Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, October 29, 2022

10/29 Links: Biden Admin Probed Over ‘Illegal Efforts to Undermine Israeli Sovereignty Over Jerusalem’; What the Kanye West scandal can teach the UN

From Ian:

Biden Admin Probed Over ‘Illegal Efforts to Undermine Israeli Sovereignty Over Jerusalem’

A legal advocacy group says the Biden administration is violating U.S. law by funneling more than half-a-billion dollars to the Palestinian government and is demanding the administration release a slew of internal documents that the group believes will reveal an illegal effort "to undermine Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem," according to a copy of the Freedom of Information Act request provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

America First Legal, a group of conservative lawyers and activists, hit the State Department this week with a FOIA request that instructs it to furnish a slew of internal documents about U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority, which was frozen under former president Donald Trump but resumed when President Joe Biden took office.

The legal group suspects that a portion of this taxpayer aid is being used to support Palestinian-led projects in Jerusalem that could undermine Israel’s control of its capital city. The Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, but the Biden administration, while formally upholding the policy, has moved to open a Palestinian Affairs unit in the city, fueling concerns that the consulate is working with the Palestinian government to erode Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.

The Biden administration’s funding may also violate a bipartisan U.S. law that prevents taxpayer funds from reaching the Palestinian government until it ends a terrorist payment program known as "pay-to-slay," in which imprisoned militants and their families receive stipends. The Free Beacon reported earlier this month on a non-public State Department report to Congress that determined the Palestinian government is still paying terrorists, even as U.S. aid dollars flow.

"Make no mistake—the purpose here, contrary to U.S. law, is creating facts on the ground to undermine Israel’s borders and sovereignty and to reverse the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city," Reed D. Rubinstein, America First Legal’s senior counselor and director of oversight, said in a statement. "The Biden administration is pumping hundreds of millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars into ‘projects’ that directly benefit both the corrupt Palestinian Authority and the terrorist Hamas dictatorship."

The organization’s FOIA centers on a State Department fact sheet from March that outlined projects run by the United States’ Palestinian Affairs Unit, which was opened to increase diplomacy with the Palestinian government. The State Department says this office is responsible for partnering "with Palestinian and American organizations to support projects in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza [Strip] that increase exchange between our two peoples and advance shared goals on topics such as education, entrepreneurship, environmental protection, English language learning, science and technology, art and culture, gender equality, human rights, and democracy, among others."

These programs also include "university linkage projects connecting American and Palestinian universities directly for exchange and collaboration for students and faculty," according to the State Department.

US Democrats Oppose Israel’s Admission to Visa Waiver Program

A group of 20 Democratic members of Congress called on the Biden administration this week to oppose Israel’s membership in the US Visa Waiver Program, Haaretz reported Friday.

The program would waive the current onerous requirements faced by Israelis when they want to visit the United States and would instead automatically authorize 90-day visits for business or tourism purposes.

But Representative Don Beyer sent a letter Thursday – signed together with 19 other Democrats – telling Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “It is clear that Israel cannot and should not be admitted into the visa waiver program under the status quo.”

Israel has been negotiating with the United States over this issue for more than a year.

Israel Among Candidates Being ‘Considered’ for US Visa-Waiver Status
Last month Knesset lawmakers voted to approve the first reading of a bill that would allow Israel to join the program. Under the bill, sponsored by the Justice Ministry, passenger data gathered by airlines during the reservation process are coded into a “passenger name record” (PNR) which would then be transferred to a national center to be set up at the Israel Tax Authority – and is a condition set by the US for Israel’s entry into the visa waiver program.

Last month Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Alice Lugo said Israel “does not currently meet all [program] designation requirements, including extending reciprocal visa-free travel privileges to all US citizens and nationals.”

Lugo was referring to Israeli security personnel at Ben Gurion International Airport who pay close attention to Palestinian Authority Arabs who hold US citizenship and others, particularly so-called “peace activists” and supporters of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Ben Cohen: What the Kanye West scandal can teach the UN

The Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan offered a telling quip during a debate last week at the international body concerning the latest report of its Commission of Inquiry into Israel and its apparently irredeemable offenses against international law. (The fact that the commission’s formal name is “The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” itself suggests that its conclusions are hardly likely to be favorable, let alone neutral, towards the Jewish state.)

Referencing the viscerally anti-Zionist and often anti-Semitic utterances of the commission’s members—the canard the Israel is an “apartheid” state, the assertion that Israel shouldn’t be permitted to participate in the U.N. system—Erdan told the assembled delegates that “maybe the U.N. could learn from Adidas when it comes to hiring blatant anti-Semites!”

That, of course, was a reference to the decision of the sportswear company to sever ties with Kanye (“Ye”) West over the rappers’ revolting anti-Semitic comments. But Erdan didn’t have to cite Adidas alone; Foot Locker, Gap, Balenciaga, Def Jam and a host of other companies in the music, sports and fashion spaces have all cut links with West because of his hateful outbursts, while an unauthorized visit to the headquarters of Skechers in Los Angeles last Thursday resulted in him being escorted out of the building. “We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other form of hate speech,” declared a gratifyingly clear statement from the footwear manufacturer, adding for good measure that “we again stress that West showed up unannounced and uninvited.”

In the space of a fortnight, West’s image has shifted from that of a hip-hop artist and fashion mogul with eccentric, often unpalatable opinions to an out-and-out racist and bigot who dresses models in “White Lives Matter” shirts, ostentatiously celebrates his violently anti-Semitic views and flirts with neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology. In the process, West has lost all of the sponsorships mentioned above and many more on top, at one point piteously crying out that he had netted a loss of $2 billion in one day. One can only hope that particular claim is true.

The contrast between the speed with which the private sector moved to condemn West’s anti-Semitism and the stubborn persistence of outdated, unhelpful and anti-Semitic notions about Israel at the U.N. is frankly painful to observe. And it compels us to ask why it is that established multinational companies with thousands of employees are nonetheless nimble enough to call out anti-Semitism in a timely manner, while the governments gathered at the U.N. building in Manhattan either enthusiastically endorse or turn a wearily blind eye towards that body’s long-established, hard-wired hostility towards the world’s only Jewish state.

