Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Lebanese scoff at Nasrallah's claim to bring Iranian oil to help

As we mentioned last week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been trying to act as a hero to save Lebanon by organizing an Iranian oil tanker to deliver much needed fuel - and daring Israel and the US to stop it.

He doubled down, literally, on Sunday:

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday announced that a second ship carrying fuel will sail to Lebanon “within days.”

“Our first ship has become at sea, our second ship will sail within days and more ships will follow,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech commemorating Abbas al-Yatama, a Hizbullah military commander who died a week ago.

“We are seeking to alleviate the suffering and what we will bring will be for all Lebanese and all those living on Lebanese soil. It will not be for one Lebanese region without the other,” Nasrallah noted.

“We are not an alternative to the state in this matter or in any other matter. We cannot be so and we are not an alternative to the companies that import oil,” Hizbullah’s leader pointed out.

That bolded sentence shows how sensitive Nasrallah is to the criticisms of his first announcement.

He added for good measure, “If the (foreign) companies fear Israel and the sanctions, we are willing to bring an Iranian drilling company to extract offshore oil and gas, and let Israel bomb it,”

The Lebanese are not impressed.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday ridiculed Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s declared plans for bringing fuel ships from Iran.

“As for Sayyed Hassan’s promised ship, it is nothing but a silly little joke amid the tragedy that we are living,” Geagea said in a statement.

“Why hasn’t the Iranian oil solved Assad’s problem? It is noteworthy in this regard to mention that Syria’s fuel crisis is what amplified Lebanon’s fuel crisis due to the ongoing systematic smuggling,” the LF leader noted.

“My suggestion to Sayyed Hassan is for Iran to solve Syria’s fuel problem, which would instantly resolve half of Lebanon’s problem,” Geagea went on to say.

Hezbollah has been accused of smuggling fuel to Syria, so the Lebanese are cynical about their sudden interest in importing fuel.

The New York Times writes about Jews praying on the Temple Mount and how supposedly dangerous this is:

Since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it has maintained a fragile religious balance at the Temple Mount, the most divisive site in Jerusalem: Only Muslims can worship there, while Jews can pray at the Western Wall below.

But recently the government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict.

“It’s a sensitive place,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”

[D]ozens of Jews now openly pray every day in a secluded part of the eastern flank of the site, and their Israeli police escorts no longer attempt to stop them.

To many Palestinians, the shift is provocative and unfair. They feel that Muslims have already made a big concession at the Western Wall, which is now used mostly by Jewish worshipers despite its also being important to Muslims.

Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of the mosque, said that the Aqsa compound should be reserved for Muslim prayer, in recognition of its importance to Muslims.

“It has been named Al Aqsa since the Prophet Muhammad rose to heaven there,” Sheikh Omar said.

The de facto change in policy is just part of a larger pattern of slights against Palestinian dignity across the occupied territories, he said.

“This is the prevalent reality, not only at the Aqsa Mosque, but also at checkpoints and other places in Palestine,” he said. “We face constant racist discrimination and infringement on our human rights.”

The tenor of the article is that the Israeli government has recently changed the status quo and there is a danger of this exploding into a religious war.

But buried in the middle of the article is this:

The policy began to change during the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, who led coalitions of right-wing and religious parties. Rabbi Glick said that the police began to allow him and his allies to pray on the mount more openly five years ago.

And as this Los Angeles Times article from 2012 shows, Jews were more or less openly praying longer ago than that.

A simple, ancient ritual is threatening the delicate security balance atop Jerusalem's most sacred plaza: Jews are praying.

On most days, dozens — sometimes hundreds — of Jewish worshipers ascend to the disputed 36-acre platform that Muslims venerate as Al Aqsa mosque and Jews revere as the Temple Mount with an Israeli police escort to protect them and a Muslim security guard to monitor their movements.

Then, they recite a quick prayer, sometimes quietly to themselves, other times out loud.

Jews praying on the Temple Mount is not a secret. We've been doing it for years. Arab media obsessively covers it with angry headlines about "settlers performing Talmudic rituals." Videos of worshipers are easily available. I myself prayed with a minyan (quorum) two years ago. No one asked me not to take pictures or not to write about it.

The prayers occur at the perimeter on the east side of the Mount, a spot Muslims typically don't visit.

And despite the articles warning of imminent violence erupting, nothing has happened - even though this has been going on for years. There are no clashes, no shouts, no "Allah Akhbar" chants. It is a daily event, observed by the Islamic Waqf.

In other words, organized Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount has become the status quo.

The only thing that can cause violence is articles like this one that interview Muslim leaders and put them in a position where they have to escalate tensions to keep their "honor." In that sense, warning of potential violence has the potential of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact, this is the second NYT article on prayer on the Temple Mount this summer - the first one also gave dire warnings:

Bassam Abu Labda, a veteran Waqf official in Jerusalem, described the situation as “very dangerous,” adding, “The government is giving cover to the extremists.”

“Every day we have people making movements, performing prayers, lying on the ground and dancing,” Mr. Abu Labda said.

