Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 20, 2023

Some Arabs very upset by a synagogue in Abu Dhabi

Last week, to much fanfare, the Maimonides synagogue was formally opened in Abu Dhabi as part of the Abrahamic Family House interfaith project spearheaded by the UAE royal family.

Many reports say that this is the first synagogue in Abu Dhabi, but in fact there was a modest synagogue that had been operating quietly for years in a rented villa for Jewish businesspeople in the Emirates.

Most of the Arabic language articles about the new synagogue have been respectful, but many - especially from outlets sympathetic to Iran - have been upset over this.

It appears that the articles that are upset over the complex are trying to manufacture and stoke the outrage rather than report on it.

Watanserb dug through social media to find critics of the synagogue. They found a couple of prominent critics but they also sought out Tweeters with only a few dozen followers to fill out the story.

Ahmed al Khalili, the Mufti of Oman, believes that giving equal weight to Christianity and Judaism with Islam is a violation of the Quranic decree not to take Christians and Jews as allies.

Popular tweeter HureyAksa also says that the complex is "heretical" and fights against Islam. (More recently, he took video of the "Chief Rabbi of Saudi Arabia" promoting the Saudi Neom project, saying that it will be built specifically for the use of the "occupation.")

Some Saudis seem to be afraid that the UAE is trying to supplant the Kaaba as the central religious site in the world. A Yemeni site even said that the UAE is trying to change the direction of the qiblah, the prayer direction, away from Mecca.

Of course, many in Arab media are calling this house of prayer more evidence of "normalization" with Israel, citing Israeli newspapers who are reporting on the story.

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!

75 years ago: War crimes by the Arab Legion, with full knowledge and encouragement of the British

Starting in 1947, the Arab Legion was placed in Jewish areas by the British. They used this opportunity to attack and murder random Jewish civilians.

From the Palestine Post, February 16, 1948:

A particularly horrific story happened the next day. Three Jews were shot at in their car, injured, forcibly pulled from their car - and then executed.

From the Palestine Post, February 17, 1948:

More details of this crime were revealed in the next day's paper. The British knew about the execution ahead of time, and essentially colluded.

These are all war crimes by any definition. And no one even remembers this.

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 had to happen: Arab media links "Team Jorge" group to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Over the past week, there's been a blockbuster journalistic scoop revealing the existence of an Israeli hacking team that was influencing elections and other world events. The Guardian summarizes:

A team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media has been exposed in a new investigation.

The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades.

He is being unmasked by an international consortium of journalists. Hanan and his unit, which uses the codename “Team Jorge”, have been exposed by undercover footage and documents leaked to the Guardian.

From what I can tell, the reporting looks solid. A private Israeli firm does appear to have created an army of fake accounts that were being used to manipulate the news. It is highly unethical and probably illegal.

From what is being reported, there is no link to the Israeli government; this was a private company doing very shady things.

But because it is Israeli, the reporting is somewhat more sensationalist. And the Arab media is quick to associate "Team Jorge" with - the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The crimes of the “Israeli groups” that aim to spread chaos in the world bring back to the world’s memory the controversy that took place around the truth of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which includes 24 protocols, including: brutal repression, brainwashing, abuse of power, arrest of opponents, economic wars, and methods of Invasion, the method of control, world wars, transitional governments, re-education, readiness to take over, the totalitarian state, control over the press, and others.

The global journalistic survey, with the participation of 4 major European newspapers, has revived talk about the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", after the investigative report revealed the "dangerous" role of the Israelis in the world and through the formation of various institutions and entities that carry out tasks aimed at spreading chaos in the world.

Because...Jews.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

02/19 Links: David Collier: Just where on earth was ‘Palestine’?; The United Nations' antisemitism problem; LA Antisemitic Shooter Previously Cut Loose by Soros DA

From Ian:

David Collier: Just where on earth was ‘Palestine’?

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (source unknown, but often attributed to Mark Twain).

The ‘success’ of ‘Palestine’-related myths provides excellent examples of how we are surrounded by Orwellian inversions of truth. From the Guardian and the BBC to the Washington Post and NYT, the mainstream media are all likely to promote some elements of the fictional tale of the history of ‘Palestine’. Given how often we see these errors, I am actually left wondering whether today’s journalists actually have access to the archives of the very newspapers that they work for. Truths that cannot be spoken

There are truths that today cannot be digested in the mainstream. Those that promote them are swiftly labelled ‘extremists’. Push these notions persistently and you will find yourself ‘cancelled’ -‘ no-platformed’ – and silenced, as a ‘racist’, or purveyor of hate.

Three examples:
Most ‘indigenous’ Palestinians are from families who migrated into the area in the last 170 years.
‘Palestine’ has no form, was alien to Muslims, and was kept alive only as a romantic thought in Christian ideology.
The notion of the Palestinian ‘refugee’ in 2023 is just an absurdity.

It doesn’t matter how these statements may disturb your inner peace – they are either true, or they are not. The modern Palestinian cause is a toxic cocktail that was originally made up from an exercise in denialism, an attempt to deprive Jews of the right to self-determination, western thirst for oil, Christian supersessionism, antisemitism, rising Arab nationalism, Islamist ideology, and political horseplay between the world’s superpowers. If you mix these all together and let the cocktail fester for 100 years, then today’s pro-Palestinian movement, which toxifies everything it touches, becomes the inevitable result.

We are witnessing a concentrated rewrite of history.

Why that Ohio town is named 'East Palestine'

Since there already was a town named “Palestine” in the western part of the state—likewise founded by religious Christians who wanted to infuse their town with “holy memories”—government officials, in assigning the new post office, added the prefix “East.”