10/28 Links Pt2: Jonathan Tobin: The painful truth about media bias: Some journalists lie; Mark Regev: Israel, the Suez Crisis and accusations of colonialist collusion

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: The painful truth about media bias: Some journalists lie

It also contributes to a situation in which people on both sides of the political aisle ignore arguments from their opponents, and—as another Times article pointed out—leads to Democrats and Republicans thinking that democracy is in peril. They just disagree about who is at fault.

There are lots of reasons for this landscape. But to deny the responsibility of the media, and the way so many journalists lie for partisan reasons, is not only to fly in the face of the facts; it exhibits a failure to understand how and why our politics and our society are so broken.

This atmosphere helps explain, at least in part, the rise of anti-Semitism and how it is being tolerated on both ends of the political spectrum. It reflects an over-the-top partisanship in a society in which few are willing to condemn political allies, even when they are guilty of blatant hate-speech.

The same pattern applies to coverage of Israel and the Middle East. Though ignorance of the history of the region might seem to be at the root of the slant—since many editors and reporters simply don’t know, for instance, that peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs might have been possible had the latter not consistently rejected any and all compromises throughout the century of the conflict—even relatively recent events are often ignored, buttressing a narrative about oppression of the Palestinians.

Furthermore, many reporters, influenced by Palestinian propaganda and anti-Semitic talking points, deliberately distort the way the conflict is depicted. This helps create fertile ground for prejudice. It also paves the way for developments like the recent U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry report, which traffics in blatant anti-Semitism and falsely accuses Israel of being an “apartheid state.”

The consequences, both in the United States and abroad, of a broken media that can’t be trusted do not merely affect the world of journalism. When members of the press lie to advance a cause, they are not simply spreading misinformation; they are also creating an environment in which democracy fails and anti-Semitism advances.

Mark Regev: Israel, the Suez Crisis and accusations of colonialist collusion

Even before the arrival of the new Soviet arms, Egypt had turned Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat into a white elephant by blockading the Straits of Tiran to shipping to and from Israel. At the same time, the Egyptian military was orchestrating repeated Palestinian Fedayeen terror attacks, all while beefing up its threatening presence in northern Sinai. Israel felt it had to preempt before Soviet weapons dramatically changed the balance of power.

For London and Paris, the Suez War was an unmitigated disaster. The US opposed their attack, viewing it as anachronistic colonial-type gunboat diplomacy, detrimental to western interests in the Cold War. Washington unabashedly compelled France and Britain to withdraw – applying harsh economic pressure that threatened the solvency of its European allies.

The British and French, who earlier in the century had carved up the Middle East into respective spheres of influence, were now exposed as second-rate world powers. Their Suez defeat was the harbinger of the loss of French Algeria and the demise of Britain’s leadership role in the region, which was transferred to the Americans. In the end, it was not Nasser who was forced from office, but Eden and Mollet.

For Israel, the 1956 military victory failed to advance peace, or, in the absence of Arab recognition, any changes to the territorial status-quo: Washington insisted on a full pullback to the 1949 lines.

Nonetheless, the war lifted the blockade of Eilat, and Israeli deterrence was enhanced, inaugurating a decade of relative quiet on the southern frontier.

In addition, Israel’s adept handling of American demands in the months following the crisis led to an improvement in US-Israel ties. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1956 had been critical of Israel’s behavior, in 1960 became the first American leader to host an Israeli prime minister, Ben-Gurion, at the White House.

If there was a downside for Israel, it was foreseen during the cabinet deliberations on the authorization of the offensive. The ministers from the left-wing Ahdut Haavoda (Unity of Labor) party expressed concern about Israel’s “unholy” collaboration with European colonial powers (though they still voted, together with Ben-Gurion’s Mapai ministers, for the attack).

Soviet premier Nikolai Bulganin pressed this theme in an angry letter to Ben-Gurion dated November 5, 1956, charging that Israel had acted “as a tool of foreign imperialist powers.”

Israel was born in a struggle against British colonialism and should have enjoyed a natural affinity from countries that had similarly battled European empires for their freedom. But the Sinai Campaign injured Israel’s standing among the growing number of newly independent African and Asian nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, where Nasser remained a hero.

Regrettably, the 1956 depiction of Israel as a colonialist power has had remarkable longevity. Some seven decades later, this erroneous accusation is still being actively propagated by those seeking to undermine Israel’s legitimacy – just ask Jewish students studying at Western universities.

David Collier: Twitter silences me (twice) (again) – siding with the antisemites And then there is the Scottish scam

But it doesn’t end there. I received a second simultaneous suspension. Now this – even more than the first- is patently absurd. I recently exposed a fundraising scam in Scotland – and I wrote a tweet to publish the article. That tweet apparently also broke the rules for ‘hateful conduct’:

Trying my hardest I fail to understand just what could possibly be wrong with this one. An antisemite did create a partnership with a scammer in Gaza who does have family links to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They are currently taking £1000s from people in Scotland and their campaigns are getting increasingly absurd. Each of my points is factually accuate and thanks to this expose I believe Police Scotland have now got involved.

But as it stands, I have been no-platformed again – for doing nothing but fighting antisemitism. And again, it is easy to find the malicious intent and coordination behind those reporting me:

Twitter and minority groups
This is undoubtedly malicious. It is also clearly coordinated. And above all it is a blatant attempt from Islamists and the hard left – to have me completely silenced. The question therefore becomes – why does Twitter – who can protect me from this – *CHOOSE* to side with them and silence my voice?

Is it numbers? Jews are always outnumbered. If Twitter by default sides with the majority then Twitter actively helps bully minority groups. For the Jewish people – the quintessential minority group – this is really bad news.

Twitter also refuses to grant me the basic cover it could provide – (by giving my account a blue tick). Twitter is actively paving the way for antisemites to attack Jews who fight antisemitism and refusing to give them protection they can easily give. Haven’t they kind of got this all the wrong way round?

For now – I am appealing the suspensions. If you do not know me already – I will always fight my corner because I am speaking up for Jews everywhere. This refusal to back down so easily means I cannot currently post this on Twitter. If you have an account – please help me share it there.

Scratch Palestinian history, reveal antisemitism

The PLO tweeted:

As with everything else in Palestinian history, look beneath the surface and find antisemitism.

