Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 04, 2022

Saudi ruler: "Israel is a potential ally"

Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown price and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman has said that the kingdom does not look at Israel as an “enemy,” as he called for “coexistence” between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“For us, we hope that the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is solved. We don't look at Israel as an enemy, we look to them as a potential ally, with many interests that we can pursue together. But we have to solve some issues before we get to that,” Bin Salman said in an interview with U.S. magazine The Atlantic, according to an English-language transcript published by the official Saudi news agency SPA.

Perhaps the most important part of this is the fact that this was published by the Saudis themselves.

The Atlantic article did not have this quote. The transcript came from the official Saudi news agency. Which means that the Saudis weren't playing the game of "tell the Western reporters what they want" - they went out of their way to ensure that the world saw this message that Israel and Saudi Arabia are not enemies and have a lot of similar goals.

The audience for this statement is the Arab world, the Saudi people and Iran, which he also said he desires good relations with.

Four years ago, also to the Atlantic, Mohammed bin Salman surprised the world by saying that Israelis have a right to their own land (although the question was about Jews.) Now it is taken for granted. The speed of the change has been astonishing.

Is he softening up his people for peace with Israel? Does he really think that the Palestinians will accept peace with Israel, or is he planning to give up on them? His wording leaves open the possibility of either.

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

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Here is every statement by PA president Mahmoud Abbas since Russia invaded Ukraine:

Condolences to former National Assembly Speaker Salim al-Zanoun (Abu al-Adeeb) on his sister's death

Condolences to the parents of a teen killed during a violent protest

Congratulations to the Emir of Kuwait on their independence day

Condolences on the death of a "brigadier general" in Gaza

Congratulations to the Dominican Republic president on their independence day

Condolences to a "major general" on the death of his son

Congratulations to the president of Bosnia and Herzegovina on their independence day

A meeting with UNRWA representatives and affirming the importance of that organization

Congratulations to the president of Bulgaria on its independence day

Not a word of concern, let alone condemnation, of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Likewise, the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs has been completely silent about Ukraine.

The PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh didn't completely ignore Ukraine in his statements. Last Friday evening, he called the Palestinian envoy to Ukraine to check on the safety of 2500 Palestinians there. And during his normal weekly cabinet meeting, he said that he is monitoring the developments there and that many Palestinians managed to escape.

As the entire world condemned Russia, the PA has remained silent.

Silence is assent.

I noted on Twitter that there are a lot of similarities between how Russia has acted during this invasion and how the Palestinian leadership always acts:

* Accusing the other side of being "Nazis"

* Accusing the other side of "genocide"

* Censoring local media

* Claiming that a UN-member nation is really part of their territory

* Lying as a strategy

Of course, the Palestinian propaganda strategy was largely created by the Soviet Union and Russians are masters at propaganda.

Palestinian leaders want to be considered part of the community of nations. Yet in every single conflict since World War II, they have sided with the dictatorships, the despots and the violators of human rights. From Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Moammar Qaddafi to Iran to Venezuela, you see warm relations and support.

Mahmoud Abbas and Vladimir Putin were employed by the KGB at the same time, and Abbas led a Palestinian-Soviet friendship foundation.

The only thing stopping Abbas from publicly supporting Putin is that he still gets significant funding from Western European nations who would be very upset at such support. But ideologically, the PLO leadership and the Russians are on the same page, and always have been.

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Here are parts of an abstract of an academic paper, "Vegan nationalism?: the Israeli animal rights movement in times of counter-terrorism," published in Settler Colonial Studies.

In recent years, the movement advocating animal rights and welfare (animal rights movement), in parallel with the practice of ethical veganism, has become increasingly significant in Israel. Along with this trend, several studies examine and analyze the colonial aspects of the Israeli animal rights movement and its relevance to the Palestinian issue from the perspective of Critical Animal Studies. Critically examining preceding studies on veganism and colonialism, through analysis of the political discourses of leading activists and public figures within the newly popular Israeli vegan trend, as well as interviews with a sample of Israeli vegans, this article will demonstrate how veganism in Israel is associated with a narrative of Israeli national superiority. Such discourses may well be called ‘vegan nationalism'. Vegan nationalism is a discursive and regulatory framework in which veganism is considered proof of the moral superiority of a nation in a settler colonialist context, implicitly stressing the barbarism and backwardness of the ‘terrorists’.

The paper has way too many logical fallacies to list, but here is one particularly egregious example:

In her writings, Israeli animal rights activist, Shira Hertzanu, has highlighted the seemingly paradoxical fact that, in recent years, the animal rights movement in Israel (widely assumed to be leftist) has made great strides and gained more popularity even as Israeli society, itself, has grown increasingly rightist. Interviews I conducted mirror many of Gilboa’s statements, asserting vegans in contemporary Israeli society are not limited to leftists, but encompass the entire political spectrum, including those who identify as politically right or right-wing. As Hannah, one of my interviewees, expressed it, ‘animal rights is [sic] not something political, okay? Basically, it’s not something political. ..'

According to Esther Alloun, decoupling and denying any association with political issues such as Palestinian injustice ‘is also practised by activists from the Zionist Left who tend to be liberal and progressive on a range of issues except Palestine. As such, this reveals the culture of silencing based on the ongoing practices of denial and indifference, that sustain the single optic underpinning the AR movement.’ The intersectional leftist solidarity movement’s decoupling of animal rights from any polarizing, controversial issues (especially the Palestinian issue) not only frames the animal rights movement as non-political or political-free, but also contributes to the emergence of right-wing vegans and animal rights activists, such as Tal Gilboa and Yair Netanyahu, who view animal rights issues as evidence of Israel’s national supremacy in the context of the ongoing ‘war on terror’.

The author clearly is upset - vegans are supposed to be leftist and care about other intersectional issues. The very existence of right-wing vegans challenges that view and is therefore suspect: they don't care about animals, they just want to "vegan-wash" their racism.

