Wednesday, May 18, 2022

                                                          Interview with Richard Landes

Shireen Abu Aqleh died in the performance of her job as a journalist. That is an undeniable fact. Just about everything else you’ve heard from the mainstream media, however, is a lie.

The party responsible for Abu Aqleh’s death could not be identified by the official PA coroner, yet the media (and Susan Sarandon) have unequivocally pointed a finger at Israel.


None of this outrage and blame is about determining whether it was an Israeli or an Arab bullet that killed Abu Aqleh in a crossfire. The allegations are far worse: Israel is charged with the deliberate execution of Abu Aqleh, though there is no evidence to back this claim and no reason to believe it is true.

All of which makes this a blood libel.

What is a blood libel, really? It is a false allegation, a cynical use of dead people to smear and foment violence against the Jews. And the media would not serve it up to you on a plate unless the public were hungry for it—unless they themselves hated the Jews as a concept and a people.

In that sense, the Abu Aqleh story is not a fresh news cycle, but an old story. The comparison to the Mohammed al Durah story, in which the shooting death of young boy was falsely pinned on Israel, is obvious. And there is no one better to weigh in on how these two news stories have been handled than Professor Richard Landes.

Prof. Landes documented the blood libel that was the al Durah story. It was Landes who coined the term “Pallywood” to describe the theater put on for the media by so-called “Palestinian” Arabs in their cognitive war against the Jews. The media lapped up the al Durah fakery and more than that, helped to create it.

Pallywood I - According to Palestinian Sources from Israel on Vimeo.

Here, Richard Landes offers his insight on this newest example of Pallywood in regard to the death of Shireen Abu Aqleh, and how the media is helping to amplify this latest blood libel against the Jews.

Varda Epstein: It seems obvious to draw comparisons to the shooting death of Abu Aqleh and that of al Durah. The accusations that Al Durah’s death was at the hands of the IDF turned out not to be true. There was a longstanding attempt to cover up the truth not only by an Arab populace hostile to Israel, but by the media, and in fact, this was a collaborative effort between the two. 

Some recent footage has been aired showing gunmen gleefully stating that an IDF soldier had been shot, after which they began to drag the victim out, presumably to confirm or ensure “his” death, only to discover that the body was that of Abu Aqleh. If this short footage is as it seems, what do the accusations against the IDF signify, and how is this similar to what happened with al Durah? Is there a pattern here?

Richard Landes: The pattern is, above all, the successful accusation of deliberate murder of an innocent civilian carried forward as completely plausible, if not news, by Western news media. We heard immediately about a sniper, and claims by the eyewitnesses of deliberate, cold-blooded murder. There is no way they can know this; and now that we know the caliber of the bullet, sniper fire is out. But the media relayed the accusation (who else would kill her?).

In the case of al Durah, the details are very different. It was staged; and the body that was buried was not the boy who was allegedly shot. But the key accusation, what fuels the blood libel that the IDF deliberately targeted the boy, was not only made by the cameraman (Talal abu Rahmah) in a signed affidavit – which he later withdrew in a private fax – but more significantly by Charles Enderlin in his voiceover: “la cible de tirs venus de la position israélienne” [the target of fire coming from the Israeli position]. He thus became the first self-identified Jew (an Israeli who served as IDF spokesperson!) to spread a blood libel against his people.

Asked later by an Israeli journalist why he spoke of the IDF targeting them when he had no evidence, he replied, “If I hadn’t… they’d say in Gaza ‘How come Enderlin does not say it’s the IDF?’”

The response was so damning (not clear that Enderlin even realized that) that HaAretz removed it from their English version of the article. What on earth is an Israeli (or any) journalist doing taking orders from Gaza in a matter of assessing Israel’s “murderous intentions”?

Richard Landes holding his film, "Pallywood"

Varda Epstein: Did the al Durah episode set certain precedents in the “cogwar,” the term you have coined for cognitive warfare? Can you elaborate on that for us?

Richard Landes: Above all, it confirmed what the Palestinians had long claimed, but Western media was reluctant to believe (given the IDF’s code and behavior), namely that Israel deliberately kills kids and other civilians. From this point on, any claims Palestinians made of Israelis killing kids got ready credulity from the press. More important even than that, it meant that every time the Palestinians attacked Israel and Israel responded, the press led with the Israeli response. So, for example, Jacques Chirac told Ehud Barak on October 4, 2000, in what may be one of the stupider comments of the day: “You will never convince anyone that the Palestinians are the aggressors.”

He thus made it impossible for the West to see the first round of a global jihad which would soon target them as well, not just Israel.

As a result, Palestinian terror became a measure of Israeli guilt – they have “no choice” but to fight back. By 2003, at the height of the suicide terror war against Israel, Ian Buruma commented (as a self-evident aside) that being pro-Palestinian was a “litmus test of liberal credentials.” The very meme now so powerfully embedded in current “progressive” discourse – IDF are child-killers – starts with al Durah.

Varda Epstein: What lessons have the enemy learned from what happened with al Durah? How are these lessons applied today?

Richard Landes: They’ve learned that they can count on the media to promote their war propaganda as news (lethal war journalism), even when it’s against their own interest (promoting the enemy’s war propaganda as news = own-goal war journalism). I put together the eight basic principles of the Palestinian Media Protocols for Western journalists:

Palestinian Media Protocols

1. The Palestinians are the noble resistors - David. 2. The Israelis are the cruel oppressors - Goliath.
3. Thou shalt always portray Palestinians as victims, never as Aggressors. 4. Thou shalt never portray the Israelis  as victims, always as Aggressors.
5. Thou shalt not portray Palestinians unsympathetically. 6. Thou shalt not portray Israel sympathetically.
7. Thou shalt not challenge or undermine Palestinian claims.       8. Thou shalt challenge and undermine Israeli claims.

The compliance score of Western media is so high that even when Palestinians kill their own people they can count on the media to blame Israel. As a result, Hamas has developed a cannibalistic strategy where it promotes casualties among its own people (no bomb shelters, firing from civilian areas, random shelling that often kills its own), and counts on the media to create a massive PR disaster for the Israelis. Some of the compliance comes from ideological/emotional sympathy with those who hate Israel; some (I think most) comes from a fear of retaliation/intimidation.

Varda Epstein: Has Israel absorbed the full significance of the al Durah episode, and developed any significant, responsive strategies going forward?

