Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 22, 2023

09/22 Links Pt2: Yom Kippur War: A bleak moment but pivotal turning point; Penn Jewish Center Vandalized Ahead of Uni Conference Featuring Anti-Semites

From Ian:

Mark Regev: Yom Kippur War: A bleak moment but pivotal turning point

Yet, if the Yom Kippur War was a turning point, it wasn’t as bleak as it appeared at the time.

The war ended with direct Egypt-Israel military-to-military talks. These were the harbinger of a dialogue that led to disengagement agreements and ultimately to the 1979 peace treaty – Israel’s first with an Arab country.

In the decades since, Israel has normalized relations with Jordan and Morocco, both of whom sent forces to fight the IDF in 1973 – the former to the Syrian front, the latter in support of Egypt.

And of the Arab petroleum producers who weaponized oil against Israel, the 2020 Abraham Accords saw agreements reached with the UAE and Bahrain. Today, there is even talk of a breakthrough with Saudi Arabia.

If in 1973 Israelis worried that petroleum gave their enemies a colossal advantage, it wasn’t to last. The global energy market has changed in ways that have diminished Arab ascendancy. Simultaneously, Israeli technological innovation has made the Jewish state a sought-after partner. (In the 21st century, is technology not competing with fossil fuels for being the number one driver of economic growth?)

In contrast to the diplomatic isolation of 1973, Israel has returned to Africa, augmented its ties across Asia, and built strong partnerships in Europe – as was seen in the recent $3.5 billion deal for the supply of the Arrow-3 missile defense system to Germany.

Furthermore, those who forecasted an inevitable decline in American support for Israel have, thus far, been wrong in their doomsday predictions. Over the past five decades, the trajectory of Israel-US ties has been indisputably positive, despite all the bumps along the road.

At the end of 1973, Israelis were hurting, apprehensive, and unsure. Although the country had successfully resisted a powerful assault, there was no celebration, but rather a pervasive dispiritedness.

We know today that the postwar gloominess, though certainly understandable, was unjustified in historical terms. Perhaps this fact can give Israelis a measure of succor as we deal with today’s seemingly existential divisions.

Editor's Notes: Could the Yom Kippur War happen today?

In a pre-Yom Kippur missive to IDF personnel, released to the public today, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reflected on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war.

“The failure of warning on the eve of the war is the worst failure in the history of the State of Israel,” Halevi wrote. “Its roots are in arrogance, lack of understanding of the abundant intelligence information, and disregard for the enemy.”

Turning to Israel’s foes, he added: “Our enemies should know that the spirit of the IDF soldiers and the unity of its ranks do not fall short of those of the soldiers who fought in the Yom Kippur War, and that the IDF is as ready as ever for a multi-arena military conflict if it is required.”

Reassuring as his words were no doubt intended to be, that Halevi felt compelled to address the spirit and unity of the IDF and its readiness for war in a public letter marking the anniversary of the most devastating war in Israel’s history should be cause for concern, and it should drive us to reflect on the impact of the impassioned national discourse on the very body charged with our nation’s defense.

Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, we are older, wiser, more battle-scarred, and better established as a nation than we were then. We are a technological superpower and an economic success story and our military has few peers anywhere in the world.

But as we reflect on the deep trauma of those fateful weeks half a century ago, we would do well to keep our hubris at bay. We are only as strong from without as we are from within, and we rely on our leaders to do what they must to ensure our continued ability to confront any threat.

Our enemies know those basic truths. Let us hope our leaders do, as well.

G’mar hatima tova.

Here's the description of one of the sessions at the "Palestine Writes" conference being held at the University of Pennsylvania this weekend

The Right of Return and How to Achieve it

One of the most important lessons we have learned from 75 years of exile is that the essence of the struggle has not changed: It is the expulsion of the people of Palestine from their homes and the confiscation of their land. The implementation of the Palestinian inalienable rights is the key to a permanent peace. All else, including a Palestinian state, so-called regional cooperation or other contrived devices to obscure this fundamental issue, is peripheral.

This means that "peace," to these bigots, cannot possibly be achieved as long as there is a Jewish state in existence.

Diana Buttu, a Hamas defender and BDS bigot who is part of the session, has long advocated a "one state" Palestine solution.

It is amazing how 22 Arab states and 50 Muslim-majority states aren't enough, but one Jewish state is too many.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

As the Arab world celebrates the 50th anniversary of their "victory" over Israel in the Yom Kippur War, it is worth looking at what they celebrate as victories today. Things like Arabs at sporting events refusing to compete against Israelis.

Similarly, today Kuwait is celebrating another huge victory over the Zionist enemy.

The UN General Assembly held high-level meetings on health this week, and health minister from many countries attended. Many of them gave brief addresses.

But when Israeli Minister of Health Moshe Arbel began delivering a speech to the assembly, the Kuwaiti health minister, Ahmed Al-Awadhi, walked out.

This was covered in Al Jazeera. Here is Al Jazeera's dramatic video where it appears as if he is simply going to the restroom. But the music tells us this is an historic moment.

The video, and the article, shows four different "activists" praising Al-Awadhi on X.

One said, "An honorable position from the Kuwaiti Minister of Health, no matter how principles change and ideas change, believing that normalization is treason and there is no peace with the occupying entity.”

Another: “We are moving away from normalization and we are not getting close, praise and grace be to God, and all goodness is in moving away from the usurping Zionist entity.”

Such bravery! What a victory!

