Wednesday, June 22, 2022

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The fatal contradictions of Biden's Middle East trip
If the administration was really committed to stopping Iran, then it would be increasing its efforts to expand former President Donald Trump's Abraham Accords to other Arab and Islamic countries to shore up a regional alliance against Tehran.

Hopes that the Saudis will swap their under-the-table alliance with Israel for a full-fledged normalization are probably misplaced. As the self-styled guardians of the Muslim holy places, the odds that the Saudi regime – whose legitimacy is rooted in its own peculiar brand of religious extremism – would ever fully embrace the Jewish state are slim and none. But as they did in 2020 when the Trump foreign-policy team made the first real breakthrough for peace in a generation, their acquiescence to other countries normalizing relations with Israel is key.

But Biden's disinterest in widening the circle of peace is painfully obvious. His priority is keeping Israel and the Saudis from taking any actions that will undermine his hopes of a new deal with Iran, which means that it would be extremely foolish for either Jerusalem or Riyadh to place much trust in any assurances the president offers to them.

That is a painful dilemma because as much as the Saudis can flirt with trying to come to some sort of arrangement with Iran and its terrorist proxies, that isn't a viable option since Tehran will never be satisfied until the Saud dynasty and its allies are overthrown. Nor can Israel look elsewhere for help. Both an isolated Russia and a China bent on expanding its own malign influence in the Middle East are bad actors that have no real sympathy or common interests with the Jewish state.

So, while the Israelis and the Saudis combine to present an Iran still seeking regional hegemony as well as nuclear status with a formidable foe, having the United States led by a president that cannot be relied upon to oppose the deadliest threat to stability in the region creates a problem to which there is no obvious solution.

Nor can Americans feel good about an administration that, for all of its high-flown talk about standing by allies when it speaks of Ukraine, still seems intent on discarding its real friends in the Middle East. Expecting Israel and the Saudis to have America's back while also attempting to betray them by embracing Iran is a contradiction that may lead to yet another Biden disaster, which may be even more costly than the ones he has already blundered into.
Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs to Biden: Shut Down Iran's 'Expansionist Project'
Ahead of Biden's visit, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, in a clear message to the US administration and other Western powers, affirmed that any nuclear agreement or future negotiations with Iran must address the Iranians' "destabilizing behavior in the region, their support for terrorist militias, and their missile program."

"Western countries prefer to talk about upcoming measures, preparing us for their failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the truth is that we are in a race against time, and it is still possible to force Iran to abandon its secret plans to acquire nuclear weapons. The problem is that the entire international community does not seem serious and resolute in dealing with this issue and deterring Iran." — Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, founder and chairman of the Gulf Research Center, alanba.com.kw, June 14, 2022.

Iran thinks with the "mentality of an empire" and that is why it is continuing its efforts to extend its control to several Arab countries. — Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, alanba.com.kw, June 14, 2022

Washington's Arab allies have repeatedly warned that the US against complacency with the Iranian threat, "specifically after the instructions of the administration of former President Barack Obama to build a partnership with the Tehran regime under the roof of the nuclear agreement that contributed to Iran's pervasiveness, and gave it free rein, allowing it to increase its hostile activities against the countries of the region without being held accountable for the consequences of its reckless policies." — Khaled Al-Yemany, former foreign minister of Yemen, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

[T]he Arab countries have always preferred dialogue with Iran, but this was seen by the mullahs as a sign of weakness. — Khaled Al-Yemany, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

Tehran is using negotiation diplomacy to achieve more military gains and develop its arsenal in the nuclear and missile fields and missile technology," he said. "The reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency confirm that Iran is far from the commitments it made in the nuclear agreement, and it is progressing to build a nuclear bomb. A nuclear Iran, its expansionist project that destabilizes regional and international security and stability will be more ferocious and its ambitions will transcend all borders, and it must be deterred before it is too late." — Khaled Al-Yemany, independentarabia.com, January 26, 2022.

[T]he Arab and Western media have remained silent about the Iranian people's protests against the corruption of the regime, which spent its wealth to destroy four Arab countries (Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq). — Abdul Jalil Al-Saeid, Syrian author, al-ain.com, June 7, 2022.

The Arabs are saying that they expect the Biden administration to reverse its stance on the mullahs and act in accordance with reality: that Tehran poses a catastrophic threat to America's allies – all of its allies, Arab and Israeli alike – in the Middle East.


Russia Still a Threat Even if Putin Dies, Says Renowned Holocaust Investigator Now Probing War Crimes in Ukraine
Russia will continue to pose a deadly threat to Ukraine even if current President Vladimir Putin dies, according to the French Catholic priest who built an international reputation documenting the mass slaughter of the country’s Jewish community during the Holocaust.

In a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday with the Pravda Ukraine news outlet, Fr. Patrick Desbois, who is actively documenting Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, argued that the Russian threat would outlast Putin, the principal architect of the invasion of Ukraine in late February.

“You have to understand that even if Putin dies, they will still be deadly,” Desbois said. “It is your great misfortune that you have such neighbors.”

The founder of Yahad-In Unum, a French NGO dedicated to researching what he calls the “Holocaust by bullets,” Desbois has devoted much of his career to investigating the mass graves of Jews murdered by Nazi mobile killing squads across occupied eastern Europe. In an interview with The Algemeiner in March, Desbois — who has assembled a team of investigators in Ukraine — emphasized that the responsibility for war crimes during the current conflict was not Putin’s alone.

“Remember that the excuse of the people on the ground is always that they were just obeying orders,” he said.

