Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

What does UNIFIL do in Lebanon? A TikTok video indicates, not too much.

UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, released a TikTok video to show what a typical day looks like for one of its soldiers.

The answer is...outside marching down the Blue Line, not much.

Of course, this is not entirely fair. Their regular reports to the UN show that UNIFIL does do lots of things, mostly to support the Lebanese Armed Forces, although they do nothing to help disarm Hezbollah. Every report includes a paragraph like this:

No progress was achieved with regard to the disarmament of armed groups. Hizbullah continued to acknowledge publicly that it maintained military capabilities. The maintenance of arms outside the control of the State by Hizbullah and other groups in violation of resolution 1701 (2006) continued to restrict the State’s ability to exercise full sovereignty and authority over its territory.

One thing I didn't know is that the Trump administration made some efforts to turn UNIFIL into a more useful organization. The Congressional Research Service notes:

U.S. Administrations have disagreed over the mission and size of UNIFIL. Some U.S. officials have described UNIFIL as a stabilizing presence in southern Lebanon, stating that Hezbollah strikes across the Blue Line have significantly decreased since UNSCR 1701 (2006) increased UNIFIL’s troop ceiling from 2,000 to 15,000. A former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon has noted that “UNIFIL’s value in constraining Hezbollah comes down to its size. Through sheer numbers, it essentially saturates the south. Even if it can evade UNIFIL scrutiny at times, as the tunnels show, Hezbollah does not have the almost complete freedom of movement in the south that it enjoyed under ‘old’UNIFIL.”

In contrast, the Trump Administration asserted that UNIFIL “patrols and checkpoints are of plainly limited use when offending parties can simply hide weapons and tunnel entrances on so-called ‘private property.’” The United States and Israel accused Hezbollah of hiding weapons in violation of UNSCR 1701, and pushed for the addition of language to UNIFIL’s mandate that would allow UNIFIL to access and search private property for illicit Hezbollah weapons. Trump Administration officials criticized the government of Lebanon for not facilitating UNIFIL access to key sites, such as the Lebanese origin points of Hezbollah underground tunnels that cross into Israel.

In response to U.S. pressure, additional provisions were added to annual resolutions reauthorizing UNIFIL’s mandate. In 2017, U.S. officials successfully advocated for language requiring UNIFIL to notify the Security Council whenever it encountered roadblocks or other obstacles; these incidents are now noted in regular U.N. Secretary General reports on the implementation of UNSCR 1701. In 2019, the Security Council approved U.S.-proposed language calling for the Secretary-General to assess the effectiveness of UNIFIL; the resulting report highlighted several structural weaknesses. In August 2020 the Security Council voted to reauthorize UNIFIL but also reduced UNIFIL’s maximum force strength from 15,000 to 13,000 troops. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft stated, “The reduction of the ceiling from 15,000 troops to 13,000 is an important step toward right-sizing a mission that has for years been over-resourced given the limits on its freedom of movement and access.”

The private property issue is serious, and it is not all UNIFIL's fault. The Lebanese Armed Forces do not let UNIFIL enter private roads or property, although it appears that UNIFIL does do some aerial reconnaissance of some private property.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, boasts of over 100,000 missiles, many of them high-precision, and UNIFIL cannot or will not do anything about those.

UNIFIL does have a band, though.

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Rabbi Jacob Herzog, the self-proclaimed "chief rabbi of Saudi Arabia," posted a photo of himself outside an ancient Muslim graveyard called the "Martyrs of Uhud" cemetery in Medina. He tweeted in Arabic:

I stand to pray for mercy for the soul of Mukhareq Ibn al-Nadir, the Jewish rabbi who stood with the Messenger Muhammad and defended him, fought and was martyred in the Battle of Uhud, and made his money an endowment. #Madinah

Mohammed had famously expelled all Jews from Medina when he defeated the three Jewish groups Bani Qaynuqa’, An-Nadir, and Qurayza. One of the angry comments about Rabbi Herzog's photo was, "The Prophet expelled the Jews from Medina, and Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince, brought them back."

Another person worried, in response to the tweet, “Is this a justification for your settlement of a land and a region in Saudi Arabia with the excuse that it was the endowment of your Jewish ancestor?"

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!

07/19 Links Pt2: Radical left NGOs failed to follow law, owe millions in fines; Morningstar Relies on Research From Anti-Israel Org; J Street’s #metoo problem

From Ian:

Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard: The Modern Language Association, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

The MLA Executive Council have hit a new low by acting in secret, without notice and without membership approval, to conflate support for the IHRA definition of antisemitism with American racism. Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Joe Lockard, associate professor of English at Arizona State University, set out the facts and call on MLA members to reform the organisation.

For many years, the Modern Language Association’s members voted overwhelmingly to reject resolutions condemning Israel. Now the MLA’s main governing body, the Executive Council, has joined with its Committee on Academic Freedom to endorse anti-Zionist complaints about the most widely adopted definition of contemporary antisemitism. Realising that the members would likely vote down their statement, the members of these two committees acted in secret, without notice and without membership approval.

We are both long-time MLA members, one of us since 1969, the other since the early 1990s. One, Cary Nelson, is a former member of the MLA Executive Council, as well as a former president and current lifetime member of the AAUP. We are deeply troubled by the MLA’s decision to do an end run around the membership and make a flawed understanding of antisemitism and Zionism part of the MLA’s public profile.

The definition at issue is the one adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. In addition to misrepresenting the IHRA definition, they have joined the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in slandering those who find the IHRA definition’s examples helpful in understanding the contemporary world. Worse still, they link the IHRA definition with international racism: ‘Proponents of overly broad definitions of antisemitism and proponents of eliminating teaching about the history of racial and other violence share a desire to mobilise the government to enforce particular, emaciated accounts of history, harm, and injury.’ The AAUP and the MLA have conflated legislative efforts to block discussions of racism with a statement designed to do exactly the opposite: encourage discussions of antisemitism. Though the MLA leadership was not honest enough to complete the implicit equation, the intent is clear — to invoke the antisemitic claim that ‘Zionism is racism’.

