Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, June 18, 2023

06/18 Links: Collier: The Spectator falls down an antisemitic conspiracy rabbit hole; Netanyahu: New nuclear agreement won’t stop Iranian bomb; New Iran deal meant to stop Israeli attack

From Ian:

David Collier: The Spectator falls down an antisemitic conspiracy rabbit hole

The Jews were persecuted, dispossessed, and forced out of Iraq. Most turned up as penniless refugees in Israel. This is fact, not opinion – and there is overwhelming evidence to prove that this is true. Yet Spectator Magazine has just published an article that gives legitimacy to a disgraceful antisemitic conspiracy theory – one which claims that it was the result of a Zionist plot.

The article by Justin Marozzi
The title of the article by Justin Marozzi is ‘the shocking truth behind the Baghdad bombings of 1950 and 1951‘. It is a review of a book by the anti-Zionist writer Avi Shlaim called ‘Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew‘.

The review is gushing in clear admiration. Marozzi calls the book ‘beautifully written‘ and says it ‘carefully blends the personal with the political‘. To reinforce the narrative the journalist calls Shlaim a ‘powerful and humane voice‘. Marozzi also focuses on a key claim that Shlaim has long pushed – that a series of bombings against Jewish targets which took place in Baghdad in 1950 and 1951, were set by ‘Zionist agents‘ in order to ‘force them to flee Iraq‘.

The article also pushes Shlaim’s other anti-Zionist lies, such as the idea that the Jews in Arab lands were ‘compatriots’ of their Muslim overlords – and it was Zionism (rather than rising Arab antisemitism and religious nationalisms) which dealt their position a ‘mortal blow‘.

(editor’s note: One wonders what dealt all the other suffering minorities in the Middle East – the Christians, the Kurds, the Yazidis, Assyrians, Armenians, Bahrani, Baloch, Coptic Christians, Druze, etc., their own mortal blow, if these cannot be blamed on ‘Zionist agents’?)

Marozzi even writes that it is difficult to mount a credible argument against some of Shlaim’s ‘conclusions’. Convincing stuff!

Ending inside the rabbit hole
The Iraqi Jews were persecuted, were offered a window to leave- and despite the fact they had to leave everything behind – they almost all left. This is what really happened.

The explosions were (as Shlaim admits) set by different actors. Even if (and it is unlikely given the evidence) there was a Jewish Zionist involved in any of them – it still doesn’t mean Israel was involved. The idea that every single Zionist Jew is a puppet of the Israeli state – is a classic antisemitic trope. But most importantly – whoever set them – these explosions did not cause the exodus.

Avi Shlaim writes in his book that:
‘the question of who was behind the bombs is of crucial importance for understanding the real origins of the exodus’.

Except it isn’t important at all. He is deflecting away from everything else that was taking place. Shlaim is just spinning fairy tales – creating a straw man – and leading everyone down a rabbit hole.

To draw an analogy – Shlaim wants to spin stories about why WTC7 collapsed, rather than focus on the Islamist hijacked planes that flew into the Twin Towers.

And the Spectator has just given that unforgivable strategy a huge platform. Remember that this was not news. This was a book review – this was something the Editors at the Spectator thought would be a good idea to promote. They chose to write it – and to give antisemites the ammunition. If like me this makes you angry and you wish to complain to them, feel free to do so.

Why They Hate Israel

They grew up in an environment controlled by the PA (or, in Gaza, by Hamas). That environment was supposed to be shaped by the Oslo II agreement, signed by Israel and the PA in 1995, which states (Chapter 4, Article XXII, clause 1) that the PA is required to “abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda” against Israel and Jews.

Yet for the past 28 years, the PA has done exactly the opposite of what it pledged to do. For 28 years, an entire generation of Arab children was raised in an environment that should have been free of incitement and antisemitism. According to the Oslo agreement, the PA was supposed to foster peace and nonviolence through its schools, news media, and popular culture.

Instead, the PA has done the opposite. It names streets and parks after terrorists. It pays salaries to imprisoned terrorists and dead terrorists’ families. PA schools teach that Arab terrorists are heroes and Jews are hook-nosed racist monsters. The PA’s official maps, in government offices and schoolrooms alike, show all of Israel as “Occupied Palestine.”

Just take a look at the invaluable website of Palestinian Media Watch for a glimpse of what Palestinian Arabs are reading, seeing and hearing on any given day.

On May 30, for example, the PA gave a full military funeral to a member of the PA Intelligence division who was also a Fatah terrorist and was recently killed after he tried to murder Israelis. Instead of denouncing Ashraf Ibrahim as an enemy of peace, the PA lionized him. The official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, hailed him as a “martyr” and senior PA officials attended his funeral. One who spoke at the funeral urged the public to “confront Israel with every weapon.”

A week before that, on May 23, official PA Television broadcast an announcement by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate that “the top priority of the Palestinian journalist is loyalty to all the Martyrs, loyalty to our people’s just cause.” So much for journalistic standards!

Go back a little further and you read that PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh boasted on his Facebook page on May 4 that the Palestinian Arab terrorists who murdered Rebbetzin Lucy Dee and her two daughters were “righteous martyrs” who “ascended to heaven” because they were fighting “the criminal occupation.”

So, it’s no wonder the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs support terrorism and want to see Israel destroyed—because that is what they have been taught, incessantly, throughout their lives.

How antisemitism in Arab media infiltrates the West

Tamar Sternthal, the director and founder of CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America)’s Israel office, said at the Begin Center, “Nearly a quarter of a century ago, CAMERA focused on ensuring that English language coverage of Israel in American media outlets put forward a professional coverage of journalistic content. Since then, the media environment in which we work shifted dramatically in the face of globalization.”

CAMERA shifted away from focusing solely on reporting in America. This led to CAMERA establishing an Arabic department to focus on “Arabic language reports on Western media outlets, like CNN, Reuters, Agence France-Press, Sky News, France 24, Deutsche Welle and more. We decided to focus specifically on Western media outlets because they are focused on journalistic codes of ethics that require accuracy, accountability and transparency.”

Sternthal said there was a huge need for this project. While she stressed how Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) have done excellent work translating the content of both extremists and moderates from the Palestinian and Islamic world into English, no one was doing the same for the Arabic language websites of Western media outlets.

“There was little or no oversight, including internally. Often, English language editors were completely unaware of this information published on their own platform in Arabic. Problematic language and unfounded claims that English language editors considered unacceptable appeared unchecked in Arabic under their own brand names.”

An analyst who works for CAMERA Arabic, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that much of the antisemitism promoted in Palestinian Authority media outlets has found its way onto Arabic language websites of Western news outlets.

