in Lebanon so I had to readjust to the new situation.

Varda Epstein: Looking back, is there anything anyone could have done to stop the evacuation of Yamit? What would you personally have done differently? Conversely, what are you most proud of in relation to your part in the Yamit story?

Isser Coopersmith: I doubt there is anything we could have done to prevent the destruction of Yamit. Maybe if tens of thousands of people had joined us, the army wouldn’t have had the manpower to make it happen. I was proud that I made a stand for my beliefs.

Varda Epstein: What can we learn from Yamit?

Isser Coopersmith: Never trust the government.

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!

There's a very interesting op-ed by Peter Pomerantsev in the New York Times that says how the West should understand Vladimir Putin:

To humiliate people is to exploit your power over them, making them feel worthless and dependent on you. It is clear, then, that the Russian military seems intent on humiliating Ukrainians, taking away their right to independence and their right to make their own decisions. ...

Kremlin propaganda claims Russia revels in isolationism, but it is also addicted to seeking approval from abroad.

And Mr. Putin’s success as president of Russia has rested for some time on his ability to mete out daily humiliations to Russians and then act as if he feels their rage as they do, as if he alone knows where to direct it — toward the West, toward Ukraine, anywhere except toward the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin likes to perform both sides of the humiliation drama: from the seething resentment of the put-upon Russian everyman to cosplaying Peter the Great. This allows him to appeal to Russians’ deep-seated sense of humiliation, which the Kremlin itself inflicts on people, and then compensate for it. It’s a performance that taps into the cycle of humiliation and aggression that defines the experience of life in Russia, and now Ukraine is the stage.

This is similar (although not identical) to how the Arab world had traditionally looked upon Israel, and how the Palestinians still do. The honor/shame society is not only obsessed with looking honorable and avoiding shame, but also to inflict shame on enemies. They honestly do not understand why Israelis aren't depressed at seeing Israeli flags burned.

Pomerantsev says that the West needs to understand the mentality in order to counter it:

In the face of such threats, it can be tempting to try and placate Russia. The editorial board of The New York Times has said that Ukraine will likely have to accept territorial compromises. Mr. Macron has said that the West should avoid humiliating Russia. Such proposals are fundamentally misguided: Russia’s sense of humiliation is internal, not imposed upon it. To coddle the Putin regime is merely to participate in the cycle. If you yearn for sustainable security and freedom, abusive partners and predators cannot be indulged.

Absolutely. And this applies to Iran as well as Palestinians. When the EU foreign policy chief says the current text of the Iran nuclear deal is the best possible outcome, he is coddling Iran. When the West makes it appear that the Palestinian issue is the most important problem that must be solved before other Middle East problems, they are indulging a corrupt and would-be genocidal regime that would destroy Israel in a second if it had the strength to.

You don't compromise with bullies, terrorists and those who support them. It should be obvious to all. And that applies to Iran and Palestinians as well as Putin's Russia.

(h/t Scott)

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

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07/27 Links Pt1: Biden rewrites Israel’s history; Far Left is pushing to make Palestinian 'return' a viable option'; IDF releases new footage of Hamas infrastructure in civilian populations in Gaza

From Ian:

Biden rewrites Israel’s history

“Both the Israelis and the Palestinian people have deep and ancient roots in this land,” President Joe Biden declared at his July 14 press conference in Jerusalem.

The first subject of the president’s sentence is obviously true. The second, however, is utterly false.

The Palestinian Arabs do not have “deep” or “ancient” roots in the Holy Land. Their roots are shallow, recent, and for the most part artificial.

There were less than 300,000 Arabs living there in the 1880s, and they did not call themselves “Palestinians.” They defined themselves as “southern Syrians,” or as members of particular clans.

As Jewish pioneers began developing the land in the decades to follow, illegal Arab immigrants flocked to the area from neighboring Arab countries, attracted by the prospect of jobs and higher living standards. The British authorities turned a blind eye to this mass Arab influx.