To be clear: racism is the founding wound of US history and must be taught forthrightly throughout the educational system. Structural racism remains a potent force in many American institutions. We reject efforts to block the need to confront that history. Indeed, anti-racism has been foundational in our teaching and scholarship.

Radical left NGOs failed to follow law, owe millions in fines

Im Tirtzu's Research Division has released a report that shows 5,264 charity reports that do not meet the qualifications of the law. The fines that these radical left non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should, by law, receive for these reporting infractions total more than 150,000,000 shekels.

The law was originally passed as a way to provide the public with clarity on which NGOs are receiving foreign government support. Since the inception of the law through 2021, approximately 74% of reports filed by these NGOS did not meet the law's requirements.

However, the Ministry of Justice has not been enforcing the law.

Alon Schvartzer, Head of the Research Division of Im Tirtzu, explains, "In Israel there are NGOs that receive most of their funding from foreign governments, mainly European, as well as the United Nations and the European Union. Between 2012-2021 NGOs that are usually identified as leftist and many that are far-left groups have received more than 750 million shekels in foreign funding. These include, 'B'Tselem,' that received 63 million shekels, 'Yesh Din' and 'Hamoked,' that each received 50 million shekels, and, 'Breaking the Silence,' which has received 35 million shekels."

"These NGOs all share the goal of opposing or uprooting Zionist values. Their agenda is to mislead the Israeli media and legal divisions to act against the will of the Israeli public regarding topics such as the fight against terrorism, nationalism, immigration, military interventions, and more.

"The revelation of the agendas and the funding of these organizations was instrumental in the successful effort to have legislation passed in the Knesset that requires these organizations to disclose their funding from foreign governments. These laws were enacted in order to enable the Israeli public to identify Israeli organizations that are representing foreign interests."

Col Kemp: Special forces of Zionist youth

Watching the high school teens of Club Z in dialogue with pro- and anti-Zionists in Israel was an education in itself. Even the most ardently Zionist speakers approached their topics with caution, more used to American students that get triggered, fleeing to safe spaces and crying rooms, if faced with too strong a dose of the truth.

This lot had no use for safety and their tears were reserved for Rachel Frankel and Miriam Fuld who told stories of their loved ones brutally slaughtered by jihadist fanatics. Every speaker was left awestruck by the students’ unyielding stance, unexpected knowledge and deep-penetrating questions.

The anti-Zionists thought their words would elicit the standard sympathetic nods and murmurs, as they spun their halftruths and outright falsehoods to hand-wringing youths who would scurry back home and parrot them to gullible school friends.

Instead, they got an audience that saw straight through the tired narrative, and vigorously but politely pushed back against every fake tale of woe and fabricated legal recitation with the most powerful weapon in their armory: the truth.

Yes, they knew all about the Fourth Geneva Convention but unlike the self-proclaimed peace activists, fully equipped with bushy beards and patronizing clichés, they also knew it doesn’t come close to applying in Judea.

Nor, in contrast to many high school and college students, did they buy the flimsy, anonymous and unconvincing stories of IDF abuse that have been bought and paid for by foreign funds to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.

Until it was too late, the Israel-haters didn’t realize these kids are the special forces of Zionist youth. Preparing to face the antisemitic bile so prevalent on US campuses, they have been trained by experienced instructors while at high school and they practice their skills on the battlefields of Israel Apartheid Weeks and Jew-hating street demos. In Israel, they were on reconnaissance: seeing, hearing, touching and smelling the reality of the conflict for themselves.

Elder Comix: The history of the "apartheid" smear in one panel

With a special appearance by a young looking Ken Roth.

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!

Ever notice how antisemitic boycotts are meant to make other people sacrifice things, but the organizers never have to do without anything important?

Now, Jordanian antisemites are telling thousands of other Jordanians not to work in Israel, with good salaries and working conditions!

The group "I Move to Support the Resistance and Counter Normalization" (these groups always have really long names) warned Jordanian workers who had commuted to jobs in Eilat not to return as the jobs return, post-COVID.

Some 2000 hotel workers and 300 other workers from Jordan are slated to return to working in Israel on August 1.

In a statement issued by the group, they called not to go to work in Israel, as well as to boycott the recruitment companies in Jordan that act as go-betweens.

Ludicrously, the group is claiming that working in Israel with good salaries and decent working conditions "constitutes an exploitation of their conditions and their need to work, and includes labor violations that amount to human trafficking."

Hence, the logo above.

If the jobs are so exploitative, then no one has to accept them, do they?

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!

07/19 Links Pt1: On anniversary of AMIA and Burgas bombings, US urges global front against Hezbollah; Biden Poised To Give Iran More Than $100 Billion, Haley Warns

From Ian:

On anniversary of AMIA and Burgas bombings, US urges global front against Hezbollah

The US urged countries around the world to step up action against Lebanese terror group Hezbollah on Monday, as relatives and others marked the anniversaries of two deadly bombings by the group nearly two decades apart.

On July 18, 1994, a van packed with explosives crashed into the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds more in the country’s deadliest-ever attack. Exactly 18 years later, a bomb placed on a bus readying to transport Israeli tourists from an airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, exploded, killing five Israelis and a local bus driver and injuring nearly 40 others.

Emphasizing Iran’s sponsorship of the attacks, the US State Department called on more capitals to join “more than a dozen countries across Europe, South America, Central America, and the Pacific [that] have issued national level designations, bans, or other restrictions” against Hezbollah.

