Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 21, 2022

Even South Africa recognizes that some "anti-Zionism" is antisemitism

Bongani Masuku

In 2009, Bongani Masuku, the international relations spokesperson of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) issued this statement:

Bongani says hi to you all as we struggle to liberate Palestine from the racists, fascists and zionists who belong to the era of their Friend Hitler! We must not apologise, every Zionist must be made to drink the bitter medicine they are feeding our brothers and sisters in Palestine. We must target them, expose them and doo all that (sic) is needed to subject them to perpetual suffering until they withdraw from the land of others and stop their savage attacks on human dignity

Despite the fact that Masuku didn't mention Jews and used the tired formula of saying "Zionist" as a proxy for Jews, the South Africa Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) complained about the obvious antisemitism in his statement.

They first complained to the SA Human Rights Commission, which agreed that the statement was antisemitic. The SAHRC found Masuku’s statements to have been of “an extreme nature that advocate and imply that the Jewish and Israeli community are to be despised, scorned, ridiculed and thus subjecting them to ill-treatment on the basis of their religious affiliation”, and therefore they are “offensive and unpalatable to society”.

They then got an equivalent ruling from the Equality Court, which ordered Masaku to apologize in 2017. He refused.

Now, the Constitutional Court of South Africa has also ruled on the matter. It upheld the Equality Court's finding that a reasonable person would understand the statement as being based on Jewishness as an ethnicity and not on anti-Zionism.

"This was primarily because of the statement's reference to 'Hitler', because a reasonable reader would have noted that a reference to Hitler to a group which was predominately Jewish was used because of their Jewish ethnicity and identity. After all, Hitler's anti-Semitic extermination campaign was not limited to people of the Jewish faith or ethnicity who identified as Zionists," said the court in its media summary.

Even South Africa, which is as anti-Zionist as any state short of Iran, recognizes that some speech that modern antisemites call "anti-Zionist" is really hate against Jews.

The courts did not seem to rule on Masuku's statements made shortly afterwards in March 2009 at an "Israel Apartheid Week" event at Wits University which even more explicitly targeted South Africa's Jewish community without saying the word "Jew":

During that speech, Masuku made other statements including that Jews who continued to stand up for Israel should “not just be encouraged but forced to leave South Africa”. He said that COSATU would do everything to ensure, whether at Wits University or ‘Orange Grove’ (a historically Jewish suburb) that those who did not support equality and dignity must face the consequences, even if it meant “something that may necessarily cause what is regarded as harm”.

Cosatu and the Palestinian Solidarity Committee continue to support this bigot.

Bongani Masuku has 30 days from the date of the ruling last Wednesday to apologize to the SA Jewish Board of Deputies.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Last year I came up with my own definition of antisemitism that I believe is simple and more accurate than any of the ones that others have come up with.

Antisemitism is
hostility toward,
denigration of
malicious lies about or
discrimination against
Jews
as individual Jews,
as a people,
as a religion,
as an ethnic group or
as a nation (i.e., Israel.)

It occurs to me that this is more than just a definition: this is a taxonomy for categorizing different types of antisemitism.

There are twenty permutations here between column A and column B. Any antisemitic incident should be able to be categorized as at least one from each column.

Let's put letters in each column:

So, for example, the popular Arab claim that there are no Jewish archaeological artifacts in Jerusalem is a malicious lie about Jews as a people and a nation. We can call that AS-LPN.

Not allowing Jews in hotels in the early 1900s was discrimination against Jews as an ethnic group, AS-AE.

The myth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is hostility towards and malicious lies about Jews as a people, religion, ethnic group and nation, so it is an AS-HLPREN.

Amnesty International's recent "apartheid" report is filled with malicious lies and discrimination against Jews as a nation, AS-LAN.

Nazi Germany included everything in both columns: AS-HDLAIPREN.

Ilhan Omar's statement that Zionist money controlling Congress is an AS-LPN, and her claim that Israel is "hypnotizing the world" is AS-HLN.

Roger Waters' claim that Sheldon Adelson was a "puppetmaster" who believed that non-Jews are less than human was clearly AS-HDLI, but the larger context was clearly that he got his ideas about Adelson from antisemitic literature about the Talmud, so we can add a R on that taxonomy.

One of the things I want to accomplish with this definition is to also say what antisemitism is not. Often, stupidity is mistaken for antisemitic acts. So under this taxonomy, Whoopi Goldberg's statement about the Holocaust having nothing to do with race was quite false but it wasn't a malicious lie nor was it derogatory, therefore it wasn't antisemitic.

Attacks on George Soros would only be considered antisemitic if they tie into his being Jewish. If they are only about his politics then they don't fit into this taxonomy.

