Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 08, 2024

01/08 Links Pt1: Hostages' families make desperate plea in UK's Daily Mail; IDF Is Redefining Counterterrorism after Oct. 7; Senior Hezbollah commander killed

From Ian:

Hamas hostages' families make desperate plea in UK's Daily Mail

The parents of four teenage girls who were kidnapped by the terrorist organization Hamas on October 7 have made a desperate plea for international intervention with the Daily Mail.

The four girls, Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, and Agam Berger, have been in captivity for over three months since their abduction during the violent attack near the Gaza border.

Shocking images of the bloodstained and terrified girls have emerged, painting a harrowing picture of their plight. With the recent collapse of a ceasefire and stalled negotiations, the families are now publicizing these images, calling for global support and action.

Orly Gilboa, the mother of 19-year-old Daniela, implored parents worldwide to imagine the horror of their children in such circumstances. Eli Albag, Liri's father, described the agonizing uncertainty and fear that grips them every day.

"Think for one day that you don't have a connection with your daughter and you know they are in the hands of bad people," Eli said. "Then tell me what you would say after 90 days. This is killing us. Every minute is like an hour."

The girls were kidnapped from Nahal Oz during an attack that saw widespread violence and atrocities. Since then, rare footage showing the girls in captivity has only intensified concerns about their well-being.

Families united by grief
The families, united in their grief, have been supporting each other through this ordeal.

"We cry together. We speak a lot, we understand each other," said Shira Albag's mother.

Survivors who have been released from captivity shared disturbing accounts of sexual abuse and inadequate medical care for serious injuries, including gunshot wounds and amputations.

Daily Mail: The faces of the girls STILL being held by Hamas as their families make a desperate plea for their release three months after they were captured

Red Cross urged to secure Gaza hostages' well-being in petition

The leadership of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America (HWZOA), took significant action by submitting a petition to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

The petition, supported by over 5,000 members and backers of HWZOA, calls on the ICRC to intervene and ensure the well-being of Israeli hostages currently held by Hamas.

The delegation representing HWZOA, the largest Jewish women’s organization in the United States, included National President Carol Ann Schwartz, immediate past National President Rhoda Smolow, and Executive Director of Hadassah Offices in Israel Suzanne Patt Benvenisti. Their mission was to press the ICRC to take immediate action regarding the Israeli hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.

Time is running out
Expressing deep concern, the petition addresses the ICRC’s apparent failure to fulfill its humanitarian obligations over the last three months since the infiltration of Hamas into Israel, leading to numerous atrocities. It also highlights the distressing conditions in which the 136 hostages are being held, enduring relentless physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.

The demands put forth by HWZOA in the petition are clear: the ICRC must cease its neglect of these hostages and take proactive measures to ensure their well-being. This includes providing essential medical aid and food, ensuring tolerable living conditions, terminating any form of abuse, and facilitating contact with their families.

HWZOA’s leadership met with ICRC representatives to personally deliver the petition, following a strongly worded letter sent by the organization to the ICRC in December. This letter urged immediate action to fulfill the ICRC’s established humanitarian role and emphasized the urgency of attending to the plight of the Israeli hostages.

The submission of this petition amplifies the mounting pressure on the ICRC to act swiftly and decisively, underscoring the gravity of the situation faced by the Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Hostage families meet Red Cross, are very disappointed by lack of care for Jewish victims -as in WW2

UN experts demand accountability for sexual torture during Hamas attacks

UN experts on Monday demanded accountability for sexual violence against Israeli civilians during the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, saying that mounting evidence of rapes and genital mutilation point to possible crimes against humanity.

Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into possible sexual crimes during the most deadly attack on Israel in its history.

Hamas denies the abuses
"The growing body of evidence about reported sexual violence is particularly harrowing," two UN-appointed independent experts said in a statement on Monday.

The statement referred to allegations of sexual torture, including rape and gang rape as well as mutilations and gunshots to genital areas.

"These acts constitute gross violations of international law, amounting to war crimes which, given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks, may also qualify as crimes against humanity," the experts said.

"Each and every victim deserves to be recognized, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or sex, and our role is to be their voice," they added.

Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva welcomed the statement
"The whole international community must fully recognize the brutal and terrorist nature of Hamas and the responsibility of those who have been shielding them for years, including the Palestinian Authority," it said.

Israel has previously criticized the global body for not doing enough to address the issue as part of a bid to get greater recognition for the alleged crimes.

The two experts on torture and on executions - Alice Jill Edwards and Morris Tidball-Binz - have raised the issue with Hamas authorities, they said.

They have also written to Israel's government and called for cooperation with their investigators.

These are the chronic diseases Gaza hostages are living with

Dozens of the 136 Israeli abductees suffer from chronic illnesses and are not being treated - the Red Cross has already stated that it has failed in its attempts to reach the abductees, check their condition, and provide the necessary medical treatment, to medical patients among them. Along with psychological terror, torture and harsh living conditions, many suffer from a disciplinary deterioration in their personal health conditions, many of which are life-threatening.

"From the testimonies of abductees who returned after seeing their friends in a difficult situation, we know about the difficult situation in captivity by the brutal Hamas," says Prof. Hagai Levin, chairman of the Union of Public Health Doctors and head of the medical department at the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, "of course the mental issue is central, they are abused psychologically oriented, but in the midst of that there are people who suffer from previous problems, both mental and internal, need regular treatment and without it their condition is deteriorating."

Not only chronic diseases threaten the condition of the abductees, but also the treatment of the acute injuries that happened during their abduction and in their stay in captivity: "The abductees tell of complete darkness or dark lighting, poor hygiene conditions, the wounds are neither disinfected nor dressed, and there is evidence of severe infections, infections, lice, and scabies, they all testify to the severe sanitary conditions in captivity," says Prof. Levin.

This is the list of chronic diseases from which some of the abductees suffer, the names of most of them are kept confidential in the system, for the others, the families agreed to publish their medical conditions. Here is the list that is known so far:

The Guardian has a story about how Gazans and their relatives abroad are desperate to pay "brokers" to get them on a list to leave Gaza via the Rafah crossing to Egypt:

Palestinians desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help them exit the territory through Egypt, according to a Guardian investigation.

Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large “coordination fees” by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services.

One Palestinian man in the US said he paid $9,000 three weeks ago to get his wife and children on the list. The family have been sheltering in schools since the 7 October attacks. On the day of travel, he was told his children’s names were not listed and he would have to pay an extra $3,000. He said the brokers were “trying to trade in the blood of Gazans”.