That early account of East Palestine’s founding was published in 1905, when it was common for a married woman’s name to be hidden behind that of her husband. But a historical marker in front of the log house where the Chamberlins once lived tells us that the name of the doctor’s wife was Rebecca—an appropriately biblical name for a woman who took her Bible seriously.

Not surprisingly, numerous churches quickly sprung up in East Palestine and its environs. Lutheran and Reformed congregations established the Salem Church, choosing a name derived from “Jerusalem.” Evangelical Lutherans founded the St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, while Methodists originally held their services in a local school—the separation between church and state was still rather fuzzy in those days—before eventually erecting their Methodist Episcopal Church. East Palestine also had a United Presbyterian Church and, later, another house of worship with a biblically-inspired name, the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church.

When America’s religious Christian settlers thought of the Holy Land, they thought of the Hebrew bible and the area’s 3,000 years of Jewish inhabitation, not the Koran or the more recently-arrived Arab residents of the area. They thought of the many Jews who appear in the accounts of the birth of Christianity (including its founder), texts that do not mention any Palestinian Arabs since there were none..

Certainly Americans were aware that there were Arabs living in Palestine by the 19th century. Mark Twain, for example, had mentioned them in his account of his visit to the Holy Land, The Innocents Abroad (1869). So had Herman Melville in his famous Clarel: A Poem and the Pilgrimage in the Holy Land (1876).

But it was common knowledge that the Arab population of Palestine was relatively small and unsettled, and that the Arab residents of 19th-century Palestine regarded themselves as part of southern Syria, not as a separate nationality. H. Allen Tupper, Jr. wrote in the New York Times in 1896, after having “ridden on horseback more than four hundred miles through Palestine and Syria,” that virtually the only local people he encountered were “merchantmen with their long camel trains” and “wild Bedouin tribes” that “reside in one locality not more than two months.”

Today’s residents pronounce East Palestine “Palesteen,” but the original settlers undoubtedly pronounced it the more common way. Because it was the Holy Land, with its deep Jewish roots, that burned bright in the hearts and prayers of the founders of the many biblically-named towns across America. And it is for the same reason that Bible-believing Christians today—probably including more than a few residents of East Palestine, Ohio—constitute one of the major sources of pro-Israel sentiment in the United States.

The United Nations' antisemitism problem

Moratinos pointed to a number of initiatives undertaken by the UN, including the 2019 report and 2022 Action Plan to Combat Antisemitism prepared by Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion, and ongoing educational work on the topic by UNESCO.

But, Moratinos mainly referenced UN events surrounding International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and a 2022 UN General Assembly resolution sponsored and shepherded by Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan to combat Holocaust denial and distortion. Erdan’s office said that resolutions voted on by UN member States instructed the UN to establish the Holocaust Outreach Department and hold specific ceremonies.

“These are not UN organizational actions,” the statement said.

The Israeli mission and Jewish groups have also expressed dismay and anger that Moratinos and other UN officials failed to call out antisemitic comments made by members of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and by the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians. A pair of those comments used the term “Jewish lobby” to assert disproportionate Jewish influence, including Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s 2014 remark that the Jewish lobby had “subjugated the United States.”

Moratinos issued a tweet following one of the comments broadly calling out antisemitism without making reference to any UN official or the root of his tweet. The “subjugation” comment went without any response, as Moratinos said that the special rapporteur acts independently of the UN and “is free to say whatever.”

That doesn’t cut it for the likes of B’nai Brith CEO Dan Mariaschin, who has met with Moratinos a number of times, and says he believes Moratinos takes the issue seriously.

“They need to address this inside the UN, under the UN's roof itself. That means that the secretary-general also has to have his back,” Mariaschin said. “If it's not coming from the top, then why would country A, country B, country C- or any other UN agency for that matter- feel that they need at the very least to be careful in what they say?

Moratinos said that he expects to hash out a UN action and response plan to antisemitism at a June meeting with Jewish leaders, and noted that the UN could and will do more to root out Jew hatred within its ranks.

“But what is clear, with fact, with action, is that the UN is not antisemitic,” Moratinos said.

As Moratinos and the UN develop a response plan to antisemitism, that disconnect between what Moratinos believes and what Israel and Jewish groups see is plain as day and may very well be too much to overcome.

"Independent", yeah right.

I look forward with bated breath of the @UN's report on Palestinian incitement and running over 6 & 8 year old Jewish kids in Jerusalem! https://t.co/pWMCRnlg4t
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) February 19, 2023

UK-based Al Araby has an article titled, "Purim: A myth in the service of politics."

It is written by Ahmed el-Gendy, a professor of Jewish and Zionist studies at Cairo University.

The article argues that the story of Purim is a myth and it is not even a religious holiday for Jews, but merely a political story of fictional antisemitism and of Jewish supremacy.

As evidence, the author points to the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, possibly this one, which refers to Haman as antisemitic.

Since the term "antisemitism" had not been coined until the 19th century, al-Gendy opines, it is false to refer to a man who wanted to destroy the Jews of Persia as an antisemite.

He quotes the MFA site as saying, " "Over the years, Purim, which commemorates the salvation of the Jews and the thwarting of Haman's extermination plot, became a symbol of the Jewish people's victory over the rule of antisemitic tyranny."

He therefore concludes that "The whole story of Purim, it seems, exists in order to notify the Jews everywhere that they are in imminent and permanent danger, with no crime they commit except for their being different."

Moreover, "their liberation from this danger (comes from resorting to) trickery, cunning and deceit, then taking revenge on their enemies and their descendants. Their enemies (must be punished,) even if they are innocent, if they are in a position of strength."

In short, Purim isn't the story of the miraculous salvation of Jews from their enemies, but an expression of how Jews use deceit and cunning to destroy their innocent enemies.

If anyone is politicizing the holiday, I think it is this Cairo University professor!