“The callous murder of civilians must not stand,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in the statement. “We urge more countries to take similar measures, which make it harder for the group and its backers in Tehran to threaten peace and security around the globe.”

The comments came days after US President Joe Biden visited the Middle East for meetings focused on bolstering countries in the region against Iranian aggression. During the trip, Biden and Prime Minister Yair Lapid signed a joint declaration in Jerusalem in which they committed to “work together with other partners to confront Iran’s aggression and destabilizing activities, whether advanced directly or through proxies and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

While the State Department has urged action against Hezbollah in the past, it has not previously tied the call for more sanctions to the anniversaries of the bombings.

In Buenos Aires, hundreds gathered near the site of the former AMIA building to commemorate the victims and urge that those responsible be brought to justice. Iran and Hezbollah have long been linked to the suicide bombing. Based on the investigations of Argentine Jewish prosecutor Alberto Nisman, six Iranians and one Lebanese have been on Interpol’s most-wanted list since 2007.

However, Iranians accused of involvement in the plot are still able to move about freely. In January, a public appearance of Iranian official Mohsen Rezaei at the investiture of Nicaragua’s president angered Argentina and drew a harsh response from its Foreign Ministry, which called Rezaei’s presence “an affront to Argentine justice and to the victims of the brutal terrorist attack″ in the Argentine capital.

Israeli research institute publishes database of Palestinian child soldiers

Israeli research institute NGO Monitor released on Sunday a database of Palestinian youth combatants on its website. The database is intended to provide accurate information about young Palestinians whom Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) misrepresent to allege that Israel has violated children’s rights in order to get the international community to sanction the country.

According to NGO Monitor’s website, “terror-tied Palestinian NGOs — including Defense for Children International –Palestine (DCI-P), Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), and Al-Haq — regularly distort the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Palestinian minors in terror incidents. They ignore or minimize the violent attacks perpetrated by the minors that precipitated their deaths and blame Israel for deploying self-defense measures to protect the victims of such attacks.”

These NGOs also “erase [the] essential element” of violent rioting when Palestinian youths die under such circumstances, and make claims that contradict media reports, the institute added. NGO Monitor further claims that organizations that employ these tactics attempt to have the IDF added to a UN blacklist of child abusers including prominent terror organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

“Palestinian NGOs that claim to promote human rights agendas deny evidence of the recruitment and use of children by Palestinian terror orgs. Our new database of child combatants exposes the terror context ignored by NGOs that demonize Israel,” NGO Monitor tweeted.

The database, which uses sources including statements from official Israeli bodies, media organizations, social media and NGO reporting, features two sections: one focuses on Palestinian minors who attacked Israelis and/or died in clashes with Israeli security personnel, while the other deals with minors who died in Gaza border riots.

Enough is enough. It is long past time that the Palestinian Authority was held accountable for their ongoing and systematic torture of the Palestinian people, as well as responsibility for the torture of four Israeli citizens, currently being held captive in Gaza. @The_ILF https://t.co/DIFLYdGywh
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 19, 2022

Will the Media Report on UN Probe Into PA and Hamas Torture of Palestinians?

The UN Committee Against Torture is holding hearings this week in Geneva to determine if the Palestinian leadership is in compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The 10-member expert panel is meant to review all 174 parties to the Torture Convention every four years. Although the Palestinian Authority does not qualify as a state under international law, Ramallah signed on to the treaty in 2014.

For years, rights groups have raised serious concerns about torture and other violations by both the PA and Hamas, the US-designated terror group that governs the Gaza Strip.

As Palestinians fight for change against their increasingly repressive rulers, the mainstream media continues to act as the communications department for the PA and Hamas. The conclusions of the UN committee, which will include recommendations for reforms, are expected to be published later this month. Will the media report on the findings…or continue its de facto black out?

We've discussed Columbia University professor Joseph Massad before and noted his antisemitism and bigotry since this blog began in 2004.

In an article for Arabi21, Massad strongly indicates that he subscribes to the discredited Khazar theory. While it is not the main point of his article, he writes, "The Zionists of European Jews claimed that they are the descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and that their settlement project is nothing more than a 'return' to their ancient country, Israel....The pan-Jewish nationalism of European Zionism, which sought to re-establish the glories of the 'Jewish' kingdoms of the Palestinian Hebrews (who were appropriated by the Zionists as ancestors of Europeans who had converted to Judaism), was portrayed as 'progressive' and socialist."

This is similar to what he wrote in English for Electronic Intifada in 2017, saying that European Jews were converts to Judaism.

The Wikipedia entry on the genetics of Ashkenazic Jews shows that nearly all studies find their origin is in the Middle East. So Massad, in the 2017 article, makes his argument that most European Jews as converts by calling it "an established historical fact."

That is "proof by assertion."

The usual version of the theory that Jews are converts is the Khazar theory, which has also been repeatedly debunked from genetic, historical, linguistic and other perspectives. It is embraced by Palestinians because their entire claim of indigeneity is destroyed when another people were there first and most Palestinian Arab families proudly trace their ancestry to Arabia. (The Palestinian Christians, on the other hand, seem to be descended from Jews.)

Since the truth is not on their side, they need to push the Khazar lie. And that lie is meant to say that Jews don't have any historic ties to the Jewish homeland.

Denying Jewish history is just as antisemitic as denying the Holocaust.

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!

Palestinians are conditioned to blame everything on Israel. Every time they talk to the media, every time they talk to a Western audience, every time they speak to an NGO they have been trained from birth to always make Israel look bad and avoid any blame on the Arab side.

I recently reported on the problems at the Allenby Bridge crossing, which the Palestinians call Karama. It takes ten hours or more to make it from Jordan to the West Bank, and a Palestinian journalist writing in English squarely blamed Israel, saying that the Israelis were hell bent on "humiliating" the travelers.

