Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, July 03, 2022

The Pallywood lies of "eyewitness" Ali Samoudi

As the US has finally pressured the Palestinian Authority to hand over the bullet that they claim killed Shireen Abu Akleh (and Israel is handing over the only weapon that they say could have shot in her direction on May 11,) it is worth looking a little more at how the main "eyewitness" to her death is a pathological liar.

We've already discussed how Jenin journalist Ali Samoudi was known decades ago to prompt "witnesses" to say whatever lies would be most dramatic in accusing Israel of crimes. There is no reason to think he would act any differently himself when he is the witness himself.

On May 11, Samoudi said that this is what happened (CAMERA's translation:)

’After several minutes we heard the sound of bullets pouring on us from the direction where the occupation’s soldiers were concentrated, they were on the rooftops of the buildings in front of us. [This was] amidst the shouts of Palestinian citizens, calling us: get down to the ground, the snipers are targeting you.’

“Samoudi says: ‘I was hit by a bullet at the lower back, and Shireen shouted: ‘Ali was hit, Ali was hit.’ Not even a few seconds went by before Shireen fell on the ground after blood covered her face, and one of the colleagues carried us to the graveyard’s fence to protect us from the soldiers’ bullets, which went on for 10 minutes nonstop.’

“He said: ‘I was miraculously spared from certain death after a bullet hit me in the lower back, but the doctors described my condition as moderate. However the diagnosis requires hospitalization for several days, to make sure there are no complications in the coming hours.’

This is a series of lies.

There were two volleys of bullets. Ali Samoudi can be seen in this screenshot (7:06) right before the first volley, as one of the journalists with light colored sleeves in the background less than a second before the shooting:

Here is a video showing the above scene, and then a synced video showing Samoudi rushing to a car before the second round of shots.

Samoudi didn't witness Abu Akleh get shot. She was killed in the second round of gunfire, after trying to take cover. Samoudi wasn't helped by anyone. He wasn't pinned down for ten minutes of gunfire.

And he wasn't hit in the lower back. He was grazed in the shoulder, as his own video at the hospital shows quite clearly, rushing from that same car to the emergency room where he videos everything.

Here you can see his wound on his left shoulder:

But AP reported weeks later, based on his "testimony:"

Samoudi said the soldiers fired a warning shot, causing him to duck and run backwards. The second shot hit him in the back. Abu Akleh was shot in the head and appears to have died instantly,

.... Samoudi says the bullet that struck him shattered, leaving some fragments inside his back.

Sounds dramatic. And provably false.

The New York Times was somewhat more accurate in what his injury was, but still exaggerating it:

“They’re shooting at us,” Mr. Samoudi shouted. He turned around, he said, and felt his back explode as a bullet pierced his protective vest and tore through his left shoulder.

“‘Ali’s been hit, Ali’s been hit!’” Ms. Abu Akleh shouted, Mr. Samoudi recalled. It was the last time he would hear her voice.

No female voice can be heard in the video.

It appears likely that Samoudi was hit from the front in the first volley - he made up the story of a warning shot, turning around and being hit from behind because that makes Israeli soldiers look worse. (Later he said there were no warning shots.)

He said that the soldiers were on rooftops of buildings before he knew that there were no soldiers in buildings - so that part of his "testimony" disappeared after May 11.

And AP shows him, absurdly, in a wheelchair eight days later in the same spot. He clearly never needed a wheelchair - he ran quite quickly about 20 meters in ten seconds to the car after supposedly being "shot in the lower back."

His posing in a wheelchair is pure Pallywood.

By the time the New York Times interviewed him, it was already clear that he was an accomplished liar. Yet they still quote him as if he is a credible witness.

But here's the thing: Ali Samoudi is not an anomaly. Most Palestinian witnesses to events, when they give their names, will say what the Palestinian Authority or Hamas want them to say. They are conditioned to always blame Israel no matter what, even when evidence points to Palestinian terrorist culpability. After all these years, one would think that reporters would treat Palestinian "eyewitness" testimony with the knowledge that they are often either enthusiastic accomplices in trying to make up stories about Israel (as Samoudi has been) or frightened of saying something that their leaders do not want to be said.

(h/t Gail)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

NPR rehabilitates disgraced HRW researcher (and Nazi memorabilia fan) Marc Garlasco

Remember Marc Garlasco?

Back in 2009, I discovered that Garlasco, a Human Rights Watch researcher who wrote that organization's typically one-sided anti-Israel reports, was an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.

He was forced to resign after it was discovered that he had written things like "The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!"

Now, NPR is rehabilitating him, interviewing him as an "expert" in a story about how Israel supposedly cannot be trusted to investigate itself in the Shireen Abu Akleh killing:

ESTRIN: Israel is similar to other militaries, which tend to protect their own when they ask troops to risk their lives for their country, says former Pentagon official Marc Garlasco, who has investigated war crimes around the world.

MARC GARLASCO: Militaries in particular have a very poor record of investigating themselves. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Israel or the United States, Myanmar. When organizations investigate themselves, they tend to either exonerate their personnel, or they'll go after the lowest-hanging fruit, and we very rarely see any kind of justice.

If so, why did the IDF immediately identify a possible weapon that could have killed Abu Akleh? Why didn't it do what the Palestinians did and insist that the other side must have killed her?