“For example, the Arabic branch of the British Independent published a theater critic about a Beirut play where Anne Frank was portrayed as a vicious Zionist who came to take a Palestinian home from its original home. The play is called ‘A Letter to Anne Frank.’ It is still there. It has the Independent logo on it. If you did not know that the Independent in Arabic is a Saudi-owned subsidiary, you would think that this is content that the British Independent promotes. Obviously, they are irresponsible about their own content,” the analyst said.

According to him, many antisemites have been given positions in the Arabic language websites of Western news channels. One of them was Joelle Maroun, the Beirut correspondent of France 24, a publicly funded corporation.

“Their correspondent is a huge fan of Adolf Hitler. She publicly praised Hitler for over 10 years and nothing was done. There was no background check. Nothing of the sort. Only when CAMERA Arabic called her out, she got fired. Unfortunately, other correspondents who did likewise only got suspended for a month and they went back to work. You can still see them on the screen.”

Palestinian media are celebrating the murderous pogroms that targeted unarmed and innocent Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and elsewhere in 1929.

June 17th was the anniversary of the 1930 British execution of three Arabs who were convicted of murdering Jewish civilians during the pogroms.

Originally, the British court found 25 Arabs guilty and deserving of the death penalty; 22 of them had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The three who remained were clearly found guilty of multiple murders and premeditation, two of them in Hebron and one in Safed.

The three murderers are being hailed as heroes in Palestinian media, in print and on video, and the murders of Jews are being called the beginning of the "Al Buraq Revolution."

The Palestine Bulletin in 1930 noted that they were hailed as heroes then, too, with an Arab Execuitve Committee notice that looks strikingly like those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad today.

Strikingly, many prominent Jews - including Einstein - lobbied against the death penalty for the murderers, on principle against the death penalty altogether.

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!

Iraqi Jews left because of Iraq's antisemitic policies, not because of bombings (update)

The Spectator writes:

Avi Shlaim’s family led the good life in Baghdad. Prosperous and distinguished members of Iraq’s Jewish minority, a community which could trace its presence in Babylon back more than 2,500 years, they had a large house with servants and nannies, went to the best schools, rubbed shoulders with the great and the good and sashayed elegantly from one glittering party to the next. Shlaim’s father was a successful businessman who counted ministers as friends. His much younger mother was a socially ambitious beauty who attracted admirers, from Egypt’s King Farouk to a Mossad recruiter. For this privileged section of Iraqi society, it was a rich, cosmopolitan and generally harmonious milieu. And for the young Shlaim, born in Baghdad in 1945, these were halcyon days.

They were not to last. In 1950, during a series of bombings targeting the Jewish population in the Iraqi capital, he and his family fled their ancient homeland to begin new lives in the fledgling state of Israel. His father, by then in his fifties, could not speak Hebrew and was completely undone by the move. After a couple of failed attempts to start a business, he never worked again. Shlaim’s vivacious mother was forced to take up the slack, exchanging the gilded life of a society hostess in Baghdad for a mundane job as a telephonist in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, where they lived in much diminished circumstances. The couple drifted apart and divorced, and Shlaim’s father died in 1970.

At the heart of this riveting and profoundly controversial book is Shlaim’s investigation into the Baghdad bombings against Jewish targets in 1950 and 1951. Between those years around 110,000 Jews of a population of approximately 135,000 emigrated from Iraq to Israel. Although Israel has consistently denied any involvement in these attacks, suspicion has hung over the clandestine activities of Zionist agents tasked with persuading the Jewish community to flee Iraq and settle in Israel. Shlaim’s bombshell is to uncover what he terms “undeniable proof of Zionist involvement in the terrorist attacks,” which helped terminate the millennial presence of Jews in Babylon. It is quite a charge — and will always be hotly disputed.

The review does not say what the "undeniable proof" is, so I cannot investigate whether what he says is true or not.

Here is what we do know.

There were seven bombings in Iraq against Jewish targets or Jewish owned businesses in 1950-51. Only one was fatal, which was the only one targeting a synagogue - the January 1951 hand grenade to the courtyard of the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue that killed three or four Jews. By that time already 86,000 Iraqi Jews had registered to go to Israel and the exodus was full blown. It makes no sense that Jews would have thrown that bomb when it wouldn't have added to the exodus. Indeed, the Jews killed that day were themselves waiting in line to register to emigrate to Israel.

From the parts of Shlaim's book that can be seen online, he appears to say that this only fatal bombing was done by a Syrian Muslim, not Jews:

So, at worst, Shlaim is claiming (at least according to this review) that some of the earlier bombs that didn't kill anyone were the main impetus to cause Jews to leave Iraq.

That is simply not true.

By all accounts, Iraqi Jews - at least up until the 1930s - were prosperous and secure, living in the same country for 2500 years. They felt at least as secure as Jews in the US and Canada do today. Does it make sense that nearly all of them would emigrate en masse from a series of non-fatal bombs? It would make more sense that millions of Americans would move to Israel in response to the Tree of Life synagogue attack where 11 Jews were murdered.

Clearly the bombings had little or no impact on Iraqi Jews, at least not compared to the real persecution that they suffered from the Iraqi government itself. And there were other Jews killed in Iraq between Israel's declaration of independence and the Iraqi exodus.

Newspaper stories at the time of the Iraqi exodus gave many reasons that a secure and mostly prosperous community would decide to leave suddenly - and leave everything behind. And when you look at the news stories from 1949-1951 about Iraqi Jewry, plenty of examples of persecution are given - and almost none of them even mentions bombings.

Here is a 1951 account by a UJA official, Morris W. Berinstein proud of his organization's role in airlifting the Iraqi Jews:

In the early nineteen thirties, when British controls were relaxed in Iraq, and the Arabs were beginning to form their own state, the Jews of Iraq, theretofore secure, began to worry for their safety. Although the government never' passed an overtly anti-Jewish law, Arab nationalism created an ugly atmosphere for Iraq's minorities.

When Hitler came into power, Nazi propaganda flourished in Iraq. Soon Jewish civil servants were being discharged from their jobs. Anti-Jewish feeling pervaded the country.

In 1937, there were violent anti-Jewish demonstrations in Baghdad. In 1938, nitric acid was poured on Jewish passers-by. In 1938, there were riots and the police did nothing to prevent rioters from firing on Jewish homes. During the riots, 150 Jews were killed and more than 700 wounded. Throughout the next ten years, the economic status of the Jews in Iraq steadily deteriorated.

...Then, in 1948, Iraq joined the other Arab states in the war against Israel. And Iraq's Jews found themselves being subjected to searches, arrest, denunciation, torture, mass imprisonment, fines, impoverishment, and the slow destruction of all rights. Iraq declared martial law during this period. The Jews of Iraq found out that for them this meant searches of homes at night, confiscation of valuables, arrests and "trials" by martial courts.

