Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 09, 2023

02/09 Links Pt1: ICJ sets deadline for submissions on Israel’s ‘occupation’ of biblical heartland; UK Home Sec. vows to crack down on Islamist threat to Jews after damning Prevent report

From Ian:

MEMRI: Lebanese Writer: President Assad Destroyed Syria In The Civil War, Which Was A Greater Disaster Than The Palestinian Nakba, And Left Syria Unable To Deal With The Earthquake

In an article titled "Syria and the Ongoing Disaster" in the London-based Qatari daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, French-Lebanese academic and journalist Gilbert Achcar notes that the number of Syrian victims in the recent earthquake is especially large, and this is because Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad destroyed the country in the civil war that has been ongoing since 2012, leaving it unable to cope with a disaster like an earthquake. The Syrian civil war, he adds, was a greater disaster than the Palestinian Nakba, because the number of people who were killed in it and in the oppression that accompanied it is ten times greater. He notes further that the Syrian refugees living in parts of Turkey affected by the quake were packed into buildings constructed hastily and in violation of earthquake regulations, which contributed to the high death toll.

The following are translated excerpts from Achcar's article.[1]
"If what happened in Palestine before the founding of the state of Israel can be described as a nakba [catastrophe], then what happened in Syria, especially since the start of the civil war there in 2012, can [certainly] be called a calamity. It is one of the two largest calamities in contemporary Arab history, and it is much greater than the Palestinian Nakba, if you count the number of victims. The number of people killed by the war and the oppression in Syria in the last 11 years is about ten times greater than the number of Palestinians killed by Zionism since it first invaded Palestine. And the number of Syrians who have fled from the country and those who are displaced within its borders is equal to the number of Palestinians [now] living in their homeland and in the diaspora [combined]. The only calamity in our region similar in its magnitude to the Syrian one is the calamity that has been unfolding in Iraq since Saddam Hussein seized power there and embroiled [the country] in his stupid wars. This was followed by the American occupation, the arrival of ISIS and everything that happened later.

"We do not present these figures to downplay the Palestinian tragedy, which involves a homeland that was usurped, but in order to highlight the horrific magnitude of the Syrian tragedy. What makes this tragedy worse is that [Syria] is now subjected to five different occupations: the Zionist occupation of the Golan, which has been ongoing since 1967, and the Iranian, Turkish, Russian and American occupations, which began in the recent decade and still continue. And now disaster has once again befallen the Syrian people, since the epicenter of the biggest earthquake to strike Turkey since 1939 was in the city of Gaziantep, which is more or less the capital of the Syrian refugees in Turkey. Moreover, the first quake that struck the region in the small hours of Monday morning [February 6, 2023] also affected a large part of northwest Syria, with Aleppo at its center and Idlib to the west of it.

"Obviously is was Turkey itself, and the Turks and Kurds who live in the area where the quake occurred, that were most affected by it. But the Syrian areas are much weaker in the face of the disaster than the Turkish ones, since some of them are [under the control] of a state that is much better at killing and destroying than at helping to clear the rubble, while others are not [controlled by] any state at all and are even outside the operation zone of most international aid organizations. Furthermore, the Syrian refugees living in southwest Turkey were crowded into many ramshackle buildings which collapsed in a horrific manner, since –due to greed [of contractors] wishing to increase their profits – they were built in violation of the regulations [for construction] in earthquake-prone areas. This means that the number of Syrians earthquake victims, which will surely reach tens of thousands, will be disproportionately high, compared to their share of the population.

ICJ sets deadline for submissions on Israel’s ‘occupation’ of biblical heartland

The International Court of Justice announced on Wednesday a July 25 deadline for state bodies and organizations to submit documents pertaining to Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.

The U.N. General Assembly in late December approved a resolution, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, calling on the ICJ to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on what it called Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”

The ICJ said in a statement that it has set “July 25, 2023, as the time list within which written statements on the questions may be presented to the court and October 25, 2023, as the time limit within which states and organizations, having presented written statements, may submit written comments on the written statements made by either states or organizations.”

The ICJ confirmed in late January that it had received the U.N.’s formal request to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without indicating that it was launching a probe.

In response to the U.N. resolution, the Israeli Security Cabinet decided, among other measures, to withhold taxes and tariffs collected on behalf of the P.A., in an amount equal to that which Ramallah paid to terrorists and their families in 2022 under its “pay-for-slay” policy.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has since signed an order doubling that amount.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the U.N. move as “disgraceful.”

“Just like the hundreds of distorted U.N. General Assembly resolutions against Israel over the years, this disgraceful resolution will not obligate the government of Israel. The Jewish people is not occupying its land and is not occupying its eternal capital Jerusalem. No U.N. resolution can distort this historical truth,” he said.

Why does the US ignore Hamas? - opinion

MUCH, PERHAPS the major part, of Palestinian opinion shares the view that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. The Hamas and PLO charters and the Fatah constitution are at one on the ultimate objective of removing Israel and gaining control of the whole of what was Mandatory Palestine, and indeed on the need to take up arms in support of it. It is in the tactics to achieve their common aim that the two main Palestinian parties diverge.

Hamas believes that the only effective way to achieve the desired outcome is through continual conflict and terror. Any pause in the battle must be temporary and provide a tactical advantage. The Fatah-dominated PA, however, continues to follow the tactical path set by Yasser Arafat.

At the Oslo Accords peace discussions in 1993 and 1995, Arafat – on the record as rock solid in his determination to overthrow Israel eventually – decided to woo world opinion by overtly supporting the two-state solution. Paying lip service to a two-state solution would be an exercise in public relations, a stepping-stone to the real objective.

Hamas will have none of it and the disagreement is so basic that it has ensured that Hamas and Fatah have remained at each other’s throats for decades. All attempts at reconciliation have proved fruitless.

