Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 21, 2023

Was a Moroccan singer "canceled" for performing in Israel?

The Moroccan singer, Fatima Zahraa Al-Arousi, caused anger among activists, after she performed a concert in Israel.

Activists shared footage of Fatima Al-Zahraa Al-Arousi's performance, which was organized by the Moroccan Liaison Office in Tel Aviv, on the occasion of the Mimouna festival held by Jews of Moroccan origin at the end of Passover.

It seems that Al-Arousi was expecting the angry reaction, so she did not previously announce the event through her accounts on social networking sites.

However, the Moroccan artist lost thousands of followers from her fans after the footage circulated of her concert in Israel .

Here's the short clip being circulated:

So did she lose her fan base?

Her detractors are circulating this graphic:

According to this, Al-Arousi lost abut 11,000 followers in the three days after the news broke, and based on that, about 60,000 followers until today.

It sounds like a lot, but it is only 3% of her fan base. And her Instagram has a bunch of people criticizing her but really not that many, considering how many followers she has, and many defending her as well. Other social media is decidedly mixed, with plenty of people saying that Morocco and Israel have a peace treaty and she can do whatever she wants. Also, the critics don't have the usual kind of vitriol one usually associates with anything to do with Israel.

It looks like the people who she lost were not her biggest fans anyway. More importantly, the reactions I'm seeing are far saner that the crazed reactions one sees in Arab countries like Algeria, Egypt and Jordan. Usually by now the artists would be accused of being complicit in mass murder or something.

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!

There are thousands of Palestinians still living in Iraq with essentially no rights. They have been attacked, and many killed, by Iraqis since 2003. They are not recognized in Iraq as a refugee group. Other Arab countries refuse to allow them to immigrate.

The Safa news agency interviewed Baghdad-based journalist Hassan Al-Khaled who said that there are some 6,000 Palestinians in Iraq, 70% of whom live below the poverty line. He aid that there is no joy this Eid al-Fitr for them.

In 1948, many Palestinians were forced by Iraqi forces to join them and fight against Israel. After their defeat, they were allowed to go to Iraq, where they were treated decently. That all changed after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, who had given them huge privileges.

In 2020, UNHCR dropped their rent subsidies for the Palestinian families, throwing them into an even deeper crisis.

Al-Khaled complained about the lack of relief associations or organizations that help Palestinians in Iraq, saying, "If there are any, the amount assistance they provide to the refugees is not enough for everyone."

Think about that. There are hundreds of NGOs in the Palestinian territories, and hundreds more that claim to aid Palestinians worldwide - and this journalist is not aware of a single NGO that provides aid to Palestinians in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Arab countries refuse to allow them to enter, even as hundreds of thousands of other refugees from Iraq have been allowed in. They use Israel as an excuse to keep Palestinians in misery in Iraq. HRW wrote in 2006:

The PLO and the Arab League have rejected in principle and actively discouraged in practice local integration or third-country resettlement of Palestinian refugees. Their view is that local integration or resettlement would negate the right to return of the resettled refugees. The Arab countries hosting large Palestinian refugee populations point to Israel's legal obligation to permit the refugees' return to justify their refusal to integrate the Palestinian refugees and afford them rights equal to their own citizens.

Jordan and Syria have (with some exceptions) refused entry to Palestinians who attempt to flee Iraq, in violation of the international legal prohibition against refoulement. When these two countries made temporary exceptions to their policies of refusal, they conditioned admission of Palestinian refugees on their confinement to camps, for example al-Ruwaishid camp in Jordan in 2003, and al-Hol camp in Syria in 2006. Because of the widely observed policy against resettlement of Palestinian refugees, these camp residents have already waited longer than other refugees fleeing Iraq, such as the Iranian Kurds, for access to third-country resettlement.

Just as with Lebanon, when Palestinians are brutally mistreated by an Arab nation, all of the "pro-Palestinian activists" are suddenly silent. The reason is because they are not pro-Palestinian at all, but anti-Israel. And using Israel as an excuse to actively keep Palestinians in misery - policies that are meant to hurt Palestinians because doing so might indirectly, one day, help weaken Israel - proves that this "anti-Israel" attitude is really antisemitism.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Remember a couple of years ago how people were so upset that Israeli Gal Gadot was playing Cleopatra in a biopic (now set to be released sometime in 2023)? She was accused of "whitewashing" the role, with some claiming that Cleopatra was black or part Arab, and others responding that she was of white Macedonian ancestry, and it was not at all inappropriate for a Jewish woman to play someone else whose ancestry was Levantine.

There was more than a little antisemitism in that controversy - Gadot being from Israel was the real issue, as we saw with the protests in the Arab world about her Wonder Woman role.

Now, Egyptians are turning this issue on its head, thanks to an upcoming Netflix documentary series that casts a black woman as Cleopatra, and claims that she was indeed black.

A Netflix docudrama depicting Queen Cleopatra as black has sparked an uproar in Egypt.

‘Queen Cleopatra’ stars British actress Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, as the title character.

But Egyptian academics insists that Cleopatra, who was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC, was light-skinned and of European descent, not black.

So intense is the backlash that an Egyptian lawyer has reportedly filed a complaint in an attempt to prevent the show from airing in Egypt, accusing the film of violating media laws and aiming to “erase the Egyptian identity”.

This doesn't come close to describing the pure racism coming out of Egypt, far out of proportion to just complaining about Cleopatra's origins.

Asharq reports:

Representative Saboura El-Sayed, a member of the Egyptian Parliament, submitted a request for a briefing to the Speaker of Parliament, Counselor Hanafi Jabali, calling for a ban on broadcasting the Netflix platform in Egypt, in light of the promotional advertisement for the documentary film “Queen Cleopatra”, which is scheduled to be broadcast on the digital platform next May 9.

