Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 08, 2023

08/08 Links Pt2: Israel's leadership never cared about the Sbarro bombing victims; ADL Report Shows Antisemitism Widespread on European Left

From Ian:

Frimet Roth: Israel's leadership never cared about the Sbarro bombing victims

The Sbarro bombing of 2001 accompanies, or more precisely haunts me always, even after 22 years. But that Hamas terror attack, which robbed me and my family of our precious Malki, ought to be remembered by the Israeli public as well, even those for whom the 16 murders had no direct impact.

It teaches us a lot about our leaders, their thought processes, priorities and concern, or rather lack of it, for us – their constituents.

The lessons to be learned began some time before the attack.

The Sbarro bombing could have been prevented
In the early afternoon of August 9, 2001, Ahlam Tamimi was leading her accomplice to Sbarro. My husband refers to Izz ad-Din Shuhayl Ahmad al-Masri as her human bomb. Days before, by Tamimi’s own account, she had scouted the city center for a site that would provide the largest number of religious Jewish women and children as targets. She had chosen well.

In a guitar case casually slung over his shoulder, Al-Masri carried 10 kilograms of explosives. Both terrorists wore touristy attire, and Tamimi was careful to speak in English to further dispel suspicion. Al-Masri, who did not know English, remained silent.

Days later, then-justice minister Meir Sheetrit disclosed on a TV news program, with no apparent shame or regret, that he and other government officials had been notified that Palestinian terrorists were circulating in the center of Jerusalem on August 9.

I recall hearing that officials had warned local hospitals of a possible imminent flood of victims. He said that police had been sent to scour the streets.

Sheetrit added that the government pleaded with then-Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat for assistance in thwarting the attack. I leave it to you to guess his response.

Presumably, they did not permit their own loved ones to meander through the city that day. But at no time were we – the residents of the city – alerted to the impending danger.

And so, when my precious 15-year-old child called me that day at 1 p.m. to tell me she was leaving her friend’s house in Ramot and heading by bus for a camp leaders’ meeting in Jerusalem, I thought nothing of it.

We concluded our chat, as was our custom, with “I love you.” For the last time.

New ADL Report Shows Antisemitism Widespread on European Left

Brazen expressions of anti-Zionism and hostility towards the State of Israel that spill over into antisemitism continue to be visible among socialist and far left political parties in Europe, according to a new assessment published on Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The report, titled “Antisemitism and Radical Anti-Israel Bias on the Political Left in Europe,” draws on contributions from four Jewish or pro-Israel institutions in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. It examines how “anti-Israel actions and calls for the application of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel are increasingly common in leftist political circles in Europe.” The report further notes that their “rhetoric influences, and draws inspiration from, some left-leaning activist movements in the US.”

The report identifies “common antisemitic themes that emerge from each of the four countries, including claims that Jewish cabals control politics and media; Holocaust trivialization; equating Israel with the Nazi regime; and the false charge that accusations of antisemitism are used to silence criticism of Israel,” the ADL observed.

“While left-wing antisemitism has existed in France for many years, its mainstreaming is a source of deep concern in the French Jewish community,” stated the contribution from France, supplied by the editors of the Jewish magazine K. “Since the mid-20th century, the French left had been influenced by the Soviet Communist Party with its anti-Zionism that challenged the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, propagated conspiracy theories, and portrayed Israel as a destabilizing factor both regionally and internationally.”

Among several examples in France is the profusion of “images of Jews controlling the government…found on social media accounts of left-wing activists, including some prominent personalities. In 2017, Gérard Filoche, a member of the Socialist Party executive committee, tweeted an image of newly elected President Emmanuel Macron with three prominent French Jews in the shadows behind him.”

Similarly, in Germany “Israel-centered antisemitism is a major contributor to the normalization of antisemitism, making it difficult to combat the phenomenon in general,” stated the contribution from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a prominent anti-racist organization. It cited the May Day demonstrations in Berlin in 2022, where “antisemitic slogans could be heard from the outset: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ ‘Apartheid Israel’ and one that explicitly trivializes terror: ‘Stop the war, Intifada until we prevail.’ The crowd chanted the motto ‘Yallah class war,’ while posters showed Leila Khaled, member of the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is responsible for numerous attacks against Israeli civilians.”

French Interior Minister Orders Dissolution Of Catholic Association Over ‘Antisemitic’ Speech

France’s Interior Minister on Monday announced the dissolution of a traditionalist Catholic association after one of its leaders called for Jews to be stripped of their political and civil rights.

“Antisemitism has no place in our country,” French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin tweeted. “I strongly condemn these ignominious remarks and direct them the Public Prosecutor.”

Darmanin added that he had issued instructions for “the dissolution of Civitas,” the name of the association.

Darmanin was responding to a speech delivered to a Civitas meeting in the town of Pontmain on July 30 by Pierre Hillard, an essayist. Hillard argued that the situation of Jews in France prior to the French revolution of 1789 — when they had no legal rights — should be restored.

“The naturalization of the Jews in September 1791 opens the door to immigration,” Hillard stated. “If we restore the laws of Catholicity and [make] traditional Catholicism a state religion, perhaps we should return to the situation before 1789.”

Old antisemitic lies don't die. They live forever, no matter how many times they are debunked.

Jordan's Al Ghad has an op-ed by Youssef Abdullah Mahmoud that quotes a variant of a Nazi-era libel claiming that "president" Benjamin Franklin gave a speech to the American people warning them about the dangers of Jews.

There is a great danger for the United States of America. This great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen, in every land the Jews have settled, they have depressed the moral level and lowered the degree of commercial honesty. They have remained apart and unassimilated; oppressed, they attempt to strangle the nation financially, as in the case of Portugal and Spain.

