Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

A short history of Mahmoud Abbas' clear and explicit antisemitism

On Tuesday, Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of perpetrating 50 "holocausts" on the Palestinians:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas caused shock in Germany Tuesday when, standing beside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, he accused Israel of committing “holocausts” against Palestinians over the years.

Abbas was responding to a reporter’s question about the upcoming anniversary of the Munich massacre half a century ago. Asked whether as Palestinian leader he planned to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of the 50th anniversary, Abbas responded instead by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947.

“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas, who was speaking Arabic, told the reporters.

“I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed….50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” he said, taking care to pronounce the final word in English.

This antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization is hardly anomalous for Abbas. He has a long history of making unmistakably antisemitic statements - yet he is still considered a respected statesman who travels to Western capitals.

The fact that he spouted this hate while answering a question about apologizing for the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972 is telling, because it was Mahmoud Abbas himself who financed that operation.

Abbas' antisemitism goes back decades. His doctoral thesis, which he turned into a book ("The Other Side: the Secret Relations between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement") says that it was a "myth" and "fantastic lie" that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. And Jews were responsible in large part for the Jews that were killed: "The Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government's hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them, and to expand the mass extermination." He also compared Jews to Nazis, saying, “We find that Zionists believe in the purity of the Jewish race, as Hitler believed in the purity of the Aryan race."

And to top it all off, he quoted a Holocaust denier saying that the gas chambers were a myth.

In 2015, Abbas spread antisemitism and incitement to violence. He said, "The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We shall not allow them to do so, and we shall do whatever we can to protect Jerusalem."

Two weeks after calling on protecting Jerusalem by any means, the "knife intifada" broke out, ostensibly to defend Jerusalem from Jews. And on the first anniversary of the speech, another terror wave gripped Israel.

In 2018, Abbas suggested that Jews who were facing extermination in Europe preferred to stay there than to emigrate to Israel. “The Jews did not want to emigrate even with murder and slaughter. Even during the Holocaust, they did not emigrate." In reality, hundreds of thousands were unable to emigrate because Abbas' fellow Arabs pressured Great Britain to block nearly all Jewish immigration. This is a particularly degusting example of victim-blaming - but not even close to the worst.

Abbas came up with new justifications for the Holocaust in a speech of pure hate in 2018. He told an audience of PLO members that the Jews of Europe brought the Holocaust upon themselves because of usury, banking and their “social function.” He also said that Jews are descended from Khazars, and Israel is a purely European colonial project with nothing to do with Jewish history,

Beyond that, he blamed Jews for their own persecution throughout the centuries: “From the 11th century until the Holocaust that took place in Germany, the Jews – who moved to Western and Eastern Europe – were subjected to a massacre every 10 to 15 years. But why did this happen?...The Jewish issue that was widespread in all European countries... was not because of their religion, but rather their social role related to usury and banks.”

In 2016, speaking to the European Parliament, Abbas said, “Only a week ago, a number of rabbis in Israel announced, and made a clear announcement, demanding that their government poison the water to kill the Palestinians." After a firestorm, he retracted that statement - and today, no one seems to remember his blood libel.

Earlier this year, he said, "The Christian is the brother of the Muslim. They celebrate together, suffer together, live together, work together, and fight together against their enemy." Meaning, the Jew is the enemy.

This is a consistent pattern of antisemitism. These words are not errors or mistakes - this is what Mahmoud Abbas believes.

Inevitably, since Germany is up in arms over this latest outrageous statement, Abbas will issue a thoroughly fake apology, claiming that he has nothing against Jews, and the media and world leaders will let it slide - as they did every single previous time.

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!

08/16 Links Pt2: False and Malicious Catchphrases and Buzzwords in the Israeli-Palestinian Context; In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed ‘holocausts’ against the Palestinians

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: False and Malicious Catchphrases and Buzzwords in the Israeli-Palestinian Context

Over the years, states, leaders, international organizations, and the international and Israeli media have developed a tendency to endlessly repeat certain internationally recognizable catchphrases and buzzwords with the aim of dictating and influencing a distinct, partisan political narrative against Israel.

This tendency is becoming a permanent phenomenon and increasingly obstructs any genuine attempt to achieve reconciliation between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.

The repetition of such phrases and terms in all and any discussion and reporting of events and developments in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is legally inaccurate and blatantly misleading.

While such uses may emanate from ignorance as to the genuine meaning of such phrases and buzzwords and the actual facts and legal background of the various issues, it is more likely that they are deliberately intended to mislead the public.

The following are several examples of such false, misleading, and malicious catchphrases and buzzwords.

5. “Settler Colonialism”
The use of this curious terminology by extreme left-wing and ostensibly progressive elements is nothing more than a shallow and dishonest attempt to manipulate international thinking. It is done by using outmoded, anarchistic, and quasi-intellectual templates taken from age-old colonial situations in an effort to transpose them onto the case of Israel.

Such templates bear no relation whatsoever to the situation in the Middle East.

Accusing Israel of colonization is an attempt to fraudulently and artificially represent Israel in the same light as the European powers that colonized Africa and the Americas in centuries gone by. Such representation is absurd and an insult to intelligence.