While on the one hand the author is upset that Israeli vegans are often not active animal rights activists at the same time, on the other s/he is upset that right wingers can be vegans altogether, and assumes that their goal is to prove that Israel is more ethical than its Arab neighbors who want to see it annihilated. Instead of being happy that fewer animals are being killed, the author wants veganism to be political - as long as it is left-wing.

Life is so much easier when you can divide people up into good and bad based on their choice of foods.

The paper is filled with such contradictions.

What is particularly striking is the statements above make repeated, specific references in which ‘terrorists’ are equated with animals, lower and less than, not worthy of the respect and legitimacy afforded human beings. Even former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has, in recent years, spoken of his compassion for animals and appointed Tal Gilboa as his animal rights advisor, expressed sentiments similar to those detailed above responding, as follows, to the November 2014 Jerusalem synagogue attack, ‘The human animals who perpetrated this slaughter were full of hatred and incitement, deep hatred and terrible incitement against the Jewish people and its state.’ Shira Hertzanu explained the rhetoric of such statements saying, ‘in order to justify their claimed superiority, Israeli nationalists aim to lower Palestinians to an animal level,’ categorizing them as subhuman, thereby abrogating the need to accord them even the most basic treatment and consideration under the framework of (human) rights.

Calling terrorists "animals" might be offensive to animal rights activists because the term is meant to be demeaning. But the author is saying that Netanyahu called all Palestinians "terrorists" and therefore justifies treating them as less than human - which is not at all what he said or believes.

Could it be that veganism has become more popular for other reasons and Zionist vegans are simply...vegans? Nope.

Some might attribute the recent, very significant increase in the right-wing presence in the veganism movement to the fact that as veganism transitioned from a small movement, populated primarily by a relatively tiny group of like-minded left-wing individuals, to a huge full-fledged national movement enjoying an immense following. The surge in the number of participants was accompanied by an increase in the sociopolitical diversity of those participants resulting in the quite noticeable growth in the number of right-wing vegans. Such an explanation, however, is far too facile and fails to consider the significance of how animal friendliness in Israel discursively works in favor of the nationalist framework of moral supremacy

This is just more proof that if you look hard enough for something, you can find it.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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

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03/03 Links Pt2: Danny Ayalon: Why Israel Must Fight the Legal Wars Waged Against It; European MEPs Will Fight EU’s Funding of PA’s Illegal Takeover of Area C

From Ian:

Danny Ayalon: Why Israel Must Fight the Legal Wars Waged Against It

Unlike the peace treaties that Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan, its conflict with the Palestinians is not about changes to territorial borders, and therefore cannot be resolved in this manner.

While exchanging territory for peace worked with Jordan and Egypt, with the Palestinians, this would not lead to the same result. The Palestinian aspiration remains to replace all of Israel with an Arab-Muslim state. This is illustrated in textbooks in Palestinian Authority (PA) schools that make no differentiation between Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Jaffa, or Haifa. Hamas relays this same ideology day and night.

As a result, the conflict spans military, terrorist, and economic arenas. It includes actions such as the organization of boycott movements — a potent weapon that the Palestinians have sought to employ against Israel.

The political-legal arena is a vital dimension in this conflict. The Palestinians would, if they could, eject Israel from all international institutions, and place it under sanctions.

This political-legal war is being waged at the Hague, the United Nations, UNICEF, and UNESCO. All of these efforts are part of the political war to combat Israel, isolate it politically, and create opportunities for a future economic or military assault against it when conditions are ripe.

On this front, unfortunately, there is no daylight between the PA and Hamas, even though IDF protects the PA from being toppled by Hamas in the territories, as it was in Gaza in 2007.

Without Israel’s security presence in areas B and C of the territories, the PA would have vanished long ago, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas would have been thrown out of power in Ramallah by Hamas.

When talking about international institutions, it is vital to understand that the Palestinians enjoy a relative advantage over Israel, as opposed to in the economic, military, and technological arenas, where Israel has the upper hand.

This is because the Palestinians have an automatic majority in international organizations. Two-thirds of the UN’s 193 member states are non-democratic states. Dozens are members of the Organization of Islamic States or are dependent on Arab oil.

Before even placing a condemnation resolution on the table, the Palestinian Authority already has a majority to utilize. It receives on-demand anti-Israel resolutions whenever it so wants them.

U.S. Returns to UN Human Rights Council, Rejects Commission of Inquiry Against Israel

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday on the occasion of the U.S. rejoining the Council. After discussing the Russian attack on Ukraine, Blinken added, "We will continue to counter anti-Israel bias and the unfair and disproportionate focus on Israel on the Council. The Commission of Inquiry and standing Agenda Item 7 [on Israel] are a stain on the Council's credibility, and we strongly reject them."

European MEPs Will Fight EU’s Funding of PA’s Illegal Takeover of Area C

European Members of Parliaments from the Netherlands and Belgium have announced they will battle the European Union’s (EU) massive financing of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) illegal takeover of Area C in Judea and Samaria.

Area C is under full Israeli control as per the Oslo Accords and has been subjected to a campaign conducted by the PA to gain control of the area, a campaign financed by the EU and almost uncontested by the Israeli government.

Samaria Council Chairman Yossi Dagan met with MEP Koen Metsu of Belgium and Dutch MEP Gidi Markuszower and agreed to establish the Judea and Samaria lobby and fight the EU’s financing of the PA’s campaign in area C.

Dugan presented them with data showing the EU’s funding of a half-billion dollars of the PA’s illegal construction in Area C, as well as funding for the “Settler Violence” incitement campaign against Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. The MEPs were shocked by the data presented to them and promised to act on the issue.

