Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 23, 2022

Hundreds of liberal US rabbis embrace a form of BDS

More than 330 American rabbis, including some who occupy prominent roles in major cities, are pledging to block members of the Religious Zionist bloc in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from speaking at their synagogues and will lobby to keep them from speaking in their communities.

An open letter now circulating says they will not invite members of the bloc “to speak at our congregations and organizations. We will speak out against their participation in other fora across our communities. We will encourage the boards of our congregations and organizations to join us in this protest as a demonstration of our commitment to our Jewish and democratic values.”

Its signatories come from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. There were no Orthodox signatories.

This is prominent US Jewish leaders embracing BDS.

Every synagogue is free to invite whomever they want to speak, and not to invite people they don't want. But when they say that they will protest other synagogues' choice of speakers, and encourage their congregations to protest those other congregations, that is not a commitment to "Jewish and democratic values."

That is shutting down free speech.

That is identical to BDS.

Imagine these same rabbis' reaction if Orthodox synagogues encouraged their members to picket their choice to allow Arab or Leftist MKs to speak at their synagogues. Yet they are encouraging the same kind of activities from their own members - in the name of democracy!

I have not dug deeply into the new Israeli government, mostly because every article about it is speculation. Likud is still by far the majority of the government, not the far right, and they will be the ones setting the agenda, just as they have for most of the past decade.

The cabinet members have not even been finalized.

With every political party, including in the US, there is a huge gap between what they say when campaigning and what they actually do when governing. Often, their party platforms include things to make the extremists of their parties happy while the leaders have no desire to actually implement them.

Moreover, the hysterical headlines coming out of Haaretz, US media other outlets are rarely correct. For example, reporting about the proposed change to the Law of Return is riddled with major errors.

In short, the reporting so far about Israel's future government has been high on hysteria and nearly nonexistent on what the government will actually do.

Israeli's policies can and should be criticized when appropriate. But the criticism should be based on actions, on real legislation, not rumors or even falsehoods written by partisan reporters and columnists.

The thought of of Reform Jews coming out to protest and disrupt a member of Israel's cabinet speaking at an Orthodox synagogue in the US is far worse than anything that Ben Gvir has done - and is likely to do. That is not "Jewish and democratic values." That is hate.

And it shows that, ideologically, these rabbis are more on the side of BDS - spreading false rumors, looking for publicity rather than waiting for the truth to come out, trying to shut down free speech - than on Israel's side.

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12/22 Links Pt2: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts; Jordanian anti-Israel film no longer Oscar contender; In WW2, German Generals Knew about the Annihilation of Jews

From Ian:

‘A Brief And Visual History Of Antisemitism’ Is An Important Resource In Today’s Climate

Israel B. Bitton’s new book, “A Brief and Visual History of Antisemitism,” shouldn’t be needed — but sadly, it is.

A substantial work two years in the making, the visually rich effort features a foreword by Israeli President Isaac Herzog. It’s aimed at all people, but it is particularly designed for seniors in high school as some of the images and discussion could be too intense for younger readers.

Former longtime Democratic New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, was intimately involved in the creation of the book. He told me, “Knowledge is power. We wanted the book to be easy to read and follow.” And it is — even coming with “augmented reality bonus content” aimed at a generation that might not be as familiar as they should be with the long and sordid history of hate and violence directed against the Jewish people.

Hikind went on to note that in November alone, there were 45 hate crimes committed against Jews in New York City — almost three times as many as those committed against all other groups combined. Hikind also cited FBI Director Christopher Wray’s Nov. 17 testimony before Congress that “Antisemitism and violence that comes out of it is a persistent and present fact,” with the Jewish community “getting hit from all sides.” Wray then said 63 percent of religious hate crimes were motivated by antisemitism — a remarkable fact when considering that only 2.4 percent of Americans are Jewish.

The book runs 549 pages before hitting its densely packed endnotes, serving both as a well-documented resource book and a useful tool for the classroom. It’s divided into nine discrete units: Defining Antisemitism; Beginnings of Antisemitism; Proliferation of Antisemitism; Secularization of Antisemitism; Apex of Antisemitism; Easternization of Antisemitism; Politicization of Antisemitism; The Current Landscape; and Combating Antisemitism.

I queried Hikind about how antisemitism might be different today than it was when the infamous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was published in Russia in 1903. “There is no difference,” Hikind said, “The same thing Jews were accused of in the past are the same things they are accused of today.”

David Collier: Challenging the false anti-Israel narrative with facts

“Not all opinions are equal. And some things happened just like they say they did. Slavery happened, the Black Death happened, the earth is round, the ice caps are melting, and Elvis is not alive” -Rachel Weisz (playing Deborah Lipstadt) from the movie ‘Denial’.

Jews are facing Orwellian inversions of history. We are witnessing an increase in Holocaust denialism, that can even perversely attempt to make Jews responsible for the events in Nazi Germany. And we are seeing a rewrite of the story of Zionism, which results in Jews being portrayed as powerful, sadistic monsters.

Thankfully, Holocaust denialism is mostly in the shadows. Every decent person will have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, the rewrite of the Israel story has been far more successful. Media, politicians, and even many Jews on the left, have lost sight of what is true. It is this history – the real history – that I highlight here.

Anti-Israel activism is based on two key falsehoods.

The first is that the Arabs welcomed the Jews (and were then betrayed by them).
The second is that the Jews controlled the events, eventually going on a deliberate rampage, slaughtering or expelling innocent and passive Arabs.

