Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, February 09, 2024

02/09 Links Pt1: The U.S. Promises Palestinians a State While Demanding Nothing in Return; Biden and Cameron are falling into Hamas's trap; Hamas tunnel under UNRWA’s HQ

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: The U.S. Promises Palestinians a State While Demanding Nothing in Return

After criticizing Israel’s conduct of the war at a press conference in Tel Aviv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed the need for “a concrete, time-bound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state.” Elliott Abrams comments:

Even if one assumes that creating a Palestinian state is an important goal, what Blinken has done here is to destroy any preconditions. Blinken of course said that new state should live side by side with Israel in peace, but he did not make that a condition of its creation.

If the path forward is “time-bound and irreversible,” there are by definition no conditions that would slow or preclude creating that state. . . . A “time bound and irreversible path” to Palestinian statehood demands nothing of Palestinians. They are not asked to confront hatred of Jews, not asked to end terrorism, not asked to create decent and effective governance. Instead of being asked to reform their institutions and confront the murderers in their midst, they are asked for nothing. And if that is what they are asked for, that is what they will deliver.

This U.S. position would be understandable in many ways were it entirely cynical. . . . The deeper problem with the U.S. position today is that it appears to be idealistic: Blinken actually means what he says and does want a “time-bound and irreversible path” that will create a Palestinian state no matter how great a danger to Israel it presents. If so, he is promoting a policy that does Palestinians no favors and endangers Israelis.

Col. Kemp: Biden and Cameron are falling into Hamas's trap

They know that in an election year the last thing President Biden wants is to allow US forces to get dragged directly into another serious conflict in the Middle East. So rather than permit the Houthis’ disastrous assault on world trade and the continued humiliation of largely unanswered attacks on US bases to continue, the hope is that Biden will pressure Israel to cease the war in Gaza and refrain from intensive conflict against Hizballah in Lebanon.

Both Iran and Hamas have been given good reason to believe that is possible. Since the start of his presidency Biden has been appeasing the ayatollahs, not only by turning a blind eye to their regional aggression but also releasing millions in frozen assets to help fund it. While both Britain and the US have stood staunchly by Israel since 7th October, they have also compromised their backing by digging at Israel and trying to “two side” the conflict, including innuendo that the IDF is being less than discriminating and proportionate in its strikes against Hamas.

In the same vein, Washington has made a show of sanctioning Israelis accused of isolated and often low-level attacks against Arabs in the West Bank while paying little attention to the far more deadly organised terrorism there by Arabs against Israelis, often backed by Iran.

Both countries have also given emphasis to re-energising a “two-state solution” in the wake of this conflict, most notably in imperious pronouncements by Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his American counterpart Antony Blinken. Any such idea at this point is nothing other than facile. Apart from its sheer impracticability following the October 7 massacre, it seems to reward and further incentivise terrorism.

Of course much of this is for electoral purposes, to balance undoubted support for Israel with a nod to the vehemently and increasingly strident anti-Israel elements among the voters in both countries. But it is also highly dangerous, not least for the civilians of Gaza. It encourages Hamas to hold out hope for Western diplomatic intervention in their favour and therefore helps prolong the war. Hence their impossible demands in these negotiations in the face of impending destruction.

Col. Kemp: 'Hamas plans to use civilians until the last Palestinian is dead'

The war in the Gaza Strip has brought together Israelis from all different walks of life and facets of society with a shared goal of defending their home from Hamas terrorists in the wake of the October 7 attack.

Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, Circassians, and others stand united, showcasing diversity and camaraderie. Yahya Mahamid, an Israeli Arab speaker, educator, activist, IDF veteran and self-described Zionist, embodies this unity.

He discussed his journey with Colonel Richard Kemp, a former UK Armed Forces commander, in the Ynet studio. Raised in an Arab city to despise Israel, Mahamid shared how he grew to love the country and join the army.

"I see my service and the IDF as part of my duty to my country, Israel. As an Israeli citizen, I have a duty to my country, just like any other citizen in the world although my education growing up did not put me on this path," he says.

