Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

The Palestinian Arabs Are "Open" -- But Not To Compromise (Part 2 of Dr. Harold Rhode interview) (Daled Amos)

The following is a second interview with Dr. Harold Rhode.

The key to discussing the Middle East is understanding the cultures and languages. In Hebrew, you have the root P-T-Ch, corresponding to F-T-Ch in Arabic. The root has the general meaning of "open." But in Arabic, there is an additional meaning: opening up a land to Islam. So the leader in battle is called Fatih and the man who conquered Istanbul was called Mehmed Fatih.

Similarly, there is Fatah, the organization. The name is a reverse acronym of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine -- Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr l-Filasṭīn. The reference is to the liberation and return of all of today’s Israel – including Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip – to Islamic rule.

This concept of being "open" means that once a land has been conquered and is "open to Islam," it is Muslim forever, even if Muslim control comes to an end. The Muslims ruled Spain from 712 CE until 1492, when the Christians finally expelled them from all of Spain. But in the Muslim mind, though their physical control over Spain ended centuries ago, Spain still belongs to the Muslims and will never be part of the non-Muslim world. Many Muslims, when mentioning Spain, often add the phrase “Allah-Willing, it will again be ruled by Muslims.”

Similarly, there was a time when all of Southeast Europe up to Vienna was under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans saw themselves as Muslims, not Turks. Their defeat in Vienna in 1683 gradually led to the complete Ottoman withdrawal from Southeast Europe, resulting in 1914 to the borders of present-day Turkey. Yet many Turks and other Muslims still talk about the area as being part of the Muslim world. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan still talks about Southeastern Europe as being “part of the Ottoman-Muslim area.”

That brings us to the years 1948-1949, when Israel defeated five Muslim armies. At the Rhodes talks in 1949, the Muslims insisted on the phrase "ceasefire lines" instead of "borders." The word "borders" implies the recognition of the people living there. Jews would have the right to live in Eretz Yisrael. A Muslim would find that unacceptable because those lands should remain Muslim forever.

To the Arabs, there is nothing magical about the lines drawn in the 1948-49 map. Those borders do not matter. The land is completely Muslim. But from the Western point of view, we are talking about how to divide up land and this is the point of pushing for the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. However, Netanyahu understands that the Arabs are not talking about Israel’s borders and how to renegotiate them. They are talking about Israel’s existence. And people cannot compromise on their existence.

This issue of borders and Israel's legitimacy caused a problem for Yasser Arafat. The 1993 Oslo Agreement was an interim agreement, not a Peace Treaty. Yet, at the very last moment, Arafat kept changing the terms. He was afraid of what might happen.

Years later, when President Clinton was trying to get Israel and Arafat to sign a Peace Agreement, Arafat was quoted as saying he would not sign because he did not want to end up drinking tea with Sadat. If Arafat had signed, he would have risked assassination like the Egyptian president, whose signing of the Egyptian agreement with Begin was viewed as a treasonous acknowledgment of Israel's right to “Muslim” territory.

There are YouTube videos of Israeli Muslim children -- whose ancestors had been living in Israel for 3 to 4 generations -- telling an Israeli journalist that Israel was Muslim land and that someday Muslims would get it back.

When the interviewer pointed out his family had been living in Israel for many years, since 1948, the teenager responded that this is what he had been taught, both in school and at home: You Jews have no right to live here and we are going to take our land back from you. There was no issue of rights or that Jews were on the land long before the Arabs arrived in 637-638 CE.

None of that made any difference.
To the Palestinian Arabs, it still doesn't.

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On Monday, Hezbollah shot two anti-tank missiles at a house in Kfar Yuval. Mira Ayalon, 76, and her son Barak Ayalon, 48, were killed.

Hezbollah has been using laser guided anti-tank missiles a great deal since they started their fighting with Israel in October.

There is a qualitative difference between Hamas-style rockets and these missiles. First of all, there is no defense for a home or building targeted by such missiles. Iron Dome cannot defend against them; the missile are shot at ground level.

Secondly, they cannot miss. They use lasers or radar to guide them to their target.

Which means that this is a different quality of war crime than the Qassam-style rockets. The violation of the laws of war for Qassam rockets is violating the principle of distinction - indiscriminate fire does not distinguish between civilian and military targets; the rockets are shot in the general direction of a town and the terrorists don't know exactly where the rockets will land. They are tools of terror but Hamas can (and does) claim that they really only want to shoot military targets but just don't have the tools to be that precise. It is an obvious lie - in Arabic they happily admit they want to terrorize Jewish civilians - but they can at least make that claim.

Here, Hezbollah deliberately aimed at a civilian house. Their own video makes this quite obvious:

And they have shot scores of anti-tank missiles at homes, public buildings, chicken coops, businesses and vehicles have been hit by this fire.