The British occupied the country colloquially known as “Palestine” during World War I. In 1922, they decided to partition the country. The Arabs were given the 78% on the eastern side of the Jordan River. It was called “Transjordan,” then later “Jordan.” The Arab residents weren’t magically transformed from “Palestinians” to “Transjordanians” to “Jordanians.” The arbitrary slapping of a name on a region did not change their identity.

It was only in the 1960s under the guidance of the Soviet Union that Arab propagandists began actively calling the Arab residents of the area “Palestinians.” Those terms had no historical basis and were invented to advance the anti-Israel agenda. The fact that the United Nations and the Western news media adopted that language did not make it legitimate.

By contrast, archaeologists almost daily dig up new evidence of the Jewish people’s very deep and ancient roots in the Land of Israel. There have been a slew of discoveries in the past few years demonstrating the historical Jewish presence in that region.

A 2,000 year-old ritual bath (mikveh) was uncovered in the Lower Galilee—meaning that the residents of that region were practicing the same religious rituals that Jews throughout the world practice today. Those Galileans were Jews. They weren’t “Palestinians.” The word “Palestine” had not yet been invented.

In the Givati Parking Lot excavation in Jerusalem, archaeologists discovered Hebrew-language inscriptions dating back 2,600 years. One was a stone seal with the words “belonging to Ikkar son of Matanyahu.” The other was a clay seal impression that read, “belonging to Nathan-Melech, servant of the king.” They weren’t in Arabic. And the names weren’t Yasir or Mahmoud.

Excavators from the University of North Carolina discovered two stunning mosaics at the site of a 1,600 year-old synagogue near Huqoq, in northern Israel. One depicts a scene from the exodus of the Jews from ancient Egypt. The other shows images based on verses in the Torah’s Book of Daniel. The mosaics do not show scenes from the Koran. There is nothing Arabic of Islamic or “Palestinian” about them.

New laboratory testing methods developed at Ben-Gurion University deciphered a description on a 3,000 year-old seal: it has the Hebrew words “L’Shema, ever Yerov’am,” that is, “Belonging to Shema, the servant [or minister] of Jeroboam.” That’s the Jewish king, Jeroboam II, who ruled in the Land of Israel nearly 3,000 years ago.

Far Left is pushing to make Palestinian 'return' a viable option

Many have forgotten that in 2001, Israel passed a law rejecting the right of return. The law states that "Refugees will not return to Israeli territory unless it is with the approval of a Knesset majority." The law discusses Palestinian refugees, but without going into details about Palestinian identity, and it rejects any right of return. The Nakba Law, passed in 2011, gives the finance ministry the authority to dock the budgets of government-funded institutions that call for or work toward the end of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as deny funding to groups that mark Independence Day as a day of mourning.

This law is virtually unenforced, while the government continues to effectively fund MKs and parties like Ra'am and the Joint Arab List, many of whose members publicly speak out against Israel's existence as a Jewish state and hold Nakba ceremonies on Independence Day. For the first time, an Arab party – Ra'am – became a member of the coalition, despite its official support for implementing return for Palestinians refugees. 'We murdered the Arab Jebusites'

The Arab school system in Israel still teaches a book by Ghassan Kanafani, Return to Haifa. Kanfaani, a native of Acre who was a writer and spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was killed in Beirut by Israeli forces in 1972, two months after the slaughter at the Lod airport perpetrated by a branch of the PFLP. The book deals with an encounter between Arab refugees who return to their homes in Haifa after the 1967 Six-Day War and the Holocaust survivors who live there. The book centers around the Nakba experience and Palestinian return.

Zameret, who has chair of the Education Ministry's Pegagogic Department disqualified the book from the curriculum and was attacked for his decision by radical leftists and groups like Zochrot, recalls that the book was "written by Jewish extremists, Palestinians, and international observers."