I have no intention of making this a wordy piece, but rather to go on a brief journey through time. Using news reports to highlight the truth upon which the conflict is built.

Acceptance and populations
Let me begin with the idea that the Arabs accepted the Jews – or lived with them in peace before the Zionists came. Until the latter part of the 19th century, pogroms could occur in places such as Tzfat or Hebron (1834) and the world remained oblivious. If news did break out, it often came through published letters of notable travellers that witnessed events. This distressing eye-witness account of a brutal attack on Jews in Jerusalem, was written in July 1834 and published four months after the event occurred:

That attack was not conducted by the Egyptians or the Turks – but by local Arab Muslims. This was the life of Jews in Jerusalem under Ottoman Islamic rule: 3rd class citizens, vulnerable to the violent whims of the Islamic rulers and local Muslim populations. Below are three more extracts from newspapers in the 19th Century, One details the ‘indignity’ with which Jews of Jerusalem were treated. The two others refer to Ottoman laws restricting Jewish free movement (one even mentions the ‘enmity’ towards them):

All reports from the area of the time speak of squalor, empty lands, decay, and neglect. Laws were set in place restricting Jewish land purchase and movement. This blatantly anti-Jewish decree did not just affect Jews from Europe – but even Jews inside the Ottoman empire:
American Israelite, 25 July 1884

At differing levels anti-Jewish activity continued until the British arrived. Between 1914 and 1917, the Turks expelled all the Jews in Tel Aviv and Yaffo:
Daily Phoenix and Times-Democrat Oklahoma,19 Jan 1915

There was an unmentioned driver to the Turkish oppression of Jews in the late 19th Century. The Islamic rulers were worried about Jews entering a land with a low population. So *Muslim only* immigration was encouraged. This can be seen in reports from the time, such as this one that details the Bosnian Muslim immigration and the barriers placed on others:

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— David Collier (@mishtal) December 22, 2022

Alan M. Dershowitz: Democracy in Israel

Israel's democratic system is based on a unicameral parliament, the Knesset, the members of which are chosen in an election based on nationwide proportional representation. Because no one single political party has ever in the country's history won a majority of 61 out of 120 Knesset seats, multiple parties -- including small ones -- need to group together in a coalition to form the government.

It is often necessary to make significant compromises among the parties in order to make up a governing coalition. That is what is happening now with Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who .... promises to continue to oppose [bigotries] in the new government he is working to form under himself as Prime Minister.

Israel, however, presents a very different face through the persona of its President Isaac Herzog. In Israel, the presidency is a non-partisan ceremonial role, without executive powers. Herzog... in 2015 ran unsuccessfully for prime minister as leader of the left-wing Labor Party. Today, as president, he represents all the citizens of Israel. His face is that of a centrist patriot with a long history of supporting human rights for all....

Herzog can remind the world that no country in history has contributed more to the world -- medically, scientifically, technologically, agriculturally, culturally, in human rights and in other ways -- during its first 75 years of existence than Israel. This, despite having to devote so much of its resources to defending itself against genocidal threats from Iran and other nations and terror groups committed to its destruction. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan and other Arab nations, and is seeking peace and normalization with still others.

Netanyahu, who was Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has played an extremely positive role in many of these developments, as well as in creating a peace that few thought possible with four Arab countries -- the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco -- after decades of hostility – all while countering deadly threats from Iran and leading Israel's economy away from socialism into the high-tech wonder that it is.

There is much for Israel to be proud of, even as it faces challenges both from without and within. No nation is subjected to more unfounded and disproportionate condemnation -- from the United Nations, from international tribunals, from NGOs, from campus radicals, from many in the media -- than the nation-state of the Jewish people.

.@CNN reports Israel's new government is "now made up all of men, and all orthodox except for Netanyahu himself." https://t.co/9kXNnAd0vZ

Note to CNN: Netanyahu hasn't even announced who from his own Likud party, including women and non-orthodox, will become ministers. pic.twitter.com/d9Dr5uh86i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 22, 2022

DEBATE: Does the Supreme Court have too much power? | Caroline Glick Show #supremecourt #democracy

In the new “Caroline Glick Show,” Caroline Glick hosts a debate between jurists Alan Dershowitz and Avi Bell about why the Israeli Supreme Court needs reforms.

While the two law professors disagree about the scope of the reforms required, they both agree that the power of the Court should be limited.

Chanukah music video night 5: Sevivon Sov Sov - A Bam Bam Hanukkah - Listen Up! Jewish Vocal Band (plus bonus "Vyunok" ensemble)

Plus this original Chanukah song performed by a children's ensemble Vyunok:

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

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Palestinians Hijack Sleigh, Hold Santa Hostage (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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venison Bethlehem, December 25 - A group of terrorists operating in the traditionally-accepted birthplace of Jesus interdicted the passage of St. Nicholas's reindeer-pulled vehicle tonight as it passed over the town, and have since kept him in an undisclosed location, a spokesman for the group announced today.

A masked man calling himself Abu Knaffeh released a video on the new Twitter account of an organization named Leopards of Al-Quds, in which he claimed he and his comrades had kidnapped Santa Claus. The two-minute clip showed a fat, bearded man in a white-fur-trimmed red suit and hat tied to a chair, the contents of several sacks strewn about the room as masked, gun-toting men rifled through them. Abu Knaffeh threatened to slaughter one reindeer each half-hour, and then Santa himself, unless Israel releases all Palestinians in its prisons.

