Monday, December 18, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
They just keep on coming....
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Monday, December 18, 2023
Monday, December 18, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
cartoon of the day, ElderToons, memes
- Monday, December 18, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
Here are ten of the basic facts about this war that the news media doesn't want to mention:
1. The conflict is older than Israel and older than Zionism. Arabs have held Jews in contempt since Mohammed.
The Quran includes the themes that Jews - as a whole - are "killers of prophets" and that they cannot be trusted to hold on to their side in agreements.
The Jews of Yemen wrote a letter to Maimonides in the 12th century asking for advice on how to deal with their persecution. His response included very pointed criticisms of how Arabs treat Jews throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.
The "kinot" - intricate poems chanted on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish fast day that recalls many historic tragedies - include oppression by Arabs of Jews. And some communities like the Tunisian and Moroccan Jewish communities wrote their own kinot about pogroms and attacks on their communities centuries ago.
19th century travelers throughout the Middle East often noted that the worst insult an Arab could hurl at another was to call him a "Jew."
All of these were before modern Zionism.
The Arabs don't hate Jews because of Israel. They hate Israel because of Jews. And all the talk about "Nakba" or "occupation" or "apartheid" are excuses for Arab hate created after the fact, not explanations of it.
2. You cannot assume the Palestinian side is rational. Their mindset is governed by an honor/shame mentality that is more important than what is best for Palestinians altogether.
The Honor/Shame psyche is a larger topic than I could do justice to in a tweet, but in short it means that some societies have a shame culture (much of the East) and some have a guilt culture (much of the West.) In a shame culture, one must do everything to avoid being dishonored (hence, "honor killings" of women who embarrass their fathers/husbands.) In a guilt culture, people take personal responsibility for their own actions, in a shame culture, the guilty party tries to hide their shameful actions.
Everyone likes to project their own feelings and attitudes onto others; after all, we are told to put ourselves into others' shoes before judging. But the two systems are utterly alien to each other, and both sides constantly attribute their own ways of thinking onto the other.
Israel's very existence is an intense source of shame. A small number of Jews, who were derided as weak and inferior, defeated Arabs in the one field they are most proud of: the battlefield. This is why 1948 was a "nakba," a catastrophe for the Arab world, and not just another of their many military defeats. They could handle being defeated by Christians since they were undoubtedly many and powerful, but Jews? The shame is unmeasurable. And the only solution is the complete destruction of Israel.
The good news is that this attitude can be changed. The UAE, Bahrain and to some extent Morocco have managed to look at Israel as a permanent fixture and a nation that they can cooperate with for mutual benefit - a corollary to shame/guilt is zero-sum/win-win thinking. But Palestinians have entrenched themselves in the failed shame culture, and to them, any Jew they kill helps restore their lost "honor."
The Palestinian sense of shame is twisted. One might think that the huge amount of aid that goes to Palestinians would be a source of shame - no one wants to be the permanent recipient of charity - but they reframe it as reparations that the world owes them for unjustly allowing Israel to exist.
Similarly, one might think that allowing so many Palestinians to remain stateless for 75 years would be a source of shame for the Arab world, but they again reframe it in their minds as "keeping the Palestinian cause alive." It causes untold suffering among millions of Palestinians, but it is presented as being for their own good.
And normal Palestinians cannot publicly complain about this mistreatment without showing public division and argument among themselves, which would itself be a source of shame. They need to pretend to be unified, and this is one reason the most extreme parties end up on top: anyone who is moderate is painted as a sell-out, a Zionist, a weakling, and that is a source of shame.
3. That same honor/shame mindset means that lying is acceptable - or even mandatory - when the truth is embarrassing.
Lying is a primary way to deal with shame when there is no other recourse. Admitting failure or defeat is the ultimate in shame so they must rewrite history, or even current events, to eliminate it.
Most Palestinians do not admit to wanting to murder Jewish women and children - so they make up stories that they were really murdered by Israel. Hamas doesn't want to admit that thousands of their fighters have died, so they call them all civilians and try to transfer that shame onto Israel, These lies are part and parcel of the Palestinian (and Egyptian/Jordanian/Syrian) world and I'm not even sure that the people who say these lies can even tell the difference between truth and lies anymore., it is such a part of their mindset.
4. According to surveys, Palestinians are the most antisemitic group on Earth. Not "anti-Zionist" - antisemitic.
See ADL Global 100 Survey (93%) and Pew 2010 (97%.)
5. Urban warfare is the most difficult warfare there is. The extensive tunnel system makes it perhaps the most difficult in history.
6. If Hamas survives the war, it is a major blow to the entire Western world's freedom.
Hamas' survival would be a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood, which would become more powerful in relatively moderate Arab states like Egypt and Gulf states. It could destabilize those states which would have major repercussions.
Iran is also invested in Hamas' survival, since from its perspective it has been steadily gaining influence (and surrounding Israel) with its "axis of resistance" including Hezbollah, Syria, and the Houthis.
Speaking of, the Houthi threats to the shipping lanes of the Red Sea is another threat that is directly related to Hamas' survival.
Hamas has already been caught in terror plots in Western countries.
The West (and moderate Arab states) simply cannot afford to allow Hamas to survive.
7. The only winner when Gaza civilians die is Hamas.
One of Hamas' major weapons in this war has been framing Israel as the aggressor and the immoral party. Hamas has been caught stealing aid, shooting at its own people, and purposefully placing its military targets with and under civilians. Its callous disregard for the lives of its own people is clear, but Western media downplays this, probably because it doesn't want to be accused of "Islamophobia" by nting how little Hamas cares about its own civilians.
Yet it is obvious. Palestinian textbooks and TV shows teach that "martyrdom" is their highest aspiration. They recruit children for fighting. Their summer camps are paramilitary training for even pre-teens. Dead civilians, specifically children, are major components of their public relations strategy.
