Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 10, 2023

08/10 Links Pt2: The architects of the Abraham Accords have been vindicated; Remember the lessons of the Sbarro bombing; Hopkins to star in film on ‘British Schindler’

From Ian:

The architects of the Abraham Accords have been vindicated

One of the defining principles of the Abraham Accords was that by expanding peace in the region, and specifically normalizing relations with Israel, your country's relationship with the US would be elevated. To date, the verdict on that is still out.

If the Biden administration wants to expand and enhance the Accords, they can take the following immediate steps: The heads of state of each signatory nation should be invited for a special ceremony of recognition. This can be accomplished in or around UN week. If this cannot be accomplished in that time span, then each ambassador from the signatory nations should be invited to the State of the Union and the president should recognize them by name and accomplishment. I am confident that the loud and sustained unanimous standing ovation will be heard not just on US broadcasts but in the capitals of those who have made peace and, just as importantly, those who have not yet made peace.

The Abraham Fund should be immediately restarted, less to invest US capital than to convene all the signatory nations to see how favorable trade and investments with the US can help to pay the dividend for peace.

Finally, the next ministerial meeting of the Negev Summit should be hosted in Washington, D.C. and an immediate announcement made of this decision. Peace cannot and should not wait for any democracy's domestic challenges. Hosting the meeting in the US will show that our alliance with Israel and our commitment to the Abraham Accords transcend politics – ours and the Israelis'. As the only other democracy in the accords, we have an obligation to consistently stand by and support Israel, as we should expect them to do the same for us.

A Saudi-Israel deal will happen, in the next 90 days or in the next five years, but it will happen, and it should be one of the watershed moments in all of world history. For it to have the dramatic impact that it should, it must be an American policy. To ensure that this breakthrough will be met with enthusiasm on both sides of the aisle, the time to make the Abraham Accords US policy – not the policy of one party or another – is now. When the Accords expand, our allies win; and more importantly, we in the US win. To build for the future, it is important to invest in the present.

Not very reasonable: Leaving Israel for New Zealand over the reasonableness clause

Israel has no constitution, and no law gives the court the power to veto Knesset legislation. The judicial reform would have, for the first time, actually provided legislative imprimatur to this Supreme Court power, but would require some supermajority of the justices. This would replace the current situation in which a three-person judicial panel, hand-picked by a Supreme Court president with an activist agenda, annuls legislation.

The campaign against judicial reform has two central mantras, recited with the absolute certainty of the most religious persons: The first is that the reforms will disgust and frighten away all of Israel’s business and investor base in the Western world, with catastrophic economic consequences; the second is that the reforms will turn Israel into a dictatorship. Both are patently false.

Nobody outside of Israel would have had the slightest interest or concern about the makeup of the committee that selects Israel’s judges, or the number of judges required to annul legislation, had it not been pounded into their heads by opponents of the legislation within Israel telling them that they should not only care, but also be mortified.

This past March, I was visited in Tel Aviv by a partner at a major London law firm. The conversation soon turned to what was going on in Israel, and the English lawyer asked about the major controversy. I asked him how many countries’ judicial selection processes he was familiar with, not including England. He thought a bit and responded, “I have to say, only the United States, but now I also know about Israel’s.”

IT IS NOT that opponents of reform are exposing Israel’s dirty secrets. The only dirty matter is the blasphemous way every element of the reform is presented as the end of Israel’s democracy and the heralding of a dictatorship.

Why is the judicial system in New Zealand, like in most Western democracies, worse than Israel's
The vast majority of Western democracies give elected officials a dominant, if not exclusive, role in appointing judges. New Zealand is no exception. Those Israeli doctors seeking a professional haven in New Zealand will be practicing medicine in a country in which every Supreme Court judge is nominated by a politically appointed attorney-general. What of the supposed dictatorial consequences of requiring a supermajority among the judges to strike down legislation?

Doctors lamenting the coming dictatorship in Israel would find that in New Zealand, the courts cannot annul a law passed by parliament under any circumstances. And like Israel, New Zealand does not have a written constitution and has a single legislative house.

End the Lebanese and Jordanian occupation of Palestine!

I love when I tweet and the Israel haters are reduced to gibberish in response.

I had tweeted,

Proof #619 that calling Israel "apartheid" is antisemitic:

Lebanon treats Palestinians worse than Israel by every conceivable yardstick. Discrimination is enshrined in law. Yet no one accuses Lebanon of "apartheid."

The responses from modern antisemites were all along the lines of:

"Whataboutism!" (meaning, don't talk about Palestinian suffering unless it can be blamed on Israel)

"You are a liar!" (without any links or proof)

"Of course it's apartheid - everyone says so!" (appeal to authority fallacy)

But a couple of people responded with something like, "Lebanon isn't occupying Palestinian territory!"

Are they sure?

Here's a map of Palestine from 1870:

It includes large amounts of todays Lebanon as well as much of today's Jordan.

How come no Palestinian is upset at the occupation of Lebanon and Jordan of Palestine?

But, you might respond, this is a Western map. Maybe Arabs felt that Palestine before 1923 included the exact borders of the British Mandate and no more.

Well, here is a 1918 map of Palestine, labeled as such, in Arabic:

It doesn't include Lebanon but a great deal of Jordan is included in this map.

Based on this map, it sure looks like at least Jordan is occupying ancient sacred Palestinian lands!

Why aren't we seeing Palestinians demanding "Free Palestine from Jordan and (maybe) Lebanon!"