This false and malicious accusation totally ignores the circumstances of the defensive war that brought about Israel’s acquisition of control of the territories in 1967.

It ignores and undermines those central UN resolutions and signed agreements calling for a negotiated settlement of the Middle East dispute.

It ignores that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have agreed to divide governance of the territories pending the outcome of the negotiations on the permanent status.

It also ignores the indigenous rights of the Jewish people in the area as well as the internationally acknowledged historical and legal claims of the Jewish people regarding the area, as recognized in such instruments as the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1920 San Remo Declaration, the 1922 League of Nations Mandate instrument, and reaffirmed in Article 80 of the UN Charter.

The establishment of settlements by Israel in the territories, in accordance with its prerogatives under international law as the governing authority in the territory, cannot in any way be seen as any form of colonialization. The use of non-privately-owned public land for settlement or agriculture is entirely consistent with accepted international norms as long as the status of the land is not changed pending its final negotiated outcome.

Pursuant to the Oslo Accords, settlements are an agreed issue of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to determine the permanent status of the territories, together with other issues such as borders, refugees, security, economic interests, and Jerusalem.

In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed ‘holocausts’; Scholz grimaces but is silent

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas caused shock in Germany Tuesday when, standing beside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, he accused Israel of committing “holocausts” against Palestinians over the years.

Scholz did not react verbally to Abbas’s comment in the moment, though he grimaced at the use of the word, which Abbas uttered in English. Scholz later said the use of the term in such a context was “unbearable.”

Abbas made his remarks when the two spoke to the media after holding a meeting on Middle East issues.

Abbas was responding to a reporter’s question about the upcoming anniversary of the Munich massacre half a century ago. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer died after members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took hostages at the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was linked to Abbas’s Fatah party.

Asked whether as Palestinian leader he planned to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of the 50th anniversary, Abbas responded instead by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947.

“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas, who was speaking Arabic, told the reporters.

“I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed….50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” he said, taking care to pronounce the final word in English.

Scholz scowled at the use of the word but did not say anything.

'Apartheid' not true description of Israeli-Palestinian conflict - Scholz

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected the word apartheid to describe relations between Israel and the Palestinian Territories after a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

"Naturally we have a different assessment with a view to Israeli politics, and I want to expressly say here that I do not espouse the use of the word apartheid and do not think it correctly describes the situation," said Scholz during a joint news conference with Abbas in Berlin on Tuesday.

Germany's stance on Israel
In March, Scholz made a visit to Israel after being invited in December 2021 by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet. Bennet and Scholz visited Yad Vashem where he reaffirmed Germany's commitment to Israel's security.

"Germany will continue to be steadfast at Israeli's side," Scholz said.

Palestinian site Amad discusses a new song by anti-Israel folksinger David Rovics, celebrating British antisemites who broke into Elbit Systems and destroyed equipment.

I hadn't heard that name in years.

Back in 2010, I saw that Rovics had a series of really bad, barely sung songs that were rabidly anti-Israel and aligned with other "social justice" issues.

While Rovics has a song to praise the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, he seems to lose interest in Jews fighting when they actually win. Similarly, he has a song about how terrible it was for Jews and Muslims to be expelled from Christian Europe - but he says that Jews are European and Israelis are Nazis.

And while I am sure he would insist he is not in any way antisemitic, one of his more recent songs ironically titled "God Bless the USA" lists the things he hates about America - which includes "Jewish bankers."

Here are the lyrics from the beginning so no one can accuse me of taking it out of context.

God bless all the Indians living in their reservations
God bless all the strippers and their bodily gyrations
God bless Trump Towers reaching up so high
God bless the Blue Angels screaming through the sky
God bless Appalachia, mountains and moonshine
God bless the creeks, bulldozers and strip mines
God bless the megachurches and all of those who speak in tongues
God bless the corporate ladder, every single rung
God bless the homeless families living under bridges
God bless the golden valleys and the mountain ridges
God bless the beaches and the swamps and the alligators
God bless the NFL and the Oakland Raiders
God bless the USA

God bless the conspiracy theorists and the Jewish bankers
God bless ExxonMobil and all their oil tankers
God bless Clearchannel, Toby Keith and Taylor Swift
God bless anorexia, lyposuction and facelifts
God bless the mighty rivers and the nuclear reactors
God bless Fox, Rupert Murdoch and X Factor
God bless the USA

Yeah, this sounds antisemitic to me. (He could have said "their Jewish bankers" if he meant that they were part of the conspiracy theory.)

At the time, I wrote my own song, with an accurate history of the Palestinian people, called "Pawns of the Middle East." I didn't bother working too hard on rhyming and meter, because Rovics sure doesn't.

The pawns of the Middle East

In 1948 their leaders abandoned them

The rich Arabs packed up and went to Lebanon
Their confident leaders told them to get out of the way
So the Jews could be slaughtered and then they'll be back to stay

But that's not what happened. Their fighters didn't fight.
Wild rumors scared them, and most then joined the flight
They ended up in Egypt, Syria, Jordan
The Palestinian Arabs thought they'd start over again

They thought that they'd be welcomed by the Arabs who said that they loved them
But they were placed in giant camps, and had to stay in tents
They thought that they were all Arabs, but they were only that in name
The other Arabs didn't want them to remind them of their shame

Chorus:
Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

They wanted jobs, they wanted land, they wanted to fit in
Their hosts only wanted the millions given by the UN
They kept them stuck in camps, in disgusting misery
They did everything possible to ensure they'd never be free.

