Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Jewish children from Portugal were slaves in Africa

In 2004, The New York Times reviewed an exhibition at the New York Public Library that mentions this amazing detail:

Jews entering Portugal after being expelled from Spain in 1492 were heavily taxed. If Jews could not pay, their sons, ages 2 to 10, were enslaved and sent to São Tomé, a Portuguese outpost, where they were raised as Roman Catholics while having to fend off crocodiles and work in the sugar trade. Within a year only 600 children remained alive out of the 2,000 exiled. Additional slaves were brought from the African mainland. In a generation, the island became the world's biggest sugar exporter. (Relics of Jewish ritual survived there for centuries.)

São Tomé is an island that is off of what is now Gabon.

A master's thesis by Arinze D. Amanfo, Florida International University, explains further:

The majority of the Jews from Spain fleeing the Inquisition and expulsion emigrated to Portugal. They choose Portugal with the hopes for a better life and perhaps toleration. It is important to note that there were Jews already living in Portugal. However, the Jews of Portugal fared a lot better than their counterparts in Spain did. Although they were also relegated to their quarters and made to wear stipulated apparel, they were allowed to conduct their religious affairs themselves. Unfortunately, they soon suffered a similar fate, when the Jews of Spain joined them upon their expulsion from Spain.

Before this expulsion, King John II had allowed the Jewish refugees to remain in Portugal. The arrangement for their stay was negotiated with the Monarchy. This involved the payment of a head tax or ‘coima' by the Jews. By 1493, many of these refugees could not pay this ransom. Perhaps this was due to the short ultimatum given to them by the Spanish Monarchy, which impoverished many of them. Gerber narrates that alongside the payment of an expensive tax, the King gave an eight-month-long reprieve period to allow the Jews to stay. Upon the expiration of this period, the King accused them of non-fulfillment of their part of the negotiation.

According to Garcia de Resende, the official chronicler of King John II, in 1493, those who refused to convert and could not pay the stipulated fee, had their children taken away from them, baptized by force, and deported to São Tomé. They were forcefully baptized so they could be raised as Christians and help populate the island that the King had just leased to Alvaro de Caminha at an annual rent of 100,000 reis.61The island of São Tomé was uninhabited at the time of its purchase in 1470 by the Portuguese crown. However, it was a fertile land, which needed cultivation. The expulsion and subsequent enslavement of these children were likely orchestrated to meet what appeared to be an opportunity for the crown to populate and exploit the fertile land to benefit Portugal.

Before the expulsion of the Sephardic children, Caminha had been empowered to populate the land by other means. He had sent condemned criminals, who were called ‘degredados’, prostitutes and other laborers to help populate and cultivate the land. However, he needed more hands. According to Garfield, this was not the real reason the King ordered the abduction of the Sephardic children. The supposed enforcement of religious purity was what drove his hand to make such a decision.

Samuel Usque, a Portuguese Jewish chronicler, described the scene of the Jewish children being stolen from their mothers:

The island of São Tomé had recently been discovered. It was inhabited by lizards, snakes, and other venomous reptiles, and was devoid of rational beings. Here the king exiled condemned criminals, and he decided to include among them the innocent children of these Jews. Their parents had seemingly been condemned by God’s sentence. --When the luckless hour arrived for this barbarity to be inflicted, mothers scratched their faces in grief as their babes, less than three years old, were taken from their arms. Honored elders tore their beards when the fruit of their bodies was snatched, before their eyes. The fated children raised their piercing cries to heaven as they were mercilessly torn from their beloved parents—Several women threw themselves at the king’s feet, begging for permission to accompany their children, but not even this moved the king’s pity. One mother, distraught by this horrible unexplained cruelty, lifted her baby in her arms, and paying no heed to its cries, threw herself from the ship into the heaving sea, and drowned embracing her only child.

Apparently the children eventually disappeared as a separate group, they maintained some semblance of Jewish ritual for several centuries. Other Sephardic Jews did move to the island and prospered for a while as well.

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The "genocide" slander against Israel is meant to justify an eventual real genocide against Jews

Time magazine asks, "Is What’s Happening in Gaza a Genocide? Experts Weigh-In."

The very question is antisemitic.

Genocide requires intent to wipe out an entire people. The question pre-supposed the possibility that Israel has that intent.

Israel is at war. There are wars happening today in the Ukraine, the Maghreb, Myanmar, Sudan, and still thousands of people being killed this year alone in never-ending wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen and many other places. All of them have death tolls far higher than all Israel-Arab wars combined.

But no one asks whether those conflicts are "genocide."

Only one country is accused of genocide - a libel that predates this current war - and it just so happens to be the national home of the people who have been the main victims of genocide.

Charging Israel of genocide is not merely antisemitic. The only people who make that claim are the people who themselves have the intent to dehumanize and demonize Israeli Jews.

The ultimate aim of accusing Israel of genocide is to justify the eventual real genocide of Jews. Those who mainstream the accusation know what they are doing.

The current wave of antisemitism is a direct result of this dehumanization and slander against Israel. That isn't an unfortunate consequence - it is the entire point.

The main proof of malicious intent is that the people who make this accusation never use the same term against Hamas itself. Hamas doesn't even try to hide its genocidal intent, from its founding covenant to today. October 7 proved that this was not just rhetoric but an actual policy of genocide - just as the suicide bombings of the 1990s and 2000s had proven and been forgotten.