The deliberate nature of knowingly and provably aiming at unquestionably civilian objects - and civilians - changes things from the violation of the laws of armed conflict to a grave breach of international law. It is the moral equivalent of holding a gun at a civilian's head and pulling the trigger.

Hezbollah has been aiming these weapons at civilian targets for months. One would think that human rights groups would be up in arms about using a weapon that is directly aimed at civilians.

One would be wrong.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, B'Tselem - none of them tweeted a word about a deliberate murder of a 76 year old woman and her son. A clear war crime, that was documented by Hezbollah itself, is not worth mentioning.

These organizations will dig as deep as they can, and spend tens of thousands of dollars, to to find bizarre new things to blame Israel for - but egregious war crimes by Hezbollah are simply ignored.

Because, to these organizations, Mira Ayalon and the other civilians murdered by Hezbollah are somewhat less than human.

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While Israelis are pitching in to help each other, Gazans are price gouging their neighbors

We've seen the stories about how Israelis are volunteering to do farm work that had been done by foreign workers, or spending whatever spare hours they have where they are needed, of Jews worldwide coming to Israel to volunteer to help, volunteering to or to give empty apartments to those who have had to evacuate their homes, or hotel operators providing free room and food for those who need during the war.

In Gaza, things are quite different.

Amad has an article and video showing how Gazans are price gouging their friends and neighbors,. Cheese has quintupled in price, medicines are being sold for stratospheric prices, people with cars are charging exorbitant rates for evacuees to move to safer areas. "The merchants have no compassion, mercy, or humanity for the condition of the people of the Strip," the article says as it details the huge price hikes Gazans are suffering from.

This besides what we've already seen - Egyptians promising they can get Gazans permits to leave, also for exorbitant prices.

In Israel, misery is shared and everyone pitches in. In Gaza and the Arab world, it is something to take advantage of.

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01/15 Links Pt2: John Podhoretz: They’re Coming After Us; Hamas sacrifices Gaza children, and UNRWA is complicit; NYTs to Jews: Forget thy right hand

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: They’re Coming After Us

For those deeply bound up with the condition of the Jewish state—Zionists whose commitment to the cause has made them hyperaware of the risks and opportunities in Eretz Yisrael, and those whose Israeli family members give them a personal stake in it—October 7 was also a trauma, though perhaps not entirely unprecedented. To feel the individual instability I just described really requires being an Israeli in Israel right now. For the rest of us, the combination of terror, war, hostages, and slaughter evoked feelings not experienced in klal Yisrael, the worldwide Jewish community, since the 1970s.

In four years’ time, recall, Israeli athletes were taken hostage and massacred at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 shattered the triumphalist spirit that had prevailed since the 1967 Six-Day War. By 1974, the Soviet Union had made it clear it would keep Jews hungry to emigrate to Israel imprisoned inside Soviet borders. The United Nations declared that Zionism was racism in a notorious 1975 resolution. A planeful of Jews was hijacked to Entebbe in July 1976.

The idea that Israel, Israelis, and would-be Israelis have become targets of a new kind of evil took depressing, even debilitating, root. The staggering rescue of those Entebbe hostages helped calm the overwhelmingly anxious atmosphere that prevailed at the time among world Jewry—and was followed the next year by the stunning journey to Jerusalem by Egypt’s dictator Anwar el-Sadat and by the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. The crisis facing Israel seemed to be over, and the depression lifted.

That was nearly a half-century ago. In the decades since, Israel has continued to be a source of unity for American Jews and Jews worldwide, the efforts of the New York Times to convince us otherwise notwithstanding. The data are absolutely clear. American Jews have supported Israel, consistently and in vast numbers—though in broad-brush terms, and there’s no question the fractiousness of the Diaspora community regarding Israel’s internal politics and behavior is often deeply unpleasant and divisive.

For every 10 Jews in the Diaspora, there have been 12 opinions about Israel’s political and social situation. Truth to tell, what we thought hasn’t really mattered all that much, no matter how hard we tried to believe it did. Here at home, we had our own problems anyway, and they weren’t that we were under threat or potential threat from outside forces. Our problem was, as the rueful joke had it, that once-hostile Gentiles didn’t want to kill us, they wanted to marry us. We weren’t at risk of disappearing due to violence; we were at risk of melting away into the great American melting pot.

Consider this astounding fact. After the lynching of the Atlanta businessman Leo Frank in 1915 at the hands of a mob that believed he had raped a worker in his factory, it would be another 52 years until a Jew in America was publicly murdered for being a Jew. That happened in 1977 in St. Louis, when a neo-Nazi shot a few men at random outside a synagogue. It would then be another 41 years before the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. In the intervening four decades, you could count on one hand the number of anti-Semitic killings in the United States. The fact that there were any such killings is awful, of course, but the point stands: American Jews of my age and younger simply did not feel themselves to be at any specific physical risk for being Jewish.