Daniel Seidemann, a longtime advocate for a shared Jerusalem, said there has been “a de facto erosion of the status quo going on for years,” with Temple Mount activists testing the boundaries, first by moving their lips in silent prayer, then whispering and swaying and now gathering in groups.

Look at that awful progression!

The fact is, Jews praying has become normal, and the sky didn't fall. The New York Times, embarrassed to have not picked up on this story years ago, is now pretending that something new and dangerous is happening which will make angry Muslims rise up and attack Jews - and they almost seem to want to provoke exactly that.

Rep. Cori Bush blames Israel for Palestinian Authority abuses

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) condemns the Palestinian Authority abuses of power against their critics - but blames their actions on "Israeli apartheid."

Bush manages to simultaneously write something antisemitic (calling Israel an apartheid state and puppet-master controlling another government) and anti-Palestinian (implying that Palestinians have no agency and are puppets of Israel.)

The Human Rights Watch report that says that Israel is guilty of apartheid, using a shoehorned definition of apartheid crafted specifically for Israel, has given Bush the license needed to attack the Jewish state while pretending to be a moral agent.

Interesting that her definition of "humanity" doesn't seem to include Jews in Israel - or elsewhere. In fact, the only time she has ever mentioned antisemitism was during the wave of attacks against Jews that finally received some press coverage in May, and she "all lives mattered" the issue.

Bush doesn't just stop at the "apartheid" smear. She also accuses Jews of ethnic cleansing.

The representative also likes to draw an imagined line between US police abuses and Israel because, well, she hates both so they must be linked. It's intersectionality!

Bush's intersectionality allows very real issues of racism in America to be hijacked by Palestinian activists who really don't care about US racism at all.

The only connection between the two is that people gain political points for linking them. No one says "we will not let up until the Uyghurs are free" or "we will not stop until the Rohingya are free" or "until there is an independent Kurdistan, we are all oppressed."

No, Bush's intersectionality is very specific for what helps her politically, and every other oppressed person who cannot help her get contributions for her next campaign can go to hell.

In recent years, attacking Israel is an easy way to gain publicity, lots of retweets and cash.

08/23 Links Pt2: Why Rename Judea and Samaria?; Defund Hillel? Defund Rutgers; The Guardian again promotes Forensic Architecture's anti-Israel vitriol

From Ian:

Why Rename Judea and Samaria?

There is good reason that the Arab world and the anti-Israel left insist on using the mendacious and geographically inaccurate term “West Bank” when they refer to Judea and Samaria.

Think about it: Imagine a human-rights movement built around the slogan: Ban Arabs from Arabia! Such a slogan and movement would raise many questions. For instance, where else would Arabs have a right to be if not Arabia, and who could have a greater claim to Arabia than Arabs?

Although freedom-loving Americans have endless reasons to squirm when contemplating Saudi Arabia (as do freedom-hating Americans), we all tend to agree that Arabs who want to live there have an assumed right to do so. Arabia for Arabs. India for Indians. Russia for Russians. Mongolia for Mongolians—some outer, some inner. Austria for Austrians. Guatemala for Guatemalans. Cuba for Cubans. Sounds right.

Somewhere along the litany it would make sense to say: Yehuda for Yehudim—i.e., Judea for Jews. Even antisemites would find it hard to get behind slogans such as “Ban Jews from Judea! Jews Never Lived in Judea!” The Jews (Yehudim in Hebrew) of the tribe of Judah (Yehudah) gave the land of Yehudah its name: Judea, as transliterated in the King James Version of the Bible.

It has always been preposterous to call Judea and Samaria the “West Bank.” Think of the most famous locations in the Bible: Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Beth El, Jericho, Shiloh, Shechem (Nablus), Galilee, Tekoa—all the places where the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs, the kings and prophets walked and lived. Jesus and the Apostles, too. Their lives all centered in Judea and in Samaria. Those terms are all over the Bible, with more than 100 mentions just of “Samaria” in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and in the Christian Gospels.

JPost Editorial: Don't hijack the Holocaust - editorial

Last week The Jerusalem Post published in these pages an opinion piece which unfortunately failed to go through a sufficient vetting system. We sincerely regret this error. The oped, written by an Australian under the name of David Goldman, was titled: “This disgraceful mocking of the Holocaust needs to stop now.” In it, he ridiculed and belittled Croatian Holocaust scholar Dr. Ivo Goldstein. Dr. Goldstein was given the right of reply which appeared in yesterday’s Post opinion pages under the title “A collage of lies.”

The publication of the original op-ed stemmed from the Post’s policy to offer our readers a broad range of opinions from a wide selection of writers. It is a policy of which we are proud, although it is occasionally and regrettably abused by writers.

The most important lesson we can take from this incident is the need to avoid helping, inadvertently, the battle over the truth of the Holocaust. As fewer and fewer survivors and first-hand witnesses remain to tell their experiences of the greatest atrocity of humankind, the stories have become a battle of narratives, exploited for different purposes.

