Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

AIPAC delegation meets PLO Executive Committee head. It looks like a set up.

Hussein Al Sheikh, the secretary general of the PLO's executive committee, met with a delegation from AIPAC on Tuesday.

He tweeted, "I discussed with them Palestinian - US relations and many regional and international issues, and stressed the need for a political horizon leading to the 2SS based on international legitimacy."

These contacts began last September, when another AIPAC delegation met Al Sheikh.

AIPAC did not tweet about this meeting.

It seems that Al Sheikh, seen as a potential successor to Mahmoud Abbas, is trying to raise his profile as an international figure. While Abbas holds all the power in the PA and the PLO, arguably Al Sheikh is more powerful than the PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh, since the PA only reports to the PLO.

As far as the AIPAC delegation itself, it is hard to think that they are getting anything out of these meetings. While I can understand their desire to be involved in meetings like this, and not to cede this role to J-Street which also meets with PLO officials, clearly they have no influence over any Palestinian official.

Worse, the photos of the meetings make them look like dupes. In front of the room where they met Al Sheikh are portraits of not only Abbas but murderous terrorist Yasir Arafat:

In the back of the room we can see The Map That Lies:that has been thoroughly debunked; MSNBC, McGraw Hill and others have been forced to apologize for publishing it.

But AIPAC was forced to sit submissively in a room with propaganda lies on one side and a terrorist responsible for killing thousands on the other.

Zionists should never be seen in a room like that.

While I am a supporter of AIPAC, they should have realized how they would be played and insisted on a meeting room that cannot be used as propaganda against them. Especially since they met in the very same room last September!

If AIPAC is going to meet with PLO and PA officials, they should be up front about not only the meetings themselves but also what they want to accomplish with those meetings. Without that, the only narrative is the Palestinian one, and it makes AIPAC look like star-struck puppets of the Palestinian leadership..

The PLO gains a lot politically from meetings like this on the international stage. The powerful Jewish Lobby wants to pay respects to them!

AIPAC - as far as I can tell - gains nothing.

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

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Credit card companies block donations to terror-supporting Samidoun via their money launderer AfGJ

In January, I reported that terror-linked groups which openly support terrorism, like Samidoun and Within Our Lifetime, fundraise through third party organizations that ensure that any donations are tax deductible.

I wrote,

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was founded and is led by members of the PFLP terror group. It proudly promotes the PFLP which recruits children to attack Jews. Yet donors to Samidoun get a tax deduction, as it launders the donations through the Alliance for Global Justice, which claims to support "peace, anti-war and liberation." But AfGJ happily partners with a group that openly advocates terror.

It seems to me that IRS rules against terrorist organizations are general enough to include any of these groups that say they support violence against civilians as a legitimate means of "resistance." The organizations that launder the money, Wespac and the Alliance for Global Justice, should be examined and put on notice - the contents of these groups' websites should be enough to make an initial determination that they support terror.

It turns out that I was not the only one raising the alarm.

Also in January, the Zachor Legal Institute filed a complaint to the IRS against the Alliance for Global Justice for acting as a fundraiser for Samidoun as well as its sister French group Collectif Palestine Vaincra.

Last week, as a result of Zachor's campaigning against terror financing, the Alliance for Global Justice announced that it can no longer accept credit card donations.

Samidoun only uses AfGJ to launder their donations because they themselves were blacklisted by credit card companies and payment processors in 2019 and 2020

AfGJ claims that they do not support terrorism but Samidoun's own "By Any Means Necessary" campaigns prove otherwise - there is no other way to interpret that phrase except to say that they support and encourage terrorism against Jews in Israel.

AfGJ and Samidoun are now begging their donors to send in paper checks, which for now is still allowed. AfGJ is trying to portray writing checks as resistance: "When you make out a check to AfGJ, you are engaging in direct action, in frontline resistance to a concerted effort by the most extreme right-wing groups to stop justice in its tracks."

It will be interesting to see how the IRS responds to the complaint by Zachor Legal. By their own rules, sending money to an organization founded by and supporting PFLP terrorists should not be tax deductible.

In fact, it should be illegal.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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02/21 Links Pt2: US Supreme Court turns down appeal to Arkansas Israeli boycott law; Princeton Fetes an Anti-Semite; ‘South Park’ delivers a strong satire of Kanye West’s antisemitism

From Ian:

US Supreme Court turns down appeal to Arkansas Israeli boycott law

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to revive a newspaper's challenge on free speech grounds to an Arkansas law requiring state government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel, a policy the publication's lawyers called a threat to a constitutionally protected form of collective protest.

The justices turned away an appeal by the Arkansas Times, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, of a lower court's ruling dismissing its lawsuit that claimed that the measure punishes participation in political boycotts based on the viewpoint expressed in violation of the US Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

The Arkansas law, passed in 2017, requires public contracts to include a certification that the contractor is not engaged in a "boycott" of Israel, which includes "actions that are intended to limit commercial relations" with Israel or "Israeli-controlled territories." It applies to contracts worth at least $1,000.

More than half of US states have similar laws barring contractors that refuse to do business with Israel, including as part of the international "boycott, divestment and sanctions" movement that seeks to pressure Israel economically over its treatment of the Palestinians including Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Israel has called such boycotts discriminatory and antisemitic.

The Arkansas Times sued in 2018 after it was informed that in order to run advertisements for the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College, an institution with which it had advertising contracts for years, it would have to sign the certification.

Princeton Fetes an Anti-Semite

A dust-up at Princeton University is revealing precisely what it takes to turn campus censors and paragons of "antiracism" into champions of free speech.