Saboura explained to Asharq that..."this incident is an attempt to steal and distort history, as there are major plans seeking to undermine, demolish and steal the Egyptian state."

She pointed out that Netflix's promotion of Cleopatra as a queen of African descent feeds the ideas of the "Afrocentric" movement, which adopts the idea that all civilizations of the world included people of African descent before their dispersal, stressing that the film is trying to change the history of ancient Egypt and falsify established historical data.

But while the Gadot issue complained she was too white and this one says the actress is too black, there is one thing in common: both of them have elements of old fashioned Jew-hatred.

One Egyptian expert went off into a crazed antisemitic conspiracy theory:

Egyptologist Dr. Wassim El-Sisi said, "This film is a scheme that carries political goals, which is the expulsion of Jews of African descent from Europe and America to Egypt."

Al-Sisi continued, to Asharq, "They want to convince Jews of African descent that their ancestors are the owners of the Egyptian civilization, and that those present in Egypt are the sons of the invaders, Arabs, Ikhshidids and others, but it is their misfortune that scientific research has proven that more than 86% of Egyptians carry the genes of Tutankhamun.

(Update): There is a variant on that conspiracy theory in popular Egyptian site Al Masry Al Youm, where they say that Zionists are trying to expel Blacks from America by convincing them that Egypt is really theirs and they should return there and get rid of the Arab invaders.

El-Sisi is a well-known figure in Egypt, an antisemitic nutcase who says that Jews control all aspects of the United States - and that Mohammed was Egyptian, not Arab. But his craziness gets airplay in Egypt.

He isn't the only racist and antisemite weighing in on this in Egypt. Al Masry al Youm said the idea that Cleopatra was black came from Jewish "pressure groups" for their own nefarious but unstated purposes.

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!

04/20 Links Pt2: David Hazony: Israel at 75: The Rebirth of Israel?; Where Is the Palestinian Equivalent of Haaretz?; New Ben & Jerry’s Limited-Edition Flavor for Lab B’Omer in Israel

From Ian:

David Hazony: Israel at 75: The Rebirth of Israel?

Every nation faces the breaking point in its own way, and no outcome is predetermined. America bled and was reborn, while the USSR vanished as a living idea long before it disappeared from history.

There’s another example of this dynamic — from our own history. In ancient Israel, the golden age, the great Israelite monarchy, was founded by King David, the hungry poet-warrior who conquered Jerusalem and planned the great Temple. King Solomon, his son, followed him, building great cities and expanding and firmly establishing the empire.

Then came the third generation. Rupture and division — the kingdom split in two, Israel to the north and Judea, with Jerusalem, to the south. It took some time, but this split led, eventually, to weakness and destruction of both kingdoms, and exile.

The prospect of such a biblical collapse lurks in the back of every Israeli’s mind.

The coming months will be filled with tension, turmoil, negotiations halted and restarted, and tactical disinformation. So yes, I am scared that things could get much worse before getting better.

The coming months will be filled with tension, turmoil, negotiations halted and restarted, and tactical disinformation. Weapons will be drawn, perhaps even used, and then put back down again. Actual blood may yet, God forbid, be shed.

So yes, I am scared that things could get much worse before getting better. But I am also deeply optimistic that we will come out on the other side with a nation reborn. Not just because my analysis of the politics says it’s in everyone’s interest to pass a consensus-based constitution for Israel, but because of the incredible things I’ve learned about Israelis: The dramatic demonstrations filling the streets and highways with Israeli flags all point to an utter lack of apathy. And it’s apathy, not acrimony, that destroys nations from within.

This wild, immense Zionist spirit is the key to the nation’s success, and it’s not going anywhere.

We fight because we care. The love in this country surpasses that of any nation on earth. This wild, immense Zionist spirit is the key to the nation’s success, and it’s not going anywhere.

To me it is clear: Israel, the glorious miracle of Jewish rebirth, now celebrating its 75th Independence Day, is not nearing its end. On the contrary, it is just getting started.

New website memorializes terror victims with no Wikipedia pages

Israeli victims of terror attacks who do not have dedicated Wikipedia pages will be honored in a new collaboration memorial online platform.

The Remember project, created by Rachel Meth, and OneFamily launched the commemorative website remember.bio in advance of Remembrance Day and against the backdrop of deepening social rifts in Israeli society in order to help commemorate victims of terrorism from all corners of the political sphere.

Meth offered to commemorate Border Police St.-Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli, who was killed in clashes on the Gaza border in 2021 on the platform. Meth, who initiated the memorial page project together with the OneFamily non-profit organization, contacted Nitza Shmueli, Barel's bereaved mother.

They met shortly before Israel's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, where they agreed that this was the appropriate place to memorialize her son.

Wikipedia editors previously deleted a page dedicated to Shmueli. The editors said that the article had "no enduring historical significance." They further clarified that Wikipedia "is not here to record everyday events, even if newsworthy, or to memorialize the death of a non-notable person."

The decision to delete the page was not taken lightly with discussions between editors lasting six months, before ultimately deciding that his killing was not historically significant enough.

"We woke up one morning and simply didn't see Barel's Wikipedia page. We were so hurt and angry. I felt like my son was being murdered for the second time," said Shmueli.