These specific opinion pieces referred to the roles of the Croats and Serbs. The sensitivity exists equally for almost every country in Europe including Russia, Ukraine, Hungary and western European countries conquered by the Nazis in the Second World War. It can be seen particularly in Poland which recently passed laws making it a criminal offense to blame the Poles for crimes committed in their country during the Holocaust and halted the restitution of Jewish property wrongfully confiscated during the years of the Polish communist rule following the end of World War II.

It is true that concentration and death camps were run by the Nazis, but in many countries, they found willing collaborators among the local population who were more than happy to assist in eradicating Jews. What this has led to are two disturbing trends which are affecting the historical truth of the Holocaust. On the one hand, there is a trend by the countries where the Nazis ruled to portray themselves first and foremost as the victims. This is the case, for example, in Poland which prefers to focus on its own victimhood as opposed to the genocide of millions of its Jewish population.

Turbulent dimensions, years of pushing: Seeking justice with the help of StandWithUs

From an April 2021 Stand With Us announcement headed Bringing Our Child's Murderer To Justice:
In 2001, Malki Roth was murdered in the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem along with 15 other people. Now, Interpol has dropped the international arrest warrant for the mastermind behind this heinous terrorist attack, Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi, who now lives in Jordan, has shown no remorse for her despicable crimes.

On this week’s episode of StandWithUs TV Live, Malki’s father, Arnold Roth will join us in conversation with Roz Rothstein, StandWithUs Co-founder and CEO, about terrorism, the impact Malki’s tragic death had on his family and the battle to have Tamimi extradited to the US to face charges.

Join us live on Facebook: Sunday, April 11, 11:00AM Pacific time.

Our great and sincere thanks to Roz Rothstein and her indefatigable team of professionals and activists for their many years of fine work.

Israel allows more aid to Gaza. Hamas responds with more firebombs and rioting.

In the past week, Israel has helped arrange for Qatari funds to go directly to Gazans. It has allowed, for the first time since the war, imports of cement and steel to humanitarian recipients. It has allowed laptops and mobile phones.

In response, Hamas sponsored a riot that included shootings and more incendiary balloons that are igniting fires in the south of Israel.

Israel-haters always blame Israel for Palestinian violence. So how do they explain more Palestinian violence in direct response to Israel easing conditions?

Egypt has given its own answer. Egypt, which had been working hard to the cease fire between Israel and Hamas and negotiating to avoid a follow-up war, was incensed at Hamas' violent riots on Saturday. Even though the Rafah crossing to Egypt was scheduled to be open today, Egypt announced last night that it would be closed, and sources say it is in response to Hamas' provocations.

The funny part is, when Egypt responds to Hamas terror, no one cares. If Israel would respond by reducing imports or adjusting the fishing zone, the "human rights" NGOs would be screaming.

As the expression goes, if there were no double standards towards Israel, there would be no standards at all.

MEMRI published an interview with British-Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan where he advises Jews to learn to swim because they will be pushed out into the sea very soon:

British-Palestinian Journalist Abdel Bari Atwan: What Is Happening at Kabul Airport Will Repeat Itself at Ben Gurion Airport; Israelis Should Learn to Swim; Arafat Told Me in 1995 That I Would Live to See the Israelis Fleeing Palestine Like “Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship" pic.twitter.com/Sp41KXOshk
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 23, 2021

It is of course outrageous that a journalist who has such opinions (and has a history of such) is respected enough to be regularly interviewed on BBC World, Sky News, Al Jazeera English and CNN World.

However, his anecdote with Yasir Arafat is interesting.

Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, and here he is quoted in 1995 as saying that he intends to drive the Israelis into the sea.

The entire Oslo process was a sham from the beginning. This isn't the only such Arabic Arafat quote during the Oslo "peace" process indicating that he regarded it as a stage towards the destruction of Israel, in line with the 1974 Phased Plan.

Yet gullible Westerners are so enamoured at seeing a terrorist mouthing words of peace that they don't 'even consider that perhaps he might not be telling the truth.

08/23 Links Pt1: The Forever War Isn’t Over; Setting the Agenda for the Bennett-Biden Meeting; How Elevator for Disabled May Ignite Israeli-Palestinian Tensions

From Ian:

The Forever War Isn’t Over

Biden also said he's "adamant that we focus on the threats we face today in 2021—not yesterday's threats." And the "terrorist threat," he went on, "has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan." He didn't acknowledge that one of the reasons the threat spread out of Afghanistan was that for 20 years America denied it a base there. Now that the Taliban is in, and the Americans are out, the elements of al Qaeda and ISIS in Afghanistan today will be joined by more holy warriors.

Not to worry, though, said Biden. "We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don't have a permanent military presence." And we can do the same thing in Afghanistan, he continued, because "we've developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed."

Let's hope he's right. The problem with his argument is that America does have a "military presence" in north and east Africa, Syria, and Iraq, as well as in Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and elsewhere. And America does have a naval presence in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. Our eyes are "firmly fixed" on bad spots in the Middle East and North Africa because we are nearby. The horizon over which our counterterrorism forces must travel is short. That won't be the case in Afghanistan.