The NPR piece is a typical example of choosing the narrative first and then finding an "expert" to support the already chosen outcome. In this case, they chose someone who used to use the nickname "Flak88" after a German anti-tank weapon that also happens to include the "88" dog-whistle that neo-Nazis use as a shorthand for "Heil Hitler" (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet.)

And someone who not only collects Nazi memorabilia, but wears modern sweatshirts celebrating Nazi-era medals.

(h/t Irene)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/02 Links: Why America First Loves Israel; 'Let my people know': An excerpt on the Abraham Accords; Bullet that killed Al-Jazeera reporter to be handed to US, says PA

From Ian:

'Let my people know': An excerpt on the Abraham Accords

As senior adviser to the US ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Abraham Accords, Aryeh Lightstone was in the room for nearly every major discussion and decision involving Middle East policy. He was tasked with the most complex and sensitive component of the Abraham Accords: turning them into practical action and doing it quickly – during a pandemic, no less.

In addition, Lightstone led the Abraham Accords Business Summit and the Abraham Fund, and served as the key contact between Israel and the other Abraham Accords nations.

Below is an excerpt from his book, published last month, Let My People Know: The incredible story of Middle East peace and what lies ahead.

The Phone Call
By August 2020, I was in and out of the Prime Minister’s Office with great frequency, relaying messages from Jared Kushner, Avi Berkowitz, or Ambassador David Friedman, or just making sure that there was a personal connection while David was in the States. I still got a thrill every time my phone rang with “Unknown” calling, which more likely than not was the Prime Minister’s Office. Several times I drove or was driven more than two hours in heavy traffic from Ra’anana to Jerusalem, only to be told that David had just called and spoken to the prime minister, or that Avi and Ron Dermer had called in together. I took it in stride, in the philosophy I had learned from David.

Early in 2017, President Trump called him at three in the morning and he answered on the first ring. The president asked if it was the middle of the night in Israel, and David replied, “Mr. President, I work for you 24/7. Please call whenever you want.” In that spirit, I usually picked up on the first ring whenever Jared, Avi, David or the Prime Minister’s Office called. I didn’t hesitate to jump into the car to drive an hour for a five-minute meeting and then back again. I was willing to fly to Washington if a 20-minute face-to-face meeting could accomplish more than countless emails and phone calls.

I was in a meeting with David Milstein and Israel’s Innovation Authority on August 11, discussing the best way to fast-track breakthroughs in COVID-19 therapies made in Israel with the Innovation Authority’s funding, when my phone rang. It was 3:30 p.m., and Friedman was calling. Normally I would pick up right away, but this time I didn’t because I was in the middle of a meeting. He rang three more times, which was unusual for him, so I excused myself and went out to return the call.

“There has been a change in schedule,” he told me. “The phone call with the UAE, Israel, and us is happening this week. Get to DC now.” The crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, would be participating in a call with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, and it would happen on August 13, just two days away.

Walter Russell Mead: Why America First Loves Israel

Israel’s enemies have always, despite their best efforts, been Israel’s most helpful friends. It may not be rational in the sense that non-Jacksonians understand the meaning of the word, but every time a violent mob burns American and Israeli flags side by side in the Islamic world, every time a United Nations office issues what to Jacksonian ears sounds like a grotesquely one-sided condemnation of Israel for behaving exactly as Jacksonians under enemy fire would behave, every time a suicide bomber kills innocent people out of a twisted and fanatical belief, every time a village of Christians flees their ancestral homes in terror, American Jacksonians become less interested in the case against the Jewish state and more eager to deepen our alliance with it.

Finally, Israel holds up its end of the bargain when it comes to defending itself. While rich countries like Germany reject any and all American requests to pay an appropriate share of NATO’s costs, Israel invests in excellent military forces and is not afraid to use them. In 2020, Israel spent 5.6 percent of its GDP on defense, compared to 2.2 percent in Britain, 2.1 percent in France, 1.4 percent in Germany, and 3.7 percent in the United States. For many Jacksonians, Israel is a better, more trustworthy, and more useful ally than most of the NATO countries. While both Germany and Japan have had major American bases on their soil since World War II, the American military presence in Israel is minimal. Israel does more, many Jacksonians feel, and asks less, than many of the American allies that coast on American security guarantees while criticizing both Israel and the United States nonstop.

The alliance with Israel, far from looking like a strategic liability to Jacksonians, looks like a source of strength and prestige. One advantage, in the Jacksonian mind, is the signal Israel’s success sends about the wisdom of alliances with America. Israel is a small country that (until recent oil and gas discoveries changed the picture somewhat) had few natural resources and a much smaller population than many of its enemies. Criticized by Europe, ostracized by the Muslim world, Israel has only one true friend in the world—and look at how well Israel is doing. It is prosperous, extremely well armed and well integrated into global financial markets. The message to other countries: there is only one country in the world whose friendship you need. If the United States is your ally, even if everyone else turns against you, life will go well. Jacksonians believe that this perception around the world will help keep America safe.