"Unfortunately, I grew up with a very negative image of Israel and the Jewish people, and I was put on a path of a different identity, a made-up identity. But later on in life, I realized and embraced my Israeli side and my Israeli identity, and therefore my duty, was to serve in the IDF and to protect the people of Israel and the country." What do you mean by a made-up identity?

"Up identity made-up identity. I was told that I was not Israeli only solely on the fact that I'm Arab. I was told that I am very distant from Israel and later on I connected to the actual land and dirt of this country. When you put on that green uniform and you fight and you sweat and you bleed and you forge a brothers-in-arms relationship with your colleagues and with your fellow soldiers, you feel connected to this land. And this is a shared feeling among all soldiers in the world, soldiers fight for their country because they're connected to the values and to the flag and to the land of that country."

And did you pay a price within your own family or community for joining the IDF?

"Joining the IDF has definitely been a challenge, and one of those challenges was because going against the flow and forging a new path usually comes at a price. Unfortunately, my family excommunicated me for a few years, because of my service and even before that because of my pro-Israel opinions. And I don't blame them because some other folks in my town where I come from have endangered my family and threatened my family solely on the fact that I hold other views, different views. But on the brighter side, my company commander, when I joined the IDF, called up my mother and told her that I joined the army and he highly encouraged her to go back into contact with me and that I am her son and based on that conversation, me and my mother spoke for the first time after three years."

You can't escape anti-Israel slander, even in mobile games

"Royal Match" is a very popular mobile game where players can join teams and compete. The most obsessive players would naturally want to join teams with the other best players.

There are plenty of teams that claim to represent countries or regions. Most of their descriptions say things like "Have fun" or something patriotic.

One of the top teams in the game is called "Royal Palestine."

Its self description says nothing positive about "Palestine." It's only about how Israel "is an evil terrorist state that kills women and children."

Like the Palestinian national cause itself, there is nothing "pro-Palestinian" here. It is purely anti-Israel.

Ukrainian teams don't insult Russia in their descriptions. Kurdish teams don't attack Turkey. But "Palestinian" teams define themselves with hate, not pride.

Hating Israel is not a reasoned opinion. It is an obsession. It is a psychosis. It is the socially acceptable way to be antisemitic.

And Jews who just want to live their lives are forced to be exposed to this hate, even when they just want to play a game.

(h/t Junior Elder)

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The media doesn't believe everything the terrorists say - only what they want to believe

Hamas and Islamic Jihad issue daily reports not only of the alleged casualties of civilians in Gaza, but also of their supposedly successful attacks on the IDF.

On Wednesday, Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today site gave details on a number of alleged attacks by terror forces against the IDF:

The Mujahideen of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, and the Mujahideen of the Al-Qassam Brigades were able to target an Israeli special force consisting of 10 soldiers holed up in a house in the fighting axis west of the city of Khan Yunis, with two anti-personnel shells and clashed with them with machine guns. Al-Qassam announced that the Mujahideen had confirmed that the force had caused deaths and injuries.

Al-Saraya claimed responsibility for targeting an Israeli military bulldozer with an RPG shell, killing those inside it and setting it on fire, in the vicinity of the Al-Amal neighborhood, west of Khan Yunis.

Al-Saraya published a brief statement in which it conveyed the confirmation of its mujahideen, after their return from the areas of clashes, that they were able to kill all members of an Israeli force of 7 soldiers, which was holed up in a residential apartment in the vicinity of Al-Hawouz near the Hayat School, west of the city of Khan Yunis, after targeting it with a “TBG” shell.

Earlier this week, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida claimed Hamas had killed 15 IDF soldiers in the previous 24 hours.

Hamas also claimed this week to have destroyed 962 Israeli tanks during the war.

In the real world, three IDF soldiers have fallen this month.

Mainstream media ignore these obviously false statements by the terrorists. They know they are lies, so they almost never even mention their claims.

Yet when the same spokespeople claim hundreds of Gaza civilians are killed every day, the same media has no problem believing it. There is no skepticism. The media just adds "according to Gaza health officials" and pretend that they've done their jobs.

No, they haven't. If Hamas and the other groups are known to be liars - and the media clearly knows they are by only reporting their claims that align with the biases of the reporters and their editors - journalists should report that their statements are suspect.

