Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Arabs on social media very upset at Jordanian, Egyptian condemnations of Jerusalem attack

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry issued a statement that condemned the attack at the Jerusalem synagogue in the middle of a "both-sides" warning against escalation:

Amman, January 28 - Today, Saturday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs stressed the need to take urgent and effective steps to stop the dangerous and condemnable state of escalation, which has claimed the lives of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, and threatens to erupt into cycles of violence for which everyone will pay the price..

Today, the official spokesman for the ministry, Ambassador Sinan Majali, said that Jordan condemns the attack that targeted civilians in a synagogue in East Jerusalem, as well as all acts of violence targeting civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories..

He added that Jordan condemns violence against civilians in all its forms and stresses the need to respect the sanctity of places of worship.

Majali stressed the need for immediate action to prevent the escalating cycle of violence from worsening, to intensify efforts to restore calm, and to stop all unilateral and provocative measures that push for further escalation and tension..

Majali stressed the need to stop the dangerous deterioration that perpetuates despair and fuels extremism by joining efforts to restore confidence in the feasibility of the peace process by resuming serious and effective negotiations to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution so that everyone can enjoy security and peace.

When it was posted on Twitter, it was strongly condemned - and in fact, the tweet was "ratioed," a rare tweet where there were more comments against it than "Likes." Typical was this comment, "30 martyrs since the beginning of the year, we haven't heard anything from you, and when 10 pigs [Jews] died, it became necessary to calm things down..." Many pointed out that this may be the official government statement but most Jordanians support murdering Jews.

In Amman, Jordan, sweets were handed out in celebration of the attacks.

The Egyptian condemnation of the attack was stronger than Jordan's:

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday morning, January 28, 2023, the Arab Republic of Egypt expressed its total rejection and strong condemnation of the attack that took place in East Jerusalem on Friday, January 27, which resulted in the death of 7 people and a number of injuries, stressing its condemnation of all operations targeting civilians.

Egypt warned of the severe risks of the ongoing escalation between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, calling for the exercise of the utmost restraint, and an end to aggression and provocative measures in order to avoid falling into a vicious circle of violence that worsens the political and humanitarian situations and undermines de-escalation efforts and all chances of reviving the peace process.

Moreover, Egypt offered its sincere condolences to the families of the victims, wishing a speedy recovery for the injured.

This drew hundreds of angry reactions on Facebook and expressions of joy at the Jerusalem massacre.

Similarly, an Egyptian businessman with nearly 8 million followers, Naguib Sawiris, tweeted that both the Israelis in Jenin and the murderer in Jerusalem were terrorists. Thousands of Egyptians denounced his statement.

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia issued a "both-sides" statement that included a general condemnation of targeting civilians without saying anything about the Jerusalem attack. It did not get nearly the amount of angry responses as Egypt or Jordan did.

Incidentally, both Turkey and the UAE described the Jerusalem attack as "terrorist," angering Hamas.

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!

This video from Hamas' Al Resalah shows celebrations interspersed with scenes of the terror attack on Jerusalem on Friday night.

This video is enough to prove that there is no moral equivalence between the sides. Not even close.

It is worth reminding people that surveys done after major terror attacks show that Palestinians overwhelmingly support specific terror attacks on Jewish civilians. And the more "Jewish" they are, the more they support their deaths.

In 2008, 83.5% of Palestinians approved of the massacre of eight yeshiva boys at Mercaz Harav. In 2014, 80% said they support recent attacks including the massacre of four rabbis in a Har Nof synagogue.

There is no reason to think that the number supporting this latest attack on Jews outside a synagogue have any less support than those other attacks.

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!

01/28 Links: 14-year-old boy, married couple among those killed in Neve Yaakov terror attack; Father, son shot by 13-year-old at City of David in second attack in Jerusalem in 24 hours

From Ian:

1st Jerusalem terror attack victims named as couple who ran to help those shot

Two of the seven people shot and killed in a terror shooting attack in Jerusalem’s Neve Ya’akov neighborhood were named Saturday as couple Eli and Natali Mizrahi.

Eli’s father, Shimon, said the pair had gone outside to try and help those who had been shot, and were killed by the terrorist at point-blank range.

Eli, 48, and 45-year-old Natali had been married for just two years.

“We were in the middle of our meal, and there were several shots and my son jumped up. We yelled at him, ‘Don’t go anywhere,'” Shimon said.

“It seems that he was speaking with the terrorist, who pulled out a gun and killed him. [Eli] and his wife were murdered,” Shimon said. ‘[The terrorist] was standing next to his car and he shot them. He got into the car and fled.” Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address

The other five victims killed when the terrorist opened fire on Friday evening were not immediately named.

At least three others were wounded — Hadassah’s Mount Scopus Hospital said Saturday morning that a 15-year-old boy injured in the attack was now fully conscious and his condition defined as moderate.

However, a 24-year-old remained sedated on a ventilator. His condition was serious but stable. In addition, a 60-year-woman was also in moderate condition.