That began to change after the Tree of Life killing spree. Hate crimes in general against Jews began to spiral in number—including two subsequent synagogue attacks in California and Texas. YouTube kept displaying short videos of visible members of the tribe (those with black hats, beards, fringed garments) being randomly assaulted from behind on the streets of Brooklyn and elsewhere in so called knock-out attacks. A kosher grocery store was shot up in New Jersey. The home of a haredi Jew in Monsey, New York, was invaded by a man with a machete. Though polls still demonstrated that the United States remained the most philo-Semitic nation the world has ever known, actual violence against Jews for being Jews was bubbling to the surface after remaining largely still over the previous century.

Defamation case against antisemitic slander only the beginning

On July 10, 2020, a statement of claim for defamation was issued against Kimberley Hawkins, owner and “directing mind” of now-closed Toronto Bloor St. eatery, Foodbenders. The plaintiff, Shai DeLuca, a Canadian with Israeli citizenship, is a designer and longtime contributor to CTV’s lifestyle show, Cityline. He’s also a gay Zionist who served with the IDF as a combat engineer.

Hawkins is an ardently progressive, anti-Zionist activist. She mounted a gigantic “I (heart) Gaza” sign in Foodbenders’ window; her social media account warned “Zionists” (taken by many to mean Jews) away from her business. In short, you couldn’t ask for any antagonists more passionately divided in their beliefs about Israel or more committed to defending their corner to the bitter end.

The suit was triggered by offensive statements featuring DeLuca’s name on Foodbenders’ official Instagram account; a gravely problematic one read: “(DeLuca) is an IDF SOLDIER (aka terrorist) yet he’s using the BLM movement for likes. How can you sit here and post about BLM when you have your sniper rifle aimed at Palestinian children.”

DeLuca was represented by David Elmaleh and David Rosenberg of Re-LAW LLP. They partnered with The Lawfare Project, which “provides pro bono legal services to protect the civil and human rights of the Jewish people worldwide.” Hawkins’ lawyer was pro-Palestinian activist Stephen Ellis, who also represents controversial Ontario MPP Sara Jama, who was kicked out of the provincial NDP caucus for antisemitic comments on social media.

On Dec 22, a Superior Court judgment was released, finding DeLuca had been defamed in a series of “abhorrent” antisemitic Instagram posts by Hawkins, and was entitled to $85,000 in damages, which included $10,000 in punitive damages to indicate the court’s “outrage” over Hawkins’ conduct. The judge found Hawkins “acted with malice,” was “irresponsible” and had hoped to end DeLuca’s career at Cityline. (Cityline stood by DeLuca. Ironically, Covid and public opprobrium shut Foodbenders down.)

Justice Gina Papageorgiou castigated Hawkins for never apologizing during three years of the suit’s progress. “Despite the many cases referred to me involving allegations like the ones here, the Defendants in this case were not deterred,” the judge wrote. “These kinds of statements not only affect people’s reputations, but they also contribute to prejudice, antisemitism and intolerance and have the potential to incite violence.”

Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger: The Professor-Ambassador Who Combats the Antisemites

Hosted by Jay Nordlinger
Deborah Lipstadt is a well-known scholar of modern Jewish history, antisemitism, and Holocaust denial. She has written many books. In the 1990s, she was involved in a famous trial against David Irving, the notorious English Holocaust-denier. (She won.) The case was depicted in a 2016 movie, “Denial,” in which Prof. Lipstadt was portrayed by Rachel Weisz. Today, Prof. Lipstadt works in the State Department: as the U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism. She has a lot to say, as you can imagine—very important things to say.

US Central Command tweeted:

On Jan. 15 at approximately 4 p.m. (Sanaa time), Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and struck the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged, U.S.-owned and operated container ship. The ship has reported no injuries or significant damage and is continuing its journey.

Earlier in the day, at approximately 2 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Forces detected an anti-ship ballistic missile fired toward the Southern Red Sea commercial shipping lanes. The missile failed in flight and impacted on land in Yemen. There were no injuries or damage reported.

In other words, the US and UK airstrikes accomplished literally nothing. They might have even prompted the Houthis to attack more uninvolved ships. After all, it is the chance of a successful attack that derails shipping traffic to the Red Sea, not actual successful attacks.

The US pretty much screamed that it was going to do some limited strikes, and is not interested in starting a war. The Houthis are seeing their popularity soaring by standing up to the US.

Whatever happened to understanding the enemy? Anyone who studies the Houthi terrorists could have predicted this.

Deterrence for an enemy like that has got to hurt enough to make them think twice. When the enemy embraces martyrdom and enjoys forcing a superpower to dance to its tune, that becomes a lot more tricky.