Israeli officials vowed not to give in to terror. "Santa will be fine," assured Minister of Public Security Itamar ben-Gvir. "Reindeer are expendable, and Rudolph was always a suspicious character. Probably gay. As for this Santa character, I don't care much for pagan icons. Let him rot. Unless we can stage a dramatic rescue in which our guys kill a bunch of scum terrorists. We haven't ruled that out."

European progressives called the development unfortunate, but a predictable outcome of Israeli policies. "We've seen this before," lamented UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. "It was only a matter of time before Palestinians felt they had no choice but to keep doing the very thing they've been doing for fifty-plus years because the West always relents and pressures Israel, which is the way things should be."

Eyewitness reports also indicate that the contents of Santa's sacks were now being sold at Bethlehem stores, alongside UNRWA-provided flour and rice marked "Not for Sale."

Experts noted that the once-strong Christian population of Bethlehem has contracted drastically since the ancient town, just to the south of Jerusalem, came under Palestinian control under agreements with Israel in the 1990's. "This wouldn't have happened under Israeli control," noted Dick Move of The Mideast Fallacy Purim, a think tank. "Areas under Israeli control are the only places in the Middle East where the Christian population isn't shrinking. Bethlehem is a powerful microcosm of the faith's fortunes in the region, where Islamist supremacist harassment has driven Christians elsewhere in huge numbers. Gaza, for example, is almost empty of Christians, and it used to be a stronghold. What's happening now, with Santa, is more or less the logical conclusion of a process that's been leading this way for a long time."

"Now would be a good time for a slay/sleigh pun," he added.

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!

12/22 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The European Union’s subversion of Israel; Returning the Palestinians to Center Stage Undermines Stability in the Middle East

From Ian:

JCPA: The EU's Secret Palestinian Building Plan for Area C

Its actions in unilaterally advancing a Palestinian state in Area C, territories assigned to Israel both administratively and regarding security responsibilities by both the PLO and Israel in a mutually signed agreement of September 28, 1995, represent a violation of international law and call into question the EU’s ability to continue serve in any capacity as diplomatic interlocutor.

The EU’s unpublished policy plan also violates Israel’s legal rights as affirmed by the EU at Oslo and reveals a pro-PLO bias that renders the EU as de facto supporters of the official PA policy of allocating payments to Palestinian terrorists who were killed, captured, or imprisoned as a result of their jihadi terror activity. Israel and the international community bear a responsibility to reveal the EU’s gross violations of its diplomatic responsibilities and those of Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, as well as European Commission President Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen.

This latest revelation is only the most recent example of EU malfeasance as an entrusted diplomatic interlocutor. Ambassador Alan Baker, former legal advisor to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, pointed out in a July 2022 policy brief for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, that EU member states restored funding to six Palestinian civil society organizations designated by Israel as terror-supporting organizations, rejecting evidence submitted by Israel that these organizations are linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an EU-, U.S.-, and Israel-designated terror group.

As Baker notes, contrary to its special status as witness, sponsor, and facilitator of the Oslo Accords, the EU and specifically Norway have consistently conducted a one-sided, partisan policy aimed at prejudging the issues that are still to be negotiated between the parties, such as the issue of Jerusalem and the permanent status of the territories.

Baker added that, “Facilitating international funding to support and encourage Palestinian terror, including providing funds for salaries and benefits of terrorists serving prison sentences, is the antithesis of any genuine international action to promote human rights, peace, and stability in the Middle East.”

Melanie Phillips: The European Union’s subversion of Israel

Now this is out in the open. The E.U. can no longer pretend it is merely contributing to Palestinian “civil society.” Yet even now, there is no mention of any of this by the Western mainstream media. In Britain, the BBC has instead been busy fomenting yet more anti-Israel feeling by telling its audience that Netanyahu has finalized “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history.”

Similar denunciations by Israel’s outgoing leftist prime minister, Yair Lapid, have been fueling hysteria in the West, not least among liberal-minded Diaspora Jews.

These have been heard describing the yet-to-be-formed Israeli government as “horrific,” and have already been blaming Israel for putting them in danger as a result.

Now the E.U. has been engulfed by revelations of a corrupt relationship with Qatar—the sponsor of Hamas and mortal foe of Israel. While details are still unfolding, this axis isn’t surprising. There’s a nexus between the universalism embodied by the E.U. and the desire to bring down Israel, the nation state of the most particularist culture in the world.

And it’s no coincidence that the majority of British Jews, who in 2016 voted for the U.K. to remain in the E.U. partly through their ludicrous belief that universalism actually protected them against antisemitism, have also swallowed many of the lies about the Palestinian cause—and, like their liberal American counterparts, are now clutching their pearls over Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and Maoz.

While concerns about the extremism of this trio are justifiable, the people they most resemble are the Maccabees. They were Jewish religious zealots who fought the Hellenized Jews because the Hellenizers were adopting Greek universalist precepts and, as a result, taking a wrecking ball to Jewish practices such as circumcision and Shabbat observance.

But the Maccabees fought and defeated the Jews’ Greek oppressors. While being rightly excoriated for violent extremism, the heroes of the Hanukkah story saved the Jewish people from tyranny.

It may be that today’s Maccabean Three are channeling Jewish history once again.

Israeli MKs slam EU policy document for ignoring Jewish land rights in West Bank

A group of 40 Israeli lawmakers led by Likud MK Amichai Chikli sent an open letter on Tuesday to the European Union protesting an official policy document that they say denies historical Jewish ties to the so-called Area C of the West Bank.