On the other hand, I would argue that Marjorie Taylor-Greene's theory that a California utility was working with the Rothschilds on a satellite that redirects sun rays to Earth to create wildfires is AS-LI - the Rothschilds as individuals but we don't know enough to know if she believes that they are proxies for the Jewish people. However she also shared a video saying that “Zionist supremacists have schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation” to replace white Europeans with Muslim immigrants, which is a AS-HLN, at least.

There are of course judgment calls here, and often we cannot know whether the hostility towards Jews are based on the idea of Jews as a people or religion or ethnic group without more context.

The most difficult examples are when antisemitic tropes or dog-whistles are alleged. We cannot know for sure whether the person accused of antisemitism invoked those tropes deliberately - Jeremy Corbyn's posting of a mural with antisemitic tropes, or Donald Trump' posting an anti-Hilary Clinton graphic that used a six pointed star. Those stories often follow the politics of the accusers more than the actual facts of the case. The artist of the mural clearly had some antisemitic intent but that doesn't mean that Corbyn necessarily had that in mind. Unless there is other clear evidence, I prefer to err on the side of caution - and this definition and taxonomy can help reduce the number of times antisemitism is invoked not out of genuine outrage but to score political points against an opponent. When that happens, Jews are not being defended - they are simply props.

That doesn't mean that both Corbyn and Trump shouldn't have realized how insensitive both of those social media posts were. It just means that without additional evidence they cannot be considered antisemitic.

Similarly, the use of the word "neocon" cannot be considered antisemitic in a vacuum, but in some contexts it clearly is.

I think that my definition, and applying the taxonomy, does a far better job as reflecting what is truly antisemitic than the other definitions out there. It can never be a science, but this definition makes it less of a free-for-all.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Nothing scares Iran more than Muslims normalizing relations with Israel

The Iranian ABNA News Agency, which is geared towards the worldwide Shiite community, has many articles about the evils of normalization with Israel.

Half the time it denounces Muslim countries who have normalized relations or seem to be on the path of normalizing relations - and the other half of the time it touts interviews with low level officials of countries that hate Israel, swearing that they will never normalize relations.

The thing is, their protests against normalization show how successful normalization has been!

We see headlines like:

Do you think they are protesting a bit too much? Headlines like this would have been unthinkable two years ago. Now, seeing officials deny any chance of normalization with Israel makes it look like this is something that some people are seriously considering.

You can get the best news in Iranian media.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

EoZTV: A discussion of my new book PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism

I tried out Twitter streaming on this morning, talking about my new book. I didn't like how Twitter did it very much, so I edited it and put it up on YouTube along with my other streaming videos.

Enjoy!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

02/20 Links: Tzipi Livni opens up about her Gulf visits before the Abraham Accords; Hamas doesn’t need Sheikh Jarrah or Jerusalem to start a war

From Ian:

Tzipi Livni opens up about her Gulf visits before the Abraham Accords

Long before “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, played openly in Abu Dhabi or Manama, long before Israeli military jets took part in training exercises with Gulf countries, and long before normalization agreements were signed at the White House, there was one Israeli leader engaging in quiet, and very secret, diplomacy with the Arab world: Tzipi Livni.

Livni, 63, who served in a variety of Israeli government positions, including deputy prime minister, foreign minister and justice minister, between 2001 and 2014, also led the country through several rounds of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. It was this role – where she worked opposite the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, the late Saeb Erekat – that led her to forge warm ties with multiple Arab leaders, some of whom are now at the forefront of the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-mediated normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries.

In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, the former Israeli lawmaker downplayed more than a decade of covert meetings and conversations with country leaders, foreign ministers and other representatives of the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, even Saudi Arabia. And while former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner has twice been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize as one of the architects of the Abraham Accords, it is possible that this entire process might not have happened if not for the groundwork laid by Livni.

“Truthfully, I didn’t think that Kushner could do this; it’s really a huge achievement. I mean, to have these agreements without the Palestinians, it really surprised me when I saw the news. It is a real game-changer,” Livni said during the interview at her Tel Aviv home. “[Kushner] deserves all the credit he is getting.”

Today, relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco are out in the open, even flourishing. Just this week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made history as the first Israeli premier to travel to the Gulf state of Bahrain. In January, Israeli President Isaac Herzog proudly met with Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, following similar visits by Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to the United Arab Emirates.

Livni said that she was as surprised as anyone when the White House announced the agreements in August 2020, although, she noted, there were some signs of a regional sea change. She recalled two key incidents several months before that momentous announcement, and the subsequent signing of the Accords on the White House lawn in September 2020, that made her realize attitudes were shifting.

“In 2019, not long after I quit politics, I was invited to attend a conference in Bahrain,” Livni said. “It was an international conference, but the event was sponsored by Bahraini officials, and I arrived there openly with an Israeli passport.”