“It’s very frustrating and saddening,” he said. “They are trying to exploit people who are suffering, who are trying to get out of the hell in Gaza.” His family have yet to leave.

And where are the so-called humanitarian aid organizations? Nowhere:

One Palestinian living in the UK said: “People are making money off the misery of others. They’re desperate to get out to save their lives and instead of helping they’re trying to make money. If there’s a way to get people out, then why not just help?”

“I’m not sure why no schemes have been introduced, nothing to evacuate people. I don’t even hear humanitarians talk about this any more,” the Palestinian said.

The article parrots Egypt's excuses for not saving lives:

Egypt, a key regional player in negotiations on Gaza, has long resisted opening the Rafah crossing, fearing that millions of people would flee into the neighbouring Sinai peninsula. The influx, Cairo claimed, could pose a security threat. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, also said a mass influx of refugees from Gaza would set a precedent for displacing Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan.

But, as with every such article over the past few months, it doesn't mention that Egypt allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Sudan and elsewhere into its borders. Just no Palestinians.

And no reporter has bothered asking why. No "pro-Palestinian" organization is protesting Egypt's decision. No "human rights organization" is advocating for freedom of movement for Palestinians.

It's almost like they all hate Israel far more than they like Palestinians.

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

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Salo Aizenberg has written numerous, excellent threads on X/Twitter debunking the specific legal claims that South Africa has brought against Israel, showing that not only do they have no merit but that they are knowingly lying about the facts.

Here are some of them viewable as articles:

Claims that Israel is "indiscriminately" bombing or causing disproportionate civilian deaths in Gaza can be easily proven false based on actions & statistics. Here are SEVEN items of evidence that debunk claims of war crimes, genocide, unprecedented civilian deaths, etc.

Fabricated Israel genocide claim relies on quotes by Israeli officials to show “specific intent” necessary to prove genocide. South Africa ICJ filing lists 8 quotes by PM Netanyahu (numbered below) claiming intent to genocide. But each one is a lie. See debunking of all 8

Fabricated Israel genocide claim relies on misrepresented quotes by Israeli officials to show “intent” necessary to prove genocide. South Africa ICJ genocide filing says @Isaac_Herzog “made clear” Israel INTENDS to kill all Palestinians. Here is full debunking of this lie.

Fabricated Israel genocide claim relies on quotes by Israeli officials to show “Intent” necessary to prove genocide. 5 words from @yoavgallant “We are fighting human animals” remains core evidence Israel INTENDS genocide but he meant Hamas. Here is a full debunking of lie:

HRW piece claiming Israel intends to starve Gazans for war is propaganda masking as scholarship but covered by NY Times. Like all HRW "reports" on Israel it is filled with lies, errors, misrepresentations & omissions. Here is a detailed breakdown:

He also points to an ABC News article debunking the "dumb bombs" claim, and a Colonel Richard Kemp article about Israel's morality in its practices in this war.

But are the facts enough?

A landmark 2004 study examined the voting records of members of the ICJ, and found that there was a correlation between their voting record based on what state they were from and the political alignments (wealth, regional, democracy) of those states with the states under judgment.

The current members of the ICJ come from the US, Russia, Slovakia, France, Morocco, Somalia, China, Uganda, India, Jamaica, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Australia, and Brazil. (Plus there will be "guest judges" from Israel and South Africa, who can be expected to cancel each other out.) We can fairly assume how the judges from Russia, China, Lebanon, Uganda and Somalia would vote.

While the ICJ deliberations can take years, South Africa is asking for an immediate stop to fighting, which means Israel losing the war. (This article argues that it cannot do so because Israel's right to self-defense is paramount.) If the court tries to issue a compromise ruling of any sort (say, insisting that Israel not kill civilians, which is impossible in war, or that Israel allow unlimited "fact finding" missions into Gaza which would make all areas impossible to fight in) then it may end up effectively giving victory to Hamas anyway.

Israel is already going beyond international law in protecting civilians, and it is already arguably harming its own interests in doing so, lengthening the war as Hamas confiscates all aid for itself first. Any further restriction on its ability to wage war will make things much more difficult.

In some ways, what we see this week will be as much of a judgment of the ICJ itself as it is on Israel.

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

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According to Lebanon24, there are indications that the operation that killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in a Beirut suburb was even more sophisticated than originally thought.

The article states that there were apparently two missiles. The first one was a non-explosive missile that was merely meant to penetrate a thick cement wall surrounding Arouri's meeting with other Hamas leaders; the second missile was the explosive one that came in afterwards to ensure that there was an explosion inside the building. The first missile seems to be relatively intact.

A third missile appears to have been directed at a car outside the building.

Additionally, there are reports that the cell phones in the area were jammed before the operation, and they came back a short tie afterwards.

The newspaper says, "Israel wanted to send a message beyond the operation that it can use advanced technology to target any target behind any fortifications, in reference to any other Palestinian leaders or parties belonging to Hizballah."

I'm not sure about the concrete wall, unless there was an interior reinforced room, but pictures of the building show that the floor above has an iron grate, which could cause a missile to explode before entering the building. Perhaps there was a similar grate on the floor Arouri was in and the first missile breached it, while the second one blew out everything outward.

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

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For Arab nations, shutting doors on Gaza refugees is "human rights" (infographic)

It is amazing how no matter how badly Arab nations treat Palestinians, they always justify it as somehow being for their own good and a manifestation of upholding their human rights.

Even more amazing is how the Western world happily goes along with this fiction.

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

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01/07 Links: The Terrorist-Aid Agency; Zionism is reminding that Israel was founded to protect Jews from barbaric enemies; Explosion of anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine

From Ian:

Jonathan Schanzer: The Terrorist-Aid Agency

The Israeli Defense Forces announced Thursday that it discovered hundreds of weapons in a West Bank kindergarten run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This was only the latest bit of bad news for the UN agency, which is has taken a lot of heat—deservedly—for serving as a willing partner to Hamas in Gaza since the terrorist group conquered the territory in 2007.

The latest UNRWA revelation, coupled with the organization’s horrible record, is important in the context of the “day after debates.” Gazans will need help after this war. Assistance must be provided. But UNRWA simply cannot provide that assistance. Another agency—any other agency—should do it.

