Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

TEN - count 'em, TEN - cartoons!

Sometimes I can get the message across in a cartoon or meme far better than I can in an article.

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Palestine is a climate justice issue!

Israel haters have been trying to say that Israel is guilty of every social justice crime there is. +972 describes the logic behind this, without any sense of irony:

Across the world, climate movements are firmly rooted on the political, social, and economic left. Their campaigning and advocacy make connections with struggles for democracy, social justice, and human rights, and speak out against racism, discrimination, nationalism, and neoliberalism. Not merely content with demanding a change in environmental policies, the global climate justice movement seeks to change economic power structures and liberate all living beings from all forms of oppression, violence, and dispossession.

In other words, the environment is not really as important as they say, and it is an excuse to attack The Wrong Side no matter how far afield from the environment the charges are.

A webinar last November was even more absurd:

For Palestinians, climate change is not just a natural phenomenon, but a political one.
Israel‘s regime of occupation and apartheid, which denies Palestinians the right to manage their land and resources, greatly heightens the impact of the climate crisis for Palestinians, making them more vulnerable to all climate-related conditions

Today, after a century of unbridled colonialism, the historically green and fertile land of Palestine has lost much of what it once offered the world, and environmental conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly.

Really? Palestine was a green land a hundred years ago and is now an ecological disaster? Somehow the many pilgrims that visited missed this.

But the biggest hypocrisy is that these people make no demands on Palestinians themselves to be environmentalists - no initiatives I've seen to teach them to not waste water or not burn tires in protests.

Or not shoot incendiary devices towards fields.

From Times of Israel:

A fire is spreading near the southern Israeli town of Ibim, apparently as a result of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip earlier.

This is the sort of thing faux environmentalists would be in the forefront of blaming Israel for if Israel had started the fires, even inadvertently.

If you don't care about the environment when it is being ruined by "Palestinian resistance," you don't care about the environment.

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

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05/02 Links Pt1: Military Aid to Israel Offers Valuable Returns; Al Sharpton said to be appalled by Palestinian pay-for-slay policy; Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, 7 civilians wounded

From Ian:

Military Aid to Israel Offers Valuable Returns

As we commemorate Israel's 75th birthday and the longstanding friendship between the United States and the Jewish State, we must reassert our bond—and spurn efforts to diminish it, as cooperation between both nations safeguards Israel from the destruction of war, maintains regional stability, protects vital American strategic interests, and ultimately saves countless lives. This partnership is now being threatened by a few fringe members of Congress calling on President Biden to restrict military aid to Israel.

The benefits of U.S. military aid to Israel are well known and well documented. Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, the U.S. has allocated over $150 billion in military and economic aid to Israel. American support helped Israel develop a strong military that can repel a variety of attacks from terrorism, ballistic missiles, and the many other dangers menacing Israel's borders. U.S. assistance also enables Israel to maintain its qualitative military edge over adversaries such as Iran, ensuring that it can defend itself effectively against any global threat.

U.S. military aid to Israel is not simply about Israel's defense—it also serves critical and undeniable American national security interests. Israel is a key ally in an important region. Our military partnership enables the U.S. to maintain an active presence without having to deploy U.S. troops and potentially put Americans in harm's way. Israel's thriving defense industry produces cutting-edge military technologies, such as the Iron Dome missile defense system, which has saved thousands of lives. Military aid to Israel also contributes to new scientific innovations that benefit the entire world, including the development of breakthrough medical devices and water-conservation technologies.

Additionally, more than 75 percent of security assistance provided to Israel is spent in the United States. This spending boosts the U.S. economy and helps support thousands of high-quality American jobs across the country.

Efforts to cut or condition military aid to Israel would have lasting and disastrous implications for Israel's ability to defend civilians from existential threats. Moreover, such proposals are far too often fodder for those who viscerally oppose the very existence of Israel, the world's only Jewish State, as well as those who hide their antisemitism behind the fig-leaf of anti-Zionism. Cutting military aid not only lessens Israel's ability and readiness to defend itself, but also, intentionally, or otherwise, incentivizes those who seek to do harm to the prospects of a lasting peace in the region.

EU promises funding won’t go to PA textbooks inciting against Israel

The European Union will make sure it is not funding Palestinian textbooks that incite against Israel, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi told Foreign Minister Eli Cohen in Brussels on Tuesday.

“Israel does not oppose aid to the Palestinian Authority, but we will not allow a situation in which those funds indirectly fund terrorism or incitement against Israel,” Cohen said.

Várhelyi also promised the EU will fund additional research on incitement and antisemitism in Palestinian Authority textbooks, following a previous paper on the topic from 2019, Cohen’s office said.

In addition, the senior EU official and foreign minister agreed to work together to strengthen and expand the Abraham Accords, forged between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco in 2020.

Israel and the EU also plan to work together on sweeping mines in Ukraine.

Cohen also met with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who backed a resolution passed in January calling on the European Council and member states to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the EU terrorist list, banning financial activity related to the IRGC and its affiliates. Cohen and Metsola discussed ways to turn the resolution into action.

“The Iranian regime threatens the Middle East and the Western world,” Cohen said. “European states understand the Iranian threat today more than ever and see eye-to-eye with Israel on the need to fight the terrorism that the Iranian regime leads and funds.”

Al Sharpton said to be appalled by Palestinian pay-for-slay policy

It was an unlikely image, to say the least. Rev. Al Sharpton tweeted a photo of himself last week with Mort Klein, national president of the Zionist Organization of America.

