Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, March 09, 2022

Of Ukraine Hero Worship and the Jews (Judean Rose)

Ukraine and the bravery of the Ukrainian people are on our minds, and the topic of seemingly every news story. Everyone knows that Putin is evil, full stop. We are all aware that this ex-KGB man is committing war crimes, for instance hitting evacuation crossing points, murdering innocent civilians even as they attempt to flee. Ordinary Ukrainian citizens refuse to fold, resisting and hitting back however they can. Still, as the inexorable invasion of Ukraine winds on, this pervasive hero worship of the underdog Ukraine has left some Jews discomfited.

Some of the Jews made uncomfortable by the elevation of Ukrainians to hero status, grew up Jewish in Ukraine, or had relatives who did. Others tell bloodcurdling family stories of relatives murdered during bloodthirsty Ukrainian pogroms and massacres. We applaud the courage of the modern Ukrainian, but we remember the history, both old and new, of Jews in Ukraine.

There is Babi Yar, for example, that happened only 81 years ago. Some of us may have parents or grandparents who were alive when the massacre occurred. Others may be named for the kedoshim—the holy ones—who were murdered there.

But there is newer history even than Babi Yar. Katarina Matlin, a woman in her thirties, left Ukraine for the United States not so very long ago. Matlin can attest to the fact that Ukrainian antisemitism is still alive and kicking, both from personal experience and from monitoring what Ukrainians are saying on social media today. Responding to a question I asked on Facebook, “Is it in bad taste to talk about Jewish history as it relates to Ukraine while innocent Ukrainians are being slaughtered?” Katarina wrote:

I grew up in Ukraine. About electing a Jewish president… Jews have served in the highest echelons of governments in the most antisemitic countries throughout history. This is nothing new. Zelenskyy’s election doesn’t mean Ukraine got over its antisemitism. It’s no different than why they’d go to a Jewish doctor. Besides, Zelenskyy pointed out during his campaign that he married an ethnic Ukrainian and had his kids baptized in the Ukrainian Orthodox faith.

About current antisemitism… It’s as bad as it’s ever been. I don’t know why anyone would say that Ukraine suddenly shed its antisemitism. I’m a part of this generation and I could write a book about being on the receiving end of Ukrainian antisemitism. I’ve been reading local Ukrainian Facebook groups and they’re spewing venom at Jews just like they always have. They’re already blaming us for this war, just like they blamed us for bringing Hitler, the famine, disease, and every other misfortune.

Not every Jew who feels uneasy with Ukrainian hero worship lived there in recent times, like Katarina, or had a relative directly impacted by antisemitism in Ukraine. Some of us just feel a deep connection to Jewish history and to the Jewish people as a whole. Whether we are from Ukraine, Lithuania, or Morocco, we are one people from Israel, who have wandered in exile for thousands of years. When there is antisemitism, it doesn't matter where it happened or to whom. For us, it’s personal.

The awakening of national memory comes to us in different ways. For some of us, it is our reading that does it. What we learned has made us leery of applauding Ukrainian courage. We have read everything we can get our hands on about the history of the Jews of Ukraine. The stories and events stay with us.

Reading is not the only way to look on from afar and have history touch you. Many of us have listened to Survivor testimonies and may have spent time with Survivors. Herb Glatter (“80 last August 22nd and proud of it”), for example, will never forget his brother in-law Al’s story of survival:

My sister’s husband was a survivor of Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Gusen. He rarely spoke about those times, perhaps with fellow Survivors, I don't know. I do recall him saying: "There were more Ukrainian than German guards in Auschwitz."

I have never viewed the testimony of him and his brother at the US Holocaust Museum (USHMM), but I have it. His granddaughter named her son Al in his honor, I still choke up when I hear that.

Herb’s story of Al the Survivor is an example of how the Holocaust touches all of the Jewish people. What happens to one of us, happens to all of us. And we have a long national memory.

That is precisely the problem. Some of us take umbrage with putting these memories aside, even temporarily, while innocent Ukrainians are under siege. Those inclined to forgive and forget, however, want us to put history on the backburner, and instead show support and sympathy.

We do sympathize. But we feel guilty, too. When we sympathize with the Ukrainian people, we feel as though we are betraying those who suffered or perished at the hands of Ukrainians. We feel like we are betraying ourselves as a people, looking away from an issue of tremendous national significance. Is it right to elevate the courageous Ukrainians above our own exquisitely appalling history and experience in Ukraine?

We can’t help our thoughts, even as we work to tamp them down. It is embarrassing to say these things aloud in this news cycle and climate, but some of us think them anyway. Should we dare to allude to such thoughts in public, we are sure to be deemed inappropriate and chastised by the others.

I hate to say it, but Karma is a . . . https://t.co/B9sY42Pbd7
— (((Varda Epstein))) (@VardaEpstein) March 7, 2022

I find it tasteless, and I'm holding my tongue, to bring it up while the entire people of Ukraine are being bombarded.
— Shimsha (@Shimsha5) March 7, 2022

I understand. That is why I held back until now. And I ache for what these people are going through and am furious with Putin. But the thought still does occur. Guess you're a better person than I.
— (((Varda Epstein))) (@VardaEpstein) March 7, 2022

Across the very wide spectrum of Jewish thought and opinion, we have those who for now, only see the horror of the present-day slaughter. Their hearts go out to the Ukrainian people without reserve. They are at peace with their natural inclination to sympathize with a victim, irrespective of history or even recent deeds. One Israel-based friend said, “I think now is not the moment. There are many Jews there, or were, as many are coming here now. IM"H (God willing) they will all come here.”

Two friends referenced Hagar and Ishmael in the desert as in Genesis 21:17:

And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her: 'What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is.’

As my friend Sharon Katz explained:

Hashem heard the voice of the boy as he was (at that moment). We all know the violence and death brought on by Ishmael, but Hashem judged him at that moment.

** Fast forward thousands of years, Ukraine is a place drenched in Jewish blood, between Chelminicki, Babi Yar, and thousands of pogroms throughout the centuries. It was a BAD place for Jews.