The Catholic Advance wrote about this conference:

Moslems and Christians - but no Jews. The Palestinians claim that Jews at the time were an equal minority but Jews were not invited to supposedly Palestinian nationalist conferences.

And notice that the resolutions are ultimately about attacking the Zionist community, not about promoting Palestinian nationalism.

Also notice:

The Catholic Advance, as we will see later, clearly didn't think that Jews have any business living in Palestine. The Jewish Agency allowed women to vote way before 1929, but they don't count.

The Women's Congress was scheduled right before the All-Palestine Arab Congress, which featured this:

"All the natives of Palestine, irrespective of creed" - except for Jews.

That's pretty much the definition of antisemitism right there (and one that this Catholic newspaper embraced.)

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!

10/28 Links Pt1: UN Watch: Rebuttal of Pillay Commission’s Report to UNGA; From Gaza to Tehran: The challenges facing Israel's next government; Biden cannot ignore Iran

From Ian:

UN Watch: Rebuttal of Pillay Commission’s Report to UNGA

In response to the October 2022 report to the UN General Assembly by the Pillay Commission of Inquiry on Israel, UN Watch published the following rebuttal, prepared by UN Watch Legal Advisor Dina Rovner.

The fundamental failure of the report is that, contrary to its mandate to examine all sides in the conflict, the report examines and condemns only Israel. This follows the same completely one-sided format of the Pillay Commission’s June report to the Human Rights Council. The report is not the product of an objective and impartial examination of all sides, but an adversarial charge sheet where Israel is painted as the only actor and the only guilty party. This latest report underscores how the Pillay Commission of Inquiry (COI) is a travesty of justice. Accordingly, UN Watch calls for the termination of the COI, and has drafted this resolution and petition to commence the process.

Key Points
1. The Commission blames only Israel for the impasse in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and the lack of implementation of the two-state solution, pointing exclusively to the “occupation” and “settlements,” ignoring the Palestinian’ rejection of Israeli peace offers, including the 2000 proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the 2008 offer by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The report ignores Palestinian terrorism and incitement. It completely disregards Israel’s willingness to dismantle settlements for the sake of peace, as it did in 2005 in Gaza and in 1979 in Sinai. For example:
- In paragraph 19, the report disregards Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza in which it unilaterally withdrew 8,500 Israelis from that territory, claiming “that Israel continues to occupy the territory…”
- In paragraph 51, the report expressly states that the “expansion of the settlements and related infrastructure actively contributes to the entrenchment of the occupation and makes the ‘two-state solution’ an increasingly unviable option.” This disregards Israel’s proven willingness to dismantle settlements for the sake of peace.
- Paragraph 54 blames “The extensive human rights violations and abuses, along with violations of international humanitarian law noted in these reports” directly on the “Israeli occupation,” but fails to mention murderous Palestinian incitement and terrorist attacks against Israelis.
- In the recommendations section, the report makes demands only of Israel. In paragraph 91, it calls only on Israel to “comply fully with international law and end without delay its 55 years of occupation of the Palestinian and Syrian territories,” directly implying that Israeli settlements are the only obstacle to peace, absolving the Palestinians of any responsibility.
- Likewise in paragraph 93, the report recommends to the General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice “on the legal consequences of Israel’s continued refusal to end its occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory… and “ to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” indicating the Commission’s view that Israel is legally obliged to unilaterally end the occupation, while the Palestinians bear no responsibility whatsoever to cease incitement and terrorism or to participate in negotiations to end the conflict.

UN Commission of Inquiry says it will investigate ‘apartheid’ charges against Israel

The controversial, open-ended United Nations Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights abuses by Israel and the Palestinians said Thursday it will investigate charges of “apartheid” against Israel. Thus far, the commission’s two reports, including one presented to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, has focused almost solely on Israel, furthering concerns about the one-sided nature of the inquiry and biases among its three members.

The commission’s latest report calls on the U.N. Security Council to force an end to Israel’s “permanent occupation,” and urges U.N. member states to prosecute Israeli officials.

At a press conference with the three commission members on Thursday, JNS asked COI chairwoman Navi Pillay how, given her past rhetoric about Israel, including her declaring it an apartheid state and her advocacy for BDS, she could conceivably pitch her commission as being impartial, which is required for U.N. fact-finding missions. JNS cited her signature on a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden three weeks before Pillay’s appointment to the COI, calling for the White House to punish Israel.

“Well, it’s all news to me that I have done all this. I have signed no petition or made no statement,” said Pillay. When JNS countered that the letter and her statements are all on record and documented, Pillay replied that she would “like to see it. I’ve never seen it. You know, because then maybe somebody has used my name, I want to know. I recall one statement I made in South Africa because the press were there and they asked me about BDS, for instance. And I said that that was a strategy that worked in South Africa.”

She accused her critics of “twisting” her words into a campaign for BDS, and said her investigation is all based on international law. She and fellow COI member Miloon Kothari, who earlier this summer apologized for anti-Semitic comments, lobbed blame on Israel for not cooperating with the investigation.

"Pro-Israel Orgs Respond to ‘Oxymoron’ Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry"

As the United Nations prepared to hear the results of the Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, which many are calling a demonization of the Jewish state, the parents of a 5-year-old boy who died during a Hamas bombing told their story to the media gathered outside the U.N. building in New York.

“Have you ever broken a promise you made to your child?” asked Asaf Avigal. “Have you ever had to bury your own child because you didn’t keep your promise? In my case, that’s exactly what happened.”

Avigal’s son, Ido, was hiding with his family in a safe room when he was hit and killed by shrapnel from a Hamas rocket in May 2021.

A day before Ido was “killed, murdered by Hamas,” Avigal said that his young son was terrified of the endless rockets and siren. “He asked me, ‘Daddy, what would happen if we couldn’t get to the shelter in time when the rockets came?’ I answered, ‘As long as you are with me you are safe.’ That was the broken promise I made to my child. My greatest wish is that you will be able to protect your kids and families.’”

The U.N. Human Rights Council created the “Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel” in spring of 2021 after Hamas sent more than 4,000 t rockets raining down on Israeli towns and cities, leading to the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Guardian of the Walls. The COI was conducted by three individuals—Navi Pillay, Miloon Kathari and Chris Sidoti—each of whom had previously demonstrated anti-Israel bias. The COI has no end date for its investigation and its research goes back decades to the founding of the State of Israel.

