The reporting on Hamas' absurd ceasefire demands can only be described whitewashing a terror group.
Thursday, February 08, 2024
- Thursday, February 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
The reporting on Hamas' absurd ceasefire demands can only be described whitewashing a terror group.
- Thursday, February 08, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
Ronen Tal in Haaretz writes that Eurovision will become an anti-Israel circus if Israel sends a contestant, and it is better not to feedthe months of hate that will inevitably come:
Between now and May 7, when the first semifinal is held, the protests against us will continue to mount and spread much further, while now they are still mostly limited to the Nordic countries. Representatives from various countries will pull out in protest over the scenes of destruction in Gaza (some of them will be replaced other singers who are willing to risk being subjected to cancellation.) The pressure on the European Broadcasting Union, which has so far supported Israel, will become a raging tsunami of threats and counter-threats. If we take part, the entire competition will become a huge anti-Israel display that will do no one any good, certainly not Israel.Israel should pull out of Eurovision ...even if it's perceived as an act of surrender to the Roger Waterses and John Cusacks of this world. A decision to withdraw would nullify the scandal before it really got started and completely took over the competition.The immediate audience of Eurovision fans – loony progressives with an abiding nostalgia for sequins – is incapable, and not the least bit interested, in giving us a genuine opportunity to prove the rightness of our position. This battle needs to be waged in the UN and the Hague, not at a singing competition without an orchestra. Aside from national pride, and a childish fear of looking childish and defeated, there is really no reason to drown in the humiliation waiting for us in Sweden.
There is an appeal in this argument. Why consciously put Israel through months of hate?
Tal's right that Eurovision will become a platform for lots of loony anti-Israel performative pretense of morality. But he's wrong that Israel should withdraw.
One reason is that the world is filled with anti-Israel rhetoric anyway. Staying away will not reduce it.
A second reason is because when people and organizations cave to anti-Israel pressure, it never decreases the hate. On the contrary, it is blood in the water for the piranhas. Success at forcing Israel out will result in a redoubling of effort to force Israel out of every sporting competition, every chess competition, every math Olympiad, every international event.
The third reason is actually one of Tal's arguments itself: let the haters leave the competition, not Israel. Let them refuse the honor of representing their countries. If entire countries withdraw, then they look like idiots to their citizens who are fans of the show. And if the news stories go towards unhappy fans missing out on cheering their country - and Israel haters trying to bully singers and countries to boycott it - that would be a good outcome. The boycotters would look stupid on the world stage.
I don't care about Eurovision for a minute. But the downside for Israel not participating is far greater than any downside from taking part.
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! |
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Wednesday, February 07, 2024
Stop pursuing a Palestinian state and start pursuing peace
A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein defines insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If this is true, then the American government, the British government, and the European Union are insane.
Last month, it was reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken ordered an examination of the possibility of America recognizing a Palestinian state following the current war between Israel and Hamas. Separately, British Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister David Cameron stated that the UK could recognize a Palestinian state even in the absence of a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. And Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell has been emphatic in his support for the creation of a Palestinian state ever since the Hamas massacre of October 7.
Are these supposedly intelligent people living on another planet?
The US and the entire Western world has relentlessly pursued the creation of a Palestinian state for over three decades now, without taking into account Britain’s offer to create an Arab state in most of the land of Israel in 1937 and the UN’s attempt to partition the land into a Jewish and Arab state in 1947. And all they have to show for their efforts is death and mayhem.
Any hope of a Two State Solution died when Yasser Arafat, instead of putting in the minimum effort to create the institutions necessary for a functioning state or to prepare the Arabs living under his rule for statehood or to live in peace, created a corrupt kleptocracy, stole billions in foreign aid from his own people, created an entire culture of incitement to murder, and chose terrorism and the mass murder of innocents as his modus operandi. Had he accepted the generous offers of statehood presented to him by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000 and 2001, it is unlikely he would have been capable of effectively governing such a state.
The final nail in the coffin of the Two State Solution occurred when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2006, shortly after Israel withdrew not only its entire military forces, but all of its civilians, from the coastal enclave. Rather than make anything productive of Gaza or work for the well-being of the people living there, every action Hamas has taken for the last two decades has been in service of its genocidal intentions for the Jewish people.
Bret Stephens: Settler Colonialism: A Guide for the Sincere
Settler colonialism is often denounced in anti-Israel polemics and protests. But if settler colonialism needs to be eliminated, why not get rid of all settler colonialism? That would start with the U.S., which began as a settler-colonialist enterprise under British, Dutch and Spanish rulers, and continued as one under American rule. This also includes Australia, New Zealand and Canada.Fetterman balks at two-state solution push if Hamas isn’t ‘effectively eliminated’
To say that Israel alone must be eliminated on grounds of settler colonialism while giving a pass to other cases of settler colonialism is a double standard that is hard to describe as anything but antisemitic.
It's odd that the ethnic group that is today most vociferously accused of settler colonialism is the one that can unmistakably trace its language, culture and religion to the same places which it now inhabits and governs. Virtually every Israeli can read Hebrew inscriptions on Jewish coins found in archaeological sites throughout Israel dating back more than 2,000 years.
Jewish nationalism - Zionism - is the oldest continuous anticolonial movement in history, starting well before the Romans sought to de-Judaize the area by calling their colony Palestina. Hanukkah, the festival of lights, celebrates the recovery of Jerusalem from colonizing Greeks in the second century BCE.
In the final analysis, Israel is justified by being a sovereign state that commands the loyalty of its citizens. Ditto for the U.S. and every other state, whatever the nature of its origins.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on Wednesday dismissed the notion of advocating a two-state solution that involves Hamas remaining in control of Gaza.
Fetterman made the comments at a press conference at the Capitol while standing alongside members of the Israeli Knesset and families of hostages being held in Gaza. The Pennsylvania senator has been unapologetically vocal about his support for Israel since Hamas carried out its Oct. 7 attack, as well as his opposition to a ceasefire backed by progressives.
“I support a two-state solution as well,” Fetterman said at the press conference organized by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). “But that is meaningless until Hamas is effectively eliminated because Hamas disavows and rejects a two-state solution.”