Similarly, ever since the United States became Israel’s principal arms supplier during the Cold War, Israel’s wars and confrontations with its neighbors have served to showcase the superiority of American technology and weapons. When Israel’s American-supplied arsenal overmasters its rivals in conventional warfare, governments all over the world get two messages. First, you want to have the kind of relationship with the Americans in which you can buy their top-shelf hardware, and second, you do not want the Americans so annoyed with you that they sell the really powerful gear to your opponents.

Finally, Jacksonians have come to see Israel as a kind of symbolic surrogate of the United States. Their view of Israeli Jews—as a Chosen People with a unique message, embattled in a hostile world by the enemies of God, united against hostile outsiders in an unbreakable unity of kith and kin—applies the ideas that Bible-reading Protestant Christians in the British Isles and the American colonies once held about the ancient Hebrews to the Jews of today. It is easy for scholars and skeptics to take issue with this vision, but its roots are deeply implanted in American culture.

As Israel has gone from strength to strength it has become a kind of talisman for many American Jacksonians. Recent generations have seen Jacksonian America undergo a series of shocks and challenges. The civil rights movement undermined long-held ideas about the nature of American society and forced Jacksonians to confront some of its historical demons. A culture and belief system shaped in a rural, ethnically homogeneous America had to adapt to life in multiethnic suburbs. Feminism and the gay rights movement forced Jacksonians to take another look at the relationship of their traditional social values and assumptions to the individualism that Jacksonian culture cherishes. As Jacksonian America struggles to make its peace with a host of new forces and new ideas, signs of continuity with the past are welcome. The modern Israeli success story appears to vindicate both Jacksonian principles and biblical religion; there is a balm in Gilead that soothes the wounded soul.

The Tikvah Podcast: Douglas Murray on the War on the West

In his 2022 book The War on the West, the British journalist Douglas Murray argues that many now prominent cultural ideas unfairly single out Western sins, discounting the good that Western civilization has brought about and sowing discord in America and Europe. On this week’s podcast, he joins Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver to explain why Western civilization should be defended, to discuss the role that Israel and the Jewish people play in that defense, and to reflect on two of his friends who recently passed away, the philosopher Roger Scruton and the rabbi Jonathan Sacks, each of whom embodied strands of the Western tradition that deserve to be defended and perpetuated.

Yair Lapid Takes Over as Israel’s Prime Minister From Naftali Bennett

Yair Lapid became Israel’s interim prime minister at midnight on Friday, replacing Naftali Bennett as the Israeli parliament dissolved.

Lapid will be the acting prime minister ahead of elections on November 1, with former prime minister Naftali Bennett stepping down after more than a year in a broad coalition.

This is in accordance with their coalition agreement, as the 24th Knesset dissolved on Thursday night.

Lapid earlier visited Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, honoring his father, a Holocaust survivor, and meeting with President Isaac Herzog and his wife.

US President Joe Biden sent early congratulations to the new leader of Israel, saying he looked forward to seeing both Bennett and Lapid in Israel, and thanked Bennett for his “friendship over the past year.”

Bennett thanked Biden, telling him he looked forward to meeting him in Jerusalem, and that he was a “true friend” of Israel.

07/01 Links Pt2: BDS Puts Jews and Israel Under Attack; Seven Notorious Fake Quotes and Misquotes About Israel; NY City Council Members Grill CUNY Officials on ‘Pervasive’ Campus Antisemitism in Hearing

From Ian:

BDS Puts Jews and Israel Under Attack

One of the most significant and sinister BDS developments in recent memory occurred in June with the release of the ‘Mapping Project,’ which created a literal diagram of Boston area Jewish institutions and entities purportedly involved in “local institutional support for the colonization of Palestine and harms that we see as linked, such as policing, US imperialism, and displacement/ethnic cleansing.”

The map, which was endorsed by the Boston BDS movement and by Jewish Voice for Peace, includes 483 entities such as schools, synagogues, communal groups, NGOs and philanthropists, as well as an immense range of public and private institutions, from major corporations like Apple and General Dynamics to local police departments and firms.

The map goes far beyond the usual BDS emphasis on multinational corporations, universities, and police departments by accusing unexceptional entities of unique evil thanks to connections with Zionism. One example is the Jewish Teen Foundation of Boston that “hosts events for Boston area teenagers which promote and normalize Israel’s ongoing colonial subjugation of Palestinians and theft of Palestinian land and resources.”

Another, the Kleinfelder Northeast construction and design firm, is accused of providing services to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and proposing to construct a prison for the Commonwealth that “attempted to whitewash over the inherently violent and dehumanizing realities of caging human beings in prions (sic).” The Harpoon brewery is accused of “propaganda/normalization” and “Zionism” for partnering with an Israeli firm that specialized in desalinization.

The project’s stated goal, to “reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them,” explicitly targeting Jewish entities and individuals.

Though several Massachusetts politicians support BDS, the map drew widespread condemnation including from Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, Representatives Ayanna Pressley, and others. A bipartisan group of 37 House members also called on Federal law enforcement officials to investigate the project and its potential use by extremist groups.

Local and national media and Jewish leaders also denounced the project. Local FBI officials claimed to be aware of the project and were investigating, but stated that no direct threat had been identified.

Out of context: Stripping Jews of their national identity

A new pattern seems to be emerging from the extreme anti-Zionist camp, which appropriates clear-cut cases of murderous hate taking place in American cities today and distorts the context by either localizing or universalizing its message to vilify Israel, Israelis, and Jews.

