Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

05/10 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: We’re ready for broader campaign, severe blows against Gaza; 6 killed in Tunisia synagogue attack, including 2 Jews

From Ian:

Netanyahu: We’re ready for broader campaign, severe blows against Gaza

Israel is ready to expand Operation Shield and Arrow to strike Gaza even harder, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Netanyahu made the remarks in a phone call with mayors of towns in Israel’s south, as terrorists shot hundreds of rockets from Gaza to Israeli civilian centers, mostly in the South.

“We’re prepared for the possibility of broadening the campaign and for very severe blows, now and later as well,” the prime minister said.

“I think we will have the upper hand but we are in this battle and I appreciate your support and your standing strong,” he added.

As of Wednesday afternoon, defense sources’ assessment was that the rockets came from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, such that Israel has not expanded its pool of targets to include Hamas.

Israel sent messages to Hamas via Egypt on Tuesday that it should stay out of the fight or Israel will strike Hamas’s leaders.

Earlier Wednesday, the prime minister received updates from his military secretary Brig.-Gen. Avi Gil and held a security assessment at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu briefed opposition leader Yair Lapid on the goals and details of Operation Shield and Arrow on Wednesday morning.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen held a video conference with over 100 foreign ambassadors and diplomats stationed in Israel to tell them about Operation Shield and Arrow.

“Israel will not hesitate to fight to the end with the Iran-funded Islamic Jihad terrorist organization,” Cohen warned. “Their whole goal is to hurt Israeli civilians and sow destruction…Israel makes a constant effort to avoid harming innocent bystanders, unlike the Palestinian terrorist organizations who aim their terrorist attacks at Israeli civilians.”

UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Gaza

The United Nations Security Council is set to hold a closed-door emergency council session on Gaza late Wednesday afternoon in New York, in what will be its ninth meeting this year on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It did so after Israel eliminated three Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders in a pre-dawn aerial strike on Tuesday, in which at least 10 Palestinian civilians were also killed, including four women and four children.

The United Arab Emirates said it had called for the meeting along with China and France in light of “concerning developments in Gaza.”

The UNSC meets monthly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has held four such gatherings this year, along with an additional four to deal with crises that have arisen in light of rising violence and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government. How will the UNSC tackle Israel's Operation Shield and Arrow?

In a letter to the UNSC Palestinian Authority’s Ambassador Riyad Mansour wrote, “We condemn this murderous aggression against the Palestinian people and call for immediate action to hold responsible the criminal perpetrators, both government and military officials of Israel, the occupying power, who are planning and implementing this endless series of systematic human rights violations.”

Palestinian Authority envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour. (credit: REUTERS)Palestinian Authority envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour. (credit: REUTERS)

The international community, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the security council have a “duty to act” to bring to an end impurity Israel “have become so accustomed to,” he wrote.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan wrote a letter to the UNSC explaining that the surgical strike called Shield and Arrow was in response to a barrage of over 100 rockets Palestinians in Gaza had launched at Southern Israel last week.

Israel can nullify the threat of Palestinian Islamic Jihad

In the wee hours of yesterday morning, the IDF carried out simultaneous targeted attacks on Gaza, killing three senior commanders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). It followed up with further airstrikes on terrorist infrastructure in the Strip. Last week, PIJ launched 102 rockets into southern Israel, and then agreed to a ceasefire after limited Israeli retaliation. Meir Ben Shabbat comments:

Israel has achieved its initial goals in its current operation against PIJ, code-named Operation Shield and Arrow. The Jewish state restored its deterrence against the radical terror organization, while demonstrating that the ongoing internal political debates will not prevent it from taking determined action against external enemies. However, the hostilities in Gaza, which began with targeted strikes against three PIJ leaders last night, have the potential to expand and inflame multiple arenas. Israel therefore must take several steps now to ensure that this operation remains a success.

In analyzing Israel’s latest strikes, it is important to recall that PIJ . . . is one of Iran’s main proxies in the region, funded by Iran to the tune of millions of dollars a year.

A PIJ response to last night’s targeted strikes against its leaders and military sites is a certainty. It will likely come once its remaining commanders have had a chance to go underground. The questions that remain are whether Hamas, the largest terror organization in Gaza, will join in the fighting, and whether PIJ will be able to expand the hostilities to other geographic arenas.

At this point, Israel must focus on several goals. Operation Shield and Arrow must end with PIJ not only having suffered major losses, but having failed to reach any significant achievements in its attacks against Israel. That will diminish its standing and deter it from conducting future attacks. . . . Secondly, Israel must make clear to PIJ that any attempts to expand the circle of fighting to other arenas will greatly increase the severity of Israel’s response.

On Monday I showed that the website of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine publishes virulently antisemitic articles, including claims that Jews slaughter children to harvest their blood for Jewish rituals.

Most Westerners would admit that this is clearly antisemitic and unacceptable.

But the blood libel is accepted as normal and even laudatory by leftist Westerners - as long as the PFLP and their pals apply a few tweaks.

Defence for Children International-Palestine has extensive links with the same terrorist, antisemitic PFLP. But they get funded by European foundations, so they have to be a little more sophisticated in their blood libels.

Instead of saying that Jews target and murder children, they say that Israel targets and murders children.

DCI-P issued a press release (so far, only in Arabic) about the Israeli airstrikes early Tuesday morning. They titled it, "Targeting and killing Palestinian children is a consistent policy of the Israeli occupation." And they make the same claim that they have made for years - that targeting children "is a consistent policy of the Israeli occupation authorities, and at the highest political and military level."

