Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 08, 2022

Egyptian academic, expert on China, is losing her mind in real time

Dr. Nadia Helmy's bio states that she is Associate Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Politics and Economics / Beni Suef University- Egypt. An Expert in Chinese Politics, Sino-Israeli relationships, and Asian affairs- Visiting Senior Researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)/ Lund University, Sweden- Director of the South and East Asia Studies Unit. She has made numerous appearances on Egyptian TV as a pundit.

She is also going insane.

It looks like she published some serious papers about China's relations with the Arab world, but in recent months she has also been publishing nutty conspiracy theories - and asserting her genius even as she notes that everyone else thinks she is going crazy.

A European site called Modern Diplomacy apparently publishes her writings without any editor looking at it. They look to be Google translations from Arabic. Here is the first paragraph of an article of hers from August 4:

What occupied me the most during the last period after the control of the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Mossad on a number of those around me, including: professors, colleagues and relatives, was to spread the story of my madness everywhere, despite my severe isolation from everyone, due to my strict academic and analytical intelligence nature, which completely compels me to move away about all aspects of luxury or racing to get to know others for purely security reasons, related to my personal safety, for being targeted by the Israeli Mossad and the American Central Intelligence for many years, which made me very sorry, for the decline of morals of some, and their selling of their conscience and morals at any price for a few pounds will end It is implemented quickly, but it has caused harm to a person who was looking for restoring the dignity and prestige of the Arabs and helping them dismantle all the American and Israeli spy networks in the Middle East and the region, as well as preparing new generations capable of challenging and imposing and dictating their conditions on everyone with strictness and firmness. But, in the midst of this struggle, I was shocked by the morals of many around me, who sold and betrayed at a cheap price.

Wow.

Her August 25 article starts off by saying that she was attacked in the Beijing Chabad House, but she received an apology from the Israeli government - because, obviously, Israel controls Chabad:

After my study on the ground, the real situations of the Chinese Judaizers from Kaifeng Province in China, I have exposed to many risks, such as attacking me in the “Chabad House of Beijing for the Jewish prayers”. But, after my official complaint, I have received an official Israeli letter of apology addressed to me after the attack on me in the Chinese capital, “Beijing”, to prevent me from studying the file of Judaization and conscription for the Chinese in the Israel Defense Forces…

This paragraph, filled with equal parts paranoia and self-aggrandizement, is all a single sentence:

After studying this file on the conversion and recruitment of the Chinese in the IDF, and the intimidation and intimidation that happened to me after that, my whole life changed completely from just an ordinary girl, to a brilliant international academic, after whom the world came to understand the dimensions of her case, from studying the file of Kaifeng Jews and their recruitment in the Israeli Defense Army, and the dramatic changes that occurred in my entire life, and Israeli and American intelligence pressures, to force me to overlook several points, and not to shed light on them, so that neither the Arabs nor their ministries of defense and defense, military, intelligence and security institutions would understand all the circumstances of my case with evidence, and the reasons for those pressures which I suffer from, to force me to muzzle and close my mouth, and not to be exposed to the pictures and recruitment points of the Chinese Judaizers from the Chinese Kaifeng region in the Israel Defense Forces, to the point of spreading madness, so that no one understands my case with them specifically, and so that no one, Egyptian, Arab and international, listens to me, to understand well the circumstances of the case and what Israel and its Zionist organizations are doing in China, in terms of recruiting Chinese, especially young people from the Chinese Kaifeng region, then transferring them to Tel Aviv, training and enrolling them The Israeli Ministry of Defense, to use them in the future to fight the Arabs and our sons in the Gaza Strip in Palestine.

The rambling article claims that the IDF recruits Chinese mercenaries from Kaifeng, converts them to Judaism, and uses those and many other foreign mercenaries as cannon fodder while the real Jews stay away from the fighting. She then recommends that China plant its own spies to join the IDF and send the intelligence to its Arab allies.

As crazy as that is, this week she published in Arabic a long article that is close to unreadable, but the upshot is that Beijing International Airport has a non-denomintional prayer room where Jews and Muslims can both pray - and the Mossad is taking advantage of that by photographing the unsuspecting Muslim worshipers. She somehow relates this to Jews in the Temple Mount.

Normally I make fun of Arab conspiracy theorists, but this woman seems to have a real medical condition and it is frightening that we can track what may very well be a severe brain disorder in real time.

And she can still publish freely, which is more a reflection of the media than her.

Helmy's Twitter account is suspended. Who knows what she had written there.

Nadia, if you are seeing this by Googling your name, I know you have no reason to listen to me, but, please, seek help.

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Why no investigation into the THIRTEEN journalists killed by US troops in Iraq in only two years?

Axios reports:

Israel on Wednesday rejected the U.S. call for it to review the Israel Defense Forces' rules of engagement in the West Bank as part of accountability steps for the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Tuesday that the Biden administration will continue to press Israel “to closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement” of the IDF in the occupied West Bank.

He said this is needed in order “to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, protect journalists and prevent similar tragedies."

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid expressed "sorrow" over Abu Akleh's death on Wednesday but said "no one will dictate our rules of engagement to us, when we are the ones fighting for our lives."

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that the "IDF’s chief of the general staff, and he alone, determines, and will continue to determine the rules of engagement in accordance with our operational needs and values of the IDF."

"These instructions are implemented in a strict manner by soldiers and their commanders. There has not been, and there will not be any political involvement in the matter," Gantz said.

Is the US in a position to lecture Israel about rules of engagement and protecting journalists in wartime?

Based on statistics from the US occupation of Iraq, not at all.

No less than 13 journalists were killed by US troops in Iraq from March 2003 to August 2005, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The details show a pattern of apparent recklessness and impunity that is worse than anything Israel has ever done, with investigations either finding no fault, or not released, or not done to begin with.

Some details:

Tareq Ayyoub, Al-Jazeera, April 8, 2003, Baghdad: Ayyoub, a Jordanian working with the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was killed when a U.S. missile struck the station’s Baghdad bureau. U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said that U.S. forces were responding to enemy fire in the area and that the Al-Jazeera journalists were caught in the crossfire. Al-Jazeera correspondents deny that any fire came from their building, (and) Al-Jazeera officials pointed out that the U.S. military had been given the bureau’s coordinates weeks before the war began. In October 2003, six months after the bombing, a U.S. military spokesman acknowledged to CPJ that no investigation into the incident was ever launched.