"The book supposedly presents both sides of the conflict," Zameret says. "The Palestinian side represents Zionism as having allied itself with British colonialism, fulfilled its aspirations, stole another people's country, erased their identity, and oppressed every liberation movement. Mount Zion is described by the Palestinians as a mountain that looks over the eastern half of Jerusalem, which is in Palestine, and [the book] explains that in that same part of the city, the Jebusites once lived. When King David conquered the city [it says], he emptied Jebus [as Jerusalem was then known] of its residents, seized the fort that was on the mount, and called it Zion. In short – we are criticized as having expelled and murdered all the Jebusites, the 'Arab Jebusites.' That is what they wanted us to approve."

Zameret cannot comprehend how the Israeli school system allows Arab schools to teach Return to Haifa.

"Then they wonder that left-wing Israeli groups, Jewish and Arab, are actively promoting right of return, and preparing lesson plans to further increase awareness of the lies about the Nakba," he says.

Caroline Glick: ‘If Russia sends a nuclear attack on the U.S., it’s going to arrive’ | Mideast News Hour

If Russia decides to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon it’s going to arrive, according to David Wurmser of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. “I don’t think most Americans perceive that because their elites have convinced them that there is no such option,” Wurmser said in an interview with Caroline Glick on this week’s “Mideast News Hour.” “I think there is a misperception out there in America of our own power and strength.”

Glick and Wurmser also discuss the fallout from President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and the Middle East and the deeper reasons for the U.S.’s refusal to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Finally, they move to Israel itself and the stakes in the coming election.

On Monday, hundreds of Palestinian lawyers protested Mahmoud Abbas' sweeping powers:

Hundreds of Palestinian lawyers held a rare street protest Monday against what they described as the Palestinian Authority's "rule by decree", condemning president Mahmud Abbas for governing without a parliament.

The Palestinian Legislative Council -- created under the Oslo Peace Accords with Israel -- has been inactive since 2007, meaning Abbas has led without a functioning parliament for nearly all of his tenure as president.

But a new leadership at the Palestinian Bar Association has sought to pressure the PA.

The draft Palestinian constitution allows for presidential decrees "if necessary", in cases where the PLC cannot act, but lawyers said Abbas has gone too far.

According to estimates by Palestinian legal experts, Abbas has issued some 400 presidential decrees while in office.

He officially dissolved the PLC in 2018.

The article doesn't come close to describing Abbas' control of all the branches of the Palestinian government.

In order to "legally" dissolve the PLC, he needed the Palestinian Constitutional Court to make that decision. And guess who appointed every member of that group in 2016?

Yes, it was Abbas himself.

So Mahmoud Abbas controls, either directly or by proxy, the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the Palestinian Authority.

But his powers don't end there, because the PA is not independent - it reports to the PLO, which is still legally considered the "“Sole Legitimate Representative of the Palestinian People” - and whose chairman is also Mahmoud Abbas.

This is all documented. It is no secret that Abbas controls everything.

Yet Western media almost completely ignores this basic fact. Abbas is never referred to as a dictator - except by Hamas media.

The reason, as always, is that pointing out the corruption of the Palestinians seems to weaken the overarching narrative of an evil Israeli oppressive presence that controls every aspect of Palestinian life, and that narrative must be protected as much as possible.

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!

A referendum on a new constitution for Tunisia was said to have easily passed, and this has now officially ended the hopes of the Arab Spring, as it has demolished all democratic reforms and has given its president sweeping, dictatorial powers.

It also calls for the destruction of Israel.

In the preamble, it says:

We, the Tunisian people, reaffirm our belonging to the Arab nation and our keenness to adhere to the human dimensions of the Islamic religion. ...We adhere to international legitimacy and support the legitimate rights of peoples who, according to this legitimacy, have the right to decide their own destiny, the first of which is the right of the Palestinian people to their stolen land and the establishment of their state on it after its liberation, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

This isn't referring to "occupied territories," rather it is saying that Tunisia supports Palestinian claims to all of Israel, which they consider "stolen land."

