Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, October 26, 2023

NYT casts doubt on Israel's definition of "military target"

The New York Times describes the intensity of Israeli airstrikes:

Israel’s 19-day bombing campaign in Gaza has become one of the most intense of the 21st century, prompting growing global scrutiny of its scale, purpose and cost to human life.

Since terrorists from Gaza raided Israel on Oct. 7, killing roughly 1,400 people according to the Israeli government, the Israeli military says it has struck more than 7,000 targets inside Gaza. That is a higher number than in any previous Israeli military campaign in the territory, a narrow enclave less than half the size of New York City. It also outstrips the most intense month of the United States-led bombing campaign against ISIS, according to Airwars, a British conflict monitor.

7,000 is indeed a high number. But in the same time period, Gaza groups have shot some 7,500 rockets at Israel - an even higher number.

The story doesn't mention that.

On the contrary; it tries to minimize the rocket threat:

The strikes appear to have successfully curbed the groups’ rocket-firing abilities. The Israeli military has not released exact numbers, but there were fewer than 20 air raid sirens across Israel on Wednesday, compared with hundreds during the first days of the war.

No big deal. Rockets towards Eilat, Tel Aviv and Haifa in the past day? It was less than 20! Just because a million people had to run to shelter on that day, so what? Sounds pretty tolerable!

But this part of the article is worse:

Even as Israel has used precision weapons, it has maintained a broad definition of what constitutes a military target. Fighter jets wrecked the Islamic University in Gaza because Israel said the campus had been used to train intelligence operatives. They have targeted mosques that Israel says served as weapons depots and operation centers. And they have targeted Hamas commanders in their homes.

This is not a broad definition. This is part of the definition.

Although Israel has not signed this protocol, it accepts the definition under Article 52(2) Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which says:

Insofar as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which, by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

Hamas has used the Islamic University of Gaza not only for military training but also for weapons development and production, as Israel said at the time of the airstrike: "The university was being used as a Hamas training camp for military intelligence operatives, as well as for the development and production of weapons." That makes it unambiguously a military target. (And the university is known for being a Hamas stronghold: it was used for storing weapons, for holding hostages, for planning attacks and for acting as a safehouse for terrorists as well as for weapons development.)

Weapons depots and operations centers are also military targets by any definition of the term, whether they are in a mosque or a medical clinic or a school. They lose all civilian protections.

Military leaders are still legitimate targets, even if they are using their own families as human shields.

Using civilian areas for military purposes is a war crime. That isn't mentioned in the NYT - on the contrary, it casts aspersions on whether Israel can really attack military objects disguised as civilian.

It is an advertisement for using human shields.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Jerash camp in Jordan, built for Gazans who fled in 1967

The only way to protect Gaza civilians is to let them flee, during the duration of the war, to Egypt, Jordan or other Arab countries, if they so choose.

Egypt told the West, "No way!" Jordan told the world, "No way!" And the world answers, "oh, well, if you feel so strongly about it....I guess we should either let them die or handcuff Israel so it cannot really destroy Hamas and allow the pogromists another chance, maybe when Iran delivers them nukes."

Now, I understand that no country wants another million refugees. Makes sense. But Egypt didn't say "NO!" to Syrian and Sudanese refugees. Jordan didn't say "NO!" to Syrian refugees. Syria didn't say "NO!" to Iraqi refugees. Even Lebanon, with hardly any resources, took in hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees from Syria.

Somehow, they were able to accept and accommodate lots of refugees. The UNHCR and NGOs helped. Syrians and others were protected from being killed.

The Arab world has always allowed other Arabs to take refuge in their countries, by the millions. Nearly all of them either become integrated or they move back, or elsewhere. Like all refugees, they eventually find a home.

With one exception: Palestinians.

When it comes to Palestinians, suddenly, the would-be hosts become very adamant at not allowing any of them to come.

It's pretty obvious bigotry against Palestinians. But the West and the rest of the world doesn't push back.

We have heard three statements from world leaders:

(A) Israel has every right to defend itself from the savages and destroy Hamas.

(B) Israel must keep civilian casualties to a minimum.

The problem is that each one contradicts the other two. You can only pick two out of three.

Israel cannot and will not allow Hamas to exist. It is not negotiable. Israel is not going to compromise on that. This is an existential threat that must be eradicated. Which leaves only two choices - let Gazans be killed when Israel destroys the tunnels under them, or force Arab nations to do what they do all the time in every other war - take in the refugees.

The Egyptian/Jordanian demand not to save a single Palestinian is not nearly as important as the imperatives of A and B. In fact, the demand is highly immoral. But for some reason, everyone shrugs and says "well, we tried - I guess either thousands of Palestinians will die or Hamas will be allowed to murder thousands more."

If you value human life, there is only one choice: pressure Egypt and Jordan to take care of their fellow Arabs.

The world should be offering carrots and sticks to Egypt, Jordan and other countries to allow Gazans to flee, the way other Arabs have fled to the very same countries. Pay them a few billion dollars to house and feed them. Those same billions will be spent in Gaza anyway.

And ask exactly why these Arabs who swear that they support Palestinians are so eager to let them die.

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!

10/25 Links Pt2: The "humanitarian" fallacy; UN chief doubles down on Hamas remarks; Qatar’s War for Young American Minds

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Was Hamas’ brutal raid on Israel the day liberals realised their delusions about Islamic extremism were dead?

And reality hit the people of Israel very hard indeed on October 7.

Many of the people massacred in their homes by Hamas were themselves “peaceniks”, people who worked towards greater harmony and cooperation with the people of Gaza.

The hundreds of young people gunned down at the music festival near the Israeli side of the Gaza border were attending a “peace rave”.

Did it matter to their killers, rapists and abductors that many of them would have been liberals? Not at all. All that the monsters of Hamas cared was that they were Jews and Infidels.

That, now, is for the people of Israel to address.