Following Arafat’s death, the PA and its new leader Mahmoud Abbas made a determined effort to convince world opinion that it supported the idea of establishing a sovereign Palestine within the boundaries that existed before the Six Day War in 1967 – that is, in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. But pressing for a Palestinian state within those boundaries inevitably meant acknowledging that a sovereign Israel would exist outside them.

This is the pill that Hamas and like-minded rejectionists find impossible to swallow, even though the failure of the PA to sign up to any of the increasingly generous deals subsequently tabled demonstrated what a sham the ploy was.

None of this is secret, so how is it that the US administration, together with a vast swath of world opinion, knowing that at least half of the Palestinian people would never subscribe to a two-state solution, continue to advocate for it? Indeed the Palestinian leadership is perfectly well aware that anyone signing such a deal, endorsing Israel’s right to exist on “their” land, would be denounced as a traitor to the Palestinian cause and would certainly be putting his life in jeopardy.

It is also odd that so little thought has been given to what sort of two-state solution could ever be signed in current circumstances. Since Hamas would never participate or be a signatory, Gaza would be excluded from the arrangement. What sort of sovereign Palestine would it be, shorn of nearly half the Palestinian population?

In short, world opinion has never faced up to the uncomfortable truth that in order to achieve a genuine two-state solution, the Hamas organization must first be disempowered. That is clearly not a task that Washington is minded to undertake.

Every country is proud to help earthquake victims. Only Israel is vilified.

Romanian media are reporting that a team from Romania rescued a family from under the rubble in Turkey.

Chinese media are proud that a Chinese team rescued a pregnant woman.

The UK government issued a press release about the large team they sent to Turkey.

Algerian officials are proud of their rescue team.

So are Palestinians.

UAE media are similarly reporting on their own teams who have rescued people in Syria.

It is natural to be proud that your own people are helping others. Even local media in Los Angeles are showing pride that rescue dogs being sent by the US were trained in Ventura County.

Yet when Israel sends a massive number of experienced experts to set up a field hospital, and shows pride in helping save ten people so far, some people bristle.

Palestinian media have had multiple articles that say that Israel's rescue efforts are only for PR purposes, and they are not interested in saving any Muslim lives.

"Rabbi" David Mivasair calls it "cynical propaganda." Someone named Dan Easterman gleefully tweeted and defended, "Every time there is an earthquake or humanitarian disaster, Israel immediately tries to exploit the tragedy to gain political capital and improve it’s [sic] international image. The cynicism makes me sick."

This has been a theme for previous rescue missions, where "critics" even accused Israel of using the rescuers as cover for doing crimes in the disaster zone.

It is yet another case where Israel acts like every other country on Earth - and people single it out as being immoral.

Yes, this is the definition of antisemitism.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Poll: Palestinians think their suffering is unique in world history, and this justifies terror

In December, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and Tel Aviv University carried out a joint opinion survey of Palestinians and Israelis, asking them similar questions to compare their opinions.

These joint polls have been happening for years, and they are very valuable in comparing both sides' opinions of the peace process or a two state solution.

There were two questions asked, though, which were not well thought out. The responses are far more significant than they appear at first blush.

The pair of questions were prefaced with, "To what extent do you disagree or agree with the following statements regarding the experiences of Jews /Palestinians generally?" with the wording of "Jews" given to Israelis and "Palestinians" to Palestinian Arabs.

The first statement was, "I believe that the suffering of Palestinians/Jews is unique throughout the human history."

This question implies an equivalence between the Jewish people who have existed for over 3500 years and a Palestinian people who have existed as a self-defined people for, at the very most, a century. If the question was meant to show equivalence, it should have used "Israelis" instead of "Jews."

The answers:

More Palestinians than Israeli Jews think that their suffering is unique throughout human history! Given that Jewish history includes centuries of pogroms, Crusades, expulsions, forced conversions, massacres and a Holocaust, this Palestinian mindset is astonishing both in its unparalleled hubris and in its ignorance of world history.

It is impossible to make peace with people who are so detached from reality, and so wedded to the myth that their victimhood trumps all others since the dawn of time.

The next statement: "Since Palestinians/Jews are the victims of ongoing suffering, it is their moral right to do anything in order to survive."

The answers:

It is a poorly written statement for comparison purposes, because each side is likely to interpret it differently.

The statement did not define the parameters of "anything." Almost certainly, if the question had the words "including genocide" or "including blowing up babies" the percentage of Israeli Jews who agreed would have shrunk significantly.

I'm not so certain if the same could be said about Palestinians. After all, they are taught that killing Israeli Jewish civilians is not only moral, but a legal right of "resistance" under international law, and they overwhelmingly support terror attacks against innocent Jews while the number of Israelis who support murdering Palestinian civilians is quite small.

The Israeli Jews almost certainly didn't have an expansive interpretation of what "anything" means. The Palestinians almost certainly did. Even so, far more Palestinians - nine out of ten! - say that anything is justified for their cause.

This poll shows a Palestinian people who are unhinged from both reality and morality.

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!

American Bar Association caves to modern antisemites, condemns an "antisemitism" that could mean anything

The American Bar Association proposed a Resolution 514 condemning antisemitism that referred to the widely accepted IHRA working definition.

Israel haters immediately attacked.

More than 40 organizations, both those that are explicitly anti-Israel and "progressive" organizations, joined a campaign claiming that the IHRA Working Definition chills free speech. "Any embrace of the IHRA definition by the ABA would legitimize and encourage this undermining of core democratic rights," they say, without explaining exactly how.

The National Lawyers Guild said, falsely, that "the IHRA definition would provide a tool to stigmatize and suppress lawyers, legal advocates and law students from expressing political criticism of Israel or advocacy for Palestinian human rights." Of course, they cannot point to any wording in the IHRA definition that would do anything like that.

Human Rights Watch wrote a similar letter.