By not reporting that Hamas and the other groups are openly and provably lying, they give more credibility to the Gaza casualty figures that have been universally accepted. And those are exaggerated just as much as the supposed IDF deaths are.

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

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The Guardian really wanted to write a story about IDF abuses resulting in gratuitous civilian deaths. They interviewed many IDF soldiers who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they aren't supposed to speak to the press.

While the British newspaper tries to spin their statements as proving Israel's wartime practices are awful, when you read what they actually say, they prove yet again that the IDF is the most moral army in history - and it is The Guardian' reporting that is immoral.

For example, the newspaper says:

Some had not seen Palestinian civilians at all, passing weeks in Gaza without encountering anyone other than small bands of Hamas militants. Others said they had been in close combat almost every day and considered those civilians who ignored Israeli instructions to flee as complicit with Hamas and thus legitimate targets. Those interviewed also expressed sympathy for civilians and said they had tried to help them.

When you read the details, you see that the "legitimate targets" part was made up by the Guardian:

Some of the soldiers said that they considered any civilian who remained in the combat zone after being warned to leave as complicit, and several described fighting Hamas militants in the upper stories of apartment blocks while families sheltered on the ground floor, or even in the same house.

“What am I going to think? That they’re not supporters of Hamas? What are they doing there then? We should ship them all to Yemen, if [the Houthis] like them so much,” a special forces soldier said.

The soldier didn't say that anyone attacked the civilians. He didn't say that they were legitimate targets. He only said they were complicit - and they almost certainly were. Providing cover for terrorists and seemingly acting as voluntary human shields sure indicates that. But no one they quoted supports the assertion that the IDF considered them legitimate targets. The special forces soldier was frustrated because they were obstacles to achieving a military objective, not as a military objective themselves.

If they were legitimate targets, they would have called in an airstrike or artillery round to blow up the whole house rather than engage in a dangerous firefight. These soldiers endangered themselves to avoid killing the civilians.

It is a Guardian lie.

In other sections, the Guardian bends over backwards to validate Hamas lies about casualties. The newspaper tries to understand why none of the many soldiers they interviewed saw any dead civilians:

Several veterans said they had not personally seen women or children killed or wounded, despite both groups comprising the majority of Gaza’s victims, which is possibly a consequence of most of these casualties being inflicted by long-range artillery or airstrikes some distance from most ground troops.

“You do see a lot of dead Hamas fighters, or men anyway. I didn’t see dead children or women and that helped a lot,” the NCO said.

This indicates that Hamas is lying about the majority of the victims being women and children, a claim that has not been corroborated by a single non-Hamas source - yet that claim is reported as fact by anti-Israel media like The Guardian.

Similarly, the newspaper makes the unfounded "suggestion" that the IDF uses massive firepower unnecessarily, and this kills many civilians.

The interviews suggest that the soaring civilian death toll is at least in part due to Israel’s use of massive fire power to limit its own losses.

Yet the soldiers they quote on that topic prove the opposite.

One soldier from the special forces Duvdevan unit said his unit had only encountered Hamas militants on three occasions during six weeks in north Gaza, from where the majority of civilians were ordered to evacuate early in the war.

When asked what tactics the unit employed in such situations, the soldier laughed.

“There are no tactics. We take some fire and identify a target. For an hour we unload everything we’ve got, our own weapons, tanks, anything we can get. Then we advance and find dead terrorists,” he said.

[Another] described how a relatively light injury to a fellow soldier triggered a “massive response”.

“We just took down the whole area where we thought the shooter was,” he said.

Not one civilian was identified as being killed in these two testimonies - but the Guardian says that the huge response to Hamas attacks is responsible for civilian deaths. Without a single shred of proof.

Moreover, the paper implies that a "relatively light injury" does not merit a serious response. What should the IDF do, wait until a soldier is killed before shooting back? A terrorist has revealed where he is; any army would ensure that he is neutralized - and in an area where the civilians have evacuated, the proper response to minimize risk to soldiers is to destroy the building the shooting came from. That is proportional under international law.

Nothing in the laws of armed conflict proscribe these actions. Every army would do the same thing.