Markuszower said after the meeting with Dagan that the EU “funds terrorist organizations that steal territories and build illegal structures in Area C. This must stop, as this is the illegal theft of territories belonging to Israel. The Palestinian Authority is stealing territories, and this situation must stop. This illegal act is detrimental to peace.”

“We talked about the EU, which includes the Netherlands, which unfortunately funds terrorist organizations and Palestinians who actually kill peace. We want to promote peace, to invest more in positive actions, as Yossi Dagan does in Samaria. We hope we can influence the EU to change its investments, and create real peace, not terrorism against Israeli citizens,” he underscored.

Metsu expressed concern over the situation Dagan presented and said that “Palestinian houses being built without permits, I think it is just shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Headlines with the Haddads - Lebanon, UNRWA, and the UK

On this episode of Headlines with the Haddads, Emily and Yoseph discuss the Lebanese economic meltdown, the problem of Palestinian refugees with Dr. Einat Wilf, and sit down with Israeli Ambasador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely to discuss UK antisemitism and UK-Israel relations.

Pinsker Center Podcast: Ep. 16 - Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran - the Holy Trinity of Israel Hostility

In this week's podcast, Policy Fellows Michelle, Marina and Jordan discuss the most pressing security concerns facing Israel.

Hassan Asfour was a key aide to Mahmoud Abbas in the 90s and helped negotiate Oslo II. He's written articles for major journals and became a foe of the peace process. He is now editor of Amad, a Palestinian political news site. His character is portrayed in the HBO film Oslo.

He latest editorial proves that he is an antisemite, too.

Trying to equate Russia with Israel, he mentions US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken three times - always describing him as "the Jew Blinken."

Seems a little odd.

But that isn't quite enough to prove he is an antisemite. This paragraph is:

The cry of theatrical actor Zelensky, "Jews of the world, save me." A call that replaced national affiliation with religious affiliation... Such words assert that he is not a president of a country but an employee of a gang!

There you have it. Being a proud Jew makes you a gang member, answering only to the Elders.

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

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Amnesty Apartheid Investigators To Take Vacay Until Next Israel Report Needed (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

London, March 4 - Researchers from a prominent international human rights organization informed journalists today that now that their work determining the existence of a race-based system of discrimination in the Jewish State has concluded for the time being, the group will go on hiatus from examining countries for instances of the phenomenon, that is unless anyone else needs them to take a look at what Jews are doing again.

Amnesty International's Apartheid Investigation Department told reporters that they will take it easy for the foreseeable future, given that no one of consequence has expressed interest in finding Apartheid anywhere but Israel. Lead investigator Ann Tissemitt told reporters Monday that she and her team plan to spend the next several years gallivanting various places, because their services appear unneeded for at least that long.

"I've always wanted to visit Myanmar," she confessed. "Doing so in an official Amnesty capacity would be problematic, given the whole implication of our investigating Apartheid, and I need not tell you that Myanmar has been a candidate for that designation for years now, specifically with regard to the Rohingya Muslim minority. But as a private individual, all bets are off. I can't wait. Following that. I might go to Turkish-occupied north Cyprus, which I hear is lovely all year round, and affordable, too. Also blessedly free of international political controversy despite the occupation, because no Jews. "

"China is the place for me, at first," added her deputy, Khaybar Khaybar. "I want to visit Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, places that have been in the news but I haven't had a chance to see firsthand. I hear good things, I mean at least in terms of the tourist perspective. Beautiful vistas, for example. Not gonna get into awkward issues if I'm just a tourist and I don't ask the wrong questions." Khaybar also noted that he has long wanted to spend time in Lebanon to connect with distant relatives in Palestinian refugee camps, but the security and economic situation there makes that proposition dicey, and that his hopes for an economical stay with those relatives have been dashed now that the Hezbollah-dominated government has reneged on a proposal to expand what professions and education Palestinian "guests" may pursue, putting a damper on his relatives' capacity to host him.

"But there's plenty of time for things to get better," he offered. "Especially since they don't face outside pressure to change things at the wrong pace and just destabilize everything. Such pressure can be so destructive, no matter how well-meaning."

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

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03/03 Links Pt1: The Lessons for Israel from Russia's War on Ukraine; Darkest days of Ukraine invasion lie ahead, U.S. and European officials say

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: The Lessons for Israel from Russia's War on Ukraine

The courageous conduct of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has personally led the defense of his country rather than fleeing for his life as most people expected he would do, has turned the former comedian into an unlikely 21st-century Jewish hero. In the last decade, Russia became a Middle East power. With American acquiescence, Russia became, along with Iran, a full-fledged combatant in the Syrian civil war. With the brutal use of military might now being employed in Ukraine, the Russians enabled their ally, Assad, to prevail in a war that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and rendered another five million homeless.

The Russians remain the dominant force in Syria, making Putin a powerful neighbor to Israel, rather than just an international symbol of tyranny and aggression. It is only via the good graces of the Russians that the Israel Defense Forces is able to have the freedom to strike at Iranian forces and those of its Hizbullah terrorist auxiliaries in Syria.

Most Jews are rooting for Zelensky to somehow avoid the fate that usually befalls those who are forced into fights with ruthless and militarily powerful neighbors. However the war in Ukraine turns out, it is a warning to small countries to reject the notion that their safety can depend on international guarantees.

The 1994 agreement in which Ukraine surrendered the nuclear weapons it inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union involved both Russia and the U.S. guaranteeing its independence. It's not just that Putin couldn't be trusted to abide by that pact. It's that the U.S. can't be relied upon to stand by its allies.

Just as important, the Biden administration is currently embarking on a policy of appeasement of Iran. With a new and even weaker nuclear deal, Israel is faced with a situation in which its sole superpower ally is prepared to enrich and empower a regime that poses an existential threat to the existence of the Jewish state.