Responses from many within the anti-Israel movement to the recent mass shooting in Buffalo and the second anniversary of the George Floyd murder over the past months highlight this pattern. In both cases, anti-Zionists proceeded to conflate those atrocities with some aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some examples of this follow.

Not only does this strategy often veer into clear antisemitism, but it also defeats the seeming purpose of such activism. It certainly doesn’t help Palestinian advocacy as it gets mired in accusations of antisemitism and, at the same time, waters down the legitimate campaign to advance core racial justice issues in the United States.

The tragic May 14 Buffalo shooting targeting Black Americans took place a day before Palestinians and Palestinian activists were commemorating the 74th anniversary of Nakba Day, which marks the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem in the period around the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Appropriating the proximity of both events, elements of the anti-Israel movement in the United States merged their commemoration of Nakba Day with attempts to draw parallels between the murderous act in Buffalo and Palestinian rejectionism of the creation of the State of Israel. They cynically universalized their message by alleging that Zionism, or support for the existence of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel, is a form of racism akin to white supremacy; therefore, so the logic goes, the murder of black Americans at the hands of a white supremacist is somehow akin to the Jewish struggle for self-determination.

Examples of this include:
- The US-based anti-Israel group Adalah Justice Project tweeted, “We must work to end all systems of supremacy that spawn hate and violence. End white supremacy. End antisemitism. End Zionism. Strength to Buffalo tonight.”
- The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights tweeted, “Today is #NakbaDay—the 74th anniversary of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people continuing since 1948—and today we also fight for Black liberation & mourn the white supremacist attack in Buffalo. All forms of oppression are interconnected & must be fought together.”
- The Anti-Zionist poet and activist Remi Kanazi tweeted, “Why solidarity matters. It’s Nakba Day. Other communities are in pain and dealing with supremacist forces. If we don’t fight against all systems of domination and build with each other, the oppression we face will never truly end, even if we think it does.”

Through an intentional mischaracterization of Zionism, these groups call for a collective effort to fight what Jews have always considered the core of Zionism, the Jewish right to self-determination.

Seven Notorious Fake Quotes and Misquotes About Israel

A famous man once said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

When it comes to discussions about Israel and Zionism, the Jewish people’s liberation movement, this statement could not be more accurate. Many times, both journalists and social media influencers will share famous quotes about Israel that are either outright fabrications or deceptive misquotes. However, by the time the truth about these quotes is revealed, they have already been shared thousands of times and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

The following is a list of some of the most popular false quotes or misquotes about Israel that are still shared by both reputed news outlets and online celebrities:

1. “We must expel the Arabs and take their places” — David Ben-Gurion
Cited in such reputable news sources as The Economist, The Independent, and The Baltimore Sun, this quote from a 1937 letter by the future first prime minister of Israel has been the subject of controversy for some time.

According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, who helped popularize this quote by citing it in his 1985 tome “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947 – 1949,” the problem with this quote is that in the original letter, the words written before it are crossed out. If those words are included and the context is taken into account, Ben-Gurion’s words then take on the opposite meaning from that which is commonly quoted.

Morris further claims that, based on the evidence, those words were not crossed out by Ben-Gurion but by someone else at a later time. For these reasons, Morris’ later works either do not reference this quote or he includes the letter’s original words, not the spliced quote that is commonly cited.

A stadium full of people that visit Al Aqsa every Friday - with claims that Israel makes it so hard for them

Every Friday, one sees two contradictory narratives in Palestinian media.

One says how Israel limits the number of people visiting Al Aqsa Mosque. The other says how many people went there to pray.

Today some 55,000 Muslims visited the site to worship there (and probably play some soccer.) That's a sold out football stadium of people. And just like at sports and concert venues, Israeli police check the crowds for weapons.

But no one writes articles after every sporting event and major concert about how intrusive the guards were.

Only on the Temple Mount.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Human Rights Watch issued a press release describing how Hamas and the Palestinian Authority engage in torturing prisoners that haven't been charged with any crime.

As of this writing, I cannot find a single Palestinian news site covering this story.

Israeli Arab sites have the story. Pan Arab news sites have it. But Palestinian media - nothing.

Usually, Hamas media would highlight any report against the PA, but since they are named too, they'd rather not create an opening for people to get upset at them. And the same goes for the media linked to the Palestinian Authority.

This sort of censorship is the every day reality in the Palestinian territories. News that makes leaders look bad is hidden from the news-consuming public. Of course, they can see the story at Al Jazeera - one of the most popular news sources for Palestinians - and then the people grumble on social media about how they have to look elsewhere to read the news.

HRW also felt obligated to claim that Israel tortures Palestinians, too. Because they literally never can release any report or research about Palestinians without mentioning that Israel is really the biggest problem.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/01 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Licking Ben &Jerry's; How Morningstar Blacklists Companies That Help Israel Stop Terrorism; UNRWA's Teachers of Hate

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Licking Ben &Jerry's

There’s an obvious analogy here with Israel. The Oslo Accords and the “peace process” undermined Israel’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. The proposed Palestinian state would involve sacrificing land to which only the Jewish people has any legal, historical or moral claim.