On the Day of Atonement in 1949, 150 soldiers surrounded a synagogue in El Amara, seized the men wrapped in prayer shawls worshipping there—and arrested them. The charge? There were Stars of David on their prayer shawls. For it was now a crime — a capital crime — to be a Zionist in Iraq, to emigrate to Israel, .to help others emigrate.

And every Jew in Iraq was considered a Zionist. The unofficial persecution became worse and worse . The judge in a martial court would slap and kick the defendant before pronouncing the sentence. Young men where kidnapped, beaten, forced to confess they were taking part in "Zionist" activities. Shops were looted. Homes were unsafe for Jews. Men were sentenced to years of hard labor for receiving a letter from Palestine!

Jews were not only forbidden to emigrate to Palestine, but even to visit there. Iraq passports were stamped, "Not valid for travel to Palestine."

After the establishment of Israel in 1948, this policy continued. And then, suddenly, in March, 1950, the government of Iraq reversed its stand on emigration. Both chambers of the parliament passed a law authorizing Iraqi 'Jews to leave by May 31, 1951. The price was relinquishment of Iraq nationality.

The Guardian, April 13, 1951, also enumerates a litany of injustices to the Jews of Iraq, and blames it on Iraqi nationalism that excluded Jews from their country:

This movement has the aspect of a stampede, and it is not to be assumed that a people so deeply rooted in the place as the Iraqi Jews would, except under the most compelling necessity, uproot themselves as completely as they are doing and give up all they have: their positions, their educational and communal organisation, and their own way of life. The stampede, then, is a result of an acute feeling of insecurity. The feeling became acute as a result of the war in Palestine, but it must not be supposed that it was not there before the events in Palestine brought it to the surface. The feeling of insecurity was there for perhaps the last twenty years; it dates, in fact, from the time when the death of Faisul removed the one person of influence in Iraqi politics capable of tolerance and fair-mindedness.

One can see now in retrospect the slow but sure process whereby a minority was made to feel unwelcome in the land it had inhabited for something like two thousand years. The "numerus clausus" in schools and colleges, the gradual elimination of all Jews whose services could be dispensed with from Government employment, the tightening control over the educational system of the community, the molestations, murders, and bomb-throwings which went unpunished, the discrimination against Jews in administrative action, the pogrom of 1941, the increasing restrictions on the movements of Jewish citizens—the record is curiously like the dreary and familiar history of European anti-Semitism. That the Jews of Iraq were not loyal and useful citizens cannot be maintained; neither can it be .maintained that there was ever among any class of the Moslem population a hate or a dislike for their Jewish neighbours, so that the conclusion at the present moment seems inescapable : if you introduce, foster, and encourage nationalism " a l'europeenne" in an area where it was previously unknown the life of minorities becomes intolerable.

Soon after the kingdom of Iraq got its full independence from the mandatory in the early thirties, its officials in the Ministry of Education devised a curriculum in modern history for the use of primary and secondary schools The perspective given by this curriculum was somewhat peculiar for it consisted in large part of the story of the attainment of national unity and independence by Germany. Italy, and Japan in the nineteenth century There seems to be an intimate connection between this kind of curriculum and the fortunes of the Jews of Iraq in the last twenty years. The Palestine war provided the culmination of a long story initiated by a nationalism introduced, " de toutes pieces," from Europe. And the culmination, too, owes a great deal to Europe, for it was the kind of treatment that European Jewry received at the hands of the anti-Semites of Europe which set up the tremendous pressures ending in the clash between Arabs and Jews which was to prove so catastrophic both for the Arabs of Palestine and for the Jews of Iraq.

Stories like the Guardian's emphasize that Iraqi Jews were reluctant to leave. This is emphasized in this article from Philip Toynbee, from the London Observer Foreign News Service, published in US newspapers December 30, 1950:

The Jewish community of Iraq is the oldest in the world, its origin traceable to that small remnant of the Captivity which never returned to Israel. Two and a half millennia later, the greater part of this antique community---they have been here at least 1,100 years longer than their Arab masters—have decided to reverse the decision of their ancestors. ...
Those who leave with, comparatively speaking, the blessings of the Iraqi government, are stripped of their belongings, even down to a spare new suit of clothes, and allowed to take only 50 pounds with them for each adult emigrant. They are also, and not unnaturally, deprived of their Iraqi passports and nationality. The temptation to slip across the frontier isito Iran, where Jewish emigrants to Israel are treated with far more tolerance and generosity, is naturally a strong one. Yet another 75.000 Iraqi Jews have made official applications to leave, in spite of the hardships and uncertainties which this change must involve.

Even during the Palestine war of 1948 there was little in Iraq which we, by our bitter standards, would call persecution. Once, a prominent Jew, accused of sending material to Israel, was summarily hanged and his body dragged on a rope's end through the streets of Basra. Three hundred boys and young men were arrested without trial, and kept for 18 months in sufficiently brutal captivity. But physical violence has not been widespread. The tragedy of the present situation is that for so many centuries Jews and Arabs lived here in peace together, mutually respectful of each other's religion, mutually unconscious of any subtle racial effluvia. The Jews of Iraq are Arabic-speaking. and, to an outsider, quite indistinguishable in appearance from their Arab neighbours. Only religion distinguishes the two groups.

Yet today, though at least 50 per cent of the Baghdad retail trade is still in Jewish hands. life in Iraq has become so difficult and painful for the Jews that more than half of them have elected to face the known austerities of life in Israel.

It would be quite unjust to see in this development a wanton aggression on the part of the Arab majority. Since the prelude and aftermath of the Palestine war, Iraq's Jews have been regarded as a potential fifth column, a group whose prime loyalty must be to the new, hated state which has been established in Zion.

The tragic process is a spiral. Being so regarded, it is natural that the Jews of Iraq, however devoted they may have been to their ancient place of settlement, should come to see themselves primarily as Jews, not as Iraqis.

By now the wound has been cut too deep to be easily healed. Iraq's remaining Jews live in huddled and self-conscious communities, apprehensive that they and their children may be mocked or slighted in the streets, rapidly developing that spirit of suspicious introversion which has been long imposed on the Jews of Europe.

...Meanwhile, the Jews of Iraq are being quickly squeezed out of all official positions in the country. The board of the Baghdad Chamber of Commerce, which was one-third Jewish two years ago, is now without a single Jewish member. Jews have been summarily dismissed from government positions, and life in Iraq is becoming daily more difficult for all of them. No doubt they are right to choose hardships which will at least be suffered among their own people and without any accompanying indignity.