Taras Protsyuk, Reuters, and José Couso, Telecinco April 8, 2003, Baghdad died after a U.S. tank fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad where most foreign journalists were based during the war. Directly after the attack, Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, confirmed that a single shell had been fired at the hotel from a tank in response to what he said was rocket and small arms fire from the building. Journalists at the hotel deny that any gunfire came from the building. A CPJ report concluded that the shelling of the hotel, while not deliberate, was avoidable since U.S. commanders knew that journalists were in the hotel and were intent on not hitting it. On August 12, 2003, U.S. Central Command (Centcom) issued a news release summarizing the results of its investigation into the incident. The report concluded that the tank unit that opened fire on the hotel did so “in a proportionate and justifiably measured response.” It called the shelling “fully in accordance with the Rules of Engagement.”

Mazen Dana, Reuters, August 17, 2003, was killed by machine-gun fire from a U.S. tank while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison, outside Baghdad, in the afternoon. The soldier in the tank who fired on Dana did so without warning, while the journalist filmed the vehicle approaching him from about 55 yards (50 meters). U.S. military officials said the soldier who opened fire mistook Dana’s camera for a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. There was no fighting in the area, and the journalists had been operating near the prison with the knowledge of U.S. troops at the prison gates. On September 22, the U.S. military announced that it had concluded its investigation into the incident. A spokesman for Centcom in Iraq told CPJ that while Dana’s killing was “regrettable,” the soldier “acted within the rules of engagement.”

Ali Abdel Aziz and Ali al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya, March 18, 2004, were shot dead near a U.S. military checkpoint in Baghdad. The crew arrived at the scene in two vehicles and parked about 110 to 165 yards (100 to 150 meters) from a checkpoint near the hotel. Technician Mohamed Abdel Hafez said that he, Abdel Aziz, and al-Khatib approached the soldiers on foot and spoke with them for a few minutes but were told they could not proceed. As the three men prepared to depart, the electricity in the area went out and a car driven by an elderly man approached U.S. troops, crashing into a small metal barrier near a military vehicle at the checkpoint. Abdel Hafez said that as the crew pulled away from the scene, one of their vehicles was struck by gunfire from the direction of the U.S. troops. Abdel Hafez said he witnessed two or three U.S. soldiers firing but was not sure at whom they were firing. He said there had been no other gunfire in the area at the time. A statement posted on the Combined Joint Task Forces 7’s Web site expressed “regret” for the deaths and said the investigation determined that the incident was an “accidental shooting.” Press reports quoted U.S. military officials saying that the soldiers who had opened fire acted within the “rules of engagement.”

Asaad Kadhim, Al-Iraqiya TV, April 19, 2004 and his driver, Hussein Saleh, were killed by gunfire from U.S. forces near a checkpoint close to the Iraqi city of Samara. On April 20, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said that coalition forces at the checkpoint signaled the journalists to stop by firing several warning shots. When the vehicle ignored those shots, Kimmitt said, forces fired at the car. Cameraman Kamel told the AP that no warning shots had been fired at their vehicle. It is unclear whether an investigation was conducted and what its outcome was.

Maha Ibrahim, a news producer for the Iraqi television station Baghdad TV, was shot and killed by U.S. forces fire in Baghdad as she drove to work, June 25, 2005. Staff at the Baghdad TV station said Ibrahim’s car was hit by what they described as random fire from U.S. troops who were attempting to disperse people from a road along which they were traveling. On June 29, 2005, CPJ called on U.S. military authorities to launch an immediate inquiry into the shooting death. It is unclear whether an investigation was conducted or what its outcome was.

Ahmed Wael Bakri, a director and news producer for Al-Sharqiyah, was killed by gunfire as he approached U.S. troops June 28, 2005 according to Ali Hanoon, a station director. Hanoon said Bakri was driving from work to his in-laws’ home in southern Baghdad at the time. U.S. soldiers fired at his car 15 times, and Bakri died later at Yarmouk Hospital, he said. The Associated Press, citing another colleague and a doctor who treated the journalist, reported that Bakri had failed to pull over for a U.S. convoy while trying to pass a traffic accident. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad issued a statement of condolence to the family and the station, the BBC reported. “We were deeply saddened and hurt by Mr. Wael al-Bakri’s death and as is the case with incidents of unintentional killing, the investigation is ongoing and we are trying our best to find out the details of the accident,” the statement said. It is unclear whether an investigation was conducted or what its outcome was.

Waleed Khaled, a soundman for Reuters, was shot by U.S. forces several times in the face and chest as he drove with cameraman Haidar Kadhem. Four days later the U.S. military confirmed its troops had killed Khaled. On September 1, the U.S. military in Iraq announced that the unit involved in the shooting of Khaled had concluded its investigation and that troops’ response was “appropriate,” Reuters reported. According to Reuters, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said that Khaled’s car “approached at a high rate of speed and then conducted activity that in itself was suspicious. There were individuals hanging outside with what looked to be a weapon. It stopped and immediately put itself in reverse. Again suspicious activity. Our soldiers on the scene used established rules of engagement and all the training received … (and they) decided that it was appropriate to engage that particular car. And as a result of that the driver was indeed killed and the passenger was hurt by shards of glass.”An army spokesman told Reuters that the report was not formally completed and was not available for release.

That is a lot of journalists killed, most of them while the US was following its own rules of engagement. Have those rules been reviewed by an independent investigation?

I'm not saying that the US rules of engagement are inadequate. Some of the incidents appear to be very problematic. But those rules are certainly are not more stringent than Israel's.

It is insolent for the US to demand Israel review its policies without showing any proof that the US has something to teach Israel about walking the line between the safety of its soldiers and the safety of civilians. On the contrary - the US sends its own experts to Israel to learn how to minimize civilian casualties during battles, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has praised Israel for not only that but also for adjusting and learning from experience to always do a better job.

(h/t Ben Dror Yemini)

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

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09/07 Links Pt2: Blood-Soaked Lessons of the Munich Olympics; ADL: Left-Wing Antisemitism Is On the Quad – We Must Face Reality; Rare First Temple-period document repatriated to Israel

From Ian:

Exodus vs. Birth of a Nation: Media Miss Mark on Jewish Self-Determination, Palestinian Nationalism

The founding of the modern State of Israel is a perfectly scripted, though by no means flawlessly performed, tale of triumph over extraordinary odds. The confluence of the Jewish people’s ancient link to the land, the Zionist movement’s monumental efforts to re-establish a state, and a complex array of geopolitical factors are responsible for Israel’s creation.

And while the horror of the Holocaust may have catalyzed the push for Jewish self-determination, it is quite likely that independence would have happened even had the Final Solution not been perpetrated.

