Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, May 04, 2019

Once again, world media assumes baby probably killed by Hamas rocket was killed by Israel (update)

We've seen this happen so many times before.

On Saturday evening, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported that a 14-month-old Palestinian child, Saba Mahmoud Hamdan Abu Arar, had been killed and her mother, Falastin Saleh Abu Arar, when an Israeli airstrikes hit their house in Gaza City. Several hours later, the ministry said that Falastin had succumbed to her wounds.

On Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic-language spokesman said the mother and child did not appear to have been killed in an Israeli attack.

Adraee indicated that the deaths may have been caused by a failed rocket attack against Israel, noting that many of the projectiles fired at Israel were launched from within populated areas.

“There are more and more indications reaching us from the Gaza Strip that put serious doubt on the truth of the statement from Hamas’s healthy ministry about the death of the baby Saba Mahmoud Hamdan Abu Arar and her mother Falastin Saleh Abu Arar,” Maj. Avichay Adraee wrote in a tweet.

“According to these indications, the death was caused by terrorist activities by Palestinian militants and not by an Israeli strike,” he said.

But AFP headlines the story, "250 rockets fired from Gaza, Israeli response kills four including baby."

The Independent wrote "A pregnant mother and her 14-month-old baby girl have been killed by an Israeli airstrike, as cross-border violence continues near Gaza."

ITV: "Palestinian baby and pregnant mother killed in Gaza airstrikes."

CNN: "250 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel; 1-year-old child among those killed in retaliatory airstrikes."

Reporters have made this mistake before. I listed a bunch of them a few years ago in an open letter to journalists on not making assumptions during these flareups in Gaza:

Mistake #1: Assuming that all Gaza casualties are the result of Israeli airstrikes

Traditionally, the number of Gaza rockets that fall short and never reach Israel, or that explode as they are fired, is over 35% -and sometimes as high as 80%!.

Between June 12-25 (2014), terrorists fired 41 rockets at Israel, of which 24 exploded in Gaza, killing one child and injuring six more children. That is a 58% failure rate.

At least three Gaza civilians have been killed this year by terrorist rockets.

Egyptian politician kissing dead baby killed by Hamas

During Operation Pillar of Defense, the media was fooled at least twice - and possibly three times - with false Arab reports that children were killed by Israeli airstrikes when they were killed by errant terror rockets from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Even schools have been hit by terrorist rockets.

Also, several civilians have been killed from gunfire during funerals of terrorists.

When terrorists are firing rockets hurriedly, as they are now, the chances for misfires is even greater. Not to mention "work accidents" (which have killed dozens this year [2014] alone) are probably more likely to occur in Gaza weapons workshops and laboratories.

Also Gaza spokespersons are known to lie and blame Israel for deaths caused by internal explosions.

For all these reasons, journalists must be especially careful when reporting on civilian deaths in Gaza.

The rule of thumb is that if the IDF denies an airstrike in an area where people were killed, the people were not killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Journalistic standards go out the window when reporting on Israeli airstrikes, and reporters conveniently forget the many times that Hamas and islamic Jihad rockets have killed Gazans over the years.

I see in Arab media photos of the targets that Israel admits, and those buildings are flattened. I have not yet seen any photos of the building that this mother and baby were in. An AFP reporter said it was heavily damaged, but I don't know what that means. If we had photos we could know with more certainty. But even without it, the reports indicate that the Gaza Health Ministry is lying, because "witnesses" are contradicting themselves:

“The Israeli plane fired a missile near the house and the shrapnel entered the house and hit the poor baby,” Seba’s aunt said.
“They were sitting at the yard in their house with their mother.” said Abu Nidal Abu Arar, a relative living next door.
“They were shocked by a missile landing on them. This occupation is criminal.”

If it was shrapnel, then there must be a huge impact crater or a collapsed building right nearby. No one is claiming that.

It sure looks like a Hamas rocket so far.

UPDATE: Gaza News Agency - not a fan of Hamas nor of Israel - says flatly it was a Hamas rocket.

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05/03 Links Pt2: The Attacks On Jews We Aren’t Talking About; BDS-backed Twitter bot network is targeting Eurovision; Corbyn's dog whistle apology; Israel reaches another milestone as population crosses 9 million

From Ian:

The Attacks On Jews We Aren’t Talking About

Much of this has taken place in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. According to the NYPD, assault and robberies on Jews in Crown Heights went from two in 2017 to 10 in 2018. The attackers tend to be African-American, and they sometimes yell out anti-Semitic slurs. There have been at least three such attacks so far this year. You can see a lot of this violence in recovered surveillance footage, but not much of it makes it to the front pages of major newspapers.