8. Hamas' entire war strategy is based on Israel not wanting to kill civilians and willing to do anything to protect Israeli civilians. In short, Hamas views Israel's morality as its weakest attribute.
In previous wars, Israel has gone beyond international law to protect enemy civilians. Quote from two military war experts:
In the Authors’ opinion, use of lawfare by Israel’s enemies likewise shapes, whether consciously or not, Israel’s interpretation and application of the LOAC. In particular, Israel has adopted an inclusive approach to the entitlement to protected status, particularly civilian status. Examples include Israel’s positions on doubt, its treatment of involuntary shields as civilians who are not directly participating and its view that individuals who ignore warnings retain their civilian status. Although these positions might seem counterintuitive for a State that faces foes who exploit protected status for military and other gain, such positions are well suited to counter the enemy’s reliance on lawfare. In this regard, Israel’s LOAC interpretations actually enhance its operational and strategic level position despite any tactical loss. Along the same lines, in many cases, the IDF imposes policy restrictions that go above and beyond the requirements of LOAC.
Israel has spent billions on shelters, on missile defense systems. It has traded 1000 prisoners for one hostage. Arguably, it has hurt its own security by pulling its punches in previous wars.
In this war, Israel has still been adhering to international law but it has not gone as much beyond as in the past in its goal to destroy Hamas. But Hamas built its defense strategy around Israel's previous concern about public relations and reluctance to go after key Hamas positions inside civilian areas. That's why Hamas has deliberately built its key defenses behind civilians, inside hospitals (see Kamal Adwan hospital videos from the past couple of days showing armed terrorists dressed as civilians, and weapons hidden in a NICU.) And of course it took hostages to get Israel to release murderers and other terrorists. Hamas built its entire defense system to maximize civilian casualties if Israel goes after Hamas itself.
9. Palestinians - West Bank and Gaza, Fatah and Hamas - overwhelmingly support murdering Jews. A huge majority have supported the most heinous specific terror attacks. And they overwhelmingly do not support a two state solution, except as a stage to destroy Israel.
Support for terror in the abstract has always bounced between 45-60%; support for specific terror attacks have always been huge majorities of 3-1 or 4-1. ... 84% supported the Mercaz Harav massacre in 2008, 77% a 2008 suicide attack that killed a woman in Dimona, 80% supported the wave of stabbing attacks in 2014 including the murder of four rabbis in Har Nof.
All sources are in this post of mine:
10. The IDF is a professional army. It doesn't act out of revenge or fury. Every move it makes is for a specific military purpose and every attack has a specific military target in mind.
So many articles in the media claim Israel is acting out of "revenge." Armies don't work that way unless they are led by dictators.
The IDF, like any professional army, has layers of policies and procedures. It has more lawyers giving input into every operation than any other.
Yet major media falsely claim that Israel wastes resources on attacking cemeteries or civilian buildings that have no military purpose. It's absurd to think all those layers of bureaucracy would approve coordinated, expensive operations just to act like toddlers acting out.
See here and here for two examples of how the New York Times doesn't even understand the basics of how the military works.
And note that the vast majority of people with actual battlefield experience have nothing but praise for how Israel is prosecuting this war. The critics are people who know next to nothing about how an army works.
From Ian:
Seth Mandel: Moshe Dayan and the Ghosts of Gaza
Seth Mandel: Moshe Dayan and the Ghosts of Gaza
Funeral orations have a special place in the history of great speechwriting. Battlefield eulogies have an advantage within the genre because of the drama inherent in the story, so it’s no surprise that Pericles’s funeral address for the casualties of the Peloponnesian War is often invoked, despite being two millennia old.Caroline glick: Standing up to the American colossus
Eight years after the founding of the modern state of Israel, its revered military figure Moshe Dayan gave what is still his country’s most famous battlefield eulogy—one of its most famous speeches of any kind, in fact—that over the decades has attained in Israel the mythic status of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. And it is a speech that a great many Israelis are rereading or rewatching these days, because it warned the courageous Jewish pioneers on the Gaza border that their living dream could only be sustained by an ice cold realism. It was delivered in Nahal Oz, the same Nahal Oz that was infiltrated by Hamas murderers on Oct. 7. And its occasion was a murderous infiltration from Gaza 67 years ago. Dayan’s speech could have been written after Oct. 7 but was in fact written to prevent an event like Oct. 7 from happening.
Roi Rotberg was 13 during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 when he volunteered as a messenger for the soldiers fighting for the Jewish homeland. He was 21 when he was killed by Arab gunmen from Gaza. As Nahal Oz’s security officer, he rode out to the fields regularly to chase away Arab thieves coming from across the border. When he did so on April 29, 1956, he rode right into a trap and was shot. Gazans dragged his body to their side of the border, badly mutilated it, and returned it to the Israeli side.
Dayan’s eulogy for Rotberg gets compared to the Gettysburg Address because it was brief yet powerful, a statement of national purpose and identity amid tragedy, and a searing indictment of complacency. Israelis must look at themselves through Gazan eyes, he told those gathered. In 1956, many of those in Gaza were refugees from the war. Not only did they fail to exterminate the Jews, but the Jews had clearly been accepted by the soil itself in their ancient homeland. And so, Dayan said, “Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves.” Jews have forgotten, he lamented, that the youth of Israel carry the burden of “the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces.”
Without security and vigilance, the Jews of Nahal Oz could not plant a single tree because “beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.”
Insisting that this “diplomatic solution” is a viable alternative to war, the administration is demanding that Israel do nothing to physically secure its territory from Hezbollah terror forces and missiles.Hen Mazzig: Calling for a Ceasefire Is an Antisemitic Demand That Jews Endorse Our Own Genocide
As for Iran, the United States showed its continued subservience to the idea that Iran is a responsible regional power last week when it unfroze another $10 billion in Iranian revenue, which had been frozen under U.S. sanctions. Since Oct. 7, the United States has enabled the transfer of $16 billion to Iran.
