Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, May 28, 2021

05/28 Links Pt1: Gaza Proves that Iran’s Next War on Israel Will Be Far Bloodier; NGOs Distort International Law with “Disproportional” Casualty Claims

Now that Hamas and Israel have entered into a ceasefire, everyone seems obsessed with who won and who lost. The Jerusalem Institute for Security and Strategy has just emailed me telling me that, “Since war is about inflicting pain, winning can be evaluated by two separate pain parameters” and claiming that Israel won on that basis.

I’m not convinced that this description of war passes muster. It wouldn’t with Carl von Clausewitz, the soldier whose book On War defined the study of warfare from 1832 right up to today. He calls war “an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will”. A more philosophical ancient Chinese general, Sun Tzu, claimed that, “to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”

But what if life is war and enemies are eternal? What if your life consists of constant struggle against adversity to succeed in your own goals? By what measure can we decide whether an individual skirmish is a success?

This makes the articles I’m seeing about who “won” the latest round of violence rather galling. No one won. There was no war and there is no peace.

The latest flare up between the two sides is almost perfect as a metaphor for the Jewish experience. After having no peace, we fought. The fighting finished and now Jews, within Israel and without, have to wait in fear for the next round of fighting.

Talk of winning and losing belongs to the same mode of thinking as those who talk about a “solution” to the conflict as if it will all just go away once a piece of paper is signed or a magic wand is waved.

People are accusing Israel of genocide. These human rights lawyers beg to differ

According to the United Nations, “genocide” consists of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” That can include killing members of the group, inflicting serious bodily harm on them, preventing births, forcibly transferring their children or creating “conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Some Palestinian advocates say that definition applies in Gaza. Noura Erakat, a human rights lawyer and assistant professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University, wrote a Twitter thread to her 108,000 followers last week explaining why she believes Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians and trying “to eliminate their presence & destroy their nation.”

“The whole world stays silent and turns a blind eye to the genocide of whole Palestinian families,” Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Al-Maliki said at the United Nations last week. Israeli UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan walked out of Al-Maliki’s speech.

Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American international human rights attorney, told JTA that she used to avoid describing Israeli actions as genocide because when she did, some people “will automatically just have this visceral reaction that shuts you out instead of actually listening to you” because the word is so strong and because, for Jews, it evokes the Holocaust.

Now, however, she is reconsidering. Arraf said that given the ongoing Israeli oppression of Palestinians that she observes, the question of whether Israel is committing genocide deserves to be investigated.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that Israel does not want the Palestinian people there,” she said. “The actions are so vicious and brutal that it’s almost wrong to shy away from calling it what it seems like it is now. It might cause some people to close it off or blow it off or become just defensive, but I’m not sure that that’s necessarily a sufficient reason to hold back from calling it what it looks like.”

Pro-Palestinian activists have accused Israel of genocide before — and sparked backlash from Jewish groups and others. During the 2014 Gaza war, Steven Salaita, a Palestinian-American professor, lost a tenured position he had been hired for at the University of Illinois following a series of critical tweets about Israel, including one that said, “The word ‘genocide’ is more germane the more news we hear.”

JINSA: Gaza Proves that Iran’s Next War on Israel Will Be Far Bloodier

At a minimum, that means making clear to Iran and its regional terror network that this latest conflict in Gaza has only strengthened the U.S.-Israel alliance. For sure, doing that won’t be easy in the face of the growing power of the Democratic Party’s increasingly strident progressive wing, which has been harshly critical of Israel’s policies.

But it’s essential. Biden and those embattled remnants of his party in Congress who remain faithful to the muscular internationalism championed by the likes of President Harry S. Truman and Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson need to push back against the rising anti-Israel chorus among progressives. They’ll have the overwhelming support of their Republican colleagues if they do so, as well as the majority of average Americans who still intuitively grasp the difference between a democratic ally exercising its inherent right to self-defense and a terrorist group dedicated to its destruction. Among other things, that United States support should include an announcement from the administration on the immediate resupply and strengthening of Israel’s life-saving missile defense system, its inventory of precision-guided munitions and bunker-busting bombs, and its air power. The president’s statement last week declaring his “full support” to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome interceptor missiles was an excellent start.

But it also means that President Biden needs urgently to reassess the wisdom of his administration’s headlong rush back into the Iran nuclear deal. As surely as night follows day, a resumption of the 2015 deal—with its requirements for massive American sanctions relief—will result in tens of billions of dollars being funneled to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their terrorist proxies not only in Hezbollah and Hamas, but among Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq as well.

There’s no polite way to say this: Especially after the tragic scenes that we’ve just witnessed in Gaza, it would border on strategic madness for the United States to barrel ahead on a course that is virtually guaranteed to underwrite Iran’s next war against Israel and help the Revolutionary Guards and their terrorist foreign legion inflict levels of destruction on U.S. allies and interests that will make the awfulness of the recent Gaza war seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

Air Force Gen Dagan discusses @IDF air targeting procedures & measures to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza conflict. Hamas use more simplified procedures. They just point their missiles at civilian population centres & hope for maximum casualties. https://t.co/EN4TMRIjMt
— R?????? K??? ? (@COLRICHARDKEMP) May 28, 2021

Former Ambassador David Friedman: ‘Trump administration would have given Israel free reign to defend itself’

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was dispatched to Israel by U.S. President Joe Biden this week in the direct aftermath of an acute conflagration highlighted by 11 days of indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas on Israeli population centers and pinpoint Israeli airstrikes on Hamas installations in Gaza in retaliation.

