Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Official Palestinian propaganda, edited to reflect the truth

The official Wafa news agency published this report in its English edition today.

I have shown how the story would be marked up by any editor who was more interested in truth rather than anti-Israel propaganda.

JERUSALEM, Tuesday, April 4, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli police this morning and since last night restricted entry of Muslim worshippers into Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, a site Muslims seek to hold all day and night prayer vigils during the holy fast month of Ramadan, in order to secure entry of Jewish fanatics into the Muslim holy compound. The Jordanian Muslim Waqf authorities had already agreed to restrict the all-night vigils, and those who are trying to spend the night are violating that agreement.
Local sources said the police checked the ID cards of people trying to hold the dawn prayers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and turned back the young ones potential troublemakers at its gates.
Extremist Muslim groups like Hamas have encouraged Muslims to stay overnight to be in position to harass Jewish visitors the next morning.
At the same time, the police forcefully peacefully removed all worshippers from the Mosque following the late-night prayers and prevented worshippers from keeping an all-night vigil as per Israel’s agreement with Jordan, which the Waqf has publicized.
Meanwhile, dozens of Jewish fanatics stormed Jews visited the holy compound since today’s early hours, walking around its yards and some holding religious rituals in violation of the decades-old status quo that specifically ban non-Muslims from performing any kind of religious ritual inside the walled, 144-dunum holy compound that includes Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock along with several other prayer buildings. praying quietly and respectfully as Jews have been doing for years at their most sacred spot without incident.

Under international law, Jews have the right to worship in their holy spaces.

Muslim officials expressed concern that Jewish fanatics Jews intend to bring in animals to sacrifice inside the compound tomorrow as an offering with the start of the Jewish Passover holiday, a step they warned could spark serious trouble.
The fanatic These groups, encouraged by the presence of a far-right Israeli government that includes extremists ministers in key posts, have advertised rewards for anyone who can bring in animal offerings inside the compound to sacrifice for the religious holiday.
Israeli police have instructions to block any such attempt, and they have done so in previous years under other governments, so the stated fears of Muslim officials are baseless. Their statements of concern appear to be designed more to incite violence than to tamp it down.

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04/04 Links Pt1: Biden's Anti-Israel Policy Empowers Iran, Palestinian Terrorists; Left-wing Israeli group provides legal aid to PA terrorists; U.S., Iran Reportedly Discussing New Interim Nuclear Deal

From Ian:

Biden spares Iran and scolds Israel

The reference to “a fielded nuclear weapon” makes it clear that Biden will not use force to stop Iran from breaking its nonproliferation commitments and producing one or more nuclear weapons. He just wants Iran’s nuclear file off his agenda and out of the way—in other words, he seeks to kick the can down the road.

The Biden administration is certainly not going to let Israeli or other critics get in its way. It does not want Israel to strike Iran. The best route to ensuring Israeli compliance with U.S. policy on Iran, in practice if not in declaration, is by threatening U.S. distancing from Israel on matters of “democratic principle” or matters related to the Palestinians.

What is particularly sad here is that there are ways of halting Iran’s inexorable march toward a nuclear bomb and regional hegemony without necessarily arriving at war.

In an important article published this week in Newsweek, two top Israeli security experts (Meir Ben Shabbat of the Misgav Institute for Zionist Strategy & National Security and Eran Lerman of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy & Security) argued that a credible U.S. military threat against the regime of the ayatollahs would reduce the risk of actual war. It also could reverse the drift of regional players towards Russia and China. Without such a U.S. threat, the likelihood of a violent eruption in the Middle East will significantly increase, they say.

A real Biden administration roadmap for countering Iran would include the following, according to Ben Shabbat and Lerman: Snapback sanctions on Iran with tight supervision (especially of Iranian oil exports and dual-use technologies), terrorist designation of the IRGC across Europe, suspension of Iranian membership in international forums, sanctions and economic pressure on individuals and organizations involved in repressing human rights, penalties on key Iranian industries, covert disruptive measures against Iran’s nuclear program and, most saliently, articulation and demonstration of a credible military threat against the Iranian regime.

Making this even more precise, Mark Dubowitz and Orde Kittrie of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington have outlined more than 200 specific measures (in the military, cyber, financial, energy, legal and diplomatic spheres) that U.S. government agencies can take in “deploying multiple elements of national power” to confront threats from Iran.

Taken together, these measures will enhance American deterrence and prevent war. They will obviate the need for Israel to strike Iran. Alas, Biden prefers to make allowances for Iran and reprimand Israel—to spare the ayatollahs and scold Netanyahu.

Bassam Tawil: Biden's Anti-Israel Policy Empowers Iran, Palestinian Terrorists

US President Joe Biden appears more worried about the Israeli government's plan for judicial reform than the growing support among Palestinians for terrorism against Israel.

He seems more concerned about a plan to fix the deeply broken judicial system in Israel than about Palestinian threats to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible.

We did not see Biden raise any objection over the Palestinians' "Pay for Slay" policy, which rewards terrorists and their families for the murder of Jews. We did not see Biden raise any objection over the Palestinian leaders' glorification of terrorists, who are being celebrated as "martyrs" by a majority of Palestinians. We did not see Biden raise any objection over the thousands of Palestinians who regularly take to the streets to celebrate the murder of Jews in terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists.

As Biden was criticizing the democratically elected prime minister of Israel, senior (unelected) Palestinian officials were continuing to use every available podium to spread more libels against Israel.