Again, I don't know Shlaim's "undeniable proof" so I cannot say with certainty that no Zionists were behind some of the 1950 bombs. It is certainly true that some resentful Iraqi Jews, who did not want to leave Iraq and were not Zionist, blamed Zionists for the bombings, without any proof. We know that a 1960 Mossad inquiry requested by David Ben Gurion - whose results remained secret until 1996 - found "that no entity in Israel gave an order to perpetrate such acts of sabotage."

What is clear that Iraqi Jews didn't leave Iraq because of these bombings. They left because there was no future for them in Iraq.

Some of them remained bitter at being forced out, and that seems to include Shalim's own wealthy family. This book must be read through the prism of resentment towards Israel that Avi Shlaim clearly harbors, because the facts do not support his thesis that Israel was responsible for the Iraqi Jewish exodus.

UPDATE: The excellent Adin Haykin has written extensively about this.

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!

Once again, @AmnestyUK lies about Israel

Amnesty-UK has embarked on what I believe is at least its fourth campaign to get the UK to ban any Israeli goods from communities across the Green Line.

As far as I can tell, Israel is the only country in the world whose consumer products are targeted for boycotting by Amnesty branches.

The current campaign makes claims that are simply false:

Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria have either been built on empty areas that hadn't had any Arab residents or they were built where Jews lived before 1948 (Gush Etzion and parts of Jerusalem and Hebron.)

Israel haters love to paint a picture of Israel depopulating Palestinian communities in the West Bank and replacing them with Jewish communities - and it is simply a lie.

I tweeted Amnesty-UK asking for a list of these communities - certainly, someone must have made such a list like there are lists of communities that Arabs fled from in 1948. But no one has been able to provide the name of even one.

Because it is a lie. And the "human rights" community is not bothered by lies as long as they are lies that demonize Jews.

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!

06/17 Links: Joe Biden’s UNESCO fiasco; What George Soros's succession plan means for America; Michigan man arrested for planning mass attack on synagogue

From Ian:

Joe Biden’s UNESCO fiasco

UNESCO passes more scandalous anti-Israel resolutions
What is particularly galling about this move is that just last month, UNESCO once again passed a series of scandalous anti-Israel resolutions at the 216th session of its executive board in Paris, which was held from May 10 to 24.

Take, for example, Item 33 of the UNESCO board’s agenda, which is titled “Occupied Palestine” and reads like it was formulated by the worst of Israel’s foes.

In a subsection about Jerusalem, the Jewish state is described as the “Occupying Power” over the city, and the board’s members declare that Israel’s Basic Law on Jerusalem, which established the city as our united capital, is “null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.”

Another subsection declares that both Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people are buried, are “Palestinian sites” which are under Israeli occupation.

This is so patently offensive and insulting to Jewish belief that it borders on outright antisemitism.

Denying the Jewishness of our ancestors is nothing less than a direct assault on the very foundations of the Jewish people, and UNESCO deserves to be shunned for it, not embraced.

Regarding Gaza, the UNESCO board criticized “Israeli army violations” in the area, while failing to mention Hamas and Islamic Jihad or their habit of firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. And it also bemoaned the situation on the “Occupied Syrian Golan.”

If this is what UNESCO’s director-general had in mind when she said that she had managed to “reduce political tensions and find consensus on the most sensitive topics, such as the Middle East,” then I would hate to see what a flare-up might look like.

THE FACT of the matter is that UNESCO and its obscene anti-Israel bias has not changed one whit.

As the Palestinian news agency WAFA gleefully reported on May 19, “For the first time, a symposium marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba was hosted at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO’s) Headquarters in Paris.”

In other words, an organization ostensibly devoted to promoting the benefits of knowledge and culture instead played host to an event mourning the establishment of the State of Israel.

These outrageous positions are in line with UNESCO’s long-standing hostility toward Jewish history and memory.

Rep. Mark Green: Rejoining UNESCO ‘undermines’ US-Israel relationship

Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told JNS that the United States must continue to stand with its ally Israel, which rejoining UNESCO undercuts.

“The Biden administration’s decision to rejoin UNESCO undermines this important alliance because of UNESCO’s history of passing anti-Israel resolutions, including one identifying Israel as ‘the occupying power’ in Jerusalem,” Green said. “Any organization that doesn’t treat Israel as a legitimate and contributing nation does not deserve U.S. support or participation.”

At a time when Washington ought to be cutting spending, Americans should be “furious” that the Biden administration is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to UNESCO, according to Green, a member of the House Republican Israel Caucus.

“The U.S. will likely return to becoming its largest funder. This is a bad use of taxpayer dollars, to say the least,” he said. “UNESCO made its stance on Israel clear. By rejoining this organization, the Biden administration is turning its back on our friend and ally.”

It had previously been illegal under U.S. law for Washington to fund any U.N. entity that bestows full membership on entities lacking “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. In 2011, the Obama administration stopped funding UNESCO after it welcomed Palestine as a member, and in 2018, the Trump administration exited UNESCO altogether, and Israel followed thereafter.

06/16 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Challenging the BBC on Israel; Extensive report details decades of antisemitism at CAIR; Israel’s World Cup Cinderella story

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Challenging the BBC on Israel

For decades, the Western media has acted as a malevolent echo chamber for demonization of Israel. Channeling Palestinian Arab propaganda as if it were fact, the media has twisted the Western mind, inciting it to hate Israel and give Israel’s Palestinian Arab persecutors a free pass. The impact of this cannot be exaggerated.

Of all media outlets, the BBC is the most important, because it serves as the global standard of fairness, objectivity and accuracy.

At least, that’s the BBC’s historic reputation. In Britain, conservatives regularly criticize it for its leftist bias. Arguably, however, the BBC’s coverage of Israel has caused the most lethal harm.

Over the years, the BBC has broadcast and disseminated through its influential website Palestinian Arab distortions and lies, including incendiary and emotive footage that is sometimes no more than “Pallywood” fiction. It fails to report most attacks on Israelis while, at the same time, unforgivably presenting Israeli military actions to stop these attacks as if Israel were the aggressor and the Palestinian Arabs its hapless victims.

There is no other country, cause or people that the BBC misrepresents so obsessively. The outlet’s egregious bias has been painstakingly charted by media watchdogs such as CAMERA UK.

Until very recently, however, the BBC could ignore such criticisms because of the general public silence of both Britain’s Jewish community leaders and Israeli politicians about its routine distortions.

This has recently begun to change. Member of Knesset Ohad Tal (Religious Zionism), chairman of the Knesset’s Public Enterprises Committee, has waded in. In a letter to the BBC’s Director-General Tim Davie, Tal accused the corporation of “inadvertently fanning terrorism” by parroting false claims used by Palestinian Arab terrorist groups to justify their attacks.

Pointing out that such groups regularly claim that their murders of Israeli civilians are a justified response to Israel’s “crimes of the occupation,” Tal listed 11 instances of similar claims broadcast by the BBC since last November alone—sometimes two in a single day.