The classified June 2022 document exposed by Israeli media gives an overview of the continental bloc's policy toward Area C of the territory, which is fully administered by Israel.

According to the Oslo Accords, a series of interim peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians signed in the 1990s, this territory is supposed to be gradually relinquished to Palestinian control, with an option for land swaps under a final status agreement. The document shows that the EU is working in concert with the Palestinian Authority to integrate Area C into a future Palestinian state.

The EU criticizes Israeli policies of building in Area C of the West Bank, which the Israeli government refers to by its biblical name — Judea and Samaria.

In the letter, lawmakers criticize EU policies in the West Bank as favoring the Palestinians and ignoring the historical claims of the Jewish people to the land.

"In the last decade, we've witnessed the increasing involvement of the European Union in construction, planning road projects and erecting water and solar energy facilities in hundreds of outposts in Area C," Chikli told i24NEWS.

"The document uncovered this week shows that this is a deliberate strategy that completely ignores Israel's position and sovereignty in the area.

Moreover, the construction moves show that the goal is for the most part to interrupt the sequences of Jewish settlement and to create choke rings around the settlement blocks that will make it difficult for Israel to exercise its sovereignty in the future." "These moves constitute serious damage to the relations between the European Union and the State of Israel."

Israeli lawmakers slam EU policy document on West Bank

Ex-Israeli Military Officers Call EU's Area C Policy "Hostile and Aggressive"

Letter from Israel Defense and Security Forum calls EU policy 'to advance illegal Palestinian development' a threat to Israel's national security

An Israeli organization consisting of more than 16,000 former military, security, and police officers called the revelation that the European Union is working on a Palestinian takeover of Area C of the West Bank "an act of blatant hostility and aggression."

In an open letter sent Wednesday from the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF) and addressed to Dimiter Tzantchev, head of the EU delegation to the State of Israel, the NGO slammed the EU for its confidential policy document revealed by media outlets on Tuesday.

The EU policy document, which was leaked by Israeli media, gives an overview of the EU's policy toward Area C, which is administered by Israel. The document shows that the EU is working with the Palestinian Authority on making Area C a part of a future Palestinian state. The EU criticizes Israeli policies of building in Area C, which the Israeli government calls by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria.

"According to our professional understanding of national security, the dominant terrain of Judea and Samaria in Area C is key strategic terrain that controls or can threaten most of the modern State of Israel’s infrastructure and strategic assets," the letter stated. "The EU’s reported clandestine activity to undermine Israeli control in Area C and to advance illegal Palestinian development in those areas constitutes a clear and present threat to the security of the State of Israel, and is an act of blatant hostility and aggression."

The letter was signed by 12 former military officers and includes the names of dozens more. The IDSF describes itself as a "Zionist, security-based movement" that includes senior officers from all branches of Israel's armed forces, as well as researchers, academics, and Israeli citizens.

The founder and director of the IDSF Brig. Gen. (Res.) Amir Avivi told i24NEWS that the EU's activity undermines the Oslo Accords, which established Israel's control over Area C.

"These areas are crucial to Israel's existence in the long term. It's an existential issue," said Avivi.

"We are the only ones who can define what we need, talking about national security, talking about the Jewish national aspirations. No European country can decide for us what we need, and certainly not go against an accord that everybody should adhere to."

UN Torture Committee goes out of its way to avoid dealing with Palestinian torture

Last July, the UN Committee Against Torture issued a press release that praised the Palestinian Authority for being immensely humane and wonderful. It only had a couple of questions to clear up. But in order to ensure that those questions were not too prominent, they framed the release in terms of praise for how Palestinians are dealing with domestic violence (which is in itself not true.)

The statement looks like it was dictated by the Palestinians themselves.

Reading between the lines, the committee clearly knows that Palestinians torture prisoners and also do not do much to protect women victims of violence. But the statement is organized in a way to sweep those concerns under the rug, just asking for clarification so the PA can lie its way out of any embarrassing situation.

It would be comical if it wasn't real:

The Committee against Torture today concluded its consideration of the initial report of the State of Palestine, with Committee Experts praising the State of Palestine’s support for female victims of violence and raising questions about conditions in detention centres and the lack of legislation defining and prohibiting torture.

Naoko Maeda, Committee Expert and Country Co-Rapporteur, said that a special unit and support network had been established to provide support services and shelter for female victims of violence. These were commendable developments. Ms. Maeda noted, however, that gender-based violence and discrimination remained prevalent. What legal frameworks were in place to combat gender-based violence, and what efforts had the State made to raise awareness about the issue?

Sébastien Touze, Country Co-Rapporteur for the State of Palestine and Committee Expert, said that conditions of detention for detainees were of grave concern. Up to 12 persons were housed in small cells; there were concerns related to ventilation and hygiene in cells; and there was a lack of medical care provided for persons with serious illnesses. What measures did the State party intend to implement to improve conditions in detention centres?

Mr. Touze also noted that torture was not specifically defined within national legislation and called for torture to be generally criminalised. Definitions of torture within legislation were varied and too narrow, he said. Would it be possible to harmonise legislation on torture?

As for conditions in detention centres, the delegation explained that the State had earmarked resources to create a new detention facility in Hebron to address prison overcrowding in the region, with the support of funding from the United States. Funding, however, had been stopped by the United States in 2017. Another high security detention facility had been constructed in Jericho that met with the highest international standards, with the support of funding from the International Committee of the Red Cross. There were toilets in each cell of this facility, appropriate sunlight, and high-quality food and medical services.

