Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

Crazed Jew-hatred is not an anomaly for Palestinians. It is mainstream.

Mounir Chafiq (born 1936) is a Palestinian politician and is described as an intellectual. His books include Islam in Struggle for Civilization (1992) and Islam and the Challenges of the Contemporary World (1995.) He is coordinator of the Islamic Nationalist Congress.

He writes in Al-Binaa what Israel's goals are:

Anyone who does not reach an absolute conviction that this entity [Israel] represents absolute hostility to Palestine and its people is mistaken, as he considers Palestine "the land of Israel", and its people, all its people, must be uprooted from it and completely Judaize it. Anyone who does not reach a certain conviction that this entity wants to tighten the Zionist control over all the Arab countries, based on the overwhelming military superiority over them, collectively and individually, is mistaken. Anyone who does not reach an absolute conviction that this entity wants to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged temple in its place, and denies any religious right of the Muslims of the world in Jerusalem and Palestine, because it is the “Land of Israel” and that the non-Jews on it are “strangers” and what is considered sacred Islamic mentioned in the Qur’an, or in Islamic history, is not sacred. Some of them are considered Jewish holy places, as they claim.

It is not right for a member of the Third World, or the global left, or the free people of the world, not to consider the Zionist entity an industry of colonialism, and global racism that was practiced against the Palestinian people, as it was not limited to the military invasion to seize Palestine, but rather uprooted its people, And he is practicing a policy of extermination and displacement against him, to be replaced by racist settlers, who were brought in from all parts of the earth.

That is why it is not right for those who do not acknowledge all these facts, old and new, and those who come from its nature after it, to deal with the issue of the Zionist entity in any way that contradicts, or ignores, this hostile nature as an absolute hostility to Palestine and its people....

For this reason, it is absurd for anyone to imagine the possibility of coexistence with the Zionist entity, far from its conditions and nature.

As always, there is no Palestinian who publicly disagrees.

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!

07/06 Links Pt1: In Highland Park’s Jewish Community, Few Are Untouched by Deadly Mass Shooting; The bullet that doesn't matter; Iranian Pulls Out of Jiu-Jitsu Competition After Refusing to Play Against Israeli Opponent

From Ian:

In Highland Park’s Jewish Community, Few Are Untouched by Deadly Mass Shooting

Bright Bowls was open for July 4 in Highland Park’s main commercial district, and its owners, Lindsay and Matt Meltzer, were prepared for a busy day.

Lindsay had left her job at the Jewish United Fund of Chicago to open her dream business, a vegetarian smoothie shop and wellness studio, in June 2020. This would be the first year since the pandemic began that her suburb would hold its annual Independence Day festivities, including a parade, and the Meltzers were eagerly anticipating lots of foot traffic.

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band began playing in the parade lineup, performing the joyful Jewish standard “Freylekhs fun der Khupe” (Happiness under the Chuppah). A parade observer, local Jewish entrepreneur Candice Crane, laughed and took pictures with her husband and two of her young children.

“We were joking, ‘Only in Highland Park does the Klezmer band come,’” Crane said.

Then everything changed.

“I was standing at the register, and all of a sudden, I see the Highland Park High School band running up the street,” Lindsay Meltzer said. “The first thought I had was that there was an active shooter.”

Moments later, a police officer rode up on his bicycle and told everyone to get off the street.

“We just opened our door,” Lindsay said. “We have a basement that’s about the size of our entire store, and we were able to house over a hundred people safely, away from windows.”

Her husband stood at the front door, keeping watch, while Lindsay guided everyone else, mostly families with young children, to hide downstairs. A teacher with some active shooter training, herself Jewish, played games with the children and helped keep everyone calm.

Meanwhile, Howard Prager, a tuba player in the band, said he thought he saw the shooter flee the scene. “We saw a lot of people running,” he said. “We saw the panic and terror in their eyes.”

Jewish toddler orphaned at Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre

A deadly massacre at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb has left a Jewish toddler an orphan. The parents of a two-year-old found wandering alone after Monday's attack were among the victims of the latest US mass shooting.

At least two Jewish community members, including the boy's mother, were among the seven fatalities in the mass shooting that took place in Highland Park, Illinois.

Irina McCarthy (Levberg), 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, were killed when a rooftop shooter fired on the July Fourth parade on Monday. About 50 people also suffered gunshot wounds and related injuries, police and hospital officials said.

The toddler, Aiden, survived because his father shielded him with his body, local media reported. He was eventually separated from his parents in the ensuing chaos and was later returned to grandparents by police, according to a fundraising page.

"He will have a long road ahead to heal," said Irina Colon, who organized the GoFundMe page with the family's permission, adding that Aiden's grandparents Misha and Nina Levberg will raise the boy.

The Levbergs are immigrants from Russia who raised Irina, their only child, in the Chicago area, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

Misha told the Times that Irina met her husband Kevin – who worked for a gene therapy startup – through her job in pharmaceuticals. He said that he picked Aiden up at the police station after a neighbor showed him a photo of a lost boy.