Sullivan’s interview last Thursday with Channel 12’s Yonit Levi was a sterling example of how the administration obfuscates its hostile policies towards Israel. While speaking emotionally about how Hamas’s attack was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Sullivan gave no clear answers to any of Levi’s questions about U.S. support for Israel’s war goals. When she asked him whether the United States was demanding that Israel limit the timeline for its war against Hamas, Sullivan spoke of the need to target Hamas’s terror masters and limit bombing. When Levi asked whether the United States would reject an Israeli determination that it must militarily degrade Hezbollah’s military power on the border, Sullivan insisted that the United States believes there is a diplomatic solution to the Hezbollah threat. And when Levi asked whether Israelis should be concerned that the United States may refuse to provide Israel with sufficient ammunition to win the war, Sullivan said that he had just checked to see where congressional approval of Biden’s request for $14 billion in military assistance stood. He didn’t mention that it still hasn’t been approved.
As Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute wrote on his X account, the interview displayed “what the rhetorically-artful national security advisor openly admits, what he tries to dress up as more attractive than it is, and what he hides entirely.”
Why is the United States leveraging its position as Israel’s primary arms supplier and diplomatic shield at the United Nations—that is, its position as Israel’s ally—to compel an Israeli military defeat at the hands of Iran and its proxies, in a war that Israel rightly views as an existential conflict just as fateful as its 1948 War of Independence?
The answer is politics.
As the war in Gaza has progressed, President Biden’s political problems have multiplied. To win next November, Biden needs to secure the coalition of Democrats and Independents that elected him. But that coalition is split over the war. Most Independents support Israel. But according to a Wall Street Journal poll, 25% of Democrats support Hamas over Israel and only 17% of Democrats support Israel over Hamas. (Forty-eight percent of Democrats support Israel and Hamas equally). To win the election, Biden needs to rebuild his coalition and he can only do this by ending the war. And he can only end the war by forcing Israel to stand down, and so lose.
Israel doesn’t have to accept this state of affairs. According to a Harvard/Harris poll, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enjoys significantly more public support in the United States than Biden himself. Israel itself is supported broadly by 81% of Americans. The Harvard/Harris polling data has several internal contradictions, but the thrust of the data makes clear that Israel enjoys the support of a broad cross section of American society, including key Biden constituencies.
If Israel stands its ground and refuses to buckle to the administration’s bullying tactics, and if Netanyahu explains Israel’s position in a way the American public can understand, it will be able to maintain the support of the majority of Americans for its war effort and compel the Biden administration to stand with the Jewish state as we prosecute this life and death struggle to victory.
One can criticize Israel without being antisemitic, the pro-Palestinian faction says. I agree with that statement. But calling for a ceasefire at this juncture is not criticism; it's a dogwhistle, a demand that Jews to lay down and accept the attacks against them.
Calls for ceasefire also conveniently ignore the connection between Israel and Jews. Zionism is a movement for the re-establishment of the Jewish nation of Israel following centuries of Jewish diaspora. Formally established in 1948, Israel became a beacon of hope for Jews worldwide experiencing persecution.
My own family exemplifies this reality. Concurrent with the Holocaust in Europe, Jews in the Middle East faced violent dispossession just for being Jewish. My Iraqi grandmother was just a child in 1941 when she experienced the Farhud, a two-day pogrom against the Jewish population of Baghdad. During these days of antisemitic violence, my grandmother witnessed her best friend being raped and murdered in the streets of Iraq, just for being Jewish. Meanwhile, Tunisian Jews like my paternal grandfather were conscripted to detention camps and forced labor in a gulag, where conditions were barbaric.
Even though we and the world have seen all this before, Israel nevertheless committed to a ceasefire on November 21, an agreement that included an exchange of all hostages taken on October 7 as well as Hamas putting a stop to all missiles launched into Israel. Predictably, Hamas began firing rockets into Israel fifteen minutes into that ceasefire. They also slaughtered four Israelis on Nov. 30 in Jerusalem, and continued attacking Israeli soldiers in Gaza.
To those with genuine hearts who just want the suffering and carnage to stop, know that I am with you. I understand the hurt you are feeling and pray every day for an end to this war so we can begin the difficult process of healing and peace.
As hopeful as I am, I am also realistic: Hamas started this war on Oct. 7, and the only thing that guarantees an end to all the pain and suffering for Israelis and Gazans is for Hamas to lay down its weapons and release the 135 hostages.
Pressuring Israel, which is on a rescue mission to release its citizens from captivity and bring a group of barbaric death agents to justice, will do nothing to bring peace of mind to humanity or peace to the region.
I am certain that this is clear to many of those calling for a ceasefire. But much like the chant "from the river to the sea," the calls for "a ceasefire" have turned into another thinly veiled euphemism for the destruction of the Jewish state that is meant to fool the American public.
- Monday, December 18, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
From the NYT:
Major Hamas leaders attended his funeral.
A ministry spokesman, Ashraf al-Qudra, said early last month that more than 100 people in the Astal family alone had been killed in Israeli attacks. Of 88 family members on the Oct. 26 list, 39 were identified as children and 25 as women.
After a detailed profile of the Astal family suffering, the Times manages to throw in:
A few of the family’s dead were linked to Hamas, the armed Palestinian group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years and that led the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.One family member, Hamdan al-Astal, appears to have been among those who attacked Israel. He was not on the Oct. 26 list, but Palestinian news media in Gaza reported his death the day after the assault, saying he had participated.Another family member who survived, Yunis al-Astal, is a longtime Hamas lawmaker and firebrand sheikh who has compared Jews to bacteria and apes and said it was justifiable to “wipe them out of existence.”Ten days after Hamdan al-Astal’s death was reported, family members buried Ramzi al-Astal, also identified in Palestinian news media as a Hamas fighter.