Biden created a situation in which America has neither boots nor eyes on the ground in a landlocked, mountainous country thousands of miles from port and surrounded by unfriendly states. Unlike 20 years ago, China and Russia are strong and adversarial and looking for opportunities to embarrass the United States. Every threat or attack that emanates from Afghanistan will testify to U.S. stupidity and weakness. Furthermore, the Taliban, even as it is dogged by internal opposition, will command more territory and field stronger forces than any of the Salafist-jihadist outfits scraping by in the ungoverned and contested spaces of the Maghreb, the Sahel, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. Our intelligence capabilities will be hobbled and our response time lengthened.

This dispiriting assessment doesn't include the propaganda boon to the Salafist-jihadist cause. Kabul will be transformed from an island of modernity to the global capital of anti-Western jihad. International terrorism flourished alongside the Islamic State. It manifested in spectacular, mass-casualty attacks in Paris, Marseilles, San Bernardino, Orlando, and Manchester. "For a long time now Islamist movements have defined the creation of an ‘Islamic state' as their goal and standard for achievement," writes former State Department official Charles H. Fairbanks. "A state provides a better terrorist sanctuary, and has far more versatile capabilities, than a movement." A state gives a movement safe harbor, institutional support, and physical inspiration for "lone wolves" in the West to murder unbelievers. Such a state is what the Taliban will build in America's place.

"I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I would bring America's military involvement in Afghanistan to an end," Biden said. "And while it's been hard and messy—and yes, far from perfect—I've honored that commitment." Yes, he has. The Taliban's military involvement in Afghanistan, however, continues in our absence. And so the Afghan people are left to suffer, the world watches agog, and America is vulnerable to resurgent Islamic extremism. The Forever War isn't over—it's entered a new phase. Where the enemy has the upper hand.

Where did we go so wrong in Afghanistan? - opinion

The problem was not the need to withdraw, but the manner in which it was conducted. Why on earth did he begin to pull out troops without the proper preparation to ensure that US and other foreign diplomats and civilians, along with thousands of Afghan interpreters and other support staff and their families, departed orderly and safely?

To subsequently dispatch thousands of troops to secure the airport to ensure safe passage for those fleeing was certainly necessary. But this happened only following the chaos that swept Kabul and sent shivers down the spines of tens of thousands of Afghans and foreign diplomats and civilians. As I see it, this last sorry chapter is continuing a string of mistakes committed by Biden’s predecessors Bush, Obama, and Trump. They have learned nothing about the nature of Afghan society nor anything from the Soviet Union’s experience in the 1980s, when it departed Afghanistan after ten years of fighting with its tail between its legs.

Following the defeat of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in less than a year, former President Bush rushed to invade Iraq in 2003 through the concerted effort of his then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-Vice President Dick Cheney. He failed to make any arrangement over the prospect of continuing Taliban resistance with the transitional government at that time led by then-president Hamid Karzai. He lost focus on the unfinished Afghanistan campaign and subjected American troops to an uncertain future, as neither he nor his military brass had any plans as to how to conclude the campaign once the main objective of removing the Taliban from power was accomplished.

IMPOSITION OF DEMOCRACY
The decision to introduce democracy and engage in nation-building was doomed from the start. Yes, progress was made, a democratically-elected government was installed, and human rights and social reforms provided the hallmark of the American enterprise. But then the US ignored the fact that the imposition of a western-style democracy on a country that lived for millennia as a tribal society would be short-lived at best.

The US should not be in the business of spreading democracy by force. We seem to have learned nothing from Vietnam, let alone the US’ long history of instigating and interfering in regime changes. Instead of providing a model of a functioning democracy and human rights through the use of soft power to influence other countries, we come in charging with massive military to change the political landscape, only to end up retreating and delivering the country straight to insurgent forces.

MILITARY MISCALCULATION
Three successive presidents before Biden made their decision on the continuing efforts in Afghanistan based on the recommendations of military leaders who insisted that the war was winnable and wanted to secure a total victory. Troop surges have continuously been sent on the promise that victory over the Taliban was in sight, which obviously was proven to be completely misguided. In addition, the military strength of the Afghan National Army was grossly overstated; thousands deserted over the years and many sold their weapons to the Taliban. Over 2,300 American soldiers were killed and more than a trillion dollars were spent with little to show for it.

In ToI interviews, Jewish veterans of Afghanistan speak of relief…and betrayal

A week after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Captain Joshua Zager, a Marine Corps fighter pilot, stood in the historic Beth Israel synagogue in Beaufort, South Carolina, praying the Rosh Hashanah liturgy.

“Who shall live, and who shall die/who will die at his predestined time and who before his time/ who by water and who by fire, who by sword,” he said, chanting the U’Netaneh Tokef prayer along with the congregation.

Zager was especially focused on his prayers that year. The next day, he was scheduled to fly his F/A-18 Hornet onto the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which had already begun sailing for the Middle East to start striking al-Qaeda and Afghanistan.

Zager, who would fly 42 missions over Afghanistan in the ensuing months, was one of many Jewish soldiers who would fight in the distant country over the next 20 years, including at least 23 who died fighting there.