I am not aware of any other constitution that urges the destruction of another nation.

However, Palestinians and their supporters are disappointed - because they had urged the President of Tunisia to also include a clause that would make normalization with Israel illegal and he didn't.

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!

We've written previously about the kangaroo court, open ended "commission of inquiry" of the UN Human Rights Council designed to declare Israel a violator of every law known to man plus a few that they will make up themselves.

One of the members of the commission, Miloon Kothari, gave an podcast interview with Mondoweiss (naturally) that was so absurd that it is beyond parody. He spouted explicit antisemitism. He spread lies about international law.

It is something to hear.

The goal of this commission is to gather evidence to take Israel to the International Criminal Court and possibly expel it from the UN.

Kothari complained about how the US was working against the obvious bias of the commission, saying that it was very disrespectful for the US to point it out.

You might know at this session of the Council when we presented our report, the United States, which is you know, become a member of the Council again, circulated a statement signed by 22 countries objecting to our mandate and that actually shows great disrespect for the body that the United States is a member of. Because once you're a member of a body and a body has adopted a mechanism, you have to, you have to respect it.

....We had overwhelming support of the UN Member states. the US got, you know, 22 states signed, but that's 22 out of 193. That's not very much.

Also I think that it's not only governments, but we are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by whether it's the Jewish lobby or it's very specific NGOs. A lot of money is being thrown into trying to discredit us.

According to Kothari, the majority must always be right. And Jews control social media and they are throwing a lot of their Jew money at trying to silence the esteemed UN commission that is beyond reproach or criticism.

That's not even an exaggerated version of what he is saying.

Kothari also says the "occupation" has been illegal from the beginning. Even if you say that Israel occupies the West Bank, occupations aren't illegal. There is no concept of an illegal occupation in international law. Kothari's ignorance of the basics of the international law that supposedly is the basis of this inquiry says volumes.

And then he says, "I would go as far as to raise the question is why are they [Israel] even a member of the United Nations?"

Listening to this podcast, this is a very good question. Why should any decent country give legitimacy to what is so obviously a joke?

Kothari did say one thing that was 100% accurate, though, even though he meant it in a different way:

If people feel that we are biased, then we are biased. But but for us, that's that's the job we've been given to do. And that's what we're doing.

Exactly. The job they were given was to be biased, and that is precisely what they are doing.

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!

07/26 Links Pt2: Ben Shapiro at Temple Mount: Jews face apartheid there; Is the Russian threat to the Jewish Agency a return to Soviet oppression?; Anne Frank diary-burning communist cult head arrested

From Ian:

Kassy Dillon: Ben Shapiro at Temple Mount: Jews face apartheid there

On Sunday afternoon, Ben Shapiro, the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, ascended to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to pray with his parents and a group of followers.

Shapiro’s first visit to the Temple Mount was during the holiday of Sukkot back in October 2019. That visit was cut short after someone in his group was found to be carrying a willow branch in his pocket as a mitzvah for the last day of Sukkot, leading to the group’s removal from the holy site.

While waiting for security to clear the group to enter the complex this time around, Shapiro told JNS that he hoped to be permitted to complete the tour this time.

“Hopefully, we actually make it all the way around the outside of the compound this time,” he said. “I wish we could all daven (‘pray’) openly there—the freest thing to do. The only place that Israel is an apartheid state is only on Har HaBayit [the Temple Mount]. That’s the only place.”

While on the complex, Shapiro and his group recited afternoon prayers, and his father said Kaddish for his grandmother, who passed away less than a year ago. During prayers, the group was repeatedly interrupted by Israeli police, who rushed them through their visit.

Shapiro’s group was escorted by five Israeli police officers with one Jordanian Waqf guard watching at a distance.

According to Melissa Jane Kronfeld, founder of High on the Har, a group that prays daily on the Temple Mount, the police presence is typical as protection for groups with religious Jews.