But what has been alarming for so many people here at home is the attitude that has been allowed to grow in our society. The sheer cruelty and callousness of so many people.

The cruelty of the BBC moving straight on from the actual massacre to parroting Hamas propaganda that an Israeli rocket hit a Gaza hospital.

According to US and UK intelligence, the hospital car park was in fact hit by a Palestinian rocket misfire.

But it is in the cruelty on the streets that so many liberal dreams are being shattered.

Smears and lies
It has been in watching the young Muslim women in London tear down posters put up to draw attention to the Israeli children who have been kidnapped.

Of people claiming they are “queer” aligning themselves with people who support the ethnic cleansing of Jews in their historic homeland.

In the smears and lies pumped out by MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn and his old ally Chris Williamson.

In the students at Cambridge University who have failed to condemn the Hamas massacre but instead called for a “mass uprising” to destroy the Jewish state.

I’m sure this has all come as a shock to a lot of old liberals. They dreamed impossible dreams. They did indeed turn out to be delusions.

At least there are a few more people who now see things as they are. Perhaps they can now join decent people of all political types in not just facing up to these horrors — but in defeating them.

Anne Bayefsky: Stand up to the terrorists at the United Nations

These remarks were delivered outside the United Nations building in New York City on Oct. 24, 2023.

Israel is fighting an existential war. People and nations of good will recognize that Israel’s fight is their fight. A fight of good against evil. Of light against darkness. Of decency against barbarity.

But across the street at the United Nations, the forces of evil, of darkness and of barbarism are in control. Across the street, the Palestinian Authority is the willing diplomatic representative of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. Across the street, Islamic nations have prevented the U.N. from even adopting a definition of terrorism, because they insist on an exemption clause for killing Israeli Jews.

Why does the U.N. matter in Israel’s hour of need? Because the institution and its major actors from the secretary-general on down are at this very moment attempting to tie Israel’s hands behind its back—to deny the Jewish state (a full and equal member of the U.N.) its right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter. What Hamas did to Jews in their homes, cars and beds, the U.N. is trying to do to Israel in the corridors of power and in the global media apparatus literally embedded in its halls

Make no mistake: This is a two-front war. On the battlefield and at the U.N. The U.N. is where terrorists come for excuses, justifications, whataboutism, inverting victim and perpetrator, and a green light for killing Israelis. This is where humanity’s moral compass is smashed and human rights become human wrongs.

It is an obscenity that the U.N. Security Council—created specifically to protect international peace and security—has never condemned Hamas. Never. That as recently as this morning, the Council remains unable and unwilling to affirm Israel’s right to defend itself against attempted genocide.

It is an obscenity that, instead of moral clarity in the face of mass murder, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres doesn’t know the difference between Palestinian terrorists who target civilians and an Israeli military that targets terrorists. This is not a cycle of violence, not what the secretary-general called—as early as Oct. 9!—a “vicious circle of bloodshed, hatred.” This is the familiar cycle of terrorists opposed to a Jewish state, steeped in antisemitism, finding the U.N. has their back.

Saudi crown prince indicates Israel normalization can resume after war – White House

US President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to eventually “build on” the US-brokered negotiations that had been underway to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia before the outbreak of the Gaza war, the White House said after the two leaders spoke on Tuesday.

Biden and bin Salman “affirmed the importance of working toward a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians as soon as the crisis subsides, building on the work that was already underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States over recent months,” said a readout from the White House.

Biden administration officials have acknowledged that the normalization effort is no longer the most immediate priority for the US and Israel, as they work to respond to the October 7 Hamas onslaught. However, the White House insists that it is still committed to the goal and has suggested that one of the reasons for the Hamas massacre was to try and thwart the effort.

Biden, but more notably bin Salman as well, “welcomed ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas and called for their immediate release,” according to the readout.

The two leaders also welcomed the recent delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza while recognizing the need for additional assistance.

Biden hailed “the Gulf Cooperation Council’s contribution of $100 million to support these humanitarian efforts, and discussed the disbursement of $100 million from the United States to support the response.”

“The two leaders agreed on pursuing broader diplomatic efforts to maintain stability across the region and prevent the conflict from expanding,” the White House said, adding that Biden had affirmed US support for the defense of its allies in the region from terror attacks.

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

On or around September 7, President Biden unfroze $6b in Iranian revenues. One month later, there was a massacre in Israel, sponsored by Iran. No less than a Hamas spokesman affirmed that Iran lent its assistance to Hamas as its proxy to murder Jews.

Was Biden’s generosity to Iran in September responsible for the war crimes committed by Hamas in October? While White House officials say that none of the $6b went to Hamas, they have yet to relate to accusations that Biden’s munificence served as a green light to Iran to do what it always says it will do: murder Jews.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, speaking from Tel Aviv, pretended that money was not fungible. The money, he said, had been sent from South Korea to a Qatari bank, and Iran hadn’t even had a chance to touch it, yet. “None of the funds that have gone to Qatar have actually been spent or accessed in any way,” said Blinken to Netanyahu during his diplomatic blitz of the Middle East in the wake of the atrocities.

Yes, dummy. We know that. But when there’s money in your future, you can take money from elsewhere to fund what you like. Iran likes to kill Jews. Tony Blinken knows this, because in reality, Blinken is no dummy. He is, however, a Biden hack.

Look (as Biden likes to say), it’s called “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” While Iran could not give the $6b straight into the hands of Hamas, there’s always a workaround. It’s called creative accounting. You take money away from a hospital or a school, whatever, and send it to Hamas. Wherever Iran took the money from, it used it to fund the massacre, secure in the knowledge that there would be $6b to cover the difference.

This really is not complicated, yet we can expect Blinken will continue to deliver the same unsatisfactory message each time he is called upon to answer for the October 7th war crimes. These were acts of war against Israel, against America and others, with various nationals among the hostages. What is now happening was brought to us by Iran, directly after they received a windfall from Joe.

