I want to concentrate on #4, Watch Your Language, about how grouping people together can fuel stereotypes and strip people of their humanity.
There is a major exception to this rule, that every progressive and woke person seems to happily violate, all the time.
Here's a quick look at a search on Amnesty's site for the word "settler" used in the context of Israel.
Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria are a monolith of rowdy gangs who attack Arabs for no reason and steal land. They are never humanized - even in the rare instances that Amnesty condemns an attack on a settler, it is combined with an Amnesty attack on settlers themselves (using a "both sides must avoid violence" formulation that never occurs when Jews can be blamed alone.)
Settlers are stereotyped, demonized and scapegoated all the time - without looking at their point of view, without differentiating between religious or secular or even mentioning the many Arab Israelis who have also moved across the Green Line.
Amnesty won't change, and neither will the self righteous progressives who are quick to accuse others of bigotry and who remain stubbornly blind to their own.
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One of the most interesting things about the rhetoric used by the BDS
“movement” and similar Israel-disliking organizations is that the BDSers’ life
on the psychological extreme means that the rhetorical tactics they employ also
tend towards the extreme.
When one is dealing with a “normal” political situation, there have
traditionally been forces that keep discussion within general bounds of
civility. Until recently, candidates primarily
dropped innuendos about their opponent’s inadequacy for the job, while
surrogates got much more specific and accusatory. But the simple fact that most of those
running for office still feel the need to be perceived as even-tempered and
fair implies an understanding that public discourse needs to follow certain
civilized rules.
The public is also interested in variety, which means using the same
tactic over and over again is likely to bring diminishing returns, especially
if that tactic is perceived as controversial or extreme. And one of the rhetoric tactics that tends to
wear out its welcome fast is Argumentation from Outrage.
Argumentation from Outrage is considered in informal fallacy, that is a
fallacy not based on breaking any formal logical rules (such as All Dogs are
Animals, All Cats are Animals, therefore all Dogs are Cats – a formal fallacy
which is wrong even if you substitute letters, imaginary animals or nonsense
words for Cats, Dogs and Animals). But with
an informal fallacy, the actual content of the argument is relevant or, in the
case of Argumentation from Outrage, how that content is presented.
Argumentation from Outrage is usually brought up in discussions of
cable TV or radio political talk show hosts who seem to be able to break into a
screaming fit at the slightest provocation, although in our current political
culture it has travelled from this venue to the candidates themselves (at least
as of now).
In the contexts of shock-political media, Argumentation from Outrage is
meant to short circuit reasonable debate by raising the temperature to such a
degree that the only choices an opponent to the screamer has are to (1) capitulate;
or (2) begin screaming back (usually a losing proposition for a talk show guest
inexperienced at public howling who does not control the microphone or editing
booth). And while such a tactic may play
well to a talk show’s fan base which gathers to watch their hero put
wrong-minded guests in their place, most people who play in politics put the
brakes on such tactics (especially when playing before a mixed audience of friends,
foes and undecideds).
But as we have seen, people playing the BDS game have no such brakes
for the simple reason that “the audience” for them are not real people, but
simply props in a fantasy-laden drama going on in the boycotters own
heads. Which is why if you point out the
inconsistencies in their arguments, they’ll fly into a rage. If you point out their hypocrisy of snoozing
while Hamas missiles fly but rousing themselves into righteous fury when Israel
shoots back, they’ll fly into an even bigger rage. If you point out that their “movement” draws
its strength from being aligned with the needs and goals of wealthy and
powerful states, they will burst a blood vessel.
In fact, doing or saying anything that challenges their self-perception
as courageous and virtuous human-rights champions speaking truth to power means
it’s just a matter of seconds before someone’s face is two inches from yours
shrieking abuse and spewing saliva (either literally or virtually – although
without the saliva when this dynamic plays out in online debate – as it
inevitably does).
The point of Argumentation from Outrage is to raise the discomfort
level so high that people will avoid further attacking (or even questioning)
the person having the tantrum. Most
normal people, after all, don’t like being in situations where emotions are
running red hot. And a boycotter losing
an argument knows this, which is why they tend to explode so readily in hope of
making it impossible for normal debate to continue.
This helps to explain why anti-Israel “dialog” tends to be so
shrill. I have occasionally teased
certain anti-Israel writers for starting their writing in a snit and then
working themselves into frenzy of accusation and fury. But if you think about it, starting an
argument in a state of outrage is yet another way of avoiding a debate you know
you cannot win.
The trouble (for the BDSers anyway) is this perpetual outrage is used
to justify all kinds of behavior that tends not to play well with a general
audience which does NOT like to be patted down on the way to class by a bunch
of Israel haters dressed up in Israeli soldier costumes during some campus protest,
does NOT like to have their concerts or theatre performances interrupted by
people shrieking slogans and waving banners, and does NOT trust people who seem
to be shouting, even when the situation doesn’t warrant it.
The good news is that the boycotters’ outrage tactic has done little to
further their cause. The bad news is
that they have help mainstream Argumentation from Outrage to the point where it
is now becoming the tactic of choice for people on all ends of the political
spectrum, an outcome that puts in peril the normal human deliberation upon
which democracy depends.