Blinken attempted to apply significant pressure on Israel behind closed doors in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority, which were suspended during the Trump administration, were officially restored.

The visit confirmed fears in Jerusalem that Washington’s policy would now be essentially reversed, following four of the friendliest years ever between a U.S. administration and Israel. The United States intends to renew funding to the P.A. and reopen a shuttered consulate in Jerusalem dealing exclusively with Palestinian affairs. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly rejected the prospect of opening up a Palestinian office in Israel’s capital.

In addition, Blinken updated Netanyahu on U.S. intentions to negotiate towards a new Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Former President Donald Trump had pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and set about to level the harshest sanctions to date on any nation against the Islamic Republic.

On the heels of Blinken’s visit, JNS sat down with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a trusted adviser of Trump, and one of the key architects of the administration’s Mideast policies.

Felesteen reports that a Palestinian woman sent all of her money and jewelry to Mohammed Dief, the head of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

She attached a letter, where she wrote that this was her contribution to the manufacture of rockets that crush Israel, or, as she put it, the "plundering entity."

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Police warn Jewish residents in Luton about potential antisemitic rally on Shabbat by Muslims (UPDATE)

This notice was distributed to the Jewish community of Luton, UK, warning Jews to stay away from a "pro-Palestine" demonstration (h/t Sharpy58)

It says that the Jewish community of Luton has been advised by the local police that the Luton Council of Mosques will hold a demonstration on Shabbat, and Jews should be aware of where the protest will be to keep safe. The community says Jews should stay away from the area.

Why should Jews be concerned? After all, Muslims aren't antisemitic, and anti-Israel demonstrations are legitimate criticism of Israel with no animosity towards Jews, right? That is the message that we have been told thousands of times from Muslims and non-Muslim officials alike.

Why should local police warn Jews? They should be able to stroll right past the protesters in their Shabbat clothes and yarmulkes and be treated with utmost respect, from what we are told.

It makes no sense!

Could it be that Muslims are, by and large, antisemitic? That Jews walking in the midst of a bunch of angry Muslims are in danger of being attacked because they are Jewish? That everyone knows that Muslims, incited by inflammatory speeches and a diet of lies, are likely to attack the first Jew they see?

The fear of angering Muslims brings us to this point where everyone knows the truth but no one wants to say it out loud.

I couldn't find the poster for this rally, but a similar one being held in Bradford on Sunday features a Photoshopped picture of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock being burned, presumably by Jews who have been accused of intending to destroy those sites for a hundred years, causing untold number of riots and deaths.

This is direct incitement for violence. Everyone knows it. No one wants to admit it. And that ensures that the violence will occur.

Jews have to stay home for their own safety to ensure the rights of Muslim antisemites to freely scream their hate. This is what it has come to.

Update: A response tweet to where I saw this originally: "this is a lie. the police always ask people to stay away from the area when there's a demonstration. "

It may be true, but still the Jewish community felt it important to inform their members of the potential danger.

UPDATE 2: Read this important thread clarifying the facts, the original email seems to have been based on incorrect info.

Yesterday, Hamas took journalists through a damaged school to show how horrible Israel is.

Note the pattern of tiny holes all over the walls.

This not not how Israeli missiles work. Israeli attacks to Gaza have been as pinpoint as possible, for obvious reasons Israel wants to avoid collateral damage (it used to use cluster munitions, but it stopped that in 2006, although it is still criticized for exporting them to other countries.)

Here is a home destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, probably belonging to a terrorist. There are very few small holes in the walls, unlike the damage from Hamas rockets.

The spray pattern happens to be exactly what Hamas rocket damage looks like, though:

Hundreds of rockets from terror groups fell short in Gaza, and it is likely that many of them caused deaths and serious damage.

Save the Children claims 50 schools in Gaza were damaged in the recent fighting. The Palestinian Ministry of Education says the number was 187. There is no doubt that some schools were damaged as Israel attacked tunnels under streets that schools were on.

Journalists clearly aren't asking how many of the schools shown by Hamas to gain sympathy were actually damaged by ....Hamas?

(h/t Abu Ali Express (K.) via Yoel)

05/27 Links Pt2: Eve Barlow: The Social Media Pogrom; WHO Meeting Deviates From COVID-19 to Single Out Israel As Violator of Health Rights; Ethiopian Jews and the Elephant in the Anti-Israel Room

From Ian:

Eve Barlow: The Social Media Pogrom

Two weeks ago, as Westerners began educating themselves about Sheikh Jarrah and the Iron Dome through stick figures with biased speech bubbles on the Diet Prada and Refinery29 Instagram feeds, something else started happening on social media. I coined it the world’s first social media pogrom. The activity that Jews—Zionist Jews in particular—experienced all over the web was bizarre at best and invalidating, abusive, and dehumanizing at worst. Zionist Jews weren’t just being unfollowed for advocating for themselves and their brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine, we were also losing access to direct message and comment abilities, having posts removed for violating community guidelines (while blatant antisemitism online almost never receives the same treatment), and having our accounts threatened with temporary suspension or closure.