Not one word is written about the Islamic Jihad terrorists who were the targets of the airstrikes - leaders that Islamic Jihad freely admits were targeted. No, according to DCI-P, Israel didn't aim at terrorists - they aim at sleeping children.

Is the modern blood libel any different from the medieval version?

The PFLP 's own writings make it clear that they do not distinguish between their "military" and "political" wings, an artificial distinction made by Western NGOs attempting to minimize their terrorism.

To the PFLP, there is no difference between bombing Jews and attacking them politically. There is no difference between telling Arabic speakers that Jews murder Muslim children to harvest their blood and their NGOs telling Western countries that Israel shoots expensive, precision weapons at Palestinian children for no reason. There is clearly no military advantage to killing kids so it must be that they target them because Israeli Jews are pure evil.

Israel-haters want to minimize the connections between the terrorist, antisemitic PFLP and the respected "human rights" NGOs that the PFLP helped create. But when you understand the undeniable links, you can clearly see that there is no difference between the classic blood libel and the modern ones.

DCI-P press releases are the 21st century equivalent of an auto-da-fé.

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!

Yesterday, there was a somewhat cryptic press release from Bahrain's Crown Prince and prime minister:

Manama, May 09 (BNA): Committed to the approach of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the great King of the Kingdom of Bahrain, may God preserve and protect him, in protecting our Islamic religion and its tolerant faith; His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, may God protect him, ordered the Minister of Education to immediately stop any changes to educational curricula that are incompatible with our national values represented in protecting religion, not compromising its constants, and adhering to Islam as a creed, law and method, according to what was reported in the National Action Charter and the Constitution.

An article about this announcement gives a hint as to the kinds of changes that are being stopped that the Education Ministry had approved. One was adding the name "Israel" to a map, one deleted a lesson about Jews, and a third added a discussion of the Abraham Accords.

The Bahraini curriculum is online, and from a brief search, it has a lot of antisemitism.

Besides the lessons on Islam that describe the Jews of Mohammed's time in an unflattering light, there are other references that point to endemic hatred of Jews. A remedial reading lesson includes phrases like "The Jews destroyed the camp" and "The Jews destroyed the farm." An Islamic lesson has a chapter on "The dangers of the Jews." A sixth grade lesson includes "The poet is crying out for the city of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whose sanctity was violated by the usurping Jews." A chapter of one book (published after the Abraham Accords) is "Palestine and the global Zionist conspiracy."

Most of the lessons were written before the Abraham Accords, so it would be reasonable to expect that they should be changed to excise the antisemitism. But this announcement makes it appear that there has been pushback on the Bahrain Education Ministry doing exactly that, and the Crown Price is shutting down any such program - in the name of Bahraini and Islamic values.

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!

As the rhetoric about "Nakba Day" keeps increasing, it is worthwhile to see the truth.

There were 65,000 Arabs in Haifa before the Battle for Haifa in 1948. After the Haganah won, the Arab leaders fled and the remainder were pressured to leave by the Arab Higher Committee.

It wasn't the Jews who forced them out. In fact, the Jews pleaded with the Arabs to stay in Haifa. Nearly all of the Arabs left anyway, leaving no infrastructure for those who remained. The flight was during Passover, but the Haifa rabbinical leaders gave permission for Jews to bake bread for the Arabs since they had no bakeries left of their own. (If you know Jewish law and how strict it is against owning any leavened products on Passover, let alone baking them in your own shop, this is an incredible and unprecedented dispensation.)

Only 4,000 Arabs remained in Haifa after the breakdown of their community.

This was the real nakba - the external Arab leaders told their people to leave, the local Arab leaders led the flight instead of acting like real leaders, and the remaining Arabs were leaderless. This pattern was repeated in other major cities with large Arab populations.

This article in the Palestine Post from May 9, 1948 gives a first hand account from an Arab who decided to stay in Haifa.

One of the Arabs who remained in Haifa throughout the :fighting and after has written me explaining why he decided to stay. He writes:

"At the very beginning we too were bewildered, and were about to leave town. The chaos among our neighbours when the battle began, the wild rumours spreading through the streets and among the Arab National Guards, who rushed around madly before escaping themselves and announced that our leaders had ordered immediate evacuation — all these caused us a great deal of confusion."

The writer is a member of an old and well-established Moslem family, with whom I have always maintained the most cordial relations. These have not been disturbed even during the past few months. His letter continues:

"We held a family council presided over by my uncle, and it soon became clear that most of us wanted to stay.

"Thanks to Allah, our family elders used their common sense, and derided not to evacuate. In spite of the threats of the. National Guards, and the panic among our neighbours, who streamed down to the harbour area leaving their household belongings unattended, we remained here, in the Herzlia quarter.

"The first two days were difficult, but we believed our Jewish neighbours would protect us. Why should we evacuate the town we were born in and where we had grown up? We know the Jews and they know us. There was no reason for fear.

"Now we have re-opened our shop near Wadi Nisnas. Please don't worry about us, we are all well. Many of our neighbours and customers have disappeared, but we are carrying on — business as usual.

"Dozens of our Jewish customers have returned to us. They had stayed away for a time because of the Arab boycott, but now they once again visit our shop. Believe me, we are quite confident about the future. May Allah soon restore peace to our beloved country."

The nakba was self-inflicted. The Palestinian leaders and followers consistently made the wrong decisions, decisions based on blind hate of Jews rather than what is best for them.

And as we see today, nothing has changed.