Right now, the Houthis feel that they are in a better place than they were beforehand. US and UK actions need to be a lot more creative and a lot less predictable, not to mention cause damage in a way that makes the Houthis feel that they would lose their grip on Yemen altogether. Anything less than that and they look to themselves and to much of the Arab (especially Shiite) world as winners, with more incentive to attack more ships.

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Hamas spokesman claims the "red cows" were one reason for their October 7 attack

Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida has become a celebrity in the Arab world, and his statements are eagerly listened to and analyzed.

On Sunday, he said,

We look back 100 days to remember the educated, the complicit, and the incapacitated among the world powers governed by the law of the jungle, reminding them of an aggression that reached its peak against our path (Al-Quds) and Al-Aqsa, with the start of its actual temporal and spatial division, and the bringing of red cows as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity, and the path of its prophet (the Night Journey) and Ascension to heaven.

Over the summer, Arab media were filled with stories about five red cows that a group of religious Jews imported from Texas to examine and see if they were pure enough to be used to purify descendants of Aaron. They were concerned that any Jews who undergo the procedure would then be allowed to enter the entire Temple Mount and begin the building of the Third Temple, which cannot be done without the procedure.

Abu Obeida's offhand mention of the red cows has brought about a flurry of articles explaining the issue anew, with illustrations meant to incite violence.

I wonder how the world would react if Jews referred to Mohammed's so-called "night journey" to Jerusalem as a "detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation." Because, it really is.

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01/15 Links Pt1: Hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itai Svirsky reported dead in Hamas video; Bari Weiss: Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder?

From Ian:

Hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itai Svirsky reported dead in Hamas video

The Hamas terror organization announced on Monday that hostages Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, had been killed in captivity. Noa Argamani, 26, is reportedly still alive.

The update from the Gaza-based Islamist terror organization comes in a video featuring Argamani, where the 26-year-old reported the death of her fellow hostages. Hamas has been teasing the announcement

The video followed Hamas's sequence of teased announcements, where they claimed that they would announce the fate of the three Israelis.

"I was located in a building," Argamani said in the Hamas video. "It was bombed by an IDF airstrike, an F16 fighter jet. Three rockets were fired. Two of the rockets exploded, and the other didn't. We were in the building with Al Qassam soldiers and three hostages: Myself, Noa Argamani, Itai Svirsky, and Yossef Sharabi.

"After the building we were in was hit, we were all buried under rubble. Al Qassam soldiers saved my life, and Itai's, unfortunately, we were not able to save Yossi's.

"After many days...two nights, Itai and I were relocated to another place. While we were being transported, Itai was hit by an IDF airstrike. He did not survive."

Hamas has a track record of engaging in psychological warfare.

"Itai Svirsky and Yossi Sharabi," Argamani added in the video. "They died because of our own IDF airstrikes. Stop this madness and bring us home to our families. While we are still alive, bring us home."

Chilling Hamas video asks viewers whether terrorists should kill Israeli hostages: ‘What do you think?’

Hamas released more sick video Monday featuring the faces of three Israeli hostages — and asking viewers for their opinions on whether the terror group should kill them.

“What do you think?” the Palestinian terrorists said of the captives, who include Noa Argamani, a Nova music-fest attendee kidnapped during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and last seen being driven off screaming on the back of a motorcycle.

The Hamas clip then offers a trio of options for the innocent victims: all three are killed; “some are killed, some are injured,” or all three are spared.

The chilling propaganda footage was a follow-up to an undated 37-second clip the terror group released Sunday in which Argamani, 26, and fellow hostages Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, pleaded with Israel to stop its offensive against Gaza — ending with the ominous message: “Tomorrow we will inform you of their fate.”

This is just pure, unhinged evil!

Hamas has just released another film, asking people to guess the fate of the 3 Israeli hostages, before making an announcement tonight.

I wonder if those great humanitarians South Africa have any comment on this fresh hell? pic.twitter.com/FjoijFW4Z8
— Arsen Ostrovsky 🎗️ (@Ostrov_A) January 15, 2024

A thread by ShipofTheseus:

Israel journalist @Roi_Yanovsky just published an amazing piece in Hebrew about what Gaza is really like, based on his personal observations there. Here is an English translation that you need to read🧵

100 reserve days officially ended yesterday. Some initial insights:

1. Gaza is seen as a backward area, the "most densely populated in the world" which has been under Israeli "siege" for years. There is no bigger lie than this. Gaza is a modern, beautiful, developed city, with large modern houses, wide boulevards, public spaces, a promenade by the sea and parks. Looks much better than any other Arab city from the Jordan to the sea, much more similar to Tel Aviv than to Kfar Qasim or Umm Al Fahem. And of course it is very far from being "the densest in the world".

