Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, May 19, 2024

Once again, major Arabic media are quoting a fake "prophecy" from "President Benjamin Franklin"

We've discussed "The Franklin Prophecy" before, where "President" Benjamin Franklin supposedly gave a speech to the Continental Congress warning that the new United States must expel all Jews or else they will take over the country.

This lie was first published in 1934 by an American fascist publication and quickly reproduced in Nazi Germany. Here's a Nazi poster with the lie, complete with a picture of someone who is definitely not Franklin

The supposed speech was debunked fairly quickly - there is no record of any such speech, it uses language that was not used in the 18th century, and Franklin was a philosemite.

But that hasn't stopped this supposed "Franklin prophecy" from being resurrected every couple of years in Arab media.

The latest iteration comes from popular Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. After describing the speech, the author goes on to say that Jews call it a forgery, but it is obviously true:

The lines taken from Franklin's speech have ended, and this speech was called the "Franklin Prophecy," which its Jewish opponents naturally call the "Franklin Forgery," citing the fact that there is no evidence of its existence in any source issued before 1934 when it appeared on the pages of William Dudley Bailey's book in his pro-Nazi magazine, the Silver Legion. Despite their rejection of the truth of the existence of the speech, the global reality and the Jewish presence in the decision-making centers and the lobby in the White House after that confirm that this speech was real, first because of their historical lies that stuck with them and remained with them and which the world is currently following daily regarding the events in Gaza, and second because all its warnings and predictions appeared on the Internet. The course of those years following it and the issuance of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion after their conference in Basel 1897 AD, that is, 111 years after this speech .

The way they know it is true is because the Jews really are evil, as proven by the Protocols and confirmed by the Internet.

That's the pretzel logic that passes for analysis in major Arab media.

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!

05/18 Links: Who benefits from the destabilization of the US?; How Hamas became radical chic; Rewarding Hamas’s Publicists; Body of hostage Ron Binyamin recovered from Gaza

From Ian:

Who benefits from the destabilization of the US?

No organization has done more to dismantle America as it is presently constituted than BLM. And to the surprise of no one paying attention, BLM chapters were an early and enthusiastic supporter of Hamas’s terroristic and orgiastic attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Nor should it be surprising that the fiscal sponsors of the groups organizing today’s campus protests, such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Samidoun, are also philosophical and even fiscal backers of the different BLM entities.

But U.S. enemies supporting and benefiting from the street mayhem are not all domestic. China, America’s rising 21st-century adversary, and Cuba, whose sclerotic revolutionary rulers have been consumed with anti-American resentment for more than six decades, are two communist outposts implicated in the protests.

A new report by the Network Contagion Research Institute analyzed “the activities and foreign connections” of the Shut It Down for Palestine movement, “an anti-capitalist, anti-police, and anti-government protest movement that emerged after October 7,” the day of the Hamas massacre in Israel. Organizations “operating under the SID4P umbrella are members of the ‘Singham Network’ donor portfolio.”

That network is tied to Neville Roy Singham, a half Cuban, half Sri Lankan tech entrepreneur who was born in the U.S. and resides in Shanghai. A former member of radical Marxist groups, he sold his software company for $785 million in 2017 and now donates generously to Marxist causes.

Various publications, from the New York Times to the Free Press, say he has close connections to the Chinese Communist Party — something Singham denies.

But the NCRI report says that three of the Singham Network’s affiliates — the People’s Forum, the International People’s Assembly, and the ANSWER coalition — “serve as the conduit through which CCP-affiliated entities have effectively co-opted pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S., advancing a broader anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-capitalist agenda.”

One of the leaders of the People’s Forum, the Dominican Republic-born Manolo De Los Santos, has received training in Cuba and meets regularly with the regime’s nominal president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, writes Mary O’Grady at the Wall Street Journal.

De Los Santos gave a rousing speech to more than 100 “masked and keffiyeh-clad activists” at the People’s Forum Manhattan office hours before they headed to Columbia to take over Hamilton Hall, according to Washington Free Beacon reporter Joseph Simonson, who attended via Zoom. De Los Santos urged the demonstrators to “give Joe Biden a hot summer” and “make it untenable for the politics of usual to take place in this country.”

The activists were then trained on “new methods of resistance” in a breakout session. “A few hours later, activists smashed the windows of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside,” noted Simonson.

We are constantly reminded that peaceful protests are constitutionally protected speech. But we should be equally reminded to ask of those subverting our peace and undermining our institutions: “Cui bono?” It’s not people who wish us well.

How Hamas became radical chic

Dostoevsky maintained that the suffering of Russian peasants before the elimination of serfdom exceeded any misery the Jews had ever experienced. His elevation of the Russians and demotion of the Jews reflects the zero-sum logic of the victimisation sweepstakes, in which every winner entails a loser, every plus a minus. Identity politics involves a similar logic. The theory of intersectionality recycles Marx’s idea that all forms of injustice are systemically interconnected. This means that no single category of oppression can be eliminated unless all are. And as with capitalists and the proletariat, opposed groups epitomise both injustice and its antithesis, sacrificial suffering in the cause of human liberation. A popular diagram explaining intersectionality contrasts categories of “Privilege” with those of “Oppression/Resistance” — a phrase that suggests noble opposition to tyrannical injustice. The diagram lists among the privileged those who are “white”, “European”, “credentialed”, “upper and upper-middle class”, “anglophones”, and “light, pale”. Most Jews in the West, where intersectionality originated, are all of these things, while almost all Palestinians are none of them.

This analytical framework binds the people of Israel with the Palestinians in a fateful struggle. Other Western groups (e.g. Episcopalians) are by the measures of intersectionality also highly privileged. But none threaten the Palestinians’ attempt to be seen by Westerners as the new proletariat — the Chosen People of cultural Marxism — as do the Jews, whose ancient claim to divine election has subjected them to endless persecution. This is why Hamas finds it necessary to deny both the Holocaust and the Jews’ historical connection to the land of Israel — a denial echoed in the charge of “settler-colonialism” that is falsely and uniquely level against the Israelis.