The main point that these critics make is that the IHRA definition has supposedly been used to suppress free speech. They cannot point to where the definition actually does that, because it doesn't mandate anything: the definition is filled with caveats that in the end only provide guidance. If the IHRA Working Definition is being misused, then these organizations should fight the misuse, not the definition. The fact that they don't tells you all you need to know.

Moreover, the ABA resolution explicitly said that nothing in the resolution is intended to diminish or infringe upon the Bill of Rights or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so even if their lies about IHRA were true, the text wouldn't allow it to be misused that way.

They are lying when they say that their opposition to the definition is based on human rights and free speech concerns. The only problem they have with it is that it notes that singling out Israel as uniquely evil far out of proportion to its supposed crimes is antisemitic. And they want to have the right to do exactly that.

Their objections are based on their hate of the Jewish state, not their interest in Palestinian human rights or in fighting antisemitism.

The original draft resolution also included an attached 17 page report on antisemitism that went through a history of antisemitism in Europe and in the US. It mentioned Natan Sharansky's "3-D" test for antisemitism as well as further references to the IHRA and US State Department definitions of antisemitism.

In the end, the ABA removed everything that could be considered a definition, including virtually the entire report, and left the eviscerated resolution to condemn something that could mean anything:

Without a definition, this is entirely meaningless. Some Israel haters define antisemitism as hating Arabs. Others define Zionism as antisemitism. There is nothing in this resolution that contradicts those bizarre definitions.

The resolution doesn't even mention Jews - only a single reference to improving security at "Jewish institutions and organizations." It mentions "houses of worship," not synagogues.

Right now, the resolution is about as meaningful as a resolution saying that puppies are cute. It is a checkbox - now the ABA can say they oppose antisemitism (whatever that is)! Mazel tov!

Because of the modern antisemites who use obsessive, conspiracy-theory driven hate of Israel as a proxy for the age old obsessive, conspiracy-theory driven hate of Jews, the ABA believes that it passed a resolution that didn't upset anyone.

Well, this Jew is upset.

The Jews who publicly identify as Jews, those who wear identifiably Jewish clothing, those who publicly support the Jewish state or speak Hebrew in public or who stand proud in their Zionism - they are the biggest targets and victims of antisemitism today.

This resolution doesn't give a damn about them.

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!

02/08 Links Pt2: HRW and Antisemitism: Sins of Commission and Omission; Jewish Dems defend Ilhan Omar following removal from House committee; Roger Waters: The Leni Riefenstahl of rock and roll

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: HRW and Antisemitism: Sins of Commission and Omission

Summary
In 2003, Human Rights Watch (HRW) committed to “bring problems of anti-Semitism into the overall human rights discourse.” However, for the past 20 years, HRW has taken the opposite direction by failing to contribute meaningfully to ending hatred of and attacks against Jewish people. Indeed, as shown in a systematic review of HRW’s output since 2003, HRW has consistently opposed and obstructed meaningful initiatives to combat antisemitism. In fact, the most significant item on this issue was HRW’s 2023 letter to the American Bar Association, calling for the rejection of a resolution on antisemitism that endorsed the international-consensus IHRA Working Definition. And as this brief report demonstrates, HRW officials – including long-time leader Ken Roth – have made numerous antisemitic comments and shared antisemitic content on social media.

HRW policy of obstruction has come during a period of marked increase in antisemitic attacks around the world – and especially in the United States – reflecting HRW’s total lack of credibility. The 2003 commitment is exposed as empty words.

Ignoring antisemitic crimes
NGO Monitor reviewed HRW publications from 2003-2022. During that time, we identified only 12 cursory instances where HRW discussed antisemitism and antisemitic events per se, without joining them with other issues such as Islamophobia and other forms of racism. This total excludes passing mentions of antisemitic incidents; HRW statements and activities opposing the IHRA working definition and similar responses to antisemitic activity and speech (almost always without suggesting meaningful concrete alternatives); and HRW denying that antisemitic activity and speech is, in fact, antisemitic.

Eight Ways of Looking at Israel

‘And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel‘ by Rick Richman will be available on Feb 12, 2023.

Israel, like the Jewish people, is both incredibly complex and simple. Everyone thinks that they know the story, but no one really does. The complexity and simplicity of a story that happened in the lifetime of many still living today is what obligates Rick Richman to break down the story of the rebirth of a biblical nation into eight smaller stories of key figures in that drama.

In the parable of the elephant, a group of blind men grope around the beast. Each finds a body part that seems to resemble something else, a snake, a wall, a rope. But this metaphor is true of Israel which represents a unity and also many things that are complex in and of themselves.

Eight ways of looking at Israel is at once too many and too few, but Rick Richman’s book delivers a satisfying survey of a few human beings who account for the complexity and conflicts of advocating for a Jewish State.

And None Shall Make Them Afraid: Eight Stories of the Modern State of Israel is made up of both contrasting and complementary portraits. History introduces a sense of distance from the urgent conflicts that go into the founding of any nation. The Founding Fathers have receded into a single unity although at times some were willing to fight each other to the death. Not enough history has passed that the figures in this book, Weizmann and Jabotinsky, Golda Meir and Ben Hecht, can sit comfortably together. Richman, a lifelong pro-Israel activist and journalist, begins with Herzl and concludes with Ron Dermer who served as ambassador under Netanyahu.

But what Richman is after isn’t a founding story so much as it’s a story of what people found in the cause. There are plenty of stories of what individuals did for Israel, And None Shall Make Them Afraid is in many ways more the story of how advocating for a Jewish State changed the lives of some disparate figures: a couple of journalists from different countries, Ben Hecht, a Hollywood screenwriter, Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president and a biochemist, Golda Meir, a Milwaukee librarian and Ron Dermer, a kid from Miami studying philosophy.