The article makes it sound like the al-Astal family only had a few, peripheral Hamas members. But it isn't true.
The al-Astal family has been a leading Hamas family for decades.
I found a 2008 article I had translated that described the first Hamas tunnels being built, under schools and under Hamas member homes. Clearly, any Hamas member with a tunnel under his home is a major figure. Here's what the article said:
Hamas has been digging a tunnel under the house of one of their Qassam Brigades commanders named "Ismail Astal", leading to the ground under Khalid Hassan Secondary School for Boys in Khan Younis and a branch to a school for boys in Bani Suheila. Another branch leads o the house of a Qassam leader Omar Al-Astal, this tunnel will continue to the house of another named Abdel Hamid Al-Astal. All these tunnels under the ground connect with each other.The Hamas militia dug a tunnel in the house of another person named Ashraf Fahmi Al-Astal, an executive officer of the Hamas, and branches go to the Farhana School for Girls near the police station in Khan Younis and then to Haifa prep school for girls will go to the house in charge of internal security of Hamas in the south
That is four major Hamas leaders in 2008 named al-Astal who were important enough to be among the first to have their own personal tunnels.
In 2014, at least two terrorist Al Astals were killed: Ashraf and Muhammad.
And if you do a search on mujahadeen "martyrs" from Gaza named al-Astal, you see plenty of people -not only Hamas but other terror groups as well.
Ahmed Muhammad Mahmoud Abdel Qader Al-Astal
Khaled Salim Al-Astal
Qassam Brigades Field Commander Ismail al-Astal
Ammar Farid Tawfiq Al-Astal (Fatah, died in a 2019 "work accident")
Muhammad Musa al-Astal, who apparently died in a tunnel accident.
(I see a number of Islamic Jihad Al Astals as well but the website with their photos is down.)
The family originally comes from Iraq. They emigrated to Egypt in the 16th century and at one point the sultan wanted land they owned for a planned mosque in Cairo, and he compensated them with large land holdings in Gaza, "because Palestine at that time was almost an uninhabited desert," so the family owns a decent part of Khan Younis.
The al-Astal family was proudly in the forefront of the 1936 riots against the Jews and British, as well as in the 1948 war.
The family is well known in Khan Younis as being Hamas leaders today. The New York Times, pretending to be even handed by mentioning a couple of them as Hamas members, is hiding the real story - this is a family that has led Hamas for years.
- Monday, December 18, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
The Economist published this map of structural damage in Gaza. Light pink is before the ceasefire, and darker red is since the ceasefire.
If you compare this with a satellite map of Gaza, you see that most of the damage since the ceasefire has been outside of crowded residential areas. Most seem to be aimed at industrial districts and what appears to be farmland. (I imagine tank damage might count as structural damage as well.)
The apparent target north of the wadi is the Al Zahraa Chalet hotel and a structure next to it.
Even at a glance, one can see that Israel's targeting is much different now.
The Economist maps seems to be slightly off when comparing their streets with the satellite, but this section near a curve in Wadi Gaza where there is heavy damage is illustrative.
Here's the satellite image of the area:
What appears to be happening is that as Israel gathers more and more intelligence, especially from captured terrorists, it is discovering many more specific targets that Hamas uses. As its intel improves, the need for heavy bombing to collapse tunnels decreases, since now the IDF can target specific tunnel entrances - very likely under a hotel - or weapons caches.
- Monday, December 18, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
Regarding Biden’s statement which he repeats constantly and with determination, "If there was no Israel, we would have to create Israel," but in the course of the genocidal war led by the Zionist-American alliance against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is proven day after day; The truth is the opposite, and the most accurate sentence in expressing this relationship is (If there had not been a United States, the Jews would have had to create it), which is consistent with the facts of history regarding the birth of the United States of America, and its relationship with the Freemasonry movement, in which the Jews had the largest role establishing and leading it.....This is the truth that we always run away from, for fear of being accused of a conspiracy theory, or of calling for a defeatist tendency in front of the Jewish minority that controls the most powerful country in the world, and even many other Western and non-Western countries.
Hadi's evidence is, frankly, hilarious.
The rise of Jewish influence in the United States
The history of Jewish influence in the United States is very similar to its history in other ancient and modern Western countries. We can quickly go through the history of Jewish influence in the United States. The Jewish presence there was linked to the early colonial campaigns in North America in the 16th century AD, before the United States declared its independence, and it was not long before large numbers of Jews immigrated there. The Jews of Europe came in the middle of the 19th century AD, and their number reached about a quarter of a million by 1840 AD.. They were involved in trade, industry, banking, banking, cinema, media, literature, art, and others.
Yes, we cannot discount the Jewish movie moguls of the 1840s.
There's no pretense here of "anti-Zionism." The most popular Arab media outlet is unabashedly antisemitic, and half a billion Arabs consume pure Jew-hatred regularly.
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Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
The IDF released this video showing construction of Gaza tunnels (h/t Adam)
The video gives a small indication of how much Hamas has invested in building these huge, extensive tunnel networks.
The video gives a small indication of how much Hamas has invested in building these huge, extensive tunnel networks.
One small part of that that struck me are the many steel doors that Hamas placed in strategic locations to make any Israeli attack much more difficult.
These are custom built doors that are effectively the same as bank vault doors.
Where does Hamas get them from?
I couldn't find any mention of steel doors in the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism site that monitors all legal imports into Gaza. And chances are even if a Gaza bank would request such an item, Israel would have rejected it as a banned dual-use item.
Which means that Hamas owns or pays major steel works industries in Gaza to build these doors.