Richard Landes: Not really. First of all it took over a decade for them to even challenge al Durah (as in not supporting Karsenty in his court cases), until the Kuperwasser commission tackled it, but even that was not promoted as it should have been. There was a brief moment when some took the cogwar seriously, but rather than learn from the people who had been fighting the cogwar for over a decade, they charged ahead without really understanding the dynamics. More broadly – and this may be a hard-wired problem for Israelis – they don’t understand the antisemitism underlining the appeal. They think – as I did initially – that it’s about information. But that’s just the most superficial level, and appeals to the empirical are limited. The Palestinian appeal to the West (alas Western progressives), is the latter’s apparently insatiable appetite for news of Jews behaving badly. Hard to fight that.

Thus, to take the most important issue in Abu Aqleh’s death, the immediate accusations of a sniper deliberately killing her, of the IDF opening fire on the journalists, wasn’t addressed. Instead, they tried to suggest that the Palestinians shot her – very possible – but didn’t immediately counter the “murder” charges (i.e. they focused on the empirical, not the question of intention). And that’s what the media ran with. So, when the Palestinians announced the caliber of the bullet, what should have been a major victory for Israel – it was not a sniper, the “eyewitness” testimony was not honest – became a fight over a joint forensic investigation. Huge opportunity lost.

Varda Epstein: How is world response to Abu Aqleh’s death similar to that of al Durah’s?

Richard Landes: The immediate acceptance of the accusation of deliberate murder, the ferocious attention to the event (as opposed to the 487 other journalists killed in war zones in the last two decades, none of whom have received this kind of attention). And, of course, many on the Palestinian side try to make the comparison. Certainly, in terms of how angered the Arab world is at this news, it’s comparable. Vic Rosenthal, one of the most astute bloggers on these issues put it this way:

If the production called “the death of Muhammad al-Dura” is the Gone With the Wind of Pallywood,* then the recent extravaganza starring Shireen abu Akleh is on its way to becoming its Star Wars.

Varda Epstein: Israel has stepped up with an offer to work together on the investigation of Abu Aqleh’s death, and the PA has refused to cooperate, yet world leaders are condemning Israel. Why? Why is the Biden Administration taking sides, and pretending that both sides are refusing to cooperate in an investigation, when only one side is doing so, the PA?

Richard Landes: The Biden administration is in the hands of people who have bought the Palestinian line. They don’t even have to be in the radical pro-Palestinian camp (like Tlaib and Omar); they just don’t understand the stakes and the rules of the game. So while supporting the Palestinian “narrative” of suffering at the hands of Israel has them thinking they’re siding with the underdog freedom fighters against the colonial oppressors, they’re actually siding with the global imperialists trying to wipe out Israel and subject the rest of the world to the Caliphate. The height of the folly came two years later when Europeans, responding to their news media’s lethal journalism about a “massacre” in Jenin, cheered on suicide terrorists who would soon target them.

Varda Epstein: What do you think of the police response to protesters trying to abscond with Abu Aqleh’s casket, against the wishes of her family? Was the response appropriate? Does it matter what the world thinks of what happened, or how they rush to judgment based on the footage aired by those aiming to demonize Israel?

Richard Landes: Classic and typical. Assume that the Palestinians are a single unit and the Israelis are yahoos. The thought that the (Christian) family might object to jihadis hijacking their funeral doesn’t even enter their minds. The Israeli police was caught in an impossible catch 22 situation; whatever they did, they lost. This cartoon from the Arab side illustrates nicely how they won this round.


Varda Epstein: Why is the Biden Administration seemingly so ready to weigh in on the Abu Aqleh shooting while it refrains from pressuring King Abdullah to extradite Ahlam al Tamimi? Abu Aqleh was an American citizen, but so were Malki Roth and Shoshana Greenbaum. Shouldn’t Biden act on these much older murders of American citizens before pointing a finger at Israel, America’s supposedly greatest ally, for this new incident, especially since the investigation of Abu Aqleh’s death is incomplete?

Richard Landes: The basic rules of the game have to do with whom you want (or don’t want) to cross. No one in the West wants to cross Arab Muslims. Say no to Israelis and at most they whine; say no to Arabs and there’s no end to the problems that can ensue. Same thing with antisemitic cartoons like the one Dave Brown did of Sharon as Chronos devouring Palestinian babies which got an award from the British Political Cartoon Society because it outraged the Israelis and got so many hits. When Martin Himmel asked why not a cartoon of Arafat eating Palestinian babies? the head of the BPCS said:

Maybe [because] Jews don’t issue fatwas . . . if you offend a Muslim or Islamic group, as you know, fatwas can be issued by ayatollahs and such like, and maybe it’s at the back of each cartoonist’s mind that they could be in trouble if they do so . . . if they depict an Arab leader in the same manner . . . they could suffer death, couldn’t they? Which is rather different. [smiles disconcertingly].

With the Roths’ case, I think it’s not so much that the US fears the king’s retaliation, but that the king will be fatally compromised by their forcing him to side with Western infidels against a fellow Muslim considered a “heroine” by so many. It says a lot about Jordanian society, not surprising, but rarely stated: the “alliance” we have with our allies in this part of the authoritarian world is not very deep (in contrast to Israel). If Westerners had understood this better, rather than pretending all cultures are equal and the same and the Arabs (according to the post-Orientalists) are on the verge of democracy, we would not have named the events of 2010-11 the “Arab Spring.”


Varda Epstein: How legitimate is it for the Arabs to claim Shireen Abu Aqleh as a martyr when she was not even a Muslim?

Richard Landes: Not at all. But that’s only in a world where real definitions and identities matter. Palestinians will say anything that works. If calling her a martyr galvanizes their world, what’s the problem with that?

They can easily make three radically different assertions serially: 1) the holocaust never happened, 2) the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews, 3) we want to finish Hitler’s job. In the Arab Muslim world, each of these appeal for a different reason, and they all have a great deal of power. The pathetic part of the story is that Westerners don’t see through it, and so deplore them for saying 1), accept their claim of 2), and ignore 3).

Same with their claims about the media. On the one hand they can relish political cartoons like the one above, while on the other, claim that Israel controls the media. If it feels good – builds “us” up, tears “them” down – go for it.

Varda Epstein: Many have said Israel should not be mourning the death of Abu Aqleh considering she worked for Al Jazeera, and independent of working for an antisemitic, anti-Israel outlet, had views in line with those sentiments. Is this a relevant consideration, in your opinion?

Richard Landes: I don’t know her work, but clearly the Palestinians thought she was on their side (hardly surprising for someone who has worked for a propaganda outlet). I certainly understand Israelis who do not mourn the death of someone who regularly engaged in Palestinian lethal journalism. The irony of course, is that the Palestinians insist that the Israelis shot her because of her journalism, which is a perfect projection of what they’d do to any journalist who had the nerve not to comply with their protocols.