** ** Fast forward further to 2022, Ukraine has a thriving Jewish community and Jews have made a comfortable place for themselves there. I don't know what will happen in the future, if this determined country can survive, with G-d's help, and if it does, if it will continue to be kind to the Jews. But I know that Hashem judges people in THE MOMENT, and at this moment, He is deciding whether they are worthy of His mercy and help.

This is a beautiful thought, well-expressed and persuasive. And still, some of us see “THE MOMENT” differently. Our eyes are drawn to certain parts of certain news pieces. How Zelenskyy does not feel that Bennett has wrapped himself in the Ukrainian flag.

Why this criticism of the Israeli prime minister? We are all in awe of Zelenskyy's stand against the Russian giant, but as one friend put it, “A Jew leading a non-Jewish country is always a Jew who is out-goying the goy.”

It’s not just Zelenskyy who criticized Israel, of course. There is the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel who suggested that not enough Jewish dollars have been sent to Ukraine. "I am trying to be diplomatic," said Yevgen Korniychuk. “. . . we have received more help from other partners in the world than [from] Israel but we hope that decisions will be taken and there will be more aid from Israel in the coming days."

When more aid did arrive from Israel, Korniychuk continued in his tirade against the Jewish State.

“I don’t understand the limitations that Israel imposes.” Korniychuk said conversations were ongoing over a possible acquisition of protective gear from Israel, and donned a helmet as an example.

“Explain to me how it’s possible to kill with this,” Korniychuk said of the helmet.

We don’t need to explain anything to Korniychuk. Israel has taken in more refugees than any country in the West that does not share a border with Ukraine. Our Torah observant prime minister, viewing the situation as a matter of life and death, traveled on the holy Sabbath to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. Israel has sent 100 tons of aid to Ukraine, and is also there on the ground, setting up field hospitals, and helping however it can.

Aside from the criticisms of the quantity and quality of Israel’s support for Ukraine, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba accused the Jews of taking blood money, that old and ever-popular antisemitic trope. Kuleba went to the press to take El Al to task for accepting payments via the Russian banking system 'Mir' in an effort to evade sanctions. Except that never happened.

In a now deleted tweet, Kuleba showed a screenshot of the El Al website as “proof” of his false assertions, writing, "While the world sanctions Russia for its barbaric atrocities in Ukraine, some prefer to make money soaked in Ukrainian blood. Here is @EL_AL_ISRAEL accepting payments in Russian banking system ‘Mir’ designed to evade sanctions. Immoral and a blow to Ukrainian-Israeli relations.”

If only Kuleba had cared to check, responded the airline, he would have discovered that Mir had been blocked by El Al since February 28.

With so many Ukrainian government officials criticizing Israel without basis and with such overt nastiness, it is difficult to view today’s Ukraine as any different than the Ukraine of the past, as it relates to antisemitism and the Jewish experience. Certainly Ukraine is in a terrible situation, but then so is Israel and it is simply not plausible that Ukrainian officials fail to understand this.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Israel had no choice but to reach a strategic agreement with Russia to fight against Iran and its proxies. In protecting itself from terrorist aggression, Israel must consider Russia’s presence in Syria and secure Mr. Putin’s agreement for airstrikes against targets there. This arrangement, which began under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, renders Israel dependent on Russia’s goodwill even now, during Mr. Putin’s worst aggressions to date.

We are doing the best we can, and still Ukraine and Ukrainians curse us, the Jews of the Jewish State of Israel.

But it doesn’t matter. Our hearts still bleed to see Putin’s reign of terror over the citizens of the Ukraine on our screens. We still find ways to give to and support the Ukrainians, in spite of the vicious nature of the past, in spite of the reluctance of some of us to let go of history and the memory of our sojourn in the Ukraine. Because that is who we are.

There may be some of us that are of two minds about the hero worship of Ukraine and Ukrainians. Nonetheless, what’s wrong is wrong.

This invasion is wrong.

And Putin is a very evil man.

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

Read all about it here!

By RealJerusalemStreets

In the opening Author's Note, Andrew Lawler begins "Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City" with a quote from author Simon Sebag Montefiore; "Writing about Jerusalem was very stressful; every word counts." Lawler adds, "Which word to select is part of that trial."

I read carefully through the 355 pages of text which included impressive old and new photos. The extensive acknowledgments, endnotes, and index are extremely well done and a valuable resource I plan to keep to use in the future.

The Ark of the Covenant was the object of searches over a century before the 1981 "The Raiders of the Lost Ark" by Steven Spielberg starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.

The early chapters on the beginnings of archeology in the Holy Land, in the mid 19th century, led by Christian Zionists, Charles Wilson (Wilson's Arch), Charles Warren, British Royal engineers, Edward Robinson (Robinson's Arch), French explorer Louis-Felicien Joseph Caignart de Saulcy and German Conrad Schick are extremely well documented and informative.

Lawler presents a vast amount of material in an interesting and engaging way. He is an excellent writer who has done extensive research on archeology and history. The work shared over centuries under the Jerusalem streets is seen in an engrossing manner to draw the reader along.

However, on two specific points, I must take exception. In the timeline, 1948 CE "The British withdraw, Israel is created, and war breaks out between Arabs and the new state, the Jewish Quarter is damaged in the fighting."

Rather, the United Nations declared a partition plan on November 29, 1947, and the surrounding Arab nations attacked the new state and expelled the Jews from the Old City, and Jerusalem was divided and occupied by Jordan for 19 years.

The other point, on page 320 when discussing the US Embassy move to Jerusalem. "The United States, therefore, had refused to acknowledge the Israeli government's 1950 move to make Jerusalem its capital...The decision by President Donald Trump to reverse this policy..."

When in fact, the US Congress had passed legislation in 1995 to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and subsequent US Presidents had waivers to not enforce the law and stopped the move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"It is an act of brazen arrogance or naive foolishness- or both- to tackle the thorny history of Jerusalem," Lawler concludes. Indeed, however, he has done an excellent job to transverse the minefields and controversies, with an excellent result I truly appreciated.

The Western Wall excavations are ongoing, with two new routes open to the public recently. It was fascinating to see the old photos and new rooms I visited, so similar after over a century.

Christian Zionists were the early excavators and it is impressive to realize how much of their work is still accepted, as the knowledge and acceptance of the Bible have waned over the years.

The City of David and the Tower of David Museum continue to expose and share new layers of history as well as the Western Wall Heritage Foundation.