If they are not expelled from the United States by the Constitution, they will stream into this country in such numbers that they will rule and destroy us and change our form of Government for which we Americans shed our blood and sacrificed our life, property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded within two hundred years, our children will be working in the field to feed Jews while they remain in the counting houses, gleefully rubbing their hands.

I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews forever, your children and your children’s children will curse you in their graves. Their ideas are not those of Americans, even when they lived among us for ten generations. The leopard cannot change his spots. The Jews are a danger to this land, and if they are allowed to enter, they will imperil our institutions. They should be excluded by the Constitution.

This lie was first published in 1934 by an American fascist publication and quickly reproduced in Nazi Germany. Here's a Nazi poster with the lie, complete with a picture of someone who is definitely not Franklin.

The supposed speech was debunked fairly quickly - there is no record of any such speech, it uses language that was not used in the 18th century, and Franklin was a philosemite.

But that hasn't stopped this supposed "Franklin prophecy" from being resurrected every couple of years in Arab media. Usually, the articles claim Franklin was the President.

Mahmoud expands on the forgery, claiming that "Zionists" stopped early Americans from implementing Franklin's plan of ethnic cleansing Jews from the United States.

Why recycle old, provable lies? Because most people don't know they are lies, and it is easier to re-use old ones than to make up new ones.

Interestingly, as I was writing this, I found articles that give a strong indication that a 19th century Mussar work, Sefer Cheshbon ha-Nefesh based its self-improvement program on Benjamin Franklin's own program described in his autobiography. The author, Menachem Mendel Lefin, didn't credit Franklin but he didn't claim to have created the method either, and other writings of his show he was familiar with Franklin's writings. So in a way, Benjamin Franklin has influenced modern Jewish thought.

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!

This morning, the IDF demolished the home of the Hamas terrorist who killed brothers Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, as they drove through Huwara in February.

I always wondered whether this policy actually deterred some terror attacks. Reading between the lines of the angry reactions from major terror groups, it appears that they may indeed act as a deterrent for at least some attacks.

Islamic Jihad issued a statement saying "the demolition of the house of the martyr Abd al-Fattah Kharousha in Nablus will not weaken the resolve of the resistance fighters, but rather they will increase their determination and adherence to resistance and jihad....the crime of demolishing houses will not achieve the deterrence goals that the enemy army is looking for."

That is a lot of words to protest a policy that they claim is ineffective.

Similarly, the PFLP said, "The policy of demolishing the homes of the martyrs will only increase our people's determination to continue the path of freedom and dignity that was paved with the blood of our martyrs, the sacrifices of our families, and the struggles of our people with all its components."

Hamas said, "Our people and their factions will remain a support for our steadfast people who are targeted by the enemy by demolishing their homes and property. This struggling people will continue to unite with the heart of one man in the face of the occupier, until our rights are fully recovered, no matter how long it takes and no matter how much they sacrifice." It also said that this was "a Zionist policy of impotence, which proved its failure to quell the resistance and affect the morale of the fighters."

If the home demolition policy only encourages more terror, and these groups want to recruit more members, then why are they so insistent on how the policy is ineffective? These statements appear to be more a message to Israel to stop the demolitions and to their own people not to be deterred from attacking Jews because of the knowledge that their families will lose their homes.

Israeli authorities know far more. They interview the actual terrorists and know whether some of them say that the demolition policy affects their fellow terror group members. Almost certainly these interviews are what prompts Israel's High Court to continue to allow that policy, as the objective of discouraging terror attacks is a higher priority than the issue of collective punishment that is the usual argument by NGOs against the policy.

This is indirect proof, of course, but the strident reactions to the destruction of Abd al-Fattah Kharousha's home in Nablus seem to indicate that the policy does indeed cause some militants to think twice before attacking, and the leaders of the terror groups are trying to quash that reluctance.

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!

08/08 Links Pt1: Australia to resume use of term ’occupied Palestinian territories’; Gallant warns Hezbollah against escalation: ‘We’ll return Lebanon to the Stone Age’

From Ian:

Australia to resume use of term ’occupied Palestinian territories’

Australia’s Labor government will resume the use of the term “occupied Palestinian territories” in reference to eastern Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, reversing an unofficial policy stance that had been in place for almost 10 years.

“In adopting the term, we are clarifying that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza [sic], were occupied by Israel following the 1967 war and that the occupation continues,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told lawmakers on Tuesday, The Guardian reported.

“[The move] reaffirms our commitment to negotiate a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state coexist,” said Wong, adding that Canberra had engaged with the Israeli ambassador on the issue as Australia remains “a committed friend of Israel.”

Australia’s top diplomat furthermore said the government would strengthen its opposition to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, calling them “illegal under international law and a significant obstacle to peace.”

Sources cited by the Guardian said ministers had broadly refrained from using the term “occupied” or “occupation” since 2014, beginning under the leadership of Prime Minister Tony Abbott (2013-15), once named a top Christian ally of the Jewish state.

“The description of East[ern] Jerusalem as ‘occupied’ East Jerusalem is a term freighted with pejorative implications, which is neither appropriate nor useful,” then-Attorney General George Brandis said at the time.

The Palestinian Authority welcomed Tuesday’s policy shift, calling it a “significant and important development in the Australian position,” but said Canberra should go even further and “recognize the state of Palestine swiftly, in accordance with international law and international legitimacy.”

The Zionist Federation of Australia and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in a joint statement slammed the move as “inaccurate, ahistorical and counterproductive.”

Canberra’s decision “effectively denies any Jewish claim to the West Bank [known by its biblical names Judea and Samaria] and Jerusalem. The most important Jewish holy sites of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall are in [eastern] Jerusalem, and there has been an unbroken Jewish presence in the West Bank for thousands of years,” the two organizations said.

“The foreign minister has previously stated that Australia should not preempt the outcome of final-status issues. It is regrettable that the government has now done that,” added the statement.

@ECAJewry and the @ZionistFedAus deeply concerned by the Government’s statement and change in language about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The change in language is inaccurate, ahistorical and counterproductive.”