Maybe for the same reason that the PLO in 1964 didn't claim the West Bank or Gaza as being part of "Palestine."

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!

Report: Environmental Terrorism OK When Palestinians Do It (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Hermesh, August 10 - A consortium of ecological-activism organizations released a study this week containing what many scientists consider a surprising finding: that when Palestinian rioters loft incendiary balloons or kites from the Gaza Strip that land in Israel and ignite brush fires, or when Palestinians directly start brush or forest fires near Jewish communities and cities, that has no observable effect on carbon emissions, biodiversity, the water supply, climate change, or other important phenomena at the center of global ecology activism.

The journal Justice, Indigeneity, Health, And Diversity (JIHAD) ran an article in the August 6 issue highlighting the peculiarities of Palestinian use of arson to resist Zionism, in which the authors asserted several counterintuitive data points: that the use of such fire, which has destroyed hundreds of acres of brush and woodland in Israel, along with unknown quantities of fauna, represents an authentic indigenous technique to combat the invader, presumably in this case foxes, jackals, hyraxes, several species of fallow deer, and hoopoe birds; that atmospheric pollution only counts when produced by Western countries, a hypothesis raised by other scientists in the context of China, but whose mechanism remains poorly understood; and that Palestinian arson produces potential ecological benefits, such as reduction of overpopulation, specifically of Jews, a problem that has plagued Palestinians and their allies since the 1930's.

"Our research found that Palestinian brush fires aimed at Israelis do not follow the typical 'rules,' if you will, of the wildfire phenomenon elsewhere," the article stated. "Whereas almost anywhere else, we seek to identify the cause of, mitigate, and prevent fires through efforts to reduce the climate change and the anthropogenic factors that contribute to it, in the case of Palestine, the opposite approach is indicated."

"Palestinians should be lighting more fires, burning more tires, sending more incendiary devices into Israeli kindergartens via kites and helium balloon," the authors urged. "Those measures will not only reinforce the embattled, endangered indigenous ways of knowing and resisting, which we know are of utmost importance in maintaining human diversity, but will, in fact, reduce carbon emissions, lower sea levels, bring back extinct species, replenish atmospheric ozone, dissolve the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, eliminate oceanic microplastics, increase worldwide recycling, filter out dioxins from the air, clear up pollutants from ground water, and render human energy production fully renewable by 2040."

"OK, maybe not all of those things, but they are more likely than a Palestinian state."

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!

08/10 Links Pt1: Kontorovich: Israeli Settlements Are Not Illegal; Deadly Costs of Biden’s Israel Policy; Glick: What deal are the Americans and Saudis negotiating?

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel will unite in time of crisis We have been here before

The warning also comes against the backdrop of how the 2006 war with Hezbollah began. A month after Hamas launched an attack from Gaza in which Gilad Schalit was captured, Hezbollah launched an anti-missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence. The ambush killed three soldiers and two others – Sgt. Eldad Regev and Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser – were abducted by Hezbollah, which sparked the war.

Hezbollah strongman Hassan Nasrallah, emboldened by Israel’s departure from Lebanon in 2000 and by his organization’s belief that it could operate as it wished along the border, underestimated Israel’s response to the attack .

Gallant wants to make it clear that another ‘incident’ like that will be met with the same massive response from the IDF.

Gallant’s warning to Hezbollah also had another subtext. Amid the judicial reform protests that have been raging for seven months, thousands of IDF reservists have announced they will no longer volunteer for service, to express their opposition to the government’s plans.

Israel’s enemies are undoubtedly following the internal Israeli debate closely and might have the mistaken perception that the IDF is now vulnerable.

Gallant on Tuesday said that thinking that Israel can be tested during this time would be a grave mistake. At the same time, a senior IDF commander indicated in an interview this week that the division in the country is starting to have an impact on Israel’s military. “The IDF is ready for war, but there is limited harm in some areas,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told Channel 12, mentioning the Israel Air Force as one branch that has been impacted by the reservists’ decision.

At the end of the day, however, if Israel were truly threatened – whether by Hezbollah or any of its other arch-enemies – there is little doubt that the country would mobilize, regardless of where reservists stand on the judicial overhaul.

In a crisis, there will be unity, and that is something Hezbollah would do well to bear in mind.

Eugene Kontorovich: Israeli Settlements Are Not Illegal- A response to Nathaniel Berman

Appeals to scientific or expert consensus have in recent years played a significant part of the debate on contentious issues. For laymen, even the nature of the alleged consensus may be difficult to evaluate. Is it a consensus arrived at by experts of varied prior beliefs critically and independently approaching an issue without regard for the public policy implications of their conclusions, or is it one that reflects the self-replicating and conformity-inducing tendencies of academia?

Appeals to authority and academic consensus feature prominently in professor Nathaniel Berman’s piece in these pages, “Israeli Settlements and International Law,” itself a response to Malkah Fleisher’s more personal reflections (“I Have a Right to Live in Judea and Samaria”) on the legitimacy of Jews living in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria, to use two competing names for those areas of Mandatory Palestine ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1948.

Everyone knows that “Israeli settlements” are controversial, and here is where international law comes in. Many take the position that even though Jewish resettlement of these lands was made possible by Israel’s taking control of them in 1967, the Jewish state must nonetheless enforce a ban—a cordon sanitaire, a Pale of Non-Settlement—on Jewish residence perfectly congruent with the zone of Jordanian ethnic cleansing, and lasting until such places might come again under the control of an Arab government committed to “not a single Israeli.” Put in such terms, the anti-settlement argument may not have a broad moral appeal, which is why authors like Berman seek to cast it as an incidental application of neutral rules, applicable around the world. Yet he fails to mention where else these rules are applied, because the answer is nowhere.