In his latest interview, Desbois also expressed pessimism about the prospects of Putin ever facing trial for war crimes.
Caroline Glick: The U.S. and NATO are losing catastrophically in Ukraine | Mideast News Hour
In this week’s episode of "Middle East News Hour," Caroline Glick is joined by David Goldman from Asia Times and the Claremont Institute to discuss why the United States and NATO are the real losers of the Ukraine war. They look at:
- The situation on the ground
- U.S. options for managing the war going forward
- The global economic implications of the Western sanctions on Russia
- What this all means for Israel
From Israel21c:
More than 300 Arab and Jewish Israeli children recently joined forces to create a sustainable garden at the Al-Hayat School in the Arab town of Kfar Qassem in central Israel. The Kfar Qassem kids were joined in the project by children from the nearby Jewish community of Kfar Saba.

The “Green Roofs” project, under the auspices of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, was funded by USAID.

For several months leading up to the planting of vegetables, spices, perennials and hydroponic plants, the seventh-graders learned about sustainability, environmental responsibility, climate crisis and consumer culture.

The program also served to connect the two neighboring communities, create understanding among the youth and encourage activism to promote coexistence.

The shared garden, which is open to the public, “deepens the connection between Kfar Qassem and Kfar Saba residents even further,” says Kfar Qassem Mayor Adel Badir.

Countering the negative images in the media, the mayor said the garden “symbolizes both cooperation and shared existence.”
This isn't the image of Israel in most Arab media (although a couple of websites did cover this story.)  More often, you see stories like this from Hizb Ut-Tahrir:


And Western media seems to prefer the latter narrative over the former.




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As we've seen, all of the "investigations" of Shireen Abu Akleh's death that blame the IDF hinge on a single piece of evidence: audio analysis of the bullet sounds on different videos to determine the  distance from the shooter to the camera. 

Every single analysis makes the same wrong assumption: that the estimates by the experts consulted has some wiggle room that would allow the IDF to be within the range of the source of the gunfire.

Every investigation noted that the IDF was outside the range of what they had asked their experts to determine.  Every one fudges the data from the experts to indict the IDF. Crucially, not one of them went back to these experts and asked whether their calculations could possibly support the IDF shooting Abu Akleh.

Here is a short lesson of the physics and assumptions made by the experts to calculate the distances.

The guns used by both sides shoot bullets much faster than the speed of sound. Objects that travel faster than the speed of sound create a shockwave (in the case of aircraft, a sonic boom) that can be heard by those near the path of the object. This is an illustration of a shockwave for something traveling 1.4 times the speed of sound:



Most bullets travel significantly faster than the speed of sound. Here's a photo of the shockwave from a bullet.


The easiest way to picture this is to think about the wake of a speedboat on a lake.  The faster the bullet, the narrower the "wake." When the wake passes by one's ear or a microphone, you hear a clap sound. If the bullet is not shot in the general direction of the ear or microphone, no shockwave sound is heard at all.

The muzzle of the gun also produces a sound when the bullet is fired, the "bang." That bang travels at exactly the speed of sound from the gun, at the same speed in all directions. 

By measuring the difference in time between the "clap" and the "bang," we can calculate the distance of the gun.

Everyone agrees that Abu Akleh was killed by a 5.56mm bullet. Everyone agrees that both the IDF and militants in Jenin use weapons (M4s and M16s) that use those bullets. 

To determine the distance of the gun to the microphone, we need to know a few things:

* The speed of sound.
* The speed of the bullet between source and where the sounds are heard.
* The time gap between the sound of the shockwave to the sound of the gunfire.

Assuming that the listener/microphone is reasonably close to the bullet path, this gives a very good approximation of the distance. 

We know the speed of sound at various temperatures. 

We know the time gap from the videos - between roughly 295 ms and 310 ms.  Here are the last two gunshots from the first set of gunshots from audio analysis tool Audacity:


The speed of the bullet is variable, depending on the gun type. And keep in mind that since bullets sllow down, we want to know the average bullet speed at that distance for this calculation, not the muzzle speed which is always faster. This chart shows the speed for 5.56 mm bullets using various types of guns at various distances.  


The speed at 100 yards would be roughly the average speed of the bullet that traveled a total of 200 yards/meters, so it is a good approximation. Also, the slowdown slope over distance is pretty linear so we can take a good guess that an M16 with a muzzle speed of 960 m/s would have an average speed of about 880 m/s over 200 meters, and an M4 with a muzzle speed of 905 m/s would have an average speed of 824 m/s. 

This is the data that was used to determine the distance of the shooter to the microphones, with each investigation using somewhat different assumptions on bullet speed - but all of them came out with a range of between 155 meters and 195 meters for the distance to the gun from the microphone.

Rob Maher, one of the experts consulted by Bellingcat, CNN and the New York Times, emailed me the formula and his assumptions of the range from the CNN article, so you can do this yourself with a spreadsheet:

Measured time-of-arrival difference between shock wave and muzzle blast:  Time_D

  Speed of sound:  c

  Bullet average speed:  V

  Distance of firearm to target:  D


      Time_D = D/c - D/V  = D*{(1/c) - (1/V)}


  Solving for D, we get


      D = Time_D / {(1/c) - (1/V)}


So with Time_D = 0.306, c= 347, and V= 762, we get D = 195 meters.

Or with Time_D = 0.306, c= 347, and V= 884, we get D = 175 meters.


As we've shown, the IDF was most definitely outside those ranges.  (This modified NYT graphic uses yards and a more generous range.)



The experts chose the most expansive ranges they could to account for all the variables, and even then, the IDF is well outside the possible range.