Much of the Jewish community has long considered Sharpton antisemitic for his incendiary rhetoric, accusing him of inciting violence against Jews back in 1991 in Brooklyn, N.Y., as part of the Crown Heights riots. He has expressed regrets about such actions in recent years, which some take as genuine remorse, though others think that he is more focused on rehabilitating his reputation.

Sharpton expressed support of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in 2019, calling it “inexcusable” that Israel banned the congresswoman, who has a history of antisemitic statements, from entry the country that summer. And as recently as 2020, Klein said that the Anti-Defamation League head should not go on Sharpton’s MSNBC program, “PoliticsNation.”

Klein told JNS that he received a call from Sharpton’s National Action Network offices, looking to set up a get-together.

“A couple of his board members told Sharpton, ‘You should meet with a guy who fights for his people just as strong as you fight for the blacks,’ ” said Klein. “I figured if I can have a relationship with him that will help our Jewish people and Israel, I’ll do it.”

There was no preset agenda for the initial 90-minute meeting, according to Klein. Sharpton has tweeted that the meeting included Howard Teich and Michael Hardy, board member and general counsel, respectively, of National Action Network.

Klein told JNS that he sought to make common cause with civil-rights activist Sharpton, discussing his upbringing in a majority-black West Philadelphia neighborhood, as well as a friendship with Ice Cube after the rapper’s own spewing of anti-Jewish sentiment. Sharpton tried to explain his past actions that have been seen as antisemitic and said some were misrepresented in the media, according to Klein.

The American Jewish Yearbook for 1916 described several events about the Kotel that year, all of which were ascribed to Djemal Pasha, the military governor of Syria (which included Palestine) at that time.

JUNE 11 1915. Djemal Pasha examines reports of various Zionist congresses and other Zionist literature, and warns Jewish colonists that despite their success in the past the Government would in future make establishment of colonies more difficult.

JUNE 18 - Djemal Pasha prohibits Jews to pray at the Wailing Wall, because their prayers include plea for the re-establishment of Jewish State.

AUGUST 13. Djemal Pasha announces that the Government has become convinced of the necessity of destroying the entire Jewish colonization work in order that the colonies should not become a danger to the integrity of Turkey.

NOVEMBER 2. Jaffa Hebrew weekly, Hapoel Hazair, reports that Djemal Pasha, commander of Turkish Army, orders barricade to be placed across approach to Wailing Wall, thus preventing Jews from visiting it. Order said to be based on sanitary grounds.

MARCH 3 (1916) . Djemal Pasha offers to give Jews free access to Wailing Wall for from eighty thousand to one hundred thousand francs.

Pasha was a monster, killing Arab leaders right and left, and possibly involved in the Armenian genocide. But I hadn't heard abut restrictions at the Kotel in the 1910s, and notice that he gave different reasons to bar Jews - both because they always pray for Jerusalem to be rebuilt and then the bogus "sanitary reasons," before deciding to shake down the Jews to pay for the privilege of praying there.

I confirmed a couple of these incidents:

This December 1915 article adds that Pasha considered all Jews in Palestine to be spies, and his Turkish authorities stole charity funds intended for impoverished Jews:

Also December 1915:

March 1916 news articles in Jewish newspapers confirmed the desire to charge an exorbitant fee to visit the Kotel in Jerusalem:

100,000 French francs in 1916 was worth about $17,000 US dollars at the time - which is equivalent today to $470,000, a truly exorbitant amount.

I don't see any indication that this was paid. I see photos of Jews at the Kotel in 1917 before the British took over. Either that particular story was a rumor, Djemal Pasha didn't enforce it or somehow an amount was paid quietly.

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Amnesty just released its latest anti-Israel report, "Automated Apartheid: How facial recognition fragments, segregates and controls Palestinians in the OPT."

The 82 page report was conceived from the start to be biased against Israel. This can be seen from just the introduction.

By Checkpoint 56 in H2, a towering barrier features two turnstiles, and at least 24 cameras on the outside. Palestinians rely on passage through the checkpoint to access most, if not all, of goods and services, work, education, family life, and healthcare. It is here where witnesses described coming face to face with a new facial recognition system, Red Wolf, in 2022.

Palestinians are the only racial group of residents in H2 required to use these checkpoints, and the system relies on databases consisting exclusively of Palestinian individuals’ data.

Palestinians are not a racial group. Here Amnesty is apparently again using a definition of "racial discrimination" based on the ICERD definition which explicitly says that its definition does not apply to treating citizens and non-citizens differently. Amnesty's use of the word "racial" here has only one purpose: to assume that Israel's racism as a basis for the report itself.

Similarly:

In Hebron City and East Jerusalem the rights of Palestinians are violated through a range of legal and military measures that help maintain Israel’s system of apartheid over Palestinians.

Amnesty lied about "apartheid" in its earlier reports, and those definitions have been thoroughly debunked. But since Amnesty is more interested in propaganda than accuracy, it now uses the term as if it was a fact and this report is meant to build on that assumption. As a result, any alternative explanations for its findings are discounted or ignored - everything must support the lie that Israel engages in "apartheid" against non-citizens, which is nonsensical, since by that definition every country in the world practices apartheid.

The constant surveillance Palestinians face means they not only live in a state of insecurity, but they are also at risk of arbitrary arrest, interrogation, and detention.