The Arab states passed laws to let them know where they stand
They couldn't work in certain jobs, couldn't own any land
They had no choice, no rights, no control over their fate
And they raised a generation who was taught nothing but hate.

Chorus

Jordan never gave them an inch of "historic Palestine"
The entire world had no problem. They thought that this was fine.
The only land that Arabs would allow them to receive
Was the land that would be left over when they forced the Jews to leave.

Their new leaders taught terror, for them not to be so meek
Jordan slaughtered thousands of them in a matter of just weeks
And so it went, year after year, kept in dire straits
400,000 of them got kicked out of Kuwait

Decade after decade, the Arabs let them down
They treated them like animals, and just used them as pawns
They thought that their problem was that they didn't have a state
But the real problem was that they were taught only to hate.

At the time, I found someone to actually sing this for me, but unfortunately my YouTube channel was taken down and I cannot find the original video anymore.

So if anyone wants to record this folksong, I'll make a new video.

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!

This article was published in August, 1947 in the Edmonton Journal:

Life Of Jews In Arab Lands
By Gerold Frank

JERUSALEM - The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, now deliberating at Geneva, may ponder the true situation of Jews in Arab states—their treatment, discrimination against them, the entire suffocating framework in which the average Jew finds himself.

Arab spokesmen. seeking to prove the idyllic status of a Jewish minority in the independent Arab Palestine they demand, are always ready to point out the general lack of anti-Jewish laws on the books in the Arab States. But there is a long step between statute and practice. The fact is that the lives of Jews in all Arab states range from generally unenviable to intolerable; from Egypt where the situation of Jews, many of whom are wealthy, is comparatively the best, to Yemen. a backward country where the Jews are the lowest of the low.

It must be remembered that religion in the Middle East is a much more divisive factor than ,in the West, Religion is the basis of social mores: communities are religious communities. Fear, suspicion and hate have deep roots. Add to this the fact that Jews in Arab lands are mainly in commercial pursuits, vulnerable economically and subject to envy if successful; add also the nationalistic propaganda and anti-Zionist movements, and one better understands the Jewish plight.

Take the roll-call of countries.
First, Iraq. Here is the largest Jewish population of any Arab state-130,000 Jews out of 4.000,000 inhabitants. Of the Jewish total, 100,000 live in Bagdad. There were frightful pogroms in Bagdad in June. 1941. The temper of the Iraqi was best expressed by Pedal Jamaili, minister of foreign affairs. who declared, according to the Iraqi Times of March 3, 1946. "The problem of i protecting the Jews of Iraq when disturbances occur in Palestine often is a cause of anxiety and restlessness in Iraq. No Iraq government can for long maintain peace and quiet unless justice is rendered the Arabs of Palestine." This last sentence may not constitute official incitement, but it comes suspiciously close to it.

Today, Iraq Jews are unable to leave the country on the grounds that they might go to Palestine. When a Jew can leave—a medical student, for example—he must pay 2,000 dinars ($8.000) as warrant for his return and his passport is stamped "not valid for Palestine." In Iraq. anti-Jewish laws are kept off the records. but Iraq's raw materials are not currently permitted to be exported to Palestine; the government has begun a boycott of the Haifa port by insisting that exporters send their goods to Europe through Beirut. in the Lebanon. There is a campaign of vilification against Jewish merchants, charging they are trying to break the boycott, in league with Jewish colleagues in Palestine.

In Iraq today there is no Jewish magistrate, and no Jews of any country. including the United States, are granted transit visas.

Second. Syria. Here are 10,000 Jews-2.500 in Damascus, 7,500 in Aleppo. The Damascus Jews are in a sorry state. Half live on charity funds contributed by Jewish societies. Eighty percent of the Jews are peddlers. 15 percent are in the middle class and five percent, are '"wealthy." There are six Jewish physicians, but no Jewish industrialists, lawyers. architects or other professionals. Discrimination is practiced in many ways. Thousands of Syrians flock to Palestine in times of emergency, but if one Jew is caught on the border, the entire press launches a campaign. Today Syria makes it virtually impossible for Jews to go to Palestine. There are almost no Jewish officials in the Syrian government. Jewish newspapers are not permitted to enter Syria, and when the Syrian press has occasion to speak of Jews it is often derogatory.

In June. 1946, a regulation was adopted, reading: "Any person who imports. sells. buys or smuggles or tries to smuggle Zionist goods into Syria is liable to life imprisonment or death." In recent elections based on the new constitution, Jews were accorded one parliamentary seat out of 137. At first they refused this, not wishing to have the responsibility. They turned out to be prophetic, for when Jewish Deputy Wahid Mizrachi was elected, he declared he would be faithful to his people and his fatherland. The newspaper Alif Ba of July 15, 1947, demanded, "What people and what fatherland?"

