Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 13, 2022

Why don't The World Bank and IMF ever recommend the PA end Pay to Slay?

On May 10, the World Bank issued a report on the economy of the Palestinian territories, with suggestions and ideas to help it make ends meet.

This follows a similar report by the International Monetary Fund at the end of April.

Both of them mention, as an issue, that Israel is withholding some tax revenue corresponding to the PA's payments to terrorist prisoners, their families, and families of "martyrs" - the so-called "Pay for Slay" program.

For example, the IMF notes:

A significant part of the fiscal problem is structural. The PA raises virtually no revenue from Gaza and East Jerusalem, while in 2021 it spent about a third of its budget in these two areas— particularly in Gaza—mainly comprising civil servant salaries and pensions, and net lending. Neither does it raise any significant revenue from Area C in the West Bank. Furthermore, the PA and Israel disagree on the amounts that the Government of Israel should transfer to the PA under the Paris Protocol, the so-called “fiscal leakages” (estimated at about 2 percent of GDP annually). In addition, the PA disagrees with unilateral Israeli deductions from clearance revenue for so-called “prisoner payments” (which amounted to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2021).

So while both groups mention the prisoner payments, neither of them suggest that the PA end the program.

They give plenty of other advice to the PA on how to reduce expenses and increase revenue. For example, the IMF recommends:

The way out of the current fiscal crisis will require wide-ranging Palestinian policy actions. Staff discussed the benefits of adopting a broad-based strategy to contain and rebalance public spending, while boosting growth. As the Palestinian authorities have fewer policy tools compared to peers, systematic reform to the key drivers of non-discretionary spending—i.e., civil service salaries and benefits, transfer payments, the public pension scheme, the health care system, and fuel subsidies—are key.

But neither they nor the World Bank ever say that if the PA would just stop paying terrorist salaries, then a significant chunk of cash would immediately become available to them.

Instead, they recommend negotiations with Israel on the topic, as if this is an expense that the PA has every right to spend even when they are being lent Western money.

It is telling that the world refuses to publicly condemn "pay for slay." And even those who are espousing responsible financial policies for the PA refuse to mention that lots of money can be saved if terrorists aren't rewarded for trying to murder Jews.

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06/13 Links Pt1: Cheerleaders for Palestine Ignore Dysfunctional Society; Terror-finance rulings the Supremes must strike down, despite Biden’s pleas

From Ian:

Alex Ryvchin (The Australian): Cheerleaders for Palestine Ignore Dysfunctional Society

With the Palestinian Authority's payment of life pensions to the families of terrorists, Palestinian society operates under a system of inducement and reward that has turned the killing of Jews into an industry.

Any visitor to a Palestinian village in the West Bank will have seen the banners and posters dedicated to their "martyrs," with photoshopped photos of smiling terrorists to convince the youth that there is glory in death.

The violent purging of suspected "collaborators" is another feature of this system.

To make them worthy of the adulation, the marches, and the pledges to recognize a Palestinian state, the Palestinians have been reconstructed as a mythical version of themselves, cleansed of all sin and stripped of all responsibility.

The consequence is that there is absolutely no incentive for Palestinians to self-examine, let alone reform, let alone develop a society that is functional, just and worthy of a state.

Should our new government wish to revisit Australia's position on aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it ought to see the Palestinian leadership not as it wishes it to be but as it is, and to hold Palestinian leaders to the same standards as in every other society.

The writer is the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

Michael R. Pompeo: Terror-finance rulings the Supremes must strike down, despite Biden’s pleas

The Supreme Court is set to decide if it will consider two important terror-financing cases centering on the ability of Americans who have been harmed in terrorist attacks to seek redress against financial institutions that knowingly funnel money to fronts for terrorist organizations such as Hamas.

But the Biden administration has urged the justices to let lower court rulings stand in Weiss v. National Westminster Bank and Strauss v. Credit Lyonnais — and so undercut 25 years of bipartisan consensus that Americans must be able to seek redress against those who knowingly facilitate terrorism.

Terrorism, its reach and its sources of funding constitute a central security issue of our times. Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups seek to alter the geopolitical calculus of target nations through intimidation, extortion and carnage to rain destruction on the innocent.

They also use purported charities to finance their networks and to recruit personnel to carry out terror operations. Why is the Biden administration intent on accommodating this deceit?

Knowingly giving support to a foreign terrorist organization has been a federal crime since 1996. More, Congress has recognized that terror groups often hide their intent, using charitable fundraising to help finance slaughter, so such “charities” are inexorably entwined with their terrorist elements. Four successive administrations have worked to expose these schemes.

Yet the US solicitor general’s brief calls this principle into question by suggesting that some support to terrorist groups might back “legitimate activities.” This would set an appalling precedent that will help Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other hostile entities that use front charities, and so endanger the safety of Americans abroad.

These cases are not the first time the Supreme Court has addressed these issues. In 2010, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the justices affirmed Congress’ findings that terrorist groups “are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that conduct.”

Elena Kagan, then the US solicitor general, stated emphatically in her oral argument before the court: “Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes. What Congress decided [in crafting the law] was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.”

JCPA: Israel's E1 Building Plan: The Most Strategic, Consensual - and Frozen - Project

The plan to link the city of Maale Adumim (pop. 40,000) to Jerusalem by building housing units in the E1 area, a proposal backed by nine Israeli prime ministers, has been frozen for 28 years because of U.S. and European opposition. The E1 plan covers an area of 12 square kilometers of state land. In April 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave the mayor of Maale Adumim the documents for the annexation of E1 to his town.

The central claim of the plan's opponents is that building E1 will obstruct Palestinian continuity of building and traffic between Ramallah and Bethlehem, from north to south. Yet Israel wants to preserve continuity from west to east, between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, leading to the Dead Sea and the Jordanian border.

There has been large-scale illegal Palestinian building between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem along the Jerusalem-Jericho road and in the E1 zone itself for many years. This illegal activity - conducted in Area C under Israeli civil and security control - has already significantly narrowed the corridor through which the main traffic artery runs between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.

The international community has worked to thwart measures to stop the illegal building in the area. Often, the Europeans themselves are involved in illegal construction activity in Area C.

Israel is offering the Palestinians a solution to maintain transportation continuity between the northern and southern West Bank by the use of a road to link these areas, providing the Palestinians free movement from the Ramallah area to the Bethlehem area.