Berman appeals primarily to authority and consensus, claiming a wide variety of impressive-sounding international bodies, from the International Court of Justice to the International Criminal Court, that consider Jewish communities in the West Bank illegal. Don’t bother arguing the law, Berman suggests—the matter has been decided, with only a few kooks holding out. “The few international legal writers who depart from this consensus are primarily current or former officials of the Israeli government and a small number of right-wing Jewish writers in the diaspora. Their arguments have been soundly rejected by the rest of the international legal community,” Berman writes.

Consistent with a broader pattern of neglecting contrary evidence and attacking straw-man arguments, Berman fails to mention that the United States has formally adopted the legal view that Israeli settlements are not illegal—perhaps because this squarely contradicts his claim of a global consensus. The State Department announced its position in 2019, under President Donald Trump, but the Biden administration has not retracted it. This should not be surprising, because no U.S. government has taken the position that settlements are illegal.

Deadly Costs of Biden’s Israel Policy

Since coming to office, the Biden administration has directed more than a billion dollars to the Palestinian Authority, both directly and via UN organizations. Palestinian terrorism, meanwhile, has only intensified—as evidenced by the murder of an Israeli police officer in Tel Aviv last weekend. Victoria Coates and Congressman Chip Roy comment:
Contrary to the Washington establishment’s preconceived notions of what works in Israel, Trump-era policy proved that defunding the Palestinians for their venomous anti-America rhetoric and abuse of American funds to reward terrorists and their families does not in fact result in a significant spike in violence. This despite theoretically incendiary corollary policies such as moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognizing the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. Rather than stoking Palestinian violence, Trump’s policies led to the first peace deals between Israel and Arab states in 25 years.

Nonetheless, a top foreign-policy priority for the Biden administration was to reverse this progress and restore Palestinian funding, starting with $15 million in emergency coronavirus relief in March 2021.

In reality, Biden’s misguided policy has achieved almost the opposite of its aims. The last year has been the deadliest for both Israelis and Palestinians in decades. In Jenin, for example, which was the direct beneficiary of much of the UNRWA funding, the Palestinian Authority has lost security control and ceded space to Iranian-backed militants who packed the camp with fighters and weapons until the Israel Defense Forces moved in to clean them out.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics published its labor report for the second quarter, and it shows that the number of Palestinians working in Israel and the settlements increased to 164,000 from 153,000 in the first quarter.

However, this is not the highest number for Palestinians working for Israelis. It reversed a year-long trend of fewer Palestinians working for Israelis.

In the second quarter last year, some 211,000 Palestinians worked for Israelis - 182,000 in the Green Line and 29,000 in the settlements. That number decreased by 13,000 between the second and third quarters.

A drop from 211,000 to 153,000 in less than a year is a dramatic change, before the modest rebound this quarter.

The Israeli GDP has continued to steadily increase during this time period so this drop doesn't seem to be a reflection of more general economic trends.

It seems likely that as terror attacks increased over the past 18 months that Israeli employers are getting more skittish about hiring Palestinians, worried that some workers might go on a murder spree.

Obviously, only a tiny percentage of Palestinian workers are potential terrorists. But there have been enough incidents of Palestinian workers in Israel who either instigated or facilitated terror attacks in Israel to make Israeli employers think twice before hiring.

Given that Israeli employers pay far higher salaries than Palestinian employers - this quarter the average daily wage increased to NIS 289, far more than double the Palestinian average - the "heroic Palestinian youth" of Jenin and Nablus appear to be making the lives of ordinary Palestinians worse.

But there are no true brave Palestinian who are willing to say that out loud.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Remember David Miller, the disgraced former academic who was fired from his position at Bristol University for his antisemitism?

He was defended by hundreds of academics and Jews as being merely "anti-Zionist." But Miller keeps on proving them wrong with episode after episode of undeniable antisemitism.

This week, he did it again.

Miller got very upset over a tweet by Hen Mazzig,. Mazzig wrote:

If you are not Jewish, just because you don’t understand why something is antisemitic doesn’t mean its not. It means you need to educate yourself of the tropes, conspiracies, and hate Jews face.

Miller responded:

If you are not Jewish, do not be cowed by racial supremacists who want to hector you into political subservience.

Judeophobia barely exists these days.

Educate yourself about Zionism and the tactics used by its adherents.

Zionist propagandists like Hen Mazzig rely on 'standpoint theory' to fool naïve liberals and leftists into buying their lies.

They say only Jews can define Judeophobia, based on their 'lived experience'.

This is a denial of reality.

Standpoint theory relies on the bizarre notion that people are magically qualified to speak about things via accident of birth, rather than observing material realities.

Real anti-racism is rooted in looking at the facts.

The facts:

1. Jews are not discriminated against.

2. They are over-represented in Europe, North America and Latin America in positions of cultural, economic and political power.

3. They are therefore, in a position to discriminate against actually marginalised groups.

Miller easily slides between "Jews aren't discriminated against" to "Jews are a monolithic group that oppresses others."

Amazingly, he is still being defended.