Thanks guys!
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Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu referred to Sunday's barrage on Hezbollah positions in retaliation for their attack on an IDF vehicle on the northern border: "We acted with determination and responsibility yesterday. We kept our citizens safe and also our soldiers.
"The man in the Beirut bunker knows exactly why he's in the bunker. We will continue to maintain Israel's security - at sea, land, and air, and continue to act against the precision missile threat."
Yesterday, Hezbollah operatives fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israel, after which the IDF fired 100 shells in response.
The exchange of fire over the Lebanon-Israel border comes one week after Hezbollah accused Israel of committing a drone attack on its southern Beirut position.
On August 24, Israel also said it had carried out strikes in Syria to avert an Iranian drone attack on the Jewish state. Hezbollah said those strikes killed two of its members.
Israel has carried hundreds of strikes in war-torn Syria, mostly against what it says are Iranian or Hezbollah targets.
PM Netanyahu: We acted yesterday with determination and responsibility. We maintained the security of our citizens and the safety of our soldiers. pic.twitter.com/ZFbp1ncLkW
The Lebanese government reached out to three countries on Sunday on behalf of Hezbollah in an effort to convey to Israel that it was not interested in any further escalation, as the IDF hurled some 100 shells at targets across the border in response to the terror group’s firing of anti-tank missiles at Israel, a senior defense official said Monday.
The message from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was relayed by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to the governments of France, Egypt and the US, the official told Israeli reporters in a phone briefing.
“We received inquiries from Lebanon through three countries that implored us that there was no need to respond,” he said.
At 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, the IDF released a statement saying a barrage of Hezbollah anti-tank missiles hit an army base as well as military vehicles near Avivim. The army then launched heavy retaliatory fire.
The senior official briefing reporters said that Israel had not taken Nasrallah’s message into account in its eventual decision to hold its fire. “Nasrallah’s considerations do not bother me, as long as we advance our goals against the threats.”
“The bottom line is that Hezbollah sent us messages to hold our fire,” the official boasted.
Hezbollah’s precision missile program is the State of Israel’s top priority, right after working to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability, a top defense official said on Monday, admitting, for the first time, that Israel has carried out attacks against different fronts beyond Syria.
According to the official, Israel has been operating against Iran in several arenas and operated in several additional fronts within a recent 24-hour span of time. "In recent days, we were attacked from several fronts," the official said. "We were in simultaneous attack mode in multiple places."
“Had we had not acted correctly we would be in a different reality today,” he said.
"To prevent this consolidation by Iran, we are carrying out many operations that nobody knows anything about,” he said, adding that the operations are carried out by the IDF and the Mossad.
"Everything we have done during the last few weeks and days was planned and executed exactly how we wanted," he said. “Everything is part of our overall strategy that we are managing in several different ways and in several different arenas.”
The official spoke a day after Hezbollah and Israel exchanged blows along the Lebanese border in an attempt by the Iranian-backed guerilla organization to exact a price from Israel for the bombing of a terrorist cell in Syria in late August. While no IDF troops were injured, Israel fired over 100 artillery shells towards targets in south Lebanon in response to the attack and airlifted two uninjured soldiers to Rambam hospital in Haifa.
“We can’t hide injured troops in Israel for half an hour,” he said, disputing claim in Lebanon that troops had been injured in the attack.
If you cannot stand being unpopular or if your priority is to participate in social justice causes with groups who are hostile to Israel supporters then don't get involved in pro-Israel advocacy and hide your pro-Israel sympathies. This may seem like a contrarian advice, but not every student has the stomach for facing haters and not everyone wishes to invite tsuris for supporting those who do. Many Jewish students are in college to learn and to get a degree. Nothing's wrong with that. On most campuses, Jewish students who do not express pro-Israel sentiments publicly are not going to be harassed. Not yet, anyway. If this applies to you, sorry for having wasted your time, please skip the rest. Otherwise, read on...
- Find a support system on campus. Forget Hillel, which on many campuses is at best wishy washy, catering to everyone, including J Street U and, at worst, is an "Open" Hillel that is actively anti-Israel. Instead seek out Chabad or a strong pro-Israel student organization like Students Supporting Israel (SSI). Don't try to confront bigots alone.
-·When confronted by anti-Israel students, ascertain whether they are good faith interlocutors or propagandists with closed minds before engaging in a discussion. Ask why they believe in what they believe. Ask where they learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ask whether they are willing to consider opposing fact-based arguments. Ask what information, if any, would change their minds. Challenge the sources of their beliefs if they were acquired from biased media, from Arab propaganda speakers or from websites like Al Jazeera and Electronic Intifada or from anti-Israel organizations, including the Jewish ones; it is quite possible that fair-minded students have been misinformed. However, if the anti-Israel students do not appear to be open minded, if they cannot articulate what would change their opinion, then no productive conversation is possible. Label them as Jew haters either publicly or in your mind and don't waste your time on engaging them.