The cherry on top, of course, was that we were simultaneously fighting off a barrage of thousands upon thousands of troll comments and hateful direct messages, which frequently included homophobic, misogynistic, and extremely violent language. Some people even generously took the time to record voice messages. I received a few of those, including one from a woman with a British accent calling for my family to burn in hell. She sang it. Or she tried to.

The seeds of this pogrom have been sown for a while. Online, there are different degrees of erasure and exclusion. First comes the unfollow, which hurts, especially from those we consider friends, those we love and cherish, whose memories are still fresh. Sometimes an unfollow is the result of pressure from other online users who dox people they disagree with. Sometimes an unfollow is a decision taken with complete autonomy, someone deciding to simply delete a person from their timeline rather than ask for clarification or, God forbid, pursue a fair-minded discussion.

If you’re a Zionist, you are not deemed worthy of dialogue. Most people who think this couldn’t give you a working definition of Zionism. They just know which labels are accepted by the intersectional world, and which labels are not. Anti-Zionism good. Zionism bad. Except Zionism is a globally recognized concept, whereas anti-Zionism doesn’t seem to have an agreed-upon definition. It exists only as a knee-jerk rejection of a belief in the State of Israel and anyone’s justification of its existence, regardless of how reasoned, empathetic, or fair-minded that justification might be.

Social Media Backlash After Actor Seth Rogen Mocks Jewish Journalist Trolled on Twitter

Actor Seth Rogen was criticized by Twitter users on Wednesday for poking fun at a Jewish journalist who wrote an article about the rise of antisemitism.

Reporter Eve Barlow tweeted a link to a recent article she published in Tablet magazine that discussed being trolled by hundreds of Twitter users who wrote “Eve Fartlow” — which was also trending on Twitter — and compared the current rise of antisemitism on social media to digital pogroms. Rogen, 39, who is also Jewish, responded to Barlow’s Twitter post with a “gust of wind” emoji commonly used to represent flatulence, further mocking the journalist.

Rogen’s reply received over 14,000 likes and 1,000 retweets, fueling the abuse directed at Barlow. The star of “An American Pickle” also engaged in conversation with a Twitter user who continued the mockery by posting “Eve Fartlow” along with an attempted joke about apartheid.

Many came to Barlow’s defense and slammed Rogen for his crude response, including former Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind. He wrote, “Seth, how pathetic are you? How desperate are you to be liked by Jew haters that you’re trolling a Jew on their behalf?”

Others called his remark “disappointing” and accused Rogen of “dumb, vicious, misogynistic bullying of a Jewish woman.” One Twitter user said, “With a massive platform, comes a level of responsibility. Shame you choose to use yours to orchestrate pile ons onto a besieged woman.”

Alan M. Dershowitz: How Social Media Validates Anti-Semitism by Censoring Everything but Anti-Semitism

People often forget that the very concept of political correctness was invented by Stalin's Soviet Union.

Now... that social media companies have decided to become "Glavlit" -- to publish only material that is supposedly truthful and passes its "community standards" -- they have become more like the former Soviet Union than like the United states under the First Amendment.

This is not a call to censor anti-Semitic tweets. It is a call for the social media companies to stop censoring other speech based on criteria of supposed truthfulness, "community standards" and other such questionable criteria that are subject to political, Ideological and other biases. I want no censorship other than for material that is already prohibited by law. But if the social media companies persist in censoring, they must apply a single standard to everything. I want no censorship other than for material that is already prohibited by law.

The current social media have the worst of both worlds: they censor material that is neither dangerous nor necessarily false; and then permit material which is both highly dangerous and demonstrably false.

Bethany Mandel: 17,000 Tweet ‘Hitler Was Right,’ and Big Tech Barely Reacts

In a disturbing example, the anti-Semitic hashtag #Covid1948 has been trending on Twitter in several countries, including the United States. Often accompanied by nakedly anti-Jewish content, the hashtag likens the birth of the state of Israel in 1948 to the COVID-19 virus. According to the NCRI, the hateful hashtag was shared up to 175 times per minute for over four hours on May 13. It often appears alongside #FreePalestine and is associated with other anti-Semitic hashtags like #Hitlerwasright and #Zionazi. Adolf Hitler raises a defiant, clenched fist during a speech.

Disturbing messages of “Hitler was right” were reportedly posted across social media channels over 17,000 times.

While we’ve seen President Donald Trump and countless numbers of his supporters booted off Twitter’s service, purveyors of Jew hate like Iran’s Supreme Leader Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyyeh, and Louis Farrakhan are still regularly posting. Adeel Raja posting in praise of Hitler throughout his time on Twitter finally lost him a gig as a freelance CNN contributor but didn’t even warrant a suspension, let alone ban, from the social media service.

Over the last year, we’ve seen official and viral social media campaigns for Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate. Social media companies and their users stood up to hatred and promoted content designed to stand athwart prejudice. And now with an increase in online and in-person hatred against Jews, we’re met with silence.

Around the world, we’ve seen violent attacks on Jews walking down the street, dining at kosher restaurants, at synagogues, and demonstrating in support of Israel. The videos of incendiary devices thrown at Jews standing in the Diamond District or dining outside are jarring — and the muted reaction online, with the only vocal response coming almost entirely from the Jewish community, has been perhaps even more alarming than the attacks themselves.