The same goes for the steel tracks that the tunnels use for moving material.
The tunnel industry is not only underground. The support for the tunnels - ventilation, heavy digging machinery, furniture, lighting - are all set up aboveground and then brought down. It isn't only Hamas members doing this, but regular Gazans who need jobs being paid by Hamas for terror support.
To Hamas, all of Gazas' local industry is a support structure for their terror operations. Anything they do that is legitimate is simply a cover for their main goal of murdering Jews.
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From Ian:
Andrew Roberts: ‘A war for Middle East stability’: Israeli President Isaac Herzog on what’s at stake in the conflict with Hamas
Andrew Roberts: ‘A war for Middle East stability’: Israeli President Isaac Herzog on what’s at stake in the conflict with Hamas
President Isaac ‘Bougie’ Herzog is Israeli aristocracy. His father, Chaim Herzog, was the sixth president, serving between 1983 and 1993; his grandfather Yitzhak Herzog was chief rabbi; his maternal uncle was Abba Eban, the most famous of the country’s foreign ministers. After leading the Israeli Labor party and the parliamentary opposition in the Knesset between 2013 and 2017, Isaac became Israel’s 11th president in July 2021. He is the first to be born in Israel since the Declaration of Independence 75 years ago. My first question rather asks itself: how is the war going? ‘Depends on what you mean by war,’ Herzog quickly replies, before turning the discussion away from Gaza to ‘the grand picture’. He believes worries about whether the battle against Hamas might morph into a larger regional conflict are already out of date. ‘It’s regional already,’ he says. ‘Unfortunately, it is regional because elements that emanate constantly from Tehran and its proxies are carrying out this war, whether it’s attacks from Lebanon, from Iraq, from Syria and, of course, from Gaza, which was the original perpetrator of this heinous atrocity.’ He points to the recent Houthis’ piracy in capturing the Galaxy Leader, an Israeli-owned ship in the southern Red Sea, as merely the latest manifestation of the phenomenon.JPost Editorial: Israel-Hamas War: The stories of humanity, bravery the news misses
Continuing in this vein, I ask about the disturbing claim that a Hamas terrorist had been found with instructions on how to launch chemical warfare in southern Israel. ‘Yes, [it is] true, including how to create a cyanide-deploying device and how to use it,’ he says. ‘Way beyond the horrible atrocities that we have seen; atrocities that humanity hasn’t seen in generations.’
Herzog, 63, who was a lawyer before his political career, believes that everybody should watch the footage that Hamas terrorists filmed themselves of the 7 October attack. ‘It is simply inconceivable,’ he says. ‘For all of us who believe in the family of nations, and the rules of liberty, and the dignity of human beings, seeing the Gazan people, not only from Hamas, [but] Gazan civilians, celebrate in the middle of Gaza’s streets over a body – a mutilated body of a young girl who simply went to a dance festival with her friends – is horrifically shocking.’
I ask why he thinks some Ivy League universities – including his alma mater, Cornell in New York – and so many liberal western elites have turned away from supporting Israel to embrace the Palestinian cause? There is even a director of a Canadian women’s group who has denied Israeli women were raped by Hamas terrorists. What is it about western civilisation today that means people can’t accept the things we have seen?
‘Because they are afraid to look in the mirror which has shattered before their eyes,’ he replies. ‘Unfortunately, I find rust: rust in the establishment, and rust in the temples of learning that we all admired and adored. They grew sclerotic in the way they looked at things, rather than judging the truth as it is, meaning there are cruel people in this world and sometimes it is very difficult to make peace with a culture that glorifies such attacks which have been going on for years.
‘And there are those who still do not understand that there is something called a war between good and evil. It somewhat reminds me of the way the approach was [in the 1930s] until Winston Churchill took over and explained the reality to the British people and the rest of the world. It takes time. It’s difficult. People don’t like to change their views so quickly, but we have to understand this is the culture we’re faced with.
‘There are evil forces who believe in jihad, which means none of us are eligible to live in this world because there will be another empire, an empire of evil which wants the infidels out. This is the real story. You can see it when they behead a teacher in France, or kill people on the Underground in Britain, or when they carry out 9/11, or when they chop the heads off babies in Israel.’
Swept up in the bad news frenzy that comes with war – which can hit everyone personally, directly affecting individuals, their family and friends, as well as communally and nationally – the soft stories of humanity tend to escape us: both those of us working in the journalism realm, as well as all of us on the consumer side of it.We Were Taught to Hate Jews
In the whirlwind of all this, many journalists fall short in their responsibility of telling the stories of individuals.
From the moment Hamas’s brutal cross-border infiltration attack began on October 7, those accounts began flowing in at a sickly speed, along with everything else that day. The stories of bravery and humanity during Hamas's massacre
On that disastrous Saturday morning, IDF St.-Sgt. (res.) D. managed to get to Kibbutz Be’eri, which bore one of the larger brunts of violence on that tragic day. Upon arrival, he saw a house with flames licking up its side. He inched closer to see if there was anyone trapped in the house, and saw an elderly couple; he helped them out and brought them to safety, the IDF said.
Rami Davidian, from Moshav Patish in the northern Negev region, received a phone call early Saturday morning from someone begging him to help the friend of a friend stuck at the Supernova music festival in Re’im.
“By about 11 a.m., I understood the full picture of what was going on,” he said. The friend at the party sent him a GPS location for pickup. On the way, he said, he saw more young party-goers attempting to escape – some injured, which significantly slowed them down – among the trees and in the fields. “I picked them up as well,” Davidian said.
From that point on, he said, it became a race against time to try to save as many people as possible. He set up a system with a few friends to spread out as far as they could to rescue the injured. All of this under constant fire both from the Hamas terrorists and the IDF, because it was a chaotic situation where communication was cut, and he had no protection for himself.