He then followed up with a thread to defend his position where he showed that Jews are not discriminated against in the workplace, and in fact make more money (for example) than other groups, so therefore there is no antisemitism. He also bizarrely distinguishes between "discrimination" and "hate crimes," defining "discrimination" strictly within the context of the workplace and ignoring that attacking Jews directly as Jews is the worst form of discrimination there is.

Like all Jew-haters, Miller relies on redefining his terms. In short, he is saying that there cannot be antisemitism since Jews control the world!

The ADL's global survey of antisemitism asks a number of questions whose answers indicate that the respondent has antisemitic attitudes. So, for example, 29% of French people agree that "Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust" and 45% of Spanish people agree that "Jews have too much power in the business world."

David Miller would certainly agree with many of those survey questions - he pretty much says it in his social media.. There is no doubt that Miller agrees with more than half of the ADL's list of antisemitic statements:

Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/to the countries they live in]
Jews have too much power in the business world
Jews have too much power in international financial markets
Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust
Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind
Jews have too much control over global affairs
Jews have too much control over the United States government
Jews think they are better than other people
Jews have too much control over the global media
Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars
People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave

Since Miller's opinions are classically antisemitic, mirroring what the Protocols of the Elders of Zion say, and he also claims to be against all forms of racism, he simply redefines "Judeophobia" in ways that disqualifies his own antisemitism.

Now that he has outed himself even more, I wonder whether his defenders from 2021 are feeling a bit squeamish about signing letters that say he is a "highly regarded scholar" or that insist that he is not antisemitic.

Given the amount of self-deception that people are capable of, I doubt it.

I created my own Miller-style power map:

______________________________

I just want to add a bit about standpoint theory.

In theory, it should be possible to detect and analyze racism and bigotry without being a member of the victimized group. But in reality, many attacks on groups rely on the same sort of "facts" that Miller uses to defend his own hate.

It is possible that the Confederate flag can be displayed without it being intended to be a racist symbol, just as a swastika can be displayed purely because someone admires its iconography. One can find evidence that some slaves were treated well. Bigots like Miller defend these kinds of things because, objectively, they are not offensive.

That is because offense is inherently subjective.

Miller cannot know how offensive it is for someone to say that Jews have no rights to Jerusalem without knowing how central Jerusalem is to Jews. Objectively, it is simply a piece of real estate no different than any other. Subjectively, it is the heart of every Jew.

In fact, this is how bigots always justify their hate. They simply claim they are "asking questions" or "making observations" and there is not a bigoted bone in their bodies, nosiree. They are just asking about whether the Holocaust happened or whether Black people are inherently less intelligent than whites. They are simply observing whether there are more Jews in banking and the media than other groups. Surely, bigots like Miller claim, no one can be offended by objective investigations into these matters, can they?

In reality, studying racism, bigotry, misogyny and antisemitism must rely on the feelings of the victims, because the attacks are often targeted to hurt those feelings. There is only one reason to compare today's Jews to Nazis - to deliberately hurt Jews.

To be sure, the ones defining what is offensive must be reasonable members of the group, and the majority of members of the group, not the outliers who find offense under every rock. Most Jews understand that attacking Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is just a new twist on antisemitism, as are dog-whistles about "rootless cosmopolitans" or "New York bankers" or "powerful Zionist media." Non-Jews might not recognize these for what they are, which is why the plurality of victims must be the ones who define what is an attack.

Insisting that bigotry can be observed objectively is simply a way justify that bigotry.

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!

Radwan Abdullah, a well-known Palestinian writer, has an article in Nidaal al-Watan where he freely admits that he makes no distinction between Jews and Israelis - the Jews are, according to him, just as despicable today as they were in Mohammed's time.

It is noted in many of the writings of media figures, and Arab intellectuals in general, that the hostility of the Jews to the Arabs and Muslims is limited to the occupation of Palestine. They ignore or forget the Jewish history of hostility to Islam and Muslims since the first cradle of Islam in Medina.

This thing, the enmity of course, which the Messenger of God Muhammad, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, suffered from continued, even at intermittent periods, between the Jewish plots of the Prophet’s time, to their multiple misfortunes in more than one Arab country, with the incitement of states and emirates against other states and emirates, as Arab history has proven in several previous stages up to the catastrophe of Palestine and the subsequent massacres and calamities that they perpetrated in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and in several other Arab countries. They take advantage of their multiple nationalities and use their hateful malice and cunning to corrupt the land, starting from the areas of their presence in the Arab and regional countries and even the rest of the world. The Jewish hostility to Arabs and Muslims began since the dawn of Islam and was completed at the collapse of the Ottoman Sultanate, leading to the occupation of our dear homeland, Palestine.

Palestine leads its war against the Jews with all their black and volatile faces on behalf of the Arabs and Muslims. Despite this, many Arabs and Muslims think and may believe that limiting the hostility to the Jews to the occupation of Palestine makes the occupation of Palestine a Palestinian issue only, as if the Palestinians alone are concerned with defending Palestine and perhaps all Arabs and Muslims. This is contrary to the truth.. Since we all know that the occupation of Palestine is intended to strike our Arab unity and our Islamic nation..in addition to displacing our people and stealing their homeland and its Christian and Islamic sanctities, and that the occupation of Palestine is nothing but an extension of the crusaders’ fierce campaigns against the Arab nation and Islam together, and it is actually an extension of the hostility of Banu Qurayza...

It is refreshing to read an Arab writer who admits the truth - that he hates Jews, not Zionists or Israelis. That he stereotypes all Jews as evil from the time of Mohammed. That the Jews have always been scheming thieves whose only aim is to corrupt everyone else, apparently for fun.