Full statement available on
https://t.co/puJFCPOqFO pic.twitter.com/45uODIODZY
— ECAJ (@ECAJewry) August 8, 2023

Sky News Australia: ‘Pathway to stability’: Labor MP maintains ‘respectful debate’ will be held over Israel

Labor MP Graham Perrett says the Labor caucus has a range of people with a number of views on many topics and maintains a “respectful debate” will be held in a national Labor Party caucus conference over their stance on Israel.

ILF statement expressing extreme disappointment in the #Australian government’s highly flawed & one-sided change in policy, to label the entirety of Judea & Samaria (‘West Bank), east Jerusalem and Gaza, as ‘occupied Palestinian territories’ and deem all settlements ‘illegal’. pic.twitter.com/vVld7G4JJQ
— The International Legal Forum - ILF (@The_ILF) August 8, 2023

For the record, Canberra was only made the capital of #Australia in 1913, when it literally had to be built from scratch. Whereas #Jerusalem has been capital of the Jewish people for 3,000+ years, since days of King David. It was, is & shall remain #Israel’s indivisible capital.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) August 8, 2023

Actually, @abcnews Australia, the statement referred to 5,700 settlement units.

There's a significant difference between 5,700 new houses and 5,700 new communities.

Please correct the error.https://t.co/HcX6JdzMcb pic.twitter.com/QmlIUUzdZY
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 8, 2023

Once again, Save the Children lies about Palestinian kids supposedly tortured by Israel

Last month, Save the Children issued a press release:

Palestinian children in the Israel military detention system face physical and emotional abuse, with four out of five (86%) of them being beaten, and 69% strip-searched, according to new research by Save the Children. Nearly half (42%) are injured at the point of arrest, including gunshot wounds and broken bones. Some report violence of a sexual nature and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the child rights organisation said.

Save the Children’s new consultation showed that:

During arrest, 42% of children were injured, including gunshot wounds and broken bones, and 65% of children were arrested during the night, mostly between midnight and dawn. Half of all arrests took place in the children’s home.
The majority of children experienced appalling levels of physical and emotional abuse, including being beaten (86%), being threatened with harm (70%), and hit with sticks or guns (60%).
Some children reported violence and abuse of a sexual nature, including being hit or touched on the genitals and 69% reported being strip searched.
60% of children experienced solitary confinement with the length of time varying from one 1 day to as long as 48 days.
Children were denied access to basic services, 70% said they suffered from hunger and 68% said they didn’t receive any healthcare.
58% of children were denied visits or communication with their family while detained.

Wow! The vast majority of Palestinian kids arrested are beaten, nearly half are physically injured, and more than half are placed in solitary confinement!

Then, Save the Children describes its methodology.

In total, 228 former child detainees participated in this study by Save the Children and YMCA. This includes 177 children who responded to surveys and 51 who took part in focus group discussions. A further two focus group discussions were held with parents whose children had been detained. ...
A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including surveys and focus groups, was applied, to ensure that the perspectives and experiences of Palestinian children who experienced arrest and detention were at the core of the study.

This is an embarrassing methodology that would shame any credible researcher.

The surveys have, by their very nature, self-selection bias. Only children and parents with a desire to tell their stories will choose to answer the questions, anyone who had an uneventful arrest won't bother answering a survey that is meant to prove Israel tortures kids.

Save the Children does not publish the methodology of how they determined who to send the surveys to, or the survey questions, which were probably leading questions based on what we know from previous Save the Children reports.

The focus groups are even worse. The biases seen in focus groups are well known. The moderator can ask leading questions. Those who spin lurid stories of torture would tend to monopolize the discussion, influencing the other kids in the group to want to embellish their own stories.

Save the Children says nothing about any professional training or expertise their moderators and facilitators have to minimize bias in their responses.

And when they say they use "qualitative approaches" you know that means that they will weight whatever the kids say towards the worst possible interpretation for Israel.

The names of the researchers are not mentioned, nor is the author of the press release. It is completely opaque - and this is not an accident.

The full report shows how absurd the interviews are. B'Tselem statistics show that the number of children under 14 held in prison is almost always zero, and it is difficult to find one or more children at that age in prison for two consecutive months. But somehow Save the Children finds several 13-year olds who claim they were in horrible conditions in prison:

“Sometimes they broke into our prison cells and made us stand in the cold air outside. They didn’t allow us to sleep. One night, they broke the roof and we had to spend the night with the rain pouring into our room....They hit me with their hands and rifles, everywhere, especially on my private parts.”” Yousef*, detained when he was 13

“For me, the transfer bus was the worst. There is a tiny box inside that barely fits one person; what they would do is put two of us together in that box handcuffed to each other and driven around all day. They would drive us for hours, from early in the morning to late at night, just locked in that box....I used to have nightmares about my time in prison all the time, especially about the officer who interrogated me. He told me, ‘I promise you that you will dream about me’. And he was right.” Khalil*, detained when he was 13

None of this rings true. But Save the Children wants to issue a report that will make a splash, so they are not interested in the truth.

In fact, it quotes even less reliable reports as fact - such as the PLO's Commission for Prisoners and Freed Prisoners which claimed minors "became victims of the sexual lust of their jailers from the Nahshon forces without consideration for their age."

Perhaps this is why this survey did not get any publicity outside of outlets like Al Jazeera and Palestine Chronicle. It is obvious even to anti-Israel media that the results of the "survey" are so out of whack with reality that their publicizing it would hurt their own credibility.

Save the Children deliberately does everything possible to get the most lurid results for publication - and then quote these "statistics" as if they are scientifically valid.

After all, if there is no torture, they can't raise funds.

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!

Palestinian journalists are being attacked daily - by Palestinians. World media and NGOs actively SUPPRESS this information.