If Palestinians are being arrested or detained based on being identified by surveillance, then by definition the arrests are not arbitrary. Israel is only arresting those people it is looking for; the vast majority of Palestinians pass through the checkpoints with no problem. This is the opposite of arbitrary.

But "arbitrary arrest" sounds so much worse, so Amnesty lies.

Neda, a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, spoke of the impact this oppressive technology has on her daily life: “I’m being watched the whole time…[it] gives me a really bad feeling everywhere in the street. Every time I see a camera, I feel anxious. Like you are always being treated as if you are a target.”

For better or worse, residents of every urban area on Earth have cameras pointing at them all the time. Police can request the video footage from private security cameras, too. There is no fundamental difference between what Neda is describing and what everyone in every city experiences.

This report establishes that facial recognition technologies are providing the Israeli authorities with powerful new tools for curbing freedom of movement – a pre-requisite for the realization of basic rights – adding further layers of technological sophistication to the system of apartheid that Israel is imposing on Palestinians in the OPT. This is achieved via:

• The establishment of compounding technological infrastructure to expand the reach of Israeli authorities’ control. As checkpoints govern the ability of Palestinians in H2––the area of Hebron under military rule by the Israeli Civil Administration––to travel outside their homes, Israel is able to contain Palestinians geographically, using domination by way of military force and surveillance tools such as Red Wolf and Blue Wolf to deter resistance.

Even if you call Israel's presence "occupation," the Geneva Conventions allows great latitude in allowing the occupier to maintain security of both civilians and soldiers. Checkpoints are not illegal. As we will see, the only people that the new technology stops are those who are already wanted.

Palestinians define attacking Jews as "resistance." Deterring resistance is not only legal but an obligation, to normal moral people.

• Surveillance as part of a coercive environment aimed at forcing Palestinians to leave areas of strategic interest to Israeli authorities, by making their ordinary lives unbearable.

Really? Cameras make their lives unbearable? Has a single Palestinian ever moved his family to avoid cameras? This is just another example of how Amnesty makes things up and knows that no one will look too closely at how their supposedly factual assertions are simple lies.

This report is based on field visits to Hebron and East Jerusalem, involving observations, interviews, and the collection of visual evidence, as well as on open-source intelligence and previous reporting. Between May and June 2022, Amnesty International met with Palestinian families, activists, students and experts from across Hebron and East Jerusalem, who were routinely exposed to daily surveillance. In doing so, Amnesty International researchers gathered testimonies and experiences related to the human rights harms associated with the deployment of invasive and wide-reaching remote biometric surveillance technologies, in particular facial recognition.

Given the sensitive nature of the research, risk of leaks, and risks posed to Amnesty researchers, a decision was made from the beginning of the research not to engage directly with Israeli officials.

Meaning, all of Amnesty's "research" involved looking at only one side of the issue. And this was a deliberate decision, not only not to include Israeli officials but not to include any Israelis who might contradict the premise of the report that Israeli is racist.

How can Amnesty claim to be objective when its decides, at the outset, to only look at sources biased in one direction?

Amnesty International issued a right of response letter to the state of Israel on 19 April 2023 but had not received a response at the date of publication.

Amnesty has been working on this report since 2021 - but gives Israel less than two weeks to respond to an 82 page report. One of those weeks includes Remembrance Day and Yom Haatzmaut. Yeah, that's real objective.

Amnesty International has found that facial recognition technology is used extensively by the Israeli authorities to support their continued domination and oppression of Palestinians in the OPT. With a record of discriminatory and inhuman acts that maintain a system of apartheid, the Israeli authorities are able to use facial recognition software – in particular at checkpoints – to consolidate existing practices of discriminatory policing and segregation, violating Palestinians’ basic rights.

Amnesty International is not convinced that the security justifications which Israel cites as the basis for its treatment of Palestinians – including restricting their freedom of movement – justify the severe restrictions that the Israeli authorities have imposed. While some of Israel’s policies may have been designed to promote legitimate security objectives, they have been implemented in a grossly disproportionate and discriminatory way which fails to comply with international law. Other policies have absolutely no reasonable basis in security and are clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate. This includes differential treatment in the occupied territories, supporting the settlement of Jewish Israelis in the OPT, the designation of closed military zones, and the imposition of certain restrictions on movement such as travel bans. Examined in the context of systematic discrimination and oppression, and in the light of the mass human rights violations these policies have entailed, it becomes clear that genuine security considerations, including in the context of the deployment of facial recognition, are not the driving force behind these measures.

There is no way for Amnesty to know any of this without mind-reading capabilities. These aren't conclusions - they are assumptions. Given that the number of terror attacks against Jews has increased dramatically during the time period that Amnesty researched and wrote this report, plus the rise of new terror infrastructure like Lion's Den, these two paragraphs are Amnesty's way of saying Jewish lives don't matter.

Amnesty's position is that any technology to save the lives of Jews and soldiers is disproportionate.

Their "Methodology" section shows more intentional bias by Amnesty:

To design the research project, Amnesty International established an advisory committee in early 2022 consisting of half a dozen researchers at the forefront of research on surveillance in the context of the OPT, with proven track records of scholarship and human rights advocacy in relation to the topic. They included academics, lawyers, campaigners and activists. The advisory committee was crucial in informing the research project, including but not limited to formulating the research questions, identifying potential witnesses and research partners, and addressing ethical and security-related concerns associated with the project.

So the advisory committee included only people who hate Israel. And no distinction was made between the supposed experts and "campaigners and activists." There is not even the pretense of objectivity.