Which means that the IDF couldn't have fired the shots that killed Shireen Abu Akleh - unless they moved within range when no one was looking, or there was a hurricane level wind gust going south at the moment of the gunfire, or if the IDF uses a gun with a much slower bullet velocity than of any known gun that uses 5.56mm bullets.

To be very accurate, we also need to know:

* The temperature
* The wind speed
* The distance from the ear/microphone to the path of the bullet. The further away they are, the longer it takes the shockwave passing by to hit the listener, and that makes the calculations a bit more complicated.

Those factors cannot possibly explain the discrepancy between the ranges calculated by the experts and the IDF position.* (see update) Yet not one of these analyses bothered going back to the experts and asked them if there was some other X factor that could explain the discrepancies.

One other important fact: You will notice that there is quite a difference between the time gaps of the two gunshots I placed in my graphic above - 295 ms and 306 ms. Assuming that the source of the gunfire is the same position (which is reasonable), this indicates that the shooter was not shooting each bullet with the same trajectory. If he was shooting wildly, and the direction of the bullets changed by a degree or two, that would explain such a discrepancy - the distance from the shockwave to the camera would change if the bullets were being sprayed across a larger area, and that would easily account for such a discrepancy in gunfire from the same gun.

Dr. Maher was nice enough to illustrate this for me as well:




Such a wild shooting pattern would be far more likely from Jenin terrorists than from the professional soldiers of the IDF, in my opinion. (Indeed, we saw bullets sprayed on the tree, on Abu Akleh and Ali Samoudi, in a radius that is far larger than that of a trained shooter aiming at a target.)

(I had also asked Dr, Maher if a bullet stopped by a tree or person would have a different time gap, but the answer is no - the shockwave "wake" would continue on to the microphone exactly the same way even if the bullet stopped somewhat short. If it stopped too short, there would be no shockwave sound at all.)

The media didn't ask the experts whether there was any factor that could account for the IDF shooting Abu Akleh at this distance. They didn't ask about the discrepancies between the audio gaps. They were trying to fit the data to their preconceived verdict that the IDF fired the weapons.

The liberal elements in the media often disparage the more right-wing media as not believing in science. This is science. And all the supposedly objective media - Bellingcat, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and AP - literally ignored the science and fudged the data to make it appear that the IDF was in the range indicated by the audio forensics.  

It wasn't.

Every one of these media outlets tried to hide the science that would exonerate the IDF according to their own experts.That is a scandal. 

UPDATE: Rootclaim tweets that the distance from the mic to the bullet may indeed put the IDF guns in range.

 the calculation doesn’t account for the distance from the arriving bullet to the microphone. 
The bullets are known to have hit the journalists and a tree that were 10-15 meters from the camera. That means 30-45 milliseconds should be added to the 300-310 ms delay measured in the soundtrack. 
This chart shows the distance to the shooter, as a function of the average bullet velocity. The blue line is the erroneous calculation and the red line shows the corrected distance (using 10m correction).Image
Most rifles used by both sides are around the 800 m/s range (after deceleration in air), meaning an increase of ~20 meters, to a range of ~200 meters, which better matches the IDF’s location. 
We publish this specific finding ahead of our full analysis as it is widely used in public discourse, causing confusion. However, we generally advise against using a single piece of evidence as a “smoking gun”, since they rarely are (as demonstrated here…). 
Only a detailed probabilistic inference, using all evidence, and accounting for all possible sources of error, can provide a reliable assessment of a hypothesis’ likelihood. We’ll be publishing our full analysis soon. 
The math here is a little beyond me, but I had asked Dr. Maher about this specifically. Here are excerpts of his response on how to calculate the distance when the mic is further away:

If more precise geometry is to be used, you might choose to take into account the Mach angle of the bullet’s shock wave near the microphone.  If the bullet has slowed to, say, some velocity between 690-790 meters per second as it reached the area of the microphone, the Mach angle is then somewhere between 26 and 30 degrees.  Here is a plan view sketch of what I am referring to.



If you have a good prediction of the bullet’s speed and its trajectory, AND if you assume the bullet passed by without striking anything before passing the microphone, you could use the time of the shock wave arrival to back-track where the bullet was at various times before and after the shock wave arrival.  I haven’t done any of that work in this case because of all of the unknowns about speeds, trajectories, and positions. In other words, I assumed the microphone was sufficiently close to the bullet’s trajectory that the shock wave propagation time to the microphone was negligible.

10-15 meters is not negligible, but there are still a lot of unknowns that make the calculations difficult.

And more recently he wrote something that indicates that Rootclaim's numbers may be in the right ballpark:

My sketch below is intended to show a simple plan view, with the firearm at the left and the bullet traveling to the right.  The black circles labeled 1 and 2 are indicating possible microphone locations.  We don’t actually know the microphone location relative to the bullet path.  The circular arcs are depicting the path of the muzzle blast sound moving outward from the gun.  The red lines are depicting the ballistic shock wave of the bullet at two different moments.

 



 

Assuming the two microphone positions are roughly the same distance from the firearm, the time-of-arrival of the muzzle blast at each position will be essentially the same.  However, the arrival of the ballistic shock wave will be different at the two positions.

The arrival of the shock wave at position 1 will be essentially the time it takes the supersonic bullet to travel from the gun to position X, which is essentially position 1.

The ballistic shock wave arrival at position 2, however, will be delayed because the timing consists of the time required for the bullet to travel to position X-Δ, plus the time it takes the shock wave to travel at the speed of sound from X-Δ to position 2.