Israelis know how fickle international opinion can be when it comes to a country's right to defend itself. Everyone likes underdogs - something that generated support for the Jewish state's efforts to defend its existence in the past, when many military analysts thought it could not survive Arab efforts to wipe it out in its early years. Israelis have learned that they must forget about being popular, so long as they are strong enough to resist campaigns aimed at their destruction.

Seems like a good time to re-up my 2014 piece on why the unassailable legal argument for Ukrainian sovereignty over ethnic Russian regions in Ukraine are exactly the same as for Israeli sovereignty of Judea & Samaria. https://t.co/7ODw23SRsD
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) March 3, 2022

Ruthie Blum: Putin’s move to undermine the woke West

NO KIDDING. He just forgot to mention his own part in Russia’s past and ongoing repression against oppositionists. Nevertheless, he had the nerve to express relief that “what we are witnessing now… in a number of Western countries… we have left, I hope, in the distant past.”

For example, he continued, “the fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past – such as Shakespeare – are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood, memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what color or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”

And he ought to know.

Reiterating his disgust with cancel culture and the obsessive emphasis on race, he invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech about skin color versus character. And then he turned to the Western zealots who ostracize anyone who “dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact,” or who refer to fathers and mothers as “parent number one and parent number two,” while calling breast milk “human milk, because [not doing so] might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender.”

As for the “truly monstrous things [that] children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa,” it “verges on a crime against humanity, and is being done in the name and under the banner of progress.”

AS IF his appropriation of traditional Western civilization weren’t cheeky enough, Putin stunningly invoked George Orwell’s anti-communist novel 1984 by saying that “in the 1920s, the so-called Soviet Kulturträgers also invented some newspeak [the fictional language of the totalitarian super-state Oceana], believing they were creating a new consciousness and changing values that way.”

Putin clearly didn’t expect the West, weakened by wokeness, to react to his Ukraine incursion with such rhetorical vigor, let alone by increasing defense spending and uniting to impose sanctions of all kinds on his regime and its oligarchs. But his miscalculation didn’t stem from stupidity.

In fact, given the great success of the very Soviet agitprop of which he spoke, there was a sad logic to his trying to strike while the iron was hot. He seems to have imagined that democratic societies in the throes of a moral and spiritual crisis would be ripe for the picking.

As a country in constant peril from Iran and its auxiliaries, Israel can’t afford to be the one proving him wrong. Whether the rest of the West is really receiving a wakeup call about its need to cherish and fight for genuine freedom, rather than distort the meaning of the concept and destroy itself from within, remains to be seen. Biden’s desperate push for a deal with Iran certainly doesn’t bode well.

JCPA: Ukraine's President Zelensky Is Winning the Narrative Campaign

The war between Russia and Ukraine has a military dimension, in which Ukraine, with limited Western assistance, mainly in the realm of intelligence, tries to make the most of the natural advantages that being the defending side in a conventional war inevitably confer.

Furthermore, this war has a significant political-security dimension, centering on the long-term consequences for the balance of power between the liberal West (of which Israel is a part), and the West's autocratic adversaries (Russia, China, and their proxies) and ideological enemies (radical Islam, especially Iran).

Even if he may soon be defeated and perhaps even lose his life, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has succeeded in winning the campaign for the narrative through personal example, determined and exhilarating messages, and leveraging the heroic conduct and sacrifice of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

If Zelensky succeeds, against the odds, he can position Ukraine and himself as an example of fighting for freedom and present Ukraine as a role model for other nationalities, especially in Russia's environment and perhaps even within Russia. Therefore, it is clear how great a danger Zelensky's moves constitute in Putin's eyes.

By Forest Rain

Russia - Ukraine war: abuse of Holocaust memory and other politically incorrect thoughts

I work in a privately owned Israeli company founded by immigrants from Ukraine. Half the employees are Ukrainian-born Israelis. The others are from Russia (barring a handful of Israeli-born Israelis).

Many of the faces I see throughout the day are drawn and weary. People worried sick about elderly parents who did not make Aliyah. Worried about friends and extended family members currently in the war zone.

War is a terrible thing. Being helpless when people you care about are under attack is gut-wrenchingly awful. My heart goes out to all who are suffering during this truly difficult time.

And yet…

I have a big problem with the way the news cycle has turned to Ukraine. My social media platforms are filled with solidarity posts. Mainstream Israeli media is focused 24/7 on Ukraine. The comparisons with World War II and the Holocaust seem to be plastered all over the international media. Jewish and Holocaust-centered propaganda has been used by Russia (calling Ukrainians Nazis), by Ukraine (saying that Russia is killing Holocaust victims again by bombing Babi Yar) and by Jewish advocacy networks putting a spotlight on the Jews/Israelis caught in the crossfire of this war.

Frankly, I’m disgusted.

No Jews, no news?
This isn’t our war. We have enough wars of our own. This one has absolutely nothing to do with Jews or Israel. Any Jews who are hurt, injured, or suffer in any way from this war were not targeted because they are Jews. The Russians don’t care that they are Jews or might also carry Israeli citizenship. The Russians don’t care that there are sites connected to Jewish history in Ukraine either. They care that they are in the middle of a war aimed at conquering a country. People get killed in wars. Armies target significant sites in the enemy territory to inflict damage to infrastructure, create terror and/or damage tourism. It is Ukraine that is under attack, not Jews.

This war is NOTHING like the Holocaust

Bombs on Babi Yar do not “kill Holocaust victims a second time.” Preventing the grandchildren of Holocaust victims from protecting ourselves when WE are under attack DOES.

Neither Russians nor Ukrainians have ANY right to invoke Holocaust comparisons.

The Ukrainians were notorious for their glee in taking part in pogroms and murdering Jews. The Russians, who did fight the Nazis didn’t do so to save Jews. Today the Russians are not trying to exterminate the Ukrainians, they are trying to conquer land. The Russian army is known for indiscriminate bombing and being free and easy with civilian casualties and yet we’ve seen much footage of Russian tanks being stopped by Ukrainian civilians. It would be easy for a genocidal army to simply bulldoze those people. The Russian soldiers don’t because they don’t want to.