Here is one perfect example of Amnesty's bias. The report relies heavily on testimony from Breaking the Silence, but ignores when their testimony proves that the facial recognition actually makes the lives of Palestinians at checkpoints easier. One BtS report quoted four times says:

You have this system called Red Wolf.

Okay, give more details.
A person arrives and goes through a security check. He gives me his ID. I put it into [the system]. If it goes green on the computer, he goes through a security check and moves on. If it goes yellow, I have to call... Yellow is unidentified, unknown, something like that. There’s this number you call, the division, the DCL (District Coordination and Liaison office, a regional unit of the Civil Administration), and they tell you what to do. And if it’s red, there’s the protocol. You lock down the whole turnstile [at the checkpoint], call to have him picked up because he’s wanted for arrest.

And they come to get him?
Yes.

Would that happen a lot?
No. It never happened. They (the Palestinians) are not idiots. In the end, there are openings that aren’t this checkpoint.

And usually, when there’s a yellow, what would actually happen?
It’s a computer bug. I never really had a yellow. For the most part, they’re all green, or they have no ID, and then you turn them around.

Can this system identify them even without putting in the ID [number]?
Yes. There’s something like ten cameras. Once they arrive and pass through inside, it essentially takes photos, identifies them, to help you as the soldier standing there. It catches the face before [they enter], and it displays the face for you on the computer. If it’s someone who’s been coming through there a lot, the computer already knows them. It takes photos of everyone who passes there essentially. And you, as a soldier, a commander, standing there, can match the face to the IDs until the system learns [to recognize] the face. It recognizes him, and then he comes, and he’s already lit green for me even before he showed me an ID, and so it makes the process shorter for him, in theory.

And then, after you see green?
He can go through the turnstile with no problem.

So the system allows Palestinians who live in Hebron to zip through checkpoints without having to show their ID each time.

Amnesty doesn't even consider that the systems could be used to ease Palestinians' lives, nor does it allow that the security gains and lives saved by these systems have any value at all.

Amnesty's scope for this report deliberately omits the high tech checkpoint at Qalandiya that speeds Palestinian workers through and saves them the hours that they used to spend there. It also uses facial recognition to help make things go much faster. There is no way that someone with any intellectual honesty can look at Qalandiya and conclude that the facial recognition is hurting them in any way.

But Amnesty chose not to include that in this report, because it would contradict the anti-Israel message that Amnesty intended this report to be all along. If report readers knew about Qalandiya, they might think that checkpoints in Hebron that use facial recognition also are better then the old system of checking IDs.

Similarly, Amnesty quotes an IDF report about the surveillance system in Hebron, but doesn't quote the part that explains why it is necessary: "The main challenge in Hebron is the friction between the Jewish residents and the Palestinians, who live right next to each other - so when a security incident breaks out, the force has to react within seconds. The new cameras which give us a clearer picture of what is happening in the field, and thus solve the timing problem."

Amnesty doesn't mention, or airily dismisses, the actual security reasons for surveillance. Which is the entire problem. There are alternative explanations for this technology that make far more sense than Amnesty's assertion that these systems are "clearly shaped by the intent to oppress and dominate." How exactly that oppression and domination would help Israel in any way is not defined. In fact, such a deliberate mistreatment as Amnesty describes would make life worse for Israelis as well. But according to Amnesty, Jewish supremacists just love to harass Palestinians for no reason, and even spend millions of dollars to create high tech methods to make their lives miserable.

Those are Amnesty's "facts" before they wrote one word of this report.

The report was conceived, researched, scoped and written with assumptions of unmitigated Israeli evil If you never encountered Amnesty's bias beforehand, this report alone is enough to show that the entire organization is a joke.

Yet the New York Times wrote essentially a press release for this anti-Israel report, without reporting any bias at all.

Because people who share a bias cannot notice it in others.

UPDATE: NGO Monitor adds lots more.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Happy Nakba Catastrophe Day! Celebrate with cuisine that was stolen from others!

According to Palestine Chronicle, Palestinians now celebrate "Nakba Day" as a happy holiday.

For Palestinians, the catastrophic destruction of the Palestinian homeland, known as the Nakba, is not simply about mourning what has been lost, and the tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people ever since.

It is also a celebration of life, of culture, of the past and the present, and a strong message of a rooted nation with a strong sense of peoplehood to a young generation that has grown up stateless or in exile.

This Palestinian community in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis has done just that. The elders of the community led an event that exhibited the young talents of the area, their artwork, poetry and embroidery.

Can you imagine morphing Yom Hashoah (or Tisha B'av before the Messiah comes) into a day of happiness?

"Nakba Day" is not really about memorializing and mourning a "catastrophe." The first one was celebrated only 25 years ago, after all - for the 50th anniversary of Israel's founding.

Nakba Day isn't a day of sadness, and it never was. It began and remains primarily a day of protest against Israel's existence. It is meant to recast the rebirth of the Jewish state into something terrible. It is meant to blunt Yom HaAtzmaut by choosing the anniversary of Israel's independence - not the anniversary of Palestinians leaving Haifa or Jaffa, or Deir Yassin, or Lydda.

As with everything else about Palestinian nationalism, it is about getting the world to hate Israel.

There isn't a separate "Palestinian celebration day." As far as I can tell, Palestinians don't have parades in Ramallah on their "independence day" in November.