Varda Epstein: How hard do the Palestinians have to fake it until they make it? Does the media question the Pally side of things? Does the public? Is the death of Abu Aqleh convenient as an opportunity for the media, kind of like a supply and demand situation for material that demonizes Israel in the public eye? If so, why does the public so desire this type of “news?”

Richard Landes: They don’t have to try too hard. The original title of the book I’m publishing in October was They’re so Smart cause we’re so Stupid. Partly it was inspired by how cheap the al Durah fake was, and how eagerly the media and “progressive” public snatched it up. In the case of Pallywood, for example, the Western news editors take obviously faked footage and turn it into believable sight-bytes.

My friend David Deutsch has a theory about a kind of social constant (he calls it “The Pattern”) – the need to legitimate hurting Jews. This kind of lethal journalism that feeds Palestinian propaganda into the Western (dis)information stream serves that need.

Put in psychological terms, I think there’s a moral rivalry here between the “progressive global left” (in USA, “woke”), who feel they’re at the cutting edge of global morality, and their only serious competitors are the first and oldest claimant to that moral title, namely the Jews. As a result they’re involved (largely, I think unconsciously) in a kind of supersessionism – we replace the Jews as moral leaders – and therefore, like the Christian and Muslim supersessionists before them, they revel in news that makes the Israelis look bad. As a result, the most progressive nation – by far, by light years – in the Middle East appears on the progressive screens as the worst violator of human rights, fascism and racism, while the most right-wing, imperialist, misogynist, genocidal movement on the planet appears on their screens as part of a global left anti-imperialist alliance.

They then open the door to an even more insidious form of replacement theory, the projection onto the Jews of a notion of chosenness which is a) not Jewish, and b) often gentile supersessionist, namely that being chosen gives the chosen the right to treat the non-chosen as subhuman (hence the appeal of the blood libel). That of course, thrives on descriptions of Israelis massacring Gazans and is impervious to any evidence that Hamas is killing Gazans.

Varda Epstein: Did Israel take the right steps, following the death of Shireen Abu Aqleh? What more could Israel have done to respond to this event?

Richard Landes: As I said, the focus should have been immediately to counter – nay ridicule – the accusations of deliberate murder. Even if we did shoot her, we didn’t do it on purpose. By focusing on this issue, the validity of Palestinian claims could have been undermined early on.

                                                          ***
Richard Landes is a retired medieval history professor, living in Jerusalem. His next book, entitled: Can “The Whole World” be Wrong? A Medievalist’s Guide to the Troubled 21st Century, is due to be published in October by Academic Studies Press.



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 



Iranian news site IQNA writes:

TEHRAN (IQNA) – The leader of an extremist Israeli group has called on illegal settlers to demolish the Dome of the Rock in the upcoming so-called “flag march”.

Bentzi Gopstein, head of extremist group Lehava invited the illegal settlers to take part in the event which will be held later this month and mark it by demolishing the Dome of the Rock in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

He shared a photo on social media that showed a bulldozer beside the Dome of Rock which is situated in the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound.

"We will come to demolish the Dome of the Rock," read the photo's caption.

The march is due to take place on 28 May.
It shows part of a poster that they claim Gopstein posted:


First of all, May 28 is a Saturday. There is no march set up for a Shabbat. 

It turns out that this picture is a detail of a poster posted by Gaza Now, and maybe other places:

Look at the logos on the bottom of the poster. Peace Now? Breaking the Silence? These are all left-wing Israeli organizations - not exactly the people who one would expect would want to demolish the Dome of the Rock!

It turns out that the poster is completely fake. Someone Photoshopped a real poster published by left-wing Israeli groups where they claim they will go and demolish the outpost of Homesh - on Saturday, May 28, this year.



I don't know if the fake poster was created by Arabs to spread a libel about Jews or if a Jew created the Photoshop to respond to the left-wing promise to demolish an outpost that had previously been demolished by Israel.

Thousands of Arabic speakers, however, are convinced that Jews are readying to demolish Al Aqsa on May 28. Since I first saw this fake poster this morning, the "destruction" has condemned by PA Adviser for Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations Mahmoud al-Habbash, who parroted the story that right-wing Jews from Lehava posted this graphic. So did the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

When these rumors pop up, people sometimes get killed. 

The Israeli government has started to debunk rumors in an effort to forestall violence, for example their denial that they will allow a Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount was reported in Arab media. Perhaps they should set up a webpage to monitor these rumors and instantly debunk them. Even though Arabs will say that the Jews are liars, over time the site can show over history how these rumors never come true and perhaps their denials will at least be read.



UPDATE
: Gopstein did post this on his Telegram channel. It was obviously a joke to make fun of Peace Now et. al., but it is a stupid and irresponsible thing for him to post. He is literally putting Jewish lives at risk for lolz with his buddies? No, thanks, we don't need him to represent those who love the entire Land of Israel.

(h/t DigFind)



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

From Ian:

MEMRI: Hamas-Affiliated Gazan Journalist In Article On Occasion Of Nakba Day: Palestine Was Lost Because Palestinians Heeded Advice Of Arab Regimes To Leave Their Homes
On Nakba Day this year (May 15, 2022), Ibrahim Al-Madhoun, a Gazan journalist affiliated with Hamas, published an article on the Hamas website palinfo.com discussing the reasons for the Nakba and for the situation of the Palestinians today. Titled "The Nakba from a Different Perspective," the article claims that the Palestinians left their homes and villages in 1948 in compliance with the advice of the Arab armies, who promised to fight on their behalf but failed to deliver on this promise. This, he says, is what caused the Palestinians to lose their homeland. He adds that, today, the Arab regimes are pressuring the Palestinians to surrender to Israel, but they have learned their lesson and are ignoring this advice and defending themselves by manufacturing rockets and building tunnels. Al-Madhoun concludes that, 74 years after the Nakba, the Palestinians are on the verge of regaining all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[1]
"We are now marking 74 years since the loss of Palestine and the dispersal of its people across the world in what is known as the Nakba [literally, the catastrophe]. This [is how we refer to it] because of the torments and the [harsh] consequences that have been suffered by every Palestinian for decades, which we could not have imagined would ensue. The Palestinian people is a living people that adheres to its identity and its land, is rebellious by nature, makes sacrifices and is capable of defending its land. However, the loss of Palestine for all this time raises many questions and queries.

"When our parents left their lands, their cities and their homes [in 1948] they left their money, belongings, clothing and jewelry behind, and took with them only the deeds to their homes and their keys, because [they thought] they were leaving only temporarily. Had they realized it would last [longer, even] for a single year, they would have preferred to die in their homes, their orchards and their fields.