For example, if I imagine a scenario which X is 180 meters from the gun, the average bullet velocity is 884 m/s, and the two possible microphone positions 1 and 2 are separated by 5 meters, then Δ=2.9 meters, the distance from X- Δ to position 2 is about 5.8 meters, and so the delay between the shock wave and the muzzle blast is about 321 milliseconds at position 1, but 308 milliseconds at position 2.  Since we don’t actually know the relative position of the microphone and the bullet’s trajectory, we have over 10 milliseconds of uncertainty due to the 5 meters uncertainty of trajectory difference.  If we do the same scenario but with an average bullet velocity of 762 m/s, the shock wave-muzzle blast delay is 289 ms at position 1 and 276 ms at position 2 (13 ms difference).

Keep in mind that a bullet that was shot a few meters over the heads of the individuals making the recording has this same sort of timing adjustment. 

I hope this helps give an idea of why there is uncertainty in the analysis, and why I tried to be very clear with all of the reporters and with you about the need to combine this acoustic  evaluation with physical evidence, witness accounts, and all the rest.

I was a bit overconfident in my analysis above, assuming that the distance to the mic was not great enough to affect the calculations mush. It appears I was wrong, and that there is a significant additional uncertainty to the distance calculations. I believe that the angle of the bullets to the target relative to the microphone would also be a factor - a bullet from the southeast would pass somewhat closer to the mic to the north.

If Rootclaim's numbers are correct, and up to 20 meters can be added to the calculations, then rifles with slower bullets could barely include the IDF position. Al Jazeera identified the IDF guns as M4s which do have a slower muzzle speed than M16s. 




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Remember Nizar Banat? 

He's the critic who publicly called the Palestinian Authority corrupt and organized protests against Mahmoud Abbas.

Last June 24, at 3:30 AM,  he was arrested by PA security services. By 6:30 AM, he was dead.

The PA pretended to be shocked at his death and arrested a bunch of people after the international community expressed displeasure at an obvious assassination. 

And now, according to reports, the supposed murderers will be set free on bail.

Felesteen reports that according to sources, the military court of the PA in Ramallah decided to release on bail 14 defendants in the case of the assassination of Nizar Banat. 

The sources stated that the decision to release the accused was based on the decision of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. 

The defendants are being released on condition that their movement be restricted. And if they happen to disappear towards Jordan, well, these things happen. 

Especially when you work in a government as corrupt as the PA is, under the dictatorship of Mahmoud Abbas.




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Tuesday, June 21, 2022

From Ian:

Fred Maroun: Guilty Until Proven Innocent–and then STILL Guilty
We may never know how Abu Akleh was killed, but we do know one thing: when there is an opportunity to make accusations against Israel, the pro-Palestinian media is quick to judge Israel guilty without any proof, and some of the international media follows far too willingly. The death of Abu Akleh, which occurred in Jenin in the West Bank, reminds me of another accusation against Israel: the so-called Jenin massacre.

A battle took place in Jenin in the first few days of April 2002 during the Second Intifada after Israeli soldiers entered Jenin, as part of Operation Defensive Shield, in search for terrorists who were responsible for several terrorist attacks. Palestinian sources quickly claimed that a massacre had occurred, and Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and some international news outlets repeated the accusation without any proof.

The claim of a Jenin massacre has since then been widely discredited. As was written in the Washington Post on May 3, 2002, “The “Jenin massacre” is more than a fiction. It is a hoax.” But in the pro-Palestinian media, the lie endures. The Middle East Monitor repeated the accusation as recently as April 2020. Al Jazeera repeated the accusation in April 2018.

In an ideal world, the tactic of making blatantly false accusations should never work because people should be able to see through them, but the tactic works because too many people see what they want to see. The enduring lie by Donald Trump that he won the 2020 US presidential election is a great example; over 40 percent of Americans still believe it.

Lies work (more or less), but what have they achieved for the Palestinians? Nothing. Lies cannot build a state any more than Palestinian terrorism can.

In the end, in terms of the Palestinian goal of self-determination, however Shireen Abu Akleh was killed is of no significant importance. If it is determined that an Israeli soldier acted improperly, that soldier will be punished, but whether that happens or not, the reasons why the Palestinians do not have their own state will remain the same. The pro-Palestinian media, which Abu Akleh was part of, will continue to ignore those reasons, and they will continue to report dishonestly on the conflict.
David Collier: This is not an article about Shireen Abu Akleh
Yesterday, the NYT published the findings of its investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. They found that an Israeli soldier probably fired the shot that killed her. Last month I wrote an article about the rancid CNN investigation into the same incident which even disgracefully claimed Israel shot her deliberately. The Washington Post also ran an investigation into the killing. So did Bellingcat.

All of the basic truths remain the same. None of these reports have included a forensic analysis of the actual bullet that killed the journalist. Why? Because the Palestinians do not want this to take place.

For now, the Palestinians are milking a perfect scenario. Everyone is blaming Israel anyway, and the story is dragging out month after month. Eventually, if the Palestinians are confident an Israeli soldier did fire the shot, they may even produce the bullet for inspection – thus ‘proving’ Israel did it and creating a whole new round of ‘we were right’ stories in the international media. Of course, if the Palestinians have any doubt at all over what really happened, they wouldn’t dare risk the fall-out.

An Israeli soldier may have shot her. These things can and do happen in areas of conflict. That isn’t the point. The issue remains that Israel cannot know for sure, so is being held hostage by Palestinians who benefit from the very information void that they have created.

On the one side we have major media outlets scrambling to produce endless reports about the killing, on the other Jews are left able to do nothing but point to the weaknesses in all these investigations.

Jews are always left fighting a desperate corner, rather than pointing out the blatant discrimination that placed them there.