The executives behind the production of the Palestinian narrative have from scene 1, act 1 told a very different origin story. Palestinian nationalism exists only in opposition to Jewish nationalism, and was only created in response to the rise of the national liberation movement of the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland.

Most societies venerate their nation’s contributions to humanity — their authors, artists, athletes, and other assorted trailblazers. The plot promoted by the PA and Palestinian terror groups, by contrast, is fixated almost exclusively on glorifying a national culture by encouraging and rewarding the murder of innocent civilians.

Another important part of a movie is its soundtrack, the recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture.

Indeed, a comparison of national soundtracks is revealing. Israel’s anthem, Hatikvah, literally translates into ‘The Hope.’ The song evokes the struggles faced by the Jewish people over the course of two millennia, how they prayed for the end of the exile, and eventually returned to their indigenous land.

While not without controversy since it doesn’t mention 22 percent of the citizens of Israel who are not Jewish, Hatikvah is the national anthem of a country where every citizen enjoys complete equality under the law — as stated in the country’s Declaration of Independence — regardless of race, creed, religion or national background.

Compare that to the blood-curdling Palestinian anthem, titled Fida’i (Fedayeen Warrior). It speaks of “the volcano of my vendetta” and its final words appear to embrace martyrdom:
I will live as a warrior, I will remain a warrior,
I will die as a warrior – until my country returns.”

This! In 30 seconds, @GeraldNGOM gets to the core what is Zionism and it's indispensable connection to our Jewish identity and the Land of Israel. https://t.co/CLEC2poVRY
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) September 6, 2022

Blood-Soaked Lessons of the Munich Olympics

European leaders know that the potential renewed Iran nuclear accord – which ignores Tehran’s support for terror and human rights abuses – will only embolden the Islamic Republic both at home and abroad, putting more lives at risk. Moreover, these same European leaders know that Iran, which under the deal will very soon have full access to conventional weapons on the open market, will only increase its efforts to spread death and terror throughout the world. And they also know that under the terms of the reported deal, all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities would end in 2030. In other words, Europe’s leaders know full well that in this deal, they are imperiling their own people.

What we hold sacred, radical Islamists demonize. The Olympics are supposed to be perhaps the one place where countries set aside all other differences and join together as a community of nations, yet just a few decades after the Holocaust, it was at these world games, on German soil, that jihadists chose to murder innocent Israelis. And now, five decades later, Germany and the other European powers are poised to embolden the world’s foremost terrorist state.

Commemorating horrific moments in history has real value, but we dishonor the dead—from Munich to Beirut to Tel Aviv—when we forget the lessons their losses have taught us.

Modern European history lays bare the consequences of appeasing a radical regime with hegemonic ambitions or terrorists with a gun to the heads of innocents. Given Europe’s experiences with both fascism and terrorism, perhaps Berlin, London and Paris should rethink their capitulation to a fascist-terrorist regime.

Thank you @wolfblitzer for honoring the 11 Israeli athletes who were killed 50 years ago at the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists. We must remember the victims of the Munich Massacre so it could never happen again. May their memory be a blessing.pic.twitter.com/7PMEipnITP
— Elad Strohmayer (@EladStr) September 7, 2022

Jonathan Greenblatt: ADL CEO: Left-Wing Antisemitism Is On the Quad – We Must Face Reality

Too often, university administrators do not respond to antisemitic incidents with the same thoroughness and transparency as they respond to other hateful acts. Often, that’s because they lack an understanding of when anti-Israel criticism crosses the line into antisemitism. This can embolden other radical leftist extremists to commit antisemitic acts without fear of repercussion, and it can silence Jewish students who don’t feel they’ll be protected in spaces they should feel welcome in.

This reluctance by too many college administrators to meaningfully address left-wing antisemitism on campus ultimately causes some students to hide their identities. Our survey also found that 15 percent of Jewish college students reported that they felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus, and 41 percent could not tell you where to report an antisemitic incident if one were to occur.

College campuses are often where the rubber meets the road when it comes to Jews experiencing antisemitism from the left, and so that is where the ADL is laser focused. Through our partnership with Hillel International and our dozens of regional offices across the country, we’re on the ground helping Jewish students manage antisemitism every day.

We have a robust suite of tools for university administrators, students, and families, and we’re continuing to roll out new updates of our research, our resources, and our trainings. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll have even more to share to help your child, my child, and all students feel respected and supported as Jews on campus.

Ned Price, US State Department spokesman, reacting to Israel’s report on the Abu Akleh shooting, said that the United States has made it a priority to get involved and try to help when civilians get hurt during military operations: “The United States has made it a priority to mitigate and respond to civilian harm caused by military operations,” said Price.

That seems to be true in regard to the accidental shooting death of journalist and American citizen Abu Akleh. But it seems that some American citizens are more equal than others. A recent letter from the parents of Sbarro terror victim and American citizen Malki Roth requesting a meeting with President Biden, went unanswered.

From the AP (emphasis added):

“Something is obviously terribly wrong with how the pursuit of America’s most wanted female fugitive is going,” the Roths wrote in their letter, sent to Biden through the U.S. Embassy.

“We want to explain this to you better in a face-to-face meeting,” they added. “We want you to look us in the eyes, Mr. President, and tell us how Jordan’s king can be a praiseworthy ally.”

. . . There was no immediate comment from either the White House or the Jordanian Royal Hashemite Court.

Roth’s letter was sent days after the family of a Palestinian-American journalist killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank lashed out at Biden over his administration’s response to her death.

Relatives of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh expressed “grief, outrage and (a) sense of betrayal” in a letter accusing the U.S. of trying to erase Israeli responsibility for her death.

A U.S. investigation concluded that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire, but also said there was “no reason to believe” she was deliberately targeted. Israel says Abu Akleh was killed during a gun battle with Palestinian militants, and it is unclear who fired the deadly shot. The Palestinians say Israel intentionally killed her.

The White House declined to comment on the letter or the [Roth] family’s request for a meeting during his visit.

Maybe making a priority of mitigating and responding to civilian harm doesn’t apply when the civilian and American citizen happens to be a Jewish child. At least, that is my conclusion. And what really rankles is the fact that Abu Akleh’s death was a work accident. For a journalist like Shireen Abu Akleh, entering a combat zone in order to write up a conflict is part of the job. Abu Akleh knew the dangers. She is not the first journalist to be shot and killed while covering a military operation, nor will she unfortunately be the last.