It is good to learn of the past, to appreciate the present and future.

Publisher: Doubleday

ISBN 9780385546850 hardcover, also paperback and ebook available

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

Read all about it here!

03/09 Links Pt1: ‘Another Jewish Community Ceases to Exist’: Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Condemns Russian Advance, Attacks on Civilians; Russia’s Invasion Is a Wake-Up Call for Israel and the West

From Ian:

‘Another Jewish Community Ceases to Exist’: Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Condemns Russian Advance, Attacks on Civilians

One of Ukraine’s leading rabbis has excoriated the Russian troops invading the country for driving out the historic Jewish communities that were painstakingly revived in recent decades.

Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich on Wednesday shared an amateur video that showed a group of elderly Jews sitting on a bus as they waited to be evacuated from Bila Tserkva, 60 miles south of the capital Kyiv.

The city has been hit on multiple occasions by cruise missiles aimed at Kyiv by Russian forces. Russian air strikes against Bila Tserkva on Tuesday ripped through residential areas, leaving several apartment buildings destroyed.

Commenting on the departure of Bila Tserkva’s Jews, Bleich wrote: “Another Jewish community ceases to exist in Ukraine, losing everything they have gained over a lifetime, thanks to the ‘liberators’ from Russia.”

The image of scared, elderly Jews fleeing from a Ukrainian city was reminiscent of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Bleich remarked.

“When you watch this video, the first thought that comes to mind is that this is 1941 and the Jews are fleeing from advancing Wehrmacht units,” he wrote. “But it is not! This is the year 2022. Jewish grandparents from the Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva are hastily fleeing the rocket and bomb attacks of the Russian army, deliberately shooting at civilians!”

Fourteen days into the Russian invasion, both sides have invoked the horrors of World War II, with Russia encountering severe criticism internationally for depicting Ukrainian leaders — including Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s Jewish president — as “neo-Nazis.”

On Wednesday, one of Ukraine’s most popular television presenters delivered what he sarcastically called a “master class” in the dismissal of Russian propaganda points.

“Volodomyr Zelensky is Jewish; how is it that our president is a neo-Nazi?” said Anatoliy Anatolych, the presenter of the “Morning Ukraine” program.

Anatolych pointed out that Israel “provides maximum support” to Ukraine, citing the rally held in Tel Aviv at the start of the invasion that witnessed thousands of protesters unfurling Ukrainian flags in the city’s Habimah Square.

Russia’s Invasion Is a Wake-Up Call for Israel and the West

Irrespective of the final outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it should serve as a wake-up call for Israeli and Western policymakers and molders of public opinion.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the flawed nature of certain assumptions, such as the worldview of a new world (and new Middle East) order, which is supposedly more stable, predictable, tolerant, and trending toward peaceful-coexistence; the ostensible end to the era of major wars and massive ground force invasions; and the self-destructive notion that a military posture of deterrence can be effectively-replaced by peace accords, security guarantees, and generous financial and diplomatic packages.

The war also highlights the tenuous, unreliable, unpredictable, and non-committal nature of security guarantees, and the delusion that peace and security agreements are more important than military capabilities and a geography/topography-driven posture of deterrence.

The war highlights that a gradual reduction of defense budgets is interpreted by most of the globe as an erosion of deterrence in a stormy world. It also exposes the presumed superiority of the diplomatic option as a more effective negotiation tool than the military option in settling conflicts with rogue regimes, which have systematically revealed themselves as bad-faith negotiators (e.g., Iran’s ayatollahs since assuming power in 1979).

It additionally exposes the speculative assessments of the future track records of rogue regimes over their realistic historical track records, and the illusion that rogue conduct (e.g., subversion, terrorism, and wars) is despair-driven, rather than ideology-driven.

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer calls out Russian Foreign Minister’s lies in U.N. debate

When Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told lies at the United Nations to cover up Putin’s horrific aggression in Ukraine, UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer took the floor to call out his disinformation, and to demand that Putin’s regime be expelled from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The cowardice of the far Left

They may be a pottage of vanity, self-deception, and rage, but they have been clear on Ukraine, even before the hammer and the sickle appeared at a rally in London this week. “In [the] game of great power politics, if we have to pick a side over Crimea let it be Russia,” they said in 2014, when Jeremy Corbyn was their chair. “Some of us have never supported Putin,” he says now, a coward among cowards.

The willingness to understand Putin was obvious, again in 2014, when Corbyn’s spin doctor Seumas Milne, a rich Communist sympathiser, appeared with Putin at PR junket alongside leaders of the European far Right. A surprising number of far Left leaders are rich as if they, who don’t really need politics, can afford uniquely unserious ones. If you are rich, it doesn’t matter if the Socialist Utopia never comes. Dreaming, to steal their language, is a privilege.

For George Galloway, an original sponsor of Stop the War, closeness to tyranny seems to be a soothing and instinctive need. His address to Saddam Hussein in 1994 is infamous: “I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam. Sir, I salute your courage, your strength and your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory in Jerusalem.” Another sponsor was Andrew Murray, a rich Communist sympathiser; yet another is Jeremy Corbyn himself. Plenty of them failed to oppose Bashar al-Assad, even as Muslim activists begged them to. They didn’t support aid convoys to Aleppo — too imperialist — or the White Helmets pulling bodies out of Russian-bombed rubble in Syria. They are only anti-war when the West is the aggressor. There are no just wars when the West fights them is their reasoning, if we are calling it that; but every war against the West is, if not just, then at least understandable.

Who’s Intolerant? (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

Who’s Intolerant?

The refugee crisis in Ukraine has illuminated a deep moral divide among Israelis, which I think reflects a similar division in the moral consciousness of humans everywhere. On one side we have Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, who announced yesterday that Israel would accept all Jewish refugees – that is, all of those, according to the Law of Return, who have at least one Jewish grandparent – but that only up to 5,000 non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees would be accepted, and those would have to agree to leave after three months. There are 20,000 non-Jewish Ukrainians who are already living in Israel illegally, after overstaying tourist visas, and they will also be allowed to stay temporarily.