The comments come two weeks after Fetterman and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) were the sole Democrats not to co-sponsor Sen. Brian Schatz’s (D-HI) resolution reiterating that U.S. policy favors a two-state solution for Israel and Gaza.
- Wednesday, February 07, 2024
- Varda Meyers Epstein (Judean Rose)
- Islam, Islam and Jewry, Islamic Jihad war crimes, Islamic terrorism, Islamic theology, Islamic values, Judean Rose, Not Elder, Opinion, Varda, Varda Opinion
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Robert Werdine was my
friend. He was also a Rhodes Scholar, historian, ardent defender of Israel, serious music lover, and a devout Muslim. Robert died too soon from complications of diabetes and
was buried as a Catholic, his father’s faith, but he was undeniably Muslim. Through
our three years’ worth of correspondence, Robert left me with a wealth of
material on Islamic thought as it relates to Jews, Judaism, and Israel. These
were subjects he cared about and wrote about, but never published.
More than once, Robert alluded to being in bad odor with certain
family members over his stance on Israel. He detailed an incident in which his
uncle, a member of Hamas, roughed him up when he found out that Robert was
writing blogs at the Times of Israel, an Israeli publication. Which is
actually how I met Robert. We were both blogging there in 2012, the year that
TOI was launched.
Robert also mentioned that his mother was afraid for him to
say in his blogs that he was a Muslim. She didn’t know what, if any
repercussions there would be for him, and for the family as a whole. After some
back and forth, Robert’s mom came to see it his way, and agreed that he should
no longer hide his Muslim identity or his strong affection for Israel.
Since Robert died in 2017, I haven’t known what to do with
the prodigious material he sent me—brilliant material, meticulously researched.
These papers should be published. And I believe that is why he sent them to me.
He knew he wasn’t going to live much longer. I think he hoped I would do
something with his work after he died. Yet, all this time I haven’t been sure I
should.
I’m still not certain it’s the right thing to do—publish
Robert’s work without his permission. But I think he felt he could not publish
them while he was alive, and trusted that I would make a decision about what to
do with his work, and that it would be the right decision. All of this came to
mind last week during an exchange yet another confrontational antisemite on
Quora.
The exchange began, as usual, with a “question” I was asked
to answer, that as per usual, was some gross, not-so-thinly-veiled anti-Israel
propaganda: “Why does Israel have the right to occupy land where the
Palestinian have lived?”
This was my
answer:
“Israel builds in very few areas where Arabs once might have
lived. In those areas, the Arabs either left of their own volition, at the
behest of Arab leaders preparing to extinguish the fledgling Jewish State, or
the land was retaken during the course of a defensive war, in which case, it is
perfectly legal.
“The Jews expelled from Arab countries were absorbed by tiny
Israel, while the 22 Arab states in the region, which cover an enormous breadth
of territory, refuse to absorb the Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 (and their
descendants).
“It is normal for a population exchange to occur as a result
of war. The shameful aspect of what happened here is the Arab refusal to absorb
and resettle their brethren.”
Naturally, there were confrontational comments. One particular commenter, Esmailjee Mohamed Ali, wrote: "How can there be Judhas or Jews in Palestine when they lived in Europe for 2000 years from the time they were created by the Romans in 69BC.
It was from EUROPE after the Second World War, 5MILLION Judhas or Jews migrated to America and another 6Million was brought landed and in PALESTINE by the British Empire and the League of Nations on creating the State of Israel in 1948CE."
“It was the British Empire
that was upto [sic] all the mischief. Allah wiped out the British Empire
because of all their cruel acts. Today, unfortunately the PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
are suffering at the hands of the Poor downtrodden criminals who came from
EUROPE because of the British Empire.”
Well, I couldn’t leave that alone, now could I? So I said,
“Funny, because that’s not what the Quran says,” said I thinking of all the Quranic references to the Bani Isra'il.
To which Mr. Ali took umbrage, responding, “Do not
misinterpret the QURAN.”
As I am so often wont to do in these situations, I went to
my Robert Werdine gmail folder to see what my dear late friend had to say on
the subject. I was looking for what he had said about Muslims living under
non-Muslim rule. Because really—why did the Arabs have to kick up a fuss over
the establishment of the Jewish State or be in denial about Jewish history, detailed in their own holy book? The Arabs didn’t have to leave, nor did they
have to “suffer” at the hands of the Jews. They could have—and would have—been
perfectly happy and prosperous under Jewish rule. Instead they were turned—by
their own people—into perpetual refugees, filled with hate and blood lust. And
their own people didn’t—and don’t—want them.
None of this had anything to do with the British Empire. Nor
did it relate to “downtrodden criminals from Europe” supposedly brought to the
region by the Brits.
It had to do with Muslims who are ignorant of what their own
holy books and commentators have to say on the subject. They should have
stayed. They would have been free to practice their religion under the Jews,
and they would have led happy, content lives. And of course, the October 7th
Massacre would never have happened. What happened on that Black Sabbath was in
fact, proscribed by Islam.
I found what I needed in my “Robert Werdine” email treasure
chest, and it was so perfect I quoted it word for word. I knew Robert would
forgive me. And I never heard a peep back from Mr. Ali:
The Shafi’i jurist, Imam Abu Zakariyya Muhyi ’l-Din
al-Nawawi
(1233–1277) [stated]:
If a Muslim is able
to declare his Islam openly and living therein (in a land dominated by
non-Muslims), it is better for him to do so […] because by this it becomes Dar
al-Islam […] (Al-Nawawi, rawda al-talibin, (Beirut: Dar ibn Hazm, 2002), p.
1819)
Al Nawawi also stated:
Where a Muslim is
able to protect and isolate himself, even if he is not able to proselytize and
engage in combat, in such case it would be incumbent upon him to remain in this
place and not emigrate. For such a place, by the fact that he is able to isolate
himself, has become a dar Islam.