And it’s not just happening in Crown Heights. On Tuesday morning, Rabbi Uriel Vigler was heading to his synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when he was accosted by a black man calling him a “f***ing Jew” and “the devil.” The man fled when he saw a security guard. Vigler captured some of the aftermath on video.

These incidents aren’t talked about much because they have no political utility. There’s no fake soul-searching because the attacks have nothing to do with Israel. And there’s no finger-pointing because they have nothing to do with Donald Trump and white nationalism.

There are still other reasons that black-on-Jewish hate crime is largely ignored: Democrats would rather not speak of it because they’re hyper-sensitive about offending African-American voters (and not too worried about losing Jewish ones). Some on the left are so frightened to address this kind of anti-Semitism that they’ve decided it isn’t anti-Semitism at all. An article in the Forward last December more-or-less chalked it all up to the effects of gentrification. And if Republicans bring it up, they’ll immediately be called racists, as they are when they point out Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism.

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite new moderate, Pete Buttigieg, just earned his official Democratic presidential-candidate badge by going up to Harlem to get the nod from the mellowing elder statesman of black anti-Semitism, Al Sharpton. Any genuine reflection on the left would surely end the ritual of seeking blessings from a man who said, in in the wake of a murderous pogrom in 1991, “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.” But Democrats still stand in line every four years to kiss his ring.

Most hate crimes reported in New York City are anti-Jewish, police say

More than half of all hate crimes in New York City reported in 2018 and so far in 2019 targeted Jews, authorities said Thursday.

According to New York Police Department figures released Thursday, of the 145 hate crimes reported in January through April 2019, 82 incidents – nearly 57 percent – were anti-Jewish.

In 2018, there were 353 total hate crime complaints, up from 325 in 2017, and the NYPD made 149 arrests. Of these hate crimes, 186 – or nearly 53% – had anti-Jewish bias, up from 151 in 2017.

The NYPD tally is of reported complaints and arrests, not convictions.

Three precincts with large Hasidic populations, all in Brooklyn, reported the most anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2018. The 71st Precinct, which encompasses part of Crown Heights, reported nine anti-Jewish hate crimes, the most of any precinct. Precincts including Williamsburg and Borough Park each had seven.

Sixty-nine – or 37 percent – of 2018’s anti-Jewish hate crime reports resulted in an arrest. Forty of the alleged perpetrators were white, 25 were black, two were Hispanic and two were Asian.

Synagogue asked for security funds a year ago; they arrived days before attack

The Chabad of Poway synagogue, where a gunman on Saturday fired his semi-automatic rifle at Jewish worshipers, had applied for a federal grant to install gates and more secure doors to better protect that area. The $150,000 was approved in September but only got awarded in late March.

“Obviously we did not have a chance to start using the funds yet,” Rabbi Simcha Backman told The Associated Press.

Backman, who oversees security grants for the 207 Chabad institutions across California, declined to provide details on the planned security enhancements or to speculate whether they might have changed the outcome of Saturday’s attack.

The shooter killed a woman and wounded an 8-year-old girl and two men — one of them the rabbi presiding at the service on the last day of Passover.

Backman said the synagogue north of San Diego is considering asking authorities to allow some of the money be used to hire security guards, which it doesn’t have now.

Muslim children in Philadelphia sing of martyrdom; girls read about chopping off (Jews') heads to redeem Al Aqsa

No, this isn't Gaza or Ramallah.

This is Philadelphia.

The children are at an event for the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia (MAS Philly).

From MEMRI:

Child Narrator: Those who accept humiliation – what is the point in their existence? Those who reject oppression are the ones who assert their existence, and they eliminate the injustice from the land of the Arabs.

Children Singing: Rebels! Rebels! Rebels! Glorious steeds call us and lead us onto paths leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us. Paradise needs real men!

The land of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey is calling us. Our Palestine must return to us. Oh Saladdin, your men are among us – shame will be washed away!

[You need] force and the Quran, oh free people! We must persevere no matter what happens, and with the help of the Omnipotent Lord, day will follow night.

Take us, oh ships, until we liberate our lands – until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones!

Blow, oh winds of Paradise – flow, oh rivers of martyrs! My Islam is calling, who is going to heeds its call? Rise, oh righteous ones!

Girl 1: Our martyrs sacrificed their lives without hesitation. They attained Paradise, and the scent of musk emanates from their bodies. They compete with one another to reach Paradise. Will Jerusalem be their capital city, or will it be a hotbed for cowards?

Girl 2: We will defend the land of divine guidance with our bodies, and we will sacrifice our souls without hesitation. We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque. We will lead the army of Allah fulfilling His promise, and we will subject them to eternal torture.