These aren’t just an isolated set of events with a handful of bigots roaming the streets looking for Jews to target; no, we are witnessing a wholesale abandonment of the Jewish people at the hands of these mobs both in the streets and on the web.

The popularity of these anti-Semitic messages, the silence of social media companies and their users in response to these attacks, and their outrage that someone like Meghan McCain would dare speak up against it speak volumes about our priorities as a society. While we may stand against some forms of hatred, the oldest form, Jew hate, is still fair game.

Last year, large corporations lectured us about "systemic racism."

Now, these same companies are mostly silent about the surge of anti-Semitic attacks against Jews. pic.twitter.com/ExBMuLNPsr
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) May 26, 2021

The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality last week opened a lottery for people to purchase 28 apartments that are available at about 30% lower than the market price and the apartments.

The apartments are only available to Arab Christians and Muslims, not Jews.

The land originally belonged to Arabs before 1948.

To be sure, this is a very small project that took ten years to come to fruition. The housing is still expensive (roughly $400,000 per unit, much cheaper than comparable but hardly low income housing.)

The point is that the one sided vilification of Israel as always stealing land from Arabs is simplistic nonsense. Israel is a complex place and the people who hate Israel don't want you to know that things are not as simple as gets reported.

(h/t Yoel, imshin)

Eschewing Term 'Abraham Accords,' Biden Admin Now Calling Israel 'Jewville' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Abraham Accords Washington, May 26 - Diplomatic sources in the White House and Department of State have confirmed that in addition to the current administration refraining from reference to last year's historic peace agreements between Israel and several Persian Gulf states by their proper name, so as to avoid implying any positive achievement by their predecessors, a quiet rhetorical change in nomenclature has also taken place, under which representatives of the administration refer not to "Israel" but instead refer to it as "Jewville."

Biden administration spokespeople indicated in separate on-background telephone interviews that a terminology shift is underway since the current president took office in January, whereby anyone providing an official stance must take pains not to allow the previous president, Donald Trump, any credit for his attainments while in office. Refusing to call the Abraham Accords by their official name, instead referring to them as "normalization agreements," helps to downplay that diplomatic coup by Trump and his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner in forging those agreements between Israel and several Gulf nations that once bitterly opposed the Jewish State.

"This rhetorical policy is of a piece with insisting that nothing effective to combat COVID happened under Trump, either," explained an aide to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "Politics has become a zero-sum game. Conceding that Operation Warp Speed, for example, contributed to expedited availability of a vaccine - a vaccine that Biden himself got while Trump was still in office - or that Trump could have accomplished anything worthwhile internationally, would undermine the entire 'Trump-and-the-GOP-are-irredeemably-evil narrative that has served us so well with a sympathetic media. The term 'normalization agreements' conveys much a more lukewarm feeling about the agreements than 'Abraham Accords,' a name that automatically evokes epic, historical rapprochement between once-estranged brothers Isaac and Ishmael. Of course it won't do."

"The Jewville thing is just an extension of that thinking," added a White House staff member. "It's hard to grapple with the move of our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the acknowledgment of Jerusalem as the country's capital - not to mention recognition of Jewville claims to the Golan Heights - so we have to work in other ways to weaken support for Isr- for the Zionist Entity. Trump was as enthusiastic a supporter of, of that place, as any president ever, probably more so, which has to mean that support for them is evil. Fortunately, that sensibility already dovetails with a vocal chunk of our die-hard voters and members."

05/27 Links Pt1: UNRWA's director spoke truth that Israeli strikes were precise; UNHRC approves permanent probe into Israeli human rights abuses; Hamas chief Haniyeh's niece treated for cancer in Israeli hospital

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: UNRWA's director spoke truth that Israeli strikes were precise- editorial

When Matthias Schmale, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, told Channel 12 on Sunday that Israeli airstrikes during the recent conflagration were “precise” and “sophisticated,” he was simply stating the truth as he saw it.

In the interview with journalist Arad Nir, Schmale was asked about the IDF’s assertion that its military strikes against terrorist targets had been very precise. He responded, “I’m not a military expert, but I would not dispute that. I also have the impression that there is a huge sophistication in the way the Israeli military struck over the last 11 days, so that’s not my issue. I’ve had many colleagues describe to me that they feel that, in comparison with the 2014 war, this time the strikes felt much more vicious in terms of their impact. So yes, they didn’t hit – with some exceptions – civilian targets, but the viciousness, ferocity of the strikes was heavily felt.”

He noted that more than 60 children were killed in Gaza, including 19 who attended an UNRWA school.

“I think the precision was there, but there was unacceptable and unbearable loss of life on the civilian side,” Schmale stated.

It did not take long for Gazans to voice outrage over Schmale’s remarks, accusing him of exonerating Israel and calling for his reprimand and dismissal. In a joint statement, several Palestinian rights groups accused Schmale of “indirectly praising the precision and sophistication of the Israeli Army, when Israel is in fact constantly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.”

Hamas tweeted that it was shocked by the statements, accusing the UNRWA official of pretending to be a “military analyst for the occupation army.”

Hamas chief Haniyeh's niece treated for cancer in Israeli hospital

A relative of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh is currently being treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, part of the Sourasky Medical Center, for over a month, N12 reported.

According to reports, the hospitalized family member is his seventeen-year-old niece, who has received a bone marrow transplant.

The report noted that she was hospitalized during Operation Guardian of the Walls.