With calls to “globalise the intifada” echoing on the campuses of the West, it’s become clear that today’s cultural Marxists are playacting in the only drama they’ve been taught by their radicalised professors. Unburdened by knowledge of the past, unfamiliar with the sacrifices laid by so many on the altar of freedom and ordered liberty, unacquainted with any but anti-heroes, these anarchists, schooled in the likes of Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, and Frantz Fanon, have learned to regard civilisation as little more than a set of unreasonable constraints on their appetites. Their feverish imaginations transform perpetrators of unspeakable evil, washed not in the blood of the lamb but that of slaughtered Jews, into innocent martyrs in the cause of human liberation.

And it’s not just Hamas that benefits from this demonic alchemy. Marx’s knowledge that he belonged to the “small section of the ruling class [that] cuts itself adrift and joins the revolutionary class”, and that he effectively called the proletariat into being as a revolutionary agent by endowing it with class consciousness, must have considerably assuaged his bourgeois guilt. Hamas’s supporters, including many students and faculty at expensive, elite universities, are buoyed by a similar knowledge as they attempt to launch the “intifada revolution”. (Perhaps some of them, having embraced antisemitic conspiracy theories, figure that if any cabal controls society, it should be them.) Glamping undergraduates who complain that “finger painting for Palestine is cancelled; these people are animals!” — a remark recently overheard at the University of Texas, as police broke up a demonstration — have taken the torch from jihadis and are trying to set the world aflame with it. In doing so, they confirm the truth of Marx’s observation that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”.

Shani Louk’s parents describe seeing daughter’s body 7 months after she was murdered and paraded through Gaza

The parents of Shani Louk, the 23-year-old tattoo artist killed by Hamas and paraded half-naked through Gaza like a trophy, described identifying their daughter’s body seven months after she was murdered by terrorists — hours after her remains were recovered in Rafah by Israeli soldiers.

“The body that we have now is complete and beautiful and looks like she’s alive actually,” said Shani’s father, Nissim Louk, telling The Post Friday that the condition of her body was “a miracle.”

“I think she’d been in one of the tunnels which was very, very cold…that’s why the body is complete and beautiful and the skin is still the same color, you still see the tattoos, it’s amazing,” he told The Post as part of a conversation with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

Shani’s parents expressed relief that their daughter’s remains are back in Israel following the horrific Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel — which included a massacre at the Super Nova music festival Shani was attending.

“The army came and told us that the body of Shani was found and brought back to Israel…we’re happy that she’s back and can bury her properly,” said Shani’s mother Ricarda Louk.

“The body is back, we can bury her. It’s a little bit of relief we know where her body is and that she will be here in Israel buried,” she said, noting that they had been in the process of building a memorial statue in their honor when they learned she was coming home.

“So we feel she is always with us. We feel her. She is happy to come back to Israel and close the circle. I’m happy to have her close by.”

05/17 Links Pt2: One-third of journalists killed in Gaza were affiliated with terrorist groups; Paul Kessler's Killer Will Stand Trial; Eurovision handed Israel the win

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Only Israel Wants To End the ‘Forever War’

In 2000, Ehud Barak offered to Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state that included the Gaza Strip. Arafat turned down the offer of statehood. Five years after that, Israel left Gaza unilaterally, after decades of trying to walk away from the Strip. Hamas’s takeover of the Strip soon followed, and it was turned into a large military installation the entire of point of which was to keep Israel from walking away completely.

Attacks from Gaza did not begin in 1967, just as they did not stop after Israel’s disengagement in 2005. Hamas’s attacks have nothing to do with a supposed occupation. Whether or not there are Israeli boots on the ground in the Gaza Strip, there has been and will be war.

Which brings us to the second point: This is already a forever war. And that forever war was declared by Israel’s enemies and is re-declared each time Israel offers to end it. Hamas’s raison d’etre, in fact, is forever war. You can find this out by doing such things as: asking them; reading their statements; reading their essential documents; watching their interviews; opening your eyes; etc.

Hamas does not deny this. Since October 7, Hamas officials have been saying this with even more regularity than they did before. Just one example of about a million: “Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,” Khalil al-Hayya, one of Hamas’s top leaders, said in November. “Hamas, the Qassam [brigades] and the resistance woke the world up from its deep sleep and showed that this issue must remain on the table. This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers. It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”

Israel is not “walking into a forever war.” It has spent its 76 years as a state trying to get out of a forever war imposed on it by the enemies of its existence, some of whom, such as the Hamas leaders and soldiers involved in the October 7 attacks, are barbarian war zombies who have no other setting.

If you want to end the forever war against Hamas, you must destroy Hamas. President Biden’s opposition to that is, in essence, opposition to ending the forever war launched against Israel the day of its rebirth as a state. There isn’t another option. The twist here is that Israel is the only actor involved in this drama that wants to end the forever war. No one else seems to be in much of a rush.

One-third of journalists killed in Gaza were affiliated with terrorist groups

One-third of the Palestinian journalists listed by the Committee to Protect Journalists as being killed in the war in Gaza were employed by terrorist groups, Jewish Insider has learned.

The high number of journalists reported by NGOs killed in Gaza has made headlines in the Washington Post, The New York Times and elsewhere, without any mention of their affiliations with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Out of 100 Palestinian journalists on the list on May 17, 33 worked for “Hamas-affiliated” media, such as Al-Aqsa Voice Radio, Al-Quds Al-Youm, Quds News Network and others. Another two worked for Palestinian Islamic Jihad outlets Kan’an and Mithaq Media Foundation.

Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010; the outlet employed 13 of those listed by CPJ.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) claims that 105 journalists were killed in Gaza, but only lists 23 of them. Several worked for terrorist organizations’ media outlets, but those affiliations are not listed on the RSF website.

These include Hassouna Salim, the director of the Hamas propaganda arm Quds News; Mohamed Khalifeh, director at Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV; Abdallah Iyad Breis, the lead photographer for the Hamas Education Ministry’s TV channel; and others.

RSF reported that Yasser Mamdouh El-Fady was killed while “reporting on the presence of Israeli tanks near the Al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.” It does not mention that he worked for Islamic Jihad through its Kan’an news agency, which CPJ reported on its list.

CPJ says Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi was shot and killed at the Erez crossing, while RSF said that he was “one of the first reporters to venture out in Gaza on the morning of 7 October.” Other Gazan news photographers who documented Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians have been accused of having foreknowledge of the attack.

Both organizations say that they only included journalists “killed in connection with their work or where there is still some doubt that their death was work-related,” according to CPJ. RSF also noted in a statement to JI that they list journalists “killed in the line of duty or for reasons related to work.”