2. If it's a siege, let me live in a siege. The houses are bursting with goods and food from all countries of the Middle East, latest furniture, electronics and whatnot. There are also luxurious mansions that wouldn’t embarrass Savion and Kfar Shemariahu (rich areas in Israel)

There is absolutely no shortage of wealth in Gaza. In general, most of the houses I've been in were much bigger than the apartment I live in in Tel Aviv. The sentence "If only they had a chance for a good life, they wouldn't fight in Israel" is simply not relevant to Gaza.

3. The most common thing in the houses of the Gaza Strip: a map of the Land of Israel the heading "Map of Palestine". There is no mention of Israel or Israeli towns in general.
And it is found in almost every home, in every school and in every public institution, the goal of
erasing the State of Israel is neither hidden nor suppressed, it is almost everywhere. The historical distortion of this map which is taught from age 0 is a topic for another discussion that only emphasizes the distorted perception of reality by the residents of Gaza.

4. In all the neighborhoods we were in, there are ready-made Hamas combat complexes - weapons, tunnels, charges, launching complexes, all inside residential houses, some of which are also prepared with openings in the walls for passing between buildings and what not.

The residents of the Gaza Strip who live in the combat zones know this, they have received countless notices to evacuate. Long before the IDF entered. IDF announcements are still there everywhere. Those who decided to stay in the fighting areas are either Hamas members in various positions or people who consciously decided to stay in the areas used by Hamas for fighting, for their own reasons.

5. Hamas members rarely walk around armed. They are neither stupid nor suckers. They know they won't be shot if they go in "civilian" guise.

They prepare the weaponry ahead of time at the entrances to the buildings and arm themselves just a moment before they attack. That’s why the fighting is much more complex than any other arena. those judge from the outside why soldiers shot X or didn’t shoot Y - enter Gaza for a week or 2 and you’ll return with insights.

6. The circle enabling Hamas is much larger than its tens of thousands of terrorists. The ideology of Hamas is found in almost every home, in pictures, in propaganda materials. Hamas in Gaza is like Messi in Argentina.

7. The strengthening of Hamas at this level requires active assistance of a population. There is no way that the residents of the compounds where we located rockets and weapons did not know that the place is used as a launching complex where they try to massacre Israelis daily.

And I find it hard to believe that the parents in the kindergarten where there was a tunnel shaft do not know this. Who chooses to send their children to a kindergarten that serves as a terrorist infrastructure?

8. Hamas's strongest weapon is lies and propaganda. It's their fuel. This is how you will maintain the "siege" lie for years, this is how they are doing now with the photos of the innocent victims and the killing of the "journalists" who turn out to be terrorist operatives.

Gaza is the only place in the world where 500 deaths are reported half an hour after an explosion. Even in earthquakes and heavy disasters it takes the rescue forces a few days to identify and estimate the number of dead, but the Palestinian Ministry of Health already knows a minute after the explosion what the damage is. This is ridiculous and the world media quoting the numbers as living words of God is pathetic. I would attribute the same level of credibility to the reports this week about "hunger" in Rafah.

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The UN no longer parrots Hamas' obviously false "women and children killed" claims

For months, the UN OCHA unit faithfully reported Hamas' statistics saying that 70% of Gaza's deaths were women and children.

This is from their January 2 report:

For a week or so after this report, they maintained the steady "70% women and children" figure but without the specific count, which Hamas seems to have had ended December 11 but the UN kept reporting. Here is their January 11 report:

A few days ago, they even dropped the "70%" figure from their daily statistics:

But it isn't as if the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health dropped their claims that 70% of the fatalities were women and children. They still say so to this day.

Apparently, quietly, even the UN no longer believes the Hamas' obviously inflated statistics on women and children killed which they eagerly rubber stamped for over three months. This is even though there was plenty of evidence that Hamas would sometimes pretend that the number of "women and children" killed was higher than the total reported fatality rate for the day - clearly aiming at arriving at and maintaining this fictional 70% figure.

While the UN won't say out loud that they no longer trust Hamas civilian casualty figures, they are no longer reporting them as assumed true.

Not to say that the UN suddenly believes what Israel says. Even though Israel has released estimates of the number of members of terror groups killed - today it says that it has killed 9000, making the "70% women and children" claim impossible - UN-OCHA has never mentioned the Israeli estimates, which is what it would do if it actually cared about the truth.

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The Amalek monument and plaque near the Hague

People who know nothing about Judaism have been pretending that Benjamin Netanyahu's evoking of Amalek in October means that Israel intends to eradicate all Palestinians.

Suddenly we have all these Biblical experts who don't know the basics about Amalek.