Israel's need for strategic depth, as an aspect of defensible borders, is now recognized by most Israeli security and military professionals. In case of the reemergence of an eastern front that threatens Israel, the area between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem - and further eastward, toward the Dead Sea - is essential for Israel's strategic depth.

Anton Alexander writes in Malaria World Journal about the remarkable achievement of Zionists, specifically Dr. I. Kligler, in eliminating malaria from Palestine - the first time such an accomplishment was achieved on a national scale, anywhere. The methods that were successful then are not being copied now in areas that are still rife with the disease, and Alexander believes that this is largely because so many do not want to accept the scope of this Zionist achievement and instead pretend that a Palestinian state could have arisen on its own had Jews not moved to the region and created such solutions.

After the defeat by the British Army of the Turkish Army in 1918, in the final year of World War I, Palestine was administered by the British Mandate, in effect a colony-like structure. It is little appreciated today that Palestine was then thinly populated or even uninhabitable in many areas. Indeed, Palestine was then almost empty. It is also usually not appreciated that if malaria had not been eliminated in Palestine, it is doubtful the State of Israel could ever have come into existence.

The following brief extract from a previous paper may assist in appreciating the severity of the malaria that existed in Palestine 100 years ago.

In 1919, Dr. Manson-Bahr, a future director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, described Palestine as one of the most highly malarious countries in the world. He knew the conditions in Palestine as in 1918, in the final months of WWI, whilst an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the British Army in Palestine, he had witnessed a force of 40,500 men lose 20,427 men in 9 weeks due to malaria. Of the 100,000 Turkish prisoners-of-war taken after their defeat in 1918 by the British Army in Palestine, 20 per cent had to be hospitalised immediately, suffering from malaria.

...For many years, historical narratives have been promoted providing a hostile account of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 from out of Palestine. These narratives have often assumed the form of the Emperor’s New Clothes, misleadingly omitting reference to the malaria which devastated the country. Such narratives for years have thereby provided an incorrect impression that malaria in Palestine 100 years ago did not exist. In effect, it may have been an attempt to make the disease invisible!

The world has been done a great disservice by the failure before now to declare ‘the emperor is wearing nothing at all’, to call out that Palestine 100 years ago was drenched in malaria, that it was accordingly uninhabitable in many areas. Palestine, in fact, had become desolate and neglected in many areas, and was then almost empty of inhabitants. The method and approach begun by the Zionists in 1922 to eliminate malaria in Palestine were successful, there was much to learn from the method, and the lessons from that malaria elimination are still relevant around the world and could still be applied today.

Due to the omission of reference to malaria in these misleading narratives, today’s malaria-community is likely to be unaware of the steps taken in the successful malaria elimination in Palestine all those years ago and which experience could be saving lives today. Sadly, it is likely such misleading narratives by these malaria omissions will have done harm, costing many lives over the years throughout the world today wherever malaria has existed.

Dr. Kliger's methods were respectful to all inhabitants of the land, Arab and Jew, and education was key. Alexander wonders whether today's approaches to control malaria have the same respect for the inhabitants that the Zionists did a century ago.

But before such instruction or education could take place, it was necessary firstly to interest the inhabitants in malaria control or elimination, to cause the inhabitants to realise that a death from malaria was not just a fact of life. Instead, the inhabitants had to realise that such a death was a tragedy. The inhabitants had to believe malaria was not inevitable, therefore fatalism had to be overcome. The commencement of the successful Zionist malaria elimination in Palestine 100 years ago was a demonstration of an effective engagement with the community. Palestine was one of the first places to throw off some of the world’s old colonial attitudes which it did by engaging with dignity and respect all the inhabitants (both Arabs and Jews). This resulted in an extraordinarily strong and resilient cooperation by the inhabitants, Jews and Arabs, in the necessary anti-malaria works, lasting for years and years, and which cooperation was to rid the country of the disease.

I ponder the point and ask the question to the malaria-community: Are inhabitants today truly treated with respect and dignity? Is the approach and engagement with inhabitants the same that each one in the malaria community would honestly want for themselves? Is there a whiff of old-style patronage about the malaria community’s approach?

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In an interview with Palestine TV, PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh discussed how the world has drastically reduced aid to the regime which is widely viewed as corrupt.

He said that the entire Arab world has stopped funding the PA, with the sole exception of Algeria.

When virtually the entire Arab world has decided that the Palestinian Authority is not worth investing in, the rest of the world should listen.

One major reason the Arab world has lost interest in the Palestinian cause is because of the ongoing split between the West Bank and Gaza. Today is the 15th anniversary of Hamas' Gaza coup, and the PA half-heartedly demanded that they should be in control of the sector. They claimed that Hamas' takeover was part of a Zionist plot against them. Saying absurd things like that doesn't help endear the PA to the Arab world, either.

Shtayyeh also complained that the US has not resumed its aid to the PA that ended under Donald Trump. The Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA and USAID programs in the territories, but not the PA itself. Part of the reason is because of the Palestinian Authority's insistence that it continue to pay terrorists and their families as a core part of its budget.

He also whined about how EU countries have been curtailing aid, in response to the PA's funding terror and teaching hate in its schools. He stated that "We affirmed to the European Union the rejection of any conditional financial aid. We will not accept to change one line in the Palestinian curriculum."

There is nothing wrong with the West putting conditions on how its aid money is spent, and the PA refusal to adhere to those conditions shows how important it is to the Palestinian leaders to continue to teach hate and fund terror.

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The Washington Post's Shireen Abu Akleh fairy tale

The Washington Post held its own investigation into the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Its flaws are immediately apparent:

“We were very sure there were no armed Palestinians, and no exchange of fire or clashes with the Israelis,” said [Ali al-]Samoudi, [an Al Jazeera news channel producer.] Then, the journalists headed up the street, toward the Israeli convoy. “It was totally calm, there was no gunfire at all.” Suddenly, there was a barrage of bullets. One struck Samoudi. Another hit and ultimately killed Abu Akleh, as their colleagues scrambled for cover.

The shots seemed to come from the military vehicles, Samoudi recalled.

In the video that the Washington Post posted, the gunfire volley that causes the reporters to scramble happens at 7:06, but one can hear gunfire two minutes earlier at 5:02.