Nakba Day is a day to get the world to pay attention to Palestinian temper tantrums about Israel.

As such, Nakba Day has become the most important day on the Palestinian calendar. Demanding Israel's destruction to the world is the Palestinian national holiday. And since there is no other day on the calendar to celebrate Palestinian culture, the residents of Khan Younis chose the only real national holiday they have.

And since food plays an essential role in sustaining Palestinian culture and making it accessible to everyone, freshly made Palestinian bread, known as shrak, was shared among the community, along with freshly brewed coffee, done according to Palestinian Bedouin traditions.

Shrak is not "Palestinian bread." Most sites say it is Jordanian, Bedouin or simply Levantine, but no one says it is "Palestinian."

It always amazes me how Palestinian Arabs who are so quick to claim that their cuisine is being "stolen" eagerly claim others' cuisines as their own. Whomever came up with the idea of psychological projection would have a field day with Palestinians.

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!

05/01 Links Pt2: Israel at 75 Is a Modern Wonder; Youssef Elazhari used to rely on Al Jazeera; now, he gets facts from Israel; Polish government denounced over ‘dangerous' attack on Holocaust scholar

From Ian:

Israel at 75 Is a Modern Wonder

The other day I had my first journey on the sleek new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway, which shuttled me from Ben-Gurion airport to the Holy City in about the time it took to skip the ads on a podcast. It embodies the best of modern Israel: fast, efficient, impressive.

Israel turned 75 on Wednesday. It is one of the most astonishing achievements of the modern age. Every time I visit Tel Aviv, I still feel a shudder of awe over the sheer improbability of its existence, a thrilling modern metropolis built on little more than ancestral longing and borrowed guns.

Israel at 75 has a GDP per capita notably higher than Britain's. It is 11 times richer than its neighbor Egypt. It has won more Nobel prizes per person than America or France. This country is a towering monument to the power of ideas. It is literally a dream come true.

Who to blame for the predicament of the Palestinians? The Palestinians were let down repeatedly over the years by their Arab allies in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, who generally treated them as political pawns, not a sovereign people. They have been let down by their own leaders, who "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Their propensity for violent terrorism has also done them no favors, all but destroying the peace movement in Israel. Most Israelis see peace as a fantasy.

Youssef Elazhari used to rely on Al Jazeera; now, he gets facts from Israel

Growing up in Marrakesh in the Kingdom of Morocco, Youssef Elazhari had positive views of Jews but not of Israel.

There hadn’t been many Jews around in Morocco since the community immigrated after 1948 with the establishment of modern-day Israel. Today, some 1 million Jews of Moroccan descent live in Israel—one of the largest single immigrant populations—while Morocco’s Jewish population hovers at about 2,000.

Elazhari’s parents, who belong to an indigenous people of Morocco that arrived prior to Muslims and Jews called Berber, had memories of their Jewish friends. His father is a retired university law professor, and his mother is a schoolteacher. His maternal grandfather, who worked in the interior ministry, was a pasha, which meant he kept the peace for all Muslims and hosted Jews regularly in his home.

“Growing up, my mother would tell me stories about how she and my father lived with the Jews in harmony until they made aliyah,” Elazhari told JNS.

In the 1950s, Jews were very active in Morocco’s cotton and silk industries, an industry in which Elazhari’s paternal grandmother also worked. She shared fond memories of her Jewish best friend and co-worker, Tamou.

Moroccan philosemitism notwithstanding, Israel is often viewed negatively in Morocco, according to Elazhari, which he blames on misconceptions spread by Arabic media.

“I will admit like many Moroccan teenagers, I was a victim of Al Jazeera propaganda,” he told JNS.

How Elazhari’s views on Israel evolved is one of the stories he told speaking on April 30 at the Wayfarer Theaters in Highland Park, Ill.

Polish government denounced over ‘dangerous' attack on Holocaust scholar

The Polish government has been furiously denounced over an “extremely dangerous” attempt to silence a leading Holocaust scholar.

More than 300 academics and institutions around the world - including Yad Vashem - issued a statement condemning the Polish government-led attacks against Polish historian Barbara Engelking, director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, for publicly stating that Poles “failed” during the Holocaust and Jews were “unbelievably disappointed with Poles during the war".

"We regard such censorious tendencies and the notion that the continued financing of academic institutions should be conditional upon whether the research produced within them meets the expectations of politicians as extremely dangerous and unacceptable,” the letter says.

"Such actions are aimed at discouraging other scholars from undertaking research that might be met with a similar hate campaign."

One letter in support of Engelking released Thursday and signed by 11 Israeli organisations, such as Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum and Massuah Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, decried her critics’ attack on “academic freedom and historical facts".

The dispute reflects the governing Law and Justice party’s ongoing push for a patriotic narrative of the past that scholars such as Engelking say erases Polish crimes against Jews during the war.

The party’s campaign on this front led to a years-long series of diplomatic spats with Israel.

The latest fracas began on April 19, the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Engelking made an appearance on the country’s largest private television station, TVN.

“Poles had the potential to become allies of the Jews and one would hope that they would behave differently, that they would be neutral, kind, that they would not take advantage of the situation to such an extent and that there would not be widespread blackmailing,” she said, adding that Poles today exaggerate how much they helped Jews during the war.

On January 16, 1920, prominent leaders of Nablus - both Muslim and Christian - met in a conference where they pledged, under oath::

(1) To boycott the Jews completely as n counter-measure against their covetous spirit toward this country.