Win hearts and minds by appealing to emotions first. The traditional advice to rely on knowledge and reason does not work well. Until the hearts are won the minds are closed and unprepared for the required intellectual heavy lifting. The anti-Israel brigade has understood a long time ago that when appealing to the indecisive you are engaging in psychological warfare rather than in a dry academic debate. Try either to earn sympathy or to undermine the sympathy for the other side before marshalling facts and logical arguments. Don't be afraid to offend. Unless you engage on an emotional level you will not earn respect and love. As Elie Wiesel had said, "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." The only way to influence the "followers" is to make following the other side appear unacceptable or at least uncool.
·And if you are really ready for a fight then fight fire with fire. You cannot win with exclusively defensive tactics or positive—but unfortunately often tone deaf—messages when the other side is hurling endless fake accusations. During the annual antisemitic hate fest at Columbia known as Israeli Apartheid Week, I have seen pro-Israel students extolling Israel's technological advances while the other side hysterically yells false accusations that Israeli Army is killing babies with sophisticated missiles and indiscriminately burning civilians alive with white phosphorus incendiary bombs. It is hard to imagine a more tone deaf pro-Israel advocacy! Do you think that this example is atypical, extreme or absurd? Consider the recent article "Letter to Rashida Tlaib: Join Us for a Day in Israel" where "the author, an entrepreneur from California and a Zionist activist" invited[1] antisemitic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to "visit the future site of a world-class Culinary Institute in the north of Israel that will be the finest in the Middle East. It will bring people of all walks of life and religions together through a love for food." How does an invitation to a hoity-toity culinary school sound when juxtaposed against fake claims that the Palestinians are systemically starved to death in their "open air prison" while Israel is stealing their water? These are just awful, tone-deaf optics. And to what end? Would a high class cooking establishment convert unsympathetic bystanders or a staunch antisemite like Rashida Tlaib, who believes that her grandmother was dispossessed? We are conditioned to believe that we need to be the mature ones, the moderate ones, the reasonable ones. This may work fine in a controlled debate setting with fair and open minded opponents of good intentions. But it does not work in a street fight, which is what Israel advocacy has unfortunately become on campus. Do not be afraid to call out BDS supporters as genocidal terrorists, for they are not afraid of calling you "Nazis", "colonizers", "baby killers" and worse. And if you think that this is not the way to go, ask yourself why the anti-Israel climate on campus is getting worse and worse and why the anti-Israel sentiment appears to be gaining influence and popularity if the anti-Israel brigade is using all the "wrong" tactics? Ask yourself, do you prefer to win or to be a gracious loser?
·Relentlessly expose and ridicule propaganda lies. Don't shy away from portraying the other side as bigots and haters who lie about their goals (they say that they are for human rights but want nothing short of destruction of Israel and death or the Jews) and methods (they pretend that they are want a dialogue but when approached refuse claiming "non-normalization" BDS policy).
·Tirelessly call out inherent contradictions of intersectionality, specifically the underlying cynicism and illogic of the unholy alliance between Islamists and progressives. Don't shy away from pointing out that unlike Israel, the Arab and Muslim states are illiberal dictatorships headed by kleptocratic and despotic tyrants who massacre their own people (as is the case in Syria) and deny routinely them rights, where gays are persecuted and hung from cranes, black slavery exists to this day, women have no rights and are forced to wear hijabs, burkas and undergo barbaric FGM rituals, freedom of expression is forbidden and dissenters are hurled off the rooftops, freedom of religion is non-existent and medieval blasphemy laws are still applied, Christians, Yazidis, Jews, Kurds, Assyrians and other ethnic and religious minorities are slaughtered by genocidal Islamist maniacs, cradle-to-grave indoctrination starts in kindergartens and antisemitic sentiments are expressed by over 90% of the population, etc. Demand to know how can any liberal person support this? Attack, attack, and attack because their position is intellectually indefensible.
An excerpt of Amanda Berman formerly of The Lawfare Project explaining the importance of filing Title VI complaints during WZO-AZM Law and Policy Symposium: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Challenges on the American Campus Today. (The symposium is well worth watching in its entirety; the link to watch from the beginning is here).
·Another and even more powerful option is to file a complaint against the school with the Office of Civil Rights. This is the ultimate weapon! The Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos, who recently participated in the Justice Department's "Summit on Combatting Anti-Semitism" (well worth watching: part1, part2, part3) and the Office of Civil Rights under the leadership of Kenneth Marcus have been actively investigating schools for Title VI violations. However, in the recent interview "At US Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus tackles anti-Semitism in all its varied forms" Kenneth Marcus stated, "So I would say that the No. 1 issue is the cases we don’t get. The fact that we are aware anecdotally and through survey data that there are many Jewish students [who] feel they are experiencing anti-Semitism, and yet very few of them are submitting complaints to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). One of the issues for us is awareness..." If you really want to bring change to your school and move the needle, this is what you should do! This is the single most effective thing you can do to fight antisemitism on campus. A number of organizations such as The Lawfare Project and Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law are there to help.