The root of the controversy is the English department's decision to host, for its Edward Said Memorial Lecture, the anti-Semite Mohammed El-Kurd. No, there is no reason you would know him. As "Palestine correspondent" for The Nation, he has distinguished himself chiefly for his slanders of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, including the claim that Israelis "harvest organs" of martyred Palestinians to "feed their warriors."

On stage at Princeton—after university professor Zahid Chaudhary heralded him as a "truth teller," according to audio of the remarks reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon—El-Kurd told the crowd that Palestinians have no choice but to resort to violence against Israelis. "What else would you do if there is an occupying power in your backyard beating the shit out of your family? Of course you're gonna throw stones," he said to raucous applause. "I can just see that as a headline: 'Of course you're gonna throw stones.'"

El-Kurd is allowed to be a bigot and a moron, and Princeton to celebrate and honor his work.

But his presence on campus, and his reception by some of the school's professors and administrators, are hard to square with their devotion to "antiracism." In a statement signed by acting department chairman Jeff Dolven, the English department has pledged "to investigate racist beliefs and practices with rigor and compassion." Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber sounded a similar note when he told Princetonians, in the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, "We all have a responsibility to stand up against racism, wherever and whenever we encounter it."

Minters cuts ties with Adelaide Festival over Palestinian writers

Australia’s largest law firm, MinterEllison, will cut ties with the Adelaide Festival over the inclusion of two Palestinian writers with a track record of hostility against Jewish people and Ukraine.

Minters chief executive Virginia Briggs said in statement on Tuesday morning that the firm had not only withdrawn its support for the Writers’ Week part of this year’s festival, but also the entire program which covers all areas of the arts.

She also said the firm would boycott all festival events.

“We have made the decision to remove our presence and involvement with this year’s Writers’ Festival program,” Ms Briggs said.

“In addition, as these speakers are associated with the festival, we will be removing our branding from the broader festival program [where feasible] and not be attending any events of the festival.”

Louise Adler: “I don’t want us to be party to cancel culture.”

Minters has been under pressure since it emerged that Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa were invited to speak at Adelaide Writers’ Week, which begins on March 4.

Writers’ Week director Louise Adler has resisted pressure from South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Jeremy Leibler, a partner of law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler and president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, to drop Mr El-Kurd and Ms Abulhawa from the program. “I don’t want us to be party to cancel culture,” Ms Adler said.

The Adelaide Festival, which runs from March 3-19, has backed Ms Adler. This led to Minters broadening its stance on the full festival.

On the festival website, MinterEllison is listed as a major partner along with the University of Adelaide, aged care provider Askech and The Adelaide Advertiser. Presenting partners include Nine, publisher of The Australian Financial Review, and The Australian newspaper.

Law firm @minterellison already pulled support ??. A list of Partners & Donors are on the festival's website. Please let them know that they are helping mainstream "Jew-hate". TA https://t.co/An2n9b4Rw7 pic.twitter.com/2CY2A7LFGO
— GnasherJew®????? (@GnasherJew) February 21, 2023

Extraordinarily dishonest headline and article. The ‘boycott’ was because of those writers’ antisemitism, not their identity. And doesn’t mention @sjabulhawa’s hatred, such as this example ?? https://t.co/XHgbPZer7f pic.twitter.com/Ho1x44Ug3O
— Dr Bren Carlill (@BBCarlill) February 21, 2023

[ A journalism academic defends El Kurd ]
Are calls to cancel two Palestinian writers from Adelaide Writers’ Week justified? Denis Muller Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne:

El-Kurd’s case is more complex: some of what he has tweeted has been denounced by the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic.

In particular, the league has objected to his accusing Zionists of eating the organs of Palestinians and of lusting for Palestinian blood, and to his comparison of the State of Israel to the Nazi regime.

Some of what Mohammed El Kurd has tweeted has been denounced by the Anti-Defamation League as antisemitic.

By any objective test, these accusations are grossly offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities, and civilised societies are rightly vigilant to challenge speech that creates any equivalence with the Holocaust.

However, are they antisemitic? The Anti-Defamation League says they are, and the league’s point of view must be respected.

But a counterview is that El-Kurd’s comments are directed at Zionists and at the State of Israel specifically, rather than at Jews as a people, and that therefore they are political in nature rather than racist.

This is a distinction on which people of goodwill can differ.

Two young Palestinian men were shot and killed in a family clan clash in the town of Jayyous, east of Qalqilya, in the northern part of the West Bank.

The news stories about it use a single word: "Unfortunate."

Press sources stated that forces from the security services went to the town of Jayyous and imposed a curfew to control the unfortunate events that took place in the town.

And the Directorate of Education in Qalqilya decided to close the schools in the town of Jayyus tomorrow, Wednesday, because of the unfortunate events that took place in the town this evening.

Palestine Today described the fighting as an "unfortunate quarrel."

Two young men were murdered and the only word they can use is "unfortunate?"

There's no anger. There are no calls to limit access to weapons. No, families targeting each other is as Palestinian as can be. Maybe it will be celebrated in the next exhibition of the Palestine Museum.

But if a Jew can be blamed for the death of a Palestinian, no matter how indirectly, it is "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" and sometimes a "holocaust."

Apparently, being murdered is no biggie. No one cares if a Palestinian isn't killed by the right person.

