Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, December 14, 2023

12/14 Links Pt1: Iran Sponsored the October 7 Massacre. America Paid for It; Hamas to recognize Israel? Part of terror group's deceitful plans

From Ian:

The Muslim world's selective outrage over Israel

The pattern of this selective rage shifts slightly if the U.S. is involved and reaches its peak when Israel is involved. We saw it when U.S. forces were rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, there was almost total silence when Russian President Vladimir Putin was annihilating Muslims in Chechnya.

In northwestern China, the Uyghur Muslim population has been the victim of a cultural genocide perpetrated by Communist authorities. Their religious and human rights have been stripped and many are being held in concentration camps. Yet again, the Muslim world remains silent.

Perhaps this is exactly the reason much of the world is not rallying behind the Palestinian cause this time around. People can easily see through the thinly veiled hypocrisy and selective outrage.

There is another interesting paradox. When Muslim regimes like Iran, Turkey and other Persian Gulf states abuse the human rights of their citizens, almost all Muslim governments choose to side with the regime instead of the victims. But when the U.S. or Israel is involved in any conflict in the Muslim world, the same regimes take cover behind international human rights laws that they have scant regard for.

The Pakistani military mastered this art of duplicity and hypocrisy. It received billions of dollars in aid from the U.S. and its allies to fight jihadis in Afghanistan, supported many of the same jihadis in their fight against NATO, turned a blind eye to terrorism perpetrated against Pakistani civilians and stoked anger over U.S. drone strikes, leading to widespread protests.

This is all about politics, not the political rights of Muslims. Israel is the only modern, democratic and technologically advanced state in the Middle East. Compare it with the Muslim monarchies of the region and you have a stark contrast. Support for Palestinian cause comes from a fear that if Israel is allowed to exist in peace and security, its democratic values will eventually permeate the region.

Monarchies and dictatorships dread that day.

Iran Sponsored the October 7 Massacre. America Paid for It.

It may strike some observers as curious, and others as unimaginably evil, that only weeks after Hamas slaughtered over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, the Biden administration awarded sanctions waivers worth $10 billion to Iran, the primary external sponsor of those attacks. The waiver, which allows Iran to collect money from the sale of electricity to Iraq, an arrangement that further deepens Iranian control of that country, came with an added bonus: Iran would be allowed to convert the funds into euros which it could spend immediately, without the usual requirement that the money remain in escrow inside Iraq. The prospect that Iran might immediately spend the money it receives on continuing to target U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria doesn’t appear to have disrupted the deal, either.

Which is strange. In the informal but apparently binding relationship between the Biden administration and the Iranians, minor events like a horrific, large-scale terror assault on a close ally, the kidnapping of American children and burying them in underground tunnels, and the regular maiming and occasional killing of U.S. military personnel on American bases in the region can hardly be permitted to interfere with the goal of ensuring that billions of dollars reach Iran every month, in order to buttress the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.

Showing its awareness that there is something obviously bizarre—not to mention hideously amoral—about this relationship, the administration has gone to absurd levels to downplay Iran’s role in the massacre. According to The Wall Street Journal, hundreds of Hamas terrorists who took part in the attack received specialized training in Iran. Meanwhile, reporting in Israel indicates that Tehran was involved at the operational level to the extent that it determined the actual timing of the operation, moving it to October from its originally planned date during Passover. These reports are the latest in a series that began to come out immediately after Oct. 7, that have directly implicated Iran in various stages and aspects of the terrorist onslaught, in addition to its already well-understood role as Hamas’ main funder, arms supplier, and political sponsor.

Iran, the state sponsor without whose material and logistical support Hamas would not be able to function, is naturally kept in the dark. Yes, that’s definitely how it all went down.

The detailed reporting on Iran’s direct involvement in the Oct. 7 massacre that has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and in the Israeli press stands in stark contrast with the public assertions of the Biden administration about the lack of any Iranian involvement. The administration staked out its position on the matter from the very day of the assault, which ostensibly took both Israel and the U.S. entirely by surprise: “On Iran’s involvement, I mean, look, specifically about what happened today, it’s too early—too early to say whether, you know, the state of Iran was directly involved or planning and supporting,” a senior administration official told reporters on a background call on Oct. 7. Asked again, the senior official gave a more specific answer: “Again, on that question, what I said: We don’t have anything to indicate Iran was involved in this specific—what is unfolding now.”

The weasel language the senior official used in both answers set the tone for subsequent pronouncements and leaks on the subject. Namely, that no “direct” evidence whatsoever existed that suggested “the state of Iran” was “directly” involved in planning and supporting this “specific” attack. In other words, the Biden administration understood from the day of the attack onward that its role was to serve as Iran’s lawyer, minimizing Iran’s involvement at every turn, in order to protect the U.S.-Iranian relationship from American legislative and public opinion.

So when the WSJ reported on Oct. 8 that Iran helped plan the operation—including in multiple meetings in Beirut with senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) officials, all the way to giving the green light a week before the attack—administration officials sprung into action, like any hardened Bronx defense lawyer would when informed that a notorious client with a rap sheet as long your arm had apparently gone on a wild rampage, murdering well over a thousand perfectly innocent people in cold blood. “We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account,” one official told the paper. In an interview with CNN, Secretary of State Antony Blinken robotically played back the buzzwords from the day before: “In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.” (Emphasis added.)

Iran has accessed $10b it received under sanctions waiver, US official

A Biden administration official acknowledged on Wednesday that Iran has made two “transactions” using money held in a bank in Oman under a sanctions waiver that was granted to the Islamic Republic last month.

Speaking at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, Elizabeth Rosenberg said that Iran has spent part of $10 billion of revenues for selling electricity to Iraq, which was held in an Omani escrow account.

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, asked Rosenberg: “Have there been any humanitarian transactions facilitated from the Iranian funds held in Oman?”

“There have been two transactions,” confirmed Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the U.S. Treasury Department, adding that she would only provide additional detail about those transactions in a classified setting.

Wednesday’s hearing appears to be the first acknowledgment by the Biden administration that Iran has spent part of the funds it received under these sanctions waivers.

Rosenberg did not say when the transactions took place. The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a query from JNS.

Seth Frantzman: Hamas to recognize Israel? Part of terror group's deceitful plans

Mousa Abu Marzouk made comments in an interview with Al-Monitor this week. The comments were portrayed as Hamas considering “Israel recognition.”