Yes, we know the $6b is not a gift. We know that the money technically belongs to Iran. This is, however, an irrelevant factoid. Funds have been freed, released to madmen. Whether the money is a gift or just a case of restoring it to its rightful owner “in good faith,” matters not. The end result is the same: money in the pocket to buy weapons and pay savages to kill Jews.

One could write off the $6b as a miscalculation, a mistake by the Biden Administration. But not really. Joe Biden has been around a long time (cough). He has an equally lengthy history of browbeating and bullying Israel’s leaders, in spite of his intimate knowledge of the relevant actors in the region. President Biden knows that Iran and Hamas are evil. And he knows that Israel is not.

Israel is Joe Biden’s sacrificial lamb. Perhaps Biden reasons that everyone would like the Jews to be gone. Whatever his excuse, it is Joe Biden who strengthened the hand that fed us tragedy, in his final coup de grâce to the Jews.

We may never know all the ways in which Biden tied Israel’s hands to keep the Jewish State from defending itself. We don’t know what went on between Biden and Netanyahu behind the scenes. Rest assured, however, that Joe is using everything at his disposal to stall Israel as long as he can, from launching its inevitable ground incursion into Gaza. In so doing, Biden continues to strengthen the hand of the enemy. Each day that passes without the ground incursion gives the enemies of Israel that much more time to prepare, more time to get ready to slaughter the Jews (they will be sorry they tried).

We can see some of what Biden is doing against Israel, for example, forcing Israel to allow aid to go through to the “innocent people of Gaza,” unimpeded. Joe Biden himself is providing $100m to Gaza for humanitarian aid.

What does it mean to give $100m to “Gaza?” It means to give $100m to Hamas, the rulers of Gaza. The humanitarian aid, as well, is the opposite of that. Sure, the hundred mil is ostensibly to be used only for things like water, food, and electricity, but that will never happen. Thanks to yet more “creative accounting,” the money will not go to civilians. The $100m is right now literally funding Hamas, funding murder and inciting the world to war—whether we can see the actual transactions, or not.

Here too, a Biden hack offers an irrelevant response to criticism of Biden for sending aid and comfort to the enemy. This time it is Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman who pretends that money is not fungible. "Not a penny has been spent, and when it is, it can only go for humanitarian needs like food and medicine," says Miller.

Habibi, you are not fooling us. The hundred mil can only go to Hamas, the government of Gaza. And even if this filthy lucre is channeled through UNRWA, it will still go to Hamas. One way or another, wherever it lands in Gaza, that $100m will be lining the pockets of Hamas’ worst, the dutiful proxies of Iran.

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!

You are probably familiar with the Islamic hadith, quoted in the Hamas charter:

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharqad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

The Muhtawayat website is meant to be a reference site for Arabic readers where questions can be answered authoritatively. As there has been a lot of interest in Jews in Arabic media for the past couple of weeks, the site tackled the question, "Why does the Gharqad tree protect the Jews?"

Note how the question pre-supposes the magical properties of the gharqad tree as fact.

It is a purely Islamic legend, but that doesn't stop Muslims from assuming its truth. The article even says,

The Gharqad tree has cultural and religious importance for Jews, as in Jewish culture it is believed that the Gharqad tree represents a symbol of protection and shelter, and therefore they respect and preserve it as part of their cultural and religious heritage....

This article, and plenty of others, as well as videos, state as fact that Israeli Jews have planted thousands of gharqad trees because we believe they protect us.

It says that Yediot Aharonot reported in 2014 that Israel was planting gharqads as a temporary measure to protect a rail line that was exposed to rocket fire. (Israel did indeed plant trees, but no one said they were gharqads. )

In fact, no one quite knows what kind of tree it is (most people think it is the boxthorn.)

The thing is, this absurd legend is accepted as truth in the Muslim world. Even though the "proof" that Jews plant gharqads is not from Jewish sources but from Islamic sources, not one Muslim bothers to ask a Jew to verify the story about what Jews believe. (Just as Muslims believe that Jews worshipped Ezra the Scribe as the son of god, something against every tenet of Judaism, because the Quran says so.)

And these kinds of lies are the backbone of Arab and Muslim beliefs about Israel and Jews. Palestinians swear today that an Israeli airstrike hit the Al Ahli hospital, killing 500. They are 100% certain that Israel is waging genocide - even though, according to their own fictional numbers, fewer people have died than bombs dropped, a pretty inefficient genocide. They are absolutely convinced that the Temples never existed and Jews have never found any proof for them. They have written books "proving" that.

Any evidence that disprove the lies are themselves automatically assumed to be manufactured and forged by Jews. The world is one big conspiracy theory. The side that actually cares about accuracy is accused of being the liars; the side that actually is the victim of a campaign of attempted genocide is accused of genocide when defending themselves.

It's easy to laugh about the gharqad tree myth. But it is not so easy to laugh when you realize that myths like that are considered absolute truth by tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, of people. Fighting lies with truth sounds good in theory, but when you are dealing with people who are emotionally invested in the lies, one cannot win.

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!

10/25 Links Pt1: America Needs a Decisive Israeli Victory; I Watched Hamas Unleash Hell; Jordan's Queen says 'no evidence' of Hamas atrocities

From Ian:

America Needs a Decisive Israeli Victory

Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah is inevitable. This Iranian proxy has been preparing itself to commit mass murder inside our country since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and in a more sophisticated way since the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Its vast missile arsenal has been built for one reason only, and that is to kill thousands or tens of thousands of Israelis. It waits only for the right moment.

What Hamas was able to do last week is mild compared to what Hezbollah has been preparing to do since 2006. The question is not whether this conflict happens. It is simply whether we will allow Hezbollah to initiate the conflict on its terms and on its timeline, or if we will make the decision that this current war will not end without the destruction of the Hezbollah threat, on Israel’s terms and on Israel’s timeline.