Advice for the Parents of Pro-Israel Students
First, realize that academia has been poisoned against Israel and that Jews are treated differently from every other marginalized group on campus. Not only are anti-Israel views promulgated by the very professors that you hope will educate your children, but such professors may damage your child's prospects. The student body is hostile to Israel and is infiltrated by professional anti-Israel agitators (can anyone believe that this slick 66-page BDS presentation was actually developed by students?) who are sponsored by deep-pocketed anti-Israel organizations. And the administration that is supposed to ensure fairness and compliance with Title VI is, at best, ineffective. It hides behind the excuses of "academic freedom" and "free speech." Yet we all know that similarly bigoted vitriol directed towards any other marginalized group on campus would end the career of anyone who says or does a fraction of what is directed against Israel and Jews. At worst, administrations actively encourage and participate in such anti-Israel behavior.
The uncomfortable truth is that the pro-Israel students are too few and lack the power to change the climate on campus. The pro-Israel faculty are also outnumbered and powerless despite valiant efforts. Hillel and most other Jewish organizations on campus are afraid to antagonize the administration and their donors on whom they depend. These three groups have too much to lose. The alumni have no agency on campus and, therefore, no influence, except for those who donate millions but they are only interested in having buildings named after them. Moreover, students and academics often work separately; their aversion to combine efforts renders them even less effective (for instance, even as a leader of Columbia's chapter of ACF my request to attend an AEN conference was declined because I am not an academic). To hope that the school administration will step in is like hoping that the inmates can run an asylum; every attempt at self-policing has failed. The Jewish mainstream organizations are too busy with infighting, competing for funding and worrying about their organization's brand to be effective; when they do get involved, with few exceptions, they are too timid and insist on fighting with white gloves on.
Furthermore, trying to cover every school under the sun in a reactive whack-a-mole mode is a losing strategy because it spreads our resources too thinly and fails to apply sufficient pressure anywhere. Instead, the pro-Israel organizations should focus all their combined resources on a few influential schools with well-known antisemitism history. It is better to have a few successes than a lot of failures. Making a warning example of a few school by applying maximum and unrelenting pressure to them is a more effective deterrent. It is a provent strategy under resource constraints that is successfully used by the IRS to prevent tax evasion and by the SEC to curb insider trading.
So what is a parent or an alumni to do? Based on my experience the only effective options that remain are:
·Help create legal pressure on the schools and demand government scrutiny of the school. Work with students, other alumni and pro-Israel community to bring lawsuits or to attract government scrutiny to the school with highly Zionophobic campuses.
·Stop donations and do so with maximum publicly! But be aware that for a large and well-endowed school like the ones in the Ivy League, it will work if you are a huge donor only and/or if you can influence other huge donors.
This may sound grim but it is an honest assessment. And we cannot hope to start winning if we continue deluding ourselves that the same old techniques that failed thus far will suddenly work.
This was written before Congresswoman Tlaib was denied entry to Israel.
For more information about Zionophobia in academia and specifically at Columbia University and Barnard College, please visit https://www.cu-monitor.com/
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Iran's AhlulBayt News Agency reports that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has written a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader filled with praise for the financial and military help that Iran is providing to Hamas.
In the letter to Ayatollah Khamenei, Haniyeh "expressed his appreciation and gratitude for the unequivocal support of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution for Palestinian resistance during his meeting with the Hamas delegation, and announcing Iran's readiness to equip the Resistance with whatever it needs for fulfilling its duty."
Haniyeh and Hamas have long ago swallowed their pride at being dependent on the hated Shiites who once cut him off for not supporting genocide in Syria. Money talks and Syria's victims are dead already (well, most of them,) so Hamas has again fully embraced Iran - and the Ayatollah is willing to divert whatever funds Iranians might need for their own economy to Hamas because, you know, killing Jews is more important than life itself.
Haniyeh effusively praised Khamenei, writing, "Once again we declare our unwavering approach to partake in the stronghold of sustainable resistance alongside all forces of righteousness, justice and freedom, including the pioneer of them all, the Islamic Republic of Iran, until the final victory; and we trust divine assistance and promises."
In other words, he is pretty much calling Khamenei God. Which is the surest way to keep his cash flowing into Hamas coffers.
Haniyeh's brown-nosing doesn't end there, as he wrote, "I praise Allah for bestowing us your existence and supplicate Allah to shower you with blessings, and protect you from harm, and from the ruse and mischief of the oppressive and arrogant enemies. "
The terrorist leader went on to thank Khamenei for his "unequivocal remarks on special and extensive support and assistance for the Resistance and the Palestinian brothers, as well as announcement of readiness to supply them with whatever they will need for performing their duty of resisting. These remarks significantly delighted us and opened vast horizons to us, and it will have significant impacts on strategic dimensions as well as on the realm of action against the Zionist enemy. "
The would-ge genocidal Palestinian terror leader ended off his letter saying, "We ask Allah, the Exalted, to bestow blessings and fulfill all prayers by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Ummah for victory, sovereignty, security, well-being, elimination of enemies, and freedom of Palestine and the holy Quds. "
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The article, by a female of Palestinian ancestry, is truly amazing in doing everything to exonerate Islam, and Palestinian/Arab culture, from worldwide honor killings like Israa's:
Honor killings are not Muslim and they are not Arab. This is a universal phenomenon which takes places in nearly all corners of the globe, from the United States to Europe. The US president stands accused of rape. Honor killings were legal in Italy until the 1970s and still happen today. Do not use this narrative to reinforce dangerous stereotypes of Arab culture and Islam. Patriarchy exists every where.