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Palestinian security prisoners in 2005

No, this isn't parody. From Amira Hass in Haaretz:

Four minutes of shower time for every Palestinian prisoner, the master has ordered, and in doing so he has opened an old-new front in our war for Jewish supremacy.
For now, the new rule can only be applied in two wings of Nafha Prison in the south because the showers are outside the cells and the guards can turn off the water main whenever they want. But the Jewish mind can be expected to devise ways of imposing the new restriction on all Palestinian political/security prisoners.
Is the idea to return to the 1960s and '70s? “Upon entering the common shower, the guard would warn the prisoners that they had to undress, shower and get dressed in very little time. He would count to 10, and during that time the prisoners had to finish showering and get dressed,” Ghazi Abu-Jiab writes about Ashkelon Prison, which served as a laboratory for incarcerating Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Limiting shower time to four minutes is one of Nationalist Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's many moves to reduce the fabricated prisons’ five-star rating. Not three minutes, not five or six, but exactly four; the minister must have consulted with experts and mathematicians. This is the kind of applied math that we in Israel excel at and that the bureaucracy of control and subjugation needs.
For the past 10 days Palestinian inmates have been protesting the new measures, and the prison service responds with reprisals to satisfy its master. This is not a new front. Whether it's throwing a stone, writing a post online or killing Israelis, their actions are in the context of a people under occupation that is doing what any other oppressed people under foreign rule has done and that has reached indescribable levels of despair.
But in prison, Palestinian inmates become a collective “enemy” for the authorities and are punished not only by denying them their freedom but by humiliating them and denying them their humanity.

Oh, the humanity! The four minute shower is merely a gateway to a 10-second "shower and get dressed" story that cannot possibly be true!

Ms. Hass ignores one small fact: Palestinian prisoners have, for years, been wasting huge amounts of water to hurt Israel.

The practice seems to have started in the early 2000s, when Israel was suffering from a severe water shortage. "The Prisons Service in recent years has said that security prisoners leave the showers running for hours at a time. In 2007, the service said security prisoners consumed around 1,000 liters of water per day, while criminal prisoners consumed 500 liters, and civilians used 250 liters."

In 2018, the problem was just as bad:

The Israel Prison Service is reportedly exploring ‎the possibility of limiting Palestinian security ‎prisoners’ time in the shower, after learning that ‎they are wasting water on purpose.‎
Israel is grappling with a five-year drought, and the ‎public has been asked to use the precious resource ‎wisely, but according to religious news website ‎Hakol Hayehudi, security prisoners are wasting ‎‎hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of water on ‎purpose to undercut Israel’s water supply. ‎
According to the report, IPS data shows that ‎security prisoners’ wards use up far more water than ‎the criminal wards, whose inmates spend less time in ‎their cells.‎
The discrepancy between the wards’ water use is so ‎great, that it led the IPS to believe that ‎Palestinian inmates leave their showers running for ‎hours on purpose, to waste water.‎
An analysis of the data shows that ‎security prisoners use about 3.5 times more water a ‎year than the average Israeli—250 cubic meters ‎‎(‎8,830 cubic feet‎) compared to 70 cubic meters ‎‎(2,472 cubic feet).‎
As there are currently 5,800 Palestinian security ‎prisoners in Israeli jails, they seem to waste an ‎average of 750,000 cubic meters (26,486,000 cubic ‎feet) of water a year, costing taxpayers some 5.6 ‎million shekels ($1.5 million).‎

For some reason, the environmentalists at Haaretz have never felt that the purposeful waste of over a billion liters of water a year is anything to be concerned over. In fact, it is "resistance" and must be encouraged.

The other restrictions being proposed are equally reasonable. Fox News has an article that describes the unbelievable freedom that Palestinian murderers have in prison - far more than in most other countries.

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

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02/21 Links Pt1: Israel, PA said to have been conducting secret talks for months; U.S. Ambassador to Israel: 60% of My Time Is Helping Palestinians

From Ian:

Bassam Tawil: Killing Jews Brings Light into The Hearts of Palestinians

Just last week, the head of [Fatah], Mahmoud Abbas, received a phone call from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who reportedly promised to put pressure on Israel to halt its "unilateral measures." Needless to say, Blinken did not complain to Abbas about Fatah's incitement or the celebration of terror attacks by many Palestinians.

What makes a human being say intentionally crushing an infant beneath the wheels of a car makes the perpetrator a "hero"? What makes them call the car-ramming murder of 8- and 6-year-old brothers a "heroic commando operation"?

This is the result of decades of anti-Israel incitement and brainwashing by Palestinian leaders, which their funders have never told them to stop. As far as most Palestinians are concerned: 1) All Jews are "settlers," and 2) Israel is one big settlement that must be eliminated.

Furthermore, finding humor in a cartoon of a terror attack victim's head on a platter about to be eaten as part of a traditional Palestinian feast is hard to comprehend. Why do we keep hearing Palestinians claim that terror and glorification of the murder of innocent civilians is a "natural response"?

There is nothing "natural" about murdering Jewish children waiting at a bus stop. There is nothing "natural" about murdering unarmed civilians outside a synagogue. There is nothing "natural" about dancing and handing out candy to celebrate terrorism and the murder of Jews, or of anyone.

The EU, the US, and other international funders of the Palestinians continue to finance a government that refuses not only to condemn terror, but that actually grows it like a lucrative slave-farm for terrorists. For some Palestinians, such as the leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, that even includes sending women and children to blow themselves up and using babies as human shields. The leaders do not, of course, send out members of their own families for this "achievement."

Sadly, these funders do not even ask the Palestinian leaders, as a condition of their funding, to stop calling for violence and to stop rewarding murder. One has to ask: Why not? If you go to a bank and request a mortgage, the bank will stipulate conditions. That is "natural."

Considering the undisguised vitriol of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in support of terrorism -- with both words and money -- how could Israel seriously be expected to engage in any fruitful peace talks with the Palestinians?