(2) To refuse them dwelling space in our district, and to binder their admittance thereto in every way.

(3) To persevere In this boycott and opposition until there remains no trace of the Zionist Idea, or until we perish to the last man.

(4) To submit this decision to His Excellency the Chief Administrator of the Occupied Territory, and, through the medium of the Allied representatives In Jerusalem, to the delegates of their respective governments at the Peace Conference; and to publish the same in the newspapers for the information of the civilized world, so that It may be understood why the inhabitants of this country are forced to sacrifice their lives for its freedom.

(Seat of the Islamo-Christian Conference at Nablus.] (Signed) Youssuf.

It was essentially a declaration of unending war against the Jews of Palestine until they returned to being the second class citizens they should be.

This wasn't the only boycott that Palestinian Arabs declared against Jews.

The fifth "Palestine Arab Congress" in 1922 pledged a boycott of Jewish products and services including the nascent electricity lines being set up by Pinchas Rutenberg, and this was reiterated in at least one successive Congress.

There is not exactly room for compromise here. The Arab leaders said, either Jews remain subjugated under our control, or we keep fighting them forever.

Terrorism and Arab Jew-hatred is not a reaction to Jewish "occupation" or supposed crimes. It pre-dates all of that. And whether it is official or not, the pledge to keep opposing Jewish rights in the Holy Land has never been rescinded.

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!

Al Shiraa, a news website that appears to be based in Lebanon, has some earth shattering archaeological news.

What is the truth about the manuscripts of Wadi Qumran, and what was their content, and why did the Jews hide them?

...When these manuscripts appeared, the investigators and scholars began to publish them, and the publication was very slow. Then, what was expected happened. The Israeli authorities worked to prevent access to these manuscripts, and after many attempts, the Israeli authorities allowed access to these manuscripts only to whomever they deem appropriate among the qualified scholars. From the point of view of the Israeli authorities, there were eight, most of them Jews, and they stipulated that none of them should publish a picture of a manuscript or display its text, but only that he could publish his conclusions or publish some paragraphs approved by the Israeli authorities .

If this indicates anything, it indicates that they hide what is behind these manuscripts, so only God Almighty knows it . But by the grace of God, the truth is shining, no matter what they do, the manuscripts contain their hidden books, such as Aknon, Thalil, the commandments of the Twelve Fathers, the commandment of Levi, in addition to the commandment of the Essenes, the system, and it represents the beliefs of this Jewish sect.

This book has two appendices. The first is entitled The War Between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. In these manuscripts there is also what is called the Damascus Document, and it talks about hardships that surround the teacher of righteousness. In addition to that are the two books of commandments and hymns of praise and thanksgiving, and some explanatory manuscripts of the Book of Habaquq and the Psalms, and it mentions the hardships that will befall, and there are many fragments and manuscripts Others, such as the manuscript of Lamac, which is written in the Aramaic language of nineteen columns, contain instructions for conducting war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.

Antiquities experts say that these manuscripts are important because they contain the oldest written text of the Torah and the Jewish religion. Fundamental differences have been revealed between it and what is currently known, and this is the secret that made the government of Israel work to hide many manuscripts, in addition to the manuscripts containing something that destroys the religion into Judaism . and the specifications of the teacher of righteousness , who is supposed to be the central figure of this sect, and it will become clear that he is the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, whom they denied along with his first gospel.

Consequently , it will show the dominance of Islam and that it is the true, final religion for all religions.

The scholars that hold onto the texts were indeed very slow in releasing them publicly - up until about 1990. They did report to the Israel Antiquities Authority but they were left alone. After a number of controversies, the IAI finally fired the head of the team (a non-Jew) and replaced him with a scholar from Hebrew University, who published all the remaining scrolls by 2002.

In other words, the Jews were the ones who allowed the world to see the Scrolls, all of which are now catalogued and nearly all available digitally online. There are no secrets, and Israel is not hiding anything from the public.

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05/01 Links Pt1: It's Not "Pro-Palestinian" to Justify Killing Israeli Civilians; 1,660 Israelis dead since Palestinians’ promise to end terror

From Ian:

Eitay Mack (Ha'aretz): It's Not "Pro-Palestinian" to Justify Killing Israeli Civilians

There is an absolute prohibition on targeted killing of civilians, no matter what ethnic, religious, social, sexual and national group they belong to. The right to life is protected in every general human rights treaty and under customary law. Despite this, there are far too many people that are unashamed to support or legitimize a deliberate attack and killing of Israeli Jewish civilians.

There are no excuses. Either one is for or against the deliberate killing of civilians. There must be zero legitimacy for adding "but," or "the context of the occupation cannot be ignored," or "the Palestinians have no other option," or "I can't judge how the Palestinians chose to fight for freedom." Unfortunately, there are too many claims that there are no Israeli Jews who are true civilians, they are all settlers and colonialists, or all are former soldiers or potential soldiers or reserve soldiers, and because of that should be a legitimate target.

The same people who legitimize the deliberate killing of Israeli Jews do not claim in parallel that it is also tolerable to deliberately kill Russian civilians because of the wars in Ukraine and Syria; kill British civilians because of the conflict in Northern Ireland; or kill American, British, and Australian civilians because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most of the people who make Palestinians who hijacked planes with civilians into celebrities would probably refrain from celebrating the hijackers of the 9/11 airplanes, or those who were responsible for the Lockerbie bombing in which a plane with hundreds of passengers exploded in the sky over Scotland.