Reporters like Abu Akleh, literally and knowingly take their lives in their hands to cover such stories. And they revel in it. It’s exciting. There’s a cause involved. Audiences eat it up which means more attention to them. “Journalists can’t hide the seductive draw of the bloodworks. They can’t help themselves. They love war,” wrote Politico’s Jack Shafer in Why Journalists Love War.

Abu Akleh entered a shooting zone because she wanted to, even though she knew she could be shot. There is no doubt she thought about it: imagined her death, and the events leading up to and after that not implausible event. Whether Shireen thought she would be shot by accident or on purpose, by her own or by Israelis is anyone’s guess. But she would have been well aware it could happen. She was not a civilian accidentally caught in the fray. She entered the fray of her own volition.

Malki Roth, on the other hand, did not know, when she entered the Sbarro pizzeria with her best friend, that she was entering a conflict zone. She didn’t know when she chose her destination that arms would be used in the vicinity, and that she might be blown up. She was a teenager--a child, really--who wanted to have a slice of pizza with a friend, during the final days of her summer vacation.

Ahlam Tamimi planned and helped to execute the terror attack that killed Malki Roth. Released by Israel as part of the prisoner exchange for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, Tamimi now lives in Jordan. As Tamimi is no longer in Israel's hands, it falls to the United States to seek justice in this case. Why? Because Tamimi is directly responsible for civilian harm to American citizens--for example, Malka Chana Roth--and while America twiddles its thumbs and looks away, Tamimi is free to commit more such terror attacks and kill even more American children, God forbid.

The FBI offers a reward for the capture of Tamimi. But the offer is only symbolic: a meaningless gesture. King Abdullah of Jordan has been wined and dined at the White House by Democrat and Republican administrations alike. No one says boo to Abdullah in regard to his harboring of a monster who has murdered Americans. No president has spoken to Abdullah of children deliberately murdered because they were Jews. Nothing is ever said of the failure of Jordan to honor its extradition treaty with the US.

In essence, there is a reward, not a reward. State doesn’t really care how you look at this. They’ve got their priorities: Shireen yes, Malki no. Because State does not, apparently, prioritize mitigating and responding to the deliberate murder of Jews. If there were a basic formula to this, it might be: Arabs=Kosher, Jews=Treif—that is if anyone ever gave it any active thought. The truth is that State, as a body, has always been irredeemably antisemitic.

As a result of this institutional anti-Jewish bias, the world watched as US government officials pressured Israel to investigate what Israel was already investigating: the shooting death of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The world did not, however, see anything about Jordan’s failure to extradite the terrorist responsible for murdering American citizen Malki Roth. The world didn’t see or hear about the extradition issue because the media doesn’t care to cover the Roth family’s campaign for justice. Is it because in this case, the victim was Jewish?

"Increasingly, you're hearing members of the Jewish community saying things like 'the world doesn’t care about Jewish lives,’” says CAMERA Communication Director Jonah Cohen. “You see the sentiment expressed in recent books such as Dara Horn’s 'People Love Dead Jews' and Fiamma Nirenstein’s 'Jewish Lives Matter.'
It’s heartbreaking, and the media is feeding this sentiment. Nothing so illustrates the problem as the difference in media coverage between Abu Akleh and Malki Roth,” says Cohen. “The former gets wall-to-wall coverage, while the latter takes a grassroots campaign to get attention. CAMERA, in fact, had to take out advertisements in several newspapers so that Malki would not be forgotten.”

Arnold and Frimet Roth are determined that no one will forget their daughter. But it is difficult for them to stomach the double standard of US officials. The US exerted intense pressure on Israel in the matter of the accidental death of a journalist who knowingly entered a war zone. Meanwhile, no pressure is brought to bear on Jordan, and no US official holds Abdullah to account for his harboring of a terrorist who deliberately murdered children, among them Malki Roth, an American citizen. Arnold Roth, speaking to the disparity in the way US officials treat these two situations, notes that the US has no jurisdiction in the matter of Abu Akleh’s death.

“The Abu Akleh clan have pursued what they call accountability with fierceness and with heavy suggestions that not only did someone Israeli do the killing but that it was deliberate and focused on her. In reality, no smoking gun has been found. The Aljazeera reporter’s death came in a flurry of live gunfire captured on video coming from two opposite directions.

“They have a problem however, and it’s not one of proving what happened. It’s simply that this took place outside the territory of the United States. The US has no jurisdiction in Shireen Abu Akleh’s death-by-shooting,” says Roth, who reveals what it has been like for him to watch the attention showered on the Abu Akleh family by American government officials.

“It’s been distressing to watch high-level US officials and politicians respond to the waves of Abu Akleh outrage with boundless support, sympathy and understanding.

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Washington with representatives of the Abu Akleh clan in July 2022 after personally inviting them there. The report is that he ‘expressed deepest condolences and commitment to pursue accountability for her tragic killing’ [JTA, July 27, 2022].

“Did I say distressing? It’s very, very different from how those very same officials along with their predecessors in office have treated us.

“Mr Blinken and his State Department colleagues – a long line of them - have maintained total public silence in the face of repeated efforts by my wife Frimet and me to engage on a different matter of accountability – one that is absolutely a matter of US justice.

“Failed US justice,” says Roth, who points out that while some questioned whether Abu Akleh’s death was accidental, there is no question at all that Malki Roth was killed in a deliberate act of terror.

“Our daughter Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in a pizzeria bombing. There is not the smallest doubt that this was terrorism. Also: that it targeted children, that the goal was to inflict the heaviest possible loss of life; that it met with appallingly widespread approval in Palestinian Arab and Jordanian society; and that the exploding man (misleadingly called a suicide bomber in the news industry) who is a legend today in Palestinian Arab society was brought there to kill by a Jordanian woman.

“Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, an avowed Hamas terrorist, is the Jordanian woman. A journalism student at the time she chose the site for the atrocity and brought the bomb to the door of the pizzeria, she has made a spectacular career out of confessing her central role. She continues to inspire audiences throughout the Arabic-speaking world with the re-telling of the details.

“For instance, she chose the site because of the many Jewish youngsters likely to be there on that particular school-vacation afternoon. She has explained that the Arab/Israeli conflict is a religious one and that what she did in planting the human bomb had great religious significance. She has no regrets about doing what she did, Heaven forbid, except this: a sincere-sounding regret that she did not manage to achieve a larger death toll.

“But the 15 dead, including seven children and a babe in the womb of her mother, were ‘the crown on my head,’ entitling her to join ‘the annals of history by committing the best act.’ She said that in a YouTube clip that is still viewable, delivered to a gathering of Islamist zealots, all of them woman and many of them girls, in Turkey less than a year ago,” said Roth, who has been stymied in his quest for US justice since Tamimi’s release from an Israeli prison in 2011.