“For the first time ever, I held a public meeting with [Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed] Al Khalifa, and we even took a photo together,” she continued. “It felt very normal and that was something I was not used to.”

Jewish Life More Visible in Gulf Countries as AGJC Celebrates First Anniversary

Rabbi Elie Abadie, spiritual leader of the AGJC, says, ‘Education is practically the number one priority of any Jewish community. ... The establishment of a school is of utmost priority for us.’

Jews have resided in the Arab Gulf region for centuries – in parts of the region, for millennia – but their recent history has seen a sea change with the establishment, in 2021, of the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities. While each country has its own flavor and experience, suddenly, Jewish community services are now more readily available throughout the region than they ever have been before. The Media Line’s Felice Friedson sat down with Rabbi Elie Abadie, the United Arab Emirates-based spiritual leader of the AGJC, and AGJC President Ebrahim Daoud Nonoo, who lives in Bahrain, for an extensive interview. This is followed by an interview with Rafael Schwartz, an AGJC board member who lives in Kuwait. The organization is active in Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, as well.

The Media Line: We’re a region which prides itself on longevity and its ancient roots. Much has happened in the modern Gulf. The Abraham Accords was a game-changer in creating an environment to expose Jewish life in the Middle East. One year ago, the AGJC – the Association of Gulf Jewish Communities – was inaugurated. Joining me today is Rabbi Elie Abadie, the senior and resident rabbi from the UAE. And also with me is Ebrahim Daoud Nonoo, who is the president of the AGJC, and chairman of the board of the House of Ten Commandments. Rabbi Abadie, in the UAE, and of course, Mr. Nonoo in Bahrain, thank you gentleman for joining me today!

Ebrahim Daoud Nonoo: Pleasure! Pleasure!

Rabbi Elie Abadie: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Felice!

TML: One year later, [it’s] very exciting. No one would have thought that we would have seen this moment. Many people in the world probably thought that the Jewish community has dwindled [and] there’s no news, but what can you share. Let’s start with Rabbi Abadie.

Rabbi Elie Abadie: Well, certainly at least here in the UAE, the Jewish community has doubled in size since the Abraham Accords, and those are the number of people that are active in the community. There’s certainly many more Jews living in the UAE that are not very active in the community, and so the actual number is not very well known, but there’s certainly … the active amount of people has really doubled since the Abraham Accords.

Call Me Back (podcast): With all eyes on Putin, enter Iran — a conversation in Jerusalem

“Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power”:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shadow-strike-yaakov-katz/1129520355

“Weapon Wizards – How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower”:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-weapon-wizards-yaakov-katz/1123749307

Pro-Hezbollah newspaper says rabbis throughout history used Judaism to enrich themselves and control hapless Jews

Al Mayadeen, a pan-Arab satellite network that is regarded as pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syria, published an article about Israel that included this example of tolerance:

A cursory look at Jewish rabbis throughout history proves, beyond any doubt, the fact that these people were associated with the Jewish religion since they were mere masters of the Children of Israel after escaping from Pharaoh, on a journey of wandering and loss, in an endless quarrel with the Prophet of God Moses and his brother Aaron. The material mind was the master of the situation in their feelings, attitudes and the nature of their interaction with all developments, and this is why the Qur’an devoted a wide space to in exposing the material mentality of the masters of the Children of Israel during the life of Moses, or after his death. This is what we saw in the sending of the Prophet of God Jesus, and how they opposed him and sought to kill and crucify him, in endless plots.

The one who looks at the ordeals that afflicted the Children of Israel throughout history will find it related, in its entirety, to the level of greed and keenness to control and influence the Israeli mind, as represented by their rabbis. Therefore, the Jewish religion, as a tool in the hands of these rabbis, remained the best way to seize the sovereignty of the Children of Israel and the consequent ability to develop capital. And all the rabbis of the earth lived luxuriously, blessed with riches indescribable, which was evident at the fall of Khaybar, and the treasures were exclusively in the hands of their rabbis, specifically their chief rabbis; Ibn Abi al-Haqiq.

Perhaps the historically rapid distortion of the Torah, at the hands of the Levitic and Mosaic priests since 930 BC, confirms the truth of the purpose of the distortion, so that it is easier for the rabbis to tighten control over the followers and non-followers, and not the sincerity of belonging to the religion of Moses and Aaron. So the one browsing the distorted Torah finds a severe distortion of all the prophets, as they fall into all kinds of sins, as well as the case of the Arabs, the Canaanites and other races, in a way that allows the rabbis to act as they please...

The amount of blatant antisemitism in Arabic media has increased greatly in the past year.

So have antisemitic attacks.