Police said Saturday that 42 people were arrested in connection with the attack, many of them relatives or acquaintances of the terrorist, Alqam Khayri, 21, a resident of East Jerusalem with no prior terror-related offenses.

Palestinian media said the gunman’s father was among those summoned by police for questioning.

Additional victims of Jerusalem terror shooting ID’d as 14-year-old boy, father of 3

Additional victims killed in the terror shooting in Jerusalem’s Neve Ya’akov neighborhood on Friday night were named Saturday evening.

The attack left seven people dead, two of whom were identified earlier in the day. The shooting was followed by another terror attack Saturday

The third victim was named as Rafael Ben Eliyahu, 56.

Ben Eliyahu, a resident of the area, was survived by his wife and three children. He worked for the state-owned Israel Post.

The fourth victim of the shooting attack was identified as 14-year-old Asher Natan. There was no immediate further information about him.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said another of the victims was a Ukrainian citizen, who he did not name. According to Hebrew media reports, the woman worked as a caretaker.

The other two victims have not yet been publicly identified.

Jerusalem terrorist may have posted about his intention to die as a martyr 18 months ago in a poem

On the Facebook page of Jerusalem terrorist Alqam Khairi, there is a photo of a gun that resembles the one he used to murder 7 Jews outside a synagogue tonight.

The text accompanying the photo is a poem, which clearly doesn't translate well with Google tools, but it appears to be showing anger at an absent father who doesn't notice that his son is turning more and more violent in an effort to gain attention:

You are not a father..

When your son makes all the car windows black and you don't ask why? You are not a father.

When your son starts to bully and run wild and talk only about power and you don't ask why? It means you are not a father.

When your son starts wearing a black cap and puts a knife and stick in the car, and you don't notice. Excuse me, you are not a father.

When your son comes back in the middle of the night and can't explain to you exactly where he is (if you asked him at all), you can't be a father.

When your son puts a picture of an individual on his Facebook, and is pictured with a weapon, and maybe a weapon is tattooed on his body, you are not a father at all.

And when your son comes back wrapped in a bag and they want to attend the funeral.. For God's sake, don't cry because you weren't a father at your age.

Allow me to tell you that we are a cheap people. Can our enemy buy us money to kill my countrymen and my cousin? The story is clear. There is no outside hand hiding help from sick souls.

Indeed, his Facebook shows someone, maybe him, with this tattoo:

He also has a photo of a terrorist from several years back, who may be the cousin he is referring to.

He's been posting photos of weapons since he was 15.

From what we know, Khairi had no known affiliation with a terror group. If this poem is any indication, this is another case of suicide by martyrdom - of a mentally ill person who lives in a sick society where losers can turn into heroes by trying to kill Jews.

His Facebook page is filling up with congratulatory messages on even his older posts. He is getting the attention he may have always been looking for.

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!

01/27 Links Pt2: Netanyahu: ‘The difference now is that the Jewish people have the State of Israel; Seven killed, 10 injured in Jerusalem terror attack

From Ian:

Irwin Cotler: Int'l Holocaust Remembrance Day: 10 universal lessons

I write on International Holocaust Remembrance Day – marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most brutal extermination camp of the 20th century – about remembrance, and a reminder of horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened.

I write also in the aftermath of the oft-ignored, if it is even known at all, 81st anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, convened by the Nazi leadership to address “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question” – the blueprint for the annihilation of European Jewry – which was met by the indifference and inaction of the international bystander community.

We are on the eve also of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, begun on April 19, 1943 – the most courageous civilian uprising in all of the Holocaust. There is a straight line between Wannsee and Warsaw; between the indifference of one and the courage of the other.

I write also in the wake of the 78th anniversary of the arrest and disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg on January 17, 1945 – Canada’s first honorary citizen, and an honorary citizen of the US, Australia and Israel. Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat whose leadership and mobilization of other courageous diplomats and Jews was able to rescue some 100,000 Jews in the last six months of 1944 alone – more than any other single government or organization. He demonstrated how one person with the compassion to care and courage to act can confront evil, prevail and transform history.

I write amid the international drumbeat of evil – on the eve of the first anniversary of the unprovoked and criminal Russian invasion and aggression in Ukraine, underpinned by war crimes, crimes against humanity, and incitement to genocide; the increasing assaults by China on the rules-based international order; the Iranian regime’s brutal and massive domestic repression met with the Iranian people’s courageous response of “women, life, freedom”; the mass atrocities targeting the Uyghurs, Rohingya, Afghans and Ethiopians; and the increasing imprisonment of human rights defenders like Russian human rights hero Vladimir Kara-Murza – the embodiment of the struggle for democracy in Russia and the critic of its invasion of Ukraine.

