The "military wing" of Fatah, the political group led by "mmoderate" PA president Mahmoud Abbas, has praised the Beersheva terror attack Tuesday that killed four Jews - including two women and a rabbi.
A military statement issued by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Palestine
About the heroic Beersheba operation, which led to the killing of 4 settlers
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades congratulate the heroic stabbing and ramming operation carried out by one of the liberated Palestinian prisoners in the occupied city of Beersheba, which led to the killing of four settlers and the injury of others.
The battalions consider that this heroic operation comes in the context of the natural response to the escalation of terrorism of the Zionist enemy and its continuous settlers in all Palestinian cities and villages, and as the best response to the incursions of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the continuous aggression against our people in all its places of residence.
This operation came to confirm our people's rejection of the policies of the criminal enemy in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, and to reaffirm our people's support for the option of armed struggle, and to also confirm that our people, who defeat their enemy with the simplest tools, will not accept oppression or surrender.
We also call on the masses of our struggling Palestinian people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza and the occupied interior to start a comprehensive revolution in the face of the plans of the criminal Zionist enemy, to wrest victory, and for the blessed month of Ramadan to be a fuse for volcanoes of anger that erupts in the face of the usurpers of our land and our sanctities.
The "moderate" Fatah political party's armed wing supports murdering Jews.
It regards all Jews in Israel - and only Jews - as "settlers."
It says that Jews peacefully visiting the Temple Mount is justification for murder.
It calls for more murders of Jews during the "holy month" of Ramadan.
Sometimes, the media reluctantly acknowledges that Hamas praises terror attacks. But it almost never notes that Hamas rival Fatah, framed as the moderate solution to Hamas, is exactly the same.
United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk accused Israel of apartheid in a report submitted Tuesday to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world,” wrote Lynk, whose full title is “Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”
Lynk is slated to formally release his report on Thursday ahead of a debate on Agenda Item 7, the permanent HRC item reserved for Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians and other Arabs.
This is Lynk’s final report in his six-year term.
“The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule… satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid,” wrote Lynk.
The Canadian academic argued Israel is pursuing a strategy of “strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian territory into separate areas of population control, with Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem physically divided from one another.”
Israel uses Gaza, Lynk claimed, for the “indefinite warehousing of an unwanted population of two million Palestinians.”
The issuing of thousands of work permits for Palestinian laborers in the West Bank and Gaza to work in Israel amounts to the “exploitation of labor of a racial group,” according to the report.
Lynk also posited that “torture continues to be used in practice by Israel against Palestinians in detention.”
The report, the main body of which does not mention terrorist groups Hamas or Islamic Jihad, says Israel “must cooperate in good faith with the Palestinian leadership to completely end the occupation and realize a genuine two-state solution.”
Israel and Jewish organizations blasted Lynk as hostile to Israel and the report as baseless.
Invented legal standards
Lynk continues to promote invented international law standards regarding the law of occupation. He states:
“By their very nature, occupations are required to be built with wood, not concrete. Accordingly, Israel’s occupation must be temporary, it must be short-term, it is prohibited from annexing even a millimeter of occupied territory, any changes to the occupied territory must be as minimal as possible, it must comply fully with international law and United Nations resolutions, and it must cooperate in good faith with the Palestinian leadership to completely end the occupation and realize a genuine two state solution.”
Contrary to Lynk’s claims, occupation is not illegal, nor is its duration proscribed under international humanitarian law (IHL). Article 6(3) of Geneva IV, however, limits the applicability of certain provisions of the Convention in occupied territory to one year after the ‘close of military operations’:
In the case of occupied territory, the application of the present Convention shall cease one year after the general close of military operations; however, the Occupying Power shall be bound, for the duration of the occupation, to the extent that such Power exercises the functions of government in such territory, by the provisions of the following Articles of the present Convention: 1 to 12, 27, 29 to 34, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 59, 61 to 77, 143.
In the absence of an IHL rule prohibiting prolonged occupation, Palestinian, Israeli and international NGOs, as well as UN rapporteurs, have sought to redefine the legal status of the West Bank from “occupation” to a situation of apartheid. Merging a discourse of “prolonged occupation” with allegations of apartheid began in the 1980s, coalescing further during preparations for the discredited UN Durban conference in 2001 and, following sustained advocacy by John Dugard and Richard Falk, Lynk has now taken up this narrative in his report.
Regarding the apartheid slander, Lynk relies on the invented definition proffered by Amnesty in its February 2022 report. See NGO Monitor’s Analyzing Amnesty’s Antisemitic Apartheid Attack, False Knowledge as Power: Deconstructing Definitions of Apartheid that Delegitimize the Jewish State, and Neo-Orientalism: Deconstructing claims of apartheid in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for more information on how Amnesty and other NGOs manipulate the definition of apartheid to target Israel.
.@MichaelLynk5 pretends he made a new finding. In fact, Lynk played a leadership role in several Arab lobby groups in Canada, including CEPAL which promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week” events. Lynk joined anti-Israel petitions and “One State” conferences seeking to eliminate Israel. pic.twitter.com/dx2qHFpLjn
A new report by NGO Monitor debunks the accusation of apartheid against Israel and assesses whether apartheid, as previously defined, is applicable to Israel and territories under its military administration.
This new report, titled “Neo-Orientalism: Deconstructing Claims of Apartheid in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” and written by legal expert Joshua Kern, and legal adviser and U.N. representative for NGO Monitor Anne Herzberg, expands on a previous report published in December that sought to rectify the lack of a coherent and legally substantiated definition of the crime of apartheid.
According to NGO Monitor, “accusations of this crime against humanity have been historically leveled at the State of Israel and its officials by powerful NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), B’Tselem and, most recently, Amnesty International. The lack of an accepted definition of the crime of apartheid has been harnessed by central actors in the campaign to delegitimize Israel, who apply the term to characterize the political and legal nature of Israel’s government, and in many cases to delegitimize the notion of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.”
“Our report is for legal professionals, academics, practitioners and government officials,” Herzberg told JNS, “but it is also for those who are looking for answers to the false and often malicious charges by NGO and U.N. Rapporteurs who grossly misrepresent the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the legal basis for Israel as a Jewish state, and the nature of Israel’s democracy and legal system.”