Richman wanted to tell the story of the interconnection between “Zionism and Americanism from 1895 to the present” in his collection of essays and of the eight central figures in its narrative, four are Americans, one a Brit and still another spent a good deal of time in the UK. “I believe in England,” he quotes Jabotinsky as saying, “just as I believed in England twenty years ago.”

Boycotts: A First Amendment History

Abstract
Over the past decade, more than half of U.S. states have enacted laws that prohibit recipients of public contracts and state investment from boycotting the State of Israel. These so-called “anti-BDS laws” have triggered a debate over whether the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause includes a “right to boycott.” This Essay is the first to take up that question thoroughly from a historical standpoint. Examining the boycott’s constitutional status from before the Founding to the present era, we find that state actors have consistently treated the boycott as economic conduct subject to governmental control, and not as expression presumptively immune from state interference. Before the Founding, the colonists mandated a strict boycott of Britain, which local governmental bodies enforced through trial proceedings and economic punishments. At common law, courts used the doctrine of conspiracy to enjoin “unjustified” boycotts and hold liable their perpetrators. And in the modern era, state and federal officials have consistently compelled participation in the boycotts they approved (like those of apartheid-era South Africa and modern-day Russia), while prohibiting participation in the ones they opposed (like that of Israel).

The Essay concludes that modern anti-boycott laws not only fit within, but improve upon, this constitutional tradition. As the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware illustrates, the common law approach risks violating the First Amendment if the doctrine is applied to restrict not only the act of boycotting or refusing to deal, but also the expressive activities that accompany such politically-motivated refusals. Modern anti-boycott laws avoid that problem by surgically targeting the act of boycotting, while leaving regulated entities free to say whatever they please. From the standpoint of history, these laws reflect First Amendment progress, not decay.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Palestinians trying to hijack the earthquake

The Palestinian Information Center seems upset that the world is paying so much attention to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and not to them.

So they wrote an article that not only accuses Israel of "aid-washing" but also claims that the damage in Gaza wars was just as bad, if not worse, than the horrific scenes we are seeing in the quake zones.

The painful scenes of the earthquake victims under the rubble, their loud cries asking for help and rescue, and the pictures of the injured children stuck under the rubble, brought back to mind the images of the successive wars on the Gaza Strip, where the occupation planes destroy homes and residential towers on the heads of their owners.

It goes on to say that the destruction of Gaza was the same, and who could even imagine that Israel is really interested in saving lives? It is all just "hasbara."

Ibrahim Al-Madhoun said that the Zionist occupation is trying to whiten its black image after committing many crimes, and is taking advantage of the earthquake catastrophe and international sympathy with Turkey and Syria, and wants to appear with a fake face, by playing a humanitarian role that does not suit its criminal nature.

Al-Madhoun stressed that the image that the occupation is trying to appear as a relief and savior for the victims of the earthquake will not convince the Arab peoples and the free people of the world.

Al-Madhoun called for the need to focus on the real image of the occupation, expose its criminality, warn the world, international institutions, and countries against being deceived by the occupation, exposing its crimes, and remembering what happened and is happening, of crimes committed by the occupation on an ongoing basis.

The irony is that while the Israelis are proud of their fast response teams and their setting up an entire field hospital in Turkey, the Palestinians are spending more time on the publicity campaigns promoting their own aid than the aid itself. They created a "Palestine is With You" campaign and logo:

Notice that the center of the logo is the Dome of the Rock - meaning that even this campaign to supposedly help thousands of victims is really designed to ensure the centrality of the Palestinian cause.

I don't think there are any new logos of the Israeli efforts for helping the victims.

As usual, the Palestinian accusations against Israel is projection of what they are doing - trying to leverage a disaster into making Palestinians look good.

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!

02/08 Links Pt1: Netanyahu hails ‘highest order’ aid mission in quake-struck Turkey; What drives the left to incite civil war?; There Is No Such Thing As Palestinian Refugee Camps. It's a SCAM!

From Ian:

Netanyahu hails ‘highest order’ aid mission in quake-struck Turkey

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday commended the work of the IDF search and rescue delegation in earthquake-stricken Turkey, which has saved four people from collapsed buildings since starting its work the previous day.

“You are representing the mission with the most experience on the international level. You have much experience, which has proven itself. You are carrying out a humanitarian mission of the highest order and are bringing much honor to us and the State of Israel and are showing Israel’s true face to the world,” Netanyahu told Col. (res.) Golan Vach of the IDF Home Front Command, the head of the delegation, in a phone call.

“Please convey my greetings to all members of the mission. Do what you can to save lives and be careful,” he added.

Vach said that the emergency response team was currently engaged in efforts to save two additional people from the rubble.

“We are trying to make every effort to save lives. Time-wise, this has been the most successful day that our missions have ever had thanks to the fact that you succeeded in getting us here very quickly,” he told the prime minister.

A separate Israel Defense Forces delegation arrived in Turkey on Wednesday morning to set up a field hospital in the wake of the massive earthquakes this week that have so far claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people there and in neighboring Syria.

How did a seismologist predict the Turkey earthquake 3 days earlier?

A Dutch expert published a tweet on his Twitter account three days before the earthquake in Turkey on Monday, predicting that a powerful earthquake would happen imminently in Turkey.

He even attached an aerial photograph and marked the area where the disaster would happen.

Dutch seismologist Frank Hoogerbeets, who works for the Solar System Geometry Survey (SSGS) in the Netherlands, predicted the earthquake in Turkey on February 3.

The prediction
On his Twitter account, the Dutch researcher wrote: "Sooner or later there will be a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in this region (South-Central Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon)."

The SSGS describes itself on Twitter as a research institute for monitoring geometry between celestial bodies related to seismic activity.

After Hooogerbeets' prediction went viral, he reacted to the earthquake and said: "As I stated earlier, sooner or later this would happen in this region, similar to the years 115 and 526. These earthquakes are always preceded by critical planetary geometry, as we had on 4-5 February."