The opinions of al-Ramli, al-Mawardi, and al-Nawawi are all
consistent with prophetic practice in the authentic Sunnah. Two Hadiths, one
from Sahih Bukhari and one from Sahih Muslim attest that the prophet would
refuse to attack any non-Muslim entity that allowed for the practice of the
Muslim religion by Muslims living there. Here is the Sahih Bukhari (Vol. 4, Book 52, #193):
Narrated Anas:
Whenever Allah's Apostle attacked some people, he would never attack them till
it was dawn. If he heard the Adhan (i.e. call for prayer) he would delay
the fight, and if he did not hear the Adhan, he would attack them
immediately after dawn.
Nawawi interprets the Hadiths as follows:
In this narration is
evidence that verily the call to prayer forbids invading (yamna‘) a
people of that area, and this is an evidence of their Islam.
This is only one tiny fragment of the material I have from
Robert. Some of what he wrote was conversational. I’d ask him questions, and
he’d answer. Once, for example, I asked him how he felt about the word
“Palestinian.” What did he, Robert, call the Arabs who call themselves
“Palestinians?”
He wrote (May 20 2015), I'm not sure what to call the
you-know-who. I call them the Nowhere People; they came out of nowhere and
they're going nowhere, fast. I generally call them Palestinian, but I don't
remember my grandfather using that term. He just called them Arabs and
refugees. Probably "Arabs" is the best word to use, or Palestinian
Arabs, either word refers to the customarily delusional, intransigent, and
recklessly self-destructive people whose leaders will continue the long, hard
slog of hatred, violence, and deligitimization of a people who have shown them
more humanity and compassion than their own Arab brethren ever will.”
Robert knew more than Islam. He ate, drank, and slept
history and was always happy to share with me what he learned—especially if
there were a reference to Jews. On May 27, 2015, he wrote: “I’m reading Robert
Markus’ biography of Pope Gregory the Great. What a phenomenal figure. He was
almost an exact contemporary of Muhammad. Gregory was a great reformer. He also
wrote a six-volume commentary on the Book of Job. He was a font of wisdom,
integrity and able statesmanship. The chants that bear his name are the
earliest music that is written on record, and still haunts the monasteries of
Italy, France, and Germany.
“He was also a great protector of the Jews. He forbade
compulsory conversions that so many popes of the past had winked at, and he
gave them full rights of equal citizenship—a true rarity in that day and
age. When he learned that the bishops in Palermo had appropriated the
local synagogues, he ordered that they make full restitution. Here is what he
wrote to the Bishop of Naples:
“‘Do not allow the Jews to be molested in the performance of
their services. Let them have full liberty to observe and keep all of their
festivals and holydays, as both they and their fathers have done for so long.’’’
Sometimes I wonder what Robert would have said about October
7. I know that he was sickened by Arab terror against the Jews of Israel. On
September 23, 2015, he wrote, “My mother and I were talking the other day about
what it would be like for us to know that there were people living in the next
county who would be only too happy to murder us and all our love ones, and
celebrate the deed afterward. How could we help from hating such people filled to
the brim with such murderous hatred for us, and who demonstrate such hatred in
deeds of unmentionable horror day after day? It's a sobering thought to
ponder.”
By ironic coincidence, on October 7 (!), 2015, he wrote to
me in regard to the murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin in front of their four
young children, one of them a four-month-old infant, only one week earlier:
“Your feelings after that savage murder of the Henkin couple
are completely natural and understandable. How would any person of conscience
react to an act of such naked savagery? In their evil they could not be
more evil. The hysterical glee that they show whenever Jewish blood is shed is
like something out of a nightmare. The one, true accomplishment of the
Palestinians is their societal normalizing of savagery as a virtue to be
emulated: murders celebrated like weddings, streets and village squares named
after suicide bombers. These people are sick. I mean: SICK.”
People don’t believe me when I tell them about Robert. They
think he was pulling the wool over my eyes. That he was deceiving me the Sunni
Muslim way with taqiyya. But I know that he was good. And that the scholarly
works he sent me should be read by more than one person (me). Robert did not
agree with the idea of “Islamic reform.” He believed that the violent,
Jew-hating form of Islam all too unfortunately practiced by too many Muslims
the world over, was due to ignorance of what Islam actually preached.
Believe me, I am no apologist for Islam. But I also know
that it doesn’t need to be practiced in the violent way it is currently
practiced by way too many ignorant, blood-crazed cretins. I would like others
to at least see and wrestle with Robert Werdine’s writings.
So now I would like to ask a question of regular readers of this column: would
you like to read these works sitting and doing nothing in a Gmail folder? Shall
I post them here in weeks to come? Or should I keep them hidden, buried away
where no one will ever see them?
I honestly seek your opinions. And I’m guessing that Robert, were he able to weigh in, would hope that you’d view the idea with favor. He wished with all his heart that more people were open to the Islam that he saw and believed—an Islam that respects the rights of people of all faiths to follow their beliefs in peace.
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! |
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- Wednesday, February 07, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
A sociology professor sacked by the University of Bristol after being accused of antisemitic comments has won a “landmark” decision that he was discriminated against because of his anti-Zionist beliefs.An employment tribunal ruled that Prof David Miller was unfairly dismissed, and that his “anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic pursuant to section 10 Equality Act 2010”.
The criteria for determining what is a “philosophical belief” are that it must be genuinely held; be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available; be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour; attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance; and be worthy of respect in a democratic society, compatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.
The claimant is and was a committed anti-Zionist and his views on this topic have played a significant a significant role in his life for many years. His views were deeply held and not amenable to change…
That doesn't sound like something that is serious - it sounds like a religion.
And make no mistake: Miller is a crazed antisemite, not a thoughtful critic of Zionism. He has claimed that Jeremy Corbyn did the bidding of Zionists. He's said that Chabad-Lubavitch is "a supremacist organisation at the extreme end of the settler movement" that has created "settlements" in Palestine since the 18th century. He's said that "Jews," as a monolithic set of people, are " in a position to discriminate against actually marginalised groups." He conflated Jewish groups and Zionist groups in his feverish conspiracy diagrams showing "links" between Jewish organizations and the Israeli government, in ways that the Goyim Defense League would blush to publish.