The most outrageous part was when one soldier says that IDF troops died for no reason to make Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken happy:

Another special forces soldier said that advances were “done properly” during the early stages of the war.
“We had everything we needed and all in the right order. First airstrikes and artillery, then the tanks, and only then the foot soldiers. By the time we got somewhere, there wasn’t much left,” he said.
The soldier said that more recently, following US pressure to minimise civilian casualties, tactics had changed. “Now the infantry are going in alongside the tanks and that’s why they are getting killed,” he said.

IDF soldiers are putting themselves in danger, and being killed, to please the US. That is sickening and damning.

Even though these soldiers were interviewed anonymously, not one of them gave any indication of the IDF not performing its duties properly, fully in accordance with the laws of armed conflict. (If one did, we know the Guardian would have featured that testimony in paragraph 1.) Clearly the newspaper was hoping to find soldiers among dozens interviewed who would angrily claim that his commanders or comrades were wantonly shooting women and children, as Hamas and Hamas supporters claim happens daily.

They couldn't find one.

On the contrary, every single soldier verified what the IDF has been saying throughout the war. In a place of chaos, where there are thousands of underground hiding places for terrorists, where civilians and civilian objects are cynically used by Hamas to protect terrorist lives, the IDF soldiers from all levels of the army all agree that they are performing professionally and superbly.

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

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02/08 Links Pt2: Israel’s American frenemy; The Fraudulent Case Against ‘Violent Settlers’; Argentina’s president calls Hamas ‘21st-century Nazism’

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel’s American frenemy

Some Bidenites clearly subscribe to the liberal fantasy that all conflict can be ended by negotiated compromise based on a universal drive for self-interest. Other members of the administration are viscerally hostile to Israel. Far worse, some of these have had links to Iran.

Last September, the news platform Semafor and the London-based émigré opposition outlet Iran International reported from thousands of leaked emails that Iran had infiltrated the Obama administration.

Three people in an Iranian network were aides to U.S. envoy Robert Malley, who was the point man on Iran under both the Obama and Biden administrations until he was removed last June following a still unexplained “mishandling of classified material.”

The leak also revealed that more than ten Iranian analysts in Western think tanks, including Ali Vaez and Dina Esfandiary—two employees of the powerful International Crisis Group—were part of an influence network called the Iran Experts Initiative formed and guided by Tehran.

Last week, Iran International and Semafor further reported that, during the Obama administration, the Crisis Group formed a secret alliance with Iran which used it to lobby the U.S. government throughout the negotiations leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal.

In 2002, Malley founded and directed the Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program. After being appointed in February 2014 to the National Security Council’s staff under the Obama administration, he left the group but continued to use Vaez to send messages to Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Zarif, and sent Vaez to Vienna to meet Iranian officials. In January 2018, Malley became the Crisis Group’s president and CEO.

The leaked materials showed that within a month of his return to government in 2021, Malley helped infiltrate Ariane Tabatabai, who was associated with the Iranian network as an agent of influence, into the U.S. State Department to assist him in his negotiations with Iran.

Tabatabai then moved to the Pentagon, where even today she still serves as chief of staff to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Christopher Maier—what’s more, in an office that oversees hostage recovery.

Anti-Israel protests against Biden have given the impression that his administration is on Israel’s side. America’s Jewish leaders need to start telling the American people that “Genocide Joe” is putting the United States and the West at ever greater risk and is actually helping those who intend the genocide of the Jews.

The Fraudulent Case Against ‘Violent Settlers’

U.S. officials are using pro-Palestinian NGO sources to back a controversial effort aimed at punishing the Jewish state. In November, a month after Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog attended a meeting on Capitol Hill. Instead of focusing on Hamas or Hizbullah, the lawmakers, including senior-ranking senators from both parties, wanted to focus on the risks posed by roving bands of allegedly violent settlers in the West Bank.

Much of the information they were citing came from a single, ostensibly impartial source: Lt.-Gen. Michael R. Fenzel, who currently serves as the U.S. security coordinator to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC). The USSC is well-known for its regular briefings and reports about "extremist settlers," which it provides to members of Congress. According to sources in and out of the U.S. government familiar with Fenzel's reports, nearly every claim presented as fact seems to have been lifted directly, sometimes verbatim, from the websites of highly partisan pro-Palestinian organizations.