Yet where are the "genocide experts"? It isn't as if they don't know that Hamas is genocidal - Hamas fits the definition perfectly - but there are no reporters lining up outside their doors to even ask the question.

The author of the Time article, Solcyre “Sol” Burga, is a recent college graduate who was the leader of a diversity club in high school meant to expand awareness of prejudice.

Well, she just did her part to increase attacks on Jews.

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Wikipedia says:

Taha Abderrahman, (born on 28 May 1944) is a Moroccan philosopher, and one of the leading philosophers and thinkers in the Arab and Islamic worlds. His work centers on logic, philosophy of language and philosophy of morality and contractarian ethics. He believes in multiple modernities and seeks to establish an ethical and humanitarian modernity based on the values and principles of Islam and the Arab tradition.

A leading Arab and Islamic philosopher of morality must be pretty moral, right?

Moroccan news site Febrayer.com reports:

Dr. Taha Abdelrahman sees the "Al-Aqsa Flood" as a new beginning for civilization, a new rise for the nation, and a new birth for humanity. It involves discovering new values where individuals delve into their depths, connecting the apparent with the hidden, the immediate with the future.

The Moroccan thinker Taha Abdelrahman adds in an interview published on the Center for Civilization Studies and Research website: "Today, Palestinian resistance is writing the history of the nation and leading humanity towards enlightenment through the brilliance of its self-reviews, both individual and collective. It is truly a mature resumption of continuous giving, a creative inheritance of renewable energy in the paths of Islamic and human history.

As the "philosopher of ethics" adds, though few in number, it is significant in its trustworthiness and noble in its will because it re-establishes values based on divine qualities, re-establishes Islam on a sacred tint, and re-establishes the spirit on divine proximity. The nation's survival today and in the future is contingent on the resistance's survival, and God forbid, its defeat signals the demise of the nation.

Taha Abdelrahman says: I witnessed this battle through the jihadists' excellent preparation and planning, the innovation of means for attack and defense despite limited resources and tremendous challenges.

The Moroccan thinker believes that resistance is the act that contributes to building Islamic civilization and constructing human civilizations. He adds: The way our nation can contribute today to civilizational construction and human renewal is through "jihad" and no other path.

According to the philosopher, the vigilant Palestinian resistor has risen to carry this trust with skill, bearing this responsibility virtuously. He has undertaken it as the best burden and performed it as the best performance. Indeed, he is unique in this time.

Resistance, in the philosopher's perspective, is not a partial act but a holistic one. He says: I looked at resistance from an existential standpoint, meaning that existence has no meaning without resistance, and life is meaningless without jihad. Existence and life gain meaning from the act of resistance itself.

Resistance and jihad are the elixir of life bestowed by God upon the resistors. Without it, there is nothing but death and perdition.

He believes that the greatest manifestation of the Arab and Islamic mind in the modern era is embodied in the Al-Aqsa flood. It showcased the potential of the Islamic mind, revealing its breadth and strength while exposing the limitations and fragility of the Zionist mind. The practical responsibility towards these realities was shouldered, and significant achievements were realized with the support of God.

The philosopher sees the secret behind the success achieved on October 7th as the mind supported by God. He adds: This mind is filled with pure faith, surpassing all material and worldly limits. It ascends like a king, with no sin remaining with it – "Light upon light."

These fighters have been and still are beacons shining in all of humanity with values that contemporary humans have lost. In these values, they discover their nature, witnessed by God on their lordship, manifesting in its purest form and most magnificent images.

These fighters are kingdomly; their dominion knows no temporal or spatial bounds, suspended at the throne under divine shadow. They gather for God and disperse for Him, with angels fighting alongside them.

What they achieved in three hours is proof that they are examples of the supported mind, as I have always spoken about in my books and lectures. Blessed are they.

Clearly Abdelrahman knows about the massacres, the rapes, the burning of babies. And this expert on philosophy and morality is ecstatic about them.

He is not a minor figure. There are plenty of papers written about his philosophy. Yet he is clearly a fundamentally immoral person. Perhaps this is the first time he has stated his enthusiasm about murdering Jews publicly, but I am doubtful that this will tarnish his reputation in philosophical circles.

Which is a very scary commentary on the state of academia today.

I am always reluctant to compare anything contemporary to Nazi Germany, but this is really Nazi-level thinking - justifying the most heinous crimes as not only acceptable but exemplary, using a philosophical framework.

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

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11/13 Links Pt2: The March for Palestine was a far-right march; Hamas's Useful Idiots in the U.S., Europe; IDF reveals Hamas hostage, explosives center under Rantisi Hospital

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: The March for Palestine was a far-right march

Yes, there was a far-right march in London on Saturday which we should be hugely concerned about. It was called the March for Palestine. One has to marvel at the gall of middle-class virtue-signallers who look aghast at the right-wing blokes around the Cenotaph while marching shoulder to shoulder with literal racists. Who reach for their smelling salts at the sight of rowdy working-class men in tracksuits while turning a blind eye to radical Muslims singing the praises of mass violence against Jewish people. Who wring their hands over the ‘return of fascism’ while marching with people who taunt Jews by comparing them to the Nazis who vapourised their forebears. Going by all the available reporting, there was only one demo on which outright racism was widely expressed and violence against minorities was celebrated – and it wasn’t the one at the Cenotaph.