Here is a list of attacks on journalists by Hamas, the PA and Palestinian protesters in just the past two weeks by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA).

August 1:

The Palestinian General Intelligence Service had kidnapped the freelance journalist SAMI SAEED ALSAAI (43 years old) at around 12:00PM yesterday, Monday, in Nablus, and took him to an unknown place. According to the journalist’s wife, four masked men dressed in black came to the journalist’s workplace in two cars, one of which had yellow license plates, and kidnapped him at gunpoint.

MADA also strongly condemns the attack by members of the internal security of Hamas government in Gaza Strip against journalists in Gaza Strip while covering the peaceful demonstrations that took place therein, calling for an improvement in the living conditions of citizens. Individuals in civilian clothes - identifying themselves as members of the Internal Security Service - assaulted Palestine TV and Abu Dhabi TV reporter, journalist WALID ABDEL RAHMAN, while covering the peaceful event in Jabalia Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, last Sunday. They insulted him and forced him to stop the coverage.

In the same context, the freelance journalist EHAB AL-FASFOUS was threatened by the investigation and internal security members while covering the same event in Khan Younes, southern Gaza Strip.

August 6:

The security services of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and the Internal Security Forces in Gaza Strip, have increased their aggression against journalists in a violent manner that threatens the professional work of journalists, which is a bad indicator of the reality of media freedoms that is witnessing bloody violations. For instance, the reporter, ALI AL-SAMOUDI, was injured by shrapnel in the head as a result of the shooting in Jenin camp yard, while the citizens were celebrating the shooting attack that took place in "Tel Aviv" yesterday, Saturday. The security personnel also targeted the reporter of "Quds News Network" MOHAMMED ABED with a gas bomb directly at the event.

This was preceded by a group of Al-Shabibah members assaulting a group of journalists at Hebron University a few days ago, during which journalist NIDAL AL-NATSHEH was flagrantly assaulted.

The situation in Gaza Strip is not any better than this, as the attacks of the Internal Security Service affected many journalists yesterday, Saturday, as the security services of Hamas Authority arrested a number of journalists, namely, MOHAMMED AL-BABA, the cameraman of the French Agency, and the journalist, BASHAR TALIB, for about 45 minutes inside Jabalia police station, north of Gaza City, before they were released after their cameras and mobile phones were searched.

The security members also arrested journalist MOHAMMED FAYEZ ABU AOUN, journalist YAHYA HASSOUNA, journalist MOHAMMED AL-HADDAD, and journalist IHAB AL-FASFOUS, who was attacked, and his phone was confiscated before it was returned to him. As for the journalist, MOHAMMED ISMAIL AL-HADDAD, he was threatened by a person in civilian clothes who identified himself as a member of the Investigation Department, as soon as he was filming, and informed him that "there is a decision to ban filming and asked him to stay away from the place”.

Meanwhile, journalist FOUAD JARADA and his colleague MUAMMAR ABU TABIKH were threatened via phone of a special number “not to engage in any journalistic work on the "We Want to Live" movement in Gaza”.

At least two of these journalists have received major media coverage when they were injured by Israeli forces.

Ali al-Samoudi was injured last year in the incident that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, and he was interviewed extensively at the time. This time, Palestinian and world media have not written a word about his being injured in the head by a bullet.

AFP cameraman Mohammed al-Baba was injured at a Gaza rally in 2018 by a gunshot blamed on Israel and that story was covered by wire services. But when Hamas arrests the same AFP journalist and confiscates his equipment, even AFP doesn't report it.

Perhaps even more shocking is that even though all these attacks and far more are documented by MADA, including in their monthly reports, the Committee to Protect Journalists has not said a word about Palestinian repression of press freedoms since February 2022. In that same time period they have issued dozens of alerts against Israel.

CPJ routinely reports on journalists injured and arrested worldwide - but ignores when it is done by Palestinian authorities. This means that even the major international NGO whose mission is to protect press freedoms is actively suppressing news of Palestinian violations of those freedoms.

(h/t GnasherJew)

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 Washington Post humanizes terrorists - and doesn't do basic fact checks

Washington Post reporters are very proud of themselves for scoring an interview with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

Zoufi is the commander of the camp’s branch of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which is listed as a terrorist group by Israel and the United States. He founded the armed militant cell just over a year ago as Israeli military raids spiked across the West Bank.

The Washington Post spent time with him and some of his 15 fighters, as well as with militants in two other Palestinian refugee camps — Jenin and Askar — over three days in July. The visits, agreed to on the condition that full names and specific locations be withheld, afforded a rare window into the lives and actions of fighters on one side of the worst violence to grip the West Bank in decades.

...Making contact with Zoufi and his fighters meant navigating a clandestine network of intermediaries inside the camps. After being handed off by a string of trusted escorts — walking along narrow lanes laced with sagging electric cables and papered with posters of slain fighters — the Post reporters were led to a room deep inside Balata Camp.
Several men there were eating mana’eesh, a flatbread with za’atar. Weapons rested in their laps or against the walls.
“Welcome. Yalla, join us,” said one man, known in the camp as Goblin.

It is exactly what we have seen countless times before - humanizing terrorists and trusting what they say implicitly while including the bare minimum of Israeli "claims."

I found this paragraph interesting:

The fighters, who inspire both fear and fealty, enjoy cultlike status in the camp. There are no sports teams here. Male unemployment is nearing 90 percent. With few role models of any kind, boys collect stickers, posters and necklaces bearing images of slain militants.

The male unemployment rate in the West Bank altogether is 12.4% (2021). UNRWA says that for all camps, it is 17%. This site says the Balata camp's unemployment rate is 25%. I cannot find any source that says it has an unemployment rate anywhere close to 90%.

The Washington Post does not provide a link to this statistic. It appears that someone they interviewed made it up and they parroted it.