According to Maariv, the hospital's spokesperson said that "during the war she was treated with dedication."

"Israel only knows how to give one type of humanitarian aid ,and it comes at the cost of [Israeli] civilians' lives," commented Yamina MK Idit Sliman.

Sliman decried the government's failure to return Israeli prisoners who are stuck in Gaza, adding that she will "contact Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] today to find out why humanitarian action during the Operation [Guardian of the Walls] was one sided."

The bodies of IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were who abducted by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip in 2014, have not been returned as part of the ceasefire agreement.

UNHRC approves permanent probe into Israeli human rights abuses

The United Nations Human Rights Council has approved on Thursday a resolution to investigate Israel and Hamas for war crimes.

The resolution also called for an arms embargo against Israel.

If approved at Thursday "special session" the 47-member UNHRC the "commission of inquiry' would begin looking at incidents that occurred both before and after April 13, 2021. The decision to call for such a probe was sparked by the 11-day IDF-Hamas war and was submitted by the Palestinian Authority and Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

It would mark the first time that the UNHRC created a permanent fact-finding mission with respect to any UN member state.

The UNHRC already calls annually for an arms embargo against Israel. Its insertion is in addition to that annual text.

This new text "urges all States to refrain from transferring arms when they assess, in accordance with applicable national procedures and international obligations and standards, that there is a clear risk that such arms might be used in the commission or facilitation of serious violations or abuses of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law."

The UNHRC's special session on Israel, is the 30th it has held since its inception in 2006. This is the ninth such session it has held on Israel.

BREAKING: U.N. Human Rights Council adopts PLO-drafted resolution ignoring Hamas rocket attacks & creating inquiry targeting Israel with unprecedented open-ended mandate that stretches indefinitely into past & future. Shame on 🇲🇽 Mexico for backing it.

📜 https://t.co/hAEcjUKMXi pic.twitter.com/XU4vIPH3JO
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 27, 2021

No, @KenRoth, the graphic is not "striking" at all. The inquiries on Libya, Venezuela, etc. were sponsored by democracies seeking to protect human rights. The inquiries on Israel were sponsored by murderous regimes like Iran and Syria seeking to protect Hamas terrorists. https://t.co/Gep5PQ0XOo
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) May 27, 2021

Ahmed Nafea, writing in Egyptian news site SadaMisr, proposes ethnically cleansing Jews from the Middle East.

As usual, no one blinks or condemns these kinds of articles.

Nafea just discovered Birobidzhan, the Soviet-era Jewish Autonomous Oblast set up as a counter to Zionism. It is in an isolated region bordering China in far-east Asia. The Soviets encouraged Jews to move there, and several thousand did, with the population reaching some 50,000 Jews most of whom came as refugees after the Holocaust.

They didn't stay in the isolated region. The experiment failed miserably and today Jews make up 1% of the population of whom nearly none practice Judaism.

Ahmed Nafea thinks this is the solution to that pesky Jewish problem, and says that Israel is hiding the existence of the entire oblast:

The original homeland of the Jews is the forgotten Jewish republic of Birobidzhan.

Yes, the first Jewish republic, Birobidzhan , is located in southeast Russia. The majority of the world is not aware of its existence because Israel is striving to conceal this fact and prevent the media from visiting it.

What Israel and the Western countries supporting it fear is promoting the idea of the return of the Jews to their first homeland in this republic and persuading the world of a safe return for the Jews residing in Palestine to the Republic of Birobidzhan, to live in safety and peace, enjoy the atmosphere of the prevailing Jewish culture in it and speak the Yiddish language, the language of European Jews, without any anti-Semitism as currently promoted by world Zionism.

Global Zionism deceived the whole world when they claimed during the Second World War that they are in dire need of the land of Palestine as their national home and that they are displaced and have no national home to house them, and thus they have shielded the displacement of the Palestinians and the seizure of their lands until now.

During the disintegration of the Soviet Union, this republic was eligible to declare independence from the Russian Federation, just like Chechnya, but Zionism prevented this from happening due to the sensitivity of the emergence of a Jewish republic in a place other than Palestine.

See? The solution is so easy!

This is the casual kind of antisemitism that pervades the Arab world. The fact that Jews don't want to live in Birobidzhan doesn't even enter his mind - they must be forced to move there and they'll be happy!

Terrorists continue to die from their wounds, including Fatah's main rocket engineer

The death toll from Gaza continues to rise, and most of the people dying are terrorists.

Today, Islamic Jihad announced the death of Ahmed Kamel Abdel Karim Ammar. They won't identify his position in the movement but his age (33) and the prominence of the announcement in Islamic Jihad media indicates that he was a major figure.

Fatah terrorist Mu`in Jamal Al-Amsi died on Sunday from his wounds. Fatah isn't as sensitive about saying the jobs of those who were "martyred," and al-Amsi was a member of the Nidal Brigades Military Council and commander of their Engineering and Manufacturing Unit.

Meaning, he was their rocket chief.

Fatah made an entire video showing his accomplishments at manufacturing hundreds of mortars and rockets.

Another Fatah terrorist died of his wounds on Sunday, Mahmoud Ammar Abu Jarad.

These died after the fighting, most of them at hospitals in Egypt.

In eleven days, Israel hit more than 1500 terror targets in a heavily populated area.