Alleged Paul Kessler Killer Will Stand Trial

A judge ruled on May 15 that Moorpark resident Loay Alnaji, who faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and battery with serious bodily injury in the death of Jewish man Paul Kessler, will stand trial on the matter.

Alnaji, 51, was present at a pro-Palestinian rally in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 5 in which an altercation occurred, resulting in the 69-year-old Kessler, a pro-Israel counterprotester and Thousand Oaks resident, fell and hit the back of his head; Kessler later succumbed to his injuries. Alnaji, who was arrested nearly two weeks later, is accused of hitting Kessler in the head with a megaphone, which allegedly caused Kessler to fall. Special allegations of greater bodily injuries were added onto the manslaughter and battery charges. Alnaji has plead not guilty to all the charges and is currently out on $50,000 bail.

According to reports from the Thousand Oaks Acorn and Ventura County Star, the ruling came after preliminary hearings were held on May 14 and 15. Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Forensic Scientist Jeannine Aguirre testified that she found Kessler’s blood on the rim of the megaphone in question. Ventura County Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Othon Mena testified on May 15 that, in his opinion, abrasions on Kessler’s face were consistent with being struck with the megaphone’s rim and he believes that is ultimately what caused Kessler to fall. Mena is quoted in both the Acorn and the Star as saying that “being struck on the face caused him to fall” and that “there’s an event that occurs where he is struck in the head, and shortly after he falls. I cannot disconnect that event from having at minimum contributed to his falling.”

Alnaji’s attorney, Ron Bamieh, argued in court that Alnaji swung the megaphone at Kessler in self-defense, claiming that Kessler shoved a phone in Alnaji’s face and was recording him, and that Alnaji swung the megaphone in an attempt to keep the phone away from him; a sheriff’s deputy testified that Alnaji had also told her that he swung the megaphone toward Kessler’s phone and that it’s possible he hit Kessler’s hand. Bamieh further claimed that Kessler fell as a result of a medical condition; Mena did acknowledge that Kessler did have a benign brain tumor that might have affected his balance, but was steadfast in his belief that it was being hit in the face with a megaphone that caused Kessler to fall. Police officers testified that they spoke with a couple of witnesses who claimed they saw Alnaji swing at Kessler before Kessler fell. By contrast, Bamieh contended that video evidence shows that Alnaji was far enough away from Kessler at the time of his fall to show that he did not cause the fall and it was more likely a medical condition did. He also claimed that most witnesses were “confused” as to what they saw take place, per the Star.

Worth reminding people how the press covered this at the time: https://t.co/Rpr4IwB832
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 16, 2024

DePaul University enumerates the crimes and damage caused by "peaceful protesters": Death threat, battery, $180K damage

From DePaul University:

The following is a selection of the many social media posts, images, data and quotes that exemplify the escalation of the impact of the encampment on DePaul’s Lincoln Park quad from a peaceful protest to an unsafe and intimidating environment for all DePaul and local community members. Data and images demonstrate the inability of the university to carry on normal, safe campus operations and also demonstrate hateful, discriminatory and intimidating signs and actions.

Some images on this page may be harmful or traumatizing and contain explicit or violent material. Viewer discretion is advised.

DePaul University and local community complaints and physical plant damages
625+ registered complaints from neighbors and community members

425+ registered complaints from students, faculty and staff, and parents

1 Death Threat
4 Credible Threats of Violence
12 Incidents of Criminal Property Damage
34 Reports of Antisemitism
6 Disorderly Conduct Charges
25 Academic Disruptions
13 Harassment Allegations
77 Reports of individual safety concerns
16 Instances of Intimidation
4 Allegations of Battery
48 Noise Complaints
184 Other Generalized Concerns

Complaints range from noise ordinance violations, to aggressive, intimidating, and violent speech, and the inability to peacefully enjoy the community around them. Registered concerns from parents, students, faculty, and staff captured from the Dean of Students, Division of Student Affairs, Office of the President, and the Office of Public Safety. All reports have either been reported to the Chicago Police Department or are under investigation by our Dean of Students.

Data as of Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Claims continue to be reported.

Safety violations or physical plant damage
Spray paint on buildings and doors
Chained and locked library doors
Dumpsters used to block building entrances and exits
Etching on glass/windows
Removal of safety grates
Estimated $180,000 in physical plant damages to the quad and surrounding areas
Other community or university life disruptions
45 university events canceled
Oscar Mayer Elementary School canceled recess and other outdoor activities

The site includes a video of protesters throwing counterprotesters with Israeli flags to the ground and hateful slogans hurled at Jews.

Plus these:

Weapons found when clearing the encampment

Can we please stop pretending that Jews are safe on campuses?

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!

05/17 Links Pt1: Israel recovers bodies of Shani Louk, Amit Buskila, Yitzhak Gelerenter; Sinwar in Exchange for Rafah; House passes bill to force Biden to arm Israel

From Ian:

Lee Smith: Sinwar in Exchange for Rafah

Israel’s plans for the “Day After” are clearly irrelevant, since Biden and his aides have formulated their own scenario: Hamas “technocrats”—i.e., the leadership in Doha—will constitute the Iranian-backed component in a Palestinian unity government in tandem with the U.S.-backed faction that now rules the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas, therefore, is a pillar of the U.S.-Iran condominium in the Middle East. This includes Lebanon—where Washington funds the army and intelligence services, which are run by Iran’s asset, Hezbollah—as well as Iraq and Syria, where U.S. forces are deployed to protect Iranian allies and proxies from the regional Sunni majority.

If Israel finishes off Hamas, the Biden administration’s efforts to complete Obama’s Middle East security architecture will collapse. From that perspective, Team Biden prefers to sacrifice Sinwar and save Obama’s most important strategic initiative, which aims to override the traditional U.S.-led order of the Middle East and give birth to a new and unholy anatomy, tying America to an anti-American terror-state that embodies Jew hatred.

The problem for Biden is that he is trying to realize a vision that is fundamentally unstable, not to mention insane. Iran is weak, and so are its proxies—or else the White House wouldn’t have to expend so much energy deterring Israel.

It can hardly be lost on any careful reader of this recent White House information operation that the powers now being attributed to Sinwar belong rather to the American government. Sinwar, writes the Times, “has emerged not only as a strong-willed commander but as a shrewd negotiator who has staved off an Israeli battlefield victory while engaging Israeli envoys at the negotiating table.”