In fact, nothing of this sort has taken place, and it is part of the Hamas attempt to portray itself as moderate in English while it not only commits genocidal acts when it has the power, but it pushes global extremism against Israel and Jews. Selling Hamas as willing to moderate is one phase in the strategic agenda of the group as it has its sights set on the West Bank and the region.

The comments by Abu Marzouk were characterized as a “shift” for Hamas by Al-Monitor. “In an interview with Al-Monitor, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk suggested the militant group would adhere to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s stance on Israel.”

Bait and switch
This is a form of charlatanism by Hamas and a bait and switch. Hamas itself continues to hold more than 130 hostages in Gaza and carried out the most brutal mass murder against Israeli civilians in Israel’s history recently. Hamas is so brutal and genocidal that its attack on October 7 also targeted foreign workers and tourists, the organization spared no one. Hamas, like some other historic terrorist groups, like to benefit from the privilege these groups get from media, where they have an “armed wing” and a “political” wing.

There is no such thing as an “armed wing” of a terrorist group, any more than a country’s army is its “armed wing.” Terrorist groups nevertheless benefit from this by massacring people with one hand and then sending their leaders to appear on Western media channels.

Hamas has done this for years, appearing on Al-Jazeera in Doha, where Hamas leaders are based, or sending Hamas members to talk to UK or US media. At such meetings, they have crafted talking points that make Hamas seem open to negotiations. For instance, they pretend that Hamas might be willing to adopt the stance of the Palestine Liberation Organization and, therefore, recognize Israel.

Of course, the real goal here is not for Hamas to recognize Israel, but rather for Hamas to grow its presence in the West Bank. A recent poll has found that after October 7, Hamas is gaining in popularity in the West Bank.

In order for Hamas to come to power in the West Bank, it needs to get out from under sanctions in the West and to sell itself as a potential peace partner.

#BREAKING: Musa Abu Marzouk says his words were taken "out of context" by Al-Monitor and emphasizes that Hamas still rejects recognition of Israel and promises that "resistance will continue." https://t.co/egCZ402ovI pic.twitter.com/d9cmNlDoll
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) December 14, 2023

Over 2/3 of Palestinians want to see a return to terror attacks against Jews. AP doesn't report that part of the survey.

I reported on a new PCPSR survey yesterday showing that Hamas' popularity has surged since October 7.

While I report on these polls often, major news media almost always ignore them. This time, though, AP highlighted the part about how Hamas is now far more popular than Fatah, especially on the West Bank, and how Palestinians do not want Abbas as their leader.

That is indeed an important story. But AP continues to ignore one critical question that is in every poll, that is even more important.

69% of the respondents say they support "a return to confrontations and armed intifada."

By a greater than 2-1 ratio, Palestinians want to go back to the days of suicide bombings and blowing up buses filled with Jews.

Media and politicians love to talk a lot about ceasefires, and the importance of peace, and the desirability of a two-state solution. But this single fact means that none of that matters.

More than half of Palestinians have been supporting a return to terrorism for a while now. Hamas' pogrom increased that desire by 11 percentage points.

Palestinian support for terror isn't a side issue. It is the issue.

Palestinian antisemitism isn't something to be minimized. It is prevalent and it is a major factor behind every Palestinian political decision.

The media and politicians actively choose to ignore what Palestinians happily tell pollsters, and instead choose to pressure Israel to keep making concessions to these people that want so see Israel destroyed and Jews living, at best, as second-class citizens. It isn't exactly a conspiracy, but it is an active choice made by the most influential people in the Western world to ignore reality and try to impose their own wishful thinking instead. But the end result is not the peace they desire, but more war.

It is way past time to remove the blinders to the real obstacles to peace in the region.

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!

How CNN crafted a new blood libel that Israel is attacking civilians with "dumb bombs"

CNN does it again, using a sensational headline that is undercut by information buried far later in the article.

The article is a classic example of how journalists can craft a story that is technically accurate and thoroughly - and intentionally - misleading.

The headline:

Exclusive: Nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are imprecise ‘dumb bombs,’ US intelligence assessment finds

It starts off with information we can assume is factual:

Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment.

The assessment, compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it, says that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided. The rest have been precision-guided munitions, the assessment says.

Then it slides into speculation:

Unguided munitions are typically less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in such a densely populated area like Gaza. The rate at which Israel is using the dumb bombs may be contributing to the soaring civilian death toll.

It then brings in fake evidence based on what is probably a presidential gaffe:

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said Israel has been engaged in “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

CNN doesn't mention that White House officials have been walking back that statement all day yesterday.

Then it trots out the "experts:"

But experts told CNN that if Israel is using unguided munitions at the rate the US believes they are, that undercuts the Israeli claim that they are trying to minimize civilian casualties.

“I’m extremely surprised and concerned,” said Brian Castner, a former Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer who now serves as Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser on arms and military operations.

“It’s bad enough to be using the weapons when they are precisely hitting their targets. It is a massive civilian harm problem if they do not have that accuracy, and if you can’t even give a benefit of the doubt that that the weapon is actually landing where the Israeli forces intended to,” Castner added.

Note that Castner is not at all an expert on targeting. He's (presumably) an expert on disposing mines and unexploded bombs. Which means he is not an expert at all.

And then comes another favorite "expert," Nazi memorabilia collector Marc Garlasco:

Marc Garlasco, a former United Nations military analyst and war crimes investigator who served as chief of high value targeting on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff in 2003, said that using unguided munitions in a densely populated area like Gaza both greatly increases the chance that a target is missed and that civilians are harmed in the process.

Besides his problematic hobby, Garlasco quit the Pentagon two weeks after arranging an attack on a major Iraqi figure - who was not in his home, killing 17 innocent civilians instead. And he then joined Human Rights Watch, who had no problem hiring someone who did something they routinely call war crimes when anyone else does it. But, hey, he's an "expert."

So now CNN set the stage to make people think Israel is bombing civilians with dumb bombs. It gives sly implications and quotes "experts" who aren't experts.

Finally, in paragraph 15, we learn from real experts that "dumb bombs" can be nearly as accurate as smart bombs:

A US official told CNN that the US believes that the Israeli military is using the dumb bombs in conjunction with a tactic called “dive bombing,” or dropping a bomb while diving steeply in a fighter jet, which the official said makes the bombs more precise because it gets it closer to its target. The official said the US believes that an unguided munition dropped via dive-bombing is similarly precise to a guided munition.

That one sentence undercuts the entire story. And it is buried between two quotes from potential war criminal and Nazi SS enthusiast Garlasco, as if his opinion has more weight than actual US military experts.