How many people would normally be killed in such an operation? 3000? 6000? A single bomb could easily kill scores of people.

But the numbers seem to indicate that roughly 300 were killed by Israel, of which 200 were terrorists.

Assuming those numbers hold up, this will be an unprecedented achievement in avoiding civilian casualties in a largely urban warfare environment.

Never in history has any war where the terrorists deliberately place their targets among civilians resulted in a lower civilian to fighter ratio of deaths. And as tragic as civilian deaths are, most of the civilians were killed because they were near high value legitimate targets.

Under Geneva, civilians do not shield legitimate targets, unless their loss is not proportionate. The rules on proportionality depend on the opinion of a "reasonable military commander" given his intel available at that moment.

So as regrettable as the death of civilians are, it is legal and part of war. If a Hamas commander is with his family, Israel has every right under international law to attack the house he is in, even if his family will undoubtedly get killed. This is what happened with Iyad Fathi Sharir, commander of the Hamas anti-tank missile unit, who was killed along with his wife, teenage and toddler daughters.

Israel is literally the model for avoiding unnecessary civilian deaths. It spends millions on ensuring that the strikes are as accurate as possible, in sizing weapons to be big enough to kill the target but small enough to minimize damage to surrounding families. It requires incredible intelligence and a deep knowledge of Gaza, of the targets, and of international law. For better or worse, Israel probably has the most experience in understanding and interpreting the laws of armed conflict of any nation.

Despite this, Israel is vilified as the worst human rights abuser in the world.

No matter that its critics cannot point to any time in history that an army did better at avoiding civilian casualties. That is all irrelevant. Even though this war caused fewer deaths than the 2014 war, the protests were much more numerous and the media coverage was much more negative.

In reality, those who are protesting so energetically against Israel would protest just as much if the death count was 999 Hamas terrorists and one civilian. They would say that Israel killed a thousand innocent people anyway.

Israel tries to minimize the number of people killed on both sides. The terrorists try to maximize the number of people killed on both sides. The supposed "peace" groups who hold up photos of dead Gazan kids agree with Hamas - they love dead Gaza kids. They make wonderful props.

Israel cares more about those kids than these hypocrites do.

Similarly, Israel's critics want to see more Jews killed. That is the only possible reason they keep a scorecard of how many were killed on each side - because they want to say that not enough Jews dying is unfair.

Dead civilians only help Hamas and people who support Hamas. Israel has no interest in killing kids. Israel certainly does not want to kill reporters, as "human rights" leaders accused. People accusing Israel of targeting civilians are Jew-hating liars. It is not easy to drop 1500 bombs and not to kill thousands of people.

And yet, the world media cannot ferret out simple facts.

How hard would it be to find a retired high ranking US or European military officer and ask them whether they think Israel acted inappropriately? How hard would it be to ask them how Israel could have avoided more casualties? Or, even to ask their opinion of the ludicrous notion, published in major media, that Israel should just allow thousands of rockets to be shot at Israeli citizens and pray that Iron Dome does its job?

Not one reporter bothers. Because they support the anti-Israel meme, not the truth.

It isn't paranoia when the world really is against you.

Israel will continue to act as morally as possible - securing the lives of both its citizens and the civilians of its enemies - no matter what others say and lie. It would be so easy to say that they will make up lies anyway, why bother working so hard to minimize casualties?

But Israel doesn't think that way. Instead, right now, Israeli military leaders are looking at the results, learning from any mistakes, and trying to reach the unreachable goal of only killing terrorists and no one else in the next, inevitable war.

And that's the way it will always be.

Wardrobe malfunction! (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Recently, Jews in the West who thought themselves safe have found themselves facing the same form of antisemitism that is common in the Arab and wider Muslim world, much of it imported along with immigrants from the Middle East. In the US, Canada, Continental Europe, and Britain, Muslim Jew-hatred become cross-fertilized with the native brand, bringing along the extreme violence that characterized it at home. Ironically, traditional Islamic antisemitism itself became more radical with the injection of vicious eliminationism from Nazi Germany, starting before the war, continuing through the employment of Amin al-Husseini as propagandist for Hitler, and concluding with the arrival in Arab countries of fleeing Nazi war criminals afterwards. Now it is coming back to the post-Christian West.

Red lines are being crossed at a nauseating pace as the violence that was first directed at Jews in European countries where there was massive Muslim immigration moves westward. What American would have expected, even one year ago, that a gang of pogromists would invade a restaurant, ask who among the patrons were Jewish, and beat them? That is something that happened in Berlin in 1938 or Baghdad in 1941; but it ought to be unthinkable in Los Angeles today. And yet it happened.

For some time it has become dangerous for Orthodox Jews to walk the streets in their own neighborhoods in New York City. The perpetrators of this violence are young black and Hispanic males. The targets are often women and elderly people. All over the West, Jewish institutions, synagogues, schools, even graveyards, are targets for vandalism. Such attacks were rare in the US until recently, but they have become commonplace now. And interestingly, the vandalism often includes graffiti of slogans like “free Palestine.”

When anti-Israel demonstrators in London called for “Jewish blood” and the rape of Jewish women (in earshot of police, who did nothing), it somewhat diminished the strength of the arguments that “anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism.” Anyone who honestly believes that today didn't get the message.