"Sadly, the armies of several Arab regimes had a hand in persuading the people and the villages to leave and to abandon their homes, on the pretext of protecting [the villages] and fighting the Zionist gangs. The Palestinians believed and trusted them and the families left, hoping that the Zionist gangs would be defeated and their strength would be broken…

"Palestinians sold their wives' jewelry to buy a single rifle to defend their village, but the Arab armies collected their weapons and promised them they would fight on their behalf. They took the weapons and sent the [Palestinian] fighters away, and then they withdrew without putting up a fight.

"Had the Arab leaders only supported the Palestinian fighters with weapons and funds, or refrained from interfering and let them to do as they chose, Palestine would not have been lost. But they did not do that. [Instead] they interfered, planned, came together -- and then simply handed over the country [to the Jews].

"Today the ball and idea are back in the same court and the Arab regimes are playing the same role of colluding with the occupation. These regimes are besieging our people, fighting it and treating to it with hostility, and pressuring it to surrender its weapons and surrender to "Israel." The Arab regimes condemn our Palestinian people in Gaza for possessing weapons and insisting on manufacturing rockets and building tunnels. They [are trying to] convince it to hand over all of this, but today our people are [more] aware and experienced, and thus the Nakba will not recur as long as our people is armed and as long as the jihad fighters build their tunnels.
Phyllis Chesler: One Day in May—in Jerusalem and in New York City
I was a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) for nearly 30 years and retired before it was taken down by the same plague of politically correct anti-Zionism that has infected higher learning all over the Western world.

On May 13th of this year, the same day that members of Fatah stole the coffin of journalist Shereen Abu Aqleh in Jerusalem, the CUNY Law School graduates elected one of their own—this was not an administrative decision—to deliver a commencement address. It was the student body, our future lawyers, who proudly support the most vulgar brand of Jew hatred and Israel-hatred.

Please understand: These are our future lawyers who presumably, are committed to social justice law.

The speaker, Nerdeen Mohsen Kiswani, the founder and director of “Within Our Lifetime”(WOL) and a known hater of Israel, was wildly applauded and cheered, many times, by the student body that had chosen her. In doing so, they were also applauding themselves for having chosen a woman who identifies as Palestinian, wears hijab, and speaks clearly and eloquently in American English.

Mohsen Kiswani has called for “Intifada, Revolution, Now,” and supports violent protests which target recognizable Jews on New York City streets. Mohsen Kiswani leads such protests with chants such as “”5-6-7-8 smash the settler state;” “There is only one solution, Intifada revolution;” and “Globalize the Intifada.”

She has “liked” a post which celebrated the murder of three Israeli civilians and shared a video by Muna El-Kurd which referred to Israelis as “Zionist dogs.” She has also celebrated terrorists, such as Rasmea Odeh.

We make a mistake if we think that hijab-wearing Muslim women are only passive, helpless, victims. Indeed, while some may be victims of Islamism, (honor killing, forced veiling, FGM, child marriage, etc.), something they do not usually address, some have chosen the only path of glory open to them namely, that of being very aggressive, even vulgar in public, in order to condemn Israel, Jews, and America.

Think Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib who has just introduced a House Resolution Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian Refugee Rights as a holiday to be commemorated in the United States. Tlaib is not alone. Think Ilhan Omar who joins her.

Tlaib refers to the “violence and horror…the scars borne by the close to 800,000 Palestinians who were forced from their family homes and their communities, and those killed are burned into the souls of the people who lived through the Nakba.”

Tlaib also brings in what she calls “the assassination of Shireen Abu Aqleh…(and) the war crimes.”

Surely, the global Intifada which Mohsen Kiswani calls for has now made landfall in the American Congress.
'Nakba recognition' resolution submitted by Rashida Tlaib, 'squad'
A resolution proposing to officially commemorate the “Nakba” in the United States was submitted on Tuesday to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan, 13th District).

“Today, I introduced a resolution recognizing the Nakba (catastrophe), where 400 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, [and] over 700,000 Palestinians [were] uprooted from their homes and made refugees,” Tlaib wrote on Twitter.

She thanked the co-sponsors of the resolution, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Cori Bush, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Rep. Betty McCollum and Rep. Marie Newman. Along with Tlaib, the first four co-sponsors are members of what is known as “The Squad” – six relatively young Democratic US House representatives. The sixth Squad member, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, was not a co-signer. The Nakba resolution

The bill calls to establish an official means for the US to recognize and remember the Nakba – the establishment of the State of Israel and the exodus of Palestinian refugees caused by the 1948 War of Independence when the nascent state was attacked by several of its Arab neighbors.

The “Nakba resolution” proposes that the US government cease to engage in denial of the Nakba and encourage education and public awareness of it.

“The Nakba is well-documented and continues to play out today,” tweeted Tlaib. “We must acknowledge that the humanity of Palestinians is being denied when folks refuse to acknowledge the war crimes and human rights violations in apartheid Israel.”

Further policy would see the US continue support for Palestinian refugees through UNRWA, and “support the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNGA 194 [...] says that Palestinian war refugees should be permitted to return to their homes or be compensated for damages.”

“We cannot understand the current conflict without acknowledging the tragedy of the Nakba,” wrote Newman. “I’m proud to stand with Palestinians in IL-03 and everywhere as we call for your history to be recognized and respected.”



By Daled Amos


The corruption of the media and its bias against Israel continued, as expected, following the death of Shireen Abu Akleh.

Credit: @EretzIsrael

Today, a week later, where do we stand?

Israel took a beating in the media, which gets more brazen with each opportunity to attack Israel with fabricated, twisted accounts describing outbreaks of violence.

Taking their cue from the media, politicians join in the free-for-all:

How bad is the damage?

Arial Kahana, Israel Hayom's diplomatic correspondent, contrasts Israel's official response in the death of Abu Akleh with the response to the al-Durrah incident in September 2000. Israel was slow and clumsy to respond to the death of the Arab Palestinian boy, which became a huge propaganda victory that resonates to till today.

This time was different.

At 8 a.m., just one hour after her death, the IDF Spokesperson had already issued a statement whereby, apparently, the Palestinians themselves murdered her in the midst of the gunfight. By 9 a.m. his words had been translated to Arabic and English and sent to international news outlets and foreign reporters. At the same time, a video was released intended to support the Israeli claim.

While making clear that a definitive conclusion could not be made without the fatal bullet, which the Palestinian Authority refused to share with Israel even in a combined effort, Israel stressed that the case could be made that a Palestinian shooter could have fired the shot.