The following five ex-Muslims grew up in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, but they were all indoctrinated, they say, with the same views on Jews and Israel. They remember a childhood shot through with antisemitic moments ranging from the mundane (one woman recalls her aunt claiming Jews put cancer in her vegetables at the market) to the deadly (a former extremist went as far as to pick a location in London for a terrorist attack he planned to carry out at 17).
These hateful ideas, repeated by their family members, religious leaders, and teachers, are part and parcel of the same animus, they say, that fueled Hamas’s attacks on October 7.
Some of the people you will hear from below have received death threats for speaking out on issues like antisemitism and sexism in the Muslim world. One uses a pen name to protect herself and her daughter from her terrorist ex-husband, who is currently jailed in Egypt. All of them came to reject their loathing for Jewish people and the West, and have rebuilt their lives in the wake of their realizations. Here are their stories, which you can read or click to listen to each author recite in the audio recordings below.
Darya Safai, 48, is a member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium. She was born in Tehran, Iran and lives in Belgium.
When I was born, Iran was still free. You could drink and dance, and women could wear whatever they wanted. I’ll never forget my first day of school after the Islamic Revolution. I was six, and my mother entered my room with a long, dark, and formless manteau and a piece of fabric for my hair and neck.
“My darling,” she said, “this is your uniform.”
I didn’t understand. I pointed to my closet and said, “But I have so many other beautiful dresses.”
She explained that I had to wear it if I wanted to become educated. I remember seeing the boy next door walk out his front door. He wore the same clothes he always did. I knew, but couldn’t accept, that my life would change, and his wouldn’t.
At my school in Tehran, in my new shapeless uniform, we read the Quran every morning and repeated sayings like, “Down with the USA, down with Israel.” To enter our classroom, we had to step on a painting of the Israeli flag on the ground. There are still universities in Iran that have painted American and Israeli flags on the ground, but most students walk around them.
The Iranian people and the Israelis are victims of the same monster—Islamists. In 1999, I was imprisoned under Ayatollah Khamenei for speaking out against the marginalization of women. I was 24. I was afraid that they wanted to execute me in jail, but instead they released me in the hopes that I would lead them to my husband, who was one of the leaders organizing protests against the Iranian regime. Luckily, a friend smuggled me in the back of his car to reunite with my husband in secret. We lived in Turkey for six months before moving to Belgium and have been married for 26 years.
When I saw the problems that we face in Belgium regarding radical Islam today, I began to write opinion pieces on the subject and eventually entered politics. I was elected to the Belgian Federal Parliament in 2019.
Islamists have ruined Iran, and they have destroyed the Middle East. Do we want to wait until this atrocity ruins everything in our Western countries too? As an elected official here in Belgium, I try to be the eyes and ears of some of the people who are sleeping.
- Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
New York Times reporters Raja Abdulrahim and Iyad Abuheweila wrote this:
Israel haters never refer to the Israeli army by its official title of Israel Defense Forces. Instead, they consistently call it the "IOF," or "Israeli Occupation Forces."
And that is how these two reporters referred to the IDF as well.
The New York Times editors caught the slander and silently changed it to "Israeli forces" in a later version, but this shows that even they know that they hire reporters who hate Israel. Apparently, that us a feature, not a bug, but they are supposed to be a little less obvious.
The entire story is biased against Israel.
The IDF showed videos of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, showing dozens of people in civilian clothes with weapons surrendering from the hospital itself.
It released a video showing how weapons were hidden in the NICU of the hospital.
But the reporters wrote, "The Israeli military’s claims could not be independently verified."
Yet when Gazans made their own absurd claims, the reporters accepted them without any caveats:
“This is a big crime here inside Kamal Adwan Hospital,” said a local journalist, Anas Al-Sharif posted a video on social media of the rubble at the scene. “Dozens of bodies, the bulldozer rolled over them and left,” he said in the video he posted.
That is an absurd and completely slanderous claim. Yet the NYT reporters don't challenge it or add any additional notes about not being able to independently corroborate it.
Even information that could easily be proven false was not checked:
Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, said in a statement that at one point during the siege, the hospital’s medical staff and patients were forced to evacuate the hospital’s remaining buildings and gather in the courtyards in the cold winter weather.
The high temperature in Gaza City on Saturday was 81F, the low about 51F. It is not much different from the weather in Miami this week. The reporters are on the scene and know very well that Gaza is not cold. This is hardly "cold winter weather" - but they know they are writing for New Yorkers who will see that phrase and picture wintry, freezing weather.
This is not an oversight. This bias is deliberate, and the New York Times editors know very well that they are dealing with reporters who have no interest in the truth. They just soften the parts that make it too obvious that the New York Times has become a Hamas mouthpiece.
- Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
We've discussed the honor.shame culture of the Arab world many times, and last week a perfect example came up.
From Times of Israel:
Visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that public pressure will not work on Hamas, rejecting the notion in Jerusalem that her agency isn’t doing enough to secure visits to the remaining 135 hostages in Gaza.“You have every avenue, every right and every expectation to place public pressure on Hamas,” Netanyahu told Spoljaric during a portion of their meeting that the premier’s office filmed and issued to the press.“It is not going to work because the more public pressure we seemingly would do, the more they will shut the door,” the Red Cross chief responded.“I’m not sure about that. Why don’t you try?” Netanyahu asked the unconvinced Spoljaric.
This is how the West misunderstands the honor/shame culture, and how Hamas (and other Palestinians) take advantage of it.
When Hamas reacts strongly against the idea of allowing the ICRC to visit prisoners, that very vehemence is proof that pressure does work! Their anger is designed to keep the pressure off. The Western world usually recoils from confrontation and the Arab world takes advantage of that to avoid shame, making Westerners their own deputies in guarding their honor.