Those who support the Palestinian cause actually endorse paying in Israeli blood for the illusion of peace. This will remain a mirage unless it is based upon law, justice and the containment of Palestinian Arab imperialism.

And yet the Foreign Office that Liz Truss leads continues to champion the Palestinian cause, promote the “peace process” and accuse Israel falsely of being in illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and his supporters in the west invert reality over the war in Ukraine by claiming grotesquely that NATO is the aggressor and that Putin had no choice but to attack.

Such mind-bending assertions that black is white were of course the standard brainwashing tactic of the former Soviet regime. It is no coincidence that this also characterises the Palestinian fantasy narrative, which was cooked up in the 1960s between the Palestinian terrorist leader Yasser Arafat and his allies in the Soviet Union.

One person who really does get all this is the former American Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. In a passionate speech last week to the Hudson Institute, he urged the west to stand firm over Ukraine in order to defeat the alliance between Russia and China that aimed to defeat the west.

And he said America must help build “the three lighthouses for liberty” that should be “centred on nations that have great strife: Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan”. These could become the “hubs of new security architecture that links alliances of free nations” across the world.

In other words, Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan were the outliers of western freedom. If they should ever go down, the west goes down.

From Ben & Jerry’s to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, evil can be defeated provided it is fought. As Pompeo said, that requires dauntlessness, seriousness of purpose and the will to win. But it also requires a clear-eyed understanding of exactly who and what we are up against.

Unless this is explained and understood, Israel and its allies will continue to rush around dousing small blazes while the conflagration which has sparked them roars on unabated.

After a great victory, We want to thank Alyza Lewin and her legal team from the @brandeiscenter, who worked tirelessly to help us. Their work made this tremendous victory possible and we are grateful for it!
— Ben & Jerry's Israel (@BenJerrysIsrael) June 30, 2022

Nice segment by @DanielCohenTV @newsmax on @benandjerrys boycott beatdown, with commentary from me https://t.co/Y12ctbGwSF
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) July 1, 2022

ILF CEO @Ostrov_A on @ILTVNews, explaining why #BDS is antisemitic, and that end of day, boycott campaigns like @benandjerrys have nothing to do with promoting Palestinian rights, but everything with denying Jews & Israel their rights.

Full clip: https://t.co/WBw2oVucWI pic.twitter.com/uvBbXYOZ3Y
— The International Legal Forum - ILF (@The_ILF) July 1, 2022

Ben & Jerry’s Foundation President Steered Funds to His Own Charity

The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation steered more than $100,000 to a charity run by its own president, in the second case of a sitting board member’s nonprofit group benefiting from the foundation’s grants.

Social Ventures Inc., a charity run by Ben & Jerry’s board member Jeff Furman, raked in around $118,000 from the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation between 2016 and 2020, according to financial disclosure records.

During this time, Furman served as president of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation from 2018 to 2020 and as treasurer in 2016 and 2017. He was also a member of Ben & Jerry’s corporate board and in-house counsel for more than 30 years, according to the foundation’s website.

The funding raises questions about the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation’s financial activities days after the ice cream maker’s high-profile effort to boycott Israel fell apart. The grants are also prompting concerns from ethics watchdogs who say they pose a conflict of interest and could violate laws against self-dealing.

The National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group that has been tracking the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation’s spending, told the Washington Free Beacon the funding poses a conflict of interest.

"Unilever should understand they’re dealing with a radical progressive board with apparently huge conflicts of interest with corporate funds that are magically being steered to personal pet projects and nonprofits of board members," said Tom Anderson, the director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project.

News: @GovKathyHochul statement in Unilever agreement in Israel pic.twitter.com/WhnMMHEY3K
— Jake Adler (@JakeAAdler) June 29, 2022

Crazed, antisemitic rant submitted as a motion in US District Court

In 2016, a lawsuit was filed by Bassem al-Tamimi and many others against a host of American Jews and companies, including Sheldon Adelson, Elliott Abrams, Fox News and the United States itself, alleging that they are supporting genocide against the Palestinian people.

Recently, one of the plaintiffs - Abdul-Rahim Dib Dubar - filed his own motion for immediate partial summary judgment in the case.

His motion looks like it was copied and pasted a crazed antisemitic website - including all caps.

Here's one page of 30, but most of them look like this, with falsified quotes that have been debunked hundreds of times.

He ties Israel to...January 6:

He doesn't even pretend to be opposing "Zionists." He hates Jews, and submits insane fantasies.

Dubar also suggests that the Covid-19 virus was created in Israeli labs in Nes Tziyona. He claims that Israeli rabbis issued an edict to rape Palestinian girls during combat.

If you have any doubt as to Dubar's antisemitism, he (probably mis)quotes an article about Satmar Jews and how they have Jewish supremacy - not mentioning that Satmar Jews are anti-Zionist!

And, for proof of Jewish evil, he quotes a Nazi:

This unhinged antisemitic rant reveals the antisemitism behind the Palestinian cause. The plaintiff isn't even embarrassed at his ravings. Brainwashed, he submits the antisemitic stories he sees on the Internet as truth.

Dubar is asking for $1.2 billion in compensation for his family, who left of their own accord from Acre in 1948. (Thousands of Arabs in Acre stayed.)