As Kahana points out, that is still less than a winning argument. The Palestinian Arabs and their allies have no scruples about claiming definitively that an Israeli soldier fired the fatal shot; the best that Israel will allow itself is to say that maybe a Palestinian Arab was the shooter.

And yet, the efforts of Israeli spokespeople bore fruit: By 12 noon, most of the major news outlets in the world had already highlighted the Israeli position. It wasn't the headline, but Israel's doubts regarding the Palestinian version of events were at least given expression.

That is the best that Israel could expect from the media. But what about the international community?

Kahana contrasts two different areas where Israel is fighting to improve its image: in the media and also diplomatically in the international community.

The important countries essentially fell in line with Jerusalem. Great Britain, the European Union, and the United Nations simply asked for an investigation into the incident, and of course, expressed remorse over her death.

Even Egypt and Jordan didn't adopt the Palestinian version. Publically or behind the scenes, the Foreign Ministry didn't receive any reprimands.

The most important country of all, the United States – even more so because Abu Akleh was a dual US citizen – sufficed with a general call for an investigation, without blaming either of the sides.

Laza Berman, diplomatic reporter for the Times of Israel, noted that while the Muslim world condemned the incident, there was not a rush to specifically place the blame on Israel. In addition to the muted response from Egypt and Jordan, Israel's new friends in the Abraham Accords also did not blame Israel, while calling for an investigation.

Then there is Turkey.

Here is the response from Fahrettin Altun, who is both Erdogan’s communications director and a member of Turkey’s National Security Council:


Turkey has claimed that it wants to repair ties with Israel.
It's a start.

But then things fell apart at Abu Akleh's funeral.

Following the death of Shireen Abu Akleh in a Jenin firefight between IDF troops and Palestinian gunmen, Israeli authorities managed to secure a decent public relations position – only to have the good will and legitimacy ruined by the Israel Police.

The official public relations stance of the state and military was directly contradicted by the actions of the police.

At Abu Akleh’s funeral on Friday, Israel Police reacted to rioters commandeering the coffin and hurling objects by wading into the crowd with swinging batons – even hitting those carrying the coffin, almost causing it to fall to the ground. They also tore Palestinian flags off the hearse.

Videos of the incidents went online immediately, receiving almost as much attention as the initial videos of Abu Akleh’s death. [empthasis added]

Gone is the image of responsibility.
Now, instead of just one investigation, Israel will need to conduct two.

In a war, Israel can never afford to lose.
In a propaganda war, the immediate stakes may not be as high, but losses take a toll.

Especially one like this.





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From Middle East Monitor:

Algerian lawmakers, on Tuesday, submitted a Bill criminalising normalisation with Israel, including articles prohibiting travel or any direct or indirect contact with Tel Aviv, Anadolu News Agency reports.

Youssef Ajesa, a lawmaker from the Movement of Society for Peace, told Anadolu Agency that he "lodged on behalf of his party's group of deputies (65 out of 462) the Bill to the Parliament."

The Movement of Society for Peace is an Islamic party that forms the largest opposition bloc in the Algerian Parliament. The party's leadership, however, has constantly confirmed its support for the country's foreign policy.

Ajesa said "his parliamentary bloc tried to include other groups to contribute to the Bill, but it did not receive a response, so I took the initiative to present it in its name."

The Bill includes seven articles that aim to "criminalise normalisation with the Zionist entity (Israel)" as well as forbidding any contacts with Israel or travelling to and from Israel.
What is not mentioned is that Algerian parties have submitted similar bills in the past and they (surprisingly) failed.

Apparently, this bill is meant to copy Iraq's draft bill from last week to criminalize any contacts with Israel, a "crime" that could be punished with the death penalty.. The Iraqi parliament legal committee discussed the bill yesterday ahead of its second draft reading.




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Peter Beinart tweeted on Sunday, "The Jewish state in the UN plan would have been 40-50% Arab, which is why, according to Benny Morris,  Ben-Gurion felt that "without some sort of massive displacement of Arabs from the area of the Jewish state-to-be there could be no viable ‘Jewish’ state.” 

He is quoting from his own article last year on Nakba Day in his Jewish Currents magazine.

If you read Benny Morris you can see that Beinart is wrong in ascribing this viewpoint to Ben Gurion. But worse than that, Morris discusses the issue in detail, with Zionist leaders swinging between opposition, support and pretending the issue will go away. Not only that, Beinart is quoting Morris discussing the 1930s, not 1948  - the displacement that some Jews envisioned meant the British moving Arabs elsewhere because Arab violence made it clear that Jews and Arabs would not live in peace together, which was the original Zionist idea according to most.

Beinart is copying and pasting half-truths to make Jews look like bigots.

Here is Morris from The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, with as much context as I can place here. I italicize Beinart's quote.

The notion of transfer remained, in Zionist eyes — even as Zionist leaders trotted out these historical precedents — morally problematic. Almost all shared liberal ideals and values; many, indeed, were socialists of one ilk or another; and, after all, the be-all and end-all of their Zionist ideology was a return of a people to its homeland. Uprooting Arab families from their homes and lands, even with compensation, even with orderly re-settlement among their own outside Palestine, went against the grain. 

...Rather, the Zionist public catechism, at the turn of the century, and well into the 1940s, remained that there was room enough in Palestine for both peoples; there need not be a displacement of Arabs to make way for Zionist immigrants or a Jewish state. There was no need for a transfer of the Arabs and on no account must the idea be incorporated in the movement's ideological/political platform.

But the logic of a transfer solution to the ‘Arab problem’ remained ineluctable; without some sort of massive displacement of Arabs from the area of the Jewish state-to-be, there could be no viable ‘Jewish’ state. The need for transfer became more acute with the increase in violent Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise during the 1920s and 1930s. The violence demonstrated that a disaffected, hostile Arab majority or large minority would inevitably struggle against the very existence of the Jewish state to which it was consigned, subverting and destabilising it from the start. Moreover, the successive waves of anti-Zionist Arab violence (1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936-1939) bludgeoned the British into periodically curbing Jewish immigration. Hence, Arab violence promised  to prevent the gradual emergence of a Jewish majority. This was the significance of the British White Paper of May 1939, which the British delivered up at the end of, and in response to, the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, the biggest outburst of Arab violence during the Mandate. The White Paper assured the Arabs — who at the time numbered about one million to the Jews’ 450,000 — of permanent majority status (by limiting Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the following five years) while promising that majority ‘independence’ within 10 years. Palestine would become an Arab state with a large Jewish minority (whose future status and rights, needless to say, would be determined by the new Arab rulers).

Each major bout of Arab violence triggered renewed Zionist interest in a transfer solution. ...