In the past 12 months, 13 Israelis were murdered by Palestinians in Jerusalem and 17 in the West Bank - not counting those slaughtered on Oct. 7, 2023 - while doing nothing more provocative than driving home or stopping for gas. The number of Palestinian civilians who have been killed by Israelis under such conditions over the same time period is zero. But the story the administration has been telling anyone who will listen is very different.

By scrubbing any mention of the daily violence directed by Palestinian terror operatives against Jewish civilians living in the West Bank from his reports, Fenzel has eliminated the clear retaliatory motive for the vast majority of attacks by Israelis against West Bank Palestinians. Thinly laundered reports from expressly anti-Israel organizations, designed to support an illusion of innocent Palestinians being violently attacked by bloodthirsty Israelis, paint a picture of an Israeli equivalent to the Palestinian atrocities of Oct. 7, lending itself an easy "both-sides" posture.

The Biden administration wants to isolate so-called "extremist settlers" as a major threat to regional stability. Biden's new executive order says they constitute "a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region...[and are] threatening United States personnel and interests." Palestinian terrorism regularly attacking Israelis in Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, and elsewhere went unmentioned.

A Proportionate Response

In the summer of 1982, Israel was strategically bombarding a besieged Beirut to uproot the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had long terrorized the Jewish state from its northern border. During the siege, Shlomo Goren, Israel's chief rabbi and a supporter of the war, declared that Jewish law required Israel to allow combatants and noncombatants to flee Beirut.

The great medieval scholar Maimonides had codified a Talmudic opinion that the "fourth side" of a besieged city must remain open as an evacuation corridor. Doing so gives combatants an incentive to flee; otherwise, they might fight to the finish, at great cost to both sides. The Israeli army agreed and left open two major escape routes from Beirut. The IDF had no interest in the PLO terrorists fighting to the last man. Goren would deem this gesture a prime example of how Judaism can teach the world how to fight wars ethically.

Since Hamas' brutal Oct. 7 attack, Israelis are united in believing that the country must remove the threat of Hamas from its border. Yet they have not opposed their government's attempts to forewarn Gazan civilians of impending attacks, or to create evacuation corridors from neighborhoods in which Hamas embeds its fighters. Israelis want to minimize noncombatant casualties. The Jewish state's enemies target its citizens, but Israel will not respond in kind.

Propaganda past the sale is difficult to counter

One of the most effective propaganda techniques used against Israel is "thinking past the sale."

Instead of arguing the technical points accusing Israel of "genocide," which is absurd, they make people think the question of genocide has already been decided and to think "how can we punish Israel for this crime that everyone knows it is guilty of?"

So demanding, for example, that FIFA ban Israeli football is an effective form of propaganda. The coverage does not include any discussion about whether the genocide libel is true so casual observers assume the matter is settled - and we are only discussing the penalties to be meted out on the guilty party.

There is very little room to counter the lie because the lie is implicit in the discussion. The entire question creates its own framework ("Should Israel's genocidal actions result in its expulsion, or not?") where the assumptions are assumed to be true, and engaging in the discussion means one is already accepting the premise.

People need to learn how to know they are being manipulated, because there is no easy way for pro-Israel voices to counter this insidious propaganda method.

By the way, the West Asian Football Association demanding FIFA ban Israel includes the UAE and Bahrain. Jordan is leading the effort.

(h/t Yoel)

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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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UNRWA To Address Funding Cuts By Holding Bake Sale Using Stolen Aid Flour (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Rafah, February 8 - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees announced today a raft of measures to meet the challenges inherent in the organization losing much of its budget by the end of this month because of ties to terrorism, measures that will include an event or series of events in which Gazans will prepare cakes, pastries, and other confections, and market them to passers-by, with the proceeds helping to cover some of the hundreds of millions in shortfall. The supplies for the event will come from the organization's own Hamas-run warehouses, where the goods are kept safe from the Gaza residents who might otherwise obtain them for free, as intended.