But Sinwar hasn’t been near any negotiating tables; he’s been hiding in tunnels inside Gaza. Rather, it is the White House that has prevented an Israeli victory, and it is Biden aides who have thwarted Jerusalem with their diplomatic entreaties to formulate a plan for feeding Palestinians, moving them to safety, and ensuring their political rights with a plan for the “Day After.” Were it not for Biden’s repeated interventions, Hamas might have been destroyed months ago—and many lives on both sides might have been saved.

The most important takeaway from Biden’s offer of Sinwar in exchange for Rafah is that Barack Obama’s vision of a new Middle East, which the Biden administration has insisted on following, entails tying the U.S. not only to an obscurantist anti-American and Jew-hating terror regime but to a military force and its proxy armies that, like U.S. policymakers, can’t win wars. Like his former boss, Biden is intent on saddling America with a deadly loser. Israel’s decision then isn’t just about whether to take Sinwar or forfeit Rafah, but whether to crash Obama’s project, or to let Hamas survive along with the programmatically apocalyptic delusions of its superpower backer.

A military expert on why the US view on Israel’s fight against Hamas is a turning point for the world

Since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7, military expert John Spencer has been carefully observing the Israel Defense Forces’ war against the terror organization, including on two trips he made to the Gaza Strip as an embed with the IDF over the winter.

Spencer tells CNN Opinion that he sees a military with the capability to rapidly eviscerate Hamas’ army being held back by the international community. He feels that the US bears some of the responsibility for the devastation in Gaza because of how it’s slowed down and limited Israel’s ability to win the war. It’s a restraint that he says the US hasn’t imposed on its own military campaigns, and it has the effect of increasing Palestinian casualties and suffering by dragging out the fighting.

Spencer makes these assessments after 25 years of service as an infantry soldier, including two combat tours in Iraq. He’s now the chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point, and his personal experience and research has been key to his perspective on Israel’s campaign and how it compares to American military operations.

The US pressure on Israel has come to a head in Rafah, the southern Gaza city believed to be Hamas’ last major stronghold and a key point for weapons smuggling across the Egyptian border. But the US is withholding some types of arms that it fears could be used by Israel in Rafah as part of a bid to prevent a major IDF offensive there, even as it is reportedly readying a significant sale of other weapons. The US is warning that a large-scale ground incursion is sure to cause more death and suffering among Gaza civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been taking refuge in the city.

Spencer argues that, by taking this approach, the US is inadvertently paving the way for a Hamas victory. “War is hell,” Spencer affirms. But, he notes, war is also deeply engrained in human nature. When democracies are attacked, as they inevitably will be, they must conduct wars in ways that quickly bring victory in order to achieve lasting peace.

Bassam Tawil: Why the Palestinian Authority Should Not Return to Gaza

The Israeli government, according to reports, is being pressured by the Biden administration to send the money to the PA. This addled and dangerous proposal amounts to expecting the Jews to support the same people who are murdering them. The Biden administration has also been launching a legal and diplomatic offensive to discredit, isolate, and penalize Israel for trying to defend itself against terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the PA, instead of acknowledging that it is terrified to go back to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is trying to pressure Israel into accepting the creation of a Palestinian state and releasing the tax revenues. Unbelievably, the PA and the Biden administration apparently want Israel to grant Palestinians a state that will be ruled by the same murders, rapists and kidnappers who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.

Abbas might one day return to the Gaza Strip – but only when he sees that Hamas has lost all military might and is no longer in control. Meanwhile, he feels safe and secure being in the West Bank, where Israel is in charge of overall security and is fighting against Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies. He knows that without Israel's security presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have killed him and toppled the PA long ago.

Allowing Hamas to win its war against Israel would delight two countries deeply committed to supporting terrorism. The first is Qatar, an oil-field protected by a US air base, and a country with which President Joe Biden's brother, James, according to court testimony, might reportedly have had business dealings

The second country is Iran, repeatedly designated as the "leading state sponsor of terrorism" and currently racing toward nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian regime – which presently controls four Middle East capitals in addition to its own -- Sanaa, Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad -- wishes to take over the Middle East, as well as oil-and-mineral-rich Sudan. Iran's rulers would undoubtedly not only pave the way for more October 7-style atrocities against Israel, but also other neighbors -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain -- especially if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

Abbas, fearful of being called a traitor, is reluctant to take action against the terrorists. It might mean his death. Additionally, he is most likely not pursuing the terrorists because they do not directly threaten him or the PA.

If a Palestinian leader does not even have the bravery to condemn the unimaginable Hamas atrocities of October 7, how can one expect him to confront terrorism emanating from his Palestinian Authority?

The Gaza Strip needs moderate and pragmatic leaders who will embark on a process of deradicalizing and reeducating Gazans to lead peaceful, prosperous and constructive lives, freed of subjugation by their leaders, who will finally prepare their people for peace in the region. At the moment, unfortunately, among the Palestinians, no such leaders exist.

By Daled Amos

After the October 7th massacre, when Hamas murdered over 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240, US Secretary of State Blinken went on Twitter to suggest a ceasefire.

He may have realized later how grotesque the idea was because Blinken later deleted the tweet:

At least Blinken acknowledges the need for Israel to get back the hostages.

But in the first tweet, he suggests a ceasefire, meaning that Israel would have to negotiate with the Hamas terrorists in order to get the hostages "released," meaning Israel should come to terms with the terrorists that killed over a thousand people and kidnapped 240 hostages? We know that such negotiations would require the release of terrorists, likely with blood on their hands, from Israeli prisons. That makes Blinken's suggestion of a ceasefire all the more obscene.

What about Blinken's revised tweet?

He agrees that Israel "has the right to defend itself...and protect its citizens." That could refer to passive defense, like Iron Dome, as opposed to the approval of military action. But to say that Israel has the right to "rescue any hostages" -- that does sound like military action.

So what is US policy?

Now that the US is delaying the delivery of the weapons Israel needs to deliver a decisive blow to Hamas in Rafah, we have our answer. Blinken originally suggested in October a solution that allowed Hamas terrorists to survive to fight -- and slaughter -- another day. And that is the policy the US is following now. Blinken has even threatened that the US will hold back additional military aid.

This past Sunday, Blinken went a step further.