Al Jazeera does mention that some Arabs on social media questioned exactly how this helped the Palestinian cause. That part was removed from a Jordanian reprint of the story.

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!

09/22 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The moral bankruptcy of the world; Is an Israel-US defense pact in the Jewish state's best interests?; US $73 Mil Extra Funding for UNRWA

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The moral bankruptcy of the world

A pair of events this week graphically illustrated a striking symmetry in the moral bankruptcy of the United Nations, a global body ostensibly dedicated to peace and justice.

The UN General Assembly gave a platform to Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi, whose terrorist regime has been in a state of self-declared war against the free world for more than four decades.

Raisi promptly used this platform to threaten to murder US officials in revenge for the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Yet while rolling out the red carpet for this tyrant, security officials frog-marched Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan out of the hall. He was already in the process of walking out after holding up a sign reading “Iranian women deserve freedom now” with a picture of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” after being arrested for not wearing her hijab in the prescribed manner.

Erdan was detained by security officials for several minutes outside the chamber before being released. He protested: “It should not be possible for a vile murderer who calls for the destruction of Israel to be given a platform here at the UN.”

Not only did the UN grant a genocidal monster like Raisi the status of a world statesman, but it treated the ambassador of the country that Raisi’s regime aims to wipe off the map like a criminal.

This fits the UN’s long record of sanitising, condoning or promoting human rights abusers while singling out democratic Israel for a campaign of harassment and demonisation.

Given the Iranian regime’s record in jailing and torturing dissidents, hanging homosexuals, oppressing women and killing untold thousands of protesters, it is beyond belief that in November Iran is to chair the UN Human Rights Council’s Social Forum.

The embattled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had it absolutely right when he told the UN Security Council this week,: “Humankind no longer pins its hopes on the UN.” He pointed out that as a result of Russia’s membership on the Council which gives it veto power on binding resolutions, the UN is impotent in the face of aggression.

Raisi used his UN platform to gloat over the world’s inability to restrain Iran. He taunted America over its powerlessness in the world, claimed that the hegemony of the west is “over” and declared that the sanctions policy has “failed” and the Iranian nation has “won”.

Although this stomach-turning spectacle was staged by the UN, the real responsibility for it rests with the Biden administration which has fallen over itself to appease, fund and empower Tehran.

How the UN disgraced itself once again

As a platform intended to promote international cooperation, peace and human rights, the United Nations bears significant responsibility. However, to those who closely follow the organization, it is clear that the UN has a consistent bias against Israel that undermines its credibility and ability to foster global harmony.

This bias was thrust into the spotlight once again on Sept. 20 when Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan peacefully protested a speech by Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi. During the speech, Erdan held up a picture of Mahsa Amini, an innocent Iranian woman murdered by Iran's "morality police" for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly. Amini's death set off a wave of protests against Raisi's theocratic regime.

After Erdan's protest, he attempted to leave the hall. The UN Police promptly put their hands on him and physically escorted him out. The UN should be ashamed of itself.

This appalling event is a teachable moment, an opportunity to revisit the UN's record of open hostility towards Israel.

First, there is the UN's disproportionate focus on Israel's actions compared to those of other nations. The UN's obsession with passing resolutions condemning Israel, often by an overwhelming majority, while turning a blind eye to other nations with far more egregious records, is deeply troubling. While criticism of Israel is certainly valid when warranted, the disproportionate attention it receives suggests a political agenda at work.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a notorious example of such bias. Since its inception, the UNHRC has adopted more resolutions condemning Israel than any other country in the world. At the same time, critics have pointed out that the UNHRC has failed to adequately address severe human rights violations in countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This inconsistency raises questions about the UN's commitment to impartiality and its ability to address global human rights abuses effectively.

The Palestinian Ministry of Information puts out a regular listing of "incitement and racism in Israeli media."

It shows three examples from August of what it calls "provocative terms" it saw in Hebrew language media.

“A Palestinian bulldozer demolished an archaeological site from the days of the Second Temple."
.
Concerning Walid Daqqa: “Distorted ethics. A human rights organization demands the release of a terrorist with blood on his hands.”

“Construction in the West Bank is an appropriate Zionist response to terrorism.”

So, telling the truth is "provocative" and "incitement" and "racism."

I think the Palestinian Authority regards "1984" as a textbook and its "Ministry of Truth" is a model for the Palestinian "ministry of information."

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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The Jerusalem Post reports:

A fire broke out on Friday morning in the Kissufim forest on the Gaza border according to a statement by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), which manages the site.

Six firefighting teams were deployed to two different areas in the Ben Shemen area near the Adam IDF base in order to prevent the fire from spreading to the base, according to the Ayalon Regional Fire Brigade. Two planes were also deployed to help put out the fires.

It is suspected that incendiary balloons from Gaza started the fire. In 2018, the KKL-JNF statement said, a fire broke out in the exact same place at the outset of a string of incendiary balloon fires.

The last time incendiary balloons caused a fire in the region was in September 2021.

A group called the "Units of the Descendants of Nasser" claimed responsibility for what they called a "blast" of balloons being sent from central Gaza today.

The same group had also claimed to be behind a string of incendiary balloon attacks in 2020 and 2021, saying that "we promise you that we will not rest until the entire envelope east of our occupied territories burns."

Interestingly, in 2021, Hamas arrested members of the group for their attacks on Israeli forests. Which means that if this becomes a new wave of attacks, Hamas is allowing it to happen.