More importantly, however, is that al-Samoudi contradicts another interview he gave the day of the shooting.

After a few minutes, we heard the sound of bullets raining down on us from the side of the occupation soldiers who were on the roofs of the buildings opposite us , amid the screams of Palestinian citizens who call out to us: Get down on the ground, snipers are targeting you. . I was hit in the lower back, and Shireen screamed: "Ali was wounded, Ali was wounded."

He said the gunfire was from roof of buildings opposite him then - and now he says they came from military vehicles. Which one is it?

Given his track record making up stories about Israel, captured in the 2003 film "The Road to Jenin," it is very likely that Samoudi at first thought that Israeli snipers were on the roofs. Once he found out they were not, he changed his story.

The Washington Post, of course, didn't ask him about it, and accepted his new story without question.

The key piece of evidence, as with the other analyses, comes from the calculation of the distance of the gunshots based on audio analysis. A different expert was used but he came up with a similar estimate. But note the Washington Post's sleight of hand in these paragraphs:

As videographer Awad] approaches an intersection, three rounds of gunfire are heard in the distance. Roughly two minutes later, he points the camera south revealing Israeli military vehicles about 182 meters (597 feet) away, according to The Post’s analysis of the footage.

At The Post’s request, Steven Beck, an audio forensic expert who consulted for the FBI for more than a decade, conducted an analysis on the gunfire heard in the two separate videos. Beck found the first two bursts of gunfire, 13 shots in total, were shot from between 175-195 meters (574-640 feet) away from the cameras that recorded the scene — almost exactly the distance between the journalists and the Israeli military vehicles.

There are two problems with this paragraph. One is that even according to the Washington Post's own map, the IDF was not 597 feet (182 meters) away from the journalists, but 660 feet away (about 201 meters), according to both Bing Maps and Google Maps. Here are the two maps side by side, my Bing map annotated like the WaPo map for comparison (click to better see the Bing 660 foot measurement, the blue dot is the location of the camera):

200 meters is outside the 175-195 meter estimate.

But see how the Post tries to deceive you further, saying that the 175-195 meters from the IDF to the cameras are almost exactly the distance from the IDF to the journalists.

The cameras were 10-15 meters further than the journalists, meaning that the IDF was some 20 meters outside the range of the audio distance estimate of the gunfire!

I asked the expert used by CNN and Bellingcat, Rob Maher of Montana State University, if there were any circumstances like weather or wind that could stretch the 195 meter estimate to 210 or 215 meters. His answer was, "I think that if the average bullet speed is assumed to be at least 760 m/s, the effect of wind and temperature would only move the estimated distance by a few meters, not tens of meters."

In other words, if you read the Washington Post article carefully and measure the distances from their own map yourself, you can see that not only is the IDF too far to have shot Shireen, but not even conceivably close enough. And the Post further quotes their expert: "Beck said he used a number of different weapons that fire that caliber [5.56 mm] of round in his analysis, but there is little significant difference between them in determining the distance between Abu Akleh and the shooters." The speed of sound changes, but not that much; bullet speeds can change, but not that much. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to come up with a scenario where the IDF could have shot Shireen at that distance and generate the audio signature that is heard.

I don't know where the Washington Post got the 182 meter estimate, but I certainly cannot reproduce it. We have seen video of the IDF lead vehicle turn into the street shown on that map at its northmost end, so the map is accurately showing exactly where it was. There is no way that both Google and Bing Maps are off by some 10% in their distance estimates.

The WaPo also shows the eight minute video I had analyzed showing a resident who filmed the IDF vehicles from where the journalists were. But they didn't bother to translate the conversation in the video, where - minutes before Abu Akleh was killed - people are joking about and pointing to snipers in buildings to the southeast of Abu Akleh.

There is one more almost unbelievable omission in the Washington Post's analysis. Unlike the other media investigations, they notice the group of gunmen to the southwest of Abu Akleh, and show their video (#7), noting that the video was uploaded shortly after Abu Akleh was shot but they couldn't confirm the exact time it was taken. (Analysis of the shadows indicates it was taken within 10 minutes of her death but they didn't perform that analysis.)

They show where Jenin militants were based on that video #7:

They don't measure the distance between those Palestinian fighters and Abu Akleh!

If they would, here is what they would find:

They were, at some points, the exact correct distance away from the camera!

I don't know if there is any line of sight from them to her. I doubt it, at that corner, based on photos by Mapillary. But there could have been holes in the wall at that corner. The Washington Post had enough data to look for such a line of sight in Jenin, and didn't bother to do it. Even though these are the only people with guns that they identified who were the proper distance away!

That is a glaring omission, and it shows how the "investigators" had a conclusion in mind and simply did not want to consider any other possibilities.

As I mentioned and have previously reported, I think - based on Ali Samoudi and Shatha Hanaysha's interviews on the same day as the shooting - that she was shot by Palestinian snipers in a house shown to the immediate east of the place it says "580 ft" in the diagram above. Its roof is tall and there is a direct line of sight from there to Abu Akleh. We also know that Jenin militants often simply go to roofs of buildings and shoot wildly, as I showed in this post.

I also found another interview with Shatha Hanaysha, the woman next to Abu Akleh, saying:

We were facing a house and an open space. We were fired upon from an area above us and shots hit the tree I was standing behind from above. It was where Israeli occupation forces were.

She is saying that the bullets came from above, similar to her previous statement that they came from a building. That is further indication that Shireen was killed by Palestinian snipers that she thought were IDF. (IDF snipers do not use 5.56 mm bullets.)

One more data point. If there were snipers on roofs all over Jenin, as multiple witnesses attest, why do we not have video of any of them?

One reason may be this message in the Jenin Telegram channel from 6:28 AM: "Please brothers, the family inside the houses, no one photograph the gunmen - pray for them." There were explicit instructions to avoid taking photos or videos of the militants, seemingly specifically the ones who barge into houses to take up sniper positions. The IDF would be aware of the people on the ground, but if I am reading this correctly, the leaders in the camp were trying to maintain a tactical advantage of hidden snipers where residents would know if gunmen were on their own roof but they might be hidden from the IDF.

In other words, the investigators using open source materials fall into the trap of thinking that the open source materials are an accurate and complete record, when in fact there are other factors that make them quite incomplete.

