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The Journal.ie, an Irish media outlet published an opinion piece by Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, a highly politicized organization that collects anonymous testimonies of Israeli soldiers of alleged and most often unsubstantiated misdemeanors or “war crimes” that it presents to a mainly foreign audience as a means of fighting Israel’s “occupation.”PMW impact: Swedish and Norwegian MPs to seek funding cuts to PA
As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:
It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.
As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.
It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.
Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.
Issacharoff himself was found to have fabricated his own testimony in 2017 after an Israeli legal investigation concluded that his claims that he assaulted a Palestinian man during his military service were false.
Following Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus' recent briefings before members of parliament and government officials in Norway and Sweden, MPs from both countries said they would seek changes in their governments' funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Marcus provided numerous examples of the PA's escalating antisemitic messages, and its hate education to children, and detailed the PA's policy of financially rewarding imprisoned terrorists and families of purported "Martyrs."
Marcus discussed the PA's payments of salaries to Palestinian terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," with government officials. He called on MPs in Norway and Sweden to follow the example of their Dutch counterparts and set the stage for a Europe-wide uniform 7% reduction in donor funds to the PA, unless and until the PA stops its "Pay-for-Slay policy" of paying salaries to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists.
Appalled that Norwegian humanitarian aid could be used to reward terrorists, Norwegian MP Ingjerd Schou commented:
"I do not think it's a good idea to give any funding to prisoners... We have to use Norwegian money to make peace. We should reinforce all the good activities."
[Norwegian Parliament, Jan. 29, 2019]
Upon seeing Marcus' documentation, Swedish MP Mikael Oscarsson immediately responded:
"We want to do as they've done in the Dutch parliament to cut the funding to the PA [by 7%], because we need to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority." [Swedish Parliament, Jan. 31, 2019]
Terrorist groups usually find ways to exploit the ever expanding services offered by major online platforms and tech companies, and Amazon Drive is no exception. Designed for storing and sharing photos, videos, PDFs and other forms of content, it has been adopted by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other organizations as a stable and reliable platform for disseminating their content. They upload it and then share the links to it with followers and sympathizers, primarily using the encrypted messaging app Telegram — terrorists' "app of choice."
Amazon Drive, established in 2011 and previously known as Amazon Cloud Drive, can store subscribers' photos, videos and other files for access from mobile devices, desktops or Amazon Fire devices. According to the Amazon website, "All photos, videos and other files you upload to Amazon Drive are securely and privately stored in your Files and your Amazon Photos library."
While Amazon has guidelines for its many platforms, including specific bans on terrorism, "bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination," or the use of its services by anyone who is "the subject of U.S. sanctions or of sanctions consistent with U.S. law imposed by the governments of the country where you are using Amazon Services," it has not been proactive in removing terrorist content.
Terrorist activity and content on Amazon Drive is the subject of a new report by my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute and its Cyber & Jihad Lab, documenting how ISIS and other groups like it have been using this free service. The examples in the report include Amazon Drive links to content such as videos by ISIS, audio messages by its leaders, and official newsletters and other content created by the group, its secondary media organizations and its supporters.
The European Union slammed Israel’s recent decision to withhold part of the Palestinian tax revenues.
Speaking to Voice of Palestine radio station, Communication Officer at the European Union (EU) Shadi Othman slammed the Israeli government’s decision to deduct $138 million from the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
The EU, Othman added, emphasized the need for Israel to respect the agreements signed with the Palestinian side and refrain from taking any unilateral action on the Palestinian tax revenues, which should be transferred in full to the Palestinian Authority.
Commenting on the EU’s follow-up this Israeli decision, Othman noted that the EU has maintained contact with its member states, urging them to put pressure on Israel, so that it refrains from implementing its decision.
On January 29, 2019, Chicago Police opened a hate crime investigation into the alleged assault of Empire actor Jussie Smollett. Smollett, who is black and gay, alleged that two men approached him at 2 a.m. in Chicago, where they shouted “f*****” and “n*****,” tried to wrap a noose around his neck, and poured bleach on him. He also told TMZ that the men shouted, “This is MAGA country.”
The story received unending press. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), tweeted, “The racist, homophobic attack on [Smollett] is an affront to our humanity.” Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) called it a “modern-day lynching.” Congresswoman and Fresh Face™ of the Democratic Party Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed anyone who questioned the story, tweeting, “The attack was not ‘possibly’ homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack.”
The media ran with the story. Good Morning America hosted Smollett, where he maligned anyone who asked questions as a racist and a homophobe. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin stated, “This is America in 2019.” Celebrities parroted their support for Smollett, with many blaming President Trump and Vice President Pence for the attack.
The story was a hoax.