As a New Round of Fighting Seems Poised to Begin, Palestinians Must Ask Themselves What They Have Gained from Violence

Despite the wave of terrorist attacks in the past several weeks, and the various raids the IDF has conducted on the West Bank to apprehend the perpetrators or to prevent further terror, there has not been, in Shany Mor’s view, a “spiraling escalation.” Nonetheless, Mor worries that the situation of relative peace that has held since the quashing of the second intifada is more tenuous than ever. He also warns against pending legislation that would legalize the Jewish village of ?omesh in Samaria, which was built in contravention of Israeli law:

The proposed law . . . essentially tells the armed thugs who violated Israeli law for the past few years, commandeered private property, engaged in violent scuffles with the Israel police and the IDF, and were linked repeatedly to harassment of Palestinian civilians nearby, that this is and was a legitimate way to pursue political interests.

At the same time, writes Mor, one must also look to the other side of the conflict to understand the present tensions:

Any serious discussion of the Palestinian state should ask whether or not life has improved since the Palestinians rejected statehood at the end of the Oslo process in 2000 and opted instead for violent confrontation with Israel. This isn’t a rhetorical question for Israeli public diplomacy, but one the Palestinians should be asking their leadership.

Yet to pose this question would be to acknowledge a kind of agency that exalted victimhood doesn’t allow for. It is now nearly 23 years since Yasir Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s Camp David Summit and instead gambled on a violent terror campaign in the hope of better terms. There was no way of knowing then that this gamble would turn out so badly. At the time, it wasn’t viewed as a particularly controversial decision; what’s striking, however, is how that perception hasn’t changed.

PFLP-linked NGOs Whitewash Terror in COI Submission

On February 2, 2023, three European-funded Palestinian NGOs with clearly documented links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization – Addameer, Al-Haq, and Al-Mezan – published a submission to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)’s permanent “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI).1 The document again accuses Israel of “Policies to Maintain and Entrench its Settler-Colonial Apartheid Regime: Violent Suppression of Demonstrations and Ensuing Wilful Killing and Injuries, Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Smear and Delegitimisation Campaigns against Human Rights Defenders and Organisations.”

In their submission, in addition to the false accusations regarding Israel, the NGOs whitewash acts of violence by Palestinians, omitting core evidence linking Palestinians to the terror and terrorist organizations that maintain the conflict.

The following analysis provides key information omitted by these NGOs, highlighting their lack of credibility and misleading presentation. If the commissioners were genuinely motivated to independently investigate, as they claim, the COI would conduct a serious and independent investigation into the incidents, and not merely copy and paste reports from its ideological NGO allies.

European-funding
Since 2021, Al-Haq has received funding from the EU, France, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Norway, and Sweden.
Since 2021, Al-Mezan has received funding from the EU, the Netherlands, Sweden
Since 2021, Addameer has received funding from Ireland and from various local governments in Spain.

Death of Said Odeh
The NGO submission states that 16 year-old Said Yousef Mohammed Odeh was shot by IDF forces when “Palestinian protesters, who threw stones at the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces], were met with Israeli excessive use of force, including the firing of tear gas canisters, and live ammunition.”

In contrast, according to the IDF, Odeh was shot dead by Israeli forces responding to “a number of suspects [who] hurled firebombs at troops,” near Beita, on May 5, 2021.

The NGO submission makes no mention of firebombs, nor does it indicate Odeh’s apparent access to weapons – as seen in this picture posted on Facebook. The NGOs, obscuring this essential evidence, instead used an innocuous image of Odeh to erase the reality.

Author Susan Abulhawa is embarrassed to be outed as a terror supporter (UPDATE)

Susan Abulhawa is an award winning author who is also a supporter of terrorism.

On Monday, she tweeted, "This is your daily reminder that Zionism is the contemporary face of Nazism and white supremacy. The fairytales of Israel's benevolence, democracy, etc are promulgated by an intensely funded global propaganda machine."

I responded with a poster I had made a couple of weeks ago, showing that she prominently displayes a photo of terrorist Dalal Mughrabi in her office. Mughrabi murdered 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre.

She immediately blocked me.

But the story doesn't quite end there.

I originally published that poster on February 1. I took the image from her biographical page in a site called Palestine Writes, a literature festival.

According to archive.org, the webpage that had this photo was taken down by February 4.

Either Abulhawa asked that the site take down her embarrassing photo, or the Palestine Writes people themselves decided to take it down. In fact, all mentions of her at the site have been scrubbed, although their Facebook page has a recent mention of Abulhawa, still mentioning her as a festival director.

Whoever took it down, clearly Abulhawa's posing in front of photos of terrorists like Mughrabi and Ghassan Kanafani (who worked with the Japanese Red Army on the 1972 Lod Airport massacre) has caused embarrassment among people who claim that they have the moral high ground. Instead of publicly condemning Dalal Mughrabi, they want to hide the evidence that they support the most heinous female terrorist in history.

Abulhawa herself has a long history of antisemitism, delighting in comparing Israel to Nazi Germany (h/t GnasherJew):

I hope that people tweet this poster of her Mughrabi photo every time she makes another claim about how Israel is immoral. My response gathered far more "Likes" than her original post, which is pretty rare on Twitter, so this must have stung.

UPDATE: Mark Humphrys found a larger version of her photo, from 2020 on her website:

But on her Amazon page, she doesn't have either Mughrabi and Kanafani!

There is strong evidence that the Amazon photo was taken first, which means that Abulhawa didn't have those photos on her wall - but she Photoshopped them there.

Either way, she wanted to indicate who her heroes were in the later pictures. (h/t GnasherJew)

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

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Arabic media and social media are reporting that Israeli rescuers in Turkey "stole" an antique Scroll of Esther. From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

The theft of a historical manuscript by the Israeli rescue team dispatched to Turkey to help those affected by the earthquake sparked an ethical scandal after pictures and videos showed the team members displaying the stolen manuscript.