Put it all together, and the Washington Post investigators didn't even try to investigate anything beyond what they wanted to be true. If anything, they provided even more proof that Israel could not have killed Shireen Abu Akleh.

(correction - I originally said message not to video gunmen was 5:28, it was 6:28, h/t DigFind.)

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Gunfire from Hamas to evict Gazans from their homes. Did you read about this anywhere?

Palestinian site Amad reports:

Local sources reported on Thursday afternoon that there was an exchange of fire between Hamas security forces and residents of the Bedouin village area [in Northern Gaza], and that there were a number of casualties.

The sources indicated that the Hamas Land Authority demolished homes in the Bedouin village in the northern Gaza Strip.

Shooting took place in the Bedouin village at Hamas policemen while they were demolishing a house in the Bedouin village belonging to Tawfiq Abu Hashish.

According to the sources, there was intense shooting and a number of injuries, one of them seriously, they were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.

Evicting people from their homes? Demolishing houses? Using gunfire against a violent riot?

When Israel is blamed for these things, they are considered the worst human rights abuses in the Middle East.

When Hamas does them - there is next to no coverage in Western media. The only reason any Israeli media covered it at all was because some gunfire reached an Israeli community, causing slight damage and a light injury - to an Arab worker.

When Palestinians do to Palestinians what Israel is accused of doing to Palestinians, no one cares. Not even the people who claim to be "pro-Palestinian."

Which proves, yet again, that practically nobody is really pro-Palestinian. They are anti-Israel. And since they only care what happens to Palestinians when they can blame Jews, they are antisemitic, by definition.

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06/12 Links: False Claims, Discredited Sources: The Initial Report from the UN’s Permanent COI Targeting Israel; How the Palestinians were born into the world

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: False Claims, Discredited Sources: The Initial Report from the UN’s Permanent COI Targeting Israel

Executive Summary

On June 7, 2022, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)’s “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI) published its first report. As expected, this initial report perpetuates outright falsehoods, and relies on information provided by terror-linked and anti-Israel NGOs to previous UN bodies. This is consistent with the COI’s prejudicial mandate and the bias of commission members.

The COI’s Fundamental Bias
Unlike other commissions of inquiry that present a single report to the HRC, the COI will report twice a year in perpetuity, making it yet another permanent anti-Israel UN institution.
The COI seeks to collect evidence that will be provided to the International Criminal Court (ICC), affording NGOs another vehicle to lobby for prosecutions of Israeli officials.
The COI’s mandate includes an obligation to investigate “root causes” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this regard, it will likely become a platform for NGO claims that the Jewish state is illegitimate and guilty of the crime of “apartheid.”
The selection process for commissioners was non-transparent, and there is secrecy regarding the identity of the “experts” upon whom the COI is relying.
All three COI commissioners have long-documented anti-Israel biases or have worked for a Palestinian Authority-linked institution. For example, regarding COI head Navi Pillay, in 2012, US House Foreign Affairs Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Elliot Engel opposed the extension of her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, due to her “repeatedly demonstrated bias against the state of Israel.”
In March 2022, the COI met with NGOs responsible for promoting the “apartheid” campaign against Israel, including B’Tselem, Adalah, Addameer, and Human Rights Watch (HRW). There is no indication that the COI made efforts to engage with or meet with Jewish groups or those providing a mainstream Israeli perspective.

Failures of the June 2022 report
The report makes demonstrably false claims, such as asserting – incorrectly – that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem cannot apply for Israeli citizenship and that non-Jewish Israeli citizens have a separate legal status than Jewish Israelis.
The most-cited source in the COI is the discredited 2009 Goldstone Report on the 2008-2009 conflict between Israel and Palestinian terror organizations in Gaza. That report’s biases and flaws were so severe that its own author, Judge Richard Goldstone, disavowed it in an April 2011 op-ed in the Washington Post, writing, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
The report cites to non-binding and political UN resolutions, reports, statements, and advisory opinions as representing binding law.
It attacks Israel’s Law of Return – streamlining immigration and naturalization for Jews around the world – while erasing its consistency with international law and practice.
The COI seeks to discredit Israel’s designation of terror-linked Palestinian NGOs. In contract, the EU, the Netherlands, and financial institutions such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Citibank, and Arab Bank, have frozen funds, ended contracts, closed accounts, and denied services to these groups over terror-financing concerns.
The report cites to UN documents that are themselves based on data provided by these terror-linked NGOs.
The COI does not mention Palestinian incitement and other crucial factors necessary for understanding Israeli security policy.
The COI parrots earlier NGO and UN documents blaming Israel for “the destruction of Palestinian water infrastructure” and limited “access to water,” ignoring increased Israeli supply of water to the West Bank. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority boycotted the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee (JWC) – a decision-making body tasked with managing and improving infrastructure in the West Bank – for years, severely hindering the development of additional water infrastructure for Palestinians.

How the Palestinians were born into the world

The Six-Day War, whose 55th anniversary will be marked this month, represents a historical turning point in the annals of Israeli history, and in the Jewish state's relations with the Arab world. Indeed, that war forged the first crack in the wall of Arab hostility and rejectionism, which at the time was predicated on the unwavering belief that the Arabs would ultimately succeed in defeating and destroying Israel.

Alongside all these things, however, the war was also an important turning point in the annals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as its consequences essentially "created" the Palestinian nation.

In an effort to promote the Palestinian narrative and its inherent demands for ownership of the Land of Israel, the Palestinians have gone as far as to claim that not only did they precede the Zionists who came here in the late 19th century, but also the Israelites, as Palestinians – they argue – are the descendants of the ancient Canaanites and therefore have first rights over the land.

However, even the Palestinians themselves don't buy the historical revisionism and fundamental fabrication linking present-day Palestinians to the Canaanites and Jebusites, who controlled Jerusalem prior to King David's conquest of the city. Case in point, when the Palestinians systematically destroy archaeological remnants to erase any reminder of the Jewish past in this land, they also don't spare those artifacts and sites from the period prior to the Israelites' conquest of the land.

On the other hand, one very common claim, which many Israelis also happen to echo, is that the Palestinian national movement is essentially a mirror image of Zionism and first began in the early part of the 20th century as a type of response by the local population to the Zionist movement, which sought the help of the British to settle the land and establish a Jewish state.