Here was the illustration of this article.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

In 2017, Maryland governor Larry Hogan signed an executive order that says:

Executive agencies may not execute a procurement contract with a business entity unless it certifies, in writing when the bid is submitted or the onset is renewed, that:
1. it is not engaging in a boycott of Israel; and
2. it will, for the duration of its contractual obligations, refrain from a boycott of Israel.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations legal team sued Governor Hogan on behalf of Saqib Ali, a software engineer and former legislator who is running to regain a set at Maryland's House of Delegates.

Ali argued that the executive order violated his right to free speech and that it imposed a type of "loyalty oath" to Israel.

The argument was rejected by U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake and this has now been upheld by Maryland's 4th Circuit.

Saqib Ali cannot sue Hogan because Ali had not applied for a state contract and been rejected and thus cannot claim an “injury” due to the governor’s executive order, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated in its published 3-0 decision.

The 4th Circuit also rejected Ali’s argument that the order’s required pledge violates his constitutional right to speak freely against Israel, whom he believes oppresses Palestinians. The court said the order does not infringe on the First Amendment because it addresses “actions” taken against Israel by the contractor in the bidding process and does not interfere with an individual’s “beliefs or political ideology.”

“That is, the executive order requires a business entity to refrain from discriminating on the basis of Israeli national origin only in forming a bid,” Judge Robert B. King wrote. “It does not require the entity to, for example, pledge any loyalty to Israel or profess any other beliefs.”

King was joined in the opinion by Judges Stephanie D. Thacker and Pamela A. Harris.

“Given the plain meaning of the executive order and the allegations of (Ali’s) complaint, we are unable to accept the proposition that Ali is prohibited from signing the Section C certification and submitting a bid on a Maryland procurement contract,” King wrote. “As such, we reject Ali’s related theory that he possesses standing to sue premised on a direct injury.”

The BDSers have been challenging many of the state anti-BDS laws on the grounds of violating free speech, and this ruling shows that the actual boycott of goods and services from Israel is an action, and not just speech.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Abdul Rahman Al-Issa writes in Kuwaiti news site Al-Anbaa that the Holocaust was a myth, and suggests that more Muslims died in World War II than Jews.

The article starts off by saying that Israel made up the Holocaust story to gain sympathy and for financial and political blackmail, as well as "to cover up Israel’s crimes against our brothers in Palestine. " Yet, he writes, "the silence of the cultural and political elites in Europe and America for this cheap blackmail is something surprising. Especially since the facts are as clear as the sun. Or is it the strength and influence of AIPAC in America?"

Yes, the evil Jews who control the world made up the entire story.

Al-Issa claims that most Jews managed to escape Europe before the war, and some even started their own companies in the US and Canada. The Jews that remained were interned in concentration camps along with other political dissidents.

I mean, what more evidence do you need?

He goes on to say that "historians" say only 200-300,000 Jews were killed, and wonders whether more Muslims died - either as soldiers in the British army, or in North Africa.

And then he moved from Holocaust denial and Holocaust trivialization into Holocaust inversion, saying that the "real" Holocaust is what Palestinians have suffered under Jews.

As always, the most disgusting kinds of Jew-hatred are not only tolerated but honored in much of the Arab world. And as always, there is no visible pushback.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

02/19 Links: How Amnesty's anti-Israel apartheid report backfired; Israel ranks above Spain, Italy and US for democracy in new global index; 'This Is Just Jaw-Dropping': McConnell Reacts To Assassination Attempt Of Dem Mayoral Candidate

From Ian:

How Amnesty's anti-Israel apartheid report backfired

Major editorial boards – The Wall Street Journal and New York Post – have also derided Amnesty’s report, reducing it to a libel and “smear.” These responses are compounded by the reality that no country has yet to openly embrace Amnesty’s report, which only suggest Amnesty’s flailing credibility and influence.

This high-profile controversy has further exposed Amnesty to attention under which it has allegedly resorted to incompetent and racist decision-making. Amnesty knows it can only advance its apartheid lie by falsely presenting Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza as one political unit, regardless of peace treaties willingly signed by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

The reality is that 20 percent of Israel’s population are Arabs, who enjoy equality under the law, affirmative action programs, and positions in Israel’s parliament and Supreme Court. An Arab Israeli judge, and later to be Supreme Court justice, even once sentenced an Israeli president (a Jew) to prison.

Israel is the furthest thing from an apartheid state; and while Amnesty blames Israel for Palestinian misfortune, nearly all Palestinians remain under the governance of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, or Hamas in Gaza.

So when activist Yoseph Haddad, an Arab citizen of Israel, was invited to debate an Amnesty panelist, Amnesty allegedly refused to participate, asking for a Jew instead. If true, the gesture could reflect what appears to be Amnesty’s racism, intellectual dishonesty, and will to stifle reality.