The fund has raised over $827,000 by Tuesday night.

Along with Irina, the other Jewish victim identified in Monday's attack was Jacki Sundheim, 63, the events and b’nei mitzvah coordinator at a nearby Reform synagogue, North Shore Congregation Israel. She had attended the synagogue and worked there for decades.

Dalia Hatuqa is a well-regarded and award-winning Palestinian journalist, who has published in Time, the Washington Post, The Economist and elsewhere.

She wrote a Twitter thread yesterday about her frustrations at the delay of crossing the border between Jordan and Israel - blaming Israel for the delay.

There is currently a three hour wait at the Jordanian side of Allenby Bridge. Many of the people here are American citizens. Now tell me why the US is busy working on a visa waiver for Israel while we rot in literal hell at the border crossing

Still waiting. Been here since 11. Just been told by the Jordanian side that the number system they have doesn’t apply to people whose names are put on the list by a “minister” or someone “high up”. Some guy just told me he didn’t get a number and he already left for the Israeli side.

Everyone is feeding off Palestinian misery and desperation. We pay $110 a person just to get on a shared bus to go through the bridge. And wait for three hours just so the Israelis can fuck with you. This is the quintessential Palestinian travel experience.

To anyone following my bridge drama— I’ve finally made it home. What’s supposed to take 3 hours max took me 7 hours. That’s basically half way from Amman to Washington DC. I’m tired, hungry, thirsty but mostly angry and sad that this is what it takes to come home.

I haven’t tasted this kind of humiliation since the second intifada. I am so emotionally and physically exhausted I slept from 9pm last night and woke up at noon today. Friends are on the bridge as we speak and they waited 5 hrs at the Jordanian side. The whole thing breaks you.

You see, the evil Israelis are intent on humiliating Palestinians, and that's the reason for the delay, according to this award-winning journalist.

When someone commented to her, "Chill lady. I queued 3 hours at Heathrow yesterday." she responded, "Shut up. Queuing at Heathrow is a whole other ball game. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t usually respond to nobodys but it’s obvious you’re privileged and have never tasted humiliation like this."

For Palestinians, every slight is a "humiliation" that is directed at them. No one else has problems, no one else suffers, and every Palestinian who is inconvenienced is a victim of a direct attack on their Palestinianism.

The problems at the Allenby Bridge crossing have nothing to do with "humiliation." It is very simple: the number of travelers is too high for the facilities to handle at peak times. (Ironically, Arabs call the crossing "Karama" - which means "dignity.")

UltraPal has an article about the delays at the crossing. It mentions that this is an issue every year during summer vacation - a crossing that normally takes one hour now take more than 8 (more than Hatuqa's journey.) It is worse this year as people want to be with their families for the upcoming Eid al Adha holiday.

The article highlights something that Hatuqa only alludes to: the delays prompt people to bribe Jordanian officials, who let some people go through first, and this exacerbates the problem for the rest.

UltraPal is not a pro-Israel publication but at no point does it claim that Israel is the reason for the delays. It does mention that Palestinian officials who are also at the crossing add to the delays themselves by searching travelers for smuggled cigarettes before they go on buses to the PA-controlled areas.

To Palestinians, Israel is the yin and yang of all evil, therefore all their troubles are Israel's fault. This has the benefit of not allowing them to take responsibility for their own problems.

Hatuqa could use her platforms to publicize the bribery and favoritism on the Jordanian side of the crossing. She could mention how inadequate the facilities are. That could shame Jordan into cracking down on the problem. But instead she does what Palestinians are conditioned to do: blame Israel, which can do little to solve the problem on its own, and therefore ensure that Palestinians will be perpetual victims.

That is the role they have chosen, and it is a role that they relish.

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!

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency writes:

Israel is using withheld corpses of Palestinians for use in laboratories of medical schools in flagrant violation of human rights, today said Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

“The (Israeli) occupation authorities are augmenting the pain of the families bereaved at the loss of their children by withholding the corpses of their children and using them in the laboratories of medical schools in Israeli universities in flagrant violation of human rights, values, principles and scientific ethics,” said Shtayyeh in remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting held in Ramallah.

He called on universities around the world to boycott those Israeli universities involved in the withholding and the exploitation of the corpses of Palestinians killed by Israeli army gunfire in order to put pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities to show respect for the dead Palestinians and to immediately release the dozens of withheld corpses so that their families can bid them farewell in a manner that befits them and respect their feelings.

This is fiction. And it is being repeated in media worldwide.

Usually, Palestinian fantasies about Israel are based on a wild misreading of a tiny kernel of truth, and this is no exception.

Israel withholds the bodies of Palestinian terrorists for various reasons, often to prevent violent riots at their funerals. The main site that the bodies are held is the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute,whose official name is the L. Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine.

The institute is a department of the Israeli Health Ministry and affiliated with the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tel Aviv.