Roth recites the details of how he and his wife have been shafted by the US government, and what comes through is the way officials tried to keep things quiet—how they tried to make the Roths think they were actually doing something about this, when they were not (emphasis added):

“The US charged Tamimi in 2013 and then kept the indictment sealed – a total secret – for the following four years. It unsealed them in March 2017 and made her only the second woman on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. From then until July 2022, no US government figure even once mentioned her name in public, let alone the disgraceful reality of an American ally - Jordan – brazenly breaching the treaty between them because of a technical “flaw” that does not exist and that, even if it did, was a Jordanian flaw, caused by the Jordanians, fixable by the Jordanians right up until this morning – and never fixed.

“Meanwhile quiet efforts were rumored to be underway, intended to persuade Jordan (where she was born, where she lives and works today) to hand Tamimi over to US law enforcement as the treaty demands.

“But no one in the Trump or Biden administrations addressed any of this in all the years since the charges were laid. That has been maddening for us.

“Then this,” said Arnold, referring to all the attention focused on the accidental shooting death of Abu Akleh.

Of course, the plausible deniability of American officials is key to the game of evading the Roth family while looking as if official America actually gives a damn. As if to underscore the point, Arnold quotes a startling public statement by Jake Sullivan, head of the National Security Council in the White House. As reported by the AP, Sullivan said: "The US government continues to seek her extradition and the Government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice for her role in the heinous attack."

“Continues to seek”? says Roth, with some astonishment. “That’s a challenging way of framing this. How does it fit, for instance, with President Joe Biden’s lavish and repeated praise of Jordan’s ruler in the most public of ways?

“In fact, we have a long list of questions that only senior American government figures can answer. The details of our efforts to engage, to get responses, to encourage the doing of American justice, are many. And we have consciously avoided making them public.”

Things have changed, however, and the Roths have stepped up their campaign to get America to sit up listen, and act. The way the Abu Akleh affair was handled must have felt like an insult to their daughter’s memory, but that wasn’t really the catalyst that infused their fight for justice with new vigor. The catalyst was the realization of just how much time has passed in the annals of American inattention to their plight. “Now that 2,000 days have elapsed (a depressing milestone that was passed last Sunday) since those Department of Justice charges were made public in Washington,” says Roth, “we feel it’s time we spoke out.

“We are preparing ourselves for that now.”

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

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The "anti-Zionist not antisemitic" crowd once argued that they would have no problem with Jews if Jews defeated them in battle

People who claim to be anti-Zionist and not antisemitic offer some reasonable sounding arguments. The reason we know that these arguments are disingenuous is not that the arguments themselves are logically false, but that we have over a century of such arguments - and they morph over time, while keeping the common denominator of always targeting Jews.

For example, the Arab boycotts against Jews from the early 20th century through the 1970s are now seen to be obviously antisemitic - even as they insisted in public that they have nothing against Jews. Today's BDS is a refinement of those methods, but again they only target Jews, not Israeli Arab businesses.

They keep trying to refine their arguments but when you look at history, you can see that the arguments may change but the underlying antisemitism remains the same.

I just saw a neat example of this from a July 12, 1919 article in the Deseret Evening News ("Is 'Zionism' A Threat to World Peace?") where Palestinian Arabs are interviewed about why they are against Zionism.

Their anger is against the perception that the British conquered Palestine only to give it to the Jews, who did nothing to deserve it. They actually say that if Jews have the right to Palestine, then Indians have the right to New York - tacitly admitting Jewish indigeneity.

Then comes this:

You see? The problem is that the Jews didn't earn Palestine, fair and square, by winning it in a war. They were cheating (by, for example, buying farmland at inflated prices, which the article similarly describes as a nefarious Jewish plot.)

Is that argument no longer valid? Or was it simply a logical sounding excuse to justify antisemitism after the fact?

Just like today, the argument sounded like it has merit at the time. Only since 1948 and 1967, when Jews did defeat the Arabs in battle, do we see that it was simply an excuse for hate, dressing it up as something respectable using rhetoric. They keep moving the goalposts to find other reasons to hate the Jews that don't sound antisemitic - "refugees" or "occupation" or "settlements" or "apartheid." Then as now, these arguments are created to find respectable clothing to dress up pre-existing hate.

Just as the "anti-Zionist not antisemitic" arguments of the past changed to avoid looking foolish, so will today's. And the modern antisemites really, really don't want you to look at history.

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

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09/07 Links Pt1: The Oslo discord; Glick: The six false, failed assumptions of the two-state solution; Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Place as Palestine

From Ian:

The Oslo discord

The shooting attack on IDF soldiers on Sunday near the Jordan Valley reinforces the security establishment's assessment that terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria are getting stronger and may reach a strategic tipping point. The Palestinian Authority has long lost its control over its cities and it is only thanks to the pro-active posture of the IDF and Shin Bet that Jenin and Nablus have not become another Gaza.

The new terrorist threat should have Israel rethink its overall rationale guiding its policies since the Oslo Accords have come into effect in 1990s. Almost 30 years since they were supposed to usher in a new era of peace, it is incumbent upon us to undergo a paradigm shift by scrutinizing the flawed assumptions on which they were based.

The first rationale was that a separation from the Palestinians was a prerequisite for any resolution of the conflict. The fact of the matter is that in northern Samaria the IDF pulled back from Jenin in 1996. In 2005, several Jewish settlements were uprooted in northern Samaria. In both cases, this only turned the area into terrorist hotbeds that only drew Israel back time and again in order to protect Israelis on the coastal plains.

It is also hard to deny that the IDF withdrawal only strengthened the terrorist elements there, much like the Gaza disengagement turned that enclave into an even greater threat to Israel. Thus, terrorist hotbeds are the direct results of the void created by the lack of Israeli troops and civilians in the area, and one must wonder: Perhaps separation is anything but a solution?

The second assumption: Any risk that is entailed in pursuing the path of the Oslo Accords was calculated and reversible. Then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin explained that Israel will retain effective control over areas that are handed over, making it possible to reverse course should the need arise. What has unfolded in the Gaza Strip over the past few decades – along with the new trends in Judea and Samaria – has been a rude awakening. Just look at how the efforts to reestablish the Jewish settlement in northern Samaria have been met with opposition by Israeli security officials (who are taking their cues from their US counterparts). This shows that as far as the international community is concerned, Israeli withdrawals are irreversible.