The United States, the European Commission, Austria, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Australia, and Lithuania, among others, declared a suspension of funding UNRWA unless and until the body undergoes an overhaul of its policies, culture, and procedures, in the wake of damning evidence that not only did some UNRWA staff participate in the atrocities of October 7 last year, numerous employees have direct Hamas associations, with half the workers connected to the terrorist group through family. Video and documentary evidence also shows that thousands of UNRWA teachers, for example, celebrate terrorism, and that nothing the organization does in the Gaza Strip can happen without approval and direction from Hamas itself, which appropriates aid goods and funds for its own purposes.

Analysts see the bake sale announcement as an extension of existing Hamas-UNRWA practices. "The UNRWA-provided foodstuffs are meant to be distributed to Gaza residents," explained Matan Shetten of the RAND Corporation. "But no one gets it free except the well-connected among Hamas itself. Everyone else has to buy it. It's even sold at retail in supermarkets. So what we have here with the bake sale is more of the same: Hamas-UNRWA extracting every last shekel from ordinary Palestinians, and letting only the barest amount of aid of any kind trickle down to the people."

"Who's going to buy the cakes - Egypt?" he continued. "No, the only people in Gaza are Gazans; Israeli soldiers, who wouldn't be interested; and Israeli hostages of Hamas, who have no access to the bake sale or money with which to buy anything. That just means more money siphoned away from the people who need it most."

A spokeswoman for UNRWA continued to insist today that every bag of flour is strictly audited and controlled.

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!

02/08 Links Pt1: PM: Absolute victory within reach; surrender to Hamas demands would bring disaster; Rewarding the Oct 7 Massacres With a ‘Palestinian’ State

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: The Two-State Solution: Nothing More than Wishful Thinking

The hopeless, corrupt, failed, and incompetent Palestinian Authority is no more capable of administering Gaza than it has been capable of administering the West Bank areas.

One wonders how and why serious international leaders continue to spout the absurd "two states" cliche as if it were a sort of magical panacea that, if repeated often enough, will somehow magically move out of the sphere of wishful thinking. It is inconceivable to imagine that a viable, peace-loving Palestinian political entity could materialize out of the present Middle East realities.

The idyllic vision of "two states living side by side peacefully" has never in fact been agreed to by the involved parties themselves - the Palestinians and Israelis. On the contrary, as agreed in the still valid Oslo Accords, the permanent status of the territories remains an open negotiating issue.

The accords make absolutely no mention of any Palestinian state entity. As such, repetition of the call for a "two-state solution" both prejudges the potential, future outcome of a permanent status negotiating process and seriously underestimates regional realities.

Clearly, a two-state solution could not be imposed on unwilling parties. It could only emanate from a negotiated settlement between Israel and a unified, fully representative, responsible, and capable Palestinian leadership, and not a conglomeration of terror groups.

A politically and economically unstable and non-viable Palestinian entity would represent an open invitation to more Iranian meddling and intrusion in much the same way as is occurring in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. This would constitute a constant and even greater threat both to Israel's security, as well as to regional and international stability.

Daniel Greenfield: Rewarding the Oct 7 Massacres With a ‘Palestinian’ State

What do you get when you massacre over a thousand people, rape, behead, torture and kidnap everyone Jewish, Christian or non-Arab in sight? International diplomatic recognition.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken has reportedly begun conducting a review of options for recognizing a ‘Palestinian’ state after the war. The State Department has claimed that there are no policy changes, but that may be yet more diplomatic doubletalk.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, brought in after PM Rishi Sunak ousted Minister Suella Braverman for speaking out against the pro-Hamas rallies, published an op-ed calling for a “pause” in the fighting, exchanging Israeli hostages for captured Hamas terrorists, and providing “safe passage” to “key Hamas leaders” and “the people responsible for October 7” to leave Gaza. After that he announced that his government might recognize an Islamic terror state.

“We – with allies – will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations,” he claimed. “That could be one of the things that helps to make this process irreversible.”

Why the urgent need for the “irreversible” recognition of a terror state?

According to Cameron, “we must give the people of the West Bank and Gaza the political perspective of a credible route to a Palestinian state and a new future.”