That affiliation is probably the source of Shtayyeh's blood libel, as there have been previous calls to boycott Tel Aviv University for its affiliation with the forensics institute. Shtayyeh has added the idea that the university uses the corpses in its laboratories, and from there it is easy to expand the lie to all Israeli medical schools.

Normally, when a prime minister is caught in such an obvious lie, the media would be merciless in calling it out. The leader would be chastened and would be more careful in future statements to avoid embarrassment.

But Palestinian leaders have no such fear. Even though Israel has more foreign journalists per capita than any other country, and even though this story was reported in English in the official Palestinian news site, there is no media interest in a top public official spouting antisemitic lies.

The Israeli government rarely comments on these fabrications, because they know how the media would handle it. Instead of emphasizing that a Palestinian leader is blatantly lying, the media would detail stories from the 1990s when Israel did remove corneas and other tissues from a small number of bodies of Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers, a practice that ended decades ago. Readers would end up with the impression that there is something to the story, and probably Israel is doing really bad things to these bodies today, and how awful it is to withhold bodies of terrorists anyway.

This underlying hate for Israel is the reason that Palestinian leaders can lie with impunity.

UPDATE: A Palestinian medical examiner refuted the allegation on PA TV - not that it matters.

Acting Director-General of the PA Ministry of Justice’s Forensic Medicine Administration Dr. Ashraf Al-Qadi: “Of course, all the Martyrs we have checked and seen, none of them had any theft of their organs. I don’t know about the Martyrs from before, whom we did not check as a Palestinian side or authority.”

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!

Ben and Jerry's sells to lots of countries that commit human rights abuses

Ben and Jerry's is suing its own parent company Unilever for selling rights to manufacture its products to an Israeli company.

When the Unilever announced the deal, Ben and Jerry's said that "We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry's values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. "

Here is a list of countries that Ben and Jerry's happily sells its products to up until last year:

I did a quick survey of the human rights records of some of these countries, based on NGO reports and the US State Department. Here are some results, and the list of human rights abuses is far from complete.

Australia	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise 29 percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3 percent of the national population.
Austria	Excessive use of force by police; asylum seekers deported
Bahamas	Death penalty, mistreatment of migrants, discrimination against LGBTQ+
Belgium	Racial profiling by the police, inhumane prisons
Brazil	In 2020, police killed 6,416 people. More than half of the victims were young Black men.
Czech Republic	Roma children experience discriminatory segregation in schools
Dominican Republic	Unlawful or arbitrary killings by government security forces; criminalization of abortion
Estonia	Highest gender pay gap in the EU
France	Violent police attacks on peaceful protesters. Anti-Muslim speech by officials.
Jamaica	Unlawful and arbitrary killings by government security forces; life-threatening conditions in prisons; law against homosexuality
Mexico	Police, prosecutors and the military regularly commit human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings.
New Zealand	Asylum seekers are placed in prison and mistreated by criminals while being processed.
Philippines	ICC investigating crimes against humanity in "war on drugs"
Poland	Laws banning abortions
Singapore	Death penalty, government goes after freedom of speech and assembly
Thailand	Torture, no freedom of assembly or speech
Trinidad &Tobago	Death penalty, unlawful or arbitrary killings by police

Even the countries universally considered the leaders in human rights - Finland, Sweden and Norway - have been accused of discriminating against the Sámi people in various ways, such as attacking their culture and limiting their land rights.

Not to mention Ben and Jerry's home country of the United States, which according to Amnesty has the death penalty, excessive police brutality, armed forces throughout the world that often kills civilians, and limited access to abortions in some states.

Is Ben and Jerry's OK selling to countries where homosexuality is illegal? Where abortions are illegal? Where the government security forces torture detainees, and violently break up public peaceful demonstrations? Where minorities are not protected and actively discriminated against? Where incarceration of minorities is way out of proportion to their population?

It sure sounds like this is not a problem for them.

No, the only country that Ben and Jerry's publicly says is so reprehensible that it won't sell there without it changing its own laws is Israel, where the crime that is so reprehensible to justify this singular treatment is that Jews build houses in their ancestral homeland, nearly all of it on land that no human being ever lived before.

Anyone can dissect any country's human rights record, in order to find excuses to be prejudiced against that country - while pretending that it is really a righteous position.

If people decided that they want to cancel, say, Trinidad and Tobago, they could find lots of human rights abuses to justify their decision. But the hate comes first, the justification comes later.

Which is exactly the case with Israel. The hate, which is by definition modern antisemitism, comes first; the justification comes later. This is why Israel is accused of such a huge variety of human rights abuses in so many areas - not because Israel is guilty of them, but because there is such an intense desire to demonize Israel that literally thousands of people are paid full time to scrutinize Israel from every angle to justify animosity towards the Jewish state. And when they run out of things to accuse Israel of, there is an academic cottage industry to create new ones.

The many real human rights abuses listed above do not get the publicity that the mostly imaginary abuses attributed to Israel get.