UNRWA was established after Israel’s War of Independence. As a result of the war launched by the surrounding Arab states, some 800,000 Palestinians left their homes. In 1949, the UN established UNRWA to address the problem. In retrospect, it was bizarre that a separate agency was established solely to deal with Palestinian refugees, especially as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is now responsible for literally every other refugee population on the planet.

Over the years, it became clear why UNRWA was not operating within the construct of UNHCR. Rather than re-settling the refugees, UNRWA deliberately created more than 5.9 million of them. UNRWA’s numbers are mathematically impossible, of course. The original refugees numbered, at most, 800,000 in 1948. The widening numbers problem derived from UNRWA’s recognition of the descendants of the original male refugees—most of whom have passed away.

As UNRWA began cynically to multiply its clients, the agency played an important role in the anti-Israeli narrative. Textbooks used by UNRWA promote hatred and incitement against Israel and Jews. Palestinians living on UNRWA’s payroll became living symbols of the Palestinian refusal to acknowledge the reality of Israel. The agency tacitly endorsed what the Palestinians call the “right of return” of all refugees—and their descendants—to their homes from 75 years ago in modern day Israel.

UN agency says it is handling code of conduct violations by staffer for anti-Israel posts internally

UN Watch’s Executive Director Hillel Neuer posted on X, formerly Twitter, some examples including posts that accused Israel of “genocide” and celebrated shutting down bridges and highways for pro-Palestinian campaigns and rallies.

After UN Watch publicized the posts, Neuer said Douglas deleted her social media accounts, but he said the group has screenshots of her posts.

Last week, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said when asked about Douglas’ posts: “I understand there was a violation of the Code of Conduct by this individual.”

Douglas has not commented on her social media posts.

UN Watch said a campaign it launched on Instagram and X demanding that Douglas be fired had received nearly 5,000 signatures by Dec. 27. Two U.S. senators, Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, have also called on UN Women to fire her.

“We are aware of reports relating to a mid-level manager and the incompatibility of her social media activity with the standards of conduct required of U.N. staff members,” UN Women said Friday in response to an AP question on what action it is taking on the violations and the calls for her firing.

“UN Women takes these concerns very seriously,” it said. “The standards of conduct are clear and breaches are dealt with appropriately and in accordance with UN Women’s accountability and legal framework.”

The 2023 hypocrites elevating Palestine to an untouchable status

For decades, world leaders, the mainstream media, donor nations, human rights NGOs, and academia have all elevated the Palestinian cause to an untouchable status. Through thick and thin, from the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes to the UN General Assembly equating Zionism with racism, and from serial anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Human Rights Commission (now Council) to the virulently anti-Israel and antisemitic 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa, not to mention throughout bloody intifadas, horrific suicide bombings, missiles, knifings, car rammings, and drive-by shootings, there hasn’t been one crime, not even the most heinous, that has ever merited explicit worldwide condemnation of the Palestinian cause.

In 2023, we witnessed the blocking of airports and roadways, the destruction of Hanukkah menorahs, and the disruption of Christmas charity events and celebrations by pro-Palestinian supporters. There was even a mob of pro-Hamas protesters chanting “Allahu akbar” at the entrance to the 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial, underneath which lie the microscopic ashes of over 3,000 innocent victims of terrorism.

It seems that no deed can change the elite’s embrace of the Palestinian cause. In any discussion following such outrages, the default response is always: “Yes, but…”. “Yes, it was very unfortunate that Israeli athletes were killed … or that a pregnant woman was killed by a bomb at Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria … but what choice do the Palestinians have as they live in the outdoor concentration camp that is Gaza, that they are victims of colonial occupation, that they are crushed by an apartheid regime.”

So, perhaps it was naïve to think that, somehow, Oct. 7 would be different. On that day, more Jews were murdered than on any day since the end of the Nazi Holocaust in 1945; on Oct. 7, videos taken by Hamas terrorists themselves showed how they targeted entire civilian families whom they shot and burned to death; how they turned a peace concert into a charnel house; how Israeli women and girls were raped, beheaded, and mutilated. Hundreds were kidnapped and taken hostage, and over 100 may still be alive in underground captivity that defies imagination.

And through it all, we’ve mostly witnessed silence or acquiescence to the terrorists. The International Red Cross refused requests from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and families of the hostages to try to deliver life-saving medicine to the hostages. However, they found the time to get forms to the captured Hamas terrorists in Israeli jails to fill out so they and their families could be quickly compensated under the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-to-slay Jews” law.

Dahi Khalfan is the deputy chief of police in Dubai. His bizarre pronouncements over the years have gained him 3 million followers on X/Twitter, so whatever he says gets treated as news.

Over the weekend, he offered what Arab media is unironically calling "the final solution" to the Israel-Palestinian conflict - force the Jews to all leave.

I like this new term, “The two-return solution,” not the “two-state solution.” No matter how short or long the time is, there will never be a final, just, legitimate, and permanent solution to the Palestinian issue other than the two-return solution, not the two-state solution. Many Jews realize this, many of whose thinkers have agreed after the flood victory of the Palestinians on October 7, .... emphasized that the gathering of the Jews in Palestine was a grave mistake that led them to destruction, and a major deception that deprived them of the safety that they were promised and that they originally enjoyed in their countries. They saw that there was no effective and eternal solution to the Palestinian issue that was compatible with international law, except the two-return solution, not the two-state solution, which is represented by the return of Palestinian refugees and displaced persons to their homes and compensation according to resolutions. The United Nations, and the return of the Jews to their original countries from which they came as invaders of Palestine, and they still retain their nationalities, where there is safety, prosperity, and comfortable living.
_____\\\\\\\______
The term two-return solution should be generalized
Because it is logical and realistic
And cancel the use of the two-state solution

One humorous response was a musical description of how Jews have been ethnically cleansed from every Arab country:

Ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab lands - the song!: pic.twitter.com/kZLAZFym4B
— Yishai Fleisher يشاي ישי פליישר 🕎 (@YishaiFleisher) December 25, 2023

But this is hardly unusual. The magical thinking that Jews will just disappear is common.

After all, that is the entire purpose of the terrorism - to frighten Jews into leaving. And every story that comes out of Israel that indicates a slowdown of aliyah makes headlines in Arabic media.

Similarly, every few weeks, Arab media will feature a story about the Jewish autonomous oblast of Birobidzhan in eastern Russia as an ideal place for all Israeli Jews to go. Poof! Problem solved!