But make no mistake, our fight is finally not only with Hamas or Hezbollah. It is with Iran. The Persians play chess, and in the regional power game, Hamas is a pawn, Hezbollah is a rook, and Iran is queen. Iran is the regional actor calling the shots, and Iran is the actor who must finish this war having suffered a clear strategic loss to its regional position and assets. Otherwise, Iran and its patrons and allies win, and the U.S. and Israel lose.

The strategic goal of the Islamic Republic is to establish itself as the dominant power from Tehran to Tel Aviv, and from Mashhad to Mecca; to establish the “Shiite crescent” and ultimately to wrest the holy cities of Islam from Saudi-Sunni control. Israel has been the central force standing in the way of this vision, and Israel’s very existence has been the target of Iran’s genocidal ambitions since the 1979 revolution.

In the broader regional context, an Iranian-dominated Middle East means a Russian-and-Chinese-dominated Middle East. Iran has had complex relations with both Russia and China for many years. However, in the past few years, complexity has given way to clarity. Despite Chinese and Russian hesitations over Iran’s Islamist worldview, both countries have strengthened their strategic ties with the Islamic Republic. A win for Tehran in the Middle East is therefore a win for Moscow and Beijing on the global chess board.

It is therefore a strategic imperative for both Washington and Jerusalem that the Gaza war ends with a blow to Iran’s positions. Hezbollah is the Iranian front line, but the IRGC forces in Syria and Iraq are the most obvious direct targets. An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, so long planned for, should be on the table as soon as Hezbollah has been neutralized. Devastating Hamas and Hezbollah and exacting a major price from Iran for the behavior of its proxies will come at a tremendous cost to Israel, but an even greater cost to its enemies. It is the only sufficient end to this war that can turn around what is currently a strategic disaster that threatens both America and Israel.

I Watched Hamas Unleash Hell

IDF spokesman Daniel Agari steps up to deliver some preliminary remarks. “We want people to understand what we are fighting for,” he says. “This is something else. Something has happened to Israel. This is not about rage or righteousness but the sense that this is a crime versus humanity. This is good versus bad. Death versus life. These [terrorists] will do anything. And it’s nothing to do with Islam,” he adds. It is a refrain I hear through the event. Clearly the word has come down to make a clear separation between Hamas, the wider Palestinians, and above all, with Islam.

What is also clear is the emotion. Agari is technically a media mouthpiece, but he veers into rhetoric. “Why did they strap GoPros to themselves? Why do they call the family of who they murdered? Because they are proud of what they did.”

He continues. “Rape—where is Islam? Burn—where is Islam? Behead—where is Islam?. . . . They killed babies, old people, sick people. . . we won’t allow the world to forget who we are fighting. Hamas wants dead Gazans. You don’t take human shields; you don’t burrow under hospitals otherwise. This is Hamas, not Palestinians.”

He steps off the stage. The footage starts: we see several Hamas terrorists sitting on the back of a truck as it enters Israel. They whoop and cheer. They fan into the street, shooting at cars. They drag blood-drenched corpses out of vehicles, onto the street. A female body is thrown onto the road. “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” they cry.

Terrorists fan into streets and across a roundabout. They have the run of the place. The security failures here are monumental. Some men enter a kibbutz. An Israeli civilian car pulls up and the driver leans left to speak to the guard he assumes is sitting in the checkpoint. A terrorist emerges from his right and shoots. Blood spatters the inside of the car. It smears the windshield.

The screen cuts to inside the kibbutz. The view is from a GoPro strapped to the body of a terrorist. His automatic rifle juts out just like they do on the screen in Call of Duty. This is deliberate; ISIS did the same thing. It is the gamification of terror.

A dog appears, running eagerly toward him. He lowers the rifle and shoots at the animal. It crumples to the ground. Strangely, of all the killings we see on-screen over the course of that morning—and we see slaughter after slaughter—this gets the loudest gasp of revulsion.

I am, I realize, watching a montage of atrocity. And it gets worse. A terrified Israeli man in his underpants, and his two young children, also in underclothes, run screaming. Thugs clamber down from a truck and throw a grenade into the cubbyhole where they have taken refuge. The father’s body, covered in blood, falls onto the ground. Terrorists take the two children—covered in their father’s blood—into a room. “Daddy’s dead,” one screams to his brother. “It’s not a prank. He’s really dead. I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!” Even within the litany of horror I’ve witnessed in my career, this is horrifically unsettling.

Dennis Prager: The Hamas Slaughter Confirmed Everything I Have Believed

Since the 1970s, when I was a graduate student at the Middle East Institute of Columbia’s School of International Affairs, I knew what the Middle East conflict was about: Muslim rejection of a Jewish state in the middle of the Muslim world. To the best of my recollection, my professors — most of them fluent in Arabic and all experts on the Middle East — had it wrong. Being secular themselves and usually having a sympathetic view of the Arab world, they believed and taught that the issue was about land.

They were wrong. It was always about Muslim rejection of a Jewish state in their midst and a religious desire to destroy it.

In 2014, I presented a video for PragerU titled “The Middle East Problem.” It explains the Middle East problem in five minutes.

This is how It begins:
“When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University… semester after semester, we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex conflict in the world when, in fact, it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain. It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain.

“In a nutshell, it’s this: One side wants the other side dead.”

Fifty years ago, I knew it. Muslims know it. Israel’s Jews know it. And now, unless you are a leftist, you know it.

I ended the video with another truism:

“Finally, think about these two questions: If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel laid down their arms and announced, ‘We will fight no more,’ what would happen?

“In the first case, there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day.”

As of Oct. 7, you know that too.