(h/t David Abrams)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Retired Reform rabbi adopts Muslim terminology in bizarre attempt at Jewish-Muslim amity

Rabbi Allen Miller is a Reform rabbi who retired in 2006. Lately he has been a prolific writer for Eurasia Review, trying to find commonalities between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

I have no problem with such a quixotic quest. But in order to convince his audience, he adopts Muslim terminology and legends as fact.

In one recent article, he notes the similarity between Hajj and the three annual pilgrimage festivals in the Torah, fixating for some reason on Sukkot. This isn't news - much of Muslim tradition is based on Jewish tradition. But his language is jarring for a rabbi:

The Ka’ba is the original center of Hajj. Destroyed in the days of Noah, it was rebuilt by Prophets Abraham and his son Ishmael. After several centuries it was desecrated by later generations of idol worshippers. During the many centuries when the Ka’ba was desecrated, Prophet Solomon built a Temple as a center for Haj on the site where Prophet Abraham bound his son Isaac as an offering.

...Most of the many thousands of Jews from foreign lands outside the Land of Israel; and the tens of thousands of Jews from all over the Land of Israel outside the city of Jerusalem; who used to came each year to celebrate the week of Sukkot in Jerusalem at Bait ul-Muqaddas, the furthest sanctuary; ceased coming.
...
For Muslims, the Furthest Sanctuary is located in Jerusalem. “Glory to He Who carried His servant by night, from the Holy Sanctuary to the Furthest Sanctuary, the precincts of which We have blessed. so that We might show him some of Our signs. Surely He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. [Qur’an 17:1]

It is significant that the ruins of the Jerusalem Temple was the site of Prophet Muhammad’s ascension—miraj– up to the heavens.

One might say the destruction of the Furthest Sanctuary center of monotheistic pilgrimage in Jerusalem by the pagan Romans was, five and a half centuries afterward, overcome by Prophet Muhammad’s ascension—miraj up to the heavens, and the soon to be realized removal by Prophet Muhammad of the 360 idols from the paganized Ka’ba in Makka.

Not only did the Prophet rid the Ka’ba of all its impurities, but he also reinstated all the rites of Hajj which were established by Allah’s Permission, in the time of Prophet Ibrahim.

If you are going to call yourself a rabbi, at least stick to Jewish terminology - King Solomon, Beit HaMikdash, Avraham Avinu.

And while Miller tries to pretend he can attract Muslims by shamelessly adopting their legends as fact, the Muslim world is regarding the visit by American rabbis to Saudi Arabia as a "scandal."

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Iran's Mehr News describes "What does the word 'Zionist' mean?"

Written by Hezbollah's "foreign relations official" Khalil Rizk, it is a bizarre description of Judaism from someone who has never met a Jew in his life.

Here is what I learned about Judaism/"Zionism":

* The followers of the Zionist idea believe in their faith that the Messiah, the Savior, will come at the end of time to lead his people to Zion, the “holy land” and rule the world.

* Not every Jew is necessarily a Zionist. An example of this is Orthodox Judaism, which forbids the collective return of the Jews to Palestine and considers it heretical.

* Sephardic Jews they look down on the Ashkenazi Jews, and therefore they were forbidden to marry them.

* Dancing in prayer gained great importance for the Jewish groups in Eastern Europe, and it became a part of their daily lives. It became a kind of religious ritual through which the dancer reaches a state of ecstasy and religious joy, as they dance in circles. The dance begins slowly, then gradually increases in rhythm until it reaches a state of ecstasy, accompanied by swaying movements, movements of hands and feet, jumping in the air and applause, and so on until the Jewish dance with prayer became one of the sacred duties, and there is a special prayer that they recite right before the dance.

* Among the prominent landmarks in Al-Aqsa Mosque is the Al-Buraq Wall; It is the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, or the "Wailing Wall," as the Jews call it, because their prayers there take the form of weeping and wailing. The wall was not part of the alleged Jewish temple, and there is no evidence that the temple was located at the Al-Buraq Wall. It became for the Jews a place of worship after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Jews praying at the Kotel, 1880

We can learn so much about Judaism from Iranians and their allies!

If nothing else, this article proves that when Iranians and Hezbollah say "Zionist" they really mean "Jewish."

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/30 Links Pt2: Ben and Jerry's Denounces Unilever's Move to Stay in Israel; Feds charge pro-Palestinian activist with hate crime for assaulting Jewish man in NYC

From Ian:

Israel Foreign Minister Lapid celebrates Unilever's Ben & Jerry's sale as 'victory' against BDS

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid hailed Unilever's decision to sell its Ben & Jerry's business interests in Israel as a "victory," as the new arrangement allows the ice cream products to be sold throughout Israel and the West Bank.

Last year, Ben & Jerry's announced that they would no longer sell their products in the West Bank, which it referred to as "Occupied Palestinian Territory." That policy is now scrapped, now that parent company Unilever is no longer involved in the Israeli market after selling the interests to American Quality Products Ltd, which had been the Israeli licensee for Ben & Jerry's.

"The Ben & Jerry's factory in Israel is a microcosm of the diversity of Israeli society," Lapid tweeted Wednesday. "Today’s victory is a victory for all those who know that the struggle against BDS is, first and foremost, a struggle for partnership and dialogue, and against discrimination and hate."