When you look hard enough, you can find a reason to justify hating any country. And when the bulk of that effort goes towards the only country that has a Jewish majority, it is pretty obvious that human rights is not the real reason for the scrutiny.

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!

07/05 Links Pt2: Antisemitism envoy Lipstadt sees Jew-hatred declining in Mideast, rising in US; Lessons of Ben & Jerry's: Boycotting Israel isn't low-risk

From Ian:

Antisemitism envoy Lipstadt sees Jew-hatred declining in Mideast, rising in US

On the heels of a landmark trip to Saudi Arabia, the newly sworn-in United States special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, said Tuesday at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University that “there is a change afoot in this region.”

She made her comments at the forum “New Tools in Combating Contemporary Antisemitism,” which was jointly held by the US Embassy in Jerusalem, Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Diaspora Ministry.

“For too many decades, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was a great exporter of Jew-hatred, but what I found is something quite different, something that has changed there dramatically in the last few years,” Lipstadt said, noting that the kingdom has also begun to implement changes in religious laws and the position of women in the country.

“I met with the heads and staffs of embassies focused on combating violent extremism, focused on interfaith dialogue, including the Muslim World League, whose secretary-general visited Auschwitz in 2020,” Lipstadt said. “We heard from a number of people who seemed willing to divide between the geopolitical crisis as it stands here in Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians and the fact that antisemitism is something separate and apart.

“These are important first steps. There was a clear willingness to continue this conversation. There is room to move things forward.”

Among the panelists at the forum were US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides, Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai, and CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League Jonathan Greenblatt. The forum was moderated by Hebrew University vice president and former Israeli ambassador Yossi Gal.

Lipstadt spoke about the qualities of antisemitism that set it apart from other forms of racism and prejudice. She cited antisemitism’s ubiquity, its appearance on both the right and the left, and the conspiracy theory that Jews are using their wealth and knowledge to control the world.

“In 2021, 84% of online antisemitism was anti-Israel.”@NoaTishby, Israel’s Special Envoy on Combating Antisemitism and Delegitmization, explains why it’s so important that the official title of her position recognizes these connected phenomena. https://t.co/lQI0Rg3eYC pic.twitter.com/mNrvWyibua
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) July 5, 2022

Anti-Israel Academics Attack the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in Hate-Filled Webinar

On May 8, 2022, the Institute for Holocaust Studies, Genocide and Remembrance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, posted a discussion on their official YouTube channel that contained unfounded allegations about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

Hosted and moderated by Alon Confino, chair of the Institute for Holocaust Studies and a history professor at Amherst, the webinar also featured Amos Goldberg and Raef Zreik, professors at Hebrew University and Ono Academic College, respectively. The three academics boasted about their anti-Zionist activism, and promoted their campaign against adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Professors Confino and Goldberg spent much of their time on the webinar denouncing the IHRA definition, and echoing the sentiment of an article where they jointly argue that, “The IHRA definition is nothing but a document used by Israeli propagandists to protect Israel against any harsh criticism regarding its attitude toward the Palestinians.”

In December 2020, Professor Zreik signed a petition that claimed: “The IHRA is used to delegitimize the Palestinian cause and silence defenders of Palestinian rights,” a bald-faced lie that he reiterated throughout the webinar.

Zreik also complains about the semantics of the term “antisemitism,” but fails to acknowledge the history of the world’s oldest hatred.

Zreik’s attempt to redefine antisemitism is an age-old attempt to trivialize the Jewish experience. For thousands of years, Jews have remained the target of systemic discrimination and intense pressure to erase their culture, language, and identity. These experiences have come to be known as antisemitism. It is disrespectful and intellectually dishonest to appropriate this term to describe something completely unrelated.

Contrary to Confino, Golberg, and Zreik’s mischaracterization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is an intergovernmental organization that makes it clear in its working definition that criticism of Israel, in and of itself, is not antisemitic.

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!

Amnesty USA maintains a Twitter account with the name IOTPA and the Amnesty logo. It describes itself as an unofficial account: "Amnesty International USA member leader team for Israel/OPT/Palestine. Views our own. Re-tweets should not be construed as a position of Amnesty International."

It might not be official, but it sure shows how anti-Israel Amnesty USA is. Beyond that, it uses Amnesty's name and logo, without any apparent pushback from Amnesty International, so its tweets are tacitly approved by the larger organization.

Over the past several months, Israel has experienced a terror wave where innocent civilians have been slaughtered in the streets. The victims are the sort of people that Amnesty claims to want to protect.

IOTPA has not said a word about any of these attacks.

In fact, one would need to look very hard to find any condemnations of any attacks on Israelis. The few attacks on Israelis I found were couched in terms of "but Israel is far worse." I found one condemnation of a Hamas bus bombing - in 2016.

Not only that, but when these "human rights professionals" deign to mention any criticisms by Zionists, they usually dismiss them as "hasbara smear language."