What was most sickening about Twist’s premature insistence of ‘no issues’ on the Palestine march is that he unwittingly gave moral cover to this hate gathering. Journalists like Owen Jones cited Twist’s comments as proof that the Palestine march was good. And thus was the truth of this march – its flashes of violent-minded anti-Semitism – hidden away. Did Twist stop to think what impact his statement might have on London’s Jews, who could already see, via social media, that anti-Jewish hate was being expressed on the march? Perhaps he decided that accruing likes from his fellow woke ideologues was more important than letting Jews know we have their back.

It’s just as well Twist said ‘at the moment there are no issues’, for the Met have since had to admit that there appear to have been numerous instances of hate on the good demo. The Met’s rush to praise it was staggeringly ill-advised, a cynical move that will have horrified Jewish citizens.

How do we explain this extraordinary spectacle where middle-class leftists can mingle with extremists cosplaying as Hamas’s anti-Semitic murderers while looking down their noses at a bunch of right-wing agitators? How can they rage against home secretary Suella Braverman for stirring up a ‘far-right mob’ with her criticisms of the Palestine marches and the politicised police while they give cover, weekend after weekend, to people literally celebrating anti-Jewish massacres?

Partly, it’s because they are so blinded by visions of their own virtue that they cannot countenance ever doing wrong. Even the cardinal sin of associating with racists becomes a virtue when they do it. But it also tells us a larger story about polite society’s own racism, and its classism too. Their snobbery means they think only ‘gammon’, like the riff-raff at the Cenotaph, are capable of racial hatred, not nice people like them. And yet the truth is that their conversion to the cult of identity means they are helping to rehabilitate racism. It is identitarianism’s organisation of every social and ethnic group into boxes marked ‘privileged’ (bad) or ‘oppressed’ (good) that explains polite society’s blindspot on anti-Semitism. They think Jews are privileged, and thus not convincing victims of hate. They must be lying when they claim to experience bigotry.

The dishonesty and hypocrisy of the chattering class’s ‘anti-racism’ has never been clearer. ‘Anti-racism’, to them, is little more than a means of lording their moral superiority over the oiks, the supposedly racist throng. A new anti-racism is urgently needed. A real one. And one that starts by standing up to the wave of anti-Semitism that has swept through our society under the watch of institutions and influencers who lied about being anti-racist.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Misguided global support for Hamas reveals alarming reality

This is a remarkable phenomenon, alarming and unsettling. Social media and television channels repeatedly showcase short video clips of students tearing down pictures of Israeli hostages. The act has become a trend, not limited to Palestinian students or students of Middle Eastern origin. Students from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities are participating in this trend with open enjoyment. A young girl smiles knowingly, seeking international support for her liberation, while they mockingly tear down images.

It's not about siding with Hamas; 90% of them have no idea who or what Hamas is. It's the woke obsession where the "weak" is always right, even if they are a ruthless murderer, and the "strong" is always an evil villain. It doesn't matter that Hamas calls for the annihilation of Jews, Christians, and world domination. To them, Hamas represents "the Palestinians," who have become the ultimate oppressed, and Israel, after years of brainwashing, is now labeled as a "colonialist apartheid state."

In recent weeks, even Israeli leftists have found themselves dismayed by the celebration of hatred. Many of them are sharing articles bidding farewell to the global left, which ignores atrocities and sometimes justifies them. They deserve applause.

In Jewish tradition, not only the wicked stand accused; even righteous individuals are not exempt. They understand that something has gone awry in the thought process within progressive leftist circles, some of whom persist in supporting Hamas with well-known and deceptive excuses like "their right to retaliate," "Gaza is the largest prison in the world," "it's the fault of oppression and occupation," and other slogans from the same playbook. Just days ago, these new dissenters signed a statement distancing themselves from the global left.

They not only deserve applause but also introspection. Why now? For decades, they have portrayed Israel as a monster, spreading lies about the country. For decades, they labeled the "Nakba" as one of the gravest crimes in history, despite millions experiencing displacement, a consequence of the establishment of nation-states.

For decades, they have ignored the Jewish Nakba, which was no less severe than the Palestinian one. For decades, they have turned a blind eye to Arab rejection of any partition proposals and the invasion of Israel aimed at its destruction. For decades, they have disregarded Palestinian refusal to agree to any two-state solution. For decades, they have ignored statements by Hamas leaders about the destruction of Jews. For decades, they have provided justifications for Palestinian terrorism. And now they are surprised? The normal response to this brainwashing is the tearing down of posters featuring captives. After all, the Palestinians are the victims.

"Many Jewish intellectuals are marked with the stain of antisemitic sin. Peter Beinart, Noam Chomsky, Judith Butler, Avi Shlaim, Shlomo Sand" complained Professor Eva Illouz exactly 11 years ago. She was a whistleblower from within. She didn't stop for a moment. She conducted an amazing campaign, part of which appeared on the pages of the French Le Monde, exposing Israel's alleged injustices. In one of her articles, "47 Years a Slave," Illouz explained that the approach needed to be changed. She no longer settled for the accusation of "apartheid." It's slavery. No less. The article she wrote then was full of embarrassing distortions, and even the left-wing outlet Haaretz had to publish a correction.