And I write also amid a global resurgence of antisemitic acts, incitement and terror – of antisemitism as the oldest, longest, most enduring, and most dangerous of hatreds; a virus which mutates and metastasizes over time, but which is grounded in one foundational, historical, generic, antisemitic, conspiratorial trope: namely, that Jews, the Jewish people, and Israel are the enemy of all that is good and the embodiment of all that is evil, regardless of what moment in time we are experiencing or living in.

And so, at this important inflection historical moment, we should ask ourselves: What have we learned in the last 78 years – and more importantly – what must we do?

Netanyahu: ‘The difference now is that the Jewish people have the State of Israel’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by vowing to ensure that the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews during World War II will never be repeated.

“Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and exactly 78 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. We in Israel mark this event by honoring the sacred memory of those who perished at the hands of a murderous Nazi regime. And we vow that this will never, ever, happen again to our people,” said Netanyahu.

“The difference now is that the Jewish people have the State of Israel. Israel protects itself by itself. We are a strong and vibrant nation and we have built up a powerful state that will not allow our enemies to inflict the very pain, suffering and devastating loss our people experienced during the Holocaust,” he continued.

“And there are those who still call for our destruction, day in and day out. We will not cower in fear nor will we allow the threats of these tyrants to intimidate us. For this enemy knows that at the end of the day, if needed, we can and will defend ourselves, and we will not allow our enemies to possess an ability to carry out its murderous agenda. We see them on their steady march towards obtaining the most lethal of weapons and I say to them here and now—we will stop you from obtaining them. And we do not forget or forgive the evil deniers of the Holocaust, which for them, one Holocaust was not enough,” said the prime minister.

“On behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, on behalf of the survivors and those who perished, I vow to you as Prime Minister of the one and only Jewish state, that we will remain vigilant, strong and never allow the Holocaust to happen again. Never,” he concluded.

What is Holocaust Revisionism?

Watch to learn more. For International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must honor these victims by opposing all efforts to diminish or deny their memories. Never again! pic.twitter.com/xhPYBKtj0K
— (((noa tishby))) (@noatishby) January 27, 2023

RT reports:

Lawyer Ashraf Farahat announced that the security services at Al-Maasara Police Station in Helwan, Egypt, arrested the owner of the “Anoosh Diary” YouTube channel, accusing her of spreading immorality and outraging public decency.

The accused appears in sexy clothes that highlight her body, to attract followers, saying: "I am divorced and I have two young children," explaining that she was broadcasting these videos because there was no source of income for her and her family.

The accused confirmed that she broadcast these videos after one of her neighbors advised her to commit this act due to quick profits, and the accused added that she was earning two thousand dollars a week, and she was sharing the amount with the marketing company that was sponsoring her communication sites.

The videos I could find were more modest than one could see in any street or market in the West. She is wearing a nightgown as she does her household chores.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, weddings feature belly dancers wearing far more revealing clothing and far more provocative movements, and they don't get arrested.

Seven of the 50 most popular websites in Egypt are porn sites. No one is arresting the men who frequent those sites.

Egyptian misogyny is the reason this woman was arrested, which is the same reason nearly all women in Egypt are subject to sexual harassment, which is the same reason why men can harass women with impunity but women can't make videos like this. (Anoush's YouTube channel was taken down.)

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!

01/27 Links Pt1: Return to Jenin; The Israeli Left Begs the World To Protect Its Power; PA promotes homes on Jewish archeological site; Iran is still in the Holocaust denial biz

From Ian:

Return to Jenin

"The history matters here," noted the BBC's Jerusalem correspondent, Tom Bateman, in a report on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in the West Bank city of Jenin last Thursday that resulted in the deaths of nine Palestinians – eight of them men affiliated with terror groups, one of them a woman civilian.

In the annals of anti-Zionist demonization of the State of Israel, Jenin occupies a special place. The city was the location, in April 2002, of one of the most treacherous myths about Israel's military conduct that spilled over into open antisemitism.

As Bateman summarized it, back then "Israel launched a full-scale incursion – known as the Battle of Jenin – in which at least 52 Palestinian militants and civilians and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed. It had followed a campaign of Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, many of which involved perpetrators from the city." That wording is technically correct and marks a vast improvement of the BBC's original 2002 reporting of the "Battle of Jenin," which the broadcaster described as a "massacre" perpetrated by the Israelis.

The reality is that the IDF suffered heavy losses as it battled Palestinian gunmen precisely because it was unwilling, out of concern for the city's civilians, to take more drastic measures like aerial bombardment to pacify Jenin – the sorts of measures that Russia, Iran or China would take without blinking an eye. But within 24 hours of the alleged massacre, the late Sa'eb Erakat, the Palestinian Authority's principal negotiator with Israel, was fabricating lurid stories about the IDF's operation. "They want to hide their crimes, the bodies of the little children and women," Erakat told The Guardian without a shred of evidence to support this monstrous claim.