But Garlasco said the Israelis “should want to use the most precise weapon that they possibly can in such a densely populated area.” With an unguided munition, “there are so many variables to take into account that could lead to an incredibly different accuracy from one moment to the next,” Garlasco added. The US has deliberately phased out its own use of unguided munitions over the last decade, he noted.

But Israel doesn't have a Pentagon-sized budget to toss aside perfectly good munitions that can be used without hurting civilians.

The structure of the CNN article is designed to marginalize the most important part of the story - the part that contradicts the entire story itself. But it can defend itself against charges of bias because it does mention the dive bombing assessment from real military sources (not marginal former military who do not have the knowledge or expertise to even know about dive bombing.) Yet the structure of the article is where the bias lies.

The problems with the story don't end there.

The story is based on the assumption that Israel used the dumb bombs exclusively on crowded civilian areas. But there is zero proof of that.

It could have used them after all civilians have left an area, and therefore the bombs are an effective weapon against large underground targets - tunnel networks.

More importantly, Israel doesn't only target places where there are residents.

Open source intelligence identified a dumb bomb that the Israel Air Force showed in a tweet on October 12, an M117:

This is early in the war, so it seems unlikely that the IDF was running out of guided weapons at that point. So either Israel was purposefully using dumb bombs in cities, they were dive bombing in cities (which seems unlikely), or they were not aiming these bombs at residential areas altogether.

The New York Times published maps showing where they identified building damage in Gaza. Here's a detail of one such map from October 18:

While the detail is poor, it looks like this target is in the middle of an area where there are no residential buildings.

Google Earth shows more detail:

Zooming in:

It is a large warehouse (5600 m3, 60,000 square feet) surrounded by fields.

Assuming it was identified as a Hamas military site, the best weapon to use would be a "dumb bomb."

Here's another industrial area targeted by the Israel Air Force according to the NYT maps early in the war:

Gaza has plenty of similar industrial parks that no one lives near. The media concentrates on airstrikes in crowded urban areas, but there is a lot more in Gaza.

It just so happens that Hamas prefers to place its tunnels - which are their key military assets -under the civilian areas.

CNN could have done what I just did. They have access to far more resources than I do. But they chose to frame the story to make Israel look monstrous, when the facts show quite the opposite.

They could have quoted the US officials who said they believe Israel is using the dumb bombs in responsible ways before extensively quoting the "experts" who are literally paid to find dirt on Israel.

This article tells us much more about CNN's desire to demonize Israel than it does about Israel's supposed lack of concern for civilian lives.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Israel haters are going a bit crazy about Rep. Elise Stefanik's questions to the university presidents in the hearing last week.

Daoud Kuttab writes in the LA Times:

Reality check — intifada has nothing to do with genocide of Jews

When New York Rep. Elise Stefanik repeatedly — and now infamously — badgered three college presidents about the nuances of free speech last week, she attempted to push her narrative that elite schools are antisemitic by equating “chants for intifada” with “genocide of Jews.”

The three presidents fell for the trap that a Palestinian uprising could be connected to crimes against humanity.

I was a journalist for Al Fajr, a Palestinian weekly, in the late 1980s, when the first intifada began. The word appeared on leaflets in the title of a Palestinian Liberation Organization-backed group: the Underground Unified National Leadership of the Intifada.

Dan Fisher, then the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, asked me to translate it. “Intifada” means “shaking off,” I told him, a reference to the demand for freedom from occupation. Palestinians opposed the occupation, not Israel. Palestinians’ aspirations were for an independent state alongside Israel, not instead of Israel.

This is gaslighting.It is akin to the stupid argument that "antisemitism" means "against Semites." Words and phrases evolve in meaning and today, "intifada" is understood by all Israel haters to mean violence.] (The idea that Palestinians would accept a permanent Jewish state in any form is simply a lie.)

It is not only Kuttab trying mightily to redefine "intifada" this week - here is Judith Butler in Boston Review:

Intifada, generally translated as “uprising” in Arabic, means “to be shaken” or “to shake oneself.” It is understood as a movement that refuses to remain docile in the face of colonial violence, an effort to throw off the shackles of colonial rule. It is also a call for Palestinian unity. Does it necessarily imply genocidal violence? No.

Again, gaslighting.

When the word "intifada" is used by both Palestinians and protesters today, it means nothing other than violence.

The first intifada, while violent, was not characterized by the horrific suicide bombings and bus bombs of the second intifada, or as Palestinians celebrate it, it the "Al Aqsa Intifada."

In Arabic Palestinian media, however, the word "intifada" by itself is always understood to mean the second intifada.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research routinely asks in their polls how people want to respond to Israel,. The latest poll released yesterday includes choices of "unarmed popular resistance" and "a return to confrontations and armed intifada."

Not once have they referred to unarmed resistance as an "intifada." The Palestinians who are answering the questions wouldn't even understand a question that asks about an unarmed intifada.

Finally, the people behind the "Globalize the Intifada" slogan itself make no secret of their support for violence. After all, they are the same people who also chant "by any means necessary."

The Within Our Lifetime group, one of the key organizers of these protests demanding an intifada, write on its "Points of Unity page,"We defend the right of Palestinians as colonized people to resist the zionist occupation by any means necessary. ...We believe the liberation of Palestine will be achieved through the initiative and strategy of all forms of Palestinian resistance." This means violence, and that is exactly what they mean when they say "intifada." These groups applauded the violent pogroms of October 7. Their leader, Nerdeen Kiswani, has promoted violence against "Zionists" and called for their deaths.

There is no doubt among both Palestinians and anti-Israel activists as to what the word "intifada" means.

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!

12/13 Links Pt2: Israel's invisible victims; A feminist group that betrays women; Letter to an Anti-Zionist Idealist; The Jewish Story Is the American Story

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel's invisible victims

In a country where every child is a miraculous reaffirmation of Jewish resilience against the attempts over the course of more than two millennia to wipe out the Jewish people, the death of every one of these young Israeli soldiers tears open the historic wound.

This war has many midwives. A reckoning is due in Israel itself for the role played in the October 7 catastrophe by the governing class, from the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu down through the top brass of the IDF and security establishment. And both the Obama and Biden administrations in the US bear a heavy responsibility for having empowered and incentivised Iran, the infernal godfather and patron of Hamas and Hezbollah.