The truth, however, is that in one fell swoop the Six-Day War was the event that turned the Arabs of the Land of Israel into Palestinians.

Seth Frantzman: Understanding the new Israel-Iran tensions

Israel has said it is shifting gears against Iran in the region. This apparently hints at a public shift from the campaign between the wars, in which thousands of airstrikes were carried out against Iran in Syria, to other types of operations.

“Israel fell into the trap and fought the octopus’s tentacles tactically,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said. “But the octopus itself is Iran. My doctrine states that in this Cold War between Iran and Israel, I won’t allow it to be one-sided. I want to weaken them and hurt their forces in all dimensions. They have no business in our region, 1,000 kilometers from home. I don’t want to see Iran in Syria or on any border of ours.”
"My doctrine states that in this Cold War between Iran and Israel, I won’t allow it to be one-sided. I want to weaken them and hurt their forces in all dimensions. They have no business in our region, 1,000 kilometers from home. I don’t want to see Iran in Syria or on any border of ours."

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
This is an important public shift. But the question that is also raised is how these new tensions have unfolded. Here are some key incidents in the recent rise in tensions.

The drone threat
Iran has embarked on expanded drone operations against Israel. This began in earnest in February 2018 when the Islamic Republic launched a drone from Syria. Then it tried again in early 2021 and later in May from Iraq. It sent drones to Yemen and attacked a tanker in the summer of 2021. Earlier this year, it also tried to fly drones over Iraq headed for the Jewish state.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz discussed the drone threat numerous times over the past year, highlighting how Iran is training drone operators from the region and pointing to areas where it trains and operates with drones. On May 17, he discussed the Iranian drone threat and noted that two drones were downed over Iraq in February. Israel will continue to block Iran’s precision weapons transfers, he said. On May 29, Iran unveiled a secret drone base.

Assassinations
On May 22, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Col. Hassan Sayad Khodayari was assassinated in Iran. He was accused of being involved in plots against Israel abroad. Over the next few weeks, another two of the IRGC’s officers also died in mysterious circumstances, and the Iranian military complex at Parchin suffered some kind of incident.Reports abroad hinted that Parchin was struck by a drone. Iran, angry at these incidents, appears to be threatening Israelis and Jews abroad, including in Turkey.

From Iran's Mehr News:

A senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) commander has issued a stark warning to some neighboring Arab states about giving Israel a foothold in the Persian Gulf.

Commander of the IRGC Navy Force Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri has reiterated Iran’s longstanding concerns about the growing trend of normalization between Israel and some Persian Gulf’s Arab states. Speaking during a surprise visit to a strategic island just a hop from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Iranian general warned that bringing Israel to the Persian Gulf would result in instability in this strategically important region.

“Today, there is desirable security in the geographical area of the Persian Gulf thanks to cooperation and synergy among the neighboring countries. [But] if someone for any kind of reason brings the wretched, child-murdering, number-one-enemy Zionist regime to this region, he will destabilize, disturb and create insecurity for both himself and this region,” General Tangsiri said in a Saturday visit to the Greater Tunb Island.

He added, “We advise our friendly and brotherly neighbors in the Persian Gulf not to establish contact with the Zionist regime [Israel]. Because this will harm the security of the region.”

The entire article is framed as a friendly warning which is also a threat. After all, what specifically would harm the security of the region - if not Iran's reaction?

But as always, Arab and Muslim violence is "provoked" by Israel's existence, so by the strange logic of the Israel haters, Israel is responsible for anyone who attacks anyone, whether it is Arabs attacking Jews with an axe, or Palestinian men raping their wives, or terrorists murdering Jews in Mumbai.

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Lebanon's Naharnet reports:

The level of torture and sexual violence used by combatants against women and girls during the 15-year civil war in Lebanon shocked investigators, British newspaper The Guardian said.

A report by the human rights organization Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) gathered testimonies that detailed horrific experiences of violence, including gang-rape, electrocution and forced nudity used to persecute women and girls – some as young as nine – from opposing communities.

An amnesty law passed in Lebanon in 1991 granted immunity for crimes committed against civilians during the war, which has allowed a culture of impunity and lack of accountability to develop, the report noted.

The report itself, issued by LAW and UN Women, is horrific to read, with victim and eyewitness accounts of the most disgusting war crimes.

Yet the report doesn't say who performed these rapes and murders of women and girls. All it says are "state and non-state actors."

One has to read between the lines to understand that only Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian armed forces, Christian and Muslim militias were responsible for these rapes, not the IDF in its forays into Lebanon during the civil war. The report mentions the 1991 amnesty law, and subsequent Lebanese amnesty laws, as the major reason that there has been no investigation or prosecution, and why the victims have had no recourse. Yet the amnesty law would not cover any crimes by Israeli troops.

There's one other way to be certain that Israelis weren't involved. Because if they were, this report would be worldwide news. Besides the Guardian article, this report is not mentioned in mainstream media at all.

Obviously, saying that Jewish soldiers don't wantonly rape women and children is not a high moral or legal bar. Yet the disinterest in this systematic sexual abuse over 15 years in Lebanon only makes sense when you understand that the world expects Muslims and Christians, Lebanese and Palestinians to act like subhumans in war - it is the proverbial dog bites man story.

Israel is routinely accused of being a human rights monster. It is the only state currently accused of apartheid by the international humanitarian community. NGOs issue report after report, vying with each other to find novel angles to accuse Israel of yet more violations of human rights. Yet when it comes to the most horrific war crimes done by Arabs - virtually nothing.

Of course this is antisemitism. The goal of story after story on Israeli human rights abuses, most of them fictional or exaggerated, is to demonize Israel to the average news consumer - and one reason why stories about Arab human rights abuses don't get coverage is because that detracts from and waters down the narrative from the obsessive anti-Israel coverage.

Watch this story over the next week. See if CNN or the New York Times cover it at all - so far they haven't even though the Guardian story was published Thursday. If they do, see how many minutes CNN chooses to use for the story, see how many column inches it gets in the New York Times and on which page.

And if you think that a story from decades ago doesn't deserve major media coverage, compare this week's reporting or lack of reporting of the rape of hundreds of women with last month's coverage of a movie about an alleged Israeli war crime in 1948, against soldiers, based on a poorly written academic research paper that has been retracted.