After multiple aftershocks in the days after the earthquake were felt throughout the larger region, Hoogerbeets gave his explanation for the aftershocks: "The large earthquakes in Central Turkey have caused a significant change in stress distribution throughout the region, with seismic activity down to Palestine as a result. Clearly, the region is resettling."

Second minor earthquake in less than a day rattles Israel; no injuries or damage

A second minor temblor in less than a day rattled Israel on Wednesday amid fears the country could face a major earthquake like the deadly quakes that have killed more than 11,000 people in nearby Turkey and Syria.

The IDF Home Front Command said the quake measured 3.3 on the Richter scale and was centered in central Israel. No injuries or damage were immediately reported, but residents across the country reported feeling tremors.

It followed a 3.5-magnitude tremor on Tuesday night that was centered around 15 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of the settlement city of Ariel in the West Bank.

The Home Front Command said that warning sirens were not sounded for either quake because the tremors posed no danger to residents.

The warning system put in place last year in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Israel can issue an alert to citizens with sirens, similar to those used in rocket attacks, within seven seconds of a quake that measures more than 4.5 on the Richter scale.

The effectiveness of the system was captured on live TV with the Kan public broadcaster interviewing the head of the Geological Survey of Israel when sirens blared in the institute’s headquarters signaling an incoming earthquake.

The EU is fighting disinformation. But not anti-Israel disinformation.

Yesterday, EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell spoke at the EEAS Conference on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference about the dangers of Russian disinformation campaigns:

Russia is using information manipulation and interference as a crucial instrument of this war. This war is not only [about] using explosives, bombs, bullets, killing people. It is about the mind of the people. It is about how to conquer the spirit, the intelligence, the understanding of the people.

It is not new. It started with the [COVID-19] pandemic. When the pandemic came, we started speaking about “the battle of narratives”. This is a sentence as important as “the Geopolitical Europe”. The battle of narratives started with the pandemic at the latest.

And, today, that is clear: this war is not only conducted on the battlefield by the soldiers. It is also waged in the information space, trying to win the hearts and minds of people.

...This is a major threat for the liberal democracies, which are based on information. Democracy is a system that is based on the information that people have, because they made their choices – their political choices – according to their own perceptions and information that they receive about what is happening in the rest of the world.

If the information is toxic, democracy cannot work. If information is manipulated, people don’t have a clear idea of what is going on. So, their choices are biased, and the information is the oil of the engine of democracy. We have to take care of the quality of information because is the sap, the blood, the oil, the thing that makes democracy work.

The EU created an "EU vs. DisInfo" organization, with at least 16 full time staff, all to fight disinformation. Yet it begins and ends with Russian disinformation.

What about anti-Israel disinformation? Where is the EU on that?

The EUvsDisInfo report released yesterday shows a great graphic of how Russians are manipulating information. But it doesn't mention that anti-Israel forces use exactly the same methods.

Pallywood manipulation of photos and videos? Check. Overwhelming social media with anti-Israel memes? Check. Changing the context to not allow pro-Israel voices to make a point? Triple check. Using diplomatic methods to attack Israel? Not only the PA but many of its allies, check.

But does the EU even notice anti-Israel propaganda techniques? No, they agree with their messages. And when they agree, they don't think they are being manipulated. For example, when Defence for Children Palestine says that Israel killed a child earlier this week, they won't bother to check whether the "child" was a member of a terror group. (Yes, there are some that are too extreme for the EU, so they can pretend that they are discriminating between truth and lies.)

Anti-Israel lies - that Jews visiting the holiest Jewish space are a threat to peace, that illegal Palestinian outposts in Area C are legal while legal Jewish towns are illegal, that Palestinian NGOs have no terror links, that Israel is attacking civilians, that Palestinian attacks are all in response to Israeli "crimes" and wouldn't happen if they weren't "provoked" - those lies are accepted by both official EU bodies and their media, and therefore the public.

The fact that they happen to align perfectly with traditional European antisemitism is just a coincidence, I'm sure.

The fight against disinformation assumes that there is an objective truth. I agree. Yet the progressive crowd emphasizes that there is no truth, that narratives are the only acceptable form of reporting, and only certain narratives are acceptable. The EU vs. DisInfo site seems to state that there is objective truth when it comes to Russia, but it doesn't seem to have an issue when its own intelligentsia seems to embrace a post-truth worldview where narratives rule - especially when it comes to Israel. It would be interesting if they use their own methodology against the "progressive" narratives.

But they won't.

(h/t Irene)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

From Times of Israel:

The High Court of Justice issued a sharp rebuke on Tuesday of the government’s recent request for yet another delay in the court’s order to evacuate the illegal Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin encampment in the West Bank.

Justice Noam Sohlberg rejected the government’s request for a four-month extension for the submission of its position on the issue, and instead set a hearing for a request by the right-wing Regavim organization that the court issue a final order requiring the hamlet’s immediate evacuation and demolition.

We've been inundated with articles from around the world about how fascist and theocratic the current Israeli government is, and how it is trying to eviscerate the only Israeli institution that is defending good old fashioned liberal values. But if that is true, why is the government trying to delay the demolition of Khan al Ahmar - and why is the High Court insisting that it be demolished immediately?

Why is the liberal High Court on the side of the right-wing Regavim NGO and the right-wing government on the side of the EU?

Because the memes are all wrong. Every biased assumption behind these articles is wrong. And this is the real outrage.

Clearly, the High Court insists the encampment is illegal. It always was illegal. Even though the Europeans and progressive Americans are saying that demolishing Khan al-Ahmar is a war crime or whatever, the Israeli courts see no validity in that argument.

Equally clearly, the current "most right wing government in Israeli history" is not anxious to demolish Khan al-Ahmar. It is engaging in realpolitik, and it doesn't want to antagonize the Europeans. I'm sure that the government knows Khan al-Ahmar is illegal but instead of using the court as a shield to destroy the outpost, it is fighting it.