But the fundamental reason for this war is that the world will not permit the Jews to live in peace and security in their own ancestral homeland. There is no other conflict in the world in which the west has encouraged, funded and incentivised those waging a war of annihilation as the west has done with the “Palestinians” for the best part of a century. There is no other conflict in the world in which an indigenous people that is the victim of existential attack is regarded as aggressive interlopers, and their defence against annihilation wickedly misrepresented as deliberate mass killing and even genocide, as much of the west has done with Israel.

More Israeli soldiers are being killed than would otherwise be unavoidable because, in this as in every war in which Israel is forced to fight against an enemy bent on the extermination of the Jews, the west insists that Israel go to lengths to which these countries themselves would never go to protect the lives of its enemy civilians — lengths which cause more IDF casualties than if Israel had a free hand to defend its people.

And unlike the west, which usually wages war from the safe distance of the skies, Israel puts boots on the booby-trapped ground, with its commanders leading from the front and dying heroically alongside their sergeants and privates.

Not only does the west refuse to acknowledge Israel’s desperate plight; not only does it display indifference to Jewish suffering in Israel; but those demanding an Israeli cease-fire or that the IDF put its own forces at risk in order further to protect Gaza’s civilians are also making it shockingly plain that, if there’s a choice between the lives of Israelis defending themselves against genocide and the unintentional killing of Palestinians in a just war waged by Israel for its survival, it’s the Jews who must die.

May the memory of all of Israel’s fallen children in the lion-hearted IDF — Jews, Arabs, Druze and others — be a blessing. And may their sacrifice not be in vain.

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Jewish Story Is the American Story

The two letters need to be taken in tandem. Washington’s words to Newport’s Jews express the idea of American equality, but it is Washington’s letter to Savannah that reminds us how the Founders revered the Jewish story and sought succor from the Jewish faith. It explains why Jews were so warmly welcomed in America, as well as why so many Americans support Israel today. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reflected, the Founders’ reverence for the Hebrew Bible reflects the fact that “Israel, ancient and modern, and the United States are the two supreme examples of societies constructed in conscious pursuit of an idea.”

The story of Washington’s letters is instructive as American Jews confront the specter of anti-Israel Jew-hate in the United States. It is right to emphasize, as Lipstadt did, that bigotry toward any community in America is un-American, and to cite Washington in making that case. But it is also vital to stress what is also learned from the words that Washington himself composed: the deep and long-lasting bond between Judaism and the American idea, and therefore the deep antipathy of Israel-haters for America.

The pro-Hamas rallies proclaiming their support for jihad are reflecting not only their hatred of Jewry and of Israel, but also their hatred of America itself. The two hatreds are joined; those seeking the destruction of the Jews living “from the river to the sea” instinctively understand that the bond between American and Israel is more than pragmatic, and the rallies’ defense of utter evil in the name of “decolonization” reflects a set of ideas proclaiming that America itself is a villain and unworthy of existence. There is a reason why the Jewish gathering on the Mall featured countless American flags, while the mobs in New York, Philadelphia, and the quads of the Ivy League raging “long live the intifada” feature nary a one.

Washington famously concluded his letter to Newport’s Jews with the prayer that “the children of the stock of Abraham” dwell in safety and security in America, where “there shall be none to make them afraid.” Unfortunately, the children of the stock of Abraham in America are afraid, and for good reason. But there is still succor and inspiration to be found: from a Jewry that is experiencing more unity than at most points in American history, and in a vast swath of Americans who understand the bond between the Jewish and American stories. It is this that must be emphasized, as we remind our fellow citizens that what is at stake in this battle is not only the future of American Jewry, but of the American idea—and therefore of America itself.

Harvard Is Getting Exactly the President It Hired

The Harvard Crimson, which limply and unenthusiastically substantiated reports of Gay's decades-long record of plagiarism, talked to scholars like Lawrence Bobo—one of the many authors from whom Gay cribbed, er, inadequately cited—who told the paper he was "unconcerned" that Gay quoted him and his colleague, Gary King, without proper attribution.

Sure, Gay violated the standards to which Harvard holds its own students. Sure, she did the same and worse to dozens of other scholars. But Harvard's 30th president isn't a plagiarist. And besides, isn't imitation the highest form of flattery? Take notes, Harvard students. And Princeton students. And Amherst students.

What the Crimson didn't mention is that Bobo, the dean of social sciences at Harvard, was appointed to his role five years earlier by Gay, when she was dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She's not just his boss, she's his patron. Gay's dissertation adviser, Gary King, and her former classmate, Stephen Voss, also defended the Ivy League apparatchik who absconded with their work.

What none of them, least of all the members of the Harvard Corporation, want to say out loud is that Gay wasn't tapped for her scholarship, and they aren't about to hold her to the standards of a serious scholar. Obviously.

No, Gay was chosen for a different set of credentials—her race, gender, political views, and religious devotion to DEI—and she is delivering on her promise to rededicate the university to identity politics.

To that end, she engineered the defenestration of Roland Fryer, allegedly on Title IX charges, after the star black economist ruffled feathers by debunking myths of rampant police violence. She helped strip Ronald Sullivan, a black Harvard Law professor, of an administrative post because he served on Harvey Weinstein's defense team. She even dismissed allegations of research fraud against Ryan Enos, a Harvard government professor, who just so happened to find that Republicans are racist—a recurring theme in Gay's own (well, not really) work.

In her disgraceful testimony before Congress, in which Gay was asked whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state and responded, "I believe Israel has the right to exist"—not necessarily as a Jewish state—she was doing the job for which she was hired, in the way she was hired to do it. And the Harvard Corporation, in reaping the media whirlwind and tossing standards aside (again) to save its gal, is getting exactly what it asked for.

Claudine Gay Is Why I Never Checked the ‘Black’ Box

Even at that young age, I knew that to check that black box was to move off the merit track and onto the race track, where people like Claudine Gay excel. She is perhaps the most successful black to walk this path, but she is not a free individual.

Throughout her career, Gay has placed emphasis on her skin color and the politics of the black identity, which we are now learning involved a brew of incompetence, racial essentialism, and plagiarism, all emerging now.

As bad as this all is, the worst thing that the Claudine Gays of America did was lead so many people of their race down this dead-end path of racial essentialism.

Today, the focus has been on how Gay hurt Asians and Jews, but it can never be forgotten that people like her hurt blacks far more and for such a sustained period of time, affecting multiple generations.

My refusal to check the race box meant that no one could hold a claim over me. I’m a free individual, and the only thing I owe is gratitude to the many people who helped me as I pursued the path of merit.