It is true that honor killings are not exclusively a Muslim phenomenon - they also occur in Hindu and Sikh cultures and occasionally elsewhere (as she almost says, southern Italy specifically tolerated such acts until the 1980s. Every notable example of honor killings of women in Italy since the 1960s has been done by Muslims.)
But the author and Tlaib are simply lying by implying that it is a universal phenomenon, or that it is an inevitable result of the patriarchy. Patriachical societies are literally everywhere but honor killings are not. They are specifically in societies whose culture is based on the honor/shame dynamic, not the guilt dynamic of nearly all of Western culture. In honor/shame societies, one's sense of self-worth is tied up in how one is perceived by others, while in guilt societies, it is largely based on one's perception of oneself.
This article calls for "justice for Israa." It in fact is a major injustice for Israa Gharib by diverting the blame on everything but the real causes of her death: the honor/shame culture in Arab, Muslim and Palestinian society. If one wants justice for Israa, one must tackle the actual causes of her death, not whitewash them.
The article in fact blames everything but Palestinian society - including blaming Israel, as if the "occupation" is responsible for the honor/shame culture throughout the Middle East and other parts of Asia.
In Palestine, our legal system is the result of a century of occupation and political turmoil. It is a combination of Ottoman, British, Egyptian (in Gaza), Jordanian (in the West bank), and even no system (Area C). Despite various and continued efforts over the last decade, there has been very little reform to this outdated and dysfunctional legal system for two reasons: Israeli military occupation and a corrupt Palestinian Authority both hinder any legal, economic, and social progress.
Israel has literally zero influence over Palestinian law. More importantly, honor crimes are no more prevalent in Palestinian-controlled territories than in the surrounding Arab states.
The author mentions pinkwashing - and in so doing, shows that she is guilty of X-washing far more than Israel is:
When it comes to power structures, women’s bodies are always tools to reinforce some sort of ideal, whether honor, or pink-washing...doubtless some Hebrew articles being published by some Zionist news outlets to try and pink-wash occupation (again lol).
The entire point of this article that Rashida Tlaib recommends is to whitewash the responsibility of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims to rid their societies of the honor-based thinking that caused the murder of Israa Ghareb by universailizing - and therefore minimizing - the real reasons for her death.
This article recommended by Rashida Tlaib reinforces and justifies Palestinian violence against women by blaming everything but Palestinian culture for her death.
That is injustice for Israa.
(h/t Tomer Ilan)
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For the past week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been threatening Israel with an attack as retaliation for last weekend's IDF attack against Hezbollah targets in Syria, and, reportedly, in Lebanon.
What is the point of such retaliation? It is purely to restore Hezbollah's honor. it serves no strategic interest, and in fact could easily escalate into something Hezbollah doesn't want. But the Arab concept of honor is so strong that logic is not important - the shame of being attacked is too great to go unanswered.
Unlike most of the West, the IDF understands Hezbollah's honor.shame dynamic. And it devised s plan to use it against them.
This morning, Hezbollah claimed that it hit an IDF patrol and killed or injured at least two soldiers. It based this on its own pbservations, which may have included this video apparently taken from Lebanon:
But it was all a ruse. The IDF faked blood on the soldiers' shirts, faked an evacuation and faked a helicopter taking them to the hospital.
The #IDF's deception operation: The helicopter didn't evacuate actually-injured soldiers as the entire exercise was planned in advance as a trick aiming to convince #Hezbollah that it succeeded in harming IDF troops: @RoySharon11 | #Israel#Lebanonpic.twitter.com/ZDjy5dSzxE
The obvious question is, why admit to the trick? Won't Hezbollah want to attack again once it finds out? Doesn't it cancel the advantage?
But that logic doesn't work in an honor/shame universe.
Hezbollah already announced it achieved its objectives of successfully attacking the IDF and injuring soldiers. It said "the group of the martyrs Hassan Zbeeb and Yasser Daher destroyed a military vehicle on the road of the Avivim barracks, killing and wounding those who were inside" the vehicle. It would be shameful for Hezbollah to admit that it was tricked, and therefore it won't say a word further about it. If it attacks again as a response to last weekend's strikes, it is tacitly admitting that its first attack did not kill anyone as they claimed - and that would be shameful!
So, in this case, the IDF was a step ahead of Hezbollah. It appears it may have even placed the empty vehicle there just to attract fire, making a calculated risk that Hezbollah won't attack the actor medics and helicopter - which would also be shameful.
Understanding how the enemy thinks is a huge advantage in warfare. In this case, Israel seems to have done it perfectly, in a way that saves lives on both sides of the Blue Line.
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Mohammed Saif Al Dawla started a three part series on myths and lies in the Middle East. The first part is "Zionist" myths and the second part is going to be "Israeli" myths, followed by Arab myths.
As much as I would like to wait for part 3, here is a synopsis of what Arab media is saying are "Zionist myths":
The most prominent of these myths are:
1) Allegations of the promised land; Palestine is the promised land that God gave to Abraham and his descendants.