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!

05/09 Links Pt2: David Collier: The lies that MPs tell about Israel in Parliament; Hamas Terrorists Listed as ‘Journalists’ in Hatchet Job Report

From Ian:

The Mossad: The Uniqueness of Israel’s Spy Agency

Unusual covert operations, ethical dilemmas and the Rabbi of the Mossad.

Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, has a reputation for ruthlessness, an ability to strike Israel’s enemies anywhere in the world and the capability to place agents within the deepest strongholds of the enemy. The assassinations of Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists, the placement of agents high up within the Iraqi and Egyptian governments and vengeance against terrorists all add to the agency’s street cred.

All of the above fall into the classic operational patterns of most other spy agencies. But the Mossad also engages in operations that are somewhat outside the box of regular intelligence gathering and defensive activities.

For example, soon after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the agents of the Mossad were tasked with hunting down and killing Nazi war criminals who had escaped justice. Famously, they tracked Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, to Argentina, where they abducted him and brought him to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.1 He was found guilty of all charges and hanged on June 1st 1962. These Nazis no longer posed a danger to the Jewish people or Israel, but bringing them to justice was seen as a duty of the Mossad toward the Jewish nation as a whole.

The Mossad was tasked by the President of Israel, Yitzchak BenZvi, to retrieve a famous and ancient manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Aleppo Codex2, from Aleppo in Syria and return it to Israel. They were also involved in the collection and purchase of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Retrieval of ancient Biblical manuscripts and archaeological artifacts is not a classic intelligence agency activity but is one that the Mossad has participated in numerous times.

David Collier: The lies that MPs tell about Israel in Parliament

On the 20th April 2023 several British MPs turned the Houses of Parliament into an anti-Zionist, Israel-bashing chamber. A house of antisemitic lies. This took place just 13 days after the brutal Palestinian terrorist attack that killed three British/Israeli citizens, Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee. MPs have a responsibility, and spreading blatant lies about Israel spreads antisemitism, which in turn poses dangers to British Jews as well as those in Israel.

The antisemitic background,
Hearing MPs smear Israel in Parliament is not new. Israel is a democratic country the size of Wales. It is involved in a persistent low-intensity conflict with despotic neighbours that refuse to accept its existence. Although it may be difficult to believe given the obsessive focus on Israel, there are many far larger and more brutal conflicts taking place around the world.

It is totally legitimate to question Parliament’s obsession with the Jewish state.

None of the responses to such a question make sense. The one most used refers to ‘historic responsibility‘ which is an absurd argument. Nigeria and Pakistan are two nations with higher ‘conflict severity‘, and far more serious human rights concerns, yet despite the ‘historic responsibility’ of British rule, the UK Parliament does not obsess over the issues there.

Pakistani forces conduct over 70 counter-terrorist operations per day, in which many ‘terrorists’ are killed. If these were Israeli forces killing terrorists, the British Parliament would sit in an emergency debate. Instead there is total media and diplomatic silence.

Number of Parliamentary debates in 2023:
Israel 9
Pakistan (only about relief aid due to flooding) 1
Myanmar 3
Nigeria 2
Yemen 1

In fact, if a politician obsessed about Pakistan, and constantly attacked it in Parliament, as so many MPs do with Israel, they would swiftly be labelled an anti-Muslim bigot. Which is kind of the point here. People often get trapped down a rabbit hole of defending Israeli actions once the obsession has brought the subject to the table. It has to be recognised that the antisemitism is the obsession itself. Antisemitism is the reason we are always talking about Israel in the first place.

20 April
On the 20th April there were 36 contributions from MPs across two parliamentary events that focused on Israel. Beginning at 11:50 am with a statement ‘on the situation in Israel and the OPT‘, made by the Foreign Minister. Later in the afternoon came a back-bench debate on ‘human rights protections for Palestinians‘.

The FM statement correctly focused on the horrific attack on the Dee family and spoke positively about the increasing trade and security relationship between the UK and Israel. There were some negative comments following the FM statement from well-known Israel hostile MPs like Tommy Shephard and Andy Slaughter, but to maintain focus I will look more closely at the lies spread during the back-bench debate later the same day:

Antisemitism is a religion

Antisemitism is a religion… with no God.

In this religion, there is however a devil: the Jew.

According to this religion, this goblin is everywhere and goes to and fro across the planet to sow conflicts, wars, quarrels and discord to consolidate its power over the world.

Antisemitism is a religion… with its denominations (white supremacy, pro-'Palestine' movements, far-Left parties, American Black separatist groups, etc.) that despise each other more than the last.

Antisemitism is a religion… with its dogmas, beliefs, madness, crusades and paranoia.

Antisemitism is a religion… with its faithful, priests, heroes and martyrs (hitler and cie).

Antisemitism is a religion… with its mythology, rituals, traditions as well as its sectarian rhetoric and its panoply of idols among which the nymph Hatred rules supreme.

Antisemitism is a religion… with its legends, hall of fame, creed, system of thoughts and apostates.

Antisemitism is a religion… whose members aspire to a better world, “perfect” and “sublime”: a world without Jews, Israel, God and the Bible. A world where everyone will be freed from their imaginary enemy, liberated from the unjustified fear of a hidden fictive oppressor, from the foreign ethereal monster beside them. Free at last from groundless conspiracy theories.

Antisemitism is a religion… whose anti-Israel ecumenism is spreading across the globe with a disconcerting ease. And for a good reason: despite their mutual disdain, these feverish denominations have a common denominator: Jew hatred.