“The Israeli police protects us from Islamic extremists, for which we are grateful,” she said, citing the riots in June as an example.

David Singer: 100 years ago, the Mandate for Palestine Saga began

However the arrival of Abdullah, a member of the Hashemite dynasty, in Transjordan on 21 November 1920 accompanied by a band of armed troops en route to help his brother Faisal fight the French to retain Faisal’s crown in Syria – resulted in:
- Great Britain - at the Cairo Conference held on 12 March 1921 – stopping Abdullah by creating the Emirate of Transjordan for Abdullah in 78% of Mandatory Palestine East of the Jordan River.-The Emirate remained part of the Mandate until granted independence by Great Britain in 1946 – changing its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan.
- Article 25 being inserted into the Mandate document on 24 July 1922 - restricting the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in 22% of Mandatory Palestine West of the Jordan River
- The Council of the League of Nations approving these changed arrangements on 16 September 1922.

These changes have been preserved until today under article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

The United Nations failure to observe the terms of its own Charter has been the greatest obstacle to achieving the Mandate-contemplated two-state solution.

That two-state solution, as opposed to the one espoused by Biden, has however become politically attainable following a detailed plan for its creation in an article dated 8 June - written by Ali Shihabi a close confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman the next King of Saudi Arabia – and published in Al-Arabiya News –owned by the Saudi Royal Family.

Successful negotiations between Israel and Jordan to implement Shihabi’s plan would result in:
- The merger of Mandate territory located East and West of the Jordan River into one Arab State and the recognition of a Jewish State in the remaining Mandate territory West of the Jordan River including significant swathes of Judea and Samaria.
- The last chapter of the Mandate saga begun on 24 July 1922 is on the diplomatic horizon.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Is the Russian threat to the Jewish Agency a return to Soviet oppression?

If you’re old enough to remember the darkest days of the movement to free Soviet Jewry, the news last week that the Russian Justice Ministry has asked a court to close down the operations of the Jewish Agency in Israel in that country seems ominously familiar. In the Soviet era, the Communist regime wasn’t just preventing Jews from leaving. It was, as had been the case since the Bolshevik coup in 1917, openly anti-Semitic. Indeed, the Communists were even more oppressive than their tsarist predecessors in terms of suppressing Jewish life and the practice of Judaism.

The Russian move against the Jewish Agency would make it much harder for those Jews who want to leave a country that has become an international pariah due to its invasion of Ukraine. It also could be a harbinger of a return to the Jew-hatred that was so much a feature of life in the Eastern European monolith prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The reason for this seems to be an effort to get Israel to return to a stance of neutrality in the war Russia launched on Ukraine in late February. That’s a position the Jewish state changed after pressure from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the West and many Israeli citizens, who all thought that Israel needed to side with the victims.

These worries about Russia and anti-Semitism were supposed to be buried in the past.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, those Jews who remained were in a country that embraced an authoritarian government led by Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB agent. Putin was a thug determined to crush anyone who opposed him and his corrupt regime. He was also obsessed with reversing the verdict of history—whereby Russia had been demoted to the status of a second-rate power—and sought to recreate the old Soviet and tsarist empires.

Yet unlike the Communists and the tsars, Putin was seemingly immune to the virus of anti-Semitism. Jewish life in his Russia was allowed to thrive with synagogues, schools and community centers, many of which opened and were built brand-new under his watch.

Equally important, Russia has generally good, albeit complicated, relations with the State of Israel. On the one hand, Putin was happy to cultivate Israeli leaders and to regard the vast number of Israelis with ties to Russia as part of his country’s Diaspora, rather than despised émigrés. Though Putin’s Russia was not the engine driving anti-Zionism and anti-Israel terrorism in the Third World the way the Communist government had been, it also regarded some of the Jewish state’s worst enemies, such as Iran and Syria, as allies. His equivocal stance on the Iranian nuclear threat, which may have had more to do with his desire to annoy the United States whenever possible, was also problematic.