Local Wine, T-Bone Steak, and the Pioneer Spirit, in the Shadow of Hizballah

During a recent trip to Israel, James Panero spent a few days touring the Golan Heights. He reports on what he saw:

Wildflowers now grow around the rusted barbed wire that crisscrosses the hillside and the numerous signs that read “danger mines!” Mustard flowers, poppies, and tall grasses provide abundant food for the mix of bees, cattle, and wild animals that now call these slopes home. Beef from the Golan is free-range, save for the minefields, and results in some of the most flavorful steak you can find—one evening I dined on a local T-bone and Golan wine at a horse ranch just north of ancient Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee.

This frontier attracts settlers with the same pioneer spirit that you might have found in Oklahoma Territory over a century ago. These are times when Israel resembles nothing less than a young and vibrant United States. Today the settlers vary in their politics. Some are old leftists, the secular holdouts of the kibbutzim. Others are religious idealists, fulfilling what they see as their own manifest destiny. What they share is a spirit for Zionism, the civic virtue that has propelled this nation, despite its conflicts and divisions, to astonishing heights in under a century.

For anyone who doubts the strategic necessity of the Golan to Israel, just visit the old Jewish settlements clinging to the hillsides to the west of the Jordan River. Before 1967, the Syrian border ran right in front of them, straight down the middle of the Hula Valley. The line split the region in two and placed Israeli villagers within sniper range of the militarized Syrian positions overshadowing their settlements from the east.

As it is, the region can still be besieged by rocket fire from Lebanon and was under heavy bombardment as recently as 2006. At the time, Hizballah was firebombing Israel with over 200 rockets a day. Israel’s aerial fire brigade flew out of Maḥanayim airfield, just down the hill from our bed-and-breakfast in Rosh Pina.

New Ben & Jerry’s Limited-Edition Flavor for Lab B’Omer in Israel

Israeli ice cream lovers, rejoice!

Ben & Jerry’s Israel has announced it will offer a brand-new flavor – in a limited edition – for the upcoming Lag B’Omer holiday.

The new flavor, “S’mores” will reprise the long-beloved sweet, created annually by countless children at summer campfires, using sweet crackers, chocolate bars and gooey, roasted marshmallows.

The name “s’mores” is an abbreviation of the phrase “some more.”

The Ben & Jerry’s version – only in Israel and only for the Lag B’Omer holiday, will feature ice cream that combines marshmallow with cookie crumbs, chocolate cookie crumbs and pieces of fudge.

The new flavor will be available in all the Israeli food chains, convenience stores and supermarkets where Ben & Jerry’s is sold.

What the media doesn't tell you about Huwara

The New York Times has an article about how awful things re for residents of Huwara, living with a huge IDF security presence:

Huwara, a town of about 8,000 people, sits on the only major road connecting the West Bank’s north and south, and is traversed regularly by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. That has long put it on the front line of Israel’s expanding settlements in the West Bank, and it is a target of frequent attacks and harassment by settlers driving through.

But on Feb. 26 the violence reached new levels, traumatizing the residents of Huwara and leaving them fearful for their safety, as attacks by settlers surge and Israel’s right-wing government vows to assert greater control over the occupied West Bank.

That day, two settlers were shot and killed by a suspected Palestinian gunman as they drove through Huwara, prompting an angry mob of hundreds of Israelis from the hillside settlements to rampage through the town and neighboring villages, throwing rocks and burning homes, businesses and vehicles. In the wake of the attack, in which a Palestinian man was killed, the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, called for Huwara to be “erased” by the state.

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers are now deployed on its streets, occasionally shutting roads and intersections, forcing businesses along the main road to close and seizing rooftops and entire buildings.

While I'm not at all excusing the violence done by settlers there, the article spends 95% of its time discussing the response to a double murder in Huwara and very little about the terrorism that prompted the response.

Reading the article, one gets the impression that there is a major road passing through Huwara. Looking at Google Maps, one gets the same impression of a highway slicing a corner of the town:

Photos from this "major road" show the reality: a crowded, car-filled road where Jewish drivers can be easily stopped in traffic and become sitting ducks for any angry Palestinian with a gun.

And there are hundreds of angry Jew-hating Palestinians with guns.

Of course the army has to be there. There is no other way to secure the non-Arab population that pass through the area. And, last I checked, Jews still have human rights not to be murdered, even by Palestinians.

Even "settlers."

Instead of balancing the stories of two populations in fear, the NYT - as it virtually always does - humanizes the Palestinians and positions the Israelis as faceless, inhuman aggressors.

The dangers of driving through Huwara have been known for a while. To reduce friction, since 2019, Israel has been building a bypass road specifically to avoid this problem.

This is a sign advertising the upcoming bypass road:

It says that the project is expected to be completed by...February, 2023. It is now scheduled for completion in March 2024.

The Yaniv brothers were murdered on February 26.

If this bypass road had been completed, not only would the Yanivs be alive - but the Palestinians in Huwara would not be living in fear of the IDF and angry Jewish residents looking for revenge.

Wouldn't that be a win-win?

The New York Times would never publish that information - because the road makes life more livable for "settlers." The NYT would rather see Jews (and Palestinians) killed and radicalized than help entrench the "occupation." They want to see 700,000 Jews being forced out of their homes as the highest moral imperative.

So even though this bypass road would have saved lives, it is a Bad Thing that must not be discussed until there is an angle found to say that it hurts other Palestinians somehow. In fact, I predict that by 2025 there will be articles in the mainstream media about how awful the bypass is for some random person who is inconvenienced by it - and not a word about the lives it is likely to save.

(h/t YMedad)

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!

Gozer Begs Enlil Not To Be Sent As Marshmallow Man To Israel On Lag BaOmer (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Nippur, Sumeria, April 20 - A Mesopotamian deity known as "The Destructor" beseeched his superior in the pantheon to remain away from the Jewish State despite a mission tasking him with a visit there this coming May 8-9, having discovered what happens across the country to the constituent material of the god's "Traveler" form on the corresponding Hebrew date every year.