And what, exactly, stops Balata's residents from finding jobs? It isn't Israel. Residents can move out of the camp and go wherever they want in the West Bank. They can get jobs in Israel the way tens of thousands of other Palestinians do.

The only difference is that they have free housing, courtesy of the world paying UNRWA.

Moreover, why is the camp still only a single square kilometer? Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority expand the boundaries so the people aren't so crowded? It isn't Lebanon, and there are open spaces outside the camp.

It is true that there are no sports teams in the overcrowded camp itself. But Balata, the town, does have a sports club - the Ahly Balata club - which includes an entire sports and youth program that also teaches job skills to teens.

According to Google Maps, it is easy walking distance from the camp.

The "90% unemployment" and the "no sports teams for kids" were factoids that were too good to check for the WaPo's reporting team. And for their editors.

How many other things were they told that are simply terrorist propaganda? And why are they so willing to swallow it?

I asked that question in the comments on the article. We'll see if anything changes.

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!

08/07 Links Pt2: Phyllis Chesler: Our eternal battle for Zion; ‘The Jews Are Guilty’: Reflections on Antisemitism Old and New; Glaring, blatant anti-Israel hate speech at EU

From Ian:

Prof. Phyllis Chesler: Our eternal battle for Zion

Like so many, I had assumed that hatred and persecution of Jews had been defeated, that the genocide of Jews would never repeat itself. I was wrong.

I first encountered antisemitism among American leftists, including feminists, in the early 1970s and it sent me straight to Israel for a long overdue visit. Yet it took me more than three decades to publicly break with leftists and feminists over their antisemitism/anti-Zionism.

During that time, the scope of my activism in fighting Jew-hatred and standing with Israel—both independently and in collaboration with other Jews and organizations—has been intensive and vast. The strategies included authoring books and thousands of articles; delivering speeches; soliciting signatures against anti-Israel resolutions; holding press conferences; being interviewed in films, the media, and on television; bringing journalists and iconic feminists to Israel; collaborating with Israeli feminists; organizing conferences; and battling for Israel at international conferences, including the UN Conference on Women held in Copenhagen, which was a pre-cursor to Durban.

In the early 1980s, while traveling on a European feminist lecture tour, I stood outside the great synagogues—the Rue Copernic Synagogue in Paris, the Stadttempel Synagogue in Vienna, and the Great Synagogue of Rome. Palestinian Arab terrorists had bombed them all and the synagogues subsequently needed permanent police guards outside.

In 1991, I stood on a corner in Crown Heights in Brooklyn and watched a Black pogrom against Orthodox Jews. It raged on. The mayor and the police did not stop it for days. I will never forget it. I knew then that the bloody beast was back.

However, on October 12, 2000, when Palestinian Arab barbarians in Ramallah lynched Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami, two Israeli Defense Forces reservists (may they rest in peace), the airwave’s many Talking Heads did not flinch as they played and replayed this ghoulish event.

Just thirteen days prior, on September 29th, Arafat unleashed his well-planned Second Intifada, which lasted until February 8, 2005. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed, and thousands were severely injured in these attacks. And so, it was on September 29, 2000, after thirty-two years of researching, speaking, marching, and publishing pioneering feminist works, I found myself drafted into a new kind of army. Suddenly, I was a full-time civilian fighting in the Cognitive War against the Jews.

And, when the planes of 9/11 crashed through history and into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I understood: “Now we are all Israelis.” Airports everywhere would have to develop the kind of security procedures that only Israeli Embassies, consulates, airports, synagogues, and Jewish centers had tragically been forced to pioneer.

Meanwhile, over the last 40+ years, the Western academy, media, international organizations, and governments, which included liberal and leftist feminists—all became increasingly Stalinized and Palestinianized. Leftist feminists became more obsessed with the alleged “occupation” of a country that had never existed—Palestine—than they were with the real occupation of women’s bodies globally. They dared not focus on the occupation of women’s bodies in Muslim countries lest they be shunned as racists and Islamophobes. I learned that so-called “progressives” could also be racists.

Those in the West who benefited from free speech, women’s rights, human rights, gay rights, and religious freedom, refused to criticize the utter absence of such rights in the Muslim world—and in totalitarian countries such as China, Russia, and North Korea. Instead, the intelligentsia had decided that Israel was the worst possible nation on earth and that if Israel were boycotted, or abolished, that justice would prevail everywhere, and the world would be at peace.

‘The Jews Are Guilty’: Reflections on Antisemitism Old and New

By several metrics, hostility toward Jews appears to be on the rise, both in the U.S. and in the world at large. Alvin Rosenfeld considers the origins and nature of anti-Semitism with an eye toward better confronting its present manifestations:
There are two important sources of anti-Semitism. One, popularized in modern times by the malicious 1903 Russian hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is the figure of the conspiratorial Jew. The other is his figurative brother, the diabolical Jew. Bring the two together, and you have the delusional but abiding portrait of Jews as a community inherently hostile to non-Jews, intent on bringing endless suffering to mankind—a community that must be dealt with decisively before it is too late.

Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, . . . wrote. “All Jews by virtue of their birth and their race are part of an international conspiracy against National Socialist Germany. They want its defeat and annihilation and do all in their power to bring it about.” But if all Jews are guilty simply because they are Jewish, it does not take much analysis to see that the Jews are guilty not because they have done something wrong, but that they have done something wrong because they are guilty.

That key sources of anti-Semitism have remained constant over the centuries is not to downplay the seriousness of the situation today.

Rosenfeld makes several suggestions about how American Jews can confront the threats against them, the last of which applies to the “particularly virulent strain of anti-Semitism [that] holds not just the Jews but the Jewish state guilty.”
American Jews must recognize that the wellbeing of the state of Israel is fundamental to their own thriving. Many Jews now appear to feel embarrassed by Israel, particularly as the country seems to be going through a populist moment similar to those we have seen all across the world’s advanced economies. . . . We would do well to invest considerable resources in making an unapologetic case in our own communities and in non-Jewish communities for the proposition that Israel, for all its faults and all the difficulties in reaching a modus vivendi with the Palestinians, has fulfilled the long-held Jewish dream of national self-determination. No apology is needed for this extraordinary accomplishment. It’s one to be proud of.