The folks at Amnesty USA are not shy about admitting that they are anti-Zionist. They just redefine it to mean "critical of Israel." But in reality it means that they oppose self-determination for the Jewish people. Which is pretty antisemitic.

The account consistently dismisses any pro-Israel viewpoint as a lie by definition - and accuse anyone who supports Israel of being trolls paid by the Israeli government. In one exchange, they wrote to a critic, "R u one of the paid trolls by #Israel? Wonder what a person's soul sells for nowadays." And "R u a paid troll perhaps?" And "Do you get paid to troll? How much do you make?"

They actually said that no one should believe a word that the Israeli government or pro-Israel people says: "Don't believe the 'hasbara' (propaganda) being spread by Israeli military and supporters. They always try to control the narrative so their statements should never be taken at face value."

They've never said this about the Palestinian Authority. Or Hamas. Only supporters of Israel are accused of being liars by definition.

Yet they insist that they aren't biased.

Judge for yourself.

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!

07/05 Links Pt1: Iran bought illicit German tech that violated nuke deal; Russia orders Jewish Agency to stop all operations in country; I felt safer near Gaza than Highland Park -Israeli survivor of shooting

From Ian:

Russia orders Jewish Agency to stop all operations in country - exclusive

The Russian government has ordered the Jewish Agency to cease all operations inside the country, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The order was given in a letter received from the Russian Ministry of Justice earlier this week. Officials in the Jewish Agency confirmed that the letter was received but would not comment on the response that is currently under consideration in the organization’s offices in Jerusalem in consultation with the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office.

"As part of the work of the Jewish Agency's delegation in Russia, we are occasionally required to make certain adjustments, as required by authorities," the agency said in response to a query from the Post. "The contacts with the authorities take place continuously, with the aim of continuing our activities in accordance with the rules set by the competent bodies. Even nowadays, such a dialogue takes place."

"People from the Jewish community have been feeling the Iron Curtain setting on them and they fear they won't be able to escape the country."
Senior sources

Israeli-Russian tension
The order comes amid growing tension between Israel and Russia over Jerusalem’s stance regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine and its policy of standing with Kyiv and its embattled leader Volodymyr Zelensky. On Monday, Russia's foreign ministry called strikes on Syria that have been blamed on Israel unacceptable, and demanded an unconditional cessation of the attacks.

An order forcing the Jewish Agency to stop work in Russia is dramatic and could directly undermine the ability of Russian Jews to make aliyah and immigrate to Israel. Thousands of them have finished their aliyah paperwork and have been waiting for flights to become available to Israel, but the sanctions on Russia have caused most international airlines to stop flying to the country and therefore, Israeli officials explained, future olim are "stuck" in Russia.

NATO states sign entry protocols for Sweden and Finland, further isolating Russia

The 30 NATO allies signed off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland on Tuesday, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals — and possible political trouble in Turkey.

The move further increases Russia’s strategic isolation in the wake of its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February and military struggles there since.

“This is truly a historic moment for Finland, for Sweden and for NATO,” the head of the alliance, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, said.

The 30 ambassadors and permanent representatives formally approved decisions made at a NATO summit in Madrid last week, when the leaders of member nations invited Russia’s neighbor Finland and Scandinavian partner Sweden to join the military club.

Securing parliamentary approval for the new members in Turkey, however, could still pose a problem even though Sweden, Finland and Turkey reached a memorandum of understanding at the Madrid summit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Ankara could block the process if the two countries failed to grant Turkey’s demands for the extradition of people it views as terror suspects. The people wanted in Turkey have links to outlawed Kurdish groups or the network of an exiled cleric accused of a failed 2016 coup in Turkey.

He said Turkey’s Parliament could refuse to ratify the deal. It is a potent threat since NATO accession must be formally approved by all 30 member states, which gives each a blocking right.

Stoltenberg said he expected no change of heart. “There were security concerns that needed to be addressed. And we did what we always do at NATO. We found common ground,” he said.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given the process added urgency. It will ensconce the two nations in the Western military alliance and give NATO more clout, especially in the face of Moscow’s military threat.

Russia Condemns ‘Irresponsible’ Israeli Airstrikes in Syria

Russia on Monday issued its latest rebuke of Israeli airstrikes aimed at curbing Iran’s military build-up in Syria.

“We strongly condemn such irresponsible actions that violate the sovereignty of Syria and the basic norms of international law, and we demand their unconditional cessation,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.

On Saturday, Syria accused Israel of carrying out airstrikes against targets south of the coastal city of Tartus. Two people were wounded in the strikes, which caused “massive material damage,” according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

According to Israeli media reports, the strikes targeted advanced air defense systems that had been smuggled into Syria by Iran. These systems would have threatened Israeli aircraft operating along the Syrian coastline, according to the reports.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Syrian air defenses “did not appear to have been deployed” during Saturday’s strike.

Russia last month expressed “serious concern” to Israel’s ambassador over airstrikes on June 10 that damaged runways at Damascus International Airport.