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

I've been playing some more with ChatGPT - and finding it to be wholly unreliable as to its "facts."

I asked it about Egyptian attitudes towards Jews, which surveys have consistently shown to be overwhelmingly negative. The artificial intelligence tried very hard to minimize that fact:

Q: Are most Egyptians antisemitic?

It is difficult to make sweeping generalizations about an entire population, and it would not be accurate to say that most Egyptians are antisemitic. While there are certainly instances of antisemitism in Egypt, as there are in many countries around the world, it is important to recognize that attitudes toward Jews and Judaism are complex and varied.

Egypt has a long and rich history of Jewish communities, dating back thousands of years. While the majority of Jews in Egypt left the country following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and subsequent political tensions between Egypt and Israel, a small Jewish community remains in the country today.

Yes - a very small community of approximately three people that ChatGP T brings as evidence of little Egyptian antisemitism!

That being said, there have been instances of antisemitic rhetoric and actions in Egypt, particularly in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, there have been reports of antisemitic propaganda in Egyptian media, as well as occasional acts of violence and harassment against Jews and Jewish institutions.

It is important to recognize, however, that these incidents do not necessarily reflect the views of the entire Egyptian population, and that there are many Egyptians who do not hold antisemitic views. Like any society, Egypt is a complex and diverse place, and it is important to approach discussions of sensitive topics such as this with nuance and sensitivity.

Q: According to the ADL survey, what percentage of Egyptians hold antisemitic attitudes?

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Global 100 Index survey conducted in 2014, which measured antisemitic attitudes in over 100 countries, 75% of Egyptian adults hold antisemitic attitudes. This was the highest percentage of any of the countries surveyed.

The survey asked respondents a series of 11 questions related to negative stereotypes about Jews, such as "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country [the respondent's country]" or "Jews have too much power in the business world." Respondents who answered "probably true" to six or more of the 11 questions were considered to hold antisemitic attitudes.

It is worth noting, however, that the survey has been criticized by some for its methodology and for the way it framed questions about Jews and Israel. Additionally, the results of the survey should not be taken as indicative of the views of all Egyptians, as attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, like any complex social issue, are multifaceted and can vary widely within a given population.

Q: Who criticized its methodology?

The ADL Global 100 Index survey has been criticized by some scholars and organizations for its methodology and framing of questions.

For example, in a paper published in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, researchers argued that the survey's definition of antisemitism was overly broad and that it conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism. They also noted that the survey did not distinguish between different types of antisemitism, such as religious or racial antisemitism, and that it relied heavily on stereotypes and perceptions rather than actual behaviors.

The ADL survey specifically does not conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. More on that "paper" below.

Other scholars have criticized the survey for relying on a limited set of questions to determine attitudes toward Jews and for not taking into account cultural or historical factors that might shape attitudes in different regions.

While the ADL has defended the methodology and validity of the survey, it is worth noting that any survey on sensitive social issues is likely to be subject to some criticism and that it is important to consider a range of sources and perspectives when seeking to understand attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in different parts of the world.

Q: What other organizations have surveyed Egyptian attitudes towards Jews, and what were the results?

Several organizations have conducted surveys on Egyptian attitudes toward Jews, with varying results.

For example, in 2010, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of public opinion in Egypt that included several questions related to attitudes toward Jews and Israel. The survey found that 95% of Egyptians held unfavorable views of Jews, while 82% expressed negative views of Israel.

A 2019 survey by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) found that 67% of Egyptians held unfavorable views of Jews, while 64% expressed unfavorable views of Israel. The survey also found that younger Egyptians were more likely to express negative views of Jews and Israel than older Egyptians.

It is worth noting that surveys on attitudes toward Jews and Israel can be sensitive and controversial in some contexts, and that different survey methodologies and question wordings can produce different results. Additionally, attitudes toward Jews and Judaism are complex and multifaceted, and it is important to approach discussions of this topic with nuance and sensitivity.

I could not find any questions about attitudes towards Jews in any poll by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) in 2019 or any other year. And when I asked ChatGPT, it couldn't either:

Q: You mentioned a 2019 survey by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) found that 67% of Egyptians held unfavorable views of Jews. I cannot find that survey, can you give me more details?
I apologize for any confusion my previous response may have caused. Upon further research, I could not locate a 2019 survey by the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) specifically on unfavorable views of Jews.

That is a very specific thing to get wrong.

I continued on:

Q: Has there been any survey of Egyptian attitudes towards Jews that show that less than half the population holds antisemitic attitudes?

I'm not aware of any recent surveys that indicate that less than half of the Egyptian population holds antisemitic attitudes. As I mentioned earlier, surveys conducted by the ADL and other organizations have found high levels of negative attitudes toward Jews in Egypt.

While the specific results of surveys on this topic can vary depending on the methodology and wording of questions, it is generally acknowledged that antisemitism remains a significant issue in many parts of the world, including Egypt. However, it is also important to recognize that attitudes toward Jews and Judaism are complex and multifaceted, and that there are likely to be significant variations in attitudes within any given population.

No matter what it answers, it always adds that things are a lot more complex, without showing any counterexamples.

I then asked about the criticism of the ADL survey that ChatGPT claimed:

Q: Could you give me a link to the paper in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism you mentioned earlier? I couldn't find it.

I apologize for the confusion earlier. Since I am an AI language model, I don't have access to external links or specific publication details on my own.

However, I believe the paper you are referring to is "Assessing Antisemitism: A Critical Review of the ADL Global 100 Index" by Brendan O'Connor and Jeffrey Wimmer, which was published in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2019, pp. 118-141.

Q: I cannot find that paper in that issue: https://www.jcajournal.com/vol2iss1

I apologize for the mistake in my earlier response. It appears that I provided the wrong issue for the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism.