Environmental groups have been peculiarly silent about Palestinian groups deliberately setting forest fires.

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!

We've come to expect Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to fill his UN speeches with lies and libels, and he did it again on Thursday.

He claimed that the Kotel (Western Wall) was exclusively Muslim:

The occupation government is also violating the city of Jerusalem and its people, assaulting our Islamic and Christian sanctities there, and violating the historical and legal status of the holy places, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, which international legitimacy has recognized as an exclusive right for Muslims alone, including the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall and the Buraq [Western] Wall, according to the report. League of Nations in 1930.

While the travesty of the Wailing Wall Commission did indeed determine that the Waqf owned the entire Temple Mount, the Wall and Moroccan Quarter, the Muslims made quite clear that they did not accept anything the commission was going to say. So Abbas is trying to have it both ways.

Not only that, but the Muslims claimed ownership by conquest - meaning that according to their arguments then, Jews clearly have the ownership rights to all of Jerusalem today!

Also, before 1930, Muslims did not identify the Kotel with the Buraq Wall.

I hereby call on the international community to assume its responsibilities in preserving the historic and legal status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, specifically the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

Translated, this means he wants to revert to the situation before 1967 when Jews were banned by law from visiting their holiest places in Jerusalem and Hebron. He defends this antisemitic attitude as the "historic and legal status."

Abbas then demanded compensation from Great Britain and the US for their role in the Balfour Declaration.

He claimed:

Our people defend their homeland and their legitimate rights, through peaceful popular resistance as a strategic option for self-defense.

Tell that to Eli (48) and Natalie Mizrahi (45), Rafael Ben-Eliyahu (56), Asher Natan (14), Shaul Chai (68), Irina Korolova (59), Ilya Sosonsky (26), Shlomo Liderman (20), Yaakov Yisrael Paley (6), Asher Menahem Paley (8), Hallel Yaniv (21) Yagel Yaniv (19), Elan Ganeles (27), Or Eshkar (32), Lucy Dee (48), Maia Dee (20), Rina Dee (15), Alessandro Parini, (35), Inga Avramyan (80), Meir Tamari (32), Ofer Fayerman (64), Harel Masood (21), Elisha Anteman (17), and Shmuel Mordoff (17), Chen Amir (42), Aviad Nir (28), Silas (Shai) Nigreker (60) and Batsheva Nagari (40). They were all murdered this year by Abbas' "peaceful popular resistance."

Absurdly, Abbas blamed Israel for the Palestinians not having an election in 19 years. In fact he celled off the last election when it was clear that his Fatah party would lose badly.

What this supposed champion of democracy pointedly doesn't mention is that he is a dictator in every sense. He controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches of his government. He writes and passes all laws. Plus he controls the PLO which overarches it all. If he cared about democracy, he would have stepped down after his four year term was up.

Abbas again falsely claimed that Israel's recognition by the UN was conditional on accepting resolutions 181 and 194. That is a lie, as anyone can see by reading the text of the resolution accepting Israel. There is no conditional language.

However, the Arab world and Palestinian Arab leaders thoroughly rejected both resolutions and Arab states voted against them.

Abbas is a liar.

Abbas also showed appreciation for the successful Palestinian brainwashing campaign denying any Jewish rights or history in the land. He said:

For several years, we have presented our Palestinian narrative, and the story of our people, which has been deliberately distorted by the Zionist and Israeli propaganda. We are relieved that the peoples of the world and many of its countries have begun to believe our narrative and sympathize with it, after having been misled for decades.

Notice he doesn't say "facts" or "history." Only "narrative" and "story." Palestinians want to erase the Jewish ties to the land, discard facts and rewrite history.

And Abbas drinks his own Kool-Aid. The Palestinian Arab "narrative" has stated for a century that Jews are endangering Al Aqsa, and he channeled the infamous Mufti of 100 years ago saying, "The occupying Power is also feverishly digging tunnels under and around Al-Aqsa Mosque, threatening its collapse, or the collapse of parts of it, which will lead to an explosion with untold consequences. "

The Holocaust denier went further than just pushing a false version of history. He wants to make sure the rest of the world is forced to accept those lies.

I call upon you today to criminalize the denial of the Nakba and designate the 15th of May of each year an international day to commemorate the anniversary of the Nakba, to commemorate the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were killed in massacres committed by Zionist gangs. Palestinians whose villages were demolished and who were forcibly displaced from their homes. The number of these refugees reached 950,000 in 1948,

"Hundreds of thousands" is a gross lie. "950,000 refugees" is a lie. Most of them were not "forcibly displaced from their homes." Abbas wants me to go to prison for pointing out his lies.

The Palestinian dictator wants the entire world to submit to his rules of newspeak. I bet not one mainstream media outlet will condemn him for his opposition to freedom of thought and speech.

There are only some of his most outrageous lies and statements.

He might not have the charisma of Yasir Arafat, but he sure can lie as well as his predecessor did.

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!

09/21 Links Pt2: Antisemitism is an ancient hatred, merely its expression has changed; How WWII Nazi propaganda led to the Arab war with Israel

From Ian:

On Behalf of Their People

Any book on Jewish statesmanship must contend with the fact that for most of the past two millennia, Jews had no state. Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land came to a cataclysmic end in 70 C.E., when the Roman legions under Titus destroyed Jerusalem and burned its great temple. Not until 1948, with the proclamation of the new State of Israel, would Jewish statehood be revived in the Jewish homeland.

In Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, Meir Y. Soloveichik sets out to fill a gap in the vast literature of political leadership—the lack, in his words, of any studies focused on “the particular nature of Jewish statecraft” or devoted to “outstanding exemplars of that calling.” To remedy that deficiency, he profiles an array of leaders drawn from the long history of the Jewish people, from the biblical King David in the 10th century B.C.E. to David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin 3,000 years later.

David, the quintessential Jewish monarch, reigned in Jerusalem during the First Jewish Commonwealth. Ben-Gurion and Begin, the most important prime ministers in the history of modern Israel, likewise governed a sovereign Jewish state. But just one other leader included by Soloveichik was a Jewish ruler in a Jewish land: the Second Temple–era Queen Shlomtsion (also known as Salome Alexandra), who became monarch of Judea a century before the Roman conquest.

In the context of Providence and Power, those four are the exceptions to the rule. All the book’s other subjects—among them the Sephardi sage and courtier Don Isaac Abravanel; the eminent 17th-century Amsterdam rabbi Menasseh ben Israel; and Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism—were individuals who lived after Jewish national independence was crushed and before it was reborn. They represented no Jewish government; they were not diplomats or foreign ministers answerable to a Jewish principal; they were not backed by the authority of any Jewish army, parliament, or regime. So isn’t it something of a stretch to hold them out as archetypes of Jewish statesmanship?

Antisemitism is an ancient hatred, merely its expression has changed

Antisemitism, it seems, spreads and takes shape according to circumstances. Recent attacks on figures like Russian-Israeli Jewish businessman Roman Abramovich exemplify this, reflecting a “soft underbelly” for antisemitic sentiments in Europe that has developed also into hatred for Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Anyone who is from Russia, even if they had to flee from there – especially when they are part of the Jewish collective – is an easy target for antisemitic hatred. The arguments against that person are irrelevant since there will always be a reason to hate them; either they are a rich person who takes advantage of others, or they are a poor parasite.

The hatred of Israel in Europe is influenced by pro-Islamic fundamentalist forces, while in the US, it thrives within “progressive enlightened” societies. They attack Jewish and Israeli morality with current terms that are unauthentic and while using “court Jews.” This winning card appeared in the past since its power is derived from “the fact” that the Jews criticize their own society.

It is crucial to recognize that the sources of hatred remain constant, whether “court Jews” join these ranks willingly or are co-opted by anti-Israel forces in a corrupt way to weaponize them and their messages. However, we must not be unduly alarmed by new manifestations of hatred, as they ultimately belong to the same age-old category of antisemitism.

Lastly, we should not use antisemitism as a means to absolve individuals, communities, or the Jewish people from self-examination or responsibility for upholding Jewish and human values. The presence of antisemitism should not serve as a justification for overlooking shortcomings within the Jewish community, society, or the state.

While we must remain vigilant against antisemitism in all its forms, we must not take too seriously the ultra-modern antisemitic attacks against individuals and communities stemming from illogical and irrational hatred.

The Jews of Uman ‘fear God’s judgment more than Russian tanks’

While Uman is hundreds of miles from the front lines, like all Ukrainian cities it remains a target of Russian missile attacks, such as one last April that claimed 23 lives, including three children.

But nothing seems to deter Menachem, a father of two who works in an art gallery. “In Israel, we can also be attacked at any moment, whether it’s rockets, a knife attack, or something else.

“There are all kinds of Jews in Uman. You can see Breslov Chasidim like me, but also Litvaks, Sephardim, Yemenite Jews, Ethiopians — we all have our differences, but we come together as one people around the grave of our master.” David and Yehouda, from Paris, came without much regard for what was happening in the news.

“Everyone in our community thought we were crazy, but here we are,” says Yehouda, a company executive.

They are seated at a long iron container that offers free coffee, tea, water and food to the pilgrims day and night.

Nachman supposedly promised that anyone who visited his tomb, gave to charity and recited ten psalms would be spared the fires of hell.

“That’s why it’s essential for us to be here. We fear God’s judgment more than Russian tanks,” says David.

MPower Change, the Muslim advocacy group co-founded by Linda Sarsour, just sent out an action alert to its email list with the title "Take Action: No autonomous drones from Israel:"

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just approved a request by Airobotics, an Israeli government-funded company,¹ to fly “autonomous” drones over U.S. neighborhoods.²

We don’t want unaccountable, autonomous “crime-fighting” drones snooping on us, filling our skies, and making life-or-death decisions.

Tell the FAA: We need safety where we live, not spy drones funded by apartheid Israel.

Airobotics is not funded by the Israeli government. It received a specific grant at the end of August of $540,000 from the Israel Innovation Authority, which is funded by but independent of the Israeli government. The grant has nothing to do with the drone that the FAA approved. The Muslim group is stretching to find any connection, no matter how tenuous, to associate Israel with a myth of drones meant to spy on Muslims and people of color in cities.

But what does Airobotics' Israel connections have to do with what the drone does? The email pretends that it is trying to protect civil rights of people of color who they imagine will be surveilled disproportionately by these autonomous drones - but if that was really MPower Change's concern, what difference does it make whether they were manufactured or even funded by Israel? It is up to the people who actually purchase and deploy the drones to determine how they will be used, whether for good or evil purposes. The source has nothing to do with it.

This is hatemongering, not a concern for human rights. And the implication that a drone company is especially pernicious because it is Israeli is simple bigotry.