Seraph: The most Jewish superhero

Even though I have been re-titling old public domain comics, I am not a big fan of the genre. Just today I learned about a truly Jewish superhero, Seraph, from the DC universe.

Here he says hi to Superman.

Seraph was introduced in Super Friends #38, see the bottom of the cover:

His real name is Chaim Levon, a schoolteacher in Israel.

His list of superpowers is based on Biblical stories:

The Ring of Solomon gives him wisdom and allows him to teleport short distances.

The Mantle of Elijah protects him from harm.

The Staff of Moses can extend to whatever length he needed, and can transform into a serpent, create earthquakes, and manipulate water and energy.

His long-hair grants him the superhuman strength of Samson.

But most interesting superpower is a direct line to God. Seraph can request spectacular miracles from "a higher power" as he needs them.

Even more interesting is his weakness, which is what makes him so Jewish: "All his powers and artifacts will be rendered unusable if Seraph commit sins or abuses his powers. It won't return until the next Yom Kippur."

He has to repent on Yom Kippur!

There is a Marvel superhero, Sabra, who was also born in Israel and her real name is Ruth bat-Seraph. Clearly there is no relation between her and Seraph, but perhaps her name is an homage to this superhero who was created a few years earlier.

(h/t Yoel)

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!

One of the earliest uses of "Israeli apartheid" was a book that defended suicide bombings of Jews

During the height of the second intifada, this book was published:

Yes, it was positioning the terror war against Israeli civilians as "resisting Israel's aprtheid."

This was written shortly before the infamous antisemitic Durban conference where the 'apartheid" slur gained currency.

From the forward:

You get that? A demand to stop violence is a recipe for more violence.

Because today's anti-Israel bigots pretend to be against violence, it is easy to forget that during the suicide bombing spree, these same people justified the most heinous war crimes by Palestinians. This book was part of that tradition.

It includes chapters written by Edward Said, Alison Weir, Omar Barghouti, Ali Abunimah, Hussein Ibish and more (the last two complaining that US media was sympathetic to Jews being attacked.)

The "Apartheid" libel is not a response to Israeli actions. It is a justification for Palestinian atrocities.

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!

07/26 Links Pt1: Palestinian leaders are waging a war on Palestinians; Arabs: 'US President Decided to Tamper with ME Security for No Reason'; Nasrallah: Hezbollah has all of Israel in its missile range

From Ian:

US should stop funding UNRWA - opinion

UNRWA’s anti-Israel bias is systemic and manifests well beyond its definition of refugee status. In 2021, UNRWA removed its Gaza director, Matthias Schmale, after he commented Israel’s airstrikes were very precise in its 2021 operation. UNRWA’s textbooks continue to glorify terrorism and depict Jews as “impure,” and “inherently treacherous, and hostile to Islam and Muslims,” according to curriculum watchdog IMPACT-se.

UNRWA’s bias says a lot about the bad faith character of those in leadership positions on behalf of the Palestinians and why further US funding will fail to propel a solution unless there are serious reforms. Palestinian leaders have realized that though they are not powerful enough to destroy Israel – an aspiration stated in Hamas and the PLO’s charters – they continue to reject peace proposals, perpetuate conflict and steal foreign aid.

Despite Palestinian leadership having received 25 times more aid per capita than that which Europe received under the Marshall Plan to rebuild following World War II – all inflation considered – the Palestinian people have still yet to achieve European-style development. This is largely because Palestinian leaders waste hundreds of millions of dollars on initiatives designed to incite violence, such as its pay-for-slay fund, which provides stipends to terrorists and their families in proportion with the severity of their crimes.

As bloodshed ensues, Palestinian leaders regularly siphon public funds, which account for Yasser Arafat’s billions, and surely how career politician Mahmoud Abbas and his sons, who previously created companies that contracted with foreign aid donors, collectively amassed over $100 million (NIS 345 million). Notably, Hamas figureheads Khaled Meshaal and Mousa Abu Marzook have also “somehow” become billionaires.