The outbreak of the Arab Revolt in April 1936 opened the floodgates; the revolt implied that, from the Arabs’ perspective, there could be no compromise, and that they would never agree to live in (or, indeed, next to) a Jewish state. Moreover, they were bent on forcing the British to halt Jewish immigration — and this, precisely at a time, when the Nazis threatened Europe's Jews with an unimaginably appalling future. Never had there been such need for a safe haven in Palestine.
Beinart, here and in his article, implies that "transfer" is an inhumane Jewish Zionist desire for a Jewish majority country. But Morris makes clear that  this was a reluctant position, and Arab violence and pressure on the British to stop Jewish immigration is what forced the Zionists to think about transfer as a response. The entire point of Zionism was to have a safe haven for Jews to live freely in the Jewish homeland; if the Arabs insist that they will never accept such a national home, there was not much choice but to consider how best to separate the populations so the Jewish minority is not slaughtered.

Beinart gets very dishonest by implying that "transfer" is forcible displacement. But that is not at all what was meant, certainly not before 1948. Morris writes:
The Jewish Agency Executive debated the idea.

Ben-Gurion observed:

"Why can’t we acquire land there for Arabs, who wish to settle in Transjordan? If it was permissible to move an Arab from the Galilee to Judea, why is it impossible to move an Arab from the Hebron area to Transjordan, which is much closer? . . . There are vast expanses of land there and we [in Palestine) are over-crowded . . . We now want to create concentrated areas of Jewish settlement [in Palestine}, and by transferring the land-selling Arab to Transjordan, we can solve the problem of this concentration . . . Even the High Commissioner agrees to a transfer to Transjordan if we equip the peasants with land and money . . ."

Ben Gurion at that time was suggesting voluntary transfer and buying Arab land from those who want to move to Transjordan.  There is nothing the slightest bit immoral about paying someone to move elsewhere if they have no objections.

Peter Beinart doesn't want you to know that. (I'd love to hear Benny Morris' opinion of Beinart's quoting him.)

Beinart's dishonesty doesn't end there. Before the Fourth Geneva Convention, the idea of transferring populations to avoid civil war was almost universally considered better than the alternative - tens of millions were transferred in the years after World War II, especially in Eastern Europe and India/Pakistan.  The planner of a project to transfer two million Christians and Muslims between Greece and Turkey,  Fridtjof Nansen, was given the 1923 Nobel Peace Prize.

Using 2022's moral standards to damn Jews in the 1930s and 1940s for considering a practice that was not only accepted but even praised is just another manifestation of antisemitism. This is especially true because the Jews at the time who were facing genocide and wanted to save their people in the face of implacable Arab opposition and British acquiescence to Arab demands.

Like all good propagandists, Peter Beinart only looks at one side of the ledger.

As usual, Peter Beinart writes slander - but with just enough truth to dazzle the haters and to be able to say, "I didn't lie!"  This one tweet shows that he is adept at communicating lies by artfully juggling facts and timelines while ignoring the context, always with the intent of denigrating and insulting Jews who had to make life-saving decisions.




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Tuesday, May 17, 2022

From Ian:

Efraim Karsh: Why Israel's Arabs Are Its Biggest Threat
An Existential Threat Ignored


Reluctant to acknowledge the May 2021 riots for what they are and what they portend, the Israeli media, the academic and intellectual elite, and most of the political establishment attributed this volcanic eruption to the supposed discrimination and marginalization of the Arab minority, just as the Orr commission had done with regard to the October 2000 riots.[40] "Wild crops grow on a bedrock of frustration, discrimination and rage," lamented the newly-appointed minister of internal security Omer Barlev shortly after the riots took place. He continued,

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, there existed an inbuilt inequality between the Jewish and the Arab sectors, and this inequality has increased over time due to the rapid development of the Jewish sector and the immobility of the Arab sector.[41]

Evoking the age-old Zionist hope that the vast economic gains attending the Jewish national revival would reconcile the Palestinian Arabs to the idea of Jewish statehood, this self-incriminatory diagnosis is not only totally misconceived but the inverse of the truth. If poverty and marginalization were indeed the culprits, why had there never been anything remotely like the 2000 and 2021 riots among similarly situated segments of Jewish society in Israel (notably the ultra-Orthodox community and residents of the peripheral "development towns"), or, for that matter, among the Israeli Arabs during the much worse off 1950s and 1960s? Why did Arab dissidence increase dramatically with the vast improvement in Arab standard of living in the 1970s and 1980s?[42] Why did it escalate into an open uprising in October 2000—after a decade that saw government allocations to Arab municipalities grow by 550 percent and the number of Arab civil servants nearly treble? And why did it spiral into a far more violent insurrection in May 2021—after yet another decade of massive government investment in the Arab sector, including an NIS15 billion (US$3.84 billion) socioeconomic aid program in 2015 in all fields of Arab society?[43]

The truth is that, in the modern world, socioeconomic progress has rarely been a recipe for political moderation and inter-communal coexistence but has often been superseded by nationalist, religious, and xenophobic extremism. So it has been with the Palestinian Arabs and Israel's Arab citizens, whose political extremism and propensity for violence, from the days of the British mandate (1920-48) to the present, have intensified in tandem with improvement in their socioeconomic lot.

In 1937, a British commission of enquiry observed: "With almost mathematical precision, the betterment of the economic situation in Palestine meant the deterioration of the political situation."[44] Likewise, the more prosperous, affluent, better educated, socially integrated, and politically aware the Israeli Arabs became, the greater their radicalization—to the point where many of them have come openly to challenge their minority status in the Jewish State.
David Singer: Something must be done about the dismal state of Palestinian Arab human rights
UNRWA makes clear that it has no say in the camps being closed or remaining open:

“UNRWA does not administer or police the camps, as this is the responsibility of the host authorities.”

But UNRWA does have the power to force their closure by withholding financial assistance to those PLO and Hamas-administered camps unless their residents are progressively moved out and resettled among the general Palestinian Arab populations in Gaza and the 'West Bank'.

UNRWA itself readily admits the shocking conditions existing in some of these camps which have also become breeding grounds for planning and implementing violence and murderous attacks against Israel’s civilian population

Jenin Camp on the 'West Bank:'
- borders the Jenin municipality and was established in 1953
- has a population of 14000 that lives on just 0.42 sq. km of land
- according to UNRWA:
“experiences one of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty among the 19 West Bank refugee camps... Unemployment and poverty has affected the youth especially, resulting in widespread dissatisfaction and frustration and contributing to higher school dropout rates among younger children. Jabalia Camp in the Gaza Strip:
Is the closest camp to the Erez border crossing with Israel
- Has a population of 114,000 that lives on 1.5 sq. km of land and is one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
- UNRWA concedes:
“Overcrowding and a lack of living space characterize Jabalia camp. Shelters are built in close vicinity and there is a general lack of recreational and social space. In many cases, residents have had to add extra floors to their shelters to accommodate their families, in some cases without proper design. Many live in substandard conditions.”