Has Biden ever shown any concern that the Palestinians are living under highly undemocratic regimes, with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip? Has Biden or anyone from his administration ever asked the Palestinians why they do not have a functioning parliament?

The crisis Biden has triggered with Israel because of his recurring criticism of a badly-needed judicial reform plan is great news for Iran and its Palestinian proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), two of the many Islamist terror groups that openly call for the elimination of Israel.

By sparking a crisis with Netanyahu and the Israeli government, Biden has succeeded in bringing happiness to the enemies of both Israel and the US, perhaps in an effort that will be fruitless, to appease them. The message the Biden Administration is sending is that you are rewarded if you are an enemy of the US but punished if you are a friend.

Biden has placed himself alongside the mullahs of Iran who are expressing hope that the protests against the Netanyahu government will lead to the "collapse of the Zionist regime."

Report: Left-wing Israeli group provides legal aid to PA terrorists

A watchdog organization on Sunday released undercover hidden camera footage showing senior Palestinian Authority officials referring families of terrorists who murdered Jews to HaMoked, an Israeli organization, for legal assistance.

The undercover footage was released by the group Ad Kan, which works to expose far-left organizations which work against the IDF and the State of Israel.

HaMoked’s budget is based primarily on funding from European governments and the New Israel Fund.

Ad Kan also revealed Sunday that families of terrorists and terrorists themselves claim that when they decide to carry out an attack, they feel supported by the assistance of HaMoked, which allows them to make the decision to commit a terrorist attack.

The report showed that every year, thousands of Palestinian Arabs turn to HaMoked and receive free legal assistance and representation from the organization. The vast majority of applications come from terrorists, terrorist suspects and their families. HaMoked doesn’t differentiate between the terrorists to whom it gives free legal counsel even if the applicant is a mass murderer of Israeli children.

In an in-depth audit conducted into the activities of HaMoked in 2017, it was determined that the organization helps Palestinian Arabs only, and therefore does not meet its stated objectives (which enable it to be classified as a charity) - assistance to every person in need. As a result, the objective and mission of the organization were changed to include aid to Palestinian Arabs only.

The absolute majority of funding for HaMoked's activities comes from abroad, from foreign funds and political entities that transfer millions of dollars and Euros a year to HaMoked. Between the years 2007 and 2018, HaMoked for the Protection of Individuals received a total of 20 million dollars, mostly from foreign entities and governments. Among the countries funding HaMoked between the years 2007 - 2018 are Norway, Spain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Finland, Switzerland, the European Union and United Nations. In addition, the New Israel Fund, and the Ford Foundation donated more than a million dollars to HaMoked during those years.

Israel to increase funds for monitoring illegal Arab Area C construction

From Haaretz:

The Israeli ministry that oversees settlements intends to double the budget allocated to settlers for drones and inspectors to monitor Palestinian construction. The National Missions Ministry intends to allocate a total of 40 million shekels ($11.1 million) for this purpose.

In 2020 the National Missions Ministry – then the Settlement Ministry, and headed by Likud lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi – announced for the first time that it would allocate 20 million shekels ($5.5 million) to these departments, to be disbursed among the settlements. The funds were eventually transferred much later, under the Bennett-Lapid government.

Under the leadership of National Missions Minister Orit Strock, that budget is projected to double. A recently published call for tenders stresses that the budget will only be allocated after the state budget is approved.

Good!

There are lots of Western NGOs who put everything Israel does in Area C under a microscope - while they ignore, or encourage, Arabs to build in the same area.

The EU even puts its own name and logos on these illegal settlements, built nowhere near any infrastructure, positioned specifically to stop Jews from building - or to stop the IDF from being able to use existing military zones.

In 2016, I created this animation of satellite images showing a bunch of illegal structures being built. I've gone on tours and seen these structures up close - often with EU logos.

Masafer Yatta, which is a favorite topic among the anti-Israel woke, is likewise a new community built in Area C - not an ancient Palestinian village being threatened.

It is hard to describe how prevalent this illegal building is without seeing it yourself. So this modest increase of funding to help document the many, many illegal Palestinian structures is a welcome development.

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

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Guess who wanted to see Arabs transferred out of Palestine in the 1940s?

Zachary Foster of Princeton University tweets a "gotcha:"

This appears to be an accurate representation of what Weitz wrote in his diary in 1941. But what Foster leaves out is that David Ben Gurion rejected Weitz's desire to create a transfer committee in 1948, during the actual fighting.

Was the idea of population transfer mainstream in Zionist thought? It wouldn't be a huge surprise if there were prominent Zionists who felt that this was the best possible solution to avoid huge amounts of bloodshed. What the critics of Israel don't want people to realize is that while transfer is considered a war crime today, up until the 1940s it was considered a viable solution for many conflicts (see India/Pakistan for a classic example, as well as some 20 million Europeans transferred in the years after World War II.) Before World War II there were mass population transfers also to avoid ethnic conflict that were approved by the League of Nations.

Jews at the time are being subject to the international law of today. That is yet another form of antisemitism.

In 1944, a prominent group of people promoted the idea of population transfer of Arabs out of Palestine.

The British Labour Party.

The Palestine Post⁩, 26 April 1944⁩

If anything, based on all available evidence, the Labour Party was far more enthusiastic with the idea of population transfer of Arabs than the Zionist Jews were.

Yet no one today damns the British Labour Party as promoting ethnic cleansing in the 1940s. Only the Jews of the 1940s are tarred with that particular brush. And they still are today, despite all the evidence showing it is a lie.