The initial decision to end sales in the West Bank was met with sharp criticism from Israeli and American officials alike.

"Now we Israelis know which ice cream NOT to buy," former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.

Unilever has insisted that they have never supported BDS, the anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign that seeks to isolate Israel in order to pressure the Jewish state into changing its policies regarding Palestinians. The BDS movement had celebrated last year's decision to stop selling the ice cream in the West Bank, which includes Jewish settlements and Palestinian territories.

The statement continued: "We have never expressed any support for the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement and have no intention of changing that position."

From my interview with @davidmatlin on @i24NEWS_EN on @Unilever's reversal of @benandjerrys boycott of #Israel:

"A sweet victory and a clear, unequivocal repudiation of the racist, antisemitic BDS movement promoted by Ben & Jerry's."

Full interview: https://t.co/HjdBZNrh0u pic.twitter.com/hyzHYB8xLL
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) June 30, 2022

Today is a great day for the fight against BDS’s hate speech & bigotry towards #Ben&Jerry’s Israel.
A huge thank you to Unilever and all those who supported us in this moral fight against hate! pic.twitter.com/etsBvAXJQd
— Lior Haiat ???? (@LiorHaiat) June 29, 2022

Ben and Jerry's Denounces Unilever's Move to Stay in Israel

Ben & Jerry’s boycott of Israel is still intact even though the local company can continue to produce ice cream under an amended brand name, the Vermont-based creamery clarified on Twitter.

“Our company will no longer profit from Ben & Jerry’s in Israel,” Ben & Jerry’s said in a statement after an agreement was announced on Wednesday that ended a year-long battle by businessmen Avi Zinger.

Under an agreement reached as the result of a lawsuit Zinger filed in New Jersey Federal Court together with the Louise B. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, he is allowed to continue making the ice cream under his company, American Quality Products.

Zinger can continue to make the same Ben & Jerry’s ice cream the Israeli consumers have come to know, but he cannot do so under Ben & Jerry’s English-language brand name. He can only use the name Ben & Jerry’s in Hebrew and Arabic.

His company will also now be independent from Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company the London-based conglomerate Unilever. The agreement was reached between Unilever and Zinger.

Ben & Jerry's objection
“We are aware of the Unilever announcement. While our parent company has taken this decision, we do not agree with it,” Ben & Jerry’s tweeted.

It underscored that there would now be no connection between its Vermont-based company known for taking social values stands and the Israeli company.

“Unilever’s arrangement means Ben & Jerry’s in Israel will be owned and operated by AQP,” Ben & Jerry’s said, referencing Zinger’s company.

“We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry’s values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Ben & Jerry’s tweeted.

Will you be boycotting @Unilever then? https://t.co/Ih729N6EwV
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) June 29, 2022

Unilever reverses @benandjerrys decision to boycott #Israel ???? and condemns the BDS movement. ?? pic.twitter.com/rRka9vnOWO
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) June 29, 2022

1. Unilever says they will have no part of an antisemitic boycott.

2. Ben and Jerry's have just officially said they are not happy with that.

3. Conclusion: Ben and Jerry's support antisemitic boycotts.

Thankfully their hate driven agenda has totally failed.
— David Collier (@mishtal) June 29, 2022

Jews murdered in Morocco on multiple occasions from 1894-1912: They must have been Zionists

September 1894:

In a roundup of the year's stories in 1903 from the Louisville Courier-Journal, we see this from July 26:

(I could not verify this incident.)

In November 1903, the New York Times reported:

September 1906:

April 1912:

Well, we know that Jews lived in peace in Arab lands for centuries before Zionism. After all - the Arabs keep telling us that!

These Arabs who murdered Jews every few years must have been just anti-Zionist.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Activists Scouring Israeli Summer Camps For Violence-Glorifying Resort To Describing Lunch As 'Brutal Use Of Teeth On Bread' (PreOccupied Teritory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

river crossing Jerusalem, June 30 - Progressive American NGOs have dispatched researchers to examine the activities of Zionist programs for children in Israel during July and August with an eye toward documenting the myriad ways in which attendees learn and practice militant dispossession of Palestinians, as those NGOs have described the programs, but, unable to find real examples of that pedagogical phenomenon, the researchers have felt forced to fulfill their investigative mandate by depicting innocuous everyday activities in violent, tendentious terms such as counselors urging children to "attack defenseless sandwiches with their bare teeth."

"Each morning the children are indoctrinated to storm the facilities in which their day camps take place," wrote one IfNotNow researcher. "The program calls for parents to send the children with a 'second breakfast' or late-morning snack of a sandwich, disrupting the native comestibles of the local ecology and imposing their own culinary sensibilities on the indigenous environment."

"Staff encourage the children to cultivate a dehumanizing attitude toward Palestinian ground," another wrote, "with games such as 'tag' and 'Capture the Flag' inducing them to trample the land with their youthful - and therefore unhygienic, 'filthy,' if you will, feet, violating the sensibilities of Palestinians everywhere."

Another researcher documented the camps' disregard for Palestinian public health. "The children, as well as their supervisors, maintain a high level of physical activity that increases their carbon dioxide output, adding to climate change woe for Palestinians," she attested. "During these dry summer months, dust kicks up easily from the ground with every step. The running, stomping, skipping, and other physical activities in which these campers engage pushes particulate matter into the air that can enter the lungs of vulnerable Palestinians already weakened by Israel pumping dihydrogen monoxide into their once-bucolic villages."