The European political parties, academia, labor unions, human rights organizations and solidarity organizations for the Palestinians must take serious steps regarding those who express support for, or legitimize, the deliberate attack and killing of civilians - Jews, Palestinians, or others.

1,660 Israelis dead since Palestinians’ promise to end terror

Despite this reality, some people still argue Israel has a partner with whom to negotiate and are surprised that so few people in Israel believe it. They are baffled that the Palestinian issue has barely been mentioned in the last five elections and that Israel elected a right-wing government that opposes compromise with the Palestinians.

The reaction of the Biden administration to the incessant violence, to reward the Palestinians with aid and encouragement, is appalling.

The number of Israeli fatalities is equal to roughly 57,000 Americans—that is nearly as many as died in eight years of fighting in Vietnam.

Imagine the U.S. response to the murderers of that many Americans. You don’t have to guess because we know. Following 9/11, we launched a war on terror, fought two wars in Iraq, and continue to seek out and kill members of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Still, Israelis are pilloried for taking measures to protect their citizens. Yes, there is sometimes collateral damage and innocent Palestinians die. That is a tragic byproduct of a war against terrorists who use civilians as shields. It is also the price Palestinians pay for failing to fulfill the commitment Arafat made, allowing terrorists to hide among them and glorifying killers.

Not too many Americans thought twice about the more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed during U.S. combat operations. There were no U.N. resolutions after 48 people were killed when bad intelligence led to the U.S. bombing of a wedding party. I could cite many other examples of the double standard used to judge Israeli counterterror operations.

I’m sick of hearing from U.S. officials that Israel should act with restraint, de-escalate, stop building settlements, maintain the status quo, and equate terrorism and counterterrorism ad nauseam. I want to hear the president and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken say that 1,600 Israelis have been murdered since the Palestinians pledged to end terror. It is unacceptable, and the United States will not provide one penny to the Palestinians, to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) or to any other organization whose funds can be used to underwrite the murder of Israelis and while the killers and their families receive payments as rewards and incentives for killing Jews. There will be no opening of a consulate, there will be no support for them at the United Nations, and their officials will be treated the same as other sponsors of terror.

Everything else they say about the “Palestinian issue” is meaningless blather.

If you believe in peace, whether it be a two-state or some other solution, history has proven nothing can be achieved without putting a permanent stop to Palestinian terror.

The Biden Administration's Vacuum of Leadership

The vacuum of leadership can also now be seen in Sudan conflict. The Biden administration has reportedly abandoned 16,000 US citizens in the country, who were left there to make "life or death decisions".

"[Y]ou had President Xi in Moscow with Putin earlier this week, you have a China negotiating relations and some sort of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran is all evidence of a vacuum that's been created... It's a vacuum of American leadership. It's one of the reasons why we need strong bold leader, we're the leader of the free world. And if America is not leading in the free world, the free world is not being led." – Former Vice President Mike Pence, interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM, March 23, 2023.

The ruling mullahs of Iran have also become a major exporter of weapons to Russia – and are not limiting themselves to exporting just drones.

The vacuum that the Biden administration has left across the world as well as a result of its failure to lead is not only effectively handing the US over to China, Russia and Iran; it is also apparently viewed by these rogue states as a green light to act in whatever malign way they want.

Russia is taking over Sudan, reportedly for its gold and to build a port that will be able to block shipping through the Suez Canal. Iran's ruling mullahs have reportedly poisoned "hundreds of schoolgirls" to try to discourage them from receiving an education. Last week, another oil tanker was seized in the Gulf of Oman; and an interrogator recently broke the kneecaps of a 70-year old grandmother, a political prisoner serving 10 years in prison.

Why is the United States allowing this monstrous Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons?

Recent "Nakba" memes

The Israel haters are making a big deal over Nakba Day, which will be officially marked at the UN. So I've been making some memes to describe the truth about the Nakba.

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Haaretz really hates pro-settler NGOs

Last week, Haaretz published a supposed expose of Regavim, an NGO that insists that the Israeli government adhere to its own laws in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The article didn't dig up any dirt. Regavim is quite open about its aims. But now the government has some former Regavim officials, and that is scary to Haaretz:

Haaretz is upset.

The article shows Regavim members documenting the huge amount of illegal Palestinian construction and painting their activities as being immoral. Yet they are doing exactly the same thing that Peace Now does with Jewish construction, something Haaretz heartily approves.

Given these facts, it seems Regavim’s operations are a factor in the government’s agenda. One example is a document entitled “The Plow Line – A Plan to Halt the Palestinian Takeover of the Open Territories in Judea and Samaria,” which was distributed to politicians ahead of the most recent election and outlined the organization’s strategy in the West Bank.

The document included a range of recommendations for the next government, some of which found their way into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition agreement with Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, such as launching “the campaign for the open areas,” a euphemism for Area C, the roughly 60 percent of the West Bank that contains Israel’s settlements and a large Palestinian rural population.

Area C was created to ensure the vast majority of Palestinians would remain under PLO political control. Since then, tens of thousands of Palestinians have illegally moved into Area C, with the cooperation of the EU, specifically to frustrate any Jewish building there. This isn't natural growth of the Palestinians who lived in Area C - this is having them move deliberately into areas they weren't supposed to be.

Regavim attempts to combat that. And it uses the law to do that. I don't have statistics, but usually the Supreme Court rules in Regavim's favor, and the "right wing" government under Netanyahu attempts to avoid implementing the Supreme Court rulings.