Without context of how the world not only accepted but promoted all kinds of population transfers in that time period, the charge against Zionist Jews of the 1940s is deceptive at best, and a malicious slander at worst.

Which goes to show yet again that antisemitism never went away - it just morphed into new and sophisticated forms.

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

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For the past week, Palestinian Arabic media have been filled with stories about how a Jewish extremist group planned to offer a Passover sacrifice on the Temple Mount.

Most of them never mention that the same group has made the same or similar plans in previous years, and they were always stopped well before any potential scary lamb would be brought anywhere close to the Al Aqsa Mosque or any other Muslim site on the esplanade.

Then, on Monday:

The head of the Returning to the Mount movement, Rafael Morris, was detained on Monday on suspicion that he was going to try and sacrifice the Paschal sacrifice on the Temple Mount, as police completed their preparations ahead of the Passover holiday, which will begin on Wednesday evening.

Two activists from the movement were arrested last month after putting up notices in Arabic in the Old City of Jerusalem offering payment to anyone willing to store lambs near the Temple Mount for the Paschal sacrifice.

As of this writing, a day after the arrest, I do not see a single Palestinian news site mention this - even as they continue to write extensively about the "threat" of an animal sacrifice at Al Aqsa.

In fact, Hamas announced today that the stabbing of two Israeli soldiers in Israel are a "response" to the planned sacrifice that will never happen as well as to Jews visiting the Temple Mount normally.

If they really were so frightened of the worldwide repercussions of a lamb appearing on the site, wouldn't they consider this arrest to be good news, or at least newsworthy?

But one would not expect to see any coverage of Israeli arrests and Israeli forces physically blocking any Jews from breaking the law if the point of the coverage is to incite violence against Jews on Ramadan.

They want anger and hate towards Israel and Jews, and any news stories that blunt their accusations must be censored.

They are trying to provoke the very religious war that they love to warn the West that Israel is provoking.

And then, when Passover comes and goes with no sacrifice, they will claim that it was their steadfastness that blocked the Jews from their attempts to slaughter the lamb, and not Israeli policy.

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!

04/03 Links Pt2: World Vision, Prominent U.S. Evangelical Charity, Caught Funding Jihadis; How J Street Turned Democrats Against Israel; Telling a Story Founded the Jewish Nation

From Ian:

World Vision, Prominent U.S. Evangelical Charity, Caught Funding Jihadis

When U.S. officials discovered that World Vision was funding a designated terror group, they ordered WV to stop paying ISRA, but WV maintained its relationship with the organization. In January 2015, WV said it had "discontinued any future collaboration." Yet almost a year later, WV posted a job position working with ISRA in December 2015, apparently indicating it had not ceased collaborating as it claimed.

Around the same time, World Vision partnered with yet another group that "has helped fund the Hamas military wing," the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH).

In 2012, World Vision was exposed using Australian government dollars to fund a terrorist front group operating in the West Bank. World Vision was funding the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a front group for the U.S. terror designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Australian Solicitor Andrew Hamilton, who worked with the Israel Law Center which exposed the funding, told the Jerusalem Post that, "The Union of Agricultural Work Committees is an integral part of the proscribed terror organization, the PFLP, that Australian citizens and corporations are prohibited from providing support to."

In an email to FWI, Hamilton called on the recently elected Australian Government "to initiate a detailed criminal investigation into the Halabi scandal."

"For more than a decade, World Vision Australia has avoided justice in Australia for its criminal activities in funding PFLP terrorism using Australian taxpayer money obtained by deception," Hamilton told FWI.

"It would be reasonable to assume that if a smaller organization, whose CEO [Tim Costello] was not the brother of a former federal Treasurer [Peter Costello], had similarly deceived the Australian Government to obtain taxpayer funds which were then sent to terrorists, then they would have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law." (FWI has attempted to obtain a response from the Costellos and from World Vision Australia, but has been unsuccessful.)

In 2010, World Vision partnered with a group headed by a PFLP operative, Khaled Yamani, who led the Palestinian Children and Youth Foundation in Lebanon. And a few years prior to that, WV signed joint memoranda with the U.S. designated terror group Interpal, a financial supporter of Hamas.

WV responded to FWI's inquiry regarding the claims made by Cliff Smith in an email declaring, "We remain adamant we are committed to a positive relationship with Israel in our humanitarian work and we do not now, and never have, supported terrorism."

World Vision portrays itself as a "global Christian humanitarian organization." McDonnell asks how WV's support of Islamist terrorists is really in line with the Gospel message it presents. "To see this activity from World Vision in Sudan and then continuing in Israel too—it just makes me wonder: 'What kind of Christians are supporting a group that is funding terrorists?'"

Yisrael Medad: Update on Cordoba: "cultural reductionism"

Spanish Church ‘accused of glossing over Muslim identity of Cordoba’s Great Mosque’

February 28 2023,
The Catholic Church has been accused of glossing over the Muslim identity of the Great Mosque of Cordoba with a visitor centre that emphasises its Christian origins.

The Church’s planned centre for the mosque, which has served as a cathedral since the Spanish city’s reconquest by Christian forces in 1236, aims to “correct” what it deems to be an overly Islamic vision of the city’s past.

“The need to redesign the entire space [of the mosque area] derives from the finding that Cordoba is marked with a very powerful cultural label: that of a Muslim city,” said a report by Demetrio Fernandez, the Bishop of Cordoba.