Other Palestinians in positions of authority told similar lies. The director of the main hospital in Jenin alleged that the Israelis had deliberately destroyed its west wing – a wing that never existed – as well as its water and power supplies. "IDF soldiers took care not to enter its grounds even though we knew that it was serving as a refuge for several wanted fugitives," a former IDF officer, David Zangen, wrote over one year later in November 2003. "We guarded the water, electricity and oxygen supplies to the hospital all throughout the fighting and assisted in setting up an emergency generator after the city's electrical system was damaged."

Nevertheless, the myth of a massacre persisted, not just in the Arab media, but in Western outlets too. The massacre that wasn't became a new blood libel for the 21st century, one that took painstaking efforts by Jewish groups to counter effectively. In the process, Jewish communities were confronted with a form of antisemitism that took spurious assertions as uncontested facts, rooted in turn in an antisemitic mindset that encouraged the worst beliefs about Jews.

Caroline Glick: The Israeli Left Begs the World To Protect Its Power

In 2007, then-editor of Israel's far-left Haaretz newspaper David Landau implored then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "rape" Israel. Landau told Rice that Israel "wants to be raped by the United States" into making territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

Landau's statement, which was widely reported at the time, was and remains shocking. But over the past quarter-century, it has become common practice for the Israeli Left to turn to foreign governments and other international actors for help subverting democratic processes in Israel.

In 1977, Israel's Left lost its political majority forever when working-class Israelis abandoned it for the political Right. Over the past 46 years, the Left has held power for a total of just under 13 years.

To compensate for its loss of political power, the Israeli Left expanded the power of Israel's already powerful bureaucracy, which its members controlled. Over the past 30 years, using its control over the Supreme Court and the attorney general's office, the Left enacted a judicial revolution that transformed the unelected justices into the most powerful arm of government, with no checks on its power or accountability to the public. Through judicial fiat, the justices and their allies in the attorney general's office have clipped the wings of Israel's elected leaders, and made all policies and laws dependent on their prior or retroactive approval.

As the years passed, more and more Israelis fell victim to the legal fraternity, which rules in accordance with its leftist values and political interests. And as more Israelis became aware of the problem, the issue of legal reform became increasingly salient in elections. In last November's elections, the right-religious bloc won 64 seats to the Left and center-left's 46. The central campaign issue of both sides was legal reform. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party, and its three coalition partner parties all ran on platforms that laid out detailed plans for judicial and legal reform.

On the other hand, opposition leader Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party and his partners on the political Left all ran on platforms that rejected judicial and legal reform.

The election results constituted the first real prospect that the legal fraternity's unlimited powers would be checked, and actual power restored to the government and Knesset. The Left's response to this turn of events has been unhinged from reality, but disciplined. All elite groups in Israeli society have gathered as one to warn of the impending destruction of democracy, the rise of fascism, the collapse of minority rights, and the destruction of judicial independence. With the lockstep participation of the media, the Left has gathered in mass protests on successive Saturday nights. This week, hi-tech workers blocked traffic and assaulted motorists, and several companies declared a one-hour strike.

Just a video of Palestinian terrorists firing on Jewish homes

During the State Department briefing yesterday, Said Arikat badgered spokesperson Vedant Patel trying to get him to condemn Israel, and in part of his diatribe he said, "Now, who guarantees that equality? Who will guarantee that Palestinians and Israelis can actually have the same equal measures, as you keep repeating? It’s not the Palestinians that keep going day after day into Israeli villages and towns and so on and attack them during night raids..."

Actually, Palestinians attack Jews literally every day. They brag about it. They keep detailed statistics, is this poster of last week's attacks shows:

Today, Islamic Jihad issued a press release: "The Al-Quds Brigades - Jaba Groups announced, this morning, Friday 27-1-2023, that they were able to target the Homesh settlement with dense and successive salvoes of bullets."

What exactly does that look like?

On January 15, another division of the Al Quds Brigades published a similar statement saying they attacked the village of Hermesh. This time they included a video showing automatic machine gun fire aiming at random Jewish homes.

Do the residents of Hermesh deserve to live in peace, without worry that they would be subject to automatic gunfire randomly shot at their houses?

Does any human rights group ever say that?

Do any of the reporters at the State Department even know that this happens every day?

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!

Disgusting @Amnesty parrots lie that IDF shot tear gas at a hospital

Amnesty International's response to Israel's raid at a terrorist nest in Jenin yesterday is yet more evidence of its anti-Israel and ultimately antisemitic bias.

Responding to the killing of at least nine Palestinians by Israeli forces during a military raid on Jenin refugee camp this morning, Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director at Amnesty International, said:

“In the space of just a few hours this morning, Israeli forces killed at least nine people and injured 20 more; blocked ambulances from accessing the wounded; and fired tear gas at a hospital, reportedly causing suffocation injuries to sick children.

The charge that Israel fired tear gas at a hospital came from PA health minister Mai Al-Kaila who absurdly claimed that the IDF "stormed" the hospital and "deliberately" fired tear gas to the children's ward.

Luther knows that she is lying, because he doesn't mention her charge about "storming" the hospital, which makes no sense.