Back When Palestinians Insisted There’s No Such Place as Palestine

The thrust of the Palestinian legal case today is that Palestine is a centuries-old geopolitical entity whose residents are entitled to statehood as a matter of international law. But that has not always been the Palestinians’ legal position.

Immediately following World War I and continuing through most of the British Mandate period (1922-1948), Palestinian lawyers and witnesses argued repeatedly before various tribunals that there was no such place as “Palestine.” Instead, they claimed the area known colloquially as “Palestine” was in fact part of Syria, or “southern Syria” to be precise. Following the Israeli War of Independence, the Palestinians changed course and pledged their loyalty to Jordan.

It seems unthinkable that any Palestinian lawyer or legal scholar would argue today that Palestine is part of Syria or Jordan, but those were the predominant Palestinian legal positions from the end of World War I until the Six Day War.

For example, in November 1918 a Palestinian Arab group filed a petition with the French Commissariat in Jerusalem “begging that Palestine might be formally included in Syria.”

In February 1919 the Arab Delegation from Palestine to the Versailles Peace Conference submitted a formal petition urging that rather than be recognized as an independent state, Palestine should be deemed part of and merged into Syria. The petition said, “We consider Palestine as part of Arabic Syria as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economical and geographic bonds . . . In view of the above we desire that our distinct Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the Independent Arabic Syrian Government.”

The Arab legal argument that there was no such political entity as “Palestine” continued after the League of Nations awarded the Palestine Mandate to Britain in 1922. For example, in 1925 Jamal Effendi-Husseini, a prominent Palestinian Arab, challenged a decision of British High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel allowing local postage stamps to bear an inscription in Hebrew identifying the country as “Palestine E.I.” (Palestine Eretz Israel).

Husseini’s lawyer, Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, argued to the court that “Palestine” was “not an Arab word.” Auni Bey insisted the correct name of the country was “Southern Syria.” “Palestine,” he argued, had no separate existence and was in fact part of Syria.

Palestinian schoolbooks deny Holocaust, legitimize Munich massacre

Children in the Palestinian Authority too began their school year on Sept. 1, only instead of the promised education reforms, their schools continue to use the same books that have been heavily criticized for inciting hatred against Jews and Israel.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Munich Olympic massacre, Israel Hayom and the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) – an NGO that that analyzes schoolbooks and curricula for compliance with UNESCO-defined standards on peace and tolerance – conducted an analysis of Palestinian school curriculum.

It revealed that history books in PA and UNRWA schools laud and legitimize the tragedy, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes, describing it as "resistance" to Zionism, and "Zionist interests abroad."

It also showed that textbooks on World War II omit the Holocaust entirely. They cover the main events in detail, such as the German invasion of Poland, the Battle of Britain, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but not a word about the Wannsee Conference, concentration camps, or any other events related to the Holocaust.

Surprisingly, the German government is the main funder of the Palestinian education system, including textbooks. The PA Education Ministry's budget for the implementation of their plan comes from Germany, as well as Norway, Finland, and Ireland.

After international criticism, the PA and European authorities made changes to all textbooks for grades 1-12, but IMPACT-se officials say the content became more radicalized, "with hundreds of extreme examples that were introduced systematically that encourage harming civilians, jihad, violence, and incitement against Israel and Jews, in all classes and on all subjects."

"Moreover, the new books deliberately omit all the previous attempts for peace with Israel since the Oslo Accords. Antisemitic messages were also found in the books," they said.

Palestinian children are taught to believe that Judaism is a racist religion and that Jews control the media, politics, and finances. Jews are depicted as liars, corrupt, and "enemies of Islam at all times and places," and as such should be eliminated.

"Despite the European Union's repeated criticism of the Palestinian Authority, it did not make substantial changes to the textbooks for the 2022-2023 school year," CEO of IMPACT-se Marcus Sheff said. PA President Mahmoud and Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh "must be made aware that there is a price for this – from hearings in the Council of the European Union to condemnation from the European Commission responsible for their funding and the European Parliament."

Salfit Governor Abdullah Kamil

Palestinian Media Watch recently reported:

Remember the signs in Nazi Germany saying “Jews not allowed” at the entrance to some shops?

Now Salfit District Governor Abdallah Kamil has “issued a series of important decisions” of which one brings the term “Jews not allowed” to mind. It specifically “forbids” Palestinian businesses to “receive any settler” – i.e., Israelis/Jews. Whoever violates this rule risks closure of his business by the PA Security Forces:

It is completely forbidden to have commercial relations with the settlers, according to Law No. 4 of 2010. It is forbidden to receive any settler in our places of business. We have conveyed clear instructions to the relevant [PA] Security Forces to close any store that violates this decision and to put its owners on trial.

All signs written in the Hebrew language placed in the various places of business and workshops must be removed within a week at the latest. The required legal procedures will be taken against those who do not fulfill this.

We emphasize once more that one must not carry out any action of selling lands, and specifically in Area C , without first receiving security permission from the district.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 28, 2022]

These decisions in force in the Salfit district in the northwestern West Bank have been made to hinder any kind of peace building between Palestinians and Israelis/Jews as their goal is “to fight the settlement enterprise and the relations with the settlers in the district.” District Governor Kamil added that the Palestinian people “will not agree to any manner of coexistence or normalization with the settlers.” The PA routinely refers to all of Israel as "occupied Palestine" and all Israelis as "settlers."

These restrictions were widely reported in Palestinian media.

Columnist Mowaffaq Matar at Raya is very upset at Palestinian Media Watch's analogy between how Nazis boycotted Jews and how the Salfit governorate is boycotting Jews. (He would have no problem with Israeli Arabs doing business in Salfit.)

Unfortunately, not only is the analogy apt, but his defense of the policies sound a bit Nazi-like as well.

It is our right to use all means to protect our existence, our economy, and the life of the Palestinian citizen. ...As for the settler, we do not look at his faith, but rather as an element in an army of invasion, colonialism and occupation, and the owners of this organization know very well that we are not hostile to the Jews because they are Jews, but rather we struggle to recover our public and private land that was usurped by the government of their system and their parties, and expelled its owners and provided it to the settlers to establish bases on it, but In a seemingly civil form, but in fact, they are bases for terrorism, murder, and the seizure of the rights and livelihoods of others. Their crimes are unprecedented except in the Middle Ages, and they have no place in the list of morals and laws of the civilized peoples of the twenty-first century. Settlements have become bases for aggression against the original owners of the land are the citizens of Palestine whom Pal Media Watch should know that state terrorism has not broken the Palestinian people who are determined to resist occupation and settlement with tools, the most important of which are victory for themselves, their identity, culture and economy, and loyalty to the martyrs and prisoners.