The mosque has served as a cathedral for hundreds of years and is used for traditional processions at Easter

“The cultural reductionism is so strong that it has the capacity to eclipse the brilliant Visigoth, Roman and Christian [periods]..."

So, Muslims are engaged in cultural reductionism of Jerusalem as the capital of Judea, where the Temple stood on Mount Moriah?

Telling a Story Founded the Jewish Nation

Many of the basic fundamentals of the seder—not only eating matzah and bitter herbs, but also relating the story of the liberation from Egyptian bondage to one’s children—can be found in Exodus 12, which is set in Egypt just before the tenth plague. By imagining what this archetypal seder might have been like, Cole Aronson explores the ritual’s meaning for Jewish history:

You don’t tell the children they were once slaves in Egypt, because that’s all they know. But it wasn’t always so, you tell them—long ago, their ancestors enjoyed over a century of freedom under God. God chose to raise the patriarchs up from the idolatry of their native culture and gave them a covenantal life. A famine some generations later compelled the chosen family to live in Egypt, first as guests and then—until now—as slaves. Tonight, God will keep His promise to the patriarchs and restore the Israelites to His service.

What the parents of the Exodus told their children was the very first maggid the first “telling” of Passover night. But the story as originally told didn’t commemorate the founding of the Jewish nation. Telling the story founded the Jewish nation.

Until the Exodus, the before-time of the patriarchs was a rumor whispered by strangers subjugated in a strange land. On the Exodus night, teaching the children about God’s choice of Abraham converted his descendants into his self-conscious heirs. A free nation was created by restoring a memory of itself. The pageantry of the seder is often and correctly said to recreate the Exodus night in order to tell a story. The reverse is also true. Jews recreate the Exodus night in part by telling a story that the Exodus parents must have told their own children 3,500 years ago, and with the same function—initiating youngsters into the chosen people of God.

A year ago, I went through the history of the scurrilous "apartheid" charge against Israel and showed how the same playbook could be used to accuse Israel of "genocide" - twisting the definition of the term, socializing the charge starting with the extremists and then getting more mainstream Israel haters to write pseudo-academic papers "proving" Israel is engaging in it, and then finally having mainstream NGOs pretend to look at the issue objectively while perverting the meaning of the term.

My prediction is coming true.

Michael Barnett, Professor of International Affairs and Political Science at George Washington University, wrote an absurd article for a blog called "Political Violence at a Glance" where he asks, "Is Israel on the precipice of genocide?"

He knows that Israel isn't guilty of genocide now - instead, he says that it has all the risk factors in place today:

Genocide is impossible to predict: there is no agreement on how the combination of preconditions, contingent paths, triggers, and entrepreneurs produce a form of violence once unimaginable. But research on genocide over the past several decades has provided insight into the preconditions, which provide a reasonable starting point.

Preconditions are not predictors. If we use them to predict genocides, we will overpredict. But a look at the UN’s report on atrocity crimes, which lists risk factors for genocide and “lesser” forms of organized violence, is illuminating. It lists eight common and six specific risk factors. The eight common factors are situations of armed conflict or other forms of instability; record of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law; weak state structures; motives or incentives; capacity to commit atrocity crimes; absence of mitigating factors; enabling circumstances or preparatory action; and triggering factors. These are, as the document states, general risk factors. Many states might qualify. Israel ticks all the boxes.

Really? Israel has weak state structures? Israel has motives or incentives to destroy all Palestinians? Israel has "triggering factors" for genocide? Israel has no mitigating factors???

Barnett makes these pronouncements as if they are beyond dispute - but anyone who knows anything about Israel knows they are fiction.

Anyone who believes that is already an antisemite ab initio.

I don't think Barnett actually believes any of this. He once taught at Hebrew University. No, this is worse than stupidity - this is malicious.

Notice also that while the UN report is concerned with all war crimes - a far more expansive terrain - Barnett represents this already flawed list as proof that Israel is readying for the worst possible crime, genocide.

He did this knowingly.

Barnett's intent was to write an article saying Israel is on its way to the crime of genocide, and he then cherry picked third rate evidence to pretend to prove his thesis and ignored anything that shows it is garbage. His main example is Huwara, which was widely condemned across Israeli society, yet he positions it as mainstream and government policy.

It isn't scholarship. It is deceit cloaking as scholarship.

And, by the way, applying those criteria to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority shows that they are much closer in checking off all the boxes than Israel is. The only missing one is the capacity - and the only reason they haven't gotten that capacity is because Israel constantly frustrates Iranian attempts to give them that capacity.

And Iran checks off every single box. Including openly creating a weapon with the single purpose of murdering millions of Jews.

Barnett appears to be trying to set the stage so that accusing Israel of genocide in five or ten years doesn't sound so outlandish. People hear the words "Israel" and "genocide" together for a few years and they start to figure where there's smoke, there's fire. It is exactly what happened with "apartheid."

We'll be seeing more articles like this - not because they have any basis in reality, but because there are enough modern antisemites today to want to create that perception of reality.

UPDATE: Ian notes in the comments:

His book literally has the The Red Cross Ambulance Hoax on the cover.

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 haters are now demanding Trader Joe's stop selling matzoh made in Israel

This Mondoweiss article reads like a parody:

Trader Joe’s prides itself on delivering great products at fair prices. And we agree that they deliver on that promise. So, when we saw that our favorite food store is now selling Passover Matzo made in Israel we had to act.