Bassam Tawil: Hamas's Useful Idiots in the U.S., Europe

These demonstrators, who appear to feel so virtuous, send a message to the terrorist groups that people in the West happily support violence, terrorism and the Jihad (holy war) not only against Israel and Jews, but also against Christians, all "infidels," Europe, the United States and the West.

Although many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip support Hamas and its genocide, many others deeply oppose Hamas. In recent years, thousands have fled the Gaza Strip for Europe, where they hope for a better life -- like the one the demonstrators enjoy -- where they will not have to fear a knock on the door at two in the morning or have their government lodge rocket launchers next to their playgrounds and homes. A recent video shows a Gazan woman saying, "Those bastards at Hamas," before a man clamps his hand over her mouth.

Countries and groups that commit terrorist attacks view the anti-Israel demonstrations as an extension of their war against the West.

Meanwhile, the "pro-Palestinian" demonstrators masquerade as peace-seekers. In fact, they celebrate terrorism and imperialism -- Islamic imperialism -- that seeks forcibly to expand Iran's territorial gains not only throughout Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Iraq, but through Yemen, Saudi Arabia and South America on its way to the "Big Satan," the United States. The Iranians have already infiltrated Venezuela and met in Cuba...

Apparently not realizing how destructive these peace-loving demonstrators are to themselves and their free way of life... they do not even... bother to think for a minute what life would actually be like for them if they lived in Gaza, Beirut, Damascus or Tehran. It is easy to be a demonstrator in London, Washington DC or New York.

Despite all the claims to the contrary, these are not pro-Palestinian rallies. These are hate marches of people seeking the destruction of Israel and the West. Make no mistake: those who are now protesting against Israel are advocating for a totalitarian way of life, for poverty -- except for the leaders, of course -- and for the same sort of utopia now being relished by the citizens of Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela... and Gaza.

By Forest Rain

When “How are you?” becomes a difficult question

“So how are you?”

It shouldn’t be frightening to ask such a banal question. In this case, I really wanted to know the answer, but I was also afraid to hear it.

We were in kibbutz Nir David, in northern Israel, talking to two lovely teenage girls we met by chance. They were 12, maybe 13 years old. Best friends, one gorgeous Ethiopian girl, the other a bright-eyed, talkative girl of Yemenite-Ashkenazi descent (we met her father and grandfather later on).

They told us they were being hosted by the kibbutz. 240 families evacuated from the Gaza envelope were staying in this paradise on earth – after they had survived the Hamas-made hell on earth.

Pulling myself together, I looked into their eyes and asked: “So how are you?”

As if a dam opened up, these smiling girls began to earnestly describe everything that happened to them on October 7^th and how they felt about it.

They were from Kibbutz Gvaram.

On October 6^th the kids of Gvaram were having a “kids day”, with fun activities and camping outside in tents.

Outside. My heart skipped a beat, waiting to hear what happened next.

By chance, the girls woke up a few minutes before the Red Alert sirens went off. They had to wake up all the other kids and race them to shelter. There was one shelter close enough to reach in time, another, better shelter just a little too far away.

They shoved as many kids as possible into the shelter. The rest had to lie on the ground with their hands over their heads and pray the missiles wouldn’t hit them.

The moment they could, the fathers of the kids came running to pull their children back to the safety of their homes. They already knew that this wasn’t a “standard” missile bombardment, that terrorists were swarming into the country, slaughtering Jews.

The two friends went to the home that was closest (that of the Yemenite girl). They spent seven hours barricaded in the safe room of the house. They could hear the missiles and because the house was close to the perimeter of the community, they could also hear the firefight taking place outside.

The community guard, along with the IDF battled the Hamas terrorists, preventing them from infiltrating the kibbutz and committing the atrocities that occurred elsewhere.

The girls didn’t know the extent of the horror that was happening in the country. What they did know is what classmates living in other communities updated in their WhatsApp group:

“I’ve been hiding in the closet for 14 hours”

“They are in my house!”

“They killed my father!”

Kids, telling their friends about things no kid should ever even imagine. Kids, saying goodbye to their friends because the terrorists might kill them next.

One of the girls said: “I left the group. I couldn’t take it.”

Then they told us that Koren Tasa is a classmate and friend of theirs. Koren is one of the boys whose story you will find in descriptions of people who saw the footage of Hamas atrocities:

We see, from Hamas body cams and overhead kibbutz surveillance, a father gather his two young sons, clad only in underwear, and rushes them out of the house into a tiny outbuilding.

A terrorist tosses a grenade inside their hiding place. The father comes into frame and slumps to the ground, dead.

The boys are yanked into their kitchen, the floor splattered with blood. The younger sits at the small kitchen table, the older boy nearby on a sofa, crying.

'DADDY! DADDY! DADDY'S DEAD!'

One of the terrorists observes their hysteria with boredom. He opens their refrigerator, looks around, selects a bottle of water.

'Daddy's dead!' the older boy tells his brother. 'It's not really a prank!'

The younger boy has gone still, his head in his hands. 'I know,' he says. 'I saw.'

The terrorist holds up the water bottle, reconsiders, then puts it back and pulls out a near-empty two-liter plastic Coke bottle.

'I want my mom!'

The terrorist swigs the soda as he strolls out the door.

The older brother goes to the younger. He sees that one eye is bruised and bloodied.

'Can you see with this eye?

'No.'