The paper "Assessing Antisemitism: A Critical Review of the ADL Global 100 Index" by Brendan O'Connor and Jeffrey Wimmer was actually published in Volume 2, Issue 2 of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism in 2019.

Here is a link to the article on the journal's website: https://www.jcajournal.com/vol2iss2

Q: It's not there either.
I apologize for the confusion. It appears that the paper "Assessing Antisemitism: A Critical Review of the ADL Global 100 Index" by Brendan O'Connor and Jeffrey Wimmer is not available on the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism's website.

However, you may be able to access the paper through a database or online library subscription. Alternatively, you could try contacting the authors directly for a copy of the paper.

Q: Their table of contents doesn't list it. I cannot find any articles by them in Google Scholar. It seems very strange that I cannot find a single link to this paper.
I apologize for the confusion and inconvenience. Upon further research, it seems that I made a mistake in my earlier response. The paper "Assessing Antisemitism: A Critical Review of the ADL Global 100 Index" by Brendan O'Connor and Jeffrey Wimmer was not published in the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism.

I apologize for any confusion or frustration that my earlier responses may have caused. As an AI language model, I strive to provide accurate and helpful information, but I am not infallible and may make mistakes.

Q: Was it published anywhere? And if so, where?
I apologize for the confusion in my earlier responses. Upon further research, I was not able to locate the paper "Assessing Antisemitism: A Critical Review of the ADL Global 100 Index" by Brendan O'Connor and Jeffrey Wimmer.

It is possible that the paper was never published or that it was published in a different venue than I originally thought. I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

In the end, ChatGPT could not substantiate anything to mitigate the issue of Egyptian antisemitism, yet still insisted that it is a complex topic and that one cannot generalize that Egyptians are generally antisemitic, even though every single survey supports that conclusion.

Worse, it literally made up facts to mitigate the findings - one apparently making up an Egyptian survey were "only" 67% of Egyptians have antisemitic attitudes, and secondly making up an entire paper that does not seem to exist that criticizes the ADL methodology. (I'm sure that there are some criticisms, because anything can be criticized, but the AI engine worked harder to mitigate Egyptian antisemitism than to be concerned about it. )

And this is exactly the attitude of much of the liberal world towards clear antisemitic attitudes in most of the Arab world, as my last post about the lack of anger towards an esteemed Egyptian archaeologist's clear antisemitism indicates.

ChatGPT is more concerned with "truthiness" than 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!

Dr. Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian Antiquities minister who styles himself as a real-life Indiana Jones, is about to embark on a 23-city lecture tour in the US, speaking at convention centers in all major US cities.

No one seems very concerned that he is a Jew-hater.

He has said that Jews immigrated to America, took over its entire economy, and now control the entire world.

Hawass wrote in 2009, "The concept of killing women, children, and elderly people.... seems to run in the blood of the Jews of Palestine" and that "the only thing that the Jews have learned from history is methods of tyranny and torment—so much so that they have become artists in this field."

"When I speak of the Jewish faith, I do not mean their [original] faith, but the faith that they forged and contaminated with their poison, which is aimed against all of mankind," he added.

This distinguished academic also claims that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, have nothing to do with Judaism.

Hawass has repeatedly rejected the idea of a museum of Egyptian Jewish history, similar to a museum of Coptic history in Egypt, saying, "How can we have a Jewish museum for the occupiers of Palestine?"\

If an avowed racist was to lecture in the US on any topic, there would be an uproar. But a Jew-hater, who happily spreads the most vile conspiracy theories about Jews?

Not a word of protest.

What would it take to get Jews to protest this lecture series?

This has nothing to do with Zionism - his comments are antisemitic no matter what definition you choose to subscribe to.

But will liberal Jews write letters and picket his lectures? Will the media cover his history of antisemitism when they report on his lectures?

What will it take for people who claim to care about antisemitism to act like it?

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!

02/18 Links: Blinken speaks with Abbas as US works to block UN resolution on Israeli settlements; Israel Denounces ‘Severe’ Incident of Diplomat’s Expulsion from African Union Summit

From Ian:

Draft UN resolution demands end to Israeli settlements

A draft U.N. resolution that the Associated Press obtained demands an immediate halt to all Israeli settlement activities, condemning Israeli attempts to annex settlements and outposts and calling for their reversal. The Palestinian-backed resolution could be put to a vote as early as next week.

The new resolution comes as Israel’s government reaffirmed its commitment to legalize nine communities in Judea and Samaria in the wake of last week’s deadly terrorist attack in Jerusalem. The victims were identified as Yaakov Israel Paley, 6; his brother Asher Menachem, 8; and Alter Shlomo Lederman, 20.

At the same time, Israel’s government has announced plans to advance nearly 10,000 housing units in Judea and Samaria following a string of terrorist attacks, which claimed 10 Israeli lives in the past several weeks.

“The introduction of this resolution is unhelpful in supporting the conditions necessary to advance negotiations for a two-state solution,” Vedant Patel, deputy U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington on Thursday. Patel added that Israel’s decision to expand settlements and legalize those communities was also “unhelpful.”

Supporters of the resolution want a vote on Monday ahead of the year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Starting on Wednesday, this period will be marked by several days of high-level activities.

The resolution was introduced and supported by the United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel more than two years ago and has taken a tepid stance on opposing Russia’s war with Ukraine.

The United States will look to the United Arab Emirates and other council members to vote in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and calling for an immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces.

Blinken speaks with Abbas as US works to block UN resolution on Israeli settlements

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken phoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, as Washington seeks to thwart a Ramallah-backed UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate halt to Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.