Buildings have been bombed. People have been killed. That is horrible BUT IT’S NOT GENOCIDE.

Genocide is what happened to the Yazidis when ISIS attempted to exterminate their ancient culture, slaughtering men, women, and children – and selling the women and children who survived into sex slavery. Genocide is what is happening to the Uyghurs in China. Genocide is what happened in Rwanda. In Cambodia. To the Armenians.

Anyone invoking the terminology of genocide in connection to the very conventional war between Russia and Ukraine should be ashamed of themselves.

Ukrainian refugees are nothing like Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.
Harrowing as their experiences were and are, Ukrainian refugees, have friendly countries on their borders to escape to. It’s difficult to be exhausted, scared, and worried about your future, property and family left behind. That’s nothing compared to starving, with no one to turn to, no country, no protection, and no friends in the world.

Israeli refugees are perhaps the luckiest of them all. Our government begged Israelis and Jews to leave. Now our representatives are in all possible locations pulling Jews out of the chaos, bringing them to safety. This is nothing short of a miracle.

It’s also, to a certain extent, an abuse of Jewish Holocaust memory. On one hand, it is difficult to get up and leave your home and country when danger is coming. On the other, that’s exactly the point – how many people of those being rescued by Israel are actually Jewish? If you feel that Ukraine is your country, are not Jewish according to the religious definition, have no connection to Israel or anything related to Jewish tradition or culture, do I need to care that you might have had a Jewish grandfather?

Israel DOES care because we go by the same guidelines Hitler did to define who was Jewish enough to be murdered when determining who has the right to make Aliyah. If Hitler would have murdered you for being Jewish, you can become a citizen of the only Jewish state on earth.

For Israel, all lives matter isn’t a slogan. We truly believe that do everything we can to protect lives – including those of our enemies. At the same time, we are a tiny country with limited resources, and we cannot take care of others before taking care of our own. Israel is the homeland and only safe haven in the world for JEWS. We are proud to rescue Jews from all corners of the earth. We cherish every member of our tribe. If the individual in question doesn’t care about Israel or being Jewish, do we really need to give them a free ride, sanctuary, and all the benefits of new immigrants?

Insisting that Israel take sides
America wants Israel to take sides. Russia wants the same. On one hand, Ukraine is the obvious underdog, attacked because the stronger party could - and we all have immediate sympathy for the underdog. On the other, Russia has its own logic for attacking (keeping the West off their borders and taking back what they believe belongs to them).

Israel understands what it is like for innocent civilians, under attack. At the same time, it is Russia on our border, not America, holding back the Iranian proxies. It is Russia who looks the other way while we prevent Iranian proxies from gathering more arms against us. It is Russia who can make it near impossible for Israel to protect herself, should Russia choose – and in the meantime, it is America racing to embrace Iran with agreements not worth the paper they are written on. Iran, who has promised actual genocide against Israel. Not the fake genocide both Ukraine and Russia are accusing each other of. None of the players pushing Israel to take sides have any interest in Israeli lives, they are only using us as a pawn in the proxy war between America and Russia. Ukraine utilizing Holocaust memory and propaganda in Hebrew to guilt Israel into standing with them is not much better although perhaps can be excused because they are searching for all the help they can get in their fight for freedom. As far as I am concerned, the only side Israel needs to take is ours.

While the media is focused on Ukraine, what are they not telling us?
The media shapes reality by what they choose to show the public, how the content is framed, and by what they choose NOT to show. While eyes are on Ukraine, who is paying attention to Iran? A nuclear Iran is a threat to the entire Middle East and Europe, not just Israel.

In Israel, this war provides a convenient excuse for our media to not cover many uncomfortable and critical issues including dangerous lack of sovereignty and frightening levels of corruption in our police and judiciary system. Every country has different challenges but everywhere the question remains the same – while they are focused on Ukraine, what are they not telling me that I need to know?

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

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This video shows how workers in Ashdod found thousands of bullets hidden in insulation material headed for an importer in Gaza.

Unfortunately we don't know the name of the exporter responsible for this, or what country it came from. But it shows how Hamas exploits Israel's allowing materials into Gaza to try to bring in weapons and ammunition.

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

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The vast majority of UN General Assembly Emergency Special Session meetings have been to bash Israel

The UN General Assembly held an Emergency Special Session to deal with the Ukraine crisis, starting on February 28.

The media and the UN says that these sessions are extraordinarily rare, and that this is only the eleventh UNGA Emergency Special Session since the UN was founded 76 years ago.

But that is misleading.

Of the first ten Emergency Special Sessions, five of them were dedicated to bashing Israel: the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th.

But two of these are quite anomalous.

The 7th Emergency Special Session was convened on 22-29 July 1980. But it didn't end there. Unlike all previous Special Sessions, it had four additional meetings starting two years later, in 1982. When it first adjourned in 1980, the backers of the anti-Israel bashfest said it was adjourning "temporarily" with the intent of being able to reconvene whenever they want to attack Israel again without the bureaucratic hassle of voting to convene a new Emergency Special Session.

When the 7th Emergency Special Session "reconvened" in 1982, US Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick noted that this completely circumvented the normal rules of the UN, and bluntly gave the reason why as part of a great speech that exposed the UN's hypocrisy:

[W]ho among us sincerely believes that the exercise in which we are now engaged – this "resumed" emergency special session – will take us closer to that goal [of peace]?

Who among us believes that the cause of peace is served by still another round of bitter denunciations of Israel?

Who among us – I wonder – believes that peace is even the goal of this Assembly?

...[N]either this special session nor the draft resolution now circulating in the corridors is consistent with the purposes of the United Nations Charter. ...This special session is one more event in an ongoing process whose goals are to delegitimize a Member State – Israel – to deny it the right to self-defense, to secure borders, to survival.