The delegation also explained that there were several specialised legal committees working toward harmonising national legislation. A draft law had been created that defined and banned torture even when ordered by a superior. There were plans to revise national legislation to reflect the recommendations of treaty bodies.

In closing remarks, Claude Heller, Committee Chair, highlighted the quality of the responses provided by the delegation. Mr. Heller expressed hope that the State of Palestine would submit its second report in more favourable domestic circumstances. He wished the State party every success in fulfilling its responsibilities under the Convention.

It is impossible to read this without realizing what a whitewash it is. And the reason is because they want the world to think that Israel is the worst human rights violator, and no one wants to compare Palestinian prison conditions with Israel's.

Naturally, the UN's "experts" are not nearly as fawning when they talk about Israel's alleged torture.

I found this while looking for statistics on deaths in Palestinian prisons, or indeed any statistics on Palestinian prisons - how many prisoners, their conditions, anything. The PA simply doesn't publish any such information and as far as I can tell, no NGO bothers to compile this information themselves.

Because without the information, no one knows how bad things sre.

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

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Hamas says he was a "mujahid" was trying to stop Jews from prayer. The PA calls him a "soccer player" who was "assassinated." (UPDATE)

The messages about a Palestinian killed last night being sent to the West and for internal consumption are quite different.

Under the Oslo Accords, Jews should have free access to Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), but because the PA refuses to follow the agreement, every few weeks scores of Jews visit the tomb in the middle of the night - so as to minimize any impact on area residents - and they are protected by IDF soldiers from the Palestinians who want to stop them from praying.

Make no mistake: the Palestinian opposition to Jews visiting Nablus is pure Jew-hatred. The religious Jews are not coming to build a settlement or to evict Arabs from their homes - they just want to pray and then to go home.

Overnight, Israeli forces protecting the worshipers came under heavy gunfire from the antisemites who hate the idea of Jews visiting a holy spot that existed way before anyone ever heard of "Palestinians." They fired back, injuring several of the militants. One, Ahmed Atef Daraghmeh, died.

Keep in mind that this happened the middle of the night. The only reason anyone would be outside the tomb at the time was to confront and try to block the Jews from worshipping.

Now, as is so often the case, the messages that the Palestinians send to the world are completely different than the ones they tell themselves.

Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh sent a formal complaint to FIFA, demanding that they condemn Israel's "assassination" of Daraghmeh - because he was a member of the Thaqafi Tulkarm football team. Shtayyeh is telling the West that Daraghmeh was an innocent person who was deliberately targeted and murdered by Israel.

At the exact same time, Hamas media is referring to Daraghmeh as a "mujahid martyr":

The Islamic Resistance Movement " Hamas " celebrated the masses of our Palestinian people and our Arab and Islamic nation, its fighter martyr, Ahmed Atef Mustafa Daraghmeh (23 years), from Tubas, who rose at dawn today in an armed clash while confronting the occupation forces' incursion into the eastern region of Nablus.

In a statement today, Thursday, the movement confirmed that the martyrdom of the Mujahid Daraghmeh in the field of pride and honor while he was defending our people sends a message to the brutal enemy that he will not pass safely and our people are alert and ready to respond to the call of the homeland, and that the settlers who brag about storming Nablus with the protection of the occupation forces will find In their faces only bullets.

Daraghmeh lived in Tubas, some 20 kilometers away - meaning that he specifically traveled there just to try to stop Jews from worshiping at their holy site. And as such, he is now a hero.

But good luck seeing any Palestinian or Arab media mention that in English.

UPDATE: Video of this innocent soccer player taking out and shooting his gun. Not for long. (h/t Adin Haykin)

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

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Why did the Muslims put a menorah on their coins? Could be to symbolize Islamic supremacy.

Back in 2013, I wrote an article about a curious phenomenon: some early Muslim coins, minted mostly in Jerusalem, featured a menorah.

The earliest such coins were clearly copied from older Judean coins that featured the Temple menorah, with a seven branched menorah clearly visible. Here's an astonishing example that also includes a six pointed star on the other side, although Muslims also used that star in various motifs.

But soon they morphed to a different styled menorah, although the menorah was still associated with Jerusalem.

This one says on the obverse, "Aliya, Madinet Bayit al-Maqdis" - meaning Aelia Capitolina, the Roman name for Jerusalem, and "City of the Holy Temple."

There were two main differences between the original Jewish style menorah and the one that Muslims started putting on their coins. The Jewish representations of menorahs during the Byzantine period on medals and mosaics had seven branches and a three legged base:

The new Muslim "menorahs," though, while still associated with Jerusalem, changed the base to 2 legs, the number of branches to 5, and they put a line across the top of the menorah.

At the time, some Muslim coins used "visual puns" where a different picture would be seen upside down than right side up. Back in 2013, I mentioned that coin collectors had noted that the upside down version of the Muslim menorah resembles the Dome of the Rock, with the two-pronged Islamic crescent on top.

Another dome-like coin:

Once you see it upside down, it's hard to think it is a coincidence. After all, what kind of candelabra has a solid bar across its cups?

This could account for the changes to the menorah appearance to look more dome-like.

A few years after my post, some Israeli researchers came to the same conclusion, which was debated in certain circles. But a new proof for the upside down theory came from the discovery of an important inscription that was found in Nuba, near Hebron, in 2016:

A team of archaeologists revealed the existence of a 1000-year-old text, dated to the beginning of the Islamic era, which indicates that the Muslims perceived the Dome of the Rock as a reestablishment of the earlier Jewish Temple. They referred to it as “Bayt al-maqdis” in the inscription, which derives from the biblical Hebrew terminology as ‘Beit Hamikdash’, known as the Hebrew reference to the Holy Temple.