Notably, while the email mentions Israel eight times to whip up their subscribers into a frenzy, their auto-email to the FAA doesn't mention Israel once. Telling the FAA not to approve a drone because it is Israeli would be obvious bigotry. The advocacy group only tells that to fellow Muslims. MPower Change knows that Israel has nothing to do with the issue, but they also know that their email list is filled with people who hate Israel and Jews - and they want to leverage that hate to get them to take action (and raise their own profile.)

This email shows that the word "Israel" is now a dog-whistle for modern antisemites. They use "Israel" the way "Jew" used to be used, as a means to make people angry.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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You Other Jews Don't Punch Your Chests Hard Enough During Confession. Allow Me. by Peter Beinart (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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You Other Jews Don't Punch Your Chests Hard Enough During Confession. Allow Me.

by Peter Beinart

New York, September 21 - Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is upon us. Many of the religiously devoted have been reciting penitentiary prayers for weeks already, passages that include a repeated litany of sinful attitudes and behaviors that we regret, an alphabetical acrostic that features a gesture of striking the chest over the heart at the mention of each term. I must say, observing my coreligionists recently, and through the years: you hit yourselves far too lightly. I insist on doing it for you.

This has become a worrisome trend. You other Jews feel insufficient guilt about existing, let alone sympathizing with - or, God forbid, actively supporting - Jewish assertions of sovereignty and removal of outside oppression. A good punch or twenty-four, times three, per weekday, ought to help remedy that. It'd be my pleasure.

I know, I know, there's no way I can do it all on my own. Jews who neglect, or refuse, to guilt-punch themselves hard enough far outnumber me. I could never hope to reach all of you without exhausting myself, and even then, I'd fall short. But fear not: I can call upon hundreds, even thousands, of like-minded colleagues, many of whom aren't even Jewish, to assist me in my punch-every-Jew-for-their-own-atonement initiative. Finding enough non-Jews interested in helping uphold that value has never posed a problem.

As the Talmud famously teaches, we encourage people to maintain positive practices even if they undertake those practices for the wrong reasons, because eventually they may begin to do them for the right reasons. Indeed, many, perhaps most, of the volunteers I aim to recruit will not share my specific motivations for this enterprise, but no one can deny the enthusiasm and robust participation they will bring to the job. We can all admire that, and one day, they will engage in the punching for its own sake.

One can even dream that we Jews will (re?)acquire the capacity to punch ourselves hard enough in recognition of our collective guilt for whatever the cultural hegemony deems the greatest sin of the age. All along, I plan to continue my current trajectory of speaking engagements, panel discussions, article royalties, and other income streams born of encouraging my people to surrender any control for their own communal security and safety, not to mention self-determination.

Goodness, those are such triggering, disturbing terms. They fill me with shame and make me want to punch someone!

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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09/21 Links Pt1: Col Kemp: Biden needs Netanyahu for a foreign policy success; Palestinians: Israeli Concessions Are a Sign of Weakness; The West’s betrayal of the women of Iran

From Ian:

Col Kemp: Biden needs Netanyahu for a foreign policy success

It is Saudi Arabia that Biden has his sights on to salvage his foreign policy train wreck in time for the 2024 election. Specifically, he wants to normalize relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem, and for that he needs Netanyahu. Of course he is pushing on an open door, because an agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a historic game-changer.

It is possible as well, and in Biden’s requisite time frame, although some believe King Salman might veto it, effectively deferring normalization until Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, accedes to the throne and maybe Biden has left the stage.

Irrespective of that, MbS has a price: US security guarantees, assistance with a civilian nuclear program and access to advanced weaponry. Some of this will need Israel to bite the bullet, but it will be willing to do that given the prize.

More challenging will be substantive Israeli concessions toward the Palestinians and that is above all what Biden needs from Netanyahu. Biden’s real objective here is to go down as the man who advanced “peace” between Israel and the Palestinians. Never mind that history has shown us time and again that successive Palestinian leaders gobble up anything Israel concedes, while giving nothing in return, and certainly not an end to conflict. But for the White House it is all about short term optics and piling up capital for the election.

In his meeting with Netanyahu, Biden no doubt played the Palestinian issue up as some kind of Saudi red line and the White House has probably been pushing MbS in that direction. But while the Saudis would no doubt want some kind of pro forma undertaking by Israel for the sake of presentation, the other three conditions are what they really want. The Saudi’s under the table backing for the original Abraham Accords in the face of stiff Palestinian rejection shows us where its priorities lie.

The other major issue discussed between Biden and Netanyahu is Iran. Biden wants to rehabilitate in some form the flawed Obama nuclear deal that Trump rightly discarded, both to chalk up what he thinks he can portray as another foreign policy “success” before the election and also as the final rebuke to Trump of his presidency.

So desperate has the White House been to resurrect the nuclear deal that in June and July $10 billion of frozen Iranian assets were released and just this week another $6.5 billion were freed up. Some believe that Washington plans a total of $50 billion of sanctions relief by the end of this game.

That amounts to naked bribery for a deal that is not worth the paper it’s printed on and like Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will make the world, and especially Israel, a more dangerous place. It also amounts to rewarding Iranian abetment of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The ayatollahs have supplied thousands of Shahed attack drones to Moscow, with the specific purpose not of fighting on the battlefield but of killing and terrorizing civilians in Ukrainian cities.

Iran’s drone supply is illegal under UN Security Council Resolution 2331 endorsing the JCPOA and should have triggered snap-back sanctions against Iran; not the opposite, which is being done. This appeasement is another mark of Biden’s desperation, that a meaningless nuclear deal trumps what is supposed to be one of America’s main foreign policy objectives — supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression.