But if one really wants to know why I never checked the black box, the true answer lies in my black grandfather’s life. Born to formerly enslaved parents on a dirt floor in Camp Nelson, Kentucky, his parents died when he was just a teen. On his own, he traveled to Detroit and then to Chicago, where he worked odd jobs to fuel his playboy lifestyle. Then one day, he realized his current life would lead to no good. He straightened up and became a founding member of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), where he met my grandmother. He got a job as a truck driver, became a family man, and educated himself by reading every book he could find. In doing so, he lifted his family from poverty to a solid lower-middle-class life despite living under segregation.

Why, then, would I betray this admirable progress for the empty promise of skin color?

Chanukah Music Video Night 7: Six13 - Era-lution of Taylor Swift (plus more ShirSoul)

This seems to be the year for Taylor Swift Chanukah parodies

Bonus track, another from Shir Soul, "Africapella":

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!

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

Liz Magill, with her smug smile and inability to denounce calls for the genocide of the Jewish people, disgraced herself and UPenn. No one wonders why she resigned. The question is why Julie Platt, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America’s board of trustees, saw fit to defend Magill, when all the other Jewish leaders were vocal in their demands that Magill step down. A second question we might ask is why Platt, who also serves as vice chair of UPenn’s board of trustees, is now overseeing the search for Magill’s replacement.

That’s right—Platt, after defending Magill—is in charge of finding a new Magill, likely every bit as antisemitic as the one who stepped down in disgrace. How do we know? Because Platt’s defense of Magill predates the events of October 7^th, says Alana Goodman, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on December 8 (emphasis added):

Platt’s defense of Magill predates the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. She stood by the UPenn president when the school played host to the "Palestine Writes" conference in September, an event that featured anti-Semitic speakers. This included Pink Floyd singer Roger Waters, who has "dressed in a Nazi-like uniform" and "desecrated the memory of Holocaust victim Anne Frank," according to a letter sent to the school by the Jewish Federation’s Philadelphia chapter.

In October, when Apollo CEO Marc Rowan called on Magill to resign from the UPenn board after Magill declined to condemn Hamas terrorism, Platt publicly backed the UPenn president, saying she had "full confidence in the leadership of President Liz Magill and Chair Scott Bok."

"The university has publicly committed to unprecedented steps to further combat antisemitism on its campus, reaffirmed deep support for our Jewish community, and condemned the devastating and barbaric attacks on Israel by Hamas," said Platt in a statement to the New York Post.

But Platt has been noticeably silent after Magill’s shocking congressional testimony this week, during which she and other Ivy League presidents said calls for Jewish genocide were permitted on campuses. Platt, a former banker, is also co-chair of UPenn Hillel's National Board of Governors and sits on the board of overseers for the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, according to her biography on the Penn Alumni website.

Three days later, Goodman offered her readers a shocking update—the fox, in the form of Julie Platt, was now guarding the hen house (emphasis added):

Julie Platt, a prominent Jewish leader who repeatedly defended Magill as anti-Semitism surged on campus, will serve as interim chair of the Board of Trustees during the search for a new president. Platt, who was previously vice chair, will replace the board's outgoing leader, Scott Bok, who resigned alongside Magill on Saturday.

"As current Vice Chair, Julie was the clear choice, and we are grateful to her for agreeing to serve in this capacity during this time of transition," the board said in a statement on Sunday.

Critics told the Washington Free Beacon last week that Platt—who is also chair of the Jewish Federations of North America's board of trustees—leveraged her Jewish community leadership role to protect Magill's position at the university for months.

Platt defended Liz Magill as UPenn hosted an anti-Israel conference with antisemite Roger Waters, and after October 7^th, when Magill refused to condemn Hamas terrorism. But in her official JFNA statement on her appointment as interim chair, Platt wants you to know that all this time, she was “working hard from the inside” to address the rising antisemitism on the UPenn campus—in the form of defending Magill’s indefensible defense of Jew-hatred, of course (emphasis added):

As Vice Chair of the university’s board these past several months, I have worked hard from the inside to address the rising issues of antisemitism on campus. Unfortunately, we have not made all the progress that we should have and intend to accomplish. In my view, given the opportunity to choose between right and wrong, the three university presidents testifying in the United States House of Representatives failed. The leadership change at the university was therefore necessary and appropriate. I will continue as a board member of the university to use my knowledge and experience of Jewish life in North America and at Penn to accelerate this critical work.

Platt is clever, if somewhat devious, when she tells us that she has “worked hard from the inside” to address antisemitism. If the work she did was from “inside,” we didn’t see it, so we don’t know what she did, or how much effort she expended on fighting antisemitism, sight unseen. The ruse almost works, except that the whole world has been watching, or at least the Algemeiner, which documented the number of times Magill gave free rein to antisemitism, as Platt continued to defend her:

Magill had several previous opportunities throughout her tenure to denounce hateful, even conspiratorial, rhetoric directed at both Israel and the Jewish community. However, Magill repeatedly declined to respond to the mounting incidents of antisemitism, especially anti-Zionism, on campus, according to an analysis by [the Algemeiner] of public statements she had issued since July 2022, when she assumed the presidency at Penn.

“Israel is a settler colonial state that uses apartheid to further its ethnic cleansing agenda,” said an essay by Penn Against the Occupation (POA) that was included in the 2022-2023 edition of the Penn Disorientation Guide, a symposium of essays published annually by upperclassmen. It was issued just weeks after Magill started on the job.

“It is time to end the way our school helps to perpetrate human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and organize around divesting from Israel,” the essay continued. “Here’s what you should know about divestment, a popular movement to fight for equality for Palestinians.”

POA went on to charge the university with numerous offenses: Penn “normalizes ties with the occupation” by hosting the Perspectives Fellowship, a program the school’s Hillel chapter founded to educate students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by taking them on a trip to Israel, as well as Gaza and the West Bank. Penn’s support of Birthright, which sends Jewish students to Israel, “turns a blind eye to the crimes of the Israeli occupation.” Both programs, POA said, “frame the Zionist colonial entity in a positive light.”

Later that semester, after campus police arrested radical student environmentalists for staging an unauthorized protest on school grounds, POA said in an Instagram post that “arresting peaceful protesters is a staple of policing in both the United States and in Israeli-Occupied Palestine.” The group drew a link between the world’s continued dependence on fossil fuels to Israel, saying, “We urge Penn not only to divest from all fossil fuel companies but divest from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, many of which are one in the same … policies of forced displacement, from Palestine to the UC townhomes in Philadelphia, are all modern-day practices of settler colonialism.”