This special session and its accompanying draft resolutions are one more clear example of a strategy whose goals and tactics are clear: use a United Nations body to make "official" demands incompatible with Israel's security and survival, so as then to be able to claim that non-compliance with these impossible demands "proves" Israel an international lawbreaker unworthy of membership in the international community of peace-loving States.

That is exactly the blueprint of the antisemites of the UN. And the proof can be seen in the 10th "Emergency Special Session," again against Israel, which has convened no less than sixteen times since 1997, the most recent being in 2018!

This means that the UN has convened not eleven but thirty meetings under the Emergency Special Session framework, and of those thirty, 24 have been dedicated to attacking Israel.

That's 80%.

As the UN meets now in its eleventh Emergency Special Session, two of the previous ones never ended. Both the seventh and tenth, against Israel, are only "temporarily adjourned."

UN condemnations of Russia become nearly meaningless when these simple facts show that the UN has been subverted a long time ago and proven to have no real interest in peace.

(h/t Irene)

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Palestinians freak out over the presence of Yehuda Glick

On Wednesday, Yehuda Glick - who advocates for equal access to the Temple Mount for Muslims and Jews - appeared at an event for German tourists in a Christian Bethlehem building called "Beit Al Liqa."

He took a selfie there with the Reverend Johnny Shahwan, director of Beit Al Liqa, and stood with the tourists for another photo.

After Glick posted his photo on social media, all hell broke loose.

The PLO Churches Committee issued a statement of condemnation, deploring Al Aiqa for doing something so amazingly awful as allowing a Jewish person who lives in a settlement to step foot in a Christian place:

Higher Presidential Committee for Churches Affairs in Palestine condemns and deplores the reception of the head of the Beit Al-Liqa Association in Beit Jala, Johnny Shahwan, of the Zionist extremist Yehuda Glick, the leader of the extremist organization “Haliba.”

This reception comes at a time when the Palestinian people are facing the violations of the occupation and its settlers for Christian and Islamic places of worship in Jerusalem.

The Committee affirms that, in cooperation with all the security services and legal authorities in the State of Palestine, it will take the necessary measures towards the institution.

Sending that they were in trouble, Bait al-Liqa issued a statement denying knowing who Glick was and this Christian institution insisted that they would never let a Zionist knowingly enter their hallowed location:

We were surprised today with the news circulating social media about a visit to an extremist settlement called Yehuda Glick to Bait al-Liqa, and we would like to clarify the following:
The Bait al-Liqa Foundation in the Hospitality House hosted a group of German guests, and part of their visit program was that Pastor Johnny Shehwan, Chairman of the Foundation, spoke about the activities of the Bait al-Liqa Foundation in serving the local Palestinian community. And at the end of Pastor Johnny's speech, suddenly, an unknown person entered, and we were only made aware today Wednesday through social media, that this person was the Zionist extremist "Yehuda Glick." At the end of the meeting, the leader of the German group asked for a group photo, this stranger came and stood next to Pastor Johnny and a brother with a "selfie" photo, the meeting ended and everyone left.
The institution confirms its lack of knowledge beforehand with the presence of this Zionist extremist, and was in no case part of the meeting program. Apparently this guy exploited his entrance to the meeting house for his suspicious goals, which we absolutely refuse.
And on top of that, we emphasize the following:
First: We strongly condemn all the actions and attitudes of the criminal settlers, especially the actions associated with this extremist, which we confirm that we do not know and have nothing to do with him neither far nor near.
Secondly: We emphasize our commitment as a Palestinian national Christian institution to all standards of civil society and its opposing normalization.
Third: We invite all members of the Palestinian community to their political, social and religious institutions, to kindly visit us at the House of Representatives Foundation, and listen to us before taking any stand.
Fourth: We held a large number of lectures and seminars against the Zionist thinking at the meeting house, and we hosted a book and scholars who released a book against Zionism and Zionist Christian thought.

In short, "We hate Israel! Please don't punish us!"

But the authorities decided that they need to investigate how such an awful thing could happen where a Jews with his tzitzit hanging out could possibly infiltrate this proud Palestinian space. Bait al-Liqa is being closed for a week, apparently by the Bethlehem Governate, to help this "investigation."

This is a marvelous trolling opportunity. Jews should show up at all events where Palestinian officials greet foreigners, take selfies, and then the entire Palestinian economy would be shut down as everyone scrambles to outdo the next in declaring how much they hate "settlers" and punishing the poor groups who allowed the Jew to enter.

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Obama’s Third Term (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

While our attention here in Israel is on Ukraine, the US and Iran are preparing to come to some kind of nuclear agreement. Or not. I’ve been wrong about a number of things lately – I never thought Putin would do more than lop off the Donbas region from Ukraine – and I might be wrong about this too, but the Biden Administration’s desire to have something to brag about seems strong enough to swallow anything the Iranians throw at them at the last minute.

Any deal will have minimal effect on Iran’s ability to make and deploy nuclear weapons. What the signing will do is provide an immediate financial boost to Iran, which can be used both for its nuclear project and the support of its terrorist partners in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq; and it will place Israel in the position of the “rogue” that violates international order if she attacks Iran.

And if there is no deal? I presume that some sanctions would remain for some time. But they will not have any material effect on Iran’s project.

Incidentally, the effect that serious sanctions and actions to isolate a bad actor can have are evident in Russia, whose economy has already been severely wounded by even a few days of economic warfare by the West. It’s a pity that similarly harsh measures were never taken against Iran.

I think there will be a deal, because both sides want it: the Iranians, because they will give up little or nothing, and receive a lot. And the Biden Administration, because appeasing Iran is part of its long-term Middle East policy. Let’s look at that.