Third, the Lebanon. Jews from Palestine are not freely allowed Into the Lebanon. Even when the United Nations committee went there, it took official protests to force the Lebanese government to grant visas to a handful of Palestinian Hebrew journalists. The Lebanon today has 6.000 Jews in a population of more than 1,000.000. with the Jews mainly concentrated in Beirut. There is outwardly less discrimination than in other Arab countries because of various population groups such as the Sunnites, Kurds, Armenians and indigenous Christians. The Maronite Patriarch Aridas is a friend of the Jews, Nevertheless. when Jewish students from the United States came to Palestine last year, they were not permitted to disembark at the port of Beirut although other passengers were. Today, large signs on the Palestine-Lebanese border warn against bringing in "Zionist" goods, which means any Jewish-made goods of any kind.

Fourth, Egypt. There are 70.000 Jews in a population of 17.000,000. Their situation is economically good, but their future is uncertain because of the "Egyptization" of commerce and industry and intensified xenophobia. All accountings of companies, for example, must be written in Arabic, which means that many Jews are replaced. Many Jewish companies are compelled to take Egyptian partners.

Many Jews do not have Egyptian nationality. This correspondent has seen one Jew proudly unlock a safe and show a certificate of his Egyptian nationality, saying. "This is my most precious possession. very hard to obtain; it is my safeguard for the future." Without this certificate, Jews have no defence against the government.

There are currently intense nationalistic anti-Jewish campaigns. Only three months ago the newspaper Al Saw. adi denounced Jews in terms reminiscent of Goebbels.

Fifth. Yemen. Here is an incredible situation for 45 000 Jews in a population of 1,000,000. The treatment of Jews is so bad that even the Arabic paper Aid Ba of Damascus attacked it, pointing out on January 2. 1945, that Jews are not permitted to ride horses—only donkeys: that if a Jew riding a donkey sees a Moslem ahead of him, he must dismount 30 paces away, wait until the Moslem passes, then mount the donkey again when the Moslem has gone another 30 paces; that a Jew must pass only to the right of a Moslem, and if he does otherwise the Moslem is entitled to force him to return and pass correctly.

Saudi Arabia and Transjordan need no discussion because they have no Jews and no Jews are permitted.

The things cited here are examples only. but where such things are tolerated, where Jews are continuously and relentlessly held up to ridicule, denounced as dangerous, called a menace to the community and segregated by word, deed and act-in such a framework the life of the average Jew is an endless ordeal of accumulating cruelty and helplessness. (Copyright 1947. Overseas News Agency)

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!

08/16 Links Pt1: Palestinian response to terror on Israelis shows why peace is impossible; EU funds NGO agendas seeking to undermine Israeli counter-terror policies

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Palestinian response to terror on Israelis shows why peace is impossible

A nation, said John F. Kennedy in October 1963, just a month before he was assassinated, “reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”

How true, not only of nations, but also different societies, and segments within those societies. Whom do they honor? Whom do they lionize? So much can be learned about people by understanding who their heroes are. Are their heroes celebrities or scientists? Athletes or teachers? Multibillionaires or social workers?

It is in this vein that The Jerusalem Post’s lead headline on Monday was so terribly troubling and so dismally depressing: “Palestinian terror groups applaud Jerusalem attack, call for more ‘heroic operations.’”

A Palestinian terrorist goes on a shooting spree in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, wounding eight innocent people – including critically wounding an American Jewish woman in her 26th week of pregnancy who is shot in the stomach – and the reaction of a segment of Palestinian society is to term the operation “heroic,” thereby coronating its perpetrator a hero. Why can't the conflict be solved?

Those well-meaning people around the world who can’t understand why the Israelis and Palestinians can’t just find a way to solve their problems and move on already, need to look no further than that headline to understand.

How is peace possible with those who view as heroic the shooting in the stomach of a woman in her 26th week of pregnancy? How is peace possible with people who put in their pantheon of heroes the person who carried out such an attack? What kind of accommodation can possibly be made with those who view an act so despicable as one that is heroic?

Abbas cheers shooting of Americans (but gets a big check from U.S. anyway)

As five Americans and three Israelis lie wounded in a Jerusalem hospital, some of them fighting for their lives, the official web site of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is praising the terrorist who shot them.

Yes, the same Abbas who will be receiving more than $500 million in aid from the Biden administration this year. Most of the money will be channeled through third parties, but it’s all fungible—it covers bills that Abbas and the PA would have to pay if the U.S. wasn’t paying them.

Abbas is chairman of both the PA and Fatah, which is the largest faction of the PA. Abbas was a leader of Fatah for many years under Yasir Arafat, before succeeding him as chairman.

Here is what Abbas’s official Fatah website had to say about the shooting attack on the Americans and Israelis in Jerusalem:

“Praise to the one whose rifle only speaks against his enemy. Long live our people’s unity and long live the free hero. Praise to the rifle muzzles, our people will fight the occupation with all kinds of resistance.” (Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch)

According to my data base, at least 146 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the 1968. The international community has largely forgotten them.

Even more forgotten—if that’s possible—are the wounded. At least 203 American citizens have been injured in Palestinian Arab attacks. Very often, their names are not even mentioned in the media coverage until days after.