The Turkish "Haber7" website said it turned out that the Israeli search and rescue team secretly took the Book of Esther from Turkey’s earthquake-damaged Antakya Synagogue in Hatay province before the theft was discovered and the manuscript returned to Turkey.

That is not at all what happened, and Wafa knows it - because it refers to the YNet story that describes what happened:

As Israeli rescue teams were rummaging through the rubble in the Turkish city of Antakya after last week's devastating earthquake in hopes of finding survivors trapped underneath, a local elderly Jewish man approached them holding something unique in his hands — two centuries-old Book of Esther scrolls that were kept in the local synagogue before the shock.

The teary-eyed man approached Major Haim Otmazgin, commander of the ZAKA search-and-rescue force, with an unusual request.

"The last head of our community has now tragically passed and with our proximity to Syria, I'd hate to see the scrolls fall in the wrong hands. Please guard them and make sure our community is remembered," he said.

Moved by the elder's request, Maj. Otmazgin accepted the duty of keeping the artifacts safe.

"In my capacity as a ZAKA volunteer of several decades, this is one of the most moving moments of my life," he said. "I'm truly honored to save such a significant historical document and to make sure the heritage of Antakya's Jewish community remains intact, even after the quake reduced it to nearly nothing.

After the leader of the Antakya community Şaul Cenudioğlu was killed in the devastating earthquake, one of the few remaining members begged the Israelis to save the Megillah.

Assuming that the scroll belonged to the synagogue itself, and that the man was the legal guardian, this would not violate any antiquities laws I am aware of. They generally apply to artifacts discovered by researchers, not items that belong to an existing institution. Museums sell important artwork all the time.

However, the larger Jewish community in Istanbul requested the scrolls be returned and held there with the intent to rebuild the Antakya community. The community was not being declared gone. So the Israelis immediately did so. This was all reported in Turkish media:

The head of an Israeli rescue team has handed over the historical Book of Esther, which the team carefully removed from the earthquake-hit Antakya Synagogue and carried to their country, to the Jewish Chief Rabbinate in Istanbul.

Israeli media reported that the historical scrolls of the Book of Esther in Antakya Synagogue, which was damaged in the earthquakes, were taken to Israel by the Israeli search and rescue team ZAKA.

It was stated that the historical scrolls were delivered to Haim Otmazgin, the head of ZAKA, to be transported to a safe place.

The Turkish Jewish Community announced that Israel handed over the scrolls.

“The scroll of Esther was delivered from Israel and is kept in our Chief Rabbinate. It will return to its home after the renovation of our Antakya Synagogue,” it said.

“Our works belonging to all kinds of beliefs and cultures that have existed for centuries within the borders of our country will continue to be carefully protected in these lands,” the Culture and Tourism Ministry stated.

“We will restore our Antakya Synagogue, along with all other damaged registered works, and reopen it to the worship of our citizens,” the ministry said.

There was no intent to steal anything,- only to preserve, but it properly belongs to the Jewish community in Turkey which requested it and received it.

As usual, modern antisemites purposefully twist the facts and lie to make Israel and Israeli Jews appear evil no matter what they do. And there is a word for that.

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

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Survey: Arabs in "east" Jerusalem are more satisfied than they were 12 years ago

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research asked Arab residents of Jerusalem the same questions they asked in 2010, and their answers show that in general, things are much better for them than they were before.

For 21 out of 26 topics, the Arabs are more satisfied than they were in 2010, and in some cases significantly more. the biggest improvement was with the speed that fire and other emergency services arrive - satisfaction went up 28 percentage points from 42% to 70%, with a similar increase for satisfaction on ambulance service speed.

The poll also shows that things are much better for Jerusalemite Arabs in their standard of living, ease of travel through Ben Gurion Airport, the health system and even access to Al Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - things that you would not know from reading the news.

To be sure, there are plenty of things they are still unhappy with, and they are most dissatisfied with the difficulty of getting building permits.

There were other surprising results. When Jerusalem Arabs are asked to whom they turn to when they need help, most turn to family - but the Israeli authorities are not far behind.

And practically none of them trust Palestinian NGOs or the Waqf to help them.

Also, while most say they are fearful of intimidation by Jewish settler groups, there was a sharp increase of those saying they are more fearful of Palestinian groups intimidating them, from 20% to 29%.

Even though most of them are permanent residents of Jerusalem, 95% refuse to participate in municipal elections. But 92% say they would not vote in Palestinian elections, either.

If a two state solution would happen, more say they would prefer to become Palestinian citizens than Israeli citizens, but interestingly they also think that most other Arabs in their neighborhoods would prefer Israeli citizenship - which might reflect their real feelings. They had a laundry list of fears of how services and rights would be negatively affected by their neighborhoods falling under Palestinian control, from loss of freedom of speech to more corruption to worse health and municipal services.

It is an interesting survey, with no cookie-cutter results but rather a display of how complicated the issue is for the people who are most affected by any decisions on Jerusalem.

(h/t iTiIL972)

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!

02/20 Links Pt2: This is how antisemitism thrives; ‘Queering Anti-Zionism’ and the academic boycott of Israel; How is this pastor healing the rift between Black, Jewish communities?

From Ian:

This is how antisemitism thrives

The key point here is that this is how antisemitism became so pervasive in Labour. It wasn’t just because of people who are actively, deliberately antisemitic, though obviously it was because of them too. It was because too many left-wing journalists and thinkers, too many Labour members and online activists decided to look away. They made excuses, ignored things they didn’t like, refused to believe what was right in front of them because it was uncomfortable. This is how antisemitism thrives.