The result of this ruling is that as long as someone could couch their rabid hate of Jews as a "philosophical belief," not only should they be tolerated but protected as if they were people of color or disabled.
One can be a committed atheist and not infringe on the rights of the religious. One can be a committed believer in climate change and not do anything that would damage the people who disagree. But by definition, anti-Zionism as a belief system conflicts with the fundamental rights of Zionists, and it actively seeks to destroy the rights of Jews to self-determination on their historic lands.
David Miller should not be protected by the Equality Act. Jews should be protected under that act from the likes of David Miller.
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! |
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Israel is winning
So, to review: just as the Israelis think they’re on the cusp of victory, the Americans are scrambling to reach a deal that would preserve Hamas, end Iran’s attacks on U.S. assets, and wrap up the war in time for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to forget that Joe Biden sponsored an alleged “genocide.” The rest of today’s Big Story, on the U.S. play and how Israel is thwarting it, is lifted from an email from The Scroll’s geopolitical analyst, who asks to remain anonymous to preserve zir mystique:Seth Mandel: Israel Is Nobody’s Proxy Army
“I think the assumption by U.S. planners was that Gaza would turn out to be a tar baby for Netanyahu. The strategic assumptions were therefore that after a few months Bibi would punch himself out, the Israeli offensive would grind to a halt. The United States would then take advantage of the resulting stalemate—which would also hopefully result in the collapse of Bibi’s coalition government and its replacement by a more pliant government led by the likes of Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and possibly Yair Lapid—to pivot to establishing a Palestinian state, using the prospect of a hostage deal plus recognition by the Saudis as the carrots, and the threat of cutting off necessary U.S. munitions and U.S. diplomatic support as the sticks. The result would be a weaker, more pliant Israel surrounded by local Iranian clients, with Iran elevated to the status of America’s primary regional partner.
“All of these initial assumptions struck me as sound enough. Furthermore, the United States was no doubt encouraged by its interlocutors within the Israeli security and political elite and by its previous successes working with those interlocutors to bring the coalition’s judicial reform bill to a crashing halt. Just to make sure, the United States quickly imposed its own constraints on Israel’s war effort in exchange for diplomatic and military support—like mandating the resupply of food, medicine, and other necessities to Hamas, publicly engaging with Qatar to free hostages, making Israel responsible for civilian casualties while refusing to relocate Gazans outside of the Strip, and other measures whose effect was to limit Israel’s advantages and strengthen Hamas’ resolve. By tilting the playing field against Israel, the United States was essentially working to produce a stalemate, which it could then exploit for its own preferred ends.
“Initially, I saw plenty of evidence that the U.S. strategy was succeeding, from Yoav Gallant’s public statements about Israel’s need for U.S. resupply and the slow pace of Israel’s initial advances, to Israel’s seeming deference to U.S. wishes to not mention Iran or attack Hezbollah, to the relatively low Hamas casualty numbers relative to the size of their fighting force. By shaping the boundaries and nature of the fight, the United States was clearly gaining control over the likely nature of the result.
“Lately, however, the evidence I am seeing points in the opposite direction. I am seeing increasing Israeli success in killing more Hamas fighters and grinding down their ability to maneuver and launch rockets with diminishing Israeli losses. Even worse, from the U.S. perspective, is that it seems that Israel appears to have successfully innovated its way around U.S.-imposed constraints to arrive at more potent war-fighting strategies. The paradoxical result of U.S. constraints, which were meant to pen Israel into a cul-de-sac, is that they have led to the reduction of Israel’s dependency on the United States and therefore of U.S. leverage over Israel’s choices.
“That Gantz and Eisenkot are now attacking Bibi from the right, for letting too many supplies into Gaza, and that voices in Washington that were previously exulting in “Bibi’s failures” have fallen silent seem like clear indicators of which way the wind is blowing. Another indicator here is the publicly purported willingness of the Saudis to accept increasingly vague promises of a future Palestinian state in exchange for recognition of Israel in the present. The price is going down—not up.
The Iranian strategy appears to be based on Tehran’s previous ability to run U.S. troops out of the region, most infamously after the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 Americans. But the differences between the two situations are more important than their similarities, and one hopes the Biden administration is aware of them.John R. Bolton: Is the U.S. Misreading the Middle East?
President Reagan deployed U.S. troops to Lebanon in 1982 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force in the wake of the Israeli military campaign to push the PLO out of Lebanon. In September of that year, Lebanon’s newly elected pro-Israel President Bachir Gemayel was assassinated by Syria. Reagan informed Congress he was contributing 1,200 U.S. troops, at Lebanon’s request, and joining French and Italian peacekeepers, “to assure the safety of persons in the area and bring to an end the violence which has tragically recurred.” Chaos persisted, as did the U.S. troop presence, until the barracks bombing. Crucially, the administration removed the troops without hitting back at the Iranians’ chosen vessel for the slaughter, Hezbollah. “It is beneath our dignity to retaliate against the terrorists who blew up the Marine barracks,” claimed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Vessey, one of the most absurdly foolish statements ever given by a high-ranking U.S. security official.
But that strategic timidity was gone by the end of the Reagan presidency, which refashioned its approach to terrorism in a much more serious way once the president’s inner circle was fully rounded out with people who understood the importance of the state sponsorship that was fueling global terrorism.
Biden’s responses so far to the attack in Jordan may be insufficient, but the doctrine of nonresponse itself is fully discredited. The president is under pressure from members of his own party to restore deterrence. Further, while the Iranians may be encouraged by Biden’s catastrophic pullout from Afghanistan (as would be any enemy of the West), they appear to be guilty of projection: Israel is not America’s proxy militia, and it will not end this war simply because the secretary of state wants the war to end.
Nor will Israel shy away from war with Hezbollah if that is what is required to allow its citizens to live safely in the north. “War would not be good for Hezbollah—they know they will pay a heavy price,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Jewish Insider. “But we mean to return our civilians to their homes either with a treaty or with force.”
The Iranians have learned the wrong lesson from 1983, and their best hope is that the Biden administration has done the same. But either way, Israel has agency here, and it intends to use it.