In other words, the Palestinian Fatherland is under attack by immoral, depraved, thieving and murderous Jews whose only interest is to destroy the beautiful Palestinian culture, which includes celebrating those who kill Jews.

Why would anyone think that this sounds like Nazis?

"Forbidden for Jews" sign in Nazi-occupied Netherlands

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In Algeria, some are hoping for the re-emergence of Amalek to destroy the Jews

According to Sheikh Dr. Bassam Jarrar and his in-depth study of Quranic numerology, Israel was supposed to be destroyed by June of 2022. Even as late as April, a poll showed that a majority of Palestinians believed that it would happen.

Well, June has come and gone, which means....it is time for a new prophecy on how Israel will be destroyed.

And one such prophecy seems to be coming out of Algeria.

There has been some recent interest in an Algerian tribe known as the Adjars, or Djeddars of the Qutubim, or Cotopites, a Punic (Phoenician) tribe which apparently has some remaining members. (Here is a recent YouTube video and book about them.)

At Al Watan Voice, a ninth century Jewish grammarian and scholar named Judah ibn Kuraish is quoted about the Djeddars:

As for the Ajdar of Tahert, they carry a great grudge against the Jews, which they inherited from their ancestors the Amalekites, the eternal enemies of the Children of Israel who were expelled by Joshua bin Nun from the Holy Land. Tam Ibn Falt is one of the Amalekites who fled to the land of Morocco, and they are the sons of Timna from the people of Canaan who were cursed by the Lord.

Timna was Amalek's mother who was a concubine to Eliphaz, son of Esau.

The article goes on to purportedly quote an Honoratus (not sure which one) who exclaimed in Latin to the tribe:

You are the sons of Timna, the sons of the expelled martyrs! You are ordered to wear the black and caps of your fathers, until the day when the Savior arises from you, and you will take revenge on your enemies!

The article goes on to quote a hadith that says in the end of days, Jesus will come out of Morocco (close enough) to kill the Antichrist in a series of wars against the Jews where, you guessed it, the stones and trees (except the Gharqad tree) will say, "O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me, so come and kill him.”

Jesus is Amalek? From the perspective of people who believe destroying the Jews is the best thing possible, sure, it makes perfect sense.

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

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Last week, Poland demanded compensation from Germany for its estimates for World War II losses it estimated at $1.32 trillion.

Jan Grabowski, an expert on the Holocaust in Poland, discovered that some of these demands were to pay Poland for killing its own Jews.

On the 83rd anniversary of the outbreak of World War II last week, a three-volume report was published entitled “Report on Losses Suffered by Poland as a Result of German Aggression and Occupation during World War II 1939–1945.” The report was written by a parliamentary investigative committee established in 2017 to assess damages from Germany for Polish losses during the war....

However, the report ascribes to Germans the murder of Jews carried out by their Polish neighbors without the involvement of Germans. Canadian-Jewish historian of Polish origin, Prof. Jan Grabowski, discovered this when reading the third volume of the report, which includes a list of 9,292 places where Germans committed atrocities against Poles in occupied Poland between 1939 and 1945. According to the report, the list is intended to “commemorate the Polish citizens who were killed by Nazi Germany in World War II.”

Grabowski, who called the report “shameful," and a “rewriting of the history of the Holocaust,” discovered that one of the sites listed in the report is the town of Jedwabne, where it states that 1,650 Jews were murdered. The pogrom there, carried out in July of 1941, is well documented through historical research based on archival material and eyewitness accounts.

According to the research, the pogrom was carried out by Poles exclusively, without German involvement. The precise number of Jews murdered in this event is not known but is believed to be a few hundred. Beaten and threatened, they were led by Poles to a local barn, where they were burned alive.

Prof. Grabowski was surprised to find the victims of Jedwabne in a report meant to deal with German crimes against the Poles in World War II. Writing on Facebook, Grabowski said he was "dismayed" that the "Polish authorities would actually ask the Germans for compensation" for the Jews murdered by Poles in 1941. "To say that the whole situation is grotesque is to say nothing at all," he wrote.

Along with requesting reparations for Poles' murder of the Jews of Jebwabne, the new report includes other sites where Jews were also killed by Poles exclusively. The list includes the murder of Jews in the towns of Radzilow, Bzura and Szczuczyn, all in the summer of 1941.

Grabowski calls the inclusion of these towns in the report “grotesque,” but his claims against the writers of the report are more significant. He bases his arguments on the fact that in the calculation of Poles murdered and killed during World War II, the Poles also include 3 million Polish Jews, among whom he says about 200,000 were murdered with the help of or directly by Poles. What kind of restitution does Poland want from the Germans for 200,000 Jews murdered by the Poles or with Polish participation?" he asked in Polish on Twitter.

The tweet drew angry responses, with comments calling him “Jewish bastard” and “Jewish swine,” among other things.

Poland has been engaged in historical revisionism about the Holocaust in recent years, denying Polish complicity with the Holocaust and allowing historians who documented it to be sued.

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

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09/06 Links Pt2: David Collier: I told the truth about ‘Palestine’ – and this happened; British Fantasy Writers and the Jewish Question; Israeli wine is Zionist wine

From Ian:

David Collier: I told the truth about ‘Palestine’ – and this happened

Two things are key to my outlook – truth and historicity. Being driven by a need for honesty however, does mean that I am not so big on being ‘politically correct’. I believe that following such an ‘unchained’ strategy exposes the weaknesses of the anti-Israel propaganda machine far better than other, more ‘diplomatic’ methods.

So on Sunday I put out a simple, factual tweet. I accept that it was the type of tweet that some of my more dovish supporters cringe at. They likely consider it provocative and unnecessary. I believe that challenging the pillars holding up the fake narrative of our enemies is vital work, even if now and again I make others around me feel uncomfortable. The truth in a tweet

This is what I said:
There has never been a state of Palestine.
They have had no ruler. No common identity.
No currency.
No history.
No borders.
It was an invention created to help fight Israel.
The concept may exist now – but it never did before.
So stop making stuff up.

There is nothing factually wrong in those words. It is a simple statement that reflects part of the historical reality behind the conflict. ‘Palestine’ as a term was just a reflection of the Christian heritage of the colonial powers, For over 1000 years it was a word that meant ‘Holy Land’ to those in Europe that used it. It was alien, not native, to the region. The ‘Palestinians’ just did not exist in the Arab world in any sense whatsoever.

None of this is about ‘people’ today, nor their rights, so there is nothing to get angry with. Except the anti-Israel narrative exists upon pillars of falsehoods. Which means it has to reject rather than accept the truth. So the simple tweet went viral, with about 350,000 ‘impressions’. Over 785 people commented on it.