Not once have I seen an Arabic writer contradict any antisemitic article in Arab media.

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!

08/09 Links Pt2: Jew-hatred must not pay; U.N. condemns Israel alone for violating women’s rights; World Indigenous Day: Recognizing Jews' ties to the Land of Israel

From Ian:

Jew-hatred must not pay

What is shocking is that the United States has both very powerful tools and a clear legal mandate under the Taylor Force Act and Koby Mandell Act to demand and assure that justice is done. Under these acts, funds can and should be withheld from the Palestinian Authority, which under its current “pay for slay” program financially rewards terrorists and their families. Yet the current administration appears blithely to continue aid while in effect mildly rebuking the offenders.

The callous disregard for the law is so egregious that a bipartisan group of 50 members of Congress (30 Democrat and 20 Republican), led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on July 18, stating:
For some Palestinians, terrorism literally pays. As you know, the Palestinian Authority has for decades provided financial compensation and other benefits to families of terrorists jailed in Israeli prisons and “martyrs” killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis. These payments cost the P.A. more than $300 million annually, at 8% of its budget.

Referring to the Taylor Force Act, the letter went on to state:
In an effort to cut off “pay for slay” at the source, many of us helped pass this much-needed, bipartisan legislation that prohibits U.S. assistance to the West Bank directly benefiting the P.A. In January 2023, following an attack by a Palestinian terrorist that killed 7 in a Jerusalem synagogue, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza celebrated the carnage by handing out sweets, blasting festive music from their cars, and lighting fireworks. Days earlier, Akram Rajoub, the mayor of Jenin, said that the “P.A. will not stop the transfer of funds. … President [Mahmoud] Abbas made it clear that the Palestinian Authority will not stop funding the families of our martyrs even if we are down to the last penny.”

The letter went on to note:
In late February, a Palestinian terrorist killed Columbia University graduate Elan Ganeles, a native of Connecticut. In early April, a Palestinian terrorist killed British-Israeli mother Lucy Dee and her two daughters in an ambush in the West Bank. Those behind these heinous acts are lauded by Palestinian society, and it is abundantly clear that these payments continue to reward and incentivize terror.

The continuation of funding the P.A. under these circumstances effectively condones and is tantamount to complicity with the heinous “pay for slay” program.

We must remember and take to heart the wise and immortal words of the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks: “The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.”

Curing the world of hatred requires ending Jew-hatred in all its mutating and malignant forms.

Actions speak louder than words. When the Trump administration curtailed aid to the P.A., the terrorist attacks substantially decreased. Ever since the Biden administration renewed and significantly increased such aid, terrorist attacks have escalated.

The Biden administration must enforce the Taylor Force Act and cease funding directly or indirectly the immoral P.A. “pay for slay” program. Let the verdict in Pittsburgh be a clarion call not to tolerate Jew-hatred, no matter who the offender may be, and to end it once and for all.

There should be no hierarchy of antisemitism

This touches on the foundation of the problem many have with Palestinian antisemitism. It is not considered the same as antisemitism in the West, and is thought, at least in part, to be just part of the politics of the ongoing conflict.

This is an increasingly rampant form of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Parts of the international community do not expect the same behavior of the Palestinians that it expects of others. This is bigotry, bordering on racism.

It allows the Palestinian Authority and its leaders to continue with its incitement and antisemitism and continues to fete and welcome Abbas as a legitimate leader.

Rarely do members of the international community strongly condemn Abbas’ antisemitic excesses, especially when made locally rather than on an international stage. They do not push and prod Abbas publicly to end the antisemitism, by making this conditional on aid and assistance.

Far too many see it as merely part and parcel of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and believe it is rooted in injustice. They see it as part of the war.

Nonetheless, people like Fuentes also believe they are in a struggle against the Jewish people. Only a few days ago, he said, “We will make them (Jews) die in the holy war.”

The primary difference is that Palestinian antisemitism is societally endemic and leads to massive and ongoing bloodshed on both sides of the conflict, whereas Fuentes only has a fringe following.

Thus, Palestinian antisemitism should be treated at least as seriously as other forms.

The bottom line is, antisemitism is antisemitism, and all forms of hate against Jews must be countered with equal vigor.

There should be no hierarchy of bigotry.

The international community must treat the antisemitism and incitement against Jews that emanates from within or by the Palestinian Authority as it would if it came from a white supremacist or neo-Nazi source.

This is not just important so as to equalize hate, but it will also send a new and demanding message to the Palestinian leadership that there is now zero tolerance for antisemitism, and they will be shunned and lose any aid and assistance if they do not stop.

If this can lead to an end to Palestinian state-sponsored antisemitism, many lives will be saved, and peace will be closer to realization.

World Indigenous Day: Recognizing Jews' ties to the Land of Israel

Today is World Indigenous Day, as set out by the United Nations. This should be a significant day for Jews and Israel, because, after all, Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel.

However, due to misrepresentations of Jewish identity, many Jews feel disconnected from this concept. Nevertheless, in order to reclaim our story and define our own experience and identity, Jewish people must acknowledge that they are an indigenous people, and that Jewish communities everywhere constitute a Middle Eastern Diasporic community.

To understand indigeneity, it’s important to examine its etymology. It comes from the Latin noun indigena (native), which was formed by combining old Latin indu (in or within) with the verb gignere (to beget). This is the essence of the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, the land from which we emerged, or literally, were born.