One of the most important messages of the Abraham Accords was the Arab acknowledgment that Jews are indigenous to the region and aren't going anywhere.

Recognizing that the Arab and Jewish peoples are descendants of a common ancestor, Abraham, and inspired, in that spirit, to foster in the Middle East a reality in which Muslims, Jews, Christians and peoples of all faiths, denominations, beliefs and nationalities live in, and are committed to, a spirit of coexistence, mutual understanding and mutual respect;

That message needs to be re-emphasized and solidified, not orphaned as a one time only declaration. Because as long as the Arab world looks at Israel as a temporary aberration that can be wiped out by a terror attack, there will never be peace.

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

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"Gaza media office" claims get more ludicrous - because the media won't call them liars

As we've shown many times before, Hamas' media strategy is based on its ability to lie with impunity, since there are no alternative sources of information in Gaza that is willing to contradict it.

And because the media has either reported Hamas claims with a straight face, or ignored the ones that are clearly ludicrous such as their claims of major military victories, Hamas has no disincentive from making up bigger and bigger lies.

Here's the latest claim as reported by Turkey's TRTWorld:

The Israeli army has looted approximately $25 million in money and artefacts from Gaza since October 7.

The Gaza Media Office said on Saturday it received dozens of testimonies by residents of Gaza reporting the theft of money, gold, and artefacts "estimated at 90 million shekels over the past 92 days by the Israeli occupation army."

It said theft operations occurred in various ways, such as those at Israeli checkpoints.

For example at Salah al Din Street, Israeli troops stole bags containing valuable possessions such as money, gold and artefacts from the displaced people who had moved from northern Gaza to the south.

The IDF didn't set up any checkpoints on Salah al-Din Road. They didn't stop people from moving and they didn't inspect bags. This is all fiction.

Some IDF soldiers did make videos showing jewelry or perfume they found in houses in Gaza. Anyone who took anything should be prosecuted; it violated the laws of war as well as IDF regulations. In every war there are some idiots. But the $25 million figure is simply made up; the "checkpoint" accusation is simply made up.

The original charge of massive theft came from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor which has a long track record of fabricating charges against Israel, and no media has bothered to expose it as a pro-Hamas propaganda outlet pretending to be a respected NGO. (Euro-Med also claimed that they had a video of IDF soldiers selling gold jewelry they had stolen in Gaza to a Palestinian shop in the West Bank, which is as ridiculous as it sounds.)

There is no disincentive for lying, because the media simply parrots even the most ludicrous claims. And the reason is that there is an underlying layer of antisemitism that makes even the most obvious lies seem truthful when the reporters believe that Jews are thieving liars.

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Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said on Saturday “The Zionist entity will soon cease to exist, despite the great support it receives from the forces of global arrogance.”

Why does this sound familiar?

Because previous Iranian presidents said the exact same thing! From 2007:

Iran's president said on Sunday the Lebanese and the Palestinians had pressed a "countdown button" to bring an end to Israel.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be "wiped off the map", has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state but says Iran is not a threat.

"With God's help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine," Ahmadinejad said in a speech.

"By God's will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future," he said. He did not elaborate.

Ahmadinejad also said the same thing in 2005.

Iran's Supreme Leader said this in 2010, 2015, 2017....

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01/06 Links: WH defends UNRWA: 'They do great work in Gaza'; Released Gaza hostage tells of trauma, Hamas's sexual violence; South Africa blames the victim of genocide

From Ian:

The UNRWA are ensuring the 'day after' includes more wars

Pompeo confirmed that of the 5 million identified as "Palestinian refugees" by UNRWA, fewer than 200,000 meet the international criteria for refugee status. Apparently, the number of Palestinians living today who meet the criteria for refugee status is less than 30,000. For the first time a senior American official revealed the numbers, before that administration after administration, both Democratic and Republican, allowed UNRWA to perpetuate the lie.

Lying not only leads to waste and corruption, it is also a significant obstacle to peace. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is responsible for all other refugees, has a mandate to pursue sustainable solutions for the refugees under its responsibility, through voluntary return, integration into the host country, or resettlement in a third country. UNRWA, on the other hand, has no such mandate. The agency admits that it does not have the authority to pursue long-term and sustainable solutions for refugees, Including resettlement in third countries.

UNRWA has encouraged generations of Palestinians to wallow in the hell of refugees, stuck between a possible new life and the "right of return" promised to them by radical factions committed to eternal war with Israel. It is clear to the Palestinians, who admit this in private conversations, that the "right of return" is not realistic, but it was and remains one of the main stumbling blocks in future peace negotiations. Instead of helping solve the problem, UNRWA is exacerbating it.

However, in April 2021, president Biden decided to renew funding for the agency, without explanation. The president has not explained why America is willing to support more than 5 million people through a refugee agency, when perhaps only 30,000 of them qualify to be called refugees.

The FDD has been calling for years to shake up the organization. Until the current war, the call to Congress and the Senate was not to cut aid entirely, but to work with the relevant regional actors to find bilateral solutions. It is time to call for the closure of this unnecessary and harmful organization.During the 2021 conflict, Matthias Schmala, UNRWA's operational director in Gaza, said in an interview that the IDF's operations during the war were carried out "with sophistication and precision." In doing so, he was seen as confirming that Israel acted within the boundaries of international law.

Shamala also noted, "During the 11 days of fighting, we did not run out of food, water or supplies, and from my point of view, there is no severe or acute shortage of medical equipment. Food or water." Finally, Shamala admitted that UNRWA "cannot work in a place like Gaza without coordination with local authorities and Hamas, this is true of any authoritarian regime of this kind."

Cooperating with Hamas terrorists
The interview was nothing short of amazing. He acknowledged that Israel had made an effort to avoid collateral damage, that it had helped ensure the flow of aid to Gaza even as rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians, and that UNRWA was coordinating with Hamas, an organization designated as a terrorist organization under existing law in most Western countries that support its agency.

Already in 2021, during an examination of the possibilities of shielding the UNRWA building, a hole and a tunnel were discovered in the location where missiles were launched. The depth of the hole, which was about 7.5 meters below the floor of the school, actually revealed the existence of a tunnel under the UNRWA building. UNRWA strongly condemned (only verbally and externally, of course) the fact that such tunnels may exist, and the use made by Palestinian armed organizations under its schools. UNRWA argued that it was inconceivable that students and staff would be put in danger in this way. UNRWA also "demanded" that all sides cease any activity or conduct that endangers the organization and its staff and impairs UNRWA's ability to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees in security and safety, but of course THEY did nothing to remove Hamas from its facilities.