The IDF denied the charge immediately:

Israel's army denied a Palestinian claim that soldiers deliberately fired tear gas at a hospital during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

"No one shot tear gas on purpose at a hospital," an army spokesman told AFP. "But the activity was not far away from the hospital and it is possible some tear gar entered through an open window."

Amnesty's statement was published ten hours after Israel's emphatic denial.

Which means that Amnesty chose to parrot the obvious lies of a Palestinian minister, watering it down a little because they knew her entire statement was propaganda. Then they chose to ignore Israel's denial as not being even worth considering.

To Amnesty, Palestinians are trustworthy and Jews are simply liars whose words aren't even worth considering.

And what really happened in the hospital? Middle East Monitor published video that they claimed shows the mothers and children choking:

There's no panic, no running, no choking, no one looking like their eyes hurt, and the women aren't even covering their own or their children's faces to protect from the tear gas.

The IDF explanation makes perfect sense - the mothers and nurses smelled the tear gas and are looking for a room that didn't have an open window, and hospital staff directs them where to go.

Middle East Monitor knows this, so they caption the video with what they want you to believe, not what you are actually seeing - a time honored Pallywood propaganda technique. People are conditioned to implicitly trust captions and then view the photo or video through the lens that the propagandists helpfully provide.

But even worse than repeating obvious lies and treating Israeli rebuttals as not even worth considering, from reading Amnesty's statement one wouldn't even know that there was a three hour battle going on. Amnesty makes it sound like the IDF went into Jenin to kill a bunch of civilians because of "impunity." No one reading Amnesty's statement would know that this is what nearly all of those killed were doing at the moment of their deaths:

The statement also doesn't even hint at the reason the Israeli forces must go into Jenin to begin with - because a wave of deadly attacks in Israel last year where Jenin was the source.

While Amnesty rushes to condemn Israel going after armed terrorists, Amnesty did not condemn a single one of those attacks on Israeli civilians. Here are their press releases during the time period between March and May 2022 when there were five multiple-casualty terror attacks in Israel:

This is beyond simple bias. This is the world's leading human rights organization actively choosing to support Islamic terrorism over the Jewish state.

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!

Earlier this week, Francesca Albanese - the UN Special Rapporteur for the territories - tweeted out a call for issues she should write reports about.

I responded asking her to write about Palestinian terror groups recruiting children.

Of course she didn't answer. But in a way, she did.

Shortly thereafter, Albanese tweeted "As I took office 8m ago, I committed to making children & youth a priority for my mandate," then calling on Israel to release a Ahmed Mansara who, at 13, had stabbed and critically injured a 13-year old Israeli boy on a bicycle outside a candy shop.

Clearly, she doesn't consider the human rights of Jewish children to be under her mandate.

But she doesn't seem to care about many Palestinian children, either.

Joe Truzman, of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, unearthed a video made last summer from Jenin. It shows masked terrorist going around the city, followed eagerly by children. Sometimes the terrorists give the children guns.

During a parade, the terrorists - and teenagers - are firing into the air in the middle of the crowded streets with young children all over.

Between this video and the five child militants who were killed this year after being recruited and brainwashed into wanting to become martyrs, it is pretty clear that there are serious human rights violations happening against Palestinian children - by other Palestinians.

Truzman tweeted, "The amount of militants in Jenin, guns, and children walking around who are seemingly armed in this video is astounding, yet not surprising. There's a serious problem in the West Bank, especially in Jenin, and this video demonstrates it perfectly. "

In an astounding response, Albanese tweeted, "Yes there is a serious problem and not only in Jenin. It is called colonial occupation."

Yes, when children are exposed to gratuitous violence by Palestinians, Albanese blames...the Jews.

It is quite clear that Albanese's claim that she "committed to making children & youth a priority" for her mandate only applies to a specific subset of children: only Palestinian children whose situation she can blame on Jews.

All the others can go to hell because they don't advance her anti-Israel, antisemitic agenda.

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!

80 years ago: Nazis massacre Jewish leaders in Tripoli before leaving

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I searched for the word "Jews" in newspapers from 80 years ago today, and saw many versions of this story:

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!

01/26 Links Pt2: Israel Was Created to Ensure the Survival of the Jewish People; Our Duty to the Dead: Remember Their Names; ‘Jews who give money to Harvard are dumb’

From Ian:

Israel Was Created to Ensure the Survival of the Jewish People

Critics refer to some of the newly ascendant parties in the Israeli government as "hypernationalist and Jewish supremacist." If by these epithets they mean that their members and supporters care more for Jews - their national family - than they do for the enemies of the Jews; that they are hell-bent on putting a stop to the weekly slaughter of innocent Jewish civilians by Arab terrorists; and that they believe that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish People, and oppose the erection of a jihadist Palestinian polity controlled by Hamas, then this is just classical Zionism. Ben-Gurion would affix his signature to these propositions.