In “A Threshold Crossed,” published in April 2021, HRW accused Israel of “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”
Not to be outdone, Amnesty International took this accusation further on Feb. 1, when it released its own report, “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity.”
According to NGO Monitor, “Amnesty’s 280-page report largely echoes those of the HSRC [Human Sciences Research Council] and HRW. It does, however, express (while HRW and HSRC only did so implicitly) a thesis that the establishment and maintenance of Israel as a Jewish state institutionalized apartheid.”
Zelenskyy has left us Israelis with a bad taste in our
mouths. He’s a hero the world over, and we want to like him, too. But it’s
difficult for Israelis to like him after the things he said in his address to
the Israeli Knesset on Sunday. President Zelenskyy hit all the wrong notes,
pointing an accusatory finger at Israel with one criticism after another.
Zelenskyy criticized Israel for not doing enough to help
Ukraine, for not supplying the right kind of aid, for not applying pressure to Russian
businesses. The Ukrainian president asserted that Ukrainians saved Jews during
the Holocaust, while Jews have turned their backs on the Ukrainian people.
One can keep asking why we can't get weapons from you. Or
why Israel has not imposed strong sanctions against Russia. Why it doesn’t put
pressure on Russian business. But it is up to you, dear brothers and sisters,
to choose the answer. And you will have to live with this answer, people of
Israel.
Ukrainians have made their choice. Eighty years ago. They
rescued Jews. That is why the Righteous Among the Nations are among us. People
of Israel, now you have such a choice.
Ukrainians greeting arriving Germans in Western Ukraine in the summer of 1941
President Zelenskyy accused Israel of indifference, of refusing
to choose sides, and of immorality, too, questioning whether Israel’s imagined
inaction was premeditated,
for which, he suggested, we’d one day be held to account in the final battle
between good and evil.
Can you explain why we still turn to the whole world, to
many countries for help? We ask you for your help? What is it?
Indifference? Premeditation? Or mediation without choosing a party? I will
leave you a choice of answer to this question. And I will note only one thing —
indifference kills. Premeditation is often erroneous. Mediation between states
is possible, but not between good and evil.
The worst part of Zelenskyy’s antagonistic speech, however,
was when he called the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, a repeat of the Final
Solution.
When the Nazi party raided Europe and wanted to destroy
everything. Destroy everyone and leave nothing from us, nothing from you. They
called it ‘the final solution to the Jewish issue.'
You remember that. And I’m sure you will never forget!
Listen to what is sounding now in Moscow. Hear how these words are said again:
‘Final solution.’ But already in relation, so to speak, to us, to the
‘Ukrainian issue.'
This is a distortion of the truth. The Final Solution was an
attempt to eradicate a people. Putin is not looking for that. It’s not his
goal. What he wants is to capture territory. Putin doesn’t care how many
Ukrainians he has to murder in order to recapture Ukraine. But his actions are only
about recapturing Ukraine. The
killing is indiscriminate.
The goal of Hitler, on the other hand, was to kill all Jews
dead. Hitler had his men hunt the Jews down, one by one. His soldiers kept
count of every murdered Jew, recording the names and dates of each Jew they
killed. Hitler transported Jews to death camps in windowless cattle cars so
packed, the occupants could not sit down. Once at the camps, Jews deemed
incapable of work were gassed and burned straight from the cars. The remainder
were worked almost to death before being gassed and burned like the other Jews before them.
Now that was
systematic genocide, with the Final Solution a means to an end: ridding the world
of that eternal problem, the Jew. And far from making the right “choice,” the Ukrainians
pitched right in. Ukraine did not save its Jews. It helped to murder them.
There were an estimated 40 million Ukrainians when Nazi
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Between 1.2 and 1.6 million Jews were
murdered over the next few years, with the enthusiastic collaboration of the
vast, vast majority of Ukrainian civilians. Ukraine as a whole was delighted to
see the extermination of its Jews. And here is the number of Ukrainian
righteous among the nations who saved Jews, according to Yad Vashem: 2,619.
As shocking as these numbers are, scratch the surface, and
you’ll find more Ukrainian antisemitism. Let us go back, for example to 1648
and the Chmielnicki
Uprising (emphasis added).
Bogdan Chmielnicki, leader of the Cossack and peasant
uprising against Polish rule in the Ukraine in 1648 which resulted in the
destruction of hundreds of Jewish communities . . .
In the course of their campaigns Chmielnicki's followers
acted with savage and unremitting cruelty against the Jews. . .
In the annals of the Jewish people, Chmielnicki is branded
as "Chmiel the Wicked," one of the most sinister oppressors of the
Jews of all generations, the initiator of the terrible 1648–49 massacres
(gezerot ta ve-tat). The Jewish population of Ukraine had been an active factor
in colonizing the steppes before the massacres. Many Jews settled in the
villages, and were occupied as lessees (see *arenda ) or administrators of the
estates of the nobles; they also played a role in developing the towns and in
their armed defense at times of danger. However, as agents of the Polish nobles
and Polish rule, they incurred the hatred of the Ukrainian serfs. Both Polish and Ukrainian modern
antisemitic historiography has attempted to attribute the overwhelming
responsibility for the terrible bloodshed during the rebellion on the Jewish
lessee and agent, thus justifying the singular cruelty directed against the
Jews. But the reports of Jewish
persecution of the peasants, or offenses against their religious feelings
caused by the lease of churches to the Jews, find no confirmation whatsoever in
the sources. . . .
It was during the months of May to November 1648 that most
of the massacres took place. At the beginning of the uprising, the communities
east of the Dnieper were immediately destroyed. Those Jews who did not manage
to escape or join the Polish army of Wisniowiecki on its retreat westward met
violent deaths; some converted to Christianity to save their lives; many were
seized by the Tatars and sold into slavery. During the summer, the persecutions
spread to the western bank of the Dnieper and by the middle of June there were
no more Jews in the villages and the open cities.