'You're not joking?'

'No.'

There is even more blood on the floor now. A TV flickers out of frame.

The older boy collapses and begins keening.

'WHY AM I ALIVE?' he howls. 'WHY?'

Koren, his younger brother, and mother survived the attack. Their older brother was murdered on the beach in Zikim, along with numerous other kids from their school. The video of their murder can be easily found online – I hope to God these girls haven’t and won’t see it.

They told us about Gil Tasa, Koren’s father: “He was an extraordinary man.”

Lenny asked the girls if what happened changed the way they thought about life.

They answered: “I used to think they [Gazans] were people. Human beings. Now I see that they aren’t.”

Lenny told them about how when he was young parents used to tell their kids: “When you grow up, you won’t have to go to the army. There will be peace.”

To my surprise, one of the girls said: “My parents said that too. Now I know they were wrong.”

While their words flowed out of them, these girls were both solid at their core. Sad but not broken. I wanted to give them something to hold on to, so I explained:

“Peace is not possible, but safety is. We need to be very very strong to keep them from attacking us and you will be able to go home and be safe.”

They sighed and nodded with acceptance. They instinctively felt this to be true.

They know that this is what our army is striving to achieve.

I wanted to hug them and keep them safe and happy. I can’t so instead I told them a little of what I know about grief and trauma: “Your friends who went through horrible things don’t need you to tell them the right things. There is nothing right to say. What they do need is for you to be with them. It’s ok to smile and laugh with them. They need you to smile and laugh. Everything will be all mixed up together but if you are with them, they will be ok.”

They promised: “We will.”

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Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel (Guest Post)

(Guest post)

Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel

First, did the words "A Jew" have a disagreeable smell to you, just a little? Be honest.

They did to me, even though they say you can't smell yourself. I had to hold my nose to write them.

For contrast, let's do a sniff test on two other words: "A Christian."

Totally different, right? If "Christian" were a perfume, its signature would be Wholesome, Righteous, Valiant, Honorable, Loving, and Good. Interestingly, it’s the diametric opposite of "A Jew.”

"Moslem" feels positive too, conjuring images of majestic spires or perhaps a demure woman in a hijab.

Relevant? I think yes, considering how important is the shared connotation of words. Just ask any "person of color" about being called a "colored person." Happily, Jew-equals-stinky-poo is not inhaled by quite everyone (and deep gratitude for the many with clogged noses!). Yet it's remarkable to me that it isn't, considering how pervasive the stench has been over the centuries in Western culture. I refer to everything from literature to philosophy to architecture to - dare I say it - parts of the Christian Bible (if Jews could kill Christ, what aren't they capable of?). And unlike the toppled statues of slavery defenders, these pillars of our culture have suffered little more than an occasional ding from academia lo these many centuries.

When you want to wage a war, you assert that the other side is both evil and powerful, and everyone rallies for "self-defense." Since for Jews, this portrayal is definitional, it's never a bad time to "defend" yourself - or others - against Jews!

So naturally, anti-Jewish actions in the West have been historically regarded as positive and liberating, from the Crusades to the Inquisition. Why would anyone expect a turnaround? True, modern cultural and Church influences have had some sway, but antisemitism still seems to feel only semi-wrong to many otherwise decent folks. If someone, regardless their contempt for Israel, cannot declare the deliberate targeting of an infant for mutilation as categorically immoral, I must conclude that they are among those who believe Jews cannot be fully guiltless by definition.

To many pundits and protestors, it’s as if no amount of anti-Jewish barbarism is completely undeserved. Rape and beheading as a form of "freedom fight" or venting of frustration sure look disproportionate to those of us with clarity. So much so that one can only deduce that the true offense must be The Cosmically Evil Jew. Only under this delusion are such acts “appropriate” - not to mention historically familiar.

Apropos disproportionality, ever consider disproportionate intent? The Hamas intent is avowedly genocidal; its founding charter says so. The intent of Jews is to finally live unmolested and in their place of origin (if Jews - swarthy, hook-nosed, and speaking a semitic language - are rather a Germanic tribe, do let me know). Indeed all that was ever required of sovereign Gaza was to live and let live. If someone believes that building a massive tunnel network into Israel had anything to do with Hamas procuring food for its people, then I have a proverbial bridge to sell you.

As confessed by captured detainees, Hamas shelters its arms and leaders in hospitals, schools, and mosques as a way to avoid IDF attack or else max out civilian casualties. Taking such criminality further, Hamas also instructed Gazans, including at gunpoint, to stay put after Israel had warned them to leave. Yet how does the media and its followers process all this? By expressing distrust and "humanitarian" outrage at the side trying to defeat these leaders, and in favor of the side demonstrably and unreservedly committed to inhumanity, even toward its own people.

Here’s another curious media reaction: Hamas long made its genocidal intent toward Jews public, and now it has broadcast its gruesome early successes. Yet within twenty-four hours of the Hamas attack, media focus shifted to the horrors that Israel would do, could do, wanted to do, or was surely already plotting to do against innocent Gazans. This is classic anti-Jewish thinking, often referred to as hallucinatory. The trope is that Jews are suffused with malevolent intent and plot away in the shadows. (What could be more convenient than shadows, since who-all knows what goes on there? Only one’s fevered imagination is the limit!) It’s another reason why the atrocities actually committed by Hamas and actually documented by the perpetrators got eclipsed from the get-go.