2) The lie of a land without a people to a people without a land.
3) The myth of the Jewish people, which turned the religion of Judaism into nationalism, and did not recognize any national affiliation of any Jew other than belonging to the land of Palestine, which they call (Israel).
4) The Diaspora lie that lasted from 70 AD (as they claim) after the Romans demolished the Temple and took the Jews out of Palestine and sold them in the markets of Rome.
5) The racist myth about God's chosen people. Its incitement to the ethnic cleansing of non-Jews, based on which contemporary Zionist rabbis call in all their rulings the legitimacy of killing and liquidating Palestinians.
6) The myth of anti-Semitism, from which they took the cornerstone of the call for the establishment of a national national for them in Palestine, they mean anti-Israel (Israel).
7) The lie of hostility between Zionism and Nazism.
8) Exaggeration of the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
9) Last but not least, their claims that the establishment of the State of Israel is the answer and the right solution to compensate for the Holocaust as stipulated in what they call the Declaration of Independence.
I hope that their list of Arab myths include:
1) Mohammed flew to Jerusalem on a magic steed.
2) Jerusalem has always been important in Islam.
3) Palestinians have been a people for hundreds or thousands of years.
4) There was a political entity called Palestine that Israel displaced.
5) Arabs and Muslims have never been antisemitic.
6) Middle East peace is linked to Israel giving Palestinians everything they want.
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The Hezbollah terror group fired several anti-tank guided missiles at an army base and a military ambulance in northern Israel Sunday afternoon, causing no injuries, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Miiltary sources said that the ambulance was empty when it was struck, but that soldiers had been inside half-an-hour earlier.
In response, the Israeli military said its artillery cannons and attack helicopters fired approximately 100 shells and bombs at Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the IDF considered the “tactical event on the ground” to be over as of Sunday evening, but that the larger strategic threat posed by Hezbollah on the border remained.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no Israelis were so much as “scratched” by the Hezbollah attack. “There were no Israeli injuries, not even a scratch,” Netanyahu said, smiling, at the opening of a Honduras diplomatic office in Jerusalem.
The military said Hezbollah operatives fired two to three missiles at a battalion headquarters outside of the Israeli community of Avivim and at military vehicles nearby shortly after 4:15 p.m. Sunday. Several of the projectiles struck their targets but did not cause any casualties, despite claims to the contrary by Hezbollah, the IDF said.
The Iran-backed terror group took responsibility for the missile strikes, saying in a statement that its fighters “destroyed an ‘Israeli’ military vehicle on the Avivim barracks road [in northern Israel]… and injured those in it.” Hezbollah later said it targeted an armored personnel carrier.
The Israeli military fired artillery shells into a disputed portion of land on the Lebanese border on Sunday, amid soaring tensions along the frontier, a Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet reported.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed conducting “activities” in northern Israel, which sparked a fire near the border, but refused to comment on the nature of those actions.
According to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar news outlet, the IDF fired the shells into the hills outside of the village of Kfar Chouba, next to a contested area along the border, known in Israel as Mount Dov and in Lebanon as Shebaa Farms.
The Lebanese Armed Forces said in a statement that an Israeli drone also dropped an incendiary device nearby, sparking a small fire that was extinguished by residents of the area.
Al-Manar also shared photographs of artillery shells it said were fired by the IDF into the area.
Residents of northern Israel reported seeing increased military activity in the area on Sunday morning, with soldiers establishing roadblocks along local highways and large numbers of aircraft flying overhead.
Israel and Hezbollah Exchange Fire on Border — What's Next?
Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire on the Israel-Lebanon border. Will it escalate to an all-out conflict? What's behind these types of incidents? Our Adi Koplewitz and Owen Alterman analyze.
From the moment Hezbollah’s members fired their anti-tank missiles at Israel the entire Middle East was glued to what might happen next. This is because what is happening in northern Israel pits Iran’s ally against Israel, a key ally of the US. It has regional implications because Iran’s allies and proxies, from Syria to Iraq and Yemen, are all impacted by how Hezbollah performs and how Israel responds.
For instance, in the last month Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitaries linked to Iran have blamed Israel for a series of explosions at their munitions warehouses. In addition, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have been using Iranian technology to increase their drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. They also say they have new air defense systems and that they shot down a US drone recently. It would be the second US drone downed since June.
In January, Israel’s former Chief of Staff said that Israel carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the last years. That was a major declaration that built on two years in which Israeli officials had hinted at a widening campaign against Iran in Syria. Israel has only admitted several of these strikes directly as they happened or after. In September an air strike in Latakia led Syrian air defense to shoot down a Russian plane by mistake, causing a crises and ending with Moscow sending S-300 air defense to Syria’s regime.