Evidence Emerging on Gazan Women, Children Who Participated in 10/7 Massacre

Ynet reporter Ofir Hauzman started posting on this phenomenon on Monday: “I talk to mothers from the Gaza envelope who survived the inferno and they tell me that among the terrorists who broke into their homes, there were also children and women,” she tweeted. “One says that the terrorist who was in her house managed to unfold a table, and they all sat down to eat while she (the survivor – DI) put her hand over her little daughter’s mouth so she wouldn’t make any sound. Yes, like in the Holocaust. Another says that they stole all her underwear and clothes, and another says that they defecated on her in the living room (“There was also someone who went into the bathroom, and I remember thinking to myself: ‘Wow, what a polite terrorist.'”). They shot someone else’s dogs, tied some of them with a rope to a motorcycle, and dragged them while driving toward the Strip. Not humans. It’s scary, very scary!”

The problem with making the above report and others like it stick is the absence of video evidence so far. This reporter has been told that the notorious 43-minute video presented to select members of the media includes shots of women rioters taken from security cameras. I expect these will eventually come out.

Hauzman commented on this point: “And those who write: put up videos, otherwise we don’t believe you – [expletive] yourselves. I don’t intend to waste energy on you, not now and not ever!”

Understandable, but the problem in the absence of this direct evidence is obvious.

There is one piece of evidence that emerged on Tuesday: a phone conversation between an Arab teenager and his parents back in Gaza on 10/7, in which the lad boasts of killing 10 Jews and mommy and daddy lavish their praise on him. Not for the faint of heart:

User Rod Lior tweeted that women and children from Gaza who participated in the pogrom were documented in Nir Oz, and cited an acquaintance who saw the IDF video: “You know what I saw? At some point, Palestinian women with small children arrive in Nir Oz. And they walk around the kibbutz with red hands [from blood] and point for the terrorists where people are hiding inside homes, so they can kill them. So help me, I saw one of them running up to a terrorist, points, and he starts running. You know, one Palestinian woman entered the home of a kibbutz member and switched her Netflix to Arabic. The kibbutz member was hiding in her fortified space and realized this was a Palestinian woman because she heard her singing in her living room. And then she picked clothes from her wardrobe.”

Another user tweeted that young Arab children were encouraged to shoot Israelis who had been captured at the music concert. The children closed their eyes and fired.

By Daled Amos

At the time, it was supposed to be the first step in stemming the tide of antisemitism on campus.

A lawsuit filed in 2017 by the Lawfare Project described that matters were set in motion at San Francisco State University by:

the alleged complicity of senior university administrators and police officers in the disruption of an April, 2016, speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. At that event organized by SF Hillel, Jewish students and audience members were subjected to genocidal and offensive chants and expletives by a raging mob that used bullhorns to intimidate and drown out the Mayor’s speech and physically threaten and intimidate members of the mostly-Jewish audience. At the same time, campus police – including the chief – stood by, on order from senior university administrators who instructed the police to “stand down” despite direct and implicit threats and violations of university codes governing campus conduct.

The California State University public university system settled in 2019 and agreed, among other things, to a public statement. It seemed like a major victory because that statement was not some mealy-mouthed apology. Instead, it was a statement affirming that San Francisco State University "understands that, for many Jews, Zionism is an important part of their identity."

And in 2021 you had An Open Letter to the Leadership of USC, in which more than 65 faculty members at USC took a stand that Zionism was a part of Jewish identity:

Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli students, as well as those who support the right of the State of Israel to exist need to hear from our leaders that they are welcome on our campus. Such a statement would not infringe on free speech or take sides in political dispute. It is a call for character and dignity. It is overdue. [emphasis added]

These kinds of statements were an unprecedented recognition of the importance of Zionism to Jewish identity. These were accomplishments that could be built upon in protecting Jewish students on campus and implemented in other campuses across the US.

Or so we thought.

In response to the backlash against two SFSU faculty members inviting terrorist Leila Khaled to participate virtually in a class discussion, the SFSU president, Lynne Mahoney, recognized the required statement while neatly side-stepping its implications:

Let me be clear: I condemn the glorification of terrorism and use of violence against unarmed civilians. I strongly condemn antisemitism and other hateful ideologies that marginalize people based on their identities, origins or beliefs.

At the same time, I represent a public university, which is committed to academic freedom and the ability of faculty to conduct their teaching and scholarship without censorship.

While defending the right of faculty to invite a terrorist, Mahoney made sure to utter the magic words as required by the agreement:

I understand that Zionism is an important part of the identity of many of our Jewish students. The university welcomes Jewish faculty and students expressing their beliefs and worldviews in the classroom and on the quad, through formal and informal programming.

So at the same time that Jews can express "their beliefs and worldviews," terrorists are free to express their views because of the "academic freedom" of the teachers who invite them. Worse, there was no follow-up by other universities openly recognizing Zionism as an expression of Jewish identity.

And now, following the Hamas massacre of Jewish civilians, students feel free to publicly defend the Hamas atrocities and blame Israel for them.

This strategy did not work, but in reaction to campuses supporting the October 7 Hamas massacres of Israeli civilians, there is a different strategy. Earlier this month, 34 student groups in Harvard signed a letter blaming Israel alone for the then-1,200 Israelis murdered:

The backlash against the letter caused some of the groups that signed it to back out. Contributing to the pressure is Accuracy In Media, which is attacking this aggressive metathesis of antisemitism head-on.

AIM started by driving around Harvard showing names, photos of students who blamed Israel for Hamas attacks.

They set up a web page entitled Harvard Hates Jews. It encourages people to send a message to Harvard's board of trustees:

As an overseer at Harvard, you have a moral obligation to take a stand against the antisemites on campus who issued a statement in support of Hamas.

If no action is taken against these hateful individuals, we will assume that you support them.

Expel these students and kick their organizations off campus immediately. Their actions are a stain on the reputation of Harvard.

And they are not stopping there. Adam Guillette, president of Accuracy In Media, tweeted on Monday:

This is bringing "name and shame" to a whole new level.

But is that the right, or only, approach?