The first large-scale massacre took place in Nemirov, into
which the Cossacks penetrated in the disguise of Polish soldiers. Jews died en
masse as martyrs when faced with the demand that they convert to Christianity:
"They arrived … as if they had come with the Poles … in order that he open
the gates of the fortress … and they succeeded … and they massacred about 6,000
souls in the town … and they drowned several hundreds in the water and by all
kinds of cruel torments. In the synagogue, before the Holy Ark, they
slaughtered with butchers' knives … after which they destroyed the synagogue
and took out all the Torah books … they tore them up … and they laid them out …
for men and animals to trample on … they also made sandals of them … and
several other garments" ( *Shabbetai b. Meir ha-Kohen , Megillah Afah). .
.
It is impossible to
determine accurately the number of victims who perished, but it undoubtedly
amounted to tens of thousands; the Jewish chronicles mention 100,000 killed and
300 communities destroyed.
This is the Ukraine we know. The Ukraine we know did not save the Jews during the Holocaust,
but were eager, active participants in the shedding of Jewish blood. The
Ukraine we know, still lauds Bogdan Chmielnicki, sees him as a Ukrainian hero,
and named a Ukrainian military honor after him, the Order of Bogdan
Chmielnicki. Two weeks ago, in fact, Zelenskyy
awarded the mayors of embattled Ukrainian cities with just this military honor.
Today I decided to award orders to the heads of regional
administrations and mayors who have excelled in the defence of their
communities.
The Order of Bogdan Chmielnicki of the Third
Degree is awarded to:
Head of Kharkiv Regional State Administration Oleh
Vasyliovych Syniehubov.
Head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration Vitalii Oleksandrovych
Kim.
Head of Donetsk Regional State Administration Pavlo
Oleksandrovych Kyrylenko.
Head of Luhansk Regional State Administration Serhiy
Volodymyrovych Haidai.
Head of Chernihiv Regional State Administration Vyacheslav
Anatoliyovych Chaus.
Head of Sumy Regional State Administration Dmytro
Oleksiyovych Zhyvytskyi.
I asked Katarina Matlin, my expatriate Ukrainian friend, to
verify the above translation and she did so, commenting that Chmielnicki is a
revered figure in Ukraine.
“The Chmielnicki award is the Ukrainian military award for
bravery. To Ukrainians, it’s no different than Americans giving an award in the
name of George Washington. Chmielnicki is celebrated as a war hero. There are
statues of him all over Ukraine, streets named after him, his birthday is
celebrated as a national holiday. We used to read poetry about him in Ukrainian
class.
“The president, irrespective of ethnicity, wouldn’t pick that as a hill to die on.”
Kyiv monument memorializing Bogdan Chmielnicki
And still, we have to wonder at the inaction of a Jew in
power who does nothing to alter the fact that a Ukrainian military award is
named after Chmielnicki, a man whose name is synonymous with Jewish bloodshed.
But Zelenskyy’s Judaism is selective. When he wants a favor, he’s Jewish. The
rest of the time, he’s like every other (antisemitic) Ukrainian.
Portrait of Bogdan Chmielnicki
Katarina reminded me that Western Ukrainians formed fighting
units and fought alongside the Nazis. “Their biggest achievement was murdering
the vast majority of Ukrainian Jews, including my family. Most guards in the
concentration camps were Ukrainians.”
John Demjanjuk in the photo for his Trawniki card.
Many Jews are willing to let history slide, to let bygones
be bygones, to empathize with the Ukrainian people under siege. These empathetic
Jews say that was then, this is now.
Katarina, however, says otherwise:
“Their antisemitism today is as rampant as ever. They’re
already blaming Jews for this war, just like they’ve blamed us for everything
else over the millennia. Cossacks are celebrated as a part of Ukrainian
heritage just like American cowboys are celebrated in the US. I had Cossack
action figures growing up. It’s no different than American kids playing with GI
Joe. Anti-Semitism is so ‘normal’ in Ukrainian history that it doesn’t even get
a side note.”
None of this should surprise any Jewish person anywhere. And
this is precisely why Zelenskyy’s address to Israel was so bad. His words only
added fuel to the Ukrainian antisemitism that is already on fire, and spreading
fast to the rest of the world. Even those who traditionally support Israel, are
now reprimanding her, and trying to force her into acting against her own best
interests. This sort of criticism may not be antisemitism, but it certainly
fans the flames of hate.
Israel’s reaction to #Ukraine will have bearing on future aid from the US to #Israel. Pay it forward
Zelenskyy’s own criticisms of Israel began way before his
most recent address. Zelenskyy earlier accused Prime Minister Bennett of
disloyalty, asserting that Bennett had not “wrapped himself in the Ukrainian
flag.” At every possible turn it seems, Zelenskyy has examined Israel and found her
wanting.
It is now an unavoidable conclusion that criticism of Israel
from Ukrainian officials over the past several weeks has come from the top
down. From the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel finding fault with Israeli aid
and Israel’s handling of Ukrainian refugees, to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba accusing El Al of evading sanctions by accepting payments “soaked
in Ukrainian blood,” it’s all a part of the antisemitic party line. The
Ukrainian fish, like every other fish, rots from the head down.
Israel might have hoped that President Zelenskyy, being a
Jew himself, might refrain from fomenting another Chmielnicki-style Uprising.
Instead, the hate begins with Zelenskyy, trickling down to the others to a man.
Zelenskyy may not be motivated by antisemitism, but unfortunately, he inspires
it in others.
Zelenskyy has put Israel between a rock and a hard place. Do
we choose the Ukrainians, or protect ourselves from Hezbollah and Iran? Do we
jump to follow the commands of a Jew who marries out, baptizes his kids, and
then pulls the Jew card in an effort to get the Jews to cough up whatever he
demands, regardless of the precarious situation it would put us in, were we to fulfill
them?
For most Israelis, there’s no contest. We choose to protect
our own people from terror and worse over the things Zelenskyy wants us to do
for a people with a long and well known history of antisemitic cruelty.
We realize that the Ukrainian president may not even be
conscious of the fact that he is exciting Jew-hatred in his countrymen and the
world. For him, it is not intentional. It’s just a way of life. From Zelenskyy’s
perspective, Judaism is a cudgel he can wield against Israel’s tender brow to
get what he wants and needs for his people. He may not know he is feeding the
hate. But he also may not care. Much as Putin will, without a care, kill as many Ukrainians as necessary to capture Ukraine.