By definition, indigenous peoples are diverse and unique, sometimes making them difficult to pin down precisely. The United Nations enumerated seven criteria:
1. Self-identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member
2. Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies
3. Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
4. Distinct social, economic, or political systems
5. Distinct language, culture, and beliefs
6. Form non-dominant groups of society
7. Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities.

Except for the sixth criterion, which we shall set aside as it suggests that an indigenous community must be non-dominant and does not give room for decolonization, the other criteria strongly resonate with the Jewish experience. In fact, they appear to precisely affirm the Jewish narrative, as we can see from the following:

PreOccupiedTerritory: European Names That European Governments Forced On Jews Proves Jews Are European, Not Levantine by Faisal al-Kurd, activist(satire)

Guys, guys! I’ve got the argument that will silence those stupid Zionists and their ridiculous claims that Jews from Poland, Russia, and wherever are indigenous to Palestine: show how the family surnames that Napoleon, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, the Romanovs, and the other post-Enlightenment rulers imposed on the Jews in their domains indicate origins for those Jews in those places, and not here. You with me?

I got the idea from the Zionists themselves, that’s the poetry of it. We all know fellow Palestinians whose last names attest to ancestry not in Palestine: names that mean “from Aleppo,” “the Egyptian,” “the North African,” and my favorite, obviously, “the Kurd,” among many others. You might see them making the rounds on Zionist hasbara social media. Well, I thought, how about we turn the tables? Everyone knows “Teitelbaum” and “Ostrovsky” aren’t Levantine names! Those are names that were forced on Ashkenazi Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries all across Europe, which proves that the Jews who came from Europe are European, and can’t claim to be “returning” to our land from which they say their ancestors were exiled.

Oh, I’m not worried about the question getting examined too closely. There might be some angry Zionists arguing that the names came long after those Jews arrived in Europe, but for our purposes, those countermeasures will be too little, too late. At that point we’ve landed our rhetorical blow, and our sympathizers far outnumber theirs. Those technical objections about so-called historical accuracy will be drowned out by the jeers, retweets, and uncritical parroting of our rhetoric that has long formed a centerpiece of mainstream Western journalism on the conflict here.

Actor and Musician Jamie Foxx jumped on “The Jews Killed Jesus” bandwagon on August 4^th and on August 6^th he apologized. In so doing, he joined a club: that of the legions of celebrities who broadcast rude and blatantly antisemitic statements to their legions of followers after which they apologize. These celebrities have learned that you can say the worst antisemitic thing, as long as you apologize.

In case you missed it, here is what Jamie Foxx chose to post to his 16.2 million followers:

"They killed this dude name Jesus... What do you think they'll do to you???!" followed by the hashtags #fakefriends #fakelove

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Wider Frame (@awiderframe)

This post was then duly deleted by Foxx. Then, once he deemed enough time had elapsed to make it still seem sincere, Foxx apologized:

I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now know my choice of words have caused offense and I'm sorry. That was never my intent.

To clarify, I was betrayed by a fake friend and that's what I meant with "they" not anything more. I only have love in my heart for everyone. I love and support the Jewish community. My deepest apologies to anyone who was offended [three heart emojis]

Nothing but love always,

Jamie Foxx [heart, fox, and praying hands emojis]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jamie Foxx (@iamjamiefoxx)

Aniston, following in Foxx’s (antisemitic) footsteps, liked the screed about the people who killed Jesus, and then denied she had done so, or been antisemitic. No. Antisemitism makes her sick. As per the Guardian:

“This really makes me sick,” said Aniston’s statement, which was posted on Instagram Stories. “I did not ‘like’ this post on purpose or by accident. And more importantly, I want to be clear to my and anyone hurt by this showing up in their feeds – I do not support antisemitism. And I truly don’t tolerate HATE of any kind. Period.”

So let me break this down for you, Foxx had a friend named Jesus who was killed by a fake friend who was not a Jew, chas v’shalom. Jamie is filled with nothing but love.

Aniston, meanwhile, seems to be vaguely asserting she was hacked, or perhaps the butler did it, while she, Aniston, was in the shower. In either case, the apology, or even the suggestion of one, even via a canned lawyer’s statement augmented by numerous emojis, is all that counts in the end. The calls of support came flowing in, suggests the Guardian, though that seems to require a generous interpretation of “numerous.” But they managed to dig up a court Jew, so that’s all right (emphasis added):

Foxx’s handling of the episode did earn him numerous supportive comments. Alongside the actor’s apology Saturday, music producer Breyon Prescott wrote, “Anyone that has been around you knows that you have no hate for anyone!!! … [You’re] the best, don’t let anyone make you think differently.”
The actor Porscha Coleman added: “People can’t even speak any more without someone being offended. You were clearly talking about someone you thought was a friend who turned out to be a backstabber … Society is so sensitive these days!”
And podcast host Mark Birnbaum, who is Jewish, wrote on Instagram that he found Foxx to be “the most inclusive non-antisemitic person out there”.
“He’s got nothing but love for everyone, including us Jews,” Birnbaum said. “Let’s move onto the next nonsensical story of the day.”
Other users remarking on Foxx also alluded to his prior displays of solidarity with the Jewish community. In 2017, he performed at a barmitzvah-themed birthday party in honor of the singer Drake as well as at a Jewish fan’s barmitzvah.

Oh, wow. He performed at a Bar Mitzvah. Clearly the guy loves Jews.