Neither Magill nor the university responded to the apparent accusation that the Jewish state, conspiring with the US, has caused climate change and colonized both Americans and Palestinians.

The next month, on Nov. 6, POA held a screening of Gaza Fights for Freedom “with snacks provided” in Penn’s Van Pelt Library. The film rationalizes the terrorist acts committed during the Palestinian intifadas against Israel and features a clip of an interview with Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar, who can be heard saying, “We run effective self-defense by all means including using guns.”

The film was directed by Abby Martin, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and a former host on the Russian-funded media network RT America. Martin, who has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, reposted on social media posts that celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

It doesn't seem like Platt was working hard from inside, if at all. Why did Platt, an important Jewish leader, stand by, as Magill proved, without a doubt, over and over again, that she is an Israel-hating antisemite? Even now, Magill affirms her anti-Jewish creds, most recently during the infamous hearing that led to her resignation. There, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) asked all three Ivy League university presidents, including Magill, a loaded (and exquisitely worded) question:

Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish nation?

Just as the three women answered in chorus on “conduct,” “context,” and parroted the words “pervasive and severe,” here too, the women echoed one another in both what they said—Israel can exist—and what they didn’t say, “but not as a Jewish nation”:

Virginia Foxx: Do you believe that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish nation?

Claudine Gay: I agree that the State of Israel has a right to exist.

Virginia Foxx: Ms. Magill, same question.

Liz Magill: I agree, Chairwoman Foxx. (nodding) The State of Israel has a right to exist.

Virginia Foxx: Dr. Kornbluth?

Sally Kornbluth: Absolutely. Israel has the right to exist.

With their collective response to that one question, Magill and her friends made clear their unified belief that Jews do not have the right to self-determination in Israel. And still, Platt stayed dumb (emphasis added):

In October, when Apollo CEO Marc Rowan called on Magill to resign from the UPenn board after Magill declined to condemn Hamas terrorism, Platt publicly backed the UPenn president, saying she had "full confidence in the leadership of President Liz Magill and Chair Scott Bok."
"The university has publicly committed to unprecedented steps to further combat antisemitism on its campus, reaffirmed deep support for our Jewish community, and condemned the devastating and barbaric attacks on Israel by Hamas," said Platt in a statement to the New York Post.

But Platt has been noticeably silent after Magill’s shocking congressional testimony this week, during which she and other Ivy League presidents said calls for Jewish genocide were permitted on campuses. Platt, a former banker, is also co-chair of UPenn Hillel's National Board of Governors and sits on the board of overseers for the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, according to her biography on the Penn Alumni website.

Why did Platt, a highly-placed Jewish leader, stick to a university president who wouldn’t condemn Hamas terror or calls for genocide? Are they friends? It seems unlikely, as the two women are almost a decade apart in age.

What then? Did Platt aim by design to rise up the UPenn chain of command to the level of interim chair, and perhaps, beyond? Put her own guy in? Who knows? She’s not talking, and neither is the CEO of the Jewish Federation:

Platt didn’t respond when the Free Beacon asked her on [December 6] to comment on Magill’s testimony. Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, also didn’t respond to a request for comment about Platt’s defense of Magill.

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New poll: Hamas hugely popular in West Bank; Palestinians overwhelmingly support 10/7 but deny any war crimes committed

The latest survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research reveals that Palestinians, as a whole, are thoroughly delusional.

As we've seen in other polls, the overwhelming majority support Hamas' terror attack on October 7. Even after seeing the devastation in Gaza, a huge majority (72%; 82% in the West Bank and 57% in the Gaza Strip) said Hamas attacking Israel was a correct decision.

But almost none of them admit that Hamas has done any war crimes.

Only 10% of Palestinians think Hamas committed any war crimes, and only 7% think that Hamas committed atrocities against Israelis on October 7. . Only 14% saw videos of Hamas attacking Israelis.

The early narrative in Arab media is that Hamas was heroic and the attack was purely military, so it appears that the people swallowed that whole - and have very little interest in learning anything that might change their minds.

Of course, nearly all Palestinians agree Israel is committing war crimes.

There is one war crime that the Palestinians cannot possibly deny, which is that Hamas took civilians hostage. So to answer another question about whether kidnapping civilians is a war crime, nearly half simply reported that it wasn't - so they could keep thinking of Hamas as being moral.

The Palestinians in the West Bank are even more deluded than Gazans are. 70% of West Bankers think Hamas will emerge victorious in this war, while only half of Gazans think so. Only 1% in the West Bank think Israel will emerge victorious, but nearly one third of Gazans think so.

72% (85% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip) are satisfied with how Hamas is doing during the war. The outside country that they are most pleased with during the war is Yemen (80% approval; 89% in the West Bank and 68% in the Gaza Strip.)

Hamas' popularity has skyrocketed. When asked which political party they support, the largest percentage selected Hamas (43%), followed by Fatah (17%). Support for Hamas nearly doubled since the last time the question was asked three months ago.

Similarly, if new parliamentary elections were held today, Hamas'party would trounce Fatah, 51%-19%.

54% believe that Hamas is the most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today, also double the number three months ago.

The percentage that supports a return to terrorism ("confrontations and armed intifada") went from 58% to 69% - more than two-thirds.

The poll shows that the most intransigent, militant and terror-supporting Palestinians are the ones whom the world thinks is "moderate"- the ones in the West Bank ruled by the PA. Hamas is more popular there than in Gaza. The overwhelming majority want to see Israel destroyed (as the last poll showed.)

This is the most important story that the Western media is actively hiding from you.

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12/13 Links Pt1: After Hamas is destroyed, here are the five things that must not happen in Gaza; Will killing Yahya Sinwar end the war in Gaza?

From Ian:

Richard Goldberg: After Hamas is destroyed, here are the five things that must not happen in Gaza

Israel is resolved to remove Hamas and its terrorist infrastructure from the Gaza Strip permanently, and for much of the world, its determination raises one question more than any other: What comes next in Gaza? For those who disapprove of Israel’s actions in the war or those who either passively or actively support the role of Hamas as the Strip’s governing authority, the lack of answers provides a pretext not only to demand a permanent cease-fire but to suggest (often quietly and with a furrowed brow indicating supposed realpolitik wisdom) that the path Israel seems to be making for itself is a dead end from which it needs to be saved.

For the Arab world, the vacuum creates a jockeying for power and influence, albeit behind the scenes to avoid accountability for anything that goes wrong.