The South African ICJ case selectively quoted Netanyahu, when in fact he was not quoting the Biblical verse saying to destroy Amalek but the verse in Deuteronomy saying "Remember what Amalek did to you," which is a separate Biblical commandment. He said, "We remember and we fight," and he was referring to "the murderers." The remembrance is the commandment, and every observant Jew knows this, since we are obligated to listen to that verse on a special Shabbat before Purim every year called "The Shabbat of Remembrance."

But there is another irony here. Near the ICJ in The Hague is a sculpture commemorating the Jews of Holland who were deported and murdered by the Nazis:

The plaque underneath refers to the exact same verse that Netanyahu quoted:

If quoting the Biblical verse about Amalek shows intent for genocide, then why would it be featured near the Hague?

(The sculpture has been moved since this photograph, but it still references the same verse, and in fact is known as the Amalek Monument.)

The sad fact is that everything that Jews do or say today is twisted to make them sound as evil as possible - and people are taught that this is normative, that Jews always have a secret underhanded agenda. It is a conspiracy theory that is not from the Right this time, but from the Left.

This is what modern antisemitism looks like. And it is all over the place.

(h/t ElishevaSays)

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Hating Israel warps one's brain

The New York Times has an article trying to mainstream the bizarre notion that Israel does not have to be a central component of Judaism.

That is pretty much like saying God doesn't have to be a central component of Judaism. Sure there are Jewish atheists, but don't call it Judaism.

Yet there are some people who hate Israel so much that they feel they must twist the religion itself to fit their biases.

I've demolished the "diasporism" idea a number of times, but one part of this article is worth examining.

The star of the article is Shaul Magid, a professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth and a rabbi. His scholarly credentials are impressive.

But he says something that is mindblowing:

Mr. Magid, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, favors one state for Israeli Jews and Palestinians, but he said in an interview that he also would welcome a negotiated two-state solution. More than its shape, Israel’s centrality to Judaism elsewhere is what he hopes can be adjusted.

“Israel has become the substitute for Jewish identity,” he said. “And we have at least a 2,000-year history — maybe longer, certainly 2,000-year. A robust history. We have to grab ahold of that and basically take it back from those who took it away from us.”

"Maybe" longer?

2,000 years happens to be the date of the destruction of the Second Temple. Magid is essentially saying that Judaism did not start until after the Jews lost to the Romans. The Jewish kingdoms and the Temples seem, according to him, to have little or nothing to do with Jewish history.

Conveniently, he is redefining Jewish history to start with the Diaspora that he fetishizes.

All of Judaism is centered around remembering and hoping to bring back the Judaism of the Temple periods, the Judaism where Jews controlled our land. The Land of Israel is central to the Hebrew Scriptures. If you re-define Judaism to have begun afterwards, you are no longer talking about Judaism.

This shows how anti-Israel attitudes warps one's brain. The religion, the prayer book, Psalms, world history and basic facts are diametrically opposed to Magid's viewpoint - so he has to change reality to conform with his perverted view of Judaism.

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01/14 Links: Pres. Herzog: A hundred days of war: Spirit of Israel will triumph over our enemies; Brendan O'Neill: These accusations of ‘genocide’ bring shame on humanity

From Ian:

Rail thin, scared to speak, but free: my daughter’s life after Hamas hostage ordeal

When his nine-year-old daughter Emily first came back home after nearly two months in Hamas captivity, Thomas Hand didn’t let her out of his sight. At night, he would sit up watching her sleep. Whenever she frowned, he’d wake her, worried she was having a nightmare.

The rare times that Emily went out with her two grown-up siblings, he’d put an electronic tracker in her pocket, so that he could follow her on his phone. Each day, he marvelled that she was really there, thin and exhausted, with matted hair and lice, rescued from an ordeal that defies comprehension.

Now, he knew, came the really hard part. Bringing the little girl who loved singing and dancing to Beyoncé back to herself — regaining the confidence she lost during the 50 days of horror she spent in Gaza. And, for himself and the rest of his family, trying to move back towards some sense of normality, in a country at war, with their lives forever changed. “When she first came back, we were very happy, but just heartbroken,” said Hand, 63, who is originally from Ireland and moved to Israel more than 30 years ago. “Her condition, she wasn’t physically injured at all. She wasn’t molested, she wasn’t hurt in any way. But just it was more on the mental side.”

A hundred days after the October 7 attacks, the former hostages, mostly women and children, who were released during the short pause in fighting in late November are reckoning again with life back in Israel. Many of them have lost family members, murdered or kidnapped in the initial attack by Hamas militants, or their homes; burned and looted.

At least 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza by Hamas. Among them are several children, including Kfir Bibas, who turned one this month if he is still alive, and his brother Ariel, who would be four. They were kidnapped with their mother, Shiri, and father, Yarden. Hamas has claimed that Shiri and the two boys were killed during an Israeli bombardment; the IDF said this has not been verified.