Professor William Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection, has a longer range plan for dealing with the problem. In an interview Prof. Jacobson explains the slow process by which the radical left was able to dominate the universities:

“I look at the people I graduated law school with in 1984, and the most radical students went into academia. The rest of us went and got a real job,” he said. “We woke up 30, 40 years later, and it’s, holy cow, they’re controlling everything.”

“They’ve only hired their own for two generations. That’s how we got here,” Jacobson affirmed. “We got here slowly, but I’d say – certainly in the last decade, but particularly the last four to five years – we’re in a collapse phase, and people are just waking up to that.”

“They all understood that education was where they could have the biggest impact, because they get to shape young minds,” the professor said. “They understood that that was a weakness of society and a place where they could essentially be activists.”

A long-term strategy like that cannot be undone overnight. Neither will shaming or cancelling do the job. The professor suggested an approach in the context of Cornell professor Russell Rickford, who declared he was “exhilarated” by the Hamas terrorist attack against Jews in Israel.

So I think the remedy for this professor who was exhilarated by the Hamas attack, I think the answer is not to fire him, the answer is to educate the entire campus as to why he’s wrong. The answer is to invite Israelis to speak on campus. The answer is to expand cooperation with Israel.

What Prof. Jacobson is suggesting is an uphill fight. He does not give much detail. Nor does he address the fact that attempts have been made over the years to help Jewish students at universities learn more about their Jewish identity and invite Israeli speakers. Over and over we have read about attempts -- successful attempts -- to disrupt Israeli and pro-Israel speakers.

Why should these attempts be any more successful now? Can we expect universities to suddenly grow a spine and stand up for free speech when it comes to the needs of their Jewish students?

Following the Holocaust, the world seemed to sober up from the darkest levels of hate and apathy for the dangers Jews faced.

But look at the reaction to the Hamas massacre of 1,400 Israeli civilians and the desecration of bodies. There is a level of justification that would have been unthinkable before October 7. Even the most successful retaliation by Israel and most complete eradication of Hamas terrorists will not erase the mindless venom that has been revealed and given public validation in formerly respected areas of government, academia and media.

Is there really a path back to normalcy and sanity?

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

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This speech was delivered at the House of Lords yesterday by Guglielmo Verdirame, a professor of international law at the King’s College London department of war studies and a non-affiliated member of the House of Lords.

It demolishes the farce of how the media reports on legal issues.

There has been a lot of talk about proportionality in the law on self-defence. I refer to the words that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, used a few days ago on the test of proportionality. It does not mean that the defensive force has to be equal to the force used in the armed attack. Proportionality means that you can use force that is proportionate to the defensive objective, which is to stop, to repel and to prevent further attacks.

Israel has described its war aims as the destruction of Hamas’s capability. From a legal perspective, these war aims are consistent with proportionality in the law of self-defence, given what Hamas says and does and what Hamas has done and continues to do.

Asking a state that is acting in self-defence to agree to a ceasefire before its lawful defensive objectives have been met is, in effect, asking that state to stop defending itself. For such calls to be reasonable and credible, they must be accompanied by a concrete proposal setting out how Israel’s legitimate defensive goals against Hamas will be met through other means. It is not an answer to say that Israel has to conclude a peace treaty, because Hamas is not interested in a peace treaty.

Proportionality also applies in the law that governs the conduct of hostilities, not only in self-defence. The law of armed conflict requires that in every attack posing a risk to civilian life, that risk must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage that is anticipated. That rule does not mean, even when scrupulously observed, that civilians will not tragically lose their lives in an armed conflict. The law of armed conflict, at its best, can mitigate the horrors of war but it cannot eliminate them. The great challenge in this conflict is that Hamas is the kind of belligerent that cynically exploits these rules by putting civilians under its control at risk and even using them to seek immunity for its military operations, military equipment and military personnel. An analysis of the application of the rules on proportionality in targeting in this conflict must always begin with this fact.

There has also been some discussion about siege warfare. The UK manual of the law of armed conflict, reflecting the Government’s official legal position—it is a Ministry of Defence document—says:

“Siege is a legitimate method of warfare … It would be unlawful to besiege an undefended town since it could be occupied without resistance”.

Gaza is not an undefended town. It is true that obligations apply to the besieging forces when civilians are caught within the area that is being encircled, and those obligations include agreeing to the passage of humanitarian relief by third parties. But it is not correct to say that encircling an area with civilians in it is not permitted by the laws of war.

A further point that concerns the laws of war is also of particular relevance to the British Government’s practice. It has already been mentioned that the Government have taken the view that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation, even though Israel pulled out in 2005. The traditional view until 2005 was that occupation required physical presence in the territory. That view is consistent with Article 42 of the Hague regulations of 1907, which states that a territory is occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the occupying power. Again, it is also the view taken by the UK manual of the law of armed conflict, which reflects the UK’s official legal position and states that occupation ceases as soon as the occupying power evacuates the area. The European Court of Human Rights, in its jurisprudence, has also adopted a similar approach to occupation. So I have always been rather baffled by the British Government’s position on this issue, which, as far as I know, has not changed. Yes, it is true that Israel has exercised significant control over the airspace and in the maritime areas, but even as a matter of plain geography it takes two—Israel and Egypt—to control the land access points to Gaza.

More fundamentally, it is Hamas that has been responsible for the government and administration of Gaza. I appreciate that this is a legal matter on which the Minister may not want to respond immediately but it is an important one, because the legal fiction that Israel was still the occupying power under the laws of armed conflict has been relentlessly exploited by Hamas to blame Israel for everything, while using the effective control that it has over the territory, the people and the resources to wage war.