Noting that the final COI report, doesn’t mention Hamas or terrorism, yet vilifies Israel, Avigal said, “Apparently, not the rights of all humans are protected there.”

Ido’s mother, Shani, recounted the moment when the rocket crashed into the building next to them sending shrapnel crashing into their safe room. “Ido was hit in the head, chest and belly … I was severely injured by shrapnel.

“I tried to save my little boy,” she said. “I stepped over burning shards and glass and ran to my neighbors, but they didn’t hear me because they were in their own bomb shelter. I called the police and said my son and I are dying.”

“How can you be so heartless”, says @giladerdan1 to the Members of the @UN_HRC Commission of Inquiry, challenging them to look in the face of the family of 5 year old Ido, murdered by Hamas, but totally neglected by the CoI - as we’re all Israeli victims of Hamas terror! @UN pic.twitter.com/PZEkSFvEUF
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 27, 2022

Pathetic. The Chair of the Commission of Inquiry couldn’t even remember the name of ???? terror victim Ido Avigal. She clearly wasn’t listening as I told his tragic story moments before. She claims she is not heartless, but I bet if Ido was Palestinian, she wouldn’t have forgotten. pic.twitter.com/FC8eGHXCA1
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan ???? ???? (@giladerdan1) October 27, 2022

Ambulances aiding victims of Elad terror attack

There is one thing missing in all the media coverage of IDF operations in the West Bank.

Why they are there.

For years, the IDF rarely entered Area A. The Palestinian Authority took responsibility for security there, and they generally cooperated with Israel in rooting out terrorists - who were enemies of the PA as well. The system wasn't perfect, but it mostly worked, to everyone's benefit.

But earlier this year there was a wave of terror attacks in Israel:

March 22: Doris Yahbas (49), Laura Yitzhak 43), Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky and Menahem Yehezkel, (67) were killed and two more were injured during a stabbing and vehicle-ramming attack in Beersheba.

March 27: Yezen Falah and Shirel Abukarat, two Border Police officers, were shot dead by two terrorists.

March 29: Amir Khoury (32), Ya’akov Shalom (36), Avishai Yehezkel (29), Victor Sorokopot (38), and Dimitri Mitrik (23) were killed during a series of drive-by shootings in Bnei Brak.

April 7: Tomer Morad (28), Eytam Magini (27), and Barak Lufan (35) were shot dead at a downtown Tel Aviv bar , seven others were wounded and hospitalized.

April 29: Two Palestinian terrorists murdered Vyacheslav Golev (23), a security guard, at the entrance to Ariel.

May 5: Boaz Gol (49), Yonatan Havakuk (44), and Oren Ben Yitfah (35) were killed in a terrorist attack in Elad.

Most (if not all) of the terrorists came from the West Bank. Israel could not sit back and wait for more attacks, so it went on the offensive to break up the terror cells that were planning these attacks.

That's why the IDF is there.

This is not ancient history. It is 5 to 7 months ago.

How many news reports mention the terror spree that sparked this current escalation?

When people's attention spans are limited to one-minute videos and 240 character tweets, the media isn't going to bother to give any context. Easier to pretend that Israel attacks Palestinians for no apparent reason, and they are locked into a never ending conflict that has no history. And the media doesn't mention the basic fact that these IDF operations are meant to root out terrorists that the PA could not - or now, refuse to - do themselves.

This helps the terrorists. When they attack Israeli civilians, they know that the world will forget the attacks - but not Israel's responses, which are framed as constant and never-ending. The impression given to those who are only casual consumers of news is that Israel is virtually always the aggressor, and therefore always at fault. And then the occasional fatal Palestinian terror attack is the response to Israeli aggression, not the other way around.

Israel doesn't want anything to do with Area A. It has been forced to react to terrorism, to bring the battle to the terrorists and away from Israeli civilians. And for the most part it has worked - there have been no fatal attacks on civilians in months.

But the Israeli lives saved by these operations are definitely not something the media will mention.

In the realm of public relations, terrorists cannot lose as long as the media panders to the lowest common denominator of news consumer who they assume cannot understand context that requires more than two explanatory sentences.

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!

Two Palestinian Authority security services members were killed this morning near the Huwara checkpoint as they shot at the soldiers there.

Whenever incidents like this happen, before a terror group takes responsibility, Palestinian media (and even other terror groups) first respond by claiming that the IDF shot innocent civilians in cold blood.

Islamic Jihad called it a "cold blooded execution."

PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh called it "a heinous field execution committed by the occupation forces."

Then as more information started coming out that they were involved in an attack, the tenor of the responses changed.

The PFLP was cautious, saying they"were martyred in a new crime committed by the occupation" but implying that they were attacking at the time by saying "our people's response to the occupation and its aggression and the escalation of resistance against it proves the determination of our people to continue the confrontation until freedom and victory are achieved."

Then the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took explicit credit for the attempted attack, saying they shot at the IDF soldiers at point-blank range at 1:05 AM, a "zero-distance clash with the Zionist enemy at the Hawara checkpoint in the city of Nablus, and that all the usurpers and settler herds are targets of the battalion fighters, and that the battle is open with this usurper occupation."

So now the responses change from "innocent victims" to "heroic martyrs."

Hamas praised '"the two martyrs of the armed clash with the Zionist occupation forces."

The narrative changed on a dime.

Note that two members of the Palestinian Authority security forces were also terrorists for the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Either Mahmoud Abbas is too weak to enforce that his own security forces are not terrorists, or he supports it. Either way, negotiating with him for peace is impossible.

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!

I've seen bias from the UN before, but I don't recall ever seeing a document that looks like it was written by a hardened Israel hater.

The reports usually at least pretend to be unbiased. Not this one.

Francesca Albanese, UN "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967," issued a report in September that apparently was just made public. The summary gives a flavor of how crazily biased it is.

One of her goals in this report, in the inevitable path to soon officially calling Israel an apartheid state, Albanese accuses Israel of "settler colonialism" without going into any arguments why, just footnoting lots of equally biased papers.