For the Biden administration, this has invited fantasies of a renewed path to an ever-elusive two-state solution—a Palestinian Authority governing a unified West Bank and Gaza, and supposedly representing the views of all Palestinians in negotiations with Israel. Big ideas for Gaza’s future are being cooked up behind closed doors in Washington. Task forces and blue-ribbon commissions are sure to follow. But allowing the Washington establishment to paint a foreign policy on a blank canvas, mapping the relations between Israel and the Arabs surrounding it, is a risky proposition that will, as it always has in the past, fail.

If Washington and Jerusalem share an end-state objective of a Gaza that can never again pose a terror threat to Israel, and the president himself has said repeatedly that we do share this objective, the question about the future needs to be reframed. Instead of asking what comes next, leaders in both capitals should be asking: What cannot come next? Answering that question is the only way to establish the parameters for a viable path forward that precludes the known ingredients for policy failure.

Let us lay out some of those parameters.

First, Gaza has no future with Hamas or other terrorist groups involved. Perhaps obvious to some but not to all, Hamas and other terrorist organizations cannot be part of Gaza’s future. Demands for a cease-fire in Gaza before Hamas is dismantled would guarantee that the territory remains a base of terror operations indefinitely. Relenting to international pressure or Hamas psychological-warfare tactics to extend the cease-fire to a permanent condition would doom the future of Gaza (and Israel).

Unimaginative naysayers and Hamas apologists alike will try to persuade us there is no military solution to Hamas, only a political one. That is a lie that Israel’s military can expose if given the opportunity to finish the job.

Failing to halt Israel’s military objectives, Hamas supporters in the West and those who oppose Israel’s self-assertions more generally will grow more desperate. They will move beyond urging Congress and the White House to “condition” aid to Israel as a method of halting the Jewish state’s campaign to destroy Hamas and prevent another October 7 massacre, which is the line taken up by Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy and members of the “squad” in the House of Representative. Adding conditions to American security assistance to Israel—a fellow democracy that upholds the rule of law and is now fighting for its survival—should not be deemed a “worthwhile thought,” as President Biden claimed over the Thanksgiving weekend. Rather, it is a proposal aimed at delegitimizing Israel’s right to defend itself that would lead, logically, to the eventual annihilation of the Jewish state.

Pro-Israel Democrats in Congress have already publicly rejected the idea. And with a Republican-controlled House, there’s no path for Hamas to achieve this objective in Washington legislatively. President Biden might have the executive power to withhold critical military support from Israel when Jerusalem calls for resupply, but with a recent NBC News survey showing independent voters favoring military assistance to Israel, and Democrats evenly split, Biden would pay a steep political price for doing so. (Republicans overwhelmingly favor Israel.)

Assuming Israel stays the course (with U.S. backing), Hamas will lose control of Gaza in the weeks and months ahead. Its tunnels will be destroyed, its leadership eliminated. But Jerusalem and Washington will still need to prevent its supporters from finding a path back to power through Western-supported mechanisms.

Those who pushed Israel in 2006 into accepting Palestinian elections that included Hamas should not repeat their mistakes. We should expect attempts by Hamas’s ideological supporters to sponsor a new group with a new name to regain a foothold in Gaza’s governance and ultimately participate in any future Palestinian election—the vehicle Hamas first used to gain control 17 years ago.

Anyone who claims to champion the cause of Palestinian freedom and independence should focus on establishing the rule of law and protecting basic rights within Palestinian territories before proposing elections. And any future elections should prohibit political parties that refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, let alone those that advocate its destruction.

Nearly 75% of Palestinians say Hamas was right to attack on Oct. 7

Nearly three in four Palestinians believe that Hamas was right in launching its Oct. 7 cross-border attack, in which terrorists savagely murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel and wounded thousands, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

The Ramallah-based institute polled 1,231 Palestinian adults in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria between Nov. 22 and Dec. 2. (The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points, the PSR said.)

The authoritative survey—the second of its kind since Oct. 7—found that 72% of respondents think Hamas was “correct” in carrying out its mass slaughter, while 22% characterized the terrorist group’s decision to attack as “incorrect.”

A whopping 89% of the respondents denied that Palestinian terrorists committed war crimes on Oct. 7, while 95% claimed that Israel breached international law during its defensive operation against Hamas in Gaza.

Will killing Yahya Sinwar end the war in Gaza?

During a press conference with Britain’s new foreign secretary, former prime minister David Cameron, in Washington last Thursday evening, Blinken was asked how much longer the war could go on. “We strongly support Israel’s efforts to ensure that it can effectively defend itself,” he said.

“In conversations with the Israelis we talk about how long this campaign will take and also how it will be prosecuted. These are decisions for Israel.”

But senior Israeli Defense Forces officials are said to privately admit that the latest stage of the conflict, the attack on the city of Khan Yunis, the largest in southern Gaza, will probably be the war’s final wide-scale ground offensive.

Of course, this does not mean Israel will afterwards agree to a ceasefire, but it may allow for a scaling-down of operations. The Israeli army could then transition to a strategy of smaller raids on Hamas strongholds using targeted mobile forces, rather than the current use of entire armoured divisions occupying parts of the Gaza Strip for weeks.

The IDF estimates that they have killed somewhere between 5,000 to 6,000 terrorists — or a fifth of the number that Hamas claimed it had under arms. That means 25,000 terrorists remain signed up to Israel’s destruction.

But the damage wrought on Hamas’s capability to wage future terrorist attacks should not be underestimated. Many lower-level commanders will have been killed or injured, the group’s command and control structure will be in tatters and much of its weaponry will have been destroyed. Many of the terrorist foot soldiers may also now be more worried about the security of their own families than waging a war which will only end with their own messy death. It is also easy to imagine that while many Palestinians will blame Israel for their suffering now and in the future, others will rightly blame Hamas.

So, Sinwar’s death, when it inevitably comes, will represent a notable win and will offer Israel a way out of the conflict with an achievable end game.

‘Call Sinwar for ceasefire’: Israeli envoy shows Hamas chief's number at UN

Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan held a sign showing the phone number of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s Hamas office, at a UN General Assembly meeting on Tuesday.

“You want a real ceasefire?” Erdan declared, admonishing UNGA members to ask him directly as he held up a sign depicting Sinwar’s office phone number, since the terrorist mastermind and Hamas bear the real responsibility for the current conflict, not Israel.

“Call… and ask for Yahya Sinwar. Tell Hamas to put down their arms, turn themselves in, and return our hostages. This will bring a complete ceasefire that will last forever,” Erdan said.