To the entire world, Zelenskyy is a hero. But to Israel, Zelenskyy
is a threat, illustrating an unfortunate truth: one can be Jewish and still be
a casual antisemite.
If you live in Israel, you know what happened in Beer Sheva on Tuesday. You know that a terrorist who was an Israeli citizen from one of the larger Bedouin towns that sprawl over Israel’s Negev desert, a former teacher (!) who spent four years in prison for his activities on behalf of ISIS, brutally murdered two women and two men because they were Jews living in Eretz Yisrael. The terrorist, Mohammad Jalab Abu al-Quian, stabbed a woman at a gas station and then drove to a nearby shopping center, running over a bicycle rider on the way. He got out of his car and stabbed three more people before being shot dead by two armed citizens. Four of his victims died, and the fifth was very seriously injured. The nightmare took eight minutes. Here are the names of those whose lives he took:
1) Laura Yitzchak, 43. Mother of 3 girls. Resident of Be’er Sheva. 2) [Rabbi] Moshe Kravitzky, 50. Father of 4. Managed a Colel Chabad soup kitchen in Be’er Sheva. Chabad Shaliach [he was the bicycle rider]. 3) Doris Yahbas, 49. Mother of 3. From Moshav Gilat. 4) Menachem Menuchin Yechezkel, age 67.
As always happens, Gazans distributed sweets in honor of the successful “operation,” like it was a military triumph, instead of a vicious murder spree victimizing the softest of soft targets.
In recent weeks, there have been several attempts to murder police officers and random Jews in Jerusalem. And there are the daily cases of drivers been attacked with large rocks and firebombs. I have a question for the Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, his cabinet, and indeed every member of the Knesset:
What is your long range plan to deal with Palestinian Arab terrorism, both by Palestinians from the territories and Israeli Arabs?
I am not talking about your plans to increase the police presence over the Pesach and Ramadan holidays. That is the shortest of short-term plans. I am not talking about your plans to improve the economic conditions in Gaza, the PA, and the Negev, a slightly longer-term plan which will probably lead to more, not less, terrorism.
I want to know if you have any idea of what to do about the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, who have been so radicalized by Hamas and the PLO that teenagers are capable of murdering Jewish babies? And I want to know if you understand the dangers of the continuing Islamization and Palestinization of the Arab citizens of Israel, which was demonstrated in May 2021 by the Arab pogroms against the Jewish residents of Lod, Acco, Bat Yam, Haifa, Yafo, and Tiberias?
Lately our leadership has been concerned with the war in Ukraine and a possible influx of refugees from there, Jewish and non-Jewish. It has been concerned with the betrayal of Israel by the Biden Administration, which seems to be prepared to go to almost any length to make a deal with Iran that will provide the evil regime with a Niagara of dollars and a free pass to deploy nuclear weapons. These are not small issues.
But the war between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs has been going on for far longer than the Ukraine war, and started long before the Iranian revolution. Unless there is a massive escalation into what would become WWIII – something that I doubt will happen – the war in Ukraine will be over soon. And either Israel will find a way to deal with Iran in the next year or two, or there won’t be a State of Israel to worry about.
Some will say that more people are killed in road accidents than are victims of terror. Some will say that most Arab citizens of Israel are loyal to the state, that only a minority took part in the 2021 riots, and that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are viewed as corrupt and dictatorial by the residents of the territories. These things are all true. But it is also true that virtually all the Arabs living in Israel and the territories share the view that the Jewish presence between the river and the sea is illegitimate and temporary. And I think that in a situation in which they see the possibility of success in ending the Jewish occupation of the land – all of it – virtually all of them would support the effort to do so.
Today there is no such possibility on the immediate horizon. But in the context of a major war with Iran and her proxies, a war that will treat our home front very harshly – and a war that I believe to be inevitable – the glimmer of possible victory might appear visible to them on the horizon. If that happens it will make the Second Intifada and the May 2021 riots look small, as the “pragmatic” Arabs, including the doctors and professors that we are so proud of as examples of successful coexistence come together in support of the Palestinian national objective: the reversal of the Nakba and the “redemption of all of Palestine.”
The problem of Palestinian Arab terrorism will not go away by itself. The incitement that feeds it, coming from the PLO, Hamas, ISIS, and Iran, is greater today than it ever was. And today it feeds itself, too, via social media.
In 1993, Israel’s leadership, under pressure from outsiders who understood the situation even less well than they did, tried to solve the problem by an attempt at reconciliation and compromise. But they were fooled. They entirely misread the Palestinians, who have never lost sight of their national goals, which definitely do not include living at peace along with a Jewish state. The consequences of that mistake have compounded themselves over the years, and today the threat is greater than ever.
Our 1993 leaders had a plan, and it failed. Very few Israelis still think that a solution can be found via reconciliation and compromise. The rational thing to do in response to failure is to develop a different plan that takes into account the lessons learned. Such a plan would have to recognize the Palestinian narrative and objective that drives terrorism. It would have to comprehend that you can’t reconcile with those who hold onto an overwhelming sense of grievance. It would have to replace the idea of compromise with one of victory.
The four people killed by an Arab Israeli knifeman in a Beersheba terror attack on Tuesday were named as Doris Yahbas, 49, a mother of three, Laura Yitzhak, 43, also a mother of three, Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, a father of four, and Menahem Yehezkel, 67, a brother to four.
Yahbas was from Moshav Gilat, west of Beersheba, the Merhavim Regional Council said in a statement. She is survived by her husband and children.
Her funeral was planned for Wednesday at Gilat’s cemetery.
Yahbas’s nephew, Yisrael Ozen, a paramedic for the Magen David Adom first responder service, had rushed to the scene of the stabbing where he discovered that one of the victims was his aunt.
“While giving treatment I noticed that it was my aunt, my mother’s sister,” he said.
Yahbas, who was stabbed in the entrance to a clothes shop, was already showing no vital signs and medics were forced to declare her dead, he said.
“I was shocked,” Ozen admitted, but said he could not linger and needed to attend to his uncle, Yahbas’s husband, who had arrived at the location.
Another victim was identified as Menahem Yehezkel, a 67-year-old resident of Beersheba. He had no children and leaves behind four siblings, Ynet reported.