Questions concerning Amnesty’s xenophobia reinvigorate recent memories of Amnesty’s last racial controversy, which emerged less than a year ago when its UK office released an internal investigation in 2021.

Accounts of behavior included “senior staff using the N-word;” black staff members having their capabilities “questioned consistently and without justification,” and dismissive behavior targeting the religiously minded and those from the southern hemisphere.

The organization that had to apologize for its “systemic racism” now resurfaces for having previously refused to join a global call to fight antisemitism.

In sum, Amnesty’s apartheid allegations have provoked much negative exposure, setting in motion a sequence of self-defeating developments that have exposed the organization’s bad-faith motives, intellectual dishonesty, internal racism, and dwindling credibility.

Sadly, the human rights cause will bear the brunt of Amnesty’s impropriety; and as a world in which human rights abuses abound, we must demand better from our leading NGOs.

Amnesty International's recent report is dangerous. This anti-Israel bias must be condemned. Proud to see so many friends demanding truth.https://t.co/IDnBEkFPY5
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 18, 2022

Israel ranks above Spain, Italy and US for democracy in new global index

In a “stunning rebuttal” to Amnesty’s claim that Israel is an apartheid state, the country has been ranked above Italy, Spain and the United States in a respected global index of democratic values.

Published this week, the latest edition of the annual Democracy Index from the prestigious Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) puts Israel in 23rd place in the world league table, out of 167.

It has 7.97 points out of a maximum of ten, just behind France (7.99 points) and Britain (8.1 points).

The result makes Israel by far the most democratic country in the Middle East, but also places it ahead of Spain, Portugal, Italy and the United States.

The world’s most democratic country is Norway, which the EIU awards 9.75 points. China comes in 148th with just 2.21 points and the bottom three are North Korea, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

The survey comes in the wake of a speech last weekend by the Arab MK and Israeli coalition minister Mansour Abbas at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), in which he warned it was wrong to use the term “apartheid” to describe Israel. He said: “I prefer to describe the reality in objective ways… I’m not trying to say you’re racist or the state is racist, or this is an apartheid state My role as a political leader is to try to bridge the gaps.”

The top US diplomat responsible for the Middle East until January 2021, David Schenker, last night welcomed the EIU report. The former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs said it amounts to a “stunning rebuttal” of Amnesty International’s recent claim that Israel is an “apartheid state” and has been since its foundation in 1948.

Mondoweiss: "Let's make Hebron Judenrein again!"

Hebron is the second holiest city to Jews. It has had a continuous Jewish presence from ancient times through today, with the exception of only 19 years when Jordan controlled the city. Jews there have been subjected to shootings, sniper attacks, boycotts and massacres, including the 1929 pogrom that murdered over sixty Jewish men, women and children in the most horrific ways. During the second intifada, Jews in Hebron were murdered by snipers, including ten month old Shalhevet Pas who was deliberately targeted in her baby stroller in 2001.

Now a Palestinian group together with hate site Mondoweiss are pushing the agenda of physically cleansing Jews from the city - fulfilling their Nazi desire to make areas "Judenrein."

We, as members of civil society in Hebron, call on our international partners to take action and join in the campaign Dismantle the Ghetto, evacuate the settlers out of Hebron.

Dismantle the ghetto? You mean, like, dismantling the Warsaw Ghetto? What happened to those Jews again?

The antisemitism is not even hidden here. The "open letter" not once refers to the Jewish connection to the city. It refers to the Tomb of the Patriarchs exclusively with the term created by Muslim usurpers, the "Ibrahimi Mosque." It doesn't mention that nearly all of Hebron is already Judenfrei.

Ethnic cleansing becomes a moral imperative to modern antisemites.

(h/t Andrew P)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

02/18 Links Pt2: Amnesty International should be ashamed; America’s future depends on our relationship with Israel; Dem Heavyweights Back BLM Bail Fund That Freed Would-Be Assassin

From Ian:

Danny Danon: Amnesty International should be ashamed

To apply the term "apartheid" to Israel in 2022, or ever, is literally to distort reality to fit a false narrative and stigmatize the Jewish state for a crime that it is not committing and has never committed throughout its history. One doesn't even need to rely on third-party sources to discover this. All those who wish to come to Israel and see the reality for themselves can do so.

Or perhaps they could listen to the truth from Bassam Eid, who said in response to the Amnesty International report: "As a Palestinian peace activist and founder of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, I am here to set the record straight. The international community is yet again lying about Israel. While it is not a perfect country, Israel is definitely not an apartheid state."