When told the truth – most just become abusive:

The key response was just sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming ‘racist’:

There is obviously nothing racist in my tweet at all. These people do not like what I am saying but have no way of actually countering the facts. Using their favourite smear – ‘racist’ – is all they are left with.

Those comments above were just some of the 100s of abusive tweets. Apart from calling me a ‘racist’, I was also called an ‘Islamophobe’, a ‘Nazi’, a bigot, and various curse-words than I have no intention of repeating here. Verbal abuse was by far the most popular response.

PodCast: Arnold Roth joins ‘Limited Liability Podcast’

On Aug. 9, 2001, in the late afternoon of what had been a typical day in Jerusalem, families gathered for lunch, as they often did, at Sbarro on the corner of Jaffa Road and King George Street. A bustling area, the kosher pizzeria was a particularly popular spot among neighborhood children and members of the area’s religious communities. That Thursday, the restaurant was packed. Fifteen-year-old Malki Roth, a citizen of Israel, Australia and the U.S., was there with her best friend.

At the same time, Malki’s father, Arnold Roth, the head of a drug development company, was taking his lunch break amid an afternoon of nonstop meetings. He had just finished when, around 2 p.m., he answered a call from his wife screaming into the phone. There had been an attack.

Malki, her best friend and 13 others — mostly young mothers and children — were killed when a Hamas terrorist entered the restaurant and detonated a bomb, killing himself in the process. An additional 130 people were injured.

In the 21 years since Malki’s death, Arnold and Frimet Roth have worked tirelessly to preserve her memory and seek justice for their daughter, creating the Malki Foundation (Keren Malki) in her honor. This week, on the most recent episode of Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” co-hosts Rich Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein were joined by Arnold to talk about Malki: her life, her tragic death and the family’s efforts to hold her murderers accountable.

Journalist forced to flee after capturing rare images of Iranian Jews publishes book

Jewish prayer in a mosque. Hookah smoke in a kosher kitchen. Hebrew school study under portraits of ayatollahs.

When former Associated Press photographer Hassan Sarbakhshian spent almost two years between 2006 and 2008 among the Jewish communities in Iran, those are some of the images he collected for a book project. The photographs offer a rare look inside Jewish homes, synagogues and other spaces, which the Jewish community normally keeps fairly locked down to outsiders.

In Iran, a nation whose post-1979 revolution government regularly calls for the violent destruction of Israel, Jews are famously allowed to practice their religion freely and feel a strong connection to their country. There is a permanent Jewish representative in parliament.

But when Sarbakhshian submitted the book to Iran’s culture ministry for publication, he ran up against the country’s pervasive anti-Zionist culture.

The ministry argued that he was an agent of Israel promoting anti-Islamic values. They forced him out of working for the AP, and he eventually began to fear for his and wife’s safety. He and his wife, Parvaneh Vahidmanesh, a journalist and human rights activist who was involved in the project, moved to Virginia.

Nearly 15 years after taking his last photos for the book, “Jews of Iran: A Photographic Chronicle,” which will finally be published on Tuesday by Penn State University Press, Sarbakhshian still calls the project that led to the ordeal one of the best experiences of his life.

“We traveled to more than 15 cities on a bus with [Iranian Jews]. We laughed with them, we ate with them. We lived with them, actually,” he said.

As of 2020, there were 9,000 Jews living in Iran. It’s a far cry from a pre-revolution peak Jewish population of around 100,000, but the country is still home to the Middle East’s second-largest Jewish population after Israel. Some of Sarbakhshian’s pictures almost look like they could have been taken in an American suburb: kids playing soccer, people having a picnic in the park, family members running around slapping each other with scallions.

But other photos in the book demonstrate Jews’ precarious status in a country that makes them continually pledge loyalty to the Muslim theocratic state. One shows a Jewish leader at a mosque attending a celebration of Quds Day, a day of pro-Palestinian rallies that often include Israel flag burnings and anti-Israel rhetoric.

Palestinian government giving ministers and extra $24K a year as "petty cash"

Safa reports:

Official documents obtained by the Palestinian Press Agency (Safa) revealed that the ministers of the current government have been receiving “petty cash” monthly, in the amount of $2,000, since late 2019.

This is despite the financial crisis that the PA is going through, and despite President Mahmoud Abbas' decision on August 18, 2019 to stop disbursing any additional funds to government ministers, after widespread controversy that followed [a raise of $2000 monthly that was approved)]during the first months of Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh's government.

The documents indicate that the government has created a mechanism to circumvent the Law on Remunerations and Salaries for Legislative Council Members, Government Members and Governors, which set the salary of the Prime Minister at $4,000 and the Minister’s at $3,000, by disbursing $2,000 to each minister in the form of “petty cash.”

Effectively, the PA government found a way to double minister salaries while pretending that they froze them.

They also added a "cost of living" increase of 70% for retired ministers.

This is the everyday corruption in the Palestinian Authority. And chances are this story will not be published at all in official Palestinian media.

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The UN doesn't care when Palestinians are killed by Palestinian rockets

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the territories, OCHA-OPT, issues biweekly reports on civilian casualties and other issues.

After Operation Breaking Dawn, it summarized:

During the escalation, 49 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip, of whom at least 22 were civilians, including 17 children and four women, according to OHCHR.

The report implies that all the Palestinians were killed by Israel, but in its statistics section showing the cumulative casualties during the year (there were no deaths in Gaza before August) it adds a footnote:

The report itself says nothing about Palestinian rockets that fell short; you need to read between the lines of the statistics to find out that the UN was still investigating how these 13 - or, if you do the math of 49-35, 14 - were killed.

So what happened to this footnote in the latest bulletin?

It disappeared, yet the number of those killed in Gaza - 35 - remained the same.

This means that between August 15 and August 29, the UN determined with certainty that 14 Palestinians - including many children - were killed by Gaza rockets.

But they never reported that fact.

Even though their entire purpose is to protect civilians, when Gaza civilians are killed by Palestinian militants, they go out of their way to not report it - and instead, their report text still implies that Israel killed them.

This isn't a mistake or an oversight. The UN consciously counted the casualties, determined that 14 were killed by Islamic Jihad and their allies, and chose not to report those civilian deaths instead of reporting to the world that Gaza terrorists kill their own people.

Sometimes, the bias can be seen in the details. And once you see it here, there is no other way to interpret the text of these two reports outside of a desire to maximize blame to Israel and minimize it for Islamic Jihad.

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