While the US’s most recent pledge to UNRWA might be lower than last year’s donation, worth $334 million (NIS 1.2 billion), it is unrealistic to think that change will ensue until both Palestinian leadership and UNRWA are forced to reform. America is in a position of power and must insist that UNRWA remove all antisemitic staff and materials from its curricula before granting any future aid. Otherwise, the US can only expect endless conflict as a consequence of the propaganda of UNRWA’s current curriculums.

Emily Schrader: Palestinian leaders are waging a war on Palestinians

Several weeks ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) came out with a report criticizing the Palestinian leadership for widespread use of torture. While organizations like HRW are usually and disproportionately focused on condemning Israel, this is not the first report of its kind exposing the problems in Palestinian leadership, both in Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Shortly after, a report from UN Watch was released, detailing systemic torture of Palestinians. Within the week, a lawsuit was filed in the International Criminal seeking to hold the Palestinian leaders accountable.

The Palestinian Authority made international headlines last year with the murder of PA critic Nizar Banat, who was beaten to death by PA security forces. To date, no one has been held accountable for his death, and many of his supporters and protesters have been arrested, as well, on charges of unlawful assembly, insulting higher authorities and inciting sectarian strife. Indeed, the PA has a habit of arresting regime critics, even for something as small as a Facebook post.

Palestinian punishment
Once arrested, Palestinians in the West Bank may face physical beatings, solitary confinement, the whipping of feet, forced confessions, stress positions for prolonged periods of time, inhumane prison conditions and more. The Independent Commission Human Rights (ICHR) received 252 complaints of torture and 279 of arbitrary arrest in the West Bank in 2021 alone. In Gaza, Palestinians fare even worse.

The terrorist organization Hamas is known for their draconian punishments and hardline Islamist positions. They have publicly executed dozens of collaborators with Israel, without any sort of due process, and they routinely bully, arrest and harm Palestinians who don’t fall in line with their terrorist agenda. They have also executed some of their own members for being gay and who can forget that they have started three wars with Israel in recent years resulting in a catastrophic humanitarian situation for the people of Gaza, all while their leaders enjoy a luxury life, in many cases, abroad.

But despite all the testimonies and the evidence from Palestinians themselves, you wouldn’t even know such reports exist if you looked at the activities of pro-Palestinian groups abroad or at the social media feeds of the largest Free Palestine advocates. It’s been radio silence from notable activists like Mohamed El Kurd, Muna El Kurd, Miriam Barghouti, Ahed Tamimi and others on the reports of systemic torture of Palestinians at the hands of Palestinians.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs: 'US President Decided to Tamper with [Middle East] Security for No Reason...'

Arabs point out that one of Biden's biggest mistakes was that he took America's Arab allies for granted while embarking on a policy of appeasement towards Iran's mullahs.

"The behavior of the Obama and Biden administrations regarding Iran and Afghanistan served as a wake-up call for the countries of the region." — Ali Hamadeh, Lebanese Journalist, Annahar, July 20, 2022.

"Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya were stable countries until the US president decided to tamper with their security for no reason other than his fascination with the discourse of the left and the extremist [Muslim] Brotherhood...." — Saudi political analyst Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, July 18, 2022.

"I remember a little over a year ago how Biden described his relations with Riyadh when he said that they were partners and not allies, then removed the [Iranian-backed] Houthis from their designation as terrorists and then returned to the Iranian nuclear agreement." — Mohammed Al-Saed, Okaz, July 18, 2022.

The Arabs are telling Biden that they do not appreciate or respect weak leaders and remain concerned about his appeasement policy toward the mullahs and their proxies in the Middle East.

I came across an online copy of Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Essential Reference Guide, a 2014 volume that attempts to distill the conflict to less than 400 pages, including source materials.

Written and edited by southeast Asia-based academic Priscilla Roberts, it attempts to be even-handed and there is little that is offensive or too inaccurate (it certainly has mistakes.)