As America’s longest war comes to its inglorious end, Jewish soldiers, in interviews with The Times of Israel, reflected on their service in Afghanistan, their experiences as Jews, and their feelings on seeing the scenes of panic and flight in Kabul and beyond as the Taliban retook control of the country after twenty years of sacrifice.

I have been mentioning how Arab media and Palestinian schools still promote the idea that Israel was behind the Al Aqsa fire in 1969 set by a deranged Australian Christian. in order to replace it with a new Jewish Temple.

On the anniversary of the attack on Saturday, the Arab League itself issued a statement that cemented this antisemitic conspiracy theory as official Arab policy.

The statement from the Secretary General of the Arab League said that the arson was a "deliberate and orchestrated crime from the highest level of the Israeli Occupation authorities." It "comes In the context of a systematic and ongoing occupation policy and plans targeting the Holy Mosque and Christian and Islamic sacred places." It goes on to list various imagined Israeli crimes in Jerusalem, including "desecration of Al-Aqsa and attempts to destroy its structure" even today.

Interestingly, Arab attackers who store weapons and rocks in the Al Aqsa mosque are never said to desecrate the holy site. Furthermore, if Israel wanted to build the Third Temple, Al Aqsa wouldn't be the target - the Dome of the Rock would be.

I could not find any similar statements from the Arab League on the anniversary for the past two years. It seems likely that the Palestinian delegation drafted this absurd statement to remain relevant and top-of-mind for the Arab world when interest in the Palestinian issue is waning - and pretending Al Aqsa is in danger is the biggest stick the Palestinians have, a direct continuation of the methods of the Nazi-collaborating Mufti of Jerusalem.

It is a disappointing, however, that the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco continue to allow these lies to be spouted by the Arab League in their name.

HRW brings literally no evidence in its latest anti-Israel report

Today, Human Rights Watch issued yet another anti-Israel report that is long on accusations and very short on facts.

Between May 11 and 15, Israeli forces attacked the Hanadi, al-Jawhara, al-Shorouk, and al-Jalaa towers in the densely populated al-Rimal neighborhood. In each case, the Israeli military warned tenants of impending attacks, allowing for their evacuation. Three buildings were immediately leveled while the fourth, al-Jawhara, sustained extensive damage and is slated to be demolished. Israeli authorities contend that Palestinian armed groups were using the towers for military purposes, but have provided no evidence to support those allegations.

“The apparently unlawful Israeli strikes on four high-rise towers in Gaza City caused serious, lasting harm for countless Palestinians who lived, worked, shopped, or benefitted from businesses based there,” said Richard Weir, crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military should publicly produce the evidence that it says it relied on to carry out these attacks.”

Note the sequence in the quote: the strikes are "apparently unlawful" but they admit that they don't have any evidence for that.

There are only two alternatives: either the IDF had intelligence indicating that these buildings were valid military targets, or they just decided to go through a highly complex plan involving warning hundreds of people, ensuring not one remained in the buildings, and dropping precision bombs that would not allow the buildings to topple onto civilian buildings nearby - for no military reason.

Human Rights Watch chooses to believe scenario B, because it is in their DNA to assume Israeli Jews are monsters who destroy buildings for fun.

The entire report is a big "we dunno" shrug, followed by how awful these attacks were to the businesses and residents there. Interviewing people who are frightened to say anything against the dictatorship that can put them in prison for no reason is considered "research." The entire report is filled with irrelevant facts meant to make HRW researchers appear smart but there is nothing behind it. So we read things like

The size of the blast following the munitions impact and subsequent detonation, as captured in videos either distributed by the Israeli military or circulated online and reviewed by Human Rights Watch, appear consistent with the use of munitions with large high-explosive warheads.

Oooh, their military experts determined that the IDF used "high explosive warheads!" I had no idea!

Even with their foregone conclusions, sometimes counter-evidence creeps in - evidence that they immediately discount:

The media reported that the [Hanadi Tower] building housed offices of the political leadership of Hamas. A journalist familiar with the tower, who did not wish to be identified, said: “There are political meeting offices for Hamas parliament members and spokespersons in the tower.” While one business owner in the tower said there were Hamas offices in the tower, he was unaware of their purpose.

Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, is a group that includes both a political party and an armed wing. Mere membership or affiliation with Hamas is not a sufficient basis for determining someone to be a lawful military target. The laws of war allow the targeting of military commanders in the course of armed conflict, provided that such attacks otherwise comply with the laws that protect civilians. Political leaders not taking part in military operations, as well as civilians, would not be legitimate targets of attack.

HRW is nothing if not consistent: Hamas gets the benefit of the doubt that it a professional organization that cares deeply about human rights law - it strictly separates its political and terrorist wings, with a firewall separating the two so if a meeting room is used for political reasons the military cannot possibly use it.

Israel gets no such pass from HRW. The IDF is not assumed to be professional but capricious. It is assumed to not know the basic laws of war, it has no idea what it is bombing, it recklessly ignores the facts, and the incontrovertible evidence that Israel took great care to avoid a single human casualty in the bombings of four major high rises doesn't shake HRW's convictions that the attacks were random acts of vengeance.