Because this is not an article about Shireen Abu Akleh. The real question is why are we seeing an endless stream of pointless dead-end investigations into this incident? This irrational obsession that surrounds her death is rooted in exceptionalism, discrimination, blatant bias and antisemitism. To highlight this I just want you to meet some people you probably have never – and will never – hear about:
JPost Editorial: Israel must release the Shireen Abu Akleh probe findings
At the same time, Israel’s determination of how the veteran American Palestinian journalist was killed in Jenin on May 11 is also pending – despite the publication by key media outlets of some extremely damaging reports.

Even though the official postmortem report by the Palestinian Authority said it could not determine who shot the fatal bullet, The Washington Post, CNN and The Associated Press published the results of their own probes, finding that Abu Akleh was killed by an IDF bullet – with some even suggesting that she had been deliberately shot by Israeli troops.

Although the IDF squarely rejected these allegations, we are still awaiting the results of the military investigation ordered by Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi. “There is one thing that can be determined with certainty: no IDF soldier deliberately fired at a journalist,” Kohavi stated. “We investigated this. That is the conclusion and there is no other.”

In response to The Washington Post report, the IDF said it would “continue to responsibly investigate the incident in order to get to the truth of this tragic event. The bullet is vital to reaching a conclusion as to the source of the fire that killed Abu Akleh, and it is an important source for reaching an evidence-based conclusion. The Palestinians continue to refuse the IDF’s offer to conduct a joint forensic examination of the bullet, with American representation.”

We urge the IDF and the Israel Police to publish the results of all their investigations into Abu Akleh’s death and her funeral as soon as possible. Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and people around the world need to know the truth – whatever it is.



Arab48 reports:
The administrative detainee, Khalil Awawda, suspended this morning, Tuesday, his open hunger strike, which lasted for 111 days, in rejection of his arbitrary arrest, after promises and pledges to end his detention, according to the Prisoner Club in a statement.
Awawda's hunger strike has been a cause célèbre especially in Islamic Jihad circles, because he has been a known terrorist for a long time.

As with nearly all cases of hunger strikes, the striker declares victory based on some supposed Israeli promises that are not spelled out. The article doesn't say that he will be released now. Typically, the deal from Israel seems to be in the form of promising not to extend the existing administrative detention beyond its initial timeframe. 

The hunger strike has barely been mentioned in Western media. Years ago these strikes garnered some publicity, but without anyone actually dying from these extended "hunger strikes" that involve a bit of cheating, the media lost interest. And without publicity, the propaganda value has been considerably reduced.



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According to Al Jazeera, which claimed that it obtained a photo of the bullet that killed Shireen Abu Akleh:
An investigation by Al Jazeera has obtained an image of the bullet used to kill the network’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. 
According to ballistic and forensic experts, the green-tipped bullet was designed to pierce armour and is used in an M4 rifle. The round was extracted from her head.

The bullet was analysed using 3D models and, according to experts, it was 5.56mm calibre – the same used by Israeli forces. The round was designed and manufactured in the United States, experts said.
If their experts are correct and the bullet was manufactured in the United States, then the bullet must have been shot by Palestinian terrorists.

IDF exclusively uses bullets made in Israel by IMI Systems, formerly Israel Military Industries and owned now by Elbit, and they all manufactured in Israel, not the US.

Al Jazeera's experts are saying that Shireen was killed by Palestinians. 

If their experts aren't correct, then why believe anything you read from Al Jazeera?



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

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From Ian:

UN Human Rights Council report aims to put Israelis behind bars
Notably, the report itself admits that it is one-sided. The authors explain that the findings regarding the “underlying root causes” were overwhelmingly directed toward Israel because of “the reality of one State occupying the other.” Yet the conflict predates 1967, and Israel’s presence in the West Bank persists primarily as the result of Palestinian aggression against the Jewish state.

The report consistently ignores Israel’s security needs. In framing the outbreak of the May 2021 war, the authors overlook the Hamas-Fatah rivalry and Hamas’s saber-rattling that helped initiate the war, focusing instead on Israeli evictions that never occurred. The report also criticizes Israel’s construction of a West Bank “wall” without mentioning the Palestinian terrorism of the Second Intifada that led to its construction.

Similarly, the authors present the blockade of Gaza as an example of Israel pursuing “political objectives” rather than advancing legitimate security concerns. In this context, the COI report calls Israel’s efforts to prevent Hamas from amassing weapons for further attacks on Israeli civilians a “15-year economic and social blockade.”

The authors also argue that Israel’s supposedly perpetual occupation has created inequalities (that a future report might determine amount to apartheid). But the different legal systems in place in the West Bank — a product of the Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinians — center around citizenship, not race, as permitted in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The COI report does recognize that the Oslo Accords would have gradually transferred much of the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinian control, but it states that “these agreements have never been fully implemented.” The report does not mention that the Palestinians rejected or ignored multiple Israeli peace offers. “Israel has no intention of ending the occupation,” the report states, yet it overlooks Israel’s spurned offers to withdraw from most of the West Bank as part of a peace agreement.

This report is not just about putting Israel under scrutiny. It’s about putting Israelis behind bars. The COI seeks to end what it perceives as a “culture of impunity” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by submitting individual Israelis to prosecution, presumably at the International Criminal Court, for perceived crimes.