As he went into the meeting with Biden, Netanyahu spoke of the need for a credible military threat against Iran. No doubt behind closed doors he argued strongly for that, as well as the crippling sanctions he also mentioned. But neither will happen under Biden, whose undertaking to “ensure that Iran never, never acquires a nuclear weapon” represents demonstrably empty words.

With a craven - or perhaps more accurately an electoral - opportunist White House, Israel remains alone in countering Iran’s nuclear threat, albeit with Saudi and other Arab countries cheering behind the scenes. This meeting won’t have changed that. We must hope, however, that Netanyahu has been able to persuade Biden of the electoral benefit to him of settling for a historic peace between Israel and Saudi rather than holding out for the unobtainable jackpot of a two state solution.

President Biden Should Learn the Lessons of Past U.S. Attempts to Solve the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Joe Biden addressed a host of international issues, mentioning, inter alia, the “positive and practical impacts” resulting from “Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbors.” He then added that the U.S. will “continue to work tirelessly to support a just and lasting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians—two states for two peoples.” Zach Kessel experiences some déjà vu:
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and review how past U.S.-brokered talks between Jerusalem and [Palestinian leaders] have gone down, starting with 1991’s Madrid Conference, organized by then-President George H.W. Bush. . . . Though the talks, which continued through the next year, didn’t get anywhere concrete, many U.S. officials and observers across the world were heartened by the fact that Madrid was the first time representatives of both sides had met face to face. And then Palestinian militants carried out the first suicide bombing in the history of the conflict.

Then, in 1993, Bill Clinton tried his hand with the Oslo Accords:
In the period of time directly after the Oslo Accords . . . suicide bombings on buses and in crowded public spaces became par for the course. Clinton invited then-Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat and then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to Camp David in 2000, hoping finally to put the conflict to rest. Arafat, who quite clearly aimed to extract as many concessions as possible from the Israelis without ever intending to agree to any deal—without even putting a counteroffer on the table—scuttled any possibility of peace. Of course, that’s not the most consequential event for the conflict that occurred in 2000. Soon after the Camp David Summit fell apart, the second intifada began. Since Clinton, each U.S. president has entered office hoping to put together the puzzle that is an outcome acceptable to both sides, and each has failed. . . . Every time a deal has seemed to have legs, something happens—usually terrorist violence—and potential bargains are scrapped. What, then, makes Biden think this time will be any different?

JPost Editorial: Israel must not let the Oslo Accords wither away

Everyone from US President Joe Biden, to Jordan’s King Abdullah, to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised the importance of finding a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a prerequisite for stability in the region and for progress with Israel’s normalization efforts with Saudi Arabia.

Biden, in his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, said “Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbors deliver positive and practical impacts even as we continue to work tirelessly for just and lasting peace, for Israelis and Palestinians, two states for two peoples.”

Abdullah, noting that “five million Palestinians live under occupation,” stressed that a two-state resolution to the conflict remained the only viable option.

“Without clarity on where the Palestinian future lies, it’s impossible to converge on a political solution to this conflict,” he said.

Erdogan, in his UNGA address, said that “without the realization of an independent and integrated Palestinian state, based on the 1967 borders, it is difficult for Israel to find the peace and security it seeks.”

Is it all just lip service, the one time in the year that the friends of the Palestinians trot out heartfelt calls for Palestinian statehood, while ignoring the issue the rest of the time? Or should Israel, intent on a deal with Saudi Arabia and increased integration in the Arab world, take these words to heart?

The latter track is the smarter one.

Thirty years after the Oslo Accords were born, there is much talk about its death. However, there is presently no alternative plan to end the conflict between the two peoples who covet the same land.

“I have not given up on peace. I remain committed to a vision of peace based on two states for two peoples. I believe as never before that changes taking place in the Arab world today offer a unique opportunity to advance that peace.”

Another "innocent child" in Jenin who was a combatant

Defense for Children International-Palestine writes:

Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh, 15, was shot by Israeli special forces while leaving his grandfather’s house in Jenin refugee camp around 7:30 p.m. on September 19, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. As he left the house, Rafat saw Israeli special forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest. Rafat fled, yelling, “Special forces! Special forces!” One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters (33 feet).

While nearly all of the reports on the Jenin incident identify Khamayseh as being 22 years old, photos indicate that he probably really was 15.

And that he was not exactly an innocent child.

Yet even if we take DCI-P at their word that all he was doing was warning terrorists that the IDF was there, that makes him legally a militant and a legitimate military target.

The US Department of Defense Law of War Manual (revised July 2023) says that a civilian is considered to be taking a direct part in hostilities when he or she is "acting as a guide or lookout for combatants conducting military operations."

The ICRC agrees. In its document "Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities Under International Humanitarian Law" it says, "a person serving as one of several lookouts during an ambush would certainly be taking a direct part in hostilities although his contribution may not be indispensable to the causation of harm."

This is exactly what DCI-P is admitting that Khamayseh was doing. His warning endangered the Israeli forces and therefore he became a combatant and legitimate target, no matter what his age.

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!

Israel haters were given a huge gift this week courtesy of anti-government protester Shira Eting.

Eting, interviewed by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, said, "I was a combat helicopter pilot…. If you want pilots to be able to fly and shoot bombs and missiles into houses knowing they might be killing children, they must have the strongest confidence in the people making those decisions."