Closing Jenin and Jabalia and resettling their 128000 inmates would be a good start.

UNRWA donors need to pressure UNRWA to demand that Hamas and the PLO close all 27 camps - threatening to reduce their pledges if this does not happen.

The marked absence of wealthy Arab-donor countries in the following list of the top 20 donor countries to UNWRA in 2021 makes depressing reading.

Those missing wealthy Arab donor countries have:
- the political and financial clout to force the PLO and Hamas to close these camps and - the potential to make substantial pledges to UNRWA to fund the successful resettlement of their long-suffering fellow Arabs.

This humanitarian disaster being perpetuated by the PLO and Hamas on their own people must be ended.


Secret UK propaganda campaign stoked Israel hatred to appear authentic — documents
The British government ran a secret propaganda campaign aimed at destabilizing the country’s enemies during the Cold War by inciting violence, supporting racial tensions and encouraging hatred toward Israel, according to newly declassified documents.

The documents, which were reported on by The Guardian, highlighted a “black propaganda” campaign from the mid-1950s to late 70s that mostly targeted African countries, the Middle East and parts of Asia with fake reports that were ultimately intended to spread anti-communist sentiment.

The term refers to the creation of false news reports meant to appear as if written by those the pieces were meant to discredit — in this case, foes of the Western alliance during the Cold War.

According to the documents, the extensive campaign attempted to turn Muslims against Moscow and occasionally used anti-Israel propaganda in order to appear authentic.

It was led by the UK’s Information Research Department (IRD), which was established after World War II as a response to Soviet propaganda targeting Britain and was coordinated with the CIA’s war propaganda operations.

Rory Cormac, an expert in the history of subversion and intelligence, told the Guardian the declassified papers were “the most important of the past two decades.”

“It’s very clear now that the UK engaged in more black propaganda than historians assume and these efforts were more systemic, ambitious and offensive. Despite official denials, [this] went far beyond merely exposing Soviet disinformation,” Cormac argued.
  • Tuesday, May 17, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon

With all of the talk of "Nakba Day" this week, I wanted to see how many times Jews had become refugees in history.

A Wikipedia page lists no fewer than 70 different occasions when Jews became refugees. And it really doesn't list them all - it lumps all the Jews of Arab countries who were forced out from 1948-1972 as a single expulsion, for example. 

There are many that are not well known, such as the 1679 Mawza Exile, when nearly all Jews in Yemen were banished to a desert town (for a year until their Arab neighbors who depended on them begged the king to allow them to return.)

So what do the many expulsions of Jews have in common with the so-called "Nakba?"

They are all blamed on - Jews!

A recurring motif in both Western and Arab antisemitic rhetoric is that Jews' behavior is responsible for their being kicked out of so many countries. Even Mahmoud Abbas said this in a public speech. 

Jews have the unique distinction of being responsible not only for every one of the world's ills and the persecution of others, but they are also responsible for their own persecution!




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  • Tuesday, May 17, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
For decades,  Israel haters have been saying that Israeli goals are a state that stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates, based on Biblical verses.

Sometimes they even draw this mythical state on the map:



But as large as that is, it is a particle of dust compared to the actual, stated desire of at least one Palestinian cleric.

Palestinian Islamic Scholar Mohammed Afeef Shadid said on May 11:


"Palestine should be a center, a capital, and a starting point for conquering the world. Our sympathizers in the world, as well as our enemies should know, that the cause of our right of return does not pertain only to Palestine. The whole world is our battlefield. Our goal is not to liberate Palestine alone, but to liberate this sick world and deliver it from darkness to light."

And besides saying that he wants Palestinians to take over the world, he also just justified terror attacks against Jews worldwide by saying "the whole world is our battlefield."



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From Ian:

UN’s fixed inquiry is exposed
On May 27, 2021, following Operation Guardian of the Walls, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution that set the stage for the creation of what is potentially the most anti-Israel mechanism to date: "The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel."

The resolution mandated the COI to "investigate all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since April 13, 2021." The resolution further mandated the commission to "investigate all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability, and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial, or religious identity."

The following five elements are some of the examples that portend the result of the upcoming and undoubtedly biased “inquiry” and its anti-Israel nature:
- The Committee of Inquiry is a UN entity: The UNHRC, much like most UN bodies, has been overrun with politically motivated agendas and bias. A review of the UNHRC's anti-Israel bias is enough to shatter any hopes of fairness and impartiality.
- There is no mention of Hamas: Looking at it from the outside, one can easily think an internationally recognized terrorist organization was not a party to this armed conflict and did not fire thousands of rockets aimed at civilians. The resolution does not mention Hamas even once.
- The COI is charged with investigating "all underlying root causes:” Such a limitless scope is unprecedented. Granting the COI such freedom to look limitlessly at the root causes of the conflict is essentially granting it the right to review spurious political claims and offer political conclusions masquerading as legal ones.
- The "inquiry" is open-ended: The COI has effectively been granted a platform to execute a bi-annual Israel-bashing event, virtually indefinitely.
- A known anti-Israel individual has been elected as Chair of the COI: Navi Pillay, who was chosen to chair the COI, has a known and well-documented history of anti-Israel bias. Among the numerous examples available, perhaps the most recent and outrageous one can be found in a letter Mrs. Pillay wrote to President Biden just before her appointment as Chair of the COI. In the letter, she referred to Israel's "domination and oppression of the Palestinian people," calling on the US to "address the root causes of the violence" by ending Israel's "ever-expanding discrimination and systemic oppression."


How the Palestinians Pay Terrorists as Biden Pumps Millions of Aid Dollars Into Their Government
The Palestinian Authority allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families even as the Biden administration pumps U.S. taxpayer funds into the Palestinian government, according to a non-public State Department report issued to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The report, published on May 10, details how the Palestinian government runs afoul of a U.S. law that bars it from receiving American aid dollars until these terror payments, known as the "pay-to-slay program," are stopped. The PA in 2019, the most recent reporting period available, allocated over $150 million to convicted terrorists. Another $191 million was paid to the families of terrorists who were "martyred" while conducting attacks against Israelis and Americans. There is no sign these payments will end, with Palestinian leaders voicing support on the international stage for the program.