By Daled Amos

Last week, Israel announced plans to build an industrial zone next to Gaza, creating thousands of new jobs for Palestinian Arabs. This news comes at a time when the number of Palestinian Arabs working in Israel has been increasing.

In an article for The Algemeiner, Elder of Ziyon notes data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicating that the number of Palestinian Arabs working in Israel has jumped:

The number of Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements skyrocketed from 153,000 to 204,000, an increase of 33% in a single quarter. Of those, the number of workers in settlements — which the Palestinian Authority opposes — went up from 22,4000 to 31,000, an increase of 38%. [emphasis added]

Despite the PA's official disapproval of Arabs working in Judea and Samaria, historically they have had to admit that they cannot offer an alternative to employment in the settlements. Already in 2011, Shahar Saad, Secretary-General of the Palestinian Workers' Union

stated that despite the desire to implement the decisions of the PA leadership regarding the boycott of products and workers in the settlements, the implementation of that decision is difficult. According to him, the Palestinian Authority does not produce enough alternative jobs. [adapted from Google translation from Hebrew]

For Israel, creating jobs and providing employment for Palestinian Arabs makes sense, though the motivation differs between creating jobs for West Bank Arabs and Arabs from Gaza.

Last year, The Times of Israel reported that Israel was distributing 16,000 new work permits, in an effort to support the Palestinian economy which faced reduced international aid and a difficult year due to the pandemic. But more than shoring up Abbas,

“This measure will strengthen the Israeli and Palestinian economies, and will largely contribute to the security stability in the area of Judea and Samaria. Economic stability is the key to preserving security in the region,” said COGAT head Ghassan Alian in a statement.

That's all well and good for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, but is Israel creating this new industrial zone in order to shore up Hamas in Gaza?

Back in 2020, The Associated Press reported that Israel was increasing the number of work permits for Gazans from 5,000 to 7,000. According to the article, this was part of an unofficial truce negotiated by Egypt between Israel and Hamas in exchange for a reduction in rocket fire from Gaza and in the number of weekly protests along the border.

But the following year, when additional permits were distributed, the rationale was different. There were 3,000 more work permits made available, bringing the number of permits up to 10,000. And this time the reason for the new work permits was clear:

COGAT said the permissions are “conditional upon the continued preservation of the region’s security stability for the long term.” [emphasis added]

Haaretz puts this into perspective.

In April, the paper claimed that according to Israel's military intelligence assessment, Hamas was not prepared for war and was unlikely to respond with its own violence in response to clashes between Arabs and Israeli forces in Jerusalem. But the reason for Hamas's reluctance was more than just because it was still recovering from the fighting last year. There are approximately 15,000 Gazans working in Israel, providing important support for the Gazan economy. But there is more to it than that:

These workers have become a powerful lobby in Gaza, and Hamas' leader in the enclave, Yahya Sinwar, is said to take their position into consideration. Any hasty action by Sinwar against Israel could prompt harsh criticism from this group.
...Sinwar, who was nearly deposed in an internal vote for Hamas' leadership last year, is now also taking credit for major infrastructure projects in Gaza. A war would endanger any progress the Gazan economy has made, and therefore, Israeli officials say, Sinwar would like to refrain from escalation. [emphasis added]

This would explain Sinwar's change in tactics, from inciting Gazans against Israel to inciting Arabs in Israel, claiming that Hamas is the defender of Al Aqsa and calling on them to attack Jews in order to defend it.

But Gazan employment in Israel is apparently not the only source of pressure on Sinwar.

Last week, Hamas announced that the health of one of the 2 Israeli hostages it holds is in danger. The terrorist group is trying to use them as bargaining chips to gain the release of terrorists and the periodic updates about their health is psychological manipulation towards that end. However, both of them suffer from mental illness, and because of the sympathy that creates, the Hamas exploitation of the hostages is not getting the leaders the response they expected.

And that is another problem for Sinwar:

Hamas needs a deal because of the important status of the security prisoners in the eyes of the Palestinian public, and because of a pledge that hasn’t been fulfilled: When Sinwar was released from prison in 2011, in the Shalit deal, he promised his associates who remained behind that he would help get them freed. [emphasis added]

When it was first suggested that Hamas should be included in the 2007 elections in Gaza, it was suggested that having the responsibilities of government would have "a moderating influence" on the terrorist group. The current situation is not a confirmation of that suggestion. The issue of Gazans working in Israel is not a moderating influence -- it is pressure applied by Israel on Sinwar to maintain calm in order to protect his position and stay in power, even as he tries to take credit for this boost to the economy. His "campaign promise" to his fellow terrorists, on the other hand, applies pressure on Sinwar to foment violence.

Al-Monitor claims that Israel is in fact taking a degree of risk every time it takes steps to either create new jobs for Palestinian Arabs or distributes additional work permits. According to this view, these workers could potentially be recruited to carry out attacks inside Israel. Such concerns are all the more credible in light of the violence we have seen Hamas instigate.