It is nonsense. The number of travelers has increased beyond the normal capacities of both the Jordanian and Israeli sides between summer vacations, Muslim holidays and pilgrims traveling from Hajj. In addition, on the Jordanian side there are two classes of travelers, the VIPs who pay essentially a bribe (between $110-$200) to go ahead of the non-VIPs, making the delays far worse. And everyone is trying to get to the VIP lane so the delays there are hours long as well, although half the time for the poor non-VIPs.

Now, the Palestinians are again blaming Israel. Head of the Palestinian civil affairs authority Hussein Al-Sheikh said today, "We hold the government of Israel responsible for the catastrophic conditions at the Al-Karama Crossing - King Hussein Bridge."

If you want to know the truth, though, go to the Facebook page for news about the crossing. Most of the posters there laugh at the idea that Israel is the problem, as Jordan's interior minister claimed earlier today.

By Allah , the Israeli side is not to blame, but we always like to find a scapegoat for our failure.

All people can testify that the Israeli side has more cleanliness, organization, order and faster procedures than the Arabs.

Anarchy and lack of order are an integral part of the Arab mindset culture. Why do things go in the opposite direction [from Israel to Jordan] naturally and smoothly knowing it's the same bridge and the same crossing point? The issue is a policy of humiliation. Why do you lose luggage? Why are there no air-conditioned places for the traveler? Why does Al-Atal exploit the passenger and so rudely ask for a bribe? Why is there nothing to drink? Why are passengers being targeted and exploited? Why aren't the elderly, the sick and the special needs taken care of?

Confessing guilt is a virtue. The problem is that Jordan has no system, no hall to receive passengers, no cleanliness, no respect, exploitation, greed, and the place for passengers to buy tickets [treats people] as a sheep's flock. There should be a large reception hall, including a number of stations for buying tickets, carrying bags, and a passport hall to be there. At the Jewish side of the bridge the bags are in order, there is a clean cafeteria, with clean sandwiches and soft drinks, and the buses are modern, clean and air-conditioned...Human rights institutions are supposed to intervene to end his non-stop torment journey between Jordan And Palestine.

The problem is from Israel !!? 😂😂😂😂

For its part, Israel is trying to increase the hours of operation which are already from 8 AM to 11:30 PM. It will take a month or two. But I can find no plans for things to improve on the Jordanian side.

And why should the Jordanians fix things? The media blames Israel for everything, so there is no pressure or incentive to improve. Commenters say that the Jordanian side has not changed for years. Finally they are now building an air conditioned tent for those stuck outside the hall because the temperatures outside go up to 45C (113F).

When everything is blamed on Israel, it hurts actual Palestinians.

But, officially, everything remains Israel's fault. Always. And the Western media believes it, because no one tells them otherwise.

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!

In July 1948, the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine submitted a memorandum to the United Nations titled "Jewish Atrocities in the Holy Land." It is a hate-filled piece of antisemitic propaganda filled with the most obscene lies about the Jews of Palestine.

This example of pure antisemitism is still available in the UN archives online.

It was turned into a pamphlet to be distributed widely, and a copy of that can be seen at the Library of Congress.

The Arab League Information Bureau in Cairo issued an updated version in March 1949, which is now available in the online Palestinian Museum Archive, naturally.

Here are excerpts from the 1949 version, which leaves no doubt as to the pure Jew-hatred of these documents.

They start off with Holocaust inversion and Jewish media control:

The world has only just been shocked by the disgusting revelations of the horrible, sadistic cruelties practised by the Nazis in the infamous camps of Belsen and Dachau. In these instances, a great number of the victims were Jews; and their more fortunate compatriots saw to it that their sufferings were made known all over the world. Their powerful and far-reaching propaganda machine enlisted the sympathies of every decent man and woman on behalf of the “poor, downtrodden Jew.”

Now we have once more to hear the horrible tale of sadistic cruelties and wanton brutalities perpetrated against an innocent population, mainly composed of women, children and old men. But this time the aggressors are those very Jews who were lately so loud in their outcry against the Nazis.

After elaborating on how depraved the Jews are, we are told that the Arabs had welcomed them with open arms as they fled pogroms:

...The Zionists are actively and savagely oppressing an innocent people and are actually rendering hundreds of thousands of harmless and peaceful human beings homeless wanderers. This is a poor way of showing gratitude for the sympathy so lately shown to Jewish sufferings in Nazi Germany and to those who gave them shelter and abode !

After some Biblical quotes on how Jews wantonly and thoroughly destroy their enemies, the pamphlet goes on to say that this is especially bad because the Jews are rich and cultured:

When reading of these atrocious acts, one unconsciously thinks of their perpetrators as being untaught savages, or barbarians of the remote past. Yet these same Jews have for centuries, by virtue of their moncy-massing activities, gathered to themselves the cream of culture and refinement of whatever country they have settled in. The.wealthy, educated Jew, surrounded by all the culture and art that his riches can command, has been a long familiar figure in civilized society. How superficial that veneer of culture really is, is shockingly revealed in the following pages....

Then comes example after example of completely fictional stories of Jewish atrocities. For example, we are told that Jewish doctors stole the blood of Arabs.

At Haifa and Jaffa, Arab men were captured and forcibly bled in order to provide blood for the treatment of Jewish wounded. These unfortunate victims were not only bled beyond their strength, but were neglected by the Jewish doctors and nurses, who left them in such a dangerous state of weakness that only the strongest could possibly survive.

The Deir Yassin section goes into lurid detail - and it sounds almost exactly like what the Jews in Hebron suffered in 1929. Just that was true.