On Meet The Press, he declared that Israel cannot hope to defeat Hamas, and the best Israel can hope for is to demilitarize the terrorist gr oup. He demanded Israel develop "credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding." Considering how Hamas has been able to arm itself over the years despite Israel's best efforts, it is not clear just how Blinken expects Israel to do that. Blinken has apparently forgotten what he said when he visited Israel in October:

No country can or would tolerate the slaughter of its citizens or simply return to the conditions that allowed it to take place. Israel has the right, indeed the obligation, to defend itself and to ensure that this never happens again.

That was then. But now he insists that Israel has no choice but to live with Hamas and its threat to create more October 7th's. So what does the US want: to eliminate the threat of Hamas or to have a ceasefire?

Apparently, the goal is to weaken Hamas so severely that it can never again attack Israel -- but at the same time, allow Hamas to remain in Gaza in some form when all of the fighting is over.

Which sounds crazier: the idea that Hamas will remain in Gaza in a demilitarized form -- or that the terrorist group will actually go along with the idea?

Jacob Magid writes in an article for the Times of Israel:

"But the American source said there are some in the administration and in Arab capitals who believe that Hamas will be willing to formally withdraw from governing responsibilities in Gaza if it is part of a reconciliation deal with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The more the idea is described, the crazier it sounds: a reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority?

This would likely mean a degree of Hamas approval of the individuals tapped to lead the transitional Palestinian government in Gaza, but the American source said that no Hamas members would be allowed in the government."

Remember when the experts said Hamas having control was a good thing because having responsibility would be a moderating influence? Now the experts think that Hamas will voluntarily relinquish all power and influence in the government and will sit back while Abbas and the PA take the reins.

Is no one paying attention?

Magid points out that if you look at Afghanistan, not the US's proudest moment, the Taliban demonstrated "the proven ability of once-decimated extremist groups to regroup, rebuild and reconquer territory from more moderate forces once an external powerful military pulls out."

And if you think that keeping Hamas out of the government is the answer, all you have to do is look at Hezbollah, "where the terror group is not formally part of the government, but holds massive influence over its decision-making and is the most powerful military force in the country."

The same thinking that allowed Iran to grow as a threat to Israel has turned its attention to Hamas. And it will allow nothing to stand in its way.

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!

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas spoke at the Arab League summit in Bahrain.

He referred briefly to October 7, and blamed Hamas for doing Israel's bidding with its attack.

Abbas stated,

Sisters and brothers....

Before last October 7, the occupation government was working to consolidate the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and Jerusalem, in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and to weaken the National Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Hamas's position of rejecting ending the division and returning to the umbrella of Palestinian legitimacy came to serve this Israeli plan.

The military operation carried out by Hamas with a unilateral decision on that day provided Israel with more pretexts and justifications to attack the Gaza Strip, killing, destroying and displacing it.

Yes, according to Abbas, the division between Hamas and Fatah is Israel's fault. They'd be so unified if it wasn't for Jewish schemes to divide them.

This comes straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: "We must create ferments, discords and hostility. [This way] we keep in check all countries, for they well know that we have the power whenever we like to create disorders or to restore order. All these countries are accustomed to see in us an indispensable force of coercion. "

And then, according to this speech before the Arab world, Israel was just itching to destroy Gaza and was quite satisfied that Hamas slaughtered so many Jews so it had an excuse to go in.

Hamas condemned Abbas' statements accusing the group of helping Israeli objectives.

These kinds of conspiracy theories have replaced truth in much of the Arab (and wider) world. In another news story this week, a Palestinian political analyst said that Jews visited the Temple Mount on Yom Haatzmaut specifically to provoke people in Gaza.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

You think Twitter/X is bad? Chinese social media is FILLED with even worse antisemitism

Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at RAND, writes in :Nikkei Asia:

Despite its own wide-ranging official campaigns against groups and individuals it has linked to domestic Islamist terrorism, Beijing offered no condemnation of Hamas' killings.

Ma Xinmin, a Foreign Ministry legal department official, set out Beijing's stance at an International Court of Justice hearing in February: "In pursuit of the right to self-determination, the Palestinian people's use of force to resist foreign oppression and to complete the establishment of an independent state is an inalienable right well founded in international law." Last month, Beijing even hosted a Hamas delegation.

Through the fighting since October, Beijing has put all blame on Israel, while Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and WeChat have suddenly filled with antisemitism. Noting this, Aaron Keyak, the Biden administration's deputy envoy on antisemitism, observed in January, "Because we know the Chinese internet is not free, that's a conscious decision by the Chinese government to allow that kind of rhetoric to be greatly increased."

I did a quick search of "Jews" in Weibo, and this is no exaggeration.

Antisemitism in the West is wide-ranging but it has themes that are well known. Chinese antisemites doesn't have those traditions so they pretty much ascribe all evil to Jews, even in ways the Western antisemites have not yet thought of.

The first result was an antisemitic screed that goes beyond the Protocols. This has been posted multiple times with thousands of "thumbs up."

What is a Jew?
If you had a piece of bread and gave half of it to a hungry Jew, he would not thank you when he takes the bread. Instead, he would turn around and kneel down to thank his God. After thanking God, he starts to try to get the other half of the bread left in your hand, and is thinking about how to get you to write an IOU for 100 more loafs of bread owed to him! If you don’t give it, when you turn around and leave, he will stab you with a knife, grab the remaining half of the bread from your body, put your bloody fingerprints on the IOU, and go to your family to collect the debt.
This is the real Jew!

International Jewish conspiracy theories:

The purpose of the United States in creating the war in Ukraine is to destroy Ukraine and let the Jews rebuild it. If Ukraine cannot pay the U.S. national debt, it will divide the land. Then the Jews will purchase Ukraine’s U.S. national debt. The Jews will legitimately buy the land of Ukraine and Ukraine will become a state for Israeli Jews, completely controlling the entire Ukraine. Why did the United States appoint Zelensky, a Jew, as the president of Ukraine? Everything was a conspiracy of the Jews and was executed by the US government. So regardless of everything, regardless of the life or death of the Ukrainians, they will not negotiate with Russia even if they die. This is the reason.

There is a lengthy post that says Leo Frank, the Jew falsely convicted of raping a 13-year old girl in 1913 and then lynched, really was guilty, and he represents Jewish evil.

A video of a masked white supremacist in America saying that Jews control America.