Some are still inclined to say it's not about Jews but about fill-in-the-blank (Palestinians, Zionists, Netanyahu, settlers, right-wing governments, colonialism, oppression, occupation, apartheid, land theft, water, U.S. tax dollars, capitalism, imperialism, or perhaps intersectional transgenderism). My response is please don’t bother. Have instead the integrity of those you are allegedly "defending" and just say, "I oppose the Jews because this is my religion."

It is the only argument that cannot be answered.

Yours truly,

A Jew

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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11/13 Links Pt1: UN fails again. It gives cover to Hamas while abandoning Israel; Hamas planned to push October 7 massacre to the West Bank border

From Ian:

Aviva Klompas: United Nations fails again. It gives cover to Hamas while abandoning Israel.

The Oct. 7 slaughter of more than 1,200 Israelis was the single-largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and the second-largest terrorist attack since 9/11.

Antisemitism is an unending plague:My father, Elie Wiesel, survived Auschwitz. He'd ask these questions about Israel-Hamas war.

Since that horrific day, the U.N. has called numerous emergency sessions, held hours of debate, drafted hundreds of pages of draft resolutions – all of which amount to very little.

It has not passed a single resolution to condemn Hamas’ savagery, even though terrorists wore GoPros to document themselves slaughtering, raping and torturing civilians. Similarly, the U.N. has not called for the release of more than 200 hostages, including babies, children and the elderly. The walls of the old city of Jerusalem feature projected pictures of Israelis abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and are currently held hostage in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the U.N. has set its focus on conditions in Gaza, blaming Israel even as Hamas hides behind the civilian population and continues to fire rockets at Israel’s civilian centers.

U.N. officials are pressing for a cease-fire, knowing full well it would give Hamas the chance to regroup, rearm and renew its attacks. Back in 2014, there were a series of short-lived cease-fires, which Hamas breached.

The United Nations was founded in the wake of World War II to maintain peace and security and prevent atrocities like the Holocaust. It is failing to live up to that mission.

'We will kill you':I was held hostage in a war zone. Years later, the trauma remains.

UN provides cover for terrorists
Eight decades later, the U.N. is a clubhouse for dictators and a den of moral equivocation. It is a home for corrupt tyrants to stand in judgment of free democracies, where warmongers like Russia wield a veto and notorious human rights abusers like Iran get tapped to lead human rights forums.

By cultivating the appearance of a virtuous global body, the U.N. dangerously telegraphs to terror organizations and their state sponsors that there will never truly be a price to pay for committing atrocities. Worse, the U.N. gives them cover.

Jewish students are being vilified.Will our allies stand up to antisemitism?

After Oct. 7, the international outcry shifted from horror for Israel to horror at Israel in less than a week. While it is reasonable to expect Israel to abide by the laws of war, it is entirely unreasonable to expect nothing from Hamas.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel “did not happen in a vacuum.” These six words were all the world needed to hear to decide that Hamas, genocidal in its intent and brutal in its action, was justified on Oct 7.

In one way, Guterres is right: The attacks didn't happen in a vacuum. Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, the U.N. has watched the terrorist group steal billions of dollars in international aid, build command centers inside hospitals and store rockets in schools operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

On the U.N. watch, Gaza has become what the Israeli ambassador to the United States calls “the biggest terror complex in the world” – and Hamas has learned repeatedly that they can get away with murder.

Hamas, Israel and the Victimhood Ploy

Since the brutal attacks by Hamas on innocent civilians in southern Israel, photo evidence has come to light detailing the atrocities, including infants burned to death. Amidst the ensuing war, much of the world has turned from their brief moment of recognizing Hamas’s brutality to rounding on Israel over its retaliation – the precise reaction Hamas sought by attacking in the first place.

Misled once again by the idea that Israel seeks to commit genocide in Gaza despite consistent population growth, the United States, Israel’s long-time ally, has seen antisemitic acts rise by 400% in under a month. Unlike in previous wars with Hamas, these strikes by Israel came in response to 242 Israeli and foreign hostages still held in the Gaza Strip as well as the usual ongoing rocket attacks. Yet, thanks to Hamas’s victim complex and collective post-colonial guilt in the West, the image of Israel as the aggressor prevails.

As a result, civilian casualties reported by Hamas in Gaza, horrific as they are, have all but eclipsed the October 7 attacks. While this turn of events often stems from a higher death count in Gaza, another element seems at play here – the refusal of the world to recognize cause and effect. Since Hamas’s violent rule prompted the Israeli security blockade in 2007, Hamas has insisted that their alleged oppression justifies any atrocities committed against Israeli Jews. The political entity continues to use human shields for the sympathy ploy, knowing that onlookers will focus on Gazan fatalities over still-trapped hostages and murder of Israeli civilians.

Indeed, much of the international community – many of them nations that haven’t experienced on-soil war in decades — sees the death toll in Gaza and wonders why Israel has turned the Strip into a “prison,” either with no knowledge of or regard for Hamas’s role in the situation. Perhaps unique to the war beginning on October 7, Gazans’ impeded escape south to Egypt has been largely blamed only on Israel, despite Egypt’s reluctance to open its borders to refugees due to security concerns. Ironically, the Arab need for security hasn’t been questioned much at all. Moreover, thanks to this view of the militants as “freedom fighters,” silence remains on Hamas ordering Gazans to stay put despite Israeli calls to evacuate days in advance.