On a final note, I would like to say something briefly on the way in which the war is being reported. When a serious allegation is made, particularly one that could constitute a war crime, the immediate response of the law-abiding belligerent will be to say, “We are investigating”. The non-law-abiding belligerent, by contrast, will forthwith blame the other side and even provide surprisingly precise casualty figures. The duty to investigate is one of the most important ones in armed conflict. What happened in the way in which the strike on the hospital was reported is that the side that professes no interest whatever in complying with the laws of armed conflict was rewarded with the headlines that it was seeking.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The @WashingtonPost and human rights NGOs defend believing the casualty numbers of people who murder children. Despite all evidence, they simply cannot believe that they are being lied to by Hamas.

The Washington Post headline reads, "Why news outlets and the U.N. rely on Gaza’s Health Ministry for death tolls."

A key defense of Hamas statistics comes from Human Rights Watch:

Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements.

“Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”

Shakir said Human Rights Watch would not use figures provided by parties with “a propensity to misrepresent information.”

“We know that a health ministry is going to base [death tolls] on assessments coming from hospitals, morgues, etc.,” he said. “They have an ability to collect that in a way that other sources not there can’t do.”

HRW's Shakir is somewhat correct - about the past. The Gaza Health Ministry numbers were generally within perhaps 10-15% of the estimates given by others in previous Gaza conflicts.

This war is not at all like the other wars.

In all the previous Gaza wars, there were independent organizations on the round that could do their own reporting. In all the previous Gaza wars, the Gaza Health Ministry issued lists of the names of the dead where the lists could be checked against the names listed by NGOs like Al Mezan and PCHR and the UN-OCHA.

In other words, in previous wars, there were mechanisms to keep Gaza's Health Ministry honest. As someone who has spent hours checking the names myself, I can say that this time Hamas has kept a tight lid on information on casualties. (And Hams is also ensuring that it doesn't publish the names of of its own "martyrs," similar to previous wars, to make it appear that a higher percentage of the dead were civilian. Hamas has instructed Gazans for years to only refer to all the dead as "innocent civilians." )

This time, there are no lists of "martyrs." PCHR stopped its own reporting of the names of those killed after the second day of the war. And even then, it was careful to not report the names of those it knew were terrorists:

At 11:00 (October 7): Ameer ‘Abdullah Mohammed al-Khour (19) was killed when he was coincidingly passing by an area, where IOF’s warplanes were targeting Palestinian armed groups in southern Gaza City.

The names of the members of "armed groups" killed are carefully not reported - because Hamas doesn't want them to be.

This time, Hamas has ensured that it controls all the information coming out of Gaza. And once it has that control, it can exaggerate the casualty count at will, knowing that no one in Gaza would dare contradict it.

The most obvious example is the Al Ahli hospital bombing, where absolutely no analyst agrees that 471 people were killed. It is clear proof that the Ministry of Health has no compunction about lying to the world.

The hospital incident proves beyond any doubt that the health ministry lies and makes up casualty numbers out of thin air. And yet the Washington Post and HRW defend it.

The incident of the explosion at the convoy of cars heading south on Salah al-Deen Street on October 13 is similar. Israel is blamed for an airstrike even though it confirmed that it did not operate in the area at that time, and the explosion appears to be from an IED beneath the truck - meaning that Hamas evidently mined the road specifically to keep Gazans from fleeing. But beyond that extraordinary example of Hamas willingness to murder its own people that has been ignored in the media, the Hamas health ministry claimed 70 people were killed when video taken immediately afterwards showed no more than 12 bodies.

In a way, the Salah al Deen incident was a dress rehearsal for the Al Ahli hospital incident. Hamas saw that it could make up numbers with impunity and that the media will report them uncritically.

The ministry, of course, counts their inflated casualty figures at l Ahli and Salah al Deen in their authoritative sounding press releases.

In previous wars, never has the health ministry been so brazen in lying about incidents and in issuing obviously faked casualty statistics. That is quite enough for any real reporter to call out their track record of lies every time they mention them.

Beyond that, has any reporter actually read the ministry's Facebook page? There is nothing objective about it. Its language is the language of propaganda, not sober reporting. It even publishes obviously staged photos, complete with makeup:

In short, there is no reason to trust the health ministry, and every reason to assume that their statistics are lies.

There is another factor here: Hamas' unprecedented sadism and cruelty on October 7 should prompt every single reporter to question everything they have ever assumed about Gaza. Why would someone assume good faith from a group that wantonly murders children and rapes women? Would they trust ISIS press releases?

Which brings up the real question: how can the Washington Post write an article defending a ministry that has been proven to lie, that is part of the most vicious terror group on the planet today?

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!

A collection of Arab and Muslim celebrations at the massacre

This is not nearly an exhaustive list.

Amman, Jordan, October 7:

West Bank Palestinians, October 7::

News report from Algeria, October 7:

Also in Algeria.

Palestinian camp in Lebanon, October 7:

Sidon, Lebanon as well.

Istanbul, Turkey, October 7:

Kuwait, October 7:

Yemen, October 9 (you can hear them chant "Khaybar, Khyabar ya Yahud!)

There were also celebrations in Iran, Syria, Mauritania and elsewhere.

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!

10/24 Links Pt2: Why Do So Many Young People Support Hamas?; How the Democrats betrayed the Jews; Why Jewish lives don’t matter to BLM

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: Why Do So Many Young People Support Hamas?

“Fitting Israel into the intersectional framework has always been difficult, because its Jewish citizens are both historically oppressed—the survivors of an attempt to wipe them out entirely—and currently in a dominant position over the Palestinians, as demonstrated by the Netanyahu government’s decision to restrict power and water supplies to Gaza,” Lewis wrote. Intersectionality is, indeed, the “framework” on display here. It started out as little more than a thought experiment, but it has since transmogrified into a way of life.

Pioneered by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, theoretical intersectionality asks its adherents to conceive of their fellow citizens not as unique individuals but as stereotypical cutouts representing their respective demographic traits. It presupposes that everyone in the American melting pot owns a variety of immutable traits, some of which are subject to more discrimination than others. African Americans endure some prejudices, women endure others, while gays and lesbians experience an entirely distinct level of prejudice. Some of these prejudices “intersect,” so, for example, a gay black woman will experience a host of bigotries that someone who can only lay claim to one or two of these minority identities will not.