Here are some more excerpts:

(h/t Ari)

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05/03 Links Pt1: Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens; From Philasteen to Philadelphia: Muslim Youth Taught to Hate Israel; Polish bishop delivers thinly veiled anti-Semitic sermon

From Ian:

Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens

The Palestinian Authority is again crying wolf over the financial crisis it is currently facing. Let there be no mistake: this is a fake, self-created crisis that is a direct result of the PA's "pay for slay" policy. Since its creation, the PA has paid monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists and allowances to the families of dead terrorists. These are not dependent on social need but are simply financial rewards for terrorism. Moreover, if a terrorist spends five years in an Israeli prison, he is entitled to a guaranteed "pension" for life.

In 2018, Israel passed legislation according to which any sum expended by the PA on "pay for slay" during a given year would be deducted from the tax revenues Israel transferred to it the following year. Accordingly, in February 2019, the Israeli cabinet decided to deduct $11.7 million a month from tax transfers to the PA - the sum the PA had publicly admitted to paying to terrorist prisoners.

While this monthly deduction was no more than 6.2% of the total amount to be transferred, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to plunge the PA economy into the abyss by refusing to accept any tax revenues. True to form, instead of castigating the PA for squandering billions on incentivizing and rewarding terrorists, French President Macron, the EU and the UN are pressuring Israel to capitulate to Abbas' blackmail and find a way to give the PA all the funds.

Abbas Is Trying to Scare Israel and the World

The Palestinian Authority is refusing to accept any funds transferred from Israel because Israel has begun deducting the value of stipends the PA pays to terrorists and their families. As a result, the PA is now telling the world it faces economic collapse. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to scare Israel and the world community into believing the result will be chaos and terror. The PA leadership is emulating Hamas' behavior by threatening that a humanitarian disaster will ensue unless more financial aid is rendered.

One way to reject the forthcoming American peace proposal and yet not be blamed is to engineer an economic crisis that diverts attention from continuous Palestinian intransigence regarding any and every attempt at peacemaking.
Israel is doing more than its share to bolster the Palestinian economy - providing jobs to Palestinians in the Israeli labor market; supplying water, electricity and health services to Palestinians; and keeping Hamas from overthrowing Abbas' PA.

While it is best for all concerned to ensure a decent standard of living for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, it is highly unlikely that the PA will collapse since it is a source of significant income for Abbas and his coterie.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Let the PA collapse

PA collapse as an opportunity, not a threat

In this regard, there should be a sea-change in the prevailing perception of the significance for Israel of the collapse of the PA and with it, of the entire mendacious Oslowian edifice.

After all, if the only way for the PA to endure is for Israel to collaborate in the financing of the slaughter of its own citizens by transferring “pay-to-slay” funds to perpetrators of terror, grave doubts must be cast on the prudence—indeed, the sanity—of sustaining this state of affairs.

Moreover, for Israel to back down on this issue would not only greatly undermine its credibility—and hence its deterrence capabilities—but would constitute a sharp slap in the face for its staunch allies in the US Senate, who passed the Taylor Force Act to curtail American support for the PA—unless it halts payments to perpetuators of terror and/or their families.

It is generally considered that the imminent financial collapse of the PA comprises a threat to Israel, heralding increasing instability and security problems.

Although this may be true to some extent in the short run, it must be rejected as a long term constraint on Israeli strategic thinking. Indeed, rather than a threat, the impending collapse of the PA should be perceived as an opportunity to extricate the nation from the hazardous cul-de-sac into which the deceptive Oslo process lured it.

In December 2006, Iran held the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust." Attendees included Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, white nationalist David Duke, and a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, named Shiraz Dossa, who presented a paper there.

Dossa defended his attendance, and the conference, by stating that only 6 of the 33 papers given at the conference explicitly denied the Holocaust. Otherwise, he says, it was a very serious conference.

While Dossa is not a Holocaust denier, his views are just as toxic and antisemitic as those of any Holocaust denier.

In 2012, he wrote a paper he named "Auschwitz's Finale: racism and holocausts" where his abstract is filled with straw man arguments: "This article dissects the Auschwitz discourse and its denial of other holocausts. It critiques the claim that it was the only ‘real’ genocide. It advances a contrary thesis on colonialism, racism and holocausts in history. I clarify the affinity between colonialism and fascism and Israeli tactics in Occupied Palestine. It is undeniable that Auschwitz fuels anti-Arab anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism. "

The paper includes this almost unbelievably antisemitic paragraph:

The ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust flows from Ashkenazi pride in their racial superiority. Its corollary is not denied but defended: non-Jews count for very little, which can be traced back to the Old Testament thesis on the acceptability of the Canaanite genocide because Yahweh willed it. Israel’s killing of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims since its founding has been similarly justified. Suffice it to mention the 1200 civilians killed in Lebanon in July 2006 and the 1400 civilians (including 400 children) killed in Gaza in January 2009. It is evident that the chosen Jew–unchosen non-Jew divide has been globalised. It is even accepted by many ‘Third world’elites, including Saudi, Jordanian and UAE Arab leaders who endorse the US–Israeli agenda without demurral. Its legitimacy, its ‘truth’ has long been settled. The dissenters among Jews are aberrations.