Arabs are very sensitive to looking immoral to the West. Insisting that they allow visits by the ICRC - especially when they falsely accuse Israel of not allowing those visits to prisoners - is not something htey can argue with logically, so they fall back on lashing out. That strategy almost always works, because the West doesn't understand honor/shame mechanism that caused the response.
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- Sunday, December 17, 2023
- Elder of Ziyon
Last week I reported on a YouGov/economist survey that found that 23% of Americans from 18-30 felt that the Holocaust was "exaggerated," and 28% say Jews have too much influence in America.
I thought that this high percentage of young Americans holding explicitly antisemitic attitudes was the worst news I'd ever seen on that front.
It only took a week for something worse to come along.
A new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll of American voters taken December 13-14 found that two thirds of American voters aged 18-24 consider Jews as a class to be "oppressors" and that they should be treated as "oppressors."
This language is specifically oriented towards left-wing antisemitism, where all people are divided into "oppressed" or "oppressors." DEI, "intersectionality" and similar ideologies are creating a new class of American antisemites.
Look at the consistent increase of this antisemitic attitude across all age groups from older to younger. This shows, as clearly as possible. that the American education system is getting worse and worse over time. It has abdicated teaching morals and now is doing the opposite.
Young Americans were also the only group that felt that calling for the genocide of Jews on campus should be allowed as free speech:
This is even though 70% of that same group recognizes it as hate speech.
We thought we defeated the Soviet Union 30 years ago. But the exact hate that the Soviets taught are now mainstream in US education.
These results should be a clarion call to every American who cares about the future of our country. We are going down a path that, if left unchecked, will ultimately destroy the country.
Saturday, December 16, 2023
From Ian:
Michal Cotler-Wunsh: ‘Never Again’ Is Right Now
Michal Cotler-Wunsh: ‘Never Again’ Is Right Now
While 'Never Again' signifies a call for the global community to adopt a proactive, preventative, and comprehensive stance against antisemitism, for the 75-year-young Jewish nation-state and Jewish communities worldwide, 10/7 represents a reawakening and solidification of a collective consciousness. It underscores the Jewish peoples’ status, on equal footing with all other nations, reaffirming our identity and our equal place in the world.John Podhoretz: The Hostage Tragedy Deepens
What the genocidal perpetrators of 10/7 and their allies did not factor in, is that for the “new Jew,” who returned to Zion after millennia of yearning and prayer to rebuild a sovereign state, bowing our heads to avoid drawing attention or identifying friends who would hide us in the attic is no longer an option.
The 10/7 massacre marks a pivotal “Never Again is Now” moment, symbolizing 75 years of the Jewish nation-state's journey of return as a people, reclaiming our collective identity, roots, memory, and homeland. It epitomizes the self-confidence required for action and courage in equally confronting hate of all kinds, including antisemitism. It renews the hope of generations by rightfully assigning blame to the perpetrators rather than internalizing it.
This must be a moment of reckoning for the many spaces that allowed antisemitism to fester and percolate, in its many forms, for decades.
A true commitment to “Never Again” — one that effects lasting global change — will recognize the 10/7 massacre of Jews in their nation state as the assault on humanity that it was intended to be, and “the Jewish question” as a litmus test for civilization as we know it, under attack by genocidal terror organizations and their supporting authoritarian regimes.
Together, we must rise to the challenge, lighting the way forward with moral clarity and courage, renewing our shared commitment to combatting antisemitism, so that — post 10/7 — “Never Again” will indeed be “Never Again.”
The news today that the IDF, working to free hostages in Gaza, instead shot and killed three of them in a tragic battlefield calamity is so horrible it’s hard even to think about. But the truth is that scholars of war have thought about such matters before, and have come to an unambiguous conclusion. The Geneva Conventions require combatants in war to wear insignias or clothing that clearly identify them as combatants. Hamas does not do so, and in failing to do so, it was impossible for IDF forces to know the difference between captive and captor.
Article 44: “In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack.”
This language is mirrored in other places in the Geneva conventions to protect combatants should they be captured by the enemy—they need to be in uniform or wearing insignias indicating their status as combatants so that their opponents will know who they are and grant them prisoner-of-war status, which obliges humanitarian treatment.
Israel will mourn, and Israelis will rage and weep, and will demand to know how such a thing could have happened. The one thing they can be sure of is that the blame resides entirely with Hamas.
Friday, December 15, 2023
From Ian:
Atrocity denial in real-time
Atrocity denial in real-time
It was a wake-up call for many, especially those of us in the global Jewish community. Overnight, the illusion of safety shattered, much like the dreams of anyone who's binge-watched a horror series alone at night. But now we were all collectively trapped in that nightmare, and couldn’t wake up no matter how hard with pitched.John Podhoretz: The Hostage Tragedy Deepens
The history of the Holocaust is taught in many schools around the world. “Never forget” and “never again” are sentiments that are echoed within that curriculum. Yet, while some might scoff at the persistent advocacy for Holocaust education, insisting that it’s hitting them over the head, a nationwide survey in 2020 reveals that the under-40 crowd seems to have missed the memo. Shockingly, one in ten respondents haven’t even heard of the word “Holocaust,” let alone being aware that as many as 6 million Jews perished in it.
Further, nearly a quarter of those questioned said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, had been exaggerated or that they weren’t sure. Meanwhile in Canada, one in five young people (under 34) either hasn't heard of the Holocaust or isn't sure what it is. And in Britain, one in twenty adults flat-out deny that it ever took place. Ah, the privilege of blissful ignorance.
But it's not just ignorance; there's an entire industry that has been propped up and dedicated to Holocaust denial, complete with books, “movies,” and groups. To make matters worse, alarmingly, fewer Holocaust survivors are around to share their firsthand accounts and counteract the flames of denialism.