Posited from a Western standpoint by American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington as the “Clash of Civilizations” and from a non-Western perspective by Palestinian-American academic Edward Said as “Orientalism,” a conflict of ideologies has arisen between alleged racist perpetrator and racialized victim. When applied to Israel and Palestine, Israel as the “powerful Western oppressor” and Palestine as the “brave non-white victim” have captured the hearts and minds of many esteemed institutions. This oppressor/victim binary tends to dismiss any reference to the culpability of any Palestinian entity in events preceding Israeli retaliation. This bias appears in the popular view of Israel as an occupying power, an occupation resulting from several wars in which the Arab coalition attacked Israel despite Israeli land concessions.

Israel’s founding by Jewish refugees from Europe and support by a powerhouse like America might seem to justify the Jewish state’s reputation as “white” and “Western.” Notwithstanding, all Jews originate in the Middle East, a fact that many progressive Jews today either deny or minimize out of a guilt-ridden need to uphold the pro-Palestine (unfortunately coming to mean pro-Hamas) narrative.

Indeed, armed with the view that antisemitism is a form of opposing unjust power or “punching up,” many Jews in the West view themselves as the white privileged oppressors. This self-flagellation emboldens the narrative spread by those who oppose Israel in any fashion, including the right to defend and rescue its civilians. Some of these Jews even hold Israel’s very existence as the root cause of the October 7 attacks.

On October 7, as news came in about the massacre of Jews, a Mauritanian news site published several poems expressing joy at the murders.

Yes, poems.

Here's one of them (translated by ChatGPT, corrected by Ibn Boutros:)

Speak to me of the beautiful morning, Of a Jihad flavored with the impossible.
Of veiled men who are noble, With no equals in our time.
Feed Ashqalan (Ashkelon) with the bread of bullets, And pour over it a cup of gunpowder.
See the Jews, the uncouth, fleeing, chained, or killed
What a moment of glory, it revived every dead, and delighted every generation
It is the triumph, so fill the universe with praise, And admiration for the majestic and beautiful.
Do not cease speaking, for my longing, For the talk of jihad is boundless.
Indeed, it is a joy that has descended my land, And my people, all of them, and my tribe.
And my religion and my nation, I see it as a day of celebration for every family and child.

Other poems (only ChatGPT translated so it may have errors) had verses like:

Delight your heart with this victory at times,
For the Jews are but a mirage when we confront them.

They fell as slain, captured, and as spoils on their Sabbath,
When the army of truth advanced with anger.

A poem called "An Exceptional Morning" says:

They scatter like a flock of locusts; the storm sweeps them away, As if they were bubbles in its currents.
Allah is great, and upon their backs, lava flows, Feeding on skulls and scattered limbs.

Another:

The ink inscribed by the Qassam Brigades,
A noble declaration of glory and honor.

Stars arose with dignity and nobility,
Defying the roar of the barking aggressor.

A night from the heights, its morning radiant,
With the sorrow of the Jews and the glory of Islam.

This isn't "anti-Zionism." These are paeans to a holy war of Islam attacking Jews.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Why is it so difficult for media to report that Gazans have to lie to them to avoid being murdered by Hamas?

The New York Times has this headline:

Israel says there are Hamas tunnels under Shifa, and Hamas denies it.

So both sides must be given equal weight, right?

The article isn't terrible once you read it to the end, past all the denials and stories of patient suffering. The evidence for Hamas terrorists at the hospital is overwhelming:

Israel has long maintained that Al Shifa is among the most egregious examples, and its military has pushed its claims hard since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. It has shown reporters what it says is a 3-D representation of the complex, released audio recordings that purport to show Hamas fighters discussing the tunnels under Al Shifa and released two videos of interrogations in which captured militants discuss the tunnels.

A former senior official at Shin Bet, Israeli’s internal security service, said both Hamas and Israeli intelligence referred to the network as “the Metro” and compared the compound under Al Shifa to a major station of the New York subway system.

The former Shin Bet official and two other Israeli officials said the compound included several floors with designated spaces for meetings, living quarters and storage facilities. It can hold at least several hundred people, they said.

Israeli military intelligence said in a statement provided to The New York Times that “there are several underground complexes used by the leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas to direct their activities.” The complex relies in part on electricity diverted from Al Shifa, the statement said, and there are multiple entrances to it in and around the hospital.

Senior Israeli intelligence officials allowed The Times to review photographs that purported to show secret entrances to the compound from inside the hospital. Signs identifying the location as Al Shifa were clearly visible in the photographs, though their authenticity could not be independently verified.

American officials, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose sensitive intelligence, said they are confident that Hamas has used tunnel networks under hospitals, in particular Al Shifa, for command and control areas as well as for weapons storage.

The practice by Hamas has been longstanding, they said, adding that the United States and Israel have independently developed intelligence about Hamas’ use of the tunnel network under Al Shifa Hospital.

There are other accounts of Hamas using Al Shifa, as well. In 2008, armed Hamas fighters in civilian clothing were seen roving the hospital during a three-week war between the militants and Israel, according to New York Times reporting in Gaza at the time. The militants claimed to be security guards, but were seen killing alleged Israeli collaborators.