Trader Joe’s also has a reputation for being responsive to customers, so we started this campaign to tell them how disappointed we are in their decision to sell house branded Matzo prominently marked as a “product of Israel” or any other products labeled as “made in Israel.”

In support of the Palestinian Civil Society’s call to boycott all Israeli products, we never purchase Israeli-made products at Trader Joe’s or anywhere else, but that no longer feels like enough. It is important that we tell stores, and the good people who work in them, why we boycott Israel and how badly it reflects on stores when they sell products made in Apartheid Israel.

We hope that many people will join us by printing out this note to Trader Joe’s, signing it, and giving it to a manager in every Trader Joe’s that you shop in:

The funniest part of the Mondoweiss article was a selfie of co-author Seth Morrison smiling in front of the matzoh display with his "Palestine 1948" T-shirt. His smile makes it look like he is promoting the matzoh, not boycotting it!

This is way beyond activism and well into obsession territory. No one on Earth thinks that Palestinians are helped one iota from these ridiculous stunts, and it is obvious to all who care to think about it that this is not animated by concern for Palestinian human rights but visceral hate for the Jewish state.

Trader Joe's sells other Israeli products, including their own branded Bamba snack and "Israeli Feta Cheese." Horrors!

I can't wait for Sukkot when the haters start a campaign to boycott Israeli etrogim.

(h/t Roger K)

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!

04/03 Links Pt1: The tactical alliance that made Europe a terror paradise; King Abdullah: ‘Duty of every Muslim to deter Israeli escalations’ against holy sites

From Ian:

The tactical alliance that made Europe a terror paradise

Pakistan is not just a safe haven for terrorist groups, it also manages to outsource its most selling product: terrorism. The Pakistanis have a wide network of people across Europe, including labor migrants and organizations helping fund their activity.

In February 2022, Spain arrested five Pakistanis who were affiliated with the radical right-wing party TLP in Pakistan for allegedly helping the 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris. That party has many supporters in Spain, France, Italy, and Greece. Europe, in effect, had become a Pakistani terrorist paradise.

Several months after the horrific attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai in 2008, two Pakistani suspects were arrested in Italy for allegedly providing logistical support to the perpetrators. In October 2021, a man in Cyprus of Pakistani origin was arrested over allegedly plotting to assassinate two Israeli businessmen. In the most recent plot in Greece, both suspects arrived illegally from Turkey and are not Greek citizens, but it is important to understand that the massive immigration to Europe helped proliferate such cells across the continent.

Iran has good ties with Pakistan's spy agencies. Although the conventional wisdom is that the two countries are rivals because of their diverging Islamic character, the two have managed to maintain productive collaboration when it comes to fighting the insurgents in Balochistan. This was also evident in the case of the Indian citizen Kulbhushan Jadhav, who was sentenced to death in Pakistan over espionage.

Pakistan and Iran are close on a whole host of issues, including Kashmir. Pakistani-sponsored terrorist groups see Israel as their ultimate enemy despite the lack of direct hostilities. This tactical alliance between Tehran and Islamabad against Israel and the Jews is a very reasonable outcome. My familiarity with the Iranian conduct suggests that Tehran wants Jewish blood to be shed, and is willing to collude with any organization that is willing to help, even if the perpetrators are amateurs.

From my remarks for @The_ILF in @Europarl_EN, calling out European silence on Palestinian antisemitism.

"#EU cannot say they are committed to peace and make such eloquent speeches every Holocaust Remembrance Day, but turn their backs to Palestinian #antisemitism & incitement." pic.twitter.com/SGvwWx4JKB
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) April 3, 2023

The @NewIsraelFund and the EU fund a @HaMokedRights, a group devoted to defending terrorists who kill Israelis. $40 million in the past decade alone. All for terrorists. https://t.co/i7Rq4LXfls
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) April 2, 2023

The Case for Designating Samidoun a Terror Organization in Europe

Founded in 2012, Samidoun serves as an affiliate for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated as a terror group by the EU, as well as the United States, Canada, Israel and others.

Samidoun claims to be “an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom.” They operate globally, with a strong presence in Europe and headquarters in Brussels. The reality however is that Samidoun, and key Samidoun leaders, serve as an inseparable arm of the PFLP and are inextricably tied to the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In 2021, the Israeli government designated Samidoun a terrorist organization, on the basis of overwhelming and compelling evidence of the group’s connection to PFLP. A 2022 Berlin Appellate court decision reaffirmed the link between Samidoun leader Khaled Barakat and PFLP, a connection he has not denied.

The key question is for how much longer will the European Union keep turning its back and allow Samidoun to continue operating unabated, while Iran further spreads its tentacles of terror in Europe?

The following report and research by the ILF makes the case for the European Union to take immediate steps to designate Samidoun and key Samidoun leaders to the EU Terror List.

#DesignateSamidoun

How much longer can Europe tolerate #PFLP terrorist-linked Iranian-supported organisation #Samidoun calling for the violent overthrow of our European Union?

Thanks@Ostrov_A @NGOmonitor @The_ILF @ACOM_es
for calling it out.#DesigateSamidoun pic.twitter.com/AvTOBWoAm9
— International Movement for Peace and Coexistence (@IMPACoexistence) April 3, 2023

Imam Chalghoumi - Samidoun's propaganda is poisoning our youth

Germany's Leftist Government Refuses to Confront Islamism

Germany's parliament has rejected two legislative proposals aimed at clamping down on political Islam in Germany. The sponsors of the proposed bills argued that Islamism is subversive and must be opposed because it poses a growing threat to liberal democracy and social cohesion. Lawmakers representing Germany's left-wing coalition government countered that measures to curb Islamism would unfairly single out Muslims.