Dossa has a bit of an obsession with Ashkenazic Jews, whom he usually defines as "white Jews." In a footnote he blames a researcher's racism on his being an Ashkenazic Jew. "Lemkin held a racist view of Africans; he labelled them ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’ and even blamed them for killing fellow Africans on the orders of their Belgian masters. It testifies to the resilience of chauvinism in Ashkenazi culture that a man like Lemkin could succumb to its vile charms."

This is an academic, today.

It is curious that when Professor Jason Hill writes an article that is pro-Israel, his faculty coworkers censure him, but no one at St. Francis Xavier University says a word condemning Shiraz Dossa for his naked Jew-hatred masquerading as scholarship.

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The disgusting Holocaust hypocrisy of Linda Sarsour @lsarsour

I cam across this video clip of Linda Sarsour passionately saying that America must take responsibility for its refusing to accept Jews fleeing from the Nazis in the 1940s.

Yes, the US and the West needs take ownership for their complicity in not accepting the Jews trying to flee to save their lives.

But Sarsour wants to make this into a "white" problem.

Arabs in rioted throughout the 1930s to stop Jewish legal immigration into Palestine. After enough deadly riots, the British decided that giving in to their demands was easier than saving Jewish lives, and they stopped virtually all Jewish immigration to Palestine - dooming not thousands but hundreds of thousands who could have escaped Nazi Germany and who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland.

If the US is complicit in the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust, the Arabs of Palestine are a thousand times more complicit.

It wasn't only the Palestinian Arabs, either. I noted yesterday a ship of Jews who were turned away from Egypt and Turkey as well. Those Muslim countries - and others - could have saved the Jews as well, and refused.

Sarsour wants to pretend that only white people historically oppose immigration, and people of color - or faux people of color, in her case - have been nothing but victims. She won't talk about how Arab nations refuse to naturalize Palestinians and keep them stateless and in camps, 70 years after they left Palestine. And she definitely won't talk about how Palestinian Arab leader Amin al Husayni was a proud Jew-hater who worked with the Nazis.

The stupid Americans listening to her and applauding her don't know enough history to challenge her revisionist history.

Linda Sarsour's cynical use of the Holocaust to promote her own political opinion is disgusting and perverted.

(h/t Deborah Friedman)

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No, @NYTimes,. the Muslim Brotherhood does not oppose violence (@ddknyt)

This week, the New York Times had an article asking "Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group?"

And it answered, flatly, "no."

Part of the reason was given here:

Even experts critical of the Brotherhood agree that the organization does not meet the criteria for a terrorist group.

Under the British-backed monarchy in the 1940s, the Egyptian Brotherhood was one of several factions to create paramilitary wings. In 1948, a 23-year-old veterinary student who belonged to the group assassinated the prime minister. Two weeks later, another member of the outfit was arrested for attempting to bomb a courthouse.

Mr. al-Banna denounced the perpetrators and their actions. “They are neither Brothers nor are they Muslims,” he said.

In the 1960s, a small circle of Muslim Brothers were arrested for plotting to reestablish an armed wing. That is when the Brotherhood formally codified its opposition to violence in a tract titled, “Preachers, Not Judges.”

From reading this onegets the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood is opposed to all forms of violence by Muslims.

However, that is clearly not the case. Its website has numerous articles about Hamas attacks on Israel, both attacks on the IDF and on civilians, and it supports every single Hamas activity. There is no daylight between how Hamas looks at violence against Jews and how the Brotherhood does.

Here is an example from January 2018 where the Brotherhood approvingly quoted Hamas' support of the murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach.

I don't know whether the Brotherhood still engages in violence, directly or indirectly. Nor do I know whether declaring it a terror group is a good idea or not. But the New York Times and others that claim that the Brotherhood has opposed terror for decades are clearly wrong.

As long as you believe that killing innocent Jews is terrorism, that is.

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NYU social sciences department boycotts NYU Tel Aviv for hypocritical reasons (update)

From NYU's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis:

Faculty and student members of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis seek at all times to uphold this university’s basic principles of non-discrimination and equal opportunity in our relationships with other NYU departments and programs. We feel that these principles, set forth in the Code of Ethical Conduct, are being effectively violated in the operation of NYU’s study abroad program in Tel Aviv. Access to the program is clearly being obstructed by Israel’s long-standing discriminatory policies (as acknowledged by the State Department) of barring entry to Palestinians or persons of Arab descent and Muslim heritage, and by the recent amendments to its Law of Entry, which advocate for the exclusion of persons on account of their political speech. Moreover, the Israeli government routinely prevents Palestinian students from enrolling in higher education institutions outside of the West Bank and Gaza.