Turning the coins upside down could easily symbolize replacing the Jewish Temple, represented by the menorah, with the Dome of the Rock where early Muslims performed their own Temple-like rituals - and called it the "Bayt al-Maqdis," a term that later on started referring to all of Jerusalem.

Whatever the intent of the early Muslims were, though, the menorah on their Jerusalem coins proves that they associated Jerusalem with Jews and the Temple - both of which Palestinians deny today.

They are also trying to turn Jerusalem's history upside down.

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

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Read all about it here!

12/21 Links Pt2: Black America’s Anti-Semitism Problem; 2022 the Deadliest Year for Palestinians? What the Media Didn't Tell You; Chanukah bus incident victims to mark a year since attack

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Contemporary antisemitism should be taught in schools

While Mann commended the “great strides” made in promoting greater awareness of genocide, he said antisemitism “can take many forms” and “it is not enough to teach about the Holocaust.”

As Klein pointed out, Mann’s latest recommendations follow significant progress that has been said to have been made in recent years in combating antisemitism in the UK and worldwide, resulting from two landmark reports published by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism in 2006 and 2015.

One reason for the new report, supported by valued input from stakeholders across the country, was to identify what more needs to be done.

“If this scale of incidence among young people is not tackled, then we are storing up potentially serious problems for the future as well as for the present,” Mann wrote.

Among the recommendations made by Mann is that school leadership teams should be offered guidance from the government on how to deal with incidents of antisemitic hate. This should include how to report incidents that did not happen at school but involved either the targeting of students or students as perpetrators.

A British government spokesperson said in response to the report: “Antisemitism, as with all forms of bullying and hatred, is abhorrent and has no place in our education system. The atrocities of the Holocaust are a compulsory part of national curriculum for history at key stage 3, and we support schools to construct a curriculum that enables the discussion of important issues such as antisemitism.”

We believe Mann’s findings and recommendations should be taken seriously, not just by the British government but by other governments in Europe and around the world.

It is one thing to teach about the Holocaust in schools; it’s quite another to educate students against hatred of all forms, including antisemitism.

As Mann so elegantly put it, the UK government and others should “act on my new calls for action before this form of racism poisons the minds of many more young people.”

Black America’s Anti-Semitism Problem

The effect was most pronounced among young blacks and Hispanics. Both groups were 16 percentage points more likely to agree than whites in their age group. Anti-Semitism was particularly common among young blacks and Hispanics who called themselves "conservative." But that was a small group, and anti-Semitism was more common even among liberal blacks compared with liberal whites. Black and Hispanic young adults, in fact, were about as likely to agree with at least one of the statements as were white "alt-right" identifiers in the same age group.

Hispanics are often lumped with whites in hate crime data, so it is difficult to trace precisely the implications of this prejudice among Hispanics, which is an under-discussed and undercovered aspect of the story.

Hersh and Royden's survey also allowed them to examine several theories of the causes of anti-Semitism. One was "minority group competition": the idea that fighting over scarce resources like housing provokes anti-Semitism. Another was the idea that anti-Semitism is a manifestation of anti-whiteness: As James Baldwin put it, "Negroes are anti-Semitic because they're anti-white." A third, opposite possibility was the idea that people disliked Jews because they dislike Israel and because they supported the Palestinians. And fourth is that demographic or behavioral differences—for example, that minority groups are less well-educated or more likely to go to church—explains the variation.

None of these explanations stood up to scrutiny.

Take group differences. Hersh and Royden statistically controlled for both church and college attendance. While each mattered for whether or not someone held anti-Semitic beliefs, holding them constant blacks are still much more likely than whites to have anti-Semitic views. The authors also compare respondents in states with and without a lot of Jewish people (doable because most Jews live in just a few states). Again, race still predicts anti-Semitic views, meaning that proximity to Jews—"minority group competition"—doesn't explain the difference.

Similarly, Hersh and Royden argue that black anti-Semitism is more than just anti-white bias. That's because they measure views, like whether Jews are more loyal to Israel than America, that only apply to Jews, not whites. They also rule out the idea that anti-Semitism is just a function of pro-Palestinian views: Remarkably, blacks and Hispanics were more favorable toward Israel than whites across three separate measures.

To supplement this, Hersh and Royden asked respondents who said they believed Jews had too much power in which domains they had such power. Very few respondents—7 percent of blacks/Hispanics and 9 percent of whites—selected only Israel and Palestine. Instead, these respondents said Jews had too much power in areas like news media, finance, and entertainment. This suggests that anti-Semitic bias is not driven by anti-Israel views.

Having ruled out these popular explanations, Hersh and Royden are left only to speculate on the causes of black anti-Semitism. They point to the rising salience of victimhood in American culture, arguing that it may either make people more prone to embracing conspiracy theories or provoke competition over "victim" status. It is also possible, of course, that anti-Semitic views are just a product of prejudice—no need for further explanation.

What is apparent is that the views propounded by individuals like West and Irving are not unusual, particularly among black Americans. Unlike other forms of prejudice, Hersh and Royden observe, anti-Semitism is not fading among younger Americans: At least among minorities, the oldest hatred isn't going away any time soon.