On the other side, we find Ha’aretz writer Zvi Bar’el who argues – in a remarkably sarcastic article – that Israel’s concern for the Jewish people is racist, and that true morality calls for us to open our doors equally to all who suffer. And that not only includes Ukrainians, but also the Eritrean and Sudanese illegal immigrants who found life hard and dangerous under kleptocratic and brutal regimes. The Supreme Court, apparently sharing Bar’el’s point of view, threw a series of monkey wrenches into the attempts to deport them. They were bused to South Tel Aviv on arrival, where they colonized the area around the main bus station. The crime rate there has soared as a result.

Bar’el also thinks we have no right to complain about the Russians invading and occupying Ukraine, because we have “occupied” Judea and Samaria. I am embarrassed that it’s necessary to explain to an educated, adult Israeli that Ukraine was an independent country that did not attack Russia, while Judea and Samaria were parts of the original Mandate that were occupied illegally and ethnically cleansed by Jordan, whose army then attacked Israel in a war intended to end her independence.

It’s obvious which side I’m on. But where I disagree with Bar’el is not, as he might say, because he loves all mankind and I am a racist who thinks Jews are better than non-Jews. Actually I too believe in human rights, justice, and equal treatment, even for cultures, like the Palestinian Arabs, whose values happen to be despicable.

Where we differ is this: I think the State of Israel is different from the great majority of countries, because it has a mission: the preservation of the physical and cultural existence of the Jewish people.

Other countries may also be ethnic nation-states like Israel, which means that they represent the realization of self-determination for a particular people. Or alternatively, they may be like the US, which in essence defines the “American People” as those who are born there or who choose to receive citizenship, with no ethnic consideration at all. But I can’t think of any state other than Israel that was born with the specific objective of preserving an endangered people. This is implied in Israel’s Declaration of Independence:

The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.

This doesn’t mean that the founders (probably these are the words of Ben Gurion) thought that the Holocaust was in itself a justification for the establishment of the state; that this is not what they thought is clear from the rest of the document. But it is emblematic of the fact that Israel was established as a bulwark against the forces of antisemitism, assimilation, and cultural dilution that were erasing the Jewish people from the world.

In order to carry out her mission, the State of Israel must, minimally, maintain a Jewish majority; but she also needs to limit the expansion of non-Jewish religious and cultural influences. Israel is a very small country of 9 million people, 21% of whom are not Jewish. There are, from time to time, antisemitic outbursts right here, such as the Arab riots of May 2021 in which Jews and Jewish property were attacked. Several years ago, there were even incidents of antisemitism involving violence and swastika graffiti perpetrated by Russian-speaking antisemites!

Israel is no. 100 on the list of countries by population. Following it are Switzerland, Togo, Sierra Leone, Hong Kong, and Laos. I haven’t noticed pressure on these countries to take tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

I know that a large number of Israelis, often the ones that can be called the “Ashkenazi elite,” find this point of view distasteful. They say that those of us who are concerned about the erosion of the Jewish character of the state are “intolerant” of other cultures.

I suggest that they are the ones that need to exercise more tolerance, in this case for the continued existence of the one, only one, Jewish state in the world. If that upsets them so much, then rather than trying to change it into something else, they should move to any one of the countless countries that are “states of their citizens.” I see advertisements in the newspaper on a regular basis for companies that offer help in obtaining European passports. I recommend them to Zvi Bar’el and the rest of the Ha’aretz crew.

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

Read all about it here!

Israel/UAE free trade agreement might help Israeli relations with Indonesia

The Jerusalem Post reported this morning:

The free-trade agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is set to be signed by the end of March, Emirati Ambassador to Israel Mohamed Al Khaja said in a Wednesday morning tweet.

Talks for establishing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) began last November between Economy Minister Orna Barbivai and her Emirati counterpart Abdulla bin Touq Al Mari.

CEPA will "serve as an accelerator for significant economic prosperity" between the two nations, the ambassador wrote.

The UAE has recently signed a similar agreement with India and is expected to sign one with Indonesia this month as well.

Mohamed Al Khaja, the UAE's ambassador to Israel, tweeted, "After India and Indonesia, the #UAE and #Israel are looking forward to conclude the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement "CEPA" before the end of the month. The UAE remains confident that the CEPA with Israel will serve as a catalyst for even greater economic prosperity."

If the UAE has similar agreements with Israel and Indonesia - which Israel has no diplomatic relations with - that puts it into a position to be a go-between to facilitate trade between Israel and Indonesia, just as it probably already serves that function between Israel and Arab countries that do not have direct relations with Israel.

Israel and Indonesia have quiet trade and tourism relations that have been slowly but steadily growing over the years. The UAE will now be perfectly positioned to strengthen those ties.

There has been some buzz about Indonesia joining the Abraham Accords earlier this year, and Indonesia has been downplaying that discussion. Indonesia's Muslim population would oppose it. But we have already seen the public stance of Saudi Arabia changing towards Israel, and there is no reason why Indonesia couldn't plant the seeds in statements and op-eds by friendly supporters to get its citizens used to the idea.

Or the relations could remain under the radar while still growing.

The importance of the Abraham Accords was not just in bilateral relations between Israel and several Arab states. It was in changing the entire mindset about Israel in the larger Muslim world. Muslim-majority nations who want to survive into the second half of the century need to consider the benefits of partnering with an Israel which is eager to share technology and trade, as well as improve their relations with the US. The relationship between Israel and Gulf countries spawns entirely new possibilities with formerly hostile countries.

The Arab boycott is dead and buried. Muslim-majority nations can decide to join the UAE and Bahrain in increasing ties with Israel or to stay with the rejectionists of Algeria, Iran, Syria and Lebanon. For Muslim leaders who care about their own people, the choice is clear.

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

Read all about it here!

Felesteen reports that Louay al-Taweel, a 14 year old boy from the Gaza Strip, died in a West Bank hospital, after it declined to provide treatment.

The reason? The Palestinian Authority in Ramallah refused to pay for his treatment.

Al-Taweel had brain cancer.

Louay's family managed to get him to the Augusta Victoria Hospital, an Arab hospital in Jerusalem, a month ago. Doctors there refused to treat him without payment, and the PA refused to pay. The family had to pay 120 shekels just to get them to do a checkup and open a file on the boy.