That same night, a Jewish man in New York was beaten by three thugs. Nothing was stolen. The attack was caught on video.
Outside of a report in The Jerusalem Post, the story received virtually no attention.
This isn’t the only story of anti-Semitism in New York. Not by a long shot. Two weeks before that beating, a Jewish man, 19, was “violently assaulted” as he walked past a local laundromat by a group of teenage black males. In December, a 16-year-old Jewish teen spent a week in a hospital after being beaten by two other teens; witnesses said that the teens screamed “Kill the Jew.” The NYPD categorized the attack as “gang related” rather than a hate crime, angering Jews in the area. This weekend, vandals shattered the window of a Chabad in Bushwick as the rabbi and his family slept inside.
The Left distorts what happened in El Salvador in the 1980s.Hypnotizing the World: Omar Has Ties to Radical Anti-Israel, Anti-American Group
In a viral exchange at a congressional hearing last week, the new congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, who is quickly establishing herself as the most reprehensible member of the House Democratic freshman class despite stiff competition, launched into Elliott Abrams. She accused the former Reagan official and Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela of being complicit in war crimes.
“Yes or no,” she demanded, “would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, if you believe they were serving U.S. interest, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua?”
Omar was cribbing from the Left’s notes on U.S. Latin American policy, and doing it badly. She made much of the 1981 El Motoze massacre in El Salvador. The idea that Abrams is somehow directly implicated in this bloodcurdlingly awful event is completely absurd. He was assistant secretary of state for international organizations in the Reagan administration, then became assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs on December 10, 1981. The massacre occurred the next day. Unless we are to believe the El Salvadoran military unit took his change of jobs as a green light to indiscriminately kill villagers (which unfortunately was not a new practice), Abrams obviously had nothing to do with the massacre.
Nonetheless, the Omar attack is an opportunity to examine the premises of the Left’s narrative on Reagan’s policy in El Salvador, which supports the persistent attacks on Abrams as a “war criminal.” To paraphrase the famous Mary McCarthy line about Lillian Hellman, every word in this narrative is a lie, including “and” and “the.”
In what follows, I rely throughout on Russell Crandall’s book The Salvador Option: The United States in El Salvador, 1977–1992, a fair-minded, factual account that’s a marked contrast to the tendentiously left-wing material that dominates online.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has ties to a group that includes numerous radical anti-American and anti-Israel activists on its board of directors.
Notes of support posted to the controversial congresswoman's door include a message from the organization Witness for Peace. "Keep up the good work!" the note reads, signed, "Witness for Peace Columbia Team :)."
The note appeared the same week Omar attacked Elliott Abrams, a Jewish-American and longtime diplomat who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Abrams is now the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela. Omar has sided with the socialist government in Venezuela, accusing the Trump administration of leading a "U.S.-backed coup" against Nicolas Maduro.
Witness for Peace got its start fighting the Reagan administration's anti-communist policies during the Cold War, specifically the group opposed funding the Contras in Nicaragua. Abrams, who Omar called "Mr. Adams," pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, and was later pardoned.
"Faith-based peace activists founded Witness for Peace in response to the U.S. funding of the Contras," its website states. In 1984 "Witness for Peace activists across the country organized events to resist Reagan's war on Central America," the group said.
Omar attended a delegation sponsored by Witness for Peace to Honduras in November 2017. She returned to the Minnesota House of Representatives calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Honduras, a position shared by the radical group Code Pink.
Lower down is the Jewish quarter, presenting nothing but filth and wretchedness. Wanting to purchase some wine, we heard that we might get it there ; so we went in search, making it an excuse for prying into the Israelitish dwellings. They seemed evidently afraid of letting us know that they had any in their possession: at length, after several denials, we entered a miserable house, in which were two or three dirty unveiled women, and one old blear-eyed man, who, after talking among themselves, apparently about us, whether we might be trusted, brought out a small quantity with great caution. Poor wretches!—everything about them exhibited signs of depression and misery: outcasts from the common rights and sympathies of men—oppressed and despised alike by Mahometans and Christians—living as aliens in the inheritance of their fathers—what an awful lesson of unbelief do they hold out!The author sees Jewish deprivation as vindication for the truth of Christianity:
It was, I think, the Prince of Condé who said that while a Jew existed, he was a sufficient refutation of all the arguments of infidelity; and most truly did he speak. I never behold a Jew, carrying with him as he does the evidence of eighteen centuries to the truth of Christianity, without a feeling of gratitude towards him, and a forcible impression of St. Paul’s exclamation—“ Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but towards thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be out olf.” They form a proof the rejection of which by any candid mind I cannot comprehend: here it came with tenfold force.