Supernal witnesses described a fearful, contrite, yet determined Gozer the Gozerian pleading his case again today before Enlil, who sits atop the Sumerian divine assemblage. Gozer assumed his Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man form for the encounter, to drive home the danger to him at time when every open space in Israel is expected to feature multiple bonfires, some large enough to reduce the god's entire physical essence to gooey, caramelized deliciousness.

"My Lord," implored Gozer, "I must importune His Divine Supremacy to reschedule the visit to the of the land of Canaan. His Excellency no doubt can see that the inhabitants of that barbaric locale have a festival during which it has become customary to build enormous fires and roast marshmallows. Venturing into such an environment on that day will pose a serious hazard to the success of my mission, and I humbly request to postpone or suspend it until the flames subside."

Gozer referred to the festival of Lag BaOmer, the thirty-third day of the Omer period from Passover to Shavuot. Scattered ancient and medieval Jewish sources discuss the significance of the day; over the centuries it has evolved into a celebration, using fire as a sign of spiritual and intellectual illumination, of the reestablishment of Torah education following the devastation of losing an entire generation of scholars during the second century CE.

Without the religious overtones, secular Israelis have embraced Lag BaOmer as a cultural phenomenon and an expression of pride at the final show of robust Jewish military prowess and resistance - the Bar Kokhba Revolt - before the reassertion of Jewish sovereignty in the land in the twentieth century, and therefore more in line with Zionist sensibilities regarding independence, assertive national pride, and self-defense that they contrasted with the "typical" Diaspora submissiveness of Jews in the intervening millennia.

Enlil appeared unmoved by Gozer's petition. "You show unbecoming weakness," the elder god declared. "If you cannot complete this mission, I will assign it to someone more worthy. Summon 'Uggatg'bhina, the god of cheesecake, and tell him I expect him to visit Canaan on the twenty-sixth of May!"

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!

04/20 Links Pt1: Over 100 rights groups lobby UN to not adopt IHRA antisemitism definition; UN Instructs PA to Take Responsibility for Israelis Held by Hamas in Gaza

From Ian:

Iron Dome Is Not Enough to Make Israel Safe

News of attacks against Israel and retaliatory airstrikes seem as common as the news of mass shootings in the U.S.

Since the early 2000s, Israel - in close cooperation with the U.S. - has developed perhaps the most impressive counter-missile defense system in the world: Iron Dome.

Yet Iron Dome, like any defensive system, has its limits.

Unlike past flareups between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the most recent attacks have come from Lebanon and Syria.

These areas are controlled by Hizbullah, whose 150,000 missiles represent a fundamentally different security challenge than that posed by Hamas.

This capacity enables Hizbullah to threaten Israel with a missile campaign that would rapidly overwhelm Iron Dome and necessitate prioritizing the protection of vital infrastructure at the expense of civilian exposure.

U.S. support for Israel's military readiness is critically important to ensure the protection of Israel from missile attacks and enable precise and decisive action in self-defense.

Supporting Israel's ability to defend itself from the threats from all sides should be a source of unity for Americans.

41 Senators Back Joint U.S.-Israel Missile Defense Programs

Forty-one senators from both parties have signed onto a letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, offering support for full funding — $500 million — for joint U.S.-Israel missile defense programs, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow and counter-drone programs, in 2024.

The letter, sent last week to Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee and the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, is organized annually by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Mike Rounds (R-SD).

The $500 million is guaranteed annually by the 2016 U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding and was codified into law by Congress, but must be appropriated by Congress annually.

The letter — the text of which is identical to the one sent last year — highlights the critical role of joint missile-defense programs in defending Israel, as well as the importance of counter-drone programs to defending both Israel and U.S. service members from attacks by Iran and its proxies.

The communique was signed by 41 senators, three fewer than the 2022 letter, including 32 Democrats and nine Republicans. Signatories include Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Ted Budd (R-NC), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Bob Casey (D-PA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Fetterman (D-PA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), James Lankford (R-OK), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Rick Scott (R-FL), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), Tina Smith (D-MN), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), John Thune (R-SD), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Mark Warner (D-VA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

A Gillibrand spokesperson told JI that there was a shorter turnaround time for lawmakers to sign onto the letter this year in light of tighter deadlines from the Appropriations Committee.

Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Steve Daines (R-MT), Todd Young (R-IN), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Deb Fischer (R-NE), who signed last year’s letter, did not join this year.

Over 100 rights groups lobby UN to not adopt IHRA antisemitism definition

Over 100 human and civil rights organizations have signed a letter urging the United Nations not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, warning it could impact freedom of speech and curtail criticism of Israel, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

Adoption of the IHRA definition has been a key demand by mainstream Jewish groups of governments and organizations around the world.

The letter was first sent to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on April 3 with 60 signatures and since then dozens more have added their names to it, HRW said in a statement, putting the current total at 104.

“We strongly urge the UN not to endorse the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” the letter read. “We look forward to assisting the UN’s efforts to combat antisemitism in a way that respects, protects and promotes human rights.”

It claims that the IHRA definition “has often been used to wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitic, and thus chill and sometimes suppress non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism, including in the US and Europe.”

While the letter urges governments and world leaders to combat antisemitism, it warns against action that may “inadvertently embolden or endorse policies and laws that undermine fundamental human rights, including the right to speak and organize in favor of Palestinian rights and to criticize Israeli government policies.”

It highlighted two examples of contemporary antisemitism that are attached to the IHRA definition as being problematic.

The first is “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination; e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” and the second is “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Human rights orgs like @hrwatch actively fighting to limit what counts as antisemitism is precisely why they are frequently accused of #antisemitism.