Look. We’ve seen this show before. We saw it with Ilhan Omar, how she “unequivocally” apologized after saying it’s all about the Benjamins and AIPAC, but essentially still saying the same thing: AIPAC wields problematic political clout. P.S. It doesn’t.

Listening and learning, but standing strong 💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/7TSroSf8h1
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 11, 2019

Even self-perpetuating PA president Mahmoud Abbas did the antisemitic blurt out and apology thing while speaking to the Palestinian National Council. After saying crazy things like the Jews took money from Hitler to settle in Palestine, Abbas issued an “official” apology. From Ynet (emphasis added):

"If people were offended by my statement in front of the PNC, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them. I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths."

“If.” Get that? If people were offended. Especially Jews.

Kyrie Irving did the same thing. Tweeted an antisemitic documentary, and then apologized. But of course as he said, he was “unjustly” labeled an antisemite. And of course, the apology only came after he was suspended.

ViacomCBS cut ties with Nick Cannon after the latter said stupid stuff about Jews on a podcast. So Cannon apologized.

Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden issued an apology after footage was leaked of him saying horribly antisemitic things. From the Jerusalem Post (emphasis added):

In footage from a 2021 interview of Harden by the Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine (OFIP) that recently surfaced and gained prominence, Harden stated that he has "asked many questions of Jewish neighbors here about how much longer we should put up with this, because if I were to name... the single greatest threat – the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East – is unquestionably the State of Israel and the way in which they feel absolutely no shame in defying international law doing whatever they want."

Harden also condemned antisemitism and said that manifestations of Jew-hatred in pro-Palestinian camps were unhelpful to the cause, but conditioned that "I can also understand from the pro-Palestinian standpoint how the barbarity and the scale of viciousness can lead someone to strike out with intemperate hateful language [!!] because of that real hurt where people are at."

But the guy apologized.

Last year I participated in an interview with the Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine, where I spoke in a way that perpetrated an antisemitic stereotype towards Jewish neighbours.

I regret my choice of words. My full statement and apology is below. https://t.co/h6IPxjD68G
— Joel Harden (@JoelHardenONDP) November 20, 2022

Should we believe him? Only if you really, really want to, or perhaps share common cause with him in some completely different area as with RFK Jr. and Farrakhan.

The fact is there is no way to prove the sincerity of an apology. Lie detectors are easily fooled and the interpretation of body language is not an exact science. Some Jews would say that’s precisely why we should give these antisemites the benefit of the doubt. Others, like this writer, reject the apologies as a matter of course. It’s not just that the apologies are too well-timed, canned, or inadequate—it’s that it’s a matter of self-preservation.

Some say that the Jews never see the danger until the gates are closing and it’s too late. It’s the nature of nice, normal people to make the choice to always see things in a positive light. Jews may even tell you that benefit of the doubt is a Jewish value. But Judaism doesn’t tell us to be stupid. For a Jew, survival often means taking off the blinders that make us see benign intent where none is meant.

Last year, the IDF killed an 18-year old terrorist, Ibrahim al-Nablusi, who was a leader of the Lion's Den terror cell in Nablus and involved in multiple attacks.

He had been a child soldier, joining a terror group at 15.

Articles about the Lion's Den have implied that it was a home-grown group that just popped up out of frustration with Israel or the PA. Members claimed not to be loyal to any one armed faction.

But today, Islamic Jihad has written a new obituary for Ibrahim al-Nablusi, where they take credit for the creation of the Lion's Den.

Today, Wednesday 8/9/2023, the Al-Quds Brigades - the Nablus Brigade confirmed, on the first anniversary of the martyrdom of Ibrahim Alaa Al-Nabulsi "Abu Fathi", one of the most prominent leaders of the Al-Quds Brigades - the Nablus Brigade and the fighter Islam Muhammad Sabouh, that the blood of the two martyrs will remain a light for the Mujahideen and a fire for the aggressors Zionists at all times .

The battalion revealed for the first time that the martyr, Commander Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, was part of the department for developing military action in Nablus and that he was one of the first leaders in establishing the battalion.

This makes a lot more sense. The many armed groups that have arisen in the West Bank over the past two years were not spontaneous, but planned - and they were planned by Iran, via Islamic Jihad.

It was in the Palestinian interest to tell Western media that these were organic groups that were created at the grassroots level, and Islamic Jihad had a "department for developing military action" in the West Bank.

More evidence that Iran was behind these groups comes from the Tehran Times "Man of the Year" last year - none other than Ibrahim al-Nabulsi.

Iran's actions in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza are not haphazard, but they are coordinated and planned to keep Israel under siege and on the defensive.

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!

08/09 Links Pt1: FM Cohen: Korea Is a Model for Middle East Peace; White House denies agreement on outline for Israel-Saudi deal; Palestinian society sinks into shambles

From Ian:

Eli Cohen (WSJ): Korea Is a Model for Middle East Peace

Securing an alliance with Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be merely another diplomatic achievement; it would form the foundation upon which true regional harmony can be built. Such a partnership might inspire other nations to pursue enduring peace.

The U.S. has done a great deal to help facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Israel in recent months. As part of these efforts, the Saudis made several demands of the U.S., which, in their view, are key to advancing the normalization process with Israel. Most of these requests concern Iranian aggression and the kingdom’s ability to defend itself against this threat.

This underscores Saudi Arabia’s perspective: The primary challenge isn’t Israel but Iran, which is intent on spreading its Shiite Islamic revolution throughout the region by means of violence, terrorism and nuclear-weapons development.