This incessant messaging that Jewish “settlements” in Judea and Samaria are illegal appears so often in BBC items, said Tal, because the BBC’s guidance for its journalists states: “When writing a story about settlements, BBC journalists can aim, where relevant, to include context to the effect that ‘all settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.’ ”

Yet at the same time, the BBC’s guidelines assert, “We should not use the term ‘terrorist’ without attribution, using words instead such as ‘insurgent’ and ‘militant.’ ”

Caroline Glick: Trump, Netanyahu and the renaissance of Soviet apparatchiks

Netanyahu’s supporters have expressed great anger and frustration at the prime minister and his colleagues on the political right for their failure to date to restore the rule of law through legal reform, or to either privatize state media that receive automatic public funding and are politically driven or support alternative media outlets with the same largesse.

But the real criticism has to be directed at the left. The same people falsely claiming to be fighting for “democracy” by seeking to overthrow the democratically elected Netanyahu government and block its ability to govern through demonization, media-instigated panic and mob violence, hate democracy. They know they are the minority of Israel’s citizens and under their “Democracy” banners they demand unlimited power for anti-democratic institutions of government—the state prosecution, the Supreme Court and the senior government officials in every government ministry who think it ought to be illegal for elected ministers to oppose their policy preferences.

Opposition leaders have a personal interest in maintaining these institutions’ power. Consider Stateliness Party leader Benny Gantz. Gantz dedicated his party to blocking the government from asserting its command power over the IDF General Staff or limiting in any way the powers of the Supreme Court and the state prosecution.

Gantz’s company, the Fifth Dimension, was suspected of corrupt business practices and security breaches for, among other things, its alleged effort to sell spyware to Qatar—an enemy state—allegedly without receiving export licenses from the Defense Ministry. The investigation of the Fifth Dimension was buried by the Competition Authority and never subjected to police scrutiny.

The Democrats and Israeli leftists who have been demonizing Trump as a traitor and Netanyahu as a crook since 2016 are happy with the media’s corruption. They see no flaw in the behavior of their criminal justice and legal systems. Neither sector believes that maintaining the rule of law is the responsibility of the legal system nor believes that providing accurate reporting on current events is the job of the media.

Russia never became a liberal democracy. It moved from a totalitarian Communist regime to an authoritarian kleptocracy under Boris Yeltsin to a neo-czarist dictatorship under Vladimir Putin. As for the Free World, its liberal patriots morphed into progressive post-nationalist authoritarians smitten by political correctness and convinced that all ideological foes deserve to be canceled and criminalized. In other words, they became Soviet apparatchiks.

Whether or not Netanyahu and his colleagues in Israel—and Trump and his colleagues in America—succeed in their efforts to restore the rule of law and end the news commissars’ chokehold on information, as long as the progressives continue down their current path, we will remain in perpetual danger of giving the Soviet Union an ultimate victory over the Free World.

David Singer: Google ends UN's burying Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution

Google has ended the United Nations (UN) continuing effort to ignore the existence of the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution (HKOPS) as an alternative solution to replace the failed UN two-state solution contained in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 passed on 23 December 2016 (UNSCR 2334).

A Google search of “Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” reveals the following information - available since 8 June:

HKOPS has been amended – requiring the above entry’s following correction:
“This proposed enlarged kingdom would include present-day Jordan, Gaza, and the 'West Bank' (areas inhabited by Palestinians that border Jordan, i.e not divided into islands)”

HKOPS challenges the current solution - UNSCR 2334 - being unsuccessfully pursued by the United Nations urging:
“the intensification and acceleration of international and regional diplomatic efforts and support aimed at achieving, without delay a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East on the basis of the relevant United Nations resolutions, the Madrid terms of reference, including the principle of land for peace, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Quartet Roadmap and an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967; and underscores in this regard the importance of the ongoing efforts to advance the Arab Peace Initiative, the initiative of France for the convening of an international peace conference, the recent efforts of the Quartet, as well as the efforts of Egypt and the Russian Federation;”

After seven years of such intensive international and regional diplomatic efforts – the UN has achieved nothing. The conflict continues to intensify and the threat of a looming humanitarian crisis of major proportions continues to become more likely if the conflict is not resolved.

Hezbollah news site: Jews are lice

Today's antisemitism that couldn't possibly be antisemitism comes from Lebanon's Al Mayadeen, a Hezbollah linked site.

It is a recollection of a Palestinian in Lebanon of what his teacher had taught him about leaving Palestine in 1948.

He pressed the arms of the razor: "With this we will deal with lice...how? We shave our hair to nothing, and with this, young men, we prevent lice from hiding among the hair because we shaved them."

A boy sitting on a stone either side raised his finger and asked, "And the fleas, Professor?"

"Lice and fleas feed on our blood, and our blood is weak because we eat food that does not satisfy us. I mean, lice suck our blood, I mean, they don't care if we die, and so they do what the Jews did to us, who expelled us from our villages and homes and threw us under tents due to cold, hunger, and lice."

- "These days, the days of hunger, lice, and living under tents will pass, and you will grow old and fight and liberate our villages and cities. We will be victorious over lice and those who occupy our villages and cities."

* I am Rashad Abu Shawer...we have grown up with heads full of certainty of the inevitability of liberating all the villages and cities of Palestine, just as Mr. Ahmed Al-Ajouri liberated our heads from lice.....

Comparing Jews to lice? Why would anyone think that this has anything to do with Jews?

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Site of future Russian embassy branch

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Russia plans to open a branch of its embassy in Jerusalem, in exchange for acknowledging the boundaries of Moscow’s historic and present ownership of the plot of land on which the office will be built, the sides announced on Friday.

The “branch office of the Consular Section of the Russian Embassy in Israel,” as the embassy calls it, will be opened on the corner of King George and Ma’alot streets in downtown Jerusalem, where a parking lot is currently located, after Russia and the Jerusalem Municipality, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, signed an agreement clarifying the boundaries of the plot.

The Foreign Ministry said that the building complex will include a residence for Russian diplomats and a conference hall, which makes it more than a regular consulate.

While it isn't a full embassy, it is nearly as significant as an embassy would be. The Russian diplomatic building would appear to violate the 1980 United Nations Security Council Resolution 478, which called for "Those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City;"

It will be recalled that at the same time the world was freaking out over the US Embassy moving to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Russia said that it recognized West Jerusalem as Israel's capital as well. Yet there was practically no negative response to Russia's announcement at the time.

We can probably expect the same muted response from the Palestinian Authority now.

The Arabi21 site reached out to the PA Foreign Ministry for comment, and they punted, saying they are checking the story, "in order to verify its authenticity, because we do not base our positions on what is published in the Hebrew media."