The NYU administration has indicated its disagreement with the Israeli state's policy of barring entry based on political speech. However, in noting that "no NYU student has been prevented from going to Israel," the administration fails to take into account the Palestinian members of the NYU community from the West Bank and Gaza who are unable to enter Israel, in addition to those with American citizenship who have been banned based on their Palestinian heritage and political activity. Participating in the program while members of our own department are barred entry to their homeland and sites of research serves to reproduce the racial inequalities of Israel's policies in our own workplace.

We pledge non-cooperation with the Tel Aviv program until (a) the Israeli state ends its restrictions on entry based on ancestry and political speech and (b) the Israeli state adopts policies granting visas for exchanges to Palestinian universities on a fully equal basis as it does to Israeli universities.

We urge other departments to pass similar resolutions in the spirit of abiding by NYU’s Code of Ethical Conduct and opposing racial and religious profiling on campus.

**According to the amendment, the excluded groups include

American Friends Service Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, Code Pink, Jewish Voice for Peace, National Students for Justice in Palestine, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the BDS National Committee.

Does the State Department page they link to say that Israels bar people of Arab descent or Muslim heritage? Not at all. It says " Some U.S. citizens of Arab or Muslim heritage (including Palestinian-Americans) have experienced significant difficulties and unequal and hostile treatment at Israel’s borders and checkpoints. U.S. citizens who have traveled to Muslim countries or who are of Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim origin may face additional questioning by immigration and border authorities. U.S. citizens should immediately report treatment by border officials that they believe is discriminatory or hostile to the ACS unit of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem (JerusalemACS@state.gov), the ACS unit of the Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv (TelAvivACS@state.gov) or the Consular Office of the U.S. Consulate."

This is true. People who might be related to terrorists are subject to additional screening. This is true in every country on the planet - for example, in France in 2015 some 1000 people were refused entry in a mere two week period in 2015 because of suspicion of terror ties. That's far more than Israel ever has barred. The vast majority of people detained at Israel's airport are ultimately allowed in, and no student who wants to study in Israel has been stopped as far as I can tell. (One was denied entry and the decision was reversed.)

What about denying entry to people based on their political beliefs? The UK does it all the time. Wikipedia has a page of people refused entry to the UK for their political beliefs, from Pamela Geller to Louis Farrakhan.

Needless to say, this NYU department isn't boycotting the UK or France.

The real hypocrisy comes from the fact that the only people Israel bans are people who support BDS - and any supporter of BDS from NYU would be duty bound not to visit NYU Tel Aviv to begin with! Meaning that the Israeli restrictions do not stop a single NYU student from studying in Tel Aviv, and the entire argument that Israel is discriminating against some percentage of NYU students is false - as NYU itself observed.

Moreover, NYU has a Travel Advisory page for students visiting its campuses in Abu Dhabi and Sydney as well, and notes travel restrictions on students to those countries (those with Israeli passports cannot go to Abu Dhabi; NYU Sydney has a bunch of Australian visa rules to deal with, meaning that - just like Israel - some people have to jump through some hoops before ultimately being allowed in.

Needless to say, this NYU department is not boycotting the Sydney or Abu Dhabi campuses.

The hypocrisy of the BDS crowd is as bad as it ever was.

(One of the authors of this resolution is Andrew Ross, who we recently noted is a pretty nutty Israel hater, claiming that Arabs should be compensated for making more money by working for Israelis than they would otherwise. He was also editor of Social Text when the Sokal Hoax happened in the mid 1990s, showing that Ross literally cannot tell the difference between reality and nonsense in academic papers. In a sane world, no one that clueless should have any acadmic job, ever.)

UPDATE:

During 2018, Israel welcomed an unprecedented number of 55,000 tourists from Arab and Islamic countries who do not have relations with Israel, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Qatar.

17,000 tourists came from Jordan and Egypt.

So much for that "policy" of "barring entry to Palestinians or persons of Arab descent and Muslim heritage."

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05/02 Links Pt2: Shapiro: Don’t Give Anti-Semites What They Seek; Hamas and the Terrorism Double Standard; PA misrepresents photos of Holocaust victims as Arabs killed by Jews - again!

From Ian:

Ben Shapiro: Don’t Give Anti-Semites What They Seek

When you look at a rabbi with a white beard wearing a black hat, a long black coat and a gartl, what do you see? Anti-Semites see a refugee from the ghettos of Europe, a secret emissary of a global power intent on ruling from within. But what do you see?

When you look at an Israeli living in Sderot, what do you see? Anti-Semites see an emissary of Israeli intolerance, a thumb in the face of Palestinians, a hypnotizer of the world. But what do you see?