They were then sent back to Gaza and told to arrange the funding before returning. Upon his return home, Louay's condition deteriorated and he was admitted to one Gaza hospital, transferred to another, then a third, until he died. He was buried on Tuesday.

There are lots of NGOs that track every Gaza patient that may not get permits from Israel, hoping that the patients die so they can add one more thing to blame on Israel. But here, Israel clearly gave a permit for young Louay to get treatment. It was the Palestinian Authority that decided not to pay, sentencing the teen to death. It is one of many such decisions by the Palestinian Authority to inflict collective punishment on Gaza residents because of its rivalry with Hamas.

Since Jews cannot be blamed, no one cares.

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

Read all about it here!

03/08 Links Pt2: The women who built Israel with hands and hearts; This Isn’t Obama’s Iran Deal. It’s Much, Much Worse; The UN is an irrelevant fossil

From Ian:

The women who built Israel with hands and hearts

This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is #BreakTheBias. Which is terrific news, as women everywhere still face discrimination and prejudice in matters big and small.

In hope for a gender-equal world, we’d like to take a moment to celebrate the women who broke the bias long before hashtags became a thing – those who helped turn Israel into a flourishing country.

According to historian Prof. Margalit Shilo, women in pre-state Israel began their pioneering, gender-expectation-renouncing work in the early 20th century.

One of the first examples was the Women’s Farm established in 1911 on the shores of Lake Kinneret in northern Israel, where Zionist activist and feminist Dr. Hannah Maisel educated women in matters of agricultural work and housekeeping.

And yet, despite the images that we have of pioneering women working in the fields, Shilo notes that in fact women did not usually undertake agricultural work.

“On the kibbutz, women weren’t usually accepted to agricultural roles but rather to more womanly jobs – in the kitchen, doing the laundry and taking care of the children. Although there was a group of feminists in the kibbutz movement who demanded more equality,” she says.

“Meanwhile, in 1919, in the cities and not on the kibbutzim, a rather large group of Jewish women was established, and they founded a women’s political party. It was the first women’s party in the world, and they fought for women’s voting rights in the national institutions.”

At around the same time, an assembly of representatives that would later develop into the Knesset was established.

“These women fought, and in January 1926 the assembly gave women the right to vote and to be elected. By the time the state was founded, there wasn’t any debate about whether or not women would participate in the Knesset,” says Shilo.

“In the first Knesset there were altogether 11 female members out of 120. I’ve researched this, and in the Knesset’s first 50 years the average percentage of women in the Knesset stood at 10 percent. It’s only undergone change in the past two decades or so,” Shilo adds.

Highest percentage of female physicians
During the three decades of the British Mandate in Palestine, thousands of Jewish women with a higher education relocated from Europe, giving the future Israeli state the largest percentage in the world of female doctors compared to male doctors, Shilo notes.

Ten Questions for Natan Sharansky

Born in Donetsk, then called Stalino, in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1948, Natan Sharansky remains the world’s leading anti-Soviet, dissident Zionist, and pro-democracy voice. A chess prodigy, mathematician, refusenik, political prisoner, human rights activist, and Israeli statesman, Sharansky is a living monument to 20th-century Jewish heroism, and is uniquely positioned to analyze the significance of breakdowns in freedom, democracy, and world order in the 21st. On Sunday, he sat down with Tablet to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two Vladimirs, the dilemmas of Israeli diplomacy, and the wisdom of BDS for Russia.

How do you feel about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a state where you grew up in a Jewish family under the former USSR, and which is led today by a proudly Jewish president?

I have to say that it is very difficult for Jews to believe, but the Jewish question has nothing to do with this conflict. The fact that Zelensky is a devoted Jew is an absolutely outstanding fact of Ukrainian history, as well as the fact that even Putin, with all the awful things he is doing, is unique in Russian history for his positive attitude toward Jews and Israel. There are no anti-Jewish pogroms at this stage, neither in Ukraine nor in Russia, and it’s not the case that Jews are at the center of this.

When I was growing up in Donetsk, “Jew” was the worst thing you could have in your papers. It was like being born with a disease, and many parents dreamed of how to bribe officers to write in anything else for their children. Today, when refugees move to the border, the best thing they can have in their ID is the word “Jew,” because the only country that sends official representatives there to get people and give them citizenship is Israel. So, a lot can be said about it—but again, if you want to understand the roots of this awful, barbaric Russian aggression, it’s not the point from which we have to start.

OK, let’s start here: When I was born in Donetsk, it was then called Stalino. When Stalin died I was 5 years old, and I remember my father explained to me that it was a great day for us, for Jews, but not to tell that to anybody. And then I remember the other big event of my childhood, in 1954, after the death of Stalin, was the celebration of 300 years of the voluntary unification of Russia and Ukraine. In 1654, when Bohdan Khmelnytsky won a war, it made Ukraine independent from Poland. So we had a huge celebration about the brotherhood of Ukrainians and Russians.

Later, when I became a dissident, I got to know Ukrainian nationalists and found out that it was in fact more like a Russian enslavement of Ukraine. But by then it didn’t matter in the same way, because in fact Donetsk was a very international city, it had many nations. It was an industrial center, so for 100 years people had been coming there to look for work from different parts of the Russian empire. There were Ukrainians and Russians in Donetsk, of course, but also Kazakhs and Armenians and Georgians and Tatars. So none of that really mattered. What really mattered was: Are you Jewish or not?

Israel Can’t Be ‘Racist’ or ‘Apartheid’ — Here’s Why

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is clearly an attempt by Vladimir Putin to revive the Soviet empire — if not its communist ideology. He has said that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest disaster of the 20th century, and now he’s trying to resurrect that ultimate imperialist edifice.

Another aspect of that era that is alive and well — indeed, is making a resurgence like the empire — is the Soviet-inspired theme that the Jewish liberation movement called Zionism, is the embodiment of racism.

Let us recall that the passage by the United Nations General Assembly of the 1975 resolution claiming that Zionism was racism was entirely a Soviet-inspired initiative. The Soviets concocted it to weaken America’s leading ally in the Middle East.

Israel had proven to have great strength in opposing Soviet-influence in the region, as evidenced by its victories over Soviet allies in both the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars. If Israel was not to be defeated militarily, then the Soviets creatively came up with a totally fabricated conceptual weapon: that democratic Israel was actually a product of racist ideology.