This dynamic is still happening. A couple of days ago, the Brixton branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) posted a pamphlet online calling for Zionists to be sacked, calling them a “brainwashed, racist minority”, and urging the public to not speak to anyone who believes in Israel’s right to exist. Nobody on the left made any comment on this, of course, because the people involved with PSC are on the left; Jeremy Corbyn is, naturally, a patron.

In recent years, antisemitism has been demonstrated to be a real problem on the political left again and again and again. If you spend a day madly tweeting about Starmer barring Corbyn from candidacy without once mentioning antisemitism as the reason why, it becomes very apparent that you are not at all bothered by anti-Jewish racism; to you it is something to sidestep rather than confront.

It’s all very well going around calling yourself an anti-racist, but if you go silent or move into damage limitation mode the moment racism pops up on your side of the fence, you’re no fearless campaigner against bigotry. Spending your time minimising or deflecting antisemitism makes you a big part of the problem; an enabler of all the awful things which have happened these last few years. To make use of a quote Corbyn has tweeted in his time, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

The left is still ignoring antisemitism or covering for it; it has learnt nothing these last few years. But it has at least given the rest of us a good look at how hollow the claims of “anti-racism” are. You want to oppose racism? Start by looking closer to home.

‘Queering Anti-Zionism’ and the academic boycott of Israel - review

Over the last two decades, academic spaces that had once been open for lively and heated conversations about differing opinions have become increasingly isolating and homogeneous, leaving little room for accepting those with whom you disagree, Corinne E. Blackmer states in the premise of her new book, Queering Anti-Zionism.

In Queering Anti-Zionism, Blackmer examines the way in which the BDS movement has taken over the world of academia, in particular the world of queer and feminist studies.

In 2008, Blackmer, a professor of English and Judaic studies at Southern Connecticut State University, came face to face with the discrimination that many Jewish academics endure, despite never having publicly announced her Zionist beliefs prior to that point.

However, as an openly Jewish and openly gay woman, she became the target of a series of homophobic and antisemitic hate crimes over the course of several months, paving the way for her to explore the connection between LGBTQ+ identities and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, specifically within the confines of academic freedom and campus activism.

The infringement on academic freedom
In her introduction to the book, Blackmer states that while the book acknowledges and attempts to do justice to opinions on many sides of the conflict, she believes that the BDS movement is “an infringement on open expression and academic freedom,” which in turn “undermines the respect for complex issues for which there are no right or wrong answers.”

The theme of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict having no simple answers runs throughout the book as Blackmer examines the complex identities of LGBTQ+ Palestinians and Israelis and the reality that exists on the ground, as well as the black-and-white thinking of many anti-postmodernist academic activists when it comes to Israel.

Through examining the works and writings of Sarah Schulman, Jasbit Puar, Angela Davis, Dean Spade and Judith Butler, Blackmer paints a picture of progressive academic thinkers who have all produced profoundly impactful works in their own right, but who seem to fall at the hurdle of treating Israel, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the same respect and open-mindedness with which they treat their other subjects.

Heroes Amid the Holocaust

"Righteous Among the Nations" is an official title awarded by Yad Vashem—the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel—on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Four basic conditions are listed by Yad Vashem for granting the title. First, there must have been "active involvement of the rescuer in saving one or several Jews from the threat of death or deportation to death camps." Second, there must have been "risk to the rescuer’s life, liberty, or position." Third, the "initial motivation" must have been "the intention to help persecuted Jews: i.e. not for payment or any other reward such as religious conversion of the saved person, adoption of a child, etc." Finally, there must be "existence of testimony of those who were helped or at least unequivocal documentation establishing the nature of the rescue and its circumstances."

As of January 1, 2022, 28,217 individuals have been awarded the title, many nominated by the very people they rescued.

While there are several names that are well known—including Oskar Schindler, portrayed by Liam Neeson in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List—there are thousands more whose courage and relentless morality in the face of unimaginable evil remain unknown to most.

Richard Hurowitz’s In The Garden Of The Righteous: The Heroes Who Risked Their Lives To Save Jews During The Holocaust provides a deeply emotional window into several of these lesser-known and yet equally heroic figures.

Noting that rescue during the Holocaust "remains both a celebration of what is best in us and, in its extreme scarcity, an indictment of the worst," Hurowitz establishes a central purpose of the book: to study "what motivated the rescuers" in order to "perhaps distill the values and manners we wish to cherish and to encourage," exploring 10 accounts of rescue from among the 28,217.

Richard Hurowitz in Conversation with Abe Foxman: In the Garden of the Righteous

At a moment when bigotry, intolerance and authoritarianism are once again ascendant, Richard Hurowitz has written In the Garden of the Righteous, an extraordinary volume chronicling not only the heroes and heroines who rescued Jews but, as Golda Meir once said, “saved hope and the faith in the human spirit.” In conjunction with the opening of our Violins of Hope: Every Violin Has a Story exhibition, part of the Violins of Hope programming at Temple Emanu-El’s Bernard Museum of Judaica, Hurwitz joins us on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day for a conversation with Abe Foxman about the people who refused to close their eyes or immerse themselves in passivity and the lessons they pass on about kindness and conviction.

See here for more details.

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!

The Institute of Palestine Studies published a paper in 2014, "The ICRC and the Detention of Palestinian Civilians in Israel's 1948 POW/Labor Camps," by Salman Abu Sitta and Terry Rempel. It has been publicized in recent days anew.