For the hostages who make it out, the road to recovery is slow, and can be fraught with setbacks.

Pres. Isaac Herzog: A hundred days of war: Spirit of Israel will triumph over our enemies

A hundred days have passed since life was halted, the skies darkened, and we, all of us, were exposed to a boiling and horrifying cauldron of terror and deep-seated hatred unleashed upon us.

One hundred days of a war forced upon us, a test for the entire nation. A test of our collective heart, courage, determination, righteousness, strength, mutual support, unity, and the values and principles that define us as a nation.

In these challenging times, we cannot help but reflect on the sacrifices of our daughters and sons, who fall as civilians and soldiers alike. Their bravery, their commitment, their love for life, and their dedication to ideals dear to us are a testament to the strength within all our hearts.

We must not nor cannot forget, not for a moment, the hostages and the missing. It is difficult to fathom an ordeal more arduous and painful than that of the families whose loved ones are in the hands of Hamas murderers. We all carry a prayer, echoing the words of the prophet: “And your sons and daughters shall return to their borders.”

We mourn the loss of the fallen heroes, their courage, sanctity of will, and self-sacrifice that permeated the fierceness of battle. We weep for the many lives, far too many, snuffed out brutally – victims of monstrous and antisemitic violence. Yet, we remember that even in the darkest hours, we witnessed the strength, courage, resilience, and compassion that define us as a people. We made a grave and painful mistake by not being ready. But the greatest mistake is that of the enemy.

A generation has proven itself heroic, undefeatable
The enemy, whose “great heroes” indiscriminately murdered, massacred, violated, and slaughtered infants, elderly, girls, boys, burned homes with people inside and committed the worst crimes against humanity.

An enemy for whom Hitler’s playbook, Mein Kampf, has pride of place in their homes, whose children’s summer camps were centers of murderous brainwashing and blind hatred. An enemy who thinks he knows us and belittles the bravery of our sons and daughters until he sees with his own eyes how “a people rise like a lioness and lift itself like a lion.”

The forces of courage within our midst have erupted in an inspirational manner.

We saw how the “TikTok generation” emerged as a generation of historic strength, whose bravery will be etched in the annals of Israeli history. I met with the fighters and commanders, the leaders on the front – made of steel, eager to engage the enemy, with the oath of “never again.”

We all witness the strength of communities and displaced families, the bravery of our wounded in hospitals, the unwavering faith and pride of the bereaved families, the volunteerism and mutual responsibility in Israeli society – Jews and Arabs alike – and the determination of our allies standing by our side, headed by the United States, and the Jewish communities around the world standing with us as one, sometimes at personal risk. No one can defeat such a people, such a united and determined nation.

A message to every Parliament in the world: pic.twitter.com/OHM3mG7Hge
— Amir Ohana - אמיר אוחנה (@AmirOhana) January 14, 2024

By Forest Rain

I stood where he stood, trying to imagine what it was like. How he made the decisions he made. How he felt.

I couldn’t.

Aner Shapira deliberately placed himself between the murderous terrorists outside and some 30 people, friends, and strangers. Knowingly, mindfully, he chose to be their shield against death.

How do you make a choice like that?

Aner Shapira, along with his friend Hersh Goldberg-Polin, attended the Nova Music Festival. A fighter in the Nahal reconnaissance unit on leave, Aner loved music and simply wanted to enjoy himself – like so many others.

The Hamas invasion began under the cover of a missile bombardment. The Nova festival was a rave, outside and with no place to take cover from missiles, let alone a hoard of blood thirsty murderers. Aner, Hersh and others left the festival site and took cover in a “migunit,” a mini-shelter set up in places where it’s not possible to reach a bomb shelter in the 15 seconds between when missiles are launched from Gaza and they slam into Israeli border communities.

The tiny shelter, not much larger than the bus stop next to it, wasn’t designed to protect people from terrorists with machine guns, RPGs, and grenades.

When he understood what was happening Aner placed himself at the entrance of the shelter, pushing everyone else behind him. Those that survived reported that he told them what he was going to do and how to continue if he would be killed.

One of the people huddled behind him took a photo in case no one would survive to tell the story.

This is what heroism looks like.

A car camera on a vehicle stopped outside the shelter continued to record, giving a full picture of what happened.

A terrorist throws a grenade into the shelter. He expects it to or at least wound everyone inside.

Aner, with his bare hands, threw it back.

Seven times.

The terrorist threw another grenade. Aner picked it up with his bare hands in the few seconds before it exploded – and threw it back at the terrorists.

Seven times.

One the eighth, it was too late.

Aner was killed. Hersh’s arm was blown off and he was taken hostage along with a few others the terrorists saw were still alive.