Against this context, comes the updated version of that Soviet invention — the labeling of the Jewish state as an apartheid entity, which was most recently manifest in a report by Amnesty International.

In recent years, the main version of the “Israel is racist” charge was that its policy toward the Palestinians in the West Bank was an apartheid policy. Undoubtedly, there are problematic elements of Israel’s dealing with Palestinians, including different levels of regulations toward Jews and Arabs in the West Bank.

But whatever these challenges — and they are complex because of Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism — they are not the South African apartheid system, which was a racially-based ideological system of discrimination.

Now, however, as represented by the Amnesty report, the charge goes way beyond that apartheid libel, and resurrects the notion that the very concept of a Jewish state, known as Zionism, is in fact racist. In other words, the state of Israel is illegitimate.

Life Lessons With Doctor Bob: Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon

Robert J. Shillman, aka “Doctor Bob,” has been a supporter of The David Horowitz Freedom Center for many years. He has recently started a podcast, Life Lessons with Doctor Bob, and he has agreed to let us share those valuable lessons about achieving success with our readers. His in-depth interviews with interesting and successful people prove that, unlike the MSM’s portrayal of America, this nation has been, and continues to be, a land of opportunity for anyone willing to put in the effort. Make sure to subscribe to the show at Doctor Bob's website: lifelessonswithdoctorbob.com.

In this new episode of Life Lessons with Doctor Bob, Doctor Bob welcomes Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel's 17th Permanent Representative to the UN, who has had his hand in public policy and international relations for over a decade. He and Dr. Bob discuss finding common ground between the United States and Israel.

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

Read all about it here!

By Forest Rain

Jewish American Privilege

As a Jewish child, growing up in America, I was so privileged, I didn’t even realize I was privileged.

I knew that as a child, my mother got beaten up by Christian kids because “Jews killed Jesus” but that happened to her, not me. I never knowingly experienced antisemitism or discrimination.

I knew that my grandmother fled Russia and fought for the founding of the Jewish State but she did that, not me.

I knew that my father grew up without his family because they shipped him off to America as a very small child to save him from the Holocaust. I don’t know what happened to them, most Hungarian Jews ended up in Auschwitz. It was later that I learned that the US government knew what was happening in Auschwitz, could have bombed the train tracks to stop more Jews, my family, from being shipped off to their deaths but chose not to. America bombed factories all around the train tracks to damage the military industry but not the train tracks. Why damage the Nazi death industry?

I knew. But none of those things happened to me. I lived in a nice house, went to a nice school, had friends, took dance lessons. I was never cold or hungry. I didn’t know what it was like to have friends murdered in terror attacks or to have missiles shot at me.

I had no idea how privileged I was.

When Joe Liberman ran for US Vice President, I didn’t understand why my grandmother was horrified at the idea. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have a Jewish man in such an important position? She told me, “You don’t understand. If he succeeds and something bad happens Jews will be blamed. Israel will be blamed. We will be accused of dual loyalty. We will be blamed. It’s better for a Jew not to be in such a prominent position.”

I didn’t understand.

When I made Aliyah and learned how difficult it is to integrate into the country, I didn’t understand why people from previous waves of immigration didn’t make it easier. Every single wave of immigrants has had to fight to become Israeli, to prove their worth, and to belong. Some had bigger gaps to bridge than others, but all had a hard time, including privileged me.

Why did those who had made their own Aliyah look with skepticism on new immigrants? We all want Jews to come home, why are there hesitations and difficulties in embracing those who come? Why the duality in attitude?

I didn’t understand.

When he was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon coined the term “things one can see from here, you don’t see from there.” He was referring to the different perspective he gained sitting in the Prime Minister’s seat. Understanding changes when perspective changes.

Now I understand.

Now I know what it is like to have missiles shot at me because I am a Jew and I live in the Jewish homeland.

Now I know what it is like to stand at a funeral for a girl the same age as my son, murdered because she was a Jew, serving the Jewish State.

Now I know what it is like to stand each year and mark the names of all the people who were murdered for being Jews – just those who belonged to the same school my boys attended. Once I would not have understood why there is empty space on the Memorial Wall at the school, space for more names. I certainly would never have wondered what will they do when the wall is full. WHEN it is full – not IF it becomes full.

Now I know what it is like to be worried about MY soldier. To be terrified of the knock on the door. To have my guts twist in helpless agony for friends who did experience that life-changing official knock, announcing that your most precious was ripped from you, that your family will never be the same again.

Now I know many things I did not know before…

Now when I see the propaganda telling me that I must agree with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky because he is Jewish, I am reminded of my grandmother’s reaction to Joe Liberman’s run for VP. Zelensky is looking out for Ukrainian interests (as he should). All kinds of people, with varying agendas (including Zelensky) are pushing his Jewish roots and using Holocaust memory to manipulate Israel into action – with no regard for Israeli interests or security.

Now I understand the duality of attitude regarding new immigrants to Israel. How do we know that they are even Jews? We want ALL JEWS, from everywhere in the world, especially from areas where they are in danger, to make Aliyah. All of them. We will find the means to take care of them and do so happily. But non-Jews? Especially non-Jewish refugees from a notoriously antisemitic country?! No. Just no. Israel has already accepted way too many non-Jewish USSR ex-pats who just wanted to improve their standard of living. America didn’t accept them but they learned to manipulate the Israeli system, so they came here instead.

There are many voices, particularly those backed by progressive Jewish, American-based organizations declaring that Israel needs to stand on the side of morality and help ALL Ukrainian refugees, without inquiring if they are Jewish or have any connection to Israel.

No. Just no.

One of the most fundamental lessons of Jewish morality teaches that one must look after the poor of one’s own town before looking elsewhere. Morality is looking after our family, friends, and neighbors before looking after strangers. The Jewish State is responsible for Jewish lives and a Jewish future. Those who are so privileged they don’t realize they are privileged might not realize that we can not take the existence of a Jewish State and a Jewish future for granted.

Privileged or malevolent. Sometimes, it is hard to tell the difference - particularly when the result of adhering to their advice is destruction.