It’s often said that every time there is a flare-up of Israel’s long war to survive in the region, it is reflected in worldwide antisemitic violence. That supposedly explains the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews (and the theft of their property) by virtually every Arab country after 1948. This action was against the national interests of these countries, since Jews were among the educational, financial, medical, and technical elites (their loss was our gain, since most of the expelled Jews came to Israel). But anti-Jewish beliefs have always been irrational, extreme, and obsessive.

For the Jew-hater, everything bad, personal and political, can be explained with reference to the Jews. Facts and logical reasoning are irrelevant; indeed, the more unbelievable antisemitic beliefs may appear, the more this confirms their truth in the mind of the believer. Unsurprisingly, anti-Israelism, or misoziony, follows the same pattern: irrational, extreme, obsessive.

And this leads me to believe that the chain of causality is reversed in the traditional historical account. It makes more sense to see both the violent (but unsuccessful) attempt to dislodge the Jews from Palestine and the more successful effort of the Arab nations to rid themselves of their own Jews as stemming from the same kind of antisemitic impulse.

One of the interesting things about Jew-hatred is that it is a powerful motivator, especially of violent actions. In the past there was nothing shameful about it, so it could be used openly. Hitler and company found it a useful tool to focus public anger and create support for his party, which promised a solution. But in the case of Hitler himself, like the Arab nations after 1948, antisemitism became the motive rather than the tool, and his obsession may have lost Germany the war. After the war, the sheer horror of the Holocaust caused it to be discredited. So the KGB clothed the Jew-hating Palestinian movement with the up-to-date ideas of national liberation, anti-colonialism, and socialism. But the costume slipped from time to time, as when the Entebbe hijackers separated the Jews (Jews, not Israelis!) from the rest of the hostages. Something is exposed that should have been hidden; I call it a “wardrobe malfunction” like those that bedevil female celebrities.

More recently, Jew-hatred has adopted an even more up-to-date uniform as a movement for racial justice. And what success it has had! Colleges and universities in the West turn out dedicated pro-Palestinian activists by the tens of thousands every year. Organizations in support of racial minorities like Black Lives Matter routinely include the Palestinian Arabs as one of the oppressed groups they want to liberate. And the Palestinian cause is pursued obsessively, irrationally, and often with extremism.

That gives us a clue, especially when we consider that it’s rare to hear even the most fanatical “anti-racists” mention the fact that there is race-based slavery in some parts of the world. Not “microaggressions,” actual slavery. But of course we know what is behind their enthusiasm. These modern proponents of human rights (for some humans), the ones in the universities, the ones on the European Commission and in the New York Times, may say, or even believe, that they are motivated to be righteously angry at Israel because of her alleged denial of Palestinian rights, but we know where the emotional drive comes from. And like Hitler and the Arab nations, their obsession eats them up, and sometimes there is a wardrobe malfunction, like those folks in London promoting the rape of Jewish women. Because of Palestine, of course.

This is upsetting to some. Michelle Goldberg published a piece in the NY Times which was originally titled “Attacks on Jews Over Israel Are a Gift to the Right,” but after numerous observers noted its implication that violent attacks on Jews were bad primarily because of the political fallout, the NYT changed its headline to “The Crisis of Antisemitic Violence.” Max Blumenthal went all-out and argued that the explosion of antisemitism was “manufactured … to turn the media’s gaze away from dead children in Gaza” (no link, google it if you really want to swim in his sewer). Wardrobe malfunctions.

Unfortunately, while the IDF was moderately successful in its Gaza campaign (although it was cut short by a command from Washington), Israel has been decisively beaten in its information campaign.

The war was started by Hamas with heavy barrages of deadly rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities, from civilian areas, a double war crime. Some 4,350 rockets were launched by Hamas, of which 600-700 of them fell on their own people in Gaza. Israel’s response was very carefully targeted, using various techniques to warn civilians in areas where there were military targets. Final casualty figures are not available, but as of now the number of deaths in Gaza is reported as about 250. The IDF estimates that about half of these are civilians. Considering the number of shortfalls, it is likely that most of them were killed by Hamas’ own rockets. The IDF’s performance in destroying Hamas’ military infrastructure while sparing civilians is unmatched in the annals of urban warfare.

And yet, media opinion in the West continues to overwhelmingly blame Israel for the war, as well as to accuse her of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, deliberately targeting civilians, and more. PM Netanyahu, a centrist who many Israelis believe to be too soft on terrorism, is called a “hardline right-wing extremist,” who has presided over “massive settlement expansion” although the area occupied by Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria has barely changed since the 1990s.

There is a reason for this, and it’s not just Israeli ineptness at hasbara. It is a consequence of the blossoming of the seeds of Jew-hatred that can lie dormant for years, waiting for the right stimulus to wake them up.

If you think I’m wrong, just pay attention. Sooner or later there will be a wardrobe malfunction.

05/26 Links Pt2: French, Canadian, Israeli, UN officials demand justice for Sarah Halimi; UNRWA’s False Façade of Neutrality; IAEA chief: Iran’s uranium enrichment now at levels of ‘countries making bombs’

From Ian:

French, Canadian, Israeli, UN officials demand justice for Sarah Halimi

Leaders and officials from France, Canada, Israel and the United Nations held a special digital rally demanding justice for Sarah Halimi, a French Jewish grandmother murdered by Kobili Traore.