The same article also claims that while Hamas instigating attacks on Israel could threaten the employment opportunities for Gazans in Israel and ultimately harm the Gazan economy, there is an external threat to those jobs as well. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been an influx of Ukrainian immigrants to Israel. In March, Interior Affairs Minister Ayelet Shaked said in an interview with Al-Monitor that "between 100,000 and 200,000 Jews could immigrate to Israel in the coming months.” It remains to be seen if Ukrainian immigration will put a dent in the number of jobs available for Palestinian Arabs, though that industrial zone being built in Israel adjacent to Gaza would indicate it might not.

For years, Hamas terrorist leaders have been exploiting Gazans as human shields for protection in order to evade the consequences of their actions. Yet, regardless of how they feel about Israel, Gazans are practical enough to work there in order to make a living -- and they expect Sinwar and the other Hamas leaders not to mess up their opportunity to support their families, something that Hamas on its own is consistently failing to do.

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IDF operations in Jenin are saving many Israeli lives

Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israelis in February, the beginning of a new wave of terror. This was followed by four killed in March and four more killed in April.

16 of the victims were civilians.

The IDF increased its operations in terrorism hotbeds in the West Bank as a result. The most public of these operations were in Jenin.

While it is difficult to claim definitively that there is cause and effect, the IDF offensive appears to have been paying off. According to Israeli government sources, there have been no civilian deaths in two months, the last one being the stabbing attacks in Elad on May 5.

Col. Arik Moyal, head of operations in Jenin, said in late April “The lives of hundreds of Israelis have been saved thanks to attacks we foiled.”

In fact, over the past month, all types of terror attacks have gone down significantly. The Shin Bet released this graphic.

The three injuries in June came from the attack on worshipers at Joseph's Tomb last week.

Israel haters love to take the Jenin operations out of context, pretending that there is no military reason for them and that the Palestinians who are killed are innocent victims. The facts show otherwise - not only have they been terrorists, but these operations are saving lives.

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The Palestinian Authority says the American investigators of the Abu Akleh bullet are incompetent

The Palestinian Authority Public Prosecutor's Office has amazingly high tech equipment that can determine things that no other known investigators can. And they are surprised that the US investigators are too incompetent to properly examine a bullet.

Really.

Here's is their statement:

The findings of the Public Prosecution's investigations in the case of the assassination of the martyr Shireen Abu Akleh, which were previously announced, were based on a set of irrefutable evidence, which included technical reports, examinations and eyewitnesses' testimonies that conclusively determined that the assassination of the martyr Shireen Abu Akleh was a direct targeting by a member of the Israeli occupation army stationed in the area, and it proved indisputably that there were no manifestations or armed confrontations at the time and place of the crime.

The evidence included technical reports related to the bullet extracted from the head of the martyr Shireen Abu Akleh, which indicated that the 5.56-caliber projectile was armor-piercing and was fired from a distance of 170 to 180 meters with a firing path that corresponds to the location of the Israeli occupation army.

Except that the army was 210-215 meters away from the microphone, 195 meters away from Abu Akleh.

With regard to what the American side stated regarding the results of the technical examination of the presence of severe damage to the bullet that prevented reaching a clear conclusion, the Public Prosecution confirms that this is not true and was surprised by came in the statement since the technical reports of Public Prosecution confirm that the condition of the projectile could be matched to the weapon used.

Given that the weapon they claim that killed Abu Akleh is not in their hands, that is pretty amazing!

Additionally, the fact that the targeting of the martyr Abu Akleh, according to the conclusive evidence, was intentional, and it is unacceptable what was stated by the American side that there were no reasons indicating that the targeting was intentional, especially since they were aware of the overall investigations of the Public Prosecution that confirmed the issue of a premeditated killing, whether what is documented by video recordings or through eyewitnesses, the path, distance and heights of the shooting, or by targeting those who tried to rescue the martyr, as detailed in the announcement of the results of our investigations in the press conference.

Since they haven't proven that the bullets came from the Israeli position by their own admittance in the first paragraph, then if there was any intentionality, it must have been from the real Palestinian shooters.

The competent authority to conduct the investigation legally is the Palestinian Public Prosecution, and any results of investigations conducted by any other bodies are not legally binding. Based on the investigations, Israel bears full responsibility for the deliberate assassination of the Palestinian martyr Shireen Abu Akleh, and we will work to complete our legal procedures to prosecute Israel before international courts.

I just want to emphasize: the Palestinian security services did not do a crime scene investigation. They didn't close off the area of the shooting, they did not take photographs, they did not measure distances, they did not stop Jenin residents from dropping by the scene of Shireen's' death and take souvenirs. They do not know what direction she was facing, if there was a ricochet off the wall, what the angle was of the shot. They do not know which buildings in Jenin the terrorist snipers were. They do not even know the type of gun being used, claiming it was a mini Ruger that the IDF does not use. They did not publish a report showing where the other bullets landed, or how many there were. They relied on "eyewitness" testimony from known and established liars.