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Time magazine continues on its anti-Israel jihad, even saying Jews "storm Al Aqsa mosque" without scare quotes

Time magazine has an Israel problem.

It has managed to publish biased pieces against Israel in each of its last four biweekly print editions. I discussed two of them here and here.

The previous edition, dated June 6/13, included another piece on Shireen Abu Akleh where it emphasizes that Israel has refused to start a criminal investigation on her death. As we have noted, the IDF is performing an operational investigation into her death; a criminal investigation is only to be done if there is evidence of a criminal act on the part of Israelis. By saying that Israel is refusing a criminal investigation, Time is implying that it is trying to cover up a crime - when in fact it is evidence that there has been no crime at all.

Also in that issue was the Time list of most influential people, the Time 100. I looked up the Time 100 for last year, which would have covered the timeframe of the Abraham Accords, and no one involved in the most historic Middle East peace deal since the Israel-Egyptian treaty was mentioned.

Likewise, in the most recent Time edition, dated June 20/27, there is an article that mentions a historic Middle East story - only to downplay it.

Written by Mat Nashed of Al Jazeera, it tries to diminish the importance of a trade deal between Israel and the UAE:

Israel and the United Arab Emirates deepened ties on Tuesday with a historic free trade agreement—the first of its kind between Israel and an Arab country—at a time of growing criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Both Israel and the UAE are touting the major economic benefits that such a deal could bring. But experts tell TIME that it’s too early to assess the economic impact of the free trade agreement and that the main value of the agreement is political in nature.

Here is a free trade agreement between Israel and an Arab country - and instead of discussing why this is clearly a historic event, the entire article tries to detract from it.

That's bias.

Both Israel and the UAE are already predicting annual bilateral trade will reach $10 billion in five years, more than 10 times the figure recorded in 2021...However, experts are skeptical about the $10 billion figure. According to World Bank data, that amount would make the UAE one of Israel’s largest trading partners. A local Gulf expert, who asked TIME not to disclose his name out of fear that he could lose his livelihood for challenging the information of regional governments, says that the prediction is a stretch. “Look, if the governments are the source, then they usually exaggerate.”

Oh, an anonymous "expert" says $10 billion is unlikely - so is $6 billion not worth even talking about?

Despite the headline news, the UAE’s budding ties with Israel remain deeply controversial across much of the Arab world—particularly as tensions between Palestinians and Israelis mount. Three days ago, the UAE foreign ministry condemned what it called Israel’s “extremist settlers” for storming Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.

Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis have been "mounting" for 74 years.

But most of all, here we see the depth of Time's hate of Israel. Only Arab media uses the terminology of Jews "storming Al Aqsa mosque."

No Jews "storm al Aqsa mosque." No Jews even enter Al Aqsa Mosque. Only in recent years have Palestinians started to refer to the entire Temple Mount as "Al Aqsa Mosque" rather than just the silver domed building on the southern side of the Mount, but the actual mosque itself is off limits to Jews. Time is adopting the nomenclature of those who deny any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, and it doesn't even use the normal formulation of "Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount," instead implicitly denying any Jewish connection to the site.

Jews walk peacefully around the perimeter of the Temple Mount, they aren't "storming."

Time also emphasizes that the mosque that the Jews don't enter is the "third holiest site in Islam" but somehow doesn't mention that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism - not second or third.

The print article is worse than the online version - the print article downplays all Israeli relations with the Arab world and claims that the Palestinian issue is a significant roadblock for the Gulf states, when the online article notes that this really isn't true. But both versions include the bias shown above, and together with the print items in the previous three editions at least, it shows that Time's anti-Israel bias is no accident.

It is an editorial decision.

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

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06/11 Links: Abraham Accords: Israel carves new influence, regional peace; How can the EU want closer ties with Israel while funding terror NGOs?; Three Basic Lies in the UN Commission’s Report

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Abraham Accords: Israel carves new influence, regional peace

AS WE survey the region two years after the accords, we can see many changes. The importance of the growing Israel-UAE-Bahrain relationship is clear. Also, Israel’s move to be within US Central Command’s area of operations is important because the accords enabled Washington to work closely with Jerusalem in the region, rather than doing so via European Command as in the past. Now Israel, the UAE, Bahrain and the US can train together in the Red Sea.

In addition, Israel’s close ties with Greece and Cyprus tie in with Athens working more closely with Egypt and the UAE.

Further afield, Egypt backs the Libyan forces that control eastern Libya, as the country continues to be divided as it has been since 2011. Turkey has backed the government in Tripoli, and rivals continue to clash in Libya.

The point is that the Israel-UAE-Bahrain relationship now ties into the operations of US Central Command’s naval component NAVCENT and this has huge ramifications for the region. USCENTCOM’s new head, Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, was recently in Israel, where he saw the country’s large Chariots of Fire drill. That drill is all about preparing for possible confrontation with Iran and Iranian-backed proxies such as Hezbollah. Israel also did massive training in Cyprus as part of the drill.

Here we see how Israel has carved out a new depth of influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. This has Hezbollah so angry that it threatened attacks on June 5, as Lebanon complained about Israel gas exploration.

Suffice it to say that Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Iraq – all the countries where Iran has proxies – will not be moving toward peace with Israel. Probably neither will Algeria, Libya or Tunisia. But Israel has had brief, recent ties with Oman, after then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2018 visit there.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Saudi Arabia, but overall the growth of ties appears to be running in a positive direction. Tensions over Jerusalem as well as Hamas attempts to sabotage Israel’s relations will continue. But many countries now understand that groups like Hamas exploit these tensions.

This is another major outcome of the peace deals as well. There is more positive coverage of Israel in the region. Most of the media in the countries Israel has peace with are pro-government, which is favorable to the accords because it means fewer governments are pumping out official anti-Israel propaganda. Considering that several decades ago this was not the case, that means a new generation can be raised with more amicable views of both Israel and Jews in general.

The official slogan of the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen is “Death to Israel, curse the Jews.” For years, Western diplomats and media would have accepted such hatred as the ways things work in the region. Today we can see, across a swath of the region, that open hatred for Jews and Israel has been reduced. Jerusalem’s ties with the Gulf matter greatly in this respect, helping to rewrite decades of antisemitism in the Middle East.