The Biden administration hosts a web site which offers monetary rewards for information leading to the arrest of terrorists who have harmed Americans overseas. Yet as far as I can tell, it has never paid a reward in connection with Palestinian Arab terrorists who have harmed Americans; there are none listed in the “Success Stories” section of the site (rewardsforjustice.net) .

The Biden administration has an Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism. It has never brought about the arrest of a single Palestinian Arab terrorist involved in attacks on Americans—even though the names of many of the terrorists are publicly known, because they serve in the Palestinian security forces or other Palestinian Authority government positions.

The Biden administration recently invited the family of the late Al Jazeera correspondent, Shireen Abu Akleh, to Washington to meet with American officials. Yet Arnold Roth, the father of Malki Roth—murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem in 2001—reports that the administration has ignored his repeated requests to meet with U.S. officials in Washington.

NGO Monitor: EU funds NGO agendas seeking to undermine European and Israeli counter-terror policies

On February 1, 2022, the highly politicized and terror-linked Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) – an umbrella organization of over 135 Palestinian organizations – hosted an EU-funded conference, titled ”Shrinking Civic Space for Palestinian Civil Society Organizations: Local and International Policies.” The gathering included a workshop “focused on the strategies and mechanisms needed to combat counter-terrorism policies, regulations, and policies (sic)” (emphasis added).

The conference was attended by Head of the EU Delegation to the West Bank and Gaza Strip Sven Kühn Von Burgsdoff (see below). The event marked the launch of a €588,299 EU-funded project (2021-2024), “Shoraka: Enabling the Environment of CSOs [civil society organizations] in Palestine and Participation of Grassroots Organisations in Decisions Making Process and Constituency Building,” with the primary official objective of seeking “to mitigate and reverse the shrinking space trends, to amplify the Palestinian narrative and the effectiveness of Palestinian advocacy efforts in the EU/EUMS [EU member states]”.

During the conference, Von Burgsdoff referred to Israel’s October 2021 designation of six Palestinian NGOs – including PNGO member organizations – as terrorist entities. He declared, “with concern we have followed alarming incidents recently where human rights defenders, activists, and civil society organizations were subject to unprecedented violations whether in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Gaza. In this context, our position remains principled and unchanged: civil society is and will remain our partner as we promote together the human values and principles that we share.”

As such, Von Burgsdoff appears to be promoting noncompliance with the EU’s own anti-terror policies, which require grantees to ensure that no aid reaches terror groups or entities.

Israel’s October 2021 decision, as well as the other “incidents” (security-related actions) referred to by Von Burgsdoff, are wholly consistent with EU policy and broader efforts to address the problem of terror-linked NGOs.

The multiple links between a number of Palestinian NGOs funded primarily by the EU and other European government frameworks have been documented in detail in NGO research publications.

By Daled Amos

Even before being confirmed as Antisemitism Envoy this past March, Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt was outspoken on the weaponization of the Holocaust.

In a 2011 interview with Haaretz, Lipstadt condemned what she called "Holocaust abuse"

Renowned Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt says that American and Israeli politicians who invoke the Holocaust for contemporary political purposes are engaging in “Holocaust abuse”, which is similar to “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust...

“When you take these terrible moments in our history, and you use it for contemporary purposes, in order to fulfill your political objectives, you mangle history, you trample on it,” she said. [emphasis added]

Despite taking that stand, Lipstadt came to Biden's defense when, while on the campaign trail in 2020, he compared Trump with a Nazi:

He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge.

In that case, Lipstadt defended Biden:

Goebbels was very successful at what he did, and I think the comparison by Vice President Biden was a very apt comparison because we’re seeing a lot of this now.

This was all when Lipstadt, as a Holocaust historian, was addressing the use of references to the Holocaust -- on the question of whether the Holocaust comparison was being manipulated by Biden in attacking his political opponent.

Now that she is US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, will Lipstadt publicly address the politicization of the charge of antisemitism when it is being used to silence a political opponent?

At issue is the following tweet by Senator Rubio:

The senator is criticizing the $749 billion Inflation Reduction Act, particularly what he considers wasteful spending -- contending that crime prevention is more important for most Americans than a tax break on an electric car.

Rubio references George Soros, the Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire, who is funding the campaigns of many progressive candidates in local district attorney races. According to one account, 24 of these candidates were elected, establishing policies that opponents argue are "soft on crime," because the DAs often choose not to prosecute various criminal offenses.

The reaction to Rubio's tweet was heated, accusing him of antisemitism because he mentioned Soros by name.

Congressman Jerry Nadler:

NBC News contributor Joyce Alene:

Actor George Takei:

Reporter Helen Kennedy:

Columnist Max Boot:

Journalist Soledad O'Brien:

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten:

In an op-ed in Newsweek, Joel Petlin -- school superintendent of the Kiryas Joel school district in Orange County, NY -- decries The Mislabeling of Antisemitism. He writes that while Holocaust propaganda and global conspiracies are out of bounds, while

What is completely acceptable, on the other hand, is to engage in debate over an individual's policies or statements—such as Soros's position on Israel, support for the BDS movement, and embrace of antisemites like congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. The fact that Soros is a Jew should be completely irrelevant to a discussion on the policies he backs.