The modern antisemites have been having a field day with an attractive and articulate Israeli woman matter of factly saying that Israelis knowingly shoot missiles into homes that kill children. Here we have proof of how monstrous Israelis are - even leftist Israelis!

A number of years ago, I looked at a B'Tselem report on families killed in their homes during 2014's Operation Protective Edge. Even that incomplete report showed that many families were acting as human shields for the terrorists - sometimes the shields were the terrorists' own families, and sometimes the terrorists were sheltering in an innocent family home.

I did further research and listed over a hundred children who were used as human shields to protect terrorists, often senior terrorists.

This is only what I could find out with open source research. But it proves the point: Israel is not going to bomb a house unless it has excellent intelligence that the house is a legitimate military target. Perhaps a senior terrorists is inside, perhaps a weapons cache is underneath, perhaps a command and control center is in the apartment next door.

As long as the military advantage outweighs the collateral damage, this is a moral decision and also legal under international law. While we are not privy to the specific calculus that Israel uses in making those decisions, it employs teams of lawyers to review every airstrike and goes to great lengths - never reported in the media - to ensure that it minimizes mistakes. Israel goes above and beyond the requirements of the Laws of Armed Conflict in its own policy decisions.

Eting caused more harm to Israel with her out of context quote than the proposed judicial reforms she is protesting could possibly do. But she wasn't wrong in what she said: in the real world, in real wars, decisions must be made that sometimes mean children would die.

In the case of Gaza, that is entirely the fault of the terrorists who deliberately choose to locate military targets in residential areas.

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!

At the UK-based Al Quds al Arabi, Palestinian writer Ismail Juma Al-Rimawigoes on an antisemitic rant as he describes "The Curse of the Jewish Holidays:"

In this month of every year, the occupied city of Jerusalem and all of the occupied territories are experiencing their worst and most bitter stages, when thousands of extremist Jews desecrate the sanctity of the Holy City, and begin spreading their poison and unleashing their Talmudic and racist rituals that exceed the limits of humanity and religious freedom, which have disappeared from the dictionary of the “Hebrew State.” “.

During the Jewish holiday season, which falls in September of each year, the Holy City turns into a military barracks whose entrances and exits are controlled by the occupation forces, to besiege, harass, and oppress the Jerusalemites, under the pretext of securing the settlers’ celebrations, while the heavy hand of the settlers is unleashed to oppress, steal, orgy, and assault the residents under heavy protection from the occupation police.

With the beginning of the holidays, the settlers who live in the Old City turn their homes and the surrounding areas into shrines in order to receive other settlers from the surrounding settlement outposts, of all ages, to eat the holiday meal and sleep inside or outside those homes.

The holiday season not only affected Jerusalemites through assaulting and humiliating them at checkpoints and in the streets, but also turned into an economic curse, forcing many merchants to close their shops and leave the city until these seasons, which the people of Jerusalem call “the curse of the Jewish holidays,” ended.

I was curious how popular this phrase "the curse of the Jewish holidays" is. I found it in exactly two other unique articles (which were copied to other sites.)

It turns out that this article was plagiarized, word for word, from an article written in 2018 by Nader Al-Safadi at Noon Post.

This guy couldn't even come up with original antisemitism!

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

09/20 Links Pt2: How NGOs Fabricate the Legal Definition of Apartheid to Attack Israel; The Cult of ‘Antizionism’; Dan Hannan: Remember why they're the Abraham Accords

From Ian:

The Cult of ‘Antizionism’

A group of anti-Israel academics and BDS activists have taken a new step toward rebuilding the long-forgotten Soviet discipline of “scientific antizionism” on American campuses. The “founding collective” of 10 has established an Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, which aims “to support the delinking of the study of Zionism from Jewish Studies” and “to reclaim academia and public discourse for the study of Zionism.” The new institute defines Zionism as a “political, ideological, and racial and gendered knowledge project, intersecting with Palestine and decolonial studies, critical terrorism studies, settler colonial studies, and related scholarship and activism.” This October, ICSZ will hold its inaugural conference titled “Battling the ‘IHRA Definition’: Theory and Activism.”

The ICSZ’s website presents a vision of an overtly academic institution that will churn out politically motivated “research” designed to move the American public toward the idea of doing away with American support for Israel and, ultimately, with Israel itself. Coming at a time when American Jews and Jewish identity are under comprehensive attack within mainstream institutions, ICSZ sounds like bad news—and it is.

American progressives have scored numerous successes in recent years by using the power of tenured academic positions, in-class bullying, and threats of physical intimidation to enforce anti-Zionist culture at American universities and within the elite cultural spaces that employ American liberal arts graduates. Now, they have taken opposition to Zionism a step further, by transforming their hatred of “Zionists” and rejection of the historical dynamics of Jewish self-identification and national self-determination into its own free-standing ideology, which is politically aligned with, but not dependent on, the wider progressive movement.

Anti-Zionists, as part of the broader far left, are eerily reproducing elements of the cultural deformations that once defined the lives of the citizens of the communist bloc: They have introduced Americans to the practices of collective demonization, blacklists, and denouncing friends and colleagues. They have injected political reeducation and oversight committees into workplaces and academic institutions as part of a new cultural revolution that overtly targets “Zionists” as present-day villains and boogeymen, on a par with “white supremacists” and “fascists.” And they have forced colleagues and coworkers who don’t agree with them to either hide their true opinions, or, more often, to stop having opinions at all, in order to keep their jobs.