Its abstract says:

The internment of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Israeli-run prisoner of war camps is a relatively little known episode in the 1948 war. This article begins to piece together the story from the dual perspective of the former civilian internees and of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Aside from the day-to-day treatment of the internees, ICRC reports focused on the legal and humanitarian implications of civilian internment and on Israel's resort to forced labor to support its war effort. Most of the 5,000 or so Palestinian civilians held in four official camps were reduced to conditions described by one ICRC official as “slavery” and then expelled from the country at the end of the war. Notwithstanding their shortcoming, the ICRC records constitute an important contribution to the story of these prisoners and also expose the organization's ineffectiveness—absent a legal framework as well as enforcement mechanisms beyond moral persuasion, the ICRC could do little to intervene on behalf of the internees.

Is this true? Did Israel use Arab civilians as slave labor in 1948?

The paper relies heavily on ICRC reports from the time. I do not have access to those. But a couple of other reports from the time, and a close reading of the paper itself, shows that there are some other facts that are very relevant that the authors do not want you to know.

It does appear that many civilians were captured and treated as prisoners of war during the 1948 war. However, the ICRC was okay with that - because the 1948 Fourth Geneva Convention on how to treat civilians during wartime had not yet been finished, while the 1929 Geneva Convention that covered the international law of how to treat prisoners of war was fairly mature.

A history of the ICRC "From Yalta to Dien Bien Phu: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross 1945 to 1955" describes what happened:

As for the Arab prisoners of war in Israel, they were in fact – some 5,000 of them – mostly civilians They were Arabs from Palestine, generally of weapon-bearing age, who had been rounded up when the Israeli armed forces occupied their towns or villages Sent to camps, where they were enlisted in work teams and paid a wage, they were nonetheless considered as prisoners of war by the Israeli authorities, which treated them accordingly While the delegation protested against the internment of civilians, who should be set free unless they have committed hostile acts, it accepted the status of prisoner of war conferred on them, as it granted them numerous advantages, which they would not have had as simple civilian internees This was precisely what the ICRC was seeking to obtain for civilian internees in the preparatory work for the adoption of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

These civilians were not "slave labor" - they were paid and treated better than they would have been as civilians in a war zone!

The paper notes in passing that it was legal to give POWs work under the 1929 conventions, although not related to military work.

The Sitta/Rempel paper briefly quotes a New York Times article datelines October 12, 1948, about the civilians and POWs. But it ignores the bulk of the article, where the reporter goes on at length about how well the prisoners are treated, as well as their civilian status:

JALIL, Israel, Oct. 12-About half of the 5,000 Arab prisoners captured by the Israeli Army since May are held in a tent camp hastily thrown up on the sand and scrub of a little valley beside this former Arab village. With the exception of a few officers they are as unlikely looking a group of soldiers as any war might produce. In fact, not even the camp authorities are certain how many of them actually were soldiers in the Arab armies. The process of sorting them out is now taking place.

About 250 prisoners are Egyptian. Trans-Jordan. Syrian or Lebanese regulars whose status as prisoners of war .has been marked by painting a large blue diamond on their uniforms. There are seven young former British Army men who dispute the authorities' assertion that they fought on the Arab side. The rest are Palestinian Arabs, most of whom were picked up after the fighting for Arab villages within the new state had ended. These will probably be released when the sorting out process has been completed.

Israel Ginsburg, a former British intelligence officer and now second in command of the camp, showed a group of Israel Red Shield (Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) representatives and this correspondent about the camp recently.

...Mr. Ginsburg readily conceded that camp conditions were not perfect but explained that "we have had no experience in this sort of thing and we have had to learn and improvise as we went along." Except for two Egyptian fliers-the "elite of the camp" as one guard described them-there were no serious complaints from the prisoners. Like prisoners of war everywhere, most of those in camp complained about the boredom of detention and the monotony of the diet.

There are separate compounds for each group of nationals and for their officers. One Oxford-educated Sudanese major named Zhir had a huge tent to himself. No one was quite sure, but either he had refused to mix with the Egyptians or the Egyptians had refused to live with him. The :seven Britons had at first been placed with the Arabs but the Arabs asked for separate quarters. The Egyptian fliers, both about 25 years of age, looked spruce and fit in their blue-gray uniforms with the bars of flight lieutenants.

The Egyptians' argument with Mr. Ginsburg and other Israeli officers about the relative merits of Israeli and Egyptian treatment of prisoners was conducted in the best possible humor. The same cordiality between prisoners and guards, particularly Palestinian Arabs, who personally knew many of the soldiers before the war, was evident throughout the camp. The relationship was far more friendly than in any prisoners' camp that this correspondent had visited on the Western Front during World War II.

The prisoners are not compelled to work and the majority don't, although work volunteers receive extra pay.

Most of the Palestinian Arabs had heard that soldiers were tortured on being .captured, Mr. Ginsburg said, as they always asserted their civilian status when brought to camp. "When they saw that we observed the Geneva Convention and that the International Red Cross inspected the camp periodically and that the soldiers actually were slightly better treated, about 400 of them owned up to having been in the fighting forces," Mr. Ginsburg said.

These two independent reports are completely at odds with the assertions of the authors. And other contemporaneous reports support the idea that these prisoners were well treated.

I cannot speak to how accurately the authors quoted the ICRC documents, or whether they took quotes out of context. They liberally and uncritically quote former POWs who say lurid stories of torture and how the Israelis would shoot them for no reason.

However, given that they did not mention the NYT article's description of the camp being at odds with their thesis, and they did not mention any of the other reports from the time that contradict their assertions, one must conclude that they were more interested in publishing an anti-Israel academic paper than in describing the facts behind a little-known aspect of the 1948 war.

(h/t GnasherJew)

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!