The Security Council resolution has placed the US in an uncomfortable position, as it too has spoken out aggressively against last Sunday’s decision by Israel to legalize nine outposts in the West Bank and advance plans for some 10,000 new settlement homes, the largest-ever package to be green-lit in one sitting.

Additionally, the Biden administration has maintained that vetoes at the UN Security Council should be used sparingly and has been critical of Russia’s efforts to block consensus-backed initiatives over the past year. Vetoing this measure, which includes a condemnation of steps toward annexation by Israel — such as outpost legalizations, would put them at odds with countries it has asked to back UN resolutions against Russia for annexing Ukrainian lands.

However, the US has also said the UN is not the correct forum for adjudicating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has been critical of member states’ disproportionate and sometimes biased approach on the issue.

The Palestinian readout of the Saturday phone call said Abbas briefed Blinken on his office’s involvement in the Security Council initiative, which was drafted by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab League’s representative on the top UN panel.

Abbas said the UN effort was “a result of Israel’s insistence on violating signed agreements” and “underscored the need for Israel to stop all unilateral measures, including settlement construction, home demolitions, raids on cities and villages and the extrajudicial killings of Palestinians,” according to the PA readout.

The PA president urged the US to “immediately and effectively intervene to press Israel to stop all these dangerous measures” to ensure the continued prospect of a two-state solution, his office said. It added that Blinken assured Abbas that he would reach out to the Israeli government “in an effort to stop the unilateral Israeli actions on the ground.”

The State Department later released a readout saying Blinken stressed “the US commitment to a negotiated two-state solution and opposition to policies that endanger its viability.”

Seth Frantzman: Is rising terror in Israel a sign of a new Palestinian intifada?

The most violent year in the West Bank since 2005
The last year has been described as the most violent in the West Bank since the UN began recording data on Israel-Palestinian clashes in 2005. It’s important to note here that this data point is well crafted to provide a headline because actually, the conflict is not more violent today than in conflicts such as the 2009 war in Gaza.

However, by looking solely at the West Bank, it is indeed violent. This has come about primarily due to the rise of Islamic Jihad in Jenin, gangs and militias in Nablus, as well as armed groups in Jericho. These seem to be men who are well armed thanks to arms trafficking in the West Bank.

The men all have M-16s, and while some may be relatives of members of Fatah or may have allegiance to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the overall trend is that armed gangs and militias, mafias and militants are taking over one Palestinian city after another.

THE ARMS flow in the West Bank has gone on for decades, but recent years have apparently seen a surge in the flow of M-16s, the same type of rifle used by Israel and the US. Where do the weapons all come from? It’s not entirely clear, but the fact is that almost every Palestinian gunman killed in recent clashes with Israeli forces has been pictured with an M-16, usually in “martyr” photos published posthumously by supporters.

Attacks continue even with efforts to take the wind out of their sails
The M-16 generation of terrorist militias/gangs/mafias rising in the West Bank is a generation that was born after the Second Intifada began. That means they have no real memory of the brutal fighting that marked that era. They don’t remember the siege of the Muqata of the church in Bethlehem, the shooting from Beit Jala or the battle of Jenin.

They have only stories, and unlike the previous generations, they grew up entirely sealed off from Israel. This is because the security barrier was built when they were very young. Unlike their parents, they never met Israelis in a normal setting and didn’t likely work in Israel. They are the fruits of Oslo and the bizarre “peace” of the 1990s.

The fighters Israel is confronting and those involved in attacks today are also children of another phenomenon. They are not well trained because Israel dismantled the terror infrastructure of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

02/17 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Can the whole world be wrong?; BDS shares concentration camp photo, claims it's a massacre of Palestinians; Abu Dhabi’s new ‘Abrahamic Family House’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Can the whole world be wrong?

One of the mysteries of the war against Israel is the extent to which a monstrously twisted narrative about Israel and the Palestinian Arabs — casting the former as evil and the latter as sanctified victims — has been absorbed by so many people.

Still stranger, this narrative seems to be the driver of progressive politics. It’s not just that “intersectionality” demonises the Jews, but that it is driven by an obsession with Palestinianism.

As Corinne Blacker wrote in Tablet: “In queer and women’s studies programs, the topic of Palestine is regularly inserted into the most unlikely contexts, to the extent that one student in a class about queer history told me that they discussed nothing but Palestine.”

The astonishing story of Mohammed al-Durah illustrates just how perverse this is. On Sept. 30, 2000, the French TV station France 2 broadcast footage from Gaza that apparently showed the 12-year-old al-Durah being shot dead by Israeli fire as he clung to his father during a demonstration.

This iconic picture detonated the second intifada, the Palestinian terrorist war waged against Israeli civilians that murdered more than 1,130 of them and wounded more than 8,000 between 2000 and 2005. The footage incited hysteria across the Arab and Muslim world.

Eleven days later, when two Israeli reservists strayed into Ramallah, a mob beat them to death. They threw one body out of a window, mutilating it and parading it through the streets. A gloating Palestinian Arab was pictured waving his hands in the air covered in the Israelis’ blood while the mob screamed “revenge for the blood of Muhammad al-Durah!”

One year later, at the UN’s sickening anti-Jewish hate-fest in Durban, South Africa, Mohammad al-Durah’s body was paraded in effigy among thousands of demonstrators screaming hatred of Israel. Then Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded by al-Qaeda explicitly for the killing of the child.

The whole al-Durah killing, however, was a set-up and a grotesque lie. As I saw in a Paris courtroom in 2007, previously unseen French TV footage showed that the scenes of battle had been staged with cameras, producers and even make-up technicians visible in a carnival atmosphere.

Palestinian “demonstrators” were laid out on stretchers and carted off to ambulances. But there was no blood or evidence of injuries whatsoever, not even on Mohammad al-Durah, with the boy peeping through his fingers moments after a reporter announced he had been killed.