On April 10, 1948, the village of Deir Yasin, in the suburbs of Jerusalem, was attacked by the Zionists, who rounded up most of its 600 inhabitants. Having looted everything of value in the village, the Zionists next turned their attention to their human booty, slaughtering men, women and children without mercy. On this occasion, about 250 Arabs were butchered. Among these were 25 pregnant women, whose bodies were deliberately ripped open with bayonets, and fifty-two mothers with babies at the breast, as well as about sixty other women and young girls. Little children were cut to pieces under the eyes of their mothers. Some of the unfortunate Arab women and girls were captured, stripped of all their clothing, and herded into open trucks. They were then paraded through the streets of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, where they were subjected to the insults of the populace, and were forced to submit to being photographed stark naked.

The pamphlet goes on to accuse the Jews of waging biological warfare, and being behind cholera epidemics in Egypt and Transjordan.

The propaganda is clearly written towards a Christian audience. The pamphlets emphasize how Jews supposedly attacked Christian holy places and killed members of the clergy, and even more disgustingly claimed that Arabs had treated Jewish holy places with utmost respect. (50 synagogues were destroyed in Jerusalem alone.)

Today's Palestinian propaganda is very similar, just they are more careful in English to say "Zionists" rather than "Jews." But anyone who claims that the underlying antisemitism is not the same is fooling themselves.

(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!

07/18 Links Pt2: How To Get Away with Killing Americans In Terrorist Attacks: One Father’s Chilling Story; Matti Friedman: What We Talk About When We Talk About Israel

From Ian:

PodCast: How To Get Away with Killing Americans In Terrorist Attacks: One Father’s Chilling Story

King Abdullah has the power to override a court's decision, according to experts. However, it is also likely to spark outrage in the streets of the Hashemite Kingdom, where 70 percent of its population is of Palestinian descent. And Jordan has carved extradition exceptions in years past. For one, Jordan allowed Washington to extract Eyad Ismoil, a Jordanian national, to stand trial over his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Furthermore, the US is Jordan's largest donor, providing over $1.7 billion in bilateral foreign assistance and over $200 million in Department of Defense funding to the ten-million-person country each year.

Tamimi is still listed on Washington’s radar – although next to nothing has been done to move the needle in seeking justice for the slain US national, the Roth parents proclaim.

US Representative Greg Steube (R-Fla.) hopes to change that.

In April, weeks before Jordan’s King Abdullah II was scheduled to meet with President Biden at the White House; he introduced the Recognition of the 1995 Jordan Extradition Treaty with the US Act to limit US assistance to Jordan until the Kingdom of Jordan recognizes the validity of the 1995 extradition treaty between the two countries.

“Our US tax dollars will not continue to flow to a country harboring a Hamas terrorist with American blood on her hands,” Congressman Steube stated. “The Government of Jordan fails to comply with a 1995 treaty that requires them to extradite individuals like Ahlam al Tamimi who face trial for terrorism under US law. My legislation will ensure our foreign assistance to Jordan is abruptly halted until Jordan complies with our extradition treaty.”

The Roths are subsequently calling upon lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle to support the proposed legislation. But thus far, due process is failing. Still, their relentless legal battle isn’t only focused on Washington.

“Malki was born in Australia, as was I. In the past four years, I have made three rounds of efforts to speak to the country’s top-level politicians in Canberra, requesting Australian intervention by them asking the Jordanian ruler to do the right thing, to comply with the treaty and to send the savage who killed an Australian-born girl to face trial in Washington,” Roth tells me wearily. “Australia has had excellent relations with Jordan for decades, and its society, as I know from long experience, respects fair play and decency. But this hasn’t worked.”

Compounding the grief, in recent years, Tamimi and her family are urging the Jordan King to “close the file” on the US demands.

However, for the grieving Roth parents, giving up will never be an option. Appeals continue to be made to governments, Congress, the State Department, and the American public.

“The unrepentant murderer’s freedom and celebrity status sends a deplorable message: that in some societies, blood-drenched terrorists who execute cruel and inhumane acts of murder of innocents can evade justice,” the Roth parents state on their Change.org petition, appealing to the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to take action. “Our call to action is that the United States must apply necessary and unforgivably.”

The Roths remember every detail about their daughter: her zest and talent as a classical flutist, the tender way she cared for children with disabilities, including her baby sister, Haya, and her love of walking hand-in-hand with her mother even as a teenage girl.

“Malki has been gone for longer than she was us. A young woman who didn’t reach her sixteenth birthday, she made herself loved and admired by a remarkably large circle,” Roth recounts. “Most people who knew her will speak of her warm and constant smile. Some will recall how she was always on the lookout for ways to help people in all kinds of ways. But what stood out was her specific passion for embracing, supporting, and engaging with children with special needs, starting with her own youngest sister, who is blind and profoundly brain-damaged and whom Malki adored.”

The road to some sort of accountability is bitter, but Arnold refuses to surrender in the fight.

“The doing of justice ought never to be left to politicians. Justice is a core value, not a tactic and certainly not a partisan strategy,” he adds. “When members of the US Congress stand with Jordan’s Abdullah, as so many of them do, that’s what they are supporting. And long-overdue justice for Malki and the other victims of Tamimi’s barbarism is what they obstruct.”

The Mutation of Antisemitism Back Into the Mainstream – Opinion

Antisemitism as an ancient, toxic, resilient virus, mutated over millennia, in accordance with guiding social pillars or constructs of each century: from religion to race to nationality, now full cycle back to religion. It is the mainstreaming and normalization of this ancient hatred that is most alarming.

For antisemitism can be seen as a predictive example for other forms of hate and racism, rendering the tracking, understanding and addressing of its unique mutation important not only for Jews or their nation state, Israel – as a proverbial canary in the mineshaft – but for all concerned and committed to identify and combat all forms of hate and racism.