This is particularly true in the case of George Soros, who makes no secret of what he is doing and why, having written an op-ed just a few weeks ago that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, entitled Why I Support Reform Prosecutors.

Surely his opponents have the right to respond.

As for Rubio himself, Petlin points out that he is a long-time supporter of Jewish institutions, the safety of Israel, and Holocaust education.

Also worth pointing out is the fact that mentioning the name "Soros" did not always bring out accusations of antisemitism.

In an article in Tablet, James Kirchick describes The Sanctification of George Soros: How the left stopped worrying about Soros the billionaire and learned to love Soros ‘the Jew’. He points to the 1995 New Yorker article The World According to George Soros, which delves into his Jewish roots and Politico's George Soros' quiet overhaul of the U.S. justice system in 2016, which reported on the beginnings of Soros's plan to elect liberal district attorneys. There were no accusations of antisemitism in response to either article.

Not even when Saturday Night Live had a skit in 2008 that ran a chyron describing Soros as the "owner of the Democratic Party:

But attitudes have changed.

Now we live during a time when there are people who, to borrow Lipstadt's language, use the accusation of antisemitism "for contemporary political purposes...in order to fulfill political objectives."

Here is an opportunity for the antisemitism envoy to speak out in this political battlefield -- not to take sides on the issue, but rather to use this instance (or the next one, which will inevitably turn up) -- as a teaching moment to illustrate what antisemitism actually is and when it is inaccurate and appropriate to use such a description.

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!

Antisemitic Arabs have been claiming that the Jews are planning to destroy Al Aqsa since the Mufti of Jerusalem made up that lie a century ago.

The latest version of the libel comes from a "secret five point plan" from Israel that Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today has allegedly uncovered.

The five points are:

- Weakening the walls of Al-Aqsa, in preparation for their downfall or demolition, by emptying the land areas from below.

- Continuation of the excavations under the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which weakens the walls of the mosque.

- Impeding any attempt to restore the walls.

- Causing stones to fall from Al-Aqsa Mosque and its walls.

- The great danger that threatens Al-Aqsa and its walls at the present time, which threatens collapse all the time.

All five points sound similar to me, but when it is presented as a five point plan, it sounds much more legitimate, like they found a document or something. Of course, the exact same charges that Israeli excavations are meant to weaken and destroy Al Aqsa have been claimed for decades as well.

So, why haven't the Jews destroyed Al Aqsa yet?

Must be because the brave Muslims have been "defending" it!

That is the narrative for over a hundred years - and I have yet to see any Palestinian say, if they wanted to destroy it, they would have done it by now.

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Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is really, really trying hard to spin Operation Breaking Dawn as a victory.

The latest delusional logic comes from a Palestine Today interview of PIJ political bureau member Dr. Walid al-Qatati.

“The loss of the martyrs, especially the great leaders, saddens and pains us and leaves a great void for their families and their movement, but this does not affect the course of jihad, but rather increases it strength and vitality. vitality on the march of jihad and resistance until victory," al-Qatati stated.

If killing PIJ leaders strengthens the movement, then by all means, let's continue!

Al Qatati says that Israel tried to drive a wedge between Islamic Jihad, Hamas and ordinary Gazans, but it failed to do so. He doesn't really explain why Hamas didn't join the battle, though, or why even Islamic Jihad never claimed to be acting on behalf of Gazans.

He also claims that Israel is hiding the extent of damage and injuries from Islamic Jihad rockets, because - apparently - Israel controls its media so well.

And what about the accomplishments that Islamic Jihad claimed when the fighting stopped, that Israel agreed to release two prisoners who have not been released? He brushes that aside, saying that Israel is procrastinating, but the battle has achieved the most important goals of hurting Israeli security, the continuation of the flame of jihad and resistance, and the affirmation of the unity of all the battlefields of national struggle in Palestine.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Islamic Jihad officials privately admit that the deaths of their leaders was a major blow to them.

One senior Islamic Jihad leader told AFP that the commanders killed were replaced “within minutes,” but Ahmed al-Mudallal, from the group’s political bureau, acknowledged the impact.

“This round was difficult,” he told AFP. “We lost many major military leaders that were important to us.”

Mudallal’s son Ziad — an Islamic Jihad officer — was killed alongside senior commander Khaled Mansour in a strike in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.

That AFP article also notes that, unlike the wars waged by Hamas, Gazans gained nothing from this mini-war - no concessions from Israel on loosening the closure, for example. Islamic Jihad's reputation in Gaza is in tatters between the selfish goals of the war to get Israel to release one of their leaders, to the rockets that PIJ shot into Gaza killing many civilians, to not extracting any concessions from Israel to stop the fighting.

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08/15 Links Pt2: It's time for Amnesty International's candle to be extinguished; David Collier: An open letter to Edinburgh Council – are you in bed with terrorists?