David Harris [WaPo]: Israel's Larger Purpose

In his Aug. 1 column, Max Boot said his larger outlook toward Israel has been changed by the policies of Israel's current government. Yet Israel's larger purpose remains to allow Jews to live as a majority population in one country on Earth, continue the millennia-long connection between the ancient land and the Jewish people, and control their own destiny, including immigration.

Families like Mr. Boot's were able to leave the Soviet Union in the 1970s because they declared their intention to live in Israel. Without that declaration, their exit might well have been blocked. The same Israel that helped them leave, even though Mr. Boot's family ended up heading for the U.S. after arrival in the West, is the same Israel that today is providing a sanctuary to Jews fleeing tyranny in the Russian Federation, war against Ukraine, and rising antisemitism in Europe and elsewhere - while continuing to be the most progressive nation in the Middle East and a staunch U.S. ally.

The rebirth of a Jewish state in 1948, after 1,878 years of forced exile, was an extraordinary event in world history. 75 years later, it remains extraordinary.

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Monday met with a delegation of members of the US Congress, which included 22 members of the Democratic Party, headed by Senator Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives, in his office in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Ramallah isn't occupied. There is not one Israeli soldier there. It has its own governance structure that has nothing to do with Israel. There is no sane definition of "occupation" that makes Ramallah occupied.

The meeting discussed ways to revive the political process and the role of the US Congress in protecting the two-state solution, as the Prime Minister called on Congress to vote in favor of recognizing the State of Palestine.

Shtayyeh has no problem representing all of Israel as part of Palestine, showing how important the "two state solution" is to him.

The Prime Minister affirmed that Israel violates international law on a daily basis through killing, storming and building settlement, stressing that this causes the systematic destruction of the two-state solution.

"Storming"? According to Shtayyeh, Jews visiting their holiest spot are somehow violating international law. Which shows that his interest in real international law is also nil.

Shtayyeh called on Congress to pressure Israel to allow holding of Palestinian elections, including Jerusalem, in accordance with the signed agreements, considering that Israel's failure to allow this is an attempt to fight Palestinian democracy.

Israel isn't what is stopping elections. Mahmoud Abbas is. Jerusalem Arabs can vote in any Palestinian elections as they have in the past.

Did any members of Congress have the backbone to contradict Shtayyeh's lies? I tend to doubt it.

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A cringy woke apology for complaining about Hezbollah T-shirt at a gay pride event

Two weeks ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that anyone who engaged in a homosexual act should be killed.

A week later, at the Berlin Whole LGBTQ festival, a person was seen wearing a Hezbollah T-shirt on the stage, which upset a Lebanese citizen at the event, who complained about seeing someone wear a symbol of oppression to gays.

He then apologized for complaining!

This apology is truly remarkable.

The hezbollah t-shirt on beach stage

@Chris on #general -

@Chris on July 31, 2023:

To the person who was wearing a Hezbollah t shirt on the beach stage, I'm sorry if my complaint caused you upset. I unfortunately felt triggered by the t-shirt because the party leader recently encouraged the killing of queer people. I understand that wearing the t-shirt was used as a trendy fuck you to the hypocrisy of what is called terrorist vs what is not, and I understand being told that it's not ok to wear it by a white man can be triggering - however, given that whole is about celebrating queerness, I feel that perhaps there are other symbols to wear that are less complicated politically and more inclusive to the different experiences of people. I'm sorry again that it happened this way, I hope you are ok now. To the security people who listened to me and talked to the person, thank you. I wish you let me speak to him directly, it would have been validating and perhaps he would have understood the nuances of my views given that I'm Lebanese myself, but I also understand you wanted to make sure we are both heard.

Needless to say, we don't have any similar apology from the Hezbollah T-shirt person.

A week earlier, at a different Berlin gay festival, someone was seen wearing a gay version of a Lion's Den terrorist group T-shirt, with pink submachine guns.

At these same demonstrations, anti-Israel posters and rhetoric are commonplace.

There must be a name of the psychosis where one loudly supports those who would murder them and opposes those who fight for their rights.

We could apply that same terminology to the small set of "progressive" Jews as well who avidly support those who want to destroy Jews.

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08/07 Links Pt1: Reuven Rivlin: Israel must draw common rules, before it's too late; The Pro-America Case for Ending Aid; J Street is crossing a bright red line

From Ian:

The Pro-America Case for Ending Aid

Indeed, even 3% of a state budget is no trivial matter and would presumably come at the expense of other things. But in absolute terms, Israel’s budget itself has been growing every year by sums of this magnitude, in line with GDP growth. It is hard to believe that given its current trajectory of growth, Israel could not shoulder a gradual drawdown of aid. It has enough wealth to do without Uncle Sam’s pocketbook.

We disagree with Goldberg’s claim that “Taking away that $3.8 billion would not increase Israel’s freedom of action.” Israel used to make policy decisions independently of the United States. In 1956, when it received no American military aid, Israel together with the United Kingdom and France invaded Egypt, much to the chagrin of the Americans. And the Eisenhower administration used economic aid as leverage in compelling Israeli withdrawal.

After it started taking military assistance, Israel grew much more deferential to Washington. For instance, the George H.W. Bush administration successfully pressured Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir not to retaliate after Iraq launched Scud missiles into Israel during the Gulf War. The aid has also made Israel more reluctant to take forceful action against Iran’s nuclear program when faced with an American red light, such as that given by the Obama administration in 2012. There is no question that Israel has taken American dollars at the expense of its independence.