Within academia, progressives who primarily derive their personal and professional identity from expressing extreme loathing of Israel have notched additional victories. They have reorganized the missions of entire academic disciplines, including Middle Eastern, Jewish, and Israel studies, around demonization of the Jewish state. They have pushed states to introduce radical “liberated ethnic studies” maligning Jews and Israel in K-12 schools. They have coopted countless academics into signing defamatory anti-Israel petitions that are of questionable academic validity and, word has it, are now working to place signatories on the synagogue lecture circuit, as part of their strategy of legitimizing the openly racist, and even genocidal, views at the heart of anti-Zionist ideology by co-opting wealthy Jewish institutions and funders who seek to buy protection from progressives, despite the radical unpopularity of their views among ordinary American Jews.

The establishment of ICSZ marks a new stage in the relentless regressive march of this bizarre progressive movement. How delighted would the institute’s forebears in the Soviet security and propaganda apparatus have been to witness the spectacle of Americans, including Jews, coming together of their own free will to provide academic legitimacy and a Jewish institutional imprimatur to conspiracy theories about Zionism that they spent their entire careers developing, and then inculcating with sympathetic audiences around the globe?

The ICSZ’s founders are known figures in the BDS movement and the movement for the academic boycott of Israel. They include Rabab Abdulhadi of San Francisco State University, who tried to bring convicted PFLP terrorist and airline hijacker Leila Khaled to SFSU; Lau Barrios, who has served as campaign manager at Linda Sarsour’s MPower Change and as a co-organizer of the “No Tech for Apartheid” campaign geared at pressuring Google and Amazon to end their work with Israel; and Emmaia Gelman, ICSZ’s founding director, who serves as a trustee of the Sparkplug Foundation, a funder of IfNotNow and Palestinian Youth Movement, and also a co-sponsor of the ICSZ conference.

We must shun California's radical ethnic studies

What’s wrong with the current state-mandated framework?

The Jewish proponents of ideological ethnic studies argue that the California state model “excludes discriminatory content, and includes two Jewish-American lesson plans and a definition of antisemitism.”

They ignore, however, that the state model is built on a highly ideological, illiberal premise, which emphasizes instilling in children a “critical consciousness” – the supposed ability to see systems of oppression throughout society– and it “critiques empire building in history and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression.”

The model curriculum further calls for building a “post-imperial life that promotes collective narratives of transformative resistance.” And it exalts radical black leaders like Angela Davis and Assata Shakur but leaves out civil rights heroes such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Congressman John Lewis.

In other words, the model curriculum doesn’t merely lift up the narratives of marginalized communities, as the proponents suggest, it inculcates kids in an ideology that can be, will be, and has been weaponized against Jews. So when a school district teaches social studies through a “settler-colonial lens,” but removes explicit reference to Israel as a “settler colonialist state,” that’s not “justice” and it’s not a victory for the Jewish community. The schools are still indoctrinating kids with an ideology that conditions them to think of Israel, the US, and the West in precisely those terms.

The Jewish proponents of the ideological curriculum say that their “strategy is working” and “just a handful of districts are using or considering curricula we find problematic.”

First, we don’t, and they don’t really know how many of California’s 1,200-plus school districts have embraced the most radical versions or will try to do so in the future. It’s hard enough to know what’s happening in school districts where there is a robust Jewish presence let alone in places where there isn’t.

Second, while the proponents may not find teaching a highly opinionated, radical, power-based, curriculum problematic for California’s children, we opponents do and strongly believe it is the exact wrong form of multicultural education. It will generate more, not less antisemitism and division.

The greatest danger of Jewish proponents of radical ethnic studies paying the price of remaining in the good graces of traditional progressive allies is that they lock themselves in and end up supporting outrageous political positions completely at odds with the traditional Jewish understanding of America and Jewish interests. I get why they do it. But like a corporation that seeks to maximize quarterly earnings to raise the value of its stock, sometimes a short-term win is a long-term defeat.

University of California Urged to Reject Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement Over Antisemitism Concerns

Nearly 100 religious, civil rights, and educational organizations are calling on the University of California (UC) to reject a proposal that would require applicants to schools in the UC system to take an ethnic studies course, arguing that anti-Zionist activists are developing and leading the effort to implement the measure.

The diverse coalition, which includes several Jewish groups and antisemitism watchdogs, wrote a letter this week to UC’s Board of Regents urging them to oppose a proposal that, if approved, would lead to high schools across California offering ethnic studies courses based on the course criteria developed by ethnic studies experts promoting the idea.

“This is a deeply alarming prospect, given the openly antisemitic sentiments of these ‘experts’ and their own contention that anti-Zionism constitutes a core element of ‘authentic’ ethnic studies,” the letter says.

A working group in the UC Academic Senate has been tasked with developing a proposal for the ethnic studies requirement. The idea — inspired by AB 101, state legislation approved in 2021 to make passing ethnic studies a requirement for high school graduation in California — outlines what UC would consider an acceptable ethnic studies course for admission.

Jewish groups initially opposed AB 101, arguing schools would be required to adopt curricula that included anti-Zionist material. However, the legislation eventually gained the support of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus — a voting bloc in the state legislature — which moved to add civil rights measures to the bill designed to prevent schools from teaching any content that promoted bigotry and discrimination. According to critics, however, these changes are no longer holding up with many school districts adopting the very curricula that the guardrails were intended to combat.