The idea of raising the Palestinian Authority from its ashes on the West Bank to govern Gaza leaves Israelis across the political spectrum speechless. The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor recently described the Palestinian Authority as "weak and increasingly unpopular" and a "sclerotic institution, riven with corruption" and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as presiding "over his rump of a fiefdom like other Arab autocrats in the region, stifling civil society and repeatedly dodging calls for fresh elections." It defies common sense that such an entity should be entrusted with responsibility on the West Bank, let alone post-conflict Gaza.
With regard to the objective of full diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, before Oct. 7, Riyadh and Jerusalem were progressing toward mutual recognition, motivated by their shared view of Iran's threat, amplified by the palpable economic and political benefits likely after recognition. The current Gaza conflict has not altered those realities. Rather, Iran's "ring of fire" strategy against Israel has emphasized, not reduced, the congruence of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's national security priorities. The issue of Palestinian statehood will not be a dealbreaker for Riyadh.
Recognizing a Palestinian state before peace is agreed on with Israel only compounds the error. Such suggestions mirror Yasser Arafat's campaign in UN agencies to make "Palestine" a state just by saying so. They contradict years of U.S. policy, as well as the Oslo Accords, and will cause Israel to stiffen its resistance. This is no way to treat an ally gravely threatened by Tehran.
As for concerns about a "wider war," the U.S. and Israel have been in a wider war since Oct. 7. The real cause is unmistakably Iran. Until Iran stops interfering beyond its borders - stops arming, equipping, training and financing terrorist groups and stops seeking nuclear weapons - there will be no lasting Middle East peace and security. Iran does not and will not fear U.S. power until it pays heavily for what its barbaric surrogate Hamas unleashed four months ago, now joined in violence by Hizbullah, the Houthis and Shiite militias.
- Wednesday, February 07, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
- analysis, Forest Rain
Iran 101: Into the mind of the enemy
“It all begins”, he
explains, “with the way you perceive the world.”
Eliyahu Yossian is a Jewish, Israeli expert on Iran. Unlike
self-styled experts trained in Western think tanks, Yossian was born and raised
in Iran, escaping the country to Israel as an adult. His expertise is a product
of cultural immersion and continued training with Israel’s elite intelligence
community – with one major difference between him and other experts: Yossian
thinks like an Iranian.
Since October 7th, I've been following Eliyahu Yossian,
attending one of his lectures and listening to others online. Initially
featured on TV news panels at the war's start, he's no longer invited by
mainstream (left-wing) stations. Yossian explains this shift, stating: “I
dismantle their mindset and that makes them uncomfortable. Particularly the
analysts and generals who have been presenting the same ideas to the public for
30 years. What are they supposed to do? Admit they were wrong? Regular people
are a different story. They want to understand. They are willing to think
differently.”
Yossian's focus is on Israel, yet his teachings, address the
global threat of Iran and hold relevance for people worldwide.
The
notion that "Everyone is the same. Deep down, and we all want the same
things" is a fundamental misconception.
Yossian starts his lecture by highlighting the ignorance
embedded in the first part of this idea. We are not all the same. Israeli
society which is mostly liberal, and secular (Western/global) is very different
from that of Iran. The simplicity of the examples he uses highlights how deeply
embedded these differences are.
Body language:
He began by asking volunteers to demonstrate how they count to five on
their fingers. Every person in the audience began with a fist and extended
their fingers as they counted, ending up with an open hand. Then he showed us
how he counts – beginning with an open hand and folding each finger to end up
with a closed hand.
Who among us has ever taken the time to think about the implications this or
any other culturally acquired gesture has on our mindset?
Speech patterns:
Next, he spoke about the difference in language patterns. In Hebrew, like
in English, the action appears at the beginning of the sentence and the rest is
detail: “I want to go to the store and get…” In Persian, the elaboration comes
first. One needs to focus and read through all the details to get to the
action. This small difference in syntax has huge significance when, for
example, preparing and agreeing on the details of a contract.
Conception of time and power:
“What is your favorite game?” Yossian asked the audience.
All the answers were sports, measured by predefined limits in either time or
points: soccer, tennis, basketball etc. He contrasted this with Iran's choice
of chess and checkers, games without time constraints, emphasizing the goal of
one side killing the other. In chess, the purpose of all the pieces is to
protect their king and you win by killing the opponent's king. The king is the
piece that moves the least. Yossian asks: “We’ve all seen world leaders fly to
different countries for summits. Have you ever seen Iran’s rulers fly? They
don’t. Everyone comes to them.”
While Westerners jump to action and want immediate results, the Iranian mindset
is focused on strategic planning and moving others to create the desired outcomes.
In other words, “Everyone is the same” is a misconception
based on a lack of knowledge about other cultures.
Next Yossian began to unravel the deeply ingrained Western assumption that all
people have the same basic aspiration to live in comfort, take care of their
family, and go about their business in peace. This assumption is an idea, not a
fact, veiled arrogance that erases the possibilities of different value
systems.
Yossian asks: “If I give 100 shekels to a capitalist and 100
shekels to a socialist will they use it the same way? The amount of money is
identical. What is the difference between the two? The worldview of the person
choosing how to use the money.
In other words: If we try to understand the enemy through our mindset, using
our value system we will fail. The only way to be able to understand and
correctly predict their actions is to respect them enough to learn their
culture, mindset, and value system and see the world through their eyes.
1.
You can’t buy what
the other party isn’t selling
Yossian asked how many people in the audience read the Hamas
Charter. Or the Fatah Charter. Or the Hezbollah Charter. These terrorist
organizations play major roles in our lives (or lack thereof) and yet few
people have read their Charters, their Mission Statement. If you will, their
user manuals.
Although there are differences in style between the Hamas
and Fatah charters, they spell out the same goal. According to Yossian the
Hezbollah charter is much more sophisticated in its presentation of ideas but
it too spells out the same goal - extermination of the Jewish State.
Yossian asks: “Do they say what they want? Did they write it
down? Do they act accordingly?”
I’m sure the same sick feeling of realization rose in the
pit of every audience member that did in mine.
“So why,” he asks, “do we keep suggesting they want things
other than what they say?”