Beyond the physical violence, the researchers also recorded numerous instances of ideological indoctrination, such as instilling in the children positive associations with love for their country, people, communities, and society. One researcher reminded the sixteen expected readers of his report that societies, as a rule, contain people who engage in violence.

The activists will submit their completed research to their parent organizations at the end of the month. The NGOs will then use those reports to develop promotional materials for fundraising from antisemites and for and the thus-lucrative demonization of Jewish Israelis and of those who agree with the notion that Jews have a right to exercise sovereignty in their ancestral homeland.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

06/30 Links Pt1: UN Agency Suspends 6 Staff for Calling to Murder Jews; Who stole Palestinian land? Jordan; PA expects President Biden to ignore US law

From Ian:

UN Watch: UN Agency Suspends 6 Staff for Calling to Murder Jews

As exposed in the report, UNRWA teacher Hana’a Daoud in Jordan called on Muslims to “fight against the Jews and kill them”; UNRWA teacher Elham Mansour in Lebanon repeatedly called to “slaughter Zionists”; and UNRWA computer teacher Nihaya Awad in the West Bank glorified Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Nevertheless, the suspensions provoked a sharp response from Palestinian groups, which falsely portrayed the teachers’ open calls to slaughter Jews as “instilling Palestinian national pride.”

A coalition that includes the PA, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, known as the Joint Committee for Palestinian Refugees, has called on UNRWA “to immediately rescind its procedure of suspending six employees, and not to respond to US-Israeli pressures and dictates.”

In an additional statement, Walid Al-Awad, head of the Palestinian National Council’s refugee committee, said UNRWA’s suspension of six teachers was “unacceptable and must be dropped immediately.”

He described the decision as “dangerous” because it “aims to extract the teacher from the heart of the cause of his people.”

Likewise, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union, demanded the teachers’ suspensions be reversed.

“The UNRWA administration’s reliance on a report issued by UN Watch to take these measures confirms its complicity and identification with the state of incitement practiced by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people, especially the employees, just because they are biased towards their cause, and express their adherence to national principles and rights on social network pages and websites, and participate in various national events and activities.”

“Our people will not in any way allow this decision to be implemented, and it will respond with full force to the administration’s acquiescence to Zionist pressure and incitement,” said the PFLP.

UNRWA has refused to provide even minimal transparency as to which of the perpetrators it has suspended.

UN Palestinian Refugee Agency Puts Six Educators on Leave Amid Accusations of Hate Speech, Incitement

In the announcement to donor states, Stenseth pointed out that similar allegations against UNRWA employees last year resulted in staff receiving “written censures, significant fines, deferment of eligibility for promotion, and in the case of daily-paid staff, up to two-year prohibitions on working for the Agency.”

Stenseth pledged that the agency would uphold UN humanitarian principles and its “zero tolerance of hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence.”

Commenting on the decision, Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, said that “teachers who call to murder Jews must be barred from the classroom for life, while these temporary suspensions are just a slap on the wrist.”

“UNRWA is trying to pretend the problem is now gone, while at the same time signaling to Palestinian staff — and to terrorist organizations like Islamic Jihad which pressed UNRWA to reject the UN Watch report — that they don’t really object to the virulent antisemitism of their teachers, which UNRWA and its donors know pervades the agency,” said Neuer.

“We have now exposed more than 120 UNRWA teachers and other staff who praise Hitler, glorify terrorism and spread antisemitism, and UNRWA has not given the name of a single one who has been fired,” he lamented.

In response to the dozens of antisemitic statements by UNRWA teachers detailed in the UN Watch report, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, last week called on member states to freeze donations to the agency until all workers responsible were dismissed.

In a Palestinian society where guns are cheap and violence is admired, people murder each other

In Hebron yesterday, three people were executed while driving in a car - by other Palestinians.

Fighting broke out in Yatta as the news spread.

This happens often. Sometimes the murders are from family feuds, sometimes from honor killings.

The Palestinian Independent Center for Human Rights finds a correlation between Palestinians attacking Jews and Palestinians attacking Palestinians.

The same report notes that the Palestinian Authority is not keen on prosecuting those who misuse weapons - because a lot of them are members of Fatah.

But it happens in Gaza, too. And in the Palestinian camps in Syria and Lebanon. When you have a society where the most admired people are terrorists, and where guns are easily available, where honor is the motivating factor in nearly every decision - this is what is going to happen.

Not that there are any academic papers on the phenomenon. I couldn't find any from the past 20 years that mentioned "security chaos" or "clan clashes" or "family feuds" in Palestinian territories. There are plenty of articles in Arabic about the phenomenon, but in the overwhelmingly liberal halls of academia, this is not a topic for analysis. Palestinians are killed by Jews, not by other Palestinians.

And among the "progressive" crowd, one never hears calls for effective gun control in the Palestinian territories. But in that case, the reason is because they support Palestinians attacking Jews, and they need weapons to do that. A little collateral damage of scores of Palestinians killed as a result? To these faux liberals, it is a small price to pay.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!