Israel is not a settler colonialist state.

Throughout the report, Albanese fully accepts the Palestinian narrative as true and doesn't even mention any Israeli counter-claims. The reader sees only one side of the argument, and is not even informed that perhaps Israel has its own arguments. Albanese doesn't want to acknowledge even the possibility that Jews have a right to their own state.

Her one-sidedness is quite deliberate. She describes the Palestinian right to self-determination this way:

The right to self-determination is an “inalienable right” of the Palestinian people, as affirmed by the General Assembly. The origins of Palestinians’ right to self-determination can be traced back more than a century, preceding the first codification in the Charter of the United Nations. The people of Palestine (Muslims, Christians and Jews), like other peoples in the Levant, also had their right to self-determination recognized under the Covenant of the League of Nations of 1919. Article 22 of the Covenant stipulated that “Class A” mandates (Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Trans-Jordan and Syria) would enjoy provisional independence “until such time as they are able to stand alone”. The “wishes” of the local communities were to be “a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory”.

But she doesn't mention the Mandate for Palestine which specifically says that Jews have the right to self-determination - and no one else!

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.

This is lying by omission. Albanese knows the contents of the Mandate document - but wants to hide it from those reading this propaganda. And it happens over and over again.

She offers a brief history of the region where Jews are the only people who ever do anything wrong:

The culmination of centuries of antisemitism and persecution of Jews in Europe in the genocidal horror of the Holocaust strengthened support for political Zionism. This movement saw Palestine as the land to realize a “State for the Jews” through settlement and colonization. However, in that land a native Palestinian Arab population had resided for millennia. In 1947, the United Nations resolved to reconcile the separate claims to the land of the indigenous Palestinian people and the largely European Jewish settlers and refugees from Europe, by recommending the partitioning of British Mandate Palestine into an “Arab State” and a “Jewish State”. Soon after, the creation of the State of Israel in most of the territory of Mandate Palestine was accompanied by massacres and the mass expulsion, wholesale denationalization and dispossession of most of the Arabs of Palestine. They continue to be deprived of their right to self-determination, together with their descendants, the refugees further displaced in 1967 and other non-refugee Palestinians.

She doesn't once mention that Jews have historical ties to Israel. She doesn't mention the attacks by Arabs on Jews in Palestine decades before 1948. She doesn't mention that the Arabs rejected partition. She doesn't mention that the Arabs attacked the Jews. She doesn't mention that the territories annexed by Jordan ethnically cleansed every single Jew.

It would take weeks to show the depth of Albanese's dishonesty, but here is just one paragraph of many:

The transformation of the Gaza Strip into a heavily populated, impoverished enclave controlled by Israel through a suffocating sea, land and air blockade, is part and parcel of that same settler-colonial design. The containment of the colonial population into heavily controlled reserves is at the core of the settler-colonial goal to ensure the demographic supremacy and prevent Palestinian self-determination.

How do these assumptions fit in with the fact that Israel forcibly removed every Jew from Gaza in 2005? Was that part of the plan too? And did Israel plan for Hamas to take over Gaza so it could have an excuse for blockading it?

This is not just re-writing history. This is Soviet-level propaganda.

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!

10/27 Links Pt2: Marking 4 years since Tree of Life massacre, Biden rues ‘ugly rise’ of antisemitism; Melanie Phillips: The unholy alliance between Republicans and Islamists; BigLaw’s Jewish Problem

From Ian:

Marking 4 years since Tree of Life massacre, Biden rues ‘ugly rise’ of antisemitism

US President Joe Biden led memorial messages and vows to combat antisemitism on Thursday, marking four years since a gunman shot dead eleven Jewish worshipers and injured seven others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“A quiet Shabbat morning was shattered by gunfire and hate, and a place of sanctuary became a place of carnage,” Biden said in a statement.

“As we grieve this deadliest act of antisemitism in American history, we stand with the community of Squirrel Hill — and Jewish communities across America and around the world — in resolving to combat antisemitism and hate in all of its forms,” he said.

“This is especially true as we witness an ugly increase in antisemitism in America.”

Listing action the administration has taken to confront antisemitism, Biden noted the appointment of Holocaust expert Deborah Lipstadt as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role.

He also cited the largest-ever increase in funding for security for synagogues and other religious institutes, and other actions announced last month at the United We Stand Summit.

“The rabbis teach that ‘what comes from the heart, enters the heart,'” Biden said, citing the eleventh Century Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra.

“On this difficult day, our hearts are with the families of the victims, the survivors, and all those impacted by the Tree of Life shooting. May their memories be a blessing, and may we continue to bridge the gap between the world we see and the future we seek.”

US Antisemitism Envoy: France ‘Ground Zero’ for European Antisemitism

France has become the epicenter of 21st century antisemitism in Europe — a phenomena which is now beginning to replicate in other countries around the world, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism has warned.

“I think that in many ways France has proven to be ‘Ground Zero’ for European antisemitism, in part because of the large Muslim population,” the envoy, Deborah Lipstadt, told a panel hosted by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Paris on Monday. “If we’d been having this conversation 15 years ago, I would have said France is a unique situation – sadly, it’s not unique anymore.”

In her remarks, which follow a week-long trip to Belgium and France to meet with EU officials on combating antisemitism, Lipstadt cited some of the deadly antisemitic and terrorist attacks that have plagued France over the last twenty years, among them the 2006 kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi, a young cellphone salesman, by an antisemitic gang known as “The Barbarians”, as well as the 2012 and 2015 respective gun attacks on a Jewish school in Toulouse and a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Other incidents included the 2017 murder of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman who was beaten and thrown to her death from the third-floor window of her Paris apartment by her neighbor, Kobili Traore, during a frenzied antisemitic assault. French Jews were outraged in April 2021 when the country’s highest court upheld an earlier decision that Traore could not be held criminally responsible for Halimi’s death because his intake of marijuana on the night of the killing had rendered him temporarily insane.

Lipstadt warned the evolution of antisemitism which once limited to France had now spread to other countries, including the United States. “I think that in many respects, France emulates what we’ve seen in other places, because it’s not just Islamist extremist antisemitism, it’s also from the right and from the left,” she said.