We, whose children and grandchildren will, God willing, grow up here in Israel, want peace more than anybody. We believe, as has many an Israeli strategist hailing from both sides of the political-ideological divide, that peace will come only if we are strong, and only if we are insistent on our rights to this land. In addition, we have noted that when Yair Lapid was at the helm, he came up with no better or more humane ideas for dealing with the conflict than any of his predecessors.

The State of Israel was created, and continues to exist, for one purpose: to ensure the survival and prosperity of the Jewish People. Unless we keep present in our minds our polity's Jewish nationalist raison d'etre, and keep at bay those universalist, Western-based notions that are geared by definition to undermine nationalism in all its forms, this country is done for.

Dani Dayan: Our Duty to the Dead: Remember Their Names

"Remember only that I was innocent and that, like all of you, mortals of this day... I too had a face marked by rage, by pity and by joy, an ordinary human face!"

Benjamin Fondane, a French Jew, wrote these poignant words in one of his final poems, Préface en Prose, before being murdered, shortly after his deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Fondane's plea for remembrance was frequently voiced by Jewish people persecuted by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II; an appeal for a solemn and everlasting commitment by all humanity to recall, in essence, every Holocaust victim. Fondane insisted that we never forget their humanity, their individuality.

Indeed, no two persons are identical. We each possess our own distinctive features, personality and traits, as well as the name given to us at birth. That name marks each of us as an individual, whose story—past and future—is forever unique.

Our names define us. Even when we leave this world, our names, and our stories, remain—for generations.

Remembering the Murdered
During the Shoah, the German Nazis and their collaborators sought not only to annihilate the entire Jewish people through an unprecedented and systematic campaign of mass murder. They also aimed to eradicate any trace of their culture and religion, of their very existence, down to the very last Jew. Even before arriving at the concentration and death camps, the Jews were marked as mere numbers by the Nazis and their collaborators. Once they had reduced the Jews to nameless masses, the perpetrators could more easily erase them.

By our understanding how the names and identities of the Holocaust victims were brutally stolen from them, we can better appreciate how important it is to remember them. Like Fondane, the final hope of many of the victims, aware that they were on the verge of death, was to be remembered. Thus, refusing to fade into oblivion, they demonstrated their undying human spirit. It is our duty to ensure the eternal fulfillment of that hope.

Dear Non-Jews, this is what to do this Holocaust Remembrance day

‘Antisemitism – the hatred of difference – is an assault not on Jews only but on the human condition, as such,” said Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z”l (of blessed memory).

Most Israelis and Americans mark the end of what we commemorate on Yom Hashoah as 1945, yet the incidents of ugly antisemitism continue around the globe. Here in Boca Raton, Florida, messages of antisemitic hate were distributed on January 15, 2023, terrorizing Jewish residents and causing their non-Jewish neighbors to question the state of the world. A day later, a swastika was projected onto a building, nearby in West Palm Beach, Florida.

In the midst of this trend, January 27 – the day we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day – could not be more critically important to recognize.

Even as some people continue to trivialize Yom Hashoah, marking when nearly one-third of the Jewish population perished, others deny its very existence. Public awareness and acknowledgment – or lack thereof – are trending dangerously. Antisemitism is at its highest levels since World War II, with attacks on Jewish centers and synagogues, and acts of assault, harassment, and violence on the upswing globally. This troubling wake-up call means that the current climate needs to change.

Even as we face dwindling numbers of aging survivors, the Shoah remains a contemporary issue. It is a critical time for the lessons of Yom Hashoah, which require the confrontation of a number of emotionally and intellectually difficult questions. In a world where prejudices are still being manipulated and amplified, going largely unchallenged, discrimination must not be allowed to flourish. We cannot allow a people’s very existence to be threatened ever again.

George Santayana said, “He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it.” Winston Churchill used similar language as part of a speech in the British Parliament in 1948, the year Israel was formally established by the Israeli Declaration of Independence, an irony not lost on us.

This fundraising email from J-Street is kind of amazing on a number of levels.

Israel is in the midst of a major political struggle.

On one side, those fighting to protect Israel’s founding ideals of democracy, equality and justice. On the other, the new hardline Netanyahu government, bent on centralizing power, circumventing the courts and cementing permanent occupation in the West Bank.

...The government’s radical plan was drawn up by the Kohelet Forum, an increasingly powerful right-wing, pro-settlement think tank that’s funded largely by two right-wing American billionaires.

They’ve been called “the brains of the Israeli right wing” and helped draft the problematic “Nation-State Law” -- which according to Netanyahu made Israel “the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” They were also behind Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo’s tenuous legal argument claiming that Israeli settlements in occupied territory do not violate international law.

The group is funded by two Republican Jewish-American billionaires from Pennsylvania who have also helped fund the campaigns of MAGA extremists like Lauren Boebert. They hope that GOP-style policies and values can come to dominate Israeli society....