Prior to 1973, US policy was not particularly friendly to Israel, primarily because of competition with the Soviet Union for influence with the oil-rich Arab countries. But during the Yom Kippur War, President Nixon, worried that the Soviet-aligned Arabs might win – or that Israel might use her nuclear weapons – airlifted weapons to Israel and then asked Congress to provide billions in aid to pay for them. In response, the Arab-led oil cartel, OPEC, declared an embargo on oil deliveries to countries that supported Israel, including the US. The embargo was only in effect for five months, but caused a huge spike in the price of oil whose shock waves affected almost every part of the world economy. Many countries whose Mideast policy had been neutral or pro-Israel began to tilt toward the Arabs as a result. In the US, oil companies took a public stance calling for a more “even-handed” (i.e., less pro-Israel) policy.

In an attempt to woo them away from the Soviets, Nixon and Kissinger promised Arab leaders in 1974-5 that they would work to “reduce [Israel’s] size to historic [pre-1967] proportions.” This has been US policy ever since. Beginning with Jimmy Carter’s Camp David Accords that gave the Sinai back to Egypt, there have been numerous American-led initiatives to do just that.

Presidents Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, and Trump all thought that the solution to the conflict between Israel and the Arabs lay in a territorial compromise with some kind of Palestinian entity. And all of them understood that Israel’s security had to be preserved. But Barack Obama was different.

Obama was the second American president, after Jimmy Carter, who was clearly anti-Israel. His sympathy with the Palestinian movement was clear from remarks that he made when he was running for the Senate back in 2003, from the speech he made in Cairo shortly after he took office, in which he compared “Palestinian [suffering] in pursuit of a homeland” to the Holocaust, and to the pain and humiliation of slavery and segregation felt by black Americans.

Obama often claimed to support the Jewish state, and pointed to the 10-year commitment his administration made to a $38bn program of military aid. But the money is spent in America, where it buys the most expensive weapons in the world, developed on a cost-plus basis. Obama eliminated the provision that allowed some of the aid to be spent on purchases from Israel’s own defense industries. The aid program serves America’s interests and damages Israel’s. It addicts Israel to expensive American weapons, weakens Israel’s defense industries, and gives the US too much leverage over Israel’s actions. Israel would be better off without it.

A list of all of Obama’s actions that were damaging to Israel would stretch from January 2009, when he ordered Israel to end its ground invasion of Gaza before inauguration day, to his final spiteful act as a lame duck president, when he ordered his UN ambassador to abstain on the anti-Israel UNSC resolution 2334 (the last time this happened was during Carter’s presidency). His contemptuous treatment of Israel’s then Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – he instructed an aide to refer to the former combat soldier as “a chickenshit” to a reporter – tells us everything about his attitude.

But the most dangerous initiative of his administration was, of course, the JCPOA, the original Iran deal of 2015. At the time it was clear that it did not prevent, or even significantly slow, Iran’s progress. It couldn’t be enforced. It weakened a UN resolution forbidding Iran from developing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. And it actually legitimized Iran’s having nuclear weapons after a few years. We should remember that under the non-proliferation treaty that Iran signed, it agreed to never develop such weapons.

It’s hard to see what American interest the deal served then, and even harder now. It will give Biden something to brag about, and it will be yet another shot at former president Trump. But where is the benefit from increased funding for terrorism, strengthening America’s greatest enemy in the Mideast, and beginning a round of nuclear proliferation in the volatile region? Where is the benefit for the US and the rest of the West from enabling the establishment of an Iranian caliphate in the region?

This is just one of the administration’s actions that are difficult to understand. Recently, it effectively killed a proposed natural gas pipeline from Israel to Europe through Cyprus and Greece. Now, with Russia threatening to cut gas supplies to Europe, this looks even more stupid.

Last month, the US cut military aid to Egypt by some $130m out of $300m. The stated reason is that they are not satisfied with al-Sisi’s plan to improve the human rights situation in Egypt. At the same time, the Iran deal will free up billions which Iran can use to continue supporting terrorist groups targeting Egypt. In case you’ve forgotten, Obama supported Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi over Mubarak.

Shortly after taking office, the administration removed the Yemenite Houthi rebels from the list of terrorist organizations. On the same day, they attacked a Saudi airport.

Why? The answer is that the Biden Administration is Obama’s third term. Its foreign policy team, and especially those responsible for negotiations with Iran, are made up almost entirely of former Obama Administration people. Although I can’t prove it, I believe that Obama, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and others are pulling the strings.

And these people share a bizarre ideology. They see the world through a lens that combines leftism, Islamism, and a naïve third-worldism. They see Islamism as the most authentic political movement in the Middle East, and so they support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as Iranian control of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Among their goals are the replacement of Israel – which they see as an outpost of Western colonialism – by a Palestinian state. I believe they see the possibility of a strong, modernizing Israeli-Egyptian-Saudi bloc as dangerous to Islam, and will try to prevent it from arising.

Try as I might, I can’t see how this fits in with American interests.

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03/02 Links Pt2: Menachem Begin continues to shape Israel's Zionist visio; Biden Calls Ukrainians ‘Iranian People,’ No mention of Israel in State of the Union Address

From Ian:

Menachem Begin continues to shape Israel's Zionist vision

Although Menachem Begin died 30 years ago, he continues to shape Israel – and inspire many of us.

Before 1977, when the Labor Party dominated Israeli politics and the American Zionist imagination, I was born into one of New York’s few Beginite households. My father, Bernard Dov Troy, had been involved in the Betar Zionist youth movement since his youth on the Lower East Side. We worshiped Israel’s longtime opposition leader, and David Ben-Gurion’s nemesis, Menachem Begin. I even invited him to my bar mitzvah.

We were among the few who rejoiced on the night of the “mahapach,” the Reversal, in May 1977, when Begin ended his three-decade futility streak and became prime minister. Most American Jews mourned, lamenting what Israel was becoming, devastated that Israel disappointed them, worried about the growing gap between Israel and American Jewry. Sound familiar?