Lipstadt also noted that the convergence of antisemitic criticism of Israel from the fringes of both right and left wing ideologies is occuring not only in France, but in the US and UK as well.

Statement from Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt on Recent Antisemitism pic.twitter.com/UBdbJdtGLx
— Special Envoy Deborah Lipstadt (@StateSEAS) October 26, 2022

A dead family in Gaza: The other half of the story

Last year, during the May 2021 fighting in Gaza, an IAF missile destroyed an apartment in Gaza City, killing a mother and two of her children - Rima Telbani(31), Zeid(4) and Maryam(2).

Israel was blamed for targeting civilians. The New York Times published a photo of the children.

Today, another victim of that attack succumbed to his wounds. His name is Muhammad Ouda Yousef Al-Telbani.

He was a Hamas terrorist.

In fact, in the building at the same time were two other senior Hamas terrorists who were killed - who were not mentioned by PCHR.

Which means that the building was almost certainly a command and control center - and the cute Telbani kids were human shields for Hamas, including for their father.

That changes the story a bit, doesn't it?

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Israel Doing Same Things Other Countries Do Somehow Worse Because JEWS (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Haredi at Kotel Tel Aviv, October 30 - International organizations calling attention to the Jewish State's actions and how they affect Palestinians stressed the importance today of maintaining focus and pressure on the country and its government because of those actions, which take place in most every other state in the world, but require greater urgency and severity in response because Jews.

Representatives of United Nations agencies and various global human rights groups agreed in separate interviews Thursday that the world must maintain its insistence on giving Israeli policies and behaviors prominence in new coverage and human rights criticism even as regimes near and far perpetrate violations equal to or far worse than Israel's alleged crimes, because "you've got to start somewhere" and that somewhere for every single one of those organizations and agencies has to be Israel because Jews.

"Israeli brutality is the root of brutality elsewhere," explained an activist with the BDS movement in the southern English city of Brighton. "The world was an entirely peaceful place until the Zionists came and disturbed everything. If we can reverse the establishment of Jewish sovereignty and security in a place of their choosing, we can restore the bliss that the world knew before 1896. That's why when Israel destroys a rocket-launch site in Gaza that targeted Israelis, it's worse than China's treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority, which, between you and me, can you even prove?"

"Tens of millions of ethnic German refugees had to leave the homes they knew in Czech, Polish, and other territory at the end of and after World War Two," observed Chris Gunness, a former Gaza coordinator for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees who had to operate out of Tel Aviv because Gazans would have killed him for his homosexuality. "Then there was the creation of Pakistan out of the former British possession of India - tens of millions on both sides of the partition line who had to move to the new entity on the other side, through abundant suffering and abuse. They were permanently resettled in their respective new countries despite generations, even ancient, presence of their families in the previous location. Then the world stopped treating those issues as important. But with Palestinians and Israel we need to perpetuate the refugees and their descendants in that stateless status until Israel agrees - or is forced to - destroy itself, because... it's Israel. Everyone knows that's different."

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10/27 Links Pt1: How Americans, Europeans Embolden Palestinian Terrorism; Republicans must defund the UN and stop appeasement of Iran; Russian official: Chabad Lubavitch is a neo-pagan cult

From Ian:

Bassam Tawil: How Americans, Europeans Embolden Palestinian Terrorism

Instead of assuming its responsibility for halting terrorist attacks from areas under its control, the Palestinians continue to violate the agreements they signed with Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority did not take real measures to stop Hamas from building a massive terrorism infrastructure. Hamas later used its weapons arsenal not only to attack Israel, but also to overthrow the PA regime and seize full control of the Gaza Strip.

The same scenario is now being repeated in the West Bank, specifically in areas controlled by Mahmoud Abbas's security forces.

This is the twisted logic of the Palestinian leadership: Instead of denouncing the terrorists for targeting Israelis, as they have officially and repeatedly committed to doing, they lash out at Israel for defending itself against the current wave of terrorism.

When a senior Palestinian official such as Habbash says that the terrorists are entitled to carry out "resistance" attacks, he is actually telling them to continue targeting Israelis. Such statements are not only a violation of the agreements the Palestinians signed with Israel, but also incitement to launch more terrorist attacks against Israelis.

The Palestinian leadership, in a policy is known as "pay-for-slay," already provides monthly stipends to Palestinian terrorists..... The families of the Nablus terrorists will also presumably benefit from these payments.

The Palestinian leadership's endorsement and glorification of terrorism comes as no surprise. What is surprising – and intensely disturbing – is that those foreign governments that are providing financial and political aid to the Palestinian Authority, especially the Americans and the Europeans, are not calling out Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership for their public support of terrorism and their ongoing breach of the agreements they voluntarily signed with Israel.

"We will not resort to weapons, we will not resort to violence," Abbas declared in his last speech before the United Nations General Assembly, "we will not resort to terrorism, we will fight terrorism." His words were directed to the international community, not to his own people.

The silence of the Americans and Europeans toward the actions and rhetoric of the Palestinian leaders is tantamount to a green light to the Lions' Den and other terrorists to continue their terrorist attacks.

If the Biden administration and the Europeans believe that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader is going to stop a terrorist from murdering Jews, they are engaging in staggering self-deception.

Jonathan Tobin: Republicans must defund the UN and stop appeasement of Iran

While the U.N. as a whole is an ongoing disgrace, last week’s report of the HRC’s Commission of Inquiry on Israel has highlighted the issue of the world body’s anti-Semitism. The HRC can’t be reformed. The only proper response is to do everything possible to shut it down and to punish those of its officials who are responsible for its trafficking in blatant Jew-hatred and its efforts to isolate and destroy the one Jewish state on the planet.

While some find it hard to work up much indignation against the U.N., or regard efforts to rein it as tilting against windmills, the Commission of Inquiry’s effort to aid the destruction of Israel illustrates how dangerous it can be. Indeed, documents like this report are useful tools for the spread of anti-Semitism via the BDS movement and to those wishing to aid the likes of Iran and its terrorist allies, which seek Israel’s extinction. While the administration opposed the Commission’s report, it isn’t prepared to hold those responsible for this outrage by withdrawing from or defunding the HRC.