02/20 Links Pt1: How the Palestinians Lost their Way; US planned to veto UNSC resolution on settlements, PA knew this; IAEA find uranium enriched to 84% purity in Iran

From Ian:

How the Palestinians Lost their Way

From the time Israel was established in 1948, the Palestinians missed many opportunities to make peace. The late Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban put succinctly when he stated: “the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” a fact that prevented a multitude of young Palestinians from enjoying the fruits of peace and becoming constructive players in nation-building who are able to take pride in their achievements.

Starting with their refusal to accept the UN partition plan in 1947, the Palestinians have indisputably missed a number of opportunities, but it will suffice to name only a few. Following the Six Day War in 1967, the Palestinians turned down Israel’s offer to return all the territories captured in war in exchange for peace (with the exception of the final status of Jerusalem). In 1977, the Palestinians rejected the invitation to join the Israeli-Egyptian peace negotiations which could have resulted in in an Israeli-Palestinian peace along with the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement signed in 1979.

At Camp David in 2000, the Palestinians missed another historic opportunity and walked away the last minute when a comprehensive agreement was afoot. The most violent uprising—the Second Intifada—that began a few months later stunned the Israelis who concluded that Palestinians are simply not interested in peace. And finally, in 2007-2008 the Palestinians once more walked away from negotiations, this time over a disagreement in connection with percentages of land swaps.

Since then, largely under Netanyahu’s and Abbas’ leadership, no substantive peace negotiations have taken place, and sadly a fourth generation of Palestinians is now flagging between corrupt dictatorial leadership, self-destructive extremism, and no prospect for any meaningful life. Neither the Palestinian Authority nor Hamas have any plans or strategy that will bring an end to the most destructive conflict to which they have subjected their youth for 55 years and counting.

This is how the Palestinians lost their way. As they continue to revel in the illusion that they can destroy Israel, they in fact are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. It’s time to wake up before they forfeit the next generation’s chance to live in peace and realize their dreams and aspirations to prosper in their own country, which they richly deserve if only given the opportunity.

US lawmakers introduce bills to halt flow of American tax dollars to UNRWA

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) formally introduced The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Accountability and Transparency Act on Friday, which aims to stop the flow of American taxpayer dollars to that body.

“UNRWA’s lengthy and detailed history of promoting anti-Semitism, violence and terrorism through ‘educational’ materials, and its continued ties to Hamas, should completely disqualify this corrupt entity from receiving any U.S. taxpayer funding,” said Roy when announcing the bill.

“UNRWA has failed to meet previous commitments to stop its hostility towards Israel, and it is an obstacle to peace. Israel is one of our greatest allies and closest friends; we cannot say we truly stand with them while helping prop up a corrupt organization like this. If our actions do not match our words, then our word means nothing,” he added.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a companion bill into that chamber on Wednesday.

UNRWA, which tends to some five million descendants of Arabs displaced in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, employs those affiliated with Hamas, and its schools have been used by the Palestinian terrorist group to store weapons and promote anti-Semitic propaganda.

The Trump Administration cut off U.S. funding to UNRWA in 2018, a move that the Biden administration reversed.

The bills would require reforms of UNRWA before any U.S. taxpayer dollars are directed to the organization. Specifically, the Biden administration would need to certify that:
• No UNRWA employee is a member of a terrorist organization such as Hamas or Hezbollah, or has advocated terrorist activity, or propagated anti-American, anti-Israel, or anti-Semitic rhetoric.
• No UNRWA infrastructure or resource is being used by terrorist organizations.
• UNRWA is subject to a comprehensive financial audit and has implemented a system of vetting and oversight to prevent any diversion of UNRWA resources to terrorist organizations.
• No UNRWA school or facility uses textbooks or other educational materials to disseminate anti-American, anti-Israel, or anti-Semitic rhetoric.
• No recipient of UNRWA funds is a member or affiliate of a foreign terrorist organization.
• UNRWA holds no affiliations with financial institutions that the United States deems or believes to be complicit in financing terrorism.

Inside schools in east Jerusalem: How hate is taught

What is happening inside schools in east Jerusalem? Witnesses came to speak with Israel Hayom to expose the environment in which students are taught in the eastern part of the capital. While they are not directly inciting terror, the environment in which students are taught in some schools raises difficult questions.

"Teachers sit in the teachers' room quite contently after terrorist attacks. They aren't concerned about the death of Israelis, and some of them even say 'hopefully the wounded will die'. There are others that do not publicly express joy, but in their hearts, they are happy – or at the very least, they just don't care," says one teacher who has taught for the last decade in a school in the eastern part of the city.

"Many teachers identify with the Palestinian cause. Israel's existence is a technicality for them, that they put up with as they have no choice, but they do not feel any sentiment towards Israel. You might even overhear a teacher in the hallway say to him or herself 'may God free us from the occupation, Israel must disappear'," the teacher adds.

"There are also extremist teachers teaching Islam in a way that brainwashes children, and the message that the students receive is that it's okay to persecute Jews", the teacher explains. "For example, a mathematics teacher who decides to devote the last 15 minutes of class every day to teach religion. Some will say to the kids: Don't watch television, it's against Islam. Some of these teachers support the Arab Liberation Front – a movement of radical Islam."

Not all these movements directly incite violence. However, none of these movements encourage the students to look at Israel as a partner instead of an enemy. Another teacher that taught at a girls' school in east Jerusalem explains "teachers did not discuss politics in the classroom because classes were supervised, and it is forbidden. Any teacher that does that knows that he or she is putting his or her job at risk."

The Jewish Journal and the Tikvah Fund presented a video debate yesterday between MK Simcha Rothman, who is spearheading the controversial judicial reform plan in Israel, and constitutional law expert Professor Yaniv Roznai, moderated by journalist Shmuel Rosner.

It is a very good overview of the issues that have been dividing Israeli society. A very worthwhile video to watch.