Since then, I see nothing about this announcement on the official Palestinian news sites.

In short, no one wants to upset Russia. Attacking the US is not only accepted but almost mandatory.

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06/16 Links Pt1: Pittsburgh synagogue shooter found guilty of murdering 11; Biden's (Iran) Deal That Dare Not Speak Its Name; Uyghurs Condemn Palestinian 'Support for Genocide'

From Ian:

Pittsburgh synagogue shooter found guilty of killing 11 in the deadliest attack on Jews in US history

A truck driver who expressed hated of Jews was convicted Friday of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.

The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers' own lawyers conceded at the trial's outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole as the federal trial shifts to a penalty phase expected to last several weeks.

Bowers was tried on 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. His attorneys had offered a guilty plea in return for a life sentence, but prosecutors refused, opting instead to take the case to trial and pursue the death penalty. Most of the victims' families expressed support for the decision.

Bowers turned a sacred house of worship into a "hunting ground," targeting his victims because of their religion, a prosecutor told jurors on Thursday. Reading the names of each of the 11 victims he killed, prosecutor Mary Hahn asked the jury to "hold this defendant accountable ... and hold him accountable for those who cannot testify."

Bowers, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, also shot and wounded seven, including five responding police officers.

Prosecutors presented evidence of his deep-seated animosity toward Jews and immigrants. Over 11 days of testimony, jurors learned that Bowers had extensively posted, shared or liked antisemitic and white supremacist content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right, and praised Hitler and the Holocaust. Bowers told police that "all these Jews need to die," Hahn said.

Survivors testified about the terror they felt that day, including a woman who recounted how she was shot in the arm and then realized her 97-year-old-mother had been shot and killed right next to her. Andrea Wedner, the trial's last witness, told jurors she touched her mother's lifeless body and cried out, "Mommy," before SWAT officers led her to safety.

With Bowers' guilt established, survivors and family members of the deceased victims are expected to tell the jury about the devastating impact of his crimes. The penalty phase is scheduled to start next week.

Biden's (Iran) Deal That Dare Not Speak Its Name

This deal that dare not speak its name will have no force. It will rely entirely on the goodwill of the 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a grizzled trickster and ally of Vladimir Putin. The New York Times reports that Khamenei has authorized the deal because it leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in place. The second Biden begins to doubt the wisdom of paying further ransom money, Khamenei will start spinning his centrifuges once more. And if paramilitaries controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fire mortars on Americans—well, he could say the bloodshed came from militants over whom he exercises no control.

Notice that the deal-that-is-no-deal says nothing about Iran’s deadliest proxy, Hezbollah, or about Iran’s drone traffic. This omission is consistent with Biden’s nasty habit of selling out America’s allies whether it be the democratic government of Afghanistan, the peoples of Lebanon, Syria, and, of course, Israel, or the Ukrainians resisting Russian occupation. Biden’s bribe—what Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies calls Biden’s "pay and pray" strategy of fueling the Iranian terror machine in the hope that it doesn’t go nuclear—is limited in scope, bereft of accountability, brazenly desperate, and lacking in strategic purpose. Its aims are political.

Biden wants to keep the Middle East quiet ahead of Election Day 2024. That is why his support for the Iranian rebellion was merely gestural. Why he allowed these talks in Oman to continue despite Iran’s assistance to Russia. Why his government welcomed the détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran that China brokered in April. And why he has submitted to the humiliation of paying off rogues for promises of good behavior in a few select areas.

This is partly a story of diminished diplomatic expectations. Biden’s old boss, Barack Obama, dreamed of subletting the Greater Middle East to Iran. Now Biden is left paying the bully to leave him alone. It is also another entry in the saga of Joe Biden’s incompetence. In his rare discussions of foreign policy, President Biden has portrayed international relations as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. I am inclined to agree with him. Then I look at his actions—where he has an awful tendency to give the authoritarians the upper hand.

Appeasing Iran does nothing to further the cause of democracy. Nor does attempting détente with a China that has grown in belligerence since the spy balloon incident earlier this year. Nor does slow-walking weapons deliveries to Ukraine while hemming and hawing over Ukraine’s future in NATO. If Joe Biden wanted to preserve and promote democracy abroad, he would do more than give the occasional speech on the subject. He would mobilize hard power to confront authoritarians and deter them from hostile acts.

Biden has made a career out of misjudgment. This sure-to-fail bargain with Iran is another entry in a depressing catalogue.

Israel must oppose the Iran understandings with all it's got

The Biden administration's only goal is to achieve calm through the November 2024 presidential elections. The understandings will stop all action against Iran's nuclear program, based on the mistaken assumption that it would put the nuclear issue "back into a box." Jake Sullivan and now Barbara Leaf, both high-ranking White House officials, have already stated this belief. The understandings will also make it very difficult for Israel to attack alone if it concludes that the time has come. It is true that under the "understandings" it will be a little easier to attack than under an agreement, but it is still going to be very difficult.

In the background, the Iranians continue with their attacks on American interests in the Gulf and in the Middle East; violate human rights and kill women and girls in Iran; continue lending massive support to Russia; and transfer advanced weapons that help kill Ukrainian women and girls.

Instead of reaching those flawed understandings with Iran, it would be better for the US to trigger the snapback mechanism that would reinstate all canceled Security Council sanctions – including a total ban on uranium enrichment – before this mechanism expires in 2025. Such action would hollow out the Saudi desire to seek legitimacy for an independent nuclear fuel cycle.

The agreement will once again come with a heavy price for Israel, so Israel must act against it loudly and in one voice. This critical issue must not be drowned out by the noise of political debates or be compromised by the desire to reach a Saudi deal.

Iran is trying to draw Israel into a multi-theater conflagration while staying out of direct confrontation for the time being. Israel must continue to improve its military capabilities while at the same time send a clear message against the understandings being formulated. Every hint that there is anything to talk about will convey that Israel is weak – like the US – and cannot be trusted. The message will reach our friends in the Gulf, those who have signed agreements with us, and those who may sign in the future – but only if Israel will remain strong against the Iranian threats.

Iran deal contours contain only nuclear negatives. Let us explore what's been reported thus far??

1) Political commitment only from Iran, not technical restrictions, on not enriching to 90%, which is days away now. Timeline might remain days to weapons-grade uranium for… https://t.co/KgKyoV7L0k
— Andrea Stricker (@StrickerNonpro) June 15, 2023

FDD: Don’t Stop Digging Into Iran’s Nuclear Secrets

There is no justification for the IAEA’s decision to stop any unsolved investigation instead of declaring Iran in breach of its most fundamental obligations as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and referring it to the UN Security Council for further consequences.

And yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Why?