Budgetary restraints have hampered the COI’s operation and may have temporarily prevented some of the more incendiary allegations that Israel feared the UNHRC would make. The United States should seize the momentum, withhold further funds from the UNHRC, and prioritize defunding the COI in the end-of-year budget debates.
Daniel Pipes: Israel Is the Least-Stolen Land
In "'Native Land Acknowledgments' Are the Latest Woke Ritual" (op-ed, June 11), Eugene Kontorovich elegantly ridicules the budding leftist requirement that public statements be prefaced by a ceremonial nod to the peoples who once inhabited roughly our territories, thereby honoring their supposed moral superiority.

He notes in passing that "conquest and migration have shaped the entire world." So far as I know, only one country was purchased rather than conquered. Ironically, that country is also the one most accused of having "stolen" the land it now controls. That country is Israel.

The making of the Jewish state represents perhaps history's most peaceable in-migration and state creation. Zionist efforts long had a near-exclusively mercantile, not military, quality. Jews lacked the power to fight the Ottoman or British empires, so they purchased land, acre by acre, in voluntary transactions.

An Israeli flag attached to Andromeda's Rock in the Mediterranean Sea, against the Tel Aviv skyline.

Only when the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948, followed immediately by an all-out attempt by Arab states to crush the nascent Israel, did Israelis take up the sword in self-defense and go on to win land through military conquest. By then, however, this exceptional polity had already existed through purchase.
Caroline Glick: Biden's Anti-Israel Gambit in Jerusalem Undermines American Sovereignty
The Palestinian Authority is waging lawfare against the United States. And rather than defend America, the Biden administration has joined the Palestinian lawfare campaign against it. That is how the Biden administration's recent decision to initiate steps to form a separate diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Israel's capital ought to be understood.

Earlier this month, The Washington Free Beacon revealed that the administration has decided to separate the Palestinian Affairs Unit from its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. The head of the "unit" will be an ambassador in all but name—directly appointed by the secretary of state and subordinate to him in the chain of command. Today, in accordance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, the head of the Palestinian section of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is subordinate to the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

The declared goal of the administration is to fulfill President Joe Biden's campaign pledge to open a consulate for the Palestinians in Israel's capital city. The move has been stymied to date by strong congressional disapproval and by the fact that such a move is unlawful—under both U.S. and international law—unless Israel approves it. But Israel vigorously opposes Biden's position, which it views as hostile to Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.

Israel, obviously, is correct. Biden's efforts to open a consulate to the Palestinians, whose leadership rejects Israel's very right to exist in Israel's capital, is most certainly hostile to Israel. The international law requirement is that a foreign government wishing to open a diplomatic legation in one nation's capital to a different nation first must receive the permission of the sovereign. That is commonsensical. And Biden's efforts to do just that in Jerusalem—but without Israel's permission—is an assault on Israeli sovereignty.

But to understand why Biden's efforts are not simply anti-Israel but also anti-American, and involve complicity in Palestinian lawfare against the United States itself, requires a longer explanation.
By Daled Amos


Most Jews consider Israel and Zionism to be part of their Jewish identity, and under normal circumstances that would not be an issue.

But our circumstances rarely fall into the category of "normal." Antisemitism has morphed into anti-Zionism. Just as we have historically been attacked for their Jewish identity -- now Jew-haters feel free to attack Jews for having any connection to Israel.

Einat Wilf, in The BDS Pound of Flesh, describes how the haters -- under the guise of anti-Israel activism --  bully Jews to relinquish the Zionism component of their Jewish identity before they will be accepted in progressive circles.

Her advice?
The only response to anti-Zionism, is Zionism.

How does that work?

A new book claims that Zionism is more than a conscious option open to Jews to express their Jewish identity. Instead, Zionism is developing into a key, indispensable element of Jewish identity. More than that: Zionism today is becoming the glue that will maintain Jewish identity and strengthen it going forward. The author, Gol Kalev, is a former Wall Street investment banker, now living in Israel, where he writes for The Jerusalem Post and is the chair of the America-Israel Friendship League Think Tank.
[Disclaimer: I helped proofread his book]

In his new book, Judaism 3.0: Judaism's Transformation To Zionism, Kalev writes:

Judaism 3.0 is a recognition that the organizing principle of Judaism has shifted from its religious element (Rabbinic Judaism) to its national element (Zionism). This shift is occurring without any compromise to the religious aspect of Judaism, and indeed only strengthens it. As this book shows, Zionism is increasingly becoming the relevant conduit through which Jews relate to their Judaism and the prism by which the outside world perceives the Jews. [p. 11]

He contrasts Judaism 3.0 with Judaism 1.0, when the original organizing principle was the Temple and the physical presence of the Jewish people in Judea -- and with Judaism 2.0, (or Rabbinic Judaism) after the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were exiled. The Temple was replaced by the synagogue and the sacrifices were replaced with prayer. This is when "the insular ghetto replaced the insular life in Judea, and the yearning to return to Zion replaced the actual presence in Jerusalem. [p. 12]"

While he applies this broadly, Kalev also devotes a portion of his book in explaining how this applies to American Jews, at a time when American Jews face a high rate of assimilation on the one hand and outright intimidation and attacks both on colleges and in the streets on the other.

In Chapter VI, The Transformation of Judaism -- American Jews, Kalev notes that political Zionism originally had little to offer Jews in America. Political Zionism was a way to address the misery of the Jews suffering from antisemitism. That was a powerful message in Europe, but America in the 20th century, by contrast, offered Jews freedom and a level of acceptance that they had not experienced in Europe. Jews integrated in American society. They did not need Zionism, and saw it as an encumbrance if not a threat to their status in America.

This integration led to a change in their Jewish identity in America. There was a denationalization from 'Judea' -- the yearning to return to 'Judea' and the association with Israel changed. Judaism went from a nation-religion to being reduced to being a mere religion. 