How can the EU want closer ties with Israel while funding terror NGOs? - opinion

How can this happen?
The NGOs in this network claim to promote human rights and provide humanitarian aid, while in practice they promote politicized partisan narratives, oftentimes coupled with antisemitic tropes, and inciteful content aimed at harming the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. Over the years, NGO Monitor has identified – using only open sources! – more than 70 individuals who simultaneously held positions at the PFLP and with European-funded NGOs.

As these facts surfaced, many members of the European Parliament spoke about the need for better vetting and more careful processes in selecting NGO partners for EU-funded projects. In 2020, in response to revelations about involvement of NGO officials in the murder of Rina Shnerb, EU Commissioner Varhelyi ordered an internal investigation into potential diversion of EU funds to terror groups.

Others argued that the existing EU procedures were solid and provided enough safeguards, especially given that in 2019 the EU introduced a new restriction in all its contracts with NGOs prohibiting work with anyone who appears on “the lists of EU restrictive measures” (the official term for the EU terror list).

In practice, however, this made very little difference. The murder of Rina Shnerb happened after that. Part of the reason lies in the fact that the EU’s terror list includes entities like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and PFLP, but it does not include any persons or organizations connected or identified with them.

It was actually Ursula von der Leyen who first officially clarified in June 2020 that EU vetting rules “make the participation of entities, individuals or groups of individuals affiliated, linked, or supporting terrorist organizations incompatible with any EU funding.” The word “affiliated” offered the missing specification that should have allowed the EU to impose the restrictions on all those who are in any way linked to a terror organization.

To be fair, shortly after Israel alerted them of the NGO officials involvement in the Rina Shnerb’s murder, the European Commission quietly froze its funding to Al-Haq and the Union of Agricultural Works Committees (UAWC), two of the designated NGOs pending final resolution. It was a welcome immediate reaction, but the EU is yet to make a definitive statement on its policy.

Eugene Kantorovich: Why Israel shouldn't join the Istanbul Convention

In recent weeks, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, with the support of Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, wisely decided to defer Israel’s joining the Istanbul Convention – a treaty that would subject Israel to the review of a hostile international commission and potentially tilt the scales in a wide variety of domestic policies from immigration to religious matters.

In response, Bar-Ilan University’s Rackman Center, which had long lobbied for the treaty and stands to gain financially from its adoption, has taken to the pages of this paper to accuse groups that pointed out the convention’s problems – of which the Kohelet Policy Forum has been proud to be among – as “liars” who actually support violence against women.

Why the Istanbul Convention is dangerous
We are not concerned about such ad hominem attacks, but it is important to explain why the Istanbul Convention is so dangerous. First, it does nothing to prevent violence against women in Israel. Only Israeli domestic legislation can do that. Violence against women should be dealt with by tougher penalties and better enforcement, not through international virtue signaling. Any useful ideas in the convention can and should be discussed and adopted on its own merit.

There is no evidence that joining the convention reduces violence. Indeed, sex offenses against women in some countries like Sweden have spiked rapidly since they joined.

Nor is there any diplomatic imperative to joining the treaty. Unlike UN bodies, which enjoy universal membership, this treaty was designed by and for a regional organization, the Council of Europe (CoE). Israel’s absence would not be noted as the CoE struggles to get or keep its own members on board.

Joining the treaty would expose a wide variety of Israeli social policies to scrutiny by the treaty’s monitoring arm, known by its acronym GREVIO. Anti-Israel bias has turned many international monitoring mechanisms, like the UN Human Rights Council, into yet another arena for condemning Israel for “the occupation.”

06/10 Links Pt2: 100 Years Ago This Month: When Congress Embraced Zionism—Unanimously; Biden Admin Takes Major Step To Roll Back Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy Move

From Ian:

100 Years Ago This Month: When Congress Embraced Zionism—Unanimously

One hundred years ago this week, the United States Congress unanimously embraced Zionism. The story of how that came about involves some surprising twists and turns, and a stormy debate about Jews and Arabs that could have been taken straight out of today’s headlines.

In the spring of 1922, the League of Nations—forerunner of the United Nations—was weighing Great Britain’s request to be granted the mandate over Palestine. The approval process was slowed as France and Italy jockeyed for regional influence and the Vatican sought to prevent Jews from gaining a “privileged” position or “preponderant influence” in the Holy Land.

In the wake of England’s 1917 Balfour Declaration, pledging to facilitate creation of a Jewish national home, American Zionists were eager to see the British receive the Palestine mandate. They hoped an endorsement of Zionism by President Warren Harding would accelerate the process. But Harding proved noncommittal, so Zionist activists turned to Congress.

Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, and Charles Curtis, of Kansas (a future vice president) and Rep. Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, all Republicans, agreed to take the lead on a pro-Zionist resolution. They were isolationists and immigration restrictionists—not exactly the Jewish community’s favorite kind of politicians. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, head of the American Jewish Congress, had recently denounced Lodge as “un-American and anti-American” because he opposed U.S. participation in the League of Nations.

Successful lobbying, however, is the art of the possible. Many Jewish leaders may have been personally more comfortable with Democrats, but in 1922, the president was Republican and the GOP enjoyed large majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. If three powerful Republican congressmen were ready to champion the Zionist cause, why should they be turned away?

The Lodge-Fish resolution, as it came to be known, declared that “the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” It added that “the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine” and “the holy places and religious buildings and sites” should “be adequately protected.”

Hearings were held before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs over four days in April.

The testimony by Zionist officials emphasized both justice and rescue. The Jewish people were entitled to rebuild their biblical homeland, and European Jews urgently needed a haven; 100,000 Jews had been slaughtered in pogroms in Ukraine and Poland in 1918-1921. Moreover, Zionist development of the land would benefit Palestine’s Arab population. (h/t jzaik)

Biden Admin Takes Major Step To Roll Back Trump’s Jerusalem Embassy Move

Jason Greenblatt, former White House envoy to the Middle East and author of the book In the Path of Abraham, described the decision as a concession to the Palestinian government, which incites terrorism against Israel and pays salaries to convicted militants.