The “people” in question have already been polled on what they want from the future.

A poll found that 74% of ‘Palestinians’ supported the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7 and a majority “extremely” supported them. Only 12% were against. 83% of those in the West Bank, under the Palestinian Authority and the immediate beneficiaries of statehood, supported the crimes.

98% in Gaza and the West Bank said that they felt ‘pride’ as ‘Palestinians’ over the war. 74% expected the fighting to end with the defeat of Israeli forces in Gaza. Only 17% supported a two-state solution while 77.7% wanted to destroy Israel and replace it with a ‘Palestinian’ state.

This is what supporting the “Palestinian people” with a “Palestinian state” really means.

Seth Mandel: Can Biden and Blinken Stay Out of Their Own Way?

After his prepared remarks, Blinken was asked by an Al-Jazeera reporter: “Is it in any way acceptable to the U.S. for Hamas to be playing a role in governing Gaza in a day-after scenario?”

Blinken gave a one-word answer: “No.”

He also repeated throughout his remarks that it was his job to help construct a path toward a better Middle East but not to tell Israel what to do.

The upshot of all this is that Blinken clearly used his meetings and his public remarks today to try to reset the vibe after getting on the Saudis’ nerves yesterday and earning a public rebuke. He did not frustrate his hosts today.

Indeed, Netanyahu sounded a triumphant note in his own presser. Hamas’s latest counteroffer in the hostage talks was dismissed by Blinken several times today as a “nonstarter,” so Netanyahu was unburdened from the perception that he’s the intransigent party.

“The victory is within reach,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israeli forces’ continued gains in the Hamas stronghold city of Khan Younis. Throughout his comments, Netanyahu returned time and again to an important point: The only message that matters right now is “Hamas must go,” because any wavering on this—especially, though he did not say so explicitly, by the U.S.—makes postwar planning impossible.

This is key. If regional actors—the Saudis, Egypt, Jordan (which has a large Palestinian population)—think America is wavering on the total defeat of Hamas and the expulsion of its leaders, they simply won’t commit to facilitating the transition in Gaza. Nobody’s going out on that limb if they think there’s a chance Biden will cut it down. Nor would they want to commit manpower to any civil administrative role if they think they’ll “get a bullet in the head” from remnants of Hamas left behind, as Netanyahu put it today.

The same is true for any Saudi normalization deal with Israel, since Hamas has shown it can torpedo any progress at will. “There will be no agreement if Hamas is not defeated,” Netanyahu said.

The postwar goals that are so dear to the Biden administration are only possible if a united front leads to complete victory. Every day that is spent by Biden or Blinken sowing doubts about Israel’s mission or showing impatience is a day spent undermining normalization and obstructing any path to Palestinian self-determination. Israel is currently in the process of removing the roadblock to the Biden administration’s wish list.

The schizophrenic policy whereby the White House impedes the fulfillment of its own demands is wearing out its welcome. Today Blinken’s message was clear, and it was in line with the intent of our Mideast allies. But those allies need to believe the same will be true tomorrow, and the day after that.

Jordanian news site: "We are in a war against the Jews." (Not "Zionists.")

Dr. Ahmad Shahrouri, a sharia professor at Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, writes in the Albosafa news site that Jordan is in a war with the Jews.

Since Jordan and Palestine were oppressed under what they called the British “mandate,” our region has never been well, and the evil shown in the Balfour Declaration was perpetuated. The British Foreign Minister gave Palestine a gift to the Jews to establish their religious state on it, so that one of the lungs of the Jordan River could breathe carcinogenic oxygen, and the other would get cancer due to the neighboring environment.

To know, O Jordanian, that you are threatened by the prophecies of the Torah and the Talmud, and that the Jews have an open appetite to swallow up your land at their appropriate time, is half the recipe for your true independence, and the other half is to live through the calamity and appreciate it as it deserves, and to spend the hours of your life anticipating an affliction that you should not surrender to if you are sane.

A nation whose enemy displays a map of his state, which includes the east and west of the Jordan River, and who for decades has been declaring while heading to visit our land that he is heading from the liberated Land of Israel to its occupied land, what more proof of the disastrous truth needs than to condemn its enemy from his own mouth? Is it not pedantic to then accuse us of being conspiracy theory lovers?