And then on top of that came the secularization.

With the weakening of religion as the glue that anchored Jewish identity, over the past 80 years, other 'glues' served as substitutes to maintain that sense of Jewish identity:

1. Memory of the Holocaust: The Holocaust has been the most significant Jewish issue that united the Jews in the second half of the 20th century through today. The Holocaust, along with its lessons and memories, drives Jewish organizational policy and has dominated much of the Jewish community ethos...

2. Nostalgia for Ashkenazi/Eastern European roots: The second American Jewish glue was the culture of Yiddish, the shtetl, Jewish food (gefilte fish, bagel and lox) and Eastern European Jewish heritage. [p. 139]

According to Kalev, while the memory of the Holocaust -- and nostalgia for the Eastern Europe past -- have succeeded in replacing "the fading glues of religion, insularity and discrimination," memories of the Holocaust are fading as the generations of Holocaust survivors die. The same holds true for nostalgia for "the old country" -- which may actually be for the best.

On this point Kalev notes:

Astonishingly, nostalgia to the old country became nostalgia to values and elements of life which the Jews utterly detested while they were there. The ghetto life in Poland that was considered miserable in real time, became idolized in America...The retroactive glorification of Yiddish and Polish/Russian old country was done since there was no tangible connection to the real old country -- to Zion. [143; emphasis added]

Today, in the face of the weakening if not outright lack of "glues" for their Jewish identity, for a growing number of Jews, as important as their Jewish identity may be for them, it takes a back seat to other roles and other cultural identities. He is less likely to bring up his synagogue or Jewish school and more likely to bring up his college, a country club or his job. Instead of discussing the weekly parsha, he is more likely to want to talk about the newest restaurant or move.

The concern that Kalev is focusing on in his book is not the Orthodox Jews who connect with their Jewish identity through its religious component, nor what he refers to as "engaged Jews" who are active in Jewish causes and events. 

Instead, the concern is for the majority of the Jews for whom being part of the Jewish community is not an important commitment and is low on their hierarchy of identities and priorities. The culture of the typical American Jew is the American culture. Jewish culture today for many is eating a bagel with lox and cream cheese.

What passes for Jewish culture today for the majority of Jews is not enough to maintain a sustainable connection to their Judaism.

One attempt to create a new expression of Jewish identity in progressive circles is found in the call for Tikkun Olam -- righting wrongs, doing good deeds, doing charitable work and making the world a better place to live. But Kalev writes that as an attempt to strengthen Jewish identity, it is doomed to fail, because

that is a very weak connector, since other groups engage in similar charitable actions. 

If anything, it supports the notion of universalim -- of Judaism not being any different than any other group, religious or otherwise.

Moreover, a Jewish person engaging in such good-doing does not need to do it in a Jewish context. [p. 147]

In other words, the failure of Tikkun Olam as a bond to Judaism lies in the fact that it does the opposite of what it is alleged to do. Instead of connecting Jews to their unique identity, it promotes the idea of universalism, that Judaism is no different from any other religion. No different than any other group. This is especially true when Tikkun Olam is made all about human rights or humanitarian aid. The approach to inspiring Jewish identity through Tikkun Olam is self-defeating and doomed to failure.

Along with this weakening of Jewish identity in the US we are witnessing the ambivalence of Jews towards their Jewish leadership. In the 20th century, these leaders were not only looked up to by American Jews -- they were influential and other leaders, both national and international, met with them regularly. 

But today, while the appearances continue, as new faces replace the old familiar ones, the Jewish community does not accept the Jewish leadership as unquestioningly as it once did. The new leaders do not carry the same gravitas, and besides -- American Jews are free to bypass them:

An American Jew can access his own tailor-made basket of leaders that suits his own evolving preferences: A rabbi, a teacher, a blogger, a progressive Jewish thinker, a comedian, a tour-guide he had in Israel or an Israeli political leader. Hence the Jew can now turn away from Jewish Federations, the UJA and other Jewish structures as the point of orientation for Jewish leadership, and instead turn towards Israel. [p. 151]

Going a step further, Kalev suggests the same applies to the end of the old Jewish icons. He contends that Jerry Seinfeld, Barbara Streisand and Jon Stewart are no more personifications of today's Judaism for those less affiliated than J. R. Ewing and his family are personifications of today's Dallas. Similarly, the old image of the Woody Allen stereotype of the "weak" Jew is now historic and no longer contemporary. Jewish symbols like Yiddish, a pastrami sandwich and bagels & lox are no longer singularly relevant to the Jewish identity as much as they have become "relevant to Americans of all backgrounds as a Jewish reference point...This is just like most customers in Italian restaurants are not Italian and most of those ordering Chinese takeout are not Chinese [p. 155]."

Enter the Israelization of the American-Jewish experience, where

thanks to the expanding array of relatable Israeli products and experiences, Judaism, through Zionism, is becoming increasingly relevant for the young American Jew. This is not by duty, but by choice. [p. 157; emphasis added]

Israel is no longer seen as an object of charity, as symbolized by the blue JNF box. That was in the past. Today, Israel is considered for what it offers, both internationally through its innovations, entrepreneurial spirit, art and culture, wine industry, academic centers and think tanks.

Kalev is not talking about inspiring a sense of Jewish pride and identity on the abstract level. He writes about concrete elements that American Jews can connect with as expressions of their Jewish identity. He suggests that this allows for a non-political connection with Israel, one that makes it possible to embrace Israel even while disagreeing with its policies -- something that Palestinian Arabs are beginning to realize:

The ability to disconnect or suppress politics paved the way for Palestinians in the West Bank to seek employment and mentorship by Israelis, and to even get funding for Palestinian start-ups from Israelis. This underscores how audiences can connect to Israel's success and desirability without endorsing or having a particular opinion on political issues. [p.158; emphasis added]

In a similar way, an American Jew who enjoys Israeli products does not do this as an endorsement of Israeli policies -- and will not suddenly stop identifying with Israel just because of a policy he disagrees with. 