UN resolution calls for Gaza ceasefire
The United Nations General Assembly called for a Gaza ceasefire in a 153-10 vote, with 23 countries abstaining hours after US President Joe Biden warned Israel it was losing support for its campaign to oust Hamas.

The resolution, the second of its kind since the war began on October 7, was greeted with applause.

The United States and Israel opposed the measure, as did Austria, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, and Paraguay.

During today’s meeting at the @UN, I told the ambassadors in the General Assembly that everyone in the room knows what Moscow, Beijing, or Istanbul would do if they were in Israel's shoes. Hamas committed terrible crimes and those who support a ceasefire allow Hamas to continue… pic.twitter.com/IPi7NwJTK1
— Ambassador Gilad Erdan גלעד ארדן (@giladerdan1) December 12, 2023

Seth Mandel writes at Commentary about how Joe Biden, unlike Barack Obama, passes the "kishkes" test for his deep affinity with Israel, by proudly calling himself a Zionist and defending Israel.

Which may be one reason why we have not heard much criticism about this outrageous accusation Biden made yesterday.

Speaking to Democratic donors in Washington, Biden voiced criticism of Israel’s hardline government and said Netanyahu needed to alter his approach.

“I think he has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden said, calling Netanyahu’s government the “most conservative government in Israel’s history.”

He warned support for the country’s military campaign is waning amid heavy bombardment of Gaza and added that the Israeli government “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”

Biden said right now Israel “has most of the world supporting it,” but said “they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”

Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Maybe it is senility. But the President of the United States just falsely accused Israel a war crimes.

Indiscriminate bombing is what Hamas does. Rockets targeting civilian areas without precise aiming are indiscriminate. That is war crime, violating the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets. (Placing military targets in the midst of civilian objects i also a violation of that principle.)

Israel does not bomb indiscriminately. It spends a great deal of time choosing its targets and calibrating the attacks based on the military value of the targets. Just because the casual observer cannot see that there is a Hamas commander or a Hamas command and control center or a Hamas weapons cache inside or beneath the building does not make the airstrikes indiscriminate.

The widespread damage in Gaza is a direct result of Hamas using civilians as their primary defensive shield. The IDF is finding weapons literally everywhere they search and they have found tunnel entrances in schools, in many houses and beneath old cars planted there to hide them. Hamas turned all of Gaza into a military target, not Israel, and it is enormously difficult to make that distinction - but the IDF still attacks based on intelligence information. It is not random and it is not indiscriminate.

Israel is apparently sweeping this under the rug to preserve the relationship, but that doesn't make the lie any less vile.

Friends don't falsely accuse friends of war crimes.

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Biden's "Jews wouldn't be safe if there were no Israel" Is he right?

At the White House Chanukah party on Sunday night, President Biden said something fairly stunning:

As I said after the attack, my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist is independent Jew- — as an independent Jewish state is un- — just unshakeable.

Folks, were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe — were there no Israel. (Applause.)

It might have played to the room, but it is an astonishing statement for the President of the United States to make. He is saying that Jews aren't even safe in the nation he leads without Israel.

Arguably, the USA has been the friendliest nation towards Jews since the Kingdom of Judah. But let's do a thought experiment: how would things be for Jews in America without an Israel?

The most straightforward wat to begin to answer this is to compare antisemitism in America before and after 1948.

1947 want ad

Antisemitism in America was quite prevalent before World War II. But more surprisingly, it kept getting worse during and after the war. There was no additional sympathy for Jews who had suffered the Holocaust - on the contrary, it seemed to accelerate Jew-hatred in the US.

Here are the percentage of Americans who answered "yes" to the question "Do you think Jews have too much power in America" from 1938-1946:

March, 1938 41%

April, 1940 43%

February, 1941 45%

October, 1941 48%

May, 1944 56%

June, 1945 58%

February, 1946 55%

Far more than half of Americans held classic antisemitic attitudes even when the scope of the genocide became clear.

From 1940-1946, including the years that the US was at war, Jews were seen as a greater threat to the

welfare of the United States than any other national, religious, or racial group.

Not the Nazis. Not the Japanese. Jews.

Things started changing in 1948. The B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation League started their annual antisemitism survey only a couple of years beforehand, but 1947-1948 were the years where things started to turn around.

That doesn't prove that Zionism had anything to do with it. It was during those years that the US started tackling all kinds of discrimination, and returning soldiers tended to have fewer prejudices. However, Zionism does seem to have been one indirect reason for the turnaround.

As the horrors of World War II were becoming apparent, nearly every major American Jewish organization joined a unified umbrella organization called the American Jewish Conference to work for a national Jewish state in Palestine. This was perhaps the first time that so many American Jewish organizations united.

This new political clout prompted them to then attack the second major topic of concern to American Jews - antisemitism. And for that, even the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism joined the new Community Relations Advisory Council created to fight antisemitism in America.

They were well organized, and went after what they saw as the biggest three targets: discrimination against Jews in employment, in immigration, and in education. They framed the fight against antisemitism as one component of the fight against all prejudice, and they convinced local, state and eventually national political groups to pass anti-discrimination laws. They monitored compliance and held organizations responsible for upholding the new laws.

It was a very successful program. Jews became far more integrated into American society, and other minorities also benefited from the same laws. We cannot know what would have happened without this Jewish unity, but chances are the civil rights movement would have been delayed.

But we cannot discount the psychological effect on American Jews that Israel had. For the first time, they had something to be proud of - a nation founded on the same ideals as America itself. we cannot measure it, but Jewish pride in Israel helped non-Jews have more respect for Jews as well.

Without Israel, without that pride, without that Jewish unity, there would have been nothing to counter the trend of an America that was increasingly antipathetical to Jews.

Today's antisemites spend a great deal of time trying to divide American Jewry and to denigrate Zionism.. They know that a unified Jewish community is powerful while a divided one is ineffective. They know that Jewish pride is their enemy, so they try to destroy it or minimize it.

The story of American Jews in the 1940s shows what a united Jewish community can do. The story of modern antisemitism shows that this is exactly the haters are trying to undo.

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Al Jazeera broadcast a six minute video of an Islamic Jihad military training exercise that was performed right by the border fence with Israel on October 4.

It looks like it was a dry run for the attack to happen only three days later.

The network reported "The Al-Quds Brigades explained, in a statement via Telegram, that the offensive maneuver simulates 'realistic details of the field and raids on Zionist military sites and fortifications with a high intensity of fire, controlling them and avoiding losses among its fighters.'

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