We've recently synopsized exhaustive research in exactly how the IDF gathers intelligence, chooses its targets, double- and triple-checks their information, and goes through multiple layers of legal and military review before an airstrike. Either Human Rights Watch is ignorant about this, or it chooses to ignore it because it contradicts their basic tenet of assuming Israel is guilty before writing the report.

HRW's ignorance about Israeli methods, the laws of war and basic physics reaches absurd points. For example, HRW writes:

Personnel or equipment being used in military operations are subject to attack, but whether that justifies destroying an entire large building where they might be present depends on the attack not inflicting disproportionate harm on civilians or civilian property. The proportionality of the attack is even more questionable because Israeli forces have previously demonstrated the capacity to strike specific floors or parts of structures. However, these attacks completely flattened three of the buildings, evidently by attacking their structural integrity. Regarding al-Jalaa tower, the Israeli military said that because armed groups had occupied multiple floors, the entire tower needed to be destroyed.

Destroying a floor may be acceptable in a building that has four or five floors, but in a high rise, odds are that a major structural component would be damaged that could cause all the floors above to topple over and crash into other buildings, causing far more damage. High rises are not built out of stone.

HRW's pro-Hamas bias is almost comical:

The deployment of Palestinian armed groups in the towers, if true, would go against requirements to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians under their control and to avoid placing military objectives in densely populated areas. Israel has repeatedly accused Palestinian armed groups of deploying among civilians and – without providing evidence, using them as “human shields” – the war crime of intentionally co-locating military forces with civilians to deter targeting those forces.

Without providing evidence?

There is massive video and forensic evidence of Hams placing rocket launchers, tunnels, weapons caches and militants among civilians - something Hamas itself has admitted! Even reporters have mentioned Hamas' military headquarters under Shifa hospital - but Human Rights Watch never has. HRW has never accused Hamas of using human shields despite clear proof. By HRW's definition of human shields used here (" the war crime of intentionally co-locating military forces with civilians to deter targeting forces") even Hamas admits that they are guilty of that crime - but Human Rights Watch never says that.

HRW has gone to such lengths to excuse Hamas' use of human shields that they have changed the definition of human shields itself, contradicting the definition used by the ICRC, to exonerate Hamas from that crime. Yet HRW's definition of the term in other conflicts is accurate.

Only with Hamas - and Hezbollah in 2006 - does this alleged human rights group bend over backwards to avoid protecting civilians from the war crimes of human shielding. That is a pretty damning

Back to the main point of the report, that Israel is somehow guilty of attacking civilian objects with no military purpose, legal expert Michael N. Schmitt wrote about these very attacks and how they were entirely legal under the laws of armed conflict:

There is some disagreement on whether a building that contains both apartments or offices used for civilian purposes and others that have been converted to military use should be considered a military objective in its entirety or as consisting of separate and distinct entities. The better view, but one that does not appear to have achieved universal consensus, is that if an attacker can surgically strike that aspect of the building used for military ends, harm to the remaining sections must be factored into the proportionality analysis.

In this case, however, there is no indication that the IDF had intelligence indicating precisely which sections of the Al Jalaa Tower its opponents were using or that the IDF fielded weaponry capable of surgically neutralizing those sections and any conflict-related material therein. Therefore, if the Israeli reports of Hamas using the building are accurate, the entire building constituted a single military objective, damage to which did not have to factor into the IDF’s proportionality calculation.

As to the requirement to take precautions in attack, since the building itself housed Hamas’ material and operations, alternative targets were not on the table. Further, there is no indication that different tactics or weapons could have avoided civilian harm. Indeed, in that the building itself qualified as a single military objective and the attack injured no civilians, collateral damage (as that concept is understood in the law of armed conflict) was minimal. Video footage of the attack, which involved dropping a multi-story building in an urban area without significant damage to other structures in the vicinity, confirms that the strike was an impressive example of careful avoidance of collateral damage by the IDF.

A real expert who is willing to put his name on the line says that the IDF did an amazing job avoiding collateral damage. HRW's anonymous "experts," , who have already shown their massive ignorance about both the laws of armed conflict and military matters, claim that Israel could have somehow avoided all collateral damage without exactly explaining how.

Who do you believe?

Even this report unwittingly shows the care Israel took in destroying these military targets. Here are photos of the Hanadi towers, before and after the airstrikes:

You can see that the Israeli strike mostly pancaked the tower, but the fallen debris leans towards the empty lot next to it - avoiding the buildings and street on the other three sides. If Israel was as callous about collateral damage as HRW claims, then why did they collapse that tower with such incredible precision?

Once you take out everything from the report that is made up, you end up with this: Israel targeted four buildings, warned their residents in multiple ways, destroyed them with the least collateral damage ever done by airstrikes on tall buildings in the history of war, and refuses to share its intelligence behind that decision with an organization that is determined to accuse it of war crimes no matter what the facts are.

As I was researching my post about how the German government paid for the Hashem Elementary School A in Gaza which that erases Israel in its very logo, I found a video of a truly adorable girl who exuded happiness for attending that school standing in front of the sign that indicated the German funding.