This does not ignore the fact that there are those who support BDS, but there too, due to the wide range of Israeli products it becomes evident that a literal boycott of all Israeli products is not the goal of the BDS movement, but rather the attention that can be gained by advocating for that cause.

The Israelization of the American Jewish community is therefore not a political phenomenon, but rather a cultural one. Israeli shows such as Fauda, Shtisel, Mossad 101 and Tehran are now showing up on American TV, with the result that American Jews are exposed to new Jewish icons.

Today, there is a lot of discussion about the current status of the connection between American Jews and Israel, a connection that is often portrayed as weakening. But there is a development in Zionism that may indicate a change that will help to strengthen those ties: Aliyah. Above, it was pointed out that there is a distinction between duty and choice. The same applies here, as Zionism is understood to go beyond immigration to Israel:

Zionism was perceived to be about the establishment of the State of Israel and making Aliya. Indeed, Aliya was essential in the early years of Israel, and for decades Israeli leaders urged American Jews to make Aliya. A Jew choosing to stay in the Diaspora was viewed with disappointment by Israelis, exerting some degree of guilt feeling -- someone who is not fulfilling his "duty" as a Jew. [161]

Not only were Jews expected to make Aliyah -- once they arrived they were expected to "Israelize". He was expected to shed his Diaspora identity and accept the Israeli culture. Today, there is still an expectation that upon making Aliyah, he will learn Hebrew and speak the language. In the 1920s, this expectation led to the formation of Hebrew Language Brigades which would reprimand people who did not speak Hebrew to each other. Kalev compares this to France today, which has tried to do something similar with its own immigrants. (An obvious difference is that unlike Muslim immigrants to France, Jews returning to Israel have a cultural and historical bond to the country.)

Today, the pitch is not to make Aliya but to maintain strong connections with Israel, including coming to visit Israel, but also to be exposed to the country without having to be on a path toward Aliya -- even experiencing Israel through a phone or laptop -- and don't forget Birthright trips. In addition to the practical side -- Aliyah -- there is also the ideological side. Kalev quotes Herzl that Zionism includes "not only the aspiration to the Promised Land...but also the aspiration to moral and spiritual completion."

The removal of the Aliyah requirement frees the way for unaffiliated American Jews to gain greater involvement and exposure to their Judaism through Zionism. 

Today, since Judaism is not the defining element of the Jewish identity of most American Jews, in order for Judaism to be relevant, it has to be attractive and desirable. According to Kalev, the challenge is that "American Judaism needs to thrive in a non-committal environment."

An American Jew increasingly seeks the non-committal component for his various experiences, including for his affiliation with Judaism. But such non-committal affiliation is not possible under Judaism 2.0. The "ask" for the American Jew is to commit more: join and come to synagogue more often, send your children to Hebrew school, donate to the UJA, be a member of the Jewish community center and the other community Jewish organizations. [p.175]

Kalev contrasts this with those Israeli Jews for whom their religious affiliation is secondary to their Jewish identity. For such an Israeli Jew, his experiences in Israel shape his Jewish identity. Whatever his attitude toward Jewish religiosity may be, he remains committed and fully affiliated with Judaism. This is in contrast with what Kalev calls Judaism 2.0, where Jewish religious affiliation is the primary measure of the depth of one's connection to Judaism.

Those American Jews who are not among the 20% who are Orthodox or among the "strongly committed" are in danger and many are already disaffiliated. For them, Judaism 3.0 -- through Zionism -- is not necessarily going to bring them back to Judaism, but it does provide new ways to connect with Judaism. For some, this will prevent further estrangement, while for others it may serve as a catalyst to reconnect.

Today, one aspect of the lives of American Jews acting as a catalyst is antisemitism, which is reaching levels that just a few years ago would have been unimaginable. We are in a situation where Jews on campus are afraid to openly identify themselves as Jews.

But this rise in antisemitism can have a different effect as well:

This forces the unaffiliated and under-engaged Jew right back into his Jewish identity. But what is this identity? What is the point of Judaism that such a "Jew in abstention" passively seeks to "go back to?" It is not the synagogue which he has not frequented, nor the Holocaust that he does not think much about. The rise of such "Jewish existential thinking" leads the Jew into Israel as his identity benchmark -- this is the relevant association with his Jewish affiliation -- this is where he hears or thinks about Judaism.This reality is exactly what Herzl envisioned when he said that anti-Semitism is a propelling force into Zionism. [p. 177]

From this perspective, the current rise in antisemitism as anti-Zionism pressuring American Jews to criticize Israel actually has a positive dimension. Kalev argues that "the more an American Jew engages with the issues of Israel's policies, the stronger his connection to Judaism." Since much of the criticism directed towards Israel comes from "unaffiliated Jews" who are drifting away from Judaism anyway, "paradoxically, the 'coincidental' engagement with Israel of this group helps keep them Jewish." If Not Now could be seen as an example of this.

Kalev is not suggesting a plan of action. On the contrary, he sees this transformation where Zionism becomes a key component of Jewish identity as something natural and organic. And it is a process that is happening now. Judaism 3.0 is as natural a transformation as the transformation to Rabbinic Judaism from Judaism 1.0.

And the future of Jewish identity depends on it. 





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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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