Oh, and @OmarSShakir? You advocate for a movement that calls for the end of a Jewish State. Maybe sit this one out… https://t.co/4Lrm8NmGPC
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 20, 2023

UN Watch: Murderous Dictatorships Exposed at UN Human Rights Council

Russia, Pakistan, China, Iran and Cuba spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council to reiterate their commitment to promoting and protecting human rights. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer then took the floor to call out the murderous dictatorships and repressive regimes who told shameless lies.

More Muslims visited Al Aqsa this Ramadan - under Israeli control - than any time in history

Al Quds reports:

The Director General of the Islamic Endowments Department in Jerusalem, Azzam Al-Khatib , said, "More than 4 million worshipers visited Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan , despite the restrictions and restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities."

Al-Khatib added in a statement: "This number is unprecedented compared to previous years, as the Waqf managed things very well."

This means that under Israeli control, more Muslims have visited Judaism's holiest spot this Ramadan than ever in history.

But as the article goes on to say, there were restrictions:

It is noteworthy that the Israeli occupation authorities prevented, during the month of Ramadan, male residents of the occupied West Bank, between 12-55 years old, from accessing Al-Aqsa Mosque, while only allowing dozens of residents of the Gaza Strip to reach the mosque to perform prayers.

Despite this, thousands of young men were able to bypass The Israeli Forces checkpoints to reach the mosque, especially in the last ten days of the month of Ramadan, to perform i'tikaaf.

This is not quite accurate - men from 45-55 could go to Jerusalem but only with a permit.

AP reports about some of the thousands of young men who sneaked into Israel:

Others found riskier ways to get to the holy compound — scrambling over Israel’s hulking separation barrier or sliding under razor wire.

Abdallah, a young medical student from the southern city of Hebron, clambered up a rickety ladder with six of his friends in the pre-dawn darkness Monday — then slid down a rope on the wall’s other side — so he could make it to Al-Aqsa for Laylat al-Qadr. They paid a smuggler some $70 each to help them scale the barrier.

“My heart was beating so loud. I was sure soldiers would hear it,” Abdallah said, giving only his first name for fear of reprisals.

The Israeli military has picked up hundreds of Palestinians who sneaked through holes in the separation barrier during Ramadan, it said, adding that forces would “continue to act against the security risk arising from the destruction of the security fence and illegal entry.”

Photos from the prayers show plenty of men under 45 who managed to get in.

Which is frightening: if thousands can reach Israel for Ramadan, it means that terrorists can reach Israel for murder.

The articles might emphasize how much the restrictions inconvenience West Bank Palestinians, but there are daily attempts to murder Jews, all catalogued and counted by Palestinian terror supporters - shootings and firebombs and attempted stabbings and car rammings.

The security barrier slows down the terrorists but does not stop them.

Israel tries to balance Palestinian right to worship against the Israelis' right not to be killed. And most of the media simply ignores the second half of that equation.

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!

English language Iranian media has a long tradition of publishing

classically antisemitic articles under the guise of op-eds by Westerners, who are often American white supremacists. This gives them the ability to spread Jew hatred while claiming that they are only practicing freedom of speech and that Iran itself has no problem with Jews.

Today's example is a little different. Instead of publishing antisemitism from neo-Nazis, this Holocaust denial article was written by Dr. Sabir Abu Maryam, Secretary General of Palestine Foundation Pakistan.

The illustration is one of the entries in Iran's Holocaust Cartoon Contest showing a Jew sweeping the rubble of the Jerusalem he is destroying under a rug labeled "Holocast" [sic.]

It is pretty clear that this "pro-Palestinian activist" calls all Jews in history "Zionist" to avoid being called antisemitic:

The Holocaust refers to those people belonging to the Jewish religion, about whom the Zionists have propagated to the world on the basis of lies and deception that they were brutally murdered by the German Nazis between the years 1933 and 1945.

Zionists called the Nazi killing of Jews a systematic state-sponsored massacre, and hence it is now referred to as the "Holocaust."

The Zionists, who were responsible for starting the First World War in the world, have always made efforts to destabilize governments through riots in different countries around the world. The fall of the Ottoman Caliphate was also an example of the Zionist rebellion.

After the First World War, there was a number of Jews in Germany. In the First World War, Germany had to suffer a lot, which was actually the Zionist movement under the guise of which the First World War was started. In fact, the Zionists wanted to burn the world in the fire of war and implement the plan of occupying Palestine only so that their influence in the future region would be established.

But just to hedge his bets, Maryam says that if there was a Holocaust, it was a Zionist plot: "In fact, the Zionists had a hand in killing the Jews. Zionism was behind the holocaust."

Iran insists that it is not anti-Jew. The regime's own actions prove otherwise. But even more so, its media - whether state-run or merely aligned with the state, as the Tehran Times is - is unabashedly antisemitic.

While the world roundly condemned former Iranian president Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, this explicit Jew-hatred in Iranian media today gets ignored. But it is there and it is systemic.

In this case, the link between "pro-Palestinian" and antisemitic is as clear as can be.

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!

Times of Israel reports:

An Israeli bus driver reported coming under fire near the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank on Wednesday night, with medics clarifying that no one was injured in the incident.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was investigating the attack. Over the past year, several buses have come under fire by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank.

According to the Samaria Regional Council, the bus was fired at while driving between the settlement of Migdalim and the Tapuah Junction. It was unclear if there were any passengers on the bus at the time.