Antisemitism is neither uniquely from the Right or Left - opinion

May is Jewish American Heritage Month, established in 2006 as a bipartisan attempt to educate Americans on the contributions and achievements of Jewish Americans nationwide. Echoing the need for this designation, this year, the New York City Council passed a resolution recognizing April 29 as End Jew-Hatred Day in an attempt to fight back against the city’s disturbing rise in antisemitism over recent years.

One would not think that a proposal to fight hatred of any group would be controversial, and yet, some members of the New York City Council voted against the resolution.

While the fight against antisemitism and hatred is seemingly an issue that should continue to be bipartisan, both sides of the political aisle, Left and Right alike, still have members and constituents who either won’t stand up to this hatred or in some cases, even exacerbate the phenomenon. However, these same members are often given a pass, because “there are worse antisemites on the other side.”

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self,” said Ernest Hemingway. Both sides should apply the meaning of these words to the fight against antisemitism. Not only must we call out antisemitism when we see it in others, but when we see it emanating from our political party, as well. We must also hold accountable current and former leaders on all sides of the political divide who enable, empower, and legitimize antisemites.

How much influence did Christianity have on modern Arab antisemitism?

The impression I always has was that while Muslims have had antipathy for Jews since the time of Mohammed, they didn't frame that in terms of real hate until the late 19th or early 20th centuries. And I believe that this came primarily from Christian Arabs.

If you do a search for "Jews" in arabic in Google Books for the 19rh century, a large proportion of the books that result are written by Christians. Certainly Arabic translations of the Old and New Testaments are featured prominently, but also some doctrinal works of antisemitism seem to have been eagerly translated to Arabic by the Arab Christians.

One example I found was an Arabic translation of works by 19th century German Catholic theologian August Rohling, a true Christian antisemite, who wrote a number of books mistranslating the Talmud into German to stoke Jew-hatred. It seems that his works were relatively popular in Arabic translation by Youssef Nasrallah, with a number of editions and reprints.(Nasrallah is a popular Muslim and Christian surname.)

This is the Protocols before the Protocols.

I'm not as familiar with this topic as I should be - I believe Bernard Lewis covers this - but I wonder how much Christian influence there was on today's doctrinal Muslim 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!

Amnesty knows Israel targeting terrorists isn't violating international law, so it re-frames the Gaza airstrikes

Israel has every right, under international law, to attack military targets. And those targets may be attacked even if some civilians will likely be killed, as long as the target is important enough.

International law does not give a formula, but clearly the three Islamic Jihad terrorists killed today were of very high value, and there is no violation of the laws of armed conflict to go after them even if their families are doomed as well.

The best litmus test for proportionality was when NATO bombed a TV/radio station in Serbia, killing 23 civilians and zero militants, when the benefit of the attack was only to take the TV station, part of the military infrastructure, down for a few hours.

A report prepared by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) concluded that ...the TV network had been part of the overall military communication system of the Serbian government, thus making the RTS building a legitimate military target. It said:

Insofar as the attack actually was aimed at disrupting the communications network, it was legally acceptable ... NATO’s targeting of the RTS building for propaganda purposes was an incidental (albeit complementary) aim of its primary goal of disabling the Serbian military command and control system and to destroy the nerve system and apparatus that keeps Milošević in power

In regards to civilian casualties, it further stated that though they were, "unfortunately high, they do not appear to be clearly disproportionate."

By that almost unbelievable metric, Israel has never come close to violating the principle of proportionality.

Amnesty International knows this law quite well. But it wants so badly to condemn Israel for bombing the terrorists. So it uses the classic propaganda technique of reframing the issue:

Early this morning, Israeli forces launched air strikes on the occupied #Gaza Strip killing at least 13 incl 10 civilians. Like those in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2022, this deadly attack compounds dire living conditions caused by #Israel’s 16-year-long illegal blockade.

Due to recurrent Israeli military operations and the illegal blockade that amounts to collective punishment, two million Palestinians are denied their most basic rights. An entire generation in Gaza has known nothing but death, destruction and deprivation.

Palestinians must not continue to be trapped in an open-air prison and prevented from recovering from recurring Israeli offensives. The inhuman acts that #Israel commits against Palestinian civilians in Gaza are part of its apartheid system that must be dismantled.

Amnesty is following this recent Israeli offensive and will investigate apparent violations of international law.

Notice how it never says that the bombings are against international law. It says the "blockade" is. This isn't true either - Israel has the legal right to do a naval blockade and it has the right to limit goods that enter Gaza through its own borders, allowing Egypt to send whatever goods it wants. But Amnesty doesn't accept that argument so it falls back on "illegal blockade" of an "open air prison" that includes luxury hotels and shops.

And, of course, Amnesty is using this to keep pushing the "apartheid" lie.

This thread has nothing to do with human rights. It is all part of Amnesty's obsession with demonizing Israel, and using this event as an excuse.

Which is exactly what antisemites would do.

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!

05/09 Links Pt1: Israel kills evil terror leaders; PA defends the murderers; Rashida Tlaib Will Host Congressional Event To Mourn 'Catastrophe' of Israel's Founding

From Ian:

PMW: Israel kills evil terror leaders; PA defends the murderers

Last night Israel attacked multiple terror locations of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization in the Gaza Strip, including 3 homes of terror leaders, terror infrastructures, weapon storehouses, and manufacturing sites.

The PA has once again sided with the terrorists.