The legislative setback comes just six months after Germany's government dissolved a high-profile expert working group on political Islam — opting instead to fight "Islamophobia."

A number of German analysts (who preferred to remain anonymous) told FWI that the government's refusal to confront Islamism stems from its obsession with woke ideology, which posits that Muslims are an oppressed group and need protection. They asserted that this stance and the policies that result from it represent a security threat not just for Germany but also for the rest of Europe.

Germany's violent and non-violent Islamism problem is colossal. In its latest annual report, Germany's domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) estimated that the country is home to at least 30,000 hardcore Islamists, although the actual number probably is much higher.

The BfV report listed more than 20 Islamist groups active in Germany including: al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Islamic State, Milli Görüs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat, and the Taliban. The groups have ties to — and are believed to receive funding from — governments and Islamist organizations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Lebanese-Canadian Academic on Trial in France for 1980 Synagogue Bombing

The trial of a Canadian academic accused of involvement in the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in Paris that killed four people and injured more than 40 began in a French court on Monday.

The Lebanese-born academic, 69-year-old Hassan Diab, is being tried in absentia after French authorities declined to issue an international arrest warrant for him, leaving him free to decide whether to attend the proceedings.

Diab was first accused of involvement in the bombing by French intelligence agencies in 1999. Several years of legal wrangling resulted in Diab’s arrest in 2008 and his extradition from Canada to France in 2014. Four years later, Diab was released and returned to Canada after French prosecutors concluded there was not enough evidence against him for a trial. In 2021, the charges were reinstated following an appeal.

France’s case rested on the claim that a man who checked into a Paris hotel before the bombing using a Cypriot passport was in fact Diab. Eyewitness evidence and analysis of handwriting samples led the French authorities to conclude that the individual in question was Diab, despite the sociology professor’s insistence that he had been in Lebanon at the time. France alleged that Diab was a member of the special operations branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which was believed to be responsible for the attack.

The Ontario judge who approved Diab’s extradition in 2014 had rejected most of the evidence against Diab was unreliable, but said as well that the low threshold of Canadian extradition law – that a requesting state’s summary of its evidence is presumed to be reliable, unless shown otherwis — meant that the French request could not be denied, the Globe and Mail reported. Commenting on the handwriting evidence specifically, Judge Robert Maranger argued that while it was not “manifestly unreliable,” it was “convoluted, very confusing, with conclusions that are suspect.”

Palestinian site Amad reports:

Hebrew sources announced, on Sunday evening, that Israel is considering increasing the number of work permits from the Gaza Strip, and the number of regular work permits may reach about fifty thousand in the coming months.

An informed Israeli security source indicated that the number could be increased as well, and this contributes to improving the economic situation of the residents of the Gaza Strip.

I didn't see this in Hebrew media, but there is little reason to think this isn't true.

And it is representative of the type of story that the news media isn't interested in.

Israel spends a great deal of time and money trying to ensure that Palestinians' lives can be as good as possible while not compromising the security of Israelis.

It is a very difficult job.

Another recent example of Israel taking great efforts to help ordinary Palestinians is that Israel is starting to operate the crossing into Jordan for 24 hours a day to make things easier for Palestinian travelers.

A nation's first priority is the safety of its own citizens. There have been countless cases of Palestinians taking advantage of Israeli efforts at being humane - suicide bombs smuggled in by hospital patients, for example.

In this case I cannot blame the media completely for avoiding stories where Israel acts humanely towards Palestinians. Bad news is news and drives ratings; good news doesn't.

But when coverage of Israel is so unrelentingly negative, no one even considers that the truth is not what is being reported. People who do not follow news in Hebrew and Arabic are left completely in the dark.

Gaza is a mess, and giving Gazans jobs is the single most important thing that can be done to help them out. Gaza is also run by a terrorist organization.

The line between helping people who haven't done anything wrong and not helping their leaders who openly preach genocide against the Jewish people is one that is a real news story. And it is one that the media is not interested in covering.

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!

You can learn a lot from this Palestinian press release

The website of the Palestinian National Council published a warning:

The head of the National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, warned of the call made by the criminal extremist and the extremist National Security Minister Ben Gvir, in which he called on all Jews to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Jewish Passover holiday.

Fattouh said in a statement issued on Sunday evening that the incitement of the fascist government and its ministers against the danger of the storming, and the so-called extremist groups of the Temple Mount, erecting an altar on the southern wall of the walls of Jerusalem, and conducting exercises to offer the "oblation" of the Jewish Passover, and the ceremonies that It will be held near Al-Aqsa Mosque, and will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war for which the fascist far-right government bears responsibility.

He added that the volume of incitement, oppression and abuse against the worshipers of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and what extremist groups are planning, fears that the massacre of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron will repeat, or that an insane act will be carried out and the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque will be repeated.

Fattouh called on the international community to immediately intervene to curb this terrorist madness led by the fascist occupation government, whose impact will not be limited to the occupied Palestinian territories only.

First of all, what is the Palestinian National Council?