When you look at a 60-year-old Jewish woman living near San Diego, what do you see? Anti-Semites see a recipient of privilege, an inherent victimizer in the hierarchical power structure. But what do you see?

Anti-Semites see the Jews as part of a pattern. Each Jew is a data point in that pattern; every Jew can be pigeonholed as a member of a broader conspiracy. Right-wing white supremacist anti-Semites see the Jews as an eternal threat, a racially “mongrelizing” threat to white purity, a religious blot, a nefarious group of schemers threatening their race-based civilization. Radical Islamist anti-Semites see the Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys, religious threats who must be exterminated. Left-wing anti-Semites see the Jews as defenders of brutal hierarchies, purveyors of exploitation.

Each of these types of anti-Semitism carries its own level of threat. White supremacist anti-Semitism, in the United States, is the type most likely to end with dead bodies: White supremacists have been responsible for an ever-increasing number of terrorist attacks, as more and more young men are radicalized through online forums. Radical Islamic anti-Semitism is the type most likely to end with dead Jews worldwide, in anti-Semitic attacks throughout Europe, as well as terrorist attacks against Jews in Israel. Left-wing anti-Semitism is the type most likely to be mainstreamed — just view The New York Times’ decision to print a virulently anti-Semitic cartoon that could have come from the pages of Der Sturmer. The fact that the Times’ editors didn’t even notice the anti-Semitism shows how easily anti-Zionism has merged, for the mainstream left, into outright anti-Semitic propagandizing.

Washington State man arrested for making ‘extremely serious’ death threats against Ben Shapiro

TMZ reports that a man in Washington state was arrested today for making death threats against Ben Shapiro and his family.

Law enforcement sources tell us, Shapiro, who frequently appears on cable news shows and has a hugely popular podcast, filed a police report with the LAPD…

We’re told the Department got in touch with the FBI and created a joint task force to hunt down the culprit…

We’re told these threats were “extremely serious” … not just someone blowing off steam.

Shapiro confirmed the gist of TMZ’s report by tweeting a link to the story and thanking law enforcement:

Want to Fight Anti-Semitism? Then Defend Israel.

Israel's basic purpose is to protect the Jewish people, both by serving as a place of refuge and by maintaining a standing military to defend the nation. Israel is of course the homeland of the Jewish people, where Jews yearned to return for 2,000 years. But even more fundamental is physical survival, both as individual Jews and as a people who share beliefs and traditions—a luxury that too often could not be enjoyed in exile. No Israel in the 1930s and 1940s meant millions of Jews were trapped in Europe. Imagine how many lives could have been saved.

Today, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other efforts to destroy Israel as the Jewish state through demonization and delegitimization would undermine this basic purpose of protecting Jews. Indeed, they would undermine Israel to the point that it effectively ceases to exist as the world has come to recognize it. With anti-Semitism resurgent in Europe and all too prevalent in the Middle East, the implications for Israeli Jews would be disastrous. Moreover, these anti-Israel efforts are inherently anti-Semitic as they single out the Jewish state for boycott and condemnation when, by all relevant standards, other countries are far more deserving.

Abraham Foxman described the latter point well in 2015 shortly before retiring as national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "Fifty years ago," he explained, "prognosticators said: ‘Anti-Semitism, it's a historical fact of the past. You don't have to worry about it.' They said: ‘In 50 years, Israel will be a normal nation among all the nations.' Boy, how wrong they were! Israel has become ‘the Jew among the nations.'" What does that mean exactly? Foxman continued: "What everybody else can do, Israel can't do. Tell me a country in the world that can't decide its capital, has to defend its right to defend itself, has to deal with double and triple standards in terms of being told what it should do, how it should do it, who it can do business with, who it should play soccer with, what person can come and sing."

It is important to keep Foxman's words in mind on a day when Israelis, no matter what they were doing, stopped for two minutes of silence to remember the six million Jews murdered as sirens wailed across Israel. Remembering the Holocaust should be a reminder of why Israel is so important to the Jewish people, and why demonizing it is so nefarious. The wellbeing of the Jewish people—and of Judaism itself—is tied to the wellbeing of Israel. Those serious about fighting anti-Semitism should be serious about defending Israel. Anyone else is either a bystander or, worse, part of the problem, isolating Israel as the Jew among nations.

And now... #Holocaust denial tweets read by Holocaust survivors. Because you jerks need to know how stupid you sound. https://t.co/uK1FtQ7IYo #NeverAgain #YomHashoah pic.twitter.com/gdIQZr0g87
— The Mossad (@TheMossadIL) May 2, 2019

Two examples of NYT apathy during the Holocaust

From The New York Times, December 4, 1942, page 11:

Not only was the story relegated to an easily overlooked part of the paper, but the language is detached. "Eight months of work of extermination columns" - well, OK.