In last night’s attacks, Israel killed three of the Islamic Jihad’s top leaders, Khalil Al-Bahtini, Tareq Izz Al-Din, and Jihad Al-Ghannam who are responsible for rocket attacks at Israel, including 104 rockets launched at Israeli civilian targets last week, and terror attacks in Judea and Samaria/West Bank. 10 others, primarily their relatives, were also killed.

Jihad Al-Ghannam was a terror leader for many years. Already in 2004, he was responsible for the murder of Tali Hatuel and her four daughters, Hila, Hadar, Roni, and Merav, among many others.

Tali Hatuel, and four daughters, Hila, Hadar, Roni, and Merav, murdered by PIJ

Despite these leaders’ terror responsibility, or possibly because of it, the PA has chosen to condemn Israel and not the terrorists. The PA leaders in their statements refer to “13 civilians” killed, which shows they are defending the terror leaders as innocent “civilians.”

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' official spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh:
"We condemn this dangerous Israeli escalation against our people, which targeted children, women, and homes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, the latest of which was the killing of 13 civilians, including women and children, in the Gaza Strip, and the injury of 13 people from bullets in Nablus, in addition to the ongoing storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque. We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for this dangerous escalation that drags the region into the square of violence, tension and instability."

[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, May 9, 2023]

PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh:
“The aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip is organized state terrorism and an attempt to export the internal crisis that the government of extremism in Israel suffers from… a practical translation of the doctrine of killing, incineration, and genocide, which those in power in Israel have long professed… [it is] an extension of the Nakba (catastrophe) that befell our people in 1948.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, May 9, 2023]

Seth Frantzman: Operation Shield and Arrow may test Iran’s ‘unity of front’ plan

Now Iran is watching closely Operation Shield and Arrow. Iran has many ways to use its unity of “resistance.” It can create tensions in Syria or Lebanon or the West Bank. It can also look further afield such as the Gulf of Oman where Iran uses drones to attack ships. Iran recently waylaid two tankers in areas near the Straits of Hormuz. This was not connected to Israel, but shows Iran’s capabilities.

Iran also wants Syria back in the Arab League so that it can cement its role there. It suspects that once Syria is back in the League then the League members will be more reticent to see airstrikes in Syria. Iran can then entrench at will. However, Iran also knows that there were recent airstrikes ascribed by Jordan that targeted a drug dealer in southern Syria. The Arab states do not want Syria to be a chaos run by Iran. Therefore Tehran must tread carefully as it considers its next steps and how it wants to make moves relating to Israel’s operation.

In the past, Israel has conducted a number of similar operations to Shield and Arrow, such as House of Cards or Black Belt or Breaking Dawn. Israel has also carried out the long-term Break the Wave operation in the West Bank and also Northern Shield which was designed to pre-empt threats along the northern border.

In each case, Israel has tailor-made operations designed to counter Iran’s octopus-like threats. Last year Israel’s former Prime Minister even mentioned an “octopus doctrine” which was designed to confront Iran’s attempt to unify its fronts. In essence, then the deadly game of chess is afoot between Iran and Israel. Iran has to wonder whether it’s worth responding to the cutting off of several tentacles or whether it will wait.

Al Quds Brigades spokesman says they will respond with "courage" - while hiding behind a mask

Abu Hamza, spokesman for the Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad, issued a video statement where he issued threats against Israel, said that a thousand leaders will emerge to replace the three martyrs," promised a massive retaliation - the usual response.

The funniest part is that he said that al-Quds will confront Israel with firmness and courage.

While he is wearing a mask.

Is he afraid of 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!

From Reuters:

Jordan carried out rare air strikes on southern Syria on Monday, hitting a Iran-linked drugs factory and killing a smuggler allegedly behind big hauls across the two countries' border, local and intelligence sources said.

The sources said one strike hit an abandoned drug facility in Syria's southern Deraa province linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which is allied to Syria's government.

Another strike on the village of Shaab, in the adjacent province of Sweida near the Jordanian border, killed Syrian drug kingpin Marie al-Ramthan and his family while they were at home.

Ramthan's wife and six children were killed.

As of this writing, a day after the airstrike, neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch nor former HRW head Ken Roth have condemned the airstrike for being "disproportionate" even though the ratio of innocent victims to the intended target is at least 7-1.

Which seems strange for "human rights" organizations that are so quick to condemn Israel for airstrikes that kill civilians without knowing who the targets are or what the intelligence behind the strikes are.

Beyond that, Syria and Jordan are not at war. Jordan did an extrajudicial execution via an airstrike on a country it is at peace with.

Certainly that deserves a condemnation from the NGOs, right? According to their criticisms of Israeli actions killing militants, they should demand that Jordan should have arrested Ramthan in coordination with Syria and ensure no innocent civilians are killed.

It will be interesting to see the inconsistency between how "human rights" NGOs respond to the Jordanian airstrike and how they respond to Israel's airstrike in Gaza overnight that killed "ticking bomb" major militants and their families. (BDS is already making sad videos about the human-shield children killed in Gaza; but no one is making videos about the Ramthan family.)

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!

Last month, there were indications that Israel was planning to respond to the increase in terror attacks with a return to targeted killings of the leaders of terror groups.

During a Cabinet meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu called on his ministers to avoid public talk about the option of returning to a policy of assassinations, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. This came as Israel was concerned that its deterrence policies were eroding, after the Hezbollah roadside bomb attack in northern Israel and an increased number of shooting attacks on Israeli civilians.

Channel 12 reported that the Cabinet deliberated on reactivating the policy of assassinations, even if it led to a new round of fighting with the Gaza Strip.