From Ian:

It's time for Amnesty International's candle to be extinguished - opinion

The resignation of Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard is no longer enough to serve justice. It is time for Amnesty International to complete its 60-year mission and go down in history, before all memories of the heroic days of the struggle for human rights have faded. The scandal with the Ukrainian report is a moment that Amnesty should seize and close its doors forever. It is the only remaining honorable exit, worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Unfortunately, Amnesty International did not understand this and thus it condemned itself to a shameful and painful end. And not only itself, but also all its predecessors who fought against torture in the past six decades, including the founding father of Amnesty, Peter Benenson.

“It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness,” wrote this British lawyer back in 1961 in a famous article for The Observer, in which he demanded the release of two Portuguese students, victims of Salazar’s dictatorship and thus laid the foundation of one of the largest global organizations for the protection of human rights. Looking at his successors today, Benenson would probably say – “It is better to extinguish the candle than to celebrate the darkness.”

With the report on Ukraine, Amnesty International celebrated the darkness and helped to make it even thicker. Accusing Ukraine of knowingly sacrificing civilians by deploying its military forces in residential areas is an unforgivable support for the worst human rights violation the world has seen since World War II.

With this report, Amnesty has done the greatest service to Russian aggression since it began almost six months ago. Incomparably greater than all its propagandists have achieved together since February 24. This is a service for which the Kremlin would gladly give billions, because that’s what it will really be worth, if Amnesty International survives and continues to work as it has been working until now.

Gerald M. Steinberg: False Accusations and Ideological Bias

In his critique of Amnesty’s report, Tom Mutch describes an encounter with Rovera during her “investigations”:
In May this year, I was sat around a table with Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior Crisis researcher predicting their upcoming report would land like a lead balloon. We were in the kitchen of our hotel in Kramatorsk, the administrative capital of Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk and we could hear the boom of artillery outside our windows every hour.

Rather than expressing shock at the relentless Russian bombardment, the Amnesty staff seemed much more concerned with the fact that a Ukrainian army unit had taken refuge in the basement of a college building.

We’d all been to the building: an abandoned language school in the frontline town of Bakhmut which had been turned into a temporary barracks for a Ukrainian unit. This is not a war crime. A military is perfectly entitled to set up in an evacuated educational institution, although of course that building can no longer claim civilian protection and there was a mainly abandoned civilian apartment block over the road, which had not been fully evacuated.

But Rovera was insistent that this military presence in a populated area was a “violation of international humanitarian law”’. When I pressed her on how the Ukrainian Army was supposed to defend a populated area, she said that it was irrelevant.

In many respects, this exchange summarizes the absence of credibility—both factual and legal—in these NGO attempts to investigate and report on conflict, and to assign blame. The same fundamental flaws in Amnesty’s report on the Ukraine, and the allegations of “putting civilians in harm’s way” have been documented in numerous other reports, particularly in the attempts to delegitimize Israeli responses to war and mass terror. Amnesty’s researchers, like those of HRW or the UN Human Rights Council, are not experts and do not even attempt to provide credible and verifiable sources to support what are often their pre-determined conclusions. Their judgments on international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict are no more than opinions, exploiting the ambiguity and largely theoretical nature of this discourse.

The sooner journalists, academics, diplomats, UN officials, and others acknowledge this reality, and the hollow state of the NGO campaigns based on these illusions, the better. More than enough damage, much of it irreversible, has already been caused by “reports” based on false accusations and ideological bias.

Sbarro and Malki Roth remembered via JM in the AM

Coinciding with the twenty-first anniversary of the Hamas bombing attack on a Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria, Nachum Segal hosted Arnold Roth, father of Malki Roth who was one of the fifteen innocents murdered in the atrocity. Arnold took part by phone from Jerusalem.

They discussed Keren Malki (the Malki Foundation) and the ongoing efforts to get terrorist Ahlam Tamimi extradited from Jordan to the US to face federal charges and more.

Nachum Segal, as recounted in Wikipedia, is an American radio disc jockey. He has hosted the program Jewish Moments in the Morning (commonly abbreviated as JM in the AM) since September 1983.

Every morning from 6 to 9, Segal runs his show incorporating music, interviews, news reports and much more. The Nachum Segal Network has a number of different programs during the non-morning hours (schedule here).

According to Wikipedia, Segal's advocacy for social causes and his longevity has propelled JM in the AM to be regarded as the radio program of record in the Jewish world. He is known for analyzing and probing issues from the perspective of the Jewish world. Influential members of the political world – from ambassadors to senators to Members of Kness
et – have sought time on the air and joined Segal in the studio. JM in the AM has been called the "Voice of Klal Yisrael (The Whole of Israel)".

Click the button above to hear an audio record of the program.

A member of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars and an advisor at the Saudi Royal Court, Sheikh Dr. Saad bin Nasser Al-Shathri, called on the Saudis to be kind to Jews who visit the Kingdom.

During a fatwa program on "Alif Alif" radio, a listener asked how a Muslim should treat a Jew who visits the kingdom.

Al-Shathri responded that “not every Jew is an Israeli, and a Muslim must approach God by kindness in dealing with all people,” warning against “being deceived by malicious propaganda and rumours.”

The cleric pointed out that Mohammed had good relations with some Jews.