We might not have right-wing billionaires backing our work, but we do have thousands of supporters like you. Can you chip in $18, $54, $90 -- or any other amount -- to help us fight back?

Their use of the word "Jewish" here is telling. It is meant to be a dog-whistle, just like "right-wing" and "billionaires" and "Republican." Not that J-Street is against Jews per se, but when you add Jewish to the other terms it makes them sound so much worse - as if Jewish conservatives are traitors to the liberal Jewish people.

J-Street, of course, takes millions of dollars from wealthy left-wing people (like Bill Benter, who helped fund its start-up.) And of course, only last year George Soros gave J-Street's SuperPAC a million dollars, in addition to his other donations to the group over the years, a significant percentage of their annual budget.

Now, how would it sound if far-right people said that J-Street was heavily funded by a "Jewish left-wing billionaire"? It would sound like a dog-whistle. And that is exactly what J-Street is doing here - trying to raise money from leftist donors to counter the evil influence of "Republican, right-wing Jewish billionaires."

Beyond that, J-Street cannot counter the Kohelet Policy Forum. What exactly would funds raised be used for? To create left-wing think tank to criticize Israel in Israel?

They are creating a bogeyman to inflame the feelings of people who hate the Right, people who hate Republicans, people who hate billionaires, and people who especially hate Jewish right-wing billionaires. They hand-wave as if giving J-Street money will do something against these nefarious forces, but the entire mailing is simply a lesson in propaganda: "Here are people you never heard of before that you should loathe so much that you will want to give us money to pretend to counter them." The fundraising wouldn't work without the appeal to emotion, and the word Jewish is used as part of that appeal.

If it looks, sounds and smells like an antisemitic dog whistle....

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!

Powerful Jewish Interests Kept Me From The Presidency Of This Synagogue By Kenneth Roth (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Powerful Jewish Interests Kept Me From The Presidency Of This Synagogue

By Kenneth Roth, former Director of Human Rights Watch

Ken Roth New York, January 26 - It's happened again. Just weeks after America's premier educational and research institution bowed to pro-Israel donors and rescinded its offer to me of a position, now my local house of worship has acted in similarly corrupt fashion - it has submitted to a group of Jews opposed to my candidacy to lead the synagogue for the next two years.

This phenomenon of Jews with money and a political agenda silencing critics of their pet Zionist project must end. Nothing in my history or campaign platform for the presidency of Temple Beit Khashoggi suggests that I would perform in a non-exemplary fashion in the position, just as, a few short weeks ago, I was blindsided by Harvard University's decision to back away from its invitation to me, at the behest of those who perceive my criticism of Israel as disqualifying. Disqualifying! Simply because they count my tweets about Israel vs. those about every other country? Because they claim to detect anti-Israel bias in my token, infrequent criticism of Israel's terrorist enemies that I wield as a shield against charges of tendentious reporting and analysis? They even go so far as to accuse me of fomenting antisemitism - what imbecile would associate criticism of Israel with antipathy for Jews, or think that violence against Jews in reaction to criticism of Israel has ever happened?

The same forces are at play at the synagogue, I fear. The board refused to accept my application, citing some obscure, little-invoked bylaw specifying that only members in good standing for at least two consecutive years may stand for the presidency. I only recently paid my membership, having only of late made more permanent living arrangements following my departure from Human Rights Watch. The monied agenda opposed to my activities and goals is behind it, as always, securing that provision in the bylaws long before I thought to run for the office. That is how underhanded and corrupt they are.

I cannot help but sense this is an intentional, vindictive campaign of harassment and persecution because of my staunch position over the years putting Palestinians' predicament at the top of the international human rights agenda, relegating such issues as persecution of LGBT people in the Islamic world, or antisemitic violence unrelated to Israel, to the sidelines, or, when I did invoke them, it was either grudgingly or as a way to make the criticism really about Israel after all. We all know exactly what kind of powerful (((people))) would want to show their displeasure over that.

I will not be deterred. Let's see how much influence they have against my campaign to join the board of the Nation of Islam.

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!

01/26 Links Pt1: Mark Levin, Eugene Kontorovich Explain Israel’s Judicial Reforms; 9 Palestinian gunmen killed as IDF foils terror cell in Jenin; The Saudis are growing sick of Palestine

From Ian:

HRC Op-Ed In The Hill Times History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label

HRC’s Op-Ed entitled: “History Doesn’t Support Giving Israel An ‘Occupier’ Label” was published in The Hill Times on Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, is not an “occupier” of its own land and of its own eternal and undivided capital, Jerusalem.

No UN resolution or political proclamation can distort these historical truths.

Furthermore, Jews have historical ties to Judea and Samaria which dates back thousands of years. Israel strenuously disputes claims that it’s an “occupier,” citing pre-existing legal, ancestral, and biblical claims to lands it acquired in a war of self-defence in 1967 against pan-Arab armies seeking its destruction and as there was no recognized sovereign of these areas at the time.