The Palestinian National Council (PNC) is the legislative authority within the PLO, and is responsible for formulating the organisation’s policies. It acts as a parliament that represents all Palestinians, except for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

A full quorum of the PNC convened between 30 April-3 May 2018 in Ramallah to elect a new Palestinian Central Council (PCC) and PLO’s Executive Committee (EC). This was the first meeting of the full PNC since 1996. This meeting was boycotted by the PFLP, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, and was seen by analysts as an effort by Mahmoud Abbas to consolidate his hold on power by promoting supporters, while marginalising his political rivals. During the meeting, the PNC reportedly transferred its legislative powers to the PCC.

In January 2021, Abbas issued a presidential decree announcing that a new PNC (formally including Hamas) would be formed by 31 August.

It is a puppet organization, controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, that reportedly gave up all of its powers - its entire reason of existence - to another puppet organization. And then Abbas created his own law, which never seems to have been implemented, to create a brand new PNC - proving once again that Abbas is a dictator who manipulates the many political organizations he controls to make things appear slightly more democratic.

The website appears to be nothing more than a sounding board for Rawhi Fattouh, since there are no PNC meetings. I'm not sure who elected him but it sure wasn't a transparent election.

Now, let's look at Fattouh's warning: that Jews play-acting a Passover sacrifice outside Al Aqsa "will ignite the region and plunge it into a religious war."

It isn't the Jews who are threatening violence. It is the Arabs inciting against the Jews who are threatening violence. The message, which we have heard so many times from Palestinians of all ranks including dictator Abbas, is that Palestinians are animals who have no self-control, and the sight of Jews doing Jewish rituals fill them with so much rage that they can ignite the region into a new war, or new wave of terror, or sometimes to get all Muslims to join in to start a world war.

Palestinians spend a great deal of time telling the West that they cannot control themselves against becoming violent. For over a century they have tried to manipulate the West by warning of impending jihad that would turn the region into a bloodbath - a jihad that they cannot control (when they don't declare it themselves) because their people are so inherently violent.

At the same time they tell Westerners that they are savage beasts who cannot be expected to adhere to normal social mores, they claim that the West is guilty of "orientalism" by stereotyping them as those same savage beasts they tell the West that they are.

One more detail about this press release. It is accompanied with this photo:

They took a regular photo of Jews visiting their holiest site and removed the color from the Jews. It is a subtle but unmistakable attempt to dehumanize Jews as unworthy beings who are swarming the sacred Muslim site like cockroaches.

These three absurdities are not anomalous. They are seen every day in Palestinian media. And no one calls it out. Palestinian antisemitism and hypocrisy are accepted as normal and the Bizarro world where the rules are different for Palestinians becomes more and more mainstream in the real world.

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!

Arab media knows that the Waqf agreed no overnight stays in Al Aqsa - but refuse to report it

For the second Sunday night, Palestinian Muslims attempted to stay overnight in the Al Aqsa mosque in a ritual known as i'tikaaf - and Israeli forces politely removed them without incident.

As I have been reporting, the reason there has been a call for i'tikaaf this year when it has hardly ever been demanded in the first weeks of Ramadan in the past is because the Muslims want to disrupt Jews visiting the Temple Mount the next morning. This is explicitly said in Islamist media calling on herds of worshipers to "defend" the mosque from the Jewish "stormers."

Israel and Jordan, along with the Jordanian Waqf, agreed that there would only be i'tikaaf on Thursday and Friday nights, and the last ten days of Ramadan, when Jews are not allowed to ascend the next day.

Last weekend the Waqf agreement was not well publicized and there was widespread anger at Israel removing the worshippers. But during the week, Arabic social media turned its anger at the Waqf, and they published the Waqf's memo stating that no i'tikaaf would be performed until the end of Ramadan.

Everyone knows about the agreement now.

But Palestinian media reporting on Sunday night's removal of female worshippers (by female Israeli police officers) do not say a word about the Waqf agreement.

Which is just more evidence that Palestinian media cannot be trusted to report anything accurately. They are propaganda sources, and any truth that they publish is purely coincidental.

Even the official Palestinian Wafa news agency is reporting about the removal of the worshippers without mentioning the agreement that those worshippers are violating.

They are trying to incite violence - when the entire purpose of the ban on i'tikaaf is to minimize the chances for violence.

Isn't that a problem?

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!

Egypt never considered its Jews to be "real" Egyptians

Every Ramadan, there are lots of competing TV miniseries competing for attention. One of this year's is a crime drama from Egypt called The Canto Market.

An Egyptian newspaper describes the history of this real-life market in describing the plot:

Wekalat Al-Balah market is one of the oldest markets in Cairo. It was established in 1880, by 15 merchants from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. With the passage of time and the increasing popularity of the market and the increase in the number of its merchants, it has become a landmark of Cairo.

During the 1930s, Egypt was hit by an economic stagnation that made these merchants sell their shops to the Jews, and at that time the market increased the used clothing trade and called it the “Canto” market, and it remained under their control until the 1950s when they decided to migrate to occupied Palestine...

The Jews that they sold the stores to were Egyptians - but in recounting the history, they are just Jews, not at all considered citizens of the nation, who then for completely unknown reasons "decided to migrate" to Israel.

There is no way an Egyptian newspaper would say that Copts bought or sold shops to Egyptians, implying that Copts aren't Egyptian themselves.

I found another description of the market's history at Egyptian Geographic:

The Al-Balah Market, which was established at the end of the nineteenth century by a number of Arab merchants coming from Syria and Palestine, witnessed a great boom at its beginning, then its glow diminished with the decline of the country’s economy in the middle of the nineteenth century until the Jews owned most of its markets and called it the “Canto Market.”...After the departure of the Jews from Egypt, the ownership of the agency returned to the Egyptians.