Six years later, during the next round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, the militants routinely held news conferences on the hospital grounds and used them as a safe meeting place for Hamas officials to speak with journalists, though these activities do not constitute military use.

After the war, Amnesty International said in a report that Hamas was using abandoned areas of Al Shifa, “including the outpatients’ clinic area, to detain, interrogate, torture and otherwise ill-treat suspects, even as other parts of the hospital continued to function as a medical center.”

The most famous tunnel in Gaza City is Al-Wahda Street, which Israel bombed in previous wars. You can clearly see the telltale sinkholes from the collapsed tunnels underneath:

Al-Wahda street goes straight to Shifa Hospital:

But the New York Times reports, "The hospital’s director, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, flatly described the Israeli allegations as 'untrue' in an interview on Friday."

Why would they, and so many other doctors, lie to the august newspaper?

In 2014, Radjaa Abu Dagga , a journalist for France's Libération,was interrogated at Shifa:

A few meters from the emergency room where the injured from bombings are constantly flowing, in the outpatient department, he was received in "a small section of the hospital used as administration" by a band of young fighters. They were all well dressed, which surprised Radjaa, "in civilian clothing with a gun under one's shirt and some had walkie-talkies " . He was ordered to empty his pockets, removing his shoes and his belt then was taken to a hospital room "which served that day as the command office of three people."

A man begins his interrogation: "Who are you? Who do you call? What are you doing?" "I was very surprised by the procedure," admits Radjaa, who showed him his press card in response. Questions came. They asked if he speaks Hebrew, he has relations with Ramallah. Young Hamas supporters insistently ask the question: "Are you a correspondent for Israel?" Radjaa repeated that only works for French media and a chain of Algerian radio.

It was then that the three men deliveed this message: "This is yours to choose. We are an executive administration. We will carry the message of Qassams. You have to stay at home and give us your papers. " Stunned to be covered by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Radjaa tried to defend himself and especially to understand why such a decision was taken against him. In vain. "It is impossible to communicate with these people," laments the journalist.

Libération then removed the article at Abu Dagga's request, because he was worried for his parents who live in Gaza.

He is not the first nor last journalist threatened by Hamas for reporting something the terror group didn't like.

Now, if journalists are afraid to report the truth about Gaza, all the more so are those who have to work with Hamas day in and day out - like the doctors at Shifa - have to worry about their and their families' lives.

Reuters quotes another doctor:

“The tanks are in front of the hospital. We are under full blockade. It’s a totally civilian area. Only hospital facility, hospital patients, doctors and other civilians staying in the hospital. Someone should stop this," a surgeon at the hospital, Dr Ahmed El Mokhallalati, said by telephone.

But Israel has said that the east side of the hospital is open for people to escape. The doctor is lying. He is forced to say what Hamas wants him to say.

Reuters doesn't bother reporting that.

The New York Times, and Reuters, and NBC News and everyone else knows this. But they still report "both sides" as if the denials of an organization that would murder their own people in a moment are equivalent to years of intelligence and direct evidence.

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!

More Israeli Arabs feel a part of the State of Israel than ever before

The latest Israel Democracy Institute survey had one very interesting chart:

The text is even more interesting:

In both the Jewish and Arab samples, this survey found the highest percentage of respondents who feel part of the state since we began asking this question in 2003. In both groups, but especially among Arabs, there has been a very sharp increase relative to the measurement taken in June 2023.

Within the Arab sample, the share of Christians and Druze who feel part of the State of Israel (84%) is markedly higher than that of Muslims (66%), but this share still constitutes a sizable majority in all religious groups. A breakdown by age finds that the largest increase in feeling part of the State of Israel and its problems is among the youngest cohort, aged 18–24 (June, 44%; November, 70%).

Furthermore, of those Arab respondents who feel part of the State of Israel and its problems, 35% are optimistic about the future of the country, compared with just 4% of those who do not feel part of the state.

Israeli Arabs were apparently aghast at Hamas' pogrom, far more so than Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, who generally cheered the attack.

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, and the world, facing an artillery round shortage

Canada's CBC reported:

A leading NATO official and Canada's top military commander have both warned allies within the past week that their ammunition shortages have reached a crisis state, and are calling for urgent action to boost production of critical artillery rounds.

Gen. Wayne Eyre, chief of the defence staff, recently told a House of Commons committee that if Canadian troops were called upon to fire their big guns at the same rate as Ukrainian troops fighting to repel the Russian invasion, their supply of shells would last for only a few days.

At the Warsaw Security Forum this week, Admiral Rob Bauer, the head of NATO's military council, warned that "the bottom of the barrel is now visible" in terms of how much ammunition the alliance has available to transfer to Ukraine.

That was published October 6, the day before the current war in Gaza.

There have been conflicting reports about whether some of the artillery shells meant for Ukraine were diverted to Israel, but either way, it looks like the rate that both Ukraine and Israel are using the shells is making what was already considered a major worldwide shortage even worse.

The US is ramping up its production of 155mm shells, but it will take many months to get them to production.

Last summer, Israel signed a contract with Elbit - which had been the IDF's exclusive manufacturer of artillery shells - a $60 million contract for tens of thousands of M107-A3 artillery shells, anticipating them for use in a potential Lebanon war. They are not supposed to be delivered until some time in 2024.

This is a very concerning issue, especially if a second front opens in Lebanon.

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!