Begin proved them wrong. Two months ago, working with Jerusalem’s Menachem Begin Center, Adam Bellos and the Israel Innovation Fund convened a panel discussion: “Hadar: Begin’s Lesson of Jewish Pride.”

I couldn’t resist such a speaking invitation, because “hadar” may be my father’s favorite word. Begin and my father followed Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose resurrection of Jewish dignity began with hadar. Though not easily translated, the word connotes glory or splendor, meaning “outward beauty, respect, self-esteem, politeness, faithfulness” in “every step, gesture, word, action and thought.”

I started by saluting Begin for acting with “hadar” and making it contagious, bringing pride back to the name “Jew.” I hailed him as The Fighting Jew, the Holocaust survivor who led “The Revolt” before 1948 – articulating the new Zionist ethos, refusing to be cowed, of being militant when necessary but never unnecessarily militarist. “The Fighting Jew,” Begin proclaimed, “loves books, loves liberty and hates war. But he is prepared to fight for liberty.”

As prime minister, Begin followed that formula. He defied expectations by making peace with Egypt in 1978, then defied the world by bombing the Iraqi nuclear project, Osirak, in 1981, and attacking the PLO state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon in 1982.

Media, Take Note: It’s Not Israel Vs. Iran, It’s Iran Vs. Most of Middle East

As world powers and Iran appear to be on the verge of reviving the 2015 deal aimed at curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, major news organizations are depicting developments in Vienna through a narrow lens (see here, here, here, here, and here). The broader regional threat posed by Tehran is regularly downplayed by media outlets that instead seem to be promoting a false narrative that essentially equates offensive actions by Iran — the “world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism” — with the defensive maneuvers of the Middle East’s only democracy: Israel.

The resulting coverage not only effectively calls into question the Jewish state’s right to defend itself against a genocide-preaching regime, but also diminishes the gravity of Iran’s campaign of expansionism and terror and the threat it poses to Sunni states across the Middle East.

Iran’s Long Game: Regional Hegemony
The following quote from a recent New York Times article titled, US and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran, Officials Say, is a typical example:
One key issue is how Israel will respond. It has continued its sabotage campaign against Iran’s facilities, blowing up some of them and, at the end of the Trump administration, assassinating the scientist who led what American and Israeli intelligence believe was Iran’s bomb-design project.”

What goes unmentioned is that Israel is far from being the only country in the Middle East that opposes the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear accord. For while Jerusalem has consistently expressed opposition to the agreement, it has likewise caused grave concern in the Arab world, many of whose leaders believe that keeping the pressure up on Tehran is the correct course of action.

Indeed, Iran continues to invest heavily in its ballistic missile program and building a network of terrorist proxies that cause havoc and destruction throughout the region in order to destabilize countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Tehran seeks to project power so as to essentially turn these nations into clients states.

This policy has produced what Iran has dubbed the “axis of resistance,” an amalgamation of Tehran-sponsored militias and full-blown terrorist outfits such as Hezbollah and Hamas. This radical alliance threatens Gulf states and Israel alike. For example, Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have attacked both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates using Iranian-made drones and missiles. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Tehran-supported terror groups in the Gaza Strip fire their huge arsenal of rockets at Israeli cities.

Accordingly, the Middle East is today a battleground between those entities and nations within Iran’s sphere of influence and more moderate capitals such as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

The Islamic Republic’s regional interventionism is seemingly being used as a parallel way to advance its nuclear program. As Iranian aggression increases, so too does its atomic program.

In fact, it was reported last May that Iran had enriched uranium to 63 percent purity — a short technical step away from weapons-grade 90 percent — and way beyond the 3.67 percent threshold permitted under the 2015 nuclear deal. At the same time, Tehran has from the get-go opposed the inclusion of Arab countries in the nuclear talks, not wanting to deal with their concerns over Iranian-led proxy wars and the Islamic Republic’s development of ballistic missiles and other conventional weaponry that can reach their territories.

These security threats are shared by Israel and in part helped pave the way for the Abraham Accords — a series of US-brokered deals that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

In response to these rapprochements, some experts maintain that Tehran is now pushing to enhance ties with its Mideast terrorist proxies.

Biden Calls Ukrainians ‘Iranian People,’ No mention of Israel in State of the Union Address

The first thing I do before starting to analyze a State of the Union address for this news site is plug in the name “Israel,” to see how many times the US president has mentioned it. Good news: on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden mentioned Israel zero times.

I then plugged in “Iran” and got a very strange response. Here it is, his second-to-last line about the war in Europe: “Putin may circle Kyiv with tanks, but he’ll never gain the hearts and souls of the Iranian people.”

Huh? Yes, folks, it was a Joe Biden mental typo. He meant the Ukrainian people. Otherwise, there was zero mention of the Islamic Republic or the hearts and souls of its people.

Here’s a summary of what the president had to say about what America is doing for Ukraine:
Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine, and the world would rollover. Instead, he met a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined.
He met the Ukrainian people.
From President Zelensky to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, their determination, literally inspires the world.
Groups of citizens blocking tanks with their bodies. Everyone from students to retirees to teachers turned soldiers defending their homeland.
In this struggle, as President Zelensky said in his speech to the European Parliament, “light will win over darkness.”
The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States is here tonight, sitting with the first lady.

But while it’s always nice to hear an American president who is ready to fight to your last drop of blood, the situation on the ground is decidedly not in favor of the brave people: The Ukrainian army reported Wednesday morning that Russian airborne forces have landed in Kharkov and attacked a local hospital, and a major battle ensued; and the Russian army is operating in Kherson, the mayor sent an urgent appeal to President Zelenskyy: “Help us evacuate hundreds of bodies from around the city.”

Light may win over darkness, but darkness is not a pushover.