It’s up to Republicans to pass legislation defunding the HRC and the Commission of Inquiry. More than that, the House, with the backing of Senate Republicans, must use its leverage over the funding of the State Department to ensure that the administration doesn’t find a way to evade restrictions in this realm.

That will require a degree of intestinal fortitude that past GOP congressional leaders have lacked. But what must be understood about this is that by refusing to use its fiscal power, the DC establishment has stood by while this administration uses taxpayer dollars to enable the U.N. to spread anti-Semitism.

If the GOP is serious about stopping Biden’s toxic policies, it can’t waste precious time on rhetorical exercises. 2023 must be the year this comes to an end.

continues a longstanding pattern of unfairly singling out Israel and does nothing to establish conditions for peace.” /2

More on the UN’s Pillay Commission which reports today to the UNGA: https://t.co/lVRGTkoo2s pic.twitter.com/jTaE6SpVKs
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 27, 2022

Today's report to the UN by the Pillay Commission condemns only Israel & underscores why the inquiry is a travesty of justice that is as fair and objective as the Spanish Inquisition. We drafted this resolution to begin the process to disband the inquiry: https://t.co/RZdOBkGw6f pic.twitter.com/5oNQjbH9w6
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 27, 2022

Arabs upset that Gigi Hadid denounced antisemitism

Model Gigi Hadid, who has posted anti-Israel messages on Instagram along with her model sister and her mogul father, reposted a message against antisemitism that comedian Amy Schumer had written.

Ynet also reported that she seems to have removed her older, anti-Israel posts, apparently including accusing Israel of "greed:"

Arab media is very upset about this. And they seem more upset over her support of the Jewish people than for her removal of her anti-Israel posts. Here is Al Arabiya's reporting:

Her sister Bella Hadid also wrote her own recent post against antisemitism, but did not appear to make any waves in Arab media for that.

What makes these statements significant is that they may not only be a response to Kanye West's antisemitism, but from their own father Mohamed's hate. Three weeks ago, he compared Jews to Nazis on his own Instagram: "Hitler labeled the Jews as terrorist and the Germans believed and cowardly did the crime of the century. And the Zionists labeled the Palestinians terrorists in their own land.” He extended the comparison: "Yet, the Jews got all their money twice from Germany and Poland and other why is this such double standards? How can they decide that that’s their home in Germany? Not only they steal our homes, they demolish them with people in them most of the time and make sure they are humiliated and homeless.”

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!

Tharwat el-Kherbawy is an Egyptian lawyer who used to lead the Muslim Brotherhood but left the group in 2002 and became a strident critic of the Brotherhood since then.

He gave a TV interview with his analysis of the Brotherhood which was reported in major Egyptian media. He described how dishonest the Muslim Brotherhood is, and emphasized it in a way that any Egyptian would immediately identify with:

He emphasized that the Brotherhood is like the Jews; They never recognize the truth, take advantage of the social media, spread false ideas, and spread rumors.

When reaching for an example of the paradigmatic liar, and knowing that he is speaking to a national Egyptian audience, Kherbawy says that they are as bad as the Jews.

Not Zionists - Jews.

And not one Egyptian media outlet found this to be problematic. Of course, the Jews are known to be the biggest liars in the world! It is axiomatic. Why would anyone disagree?

A 2010 Pew poll found that 95% of Egyptians have an unfavorable attitude towards Jews. The ADL finds "only" 75% of Egyptians have antisemitic attitudes.

And modern anti-Zionists keep insisting that these Arabs are not antisemitic, but only anti-Zionist, and that Jews lived in peace and harmony in Arab countries before 1948.

There are definitely liars in this world - but they aren't the Jews.

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!

Black conservatives engaging in casual antisemitism while being clueless why Kanye is offensive

Jason Whitlock is a sports journalist with half a million Twitter followers who is politically conservative. He has been tweeting in defense of Kanye West and getting thousands of retweets:

When will the Bible be de-platformed and canceled? Revelation 2:9: "I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan." #Kanye
— Jason Whitlock (@WhitlockJason) October 26, 2022

He displays a similar casual antisemitism as Kanye himself, retweeting this:

Whitlock has an online show where he discusses Kanye's words and the reaction, and at one point (8:50) asks his panelists a basic question:

This is where I need help, and somebody jump in here. there seems to be a group of people that they're calling black or Hebrew Israelites and this seems to be very offensive, these people what they believe is very offensive that they're arguing that black people are the original Jews or are the Jews ...again I'm not plain dumb I really don't understand uh why it's offensive, or I'm not even sure what's the logic behind the argument, does anybody know?

Two of the panelists say what they know about the Black Hebrew movement and admit they don't know why this is offensive. One, author Shemeka Michelle, reads a dictionary definition of "semite" and says, sure, it sounds like Black people are Semitic, why is this offensive to Jews?

Finally, former football player TJ Moe says, "My takeaway, again rudimentary understanding, and I don't know if Kanye did this, but a lot of the [Black Hebrew] movement they are not just saying that hey, there's a lost tribe of black people who are Jews too. They're saying you guys are imposters

and that's where it becomes anti-semitic, and that's where I could see them being offended ...He may have actually said it on Tucker, if I remember right, he said I think black people are the real Jews."

So there is a clear element of cluelessness going on here - not only how offensive the idea that Jews who have been persecuted for millennia for being Jewish are being called imposters is, but that if we are imposters than the centuries of expulsions and pogroms and the Holocaust becomes meaningless. Our dead aren't martyrs, they are just dead.

There is another point that is offensive - the idea of truth. There is no evidence that Black people are originally Jews, no matter how many rappers make that claim. To have a group of people come and hijack our history based on clearly false and constructed arguments is not only offensive to Jews but to history.

The conversation notes that Black people have poetically identified with Jews since the days of slavery, which is certainly true. One interesting point again made by TJ Moe was summarized by Whitlock, that Kanye was saying "that Jewish equals oppression, black people have been oppressed for centuries, ergo black people are the real Jews." The poetry of Negro spirituals like "Go Down Moses" has morphed into many Black people literally believing that the Bible is about them.

But even though Whitlock heard these explanations, he himself enthusiastically seemed to reject them - and reject Jews as Jews - in the tweet at the top of this article, written after this video was made.