A nuclear-armed Iran is no mere hypothetical threat. If the regime builds a nuclear weapon, it would almost certainly ignite a regional nuclear arms race. Nations such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Egypt and Turkey might feel pressured to bolster their defenses. While a regional arms race might seem an inevitable response to Iran’s growing might, it would severely destabilize the area, potentially plunging the entire Middle East into conflict.

A potential blueprint for de-escalation exists in East Asia. My recent trip to South Korea and the demilitarized zone was revealing. South Korea, despite living under the shadow of a nuclear-armed neighbor and having the means to develop its own nuclear weapons, has abstained from nuclear-weapons development. The U.S.’s defense commitment acts as South Korea’s deterrent against Northern aggression.

White House denies agreement on outline for Israel-Saudi deal

The White House on Wednesday downplayed claims that Riyadh had agreed to the “broad contours” of a normalization deal with Israel.

“There’s no agreed framework to codify the normalization or any of the other security considerations that we and our friends have in the region,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists on a press call.

Earlier on Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. and Saudi officials were “negotiating the details of an agreement they hope to cement within nine-to-12 months.”

Sources cited by the newspaper said it would be “the most momentous Middle East peace deal in a generation,” the Journal reported. They cautioned, however, that the deal still faces long odds.

Efforts accelerated with a visit by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Saudi Arabia on May 7 where he met with Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s crown prince (known as MBS).

U.S. officials said it would take nine- to-12 months to work out the finer details of an agreement and negotiators are already discussing specifics, including American help for a Saudi civilian nuclear program, along with security guarantees and concessions for Palestinians.

Israel-Saudi Normalization Isn’t Worth the Price of Allowing Iran to Go Nuclear

A recent trip by the American national security adviser to Saudi Arabia is but one piece of evidence that the White House is trying to broker an agreement between Jerusalem and Riyadh. To Enia Krivine, such an agreement, despite facing “myriad but surmountable challenges,” would be a “boon to regional stability and security” as well as “consistent with U.S. interests.” Yet any deal would necessarily result from three-way negotiations, and involve concessions on all sides. Krivine fears the Biden administration might ask for too much:

Saudi Arabia is seeking a NATO-level defense treaty with America, U.S. approval of a civilian nuclear program, and advanced missile-defense capabilities from the U.S. military. The Biden administration is asking for an end to the Saudis’ involvement in the war in Yemen, a massive Saudi aid package for the Palestinians, and the curtailment of Saudi-China relations. If Washington and Riyadh agree to these terms, Saudi Arabia would normalize ties with Israel, while the Jewish state would make concessions to the Palestinians.

[At the same time], the emerging picture of what the Biden administration is negotiating with the mullahs in Tehran . . . would reportedly allow the Islamist regime to continue enriching uranium to 60-percent purity in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Yet 60-percent-enriched uranium is only a short turn of the screw to weapons-grade, constituting 99 percent of the effort needed to reach that threshold. Iran would undoubtedly channel any sanctions relief to its expeditionary forces in the region, threatening both Israel and the Saudis.

The U.S. is the lynchpin of any future normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration should doggedly pursue normalization because of the benefits it would bring to America and our regional allies. At the same time, the administration must abandon talks with Iran and apply maximum pressure on the mullahs to halt their race towards nuclear weapons. Above all, Washington should not expect Israel to accept a normalization agreement with the Saudis as a consolation prize for a bad Iran deal.

A surprising number of Arab youth in the UAE, Egypt and even Algeria(!) support normalization with Israel

From reading the media, the impression one gets is that while Arab governments are considering the benefits of closer relations with Israel, the populations are completely against it.

It turns out that this is not exactly true.

The 2023 Arab Youth Survey mentions that nearly 17% of Gulf citizens and 11% of North African youth now see Israel as a strong ally or somewhat of an ally of their country, and notes that "these modest approval ratings would have been unthinkable several years ago."

The most surprising results come from when Arab youth were asked how strongly they support their government's normalizing relations with Israel.

Among the Abraham Accords countries, there was strong support from the UAE youth, with 75% supporting normalization. For Morocco it was 50%, while it was only 30% in Bahrain and a mere 3% in Sudan.

More interesting were the results from other Arab countries.

An incredible 73% of Egyptian youth support normalization with Israel, which is a complete surprise for anyone who monitors Egyptian media that is virtually unanimous in opposing Israel.

47% of South Sudan youth want to see normalization, along with 39% of youth in Oman.

Even more astonishing is the attitudes of youth in other Arab countries.

Fully 31% of Algerian youth support normalization, at a time when its media is among the most antisemitic - and hugely against Morocco's relations with Israel.

Also surprising is that 19% of Syrian youth want to see normalization with Israel - and in Yemen, 19% strongly support such normalization.

These are numbers that simply would be inconceivable in years past.

Yet in Jordan, which is benefitting from ties to Israel in deals to provide the kingdom with much-needed water and natural gas, only 6% of youth want to see normalization with Israel.

And 100% of Palestinian youth never want to see normalized relations with Israel.

The survey includes this eye-opening graphic:

With the notable exception of Egypt, the countries that are the most antisemitic tend to also be the countries whose youth most reject ties with Israel.

The media has once again dropped the ball on reporting from the Arab world. There are real consequences and policy decisions that can be made based on these results, but the people whose jobs are to analyze these sorts of trends are clueless and instead parrot what "everyone knows."

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!