Things improved slightly in this report from 1944:

There is passion and anger in the writing by Joseph M. Levy.

But the editors still put it on Page 5.

Editors are the ones who decide which stories are on page 1, which are on page 17, and which ones won't see the light of day. Which will have photos, how many column inches, whether there will be a followup story.

Joseph Levy did his job, unlike the anonymous author of the 1942 article. But he can only do so much when the editors decided that the mass murder of millions of Jews was simply not that important a story.

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Arab news site calls Holocaust a "lie"

Egyptian news site Vetogate has a story from Israeli media about an author, Ze'ev Shraga, who wrote a book about how the Holocaust also affected Jews in Arab countries.

The article isn't bad, but the headline is.

"Israeli writer tries to involve the Arab countries in the lie of the Holocaust."

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05/02 Links Pt1: Israel to come to standstill in somber remembrance of Holocaust victims; The Arab Chapter of the Holocaust; Trump Consigning Russia-PLO Collusion to Dustbin of History

From Ian:

Israel to come to standstill in somber remembrance of Holocaust victims

Israel came to a standstill at 10 a.m. Thursday as sirens wailed throughout the country in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

The annual remembrance is one of the most solemn days on Israel’s national calendar, with much of the country all but shutting down to honor those who suffered under the Nazi killing machine.

The sirens will be followed by ceremonies marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in schools, public institutions, and army bases, including a wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem’s memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Knesset’s annual recitation of victims’ names. The March of the Living at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland will begin at 1 p.m.

Events will officially come to a close in ceremonies at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghetto Fighters) and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, named after those who resisted the Nazis in Warsaw and the leader of the uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz.

The national day began Wednesday evening at sundown, as ceremonies were held throughout the country, with solemn songs, candle-lightings and remembrances from survivors and their descendants. TV channels and radio stations switched to exclusive programming about the Holocaust and stores and restaurants shuttered early in deference to the commemorations.

At Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum, an official state event featured six torch lightings from those who lived through the genocide.

The entire country stops to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust#NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/5M9bsMd4ry
— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) May 2, 2019

With Shoah speech attacking Iran and NY Times, Netanyahu displays post-election resolve

In a fiery, spellbinding performance of less than 20 minutes on Wednesday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showcased the oratorial mastery that helped him win reelection just three weeks ago, and showcased, too, his personal conviction that he is uniquely qualified to lead the Jewish state.

Addressing the nation at the start of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, Netanyahu delivered an address that built from astonishing stories of Holocaust suffering and heroism, as told to him by a group of survivors with whom he had met on Tuesday, to a resounding assertion of Israel’s legitimacy and denunciation of its critics.

Speaking at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem to a large audience that heard him in absolute silence, and to a nation watching on TV, the prime minister hailed survivors such as Fanny Ben-Ami, who as a 13-year-old led a group of children to safety in Switzerland from France but who turned back when she realized that a three-year-old girl in their group had been left behind in the demilitarized zone. “Fanny went back to get her,” the prime minister marveled; she “zig-zagged under gunfire” to bring the toddler to safety: “An angel of salvation, aged 13.”

He went on to detail visits he has made in recent years to European countries “whose land is soaked with the blood of our brothers and sisters, and where we were turned into human dust,” but that have today become some of Israel’s greatest admirers and supporters. In these lands, he said, “I felt terrible pain at the disaster that befell us,” but simultaneously “immense pride to represent our people, that rose from the ashes in our independent state.”

Unable to protect themselves, millions of Jews in the Diaspora were condemned to their deaths, he recalled bitterly. “In exile, our abysmal weakness doomed us to our fate.” But now, restored to their homeland, the Jews have achieved “a miracle of revival” and their country has become a rising world power.

For all of Israel’s achievements, Netanyahu said, it dare not be complacent in the face of its enemies. This assertion, he insisted, preempting critics who accuse him of whipping up fear among Israelis, was not a case of “artificial scaremongering.” Even the greatest world powers must always be aware of the dangers they face, he noted. Indeed, “awareness of danger is a condition for living.”

The “paradox” of Israel’s revival, he said, was that it has been accompanied by an ongoing rise in anti-Semitism. “The extreme right, the extreme left and extremist Islam,” he said, “agree on only one thing: hatred of the Jews.”

June 1939: 8 German Jews attempt suicide after no country accepts them for asylum

From The New York Times, June 7, 1939:

Helping them to recover so they can be sent to their deaths.

So many Jews asked the world to help them stay alive, and the world unanimously refused.

This is only one story of many, most untold.

This is why we need Israel.

And this is why those opposed to a Jewish state are antisemites.