The intersection between religion and universal values of human rights – developed as a secular religion – harbors the opportunity and responsibility for vital collaboration in the 21st century: to identify and combat the appropriation and weaponization of those universal principles for political ends. Such appropriation and weaponization undermine the very commitment of “Never Again” that the international-rules-based order was intended to ensure and secure, even as, instead, we face the devastating reality of “Again and Again” – in Iran, China, Ukraine, etc.

The “mapping project” of the Greater Boston area, recently released by Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activists, provides anecdotal evidence demonstrating the viral, insidious mutation of antisemitism, on- and off-line. The interactive “liberation map” is not only an attack threatening Boston’s Jewish community.

Mapping the ties between Jews and the broader community, it invokes antisemitic tropes, suggesting that there is something inherently sinister in Jews wanting to work with non-Jews. It constitutes an attack on foundational democratic principles of justice and freedom that should shock and concern all those cherishing them.

Singling out Jews and those affiliated with them, the map rips open and exposes mutated forms of ancient wounds harkening back to dark times in history, endangering Boston’s Jewish community in the present day, and threatening the very foundations of American democracy. Possibly in an effort to mask outright antisemitism while exposing just how deep it runs, the mapmakers added an absurdly broad web of guilty by association allies. The threshold for inclusion on this list is very low; any organization or public figure with even the slightest connection to Israel is tracked on the map.

NGO Monitor: Al-Haq’s Antisemitic Submission to the UN’s Permanent COI

The government funders – including Spain, Sweden and Norway – have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Yet, they continue to fund NGOs, such as Al Haq and the others, that blatantly reject those fundamental principles. Similarly, the EU – whose parliament adopted a June 2017 resolution calling on member states to adopt IHRA – also funds some of the signatories to this submission. (Recent media reports suggest that the EU intends to renew funding to Al-Haq, following a year-long freeze over terror-financing concerns.) Al-Haq’s Assault on Israel’s Right to Exist

In this COI submission, Al-Haq and its allies make a series of claims and demands, categorizing Israel’s very existence as illegal, and labeling Zionism as a form of racism (all quotes taken directly from the submission, all emphases added):

1. Israel is Inherently Illegal
“Colonised Palestine refers to the self-determination unit of the Palestinian people and territory of Mandate Palestine (prior to 1948), and which today constitutes the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and the territory recognized as the State of Israel in 1948.” (pg. 1)

“The 1948 Territory refers to the territory of the settler-colonial State of Israel, established by the displacement and dispossession of the vast majority (around 80 percent) of the indigenous Palestinian people during the Nakba and the maintenance of a settler colonial and apartheid regime over the Palestinian people since its creation.” (2)

“The Palestinian people argued that the incorporation of the Balfour Declaration was illegal.” (11)

“The partition of Palestine, as it stood at that time, violated sacrosanct principles of international law.” (13)

“This is notwithstanding that the UNGA does not have the power to enforce its recommendations, specifically over a persistent sovereign objector to its proposal. In disregard of the wishes of the indigenous Palestinian people, the UN partition plan was adopted as a resolution, and it normalised the erasure of the Palestinian people and the continuation of a settler-colonial project in a so-called sui generis paradigm.” (13-14)

4. Justifying Terrorism
“Israel’s violent suppression, criminalization, and/or terrorization of Palestinian resistance must be understood within the wider context…. People under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, have the right to pursue their right to self-determination and freedom by all available means.” (emphasis added)

“The Unity Intifada [including the May 2021 conflict during which Palestinian terrorist organizations launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians] was sparked in Jerusalem during April 2021… the Palestinian people, across colonised Palestine, and Palestinian refugees in exile, mobilized in unity in an outpouring of demonstrations against Israel’s almost century long colonisation and apartheid, and their subjection to an ongoing Nakba since 1948.”

5. Opposition to IHRA’s Definition of Antisemitism
“Further attempts to further limit the already shrinking space for civil society around the world and limit the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and association” is the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of Anti-Semitism. The definition lists criticism of the State of Israel, and claiming its existence a racist endeavour, as manifestations of anti-Semitism. As condemned by more than 40 Jewish groups, the IHRA definition is worded in a way as to ‘intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.’” (40)

This doesn't happen often, but Amad published a column by Abdulaziz Al Zayed that emphasizes that Palestinians should hate Zionists, not Jews.

Is Judaism really an insult? I say: “Wake up the nation of Islam, for this is not from the religion of Muhammad.” I say: “Wake up my people, for your blame on the Jews is a mistake that must be corrected."

So why blind hatred against Jews and Judaism? Judaism is a divinely respected religion in Islam, and the Jews are our brothers among us. And they have many commonalities and ties.... Is the Islamic religion really a religion of tolerance and kindness? So why blind hatred against Jews and Judaism? Judaism is a divinely respected religion in Islam, and the Jews are our brothers among us.

Unfortunately, there are thinkers who have overstepped their position and floated in the balance, and did not do justice to the Jews from themselves, and the Qur’an threatens by saying: (Woe to the delinquents), when will we sheath the sword of grudges? And when will we raise the banner of love?

Of course, Zionists should be loathed. But this is a very rare article that calls out Muslim antisemitism.

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!

NGO Monitor has a website where you can see how various NGOs refer to Palestinian minors who are killed - and the truth about the terror attacks they were performing at the time, along with their terror affiliations.

The most recent one is Sanad Abu Atiyeh:

On March 31, 2022, 17-year-old Sanad Abu Atiyeh was shot dead by IDF forces during a gun battle in Jenin. According to the IDF, Abu Atiyeh was among three Palestinian “armed men” who fired at Israeli forces.

During his funeral march, Abu Atiyeh was wrapped in a PIJ flag and wore a PIJ headband, a practice reserved for the terror group’s members.

It is a nice resource.

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!