“He never bothered anyone. He just went out for a walk,” his nephew told Ynet. “It’s a heavy blow, a terrible tragedy.”
Funerals were held Wednesday afternoon for two of the four victims of a terror attack in Beersheba the day before, with a third planned for later in the evening.
Menahem Yehezkel, 67, was laid to rest in a cemetery in the southern city while the burial ceremony for Doris Yahbas, 49, was held in Moshav Gilat, a small community close to Beersheba. Hundreds attended both funerals.
At 7 p.m. Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, 50, was to be buried in the same cemetery as Yehezkel. The funeral for Laura Yitzhak, 43, has yet to be scheduled.
“Doris, my dear wife, mother of my children, who raised them with me, we ask you for forgiveness, we will never forget you all of our lives,” Yahbas’s husband Yossi said at her funeral.
“You were the mainstay and the central link of the whole family,” he said. The terrorist “cut you away from us. You will always be with us, in our heart and soul. I promise to look after the children as you looked after them.”
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev attended Yahbas’s funeral, where he said that “a murderous terrorist incident took place, carried out by a vile killer who murdered women only because of the hatred that burned in him, and committed this heinous crime.”
The minister raised some eyebrows when he vowed to put the terrorist, who was killed in the attack, in jail. Barlev later said he had been asked to talk at the last moment and misspoke, having intended to say any accomplices would be brought to justice.
At Laura Yitzhak’s funeral, husband Tal said: “I fell in love with you at first sight when we served together in the army.” The attacker, he said, “decided to kill in cold blood for no reason, because she was Jewish.”
“What will I do now?” Tal said. “You are the one who takes care of me, the girls, our home.”
One of Yitzhak’s three daughters, Efrat, eulogized her, saying: “Mom, I can’t take it in that you’re not here. I thank you for how you taught me. I will not forget you, I promise to look after the children. You are a hero.”
Every time there is a terror attack my mind (and heart) race down the same path. It is a horrible path because it is so familiar. And because it does not end.
Living elsewhere, the news of horror is theoretical. In Israel, the news is a visceral punch in the gut that generates an immediate response - emotions and depending on how close to home the horror hits - action.
How many people abroad, even those who do care, understand that when terror strikes, we all race down the path of terror. These are the questions we all ask. The emotional roller coaster changes depending on the answer.
What happened? Where? How many? It’s not necessary to ask the full question: how many dead? How many injured? The newscasters ask the full question for us. We go with them to the hospital and hear the reports from the medical staff on the status of the dead and injured – people we don’t yet know if we know or not. People who, if not close family or friends are still members of our tribe; family we have not yet met. One person is too many, too horrible so why do we obsess over numbers? I’m not sure. Perhaps we see numbers as an indicator of how much horror to brace for, how much grief and sorrow will need to be absorbed. We have 6 million reasons to be obsessed with numbers and they don’t end there – thousands more reasons came after, all who died in defense of this land, to grant us life. Soldiers and civilians, those who were killed in battle and who were murdered simply for being Jewish and alive in our ancestral homeland.
After gathering the basic facts of what happened and how many died my mind races down the path, taking personal inventory. Before the families of the dead are notified, we know how many were murdered but not WHO. Who do we know who might have been at the scene of the attack? Where are MY family members, my friends?
When the mind pulls up someone who might have been there – heart pounding, you pick up the phone and call. Where are you? Are you ok? In the past when there were suicide bombings that caused buses to explode in the streets, when bombers blew themselves up in restaurants murdering entire families, there were so many people calling, trying to find their loved ones that the phone lines were overloaded, and it was difficult to connect with those you were desperately searching for. I’m not sure that the communication infrastructure is better now (maybe, hopefully, it is). When there are fewer people trying to use the lines all at the same time, there is less of a problem.
The worst possibility in this stage of the path of terror is when you know that your loved one was supposed to be in the place where the attack occurred, you call, and they don’t answer. Particularly when they are the kind of person who always answers the phone.
I haven’t been in the situation where you have to start calling hospitals to try to find your loved one, hoping to God to find them injured. Hoping that when the telephone rings it’s your kid, your husband, your sister telling you that they are ok – and not someone else, bringing other news.
I haven’t been in that situation – friends of mine have. I haven’t received the dreaded knock on the door – friends of mine have.
Every time there is a terror attack, it is not just the dead, the injured, and their families that are damaged. It’s not just the children who are forced to grow up without their parents, parents who have to go on living when their children have been ripped from them. Everyone else who has survived something similar is thrown back into the abyss of their own experience.
They remember when they received the dread knock on the door. When they raced from hospital to hospital searching for their child. When they were told their son had a bullet shot through his head and IF he lives, he will never be the same again. When they were stabbed. When they saw someone else stabbed to death in front of them. When they saw pieces of people scattered across the sidewalk, people who moments before were standing next to them. When they saw the video of their brother being murdered - BEFORE they were notified of his death. They remember. And for some, they re-experience their attack – the emotions, the sounds, and smells, rush back to drown them all over again.
And then we go back to work. Make supper and tuck the kids into bed.
Until the next time.
Israel is constantly ranked among the happiest nations on earth. Few note the burden we shoulder – the pain and grief that lives alongside the joy and accomplishments. We don’t play the victim game although, if we did, we could win. But who wants to win at a game that only losers would play? We are not victims. We are survivors. And we are stubborn. We will not give in. We will not give up. We will succeed against all odds – and we will be happy and GOOD, even when the world is cruel and heartless.
The "Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," Michael Lynk, is issuing a report that declares that Israel is guilty of apartheid, using the same circular logic that we have seen from other reports.
He writes that since "Distinguished voices in recent years have concluded that these inexorable facts
amount to, or closely resemble, apartheid...it is incumbent upon the rest of us to test, through the tools of international law and human rights, whether these observations accurately reflect what is happening in the Palestinian territory. " Even though nothing has changed in Israeli law towards the territories in the nearly 30 years since Oslo besides giving Palestinian Arabs more independence, it is "incumbent" to find a new accusation to hurl against Israel whose conclusion is reached before the "test."