At the same time as Amnesty International falsely accuses Israel of crimes of which it is innocent, its report also entirely fails to mention that the situation of the residents of Gaza is entirely different from that of Israel's Arab citizens because the Gazan population is living under terrorist rule. The same applies to the Arabs who live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.

The situations of both are dire – due to their own leadership, not because of Israel. It is their leaders who subject them to poverty, unemployment and a lack of education. It is their leaders who flood their education systems with hate and incitement.

It is their leaders who disgracefully pay and glorify murderers when they mutilate, bomb and assassinate innocent Israeli citizens. It is their own leaders who keep them in a state of victimhood. I suggest that Amnesty International turn its attention to these crimes perpetrated by Hamas and the P.A.

Amnesty International, an organization that claims to campaign "for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all," has drafted a report that is nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to generate headlines through highly charged, erroneous language.

The only thing this report does is stir up hate and antisemitism and attempt to encourage the isolation of the innocent party, Israel. It does nothing to further progress or dialogue in the region.

By blaming Israel for crimes of which it is innocent, Amnesty International should be held responsible for enabling the real crimes to continue. The so-called "human rights" organization should thus be ashamed of itself.

America’s future depends on our relationship with Israel

We’re not the only nation in Western civilization to have politicians making poor choices regarding Israel and her descendants. We have watched in recent years as there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism in Britain, including within the Labour Party which has been the traditional home for Jewish voters, and all of this on a continent that should mind some extra caution given its history with antisemitism.

We all know where intolerance can lead if left unchecked, and that oppression and opposition to Jews is nothing new.

That being said, whether or not our politicians, professors and pundits leave Israel alone, I’ve got a feeling that Israel is going to be just fine.

After originally reaching their promised homeland, the people of the young nation were continually attacked by hostile tribes and other nations. In 722 BC, the Assyrians conquered northern Israel and deported its people. In 586 BC, Babylon conquered southern Israel and exiled its citizens. The Jews returned to their homeland 70 years later, but the Romans finally crushed them in AD 70, leaving them without a country for 1,878 years.

Even in the countries of their exile, the Jews were oppressed, denied rights, isolated in ghettos and persecuted. In 1933, there were nine million Jews living throughout Europe, but by 1945, two out of three European Jews had been gassed, beaten, starved to death or died of disease in Nazi concentration camps. The Holocaust led to the elimination of one-third of the world’s Jewish population.

Since 1948 and the establishment of the modern state of Israel, despite being hemmed in on all sides by hostile nations, and against all odds or human logic, Israel has survived all-out war and constant threats of domestic terrorism. The nation has been forced to maintain a continual state of warfare throughout its sixty-eight years of existence. Yet increasingly, the international press portrays Israel as an aggressor nation, an occupying force, a brutal regime afflicting poor and disenfranchised Palestinians who have had their land stolen out from under them.

Indeed many among the Palestinians genuinely want a peaceful resolution to the current conflict. But a Palestinian nationalism continues to thrive with its singular fixation: the death of Israel. The Palestinian leaders pay stipends to terrorists and their families who kill Israelis, financed in part by the Israel-hating regime of Iran.

Abraham Sion Faithfully Examines the Promises of the Promised Land

It is almost a cliché to note that today too many historians and laypeople erroneously look at history through modern lenses that distort the picture and prevent an honest understanding of historical events.

But many others still want to read about history through the lens of as it was, not as today’s talking heads would have it. For those folks, Abraham Sion’s “To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised?” is a breath of fresh air.

Sion’s book is over 400 pages of thorough but eminently readable legal and historical analysis of the key moments and documents that led to the creation of a Jewish State in the land in which it was reestablished.

From the late 19th-century origins of modern Zionism to the British White Papers of the 1930s, the book provides a wealth of fascinating details on the legal and political understandings of the times that underpinned documents from the Balfour Declaration to the Hussein-McMahon letters.

The importance of these details to today’s debates is correctly identified by Sion, who notes in the context of the constant attacks on Israel’s legitimacy by institutions like the United Nations:
“Only by ignoring or overlooking these original treaties and resolutions could the international community arrive at the decisions adopted incessantly by the United Nations and other international organizations. These fundamental truths are ignored by the international community, and they are treated as if they never existed.”

“To Whom Was The Promised Land Promised” is at its best when it is examining the terminology found in agreements and declarations. Sion not only provides contemporary documentary sources to clarify the original meanings, but he also includes the words of key personalities of the times. The views of important figures – such as Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Emir Feisal, Woodrow Wilson, and many others – are illustrated throughout in relation to the conferences, correspondences, and agreements in which they partook.

The book contains fascinating and thorough examinations of the debates and negotiations inside the British Cabinet, the San Remo Conference, the drafting of the Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne, the De Bunsen Committee, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Importantly, it does not treat these conversations and events as isolated from each other or unrelated, but rather as inter-connected and reinforcing.