07/18 Links Pt1: The "Two-State Solution" as Panacea Never Fades Away; The Saudis see Israel as key to regional stability; PA Spy Chief To Head Delegation At UN Torture Committee Review of PA Record

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Eight things that happened during the Biden's Middle East trip

From I2U2 to Centcom and Morocco
Israel, India, the UAE and US are now working on a new framework called I2U2, which brings together countries with common interests. The move was announced during Biden’s trip and during a virtual summit. This was a major accomplishment. It remains to be seen if a new air defense pact in the region will also bring together Israel and the Gulf countries.

At the same time, Israel’s chief of staff is heading to Morocco after meeting the head of US Central Command on Sunday. All of these moves show the rapid integration of Israel into the region and new regional systems of partnerships.

Russia-Iran drone story grows
Russia may be seeking to use Iranian drones against Ukraine. The US alleged that Iran would provide Moscow with armed drones before Biden’s visit took place. As the president traveled the region, this story grew. Although Iran and Russia appeared to downplay the reports, US media continues to grow the story.

“A Russian delegation has visited an airfield in central Iran at least twice in the last month to examine weapons-capable drones, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and satellite imagery obtained exclusively by CNN,” the network reports. “Iran began showcasing the Shahed-191 and Shahed-129 drones, also known as UAVs or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, to Russia at Kashan Airfield south of Tehran in June, US officials told CNN. Both types of drones are capable of carrying precision-guided missiles.”

It remains to be seen if evidence emerges of an actual drone transfer. Russia could use Iranian drones to try to attack US-supplied weapons to Ukraine, such as the HIMARs systems. Ukraine would need to boost air defenses against any rising drone threat. Russia’s leader is expected to come to the region this week, and it will be important to see if he comes out with any concrete steps with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts regarding things like drones or Turkish threats to invade Syria.

Seth Frantzman: Morocco-Israel relationship is a huge beneficiary of new peace era

Moroccan ties also look to be good news for defense and trade
Globes reported in February that “Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will provide the Moroccan army with the Barak MX air and missile defense system in a deal worth more than $500 million, according to international sources involved in the defense system trade.”

According to the same report, “Morocco has already purchased Heron UAVs from IAI and other UAVs from IAI unit Bluebird, as well as robot patrol vehicle systems from Elbit Systems and drone interceptors from Skylock. All these purchases from Israeli companies were carried out through third parties.”

Gantz has said that Israeli defense trade with the Abraham Accords countries is in the billions of dollars. Morocco appears to be a key to that large amount of trade.

The number of tourists is also growing. The Economist reported in June that Morocco expected 200,000 Israeli tourists. The tourism industry is backed by ads that have appeared in Jerusalem and aboard flights.

In June, Israel’s Foreign Ministry also said that “the gead of the Foreign Ministry’s Political Strategic Division, Ambassador Alon Bar, is currently holding a working visit to Morocco, during which he will hold a political dialogue with his Moroccan counterpart and meet with the director-general of the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, Fouad Yazur.”

The report noted that “the head of the Middle East Division at the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, Fouad Ahraf, led the political dialogue on the Moroccan side. The goal of the dialogue was to discuss the ways in which bilateral cooperation can be deepened between the two countries, with an emphasis placed on bringing Moroccan workers to Israel, encouraging investment and mutual tourism, and encouraging trade between the two countries.”

The overall context of Israel-Morocco ties, from defense to tourism, culture and diplomatic relations, appears to be one of the major fruits of the Abraham Accords. So far, it also appears to lack the controversy and complexity that can erupt in the Gulf due to the Iranian issue.

That does not mean it is not without its hurdles.

The issue of Western Sahara has ruffled feathers. US President Donald Trump moved to recognize the disputed area as part of Morocco.

That did not go well with everyone in Washington. However, the website Morocco World News said in March that for “lobbyists still hoping that the Biden administration will at some point repudiate the US’ pro-Morocco policy on the Western Sahara dispute, the US Consolidated Appropriations Bill signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 15 is the latest indication that the recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara is now official US policy.”

Survey: Growing Minority in Gulf Countries Approve of Informal Ties With Israelis

A new poll from the Washington Institute found that although more members of the Gulf region disapprove of the US-brokered Abraham Accords than before, there are growing sentiments toward allowing informal contact with Israelis.

In countries where the Abraham Accords — a series of normalizations between Israel and Arab countries — were initially unpopular, those attitudes have hardened. For example, those who see the accords as “very negative” in Lebanon increased from 41 percent in November 2020 to 66 percent in March 2022.

Of the Arab populations interviewed, the least likely to express a negative viewpoint of the Abraham Accords were the Palestinians. When asked in June 2022, almost half (48 percent) of those living in eastern Jerusalem saw the Abraham Accords in at least a somewhat positive light.

Only 39 percent of Gazans expressed a negative opinion of the Abraham Accords.

While more than two-thirds of citizens in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE view the Abraham Accords unfavorably, the idea of ties with Israelis is becoming increasingly popular in Gulf countries. Forty percent of Saudis now agree that informal business or sports ties with Israelis should be allowed.

Allowing such ties with Israelis remained at 85 percent in Egypt and 87 percent in Jordan, despite longstanding official relations. A resounding 94 percent of Kuwaitis and 93 percent of Lebanese surveyed disagreed with the idea of ties with Israelis.

Today's Egyptian antisemitism: Comparing Latrun incident to the Holocaust

Earlier this month, Israeli media revealed a terrible secret from the Six Day War. Yossi Melman tweeted:

After 55 years of heavy censorship, I can reveal that at least 20 Egyptian soldiers were burnt alive and buried by IDF in a mass grave, which wasn't marked & without being identified contrary to war laws, in Latrun. It happened during the Six Day's War.