Because of those reports, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders went underground.

Palestinian media is now reporting that the three Islamic Jihad leaders targeted overnight were all planning to take a trip together to Cairo today.

Well-informed Palestinian sources revealed, at dawn on Tuesday, that the leaders of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, who were assassinated at dawn by the Israeli army, were preparing to travel, accompanied by a delegation from the movement's political bureau, out of the Gaza Strip.

The sources told Al-Quds that the assassination of the Jihad leaders took place at a time when members of the political bureau of the movement were going to Cairo and from abroad to hold internal and external meetings.

According to the sources, the leaders of the brigades who were assassinated were going with the delegation of the Islamic Jihad leaders to Egypt, which informed them yesterday that they could travel from Cairo to abroad.

The sources indicated that the leaders of the brigades had been hiding for a while, and after receiving permission to prepare for travel, they went to their families to say goodbye before they were targeted inside their homes at dawn.

Notice that the three terror leaders were using Islamic Jihad's "political" wing as cover for their travels. Islamic Jihad clearly doesn't distinguish between their "political" and "military" wings, but Israel only targeted the heads of the Al Quds Brigades, not Islamic Jihad as a whole.

This story also indicates that the three were planning something together - something big enough to necessitate travel abroad.

Also notable is that Egypt doesn't seem to have any problem facilitating the travel of major terror leaders.

Sometimes, timing is simply waiting for the best opportunity.

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!

05/08 Links Pt2: Will the Munich panel acknowledge the role of Abbas?; U.S. Offers Palestinians $100k to Promote DEI in Arts and Sports; Holocaust Denial: An ongoing attempt to distort History

From Ian:

Will the Munich panel acknowledge the role of Abbas?

The German government has created a commission of historians to study the massacre of Israeli athletes by Palestinian Arab terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Germany’s Interior Minister has promised that the review will be “thorough” and “rigorous.”

The problem, however, is that a serious and honest study will have to acknowledge that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, with whom Germany has a friendly relationship, were the ones who organized and financed the attack. Will the commission be willing to name names, even if doing so will be politically inconvenient for the German government?

In 1972, Yasser Arafat was head of the Fatah terrorist organization, and Mahmoud Abbas—the current head of both Fatah and the P.A.—was his right-hand man.

The terrorists who carried out the Munich attack claimed that they were part of the “Black September” group, which supposedly was independent of Fatah. But the myth of an “independent” Black September was shattered many years ago, with the declassifying of a telegram sent by the U.S. State Department to American embassies around the world on March 13, 1973.

The text of the telegram is widely available on the internet. It reveals the truth about the Munich murderers:

“Question of link between Black September Organization (BSO) and Fatah has been subject of much public discussion,” the telegram began. Then it explained Arafat’s lies about his role in Black September: “Fatah leader Arafat has disavowed connection with BSO. … Arafat continues to disavow publicly any connection between Fatah and terrorist operations. Similarly, Fatah maintains its pretense of moderation … .”

The truth about Black September and Fatah was exactly the opposite of what Arafat claimed, according to the U.S. State Department telegram: “USG [United States Government] has information that Fatah is in fact parent body of BSO. … The Black September Organization is a cover term for Fatah’s terrorist operations executed by Fatah’s intelligence organization … For all intents and purposes no significant distinction now can be made between the BSO and Fatah.”

So “Black September” was a fiction—so says our own U.S. State Department. It was just another name for Fatah, led by Arafat and Abbas.

The DEI Threat to Jewish Students - Opinion

A recent study showed that the private social media accounts of DEI officers at university campuses exhibit a remarkable level of virulence against the State of Israel, compared to generally positive feelings towards the People’s Republic of China. The authors noted that “[o]f the tweets about Israel, 96 percent were critical of the Jewish state, while 62 percent of the tweets about China were favorable. There were more tweets narrowly referencing “apartheid” in Israel than tweets indicating anything favorable about Israel whatsoever.

Regarding Israel, the word genocide was associated nine times, the term ethnic cleansing appears seven times, and the accusation that children are specifically targeted appears 27 times. Meanwhile, DEI staffers generally praised China and even wrote glowingly about Chinese efforts to reduce poverty in Tibet, where China is pursuing cultural genocide of the Tibetan people. The report determined that “DEI staff have an obsessive and irrational animus toward the Jewish state.” DEI staffers on university campuses are supposed to be advocates for students, helping them navigate issues of inclusivity and belonging. When DEI staff and administration hold clear animus and bias against the world’s only Jewish state, universities are implicitly and unfairly discriminating against Jewish students.

People are imperfect, so criticism always has a role to play. However, the irrational malice DEI staffers demonstrate against Israel is of a different order. Under the widely-adopted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is used by the U.S. State Department, examples of antisemitism include “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”; “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”; “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”; and “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” All of these have been demonstrated by college DEI staffers – establishing college campuses as unfriendly and unwelcoming spaces for young Jews.

The average university now employs roughly 45 DEI staffers. These small armies rarely celebrate Jewish identity or work towards our inclusion; far more often, they exclude and marginalize Jews on campus and label them as white privilege, whether or not this matches their self-identity. Some states, notably Texas, are considering legislation that would ban DEI programs at public universities.