But when I searched the book for "antisemitism," it mentions only the European version. It says nothing about Arab antisemitism. It doesn't have a separate entry on the Mufti of Jerusalem and his virulent hate nor anything about his Nazi collaboration. It mentions the Hebron pogrom of 1929 only as an aside in the article on United Kingdom Middle East policy: "Sporadic armed conflict between the two communities simmered until, in August 1929, 67 Jews were murdered by rioters in Hebron. This shocking event eroded what little confidence Jewish leaders had in a binational compromise future for the region and led to the rapid expansion of the paramilitary Jewish self-defense force known as the Haganah."

Throughout the book, Arab antipathy towards Jews is framed as a logical response to Zionism and the history of Islamic and Arab antisemitism is simply not there.

This is what we see in the media as well as academia. Jew-hatred is fundamentally irrational and no one wants to accuse Arabs or Muslims of being irrational, because that sounds Orientalist. Ignoring the very real history of antipathy towards Jews in the Arab world is not doing anyone any favors, though - if one ignores a fundamental reason for the conflict, one cannot possibly pretend to explain it.

Since the beginning of Islam, Jews were regarded as dhimmis in Muslim-majority (mostly Arab) lands. They were second class citizens with limited rights. They were tolerated, mostly, as long as they kept in their place. When they were perceived as having crossed some imaginary line, they were subjected to pogroms no less violent than those in eastern Europe. And the very existence of a Jewish state in the midst of Arab lands is hated not because of pro-Palestinian sentiment: it is from the shame that the weak, hated, dhimmi Jews defeated the combined Arab armies.

To ignore that history in describing the Arab Israeli conflict is to effectively censor an important narrative. Even worse, it ignores the antisemitism that is still seen in Arab media, today.

Roberts worked with a larger team on the four volume 2008 "The Encyclopedia of The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History" which is also online. In that work, Arab antisemitism is not ignored, but it is minimized.

Its entry on antisemitism concentrates on how historic European antisemitism has animated modern Zionism, while Arab and Muslim antisemitism is mentioned only as a logical result of Jewish ambition. Even the Mufti's antisemitism, which is well documented from his own writings and radio broadcasts, is downplayed as a response to Jewish power or realpolitik:

The figure of Haj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem, serves as an excellent indication of growing anti-Jewish sentiment during this period. A significant leader of the Palestinian Arabs, al-Husseini moved incrementally toward anti-Semitism as he opposed Jewish ambitions in the region. While he had economic dealings with the Jewish population, he also inspired and organized the growth of Arab paramilitary groups intent on thwarting the growth of Jewish power. When disputes over access to the holy places in Jerusalem led to open conflict in 1929, he proved unable to control his followers and ultimately gave assent to their actions.

...The grand mufti of Jerusalem gained notoriety for his active courting of the Axis powers. However, his motivations also involved significant anti-British sentiment, for he viewed the Germans as the likely victors in the war and sought to gain influence with them.

This is ahistorical but it reflects the general attitude of scholars towards Arab antisemitism: when it is mentioned at all, it is regarded as an unfortunate consequence of Jewish greed and power or an unintended result of other historical events. It is never considered on its own, and it is not mentioned as a continuation of centuries of Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as well as the influence of virulent Christian Arab antisemitism on Arab nationalism in the early 20th century which converted the Arab attitude towards Jews into full blown hate.

The bias is clear when we see the full-page entry on "Anti-Arab Attitudes and Discrimination:"

Anti-Arab attitudes, especially toward Muslim Arabs, as well as formal and informal policies and codes of conduct that unfairly target Arabs and are sometimes known as anti-Arabism have been especially virulent in Israel since 1948.

From reading this encyclopedia, one would believe that the only irrational hate in the conflict is that of Jews towards Arabs!

There is a major gap in scholarship towards the Middle East, and there are no signs that anyone is interested in filling it.

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!