Another dreaded "Talmudic ritual"

Palestinian media breathlessly reported this morning:

This morning, a settler performed a provocative Talmudic ritual at the Qattanin Gate, one of the gates of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

According to the official Wafa agency, a settler performed Talmudic rituals at Bab al-Qattanin, guarded by the occupation police, who prevented young men from passing through the gate to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Unfortunately, we are not privy to the exact nature of the Talmudic ritual that so scandalized the Arabs.

Did he perform a brit milah? Did he have a sheva brachot? Did he put on Tefillin? Did he build a sukkah?

Or maybe he made a blessing before drinking a Coke? Or perhaps he greeted one of the guards with a "Shalom Aleichem"?

We need to get to the bottom of this. The Israeli media is not doing their job.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

02/18 Links Pt1: David Singer: End the jaw-jaw – redraw the Israel-Jordan border; Caroline Glick: Biden's 'victory' against Putin; West is on verge of signing 'surrender pact' with Iran

From Ian:

David Singer: End the jaw-jaw – redraw the Israel-Jordan border

The UN Security Council needs to urgently activate the following Plan B:

Call on Israel and the PLO to negotiate on the basis of Trump’s Plan – and in default of their agreeing to do so

Call on Israel and Jordan to redraw their current agreed international boundary - designated in the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace Treaty - by dividing sovereignty in Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') and Gaza between their two States - based on Trump’s Plan

About 70% of these territories will in either scenario be returned to Arab sovereignty after an absence of 55 years. No Arab or Jew will have to leave his current home.

The UN is charged under Article 1 of its own Charter:
“To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace”

Time for the UN to end the jaw-jaw and facilitate redrawing the Israel-Jordan border using Trump’s Plan.

Melanie Phillips: The lethal miscalculations over Vladimir Putin

Others in the West have fallen into the same trap of believing that a deal with Putin was in their own country’s interests. Thus Germany agreed to Nord Stream, the gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, which was in turn green-lighted by U.S. President Joe Biden—until Russian aggression revealed even to Biden that the pipeline enabled Putin to weaponize gas supplies against the West.

Russia was also viewed as a bulwark against China. But Putin has made a strategic alliance with China’s president Xi Jinping, both of them having decided that culturally riven America under its wobbly president is now a busted flush unprepared to do what it takes to resist their aggression.

In other words, my enemy’s enemy may not be my friend but may still be my enemy. But those desperate to believe that swords can be turned into plowshares fall into the trap of wishful thinking.

That’s why the West is regularly played for a sucker by regimes that are inherently far weaker from economic mismanagement and corruption, such as Russia or Iran.

Their power lies in two things: that while they perceive Western states are no longer prepared to fight and die for their country and its culture, Russia and Iran—driven by nationalism or religious fanaticism—very much are.

So, too, is Israel, which knows what it stands for, recognizes its enemies and behaves as if war is just round the corner—which, alas, it so often is.

But even hard-boiled Israel has wobbled, with lethal consequences. During the Oslo process, it allowed itself to believe that the Palestinian Arab leader Yasser Arafat had abandoned terrorism for peace, embraced the “two-state solution” and was bringing the long nightmare of never-ending war to an end.

This lethal miscalculation not only led to the Second Intifada and the murder of more than 1,300 Israelis. It also meant that Israel seemed to sign up to the Palestinian Arab falsehood that this was a dispute over land boundaries rather than a war against its very existence.

Ever since, while the West has believed this falsehood, Israel—trapped by its terrible Oslo error—has been unable to convince the world that it has always been defending itself against the threat of extermination.

Because of this threat, Israel has always been forced to ally itself with unpleasant governments whose support is crucial to Israel’s defense. It has held its nose and done those deals because it is driven above all by the need to survive.

By contrast, the West can no longer agree within itself what exactly it is worth surviving for. That’s why Putin won’t be the last to run rings around it as it feebly flaps its hands.

Caroline Glick: Biden's 'victory' against Putin

Biden's dismissal of a US-Russian war as a possible outcome of a Russian invasion is not a function of any anti-war predisposition on his part. It is a function of four considerations, which are not subject to change.

First, the US public is unprepared and unwilling to go to war against Russia. With 53% of Americans opposing US involvement in the Ukraine crisis, a presidential decision to go to war is unthinkable.

Second, the US has no formal commitment to defend Ukraine's independence. For nearly 20 years, successive administrations have worked behind the scenes to block any possibility of Ukrainian membership in NATO because they don't want to be formally committed to protecting Ukraine from Russia.