Jordan controlled the area now regarded as the “West Bank” from 1948-1967 following the War of Independence, which saw combined Arab armies try to wipe the nascent State of Israel off the map. Jordan didn’t have rightful title to the land according to international law. Same equally applies for Egypt, which controlled the Gaza Strip from 1948-1967, unlawfully, and which Israel acquired in 1967, but from which, in 2005, it unilaterally disengaged, removing 21 settlements, 8,000 settlers, and its combined armed forces in a unilateral concession for peace.

Importantly, the Palestinians have never had sovereignty and statehood, and according to Israel’s position and many leading international jurists, the laws of occupation aren’t applicable.

Melanie Phillips: Netanyahu at bay, but what about the facts?

So, how’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faring in his supposed program to smash democracy at the behest of the religious extremists in his government?

Well, as Israel’s newly-minted dictator, he’s not doing too well in that regard.

Consider: Netanyahu has demonstrated his supposed craven subjection to the ultra-nationalist Bezalel Smotrich, to whom he gave authority over civilian administration in the disputed territories, by brutally slapping Smotrich down when he attempted to overrule an IDF and Defense Ministry decision to tear down an illegal Israeli outpost.

Netanyahu has shown his allegedly despotic determination to ditch the rule of law by bowing to the Supreme Court’s ruling against his minister and long-time ally Aryeh Deri and firing him.

And Netanyahu showed himself captured, bound and gagged by the zealots in his government who want to turn Israel into a theocracy when he effectively overruled the Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar, who said he would stop funding cultural activities on Shabbat.

In other words, in every case, Netanyahu has chosen to uphold the existing order rather than overthrow it.

Undoubtedly, the fight between Smotrich and the defense establishment has further to go. Netanyahu has said he will somehow bring Deri back into his government. We have yet to see how these and other issues will turn out.

Maybe Netanyahu will yet morph into a cross between Viktor Orban, Herod and Mussolini. But so far, he has been behaving as a cautious, risk-averse prime minister determined to keep the liberal, constitutional show on the road.

Of course, this has received no acknowledgment from the “progressive” Jewish world, both in Israel and the Diaspora. To such people, Netanyahu is personally irredeemable, and because the government he has formed is committed to defending Jewish interests rather than left-wing principles, it is deemed incapable of doing anything sensible or good.

Gadi Taub: The Struggle for Israel’s Democracy

In his previous administrations Netanyahu was careful not to pick a fight with the country’s judicial oligarchy, preferring to spend his political capital on other subjects—primarily Iran and economics. He assumed, based on experience, that Israel’s judicial oligarchy would continue to abide by an unwritten rule: If a politician doesn’t try to reform the justice system, they will leave his person—though not necessarily his policies—alone. The flip side of this arrangement was, in any case, more obviously true: Try to advance a reform, and you almost always end up with a criminal investigation, often one that was fabricated, as in the cases of Yaacov Neeman and Reuven Rivlin, both of whom were among those barred from serving as justice ministers by contrived investigations that ended up with nothing. The judiciary had its own praetorian guard in the Office of the State Attorney, which cultivated a culture of promiscuous yet slow-moving investigations that made sure politicians didn’t step out of line.

After Netanyahu won his fourth term in 2015, the despair on the left reached a fever pitch, and the various centers of left-wing power began to clamor for Netanyahu’s head. The press led the way with investigative pieces accusing Netanyahu of corruption. Despite the speculative nature of these investigations, law enforcement pursued them with new vigor, leading, finally, to indictments.

The indictments had a paradoxical effect on the struggle for power between bureaucracy and democracy. First, they showed Netanyahu that the judicial oligarchy posed a direct threat to his political fortunes that could not be reasonably abated through the usual program of mutual noninterference. Second, the attacks by the judiciary on Likud’s undisputed leader had an energizing effect on his voters.

While removing a justice minister can be seen as a peripheral event, taking down a prime minster, and thus overturning the results of a national election, is a wholly different matter. It can fly, even with his supporters, when a prime minister is clearly proven to be corrupt, as was the case with Ehud Olmert, who ended up serving jail time. But when more than half the public feels its standard-bearer was framed and its ballots effectively shredded, it is unlikely to just accept that result. So both Netanyahu and his voters came to see, more clearly than before, the severity of the problem and the urgency in restoring the balance between the branches of government.

But the indictments and later trial also threatened to neutralize Netanyahu’s ability to act. It is difficult for a prime minster to reform the judicial system and put checks on politicized law enforcement when he himself is facing a trial. How would he escape the obvious suspicion that he is trying to save himself and is willing—as the left dramatically phrases this talking point—to “smash the justice system just to save his own skin”? True, judicial reform is unlikely to interfere with an ongoing trial, except maybe by making the judges more hostile. But perception is crucial here, and so Netanyahu seemed caught in a bind. The question came down to this: Will voters support a reform, or will enough of them see it as cynical, self-serving move on his part?

Last year’s election turned precisely on that question. And the voters gave a clear answer.