"The PA has not terminated payments for acts of terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citizens to any individual, after being fairly tried, who has been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism and to any individual who died committing such acts of terrorism, including to a family member of such individuals," the State Department concluded. The PA makes these payments in cash as part of an effort to obfuscate its actions and stop the international community from holding it accountable for awarding terrorists and their families, according to the State Department's findings.

The report comes as the Biden administration pushes to increase U.S. aid dollars to the PA, which were terminated during the Trump administration as a result of the "pay-to-slay" program. More than $360 million in U.S. funding was given to the PA in 2021, potentially in violation of a bipartisan law known as the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits the American government from giving the Palestinians aid as long as they pay terrorists. The Biden administration maintains that the aid programs do not violate the law, though it is unclear what safeguards have been put on the funding to ensure it is not used to pay terrorists and their families. The State Department confirmed that no "economic support funds" were withheld as a result of restrictions in the Taylor Force Act.

"The Biden administration is strongly opposed to the prisoner payment system and has consistently engaged the Palestinian Authority to end this practice," a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon. The U.S. Agency for International Development's "assistance in the West Bank and Gaza is implemented consistent with U.S. law."

Republicans in Congress disagree with this assessment. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), for example, says the Biden administration cannot guarantee that the PA is not using U.S. funds as part of its terror financing program. Since the PA moved to a cash system, it is even harder to track which tranches of money are being used to fund "pay to slay."

"The Biden administration is ideologically committed to elevating the Palestinian government and pouring money into Palestinian territories," Cruz told the Free Beacon. "They've been doing this while they clearly knew that the same Palestinian government was inciting terrorism and using fungible money to reward terrorism against Israelis and Americans. It's disgraceful and unacceptable."
  • Tuesday, May 17, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
JNS reports:

The European Union’s 2022-24 UNRWA aid budget will be 40% lower than during the previous three-year period, the E.U. announced last week.

The new budget will provide $82 million annually, compared to the previous average annual figure of $135 million, according to the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a Jerusalem-based nonprofit that monitors educational materials around the world for extremist content.

An additional $15 million was granted through the E.U.’s Food and Resilience Facility for 2022 to help ensure food security following the impact of the Ukraine crisis, according to the report.
I don't think these numbers are quite right. The EU budget is  €82,000,000, which is $86,000,000. If you add the food programme (also in euros, not dollars) it comes out to over $102,000,000 budgeted this year.

However, this is a reduction from EU funding in the past. In 2019, the EU pledged a total of $132 million, and $157 million in 2020 (including a large pledge for Syrian refugees.) In 2021 that was reduced to $118 million. 

So even $102 million in 2022 is a  13.5% reduction from 2021 and a 35% reduction from 2021. 

This doesn't include any emergency funding that the EU might make available later this year, as UNRWA will inevitably say that it will have to close up shop when they cannot pay salaries and its workers will go on strike, as they do every few months. The numbers I quoted for previous years included not only the base budget but additional funding added under other appeals and projects, which may yet be added this year.

So while I don't think the reduction of 40% is accurate, there is a pattern of the EU reducing the amount it sends to UNRWA while UNRWA's count of "registered refugees" keeps increasing forever.

Considering that Gulf contributions to UNRWA have all but dried up since the mid-2010s, UNRWA will one day seen face a reckoning: either change its definition of "refugee" to be more in line with the Refugee Convention, or risk going bankrupt. There is absolutely no reason why UNRWA should spend hundreds of millions on "refugees" who are full Jordanian citizens, or "refugees" who live in the area of British Mandate Palestine they are supposedly refugees from. 

That is a conversation that no one is willing to have because Palestinians will turn to violence if there is a hint of reduction of services. And the world would rather appease Palestinian threats rather than face facts.



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

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  • Tuesday, May 17, 2022
  • Elder of Ziyon
UNRWA camp in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, 1953


The official Palestinian Wafa news agency writes, "74 years ago, about 950,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their cities and villages, leaving behind their homes that they locked with their keys, which they still have in their possession, along with some old papers proving their ownership of their lands and properties. "

Are we up to 950,000 now? Apparently that is the number being used this year.

Taghrib News (Tehran) writes:
15th of May is the anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) for the Palestinian nation, a day which ended with expulsion of 950,000 Palestinians out of 1,400,000 citizens across 1,300 cities and villages.
Indian news site Siasat Daily says:
Sunday, May 15, marks the 74th anniversary of the Palestinian people’s catastrophe, which displaced about 950,000 Palestinians out of 1,400,000 Palestinians from their original cities and towns, who used to live in 1,300 villages and cities.
This, as usual, is a completely made up number. The total number of Arabs in the Green Line as of the date of the UN Partition resolution was 809,000 and 160,000 remained in Israel, meaning that no more than 650,000 could have possibly become refugees.

UNRWA released higher estimates in 1951, but even they admitted that Palestinian Arabs were abusing their system, with many Arabs who already lived in the West Bank claiming to be refugees to get free services and UNRWA including tens of thousands born after 1948.

I can't find any source for 950,000. In fact, Al Jazeera in 2003 said that the total population in the Green Line was 950,000 before the war (no source cited for that higher number.) 

As always, they just make numbers up. 

Often, the lies become accepted fact by a credulous West who cannot believe that people would lie so blatantly.



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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On Sunday, David Miller - the antisemitic professor from Bristol University who spins conspiracy theories that are identical to those of the Goyim Defense League, and who was fired after saying that Jewish students were "pawns" of the Israeli government, which incidentally is hell bent on taking over the world - returned to Twitter after a prolonged absence with a cryptic tweet that seems to say that the Zionist  UAE forced him off the platform:


Anyway, Miller says he has been working on his latest anti-Israel project. He is allying with Iran's PressTV to produce original short anti-Israel clips of 2 minutes or less, taking short sections of interviews and other stories on PressTV, all of which are aimed at the only Jewish state.

His YouTube channel, "Palestine Declassified," has so far attracted practically no one. But some of the brief reports that pretend to be exposes of Zionist evil use a very interesting graphic design.

Here is a screenshot from part one of their short video on the "nakba:"

Sinister looking barbed wire in front of Al Aqsa Mosque is not a subtle message. But what are those threatening looking blocks of text? 

Let's zoom in:



It's Hebrew, from the Torah!

Yes, David Miller, together with Iran's state run PressTV, produces anti-Zionist videos that try to subconsciously tell people that the Jewish scriptures are evil and sinister.

Nah, nothing antisemitic about that!

The ironic part is that the section of the Torah shown is about the splitting of the Red Sea and God destroying the Egyptian army. 




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Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

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