I see this often as I browse around Palestinian school sites. While there is Jew-hatred - highlighted numerous times by MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch - there are also smiling, laughing kids. It is hard to understand how innocent children - children who know nothing about hate - can be taught Jew-hatred in their schools, especially schools that are funded by the West, whether UNRWA or otherwise.

I tweeted a screenshot of this girl, upset that she is going to get a Hamas-approved education.

Here is an adorable girl in Gaza who is attending a school that teaches hate.

She doesn't hate Jews now. But in a few years she will be indoctrinated to want to give birth to martyrs. pic.twitter.com/ndRzhpgTR4
— Elder of Ziyon 🇮🇱 (@elderofziyon) August 20, 2021

That is the unfortunate trajectory of most kids who go to Gaza schools with the Hamas-approved curriculum.

On Saturday, the school proved me right again. It held an assembly for the anniversary of the fire at Al Aqsa in 1969, falsely claiming that the fire was the first attempt by Zionist "settlers" to destroy the mosque - the same libel that Muslims have been pushing for a century.

It is pure incitement against Jews, being taught to innocent children.

Yet my pointing this out generated hundreds of angry comments, accusing me of being the hater, of being awful by inciting Israel against the girl, of justifying her future murder by the IDF, of ignoring how much Jews hate Arabs....the stupidity went on and on for days now, with people accusing me of things that were the exact opposite of what I actually said. Not one of the supposedly liberal, peace loving respondents admitted that these kids are taught hate (except for a few that said, of course, that Israel is worse.)

This morning an Arab TV correspondent in Washington called me "creepy and weird" - yet she is so deeply antisemitic that she has gone beyond the absurd Khazar theory and claimed that not only are Ashkenazic Jews not really Jews, but even Mizrahi Jews aren't! Arab antisemitism is that endemic.

When I make a point that the haters cannot argue with, they really ramp up the attacks. When the attacks have no substance, I know I hit the bullseye.

This Ayatollah forgot to switch "Jews" to "Zionists"

From MEMRI:

[Iran Supreme Leader] Khamenei’s representative in Southern Khorasan Province Ayatollah Alireza Ebadi said that the Jews are the biggest problem for Islam and humanity. He made his remarks in a public address that was aired on Khorasan Jonoobi TV (Iran) on May 7, 2021. Ayatollah Ebadi added that the Jews control the world via cultural, psychological and military warfare, and their main goal is to pillage the world. He further said that it is not the French people who choose the French president or the American people who choose the U.S. president, but the Zionists who appoint a puppet president.

Nah, nothing antisemitic about that!

08/22 Links: The Palestinian Solidarity Statement I’d like to see; Melanie Phillips: Paranoid conspiracies v. sane and sober empiricism

From Ian:

The Palestinian Solidarity Statement I’d like to see

We understand that religious fanatics are not the only abusers of Palestinian Arab children, that the quasi-secular Palestinian Authority (PA) operates an education system designed to inculcate in them a xenophobic hatred for the Jewish “Other.”

Yasser Arafat boasted in 2002 that dead children are “the greatest message to the world,” and in 2020, Fatah party leader Jibril Rajoub declared, “We are prepared to sacrifice our children.”

We remember how the Palestinian cultural leaders used children’s entertainment to instill hatred, like the infamous Tomorrow’s Pioneers program with Farfour, the Jew-hating version of Mickey Mouse. We recoiled in horror as the curriculum of hatred became more elaborate throughout the 21st century, and we shuddered as text books, comic books, cartoons, and music videos were used to twist young minds.

We know too that this barbaric indoctrination continues today, even in the United Nations schools which Hamas uses to store weapons. Therefore, we unequivocally condemn every educator who participates in the brainwashing of Palestinian children, be they Hamas teachers, Fatah teachers, or U.N. teachers. As a song from another era put it: “Hey teachers, leave them kids alone!”

Finally, we condemn militant anti-Zionists in the West who exploit Palestinian Arab children to demonize the Jewish state. Among the worst such offenders is the New York Times which on May 26, used images of dead Palestinian children to sell papers, even though many of those kids were killed by some of the 680 errant Hamas rockets that fell into Gaza.

And so we stand in solidarity with all Palestinian children as they struggle to live normal lives guided by some of the most atrocious role models on Earth. We affirm their right to reject the fantasy forced upon them of a “Palestine from the river to the sea.”

Melanie Phillips: Paranoid conspiracies v sane and sober empiricism

However, there isn’t the kind of pushback over freedom that’s heard in Britain. Partly that’s because of the stratospheric priority Jews place on saving life. Partly it’s because Israelis have a different and more benign view of the state.

Regardless of their boundless contempt for politicians, there’s a general acceptance that the state has the interests of the citizen at heart. This is because it’s almost totally geared towards security and the saving of life against Israel’s enemies. Covid-19 is merely an internal enemy.

So to the vast majority, vaccination is a no-brainer. Now the Israelis are giving a third booster shot to the over-40s and stepping up the vaccination of young people and children over 12.

From Britain’s Covid contrarians issues the cry that the Israelis are riding roughshod over their discovery of a rare heart problem caused by the vaccine among the young. But researchers have said this problem is minor and vastly outweighed by the risks to the heart posed by the virus.