U.S.-Based NGO Claims Slain Palestinian Terrorists as ‘Theirs’

A U.S.-based nonprofit is holding rallies in major American cities to protest a recent Israeli Defense Forces counterterror operation, labeling it a “massacre.” The NGO, Al Awda has a long and troubling history of vocally supporting terrorist groups committed to the destruction of the Jewish state.

On Jan. 26, 2023, the IDF carried out an operation in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) town of Jenin. The raid, an IDF statement said, was to foil an imminent attack being planned by a cell of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

According to the Times of Israel, a local wing of PIJ claimed that its operatives shot IDF forces and used explosives. Nine Palestinians were killed, seven of whom were linked to terrorist groups, including al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The other two were civilians, including a sixty-one-year-old woman named Magda Obaid. The shootout reportedly lasted three hours and left several IDF jeeps so damaged from explosives that tow trucks were required to remove them.

Within hours, the New York branch of Al Awda condemned the “massacre committed in the Jenin refugee camp.” The NGO’s Jan. 27, statement mourned “the nine martyrs” who were killed in the “Zionist massacre.” It was, Al Awda claimed, the latest “intensification of violence by the new, ultra-fascist Zionist regime.”

Al Awda omitted that the IDF was carrying out a counterterrorist operation to thwart an impending attack. Instead, the U.S.-based nonprofit proclaimed that it “honors the resistance fighters in Jenin.” Al Awda hailed what it referred to as “our fighters” and “our resistance people” who “used explosive devices, guided bombs and bullets leading to certain injuries among the occupation forces.”

“We, Al Awda NY, will not forget the role of President Biden, the U.S. Congress and all those who facilitate the endless flow of arms and financial support to the Zionist murder machine,” the group warned.

BDS shares concentration camp photo, claims it's a massacre of Palestinians

In a tweet shared on Twitter, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) claimed that they are displaying a photo where the so-called "Tantura Massacre" took place in 1948, but a Holocaust expert proved it was actually a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. The photo showed tens or possibly hundreds of corpses in a black and white photo, before being buried in a mass grave.

PACBI, a BDS-affiliated organization, tweeted that "the Palestinian Academy for Science & Technology calls on EMBO to relocate workshops from apartheid Israel, including the one at the site of the Tantura massacre." In the shared photo, it is claimed that a mass grave is underneath the parking lot next to the beach.

EMBO is an organization of more than 1,900 researchers "that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond," according to the organization's website.

"EMBO has a moral obligation to end its complicity in whitewashing Israel’s crimes," the PACBI tweet said.

Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli responded on Twitter to the matter "the racist BDS movement breaks a Guinness record, uses a picture from the German concentration camp of Nordhausen to lie about a fictional massacre during Israel's War of Independence. Holocaust distortion, appropriation and denial, further victimizing Jewish people. Pure evil."

A few Eldertoons for the weekend

All of the artwork by Stable Diffusion.

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02/17 Links Pt1: Caroline Glick: How Biden subverts Israeli democracy; Col. Richard Kemp: Israel - Don’t give your enemies more ammo!; When Netanyahu Spoke to Congress

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: How Biden subverts Israeli democracy

The Movement for Quality Government (MQG) in Israel is the far-left organization at the epicenter of the Israeli left’s war against the Netanyahu government. MQG began its current campaign of delegitimization, subversion and demonization immediately after the Netanyahu government was sworn into office on Dec. 29. The next day, MQG petitioned the Supreme Court to prevent Shas leader Aryeh Deri from serving as a minister in the government.

There was no legal basis for the petition. But that didn’t bother the lawyers at MQG.

In its petition, MQG claimed that the terms of a plea deal Deri reached with the State Prosecution last year on tax reporting errors barred him from serving as a minister. Never mind that nothing in the plea deal stipulated anything of the sort or that 400,000 Israeli voters cast their ballots for Shas with the full expectation that Deri would serve as a senior minister.

Like MQG, the Supreme Court justices didn’t bother giving a legal basis for their decision to act on MQG’s petition and bar Deri from serving as a cabinet minister. The justices said Deri’s appointment was “unreasonable,” and with a stroke of a pen, the court retroactively disenfranchised Shas voters.

Building on its success, late last month MQG submitted a new petition asking the justices to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As in the case of Deri, MQG’s petition is based on a political rather than a legal argument. MQG argues that as a criminal defendant, Netanyahu is unfit to serve. The premier, MQG insists, is acting with a conflict of interest by overseeing judicial reforms while on trial. And as a result, the justices should declare him unfit and remove him from office.

Never mind that the justices have a conflict of interest since it is their powers the government’s proposed reforms would check. Never mind that in a bid to prevent politicized judges and prosecutors from overturning the will of the voters, the law explicitly permits prime ministers to serve not only while standing trial, but even if convicted. And never mind that the charges against Netanyahu have fallen apart in Jerusalem District Court.

Col. Richard Kemp: Israel - Don’t give your enemies more ammo!

After a recent visit to Israel both of us, we're deeply concerned by the unprecedented degree of tension and sheer animosity permeating the political arena.

As friends of Israel rather than Israeli citizens, we do not seek to intervene on any partisan basis, but to sound the alarm about the very real potential for Israel’s enemies to exploit the current rhetoric and do harm to the country as a whole.

Political polarization and confrontation are nothing new to us since they are trends now rooted in our own countries and across the Western world, from the U.S. to Italy. But our experience fighting successive attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel shows us that this country simply cannot afford the level of domestic political tensions that other democracies can go through. Israel has proven itself time and again to be the most resilient country in the world when it comes to physical warfare. But it is also subject to the most insidious political warfare — continuously under attack by international institutions such as the UN, EU and International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as a range of foreign governments, human rights bodies, academia and much of the world’s media.