The revelations during the "Iron Swords" War proved beyond any doubt that UNRWA schools serve as a human shield for Hamas tunnels, that Hamas fires from them and that it uses the aid given to UNRWA for its needs. Some UNRWA personnel have simply become Hamas.

Until the current war, a question hovered in the air about the real number of refugees in the Gaza Strip, but after the war, the refugee problem in Gaza will be real and painful. Gaza residents are entitled to a refugee aid agency aimed at providing real assistance to those in need. UNRWA has lost all rights to be this agency, because of its support for terrorism and corruption. Apparently, the time has come for the main donors to UNRWA: the United States and Germany, to divert their donations and support from UNRWA to another aid organization that will engrave on its banner a real desire to help Gazan refugees truly rehabilitate, under close supervision of the UN and donor countries.

White House forcefully defends UNRWA amid alleged terrorism ties: 'They do great work in Gaza'

The White House defended the United Nations Relief and Works Agency Thursday as Republican lawmakers are demanding investigations into reports that the aid body's staff has embedded with Hamas and aiding the terror organization in Gaza and throughout the Middle East.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby defended the agency, however, when asked if Republicans' calls to investigate the agency have shifted the administration's "strategy" regarding the organization. Former President Donald Trump forcibly cut ties with UNRWA in 2018, but the group again began receiving money from the U.S. after President Joe Biden entered office in 2021. Since that time, the U.S. has sent UNRWA more than $700 million.

"The U.N. relief agency does important work. In fact, they're doing a lot of heavy lifting right now in terms of trying to get food, water, medicine to the people of Gaza all up and down the strip. They're doing a lot of work, and they're doing it in harm's way," Kirby told reporters. "You can't hold them accountable for the depredations of Hamas and the way Hamas uses civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, for command and control or storage of weapons for the holding of hostages.

"I'll let the U.N. speak to their agency and what alarms they want to raise or not," he continued. "They do great work in Gaza, and they are important to helping get the humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. And we're grateful for that work that they're doing very much in harm's way. I will let them speak to whatever concerns they have over Hamas' activities and the degree to which that they feel obligated to speak out or not."

Kirby reiterated that "it is not some state secret here that Hamas hides itself in hospitals and schools and digs tunnels under residential complexes and neighborhoods, and this is what the Israelis are up against, a group that absolutely doesn't abide by the laws of war and has no compunction about putting civilian lives in greater danger."

Longstanding concerns about UNRWA’s tolerance for terrorism escalated after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, and it took on a greater role in distributing the massive influx of humanitarian aid that is arriving in Gaza.

"For decades, funding UNRWA has been a form of automatic virtue signaling and support for the myths of Palestinian victimhood," Gerald Steinberg, president of the Israeli watchdog group NGO Monitor and emeritus political studies professor at Bar Ilan University, recently told the Washington Examiner. "UNRWA should have been closed years ago to transform the Palestinian economy from total dependence to jobs and growth.”

Evidence of the terrorist organizations’ use of civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip

Hamas, Hezbollah and many other terrorist organizations use civilian facilities and populations as shields to hide their military-terrorist activities. The use of civilian facilities and the civilian population was exposed and documented many times during the Second Lebanon War and in various IDF operations against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, and in a very extensive way during the most recent war in the Gaza Strip.

Firing rockets and mortar shells from within population centers and public institutions such as hospitals and schools, and placing military facilities in or near them, are a well-known modus operandi used by Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Its objective is to protect Hamas operatives from IDF responses and increase their chances of survival. Claims and documentation of the use of Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas, against the civilian population were raised as early as 2006. According to an article[2] by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Hamas has been using the civilian population as human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007.

The extensive use of civilian facilities, and of citizens as a “human shields” has many expressions, including the locations of headquarters and military bases, and hiding terrorists, in the heart of residential neighborhoods, in private homes or public institutions, launching rockets and mortar shells from populated areas, shooting from houses, mosques, schools and other public facilities, stockpiling weapons inside civilian homes, and using ambulances and rescue vehicles for operational needs. Obviously, the cynical and deliberate exploitation of a civilian population is a war crime, a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of the basic principles of international law of armed conflict, which require a distinction between civilians and combatants.

Since the beginning of the war (October 7, 2023), the IDF has exposed the full extent of Hamas’ use of civilian facilities for military-terrorist purposes[3] after finding that Hamas had set up a significant part of its command network in the extensive tunnel system it constructed under civilian facilities especially the hospitals. It also became evident that Hamas used school buildings to store weapons, such as rockets, anti-tank missiles, launchers and automatic rifles. The military warehouses were found in close proximity to functioning classrooms or to a civilian population that found shelter in the schools. Mosques and private homes were used to store weapons and as hiding places for shafts that led to tunnels and as factories for the production of weapons.

Hamas’ use of civilian institutions and facilities for military-terrorist purposes is a deliberate strategy with several objectives. Its primary objective is to reduce damage to the military-terrorist assets of Hamas and other terrorist organizations and to grant them a kind of immunity from IDF activity, exploiting the knowledge that the IDF will avoid harming civilians as much as possible and therefore avoids attacking institutions such as hospitals and schools or non-combatant population concentrations. It is also intended to allow Hamas and other terrorist organizations to gain political-propaganda advantages in the battle for hearts and minds by representing Israel as attacking innocent civilians.

01/05 Links Pt2: Every Conspiracy Everywhere All At Once; UNRWA Must be Defunded & Exposed as the World’s Leading Anti-Israel Propaganda Machine

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Every Conspiracy Everywhere All At Once

Jews have often noted that conspiracy theories about us openly contradict each other: at one moment, we’ll be accused of being communists; in another, they’ll hate us for being capitalists. But social media today means we live in the era of what I’d call Kitchen Sink Anti-Semitism: Like the movie that cleaned up at the 2022 Oscars, it’s everything everywhere all at once.

A month I ago I wrote about how Israel’s haters love to accuse the Jewish state of genocide because it’s the ultimate way to universalize the Holocaust and deny the particular destructive animus toward the Jews. Since then, such discourse has become ubiquitous: just yesterday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had to field a question about it at a White House briefing, and there’s even been a lawsuit filed against President Biden for his supposed complicity in the “genocide.”