Most of the others inside exploded. Literally. Those who survived did so lying under pieces of other people’s bodies for hours, themselves wounded, not knowing if the noises they heard outside were the terrorists coming back to finish them off or Israelis coming to rescue them.

It took five hours before rescue came. Everyone who was more than lightly injured bled to death.

Zaka volunteers, trying to bring every Jew to proper burial removed the human remains, cleaned up the blood and other fluids (I’ve seen the video of people entering the shelter after the attack which I will not share here). The shelter has been whitewashed but the bullet holes and signs of the grenades remain.

Note the date on the sticker Zaka put on the outside of the shelter, notifying that it is clear and clean - November 19^th.

It is very difficult to step into a space where so many people lay in utter terror, wounded and dying.

The shelter is empty yet full. Sanctified by blood and heroism. Horror and awe. The ability to love others more than you love yourself.

Many of the family and friends of those murdered here have come, lit candles and written things on the walls – letters to those they loved who are no longer here, messages of strength and support for the nation and an extraordinary poem honoring Aner.

Written in red, in small letters near the floor, this poem tells the breathtaking story of Aner’s heroism. Something so huge, so moving should perhaps be someplace less modest – and yet, perhaps it’s in the most appropriate place, next to the signs of the shrapnel, by the door where he stood.

The Hebrew poem is more layered and rich in meaning than my translation can convey but everything about this story is deeper than words. Like Aner himself.

Aner is an unusual name. It sounds like the Hebrew word for “the candle”, ha-ner. It turns out that Aner is a name from the bible of someone who was an ally of Abraham. The name is associated with being connected to our historic roots, true friendship and aspiring for justice.

How fitting.

The Candle by Tzur Erlich:

Next to the door,
In the public domain,
Which belonged to the guns,
Which belonged to the Arabs,
Stood the candle. Alone. Secure.
Behind him, like a human flock, treasure [also = hidden]

And facing him, with a voice not a bell,
They were hidden from the crowd,
Grenade after grenade, grenade after grenade.

And he was catching the raw [live] grenade,
And threw it while alive,
Throwing his life in response.

One after another he counted,
Like the branches of the [Chanukah) holiday candles. One... seven... eight.

He counted, one after another, he withheld the plague.
And thus he gave life. And thus he counted.
One... three... five... until eight.
And on the eighth, the candle was extinguished.
Aner was extinguished

הנר (צור ארליך)

סָמוּךְ אֵצֶל הַפֶּתַח,

אֵצֶל רְשׁוּת הָרַבִּים

שֶׁהָיְתָה לִרְשׁוּת הָרוֹבִים,

שֶׁהָיְתָה לִרְשׁוּת עֲרָבִים,

עָמַד הַנֵּר. לְבַד. לָבֶטַח.

מֵאֲחוֹרָיו כְּצֹאן אָדָם. מַטְמוֹן.

וְאֶל פָּנָיו בְּקוֹל לֹא-פַּעֲמוֹן

נִתְּכוּ בַּנֶּחְבָּאִים מִן הֶהָמוֹן

רִמּוֹן וְרִמּוֹן, רִמּוֹן וְרִמּוֹן.

וְרִמּוֹן וְרִמּוֹן, וְרִמּוֹן וְרִמּוֹן.

וְהוּא הָיָה תּוֹפֵס אֶת הָרִמּוֹן הַנָּא,

וּמַשְׁלִיכוֹ בְּעוֹדוֹ חַי,

מַשְׁלִיךְ חַיָּיו מִנֶּגֶד.

אֶחָד אַחַר אֶחָד מָנָה

כִּקְנֵי נֵרוֹת הַחַג. אֶחָד… שִׁבְעָה… שְׁמוֹנָה.

מָנָה אַחַר מָנָה מָנַע הַנֶּגֶף.

וְכָךְ הָיָה מַחֲיֶה. וְכָךְ הָיָה מוֹנֶה.

אַחַת… שָׁלוֹשׁ… חָמֵשׁ… וְעַד שְׁמוֹנֶה.

וּבַשְּׁמִינִי כָּבָה הַנֵּר.

כָּבָה עָנֵר

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!

Calling to murder Jews at London rally

Harry's Place posted a flyer being handed out at the pro-Hamas London rally on Saturday:

This is as explicit a call of support for murdering Jews as "progressives" will say out loud.

Mohammed El Kurd also explicitly called for massacres.

Mohammed El Kurd at the pro-terror rally in London today:

“We must normalize massacres as the status quo” pic.twitter.com/J0SclN88IE
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) January 13, 2024

He now claims he meant to say "not normalize massacres."

But right before that he said that "to stand on the right side of history, you must engage with tangible actions, not mere words." What kind of actions is he calling for, if not violence?

He also claimed that "Zionism is a death cult." Well, no Zionists are saying that "we love death like you love life." Those would be the "anti-Zionists."

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!