This then brings us to the third reason the US will not take up arms to defend Ukraine. While the US national interest is advanced by an independent Ukraine willing to stand up to Russia and welcomes the US and the EU as allies, that interest cannot compete with the US interest in avoiding war with Russia. And as a result, it is against the US's national interest to wage war for Ukraine.

Finally, the US has a limited military capacity to fight a ground war in Ukraine against Russia. Russia has 150,000 troops deployed along its border with Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin can manage their logistical supply lines because they are in Russia.

The US has neither the forces nor the will to send tens of thousands of soldiers to Ukraine to fight the Russian army. It cannot compete.

So far from rebuilding US credibility on the world stage after his Afghanistan debacle, Biden's empty threats of world war have exposed America's weakness and the hollowness of the US's commitment to its allies.

Biden hasn't only been bluffing about the prospect of world war. He is also bluffing about sanctions. Biden said Tuesday that if Russia invades Ukraine, the US will impose sanctions on "key industries" in Russia. But just as his talk of World War III was entirely empty, so his threats of sanctions have no foundation in reality.

The Caroline Glick Show Ep39 - What Game is Biden playing with Ukraine and Iran? | Guest: David Wurmser

In this week’s show, Caroline was joined by David Wurmser in Washington, DC to discuss the ramifications of Joe Biden’s brinksmanship with Russia on Ukraine for America’s continued superpower status and for NATO. They then moved from Ukraine to Iran and the implications of the administration’s abandonment of all red lines in favor of a deal at all costs. They spoke in detail as well about former Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif’s recent claim that Rob Malley’s underling laundered Iran’s draft nuclear deal, presented it as his own work and then had Malley get the Obama administration to adopt it as the basis for negotiations.

Caroline Glick: 'Biden’s Foreign Policy is Juvenile'

Editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin discusses the Ukraine crisis and the decline of American influence as well as the connection to appeasement of Iran.

He’s then joined by journalist Caroline Glick who discusses the failures of the Biden administration and the current Israeli government and the way she believes they are endangering the West and the Jewish state.

Fatah has rejected Australia's designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

In a statement released today, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement expressed its rejection of designating Hamas as a terrorist faction from anyone in the world.

Osama al-Qawasmi, spokesperson for the Fatah Revolutionary Council, said that the Palestinian people, with all their components and factions, are struggling for freedom, justice and national independence.

Of course, Fatah hates Hamas. It has been engaging in a battle against Hamas. In recent years, it has cut off electricity from Gaza, it has stopped giving permits to patients who wanted to leave Gaza for medical reasons, and it has cut off funding to Gaza.

A few years ago, Fatah head and PA president Mahmoud Abbas called Hamas a terrorist organization himself.

But when it comes down to it, Fatah considers Hamas an ally, and Hamas terrorism is a critical component of the Palestinian strategy. It is a "good cop, bad cop" dynamic, where the West happily talks to Fatah as the non-violent side (despite its continued support for its own terrorist wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades). Hamas terror attacks sometimes get condemned by Fatah and the PA to maintain the facade but, as this announcement proves, they are on the same side.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Horseshoe theory proven again: Far-Right antisemites adopting far-Left language

Yesterday, antisemitic flyers were distributed in Fort Myers, FL, part of a wave of such flyers placed in plastic bags around the United States.

Other incidents in recent days occurred in Helotes TX, Austin TX, Atascocita TX, Huntington Beach CA, Vancouver WA, Eugene OR, and Sarasota FL.

It is an inexpensive way for far-Right antisemites to get publicity with no risk. In most communities, distributing hate speech is not a crime, and some of the flyers say that they are distributed randomly in order to forestall the charge that they are targeting Jews.

The Fort Myers flyers are a bit different than the others, though. While the usual flyers list out Jews who supposedly control the media or the White House or the "Covid agenda," this one uses the language of the Left.

It says "Anti-semitism is a human right." This echoes the far-Left tropes that everything they like is a human right (on Valentine's Day, "love" was claimed to be a human right) while anything they don't like is an attack on human rights. In such a universe, it would be difficult for the antisemites on the Left to argue that hate is not a human right.

It also claims to support Whoopi Goldberg's statements on The View, which is ironic because the same people happily admit that their hate for Jews is based on race, the opposite of what Goldberg said. But these white supremacists now claim to support a Black woman - echoing how the far-Left will respond to any criticism of their positions said by a member of a minority group by claiming that the critics are racist or Islamophobic.

Of course, the only thing the haters like about Whoopi Goldberg is that she upset Jews, which also is echoed in far-Left discourse: they will support any cause that aligns with their hate of Israel to the point of claiming that terrorism is legitimate under international law and that people who support Jewish self-determination are racists.

For both sides, the hate is primary. Facts and "rights" can be twisted to support their hate.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!