Jonathan Tobin: Jews don’t need another left-wing advocacy group

The federations, whose purpose is to represent and raise funds from the entire Jewish community, were used to the JCPA acting like a Democratic Party auxiliary operation. But the latter’s behavior could be justified as the product of a consensus among the majority of Jews who are politically liberal and vote for the Democrats.

But its endorsement in 2020 of BLM was a bridge too far for many in the mainstream Jewish world. For Jewish federations—led for the most part by liberal professionals and donors—to be tied to a group linked to radical anti-Israel and antisemitic advocacy was intolerable, although in the midst of the moral panic set off by the death of George Floyd, many acquiesced. But it created a rift that caused JCPA activists to want to liberate themselves from even the minimal restraints that the connection to the federations brought.

Were this merely a matter of a tiff between Jewish Democrats and Republicans or generic liberals and conservatives, it wouldn’t warrant much attention. But the road that the new JCPA and a lot of its competition are taking—by adopting the catechisms of BLM and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)—is particularly noteworthy and dangerous.

Indeed, the JCPA is siding with forces that are driving left-wing antisemitism and Jew-hatred in the African-American community—highlighted by recent incidents involving celebrities like Kanye West and the epidemic of black attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York City.

Rather than an invigorated Jewish leadership, the new JCPA is additional evidence of the catastrophic and disgraceful failure of the existing liberal establishment. It’s not only a waste of scarce Jewish resources; it also reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of liberals who claim to speak for Jews but are actually working against Jewish interests and security. Redundancy and waste are bad enough. But the current situation is a moral calamity.

Why the ADL abandoned Antisemitism and went woke

The ADL’s education curriculum had started out teaching tolerance, but now teaches intolerance, and advocates partisan politics. Despite the organization’s origins, its handbook is notable for mentioning Jewish people only three times, once in the ADL’s background and twice in its definition of antisemitism.

But the ADL is not a Jewish organization anymore. It’s a generically lucrative leftist group which provides bias insurance to schools while joining in leftist attacks on conservatives.

A few years after Greenblatt came on board, the ADL announced a new program together with eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar: one of the leading funders of the anti-Israel Left. ADL Senior VP Eileen Hershenov was the former general counsel for Soros’ Open Society octopus.

“Kudos to my former boss, George Soros,” she gushed.

Hershenov oversees the ADL’s partnership with the Aspen Institute, funded by Soros. The joint ADL-Aspen program’s civil society fellows included the founding Co-Director of the Open Society Foundation’s Economic Justice Program.

Small wonder that Greenblatt attacks any critics of Soros and the ADL, formerly critical of the Nazi collaborating billionaire, now has a page dedicated to defending the antisemitic leftist.

The ADL’s funders and partners list increasingly resembles those of most leftist activist groups with $1 million from Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, the Rockefellers, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation. There’s nothing Jewish here.

As an organization, the ADL doesn’t belong in Jewish circles, and its educational curriculum doesn’t belong in any schools.

Are Jews equal under Islam?

Filmed by @el_soco pic.twitter.com/zLzOlbX0sC
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) December 20, 2022

Chanukah music videos night 4 - Nissim Black - Victory plus bonus Shira Kobren - The Maccabees

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December 21, 1947: Jews in Arab countries threatened again

From the December 21, 1947 Palestine Post, a report that the Arab League decided to forcibly conscript Jews or consider them the enemy.

And at the same time, more threats against the Jews of Aden (Yemen) materialized:

"Anti-zionism" or classic antisemitism?

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12/21 Links Pt1: Victims of Terrorism Sue Biden Admin for Sending Taxpayer Aid to Palestinian; Riots Break Out in Jordan; The UN Can’t Resist Antisemites

From Ian:

Victims of Terrorism Sue Biden Admin for Sending Taxpayer Aid to Palestinians

Victims of Palestinian terror attacks are suing the Biden administration for awarding nearly half a billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds to the Palestinian government, which allegedly uses these funds to pay convicted terrorists and their families.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday by American victims of Palestinian terror attacks and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), alleges the Biden administration is in violation of federal law for resuming U.S. aid to the Palestinian government, according to a copy of the lawsuit exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Trump administration froze these funds due to the Palestinian government’s financial support for terrorists as part of a program known as pay-to-slay.

The plaintiffs, led in the suit by the America First Legal Foundation, a watchdog group composed of lawyers, are asking the court to halt the Biden administration’s Palestinian aid program over charges it is sustaining the pay-to-slay program in violation of a 2018 law known as the Taylor Force Act. That law—named after an American who was killed in 2016 by a Palestinian terrorist—bars all U.S. payments to the Palestinian government until it halts the terrorist payment program.

The State Department, which is named as a defendant in the suit, has formally determined in congressional notifications that the Palestinian government pays terrorists and incites violence against Israel. Now, a court must determine if U.S. aid payments should be stopped for violating federal law.

Force’s family is also listed as a plaintiff in the case, along with Jackson and Sarri Singer, who survived a Palestinian suicide bombing in 2003.

"I am committed to doing everything in my power to get the accountability these families so richly deserve as we work to make sure U.S. taxpayer-funded terrorism never happens again," Jackson told the Free Beacon. "President Trump showed tremendous leadership when he signed the Taylor Force Act into law and ended taxpayer support for the Palestinian Authority’s terrorist activities. Joe Biden’s decision to reverse course knowing full well blood is on his hands as a result is unconscionable."

Stuart and Robbi Force, Taylor’s parents, said in a statement that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are "dishonoring the memory and legacy of a good man, and ignoring the citizens of the United States who understand that taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund the killing of innocent civilians."