That means that Syria’s regime and other forces in Syria are watching closely. For instance, the August 24 airstrike Israel carried out against an IRGC “killer drone” force in southern Syria killed two Hezbollah operatives. For the IRGC and for other Iranian-backed groups in Syria, the escalation in Lebanon is important. They wonder if it could spill over to Syria. Iran’s bases in Syria have been used to fly a drone into Israeli airspace in February 2018 and also to launch missiles at Israel in May 2018 and January 2019. Iran’s IRGC is entrenched in Syria and Iran has benefited from the weakness of the Syrian regime to spread influence and move forces and munitions. This has included the deployment of Iraqi-based Shi’ite militias such as Kata’aib Hezbollah. A Kata’ib Hezbollah base in Albukamal was mysteriously hit with an airstrike in June 2018. No one claimed responsibility for that but Kataib Hezbollah has blamed both Israel and the US for attacks on it. It is led by Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who has worked with the IRGC since the 1980s.
Hyperbole from Palestinian officials is a given, but this one seems to be a new record.
In Elkana, Bibi Netanyahu made a vague campaign promise:
Israel will apply sovereignty to all West Bank settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday morning as he celebrated the first day of school with first graders in the Elkana settlement.
"There won't be any more uprooting [of settlements]," Netanyahu said. "With God's help, we'll apply Jewish sovereignty on all the settlements, as part of the land of Israel and as part of the State of Israel."
He's said this before, also in context of a political campaign. No timeframe or details are given.
Erekat considered that Netanyahu's public statement of annexation of all settlements on the West Bank posed not only a threat to the Palestinian people but a threat to the entire international system. And it would open the horizons in alliance with the Trump administration to completely overthrow the international system and create a system of power and hegemony.
Locusts and pestilence can't be far behind.
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A 21-year-old Palestinian woman died on Thursday in suspicious circumstances that have caused massive outrage among activists and social media users across the Middle East and North Africa. Israa Gharib, a makeup artist from Bethlehem, died in a coma due to head trauma, in what activists and sources close to the victim are saying was a brutal honor killing. The culprits are believed to be her father, her brother-in-law, Sheikh Mohamed El Safy, and her two brothers, Bahaa and Ihab, a resident of Canada.
It all began when Gharib went to meet a potential suitor in a public place and posted a video of the outing on her Instagram page. According to a friend of the victim’s, Gharib’s mother was fully aware of the meeting and the suitor’s sister was also in attendance.
According to sources online, Gharib’s cousin then showed the video to the victim’s father and brothers, allegedly urging them to act to prevent scandal and accusing Israa of dishonoring herself and bringing shame to the family by being seen in the company of a man outside the bonds of marriage.
Gharib’s friend claims that upon seeing the video, her brothers and brother-in-law began beating and torturing her, and proceeded to terminate the engagement. Other sources claim she fell from the 2nd floor while attempting to flee the brutal assault. She was later hospitalized due to a fractured spine.
Gharib’s father, brothers, and brother-in-law followed her to the hospital, her friend alleges, and resumed the beating, telling hospital staff they were performing an exorcism on the victim whom they believed was possessed by a demon. A harrowing audio recording of the assault was leaked by one of the nurses at the hospital that purportedly features Gharib’s repeated horrified screams.
She was then released from the hospital, after which she returned home where she reportedly suffered a head injury at the hands of her brother, Ihab, whom eye witnesses say was seen threatening to kill her, prompting some on social media to call on the Canadian government to take legal action against him. Gharib went into a coma, before her heart stopped.
In a Facebook statement, the victim’s family denied any wrongdoing, claiming she suffered mental and psychological disorders that led to her fall from the 2nd floor of their Bethlehem house.
Here's the video where you can hear Israa's screams in the hospital as she was being beaten.
What kind of hospital allows a family to mercilessly beat a patient under the excuse of doing an "exorcism"?
And what kind of hospital would release her afterwards after seeing her family treat her this way?
The good news is that this story is all over Arabic social media since Friday, and in regular Arab news media as well. Years of feminists in the Arab world and coverage by Western media of "honor" crimes has shamed most Arabs into accepting that the old way of treating women is unacceptable and the outrage is a sign that things can change in the Arab world - but it requires the West to shame the Arabs into doing something to change.
The bad news is that there is still a long way to go. This interview with Palestinian human rights activist Dr. Omar Rahhal from late 2018 describes the issue:
The laws enacted in our country, by which I mean the Jordanian Penal Code No. 16 of 1960 deals with women as inferior whereby the perpetrator can marry his victim. What’s more, the perpetrator of crimes that fall under the category of “honor” can get a mitigated punishment. While it’s true that the President cancelled this article, in reality things are still the same. We have dozens of examples of this, the most recent one last night when a few brothers killed their sister and her husband in Ya’abad in the Jenin district even after the two families had reconciled. The reconciliation even happened under the supervision of the Palestinian intelligence services.
Palestinian laws are discriminatory in terms of gender-sensitivity. In addition, the laws enacted in Palestine are lacking in terms of respect for women; instead they treat them like second-class citizens. There is no equality. Socially, it is not such a big deal to kill a woman. Unfortunately, in some districts, the mourning for a women who is killed only lasts for one or two days instead of the traditional three days accorded to men.
We need amendments or a Palestinian penal code. The Ministry of Justice in addition to women’s institutions, civil society organizations and rights and academic institutions were able to draw up a draft law which is progressive and humane and that respects women’s dignity. Unfortunately, the President does not regard this as a priority and does not consider it a necessity. Hence, we have laws that not only do not respect women but almost encourage their punishment...