Images from the scene showed several bullet holes on the bus’s body, including one that penetrated through, next to a passenger seat.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that events like this do not get much attention in Western media - because no one was injured or killed. The outrageousness that a bus going through its route can be routinely shot at by Palestinians, and it requires bullet proofing to protect its passengers, is simply part of the landscape for Israelis.

But while western media ignores this story as not being newsworthy, and Israeli media reports it but shrugs it off, Arabic media is making this into a big story.

Quds News celebrated that "the resistance has renewed targeting the settlement presence in the Nablus countryside through shooting operations, this evening."

Hezbollah media published it as a breaking story. Yemen news media reported on it.

It was the top story in the Safa Palestinian Press Agency site.

It was also the top story in the Hamas terrorist Al Qassam website.

A few hours after the incident, a group calling itself the "Dawn Brigade" claimed responsibility for shooting at the "settler bus."

This is normally how the pro-Palestinian Arabic media reacts to murdering Jews. So why so much attention to this story where no one was even grazed?

Because above all, the Palestinians want to feel relevant. They need to feel important. Like a toddler who throws a tantrum, or like a third grader who acts up in class to get the teacher's attention, they hate being ignored more than anything else.

While the Saudis are playing geopolitical chess with the major players in the Muslim world (and with Israel,) the Palestinians are relegated to being treated like an old story that has no chance for resolution. They used to be on the front pages - dramatic airplane hijackings, bus bombings, massacres of rabbis at prayer. But the Arab world has been losing interest in their story and that is painful.

It isn't only this story. Any time that they prompt big Israel to react - whether it is forcing a closing of a checkpoint, or a change in defense policy, or the IDF firing back at shooters - it is a major story in Palestinian Arab media. They slavishly follow Israeli media to see if they are mentioned.

The easiest way to get Israel's attention is violence.

They have forced the Israeli adults to notice them. And this is gratifying for a group of people who are starved to feel like they are important.

According to psychologists, attention-seeking behavior can have a number of causes, usually low self-esteem. But another major cause is mental illness - histrionic personality disorder, whose symptoms include:

A “dramatic” or theatrical personality
Always craves the spotlight and needs to be the center of attention
Makes impulsive decisions
Lacks empathy and doesn’t usually show care for others
Is moody and emotional
Gets uncomfortable when attention is shifted away from them
Needs constant stimulation and validation
May be unable to maintain meaningful relationships

These sure sound like the terror-supporting Palestinians quoted constantly in Palestinian media. They threaten World War III if Israel does something they don't like; they hate when a major world event takes attention they feel should be theirs and they often try to hijack whatever the current popular craze is (like global warming or the Ukraine war), even as they pretend to be partners with Black Lives Matter it is only to take the spotlight and not to offer an iota of support, and when things are too quiet they feel compelled to start new terror waves.

The world already treats Palestinians like the eccentric uncle at a Thanksgiving meal - placating them in the hope that they won't turn violent, but showing no real respect because they have never earned any respect.

Perhaps the fastest way to reach peace is to treat the Palestinians as suffering from mass psychosis, and treating that.

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!

04/19 Links Pt2: Irwin Cotler: Yom HaShoah: The imperative to remember, the call to act; Islamist antisemitism in the US masked by alliance with far left – study

From Ian:

Irwin Cotler: Yom HaShoah: The imperative to remember, the call to act

This year’s Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day is a particularly poignant historical moment of remembrance and reminder, of bearing witness, of learning and acting upon the universal lessons of history and the Holocaust.

I write in the aftermath of the 90th anniversary of the establishment in 1933 by the Democratic Government of Germany of the infamous Dachau concentration camp – the forerunner of the deportation to Dachau of thousands during Kristallnacht – reminding us that antisemitism is toxic to democracy, an assault on our common humanity, and as we’ve learned only too painfully and too well that while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews.

I write also in the aftermath of the oft-ignored (if it is even known at all) 81st anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, convened by the Nazi leadership to address “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This blueprint for the annihilation of European Jewry was met with indifference and inaction from the international bystander community.

I write also on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the most heroic Jewish and civilian uprising during the Holocaust, which followed the deportation of 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the death camp Auschwitz-Treblinka in 1942. There is a straight line between Wannsee and Warsaw; between the indifference of one and the courage of the other.

I write also amidst the international drumbeat of evil, reflected in the unprovoked and criminal Russian invasion and aggression in Ukraine, underpinned by war crimes, crimes against humanity, and incitement to genocide, which is a stand-alone crime under the genocide convention; the increasing assaults by China on the rules-based international order, including mass atrocities targeting the Uighurs, which are constitutive of acts of genocide; the Iranian regime’s brutal and massive repression of the Iranian people’s “Women, Life, Freedom” human rights revolution; the mass atrocities targeting the Rohingya, Afghans and Ethiopians; and the increasing imprisonment of human rights defenders such as Russian patriot and human rights hero Vladimir Kara-Murza – a critic of the invasion of Ukraine who embodies the struggle for freedom and – sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison for telling the truth. A re-enactment of the Stalinist dictum of “give us the person and we will find the crime.”

And I write also amidst an unprecedented global resurgence of antisemitic acts, incitement, and terror – of antisemitism as the oldest, longest, most enduring, and most dangerous of hatreds; a virus that mutates and metastasizes over time, but which is grounded in one foundational, historical, generic, antisemitic, conspiratorial trope: namely, that Jews, the Jewish people, and Israel are the enemy of all that is good and the embodiment of all that is evil, regardless of what moment in time we are experiencing or living in.

And so at this important historical inflection moment, we should ask ourselves, what have we learned in the last 80 years, and more importantly what must we do?

Antisemites are those who hate Israel, not those who love it

Presidential contenders are often tempting targets for extremist protestors. A disruption of a speech or campaign event guarantees media coverage and attention for their causes. So, it was hardly a surprise that an appearance by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire was targeted by a group of left-wing activists.