Halimi was brutally beaten and thrown from her balcony window by Traore, who repeatedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the murder. The crime was widely condemned as being antisemitic. However, as Traore was under the influence of marijuana at the time, the French court ruled that he wouldn't stand trial.

This led to public outcry across the world as tens of thousands took to the streets and social medias to voice their outrage at the decision. “We should never, ever forget Sarah Halimi. This [court’s] decision hurts me, hurts us - citizens of the French Republic. It’s truly a judicial and moral catastrophe,” former French prime minister Manuel Valls said at the digital rally, which was organized by the watchdog NGO Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and the French Jewish umbrella organization the Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF).

“Antisemitism has been ravaging… France for more than 12 decades. This antisemitism comes from the far right, from the far left, from our working-class districts, from the Arab-Muslim world under the guise of hatred for Israel and for Jews, or simply hatred. We must eradicate antisemitism from our society.”

The rally also comes as antisemitism has spiked across the Western world, which itself coincided with significant condemnations against Israel and those perceived as being Zionists amid Israel's latest round of fighting with the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Pompeo Rekindles Debate About US Response to Iran's Hosting of Al-Qaida

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made more detailed allegations about Iran's secretive relationship with al-Qaida, rekindling a debate about how the United States should respond to the decades-old cooperation between its Mideast rival and the anti-American terrorist network.

In an interview that aired Friday on VOA Persian's TV channel, the former top U.S. diplomat, who left office in January, said Iran's Islamist rulers have allowed al-Qaida's most senior operational leaders to stay in the country on two conditions.

"(First), you'll do what we tell you to do. And second, you won't conduct operations against Iranian assets or inside of Iran. I'm certain that's the case," said Pompeo, who also served as CIA director prior to leading the State Department under former President Donald Trump.

Pompeo said those two conditions give Iran "enormous control" over al-Qaida. As for what al-Qaida gets in exchange for abiding by Iran's rules, he said Tehran "provide(s) support and enable(s) these al-Qaida leaders to conduct their global operations campaign."

The remarks were an expansion on details shared by Pompeo about the Iran-al-Qaida relationship in a January 12 speech in Washington while he was still secretary of state, eight days before he stepped down on the day of President Joe Biden's inauguration.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on U.S. allies Tuesday to help fight the new axis of terror, calling it a 'massive force for evil'

Relationship began in '90s
In the speech, Pompeo said Iran in recent years had decided to allow al-Qaida to establish "a new operational headquarters" in the country on condition that it abides by rules that he did not specify. That cooperation, according to U.S. intelligence assessments and declassified al-Qaida documents, began in the early 1990s, when Iran's Shiite Islamist ruling clerics hosted operatives of the Sunni Islamist terror group for training exercises.

Missile Defense, Mocked as ‘Fantasy,’ Is Big Winner of Israel-Gaza War

The concept of missile defense, long mocked by mainstream journalists, was a big winner in the recent combat between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored that in remarks Tuesday morning May 25 with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Jerusalem, Israel, thanking Blinken for “replenishments of Iron Dome interceptors that saved civilian lives.”

Blinken replied, “we had a detailed discussion about Israel’s security needs, including replenishing Iron Dome.”

US President Joe Biden made a similar point Thursday evening from the White House. “The Prime Minister also shared with me his appreciation for the Iron Dome system, which our nations developed together and which has saved the lives of countless Israeli citizens, both Arab and Jew,” Biden said. “I assured him of my full support to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome system to ensure its defenses and security in the future.”

The Israeli Air Force said that during the recent hostilities about 4,340 rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel. About 640 of those were failed launches that wound up falling in Gaza. The Iron Dome defense had an “an intercept rate of approximately 90%,” the Israeli Air Force said, meaning thousands of incoming rockets were destroyed in midair, before they had a chance to damage Israeli targets.

Republican Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Bill Hagerty have introduced the Emergency Resupply for Iron Dome Act of 2021, which their press release describes as “a bill to authorize the Executive Branch to redirect US foreign assistance to help Israel replenish its highly-effective missile defense interceptors.”

In First Two Days of Conflict, Over 70% of Gaza Casualties Caused by Israeli Strikes Were Combatants: Analysis

A study of the first two days of the recent clashes between Israel and Hamas showed that more than 70% of the casualties caused by Israeli airstrikes were militant operatives, and that 21% of the total deaths on those days were caused by errant Hamas rockets.

The preliminary study, released on Friday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), analyzed the names and identities of 74 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip between May 10 and May 12, based on death notices by various Palestinian sources, including Hamas.

The group’s breakdown of the casualties showed that 16 died as a result of errant rockets that were fired by Hamas but which landed in Gaza. Those deaths included two Fatah operatives, seven people with unknown civilian-combatant status, and seven minors.

Out of the remaining 58 deaths, which were caused by Israeli strikes, 42 were identified as terrorist activists; among the operatives were 30 Hamas militants, 8 Fatah operatives and 3 Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) operatives. The other 16 deaths included six people listed with unknown civilian-combatant status; nine women or minors; and one 67-year-old male civilian.

The findings show that “out of those killed in Gaza on the first two days of the conflict as a result of Israeli attacks, about two thirds were terrorists and that many of the civilians who lost their lives in Gaza on those two days were hit by Palestinian fire. The full research is still ongoing,” Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, director of the ITIC, told The Algemeiner.