It is in this realm that the current discourse and strife will be most damaging. For Israel to be strong, to prosper, to be a force for good in the region and the world, and to fend off incessant political warfare campaigns, it needs to be united in the basic questions, despite all the disagreements that may reasonably emerge around specific proposals and policies. That national unity is being eroded by the tone and conduct of the debate on reforms to the judiciary presented by the coalition government.

We have heard Israeli voices telling us that what is at stake is the survival of democracy in the country, if not dead already. We have been told that it is better not to make even a single concession than to try to reach an agreement. Such extremist attitudes are far from producing a better reform and come dangerously close to emboldening and even inciting Israel’s many international enemies.

Declaring democracy dead has consequences that go well beyond domestic politics. Over the years, both of us have been fighting all attempts made by Palestinian groups to indict Israeli soldiers and political leaders at the ICC, every effort made by the institutionally anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council to condemn Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense, and successive campaigns by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as well as international bodies to wreck Israel’s economy.

Ruthie Blum: Israel’s vilified majority isn’t swayed by the protests

What do all the protesters have in common? They all dream of an Israel without Netanyahu
WHICH BRINGS us to what the protesters “of all stripes” really have in common, and it has nothing to do with the redistribution of power between the judicial and legislative branches of government. No, the shared vision of an otherwise disparate bunch of politicians, academics, artists, hi-tech entrepreneurs and physicians is an Israel without Netanyahu.

Some of the above groups and individuals are totally secular; others observant. Some consider themselves Zionists; others wouldn’t deign to hang an Israeli flag on Independence Day, but agree to carry one during demonstrations for show. Some identify as liberal; others as conservative. Some are city-dwellers; others live on kibbutzim or suburbs. Some are straight; others gay. Some are married; others single. Some are army officers; others view the IDF as a symbol of Israel’s “evil occupation.”

The diversity is genuine. The depiction of the disgruntled hordes as “Israelis from all walks of life,” thus, is accurate.

The disingenuousness lies in the contention that the hysteria exhibited by those citizens reflects a seismic shift in Election Day sentiment. The truth is that few, if any, of those taking to the streets and pounding the pavement outside the Knesset voted for Netanyahu’s Likud or its coalition partners.

In contrast, many among the angry throngs have been longtime “anybody but Bibi” activists horrified that their hopes to be rid of Netanyahu, specifically, and the religious Right, in general, were dashed. They’d been under the impression that the fifth round of elections was going to mimic the previous four.

And though they didn’t wish for another impasse, they thought it might force Netanyahu to vacate his seat, or that his party would push him aside. They certainly didn’t anticipate that their worst nightmare was about to materialize.

STILL, IT wasn’t judicial reform that they harped on; it was Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Laser-beam focus on the two religious right-wingers was so constant that they became household names around the globe. Warnings poured in from world capitals that there would be no contact whatsoever with the dangerous duo.

The “homophobe” Avi Maoz then became a cause for frenzy. His highlighted infamy placed the imagined trampling of LGBTQ rights front and center. Again, judicial reform was barely mentioned.

Once those specks of dust had settled, the defeated camp turned its attention to Levin. Doing so infused energy, as well as cash, into the protest movement. It also riled up the international and American-Jewish communities, much to the delight of Israel’s enemies.

Unfortunately for Lapid, it hasn’t had the same effect on the fractured back benches of parliament. No wonder he’s so often AWOL from the plenum.

Meanwhile, the Right is busy working for the vilified “majority” that handed it the reins. No surveys about societal strife can obfuscate that fact.

Palestinian public school teachers in the West Bank have been on strike for eight days. There is no indication that the issue will be resolved any time soon.

The teachers have not received their full salaries for over a year because of the Palestinian Authority financial crisis, which comes from a combination of the reduction of aid from Arab countries and Israel's reducing the tax revenue paid to the PA equivalent to the amount they pay terrorists and their families.

Which proves that paying salaries to terrorists and their families is a higher priority than paying the full salaries of 38,000 teachers.

According to the Israel Defense And Security Forum, a convicted terrorist's salary is quadruple that of a typical teacher. A Palestinian terrorist who serves a life sentence in prison receives a salary that is four times higher than the average Palestinian income.

Terror is more important than educating kids.

But we already knew that. Mahmoud Abbas has said that if there was only one penny in his budget, it would go to pay terrorists and their families.

Keep in mind it is not only the government. As far as I can tell, Palestinians wholly support "pay for slay" and consider it to be a necessary social program.

Supporting terror is baked into Palestinian society.

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Earlier this week I discussed the death of Mahmoud al-Aidi, a 17-year old Palestinian who was killed by the IDF during clashes in the Al-Faraa camp.

The IDF said at the time that Aidi approached them with an explosive device as they were carrying out an arrest operation.

Palestinians have now created a memorial video, using security camera footage, showing Al-Aidi carrying that improvised explosive device - built out of what appears to be a propane tank - as he gets shot.

As usual, the IDF report was accurate.

And we have yet more evidence of Palestinian terror groups cynically recruiting and encouraging children to fight and be "martyred" for PR purposes - as "human rights groups" continue their silence.

(h/t GnasherJew and Joe Truzman)

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Arabic media are claiming that Israel purchased an island from Bahrain. Middle East Monitor has all the details:

Israel has reportedly "bought an island" from Bahrain, prompting criticism from activists opposed to the on-going normalisation between the two countries.

News of the purchase was initially announced by TV7 Israel News, before being removed after it was broadcasted, according to Al-Mayadeen. However, several social media users managed to screenshot the report before it was erased.