Their mission statement doesn’t say that they want jobs, a
better economy, or comfortable living. They certainly don’t say they want to
live side by side with Jews. Why do “experts” keep assuming that offering jobs
or economic incentives will change the way the believers in these charters
behave? We keep trying to buy peace (or at least quiet, temporary pauses in
conflict) but they aren’t selling peace or even quiet.
You can’t buy something that the other party isn’t selling.
Yossian explains: “The liberal secularist believes in
individualism, seeks individual comfort, and believes that everyone else wants
the same. No amount of money will buy away someone’s ideology. The Middle East
is fueled by ideology based on theology. Here actions are dictated by God.”
In other words, when your actions are fueled by the belief
that God demands that you kill Jews or at least support the killing of Jews, no
amount of individual comfort or easy living will change the motivation to kill
Jews.
Aryans, not Arabs
Iran, explains Yossian, literally means “the place where
Aryans live”. Although Islamized, Iranians see themselves as Aryans, not Arabs,
originating from the same tribe that split off centuries ago and eventually
became the inspiration of the Nazis. This was not the first time I’d heard that
there is a connection between Iran and Aryans but I had not heard it explained
the way Yossian did. It seems that the historic connection is debatable but
there is no doubt that the Aryan concept is deeply embedded in Iranian culture.
Yossian presented numerous examples of this: poetry that describes Iranians as
fair-skinned, with blue eyes and blond hair, and popular songs from before and
after the Islamic revolution that praise and elaborate the importance of
keeping their blood pure.
Listening to an American-sounding rap song, it would be easy
to assume the music to be a sign of modernization and aspiring to be part of
the Western world. The lyrics were a slap in the face. The song was an
Aryan-supremacist declaration of hate against Afghan migrants in Iran, that
they must be dominated, pushed out and most of all that Aryan blood must not be
mingled with their inferior dirty blood.
Mudbloods.
The examples Yossian brought were the songs Iranian university
students listen to in their nightclubs. Nightclubs seem very Western. Going to
university seems very modern and familiar. The content is utterly foreign.
Yossian explains that the Aryan worldview dictates Iranian
foreign policy. Other analysts explain Iranian relations with their proxies in
complex geopolitical terms. Yossian cuts to the core principle that dictates
decisions and actions: “For Iranians, Arabs are like a disposable cup. You
drink from it and when you are done, you throw it away. You will never see an
Iranian blow himself up on a bus. They have Arabs for that kind of dirty work.”
Allies and proxies
The Abraham Accords created an alliance of, what Yossian calls,
“Semites against the Aryans”. Arab countries that don’t border Israel and don’t
hold mission statements declaring they must exterminate the Jewish State could
choose to ally themselves with Israel – not for love of Zion but for the fear
of Iran.
Over many years, Iran has spread proxy tentacles across the
Middle East, basically taking over a country every seven years. These are not
allies because they are not seen as equal but rather tools to be used for
Iranian interests. Yossian explains that Iran leverages ideology and historic feelings
of being underprivileged and dishonored to motivate its proxies. Iran also
invests enormous amounts in their education and training, playing the long game
to grow local believers in their cause.
Various analysts have put forward different explanations for
the October 7th massacre. Obviously, the potential normalization of
relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia would ruin Iran’s long-term plan to
dominate the Middle East. But why did Hamas attack alone when there could have
been a much more devastating scenario of a coordinated simultaneous attack on
all fronts – from Hezbollah in the north, the Houthis from Yemen, Arabs from
the PA-controlled territories, and Israeli Arabs? These analysts say that Hamas
chose that specific Saturday because the Nova festival was an easy, tempting
target. Supposedly it was Hamas’s recklessness and desire for glory that led
them to attack Israel alone. Hezbollah adamantly declared that Hamas didn’t
warn them they were about to attack. Iran was supposedly very angry that Hamas
ruined their plan.
To me, something about their anger seemed contrived. But who
am I to say?
Hezbollah has been attacking Israel with missile and drone
attacks, creating enormous destruction but nothing near what will happen when
they fully join the war – something I have worried about since October 7th.
When I asked Yossian why Hezbollah hadn’t joined the war more fully he said:
“Shia doesn’t fight for Sunna.” Hezbollah has loyalty to Shia Iran, not to
Sunni Hamas thus they can allow Hamas to do the fighting while symbolically
showing their participation in the mutual goal of killing Jews. When I asked
Yossian what will make Hezbollah go to all-out war he said: “When Israel
attacks them.”
Peace is not for sale in the Middle East. What do we do?
Common sense isn’t very common these days but Yossian’s
logic is straightforward:
1.
We must understand that we
are in the Middle East and learn to “speak the language”, i.e. deal with our
enemies in terms that are meaningful to them (which might differ greatly from
what is meaningful to us).
2.
Then we must stop looking
for easy and fast solutions. There are none.
3.
Then we must strive for
victory
We of the liberal-secular West idealize peace. The
nationalist believers of the Middle East idealize victory. But even that is a
term that has become ambiguous to Westerners. What does victory look like?
It’s not about shaking hands and making up. There is no
pluralism in victory. Victory is when your enemy is so thoroughly crushed that
they beg you for peace. Thoroughly crushed means you have taken away everything
that the enemy cares about and are unquestionably the master of their future.
The only way the enemy will ever give us peace is if we are
victors.
This concept is problematic for the liberal secular
post-modern Westerner. It sounds extremist. Violent. Non-inclusive.
Nationalist. And, in a way, that is correct. If my enemy believes that God told
him to kill me and multiculturalism forces me to embrace his beliefs there is
no way for me to defend my life, family, or nation. I prefer survival over
multiculturalism. I choose my culture. My nation. My family.
A strong identity and belief in the righteousness of a cause
carries nations through generations. Striving for personal comfort does not.
The Jewish People survived for centuries not looking for comfort but by having
a strong identity and believing in the righteousness of our cause: “Next year
we will be in Jerusalem, rebuilt.” Jerusalem is irreplaceable. If we were
looking for comfort, we could be next year in Berlin or California. The goal of
rebuilding what is ours is transferred from one generation to the next –
identity and connection to our ancestral homeland. This simple but powerful
mantra holds the Middle Eastern map to victory – patience. If we don’t succeed
this year, we will do it the next. Or in the next generation. Every opportunity
we must do what we can.