Indeed, an IDF less dependent on the United States would have more freedom of action against Iran and its Arab proxies, and this would redound to the advantage of both countries. Israel would be better prepared to handle its most acute threats and the United States its own, making each country more secure.

Ending military aid is not meant to punish or weaken Israel. On the contrary, it’s meant to reward and strengthen it. As has been the case for decades, assistance makes the United States Israel’s patron and Israel the United States’ client. Rather, they should be two independent, but nonetheless closely aligned, peers. Paring back aid will modernize their relationship.

There is no question that Israel has taken American dollars at the expense of its independence.

Another objection was raised by Yadlin and Golov, who argue that “More than anything, the aid symbolizes America’s commitment to Israel’s security …” Perhaps the aid is a symbol, but we argue that Israel’s enemies are best deterred when it demonstrates its willingness to use decisive force to protect itself. At the same time, U.S. policies in the past few years have done much to provoke Israel’s enemies and undermine its deterrence. For example, when Washington courts Tehran, American officials implore the mullahs for a nuclear deal and float the idea of a “reassessment” of relations with Israel. Stronger policies in practice against real threats would increase deterrence much more than any symbolism of military aid can. On the contrary, an Israeli initiative to phase out aid, making it clear that Israel feels confident and independent, would itself be of strong symbolic value.

Finally, doing so will further discredit the claim that Israel is a strategic liability. Once Israel receives no more American tax dollars, Americans will consider it an even stronger partner that costs the United States nothing. This will be especially so on the right, which admires countries that are powerful and self-sufficient, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, both of which receive no military aid. As long as Israel remains a dependent, it will never make it into this elite club.

More and more Americans who are fundamentally sympathetic to Israel are increasingly antagonistic to the idea of foreign aid in general. They do not understand why a rich country like Israel is receiving so much. The reverse is also true: It is precisely Israel’s image as a strong and independent nation that takes care of itself that attracts the admiration and political support of Americans.

So far congressional calls to cut aid have been limited to progressive “Squad” members like Rashida Tlaib, other left-wing Democrats, and libertarians like Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Yet reducing Israel’s annual appropriation doesn’t have to be retaliation for killing Palestinian terrorists or part of a knee-jerk aversion to foreign aid. It should be a joint decision, preferably initiated by an Israeli proposal.

U.S. officials should understand that the best way to ensure a peaceful, secure Israel and a strong America is to make sure both countries spend money sensibly and strengthen their own military capabilities. Right now, the status quo is lacking.

J Street is crossing a bright red line

Last week, I joined more than 1,000 Jewish community leaders for an emergency briefing hosted by the Union for Reform Judaism following the Knesset’s passage of the “reasonableness” bill.

Among the presenters was Rabbi Gilad Kariv, a current Knesset member from the Labor Party – the first Reform rabbi to serve in Knesset – and a trusted voice on core issues that matter to the Reform Jewish community.

Kariv didn’t mince words and passionately urged us to stand resolutely with Israelis protesting the judicial overhaul.

Then he was asked a question that many American rabbis have fielded from congregants, and has recently appeared in various op-ed pieces: Should America condition foreign aid to Israel?

Kariv’s message was clear. “Leave the foreign aid aside.”

“We are not allowed to forget the existential threats…We need to understand that there are a few red lines that we cannot cross. Conditioning foreign aid is one of those bright red lines.”

This is a critical distinction for pro-Israel Americans to internalize. There are many ways we can oppose dangerous moves by this government and stand with our Israeli friends. But the security challenges facing Israel are dire, and conditioning the aid that protects Israelis from those threats will not help them – it will only put them in greater danger.

Kariv is not alone in this perspective. President Biden and Israel’s strongest supporters in Congress have expressed their frustration over the overhaul while opposing efforts to jeopardize security aid. In fact, Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, recently published the affirmative case for security assistance.

Yet not everyone agrees.

J Street sees America’s lifesaving aid as a lever to punish the Israeli government and is fighting against Gilad Kariv, President Biden, and the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party on this most critical point.

In fact, J Street is currently lobbying for a bill to add conditions on how and where Israel can use security aid.

Bernie Sanders, a top J Street endorsee, proposed an amendment in July to condition all security funding for Israel.

J Street endorsees are consistently among the most vocal proponents of conditioning aid.

Jeopardizing Israel’s security jeopardizes Israeli lives. As Kariv points out, this is “a bright red line” that J Street has crossed.

But that is only half the equation. A strong Israel is vital for America. This aid is an investment that helps them and helps us in countless ways, as Rep. Torres detailed in his piece.

Reuven Rivlin: Israel must draw common rules, before it's too late

Indeed, were we not shocked when Basic Laws were changed for political needs, sometimes to increase the number of acting ministers, sometimes to create a rotation in the prime ministerial position and sometimes to form a rotation government?

If your constitutional change is deemed legitimate, but my constitutional change is a non-starter, and if your violent protest is a legitimate democratic demonstration, where all detained protestors are released, whereas my violent protest is a criminal act of rebellion, with dozens arrested even before it starts and hundreds arrested by its end – then we have no rules to play by, and the point of no return is growing closer.

Therefore, before we argue or even agree to hold honest dialog, let's first agree on the rules to which we must abide. Let's hold firm as we did in the past. When each side is convinced that the police work for the other side - let's establish legal agreements on the right to protest and its limits, on what’s allowed and prohibited in a demonstration and primarily on uniform standards of law enforcement.

When the core issue of constitutional laws, including the concept of separation of powers and the interaction between them, is disputed, let's at least establish procedural agreements (supermajority, safeguards to Basic Laws, special legislative procedures, etc.) for the Basic Law: The Judiciary so that we can better manage the debate.

Even in days when we were most divided, during the Oslo Accords or the disengagement from Gaza, we sat in the Knesset as rival members of parliament and managed to reach agreements, sometimes only on procedures but often also on important decisions.