Their investigation that they are claiming is so professional and superior to what the Americans could do is not merely amateurish. It is criminally incompetent. They decided on their conclusion and twisted evidence to reach it, ignoring any counter-evidence (like the actual distance of the IDF.)

This bunch of incompetent clowns - who may have accidentally exonerated Israel by saying that the bullet was manufactured in the US, when Israeli bullets are made in Israel - are now accusing the US experts that came to Israel of not knowing anything about bullet forensics.

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07/04 Links Pt2: Col. Richard Kemp: The bravest and the best; Ben & Jerry's 'victory' is hollow; Dutch airline 'wipes' Israel off the map

From Ian:

Col. Richard Kemp: The bravest and the best

Are we no longer allowed heroes? The 2017 film "Churchill" is nothing less than a character assassination of the man who led Britain to victory in World War II. The movie "7 Days in Entebbe," released last week in Israel, gives similar treatment to the hero of the dramatic rescue, Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu. The film is based on a book about the raid by the distinguished British historian Professor Saul David.

Incredibly, in an interview last week, David seemed to suggest that the German terrorists at Entebbe played a greater role than Netanyahu in saving the hostages' lives. He claims they had second thoughts, deliberately sparing the hostages when they could have killed them.

Why? Because they had developed empathy for their captives and "it wouldn't have looked good for Germans to kill Jews again, after the Holocaust." Look good to whom? It doesn't add up. They had seized Jewish hostages at gunpoint, conducted a "selection" chillingly reminiscent of Auschwitz and were members of a rabidly anti-Semitic terror group, the Revolutionary Cells.

Meanwhile, David dismisses Netanyahu, claiming his research shows he "was not a central figure in the planning of the operation." Yet Netanyahu's Sayeret Matkal comrades who were there describe him as "the father of the operation," confirming that he did in fact plan the rescue in meticulous detail after being given orders by Brig. Gen. Dan Shomron, the overall commander, to take over the airport terminal and release the hostages.

In trying to second-guess Netanyahu's actions at Entebbe, David shows that even the most assiduous academic cannot necessarily perceive the reality of close military combat. He says: "Ultimately, the operation succeeded thanks to luck more than anything else." This is blatantly wrong. But David should not be surprised that luck played a part. Anyone who has experience in battle knows how crucial it is – one of the most successful commanders of World War II, Gen. George S. Patton, even nicknamed his U.S. 3rd Army "Lucky."

Combat is all about creating luck and getting on top of chaos. As we say in the British Army: No plan survives contact with the enemy. That is because, unlike any other human activity, while you try to achieve your task, the enemy is trying to kill you. I have never known any military operation to unfold without foul-ups – often, many of them. To understand that you only have to look at the extraordinarily successful 1980 SAS operation to rescue hostages at the Iranian Embassy in London, which was fraught with unexpected crises.

46 years ago today, Israel successfully carried out one of the most audacious, courageous & inspiring counter-terror raids ever embarked on, saving more than 100 people who remained hostage in Uganda after a hijacking by the PFLP

Operation Entebbe/Operation Thunderbolt pic.twitter.com/BukZ1h0Toz
— Daniel Sugarman (@Daniel_Sugarman) July 4, 2022

Congressional resolution on infertility cited as proof that Jews control America

In April, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Dan Crenshaw sponsored a bipartisan resolution calling for the US to declare infertility as a disease and to fund research to combat infertility.

The resolution says, "Blacks, Hispanics, Ashkenazi Jews, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, East Asians, Indians and Pakistanis from the Punjab region, and persons of Caribbean, Mediterranean, French Canadian, or Middle Eastern ancestry suffer from disproportionately higher rates of certain diseases and gynecological, endocrine, and autoimmune disorders, that may contribute to higher rates of infertility among these populations."

A Jordanian writer thinks that this is evidence that Jews have taken over the US government.

At the end of a screed attacking Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, Mohamed Kharroub writes:

There is a strange and provocative bill that reveals the depth of the Zionist penetration into the American political fabric. Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Schultz, who is Jewish, presented a new bill to Congress on 4/29/2022 for Congress to finance research and awareness-raising related to the prevalence of infertility among white/Ashkenazi Jews in Israel.

The draft resolution states that “that the United States Government has a responsibility to help examine, create, and implement solutions to address and alleviate the problems associated with the disease." It is a project that, as usual, has been supported by Jewish/American organizations , which supports Congress funding research and education on infertility rates among Jews/Ashkenazis in Israel...

Do not be surprised that we will wake up one day soon to an American decision to include all white-only Israeli Jews with the US government/free health insurance for life.

Needless to say, the bill doesn't mention Israel once. It mentions Jews fewer times than it mentions Hispanics and American Indians. Dan Crenshaw is not Jewish.

Yet to paranoid antisemitic Jordanians, it is proof positive that Jews are forcing Congress to provide health care to "white" Israelis.

This is the level of paranoid antisemitism that is mainstream in much of the Arab world.

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