This, says Yossian, is the answer. Teaching a strong
identity, righteousness in our cause, and whenever possible, building. Where
there is Jewish life, the enemy must retreat. Where there is Jewish life, we
win.
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! |
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- Wednesday, February 07, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
News media, quoting Qatari officials, characterized Hamas' counteroffer to the hostage deal proposed by Israel as "positive."
- Wednesday, February 07, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
Victoria Police are pursuing a protection order for a Jewish couple who received a photograph of their five-year-old son from an anti-Zionist activist with the threatening message "I know where you live".The couple seeking the protection order runs a gift shop in Melbourne's northern suburbs, which has been forced to close by an antisemitic campaign that started after the Hamas massacre on October 7. They do not want to be identified and are leaving the area out of fear for their own and their child's safety.
The shop has been graffitied with "No Jews" messages in the form of Stars of David with crosses through them. Regular custom has disappeared in a general boycott.
A 30-year-old Jewish student was brutally assaulted and hospitalized with facial fractures by a 23-year-old pro-Palestinian student in Berlin this past weekend.
A duo of Iranian agents were arrested in Stockholm on suspicion of targeting Jews in the Swedish capital, local media Sverige Radio reported on Tuesday morning.
A self-described Palestinian migrant from northern Africa stole a pro-Israel flag from a Long Island porch — then pummeled the homeowner who tried to stop him in a wild caught-on-video attack, officials said.
An antisemitic flier depicting a skunk in the white and blue of the Israeli flag and a Star of David has surfaced on Columbia University’s campus, sparking outrage among the Jewish community.The skunk depiction has been likened to Nazi propaganda posters used during World War II — which dehumanized the Jewish community and compared them to vermin.
A New Jersey man admitted to a series of violent hate crimes, for driving his car into a group of people and stabbing one because they were Jewish.
At least 50 vehicles in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood with a significant Jewish population, were targeted by antisemitic flyers.
Racist incidents usually prompt horror and a backlash. Antisemitic incidents cause.more antisemitic incidents.
After all, the current tsunami of antisemitism started with the biggest mass slaughter of Jews in nearly eight decades. The Hamas pogrom didn't marginalize or shame the antisemites - it emboldened them.
Notice that these incidents span all flavors of antisemitism - from the Left, the Right, Muslims and the Black community. Hamas attacks on Jews don't only encourage other Muslim Jew-haters to publicly spread their bile, but it also inspires the "progressives" and the other antisemites. Their talking points have all merged to become virtually indistinguishable: even the most woke self-described anti-racist and avowed enemy of antisemitism has no problem with chants of "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud" by Arabs who attend their rallies, and far-right proud antisemites will parrot the anti-Zionist talking points of the Left.
And mainstream anti-Israel reporting - reporting that thoroughly misrepresents and perverts Israeli actions to defeat a depraved Islamist terrorist group - adds more fuel to the fire.
Antisemitism snowballs. And it is still near the top of the mountain.
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! |
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Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Brendan O'Neill: The left’s grotesque betrayal of Jewish women`
The speed with which the right-on went from saying ‘Believe women’ to ‘Rape pics or it didn’t happen’ is mind-blowing. Their cry in recent years was that every woman who makes an allegation of sexual assault must be believed. Women must be ‘listened to and believed’, they used to say. Fast forward a decade and this principle has been incinerated. We arrive at the surreal situation where upper-class women who say a Tory MP touched their knee are instantly believed, while the nightmare vision of Israeli women burnt to a cinder, their underwear removed, provokes only chin-stroking. Can we be sure they were raped?UNRWA’s time is up – let’s shut it down
So widespread is the rape denialism that some activists have felt compelled to take to the streets to raise awareness about Hamas’s sexual crimes. At the weekend, British Jews and their allies gathered near BBC HQ to say ‘Rape is not resistance’. Some wore jogging bottoms with stains between the legs, in solidarity with Naama Levy, the 19-year-old Israeli woman who was glimpsed in just such a state shortly after the Hamas pogrom. Ms Levy remains in captivity in Gaza. ‘Each minute is an eternity in hell’, wrote her mother recently about her desperate wait for the return of her daughter. The woke silence on this suffering is unconscionable. The treachery of the feminists is unforgivable.
Now we know: it’s ‘#MeToo unless you’re a Jew’, in Nicole Lampert’s words. Believe women, except Jewish women – that’s the true slogan of the woke. When it comes to 7 October, the duty of the right-on, it seems, is not to believe women, but to believe Hamas. To believe that regressive army of Islamists, anti-Semities, misanthropes, homophobes and misogynists when they say, ‘We didn’t rape women, we swear’. We’ve gone from ‘Believe women’ to ‘Believe fascists’.
How do we explain this grotesque betrayal of Jewish womankind? This vile abandonment of women by self-styled feminists, and of Jews by self-styled anti-racists? In part it’s a function of identity politics, which divides people according to ‘privilege’ or ‘oppression’, and decides their moral worth accordingly. Jewish women have more privilege points than Palestinian men, apparently, and thus they can’t possibly have been violated by Hamas. They’re oppressors, right, not victims? And partly it’s yet another expression of the Socialism of Fools that has been soaring in recent years, where the Jewish State has come to play the same role that the Jewish people once played: that is, as an entity responsible for all the world’s ills, and thus deserving of hate and nothing else.
More broadly, though, I think it speaks to the creeping victory of the forces of barbarism among the ‘virtuous’ of the Western world. These people glimpse in the violence of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis a visceral revolt against a West they themselves loathe, and it excites them, it makes them feel alive, it adds the frisson of apocalyptic denouement to their otherwise dull political lives. And nothing – not the safety of Jews, not the dignity of women – can be permitted to interfere with the moral thrill these people derive from a barbarism they mistake for rebellion. If Jewish women must be collateral damage in this unholy marriage of Western self-loathing and Islamist barbarism, so be it. Yes, that’s it – they are willing to sacrifice Jews, especially female Jews, to the requirements of their own moral vanity. It must never be forgotten.