A similar description is given in this site, although the religion of the shop owners is a bit more relevant there because the merchants would talk to each other using Hebrew words so customers wouldn't understand (and this pidgin-like language is still used in the market today.)

When you have three articles, written at three different times, about the same topic that clearly considers Jews not to have been normal Egyptian citizens, it is pretty clear that Egyptians never considered their Jews to be full members of their society.

This has been the situation of Jews in most countries. And that is the reason Jews need their own country.

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!

04/02 Links: Hijacking the Narrative: Inside Israel’s Domestic Protests; Police thwart Hamas Temple Mount shooting plot; Speaker at funeral of terrorist: “We love death like our enemies love life”

From Ian:

A crisis of judicial proportions explained, Part I: Reforming the Supreme Court

For the last several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest a highly controversial package of judicial reforms being rapidly advanced by the recently installed right-wing and religious coalition led by Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

In addition to the protesters, economists, businessmen, foreign governments and leaders of the Jewish Diaspora have joined the calls to oppose the reforms. They claim that should the reforms pass, Israel will suddenly be on the road to becoming a fascist dictatorship and that the country is teetering on chaos. Leaders of the protest movement have repeatedly stated that the protests may lead to violence.

So why was the government rapidly advancing such judicial reforms while protests and domestic chaos among reform opponents were simultaneously brewing at unprecedented levels?

The proclaimed purpose of the reforms is to correct a decades-old imbalance between the powers of Israel’s aggressive and activist high court and the government. For those trying to understand what gives the court in Israel more power than the elected government, it is useful to compare Israel’s judicial system to that of the United States.

Everything Is Justiciable
In the early 1990s, Israel went through a self-proclaimed “judicial revolution” led by then-Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. Barak wanted the Supreme Court to be an “activist court,” meaning that the court would not wait for issues to come to its benches, but rather, the court would increase its power and reach to enforce policy according to its own interpretation.

According to Barak, “everything is justiciable,” meaning that no law, policy or commercial dealing was out of the purview of the court. In cases in which there are no laws or policies, the court can order the parliament to pass a law on a particular issue within a court-stipulated time limit or can order the government to carry out a specific policy.

Standing Not Required
In the United States, a plaintiff can only bring a case before the court if they are an injured party. And even then, a case must start in a lower court and advance through a court of appeals before reaching the Supreme Court.

In Israel, a case may be brought directly to the High Court. Further, the plaintiff does not need to have standing. As such, in Israel, NGOs (non-governmental organizations), some of which receive foreign government funding, are often the parties petitioning the court on any law or policy they want the court to review.

Principle of ‘Reasonableness’
In the absence of a constitution and in a system in which “everything is justiciable,” the court has established its own principle of “reasonableness” to determine whether a law, policy or contract is legal. Reasonableness in each case is determined by the court.

The court has used “reasonableness” to negate laws and to overrule government policies. In addition, court rulings can force a government to take particular actions, including demolishing homes (both Jewish and Arab) that the court rules were built illegally, even when such actions are highly controversial and not politically expedient.

The court has also used the “everything is justiciable” and “reasonableness” combination to overturn commercial contracts, including contracts signed by the government.

A crisis of judicial proportions explained, Part II: Precursors to the protest

Demography, not democracy
For Netanyahu’s left-wing opponents, their stunning electoral defeat represents a deeper and worrying demographic turning point.

Religious and traditional right-wing voters typically have more children than secular left-wing voters, a trend that is not likely to change in the years to come. And for the first time, right-wing voters out-totaled left-wing and Arab voters combined to form an exclusively right-wing government.

While the right is now free to implement the policies it has long sought to, the left fears that if the right governs successfully, it may be in power for many years to come, leaving the left glued to the backbenches of the Knesset opposition.

Right-wing policy outline
The Israeli right seeks to continue building housing and infrastructure for growing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. They insist on personal security for Israeli citizens in the face of growing terrorism. They prefer to isolate the Palestinian Authority, and reject the prospect of negotiations.

On complex and controversial religion-and-state issues, they seek to preserve the integrity of religious institutions and long-held norms, including a ban on public transportation on Shabbat. For Netanyahu in particular, neutralizing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is a primary objective.

In order to advance their agenda, they first seek to strike a new balance of power between the government and the judicial branch of government.

The right asserts that the court for years has consistently meddled in governmental affairs. They claim the court is a self-selecting, elite left-wing oligarchy that has effectively served as a check on right-wing policies.

The left asserts that the court must remain the protector of democracy and through its rulings maintain governmental checks and balances in the absence of a constitution.

The right is effectively calling the court’s bluff.

Historical turning point
Historically, for the first 30 years of the state’s existence, until the election of Menachem Begin in 1977, the left controlled the government. In those three decades, they established all of the state’s major institutions. And while the right has been the principal force in the government over the last 30 years, the major institutions, including the judicial system, top echelons of the military, labor union, academia, medical establishment and the media remain dominated by the left.

While the left has had no choice but to concede the government to a shifting voter base that favors right-wing policies, the left is unprepared and unwilling to give up on its control of state institutions.

And as Netanyahu, his allies and his voters are learning, those institutions are not only extremely powerful, but together, can be significantly more powerful than the government.

It is this complex web of political developments over the past four years that immediately preceded, and hangs as a dark cloud over the rollout of judicial reform legislation.