Rafael Grossi spent years building a reputation as a maverick and he has pressed Iran for answers since his first election in late 2019. But Grossi’s power largely depends on his board’s support. If Washington and its allies were so inclined, they could pass a resolution declaring Iran in non-compliance with the NPT and refer Iran to the Security Council.

Instead, for two and a half years, the Biden administration expressed interest in negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran. At the moment, it is reportedly moving to pay Iran to keep its enrichment below weapons-grade.

Accordingly, Iran has recognized it can push the IAEA around. Tehran has responded to IAEA requests by incrementally closing off the agency’s access and verification at known nuclear-connected sites — withholding video recordings at enrichment plants, removing cameras, harassing inspectors, and accelerating enrichment to ever-higher levels. And late last year, Iran declared the IAEA’s investigations into undeclared sites to be a stumbling block to any deal with Washington.

Grossi has been diligent and independent by the standards of IAEA director generals. But he has no answer to the pivotal question, “Or else what?” In the absence of firm US and allied support, Grossi appears resigned to follow the path of least resistance.

Still, all hope is not lost. The IAEA still has open safeguards investigations related to two secret sites in Iran where nuclear material was discovered. And Grossi was careful not to declare now-stalled investigations officially closed. Indeed, his reports are filled with indictments of Iran’s undeclared nuclear weapons work and its NPT violations. This gives an opening for Congress and presidential candidates to publicly declare their intent to hold Iran accountable for all undeclared sites and materials whenever control of the White House next shifts, or for the Biden administration to recognize its error and change course.

Abraham Accords a boon to Israeli defense industry

Reuters reports:

Israel exported a record $12.556 billion in defence products last year, with new Arab partners under the U.S.-sponsored 2020 Abraham Accords accounting for almost a quarter of the business, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

It said the 2022 figures marked a 50% increase over the previous three years and a doubling in volume over the previous decade. Drones accounted for 25% of the 2022 exports and missiles, rockets or air defence systems for 19%, it said.

Without naming specific clients, the ministry said 24% of defence exports were to Abraham Accords countries. United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were signatories to those accords, and Israel often counts Morocco and Sudan as part of them as well.

Asia and the Pacific accounted for 30% of Israeli defence exports, Europe for 29% and North America for 11%, it said.

Charts released by Israel's Defense Ministry indicate that while sales have been increasing steadily throughout the years, the Abraham Accords partners have fueled the large rise in 2022.

2023 looks to be even better, as Germany is signing a $4.3 billion agreement to buy Israeli Arrow-3 missile defense systems - a higher amount than all of Europe purchased from Israel in 2022 - and the Russia/Ukraine war is making many European nations nervous.

It looks like the UAE accounts for most of the arms sales to Arab countries, although Morocco also is buying Israeli defense tech.

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On June 6, Iran announced that it had developed a hypersonic missile capable of speeds up to Mach-15, called the Fattah.

It made quite clear that the main target of the missile is Israeli civilians.

Throughout Tehran, banners appeared with a mock-up of the weapon and the words "400 seconds to Tel Aviv" in Farsi and Hebrew.

Even with this announcement and explicit threat against Israel, the US has been negotiating with Iran to come up with an "informal, unwritten" agreement that would be worth exactly the nonexistent paper it is written on. The only US response to the Fattah announcement was to sanction some Chinese and Hong Kong suppliers of technology to Iran.

While the news, if true, is troubling, the timing couldn't have come at a better time for Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, who created Iron Dome and David's Sling anti-missile systems. It announced this week it was building a defense for the hypersonic missiles that Iran claimed were impossible to defend against.

From Airforce Technology:

On 14 June Israeli defence company Rafael Advanced Defence Systems announced the development of a breakthrough interceptor called “Sky Sonic,” a defensive measure against the increasing danger posed by hypersonic missiles.

The system is set to be unveiled at the upcoming Paris Air Show, a premier event in the aerospace industry.

Rafael describe Sky Sonic interceptor a “major technological leap in hypersonic missile defence,” crediting its manoeuvrability and speed capabilities for its ability to neutralise hypersonic missiles – that can travel ten times faster than the speed of sound – with unmatched precision and stealth.

In recent years, the danger posed by hypersonic missiles has intensified, prompting the need for preemptive actions to protect national security. This family of weapons includes hypersonic atmospheric cruise missiles, gliders, and cruisers that are capable of travelling at extraordinary speeds, all while maintaining remarkable accuracy and manoeuvrability. Hypersonic missiles possess the unique capability to alter their trajectory during flight, a feature that sets them apart from ballistic missiles.

One of the primary obstacles to creating a complete defensive strategy against hypersonic threats is the difficulty in detecting and tracking these threats, which requires a well-coordinated sensor system that can precisely pinpoint and track the threat’s movement throughout its entire trajectory.

Accurate trajectory prediction requires an interceptor that can quickly reach the target, reducing uncertainty related to the target’s location. The interceptor, in order to effectively pursue and neutralise the hypersonic threat, must display remarkable manoeuvrability and operate on a non-ballistic trajectory.

Rafael is known for its contributions in developing advanced air defence systems including the “Iron Dome,” “David’s Sling,” and the state-of-the-art “Iron Beam” laser-based system, that are in high-demand by international customers and well regarded for their efficacy.

Defending against hypersonic missiles is difficult, but not impossible. The Rafael video is light on details but they do have an impressive track record.

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The 1948 Arab peace plan: First destroy Israel, then we'll talk

From AP/Palestine Post, June 17, 1948:

This is exactly what the Palestinian leaders have been proposing as well, many decades later. They just couch the destruction of the Jewish state in terms of "right to return" and releasing thousands of terrorists from prison, two of the unwavering demands by the Palestinian Authority leadership since 2000.

The intent has not changed one bit since 1948: their aim remains to abolish the Jewish state. They just learned that if they call the planned ethnic cleansing of Jews from the region "human rights" then they can attract many latent "progressive" antisemites to their position.

Notice there is no hint of compromise for peace.

Also note that they don't say that they want an Arab state there, or anything about the "rights of Palestinians." The number one demand is no Israel, and everything else is secondary.

Those haven't changed in 75 years, either.

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06/15 Links Pt2: Amnesty's New Israel Report Goes to War with Reality; The UN and WHO Seek to Blame Israel Above All Others; The shocking truth about Wikipedia’s Holocaust disinformation

From Ian:

Amnesty's New Israel Report Goes to War with Reality

The report singles out three IDF airstrikes that targeted three PIJ commanders who were hiding in densely populated civilian areas. One strike targeted an apartment in a two-story building. Amnesty decries that this attack killed two teenage girls living in a neighboring apartment. With dripping disdain, the report observes that the IDF used a GBU-39 bomb in the strike, a weapon "exported to Israel from the United States."