Moreover, the "extremist Likud" prepared a site for the residents to move that would have a sewage system and electricity - all on the Israeli taxpayer's dime, essentially rewarding the lawless Bedouin.

When you look past the headlines, none of the memes about Israel jive with the facts. Too bad most journalists prefer to parrot the memes and try to fit the facts to the narrative rather than point out the truth.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Ever since Israel first started taking steps to normalize with Sudan, that country has shown the that its media is more free than most Muslim nations. There is robust debate with articles both for and against. (In Morocco, the media seems to be instructed not to say anything negative about Israel, and anti-Zionist Moroccans are only covered by Algerian media.)

This commentary by Yusriya Muhammad al- Hassan is titled "Welcome to our Cousins."

Whoever says that the State of Israel must be wiped out of existence is delusional. Now the Israeli Knesset has more than twenty Palestinian members. The Palestinian leaders signed peace treaties with Israel, and the first one to sign a peace agreement from the Arab leaders was the late Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar Sadat - Camp David Accords. Egypt was the first Arab nation in the lines of defense. The whole Arab world is now heading in the same direction in signing permanent peace agreements with Israel.

Most of the countries of the continent have opened or will open their embassies in Israel. So I say we have wasted a lot of time chasing after false slogans raised by regimes for their absent peoples and from under the table looking for Abrahamic normalization with Israel (the Al-Bashir regime as a model!!)... Israel is a country that implements true democracy to the letter and its people practice responsible freedom in full transparency, as is the government. How many television screens have broadcasted to you public trials of the Prime Minister of Israel on charges that they see and announce publicly - there is no one above the law!!

Compare to here and watch a country whose government raises the Book of Religion!! Corruption in the noses, thefts in broad daylight, your fate is known !!! And they deafen your ears morning and evening with prophetic hadiths and Quranic verses that forbid murder, theft and corruption!!

It is time for us to extend our hands without harm to everyone who desires relations between his brother and him. The State of Israel is very welcome. I believe, like others, that this is a great opening for our two countries in the field of investing in our country which is full of enormous natural resources. It will open the door for Israeli investors and others from the four corners of the world, which will benefit our country with abundant goodness, especially in the agricultural field. Israel possesses modern agricultural technologies, which makes it the first in the world in this field.

So, all that is said about the fear of this step in full normalization between Sudan and Israel is basically a form of political chaos for the self-interests of a group isolated from society. This country will be extricated from the total destruction that was just around the corner. Freedom is ours, so give good news, O beautiful country, of a better tomorrow after the darkness of the night has been lifted, the dawn of salvation has dawned, and the emancipation from the clutches of international isolation has begun.

This is interesting on two levels. For one, it is a full throated support for closer relations between Sudan and Israel. And the other is that, at the same time that Israeli and world media are screaming about how Israel is sliding towards "fascism" and "theocracy,"Muslims dream to live under a government that is as flawed as Israel's.

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!

02/07 Links Pt2: Each Holocaust Victim Was Just Like Us; Ilhan Omar: She's smart, savvy, dangerous, hates Jews and Israel; The Outback’s Jewish Museum

From Ian:

Each Holocaust Victim Was Just Like Us

I recently gave an address to students at Westminster Abbey about Holocaust Memorial Day; the theme for this year was “ordinary people.”

During my speech, I asked everyone in the audience, myself included, to imagine being in the middle of our ordinary, daily routine, doing your homework or preparing for a test, when suddenly you’re told that you and your family are about to be deported — segregated from the rest of the population, sent to a ghetto that will ultimately be a place of starvation, forced labor and mass shootings.

I find it hard to imagine this scenario, and it seems almost impossible. Yet this was the fate for so many young Jewish people, along with their families, not so long ago.

The perpetrators of the Holocaust intended for Jews to think of what we would eventually become to much of the world — six million Jewish victims as a nameless, faceless mass, dressed in striped pajamas, unworthy of life. But we must resist this and remember every single victim as an individual, like you and me. We should think of their hopes and dreams; what they liked to do after a long day of classes; what they found pleasure in; what joy brought to others, or the good they could have done for society.

One of these individuals was my relative, Leah. Along with the rest of her large family, Leah was uprooted and sent to a ghetto in Latvia. Leah was a doctor, and one day, after visiting a patient, she came home to find that her family, including her parents, her many brothers and sisters, her husband, and her only young daughter, gone. They had been taken to the nearby forest, shot, and dumped in a ditch.

After the war, when the mass graves were finally opened, Leah found the remains of her daughter — identified by her brightly-colored doll found next to her that the little one was never parted from. Leah kept this doll until her last day, and was one of the very few people who ever got out of the ghetto alive. Leah spent the rest of her life alone.

Another relative, my great-grandfather, was an artist in the Soviet Union. When the Russians allowed Jews to live in big cities, he moved to Leningrad, while many of those who stayed in his birthplace of a little Jewish town in Ukraine were killed. Like Leah, he survived where others did not. Much later in his life, he made a lithograph depicting a woman in front of a gravestone engraved with Russian and Yiddish text that mourns her loss.

Boycotts not protected speech in US, new research argues

If it looks and quacks like speech, don’t let that fool you. It may be a boycott.

The U.S. Supreme Court is weighing whether to hear Arkansas Times v. Waldrip, which hinges on a question that is slipperier than it sounds: Is there a constitutional right to boycott?

More specifically, did Arkansas violate the rights of a Little Rock monthly when the state dangled the possibility of public-funded advertisements if and only if the newspaper signed an agreement refusing to boycott Israel?

Josh Halpern, an academic fellow and lecturer at Harvard Law School, and Lavi Ben Dor, a D.C. attorney, argue in a forthcoming paper that boycotts are not speech, and thus the state did not violate the paper’s rights.