For example, just today, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning Regavim's petition to implement demolition orders at the illegal Khan al-Ahmar outpost -which the court had ruled must be evacuated back in 2009! The state has been dragging its feet for 14 years, and is now claiming that it really wants to demolish the illegal outpost but it wants to choose an unspecified time to do it.

This one case shows that things in Israel are not the simplistic black and white that Haaretz and other media claim. Here, the very government that Haaretz is worried is overrun by Regavim veterans is arguing against Regavim, and the Supreme Court that the media says is the only opposition to the right-wing government is taking the right wing position while the government is arguing against it.

There seems to be a distinct unease that a right-wing NGO is doing what hundreds of left-wing NGOs are doing - and it is being effective.

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ATMOS truck-mounted howitzer

Defense News reported in March:

Israeli defense company Elbit Systems said it won several deals in Europe this month, including a $119 million sale of ATMOS truck-mounted howitzers and a $133 million contract for PULS artillery rocket systems.

The deals, which Elbit said are with a European NATO member country, come as several governments on the continent continue their shopping sprees to resupply their troops, having sent munitions from their own stocks to Ukraine, which is under invasion by Russia.

“We are witnessing a trajectory of an increased demand for advanced artillery solutions from militaries around the world, including European countries and NATO members, as part of their efforts to increase the effectiveness of their armed forces. Our operationally proven systems provide an advanced, cost-effective solution to meet that demand,” said Bezhalel Machlis, the CEO of Elbit.

Although the buyer was not named, it is widely believed to be Denmark, based on an earlier press release that Denmark was negotiating with Elbit for those systems.

I'm surprised that we have not yet seen conspiracy theories that Israel is behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine in order to increase its arms sales to NATO members.

Anyway, the BDSers are livid, because they claimed to have scuttled another contract between Denmark and Elbit in 2015, a claim denied by the Danish authorities. And Mondoweiss blamed the Danish Left for this sale, saying that they were silent during the negotiations, unlike in 2015:

Few voices have raised concerns about the unusual speed this deal has gone through without due process or vigorous political scrutiny from the opposition. Is the Danish left happy to support a deal for weapons tested on the Palestinian civilians in the West Bank? Has the priority of the war in Ukraine meant all debate regarding arms procurement from Israel is frozen? Are Palestinians to remain second-class citizens in the eyes of the international community, only to be exploited for political capital as a means to express one’s ‘humanism’?

Well, you learn something new every day. Israel has been shooting artillery at Palestinian civilians in the West Bank! Somehow the media has missed this entire story, but Mondoweiss figured it out. It is amazing what scoops you can find when you don't know what you are talking about..

This little episode indicates that the 2015 arms sale was not blocked by BDS, and it was just another fake victory they claimed.

And it also shows that while Israel has not been directly supplying weapons to Ukraine, it has been supplying them indirectly, by backfilling weapons being sent from European countries. This way the EU countries get to upgrade their supplies while sending older weapons systems to Ukraine, which needs them badly. Everyone wins.

Except for BDSers and their Russian allies.

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When an Egyptian delegate warned the UN that Arabs would massacre a million Jews in their lands

UN Special Committee for Palestine meeting, 1947

From JTA, November 25, 1947:

A threat that Jews living in Arab countries will be massacred should the U.N. General Assembly decide to adopt the partition plan for Palestine was made today at the Ad Hoc Committee by Egyptian delegate Heykal Pasha. He warned the Committee, which concluded its debate tonight, that it was “playing with the lives of 1,000,000 Jews who are now living peacefully in Arab countries.”

The Egyptian delegate warned that the General Assembly’s decision is fraught with the possibility of widespread bloodshed. “We now regard the 1,000,000 Jews in the Moslem countries as brothers, but your decision may make some of our citizens regard them as enemies,” he declared, adding that the Arab governments would do all they could to protect the Jews within their borders, but “mob violence is often hard to control.”

Heykal Pasha appealed to the United States to reconsider its support of partition and to refrain from advocating “a dangerous adventure which might imperil the peace of the world.” He said that “no force on earth could prevent blood from flowing in Palestine if the United Nations decides to amputate a part of Palestine in order to establish a Jewish state.” All the peoples of the Orient, he asserted, would come to the aid of the Palestine Arabs in a “race war.”

“Would the members of the United Nations be acting in a humanitarian fashion in placing in certain and serious danger a million Jews simply in order to save a hundred thousand in Europe or to satisfy Zionist dreams?” Heykal Pasha asked. He said that his statement should be considered a “fair warning to the world” by the government of Egypt.

This thinly veiled threat was splashed on the front pages of Egyptian newspapers, causing much fear from Jewish residents:

The warning that Jews in the Arab countries face massacre if partition is approved by the United Nations, which was voiced yesterday at Lake Success by Egyptian spokesman Dr. Mohammed Heykal Pasha, has caused consternation among the 50,000 Jews in this country.

The statement, which was splashed on the front pages of the local Arabic press is the first official threat to the Middle East Jews and is taken to indicate that the government will adopt at least a passive attitude if anti-Jewish violence occurs here as a result of the Palestine issue.

It was not the first time that Arabs threatened mass murder by telling the West that their own people are violent and uncontrollable .

Of course, attacks on Jews in Arab countries that followed the partition vote were tacitly encouraged by the Arab leaders with lurid and inciting headlines in the state-controlled media.

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