Political rivals like Yitzhak Levy, Moshe Shahal, Dov Khenin, Aryeh Eldad, Mohammad Barakeh, Uri Ariel, Chaim Oron and even myself, as well as many other good people, reached agreements without giving up our ideological positions.

Perhaps a "rule forum" is needed, a group of former politicians who know how to communicate and negotiate with the opposing political side, even during times of deep divisions.

Together with a group of seasoned jurists (from the Knesset, government offices and even research institutions), who specialize in shaping political procedures into legal tools, this forum could help all of us crawl back from the edge.

Such a forum would not deal with ideological decisions, but only with the rules according to which things should be held; it wouldn’t produce reports no one reads, but would prepare 2-3 practical legislative proposals that would help bring us back to common ground before it’s too late.

Netanyahu on U.S. media blitz says judicial overhaul will stop soon

Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu told Bloomberg in an interview on Sunday that the judicial overhaul process will "probably stop" after a reform is made to the judicial selection committee.

Senior correspondent Owen Alterman explains what this latest comment signals, and adds some much needed context.

The shopping malls of Jenin show the "despair" of the youth

News articles like to talk about how the youth of Jenin and other places are so desperate, so hopeless, how they have nothing to look forward to in their miserable lives except death as martyrs.

These news stories never show photos of the malls of Jenin.

The Jenin City Center Mall has an array of high-end shops.

A cosmetics store features a brand new Barbie photo booth for the hopeless girls of Jenin to pose in.

It has seven stories of gleaming architecture.

It opened a year ago, providing jobs for hundreds of the same youths that we are told have no choice but to die.

And that isn't the only high end mall in Jenin. There is also the Taj Mall.

Look at these desperate youth celebrating a birthday party.

Clearly, these kids have no choice but to grow up and become terrorists.

The media has a narrative, and they don't want you to see anything that contradicts that.

(h/t Imshin)

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Last Sunday, Palestinian groups met in Cairo in yet another quixotic attempt at unification.

There were no agreements, but the groups announced that they will form a committee to further look at the matter.

Now, one of the attendees, Omar Murad of the PFLP, was interviewed by Ultrapal, where he criticized Mahmoud Abbas for insisting that he does not support "armed resistance" and that the Palestinians must adhere to international law, only supporting non-violent resistance.

Murad then said that the PFLP met with the Hamas movement and all the other factions attending the meeting, including Abbas;' own Fatah movement, and that all those groups agreed on 90% of their positions, meaning support for terrorism.

Only Abbas himself is against an official return to terror.

The PFLP official complained, "The president, with this age and this experience, believes that he is more knowledgeable than us, and is more zealous for the Palestinian interest than we are. We respect his age, but we have our positions and decisions."

That assertion of 90% agreement is remarkable. The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist group that has little in common politically with the Islamist Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups that attended. They have completely different concepts of what a Palestinian state would look like. The only thing they have in common is the desire to destroy the Jewish state.

Yet that hate is enough for them to collude and cooperate in their terror activities.

As we see partisanship tear apart nations around the world, and those on the political Left and Right hardening their positions to the detriment of their own countries, the Palestinian factions have struck upon a formula to ensure virtual consensus across all political philosophies: the burning desire to murder Jews.

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The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported last month:

Byron Stinson has always been a man of strong faith.
And recently that faith came into play for a mission. Jewish faith leaders he knew needed a red heifer to replicate a ceremony depicted in the Bible.
“I felt like it was my duty as a Texan to go out and look around Texas and see if I could find some completely red, pure red cows that fulfill the requirements of the red heifer and, if I could, then try to ship them here to Israel,” Stinson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Stinson, of Glen Rose, didn’t just find one heifer. He found five.
Those five, perfectly unblemished red heifers landed in Israel in September 2022, a feat that cost around $500,000 when you factor in the first-class plane tickets for rabbis to come examine the heifers and the American Airlines trip to Israel.
They’re now being taken care of at a secure location, and Stinson and others hope to hold the ceremony they’ll be used for during Passover in 2024. Stinson runs a nonprofit called Boneh Israel that helps build up and revive Biblical sites.

This story has been all over Arab media for the past week as the Muslims are concerned that the Jews will use the ashes of the red heifer to start the purification process that will result in the building of the Third Temple. Al Jazeera notes that while the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and other prominent rabbi s are against Jews ascending to the Temple Mount, if they are purified with the ashes of the Red Cow they could visit even according to them.

The latest story comes from the preacher of the Al Aqsa Mosque:

The preacher of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ikrima Sabri , confirmed that the occupation had failed to find any stone indicating ancient Hebrew history through excavations under Al-Aqsa, so today it seeks to promote the imaginary slaughter of cows to obtain international legitimacy and cover up its failure.
Sabri said, in a dialogue session, "He will not allow the Zionists to harm the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque."
He pointed out that the occupation seeks to impose its hegemony over Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that all the measures it takes are conducive to this goal, including converting Al-Aqsa Mosque into a military barracks to allow non-Muslims to enter it during the morning period, as part of its endeavor to impose the so-called "time division" on it. The imam and preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque stressed that the occupation will not succeed in implementing its goals, and will not obtain any right for it in Al-Aqsa, and that Muslims will remain present in the blessed mosque to thwart these ongoing plans.
Sabri stressed that Al-Aqsa is for Muslims by a decision from the Lord of the Worlds from above the seven heavens, and not by a decision of the United Nations, indicating that all Muslims are obligated to protect, rebuild and defend the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that non-Muslims will not be allowed to pray in it or commit any attack on it.

I'd love to know the Quranic source that the Temple Mount belongs to Muslims, especially since Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran once.

Palestinians are far more afraid of religious Jews linking Jerusalem to Hebrew Scripture than they are of Israel's military. Because they know that Jews were there first, and that religious Jews have an even longer institutional memory than Muslims do.

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