No one on the face of the earth has any right to demand that Jews or Israel do anything else. No one else will protect us. Israel DOES send assistance to all kinds of people, all over the world but we do so because we chose to, not because we must or because morality demands it.

It might be reasonable to demand we assist other nations when there are no poor people left in Israel. When none of our elderly have to choose between heating their homes in winter or buying medicine. When the government doesn’t have to choose which medicines to subsidize because there is enough money to find treatments for everyone (Jews AND non-Jewish Israelis). When we are not in a constant battle for the right to exist.

Then, maybe, it will be reasonable to demand we use our resources for other people and other nations. Until that time, no. Just no.

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

Read all about it here!

03/08 Links Pt1: Ukraine’s Zelensky Pleads to American Jews for Support; Ukrainian Refugees Burst Into Applause Upon Arrival in Israel; IAM: Palestinians hijack Ukraine

From Ian:

Ukraine’s Zelensky Pleads to American Jews for Support

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to American Jews for support on Monday with an unsparing account of Russian destruction in his country that he compared to the Nazi German army marching across Europe.

“This is just a pure Nazi behavior. I can’t even qualify this in any different manner,” Zelensky told an umbrellas group, the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, as he continued to press for more fighter planes from the West and a no-fly zone that NATO has so far rejected.

Zelensky ran through a list of the cities and towns he said had been destroyed by Russian forces, while outnumbered Ukrainians were fighting with everything they had, even when they had no weapons.

“They are throwing themselves under the tanks — just for you to understand what’s happening here,” the Ukrainian leader, who is Jewish, said in a Zoom call.

The Russians are not letting people leave towns and cities they have attacked, are not allowing food and water to be brought in and are disconnecting the internet, television and electricity, he said.

“All of this happened during Nazi times,” he said. “The survival of the Ukrainian nation — the question will be the same as antisemitism…. All of these millions of people are going to be exterminated.”

Poland: World’s largest yeshiva pre-Holocaust becomes camp for Jewish refugees

Who could imagine that what was once the largest yeshiva in the world is now a refugee camp in Poland for Ukrainian Jews.

“We have about 190 beds in Lublin,” American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee director in Poland Karina Sokolowska said Monday. “Some are regular hotel rooms, but we also have large halls in the building where we put many mattresses on the floor.”

Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva operated in Lublin, Poland, from 1930 to 1939.

Since there are no available hotel rooms in Warsaw, they had to find space, hotels and apartments around the country, Sokolowska said.

“Almost anyone I know in the Jewish community is hosting a Ukrainian family” she said.

The JDC has 500 beds across Poland in temporary refugee camps, Sokolowska said.

“People come to us in shock – they escaped a war,” she said. “Up until now, we didn’t have any element of therapy for the refugees. But we now have psychologists on the way to Poland to assist us in this terrible situation.”

“Until 12 days ago, my job was to promote Jewish education and culture in Poland,” Sokolowska said. “But now, I am dealing with a whole different world. I never thought I would need to run a huge operation for Jewish refugees – definitely not in Poland.”

Ukrainian Refugees Burst Into Applause Upon Arrival in Israel

Daria Garn was exhausted. After five grueling days traveling from war-torn Kyiv, Ukraine, through Moldova with her two young sons, she had finally arrived at the Romania International Airport in Iași, where she was waiting to board a flight to Israel. As tears welled, Garn, 29, told JNS she was forced to leave her husband behind as he had been unable to secure the proper paperwork to join her. Following Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, most Ukrainian adult males have been forbidden to leave the country.

Rubbing bloodshot eyes, Garn said that after 10 days of suffering through the bombings, she had decided that it was time to leave. “I’m so tired; I don’t eat, I don’t sleep—it’s like I don’t feel anything. I’m numb,” she said.

Garn and her children were joined at the airport by more than 100 other Jewish refugees who had secured seats on flights to Israel thanks to the United Hatzalah organization.

Monday night counted as Hatzalah’s third rescue mission in the past several days, as staff organized fully subsidized flights from Romania and Moldova.

Dovie Maisel, vice president of operations for United Hatzalah, told JNS the mission was actually three-fold.

In addition to saving Ukrainian Jews and stranded Israelis by getting them on a flight from Romania to Israel, 20 or so Hatzalah volunteers—including doctors, medics, EMTs, psychotrauma crisis experts and even medical clowns—traveled from Israel to Romania on their way to Hatzalah’s emergency operation center in Kishinev, Moldova. There, they will offer treatment and their expertise to those in need.

By Daled Amos

Everyone knows about fake news.

Some people know it's all Trump's fault, others know that it's all the media's fault.
And now countries are generating it, using bots on social media.

But for anyone who follows how the media reports about Israel, this is kind of old.

How old?

Daniel Rubenstein addresses this question in his first podcast, featuring Prof. Richard Landes.

Daniel Rubenstein is a tour guide and lecturer, who served as an advisor to Naftali Bennett and also as a social media expert to Netanyahu.
Richard Landes is a medieval historian specializing in apocalyptic millennialism and he blogs about lethal journalism (presenting one side's wartime propaganda as news) at Augean Stables.

Daniel Rubenstein and Prof. Richard Landes

One of the topics Prof. Landes explains is tracing the peaking of media opposition to Israel back to Al Dura.

That incident, in brief:

On Sept. 30, 2000, France2 Television ran a story about Muhammad al Durah, a 12-year-old boy who, along with his father, was pinned down in a cross-fire between Israeli and Palestinian forces at Netzarim Junction in the Gaza Strip. “The target of fire from the Israeli position, the boy was killed and the father badly wounded,” veteran French journalist Charles Enderlin reported. Enderlin distributed the footage to all his colleagues for free, and this story ran around the world in hours.

Landes, who coined the word Pallywood to describe media manipulation designed to win the public relations war with Israel, has written about discrepancies in Enderlin's video footage:

The actual evidence, however, posed serious problems for the explosive narrative of deliberate child-murder. The footage, closely examined, contradicted every detail of the claim that Israel had killed the boy “in cold blood,” as a France 2 photographer put it, from the alleged “forty minutes of [Israeli] bullets like rain” (rather, there were only a few bullets one could identify in the brief footage, all from the Palestinian side), to the 20-minute-long death from a fatal stomach wound (no sign of blood on the ground), to the murdered ambulance driver (no evidence), to the dead boy (who moves quite deliberately in the final scene, which Enderlin cut for his broadcast).