However, the kerfuffle caused by the storming of the stage at a Republican fundraiser during a DeSantis speech by members of the IfNotNow group was noteworthy for more than just the publicity it generated for them. The group’s targeting of the governor is in line with the desire of most Democrats to discredit him as a more formidable potential opponent in 2024 while, ironically, seeking to bolster the prospects of former President Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination.

Yet more important than the tactical games that partisans are playing in the months prior to the beginning of the presidential campaign season is the way IfNotNow’s stunt also echoes a general trend being employed by far more influential players on the Jewish left. It involves an effort to discredit those conservatives who are actually great friends of the Jewish people with false charges of antisemitism. At the same time, the same forces are attempting to portray those who are actually seeking to do harm to Jews or aiding those who do so, such as billionaire philanthropist George Soros, as victims of antisemitic incitement.

IfNotNow should count the investment it made in purchasing tickets to the Republican dinner as money well spent. The subsequent coverage in various media outlets gave their smears of DeSantis more attention than they deserved and allowed liberal journalists to mischaracterize its purpose.

The organization’s members chanted “Jews against DeSantis” and held up a sign proclaiming that DeSantis “Loves Israel, Hates Jews.” In tweets in which they boasted of the incident, the group spoke of the governor as someone who was a supporter of “apartheid Israel,” as well as an ally of antisemitic Christian nationalists and Nazis. For good measure, it also linked him to the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby, which it considers to be tainted by its willingness to embrace supporters of the Jewish state in both major parties.

Islamist antisemitism in the US masked by alliance with far left – study

As antisemitic attacks continue to rise in the United States, a growing alliance with far-left organizations has shielded US Islamist groups from scrutiny of their antisemitic statements and ideas, a study by an Israeli think tank warned.

“US Islamist groups and leaders have increasingly sought common cause with progressive left-wing groups that promote minority rights and intersectionality among racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in their efforts to build coalitions around common interests,” charged Yehudit Barsky and Ehud Rosen, authors of the Institute for National Security Studies report “Islamist Antisemitism in the United States,” set to be published Tuesday.

The “red-green” coalition is based on a narrative that portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an anticolonial struggle, and US Muslims as victims of racism on par with other marginalized minorities in the US, said the INSS study.

The alliance also seeks to delegitimize Jewish communal organizations, according to Barsky and Rosen, by portraying them as part of a white power structure in the US that is ineligible for inclusion in progressive coalitions.

“Within these coalitions,” charged the study, “US Islamists have sought to boycott and delegitimize progressive Zionists and supporters of Israel, deeming them as oppressors and illegitimate participants.”

Barsky is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and Rosen is a team member of the INSS’s project on Contemporary Antisemitism in the United States.

The study is the latest installment in an ongoing INSS series on antisemitism in the US.

Leading Islamist organizations like American Muslims for Palestine and the Council on American Islamic Relations, the authors argued, seek to challenge the right of mainstream Jewish and pro-Israel organizations to define antisemitism and to call themselves civil rights organizations. A campaign against the Anti-Defamation League, the leading antisemitism watchdog, called it a “silencer of free speech” and promoter of Islamophobia, and pushed for other civil rights organizations to boycott it.

The authors warned that over time, fringe antisemitic beliefs could become increasingly mainstreamed if these organizations are not challenged.

I want to talk about Noa Tishby. But not for too long. Because she doesn’t deserve that much attention and her story doesn’t deserve that much air.

Noa Tishby is an actress who used an official platform, granted her by an Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, to blacken the name of the State of Israel in the public sphere. She did so by writing a damning, nay treasonous article about the Netanyahu government in Ynet.

From the JNS:

Last month, Tishby wrote in a Hebrew-language article in Ynet of the reform initiative, “I will say it in the sharpest and clearest way: Diaspora Jewry and Israel’s supporters in the world are shocked. They are shocked.

“With great pain they look and see how the country they fiercely defended—in Congress, in the media, on the networks or in front of foreign—is changing its face.” This is “not a reform, but a coup,” she added.

Noa Tishby is entitled to her opinions, but not to air them. Because her appointment as “first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization” was to a diplomatic position. She was/is supposed to be speaking well of the democratically elected government of the Jewish State not only for the duration of her tenure as envoy, but forever after. Once a diplomat, always a diplomat. To be or do anything else is more than just bad form—it’s to betray your country and your mission, and show yourself a fraud.

She was always a fraud. A “defender” who hands the world moral permission on a platter to engage in “legitimate criticism of Israel” thus giving license to legions of antisemites to bash Israel. And if everyone can bash Israel, why shouldn’t she, Noa Tishby, in her capacity as “first-ever Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization?”

When I heard that she spoke out against judicial reform, calling it a “coup,” I said to myself, alone in the privacy of my bedroom, “FIRE. HER. A**.”

And that’s exactly what Netanyahu did. He fired an actress (Noa Tishby) who had been appointed by a high school dropout (Yair Lapid) to defend the State of Israel and the Jews.

Dear Friends,

It is with disappointment and sadness, but an enduring determination, that I can confirm that the current Israeli government has dismissed me as Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and the Delegitimization of Israel.

It is not possible for me to know if their… pic.twitter.com/Yt4c7v5str
— (((noa tishby))) (@noatishby) April 2, 2023

Yes, it was a tall order and no. Noa Tishby couldn’t do it. She’s an actress. Not a trained diplomat. Not some great thinker—no matter how hard the Lapid government tried to rebrand her as a “thought-leader.”