The lawsuit centers on the Biden’s administration’s decision to resume U.S. aid even as the State Department determines the pay-to-slay program has continued, disclosures that were first made public by the Free Beacon reveal.

'A war crime'_ UN pans Israeli expulsion of Palestinian lawyer said linked to terror

Israel’s expulsion of a French-Palestinian human rights lawyer accused of terror offenses amounts to a “war crime,” the UN human rights office claimed Monday.

Salah Hamouri, 37, arrived in France on Sunday after having been held without charge in Israel under a controversial practice that allows suspects to be detained without trial for renewable periods of up to six months. He previously served time in prison after being convicted of plotting to kill one of Israel’s most prominent rabbis.

Hamouri, who has lived in Jerusalem his entire life, had been held on suspicion of participation in terror activities due to his alleged affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group, but was not charged or convicted in the latest proceedings against him.

“Deporting a protected person from occupied territory is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, constituting a war crime,” UN human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence said in a statement, referring to East Jerusalem. Israel seized the territory from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognized by most of the international community.

In condemning the expulsion, Laurence said: “We are deeply concerned by the chilling message this sends to those working on human rights” in East Jerusalem, which is sought by the Palestinians as the capital of a potential future state.

Hamouri works for the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer, which was deemed by Israel to be a terror organization, together with several other NGOs, in October 2021. Addameer — along with the UN, several European nations and a number of Israeli human rights groups — have all strongly rejected the designation.

Previously, Hamouri spent seven years in prison after being convicted in a 2005 plot to kill Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi and the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.

Riots Break Out in Jordan

In recent days, violent demonstrations in the Kingdom of Jordan have been expanding, leading to, among other things, fatalities in the security forces. Escalating fuel prices have triggered the current spate of violence.

There is no doubt that the Kingdom of Jordan has been going through a severe economic crisis for many years, worsening annually. There are multiple reasons. So far the most important have been:
The prolonged presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan due to the civil war in neighboring Syria
The Corona crisis and all it entailed
Unemployment which recently reached 23%
Corruption

And now the war in Ukraine has only made matters worse, causing price increases all over the world including Jordan.

Jordan’s external debt was close to 42 billion dollars in 2020 due to an increase of 4 billion dollars over the previous two years.

In light of all the above, the Jordanian Ministry of Finance realized that they must carry out reforms to prevent a total economic collapse of the country.

The reforms included eliminating subsidies and raising the price of fuel and some essential products – and these were announced.

In response, truck and taxi drivers went on strike and demonstrated in the streets of the kingdom. Many Jordanians joined them. They burned tires and blocked roads. The Jordanian government opened an emergency command center to monitor and deal with the crisis, and a decision was taken to expand the Jordanian army’s forces in the south of the kingdom to prevent further demonstrations.

Many Jordanian citizens circulated videos of the riots that broke out in the south and in the region of the capital on social media. Hundreds of young people were seen in different districts burning tires and calling for the overthrow of the Jordanian regime.

Orient News reports:

Last Sunday, we published a documented report on the Assad regime's confiscation of Palestinian property in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad and Palestine camps as part of a general plan to establish a sectarian Shiite southern suburb similar to that of Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The documented report referred to the confiscation of Palestinian property under flimsy pretexts, including the failure of one of the homeowners to pay a sum of one million Syrian pounds, equivalent to approximately $200, as a fine.

It must be noted that the Assad-Iranian sectarian scheme is still in its early infancy, and the new step came after the courts affiliated with the regime in the past made mock charges against the Palestinians to confiscate their property, as the matter sparked widespread reactions and protests, so the regime resorted to another path that appears to be apparently civil, penal, procedural, far removed from politics, hidden as much as possible from the media and the limelight, and of course without following the legal administrative procedures as they are in an authoritarian regime that does not originally establish the judiciary and justice.

The report goes on to say that the Palestinian factions are not saying a word about this. The Palestinian Authority and Fatah want to stay on the good side of Iran which is part of this scheme.

One potential roadblock is that the Palestinian camps - which were largely destroyed during the civil war - are controlled by UNRWA, and UNRWA would need to approve any takeover. But no one is rebuilding the camps as they are now, so in the future Assad could offer UNRWA some more remote land in exchange.

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Happy Chanukah!

Another secular year is almost over, and this website continues to positively influence the conversation around Israel.

I'm so grateful that I have so many readers and followers who turn to EoZ to learn the truth about Israel and the Middle East. This includes many people who are themselves top leaders and writers, and this is a source of pride.

This year I finally published my first book, and it has received fantastic reviews. It is one of the few books on Amazon to have nothing but 5 star ratings.

I hope in the coming year to publish a book with the best of my cartoons. I am also working on an audio version of my book, if there is enough interest.

I've been quoted in the media numerou times. News sites that have mentioned or quoted me include Algemeiner, the Jewish Press, The Washington Free Beacon, The Jerusalem Post, the Daily Campus, Israel Today, Camera-UK, Mena Watch (German), Guiame (Portuguese), and Israel Heute (German).

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I spoke at the prestigious ISGAP conference about my definition of antisemitism. The subsequent speaker was Irwin Cotler, Canada's Special Envoy on Combatting Antisemitism, who called my talk "brilliant" - the best compliment I received all year.

My regular columnists (Judean Rose, Daled Amos, PreOccupied Territory) continue to enhance the site. Ian never ceases to amaze in his Herculean task of collecting the links to every single important article published elsewhere. EoZ is really a one stop shop for all Israel news.

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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!