...Gentlemen, we are in a real battle, in which the Jews are not our primary enemies. We are in a battle with our selfishness, with the lusts of publicity within us, with the absence of awareness from our intellectuals.
...
Our battle with the Jews will not be victorious until we defeat their agents who stand as a stumbling block in the way of the entire nation’s liberation from slavery to them and their whims. Jordan will remain threatened until rational people know that its arena and the arena of Palestine are one, one in danger, one in fate, one in victory, or defeat, God forbid.

It's funny that he accuses Israel of printing maps including Jordan as part of Israel. Because in 1964, Jordan published this map of Jordan on a stamp:

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The reporting on Hamas' absurd ceasefire demands can only be described whitewashing a terror group.

As I reported yesterday, Arabic media described the offer in detail. It included bringing things back not only to how they were on October 6, but to improve the ability for Hamas to plan and stage further and deadlier attacks than October 7 even before the hostages are all released.

Their demands included:

- Hamas stays in full control of Gaza (so it can stage attacks in the future)

- No restrictions on imports to Gaza (including weapons) even during the first phase of the swap

- No restrictions on travel to and from Gaza (including terrorists) during the first phase of the swap

- Immediately banning Jews from visiting Judaism's most sacred spot

- 500 of the prisoners to be released would be those with life sentences or other very long terms - meaning, the worst murderers and terrorists must be allowed to go free.

All of these demands (except the release of the worst terrorist prisoners) were to be implemented immediately or during the first phase of the swap while most of the Israeli hostages would not be released until the second phase.

The news media reviewed the same document I did. Yet they ignored nearly everything Hamas demanded outside hostage-for-prisoner swap framework.

Many reports quoted Anthony Blinken as saying that some of Hamas' demands were clearly "non-starters" but no Western media I could find reported on what those non-starters were.

The New York Times characterized Israel's rejection of these terms as "Netanyahu Spurns Hamas Offer for Gaza Cease-Fire." It completely ignored the details I wrote above. And the only "experts" it quoted were a Hamas leader abroad and an Israeli expert who said this is the best Israel will get so it should take the offer.

Reuters wrote a specific article with what it said were the details of the plan - and didn't mention anything listed above.

BBC relied on Reuters to report on the demands, not bothering to use its many Arabic speaking employees to report on the plan directly.

AP didn't report on the details as far as I can tell, and characterized Netanyahu's rejection as a "snub" in its headline.

CNN read Hamas' absurd terms and didn't report on anything I mentioned.

Financial Times and others again ignored the details that shows Hamas' plan is absurd.

Al Jazeera gave a few more details, including the demand for the 500 of the worst terrorists to be released and the ban on Jews on the Temple Mount (" Israeli settlers stop attacking Al-Aqsa Mosque.")

There is clearly a mindset among the mainstream media to soften and whitewash Hamas' image. They are eager to report Netanyahu's demand that Hamas be utterly destroyed as evidence that he is the one who is delusional, but they actively hide Hamas' actual delusional demands.

Hamas' ides of a ceasefire is to make every day October 6, where it can choose to attack at any time for any reason. There is not one word in the Hamas proposal that contradicts Hamas' Ghazi Hamad's statement that Hamas intends to mount October 7-style attacks "again and again" in the future. Good luck finding any Western media outlet that mentions that.

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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.

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02/07 Links Pt2: Stop pursuing a Palestinian state and start pursuing peace; Without UNRWA There Would Be No Hamas; Meet the Indigenous People Who Support Israel

From Ian:

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.

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.

Fetterman balks at two-state solution push if Hamas isn’t ‘effectively eliminated’

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.

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 7^th 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.

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Antisemitism is now a "philosophical belief" whose adherents are protected under British law

From The Guardian:

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”.

Melanie Philips demolished this ruling. pointing out that Miller wasn't fired for his beliefs but for his actions. I just want to amplify one point.

The Equality Act says that religion and philosophical belief are protected characteristics. It explains:

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 very irrationality of anti-Zionism was given as proof of it being protected, as the tribunal stated:

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.

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