What I did not know till I read the new book, “Jimmy Carter, The White House Years,” by his former top domestic policy adviser Stuart Eizenstat, is that Israeli settlements also bedeviled the Carter administration. From the beginning of his presidency in 1977, Jimmy Carter determined that the settlements were an obstacle to peace because they stood in the way of a Palestinian homeland, which he wished to help establish in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Carter and his secretary of state Cyrus Vance and national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski repeatedly hammered the Israeli government to end Jewish colonization or at least freeze it.That is, to put it bluntly, ridiculous.
Carter failed miserably in this aim, overwhelmed by a new force he had not accurately reckoned: American Jewish organizations. “I will commit suicide before I abandon Israel,” Carter promised Jewish congressmen when they met with him to express concern about his policy. But Carter could not abandon a parallel commitment to Palestine; and Eizenstat says that Carter believes that taking on Israel and its American lobby cost him his job.
“From the New York primary [in March 1980] onward, I believe Carter was left with the view that New York Jews had not only defeated him in the primary but were also a factor in his loss in November,” Eizenstat writes.
The Palestinian Authority is violating its agreements with Israel by trying to redefine historic sites and nature reserves in Judea and Samaria, Israel Hayom has learned.PMW: Abbas to inflict humanitarian crisis on Palestinians, after Israel penalizes PA for its support of terrorists
The Oslo II Accord, as well as subsequent agreements, grant the Palestinian Authority limited control over certain landmarks and nature reserves in Judea and Samaria at the discretion of Israeli authorities and only if the PA commits to coordinating the administration of the areas with Israeli forces.
The 1995 agreement, which has been only partially implemented, says that "the two sides shall each take appropriate measures in order to protect Nature Reserves, Protected Natural Assets and species of animals, plants and flowers of special breeds, as well as to implement rules of behavior in Nature Reserves."
But recent steps taken by the Palestinians suggest that PA officials have been flouting those provisions.
As part of this rogue behavior, the PA has recently placed a sign at Arugot Stream, which runs from west to east in Judea, calling it Al-Kanub Reserve. The sign states that the EU and the U.N. help support the administration of the site.
The PA has also set up a new website called Mahmiyat (which means nature reserves in Arabic), which provides tourist information on the various landmarks in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The descriptions obscure the Jewish links to those landmarks dating to biblical times.
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has officially announced that the PA will refuse to accept all tax money Israel transfers to the PA if Israel deducts the amount the PA uses to reward terrorists. This PA policy will lead to a grave humanitarian crisis for Palestinians.Shamima Begum: Manchester Arena bombing 'justified' because of Syria airstrikes, Isis teenager says
The Israeli Cabinet announced yesterday that Israel will be deducting 502,697,000 shekels/year - $139,638,000 - from taxes to be transferred to the PA. This is the amount reported exclusively by PMW that the PA paid in 2018 in salaries to imprisoned and released terrorists. This sum does not include the PA's financial rewards to families of dead terrorists, the so-called "Martyrs," or to wounded terrorists. The deduction will be made in 12 monthly portions of approx. $11,636,500 million/month - almost 42 million shekels/month.
Information obtained by PMW from Israel's Ministry of Finance in response to a request based on Israel's Freedom of Information Act, shows that the taxes Israel collected and transferred to the PA in 2018 amounted to $2.2 billion (8 billion shekels) - an average of $186,121,569/month (670,037,651 shekels) - while PA payments to terrorist prisoners, released prisoners, and families of dead terrorists in 2018 averaged at least $204 million/year (732 million shekels/year), or $17 million/month (61 million shekels) according to PMW calculations.
Earlier this month, Abbas declared that if Israel deducts a sum equal to what the PA spends on rewarding terrorists from next month's transfer - approx. $11.6 million according to the sum announced by the Israeli Cabinet - he will refuse to accept the entire remainder - approx. $174.5 million/month - that the Palestinian population needs to keep the economy functioning:
The Manchester Arena attack was “justified” because of airstrikes that have killed civilians in Syria, Shamima Begum has claimed.
The 19-year-old, who is pleading to be repatriated from a detention camp in Syria, told the BBC that it was “wrong that innocent people did get killed” in the 2017 atrocity.
But she compared the Manchester bombing to the "women and children in [Isis territory] being killed right now unjustly with the bombings", adding: "It’s a two-way thing really because women and children are being killed in the Islamic State right now and it’s kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it’s retaliation so I thought ok that is a fair justification.”
Isis claimed responsibility for Salman Abedi’s bombing, which killed 22 victims including young children, with a statement that claimed it was in response to "transgression against the Muslims".
Almost identical wording citing the international coalition has been used for Isis statements claiming numerous terror attacks across Europe since spokesman Abu Muhammed al-Adnani called for global atrocities in 2014.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!