Days before the war Egypt's Nasser signed a defense pact with Jordan's Hussein. Egypt deployed 2 commando battalions in the West Bank near Latrun, which was no man's land. Their mission was to raid inside Israel and take over Lod and a nearby military airfields.

Fire Exchanges took place with IDF troops and members of Kibbutz Nahshon. Some Egyptian troops fled, some taken prisoner, and some bravely fought.

At a certain point IDF fired mortar shells and thousands of uncultivated dunams of wild bush in the dry summer were set on fire. At least 20 Egyptian soldiers died in the bush fire "the fire spread quickly in the hot and dry bush, and they have no chance to escape" I was told by Zeen Bloch (now 90 years) who was the military commander of Nachshon, a left-wing Kibbutz.

The next day IDF soldiers equipped with a bulldozer came to the scene, dug a pit, pushed the Egyptian corpses and covered them with soil. Bloch and some Nahshon members watched with horrors as soldiers looted personal belonging and left the mass grave unmarked.

Saleh Abu Muslim, an Egyptian writer in news site Elaosboa is comparing this incident with the Holocaust, which he is not sure really happened anyway.

When the word Holocaust is mentioned, one immediately thinks of the Holocaust against Jews and others by Nazi Germany and its allies led by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War. Because of the genocide and the brutal Holocaust that the Jews were subjected to from 1935 until 1945, whether real or fiction, they are crimes of shame against humanity. Many scholars, historians and others believe that the Holocaust is a trick or a lie that is exploited by the Zionists to achieve their interests and blackmail the Western countries responsible for committing these crimes, and that is why those who deny the truth of the Holocaust by the Jews and their sympathizers are considered anti-Semites. ...

The Jews of the world are weeping and lamenting the burning crimes they were subjected to by Nazi Germany and its allies, and even calling for the prosecution of all those who deny the Holocaust and deny its occurrence, and they demand that Germany pay great financial compensation for the Jews who were exterminated. Yet here are the Israeli occupation soldiers and they practiced the same brutal crime against the prisoners and besieged Egyptian soldiers starting from the 1956, 1967, and 1973 wars. ...After 55 years of blackout, the Israeli authorities now come to us to reveal to us that the Israeli occupation forces in 1967 burned and killed more than 80 soldiers of the Israeli [sic] forces. The Egyptian special forces during the June 1967 war in the Latrun area located between Jaffa and Jerusalem, when those forces were on a special mission to support the Jordanian army in that area. Successive Israeli governments since 1967 to reveal to us this horrific crime after the Israeli forces fired phosphorous shells in the middle of a barren desert area full of weeds and dry trees to be burned...

Let's make some things clear: The burning of the soldiers was an accident. It wasn't from phosphorus shells but regular mortars, according to Melman.

The Egyptian soldiers were valid military targets under the Geneva Conventions. They were not innocent civilians, and they weren't prisoners of war. They were active combatants.

The IDF was absolutely wrong both in burying them and in looting their belongings, no question. Those soldiers should have been punished. And the incident should not have been kept secret for this long.

But comparing that to the Holocaust?

Egyptians have every right to be angry over the incident and to demand answers. But using it as an excuse to minimize the systematic mass slaughter and genocide of millions of Jews is obscene.

And even more obscene is that the editor of the newspaper felt that the writer was making a valid point. And that whenever such an obscene article is published in Arabic, there is no visible pushback from other Arabs.

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!

Israel Hayom has a scoop:

The defense establishment and Finance Ministry are operating a secret, extra-budgetary fund, through which money is transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

The fund's existence was revealed in the state's answer to the Supreme Court in response to a petition filed by the Kohelet Policy Forum. State's attorney Yael Morag Yako-El wrote that Israel had committed to transferring the Palestinians a "loan" of NIS 100 million ($28.86 million). "The source of this amount is an extra-budgetary fund managed by the Civil Administration and Finance Ministry's Budgets Department," she wrote.

Attorney Ariel Erlich, who submitted the petition on behalf of the Kohelet Policy Forum, said..."Theoretically, this is a gross violation of the law. After all, if the law stipulates what and how you are permitted to transfer to the PA, the state cannot create extra-budgetary funds to bypass this prohibition."

He added: "This whole story reeks of a cover-up, breaking the law, and funding terror. We hope the court won't allow the Finance Ministry to continue obscuring and blowing smoke. The citizens of Israel need to know whether public funds are transferred to fund terror through the circumvention of the Knesset's laws."

The Finance Ministry said in response that the "fund is sourced from payments pertaining to the use of lands, including quarries, along with media bodies as well. The sums that are deposited in the fund are earmarked for such matters. It should be noted we have answered questions posed by various Knesset members before, within the relevant contexts, about the loan."

It turns out that Palestinians are also suspicious of money they are receiving from Israel.

Hassan Asfour, editor of Amad, thinks that this is evidence of Palestinian Authority corruption:

The Hebrew report, if true, reveals that Palestinian Authority officials agreed to accept money in exchange for “special services,” and that the authority has become like some countries that receive money in exchange for non-national services, provided to serve the national enemy, and not what is announced about explicit relations.

While Israelis are worried that the funds will go towards terrorism, Asfour is concerned that the funds will not go towards terror. His fear is that Israel is outsourcing some functions to the PA, like security, that would not be in the Palestinian national interest. And to him, as with most Palestinians with zero-sum mentalities, anything that benefits Israel is by definition against the Palestinian national interest.

Who says Palestinians and Israelis cannot agree on something?

Any way you look at it, there should be no room for secret money transfers to the PA. The chances that the money will go towards terrorism are too high, and anything that is not transparent is almost invariably ripe for misuse. And, as Kohelet says, it is very possibly illegal.

Not only do we need to know what this money is used for, but also under which government this fund was started.

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!