The chances are good the Supreme Court will defer hearing the case with a decision to that effect likely coming this month, Halpern told JNS. Active litigation is pending in several appeals courts, including in Texas and Georgia. “Why not wait and see what those courts do?” he said.

A federal appeals court ruled last that Arkansas law does not violate First Amendment rights by requiring state contractors to forswear, for the duration of the contract, boycotting Israel or entities that do business with Israel.

The Arkansas paper has not stated that it supports boycotting Israel, but a state college has advertised in the paper, which placed the latter in the position of having to decide whether to sign the agreement.

BDS opponents should not necessarily start celebrating, however. If boycott is not protected speech, then boycotting boycotts could also remain unprotected. In a different political climate, a state might require entities that want its business to sign agreements stating that they will boycott Israel.

David Singer: Jerusalem's holy sites under a' Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine'

King Abdullah needed Netanyahu‘s assurance that Israel would support Jordan’s Hashemite rulers retaining custodianship of the Islamic holy sites - if Abdullah was to show support for implementing the Saudi Solution.

The Palace communique gave Abdullah an exit strategy:
“The King reaffirmed Jordan’s steadfast position in support of the two-state solution, which guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side with Israel in peace and security.”

This was indeed King Abdullah’s position prior to publication of the Saudi Solution which trashed the two-state solution – consigning it to the garbage bin of history unimplemented - after being proposed by the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002.

Abdullah has not mentioned the two-state solution once since publication of the Saudi Solution. He is appearing to signal re-supporting the failed two-state solution – should Israel seek during the implementation of the Saudi Solution to renegotiate the current terms of custodianship on terms unacceptable to King Abdullah.

The United Nations, the media and its analysts, and independent analysts have totally ignored the Saudi Solution’s existence since its publication in the Saudi government-controlled Al Arabiya News on 8 June 2022.

None has considered the Saudi Solution newsworthy enough to report on or analyze. It’s time they did.

Netanyahu’s visit to King Abdullah indicates the Saudi Solution may be on the way to being implemented on the way to hopefully becoming a reality.

Dr. Nasser Lahham, editor in chief of the relatively moderate Ma'an News site which is not affiliated with any terror groups, seems to have a problem with Israelis.

When natural disasters happen, whether earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, or even polar depressions, beasts stop fighting, and animals stop fighting. Except for the Israeli occupation, which has degenerated to a lower degree than animals and corrupted the whole earth with its horrible moral decline. Today, I write without hesitation that Israel's decline and lack of laws has become a contagious virus that can spread to the rest of the world.

The people of Palestine, including the settlers, felt the earthquake on Monday, yet the occupation was blocking the roads in Hawara, Beit Rima and Beit Ummar. The world was racing to extend a helping hand to Syria and Turkey, and the occupation was carrying out a mass execution of young men in Aqabat Al-Jabr camp. All of humanity was mourning and respecting the thousands of victims of the earthquake, and Israel was literally writing in its press "there are no Jews among the victims in Turkey."

What dirt! What depravity! And what a stigma in the forehead of humanity!

Instead of offering aid to the Palestinians under its military rule, Israel, "the state of the Jews and God's chosen people," as they claim, began striking at all meanings of religion, morality, and honor. And prove that she is without religion, dignity, honor, or morals. Indeed, the mafia gangs have morals and red lines, but Israel is stripped of them.

Hate blinded the hearts of the Zionists, and blinded their insight. They became monsters who drank the blood of the victims and ate the flesh of the dead.

...Today, with this devastating earthquake that killed the victims and the innocent. No one expects Israel to actually send relief missions or aid to the victims because it is among the humanitarian groups. No and a thousand times no. Perhaps these missions are for the Mossad or for some security conspiracy or political blackmail. But not for relief.

Israel is the scum of morals on earth. It cannot be believed that it contributes to the relief of any other people.

And I want to remind the liberals and the deceived, that the Palestinian Authority sent the Palestinian Civil Defense youth years ago to help Israel extinguish the big fire that broke out in the Damon Mountains. Indeed, with the testimony of the Hebrew press. Palestine firefighters were heroes in fighting the fire. And when Israel held a ceremony honoring the firefighters, it refused to grant the Palestinian firefighters passage permits to enter the Green Line!!

Has humanity heard or seen more despicable morals than this people!

I'm not copying all of his false examples of Israeli "immorality," which are all lies, but just pointing out:

There is nothing wrong with being relieved that no Jews are earthquake victims, just as Palestinians are following how many Palestinians have been killed in Turkey and Syria. (And there are Jews missing and apparently killed in Turkey.)

Out of ten Palestinian firefighters who helped out in the Carmel fire disaster, due to a bureaucratic screwup, three of them did not get permits. Israel apologized

Israel has been widely praised for its selfless support in the case of natural disasters. Lahham is so filled with hate that he simply cannot accept any examples of Jews acting nicely. They are simply hiding their evil!

And this is not a member of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. This is a mainstream Palestinian news editor. Compared to most other Palestinians, he would be considered a moderate.

If you want to know why there is no peace - it is because Palestinians are fed a steady diet of lies and hate their entire lives, across the board, from every source. Anyone whose only source of information about Israelis are Palestinian schools and media would of course hate them.

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!

It only took a day for people to blame Jews for Turkey/Syria earthquake

Maria Dubovikova, "prominent independent analyst and media expert • researcher • RIAC expert • THE RUSSIAN • Ex Al Arabiya / Arab News Columnist" with tens of thousands of followers, has been pushing a conspiracy theory about the Turkey earthquake.

Israel knew about the quake ahead of time and only told her friends.

She removed the Twitter thread but I was able to reproduce it with her Telegram and the Google cache:

Israel was boasting that it has elaborated the system for predicting earthquakes with 80% precision. A week ago, the Western embassies were closed in Turkey, and the Westerners were advised to leave the country ASAP due to the "terrorist attack threat."