In practice, the framework reduces humans to their various demographic signifiers, and it does so in a particularly chauvinistic way. The stereotypes that intersectionality requires its adherents to marinate in are uniquely American. So, the descendants of American slaves are owed no more deference than recent African or Caribbean migrants because the cliched racist will not draw those distinctions. Now, apply this framework to American Jews. In the antisemitic imagination, American Jews are comfortable, powerful, and well connected. They enjoy influence and success disproportionate to their numbers. It’s a bigoted conception, but that is the point of intersectionality — to think in bigoted terms if only to understand and navigate what intersectional theorists believe is the fundamentally bigoted American landscape.

But once you subscribe to this philosophy, you’ve just internalized plain-old antisemitism. Through this framework, people are reduced to statistics, and their tormentors become automatons responding predictably to a set of historical incentives. Intersectionality is, in that regard, no different from the framework of Marxism, which asks its adherents to view the workings of history through the prism of class and capital distribution. Individuals are robbed of their agency through the application of this theory, and events are boiled down to root causes that have almost nothing to do with their perpetrators. Intersectionality is distinct only insofar as it substitutes class and capital with race and ethnicity.

David Mamet: How the Democrats betrayed the Jews

I grew up in a tiny Jewish enclave on Chicago’s South Side. When I first saw New York, in the Sixties, I was awed as by no subsequent marvel of nature: stretching north from Columbus Circle, up the West Side, was a Jewish metropolis.

New York, in my lifetime, had always been a Jewish city: the rhythms, the accent, the humour always felt to me like home. Because they were home. The populace, of whatever ethnicity, was formed or noodged by Yiddishkeit, much as the Chicago of my youth was by the culture of the Irish and the Poles. Like what you’re reading? Get the free UnHerd daily email

The New York Times and The New Yorker were run by Jews; they were both our Rialto and our Bible. New York Theatre, in my lifetime, had always been Jewish. The playwrights were Miller, Odets, Elmer Rice, Ben Hecht, Sidney Kingsley; and, later, Arthur Laurents, Lillian Hellman, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Norman Mailer, Wallace Shawn, and myself.

We New York Jews have always voted for the Democrats, as their policies appealed to the immigrants and the first generation (my parents). A Fair Shake, a safety net, and unionism were manna to the newly arrived — in spite of (in both their and my lifetime) quotas and antisemitic discrimination. The immigrant Jews did well here, and voted for Franklin Roosevelt. And we are voting for him still.

His Advisor on Jewish Affairs (jude-suss, or “house-Jew”) was Rabbi Stephen Wise, the “dean” of the American Rabbinate. He referred to FDR as “Boss”, and brought home to his community Roosevelt’s assurance of aid to the dying Jews of Europe. Yet Roosevelt’s aid stopped with his assurances, and tens of thousands of Jews died because of his restrictive immigration policies, and millions in Europe because of his refusal to interdict the Holocaust.

Still, today, Jews vote Democratic: electing Presidents who refused to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister (Obama and Biden) in times of “peace”, who gave and give aid to the terrorist state of Iran in exchange for some semi-specified “deal”. American “Aid” to Iran pays for the equipment and ordnance, which is, at this moment, eradicating Jews.

Why do Jews vote Democratic? Partly from tradition — conservatives have heard a Liberal Jew, when asked to defend or explain various absurd or inconsistent Democratic positions, shrug and joke: “I’m a Congenital Democrat.” I understand, for I was one, too.

But there is no more cosy mystery in the antisemitism of the Democratic Party; Representatives are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists and pro-Palestinians, calling for the end of the state of Israel — that is, for the death of the Jews. And Democrat Representatives repeat and refuse to retract the libel that Israel bombed a hospital, in spite of absolute proof to the contrary, and will not call out the unutterable atrocities of Hamas. The writing is on the wall. In blood.

The World is Freaking Out Because Its Favorite Victims Suddenly Became Human Butchers

What do you do when a cause you deeply cherish betrays you?

What do you do when you spend a lifetime fighting for the Palestinian cause, and then, overnight, it becomes associated with the butchering, beheading, raping and mutilating of 1400 people, including infants, babies, women, rave dancers, families and the elderly?

How do you spin that?

You might try to deny and downplay, but with all the graphic and gruesome videos out there, that’s not easy. And as much as you’d love to erase the word Palestinian next to the word Hamas, you know the connection is a fact.

No, the only real option is to make so much noise that you drown out the horrible news about the mass murder of Jews.

That’s why immediately after October 7, we saw global protests against Israel and in support of Palestinians. This was before Israel launched its counterattacks. And naturally, when Israel did go after Hamas, the attacks against Jews have only accelerated. On streets around the world and across college campuses, Jew haters are now out in full force. The slaughtering of 1400 Jews is all but forgotten; now it’s all about Israel’s reaction to the massacres.

Whether it’s the media jumping to (falsely) blame Israel for the bombing of a Gaza hospital, or the global cries for a “ceasefire” before Israel has even entered Gaza to eliminate the terrorists and deter future attacks, the world is doing all it can to downplay the narrative of “Palestinians as butchers.”

The world’s most popular victims, after all, cannot be allowed to be butchers.

For half a century, Palestinians have managed to charm the global elite with the seductive narrative of glorious, helpless victimhood. In a world that worships the oppressed, especially if they’re not white or western, Palestinians became the forever oppressed.

The influential Palestinian scholar-activist Edward Said’s 1978 book, “Orientalism,” which portrayed the West’s view of the East as demeaning and ignorant, helped shape and popularize the Palestinian narrative. As a revisionist movement began to associate the West strictly with the sins of colonialism, imperialism, racism and capitalist abuse, Palestinians became the Swiss army knife of causes for the virtue signaling set. Accurate or not, they had it all.