Predictably, the legal analysis that follows is a sham, ignoring the very proof texts when they disagree with the foregone conclusion that Israel is guilty of apartheid.
As with the previous analyses by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School, the UNHRC's legal basis of determining that Israel is guilty of apartheid hinges on defining Palestinians as a separate "racial group" from Jews, using as proof the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination that expands the definition of "racial group" (not defined in the Apartheid Convention or the Rome Statute which are the only legal definitions of apartheid) to include "race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin." They purposefully exclude that the ICERD explicitly says, in the very next paragraph, "This Convention shall not apply to distinctions, exclusions, restrictions or preferences made by a State Party to this Convention between citizens and non-citizens."
Anyone who uses the ICERD's definition of racial group to damn Israel with the apartheid libel is knowingly lying about what the ICERD actually says. Any clear-eyed analysis would show that Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs differs of that of Israeli Jews is precisely because they are not citizens of Israel, not because of national or ethnic origin.
But let's pretend that this paragraph from the ICERD that thoroughly disproves the theory doesn't exist. Even without it, the twisting of facts and law leads to absurd conclusions.
The UN does not distinguish between Jerusalem, which Israel annexed, and other areas of Judea and Samaria gained in 1967 - all of them are equally "occupied." But in order to accuse Israel of apartheid in this report (unlike HRW and Amnesty,) it carefully excludes Jerusalem from its analysis so it can refer to "Jewish-only settlements" and therefore claim Israel treats Jews and Arabs differently based on national origin.
For decades, Israel has encouraged Jews to settle in East Jerusalem, changing the population balance, provoking Palestinian anger and drawing international condemnation.
But in one such settlement, around Mount Scopus where the Hebrew University is based and many Palestinians study, about 16 percent of residents are either Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
Like so much in the region, the ethnic mix is complex. Official figures from 2013 show 7.4 percent of French Hill residents are Arabs, and (some believe) the true non-Jewish population is closer to 20 percent.
In the working-class areas of Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Yaacov to the northeast of Jerusalem’s Old City, 1 to 2 percent of residents are now Israeli Arab or Palestinian, figures show.
Also, at least one "settlement" outside Jerusalem's municipal borders, Ariel, has 600 Arab residents, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics. I'm unsure if they are counting the Arab university students there or permanent residents.
If Israel is enforcing apartheid-like laws in favor of Jews against Arabs, then why does it allow Arabs to move to "Jewish-only" settlements?
If you assume that the reason is because Israel has different laws for citizens, Jerusalem residents and non-citizens, regardless of whether they are Jews or Arabs or non-Arab gentiles, all of this makes sense and is consistent.
If you assume, as the UN does, that these distinctions are based on membership in a "racial group," then how can you explain the laws that mandate Israeli Arabs to have equal rights with Jews, and the laws that give Jerusalem Arab residents the full freedom of movement between all of the territories and Israel that even Israeli Jews do not have?
If Israel is an apartheid state and distinguishes people based on national origin and not legal residency/citizenship status, then it should treat all members of the racial group the same. Which means that, according to the UN, Israeli Arabs and Arab residents of Jerusalem must be a completely different racial group than Palestinian Arabs!
This is why the paragraph excised from the ICERD by the UN and Harvard and HRW is such a big deal. Israeli laws do not distinguish between ethnic groups or races: they distinguish between citizens, legal residents and non-citizens, just as every other nation on the planet does. In order to accuse Israel of apartheid - clearly the intent of these analyses - facts and laws and portions of international conventions must be removed from the record. These groups must take a series of prisms (definition of apartheid, definition of racial group, the legal status of Israeli Arabs and Jerusalem residents, Israeli laws, and facts on the ground) and orient them in very specific and deliberate ways to perceive their foregone conclusion.
The legal distinction between citizens, residents and non-citizens is a much simpler and more consistent explanation for every example of discrimination given than pretending that this has anything to do with race. The UN (and HRW and Amnesty) must jump through some really high hoops to avoid getting shredded by Occam's razor.
To support this unsupportable structure, the UN report often resorts to incredible twisting of facts:
Almost all East Jerusalemite Palestinians possess
residency status as opposed to Israeli citizenship; while this entitles them to some Israeli
social rights (including health insurance), this residency status could be cancelled if they
leave Jerusalem for a period of time, a threat which Jewish Israelis do not face.
It is also not a threat that the thousands of Arab Israeli citizens in Jerusalem do not face, either. But the facts that prove the UN is lying about "apartheid" are not admissible in this kangaroo court.
The UN wants to turn a legal issue into a racial issue. This makes them the racists, not Israel.
There is one other interesting byproduct of the UNHRC and other analyses that was not intentional.
Arabs routinely claim that Jews only represent a religion and not a people or a nation, and that Jews are really from Poland or the US or Morocco.
If, as the UN claims, Israel discriminates based on "national origin," and Palestinians have a distinct national origin, than means that the Jewish people who are from all over the world - including the Jews who lived under Ottoman rule along with Arabs of Palestine, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere - are a distinct nation with a distinct national origin! If we accept the UN's own assumption that Jews distinguish against those with a different national origin, that means that Jews from Arab countries have a different national origin than non-Jewish Arabs.
The UN's logic that is meant to take away Jewish national rights actually improbably strengthens the view that Jews have always been a distinct nation and as such deserve national rights.
Where the Jews get it wrong
It must be said that the blame for this all-too-common falsification of history does not really lie with the Soviets in post-1948, nor with Arafat in 1964. These are errant messages that I see far too often on Zionist platforms. Believe me, that if western society viewed the historical rights of the Jewish people with the import that they deserve, the rantings of the Soviets and the PLO would never have seen the light of day.
Rather, Soviet anti-Zionist propagandists and people like Yasser Arafat saw anti-Jewish sentiment in the west and took a successful piggyback ride upon it. The weakness was in classic Christian antisemitism – ”supersessionism’ – or ‘replacement ideology’. The idea that the ‘new’ testament (the Christians) has replaced (superseded) the ‘old’ (the Jews). This is the true root of the whole notion of ‘Palestine’ in modern western thought.