To be clear, the loss of those innocent girls is a tragedy. As are the losses of other innocent Palestinians and Israelis. It's why a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should continue to drive U.S. foreign policy. It's also true that the IDF ground forces have, on occasion, exploited their rules of engagement at excessive cost to civilians. Still, a few other points are also highly relevant here.

For one, why is it bad that the U.S. exported the GBU-39 to a close ally? That bomb is especially designed, after all, to limit collateral damage by focusing energy on a limited target radius (hence why Israel likes using it in Gaza — to mitigate risks to civilians). Israel could easily use larger weapons, which offer a higher confidence in mission success. It does not do so because more civilians would be put at more risk.

Second, why does Amnesty excuse PIJ commanders for hiding among civilians? No Israeli military officer would have such callous disregard for their fellow citizens as to hide among civilians. In contrast, PIJ commanders hide among civilians very deliberately, hoping Israeli fears of civilian casualties will deter an attack upon them. In the worst case, these commanders take solace that their death will likely join that of civilians, thus jeopardizing Israel's international standing.

The basic point here is that Amnesty isn't interested in covering this conflict seriously. We learn as much with the report's partisan conclusion. We're told that the "root cause of this unspeakable violence is Israel’s system of apartheid."

Actually, it's the PIJ's desire to push Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea.

The UN and WHO Seek to Blame Israel Above All Others

After years of Chinese influence peddling in the organization and years of obfuscation by Beijing over COVID virus origins, at the end of May, China’s sometimes-partner North Korea was elected to the Board of the WHO in a term that lasts until 2026. North Korea joins Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen among others on a board that will determine the organization’s agenda and policy prescriptions, and how to spend the organization’s $2.1 billion annual budget, about $700 million of which comes from the US.

Right on cue, according to UN Watch, “The 76th World Health Assembly held a special debate on May 24 to single out Israel, which was condemned by Iran, Syria, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela and Cuba for allegedly violating the ‘health rights of Palestinians and the Druze population in the Golan Heights.’”

How is WHO managing the “health rights” of Syrians affected by chemical attack or Uyghurs in Chinese prison camps or Afghan women or Sudanese, Tigrayans, Ethiopians, or Nigerians affected by civil wars or militia attacks? And how bad off are the Palestinians?

In terms of life expectancy, at 74.5 years, the Palestinians are above the world average of 71 years. On a graph, from 1960-65, prior to Israel’s acquisition of the West Bank and Gaza territories, the UN estimated Palestinian life expectancy at 48.7 years for both. It was 68 years in 1990. In 2010, it was 70.9 years in the West Bank and 69.9 in Gaza. (Note that women in all cases live longer on average than men.) Regarding infant mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza, in 1975, it was 72.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2002, it was 23.9. In 2021, 12.8 per 1,000 live births. (Gaza infant mortality has inched up since Israel’s departure from the Strip.)

When countries with no obligations — financial, moral or other — get together to denounce countries on a different and better trajectory, the United States should reconsider its financial and political support. Proportionate responsibility for determining the spending of proportionate contributions should be a minimal American criterion for remaining in a universal club with no rules.

Is it really antisemitic to criticise George Soros?

It’s no secret that Soros has given some $40 million to left-wing candidates in district attorney races across the country: he explained his campaign to reshape the judiciary and criminal sentencing in the Wall Street Journal.

His candidates are unanimously committed to less law enforcement and reduced jail sentences. Seventy-five of them won their midterm races. The results, a demonstrable increase in both petty and serious crime, are deeply unpopular with the taxpaying, law-abiding majority.

Again, Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, recently suggested that it was antisemitic to mention that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump’s alleged hush money payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels, had received Soros donations.

But there is no doubt that Bragg received Soros’s money. Meanwhile, Weingarten has repeatedly alleged undue influence by the Koch brothers, libertarians who mostly donate to the right.

The taboo on criticising Soros has become so entrenched in mainstream media that the conservative lawyer and Newsweek editor-at-large Josh Hammer and the ex-prosecutor Will Scharf have launched a group called Jews Against Soros.

“We are Jews who have had enough of George Soros and his malign, leftist influence on American politics,” Jews Against Soros’s mission statement reads.

“We are Jews who are also sick and tired of the Left accusing anyone who criticises Soros of being antisemitic … Leftism isn’t Judaism, and being anti-leftist is not the same as being antisemitic. Period.”

This week, in a victory for nepo babies everywhere, Soros handed control of his $25 billion empire to his son Alexander. In a CNN op-ed this month, Alexander claimed that “charges of antisemitism” are used “as a weapon meant to stifle debate” about Israel.

The same principle should apply to George and Alexander Soros’s political donations, in the US or anywhere else.

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Hot-Dog-Suit-Wearing Biden Vows To Investigate US Funding Source For Antisemitic Palestinian Curricula (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Washington, June 15 - The President of the United States donned a frankfurter costume today and declared his administration's determination to figure out who continually provides hundreds of millions of dollars to an organization that exists to keep millions of Palestinians stateless, radicalized, opposed to coexistence with Israel, and raised generation after generation to view violence as the only proper solution to their plight.

"We're all trying to find the guy who did this," vowed Joseph R. Biden to all those present in the Oval Office for an update meeting on his decision to fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which provides employment, food, education, and social services for the descendants of Arabs who fled, mostly before Jewish fighter showed up, the British Mandate of Palestine when the establishment of a Jewish state there was imminent. Repeated studies have found that the organization uses educational public awareness materials that deny the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, deny Jewish origins in the land, foment violence, and cultivate a zero-sum view of the conflict with Israel as resolvable only through total destruction of the Jewish State.

"As soon as we have any leads, we will be sure to let the American people know," assured Biden. "I personally guarantee that not one more cent of American taxpayer dollars will go toward incitement."

UNRWA uses a different definition of "refugee" from the other UN body - the High Commission for Refugees - that handles all other refugees from violent conflicts around the world, and it gives those "Palestine Refugees" different treatment from standard refugee treatment: the UN strives to resettle refugees in other countries where they attain citizenship and start over, whereas Palestine Refugees are kept in perpetual statelessness, often facing Apartheid in their host countries, until "resolution" of their situation. Refugees are no longer refugees once the UN resettles them; Palestine Refugees cannot be removed from the rosters. Refugees cannot, except under rare circumstances, bequeath refugee status to their offspring; Palestine Refugees and all their descendants in perpetuity gain that status at birth - meaning that each year, the number of Palestine Refugees continues to balloon.

That ballooning requires ballooning budgetary support, which in large part comes from the US - and Biden swore at today's meeting to identify and track down whichever national government, and whichever branch of that government in charge of foreign policy, keeps making the decision to provide the money that sustains the problematic UNRWA.

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