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US representative Betty McCollum introduces bill to give millions of dollars to NGO aligned with PFLP terrorists

From Robert Mackey in The Intercept:

NEW LEGISLATION PROPOSED by Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, would ban Israel from using any of the billions of dollars in military assistance it receives from the United States every year to pay for the detention, interrogation, or torture of Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.

McCollum’s bill, HR 2407, would amend the Foreign Assistance Act to prohibit funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. The proposed law would also provide $19 million a year to American, Israeli, and Palestinian nongovernmental organizations to monitor the treatment of children detained by Israel’s army and offer physical and psychological treatment.

This bill is heavily influenced by "Defense of Children International - Palestine," which is promoting the bill on its website. It appears that McCollum worked with DCI-P to craft the language of the bill. Indeed, the bill quotes from a DCI-P report to "prove" how Israel mistreats children:

The nongovernmental organization Defense for Children International Palestine collected affidavits from 739 West Bank children who were detained between 2013 and 2018, and concluded that 73 percent of the children endured physical violence following arrest...

We've looked at DCI-P before. It's methodology is to interview these children with leading questions and to prompt them to answer what they want. They almost admitted this in previous reports, saying that first they seek out people to write affidavits, and then "Lawyers and human rights documentation professionals reviewed testimonies and other documentation for accuracy and assessed any gaps that required further research." - meaning if there were problems with the "testimony" they would try to fit the evidence to their preconceived notions.

We know that DCI-P does not adhere to the "UN standards" they claim to use for interviewing people. During the 2014 war, it ludicrously claimed that the IDF kept a 16-year old son of a Hamas terrorist for five days to go, alone, into Gaza houses to look for Hamas tunnels and to dig for them with his bare hands. These were all obvious lies compounded by his father saying that the family disposed of the too-large clothes that the IDF supposedly gave him and "forgot" to take photos of his many injuries at the hands of the Israelis. (The New York Times reported this as fact, too.) These are laughable lies. UN standards for interviewing include being skeptical of what people say and how to corroborate the stories. DCI-P prompts or believes anything that makes Israel look bad.

In addition, DCI-P has listed children known to have been killed while involved in terror attacks as being innocent, and to count those killed by Hamas rockets as being killed by Israel. They know that some of the children they count as innocent victims are terrorists themselves - they've admitted it on Palestinian TV - but their official reports never mention that.

In other words, DCI-P reports have nothing to do with reality.

It would be bad enough if DCI-P was merely another NGO with dubious methodology whose entire purpose is to smear Israel. There are lots of those. But DCI-P is far worse.

DCI-P is associated with the PFLP terror group.

NGO-Monitor has documented many workers for DCI-P who were also officials of the PFLP. For example, here is DCI-P General Director Rifat Odeh Kassis addressing PFLP and DCI-P member Hashem Abu Maria’s memorial service in front of the PFLP flag and pictures of the group’s founder, George Habash:

HR 2407 doesn't just rely on bogus research by a NGO with known terror ties. It wants the US to give millions of dollars to that NGO!

FUNDING.—There is authorized to be appropriated not less than $19,000,000 each fiscal year to the Secretary of State to be made available to nongovernmental organizations from the United States, Israel, or the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the following purposes:
(1) MONITORING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES ASSOCIATED WITH ISRAEL’S MILITARY DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—Nongovernment organizations with human rights experience are eligible to receive funding under this subsection.
Such funding shall be used to monitor, assess, and document incidents of Palestinian children subjected to Israeli military detention, including interviews with victims, family members of victims, relevant community members, health care providers, legal advocates, civil society monitors, and Israeli military officials.

This is exactly how DCI-P describes itself! The rest of the description of the role of these "NGOs" - annual reports showing affidavits from children - shows that DCI-Palestine is the only organization in the world that adheres to the requirements of the bill.

A US member of the House of representative, Betty McCollum, is introducing a bill to give millions of dollars annually to a fake NGO, associated with a US-designated terror organization, that knowingly and consistently lies in its reports.

This is scandalous and sickening.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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To make the Shoah a little more real for you, look up your (Hebrew) name in the Yad Vashem database of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Although I know I was named after an uncle who was murdered, I found another person besides him with my first, middle and last name - probably a distant relative, since my surname is rare - a man who was around 50 years old when he was murdered.

I even found his picture.

More creepy was that I found a child with my son's name, who was murdered in Treblinka in 1942 at the age of 10.

I also found a 23 year old woman with my daughter's name who was murdered in 1940.

Since I don't know if anyone is saying Yizkor for these people, I will.

If you can't find someone with your exact name, look for variants for you to remember.

Seeing your loved ones' names in lists of those who were slaughtered is jarring. It is a scary, sober and rewarding exercise to find your own "twin" and those of your loved ones who was murdered by the Nazis, yemach shemam.

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