“A person must draw closer to Allah by showing kindness to all people, of whatever religion they are,” he added.

"People must abide by these instructions and these etiquettes that were brought by Islamic Sharia, with regard to good logic and beautiful speech.. A kind word is charity, as the Holy Prophet said.”

He added the need to "provide assistance to others, whatever their religion, so that the Muslim can be a good model, and provide correct propaganda to introduce Islam."

Although it appears that some Jews have managed to visit Saudi Arabia for business over the years, they have kept a low profile. Lately that has been changing, as Israelis have been allowed into the Kingdom as well under special circumstances.

Even though the answer seems to say at the end that it is allowed to treat Jews well in order to ultimately attract them to Islam, the answer itself is pretty good.

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Palestinian media, whether Hamas or not, consistently refers to the victims of the terror attack in Jerusalem this past weekend as "settlers."

The rest of the Arab world, however, has been referring to them as Jews or Israelis.

This may seem like a minor matter, but up until recently the nomenclature would be consistent - the Arab world would follow how Palestinians spun stories.

Palestinian media calling the victims "settlers" makes it appear as if they deserved to be attacked. Calling them "Jews" or "Israelis" makes the attacker the guilty party, except for inveterate antisemites reading the article.

Baby steps....

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

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08/15 Links Pt1: Trump letter authorized Israeli sovereignty in West Bank; The West cannot do business with Iran; Islamic Jihad Rocket Killed Hamas Policeman and His Three Children

From Ian:

Trump letter authorized Israeli sovereignty in West Bank - exclusive

Former U.S. president Donald Trump authorized then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the West Bank, in a letter obtained by the Jerusalem Post on Sunday. In a three-page letter dated January 26, 2020, two days before Trump presented his Vision for Peace at the White House, the president said that Israel would be able to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, as delineated in the map included in the plan, if Netanyahu agreed to a Palestinian state in the remaining territory on that map.

Trump asked Netanyahu to adopt "the policies outlined in...the Vision regarding those territories of the West Bank identified as becoming part of a future Palestinian state. In exchange for Israel implementing these policies and formally adopting detailed territorial plans not inconsistent with the Conceptual Map attached to my Vision - the United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty in those areas of the West Bank that my vision contemplates as being part of Israel."

A Trump administration source closely involved with the president's letter said that "it was a key part of Israel's acceptance of the Vision for Peace as the framework for negotiations for America to accept sovereignty up front, as per the mapping process and the plan, and for all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley to be included." At the White House on January 28, 2020, Trump said: "The United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel. Very important."

Palestinian Authority condemns Trump’s ‘annexation’ letter to Netanyahu

A statement issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned what was revealed in the letter, saying it was “official piracy and extension of the ominous Deal of the Century,” a reference to Trump’s Vision for Peace for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The letter is “an integral part of the previous US administration’s endorsement of, and absolute support for, the occupation and its racist expansionist colonial projects,” the statement said.

The letter and Trump’s “anti-peace plan have no legal validity, will not give any legitimacy to the massive annexation of the occupied West Bank, and is considered a blatant aggression against international law, international legitimacy resolutions and signed agreements,” it said.

“The content of this colonial letter collapsed with the downfall of the Deal of the Century, which was thwarted by the steadfastness of our people and our leadership,” the PA said.

David Singer: Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine: Vote winner for Lapid, Gantz, or Bibi

With Israeli elections due in October – the major players vying to become Israel’s next Prime Minister – current caretaker PM -Yair Lapid, current Minister of Defence - Benny Gantz and current Opposition Leader - Bibi Netanyahu have yet to issue any statement on the Saudi plan released on 8 June to merge Jordan, Gaza and part of the 'West Bank' into a single territorial entity to be called 'The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine'.

The Plan’s author - Ali Shihabi – is a confidant of Saudi Arabia’s next King – Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and a member of the Advisory Council appointed by Bin Salman advising him on his personally-driven initiative - a $500 billion development called NEOM - a megacity of the future like none other on this planet – to be built in Northern Saudi Arabia on an expanse of land equal to the size of Israel.

The Saudi Solution offers a lot to excite Lapid, Gantz, Netanyahu and their respective political parties with these game-changing features:
The plan reverses two previous Saudi peace proposals in 1981 and 2002 calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the 'West Bank'.
The two-state solution –the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab State between Jordan and Israel – pushed unsuccessfully by the United Nations for the last 29 years and by the European Union since 1980 - is consigned to the diplomatic graveyard
Jerusalem will not be claimed as the capital of 'The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine' – whose capital would be Amman.
The right of return to Israel is abandoned
Citizenship would be offered in the 'Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine' to Palestinian Arab refugees living outside the boundaries of the new entity.

Promising voters to negotiate with Jordan on implementing this Saudi Plan is an assured vote winner.

The most contentious issues in such Israel-Jordan negotiations would be:
Israel’s security concerns in relation to the territory of the new entity West of the Jordan River - where demilitarization and responsibility for maintaining security control would be issues on the negotiating table
The carve up of the 'West Bank' and Gaza - where Israel and Jordan would have a good map to focus on for starters – President Trump’s 2020 Conceptual Maps “Vision for Peace”