"Even more troubling is the reversal of the chain of command established by the Trump administration," Greenblatt told the Free Beacon. "It is extremely bad practice for reporting on Palestinian affairs to go directly to the State Department without being run through the U.S. ambassador to Israel. So many of the issues they are responsible for are intertwined, and so much can be missed, misconstrued, or manipulated when the chain of command is disrupted."

Greenblatt said his time in the White House showed him that separating this mission aided a "broken system" that appeased Palestinian leadership while harming U.S.-Israeli relations. "By trying to appease the Palestinian leadership with this empty gesture, we hurt our critical ally Israel and we hurt the United States—we hurt our national security, our diplomatic efforts and we waste precious U.S. taxpayer money," he said.

Arsen Ostrovsky, and Israeli human rights attorney who serves as chair and CEO of International Legal Forum, an advocacy group, said the creation of this office marks "a transparent attempt by the Biden Administration to go round the back door, with a de-facto consulate in clear attempt to water down the Trump Administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital." It also signals that the Biden administration is challenging Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Republican foreign policy leaders also pushed back on the move.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the State Department is circumventing the Israeli government in order to create "an unofficial U.S. consulate" to the Palestinians, in violation of the law.

"I unequivocally oppose this plan for what appears to be a new unofficial U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel’s capital," Hagerty said. "This plan is inconsistent with the full and faithful implementation of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 and suggests that the administration is once again trying to undermine America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal and undivided capital."

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.), a House Foreign Affairs Committee member, said the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act was specifically created to prevent this situation.

"Palestinian Authority leadership has made it abundantly clear that their push for this action is for the purpose of dividing Jerusalem," Zeldin said. "The United States unilaterally making this concession to the Palestinian Authority in exchange for no concessions in return has been proven to be a failed policy time and again."

Boston BDS map of Jewish groups has ‘potential to incite violence,’ Auchincloss says

He said that the project carries echoes of “a very sinister vein of Western history” — efforts to identify and keep rosters of Jews, including, but not limited to, the Holocaust.

Auchincloss said he plans to raise the issue with colleagues and with groups in the area that have promoted the Mapping Project, and will urge his colleagues to do the same.

“I will give direct and stark feedback about how inappropriate and unacceptable this is,” he said.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), tweeted on Wednesday that “Targeting the Jewish community like this is wrong and it is dangerous. It is irresponsible. This project is an anti-Semitic enemies list with a map attached.”

The other members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), who are named in the Mapping Project — did not respond to requests for comment.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) has been endorsed by the advocacy group Peace Action, whose local chapter, Massachusetts Peace Action, has amplified the Mapping Project.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also called out the project, saying that it “accuses Jewish and ‘Zionist’ institutions of various evils in American society,” adding, “Scapegoating is a common symptom of antisemitism, which at its core is a conspiracy theory.”

The project has caught the attention of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose spokesperson, Lior Haiat, tweeted earlier this week, “This whole project is reminiscent of a dangerous antisemitic pattern of activity known from antiquity through the horrors of the 20th century: a pattern which has led to violence against Jews and their institutions.”

Jeremy Burton, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, told JI, “We see this as an explicit effort name and identify and put a target on physical Jewish spaces in Greater Boston, with the purpose, explicitly in their own words, of dismantling our Jewish community here in Boston,” which could “inspire others to dangerous action.”

Burton urged lawmakers with ties to groups like Massachusetts Peace Action that have amplified the project to enact “consequences in those relationships.”

It's a BDS project but she has to throw in 'violent white supremacy' just to bothsides/alllivesmatter this stuff as usual. Some cowardice is just sad, but some cowardice is dangerous to the rest of us https://t.co/awhXA4yzhm
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 10, 2022

My letter of complaint to IMPRESS regarding Bellingcat's flawed investigation of Shireen Abu Akleh's death

The wild snipers of Jenin and the likely location of Shireen Abu Akleh's killer

The purpose of the yellow star in Nazi Germany was EXACTLY the same as that of BDS today

16th century Islamic history book describes the strong Jewish attachment to Jerusalem

Left wing and Right-wing antisemites agree: Jews are the center of all evil (and America is not far behind)

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

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Study: Only Your Opponents Defined By Extremists On Their Side (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Tel Aviv, June 9 - New research suggests that whereas your political fellow-travelers represent myriad, diverse views, and that fringe elements attract only ridicule and criticism from the overwhelming, decent majority, the other political camp kowtows to the radicals in its midst who have hijacked the agenda at that end of the political spectrum and as a consequence, voting for anyone from that half of the political map effectively places the government under the control of dangerous fanatics who will destroy everything of value.

Scientists studying political phenomenology have discovered evidence that only your opponents get defined by the most extreme among them; you and your close allies, however, know how to distance yourself from unhinged, racist, violent, or otherwise objectionable voices that overlap with parts of your vision, and only dishonesty could account for those who associate you with those objectionable elements. Your invocation of the other side's extremists, however, captures the essence of that entire camp's ideology.

"It's uncanny," remarked lead study author Tenn Denschuss of the Statistics Department at Tel Aviv University, the study's lead author. Your positions, rhetoric, and behavior, he confirmed, remain "beyond reproach, untainted by coincidental association with unsavory fanatics whose tactics and bigotry give them more in common with the thugs on the other side," whereas your opponents' positions "grow out of suspicious closeness to, and sympathy for, some of the most destructive forces and movements of the last two centuries, which they fail to denounce with sufficiently convincing vigor."

Denschuss observed that the phenomenon holds across multiple angles of political difference: disputes over policy or vision in the realms of public health, democratic processes, security, bodily autonomy, criminal justice, racial tensions, separation of religion and state, the environment, regulation, taxation, income inequality, international relations, military policy, infrastructure, free enterprise, freedom of expression, and what restrictions, if any, apply to individual liberties, among other areas.

"This looks like a pretty robust phenomenon," he noted. When you hold a certain position, "it inevitably stems from a well-reasoned, coherent analysis of data, using supportable assumptions and the right mix of empathy and incentive." On the other hand, when those who disagree with you espouse their positions on any of these issues, their analysis, if even worthy of the term, "suffers the fatal flaw of ulterior considerations, distorted ethics, and undue influence from radicals whose extreme agenda will inevitably generate larger and more problems than their favored policies ostensibly aim to solve, while in fact in they were honest, those fanatics would admit they aim not to address the issue but to seize power and impose their agenda while suppressing dissent."

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