Also, Whitlock seems to accept without question that Jews control the music industry and are therefore guilty of oppressing multimillionaire rappers. It isn't true that Jews control the industry, and it isn't true that Black performers are treated differently than any other in their contracts.

Whitlock's cluelessness doesn't end there - he cannot understand why Jews are offended by analogies of Black people getting abortions with the Holocaust. He thinks that is valid.

Without bothering to ask a Jew why we are offended by Kanye's clearly hateful statements, he is taking wild guesses based on pure ignorance - and drawing conclusions based on wrong information.

Yes, it is antisemitic to compare the Black experience in America today with the Holocaust. It is antisemitic to blame Jews for unfair contracts in the music industry. It is antisemitic to say that Jewish history is a lie. It is antisemitic to say that Jews are imposters and that some other group is the real Jewish people, based on fake history and lies. it is antisemitic to to pretend that Kanye is being persecuted by a vast Jewish cabal and that he did nothing wrong. And it is offensive to assume that the Jewish outrage at Kanye's words are overblown and unfair without even understanding why they are offensive to begin with.

And it might not be antisemitic, but it is definitely offensive, that so many supporters of Kanye West don't even bother to ask the question of why his words are so hateful and offensive to begin with.

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!

10/26 Links Pt2: After West Jerusalem shift, will Australian Labor also turn on Israel at the UN?; Will canceling Kanye West turn the tide on anti-Semitism?; What Explains Ireland's Extreme Antisemitism?

From Ian:

Dave Sharma: After West Jerusalem shift, will Labor also turn on Israel at the UN?

The government’s signalling that it no longer considers Israel to be sovereign over West Jerusalem leads to some odd conclusions.

Far from advancing the cause of peace, which Labor professes to support, this reversal only sets peace back. The only states and entities that assert Israel has no claim to West Jerusalem are the same ones that assert Israel has no entitlement to a sovereign state whatsoever: Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It is very odd company for the Labor government to be keeping.

Will Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong now refuse to meet Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem, as countless of their Labor predecessors have done, and as the UAE Foreign Minister did just in September? If Labor considers West Jerusalem to now be disputed territory, this is the only feasible conclusion.

Of equal importance, does this presage a larger shift in Labor’s attitude towards Israel in international forums?

The Howard government in 2004 altered Australia’s voting position on a number of annual, one-sided UN General Assembly Resolutions that single out Israel as the obstacle to peace, whilst remaining silent on the obligations of other parties. Under the Rudd/Gillard governments, many of these positions were reversed, before being reversed again under subsequent Coalition governments. It appears likely that the Albanese government will once again shift these votes.

The bigger question though is whether the government will follow through on the commitment in the ALP’s official platform to unilaterally recognise a state of Palestine, absent the usual criteria for statehood. In 2021, in a motion introduced by Wong, Labor’s national conference adopted this as official policy.

If the Albanese government goes through with this, it would separate Australia from some of its closest allies and partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, France, Germany and Canada.

A profound shift such as this would not make the emergence of a future Palestinian state any more likely. But it would break a strong Labor tradition of support for the state of Israel, and harm one of Australia’s closest and most valuable relationships in the Middle East.

Foreign policy should proceed on the basis of established facts and national interests. Labor’s approach risks ignoring both.

Sky News corrects claim that Australia 'recognised Tel Aviv' as capital

We tweeted several Sky News [UK] editors and journalsts before one responded, upholding our complaint regarding an Oct. 19 Sky News article, written by Amarachi Orie, falsely claiming that Australia recognised Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital. The article in question focused on news that officials in Canberra had rescinded the previous government’s recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

However, the country’s decision to no longer recognise Jerusalem didn’t mean that it therefore recognised Tel Aviv as the capital – as the official government statement on the matter from the foreign ministry shows.

David Collier: What Explains Ireland's Extreme Antisemitism?

Collier said there are different causes behind the virulent anti-Zionist/anti-Israel atmosphere in Ireland. The first is the "distinct anticolonial strand going through the whole of Irish politics" which is evident in the rise of Sinn Fein, "historically the Republican Independence Movement" political party. Many Irish people, who "hate England," mistakenly believe "Britain gave the Jews Israel" and are convinced that the Jewish State epitomizes "settler colonialism." Ironically, as Israel was being established post-1945, the Zionists fought to oust the British from its mandate in Palestine.

The second cause of rampant antisemitism in Ireland is found in the country's "strand" of "classic antisemitism," now seen coming from both the "far left and the far right." Collier pointed out that even though the Irish were "officially independent" during World War II, "many of the Irish Republicans sided with the Nazis." The third cause of Irish antisemitism is rooted in the second — particular "ideologies within Christianity", which are "very strong in the Irish Catholic Church." The church is replete with belief in "replacement ideology, supersessionism, or the idea ... the Christians are the new Jews."

That the Jews have returned to their ancient homeland in Israel creates a "major ideological problem" for the Catholic Church, driving it to align with the Palestinians. Collier said that Christian charities will donate to anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGO's), some of which are affiliated with Palestinian terrorist groups. He said an exception in Ireland to the widespread antisemitism is that Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and whose predominantly Protestant citizens identify with the British, tend to be pro-Israel.

The fourth and final issue driving Irish antisemitism, Collier said, is attributable to "Islamist extremism." Whereas the U.S. and England experienced Islamist attacks after mistakenly, over the past three decades, "placing the bar for extremism far ... too high," he said Europe is "paying a deep price for it now." In Ireland, which has not experienced a large influx of Muslim migration, the antisemites there share the same "anti-colonial, anti-imperial" messages with Islamists, whom "they've accepted ... wholesale." The Islamists, essentially, are "coming in speaking the same anti-colonial, anti-imperial messaging, that the Irish do." Collier said, "anti-Zionist rhetoric," unabashedly rife on Irish streets, also creates a "hostile environment" for Jewish students on campuses. He said there are mosques preaching hate, Irish universities with Islamist academics, and the local church, all in league "bashing the state of Israel."

Collier believes that Sinn Fein's growing popularity will be accompanied by an "escalation" of antisemitism in Ireland, which he tracks through social media. He is dismayed at the trends because he said Hitler and the Holocaust "didn't just happen." Rather, their emergence can be traced back to "European antisemitism and beyond it, Christian antisemitism."