But then there’s the fact that Princeton University just concluded a semester in which a Near Eastern history course assigned the book by Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar featuring the classic blood libel of Israeli organ-harvesting. As Jonathan Marks noted in COMMENTARY in 2016, Puar herself rejected the “genocide” accusation, saying: “The Jewish Israeli population cannot afford to hand over genocide to another population. They need the Palestinians alive in order to keep the kind of rationalization for their victimhood and their militarized economy.”

And so it is that the Jews are simultaneously guilty of genocide and of perpetuating a multi-generational campaign of evil that precludes genocide. Both of these allegations coexist within the same cohort—academic anti-Semites—in psychopathic harmony.

Jonathan Tobin: There’s no middle ground in the fight against DEI antisemitism

Yet too many moderates and liberals are still trying to argue that outrage about the mobs chanting for the destruction of Israel can be separated from the genocide of Jews. It is this warped view that has sent such “progressives” into the streets and onto campuses to vent their rage.

You don’t have to like Stefanik or Rufo, or plan to vote for the Republicans, to understand that so long as woke commissars like Claudine Gay—and her counterparts elsewhere—are dominating America’s college campuses, the virus of antisemitism will continue to grow. Democrats must understand that unless DEI rules are thrown out of academia, the corporate world, the media and the government (where an executive order by President Joe Biden put them in place throughout the federal apparatus), their party will be completely taken over by leftists who hate Israel and are indifferent at best to the spread of antisemitism.

The aftermath of Oct. 7 and the fall of Claudine Gay ought to be a turning point in this debate. But it won’t be if those who acknowledge that antisemitism is on the rise don’t draw the appropriate conclusions about why this has happened.

Gay’s fate or that of any other college administrator is secondary to whether their toxic ideas will be allowed to continue to be the official new secular religion of American civic life. On this question, there is no middle ground. There’s no way to make DEI less antisemitic since it is designed to divide and target some for opprobrium in this manner. Treating the impact of woke ideas as nothing more than a conservative culture war controversy won’t work anymore.

Americans have to choose and traditional political loyalties are no longer relevant. They can either join those seeking to roll back the woke tide and restore basic American values of equality and fairness, or they can stand by and watch as a neo-Marxist faith destroys American liberty piece by piece with the Jews just being the first victims.

Douglas Murray: Harvard tarnished itself with the Claudine Gay debacle

What must you do to fail at Harvard?

It used to be pretty clear.

You had to be caught cheating.

Or doing something so outrageous that it’d get you thrown off campus.

Not anymore.

Today Harvard is an institution that thinks that antisemitism is OK and believes that plagiarism is fine.

Not long ago, a student would have been kicked out for either of these sins.

Today the president has been caught at both.

And the board of the university stuck by her.

Even when she decided to step down this week, both she and her supporters went into full-on “victimhood mode.”

Nothing was her fault.

In a bitter farewell piece, Claudine Gay said she was the victim of “demagogues” who had “weaponized” her presidency to “undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence and truth.”

If those are the animating ideals of Harvard, then they are ones that Gay herself trampled all over. With her lack of academic distinction, her total lack of scholarship, her plagiarism and self-pity.

Gay has published no books, written only 11 articles (most of which turn out to have been plagiarized), but still she was appointed president of Harvard.

As the Somali-born author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali told me in an interview this week, “My grandmother wouldn’t have trusted Claudine Gay to herd her goats.”

Unlike Hirsi Ali, Gay comes from a privileged background, and she will continue her privileged lifestyle.

It emerged this week that although Gay has left the presidency, she is going to stay on at Harvard as a lecturer.

At a salary of an extraordinary $900,000 a year.

Seth Mandel: Mutiny at the Anti-Defamation League

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, for years has spent the organization’s political capital on accruing acceptance in progressive spaces. The ADL has become home to a great many AsAJews. After Oct. 7, the bill came due: The AsAJews and their political mentors decided it was time for the ADL to throw off the yoke of its pretensions and defect from Jewish organizational life to officially join the ranks of those marching on Jewish neighborhoods chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Greenblatt balked, and his creation has apparently risen from the table and walked out of the lab. According to Jewish Currents, the house organ of the AsAJews, several employees have left the ADL unit dedicated to countering online hate, including the Obama administration alum who led that unit, because of Greenblatt’s attempts to get social-media services to crack down on anti-Semitism:

“Former staffers told Jewish Currents that in the past months, Greenblatt has redirected the ADL’s day-to-day work to target pro-Palestine activism rather than focusing on antisemitism in American life, a shift they say seriously undermines the organization’s credibility.”

To translate that from doublespeak: The Anti-Defamation League’s public opposition to those calling for the mass murder of the Jewish people is not what these staffers signed up for. Perhaps this clash was inevitable: Greenblatt’s support for censorship in the public square was a weapon his progressive allies were never going to accept being turned on them.

And there is much anger at the realization that the activists who thought they had fully captured this particular institution still have work to do. Greenblatt’s conscience has awoken in the wake of Oct. 7, and now he won’t just take orders from his subordinates, which apparently was the state of play prior to the massacre.

“There’s a pattern of Jonathan going rogue—belittling in-house experts and ignoring talking points prepared for him,” one former ADL staffer told Jewish Currents, with no apparent self-awareness.

Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech today where he explained his mindset on a number of issues.

On the one hand, he claimed that Hezbollah doesn't target civilians - but then he said they do, in retaliation to any civilian deaths in Lebanon.

He claimed that Israel is lying about casualties in the north, and many more are dying. I guess they are hiding those funerals.

He said, "To those asking about the benefit from opening the southern front we say that there are two objectives -- pressing the enemy to halt its aggression against Gaza and alleviating the military pressure against Gaza. There are 120,000 Israeli troops on the border with Lebanon and they have been prevented from being on Gaza's border."

Nasrallah seems to see this battle as an opportunity for Israel to concede more land to them.

On his side, he told the families of the Hezbollah "martyrs" that “What I wish and hope for, were it not for my security circumstances, is to stand by your side and kiss your hands and foreheads.” So ghis message to them is that his life is a lot more valuable than the ones he sends out to die.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

01/05 Links Pt1: Your Aid Dollars for Palestinian Terrorists; Col Kemp: The morality of IDF maneuvers in Gaza; Al-Arouri Had "American Blood on His Hands"

From Ian:

My Father Is an Imam in Gaza. Hamas Kidnapped Him for Refusing to Be Their Puppet

On Saturday, December 30, our front door was busted down, and twenty masked men barged in and took my father, a widely respected and deeply learned imam here in Gaza.