It cannot be overstated how much of the modern ‘Palestinian’ is a colonial construct. Between 1917 and 1922, the borders of the Palestine mandate were drawn. The name itself was chosen because it was the ‘Holy Land’. Those borders were dictated by colonial powers. A Lebanese man today in Tyre, is Lebanese only because the British and French agreed Tyre would be outside the Palestine Mandate. A Gazan is Palestinian only because the British eventually decided that the southern Negev towns should be cut off from Egypt.
Modern Palestine was a colonial construct in its entirety – an area based around the historical land of the Jewish people, within which to recreate the Jewish homeland. Every identity attached to this land today *apart from* the Jewish identity is a heritage of British colonial rule.
The nonsensical myth of ancient Palestine
Which brings us to the name ‘Palestine’. We know that the Romans renamed Judea as Syria-Palestina circa 135AD. We also know that as the name ‘Palestine’ became ever more politicised in the 21st century, anti-Israel activists pored through every historical document possible to prove the name ‘Palestine’ had historical weight – that it was more than a short-lived example of Imperial arrogance and spite. So desperate have they been that the Wikipedia article on the subject tries to squeeze the ‘Philistines’ into the story. The Philistines (Paleshet) were biblical enemies of the Israelites – invaders from Crete, who were eventually lost to war and history, hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus.
If you are a pro-Palestinian today and you are somehow trying to squeeze Palestinian history into that of the Philistines, you probably believe that Narnia is a real place too. Which pretty much sums up the intellectual level of the average Wikipedia believer.
The United Nations (“UN”) has a long history of inventing or redefining terminology to single out, demonize, and delegitimize the Jewish state. Over the years, for example, the UN has invented a separate meaning of the term “refugee” when it comes to Palestinians and declared that “Zionism” actually meant “racism.” More recently, some UN officials have attempted to redefine the Jewish right to self-determination as “apartheid.”
In the coming days, the UN is set to continue the trend at the Human Rights Council (“UNHRC”) by declaring that Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria is not “military occupation,” but rather a legally meaningless descriptor of “colonial occupation.”
Such language denies Jews their history by labeling them as foreign invaders serving foreign powers, as opposed to being indigenous to the Land of Israel. It depicts Jews in Judea as no different from British colonial authorities in places like Nigeria or Singapore.
This new attempt can be found in a “zero draft” of an upcoming UN resolution (i.e., an early draft that is still in the negotiation and revision stage), which contains a paragraph that, as of the morning of March 21, reads:
“PP11. Considering that the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people is being violated further by Israel through the existence and ongoing expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which have served to transform a military occupation into a colonial occupation, and reinforced through a system of oppression and domination;” (Italics added; strikethrough in original)
The draft is sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of the 56-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (“OIC”).
It is worth pointing out that the strikethrough text (indicating the language will probably be removed in the final version sent to a vote) would have sought to bolster efforts to declare Israel an “apartheid” state.
Having apparently faced enough resistance to such absurd language, the sponsors instead seem to have fallen back on their go-to strategy of trying to disconnect Jews from the Jewish homeland.
The phrase “military occupation,” also referred to as “belligerent occupation,” refers to the situation regulated under international law, such as in Geneva Convention IV, when one state coercively occupies the territory of another state. While Israel believes that Judea and Samaria are disputed territories, as opposed to occupied territories, it voluntarily applies the humanitarian aspects of Geneva Convention IV pending a final peace deal.
A watchdog group is calling on the Biden administration to turn over all internal records related to a nearly $1 million grant that is being offered for nonprofit groups to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.
The State Department has been asked to turn over all documents and internal communications related to the grant, which critics view as an effort to delegitimize Israel and empower groups that promote boycotts of the Jewish state and was first exposed by the Washington Free Beacon earlier this month. The grant from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor solicits nonprofit groups to apply for grant money up to $987,654 to "strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza" and drew outrage from top Republican foreign policy leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Groups applying for the grant money are required to investigate alleged crimes inside Israel and the surrounding territories. They will "collect, archive, and maintain human rights documentation to support justice and accountability and civil society-led advocacy efforts, which may include documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land, and property rights," according to a notice from the State Department announcing the grant.
The State Department is being asked to disclose who approved the grant and the names of any groups applying for it, according to a Freedom of Information Act request issued by the America First Legal Foundation (AFLF), a watchdog group that investigates government malfeasance. The FOIA, a copy of which was obtained by the Free Beacon, directs the State Department to disclose who approved the grant and the names of any groups applying for it.
Cruz told the Free Beacon the grant is evidence that the Biden administration's State Department is staffed with appointees who hold animus toward Israel. The Biden administration's nominee to head the bureau offering the grant, Sarah Margon, for instance, has been stalled in the Senate for months due to her anti-Israel activism and statements. Other State Department hires have lobbied for the Palestinian government and have been tied to the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which wages economic warfare on Israel.
Four people were killed in a suspected terrorist stabbing attack at a shopping center and gas station in Beersheba, with a number of others injured in the attack, according to emergency services.
According to police, the terrorist arrived at a gas station and stabbed a woman before getting in a car and running over a man riding on a bicycle. He then exited the car and stabbed a man and a woman before being shot and killed by a civilian passerby.
Here we see Gazans handing out candy in celebration of the murder of Jews.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised the attack.
The terrorist, Muhammad Alab Ahmed abu Alkiyan, is a Bedouin Israeli from the town of Hura who has served time in Israeli prison in the past.
Alkiyan was arrested in 2015, along with a number of other suspects, for supporting and promoting ISIS to students at a school he taught at.
Palestinian terror groups pretend that they hate ISIS. They pretend (to the West) that they don't support attacking civilians.
But whenever there is an attack on innocent Jews, they celebrate, and they are quite allied with ISIS.
Not only do the terror groups celebrate - regular Palestinians do as well. Palestinian opinion polls consistently have shown overwhelming support for specific terror attacks that killed large numbers of Jews.
Four people were killed and several others were wounded Tuesday in a ramming and stabbing attack at an outdoor shopping mall in Beersheba, officials said, in Israel’s deadliest terror attack in years.
According to police, the assailant first stabbed a woman to death at a gas station in the southern city. He then entered his car and rammed a cyclist, before getting out again and stabbing several people at the BIG shopping center.