In the meantime, a generation of college students is being governed by an ideology hostile to Jews that is inculcating ideas about our community that are very different from the principles that our faith embodies, and the United States purports to champion. If American institutions continue to adopt and reflect extreme DEI ideologies, Jews will stuffer. For as George Orwell presciently wrote, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

U.S. Offers Palestinians $100k to Promote 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' in Arts and Sports

Amid a fresh wave of terrorism across Israel, the Biden administration is sending $100,000 in taxpayer funds to Palestinian groups that "promote diversity, equity, inclusion," the government announced last week.

The State Department will make available $100,000 for Palestinian government and non-profit groups through its "American-Palestinian Arts, Culture, and Sports Initiative." The funding is meant to "improve American-Palestinian relations" at a time when terrorists are wreaking havoc across Israel, including a series of rocket attacks this week by the Iran-funded Hamas militant group.

The State Department says it can help ease tensions by boosting engagement with the Palestinians and funding a range of programs that promote peace. "Special consideration" for the latest grant program "will be given to proposals that demonstrate how the program advances diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or accessibility with respect to race, ethnicity, religion, income, geography, gender identity, sexual orientation, and/or disability," the grant reads.

Those seeking to cash in on the funds will also have to demonstrate how they can "positively address issues of conflict resolution, mental health, resiliency, or trauma therapy through arts, culture, and/or sports."

The program is raising eyebrows among some former U.S. officials who say the Biden administration should not be rewarding the Palestinian government as terror factions murder Israelis in the streets and launch missiles at the Jewish state. Palestinian terrorists have gunned down several Israelis in the past month, including a British-Israeli family. Gaza-based militants also stepped up their operations this week, firing dozens of rockets into Israeli communities.

"The timing of the release of the grant opportunity is a bit tone deaf," said Bonnie Glick, former deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department organization that oversees funding in the Middle East.

Glick said all funds to Palestinians should be withheld to create an incentive for the government to end its support for terrorism.

"Withholding funds ... might allow Palestinian leaders to rethink their priorities and control, rather than incite, their restive population," Glick said.

Some 1947 Arab antisemitism at the UN

In the middle of an excellent Sapir article by Jeffrey Herf - highly recommended - he notes that "Jamal Husseini, the representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations, reject[ed] a Jewish state in Palestine, because, he said, it would undermine the 'racial homogeneity' of the Arab world. "

I found the full quote here:

One other consideration of fundamental importance to the Arab world was that of racial homogeneity. The Arabs lived in a vast territory stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, spoke one language, had the same history, tradition and aspirations. Their unity was a solid foundation for peace in one of the most central and sensitive areas of the world. It was illogical, therefore, that the United Nations should associate itself with the introduction of an alien body into that established homogeneity, a course which could only produce new Balkans.

While the Arab speakers at the UN made sure that they appealed to the most liberal Western thinkers in their speeches, they often betrayed their racism and antisemitism anyway. Here is one example - Husseini is saying that Arabs are racists, who cannot countenance non-Arabs in their midst.

This was a theme with Arab debaters at the UN in 1947.

The highly articulate Fadel Jamali of Iraq - who would later become prime minister of that country - spoke eloquently at the UN at the July 23, 1947 Special Committee for Palestine meeting held in Lebanon. But his words were still suffused with racism and antisemitism:

The extremists today are not satisfied with Palestine alone. They want Trans-Jordan to be attached to Palestine to form one Jewish State immediately. This Jewish State might extend from the Nile to the Euphrates at a later stage and some pronouncements have appeared to the effect that Zionist ambitions do not fall short of the economic, if not political, penetration of the whole Middle East.

...Here are some of the powerful means used by the Zionists to make their ambitions and aggressive intentions appear in be right. First, economic pressure. Zionists use great economic pressure to make the Arab sell his land. They allure him and they weaken him by offering an exorbitant sum of money, for his land. The weak Arab succumbs and soon finds himself a landless, homeless fellow.

...Probably the most effective means which they have used to attain their goal is propaganda. The Zionists have a well-organized machinery of propaganda with which the Arabs cannot possibly compete today. They have access to the press in most of the Western countries, besides providing their own press. Through the press Zionists try to prove their wrong right, and the right of the Arabs wrong.

... The Zionists have not come only for Palestine, which is mainly a barren, rocky and sandy country. Palestine is just a stepping-stone to the economic exploitation of the whole Middle-East. I

... A new method used by extreme Zionists in post-war years has been a resort to force. Some Zionists in this War probably joined the Allied Forces with a double end in view — the defeat of Hitler and the conquest of Palestine by force. They certainly learned some of the deadliest and most treacherous Nazi methods of warfare. They are applying them in Palestine today. ...

Some Zionists who want a Jewish State, no matter how small to begin with, and some non-Jews who are not familiar with the situation, speak of partition as a solution. I wish to make it clear that no partition in any form or guise will be acceptable to the Arabs. They will fight it and resist sooner or later for no Jewish State in any size or form will ever be tolerated by the Arab world. Moreover, partition cannot work for more than one reason for it can never separate the Arabs from the Jews completely, and the State derived therefrom can never stand on its own feet economically. But these are from the Arab point of view, secondary considerations compared with their firm determination to fight the idea of partition as well as the idea of the Jewish State. I hope the Committee will give due consideration to this point.

That last part was a recurring theme, that is heard even today - if Jews get what they want, it will cause Arabs to be upset and they will launch a never ending war. That threat of violence, with the implication that the Arab leaders cannot do anything to stop their own wild mobs of people, has been a constant theme from the Arab world to bully the West into concessions and pressuring Israel.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Israel Defense and Security Forum released a poll of Israeli attitudes towards Judea and Samaria. It showed that a majority of Israelis feel a historic, emotional or religious connection to the territories.