According to the report, Israeli firm Himnota, which is owned by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a "charitable" organisation that has long been used by the apartheid state for expropriating Palestinian lands and obfuscating Israel's war crimes, acquired the private island for $21.5 million in an auction.

The island, which measures 9,554 square metres, will be used for investment projects and could be used to evacuate Israelis in case of the outbreak of war. Avery Schneier, who is on the board of directors of the company, said talks will be held with the "friendly" Bahraini government to transfer sovereignty over the island to Israel.

It is strange to have a story with such details made up from scratch. One grain of truth in the story is that Bahrain indeed intends to sell an island and other properties at auction - but the auction hasn't happened yet. It is scheduled for February 28.

I also couldn't find the screenshots of the Israeli TV Channel 7 website that supposedly were captured on social media before it was taken down. The earliest I can find the story reported is from a Syrian "researcher" who did not link to anything, just the claim that it was from Israeli TV but he didn't say he watched it himself.

The story seems highly unlikely, to put it mildly.

UPDATE: Now Bahraini media is combining this rumor with a conspiracy theory that one of Bahrain's artificial islands is shaped like a Chanukah menorah and therefore has been designated from the start to be a Jewish/Zionist area.

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02/16 Links Pt2: Top Left-Wing Network Blocked From Credit Card Processor Over Ties to Palestinian Terror Group; Arkansas Legislature Passes IHRA Definition; Israel exports crude oil for first time

From Ian:

Top Left-Wing Network Blocked From Credit Card Processor Over Ties to Palestinian Terror Group

One of the nation’s most prominent left-wing dark money groups announced Tuesday that it was unable to process credit card payments, following reports of its ties to a Palestinian terrorist group.

The Alliance for Global Justice said in a statement that Salsa Labs, which handles its credit card contributions, locked the "anti-capitalist" group and its network of 140 left-wing initiatives out of its online fundraising platform. The Alliance claims the freeze-out is the result of a January Washington Examiner report that the group was illegally fundraising for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terror organization.

The move could prove financially calamitous for the Arizona-based group, which in 2021 helped raise over $56 million for the initiatives it sponsors. Discover Card blocked the Alliance from accessing its network in September 2021 over its financial ties to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, an Israel-designated terror group that works to free Palestinians from the Israeli prison system.

Few fundraising tools remain on the table for Alliance as of Tuesday. The group asked supporters to "donate via paper checks" to buoy the group "as the enemies of the people gloat about our trouble."

The Zachor Legal Institute, a pro-Israel think tank that filed an IRS complaint in January against the Alliance for its alleged ties to the Popular Front, praised Salsa Labs for cutting ties with the group.

"We are happy to see that the platform provider for Alliance for Global Justice’s terror funding efforts has finally complied with its legal obligations to terminate unlawful uses of its platform," Zachor Legal Institute founder Marc Greendorfer told the Examiner. "We hope that there will also soon be federal action to put an end to the unlawful terror financing being enabled by Alliance for Global Justice."

UK Organizations Fundraise for Gazan Hamas Charity Run by Killers

A Hamas-run organization in the Gaza Strip managed by two terrorists personally responsible for the stabbing and bombing of Israeli civilians is organizing public events in the United Kingdom and receiving support from multiple British charities, an investigation by FWI has found.

The revelation comes just a week after the publication of the British government-commissioned Prevent review, which concluded that "those who fundraise for Hamas or break the law in support of the group's activities must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," in the same manner as "those who support Islamic State, National Action, or other proscribed organisations."

FWI has identified five British groups funding or in partnership with the Qawafil Al-Khair Association, which two Hamas terrorists, Mansour Rayan and Ali Al-Mughrabi, established in 2015.

Rayan and Al-Mughrabi were released from Israeli jails in 2011 as part of the "Wafaa al-Ahrar" deal, Hamas's agreement with Israel for the return of imprisoned terrorists in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli solider kidnapped by the terrorist organization.

Both Rayan and Al-Mughrabi have blood on their hands. In 1994, Rayan broke into the home of Israeli civilian Yoram Sakuri in the West Bank Israeli community of Kiryat Netafim, stabbing him to death, and wounding his wife.

As for Al-Mughrabi, he was part of a terrorist cell that organized multiple attacks in Israel, including the suicide bombing of the Moment café in Jerusalem in 2002, in which 11 were killed, and 54 injured. According to Haaretz, Al-Mughrabi served as a "right hand man" for his elder brother, the cell's leader. Al-Mughrabi "transferred funds, stole cars for [the] attacks and photographed the suicide bombers," for which he received two life sentences.

Israel exports crude oil for first time, with shipment heading for Europe

Israel has exported crude oil material for the first time, with a shipment headed to Europe from the country’s offshore Karish gas field, according to an announcement Tuesday by Greek gas company Energean. The London- and Tel Aviv-listed firm is in charge of production at the Karish and Tanin natural gas fields in Israel’s economic waters in the Mediterranean.

In a statement Tuesday, Energean said “the first ever lifting of an Israeli crude oil cargo has taken place at the company’s Karish field,” and a cargo ship of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs) extracted from natural gas (and then used in a mixture to make crude oil) was exported to global markets “for the first time in the history of Israeli oil and gas production.”

“This creates a significant differentiated income stream, fundamentally separate to gas-derived revenues,” Energean said, welcoming Israel into the “club of international oil exporters.” The cargo was “sold as part of a multi-cargo marketing agreement with Vitol; the first of a new source of East Med energy to reach Europe,” it added.

Energean got the green light last October to begin production at Karish, a day before Israel and Lebanon signed a long-awaited, US-brokered maritime border deal that ended a dispute over the gas field.

The Karish and Tanin fields contain a total of around 75 billion cubic meters of natural gas. About 12 billion cubic meters are consumed annually in Israel.