Video from the scene then showed the terrorist confronted by an armed bus driver, who attempted to get him to lower his weapon. But the attacker lunged at him and was then shot several times, by the bus driver and by a second armed civilian.
The cyclist and two of the stabbing victims at the mall later died of their wounds.
The stabber was identified as 34-year-old Mohammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, a former terror convict from the Bedouin town of Hura in the Negev.
According to the Zaka emergency service, Abu al-Qi’an died of his wounds.
The Shin Bet said it was investigating the attack.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said a woman in her forties who had been stabbed by the assailant was declared dead at the scene. Five others were taken to the nearby Soroka Medical Center. Three of them died of their wounds shortly after admission, the hospital said.
The other two were listed in serious but stable condition at the hospital.
Tuesday’s rampage was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since June 2016, when two terrorists opened fire at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market, killing four people and wounding 16.
The Hamas terror group praised the stabbing attack, saying it “salutes the executor of the heroic operation in occupied Beersheba.”
?? Video from scene of this afternoon’s terror attack in #BeerSheba, southern #Israel, where an assailant rammed his car into group of people and then began stabbed them, murdering 4.
Thank G-d there was passerby with gun, who took him out, averting an even further catastrophe. pic.twitter.com/V6sqyJY1yP
A terror attack has been reported in the southern Israeli city of Be'er Sheva. Several civilians were wounded including one killed. The attacker was reportedly shot and killed. Palestinian militant groups have yet to publish statements or claim credit for the attack. #Israelpic.twitter.com/jHdISkvbu5
Terror attack in Be'er Sheva: 'He looked at me and continued to stab the young woman'
Eyewitness recalls, 'I went to buy something at a store in BIG, when I suddenly heard screaming. I had chills over my whole body.'
Four people were killed Tuesday afternoon in a terror attack in the southern city of Be'er Sheva.
Among the victims were a woman of about 50, whose death was declared at the scene; and a woman of about 40 and a man of about 60, who were declared dead in Soroka Medical Center. A fourth person, who had been riding a bicycle, was killed after the terrorist rammed into him.
Two other women are in moderate condition and being treated at Soroka.
Yaron, an eyewitness to the terror attack, told Channel 13 News, "I had gone to buy something in a store in the BIG center, when I suddenly heard screaming. I ran to the place and I saw a terrorist stabbing one of the young women, and another woman running away from there. I ran towards the terrorist and began screaming at him, 'What are you doing?' He looked at me and continued stabbing the young woman, and did not say anything."
A terror attack in Be'er Sheva has claimed the lives of four individuals when an Arab stabbed a number of people at a gas station in the commercial center on Derech Hevron of the city.
Three women and one man were murdered in the attack and two additional victims received moderate wounds before being evacuated to the city's Soroka Medical Center.
Initial police investigations show that the terrorist arrived at the gas station where he stabbed a woman before running down a bicycle rider with his vehicle, and stabbing a number of others after getting out of his car.
A bus driver who saw the stabbing take place fired at the terrorist, neutralizing the man, who was later declared dead at the scene.
According to police sources, the terrorist was an Arab Israeli citizen who lived in the Bedouin town of Hura and was known in the past to be a supporter of ISIS. The terrorist, who has been identified as Mohammad Jalab Abu al-Quian, was shot and killed at the scene.
According to Maariv, the terrorist had joined ISIS and was recently released from a 5 year prison term.
Israeli elected officials came to Indonesia on an official visit for the first time in nearly 30 years on Monday.
MKs Avi Dichter (Likud) and Nira Shpak (Yesh Atid) led an Israeli delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Bali. They met with parliamentary members from around the world and represented Israel as the future of Ukraine and the Middle East were discussed.
Dichter was elected to head an IPU committee on fighting terrorism.
Israel does not have relations with Indonesia, which was visited by then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1993.
A recent series of meetings, statements and reports in the last few months of 2021 indicate that Israel and Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim state, have grown closer.
The Indonesian delegation said that the IPU delegates should work towards a fully independent Palestinian state. Last year it was unsuccessful in gaining support for that resolution.
The Kuwaiti representative demanded that Israel be expelled from the IPU altogether at a sidelines meeting of Arab states at the conference, saying that it was hypocritical for the IPU to expel Russia and not Israel. This speech was greeted with cheers from various anti-Israel groups. The Algerian delegate made a similar point.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the conference is the absence of a Palestinian delegation altogether. Usually the PA is eager to attend any international gathering to appear like a real functioning state. They attended last November's meeting in Madrid. In 2018, their delegation successfully passed an anti-Israel resolution.
I could not find any mention or explanation of the absence in Palestinian media. This may mean that there was some embarrassing infighting going on concerning the conference that the Palestinian media wants to keep quiet.
One year ago, the last handful of Jewish families in Yemen were deported from the country by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, marking the end of the 2,600 year old Jewish community in Yemen.
Here we have not only a human rights violation of forcible deportation but a complete ethnic cleansing of a venerable minority group from a country.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch did not say a word about this, though. The eradication of the Jewish community didn't reach the threshold of what is noteworthy to human rights groups. Their Yemen pages don't mention Jews, and neither did their annual reports' Yemen sections.
Amnesty prides itself on fighting to release political prisoners. Levi Salem Marhabi is a Jew in ill health who remains tortured in a Yemen prison. Even though a Yemen court ruled that he should be released in 2019, and even though his release was supposed to be part of the deal to deport Yemen's Jews, he remains imprisoned today.
The US State Department has called for his release. The plight of the Jews of Yemen and of Marhabi specifically were mentioned in US government annual reports on human rights.
Amnesty, and HRW, have been silent about Levi Salem Marhabi.
The last time Amnesty said anything about the Jews in Yemen was in 2008. That was also the last time HRW mentioned them as an aside.
The Houthi flag itself literally says "Curse the Jews." The antisemitism of these Islamists is explicit, and doesn't even pretend to hide behind "anti-Zionism." But to these "human rights" groups, the remaining Jews in Yemen who were directly threatened by the Houthis every day were not worth a press release. Marhabi is not worth a tweet to these groups.
The antisemitism of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International is not only obvious from their obsessive hate of the Jewish state. It is also clear from what they decide not to report. And they bend over backwards to ignore antisemitism like this.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
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