The dislocation of Arabs from Palestine, whether caused by Arab or Israeli actions, could have been quickly solved by another UN agency: the UN High Commission for Refugees, which followed in the footsteps of earlier League of Nations refugee programs. The stated goal of the UNHCR was and is to “help the millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes.” It would have taken just the stroke of a pen to include Palestinian refugees, as well as the 700,000 Jews who were forced out of Mideast countries where they had lived for a millennium.Bipartisan group of House lawmakers presses administration on pro-Palestinian charities in the U.S.
Instead, part of the grand plan of the Arab countries to keep the fire of Arab rejection of Israel burning was to give special recognition to the Palestinians by giving them their own agency with the UN’s creation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA. Rather than work to resettle Palestinians and integrate them into Palestinian or Arab society, UNRWA’s goal is to perpetuate Palestinian misery. How else can one explain why there are UNRWA-supervised refugee camps in the midst of the Palestinian Authority’s largest cities nearly 30 years after the PA assumed control?
As recently explained in a Wall Street Journal article, “UNRWA has kept Palestinians in permanent refugee camps” which has led to raising generations of Palestinians fed on the lie of a return to Israel and treating them as people who are not capable of standing on their own two feet. Neighboring Arab countries, too, have done their share of instilling hatred for Israel and Jews by not absorbing Palestinians within their borders into local society by giving them citizenship or work permits.
The disclosures of UNRWA employee involvement in the October 7 massacre and the use of its facilities in Gaza to assist the Hamas war effort is just the tip of an iceberg that extends deep below the surface. What lurks below that surface is a thoroughly corrupt UN agency that long ago decided to be part of the “refugee” problem rather than its solution.
Do away with UNRWA and replace it with the UNHCR; it’s going to be an improvement.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee wrote to the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation last week requesting information on alleged links between Hamas and U.S.-based tax-exempt charities that they said may be providing support to the terrorist group.Hamas officially demands end to war for hostages’ release
Pointing to testimony provided at a hearing the committee held last year, the lawmakers raised concerns that several pro-Palestinian charities may have financial ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
Such charities, they noted, employ top officials previously involved in other charities such as the Holy Land Foundation and KindHearts for Charitable Development, which were shuttered by the U.S. government for providing funding to terrorists from American donors.
“Today, it appears that members of these now-defunct charities are reorganizing and forming new U.S.-based charities that may be seeking to take advantage of well-intentioned Americans by redirecting their money to support terrorist organizations like Hamas,” the lawmakers’ letter to the Treasury and IRS reads. “We are concerned that there are U.S.-based organizations with ties to Hamas that were able to evade the anti-terrorism efforts of the IRS and gain tax-exempt status.”
The lawmakers requested a briefing from the Treasury and the IRS by Feb. 13 to assess those agencies’ current efforts to monitor, identify and investigate potential support for terrorists among U.S.-based nonprofits.
In a separate letter, the lawmakers requested information on the FBI’s monitoring of antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, as well as the FBI’s own efforts to investigate charities and groups operating on college campuses that may be providing support to terrorist organizations.
The Hamas terror group on Tuesday night announced its long-awaited response to a proposed hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Israel, in what Jerusalem said amounted to a rejection of the outline.
Hamas said it “dealt with the proposal in a positive spirit, ensuring a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, ending the aggression against our people, ensuring relief, shelter and reconstruction, lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip and completing a prisoner exchange.
“We value the role of our brothers in Egypt, Qatar and all countries that seek to stop the brutal aggression against our people,” Hamas added.
The Ynet news site cited senior officials in Jerusalem as saying that while Hamas claimed it agreed to the framework as negotiated by Doha and Cairo, it was demanding “impossible conditions” from Israel.
“In any case, Israel will not stop the fighting. Hamas’s response amounts to a negative answer,” the officials said, adding that the Prime Minister’s Office was still drafting an official response to mediators.
Israel has repeatedly rejected proposals for a long-term or permanent ceasefire and maintains that it will continue in its goal to eradicate Hamas and ensure that Gaza can never again pose a threat to the Jewish state.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Wednesday, said the Biden administration was reviewing Hamas’s response and stressed it was “essential” to go ahead.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done. But we continue to believe that an agreement is possible and indeed essential, and we will continue to work relentlessly to achieve it,” Blinken stated following meetings in Doha.
- Tuesday, February 06, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday it will pay public sector workers 60% of their December salaries this week as it grapples with the long running fallout of Israel's refusal to transfer tax funds earmarked for Gaza.Funding to the Palestinian Authority, the body that exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank, has been severely restricted by the months-long dispute over transferring tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians.Under interim peace accords signed in the early 1990s, Israel collects taxes on the Palestinians' behalf and typically transfers them to the PA monthly on the approval of the finance minister.However, transfers have been stalled since October, when Smotrich withheld around 600 million shekels ($164.51 million) of the total 1 billion shekels due for transfer, prompting the Palestinian Authority, which says Gaza is an integral part of Palestinian territory, to refuse to accept any funds."We cannot accept conditions on our money. We will remain committed to the prisoners and martyrs and to our people in the Gaza Strip, not out of favor, but by virtue of our national, religious, and moral responsibility," Shtayyeh said.
Funding from international donors has also been squeezed, falling from 30% of the $6 billion annual budget to around 1%, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
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! |
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- Tuesday, February 06, 2024
- Elder of Ziyon
Due to the lack of body parts or remains of many of those killed in the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Israel's Chief Rabbinate recommended burying the cars of those who were killed in them.N12 reported that the ZAKA Tel Aviv organization, after hard work and distress, came to the conclusion that they could not locate all the remains of the victims inside the vehicles in which they were slaughtered. In order to preserve the sanctity of the deceased for the first time since the establishment of the state, they decided to bury the vehicles.After consulting with the Military Rabbinate and the Chief Rabbinate, hundreds of vehicles will be buried in Jewish cemeteries across Israel.
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! |
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