70% of the Jews surveyed feel a historical connection to Judea and Samaria, 63% an emotional connection, and 48% a religious connection.

In comparison, only 37% of Israeli Arabs feel a historical connection to the West Bank, 33% an emotional connection and 32% a religious connection.

Keep in mind that the Maarat HaMachpela in Hebron is considered to be the Ibrahimi Mosque by Muslims, and even Rachel's Tomb and Joseph's Tomb have been turned into Islamic shrines. And Jews are on the whole far less religious than Muslims are. Even so, Israeli Jews are twice as likely to say they feel a connection to the territories than Arabs are.

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!

05/08 Links Pt1: Mother Of Hamas Terrorist Who Murdered British-Israeli Mother And Her Daughters: The Jews Are Our Enemies, We Should Fight Them, Devour Them With Our Teeth

From Ian:

Setting the Record Straight on Israel-Palestinian Negotiations

From 1937 onward, Palestinian leaders have repeatedly rejected offers, brought to them by the British, the U.S., and Israel itself, to share the territory west of the Jordan River. Yet claims routinely surface suggesting that responsibility for the failures to reach a compromise lies elsewhere. Ben-Dror Yemini examines the evidence, and puts paid to such attempts at distortion:

For decades, many people, for good and bad, have been spreading the narrative that if only Israel would be a little more generous, and if only the Americans brokered a serious peace agreement, peace was within reach. For the bad, this stems from the desire to blame Israel for all world crimes. For the good, this is due to a sincere and genuine desire for peace, mixed with a lack of knowledge, or reluctance to know, or self-deception of those who struggle to reconcile the gap between beliefs and desires on the one hand and facts on the other.

There are . . . official announcements, materials exposed [by Al Jazeera’s publication of thousands of leaked documents in 2011], and always denials trying, unsuccessfully, to create the impression that the Palestinians wanted peace. In 2012, I was invited to attend a meeting with [the former Palestinian chief negotiator] Nabil Shaath. A welcome initiative. It was a wonderful meeting—up to that moment when I presented to Shaath what he himself said on July 3, 2011: “We will never accept the ‘two states for two peoples’ formula to resolve the conflict.” I asked him if he had changed his mind. He was evasive. I was no longer invited to the next meeting. . . .

Why should anyone bother the enthusiasts of illusion? As long as the Israeli and global left wing insist on ignoring facts, they are not promoting peace. Doing so serves Palestinian rejectionism. It’s bad for the Palestinians and it’s bad for Israel.

MEMRI: Ahead Of 75th Anniversary Of The Nakba, Palestinian Leadership Stresses It Will Never Relinquish Refugees' Right To Return To Their Homes

On May 15, 2023, the UN General Assembly will for the first time hold an event to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. The event, marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, will be attended by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud 'Abbas, who is expected to use this platform to underscore the issue of the Palestinian people's right of return. The decision to hold event was one of the outcomes of a Palestinian diplomatic campaign that calls, inter alia, for recognizing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes inside the state of Israel.

In the past year, PA, PLO and Fatah leaders have continued to stress their uncompromising insistence on the right of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their homes, a right they contend is guaranteed by UN Resolution 194.[1] This demand has in fact been part of the official Palestinian position for years. The meaning of this demand is that the refugees would be allowed to return to the territory of Israel on the 1948 borders, which contravenes the call for a two-state solution and is aimed at eliminating Israel in its current, Zionist, form.[2]

Statements by Palestinian officials on the right of return were especially conspicuous lately, amid the Palestinian preparations for the UN event marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, and also at the celebrations marking the 58th anniversary of Fatah's founding.

The issue of the right of return also came up in the context of a bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, which calls to set conditions for U.S. contributions to UNRWA and to restrict the definition of Palestinian refugee. The bill drew furious responses from Palestinian officials, who reiterated that the refugees' right of return to their homes is sacred, non-negotiable and permanent, and that they will never relinquish it. A Palestinian columnist even called to sue the U.S. lawmakers who promoted the bill in international courts.

It should be noted that, on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, a memorial to the Nakba will be unveiled in Ramallah. The memorial, whose construction was initiated by President 'Abbas, highlights the values of the Palestinian "dispersion, struggle and hope."

Lebanon terror groups directed bus bombing attempt in Israel - Shin Bet

Six members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attempted Beitar Illit bus bombing on March 9, and for allegedly planning a series of future explosive attacks, Israel's Shin Bet announced on Monday morning.

According to the security agency, much of the terrorist cell was centered around the Bethlehem area, with members from the Dheisha Refugee Camp, Batir village and Beit Jaala. The cell and its members were uncovered and investigated over the past month.

Those arrested included: Bassam Avina, Ahmad Abu Naama, Mazen Abdullah, Muhammad al-Barak, Rami al-Ahmar and Nur Mahmoud.

The members of the cell planned the Beitar Illit attack, recruited the attacker, and rented safe houses for the attack process. They are also suspected of assembling explosives and purchasing an escape vehicle.

Some of those arrested also were also planning to carry out other terror attacks.

In addition, the Shin Bet arrested an Israeli who is suspected of helping smuggle some of the terror suspects into Israel and transporting them around the country.

According to the statement, the Israeli's interrogation showed that she did not realize they were terrorists, so she has been indicted for the lighter crime of merely assisting persons with illegal border crossing and traveling within Israel.

The IDF Prosecution will file indictments in the near future against various terror cell members for attempted murder, assembling explosives, participation in a terror group and other charges.