Nearly half of the 1000 people surveyed had stated that they’ve seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere online.
I’ve always thought that denials of genocide—such as the Holocaust —were something that happened over time, with history slipping away and being re-written.
However, I never expected to be observing this in real time.
While initially the so-called “resistance” was celebrated by a subset of society, this soon turned into full-fledged denials of Hamas’ actions on Oct 7. Despite overwhelming evidence in the form of videos captured and shared by Hamas themselves and shared on Telegram channels and elsewhere, I would read and hear people claiming that they had only targeted Israeli military. Absurd claims emerged using supposedly ‘leaked’ footage where an Israeli helicopter shoots at Nova music festival goers. That video was viewed over 30 million times on X alone. The video, which was actually originally shared by the IDF on Oct 9, was showing their attacks on specific Gazan targets—certainly NOT indiscriminate bombings of music festival attendees in Israel.
I’ve heard countless denials of the rapes of women (and men), despite overwhelming evidence in the form of physical evidence, forensics, and a number of witness testimonies. Women’s rights groups, meanwhile, remained silent—thus offering a vacuum for denialists to fill. Proponents of “me too” also stayed silent. Worse, the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre’s director signed an open letter calling Hamas perpetrating “sexual violence” an “unverified accusation.” It took UN Women nearly two months to issue a lukewarm condemnation of the brutal attacks. “We are alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks,” they wrote, following a letter writing campaign urging them to speak up. Better late than never though, right?
The news today that the IDF, working to free hostages in Gaza, instead shot and killed three of them in a tragic battlefield calamity is so horrible it’s hard even to think about. But the truth is that scholars of war have thought about such matters before, and have come to an unambiguous conclusion. The Geneva Conventions require combatants in war to wear insignias or clothing that clearly identify them as combatants. Hamas does not do so, and in failing to do so, it was impossible for IDF forces to know the difference between captive and captor.Seth Mandel: The False Narrative of ‘Indiscriminate Bombing’
Article 44: “In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack.”
This language is mirrored in other places in the Geneva conventions to protect combatants should they be captured by the enemy—they need to be in uniform or wearing insignias indicating their status as combatants so that their opponents will know who they are and grant them prisoner-of-war status, which obliges humanitarian treatment.
Israel will mourn, and Israelis will rage and weep, and will demand to know how such a thing could have happened. The one thing they can be sure of is that the blame resides entirely with Hamas.
CNN has been excitedly promoting an “exclusive” story that about 40 percent of Israel’s airdropped munitions in Gaza have been “unguided,” due to the use of “dumb” bombs. This, the piece suggests, is what the White House was referring to when it accused Israel of “indiscriminate” attacks. A Washington Post story picking up on the CNN piece repeats the word “indiscriminate” like a mantra.Aiding Terror: How Terrorists Exploit Humanitarian Organizations
“Unguided munitions,” CNN tells us, “are typically less precise and can pose a greater threat to civilians, especially in such a densely populated area like Gaza.”
“Typically,” you say? So there are ways to use these bombs that are not, in fact, “less precise,” yes? What might be an example of such a case?
Twelve paragraphs later we find out—plot twist!—that Israel’s current war in Gaza is one such case. Which is to say, the subject of the story is a prime example of when the thesis of the story isn’t true.
The CNN piece thus reveals itself to be a “dumb bomb.”
Here is CNN debunking itself: “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.”
Ah. Well, glad we settled that. Unfortunately, other outlets picked up the story before they read that paragraph. It’s almost as if, instead of educating its readers, CNN was preying on their lack of knowledge.
When asked about the president’s own comment that some Israeli attacks were “indiscriminate,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Biden was referring to “global opinion, which also matters.” Indeed it does, and this story itself is a great example of the feedback loop that manufactures such “global opinion.”
More evidence that military force deters terrorism comes from a recent statement of Hamas’s second-in-command Moussa Abu Marzouk, who recently told the Washington, DC-based news outlet Al-Monitor that his organization would consider subsuming itself under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and seeking a two-state solution. Although he can hardly be taken at his word, this sudden embrace of what Hamas has long considered anathema must be chalked up to the success of the IDF’s campaign in Gaza—which hasn’t caused Abu Marzouk to radicalize his rhetoric, but to moderate it.
This same Abu Marzouk stated in an October 23 interview that it is the responsibility of the United Nations, not Hamas, to provide for and protect Gazan civilians. This surprisingly frank admission gets to the heart of how the group has used the massive international aid—from the UN, from NGOs, and from Western and Muslim countries—that flows into the strip. Ari Heistein and Nathaniel Rabkin explain:
Over the fifteen years during which it has controlled the Gaza Strip, Hamas has honed exploitation of aid into a science. The group does not generally expropriate aid items directly, but rather uses its control of the government apparatus in Gaza to ensure that donor funds are siphoned off, either directly to Hamas or to entities it controls. For example, the strip’s private security companies are all licensed by the Hamas Ministry of Interior, and their staff must be approved and trained by the ministry. UN and other aid-group facilities therefore end up paying Hamas to guard them.
Hamas also imposes high taxes on goods in the strip, including food staples, meaning that a substantial portion of the salaries paid to local aid-agency employees winds up in Hamas’s coffers. Given the enormous role played by the UN and other international groups in Gaza, taxes paid by their employees likely account for a substantial fraction of Hamas’s revenues. . . . Hamas also tries to directly involve itself in the work of UN agencies in Gaza.
A similar strategy, write Heistein and Rabkin, is employed by another Iran-backed terrorist group, the Houthis, who have plunged Yemen into a disastrous humanitarian crisis and are now profiting from the aid meant to alleviate it. “In Syria,” Heistein and Rabkin add, “a government that operates more like a terrorist organization provides a hint of what Hamas and the Houthis could become, if they win international recognition.”
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