One dragged him by his head, and another grabbed him by his beard. My younger brother tried to intervene and reason with the kidnappers, but they beat him. I have a medical condition that makes it hard for me to breathe, so all I could do was watch as the horror unfolded.

I know that if Hamas kills my father, they’ll say that the Israeli army did it. But my father was very keen that even if he died, we should make known the despicable demands they made of him. It was his last request to us, literally as he was being carried out of the door, that should he die, we should publicize the real reason for his death, and it is this:

He wouldn’t preach what Hamas told him to. He refused to tell Gazans that violent resistance, and obedience to Hamas, is the best way out of our current hell.

This story starts before October 7, and even before 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza.

Our family has lived in Gaza for generations. Before 2007, my father worked for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. After Hamas took over, they forced him out of his position. This was a hard time for my family; my father was the sole breadwinner. Finally, after three long years, he came back to work first as a mosque servant, then a mosque guard, then an employee of the ministry and finally, he was appointed as a mosque imam. (My father is known throughout the Gaza Strip. He has a doctorate in sharia from Cairo’s storied Al-Azhar University, and is well-respected by his peers.)

For Hamas, being Muslim means supporting Hamas, and people who do not support Hamas aren’t Muslims. If you don’t abide by what Hamas tells you, you’ll lose your job or worse. To keep my father in line, ensuring that he would deliver only Hamas-approved Friday sermons and allow Hamas to use his mosque as a clandestine weapons depot, they arrested my brother and me at least ten times between 2016 and 2019. Sometimes they would speak politely, sometimes they would ask us to comply “for the sake of your sisters,” but always the threat of violence loomed in the background. And several times we were beaten and humiliated in front of our father. They beat him, too, once nearly blinding him.

He was forced to do things for Hamas; move money around, store things, keep their secrets.

As an imam, my father keeps the keys to the mosque and is responsible for safeguarding large sums of money that Muslims give as zakat, the mandatory almsgiving of our faith. Hamas members would take advantage of his duties and use the mosque to stash money, weapons, and equipment.

Sometimes they’d bring a large, wrapped-up prayer rug, which they said had been donated—except my father wasn’t allowed to open the rugs; only special volunteers were allowed to open them or transport the rugs in and out. My father had to open and close the doors and allow the sacred space to be used as a warehouse for Hamas. What choice did he have? It’s a bitter truth that Hamas thinks of mosques as the property of their regime and that they store weapons there.

WSJ Editorial: Your Aid Dollars for Palestinian Terrorists

The terrorists who started a war on Oct. 7, according to Palestinian Authority law, will be compensated financially for a massacre well done. The same PA that President Biden wants to run postwar Gaza will reward the murderers’ families with grants followed by monthly stipends for life. That means taxpayers from the U.S. and Europe will help pick up the tab.

The Palestinian postal service said at the end of the year that “martyrs, wounded and prisoners”—Palestinian terrorists or their families, in other words—will receive their November stipends starting this past Saturday via the Palestine Post Bank. The PA is in a fiscal crunch, so this time payments will be at a reduced rate of 65%, plus 14% of the money that the martyrs & co. are owed from past deductions.

The money is paid out in the PA-run West Bank as well as Hamas-run Gaza, often with a lag. Before the Oct. 7 terrorists can be rewarded, their families must submit paperwork for proof of martyrdom and power of attorney to open a bank account. But unless something changes, a salary will be sent to reward the family of the terrorist who was recorded calling home on Oct. 7 to tell his mother, “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands!”

So we have that to look forward to. For now, the PA keeps paying the established terrorists, unmoved by Mr. Biden’s combination of U.S. pressure and endorsement. According to Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, “martyr families” typically receive 1,400 shekels (almost $400) a month for life. Salaries for terrorist prisoners rise over time from 1,400 shekels to 12,000 shekels ($3,300) a month.

This “pay-for-slay” program costs more than $300 million a year, about 8% of the PA budget. Mr. Marcus also shows that 65% is the same rate at which the PA is paying civil servants. Apparently, compensating terrorists is no less a priority than staffing the government. The PA may judge both essential in keeping the streets at bay as President Mahmoud Abbas begins the 20th year of his four-year term in office.

US Posts $10 Million Bounty for Hamas Financiers

The U.S. government is offering $10 million for information about the Hamas terror group's chief financiers, according to a Friday morning notice from the State Department.

In the wake of the Iran-backed terror group's Oct. 7 slaughter of more than 1,200 Israelis, the State Department is prioritizing efforts aimed at disrupting Hamas's financial channels, which stretch across the region, including into Sudan, Iran, and Turkey.

The department will provide the award to anyone who can offer information about "any source of revenue for Hamas or its key financial facilitation mechanisms," including "major Hamas donors or financial facilitators" and any banking institutions that are funneling cash to the terror group. The U.S. government also seeks information about businesses controlled by Hamas and front companies used to launder money into the terror group's coffers.

The $10 million bounty is part of a new U.S. push to crack down on Hamas's revenue streams as the terror group wages war on Israel. The American government is seeking information on several top Hamas officials who have ties to Iran and other Arab countries known to support terrorism against the Jewish state.

One of the financiers named in the bounty notice, Muhammad Ahmad 'Abd Al-Dayim Nasrallah, is "a longtime Hamas operative with close ties to Iranian entities," according to the State Department. He is responsible for transferring "tens of millions of dollars to Hamas," including to the group's military wing.

The State Department is also seeking information on three Turkey-based Hamas financiers who run the organization's investment portfolios.

It's interesting @StateDept's Rewards for Justice announcement for up to $10 million today targeting #Hamas financiers including Muhammad Ahmad ‘Abd Al-Dayim Nasrallah doesn't mention him residing in #Qatar, but it mentions the locations of others.https://t.co/f9Yr08YZgE
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) January 5, 2024

Linda Sarsour just sent out an email from her MPower Change organization where she writes, "I’m just back from preparing aid convoys headed to the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. I went to Egypt to volunteer and support the efforts of Baitulmaal....Donate to Baitulmaal, an organization that has been on the ground in Gaza delivering aid since October."

And what is Baitulmaal? Why, it is linked to Hamas, of course!