Another is sympathetic to the Nazis: "Why did Germany hate the Jews in the first place? Goebbels' speech is appropriate.

If Jewish newspapers think they can hide the truth to scare us, come to bully us, they better watch out.

There is a limit to the patience of our German people. One day we will shut up their filthy Jewish lying mouths"

A post showing a counter-protester shouting at a woman with a keffiyeh, pointing out his nose is large and writing: "The ancients said: A harrier's eyes and an eagle's nose are hooked, and you should not interact with them. Such people are often vicious, unscrupulous, and have no moral bottom line. Figure 1 shows the Zionists protesting against the Gaza region with vicious eyes and extremely impolite fingers. Let’s take a look at what a Jewish nose is. The comparison between the two is clear. If you encounter a humanoid creature with such an appearance, you must stay away"

And even with that, another claims that Jews are censoring Chinese social media - because a post about how Jews had blocked the sale of squid in a market was removed.

Based on my sample, about 90% of the posts on Weibo that mentions Jews are explicitly antisemitic. Many have thousands of "Likes."

I only saw one that tried to distinguish Jews from Zionists, who are of course obviously the worst people on Earth.

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!

05/16 Links Pt2: Phillips: Buried facts about the Gaza war; The Left’s Campus Protest Scam; Who Is Funding Anti-Israel Campus Protests?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Buried facts about the Gaza war

The extent to which the political class and the media are burying facts that undermine their poisonous narrative in order to defame and undermine Israel’s war of survival has become simply jaw-dropping.

The Biden administration has gone to great lengths to appease the genocidal and terrorist Iranian regime. It has funneled billions into Tehran’s coffers through sanctions relief. It has refused to effectively respond to repeated Iran-backed attacks on U.S. interests. And it is doing everything it can to prevent Israel from taking action that would damage America’s relationship with the Iranian regime, such as the destruction of Hamas, a vital force in Tehran’s proxy army against Israel and the West.

The American appeasement of Iran has left many people mystified. They should have been paying more attention.

Twelve days before the Oct. 7 pogrom, Jay Solomon reported on the Semafor site that Ariane Tabatabai, chief of staff to the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, was part of an “Iran Experts Initiative” created by senior Iranian Foreign Ministry officials to bolster Tehran’s position on global security issues, particularly its nuclear program.

In other words, Tabatabai was an agent of influence for Iran at the heart of the U.S. government and with the highest level of security clearance.

Semafor and the Iranian opposition group Iran International obtained a large cache of Iranian government correspondence and emails. These revealed that, in 2021, Robert Malley—who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed in June 2023 following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified materials”—had infiltrated Tabatabai into the U.S. State Department to assist him in his negotiations with Iran.

The day Solomon’s article appeared, 31 U.S. Senators wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to express their concern. They wrote: “We find it unconscionable that a senior department official would continue to hold a sensitive position despite her alleged participation in an Iranian government information operation.”

They noted that, in March 2021, shortly after Tabatabai was appointed senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Iranian dissidents reported her long history of echoing the Iranian regime’s talking points.

That month, Adam Kredo reported in The Washington Free Beacon on these dissidents’ shock at Tabatabai’s appointment. They claimed she parroted the Iranian regime’s position at multiple public appearances and that her father was part of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inner circle.

In April 2021, several members of the House of Representatives requested a review of Tabatabai’s security clearance. In response, the Biden administration dismissed these claims as “smears and slander.”

Even more astonishingly, Tabatabai runs the office overseeing hostage negotiations. Three weeks after the Oct. 7 pogrom, a reporter asked White House Spokesman John Kirby whether it was appropriate for Tabatabei to be in such a position given the claims made against her. Kirby stalled. Tabatabai is still there.

New York Times Unloads Immense New ‘1619-Project’-Style Attack on Israel

The New York Times has unveiled a new, 1619-Project-style attack on Israel — an error-ridden, overwrought, extensively hyped, self-referential, self-congratulatory, and super-long article.

Like the 1619 Project, this latest article comes with a catchy, short headline: “The Unpunished.”

Like the 1619 Project, this project is a product of the New York Times Magazine.

And like the 1619 Project, it comes with an introduction and display text that overstates and oversimplifies its claims: “How Extremists Took Over Israel” and “After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.” Not to mention: “This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.”

The Times article itself is so mind-numbingly long that the newspaper published a Cliffs-Notes-style summary of it that unfortunately isn’t much help, either.

The summary complains about what it calls a “two-tier situation” in which West Bank Arabs face military law while Israeli citizens there “are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel.” Yet nearly all countries, including the United States, distinguish between citizens and non-citizens in their legal system. The Times, in all its many words, doesn’t explain why or how the distinctions Israel makes are different or worse or unjustified given the extraordinary and unusual violent terrorist threat the country faces from Arabs opposed to its existence and determined to eradicate the Jewish presence there.

The paper also claims that, “in the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish ‘Jewish rule’: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews.”

That’s a sweeping over-generalization. Jews have prayed since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in ancient times for its rebuilding, speedily and in our days, as part of the messianic redemption. That hasn’t been a threat to anyone.

Survivor of Mao's political purge getting 'PTSD' watching history repeat on college campuses

A survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution says she is experiencing post-traumatic stress witnessing history repeat itself on college campuses as "Marxist hordes" have taken over in anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lily Tang Williams, who is currently running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire's 2nd district, said she fears the country she left is coming back to haunt her again in the United States.

"I sometimes I get nervous, and I feel like I'm having a little bit of PTSD and like I can't sleep well whenever I see the way they're chanting, using drums and us[ing] slogans, [are] humiliating people and have a huge amount of young people…chanting ‘Death to America,’ not just ‘Death to Israel.’ I just feel like, oh my goodness the… Red Guards are in action again," she said.

The Red Guard was a massive student-led, paramilitary social movement in China that was mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966.

Young people were one of the most effective tools Mao exploited to fuel his revolution, Tang Williams said. Most of the young people protesting on college campuses today are "naive" and therefore ripe for manipulation by bad faith actors, she added.