The entire interview is enlightening, showing how worthless the Palestinian justice system is as a whole. These are issues the media studiously avoids talking about out of some fear of looking "Islamophobic" or anti-Arab or racist. As a direct result of the media ignoring these issues, people like Israa Gharib will continue to die. Because reform is not going to come from inside; the PA has already had 25 years to do something and it hasn't.
Reform will only come when Westerners make a stink. Unfortunately, the very people who should be in the forefront of doing exactly that - the self-styled progressives and feminists - are the ones least likely to take a stand on this in public, because their solidarity with those that hate Israel is considered more important than the lives of actual Palestinian women.
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In a rare UN criticism of the Palestinians, the world body’s racism watchdog urged Ramallah to combat “hate speech and incitement to violence,” saying it was “concerned” about statements by Palestinian public figures, politicians and media officials, as well as in school textbooks and curricula, pointing to “hate speech against Israelis” which it found “fuels hatred” and “may incite violence” and “antisemitism.”
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) further called on the Palestinians to “remove any derogatory comments and images from school curricula and textbooks that perpetuate prejudices and hatred.”
In addition, the panel found that Palestinians laws and policies failed to implement UN treaties on racism, or to properly investigate complaints for acts of racial discrimination.
The 18 independent experts reviewed the Palestinian record and those of six other countries at a session that ended on Thursday, when they issued their findings.
Palestinian Delegate Lashes Out at UN Watch
In wake of the review session two weeks ago, Palestinian representative Ammar Hiajzi lashed out at UN Watch after the Geneva-based non-governmental organization briefed the UN experts on Palestinian incitement.
“We must not allow our discussions to be diverted and side-tracked by those organizations founded and funded to deny the Palestinian narrative, dehumanize the Palestinian people by spreading lies and half-truths about them,” he tweeted on August 15th, prompting a sharp reply from UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
The report marked the first time the panel had criticized Palestinian officials, according to UN Watch, a Geneva-based organization that addressed the session leading to the report.
The committee called on Ramallah to better protect journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents; to act against incitement to violence by public figures, politicians and media officials; and to remove inflammatory and discriminatory images and text from school curricula and textbooks.
The panel also recommended that Palestinian officials ensure that minorities enjoyed full rights and public services, especially Bedouins, and that minorities found adequate representation in politics.
Near the top of the report, titled “Concluding observations on the combined initial and second periodic reports of the State of Palestine,” the committee said that Israel’s presence in the West Bank, its settlements and its blockade of Gaza posed “severe challenges for the State party in fully implementing its obligations under the Convention.”
At the committee’s 99th session, held earlier this month, during a review of the “State of Palestine,” some delegates referred to examples of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish content in Palestinian textbooks and state-owned media outlets.
“What happened this week was unprecedented,” Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, said after the session. “Since 1974 when Yasser Arafat and the PLO were welcomed into the United Nations, this is the first time that the world body’s spotlight was officially placed on Palestinian racism, discrimination and anti-Semitism.”
An upscale restaurant in Ramallah backed out of hosting a lunch meeting between the US Embassy’s commercial attache and Palestinian businesspeople earlier this week, according to both an activist as well as a businessman who said he was invited to the lunch.
The restaurant said it would not host the meeting after the National and Islamic Forces in Ramallah, a group of local activists, contacted its management and demanded it cancel the event, according to Isam Bakr, a leading member of the group.
“We called the members of the management and told them that the restaurant should not host this meeting. We asked them how it could permit the gathering to take place on its premises following all of the US administration’s punitive measures against Palestine, including the State Department’s recent decision to erase Palestine from its site,” Bakr told The Times of Israel, referring to the department’s removal of the “Palestinian Territories” section from its website.
“Approximately half an hour later, the management informed us that it would not host the meeting, which we highly appreciated,” said Bakr, who asked that the name of the restaurant not be identified over concerns it could be targeted.
He said that the event was slated for Thursday at noon, but the restaurant decided to cancel it on Wednesday.
The most problematic part of this video is perhaps not the attack itself, but that UNIFIL kept it under wraps.
Exclusive video obtained by Fox News shows a peacekeeping patrol under attack by the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah. An intelligence source confirmed to Fox News the Iranian proxy force was behind the attack.
While the U.N. described the attack in a report, the video and the ensuing chaos following the ambush show how dangerous Hezbollah has made the situation for UNIFIL, or the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
The video shows groups of men block off the convoy with their cars. Once blocked off several men set upon the vehicles, trying to break in through the windows with hammers and stones.
At one stage, gasoline is poured over the second U.N. armored vehicle and then lit on fire. As it burns one peacekeeper leaves the vehicle while being accosted by the men. Another peacekeeper comes running out from behind the lead armored vehicle with his gun drawn, only to retreat. Another peacekeeper leaves the APV, surrendering his weapon to the terrorists. Men carrying automatic weapons can be seen during the melee.
By not letting anyone know, UNIFIL is essentially protecting Hezbollah - a terror group.
(h/t Irene)
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Elder of Ziyon