But it was Enderlin's version of the story which spread everywhere, and not just in the Arab world. Bin Laden, for example, used Al Dura as a justification for his terrorist attack on the US. Landes notes that in the West, the Europeans and progressives saw this incident as a 'Get-Out-of-Holocaust-Guilt-Free Card'.

The tremendous influence of the Al Dura narrative cannot be underestimated. It appeared everywhere and dominated the media. One journalist, Catherine Nay, claimed on Europe 1 that

the death of Mohamed [Al Dura] cancels, erases, that of the Jewish child in the hands in the air, shot by an SS man in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Landes points out the enormity of such an idea:

Here you have a woman saying that a dubious picture of a boy most probably -- if killed -- killed in a crossfire, has erased and replaced an image of a boy who symbolizes the deliberate murder of over a million children.

That journalist was not alone in this view. Landes sees this substitution as being at the core of today's Holocaust inversion, the idea that Israel commits genocide against Palestinian Arabs, making Israelis into the new Nazis and Palestinian Arabs into the new Jews.

And the Al Dura effect persists. The original impact has dissipated over time, but the effects continue.

It's hard to get it more wrong than what happened then and we've been paying the price ever since. This is the first massive and still uncorrected wave of fake news -- not fake news coming from bots in Russia, fake news permeating the legacy mainstream media. Disaster. [emphasis added]

This was during the Second Intifada.
And media mendacity at the time was evident.

Less than 2 weeks later, on October 12, two Israeli reservists took a wrong turn and ended up in Ramallah, where a mob of Palestinian reservists lynched them.

Viciously.

In his 2014 book, Israel Since the Six-Day War: Tears of Joy, Tears of Sorrow, Leslie Stein describes how the mob massacred the 2 men:

The mob did not prevent the story from getting out, but they did stop a photographer from taking pictures. Mark Seager wrote a personal account of what the mob did to the bodies of the 2 Israeli reservists -- and what they almost did to him:

They were just a few feet in front of me and I could see everything. Instinctively, I reached for my camera. I was composing the picture when I was punched in the face by a Palestinian. Another Palestinian pointed right at me shouting "no picture, no picture!", while another guy hit me in the face and said "give me your film!".

I tried to get the film out but they were all grabbing me and one guy just pulled the camera off me and smashed it to the floor. I knew I had lost the chance to take the photograph that would have made me famous and I had lost my favourite lens that I'd used all over the world, but I didn't care. I was scared for my life.

In a Wall Street Journal article in 2001, Alex Safian of CAMERA wrote about just how effective Palestinian intimidation was:

But it is not just British reporters who have joined Mr. Arafat's journalistic brigades. Riccardo Christiano, bureau chief of the Italian state network RAI, put it plainly in a letter to the Palestinian Authority in October. After two Israeli reservists were lynched by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah, most journalists at the scene had their film and cameras confiscated. But one crew from the private Italian network Mediaset got out with the videotape, which was then shown around the world. Mr. Christiano was determined to let the Palestinian Authority know that, contrary to rumors, his network was not involved. So he wrote this letter, which unhappily for him found its way into a Palestinian newspaper:

"My Dear Friends in Palestine: We congratulate you and think it is our duty to explain to you what happened on Oct. 12 in Ramallah. One of the private Italian television stations which competes with us . . . filmed the events . . . Afterwards Israeli television broadcast the pictures as taken from one of the Italian stations, and thus the public impression was created as if we took these pictures.

"We emphasize to all of you that the events did not happen this way, because we always respect the journalistic rules of the Palestinian Authority for work in Palestine . . . We thank you for your trust and you can be sure that this is not our way of acting, and we would never do such a thing.

"Please accept our dear blessings."

As Safian observes, "in plain terms, respecting these 'rules' means ignoring stories that would anger Mr. Arafat, and reporting on stories that would please him."

The Ramallah lynching was on October 12.

On the very next day, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, a member of the PA's Fatwa Council and a former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza gave a Friday sermon at a mosque in Gaza. Among other things, Sheikh Halabiya stressed the importance of killing Jews:

"...None of the Jews refrain from committing any possible evil. If the Labor party commits the evil and the crime, the Likud party stands by it; and if the Likud party commits the evil and the crime, the Labor party stands by it.... The Jews are Jews, whether Labor or Likud... They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They all want to distort truth, but we are in possesion of the truth...They are the terrorists. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands, and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers...." (emphasis added)

How did The New York Times report this?

William A. Orme Jr. wrote an article, A Parallel Mideast Battle: Is It News or Incitement? where he dealt with the Israeli claim of Palestinian incitement by helpfully summarizing for his readers what Halabiya had actually said:

Israelis cite as one egregious example [of Palestinian incitement], a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two soldiers. ''Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,'' proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza City mosque the day after the killings. [emphasis added]

Incitement?
What incitement?

This partisan self-censorship continues today. As Landes comments:

To this day, readers of The New York Times, listeners of NPR, viewers of the BBC and CNN do not know what kind of unbelievably vicious nazi-like genocidal hatred is aired in the Palestinian public sphere, constantly.

And of course, social media has only made matters worse -- making it easier to spread propaganda without regard for the source (assuming it is even known), let alone viewing it critically. Social media enables the channeling of moral outrage that makes canceling of people as pariahs so effective.

Today we find ourselves in a situation where, as Prof. Landes notes, you cannot defend Zionism -- neither in journalism nor in academia. It has become a taboo subject --

In 2021, when you had the latest outbreak of violence between Israel and Gaza, you had hundreds of journalists insisting that the media adopt the Palestinian narrative -- adopt their language, adopt their "Israel occupation army" and stuff and you had academics, including Jewish academics in Jewish studies, coming out with statements in support of the Palestinians in which the role of Hamas and the role of terror is completely expunged from the record. And all sorts of claims are made about what Israel has done that are empirically inaccurate.

We are looking at an anti-intellectual movement that has taken over and literally a collapse of the information professions in terms of their ability to give the public accurate and relevant information.

And to a large degree, this all goes back to 2000, and Al Dura.

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

Read all about it here!