"I think that a lot of students who were protesting on college campuses [are]… confused… Because that's what Mao said, the young people's mind is a blank piece of paper, and you can draw the most beautiful pictures," she said, adding that she thinks they are "naive and easily manipulated… [for] revolution"

Lack Of Starvation In Gaza Undermining Mom's 'Eat Up, Children Are Starving In Gaza!' Admonition (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Meitar, May 19 - Months of repeated false alarms about the food supply in Hamas-governed territory have neutralized a local parent's go-to scolding to get her son to consume all the food she prepared for him, family sources reported today.

A mother in this middle-class community has found in the last seven months that her attempts to engage her six-year-old's sense of appreciation and appetite by noting that not too far away, children do not enjoy ready access to good food, unlike he does, have met with complete failure, now that not a single case of malnutrition or starvation has featured among the grim statistics coming the Gaza Strip.

"Mom has really been deprived of her chief vehicle to get my brother to eat by inducing guilt," acknowledged the mother's oldest child, a teenage girl. "Until a couple of months ago, it was more or less reflexive for her to counter my brother's refusal to eat up by reminding him how lucky he is to have food, not like those poor children starving over in Gaza. But the boy-who-cried-wolf of the NGOs, media, and biased political actors who keep warning that Gaza is about to run out of food, and then Gaza still hasn't run out of food despite having only two days' worth of food for, what, seven months? You can see how that might undermine the message."

The mother herself now feels out of options. "I could talk about the children starving in Sudan, I suppose," she admitted. "Or Yemen. But I never think of those in the moment. The media never talk about them. It's Gaza Gaza Gaza all the time, and it gives the impression that nothing important is happening anywhere else in the world."

She recalled her own mother's admonitions decades ago, but without remembering the specific place or places that featured as the locale of the starving children. "Whoever as starving then, they're not starving anymore, because they'd be dead by now, after all that starving," she reasoned. "But that logic seems not to apply to Gaza. It's the only place I've ever heard that's starving to death but not dying of starvation for months on end. Sounds like a medical miracle."

The six-year-old provided a different understanding of events. "I hate leftover chicken and he always serves that like twice a week," he complained. "If she's s worried about the children in Gaza, send the chicken there."

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!

05/16 Links Pt1: Oren: Is America Still Israel's Ally?; America's dangerous game with Israeli security; The Gaza Health Ministry Flimflam; How Hamas Saved Egypt

From Ian:

Clifford D. May: Biden turns on Israel

Two days later, Hamas fired more missiles at Kerem Shalom — from a civilian shelter in Gaza. Hamas missiles were fired at the crossing again on May 8, 10, 11 and 12. Israeli military officials assured impatient reporters that the crossing would be reopened as quickly as possible.

If this does not strike you as grotesque, there is no point in reading the rest of this column.

On May 7, President Biden gave a moving speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony, recalling the Nazi genocide of the Jewish communities of Europe and vowing “never again.”

The next day, in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Mr. Biden lent encouragement to Hamas leaders, whose goal is to follow the Nazi example by exterminating the only surviving and thriving Jewish community remaining in the Middle East. The atrocities of Oct. 7, they’ve vowed, were merely a foretaste.

For months, Mr. Biden and other Democrats had slammed Republicans — quite rightly — for not passing a bill providing arms to Ukraine and Israel, democratic nations and friends of America under attack by enemies of America. Thanks to House Speaker Mike Johnson, the bill finally passed — with overwhelming bipartisan support.

But Mr. Biden told Ms. Burnett that he was holding up the delivery of munitions to Israel and would block further security assistance if Israel launched a major assault on Hamas in Rafah.

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” Mr. Biden equivocated. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Wars cannot be won on defense alone. Boxers don’t win fights just by blocking punches. “Deterrence by denial” not coupled with “deterrence by punishment” invites enemies to try, try again.

If Israelis must fight terrorists without American support, they will do so. They’ve done it before. Israel exists so that never again will Jews lack the means to stand up to those determined to slaughter their children.

But Israeli leaders can’t focus all their attention — or all their remaining ammunition — on Gaza. Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran like Hamas, continues to fire missiles from Lebanon. Some 80,000 Israelis have been forced from their homes in the north for more than seven months.

And last month, for the first time, Iran’s rulers launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel from Iranian soil. This time, those rockets were prevented from reaching their intended targets. But there will be a next time. The regime’s nuclear weapons program has progressed significantly since Mr. Biden moved into the White House and eased economic sanctions on Tehran.

Israeli leaders must prioritize and sequence as best they can. They agree that neutralizing Hamas’ military capabilities is imperative — and that sooner is better than later.

I can’t imagine them allowing Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, to emerge from the tunnels and declare himself the victor — the jihadi who beat the accursed Jews, the mujahid who humiliated the cowardly Palestinian Authority and the Arab Zionists who joined the hated Abraham Accords.

What I can imagine: The IDF bringing an end to this conflict without a “full-scale offensive” or “major military operation” — terms Biden administration officials have used to describe the military actions they adamantly oppose.

The Gaza Health Ministry Flimflam

Many of the ministry’s advocates in the West defend its figures by arguing that they are, if anything, an undercount. “Doctors say Gaza death toll could be higher than reported,” reads the title of a Washington Post video from earlier this month. An NPR headline from February reported that the death toll had passed 30,000, but “it’s an incomplete count.” Last November, the head of the State Department’s Middle East bureau said the same thing. The common thread in all these arguments is that there are likely numerous bodies trapped under the rubble in Gaza. While it’s impossible to know how many, when the ministry made its admission regarding incomplete data, it also shared information that provides significant insight into the number of missing people.

Gaza’s Government Media Office, which is separate from the Ministry of Health, has consistently reported since late November that there are 7,000 residents of Gaza “missing under the rubble,” of whom nearly 70 percent are women and children. The Media Office has never identified the basis for this estimate, nor has it explained why the number has remained constant for so long. Meanwhile, in January, the ministry introduced a system that enables residents to report the death of their relatives in cases where the body “remained under the rubble or was buried without reaching a hospital.” Relatives can file the reports in person or online.

Initially, the ministry’s statistical digests presented the number of reports filed by relatives as a category of fatalities separate from the main death toll. But on April 1, the ministry revealed that reports filed by relatives are part of the main toll. In effect, the ministry has already adjusted its total to account for missing persons. Spagat writes, “We should dismiss the common claim that, because many of the dead are trapped under rubble or are missing for other reasons, the announced totals are undercounts.” Whereas the Media Office continues to claim 7,000 are missing, relatives have filed 3,160 reports as of April 24. Of those reports, 1,762, or 55.8 percent, are for men ages 18–59, a figure at odds with the contention that nearly 70 percent are women and children.