Today, Turkey and Syria are hit with an extremely strong earthquake.

My guess is that Israel has informed its western counterparts about the upcoming earthquakes.

The Western supremacists are caring exclusively about their own precious lives, giving a shit about those who are considered inferior to them, those third-rate Arabs and Turks. “There is no need to inform them about the threat. Let them die! Who cares!”

How many lives would be saved, if people were aware of the upcoming threat.

If anybody — Israel, Western powers — was aware of the upcoming earthquake and didn’t urge Ankara and Damascus about it — that’s a crime.

Bearing in mind “coincidence” of the earthquake in Iran and Israeli drone attack. Then the closure of the Western embassies and a call to Westerners to leave Turkey prior to the earthquake.

These are the dots. Connect them your own way.

This is...nuts. It has the same quality as the popular "Israelis warned NYC Jews not to go to work on 9/11" meme.

Yes, last year Israeli researchers claimed that they could predict an earthquake with 80% accuracy - but that was only within 48 hours of the event, not a week ahead. And only antisemites would conflate all Israelis with the Israeli government.

The warnings to embassy personnel came after the Quran burning in Sweden in late January.

Her claim that it is no coincidence that Israel's drone attack in Iran happened around the time of an earthquake is really unhinged. That would mean that the Israelis could accurately predict an earthquake days or weeks ahead of time - to within minutes.

And her Telegram channel also reproduces a map that implies that the US might have exploded nukes under Turkey to cause the quake.

When called out on this obvious antisemitism, Dubovikova said she was half Jewish and had a grandmother in the Holocaust.

I guess she considers that a "get out of jail free" card.

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!

02/07 Links Pt1: Turkey-Syria Quake Death Toll Passes 5,100; Israeli aid plane, Iranian military plane side-by-side in Turkey; For Palestinians, terrorism against Israel pays

From Ian:

Turkish Leader Declares State of Emergency as Turkey-Syria Quake Death Toll Passes 5,100

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces devastated by two earthquakes that killed more than 5,100 people and left a trail of destruction across a wide area of southern Turkey and neighbouring Syria.

A day after the quakes hit, rescuers working in harsh conditions were struggling to dig people out of the rubble of collapsed buildings in a “race against time”.

As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One United Nations official said it was feared thousands of children may have been killed.

Thousands of buildings were toppled, hospitals and schools wrecked and tens of thousands of people were injured or left homeless in several Turkish and Syrian cities by the magnitude 7.8 quake – the deadliest in Turkey since 1999 – and a second one hours later.

Bitter winter weather hampered rescue efforts and the delivery of aid, and made the plight of the homeless even more miserable. Some areas were without fuel and electricity.

Aid officials voiced particular concern about the situation in Syria, already afflicted by a humanitarian crisis after nearly 12 years of civil war.

In a speech on Tuesday, Erdogan declared the 10 Turkish provinces affected as a disaster zone and imposed a state of emergency in the region for three months. This will permit the president and cabinet to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms.

The government planned to open up hotels in the tourism hub of Antalya, to the west, to temporarily house people impacted by the quakes, said Erdogan, who faces a national election in three months’ time.

The death toll in Turkey had risen to 3,549 people, Erdogan said. In Syria, the toll stood at just over 1,600, according to the government and a rescue service in the insurgent-held northwest.

Analysis: Is Israel Ready for the Earthquake to Come?

Israel will face a major earthquake and likely in the not-too-distant future.

“History tells us that roughly every one hundred years there is a very large earthquake, of magnitude 6 or above, and every thousand years there’s a massive one, 7 or higher, along the Dead Sea fault,” warned Nadav Wetzler, an Israel Geological Survey seismologist.

The last big earthquake in Israel’s immediate region was in 1927, the 6.2 magnitude “Jericho Earthquake.” It killed hundreds of people, and destroyed thousands of buildings.

That was nearly 100 years ago. Is Israel ready for the next one?

“I would say partly ready, the government formed a commission to coordinate the responses of the different government agencies and ministries. We also have developed a system for early warning – but this is only good when the earthquake is already happening,” said Shmuel Marco, a professor if geophysics at Tel Aviv University.

An early warning system may help people scramble from buildings before it collapses, but too many of Israel’s buildings are vulnerable to falling down. A report by the state comptroller’s office last month said 600-thousand buildings in Israel are not strong enough to resist quakes, including most of the earthquake-prone Galilee region.

Buildings constructed before 1980 were not legally required to be built to withstand earthquakes, but of 1.5 billion dollars allocated to strengthen Israel’s older buildings since 2019, less than 2 million has been used in the seismically active north of the country.

Israeli aid plane, Iranian military plane side-by-side in Turkey

It’s not often that an Israeli flag is seen flying next to an Iranian flag, but as United Hatzalah of Israel’s earthquake relief team landed in Turkey on Tuesday evening, this rare event occurred, displaying how the global community had come together.

The aircraft was organized by the emergency service with El Al subsidiary Sun D’or in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Israeli embassy in Turkey, and consequently proudly displayed Israeli flags on the cockpit window.

United Hatzalah’s plane, carrying 25 emergency response personnel and 10 tons of medical and humanitarian aid, taxied into a slot at Gaziantep airport.

The parking spot placed the Israeli plane right next to an Iranian military plane, likely also on a mission related to the earthquake. As the Israeli plane sported flags, an Iranian flag was painted on the other craft’s empennage.

Countries put aside differences to help Turkey
On the right side of United Hatzalah’s plane, separated by one private aircraft, was a Qatari airforce McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. While Qatar’s relationship isn’t as antagonistic to Israel as Iran, it also has had an incredibly strained diplomatic history with the Jewish State.

A United Hatzalah team member said that it wasn’t uncommon in such missions that people that might otherwise be enemies would both work on the same field to the same objective — saving lives.