From Middle East Forum:

Baitulmaal, also known as AHED, was officially established in 2004 by a Palestinian-Jordanian named Hasan Hajmohammad. However, Baitulmaal claims to have actually been around since 1991, at one point operating under a group named the Islamic Trust of North Texas (which employed Hajmohammad as an imam and sponsored his visa).
During the 2000s, Baitulmaal claimed to be building mosques and "sponsoring Quranic schools in Palestine."
When asked, Baitulmaal did not disclose a list of its partners. In the Palestinian territories, however, grant recipients seem to be a little more open about their benefactors. The Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development (UFA) is a Gaza-based charity that claims to "provide relief, emergency and developmental services to marginalized areas and people in need." However, UFA openly works with senior Hamas officials.
In Gaza, UFA helps Baitulmaal hand out cash to the "families of martyrs of the Palestinian people," whom UFA has described as those killed resisting "the ongoing slaughter against the Palestinian people."
UFA has never been shy about its affiliations. It advertises in the prominent Hamas daily newspaper, Felesteen, in which it mentions its support from Baitulmaal. And on UFA's Facebook page, its officials have written: "We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif [the Noble Al-Aqsa] from the filth of the most dirty Jews."
To some extent, UFA appears to operate as a Palestinian affiliate of Baitulmaal. UFA's chief employees, in fact, have also identified themselves as Baitulmaal employees. And the clear majority of UFA's overseas donations come from the Texas charity.

A more recent article adds more detail to UFA and its links to Baitulmaal:

Collaboration with Hamas appears to continue today. In 2022, multiple Hamas-aligned media outlets, including the terrorist group's own daily newspaper, Felesteen News, published details of job vacancies at UFA; not as advertisements, but as news stories.

Hatred for Jews permeates UFA's efforts. In 2013, the charity published a social media post stating: "We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif from the filth of the most dirty Jews."

UFA officials continue to promote such rhetoric. In April 2021, UFA director Jomaa Khadoura called on his own Facebook page for God to "cleanse Al-Aqsa from the impurity of the Jews."

UFA appears not just to be an occasional partner of American Islamism, but an important outpost. UFA director Khadoura himself claims to have served as an employee of Baitulmaal USA, a wealthy Islamist 501c, and one of UFA's major partners.

Any aid sent by Baitulmaal goes to Hamas first.

More information is here, including antisemitic statements made by people linked to Baitulmaal.

Rashida Tlaib had previously urged donations to this terror-linked charity as well.

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The West cannot still conceive how Hamas controls EVERYTHING in Gaza - including all humanitarian aid

In October, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said:

Don’t believe fake news regarding our aid to the Palestinian people! Regarding more generally our aid to the Palestinian people, it has been said sometime that it is being used to finance Hamas. It is simply not true. We are monitoring very precisely where our funds go and they go to cover the basic needs of the Palestinian population. We are ready to review it one more time, and the Commission will do this review. But Europeans should not tolerate false accusations nor disseminate fake news that undermine our difficult work on the ground.

There is no doubt that every other major Western donor to Gaza truly believes that this is the case.

Yet somehow Hamas has been able to build a tunnel network that is more than double the length of the New York subway system tunnels.

This requires millions of tons of concrete. That concrete requires hundreds of thousands of tons of cement. And cement is all imported into Gaza.

The cement arrives through the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, an elaborate method that Israel agreed to in 2014 where all dual-use building materials and items imported into Gaza are vetted and only given to approved Gaza contractors for specific Gaza projects, like water waste treatment plants. The webpage for the GRM attempts to be as transparent as possible to show where all the materials go.

Clearly, everyone - including Israel - underestimated the iron-clad level of control Hamas has over every aspect of Gaza.

Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades is estimated to have 30,000 members, and associated terror groups probably about 10,000 more. That means that about one in every 15 adult males in Gaza is a terrorist - they are in every building, every school, every mosque, every hospital, every factory, every NGO, and of course every building contractor. And there are at least that many employed in the Hamas government itself, which means perhaps one in seven adult males can be considered to be an informant, at least.

Hamas can get the hundreds of thousands of tons of cement it needs is by skimming off perhaps 10% of every single ton imported into Gaza, forcing the contractors to overestimate the amount of cement needed for valid projects so the accountants in the EU and elsewhere cannot find any discrepancies.

The Free Press published a story yesterday that is seemingly unrelated but it has everything to do with this:

RAFAH—On Saturday, December 30, our front door was busted down, and twenty masked men barged in and took my father, a widely respected and deeply learned imam here in Gaza.

One dragged him by his head, and another grabbed him by his beard. My younger brother tried to intervene and reason with the kidnappers, but they beat him. I have a medical condition that makes it hard for me to breathe, so all I could do was watch as the horror unfolded.

I know that if Hamas kills my father, they’ll say that the Israeli army did it. But my father was very keen that even if he died, we should make known the despicable demands they made of him. It was his last request to us, literally as he was being carried out of the door, that should he die, we should publicize the real reason for his death, and it is this:

He wouldn’t preach what Hamas told him to. He refused to tell Gazans that violent resistance, and obedience to Hamas, is the best way out of our current hell.

This gives a small idea of how Hamas controls every aspect of Gazans' lives, no matter how trivial. And it maintains much of this power even today.

Every single person in Gaza is either Hamas, a supporter of Hamas, an informant for Hamas or deathly afraid of Hamas. Every reporter, every doctor, every factory worker, every farmer, every mother, every child. They have been conditioned to only tell reporters, NGOs and Westerners what Hamas allows them to say - or else.

Not one scrap of information that comes out of Gaza from a person who lives there or whose family lives there can be trusted. It is no coincidence that over the years, the only scraps of anti-Hamas information that comes out of Gaza is anonymously sourced. We've seen lots of cases of "eyewitnesses" and medical workers blaming Israel for things that were later proven to have never happened. We've known for many years that Hamas directly threatens journalists to only write what Hamas wants them to write.

As the story of the imam shows, Hamas tortures, imprisons and kills Gazans who do not toe the line. In the past Hamas has used the fog of war to kill its political enemies and blame their deaths on Israel. Every single story that comes out of Gaza of civilians being shot by IDF troops is not just suspect but must be assumed to be lies. Obviously many civilians are dying in airstrikes aimed at terror targets, but the numbers and circumstances are not to be believed.

The Western world cannot even conceive of the level of control Hamas has over Gaza. But if they trust the information that comes out of Gaza, how do they explain where all that cement came from?

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!