Another potential adjustment to the ministry’s numbers concerns the number of Palestinian lives lost to rocket fire by Hamas and its allies. The ministry consistently describes its figure as “the cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the [Israeli] aggression,” language that could either include or exclude the victims of Palestinian munitions. From the incident at al-Ahli Hospital, we know that one errant rocket can claim scores or even hundreds of lives, even if the ministry exaggerated the number. In November, the IDF estimated that Palestinians had fired 9,500 rockets at Israel during the first month of the war, of which 12 percent, or more than 1,100, “failed and fell short, inside the Gaza Strip”—a rate comparable to that of previous conflicts.

Finally, there is the question of underage fighters, which Hamas has employed in the past. Among casualties under age 18, there is a disproportionate number of males, suggesting involvement in combat. For example, if one sorts the entries from the health ministry’s list of fatalities, there are 225 17-year-old males, compared with 132 females of that age. Among 16-year-olds, there are 226 males to 127 females. The imbalance becomes progressively smaller as age diminishes, with more girls than boys in some age brackets—an outcome consistent with the expectation that teenagers may fight, but younger children rarely will. All together, these data suggest there may be a few hundred underage fighters among the dead, which is enough to raise concerns about the exploitation of children but not enough to have a significant impact on the overall demographics of the casualties.

How Hamas Saved Egypt

Egypt, the self-proclaimed “Umm al-Dunia,” or “Mother of the World,” is increasingly irritated by its diminishing influence in the region. Its officials resent the Gulf’s growing economic and widely perceived political importance in Middle Eastern affairs. Its annoyance is particularly evident at the mere mention of mega-rich Qatar, the Gulf sheikhdom of 2.6 million people, only 300,000 of whom are of Arab origin. Yet Qatar, which hosts Hamas’ political leaders and supports the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot in Gaza, increasingly claims to be the leading negotiator between Israel and Hamas. The UAE, which championed the Abraham Accords recognition of Israel, has also jeopardized Egypt’s role as the Arabs’ main interlocutor with Jerusalem. Egyptians, who take pride in their country’s history and heritage, bristle at the loss of their nation’s diplomatic clout. By reviving its regional profile, Oct. 7 has bestowed another gift on Egypt.

But while Egyptians are disturbed by the Israeli-Hamas war and the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, the country seems increasingly focused on its grave domestic challenges. “Egypt obviously cares about the region, but our priority is building our country,” said Abdel Monem Said Aly, an influential Egyptian analyst.

Whether Egypt will be able to reform the militarized state capitalism that has battered the private sector and redistributed income from the beleaguered middle class to the army remains to be seen. “Sissi will do this because he knows he must,” said one non-American diplomat. “This is Egypt’s last shot to get it right.” But many financial analysts doubt that Sissi has the desire or ability to reign in his fellow generals upon whom his continued rule of Egypt depends.

Sissi may not have to face that choice. With 110 million people living on less than 10% of the land along the Nile, Egypt may well be, as Egyptians repeatedly told me, too big to fail. The reaction of the West and the Gulf Arab states following Oct. 7 gives the Egyptians every reason to believe it’s true.

The letter from UC Berkeley's Carol T. Christ to the "Free Palestine Encampment" shows that she really, really wants to find ways to single out Israel as uniquely evil, but it isn't as easy as she likes.

I also understand the UCB Divest Coalition’s demands include academic boycott. I do not support academic boycotts. However, as we are unified in our desire to ensure that our academic partnerships remain in alignment with the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy, including anti-Palestinian discrimination, the University will review all complaints about existing global exchange and internship programs and review new and future programs to ensure their compliance with the Anti-Discrimination Policy. As discussed, the UCB Divest Coalition will formally report any anti-Palestinian discrimination in institutions with which we have existing global exchange and internship programs. UC Berkeley will address (including termination if remedy is unavailable) its programs that violate this policy and will cease its student participation in programs administered by the University of California or other institutions that also violate this policy, if other appropriate remedy is unavailable.

She doesn't support academic boycotts. But, wink-wink, she can find a way to allow them to happen, all without directly violating UC policy.

The UC Anti-Discrimination policy is a campus policy - it does not seem to apply to other colleges it partners with. It cannot demand that partner institutions adopt UC policies, only that the people it deals with directly in the other programs follow its rules.

The chancellor knows this so she uses ambiguous language: "to ensure that our academic partnerships remain in alignment with the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy," which is a very subjective measure. That ill-defined term is where the Israel haters will push their agenda, claiming, for example, that if Hebrew University is involved with in a project with the IDF, that creates a stressful environment for potential Palestinian students at UC.

To ensure we continue to meet our obligation under the UC Anti-Discrimination Policy, the University will establish a transparent process by December 2024 for the ongoing review of such complaints. The development of this process will include relevant stakeholder groups, including the UCB Divest Coalition and, upon its agreement, the Senate Academic Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Campus Climate. As we begin our discussions about this process, I understand that the UCB Divest Coalition would like for the review to be co-led by the UC Berkeley Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination and the Division of Equity and Inclusion and to consider, as evidence of discrimination, reports from current and former students and faculty as well as reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Since the explicitly anti-Israel group UCB Divest is the only student organization involved in this process, the net effect is that they will continuously accuse any and every Israeli university of not "aligning" with UC's discrimination policies, whether they affect UC students or not. They will abuse the system and wear down the committee members in charge of investments, who will eventually just give in to stop being harassed with paperwork and researching whether their charges are true or not.

UCB Divest is stacking the deck. Israeli universities, and no other, will be under constant attack and scrutiny. The only evidence allowed will be from NGOs with a track record of anti-Israel behavior. There is no procedure mentioned where Israeli universities or anyone else can even respond to whatever UCB Divest accuses them of.

Moreover, Zionist students are not welcome to be involved in the process to call out these tactics in real time.

Furthermore, Palestinian universities that celebrate terror, that silence dissent and that would never allow a single Jewish student will never be under review. Neither would any other universities in the Arab world that tolerate or encourage antisemitism.

The net effect is UC embracing discrimination against all Israeli universities.

It also results in a hostile environment - of Jewish students at Berkeley who know that an anti-Israel group si making decisions that can affect their own university experience.

All in the name of "equality."

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!