Israelis generally accept this from their experts; many in Britain would not. These Brits seem incapable of differentiating between authoritative scientists and charlatans, of whom there are many from Britain and America holding forth on social media. Maybe there aren’t so many charlatans in Israel to bamboozle people.

Maybe also in Israel there’s an overriding sense of community and commitment to the welfare of all, in contrast to the hyper-individualism of British and American society. Judaism enshrines liberty within laws and rules. Freedom is important to live a good life, not as an end in itself.

Moreover, imprinted upon Israeli DNA is the knowledge of what a real threat to life and liberty actually means. The country was reborn, after all, from the ashes of the Holocaust and faces murderous foes without remission.

So those in Britain who are screaming that the restrictions are “fascist” or “Stasi” are viewed in Israel with utter astonishment. Worse, some of these British individuals, aware of Israel’s vaccination programme for children, are now claiming Israel has “gone all Nazi”.

It really has come to something when Britain is crazier than Israel.

IDF: Remembering Victims of Terrorism Worldwide

Acts of terrorism injure, harm and kill thousands of innocent people each year. On December 19th, 2017, the United Nations General Assembly declared that the 21st of August would mark the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. This decision was made in order to honor and support the victims and survivors of terrorist attacks and to protect their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Every day, IDF soldiers defend Israeli civilians from terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and other Iranian-backed proxies.

We will always stand with survivors of these horrendous terrorist attacks and remember the victims all around the world. May their memories be a blessing.

You know how Israel haters pretend to care about US taxpayer dollars going to Israel?

The US gives about $3.5 billion to Israel every year, nearly all of it earmarked to be spent on US weapons anyway. The money also goes towards joint US/Israel missile defense system development and other technologies that help the US defend itself.

According to various media, the US spent over $2 trillion in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past 20 years.

That means that it spent more every two weeks in Afghanistan than its annual aid to Israel.

Somehow, I missed all the articles from those people about how much was being spent in Afghanistan. Their concern for US taxpayers seemed to end with the aid to Israel.

Look at it this way: at the current amount of aid to Israel, it will take 571 years for the US to spend that same amount on Israel.

But even that isn't close to the reality. The US added that $2 trillion to its massive national debt to pay for Afghanistan. If it is paying only 3% interest on the $2 trillion, that is an additional $60 billion in interest payments every year. Meaning that for the foreseeable future, just the interest payments for Afghanistan will continue to cost the US far more than aid to Israel - with nothing at all gained.

Where is all the concern for US taxpayers now?

(UPDATE: I had miscalculated the interest payment as $6 billion instead of $60 billion. h/t Irene)

The Palestinian Authority continues to arrest protesters, reportedly beating them and dragging them in the streets.

Another group of 15-20 people were arrested yesterday in Ramallah for intending to protest the murder by Palestinian police of Nizar Banat in June, as well as the continued imprisonment of those who had earlier been arrested for protesting people who have remained in prison for nearly two months.

Palestinian groups have issued condemnations of the new batch of arrests.

Ironically, the reasons given for the arrests include "attacking public freedoms" along with "violating national symbols."

The Independent Commission for Human Rights says that the people arrested had requested permission to hold the protests

One of those arrested was Khader Adnan, the Islamic Jihad official who became famous a while ago for his hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention by Israel.

His wife ways that he was kidnapped by people in an unmarked car and taken away. No one knows where he, or the others arrested yesterday, are now.

I don't think a hunger strike will help him in PA prison.

The EU has spent hundreds of millions over the past 25 years to supposedly teach the Palestinian Authority how to govern and protect human rights. Somehow, I don't think the "moderate" Palestinian Authority is getting the message along with the money.

The pine tree is indigenous to Israel - it is not a Western implant - and has been there for millennia

MK Ayman Odeh repeats a popular lie when he writes in Haaretz:

The pine tree was the main symbol of the new [Jewish National Fund]; it grows quickly and doesn’t need much depth to strike roots. Like the British before it, the JNF chose the pine tree instead of expanding the natural Mediterranean woodland that grew in the Judean Hills. The pine looks nice, but it’s a foreign implant in the local environment and endangers it because it’s especially flammable in our dry, hot climate.

I debunked this claim in 2016, but here is some more proof.

The Survey of Western Palestine, Special Papers on Topography, Archaeology, Manners and Customs, Etc · Volume 4, By Palestine Exploration Fund · 1881, quotes a 7th century observer of large pine forests in the center of the land of Israel:

From Underground Jerusalem: An Account of Some of the Principal Difficulties Encountered in Its Exploration and the Results Obtained. With a Narrative of an Expedition Through the Jordan Valley and a Visit to the Samaritans, by Sir Charles Warren, 1876:

In The Trees and Plants Mentioned in the Bible by William Howse Grosser, 1895, we learn that the Aleppo (Jerusalem) pine was the most popular tree in Palestine:

The people who claim that the pine tree is a recent import also tend to think that Jews themselves were only recently introduced to the region. They are equally wrong in both assertions.