To be fair, the former envoy isn’t “just” an actress. Noa Tishby is also (if one might legitimately criticize her—it’s just an opinion, that's okay, right?) a traitor, a sell-out, and a latter-day version of Benedict Arnold. Only Jewish.

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!

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!

04/19 Links Pt1: Francesca Albanese must be fired from the UN; Biden Has Abandoned the Middle East to China and Russia; Have a date with a terrorist

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Francesca Albanese must be fired from the UN

As deadly Palestinian terrorism against Israelis continues unabated, some have tried to justify the attacks – and some have gone even further.

In a stunning exercise in victim blaming, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has denied that the country has the right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism.

“Israel has a right to defend itself, but can’t claim it when it comes to the people it oppresses [or] whose land it colonizes,” she tweeted on April 8.

Her grotesque tweet came in the wake of the murder of a British-Israeli mother and her two daughters. Lucy, 48, Maia, 20 and Rina Dee, 15, were killed in a shooting attack near the Hamra Junction in the Jordan Valley as they drove to Tiberias on April 7 during the Passover holiday. Later the same day, a 35-year-old Italian tourist, Alessandro Parini, was murdered in a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv.

Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli on Friday called for Albanese’s dismissal. In his letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. Volker Türk, Chikli wrote that the UN “is failing to uphold its own commitment to protect fundamental human rights for all and to apply equal treatment of all its member states by allowing Ms. Albanese to continue to spew hatred, antisemitism and incite violence.”

Far from apologizing, however, Albanese doubled down. Referring to the biblical imperative Chikli had mentioned in his letter, she responded in a sneering tweet: “I wonder how the 3,000-year-old ‘moral responsibility not to kill’ can be reconciled with the thousands of Palestinians killed since 2007 in oPt [“Occupied Palestinian Territory],” citing figures that included terrorists killed during wars in Gaza since 2008.

As Chikli noted in his letter, Albanese’s “reprehensible, irresponsible and terror-inciting remarks called into question Israel’s very right to defend the lives of its citizens” and “explicitly denies the right to life and personal security of many Jewish citizens of the State of Israel.”

Albanese violates the UN Code of Conduct for Special Rapporteurs and indeed the basic principles of human rights upon which the United Nations was founded.

This wasn’t the first time that she had openly supported Palestinian “resistance” and engaged in rhetoric viewed as antisemitic.

Fiamma Nirenstein: The UN’s top Israel-hater

It is sad that Ca’ Foscari University of Venice chose Holocaust Remembrance Day to celebrate—complete with coquettish photos and media rejoicing—an event featuring Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For me, it is also a pity that this notoriously anti-Israel official happens to be Italian.

The ideology that led to the extermination of European Jewry clearly resonated at Ca’ Foscari, given that the delegitimization and criminalization of Jewish existence today is generally disguised as the “damnatio” of the State of Israel.

This new guise of the old hatred portrays Israel as a colonialist, apartheid state unworthy of life, and Albanese is unquestionably one of the haters. She harbors no misgivings on this score, which shames not only the U.N. but also her home country.

Some have pushed back. Italian Senator Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata has called for Albanese’s removal. So has the International Legal forum, a global network of more than 4,000 lawyers and activists who are committed to combatting antisemitism, advancing human rights and promoting peace in the Middle East. Across the pond, a bipartisan group of U.S. congresspeople has urged her replacement. The address for these demands is Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who has thus far done nothing.

This isn’t surprising. The U.N.’s automatic antisemitic majority makes it a hotbed for Israel-hatred and funds for the Palestinians, who use the money to promote terrorism and hate speech. But Albanese takes this hate to another level. She stated unequivocally that Israel has no right to self-defense even as Palestinian terrorists killed Italian lawyer Alessandro Parini and young sisters Rina and Maya Dee, along with their mother Lucy, as well as numerous other innocents over the past several months.

Albanese has a long and ugly history of such behavior. She was involved in various BDS initiatives and called terror suspects “human rights defenders.” She has compared the Palestinians’ “Nakba” to the Holocaust—a stunningly inaccurate and offensive comparison. She equated Hamas in Gaza with the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto and wrote that Europe and the U.S. have been subjugated “by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust and by the Jewish Lobby.”

MEMRI: Clarification re: Even the Nazis didn’t pay a reward for murdering Jews

We sincerely apologize that the headline of yesterday’s report was not sufficiently clear and exact. Many of our readers have pointed out that PMW’s headline yesterday - Even the Nazis didn’t pay a reward for murdering Jews - was imprecise and requires clarification.

Certainly, during the Holocaust the Nazis did indeed pay rewards of various kinds for the murder or even tracking down of Jews. However, our intention was to highlight the singular methodical nature of the Palestinian Authority’s terror reward policy, which is also entrenched in PA law.

The Nazis did not adopt a law or practice guaranteeing a lifetime payment to any person who murdered a Jew or to the families of those who murdered a Jew, if the murderer died while murdering/trying to murder Jews.

In contrast, in 2004, the PA legislated the Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners. This law guarantees a monthly salary to every Palestinian terrorist, including murderers, arrested by Israel. The salary is paid to all terrorists, irrespective of the terrorist’s terror-group affiliation and rises with time spent in prison. Murderers sentenced to life in prison receive the PA salary for their entire life. Released terrorists - including the murderers - continue receiving a payment from the PA, commensurate to their time in prison.

Alongside the payments to the terrorist prisoners and released terrorists, the PA also entirely funds the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Institute for the Martyrs, which guarantees a lifelong payment, inter alia, to the families of terrorists who died while murdering/trying to murder Jews, such as suicide bombers.

The high lifetime financial rewards passed into law by the PA and called a “monthly salary”, is in a class by itself.